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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of March Hares, by Harold Frederic
-
-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
-www.gutenberg.org.  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: March Hares
-
-Author: Harold Frederic
-
-Release Date: June 26, 2017 [EBook #54986]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCH HARES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-MARCH HARES
-
-By Harold Frederic
-
-New York: D. Appleton and Company
-
-Copyright, 1896
-
-
-
-[Illustration: 0001]
-
-
-[Illustration: 0007]
-
-
-
-TO OUR FRIEND JULIA
-
-
-
-
-MARCH HARES.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Mr. David Mosscrop lounged
-against the low stone parapet of Westminster Bridge, and surveyed at
-length the unflagging procession of his fellow-creatures plodding past
-him northward into the polite half of London town.
-
-He had come upon the bridge in a melancholy frame of mind, and had
-paused first of all gloomily to look down at the water. His thoughts
-were a burden to him, and his head ached viciously. This was no new
-experience of a morning, worse luck; he had grown accustomed to these
-evil opening hours of depression and nausea. The fact that it was his
-birthday, however, gave uncomfortable point to his reflections. He had
-actually crossed the threshold of the thirties, and he came into the
-presence of this new lustrum worse than empty-handed. He had done none
-of the great things which his youth had promised. He had not even found
-his way into helpful and cleanly company. The memory of the people with
-whom he spent his time nowadays--in particular, the recollection of the
-wastrels and fools with whom he had started out yesterday to celebrate
-the eve of his anniversary--made him sick. He stared down at the
-slowly-moving flood, and asked himself angrily why a man of thirty who
-had learned nothing worth learning, achieved nothing worth the doing;
-who didn’t even know enough to keep sober over-night, should not be
-thrown like garbage into the river.
-
-The impulse to jump over the parapet hung somewhere very close to the
-grasp of his consciousness. His mind almost touched it as his eyes dwelt
-upon the broad, opaque mass of shifting drab waters. He said to himself
-that he had never before been so near the possibility of deliberate
-suicide as he was at this moment.
-
-He did not allow the notion to take any more definite shape, but mused
-for a while upon the fact of its lying there, vaguely formless at the
-back of his brain, ready to leap into being at his will. Of course, he
-would not give the word: it was merely interesting to think that he was
-in the same street, so to speak, with the spirit of self-murder.
-
-After a little, the effect of this steadily drifting body of water
-seemed to soothe his vision. He grew less conscious of mental
-disturbance and physical disgust alike. Then he stood up, yawned, and
-glanced at the big clock-tower, where the laggard hands still clung to
-the unreasonable neighbourhood of seven o’clock. For some reason, he
-felt much better. The sensation was very welcome. He drew a long breath
-of satisfaction, and, leaning with his back to the stonework, fell
-to watching the people go past. By a sudden revulsion of mood, he
-discovered all at once that the excess of the night was now offering him
-compensations. His brain was extremely clear, and, now that the lees
-of drink were gone, served him with an eager and almost fluttering
-acuteness which it was pleasant to follow.
-
-He noted with minute attention the varying types of workmen, shopgirls,
-clerks, and salesmen as they trooped by in the throng, and found himself
-devoting to each some appropriate mental comment, some wondering guess
-into their history, or some flash of speculation as to their future. The
-instantaneous play of his fancy among these flitting items brought great
-diversion. He rollicked in it--picking out as they trudged along side by
-side the book-keeper who was probably short in his accounts, the waiter
-who had been hacking the wrong horses, the barmaid with the seraph’s
-face who at luncheon time would be listening unmoved to conversation
-from City men fit to revolt a dock labourer. It was indeed as good as
-a play, this marvellous aggregation of human dramatic possibilities
-surging tirelessly before him. He wondered that he had never thought of
-seeing it before.
-
-From amusing details his mind lifted itself to larger conceptions. He
-thought of the mystery of London’s vast economy; of all its millions
-playing dumbly, uninstructedly, almost like automata, their appointed
-parts in the strange machinery by which so many droves of butchers’
-cattle, so many thousands of tons of food and trucks of clothing and
-coals and oil were brought in daily, and Babylon’s produce was sent out
-again in balancing repayment. The miracle of these giant scales being
-always kept even, of London’s ever-craving belly and the country’s
-never-failing response, loomed upon his imagination. Then, stifling
-another yawn, it occurred to him that a brain capable of such flights
-deserved a better fate than to be banged out by a dirty tide against
-some slime-stained wharf-pile down the river. Yes, and it merited
-a nobler lot in life, too, than that of being nightly drenched with
-poisonous drink. Decidedly he would forswear sack, and live cleanly.
-
-The hour struck in the clock-tower. The boom of the great bell swelled
-hopefully upon his hearing. The chime of the preceding quarter had
-saddened him, because he heard in it the knell of thirty wasted years.
-The louder resonance now bore a different meaning. A birthday exposed
-a new leaf as well as turned down an old one. The twenties were behind
-him, and undoubtedly they were not nice. Very well; he turned his hack
-upon them. The thirties were all before him; and, as Big Ben thundered
-forth its deep-voiced clamour, he straightened himself, and turned to
-look them confidently in the face.
-
-His eyes fell upon the figure of a young woman, advancing in a little
-eddy of isolation from the throng, a dozen feet away. Even on
-the instant he was conscious of a feeling that his gaze had not
-distinguished her from the others by mere chance; it was, indeed, as
-if there were no others. In the concentrated scrutiny which he
-found himself bending upon her, there was a sense of compulsion. His
-perceptions raced to meet and envelop her.
-
-She was almost tall, and in carriage made the most of her inches. She
-had much yellow hair of a noticeable sort, pale flaxen in bulk but
-picked with lemon in its lights, about her brows. He thought that it was
-dyed, and in the same breath knew better. He mastered the effect of
-her fine face--with its regular contour, its self-conscious eyes, its
-dainty rose-leaf of a chin thrust reliantly forth above a broad, white
-throat--all in some unnamed fraction of a second.
-
-The impression of her filled every corner of his mind. He tried to think
-about who and what she was, and only built up scaffoldings of conjecture
-to knock them down again. She was a girl who tried on mantles and frocks
-in some big Regent Street place: no, the lack of dignity in such an
-avocation would be impossible to one who carried her chin so high.
-A woman journalist? No, she was too pretty for that. What was
-she--type-writer, restaurant-waitress, saleswoman? No, these all wore
-black, with white collar and wristbands; and her apparel was of an
-almost flaring order. Her large-sleeved bodice of flowered blue silk,
-snug to the belted waist, suggested Henley rather than the high road out
-of squalid Lambeth. Her straw sailor-hat, jauntily borne on the primrose
-fluff and coils of hair, belonged, too, not a mile lower on the river
-than Teddington. She should by rights have a racquet in her hand, and be
-moving along over the close-shaved lawn of Kanelagh’s park, on a hazy,
-languid summer afternoon. What on earth was she doing on Westminster
-Bridge, at this ridiculous hour, in this dismal company?
-
-Then speculation died abruptly. She was close to him now, and he
-recognized her. She was a young woman whom he had seen in the British
-Museum reading-room a score of times. Her face was entirely familiar
-to him. Only the other day he had got down for her, from the
-county-histories shelves, two ponderous volumes which she had seemed
-unable to manage by herself. She had thanked him with a glance and a
-pleasant nod. He seemed to recall in that glance a tacit admission that
-they were old acquaintances by sight. He looked her square in the
-eye, meanwhile, the inner muscles of his face preparing and holding in
-readiness a smile in case she gave a sign of remembering him.
-
-For a moment it appeared that she was passing without recognition. He
-had the presence of mind to feel that this was a gross and inexcusable
-mischance. His feet instinctively poised themselves to follow her, as
-if it were for this, and this only, that they had tarried so long on the
-bridge.
-
-Before he could take a step, however, she had halted, and, in a wavering
-fashion, moved sidelong out of the main current of pedestrian-ism. She
-stood irresolutely by the parapet for a few seconds, with a pretence
-of being interested in the view of the river and the prim stretch of
-Parliamentary architecture on its right bank. Then, with a little shrug
-of decision, she turned to him.
-
-“It is a fine morning,” she said.
-
-He had stepped to her side, and he bent upon her now the smile which had
-so nearly gone a-begging. “I was afraid you hadn’t noticed me--and I had
-quite resolved to go after you.”
-
-She flashed inquiry into his face, then let her glance wander vaguely
-off again. “Oh, I saw you well enough,” she confessed, with a curious
-intermingling of hesitation and boldness; “but at first I wasn’t going
-to pretend I did. In fact, I don’t in the least know why I did stop. Or,
-rather, I _do_ know, but you don’t, and you never will. That is to say,
-_I_ shan’t tell you!”
-
-“Oh, but I do know,” he answered genially. “How should you imagine me so
-deficient in discernment? Only--only, I think I won’t tell either.”
-
-She looked at him again with a kind of startled intentness, and parted
-her lips as if to speak. He fancied that he caught in this gaze the
-suggestion of a painful and humbled diffidence. But then she tossed her
-head with a saucy air and smiled archly. “What a tremendous secret we
-shall carry to our graves!” she laughed. “Tell me, do you sleep on the
-bridge? One hears such remarkable stories, you know, about the readers
-at the Museum.”
-
-He regarded her with pleasure beaming in his eyes. “No, I go entirely
-without sleep,” he replied, with gravity, “and walk about the streets
-turning a single idea for ever in my mind; and every morning at
-daybreak--oh, this has gone on for years now--I come here to watch for
-the beautiful girl with the yellow hair who some time is to come up to
-me and remark, ‘It is a fine morning.’ A fortuneteller told me, ever so
-long ago, that this was what I must do, and I’ve never had a moment’s
-rest since.”
-
-“You must be very tired,” she commented, “and a good deal mixed in your
-mind, too, especially since yellow hair has come so much into fashion.
-And did the fortune-teller mention what was to happen after the--the
-beautiful lady had really appeared?”
-
-“Ah, that is another of my secrets!” he cried, delightedly.
-
-They had begun to stroll together toward the clock-tower. The throng
-bustling heedlessly past with hurried steps gave them an added sense of
-detachment and companionship. They kept close together by the parapet,
-their shoulders touching now and again. When they reached the end of the
-bridge, and paused to look again upon the river prospect, their manner
-had taken on the ease of people who have known each other for a long
-time.
-
-The tide was running out now with an exaggerated show of perturbed
-activity. The girl bent over, and stared at the hurrying current,
-sweeping along in swirling eddies under the arch, and sucking at the
-brown-grey masonry of the embankment wall as it passed. Her silence in
-this posture stretched out over minutes, and he respected it.
-
-At last she had looked her fill and turned, and they resumed their walk.
-“I could never understand drowning,” she remarked, musingly; “it doesn’t
-appeal to me at all, somehow. They talk about its being pleasant after
-the first minute or so, but I don’t believe it. Do you?”
-
-“There might possibly be some point about it--if one could choose the
-fluid,” he replied, achieving flippancy with an effort. “Like the Duke
-of Clarence, for example.”
-
-“How do you mean? The papers all said it was influenza. Oh, I see--you
-mean the Shakespeare one.” Her good faith was undoubted. “But no, we
-were speaking of drowning--of suicide.”
-
-“No, we weren’t,” he said, soberly. The memory of his own mood a brief
-half-hour ago stirred uneasily within him. “And we’re not going to,
-either. What the mischief have you--young and healthy and happy and
-pretty as a peach--to do with any such things?”
-
-“In fact,” she went on thoughtfully, as if he had not spoken, “all kinds
-of death seem an outrage to me. They make me angry. It is too stupid to
-have to die. What right have other people to say to me, ‘How you must
-die’? I was born to live just as much as they were, and I have every
-whit as much right on the earth as they have. And I have a right to
-what I need to keep me alive, too. That must be so, according to
-common-sense!” Mosscrop had listened to this declaration of principles
-but indifferently. A sense of drowsiness had stolen over him, and,
-yielding to it for the moment, he had hung his head, with an aimless
-regard upon the pavement. All at once he caught sight of something that
-roused him. His companion’s little boot, disclosed in movement beneath
-her skirt, was broken at the side, and almost soleless. He lagged behind
-for a step or two, and made sure of what he saw. The girl in the silken
-blouse was shod like a beggar.
-
-“Which way are you going?” he asked, with a pretence of suddenly
-remembering something. He had halted, and they stood at the corner,
-looking up Whitehall. He smothered a yawn with a little explanatory
-laugh. “I made rather a night of it--it’s my birthday to-day--and I’m
-half asleep. I hadn’t noticed where we’d walked to. I hope I haven’t
-taken you out of your way.”
-
-The girl hesitated, looked up the broad, stately street, and bit her lip
-in strenuous thought of some sort.
-
-“Good morning, then!” she blurted out, confusedly, and turned to move
-away.
-
-The impulse to be quit of her had been very sharply defined in his mind,
-and had dictated not only his words, but his awkward, half-shamefaced,
-half-familiar, manner in suggesting a parting. Now it vanished again
-with miraculous swiftness.
-
-“No, no! You mustn’t go off like that!” he urged, and sprang forward to
-her side. “I only asked you which was your way.”
-
-She was blinking her eyes in a struggle to regain facial composure. He
-could see that she had been on the point of tears, and the sight moved
-him to recklessness. It was not surprising to hear her confess: “Me? I
-have no way.”
-
-He took charge of her with a fine paternal tone. “Oh yes, you have! Your
-way is my way. You are going with me. It’s my birthday, you know, and
-you have come to help me celebrate it. What do you say to beginning with
-a special breakfast?--or perhaps you’ve spoiled your appetite already.
-But you can pretend to eat a little.”
-
-The girl laughed aloud, with pathetic irony at some conceit which
-curled her lip in scornful amusement. “Words rose to her tongue, but she
-forbore to utter them, and stared up the street.
-
-“You’ll come along, won’t you?” He had held up his hand, and a
-four-wheeler, with a driver and horse of advanced years and dejected
-aspect, was crawling diagonally across the roadway toward them.
-
-She took courage to look him frankly in the face. “I shall be very much
-obliged to you, indeed,” she said, keeping her voice up till the avowal
-should be finished. “I’ve had no breakfast.”
-
-The ancient cab, with a prodigious rattling of framework and windows
-for its snail’s progress, bore them along past Trafalgar Square,
-and westward through narrow streets, already teeming with a busy,
-foreign-looking life, till it halted before a restaurant in one of the
-broader thoroughfares of Soho.
-
-When they had alighted, and the sad old driver, pocketing his shilling
-in scowling silence, had started off, a thought occurred to Mosscrop.
-
-“I tell you what we’ll do,” he broke forth. “Well decree that it’s your
-birthday, too, so that we can celebrate them together. That will be
-much more fun. And before we go into breakfast, I must get you a little
-present of some sort, just to mark the occasion. Come, you haven’t
-anything to say about it at all. It’s my affair, entirely.”
-
-He led the way along past several shops, and halted in front of a narrow
-window in which a small collection of women’s boots was displayed. A man
-in shirt-sleeves and apron had just taken down the shutter, and stood
-now in the doorway, regarding them with a mercantile yet kindly smile.
-
-“It is the best Parisian of make,” the shoeman affirmed, to help forward
-Mosscrop’s decision.
-
-“You can see how different they are from ordinary English things,”
- said David, argumentatively. “The leather is like a glove, and the
-workmanship--observe that! I don’t believe any lady could have a more
-unique present than a pair of real French boots.”
-
-The girl had come up, and stood close beside him, almost nestling
-against his shoulder. He saw in the glass the dim reflection of her
-pleased face, and moved toward the door as if it were all settled. Then,
-as he stepped on the threshold, she called to him.
-
-“No--please!” she urged. “I think we won’t, if you don’t mind.”
-
-“Of course we will!” he insisted, turning in the doorway. “Why on earth
-shouldn’t we? It’s your birthday, you know. Come, child, you mustn’t be
-obstinate; you must be nice, and do what you’re told.”
-
-As she still hung back, shaking her head, he went out to her. “What’s
-the matter? You liked the idea well enough a minute ago. I saw you
-smiling in the window there. Come! don’t let a mere trifle like this
-spoil the beginning of our great joint-birthday. It’s too bad of you!
-Won’t you really have the boots--from me?”
-
-“Well,” she made answer, falteringly, “it’s very kind--but if I do, I’d
-rather you didn’t come into the shop--that is, that you went out while
-I was trying them on--because--well, it is my birthday, you know, and I
-must have my own way--a little. You will stop outside, won’t you?”
-
-This struck him as perhaps an excess of maidenly reserve. He smiled
-impatiently. “By all means, if it is your whim. But--but I’m bound to
-say--I suppose different people draw the line at different places, but
-feet always seemed to me to be relatively blameless things, as things
-go. Still, of course, if it’s your idea.”
-
-“No, if you take it that way,” she said, “we’ll go and get our
-breakfast, and say no more about it.” She found the fortitude to turn
-away from the window as she spoke.
-
-“If _I_ take it that way!” The perverseness of this trivial tangle
-annoyed him. “Why, I consented to stop outside, didn’t I? What more
-is demanded? Do you want me to pass a vote of confidence, or shall I
-whistle during the performance, so that you may know I am cheerful,
-or what? Suppose I told you that I had been a salesman in a boot-shop
-myself, and had measured literally thousands of pretty little
-feet--would that reassure you? I might come in, then, mightn’t I?”
-
-“No--you never were _that_--you are a gentleman.” She stole a perplexed
-glance up at him, and sighed. “I should dearly love the boots--but you
-won’t understand. I don’t know how to make you.” Looking into his face,
-and catching there a reflection of her own dubiety, she burst suddenly
-into laughter. “You are a gentleman, but you are a goose, too. My
-stockings are too mournful a patchwork of holes and darning to invite
-inspection--if you will have it.”
-
-“Poor child!” He breathed relief, as if a profoundly menacing
-misunderstanding had been cleared up. “Here, take this and run across to
-that fat Jewess in the doorway there. She will fit you out.”
-
-Presently she returned, with beaming eyes, and an air of shyness linked
-with complacent self-approbation which he found delightful.
-
-“Oh, I should simply insist on your coming in _now_,” she cried gaily,
-at the door of the boot-shop, in answer to his mock look of deferential
-inquiry.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-
-There surely was never such another breakfast in the world!
-
-She spoke with frank sincerity. Upon afterthought she added: “I don’t
-believe any woman could order a meal like that. You men always know so
-much about eating.” Mosscrop leant back in his chair, crossed his knees,
-and took a cigar from his pocket. His mind ran in pleasurable
-retrospect over the dishes--a fragrant omelette with mushrooms, a sole
-_Marguerite_, a delicate little steak that had been steeped in oil over
-night, a pulpy Italian cheese which he never got elsewhere than here.
-The tall-shouldered, urnshaped green bottle on the table still held a
-little Capri, and he poured it into her glass.
-
-“Yes,” he assented, “I find myself paying more attention to food as I
-get older. It is the badge of advancing years. It _is_ a good little
-restaurant, isn’t it? I come here a great deal.”
-
-“And that is how you are able to order such wonderful breakfasts for
-hungry young ladies. It comes of practice. Do they all enjoy it as much
-as I have?”
-
-“You mustn’t ask things like that,” he remonstrated, smilingly, as
-he lit a match. “I hope you don’t mind?--thanks.” He regarded her
-contemplatively through the dissolving haze of the first mouthful of
-smoke. They had the small upstairs dining-room to themselves, and she,
-from her seat by the window, let her glances wander from him to the
-street below, and back again, with a charming, child-like effect of
-being delighted with everything. The sight of her opposite him stirred
-new emotions in his being. He imported a gentle gravity into his smile,
-and dropped the jesting tone from his voice. “No--we must play that I
-have never breakfasted with anybody before--like this--either here
-or anywhere else. Let us both start fresh on our birthday. We wipe
-everything off the slate, and make a clean beginning. First of all, you
-haven’t told me your name.”
-
-“My name is Vestalia Peaussier.”
-
-“Then you are _not_ English? I could have sworn you were the most
-typically English girl I’d ever laid eyes on.”
-
-“My father was a French gentleman--an officer, and a man of position. He
-died--killed in a duel--when I was very young. I do not remember him at
-all. My mother brought me away from France at once. She was dreadfully
-crushed, poor lady. She was the daughter of a very old Scottish
-house--it had been a runaway love match--and her people, my
-grandparents----”
-
-“What part of Scotland? What was their name? I am a Scot myself, you
-know.”
-
-Vestalia paused briefly, and sipped at her wine. “I was going to
-say--my grandparents behaved so unfeelingly to my mother that she never
-permitted herself to mention their name. I do not know it myself. I
-gathered as a child from poor mother’s words that they were extremely
-wealthy and proud, and had a title in the family. It is not probable
-that I shall ever learn more. I should not wish to, either, for it was
-their hard cruelty which broke my mother’s heart. She died two years
-ago. Poor unhappy lady!”
-
-Mosscrop nodded sympathetically. “And were you left without anything?”
-
-“My mother’s private fortune had been diminished to almost nothing by
-bad investments and the treachery of others before her death. I had no
-one to advise me--I was all alone--and the lawyers and others probably
-robbed me cruelly. Only a few of her old family jewels were left to
-me--and one by one I had to part with these. Some of them, I daresay,
-were of great antiquity and priceless value, if I had only known, but
-I was forced to sell them for a song. There were wonderful signet-rings
-among them, all with the crest of the family--I suppose it must have
-been her family--and at first I thought of using it to trace them--but
-then my girlish pride----”
-
-“What was the crest?” asked David. “Perhaps it wouldn’t be too late,
-now.”
-
-Again Vestalia hesitated. Then she shook her head. “No; dear mamma’s
-wishes are sacred to me. I do not wish to learn what she thought it best
-to keep from me.”
-
-“Well--and when the jewels were all sold?”
-
-“Long before that I had begun to work for my living. I write a good hand
-naturally. I got employment as a copyist, but that did not last
-very long. I was ambitious, and I thought I might work my way into
-literature. But it is a very disheartening career, you know.”
-
-Mosscrop had lifted his brows in some surprise. He nodded again, with a
-cursory “Ay!”
-
-“The editors were not at all kind to me,” she went on. “I toiled like a
-slave, but I hardly ever got anything accepted, and then you had to
-wait months for your pay, and perhaps not get it at all. I should have
-starved long ago, if I hadn’t met an American woman at the Museum who
-was over here getting up pedigrees. Oh, not for herself. She made a
-regular business of it. Rich Americans paid her to hunt up their English
-ancestors, in genealogies and old records, and on tombstones and so on.
-I was her assistant for nearly a year, and things went fairly well with
-me. But three months ago she was taken ill and had to go home, and there
-I was stranded again. I tried to go on with some of the jobs she left
-unfinished, but the people had gone away, or hadn’t confidence in so
-young a person, and well--that’s all. My landlady turned me out at
-six o’clock this morning, and she has seized the few poor things I had
-left--and here I am.”
-
-The young man lifted his glass, and clinked it against hers. “I am very
-glad that you _are_ here,” he said; and they smiled wistfully into each
-other’s eyes as they finished the Capri.
-
-“It is a heavenly little break in the clouds, anyway,” she went on,
-dreamily. “It isn’t like real life at all: it is the way things happen
-in fairy stories.”
-
-“Quite so. Why shouldn’t we have a fairy story all by ourselves? It is
-every whit as easy as the stupid, humdrum other thing, and a million
-times nicer. Oh, I’m on the side of the fairies, myself.”
-
-She looked out, in an absent fashion, at the windows across the way.
-The light began to fade from her countenance, and the troubled
-lines returned. “Every day for a fortnight I have been answering
-advertisements,” she went on, pensively; “some by letter, some in
-person. There were secretaries’ places, but you had to know shorthand,
-and the typewriter, and all that. Then somehow all the vacancies for
-shop-women got filled before I applied, or else people with experience
-in the business were preferred to me. I even went in for the ‘lady-help’
-thing--a kind of domestic servant, you know, only you get less pay and
-don’t wear a cap--but nobody would have me. My hair was too good and
-my boots were too bad. The lady of the house just stared at these two
-things, every place I applied at, and said she was afraid I wouldn’t
-answer.”
-
-The picture she drew was painful to Moss-crop, and he made an effort to
-lighten it with levity. “I confess I didn’t think very highly of your
-boots, myself,” he said, cheerily, “but I admire your hair immensely.”
-
-“Oh, but you are a man!”
-
-He chuckled amiably at the implication of her retort, and she laughed a
-little, too, in a reluctant way. “It occurs to me,” he ventured, pausing
-over his words, “that men seem to have played no part whatever in the
-story of your life.”
-
-“No, absolutely none,” she answered, with prompt decision. “I have never
-before been beholden to a man for so much as a biscuit or a shoe-button.
-I don’t know that you will believe me when I tell you, but I’ve never
-even been alone in a room with a man before in my life.”
-
-“Of course, I believe what you say. It is remarkably interesting, though.
-Come! First impressions are the very salt of life. I should dearly like
-to know what you think of the novel experience, as far as you’ve gone.”
-
-She seemed to take him seriously. Placing her elbows on the table, and
-poising her chin between thumbs and forefingers, she bestowed a frank
-scrutiny upon his face, as intent and dispassionate as the gaze which a
-professor of palmistry fastens upon the lines of the client’s hand.
-
-“First of all,” she said, deliberately, “I am not so afraid of you as I
-was.”
-
-“Delightful!” he cried. “Then I did inspire terror at the outset. It
-has been the dream of my life to do that--if only just once. I feared
-I should never succeed. My dear lady, you have rescued me from my own
-contempt. My career is not a blank failure after all. We must have
-coffee and a liqueur after that!”
-
-He pressed the bell at his side. She frowned a little at his merry
-exuberance.
-
-“I am not joking,” she complained. “You asked me to say just what I
-felt.”
-
-He nodded his contrition as the waiter left the room.
-
-“Yes, do,” he urged. “I will keep as still as a mouse.”
-
-“I am not as afraid of you as I was,” she repeated, dogmatically. “But
-I think, even if I knew you ever so well, I should always be just the
-least weeny bit afraid. I can see that you are very kind--my Heavens!
-nobody else has ever been a hundredth part as kind to me as you are--but
-all the same--yes, there is a _but_ if I can explain it to you--I get
-a feeling that you are being kind because it affords you yourself
-pleasure, rather than because it helps me. No--that is not quite what
-I mean either. It seems to me that a man will be much kinder than any
-woman knows how to be, so long as he feels that way; but when he doesn’t
-feel that way any more--well, then he’ll chuck the whole thing, and
-never give it another thought.”
-
-“That is very intelligent,” said Mosscrop.
-
-He had the appearance of turning it over in his mind, and liking it
-the more upon consideration. “Yes, that is soundly reasoned. I can well
-believe your mother was a Scots lass.”
-
-Vestalia flushed, no doubt with pride.
-
-“Well, then, hear me out,” she said, with a pleasant little assumption
-of newly-gained authority. “Now, I’ve hardly known a man to speak
-to--that is, a gentleman, as a friend, you know--if I’m justified in
-calling you so on such short acquaintance--or no, I mustn’t say that,
-must I? We _are_ friends--but it’s a new experience, quite, to me. As
-you say, I have my first impression of what it is like to have a man for
-a friend.”
-
-The waiter, pushing the door open with his foot, brought in a tray
-with white cups and silver pots, and wee tinted glasses, and a tall,
-shapeless bottle encased in a basket-work covering of straw.
-
-“I ordered maraschino,” remarked Moss-crop, as the man poured the
-coffee. “If you prefer any other, why, of course----”
-
-“Oh no; whatever you say is good, I take with my eyes shut.”
-
-She sipped at the little glass he had filled for her, and then, with a
-movement of lips and tongue, mused upon the unaccustomed taste. An alert
-glance shot at him from her eyes.
-
-“I hope----” she began to say, and stopped short.
-
-“You hope what?”
-
-“No; I won’t say what I was going to. It would have been a very
-ungrateful speech. Only, you must bear in mind that I hardly know one
-wine from another, and I am leaving myself absolutely in your hands. You
-will see to it, won’t you, that--that I don’t drink more than I ought.”
-
-Mosscrop waved his hand in smiling reassurance.
-
-“But now for that famous first impression of yours.”
-
-She narrowed her eyelids to look at him, and he found her glance
-invested with something like tenderness of expression. Her head was
-tilted a bit to one side, so that the light from the window fell full
-upon the face. It was a more beautiful face than he had thought, with
-exquisitely faint and shell-like gradations of colour upon the temples
-and below the ears, where the strange but lovely primrose hair began. A
-soft rose-tint had come into her cheeks, which had seemed pallid an hour
-before. The whole countenance was rounded and mellowed and beautified in
-his eyes, as he answered her lingering, approving gaze.
-
-“My impression?” she spoke slowly, and with none of the assurance which
-had marked her earlier deliverance. “Well, you know, I don’t feel as if
-I knew _men_ any more than I did before. I only know one man--a very,
-very little. I don’t believe that other men are at all like him, or else
-we should hear about it. The world would be full of it. No one would
-talk of anything else. But the man I _do_ know--that is, a little--well,
-I’d rather know him than all the women that ever were born, even if I
-had to be afraid of him all the while into the bargain.”
-
-Mosscrop laughed.
-
-“We did well to label it in advance as a _first_ impression. It is the
-judgment of a babe just opening its eyes. My dear child, I’m afraid this
-isn’t your birthday, after all. You’re clearly not a year old yet.”
-
-“You always joke, but I’m in sober earnest.” She indeed spoke almost
-solemnly, and with an impressive fervour in her voice. “You do impress
-me just like that. I wish you’d believe that I’m saying exactly what I
-feel. Mind, I expressly said, I don’t suppose for a minute that other
-men are like you.”
-
-“No, you’re right there,” he broke in. Her manner, even more than the
-speech, affected him curiously. He drained his liqueur at a gulp, stared
-out of the window, fidgetted on his chair, finally rose to his feet.
-
-“You’re right there!” he reiterated, biting his cigar and thrusting his
-hands deep in his pockets. She would have risen also, but he signed to
-her to sit still. “Other men are not like me, and they can thank God
-that they’re not. They know enough to keep sober; I don’t. They are of
-some intelligent use in the world; I’m not. They lead cleanly and decent
-lives, they control themselves, they make names for themselves, they do
-things which are of some benefit at least to _somebody_. Ah-h! You hit
-the nail on the head. They _are_ different from, me!”
-
-She gazed up at him, dumb with sheer surprise. He took a few aimless
-steps up and down, halted to scowl out of the window at the signs
-opposite, and then flung himself into the chair again. Sprawling his
-elbows on the table, he bent forward and fastened upon her a look of
-such startled intensity that she trembled under it and drew back.
-
-“Why, do you know, you foolish little girl,” he began, in a hoarse,
-declamatory voice, “that a few minutes before you came along, there on
-the bridge, I was going to throw myself into the river, because I wasn’t
-fit to live. Do you realize that I had sat in judgment upon myself, and
-condemned myself to death--death, mind you!--because I was an utterly
-hopeless creature, a waste product, a drunkard, a sterile fool and
-loafer, a veritable human swine? That is the truth! Do you know where
-I spent last night--where I woke up, sick with disgust for myself, this
-morning? No, you don’t; and there’s no need that I should tell you.”
-
-“I don’t care!” The girl’s lips propelled the words forth with
-extraordinary swiftness, but the eyes with which she regarded her
-companion, and the rest of her face, grown pale once more, remained
-unmoved.
-
-“No, _you_ don’t care!” he groaned out a long sigh, and went on with
-waning vigour. “But _I_ care! It is something to _one_ that I am what I
-am; that I have wasted my life, that I have done nothing, and worse than
-nothing, with my chances, that I----”
-
-“You misunderstand me,” Vestalia interposed, with a perturbed simulation
-of calm. “What I meant was that whatever happened last--that is, at any
-time before this morning--makes no difference whatever in my--my liking
-for you.” Her eyes brightened at the thought of something. “It was you
-yourself who said we would wipe the slate clean, and begin all over
-again quite fresh. Don’t you remember? And we were to have our own fairy
-story, all to ourselves. You do remember, don’t you?”
-
-He still breathed heavily, but the gloom upon his face began to abate as
-he looked at her. He moved one of his hands forward on the table to the
-neighbourhood of hers, and stroked the cloth gently as if it were her
-hand he touched. A weary smile, born in his eyes, strengthened and
-spread to soften his whole countenance.
-
-“Yes, I remember everything,” he mused, with a kind of forlorn gladness
-in his tone. It seemed an invitation to silence, and they sat without
-words for a little.
-
-With a constrained air of having convinced herself by argument that it
-was the right thing to do, Vestalia all at once lifted her hand, and
-laid it lightly on his. He fancied that it trembled a little. His own
-certainly shook, though he pressed it firmly upon the table.
-
-“Now the bad spirits have all gone,” he said; “it is fairyland again.”
-
-“Ah, we must keep it so,” she answered, and pressed his hand softly
-before she withdrew her own. The black mood had fled from him as
-swiftly as it came. Vestalia’s eyes beamed at the sight of his restored
-good-humour with himself, and she nodded gay approbation.
-
-“I fancy we’ve about exhausted the delights of this place,” he remarked,
-after a brief silence filled for both of them with a pleasantly
-sufficient sense of friendship at its ease. “I’ll pay the bill, and
-we’ll toddle.”
-
-She glanced about her. “I shall always remember this dear little stuffy
-old room. I almost hate to leave it at all. I want to fix in my mind
-just how it looks.”
-
-“Oh, we’ll come often again,” he remarked, lightly. Then it occurred to
-him that this assurance contained perhaps an element of rashness.
-“Have you got anything special to do to-day?” he asked, with awkward
-abruptness.
-
-The question puzzled and troubled her. “I _was_ going to celebrate my
-birthday,” she murmured, with a wistful, flickering smile ready to fade
-into depression.
-
-“Of course you are; that’s all settled,” he responded, making up by the
-heartiness of his tone for the forgetful stupidity of his query. “What I
-meant was--what _were_ you thinking of doing before--before you knew you
-had a birthday on hand?”
-
-Vestalia examined the bottom of her coffee-cup, and poked at it with
-the spoon. “Me? Oh, I had several things to do,” she made reply,
-hesitatingly. “I had to find something to eat, and contrive how to earn
-some money, and hunt up a new lodging, and see how I was going to feed
-myself to-morrow, and--and other small matters of that sort.”
-
-His comment was prefaced with a kind, sad little laugh.
-
-“You must go to the old place, and get your things,” he said. “How much
-do you owe?”
-
-“I’d rather not _go_ back at all.” She ventured to look up at him now.
-“I don’t want ever to lay eyes on that old hag again.”
-
-“But your things. If I sent a commissionaire, would she give them
-up?--on payment of the bill, of course.”
-
-“They’re not worth a bus-fare--they’re really not. You see,” she went on
-with her reluctant confidences, “I had to pawn everything. These clothes
-I have on are every rag I have left.”
-
-Mosserop, regarding her with a sympathetic gaze, recalled very clearly
-the gown she used to wear at the Museum. It was a queer colour--a sort
-of rusty greenish-blue; it was of common stuff, and made without a
-waist, in some outlandish Grosvenor Gallery fashion novel to his eye.
-The practical side of him stumbled at this memory. “But if you had to
-pawn things,” he said, “I should have thought these silks you have on
-would have gone first. That frock you used to wear at the Museum, for
-instance--you could only have raised a few pence on that--whereas these
-things--I’m afraid, my young friend, that you haven’t a good business
-head.”
-
-“Oh, better than you think,” she retorted, with downcast eyes. Her
-further words cost her a visible effort. “I thought it all out, and
-I saw that my only chance was to hang on to these clothes. If people
-didn’t happen to look at my boots, I was all right. Men don’t notice
-such things much--you yourself didn’t at first. And my skirt would hide
-them, more or less.”
-
-He looked at her averted face, slowly assimilating the meaning of what
-she said. Then he hastily turned his chair sidewise, rang the bell for
-the waiter, lit a fresh cigar, and blew out the match with a sigh which
-deepened into an audible groan.
-
-“What else could I do?” she faltered, with a flushing cheek, and a
-tear-dimmed stare out of the window. “Nothing but throw myself into the
-river. And that I _won’t_ do. They have no right to insist upon my
-doing that. If I was old and horrid, it wouldn’t matter so much. But I’m
-young, and I want to live. That’s all I ask--just the chance to live.
-And that I won’t let them rob me of, if I can help it.”
-
-The waiter, counting out the change, embraced the couple in a series
-of calm, sidelong glances. He expressed polite thanks for the shilling
-pushed aside toward him, and closed the door behind him when he left the
-room with an emphasized firmness of touch.
-
-Mosscrop rose. “Come, child,” he said, briskly. “Cheer up! Look up at
-me--let’s sec a smile on your face. A little brighter, please--that’s
-more like it. How we _have_ wiped the slate clean! We begin absolutely
-fresh. Dry your eyes, and we’ll make a start. We’ve got those celebrated
-birthdays of ours to look after--and it’s high time we set about it.”
-
-She stood up, and smilingly obeyed him by dabbing the napkin against
-her nose and brows. She moved across to the mirror above the mantel, and
-smiled again at what she saw. Then she looked down at her boots, and her
-face took on a radiance, which it kept, as she descended close behind
-him the narrow stairway.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-There was a bar at the front of the restaurant--a cheerful, domestic
-bar of the Italian sort, with a bright-eyed, smiling, middle-aged woman
-in charge. She knew Mosscrop, and flashed a kindly glance of southern
-comradeship at him as he came forward, and stopped and drew his
-cheque-book from his pocket. There were also two girls in the bar, and
-they knew him too, and grinned gently at his salute. Vestalia watched
-them narrowly, and fancied that one of them also winked.
-
-“I had to stop and get some more money,” he explained, when they were
-in the street together. “There isn’t another place in these parts where
-they would change a cheque.”
-
-“I noticed that they seemed to know you,” she replied, with reserve.
-
-“Dear people that they are!” he cried. “The sight of them in the morning
-is always delightful to me. Did you observe it--the extraordinary
-cheerfulness of them all? You saw how the girls chaffed the ice-man, and
-how the fellow who brought in the soda-water cases had his joke with the
-waiters, and how madame clucked and chuckled like a good hen, as if they
-were all her brood, and everybody seemed to like everybody else?”
-
-“I didn’t get the notion that they were very keen about me,” remarked
-Vestalia. “As a matter of sober fact, they scowled.”
-
-“Nonsense! Of course they were deferential to you--you represented a
-sort of dignified unaccustomedness to them, and they were afraid to
-beam at you. But bless you, they’re as simple and as sweet-hearted
-as children. They laugh and smile at people just out of pure native
-amiability. The place is as good as a tonic to me of a morning when I am
-feeling blue and out of sorts.”
-
-“But you are not _this_ morning,” she reminded him.
-
-For answer he drew her hand through his arm. They fell into step, and
-moved along at a sauntering gait on their way toward Oxford Street.
-
-It was mid-August, and there had been a shower overnight. The pavement
-still showed damp in its crevices, and the air was clear and fresh.
-A pale hazy sunshine began to mark out shadows in the narrow
-thoroughfares. By-and-by it would be hot and malodorous here, but just
-now the sense of summer’s charm found them out even in Soho.
-
-She had asked him about himself. The question had risen naturally enough
-to her lips, and she had propelled it without diffidence. But when the
-words actually sounded in her own ears, they frightened her. The inquiry
-seemed all at once personal to the point of rudeness. The possibility of
-his resenting her curiosity rose in her mind, and on the instant flared
-upward into painful certainty.
-
-“Oh, forgive me; I had no business to ask you!” she hurriedly added.
-
-He laughed, and patted her arm. “Why on earth shouldn’t you?”
-
-“I spoke without thinking,” she faltered. “I suppose--that is, it occurs
-to me--perhaps gentlemen don’t like to be questioned--what I mean is,
-you didn’t answer, and I was afraid----”
-
-“Afraid nothing!” he reassured her. “You mustn’t dream of being
-stand-offish with me. I shall get vexed with you if you do. My dear
-little lady, there isn’t anything in the world that you’re not as free
-as air to say to me, or ask me. I only hesitated because”--he began,
-smiling in a rueful, whimsical way down at her--“because it’s too
-complicated and sinister a recital to rush lightly into. My name is
-David Mosscrop, and I am an habitual criminal by profession. That will
-do to start with.”
-
-Vestalia looked earnestly into his face for some sign that he was
-jesting. It was a clean-shaven face, cast by nature in a mould of
-gravity. The eyes had seemed a pleasant grey to her first cursory
-examination; but now, on closer scrutiny, there might be a hardness as
-of steel in their colour. The lips and chin, too, had a sharpness of
-line that could mean unamiable things. And yet, how could she credit
-his words? It was true, she recalled, that by all accounts many superior
-gamblers, burglars, and other evil characters were in private life
-most kindly persons--of notoriously generous impulses. Pictures of the
-outlaws of romance, from Robin Hood to Dick Ryder, crowded upon her
-mental vision. The countenance into which she tremulously stared might
-have belonged to any of them--a little blurred by the effects of recent
-drink, a trifle stained in its lower parts by the need of a razor,
-yet adventurous, subtle, courageous; above all, commanding. Her heart
-fluttered at the thought of her own temerity in leaning on his arm, and
-she shot a swift glance forward toward the big thoroughfare they were
-nearing, where there would be crowds of people to see her. Then she
-tightened her hold, and said to herself that she didn’t mind a bit.
-
-“You said I might ask anything I liked,” she found herself saying. “What
-is your special line of crime?”
-
-“Well, specifically, I don’t know just how they would define me. I
-am not quite a confidence-man, because nobody ever reposes an atom of
-confidence in me. Mine is a peculiar sort of case. I cannot be said
-to deceive any one by my game, and yet, undoubtedly, I come under the
-general head of impostors. I make my living by obtaining money under
-false pretences.”
-
-The girl was frankly mystified. This sounded so poor and mean that her
-instincts fluttered back to the original notion that he was joking.
-Sure enough, she could see the laughter latent in his eyes, now that she
-looked again.
-
-“You’re just fooling!” she protested, and tugged admonishingly upon his
-arm. “Tell me what it is you do, quick!”
-
-“How do you know I do anything?” he demanded. He hugged her arm against
-his side, to show what great fun it all was.
-
-“Why shouldn’t I be a gentleman at large? There are such things, you
-know.”
-
-She shook her head. “Gentlemen at large don’t read hard at the Museum in
-August. I never understood they were much given to reading at any time
-of year, for that matter. No, I know you do something. You are in a
-profession; I can see that. You are not a doctor; you are too polite and
-kind-mannered for that. I thought at first that you were a journalist,
-but they don’t have cheque-books. Oh, tell me, please!”
-
-He laughed gaily. “Ten thousand guesses and you’d never hit it. My dear
-lady, I profess Culdees.”
-
-Vestalia pondered the information with gravity for a little, stealing
-sidelong glances to learn if this was more of his fun. “You can see how
-ignorant I am,” she remarked at last. “You will recognise presently that
-you are wasting your time with me. What _are_ Culdees? Or is it a thing?
-I assure you I haven’t the remotest notion.”
-
-“It is a secret,” he assured her, in tones which strove to be serious,
-but revealed a jocose note to her ear.
-
-She shook his arm gleefully. “As if we could have secrets on our
-birthday!” she cried. “Tell me instantly all about Culdees! I insist.”
-
-“But I don’t know anything about them. That is the secret--nobody knows
-anything about them. I draw a salary for devoting three weeks each
-year to explaining to a class of young men who desire to know nothing
-whatever about the Culdees, that if they did wish to learn about them
-they couldn’t possibly do it.”
-
-“Are there any more jobs like that, that you know of?” inquired the
-girl. “It would just suit me.” Then she spoke less flippantly. “I’m
-afraid you’ve already discovered how shallow and ill-informed I am. You
-do not think it is worth while to talk seriously with me!”
-
-He seemed much affected by her rebuke. “My dear lady----” he began, in
-earnest disclaimer.
-
-“No; what I mean is--” she interrupted him--pleased by his show of
-contrition, but even more interested in the flow of her own ideas, and
-the sound of her own voice, which had taken on musical intonations,
-and delicately-measured cadences since breakfast that were novel to
-her delighted hearing--“what I mean is, men do not have any real
-intellectual respect for women; they do not think of them in their
-deep-down thoughts as their mental equals; they still regard them, as
-their ancestors did thousands of years ago, as mere toys, playthings,
-creatures to pat on the cheek and talk pleasant nonsense to, when there
-is nothing better to do. And the worst of it is that so many women--a
-large majority--are contented with this, and aspire to nothing higher,
-and they set the rules for the rest; and hence young women who _have_
-ambitions, and do desire to make themselves the equals of men, and set
-up high ideals of intellectual life, they--they find themselves--find
-themselves----”
-
-“Find themselves being regarded with much very genuine liking and
-friendship by those to whom they are good enough to give their company,”
- Mosscrop finished the sentence for her. He smiled to himself as he
-pressed her arm still more closely. The girl was not accustomed to
-drink, and the Capri and maraschino had gone to her tongue. He was
-pleasantly conscious of their influences himself, and upon second
-thought he liked his companion all the more for the innocent
-fearlessness with which she had followed his example. The charm of the
-whole experience strengthened its hold upon him. He looked down with
-tenderness upon her. “Yes, very genuine friendship--and gratitude,” he
-reiterated, with ardour in his low voice.
-
-She did not conceal the enjoyment she had in both look and tone.
-“The idea of _real_ companionship is so precious in my eyes,” she
-murmured--“a true communion of minds. There is nothing else in life
-worth living for. Do you think there can be any _real_ friendship
-without genuine intellectual respect?”
-
-“Oh, I wouldn’t lay too much stress on that myself,” he answered,
-lightly. “I find that the fellows I really like the most--the men that
-I take the most solid comfort in putting in time with--are tremendous
-duffers from any intellectual point of view, but of course”--he found
-himself hastily adding--“that is among _men_. I have never known
-anything at all about women friends--that is, of what one may honestly
-call friends. But I am learning fast. I have reached the point of
-forming an ideal: she must be tall, with her hat just brushing above my
-collar. She must have the most wonderful pale yellow hair in the world,
-and the prettiest face, and new French boots--and----”
-
-“You don’t care in the least what kind of a mind she has,” put in
-Vestalia, dolefully.
-
-“Ah, you didn’t let me finish. She will have a spirit brave and yet
-tender, a mind broad and capable yet without arrogance, a temperament
-attuning itself to each passing mood, sunny, shadowed, merry, pensive,
-adventurous, timid--all as full of sweet little turns and twists and
-unexpected things in general as an April day. I don’t want her learned:
-I should hate her to be logical. I like her just as she is: I wouldn’t
-have her changed for the world.”
-
-In details the definition perhaps left something to be desired. But
-its form of presentation brought a flush of satisfaction to Ves-talia’s
-cheek. She nestled closer still against his shoulder for a dozen paces
-or so, and when she drew away then, let him feel that it was because
-they were at Oxford Street, and for no other reason.
-
-“Oh, the beautiful day!” was all she said.
-
-They turned to the right, and sauntered aimlessly along down the broad
-pavement, pausing now and again to glance over some tradesman’s display,
-then drifting onward again, close together. Before a bookseller’s window
-at a corner they made a more considerable halt. Mosscrop scanned the
-rows of titles minutely, talking as he did so. Thus between comments
-on the volumes they looked at, and idle remarks on subjects which
-these suggested, she picked up this further account of her new friend’s
-affairs.
-
-“I told you I was a Scotchman,” he said. “I was the son of a factor, a
-sort of steward over a biggish estate, and I never did anything but go
-to school from the earliest moment I can remember. It is as if I was
-born in a class-room, and cradled on a blackboard. It is a terrible land
-for that; tuition broods over it like a pestilence. Their idea is to
-make of each child’s brain a sort of intellectual haggis; the more
-different kinds of stuff there are in it, the greater the fame of the
-teacher and the pride of the parents. I shudder now when I think how
-much I knew at the age of twelve. As for my eighteenth year, when I took
-the Strathbogie exhibition, Confucius, John Knox, and Lord Bacon rolled
-in one would have been frightened of me. My information was appalling.
-My mother died from sheer excess of astonishment at having given birth
-to such a prodigy. My father took to drink. The magnificence of my
-attainments not only threw him off his balance--it debauched the entire
-district. It is the law of history, you know, that communities and
-nations progress to a certain point, achieve some crowning deed in a
-golden age of splendid productiveness, and then wither and go off to
-seed. Well, my parish, having produced me, reached its climax. Industry
-flagged, enterprise died down; the very land ceased to grow as much corn
-to the acre as formerly. The people could do nothing but congregate at
-the taverns and discuss with bated breath my meteoric progress across
-the academic heavens. Oh, I was a most remarkable young man!
-
-“It happened that there was also a remarkable old man in my
-neighbourhood. He came from nobody in particular, and went away young.
-People had long since forgotten that there had been such a lad, when one
-day he returned to us, well along in years, and infamously rich. I don’t
-mean that he had come wrongfully by his money. God knows how he got it;
-the story ran that it had something to do with smoked fish. Whatever its
-source, his wealth was wanton, preposterous, criminal in its dimensions.
-He had no kith or kin remaining to him. Of course we knew he would build
-and endow an educational establishment. All rich old Scotchmen do that,
-as an ordinary matter. They have reared for us such myriads of brand-new
-colleges and seminaries on every hillside that I marvel even the rabbits
-and pheasants can escape learning to spell. There are logarithms in the
-very atmosphere.
-
-“But this old man was not to be put off with a mere academy. He piled up
-a veritable castle of instruction, a first-class fortress of learning.
-And he had an idea of something which should be unique among all the
-schools of the world. It was all his own idea. Even in Scotland it
-had not occurred to anyone else. You must know that in early Scotch
-ecclesiastical history, say from the eighth to the twelfth centuries,
-there are occasional mentions of some bounders called Culdees, who seem
-to have run a little sacerdotal show of their own, something between
-hermits and canons-regular--it is absolutely impossible now to make out
-just what they were. But this extraordinary old man was quite clear in
-his mind about them. He had reasoned it all out for himself. He said
-that ‘Culdees’ was, of course, a mere popular corruption of ‘Chaldees.’
-He loved to argue this with all comers, and he did so,--my word for
-it, he did! How nobody in Scotland ever agrees with any view or opinion
-advanced by any other person, but the art of disagreeing has been
-reduced, by ages of use, to a delicately-modulated system. Everybody
-disputed his ridiculous notion of the ‘Chaldees’--they would have fought
-it just as stoutly if it had been a wise one--but he was a very rich
-man, and he had benevolent intentions toward the district, and so
-they ‘roared him gently as any sucking dove.’ They couldn’t admit his
-contention, oh no, but they let him feel that they were thinking about
-it, that it had made an impression on their minds, that in due time they
-might see it differently.
-
-“The upshot was that the old fool established a Culdee Chair in the
-faculty of his new college, and made it worth more money than any other
-professorship of the lot. The celebrity of my performances at school
-was fresh then, and reached his ears. He gave the billet to me, and
-confirmed it to me in his will when he died, a year later--and that is
-all.”
-
-“And you actually only work three weeks a year? And get paid a whole
-year’s salary for that?”
-
-Vestalia regarded him with astonishment, as she put the question.
-
-They had strolled meanwhile down the great thoroughfare, crossed it, and
-passed into a narrower lateral by-way.
-
-“It is hardly even three full weeks’ work,” he replied. “There is
-nothing to do in the way of fresh discovery. Reeves and Skene and other
-fellows have gleaned the last spear of straw in the stubble. I do go
-through the form of getting up some lectures each Autumn, but it is
-really such dreadful humbug that I’m ashamed to look the students in the
-face, let alone my fellow-professors. Fortunately, most of the latter
-are clergymen, and that makes it a little easier. They know that they
-are as big frauds as I am, in their own line of goods, and so we say
-nothing about it.”
-
-“What struck me,” she began, hesitatingly, “you spoke rather--what I
-mean is, you don’t appear to be very grateful to the old gentleman who
-arranged all this for you--and to me it seems the most wonderful thing I
-ever heard of. I should thank his memory on my bended knees every day of
-my life if _I_ were the Professor of Culdees. I couldn’t find it in my
-heart to poke fun at him; I should think of him and revere him as my
-benefactor, _always!_”
-
-“Hm--m!” said Mosscrop. “I’m not sure I don’t wish he’d never been born,
-or had choked on a bone of one of his own damned Finnan baddies, before
-ever he came back to us!”
-
-The ring in his voice, like a surly rattling of chains, brought back to
-her vividly the scene of his despondency at the restaurant.
-
-She made haste to lay her hand upon his arm.
-
-“Oh, do you see where we are?” she cried, vivaciously, snatching at the
-chance of diversion.
-
-Sure enough, a section of the Museum’s stately front lay before them,
-filling to topheaviness the perspective of the small street. They
-had wandered instinctively toward this pre-natal rendezvous of their
-friendship. Their eyes softened now as they looked at the grey, pillared
-block of masonry stretching across the end of their by-way.
-
-“It draws us like a magnet,” said Moss-crop. “Come, what do you say?
-Shall we go in for an hour, and wander about as if we were nice rural
-people come up to London to see the sights? I should like to myself.”
-
-“The dear old place!” sighed Vestalia, with mellow tones.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-
-It was a long hour that the Museum claimed from them.
-
-“This is what always attracts me most of all,” said Mosscrop upon
-entering. He turned to the left, and led the way into the little gallery
-of the Roman portrait-busts. “Very often I never go any farther than
-this. The modernness of these fellows is a perpetual marvel to me. It
-is as if we met them every day. Look at Caracalla and Septimius Severus;
-they are exactly like Irish members. And see Pertinax, here; I know at
-least ten old farmers about Elgin who might be his own brothers. Observe
-this man Hadrian. He is the absolute image of Francis the First. You
-know the portraits of him at Hampton Court--what? never been there? Ah,
-that’s a place we will go to together. There is one picture of Francis
-there--he is very drunk, apparently, and has got hold of the hand of
-the Duchess of Some-thing-or-other, and she is in her cups, too, and the
-inane, leering, almost simian happiness of the two--oh, it is worth a
-long journey just to see that one picture.”
-
-“It doesn’t sound very inviting,” commented Vestalia. “Tipsy women are
-repulsive, whether they are duchesses or not.”
-
-Mosscrop chuckled. “Oh, but you must make allowances for the period. It
-was the Renaissance, the joyful, exuberant, devil-may-care Renaissance.
-If once you catch the inner spirit of it, you will feel that it was
-the most glorious of periods. And Francis the First was the living,
-breathing type of it. There was a man for you! He celebrated _his_
-birthday all the year round. And in this particular instance, why, I
-daresay it was the Duchess’s birthday too. I should have thought you
-would take a more lenient view of such a pleasing double anniversary.”
-
-Vestalia looked doubtfully at him. “I hope you don’t mean that _I_ am in
-my cups, as you call it,” she said.
-
-He laughed her suspicion down. “No, I won’t let you hint at such an
-absurd thing. My dear friend, I must cultivate your sense of humour. The
-roots exist, but the growth is choked by the weeds of Lambeth--or was it
-Kennington? We must have them up.”
-
-“But I don’t know _when_ you are joking,” she protested. “Besides, I
-always understood that the Scotch were not a joking people.”
-
-“Ah, you confuse two things. It is said of us, with some justice, that
-we are slow to comprehend the jokes of others. But of the making of
-jokes by ourselves there is no end. And--ah, here is Nero. I love Nero!”
-
-“Is that a joke, too?”
-
-“Ah, no,” he answered, more seriously. “It is in my nature to love all
-the people whom history has picked out to condemn. If you knew the sort
-of creatures who wrote the histories--the old chronicles and records
-and so on--you would understand my point of view. They were full of
-all meannesses and narrow bigotries; they calumniated everybody they
-couldn’t blackmail. Take the case of Richard Lionheart and his brother
-John, in your own English history. The former was a ferocious and
-turbulent blackguard, who neglected all his duties of kingship without
-shame, plundered his own subjects by torture and rapine, and was
-altogether a curse to his own people and everybody else. The mere trick
-of his having a taste for songs and music saved him. He buttered up the
-bards, and they fastened him in history as a hero. It is precisely
-the same thing that is done now by politicians who take pains to
-make friends with the newspapers. On the other hand, John was a model
-monarch, diligent, hardworking, extraordinarily attentive to his duties,
-travelling for ever up and down the country to hold courts of justice,
-and right the wrongs poor people suffered at the hands of the barons and
-the abbots and other powerful ruffians. It is plain enough that the poor
-people loved him; after all these centuries his name continues to be
-the most popular baptismal name among them. But the bards and monkish
-chroniclers were in the pay of the barons and abbots, and they paint
-John for us as the most evil scoundrel in English history. That’s the
-way it has always been done. I should like to have Nero’s side of his
-story. I know he must have been a splendid fellow, to have got the
-historians so violently against him. I shouldn’t be surprised if he was
-really almost as fine as Richard the Third.”
-
-“How amusing!” said Vestalia at this point, and Mosscrop was swift to
-take the hint. They moved on through the Greek rooms, where the girl had
-more of a chance. She had known a few of the students who are accustomed
-on giving days to offer up sacrifices of time and crayons and good white
-paper in front of the more fashionable statues, and this had provided
-her with what seemed to her companion an exhaustive familiarity with
-Hellenic art. This advantage followed and remained with her amid the
-sombre and lofty fragments of the Mausoleum, and shone about her when
-they confronted the frieze of the Parthenon.
-
-“It is not my subject,” he remarked, delightedly. “This is a Hermes, you
-say, and that a Winged Goddess of Victory. Ah, and this is a River God.
-I don’t think I’ve ever been here before. It is charming--to come with
-you. We supplement each other. Sure enough, I ought to have foreseen
-that you would know about Greek art. It is just the field that would
-attract a beautiful young woman. It fits you--it belongs to you.”
-
-“How--now!” she admonished him, holding up a finger in playful protest.
-
-“Oh,” he urged, “if I’m not to say that you are beautiful, we might
-as well not have any birthday at all. That is its most elementary
-fact--lying at the very foundation of everything. To ignore it would be
-like trying to celebrate the Fifth of November without a guy.”
-
-Again she shot a glance of dubiety at him. “I don’t know in the least
-how to take that,” she confessed, with a quiver on her lip.
-
-He laughed outright at this, and gaily patted her on the shoulder. “This
-unnatural Attic levity of mine is all the fault of the frieze. I’m a cat
-in a strange garret here. Hasten with me to the Assyrian rooms, if you
-want to see the utmost height of solemnity it is given to mortals to
-attain.”
-
-He was not quite as good as his word, when they began loitering along
-before the carved tablets from Nineveh and Khorsabad. Instruction he
-could not help piling upon his companion, for this was _his_ subject,
-but he found himself seasoning it with all sorts of sprightly
-commentaries on the serious text. Of grave and sportive alike he had so
-much to say that Vestalia took his arm, and leant upon it as they
-made their slow progress through the long corridors. The contact was
-exhilarating to him. He could not be sure that she was assimilating any
-large proportion of his discourse, but her pretence of interest at least
-was very pretty, and the touch of her arm in his was full of inspiration
-to his tongue.
-
-Down in the basement, or crypt, he stood before the lions of
-Assur-Banipal, and talked at length. She said she had read Byron’s
-“Sardanapalus,” and he told her how those detestable linguists, the
-Greeks, had altered the name, and how the Assyrian legends of a great
-warrior and sovereign had become twisted in the Hellenic after-version
-to depict a sublimation of debauched effeminacy and luxury run mad. She
-listened with her shoulder against his--but now he had other auditors as
-well.
-
-“Excuse me, sir,” the urgent and anxious voice of a stranger said close
-behind him, “but you seem to be extraordinarily well posted indeed on
-these sculptures here. I hope you will not object to my daughter and me
-standing where we can hear your remarks.”
-
-Mosscrop turned, and saw before him an elderly man, with a mild
-expression, and hair and beard of extreme whiteness. He was soberly
-attired, and carried in his hand a broad-brimmed hat of woven white
-straw. He bowed courteously, and indicated by a gentle gesture the young
-lady standing at his side.
-
-“I should delight, sir, to have my daughter be privileged to profit by
-your remarks,” he repeated, and bowed again.
-
-The daughter was a dark, well-rounded girl, dressed with much elegance.
-Her face was strikingly Oriental in type, with coal-black tresses
-drawn low over the temples, and a skin of a uniform ivory hue. She said
-nothing, but looked at Vestalia’s hair.
-
-Mosscrop spoke somewhat abruptly. “You are certainly welcome, but it
-happens that I have finished my remarks, as you call them.”
-
-“That is too bad,” replied the stranger, with a sigh of resignation.
-“I overheard enough to convince me that they were first-rate. It is our
-misfortune, sir, mine and my daughter’s, to have arrived too late. I
-presume, sir, that you have given special attention to this branch of
-study?”
-
-The Professor of Culdees nodded briefly.
-
-“And may I take the liberty of inquiring, sir,” the old man persisted,
-“whether you are professionally engaged in transmitting to others the
-knowledge which you have thus acquired?”
-
-A stormy grin began twitching at the corners of Mosscrop’s mouth. He
-nodded again.
-
-“My purpose in putting the question is not one of idle curiosity, sir,”
- the other went on. “My life-long desire to visit Europe, and behold
-its venerable ruins and its remarkable accumulations of objects of
-historical and artistic interest, has attained fulfilment at a period,
-unfortunately, when the burden of my years, while not incapacitating me
-from the enjoyments of the mind, renders me less capable of searching
-out new information than I should once have been. It also, I see only
-too clearly, unfits me to act as a guide and interpreter, amid these
-treasures of the storied past, to a young mind so much fresher and more
-eager than my own. I recognise this, sir, frankly, and I should be glad
-to discuss some possible arrangement, with the proper persons, by which
-my deficiencies might be supplied in this connection.”
-
-The elaborate and deferential courtesy with which the old gentleman
-spoke made a curt answer impossible. Mosscrop looked from father to
-daughter with a puzzled smile.
-
-“You are Americans, I take it?”
-
-“We are from Paris, sir.” He made haste to add, “From Paris, Kentucky.
-I obtrude the explanation, because I find that among foreigners there is
-frequently a tendency to confuse our city with the celebrated metropolis
-on the Continent, which bears the same name, but is a place of an
-entirely different character. To a scholar like yourself, however, I
-might have realised that such an error would be impossible. I ask your
-pardon, sir.”
-
-“Oh, don’t mention it,” replied Mosscrop, lightly. He could not recall
-ever having heard of such a place before, and for a moment was tempted
-to say so. But there was an effect of sweet simplicity in the old man’s
-face and manner which restrained his tongue. “Well,” he said instead,
-“what is it that you wish? I am not sure that I have entirely caught
-your idea. Do you want some one to go round with you and show you
-things?”
-
-“Not in the ordinary meaning which would attach to that description,”
- the other answered. “We do not require to have things shown to us in the
-literal sense of the word, but I had thought that if we were attended
-in our inspection of the various objects of interest for which Europe
-is justly famous, by some person of erudition and also of an exceptional
-style of delivery, the experience would be of much greater practical
-value to my daughter. Of course, sir, I am aware that professional
-assistance of this high character is not to be obtained without
-commensurate compensation, but that is a consideration which presents no
-obstacles to my mind.”
-
-David felt Vestalia’s hand trembling upon his arm.
-
-“I can see,” he said, more amiably, “that such a relation might be
-extremely welcome to many deserving and very capable men. But at the
-moment I regret to say I can think of none to recommend to you. Besides,
-you don’t know me from Adam; so how could I give a character to any one
-else?”
-
-“I beg your pardon sir,” rejoined the old gentleman, “but we took the
-liberty of following close behind you all through the last two long
-hallways. You were apparently so engrossed with your subject that our
-proximity escaped your attention, but we have listened with the deepest
-interest, and I may say improvement as well, to everything which has
-fallen from your lips. I have thus, sir, been able to form an estimate
-of your individual characteristics not less than of your acquirements.
-I may add, sir, that I am especially impressed by the fact that my
-daughter, from first to last, displayed an exceptional eagerness to
-miss nothing of your discourse. As the principal object of my visit to
-Europe, as, indeed, of my whole existence, is to provide the highest
-forms of intellectual pleasure and edification for my daughter, I cannot
-close my eyes to the discovery that your remarks upon Assyrian history
-produced a much more profound impression upon her young mind than
-anything which it has been within the scope of my own diminishing powers
-to produce for her consideration. I have rarely seen her so absorbed,
-even at our best lectures.”
-
-David stifled a yawn, and made a little bow in which, as he turned, he
-strove to include the young American lady whoso culture was the object
-of so much solicitude. His movement surprised upon her countenance an
-expression of scornful weariness, which seemed to render the whole face
-alert and luminous with feeling. At sight of his eyes, her sultana-like
-features composed themselves again to an almost stolid tranquillity. She
-regarded him with indolence for an instant, then looked calmly away
-at things in general. There was to be read in that transient glance a
-challenge which stirred his blood.
-
-“Well, what you say is, beyond doubt, flattering,” he remarked to the
-father, in a slightly altered voice. “It might be that--that I could
-find some one for you.”
-
-The old gentleman bowed ceremoniously. “Permit me to say, sir, that I
-have found the some one--a person possessing unique qualifications for
-the position which I have outlined. I need nothing now but the power
-to influence his decision in a manner favourable to my aspirations.” He
-turned to Vestalia. “I am emboldened, madame, to crave your assistance
-in reconciling your husband to my project.”
-
-Vestalia’s hand fluttered sharply on David’s arm, and she parted her
-lips to speak. At the moment, there was audible a derisive sniff from
-the daughter.
-
-“It is my rule never to interfere,” Vestalia answered with sudden
-decision, and in a coldly distinct voice. “He is quite capable of
-settling such matters for himself.” She looked from father to daughter
-and back with an impressive eye.
-
-Mosscrop laughed uneasily. “Well--I’m afraid you must take it that
-this is settled--I scarcely see my way to avail myself of your very
-complimentary offer.”
-
-The American caught the note of hesitation in his voice. “Perhaps you
-will turn it over in your mind,” he said, fumbling with a hand in his
-inner breast-pocket. “Allow me, sir, to hand you my card. Adele, you
-have a pencil? Thank you. I will inscribe upon it the name of the hotel
-at which we are residing.”
-
-Mosscrop took the card, glanced at it, and nodded. “In the extremely
-improbable event of my changing my mind, I will let you know,” he said.
-“Good day.”
-
-As they were parting, the father seemed to read in the daughter’s eye
-that he was forgetting something. He hesitated for a brief space; then
-his kindly face brightened. “Excuse me, sir,” he observed, “but I have
-neglected to inform myself as to your identity--if I may presume to that
-extent.”
-
-David felt vainly in his pocket. “I haven’t a card with me. My name is
-David Mosscrop. The Barbary Club will find me. I will write it for you.”
-
-The old man scrutinized the scrawl in his note-book, and then, after
-more bows, led his daughter away. She walked after him in a proudly
-indifferent fashion, with her head in the air, and something almost like
-a swagger in the movements of her form.
-
-Mosscrop watched them with a ruminating eye till they had left the
-room. Then he glanced at the card, and gave a little laugh. “Mr. Laban
-Skinner, Paris, Kentucky.--Savoy Hotel,” he read aloud.
-
-“Skinner? Is their name Skinner?” demanded Vestalia with eagerness.
-
-“None other. Why? It’s a good name for them, isn’t it?”
-
-“Oh yes--good enough,” the girl replied, speaking now with exaggerated
-nonchalance.
-
-“Quaint people these Americans are!” commented Mosscrop. “If I were
-to put that old chap’s speeches down literally in a book nobody would
-credit them. Fancy the fate of a young woman condemned to be dragged
-around the globe chained to a preposterous old phonograph like that! It
-really wrings one’s heart to think of it. Mighty good-looking girl too.”
-
-Vestalia withdrew her arm. “Perhaps,” she said, icily, “if you were to
-make haste you might overtake them. I must insist on your not allowing
-me to detain you, if you are so interested. I shall do quite well by
-myself.” Mosscrop gathered her meaning slowly, after a grave scrutiny
-of her flushed and perturbed face. When it came to him, he shouted his
-merriment. A glance around the chamber showed him that they were alone
-with the lions and carved effigies of Sardanapalus.
-
-He thrust an arm about Vestalia’s waist, and gave it a boisterous though
-fleeting squeeze.
-
-“Why, you dear little canary-bird of a creature, do you suppose I’ve
-been forgetting you?” he cried. “Haven’t I been thinking every minute of
-the touch of your arm in mine? Haven’t I been cursing that old windbag
-ceaselessly because he was interrupting our birthday? Look up at me!
-Truly now, aren’t you ashamed?”
-
-She suffered him to raise her face, his finger under her chin, and she
-made a brave effort to smile hack at the glance he bent upon her. “If
-it is truly--oh, ever so truly--still our birthday--the same as it was
-before,” she made wistful answer.
-
-“It is a hundred times more our birthday than ever!” he protested
-stoutly.
-
-An elderly keeper in uniform shuffled his way into the room.
-
-“Well then,” whispered Vestalia, “let’s go somewhere else to celebrate
-the rest of it. All these stone animals and images and mummies--I don’t
-feel as if they brought me luck on my birthday.”
-
-So they wandered forth into the sunshine again, and Mosscrop confessed
-himself glad of the change. Where should they go? He found himself empty
-of suggestion. Responsibility for the decorous entertainment of a young
-lady in the daytime was a novel experience, and he said so.
-
-“Oh, let us just stroll about,” she urged. “I love these old Bloomsbury
-Squares. They are so stupid.”
-
-Luncheon hour came, and presented itself to Mosscrop as a welcome
-pretext to take a hansom. A certain formless apprehension of meeting
-some one he knew--though why this should be dreaded he could not for
-the life of him have told--had alloyed the pleasure of his ramble.
-They drove to another restaurant, this time a larger place in a more
-pretentious quarter--and though they had a little table to themselves,
-the room was full of others.
-
-David knew about luncheons as well as breakfasts. He gave the waiter
-very minute instructions about having a grouse split and grilled, and
-he ran his eye over the list of champagnes with the confident
-discrimination of an expert. “I will give that number 34a one more
-trial,” he said to the butler. “Cool it to 48, and we will see what it
-is like then.”
-
-Vestalia noted that he spoke to waiters in a soft, grave tone, with
-shades of gentle melancholy and of affectionate authority subtly blended
-in it, which he used to no one else. He produced the impression upon her
-of being at his very best at a table. She particularly liked him when
-he took the cork from the butler, and tenderly pinched with thumb and
-finger as he scrutinised it, and then smiled courteous approbation to
-the servant. This person wore a chain round his neck, and the bottle he
-brought was swathed in starched napery--and the girl observed both with
-the interest that attaches to novelty. But it was even more interesting
-to see how perfectly her companion presided over everything.
-
-She herself was much less at ease. David noticed that she kept her hands
-in her lap under the table as much as possible during the meal, and that
-there was an air of constraint in her general deportment which had been
-lacking at breakfast. He put it down to her shyness among so many busy
-people in the thronged apartment, and talked briskly at intervals to
-re-assure her. Especially he charged himself with the duty of keeping
-her glass filled, and he was almost peremptory in his tone with her
-about the grouse. She ate her piece to the end with meek resolution
-after that.
-
-When they were again in the open, he rallied her upon the diffidence she
-had displayed. “You mustn’t mind a lot of fellows being about,” he said
-in a paternal way. “They go where there is the best kitchen, and it’s
-the part of wisdom to go there too; besides, they’re only too pleased
-to see a pretty face among them. Didn’t you feel how proud I was of you,
-all the while?”
-
-Outside she had quite regained her spirits and assurance. She smiled
-with frank gaiety at him. “I’ll tell you how to be prouder still,” she
-said. “I know you won’t mind my saying so--but I ought really to have
-some gloves.”
-
-“I’m a brute not to have thought of it,” Mosscrop reproached himself.
-“Here’s a place, just at hand. I can come in, this time, I suppose,
-without question.”
-
-She held up a finger at him, in mock monition. Then, as they turned to
-enter the shop, she whispered: “I saw that American girl looking with
-all her eyes at my bare hands.”
-
-“Oh, pshaw--lots of women don’t wear gloves. You mustn’t be so
-suspicious of everybody that looks your way. A hundred to one they’re
-thinking about themselves all the time.”
-
-“Ah, but you don’t know women,” she halted midway in the entrance to
-murmur. “I could read it in her eyes that she’d noticed I had no ring.”
-
-“Well, and there too,” protested Mosscrop, “you exaggerate the
-importance of the thing. Lots of women don’t wear rings, either--that
-is, on ordinary occasions.”
-
-She danced her eyes at him in merriment. “Perhaps you didn’t notice that
-I was supposed to be a married lady,” she said, and then turned abruptly
-to the counter.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-
-Ah me! Even the longest and happiest day must have an ending!” sighed
-Vestalia.
-
-“It is not a new thought,” replied David. “But I have never before
-comprehended how unwelcome it could make itself.”
-
-They spoke to each other in soft, regretful, musing tones, through the
-still darkness of the clouded summer night. They had been the last to
-quit the Greenwich boat, on its last return to its City moorings, and
-they halted for a moment on the floating pier after the others had
-gone--the gentle undulation of the tide beneath their feet, their gaze
-dwelling upon the black silent expanse of the river.
-
-In retrospect, the day had been very long indeed, and altogether happy.
-Its structure of delight had been reared on the simplest and most
-innocent of foundations. They had gone first to the Zoological Garden,
-which fortuitously suggested itself to Mosscrop’s mental search as an
-unexceptional resource. Nor did inspiration fail him there, for when the
-great man-eating cats had been fed, and the foul hyenas next door
-had yelped themselves hoarse, and the charms of natural history had
-otherwise begun to wane, the notable thought of the fish dinner at
-Greenwich rose with splendid opportuneness in his mind.
-
-It was after this feast, while the two strolled beneath the big trees,
-that twilight found them out. The shadows, as they deepened among the
-distant shipping, and stole downward to dim the reflected whiteness
-of the eastern sky beyond the river, brought reverie in their train.
-Mosscrop found a bitter taste in his cigar, and lit another impatiently.
-The girl leant upon his arm with a new suggestion of dependence. They
-moved down to the wharf by tacit consent, before the appointed time,
-and, taking their seat on a bench at the end, looked absently at the
-water with but an occasional word. Evening closed in about them as they
-sat thus. Then the boat came, and they went on board, and established
-themselves in relative seclusion at the stern, still in almost unbroken
-silence.
-
-And now the completed journey lay behind them as well. They stood close
-together, swaying with the slight motion of the raft upon the lapping
-waters, and ruminating sadly upon the fact that their day was done.
-
-“We finish as we began--with the river,” murmured Vestalia. She trembled
-to his touch as she spoke.
-
-“Do you remember Henley’s lines,” said David, meditatively--
-
-               “‘The smell of ships (that earnest of romance),
-
-               A sense of space and water, and thereby
-
-               A lamplit bridge touching the troubled sky,
-
-               And look, O look! a tangle of silvery gleams,
-
-               And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams,
-
-               His dreams of a dead past that cannot die.’”
-
-“No, it cannot die,” said Vestalia, slowly. “But its burial time is
-close at hand, none the less. Ah, the beautiful day!”
-
-They turned and paced up the ascent, and then through obscure, deserted
-thoroughfares made their way at length to the open space about St.
-Paul’s. The clouds had parted, and the great dome loomed in immensity
-against a straggling light from the sky. They paused to look at it, and
-while they stood the fleecy mists far overhead cleared away, and the
-round moon’s full radiance flooded the prospect. Mosscrop gazed up
-at the flaring satellite, then down at his companion. A new thought
-sparkled in his eyes.
-
-“And ah, the beautiful to-morrow, too!” he said, confidently. “My good
-child, do you conceive that the world comes to an end when the sun goes
-down? Am I less your friend by moonlight than I was in the day-time? Are
-we changed by the fact that the lamps are lit?”
-
-Vestalia turned her face into the shadow, and said nothing. Mosscrop
-felt her deep breathing against his arm.
-
-“You have been very dutiful and obedient all day,” he began, as they
-moved along toward Ludgate Hill. “I repudiate the suggestion that you
-are capable of mutiny now. Let us speak plainly, dear little lady. How
-can you suppose that, having watched over you all day and gladly made
-myself responsible for your well-being since before breakfast, I could
-wash my hands of you now, and calmly say ‘goodbye’ at a street corner?”
-
-“You have been very _very_ kind,” faltered Vestalia.
-
-“And for that reason it follows that I should be very callous and brutal
-now, does it? I don’t see the logic myself.”
-
-“I haven’t meant that at all,” she interposed in a low voice. She bent
-her head so that Mosserop could not see her face.
-
-“We will develop and analyze your meanings at our leisure,” he said,
-with a note of authority. “It is more important for the moment to make
-clear what _I_ mean. The facts are simplicity itself. You have no home,
-no belongings, no place to sleep, no knowledge of where the morning’s
-breakfast is to come from. You are a beautiful girl, and it is true our
-civilisation is so arranged that beautiful girls rarely starve to death.
-I do not recall having heard of a single instance, for that matter. But
-your position makes an imperative demand for assistance from somebody.
-It cried aloud for help at an early hour this morning. It happened that
-the appeal was heard and answered. If we were superstitious, we should
-call it providential.”
-
-“Oh, but I do!” protested the girl.
-
-“Very well, then, we _are_ superstitious, and it _was_ providential.
-These things are governed, I am informed, by immutable laws. Ergo, it
-is still providential. Who are we, that we should fly in the face of
-Providence? I adjure you to put away such impious thoughts!”
-
-A little sobbing catch of the breath was her only answer. He divined
-that there were tears in her eyes, and slowed his pace as they walked
-along in the gloom of the deserted descent. At the bottom, under the
-bridge, the sparkling lights of Fleet Street recalled to him that shops
-were still open.
-
-“I mentioned that you had no belongings,” he resumed, after they had
-traversed the Circus in silence. “There are little odds and ends of
-things that you want--the necessities of the toilet, _et cetera_. Here
-is a shop; take this sovereign and get the bits of haberdashery that
-occur to you--such as a lady would put in her dressing-bag if she were
-to stop overnight in the country. I will go across the way and get the
-bag itself, and come back for you.”
-
-He performed his part of the enterprise with an almost childlike
-delight. Ladies’ dressing-bags cost more than he had imagined, but
-the shopman said he would take a cheque. David found something to his
-mind--a dainty yet capacious trifle, with pretty silver flasks ranged
-on one side, and a surprisingly comprehensive collection of small
-implements--scissors, curling-tongs, a manicure set, and other tools the
-significance of which he could not even guess--packed about in quaint
-little pockets and crevices. The outer leather was rich to the eye and
-delicate to the touch.
-
-A few doors away shone the symbolical red and blue lights of a chemist.
-Hurrying thither, he flung himself eagerly into the task of buying
-fluids to fill those imposing flasks. The shopman advised him, at first
-coldly, then with rising enthusiasm. The best perfumes and vinaigres
-were expensive, certainly, but then they _were_ the best, and would
-vouch for themselves to any cultivated feminine mind. There were
-recondite soaps, and cosmetics to thrill any gentle heart. And in the
-matter of brushes--here were some silver-backed, and the comb also--to
-match the flasks. So the list was filled out, and David wrote another
-cheque with a proud smile.
-
-Vestalia stood at the door of the shop, waiting with a small paper
-parcel in her hands. Mosscrop was disappointed at its size, and thrust
-it into the bag with a disdainful shove. They strolled on up the street,
-and he looked into every lighted window with a hopeful eye. The display
-of mere masculine or neutral wares affronted him. The shopping fantasy
-possessed his soul.
-
-“But you really ought to have them. You’re not behaving nicely to me in
-continually saying ‘no,’” he urged more than once, as the pressure of
-his companion’s arm drew him away from the tempting windows. She did
-consent at last to the purchase of some slippers--and he saw to it that
-they were the choicest that the shelves afforded--soft, luxurious little
-things, with satin linings and buckles of mother-of-pearl. When
-these went into the bag, it was filled. He recognised the fact with a
-regretful sigh.
-
-The creaking old clock-machinery in the belfry of St. Clement Danes set
-itself in motion as they passed, and the ancient chimes clanged out the
-full hour. It was nine o’clock.
-
-“I had some thought of a music-hall,” he remarked. “But we’ve had a
-pretty full day--and a long day, too. I know you must be tired.”
-
-“Perhaps--just a little,” she answered, softly.
-
-“Then we’ll go home,” he said, with decision.
-
-It was not a part of London which Vestalia knew very well. Mosscrop led
-her along the Strand for a little way, then crossed and went up a side
-street, then turned into a still narrower by-way. The ragged loungers
-on the walk had an evil aspect, and almost every building seemed to be
-a public-house. At the last corner a piano-organ of unusual volume shook
-the air with deafening mechanical din. The man turned the crank so fast,
-and the dancing children in the radiance from the open-doored tavern on
-the pavement raised such a racket of their own, that she could barely
-distinguish the movement of the vulgar tune. On the borders of darkness
-beyond were discernible still other children, playing noisily about at
-the base of groups of fat women in fog-coloured shawls and white aprons.
-Over all the tumult and squalid clusterings of humanity there brooded
-the acrid, musty stench of an antique mid-London slum.
-
-The two turned under an archway, and as by magic the atmosphere
-freshened and the hubbub ceased. A small square of venerable buildings
-disclosed itself vaguely in the uncertain light from the sky. Here
-and there a lamp behind some curtained window made a dim break in the
-obscurity. The faint sweet moaning of a ’cello rose from somewhere at
-the farther end of the space. A stout man with a gold band upon his tall
-hat revealed himself for a noiseless moment, lifted his finger in salute
-to Mosscrop, and melted away again into the shadows. Whether they had
-passed him, or he them, Vestalia could hardly tell. It was all very
-strange--and a little sombre. A streak of moonlight glanced down between
-shifting clouds, and fell across the fronts of the houses opposite.
-There were pale grey tablets of ornamentation set into their mass of
-dusky brickwork, which looked like tombstones. The girl trembled, and
-hung back upon Mosscrop’s arm as if to halt.
-
-Suddenly, after a brief preliminary scale of piano notes, a woman’s
-clear, practised voice fell upon the silence in a song--a grave and
-simple melody full of tenderness. They paused to listen for an instant,
-and Vestalia traced the sound to an illuminated upper floor at the end
-of the square.
-
-“Then people live here!” she said, with hesitating re-assurance in her
-voice.
-
-“Bless you, yes,” replied David. “_We_ live here, among others.”
-
-He entered the open doorway of the house next to that before which they
-had paused. The hall was lighted by a single gas-jet at the rear, which
-only deepened the darkness of the narrow staircase up which he led the
-way. It was a very ancient and ricketty staircase, with steps worn into
-queer bumps and hollows by generations of feet. There was not room for
-her to walk abreast of her guide. He strode ahead, striking matches on
-the wall as he went. She followed him timorously up the winding ascent,
-noting the rows of names painted on the big closed doors of each landing
-they passed.
-
-Mosscrop stopped only when the stairs came to an end. He put down the
-bag, and she heard the rattle of a key in a lock. Then a match was
-struck, and a sudden flare of gas lit up the small square hall-way they
-stood in.
-
-As he pushed open a door to the left, he turned with a smiling face
-towards his companion. He discovered her drawn back at the edge of the
-stairs, her hands pressed against her bosom. Her eyes were fastened
-on him with a troubled look, and the sound of her breathing, quick and
-laboured, reached his ears.
-
-“These stairs are the very deuce when you’re not used to them,” he said,
-pleasantly. “I oughtn’t to have rushed you up them at such a pace.”
-
-“_That_ doesn’t matter,” panted the girl. “It is I who mightn’t to have
-come up at all.”
-
-David’s smile deepened and mellowed as he regarded her. “My dear
-Vestalia,” he began, laying a slight and kindly stress upon this first
-use of her name, “you speak hastily. You must offer no further remarks
-until you have quite recovered your breath. I will employ the interval
-by calling your attention to the inscription on the closed door, there,
-opposite to mine. You will observe that it is ‘Mr. Linkhaw.’ Have you
-ever heard it before?”
-
-She shook her head.
-
-“And are you conscious of no novel emotions at hearing it now? Does not
-the sight of those painted letters cause you to thrill with strange and
-mysterious sensations? No? What becomes then of the boasted intuition of
-the feminine mind?”
-
-There seemed to be a jest hidden somewhere in all this, and she smiled
-plaintively, dubiously. She took her hand from her breast, to show that
-her breathing was calmer.
-
-“You really assure me,” he went on, with a twinkling eye, “that the
-spectacle of this particular sported-oak does not especially stir your
-pulses, and peculiarly impress your imagination?”
-
-“Why should it?”
-
-“Why indeed! Ah, young woman, your sex gets much credit that it ill
-deserves. A mere man could do no worse in the matter of instinct.
-My dear friend, behind that door lies your present abode. That name
-‘Linkhaw’ is the sign of your home--and you looked at them both and
-never guessed it!”
-
-Vestalia did not so much as glance at the door in question, but she
-gazed with much intentness at Mosscrop. “I don’t understand--what it is
-all about?” she said, slowly.
-
-He had stepped inside his own door, lighted the gas and pulled down the
-blinds. He returned, and stretched out his hand to take hers. “Do me the
-honour to come in and sit down,” he said, holding up her gloved fingers,
-and bowing over them. “You are my nearest neighbour, and yet you have
-never called upon me.”
-
-She followed him into his sitting-room, and took the easy chair he
-wheeled out toward the table for her. It was a larger apartment than the
-narrow staircase and cramped landing had promised. The ceiling was low
-and dreadfully smoky, it was true, and the appointments and furniture
-were old-fashioned. But the whole effect, if somewhat meagre and
-unadorned, was comfortable and honest.
-
-“Put off your hat and gloves, and look as if you felt at home,” urged
-David. “You’ve but a step to go.”
-
-He busied himself meanwhile in bringing from a recess of the sideboard
-two tumblers, a heavy decanter filled with an amber liquid, and a big
-bottle of soda water.
-
-“You’ll join me in some whisky and soda?” he asked pleasantly, fumbling
-with the wire.
-
-“Oh mercy, no!” said Vestalia. “Really I mustn’t touch anything more. I
-see now that I have been drinking far too much, all day long.”
-
-“Tut!” he answered. “How could there be too much on a birthday? And now
-I think of it, there were two of them! I pledge my word, it has been a
-singularly dry occasion for a double birthday. We must hasten to make
-good the deficiency.”
-
-Vestalia had drawn off her gloves. She rose now, and standing before
-the mantel-mirror, lifted her hat from her head. Then she turned and,
-half-playfully, half in pleading, shook her bright curls at him. “I
-thought it was going to be different hereafter,” she said, softly.
-
-He looked inquiry for an instant, then nodded comprehension. “Ay,” he
-said, with gravity, “you’re a wise virgin. This one glass shall last me
-the night. You are very welcome here, my lady!”
-
-She smiled at the lifted tumbler, over which his eyes regarded her.
-“What lots of books you have!” she exclaimed, a moment later, and began
-an inspection of the room, lingering in turn before each of the old
-prints on the dingy walls, and examining the rows of volumes in detail.
-He loitered beside her for a little, passing comments on what seemed
-to interest her. Then he disappeared in an adjoining room, and returned
-presently in a loose velveteen jacket and slippers. He took the famous
-dressing-bag from the table.
-
-“Your visit isn’t at all over yet,” he remarked; “but I am consumed
-with a desire to see you sitting opposite me, here, in those wee soft
-slippers of yours. It will make a sweet picture for me to carry into
-dreamland. And so first I will show you your new home.”
-
-She followed him out into the hall, and then through the doors he
-unlocked into the apartments of the mysterious “Mr. Linkhaw.” The first
-room disclosed itself, when the gas was lit, to be similar to David’s
-in size, but all else was strangely different. The Turkey red carpet was
-brilliant, almost garish, in its newness, and the ceiling was covered
-with a bright pink paper. All round three sides were broad divans,
-heaped with soft red cushions and downy pillows. No chairs were to be
-seen. More singular still, the walls were crowded with the stuffed heads
-of animals--bisons, bears, moose, elks, antelopes, wolves, and endless
-varieties of deer. Vestalia gazed at these trophies of the chase with
-surprise.
-
-“Linkhaw is a mighty hunter before the Lord,” Mosscrop explained. “Yon
-is the bedroom. It is fairly carpeted with the skins of tigers, lions,
-leopards, and such like beasts. If you dream of jungles and Noah’s ark
-to-night, and don’t like it, we’ll throw them all out in the morning.”
-
-“But what am I doing in this Mr. Link-haw’s rooms?” inquired the girl.
-“I don’t understand it at all. Suppose he should come?”
-
-David laughed lightly. “It’s a far cry from Uganda to Dunstan’s Inn.
-Or maybe he’s in the Hudson Bay Territory. It’s a year and more since
-I knew of his whereabouts. The most unheard-of and God-forgotten
-wilderness on earth--that’s where you may always count on his being,
-unless he has learned of some still more impossible and repellent wild,
-just discovered, in the meantime. He is an old friend and school-fellow
-of mine, and leaves his keys with me. I just have a look at the place
-now and then, to keep the laundress up to the mark.”
-
-He passed on into the bedroom, struck a light, and threw a scrutinising
-glance round. “You’ll be needing fresh sheets and the like,” he said,
-returning. “I’ll bring them.”
-
-He came back with an armful of linen, and heaped it on the bed. “Now
-you’re right as a trivet,” he cried, cheerily. “Everything has been
-aired. And now I’ll be waiting for you to come back to me, with the
-pretty little slippers. Mind, I’m capable of great excesses in drink if
-you delay over-long.”
-
-Vestalia’s delay was inconsiderable. They sat for an hour or more, she
-with the dainty new footgear on the fender, he, lounging low in his
-chair, stretching out his own feet close to the rail beside hers. “I
-could wish it were winter,” he mused, once, “so that we might have a
-fire. We have an old saying about two pairs of slippers on the hearth. I
-never thought before what homely beauty there was in it. Ah, there’ll be
-cool nights coming on now, and then we’ll start a blaze. But even with a
-black grate, it is the dearest evening of my life.”
-
-“And of mine,” responded the girl.
-
-Hours later, David still sat by the empty fireplace, and ruminated over
-his pipe. He had put the decanter and glass resolutely back into the
-sideboard, and turned a key on them. He had taken down a book, but it
-lay unregarded on the floor beside him. He desired to do nothing but
-think, and yet even that it was not easy to contrive. Thoughts would not
-marshal themselves in any ordered sequence.
-
-The whole day had yielded an extraordinary experience, involving all
-thoughts of momentous possibilities, which he said over and over again
-to himself demanded the coolest and most conservative consideration. But
-when he strove to fasten his mind to the task, straightway it swerved
-and curveted and danced off beyond control. One memory returned to him
-ceaselessly: the way Vestalia had risen finally to say good-night, and
-insisted strenuously on his not quitting his chair, and then, all at
-once, had bent swiftly down and kissed him before she ran from the room.
-And well, why not? he asked himself at last; why shouldn’t he abandon
-himself to remembering it? What else was there equally well worth
-recalling? The early morning on the bridge rose again before him; the
-tenderly compassionate intimacy which, stealing slowly over them, seemed
-yet to have burst forth in ripe fulness from the very beginning; the
-delightful meals together, the long walks and talks, the little gifts
-which brought such happiness to the donor; the languorously saddened
-twilight on the river, the silent homecoming, the surprise, the kiss--so
-the sweet chain of reverie coiled and unfolded itself, with quickened
-heart-beats for links.
-
-Once a thought came to him--a thought which seemed hard and cold as his
-native granite, and rough with the bristling spikes of his own hillside
-heather--that he had spent in that one day more than his whole week’s
-income. In other times the fact would have disturbed David. Now he
-looked it calmly in the face, and smiled at it derisive dismissal. The
-savings of a year, or of four years--what were even they when weighed
-in the balance against the fact that next door, under these very
-roof-beams, the dear Vestalia was peacefully sleeping?
-
-It must have been long after midnight when, in the act of filling
-his pipe once more, it occurred to him to go to bed instead. Upon
-reflection, he was both tired and sleepy. He rose and yawned, and then
-smiled upon his own image in the mirror at remembering how happy he was
-as well. It was a queer mess, to be sure, but there was no element in it
-which he regretted or would have changed. It was all delicious, through
-and through.
-
-As he glanced again at his reflection in the glass, and warmed his heart
-by the flame of triumphant joy which gleamed through the eyes he looked
-into, a sudden rhythmical noise rose upon the profound stillness of the
-old inn. It caught his ear, and he turned to listen.
-
-“It is that blessed creature snoring--breathing, I mean,” was his first
-thought. But no, it was in too rapid a measure for that. Then the
-sound waxed louder, and he recognised that it was of footsteps steadily
-ascending the stairs. “The watchman, coming to make sure of the lights,”
- he thought, with re-assurance.
-
-But this hypothesis fell to the ground also.
-
-The footsteps mounted to the landing close outside. The noise ceased,
-and then there came the unmistakable jingle of a key--nay, the very
-grating of it in the lock of the door opposite.
-
-David’s veins, for a confused moment, ran cold. Then, with an excited
-ejaculation, he ran to his door, and flung it open.
-
-“Stop that, you idiot!” he commanded, in muffled but ferocious tones.
-
-“Ah, Davie, Davie! Still at the bottle!” replied a well-known voice from
-out of the obscurity.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-
-Mosscrop groaned at recognition of the voice in the dark.
-
-“Of all inopportune creatures in the animal kingdom!” he bewailed under
-his breath. “Sh! for Heaven’s sake, man, don’t talk so loud. Come inside
-here, and walk softly.”
-
-“What is it you’re stalking, Davie--snakes?” queried the newcomer, with
-obvious sarcasm. But he lowered his voice, and came forward into David’s
-room. The latter closed the door noiselessly, and drew a long sigh of
-consolation. The two men looked at each other for a minute in silence.
-
-“You don’t mean that there are burglars in the house?” asked the
-intruder. A gleam of hopeful light shone in his eyes as he spoke, then
-died down at David’s shake of the head.
-
-The Earl of Drumpipes, in the peerage of Scotland, was a year younger
-than his friend the Culdee Professor. The gaslight revealed him now to
-be a tall, burly, rubicund man, with a broad, strongly-marked face of a
-severe aspect. His yellowish hair was cut close over a head which seemed
-unduly large for even his powerful frame, and was thinning towards
-baldness on the top. The collar of a woollen shirt showed a good deal
-of his thick neck, burnt a bright red at the back by a fiercer sun than
-warms these British islands. His prominent blue eyes bulged forth more
-than ever, now, in mystified inspection of David’s countenance. While
-he still gazed, it occurred to him to hold out his hand, as mighty as
-a blacksmith’s, in perfunctory greeting, and David took it with an
-effusiveness which was novel to them both.
-
-“I’m really delighted to see you, Archie. I give you my word lam!” he
-protested, eagerly.
-
-“You have your own way of showing it,” growled the other. “Yet you seem
-sober enough. What ails you, man?”
-
-“Oh, the strangest story!” said David. “Sit down here, and I’ll get out
-the whisky.” He busied himself between the sideboard and table, talking
-as he did so, while the other sprawled his large bulk in one of the easy
-chairs and lit a pipe.
-
-“See here, Drumpipes, damn it all,” he began, “I’m a gentleman, am I
-not?”
-
-“You are a professional man, a person of education,” the Earl assented,
-cautiously.
-
-“Well, this is the first day in long years that I have felt like a
-gentleman.”
-
-“You were ever a bit susceptible to hallucinations, Davie,” said the
-other. “There’s a streak of unreality in your nature. Hold there! Not
-so much soda. I’m sore in need of a bath, I know; but everything at its
-proper time. Well, go on--how are you accounting for this extraordinary
-occurrence? You’ve felt all day like a gentleman! It arouses my
-curiosity.”
-
-“Chuck that, Archie, or you’ll hear nothing at all.”
-
-“Very well, my boy. I’ll just drink this, then, and go to my bed. It
-will be welcome, I can tell you.”
-
-He drained the tumbler, and made as if to rise. David hurled himself
-forward with a restraining arm. “Don’t be an ass, old man! I’ve told
-you once, you mustn’t go near your place to-night,” he urged petulantly.
-“I’ll give you my bed, and I’ll sleep on the sofa here. It’s all right,
-I assure you. If you must know, there is somebody sleeping in your
-room.”
-
-The Earl frowned up at his friend. “That was not in the bargain,
-Mosscrop,” he said, with sharpness. “I don’t like it.”
-
-“All I can say is,” retorted David, “that if you’d been in my place
-you’d have done the same thing--or no, I’m not so sure about that; but
-under the circumstances it was the only thing _I_ could do. It’s a young
-lady who is occupying your room, Drumpipes.”
-
-“Aha!” cried the Earl, “let’s have her out! I’m not so sleepy as I
-thought. You can do something in the way of a supper, can’t you?”
-
-“No, I can’t, and if I could I wouldn’t. You misapprehend the situation
-entirely, my friend. This is a poor girl who----” and David went on and
-told, in brief fashion, the story of the day.
-
-“Nine pounds odd your whistle cost you, eh, Davie?” was the listener’s
-comment, at the conclusion of the narrative. “Well, each man has his own
-notion of what he wants for his money. It is not mine, I’ll say frankly.
-And what’s the programme for to-morrow? South Kensington Museum and
-Hampton Court? The next day you might do the Tower and Epping Forest.
-Then Westminster Abbey and Richmond--but you’ll come soon to the end of
-your rope. And sooner, still, I’m thinking, to the end of your banking
-account.”
-
-“That’s my affair,” returned Mosscrop, testily.
-
-“I might be said to have some small concern in the matter,” Drumpipes
-observed, “seeing that I provide furnished lodgings for this beautiful
-experiment in combined philanthropy and instruction. But you’re drinking
-nothing.”
-
-“No; I had my one glass before you came. I’m taking care of myself these
-days.”
-
-“And high time, too!” admitted the candid friend. “I’ll not say you’ll
-not be the better for it.”
-
-“Well, and don’t you see?” urged Mosscrop, with earnestness, “it’s just
-the fact of her being there yonder that makes it seem worth while to
-go to bed sober. It alters my whole conception of myself. It gives me
-entirely new ideas of what I ought to do. So long as I led this solitary
-life here there was nothing for me but to drink. But it’s different
-now.”
-
-The Earl grinned. “And how long will you be content to have this
-improving influence radiated to you from across the passage?” he asked,
-with cynicism. “Supposing, of course, that I give up my rooms to the
-reform-dynamo, so to speak.”
-
-“Oh, of course, no one is asking that of you. Obviously, your return
-makes other arrangements imperative.”
-
-“What will the other arrangements be like?”
-
-“That remains to be seen. But I’m quite clear about one thing. I will
-not turn back from what I have undertaken. She shall not know what want
-is, and she shall be respected. I swear that, Drumpipes; and I want you
-to remember it.”
-
-“Oh, I respect her immensely already,” said the Earl. “By George, a girl
-must possess extraordinary qualities who can come out early and catch
-a Professor of Culdees off her own bat, and work him for a tenner, and
-then leave him to forswear whisky on one side of a passage while she
-sleeps the sleep of the just in borrowed apartments on the other. It’s
-really splendid, old man. I take off my hat to her.”
-
-“Archie,” remarked David, slowly, “I’m smaller than you are, and no
-athlete, God knows; but if we have any more of that I will hit you in
-the eye, and chance it.”
-
-Drumpipes was amused at the notion, and chuckled. Then his face and
-voice lapsed into solemnity. “Davie,” he said, “I’ve no wish to vex you,
-but it’s a bad business. You’ll not win your way through without much
-expense and soreness of heart. You can take that from me, who should
-know if any man does.”
-
-Mosscrop accepted the portentous gravity of the tone in good faith. He
-nodded, as he looked hard at his friend. “Ay, I know,” he said, softly.
-“But I have no despair, and few doubts about it all, Archie. I am very
-happy in the thought of going forward with it; so happy that I see I
-never knew what happiness meant before. And if--we’ll put it at the
-worst possible--if disappointment should come out of it, why, I shall
-already have had the joy. And even if it broke me, what would it matter?
-I should only be back again where I was yesterday, and no one on earth
-would be the worse for that. But with you it was different.”
-
-The Earl nodded in turn, and smoked his pipe. At last, without lifting
-his voice or disclosing special interest in his hews, he said, “Man,
-she’s dead.”
-
-David’s eyes dilated. “What’s that--she--your wife, do you mean, is
-dead?”
-
-“Ay, four months since,” replied the other quietly.
-
-Mosscrop came over and shook hands with his friend. “I _will_ take a
-drink with you, after that,” he said, and filled a glass. “Tell me about
-it.”
-
-“I know nothing about it--except that she is dead. That is enough, quite
-enough.” He lifted his tumbler. “Here’s to the heating arrangements in
-the warmest corner down below.”
-
-“A foul cat!” said David, with a harsh tremor in his voice, sipping the
-toast.
-
-“A very pretty woman,” answered the Earl, musingly. “Hair like a new
-primrose, face like an earl Christian martyr, dearest little feet you
-ever imagined. You never saw her. You would have wanted to die for her
-on the spot. She would have made a single bite of you, my friend. I
-was a good deal tougher mouthful, but I got mangled more or less in the
-operation. These are the things that make one grateful for the religious
-influences of childhood. I should be downhearted just now if I were not
-able to believe in a Hell.”
-
-“There is no doubt about the thing--she is really dead?”
-
-“Dead as a mackerel, thank God. My lawyers certify to the blessed
-event. They ought to know. They have stood in the breach for four years,
-warding off writs, injunctions, mandamuses, and appeals, with which she
-and the unscrupulous scoundrels, her solicitors, bombarded them. The
-costs those ancient parties must have charged up against me! Man, I’m
-fair frightened to go into the City and face them. There are three
-attempts at judicial separation, one divorce suit, two petitions for
-restoration of conjugal rights, three examinations of witnesses by
-commission, four appeals--the thought of those bills sickens me, Davie.”
-
-“You’re well out of the noose at any cost.”
-
-“Well, then, if your neck is free, keep it so, man!”
-
-David smiled with gentle self-assurance.
-
-“Ah, laddie, if you could have seen the innocence of her. She drank
-Capri at breakfast, and then champagne at luncheon, and more of the
-same at dinner, with old tawny port on top of it--all as trustingly and
-confidingly as a babe. It softened one’s heart to see her lack of guile,
-her pretty inexperience.”
-
-The Earl sniffed audibly. “Oh, ay, it’s a beautiful spectacle, no doubt,
-and very touching. The pity is that magistrates will not always view it
-in that light next morning. But then so many things look different in
-the morning.”
-
-Again Mosscrop smiled. “Save your moans, Archie,” he advised, “till you
-see her yourself. You’ll meet the lady at breakfast.”
-
-“I’m damned if I do,” said Drumpipes.
-
-“Now then, you’re talking like an idiot. You, a hunter of lions and
-crocodiles and wild asses of the desert, to turn tail and run from one
-wee yellow-headed lassie! and desert an old friend, moreover, who needs
-your advice and judgment in the most important matter of his life! You
-know you’re flatly incapable of it.”
-
-“I’ll not promise to be civil to her if I stop,” the other growled. “The
-mere thought of yellow-haired women is nauseating to me. Why on earth,
-man, if you must make a stark-staring lunatic of yourself, could you not
-hit on a decent and reputable colour?”
-
-“Never a dye has touched it,” protested David. “It’s as natural as the
-sunshine--and as radiant.”
-
-“Then you’re a ruined man, Davie,” the Earl gravely declared, between
-puffs at his pipe. “There may be some saving quality in a woman who
-merely dyes her hair. An honest nature may persist beneath the painted
-wig, in spite of her endeavours. But if she’s a tortoise-shell tabby
-born, then you might better be dead than sitting there mooning about
-her. I give you up as a lost creature!”
-
-“Then all the more reason you should help me to cook a fine breakfast,
-to confront my doom upon,” replied Mosscrop, lightly. “I didn’t quite
-promise that I’d call her in time to assist. It will be more of a
-surprise to have it all ready, spread in her honour, when she comes in.
-What do you think of soft roes grilled on toast, eh? You can get them
-in tins. And some little lamb cutlets--or perhaps venison--and then some
-eggs _Bercy_--you do those fit for a queen, and we might have----”
-
-“The truth is,” put in the other, reflectively, “that black is the only
-wholly satisfying hair for a woman. The intervening compromises--all the
-browns and chestnuts and reds and auburns--are a delusion. I see that
-very clearly now. Give me the hair that throws a purplish shadow,
-glossy and thick and growing well down upon the forehead, and then a
-straight-nosed face, wide between the eyes and rounded under the chin,
-and a complexion of a soft, pale olive. There’s nothing else worth
-talking about.”
-
-“I _had_ thought of those small Italian sausages, but I don’t know that
-in hot weather they----”
-
-“Oh rot!” said the nobleman. “Who wants to talk about muffins and ham
-fat at this time of night? Have you no poetry in you, man? There was a
-divine creature on the steamer coming over--great eyes like a sloe, and
-the face of a Circassian princess, calm, regal, languid, yet with
-depths of passion underneath that seemed to call out to you to risk your
-immortal soul for the sake of drowning in them----”
-
-“My word, here _is_ cheek, if you like!” burst in Mosscrop, stormily.
-“You won’t let me talk about _my_ girl at all; you sneer and gibe and
-croak evil suspicions, and make a general nuisance of yourself at the
-least mention of her--and then you suppose I’m going to sit patiently
-and listen to such blithering twaddle as this. Damn it all, a man’s got
-some rights in his own room!”
-
-“I’m told not,” commented the Earl, grimly.
-
-“Now, why hark back to that?” demanded David, with a show of petulance.
-“It’s all settled and done with, hours ago. But what I was saying was,
-it isn’t the decent thing for you to--to obtrude talk of that sort just
-to throw ridicule on a subject that I feel very keen about.”
-
-Drumpipes yawned frankly. “It’s time you turned in, Davie,” he remarked.
-“The lack of sleep aye makes you silly. I’ve no wish to ridicule your
-subject, as you call her. It’s not at all necessary. You’ll see for
-yourself how ridiculous it is in the morning. It merely occurred to
-me that if we must talk of women, I’d something in my mind worth the
-while--no strolling yellow-headed vagrant picked up at random on a
-bridge, but a gentlewoman in education and means and manners. Man, you
-should see her teeth when she smiles!”
-
-“Archie,” replied David, solemnly, “I should think your own better
-instincts might prompt you to recall that you’ve only been a widower
-four months.”
-
-“Four months?--Four hundred years!” cried the Earl, stoutly. He reached
-round and replenished his glass. “It is with the greatest difficulty
-that I recall any detail of the matrimonial state. Already the memory of
-my first pair of breeks is infinitely fresher to me than any of it.
-In another week or so the last vestige of a recollection of it will be
-clean gone. And a good riddance, too!”
-
-“It was an ill thought to remind you of it,” admitted Mosscrop. “Devil
-take all women--or all but one----”
-
-“And she black-haired,” interposed the Earl.
-
-“Deuce seize them all but two, then, for the rest of the night. Where
-have you been the long year-and-a-half, Archie?”
-
-“Just looking about me,” replied the other, with nonchalance.
-“Bechuanaland for a time, but it’s sore overrated. Then I had a shy
-at the Gaboon country, but there’s a conspiracy among the niggers to
-protect the gorilla--I think he’s a sort of uncle of theirs--and a white
-man can do no good by himself. I thought there might be some decent
-sport over in Brazil, where they advertised a revolution on, and I tried
-to travel around with the rebels for a while, but it wasn’t up to much.
-You brought down an occasional half-breed Portugueser with epaulettes
-on, but you couldn’t eat ’em, and you didn’t want ’em stuffed at any
-price; and besides, when you came to find out, the whole war was merely
-a fight between two firms of coffee-traders in New York, and that wasn’t
-good enough. I tell you what, though,” he went on, with more animation,
-“Arizona is damned good fun. I haven’t seen anything better anywhere
-than a good, square cattle-lifter hunt. They got up three or four, just
-on my account, I imagine, after they found I could ride, and shoot at a
-gallop. The charm of the thing is that there’s no close season for
-cattle-thieves, and they’re game to the death, I tell you. I got potted
-twice, and once they let daylight straight through me. I had to lie up
-for repairs for nearly three weeks. They went and hung the fellow while
-I was in bed. We had words about that. I insisted it wasn’t
-sportsmanlike--and that they ought to have given him a horse, and then
-sprung him out of a trap or something of that sort, and let him have a
-run for his money, the same as we do with rabbits that the ferrets bring
-up. But they couldn’t see it, and so I turned it up and came North.
-They’ll ruin the whole thing, though, if they don’t chuck that foolish
-hanging business. The first thing they know, everybody’ll stop running
-off cattle, just as a protest, and then their place won’t be worth
-living in. It’ll be a pity, because a cow-boy gone wrong is really the
-best thing there is. He’s as good as a Bengal tiger and a Russian wolf
-together, with a grizzly bear thrown in. You may quote me as saying so.”
-
-“I shall not fail to do so,” said David. “Come, drink up your liquor,
-and we’ll toddle. I’m fair glad to see you back whole and sound,
-laddie--and more still, a free man.”
-
-He brought forth from the bedroom a pillow and some blankets, and began
-arranging them upon the sofa. “And are the Americans so daft about lords
-and titles as they’re made out?” he asked as he worked. “Did they humble
-themselves before the handle to your name?”
-
-Drumpipes sat up. “Do you suppose I’m such an abandoned ass as to travel
-with a title?” he demanded. “Man, if you knew what it cost me, even
-without it, it would turn your hair grey. Ten dollars here, twenty
-dollars there, seven dollars and a-half somewhere else--one steady and
-endless drain on the purse, till the marvel is I was able to get out
-at all! And there’s no third-class on the railways whatever. It’s just
-terrible, Davie! And as ill-luck would have it, I couldn’t even come
-home steerage on the steamer. There were passengers that I knew in the
-first cabin, and so I had to throw away more money there. And I’m not
-like you--I’ve no ten-pound notes to spare for my day’s amusement.”
-
-“No, you’re not like me,” responded Moss-crop, in no sympathetic tone.
-“I have my magnificent £432 per annum, which is over eight guineas a
-week. And you--you have only a paltry four thousand odd, not more than
-ten times as much. I wonder you’ve kept off the rates so long, Archie.”
-
-“Ah, I know all that,” protested the Earl. “But you have no damned
-position to keep up. You must remember that, Davie, It’s a very
-important fact. It makes all the difference in the world.”
-
-“But you only keep it up in your own mind, and that’s not an expensive
-place. There’s been no year since I first knew you, either as Master of
-Linkhaw or since you came into the whole of it, that you’ve spent
-the half of your income. To hear you talk, one would think you’d been
-scattering your capital as well with both hands.”
-
-“Ah, but those lawyers’ bills, Davie! What think you now should they be
-like? Six hundred, eh? Or may be seven?”
-
-“You’ll know soon enough. I’ll not encourage you to pass a sleepless
-night. Come now. You’ve got things in your bag here, haven’t you? I can
-let you have whatever you lack.”
-
-“No, you keep your bed. I’ll sleep out here,” said Drumpipes. “I’m a
-deal more used to roughing it than you are. I give you my word, I shall
-sleep here like a top.”
-
-Mosscrop strove to resist, but his friend was resolute, and the sofa had
-to be surrendered to him. He rose, yawning, and began to throw off his
-outer garments. “I’ve paid as high as eleven shillings for a bedroom for
-one night in New York city!” he affirmed, drowsily, “although, to give
-the Devil his due, they make no charge for candles and soap. Man, if
-they’d known I was an Earl, they’d have lifted all seven of my skins.”
-
-“Oh, but they have a reputation for acumen,” urged Mosscrop, drily.
-“They’d have comprehended fine that you were but a Scotch Earl. Good
-night!”
-
-*****
-
-The broad daylight woke David up nearly an hour later than it should
-have done. He had produced upon himself during the night an impression
-of sleeping very little--and that a light and dainty slumber, ready and
-eager on the instant of need to dissolve into utter wakefulness. Yet it
-was the fact, none the less, that he had ingloriously overslept himself.
-The watch on his table pointed to halfpast eight.
-
-He hurriedly drew on some of his garments, and stepped into the
-sitting-room to rouse the Earl. To his great surprise that nobleman had
-disappeared. The tumbled bed-clothes showed where he had slept. There
-was his hand-bag, duly packed and closed, at the foot of the sofa.
-
-Reasoning that Drumpipes had not promised to breakfast, and was a
-perverse creature anyway, and probably had been worried by early
-brooding over those lawyers’ bills into a restless mood, Mosscrop
-returned to his room, and completed the work of dressing. He shaved with
-exceptional care, and bestowed thought upon the selection of a neck-tie.
-It occurred to him that he had some better clothes than those he had
-worn yesterday, and, though he begrudged the time, the temptation to
-make the change was irresistible. He did not regret yielding, when he
-surveyed his full-length image in the mirror on his wardrobe door. He
-seemed to himself to look years younger than he had done before that
-momentous birthday. He smiled and nodded knowingly at the happy and
-confident face in the glass.
-
-Under the circumstances, he should need help with the breakfast. The
-midnight notion of getting everything ready before he called his guest,
-submitted to abandonment without a murmur. He reverted joyfully to the
-original idea of letting her share all the delightful fun of preparing
-the meal. His fancy played with sportive tenderness about the picture
-of her, here in his tiny scullery which served as a kitchen, her sleeves
-rolled up, a towel pinned round her waist for an apron, actually cooking
-things for them both to eat. Very likely he knew more about that sort of
-thing than she did; he beheld himself giving her instructions, as they
-bent together over the big gas cooking-stove. Could anything be more
-deliciously homelike than that?
-
-That contrary, cross-grained Drumpipes had predicted that the whole
-thing would seem ridiculous to him in the morning. He affirmed to
-himself with fervour that it seemed more charming than ever as he went
-out into the passage, and knocked on the opposite door.
-
-There seemed to be no answering sound, and he struck the panel more
-sharply, with his ear lowered to the keyhole. Still no response came.
-
-“I am going to Covent Garden for a few minutes,” he called through the
-keyhole; “shall I find you ready to help me when I get back?”
-
-Since this, too, brought no reply, he took out his duplicate key and
-cautiously opened the door. The question, repeated in a much louder
-tone, died away in profound silence. The glass eyes of a moose on the
-wall opposite stared at him with an uncomfortable fixity.
-
-The bedroom door was ajar, and David was emboldened to stride forward
-and beat smartly on it with his fist. Again he did this, and then,
-while a strange excitement welled upward within him--or was it a sinking
-movement instead?--flung the door open and looked in.
-
-There was no Vestalia here at all!
-
-The details that the bed was neatly made up, that the room showed no
-trace of recent occupancy, and that the dressing-bag was gone, soaked
-themselves vaguely through his mind. He looked about, both in this and
-the outer apartment, for a message of some kind, quite in vain.
-
-His pained attention wandered again in haphazard fashion to the head of
-the moose, fastened between two windows. The fatuous emptiness of its
-point-blank gaze suddenly infuriated him, and he dealt its foolishly
-elongated snout a resounding whack with his open hand. The huge trophy
-toppled under the blow, swung half-loose on its fastening, then pitched
-with a crash to the floor.
-
-Mosscrop kicked it violently again and again where it lay.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIL
-
-
-Mosscrop had not the heart to breakfast alone in his deserted lodgings.
-
-The impulse to get away mastered him on the instant of its appearance.
-He strode forth as if delay were fraught with sore perils. At a shabby
-luncheon-bar in the Strand below he consumed a cup of abominable
-coffee and a dry sausage-roll in the same nervous haste. The barmaid in
-attendance was known to him. She annoyed him now by displaying in her
-manner the assumption that he wished to laugh and joke with her as
-usual. He glowered at her instead, and met her advances to conversation
-with a curt nod.
-
-“You must have got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning,” she
-commented loftily.
-
-“Very likely,” he answered with cold brevity, counting out the necessary
-coppers and turning on his heel.
-
-Outside he seemed to himself to choose the direction of his steps quite
-at random. He walked slowly, trying to fasten his brain down to the task
-of conjecturing what on earth it all meant. Alas, his mind was as empty
-as those desolate rooms up at the top of Dunstan’s Inn. The power
-of coherent speculation had left him. It was hardly possible even
-to arrange in decent sequence the details of what had happened. An
-indefinitely sweeping rage at destiny in general oppressed all his
-faculties. He muttered meaningless oaths under his breath as he went
-along, directed at an intangible “it” which was equally without form
-and personality, a mere abstract symbol of the universal beastliness of
-things.
-
-The notion of cursing Vestalia did not suggest itself. So far as he
-had any intelligible thoughts about her, they were instinctively
-exculpatory. She seemed indeed to have behaved stupidly, but it must
-have been under a misapprehension of some sort. Something perverse had
-happened to lead her off into a foolish course of action. He resolutely
-declined to open his mind to any other view of her. She must have
-quitted the Inn for some reason which wholly satisfied her sense of
-honourable conduct. What was this reason? Had she conjured it up out of
-her own meditations, or had it been furnished to her from an external
-source?
-
-All at once he stopped short, mental and bodily progress alike arrested
-by a striking thought. “Damn _him!_” he murmured to himself, as he
-turned this new idea over. How that it had come to him, he fairly
-marvelled at the dulness which had failed to discover it at the
-beginning. It was as plain as the nose on one’s face--the Earl had
-bidden Vestalia to begone. “Ah, that miserly, meddling fool of a
-Drumpipes!” he groaned, between clenched teeth.
-
-This laying bare of the mystery brought no consolation. The day was as
-irretrievably ruined, the tender little romance as ruthlessly crushed,
-as ever. A certain doubtful solace seemed to offer itself in the shape
-of a quarrel with Drumpipes, but Mosscrop shook his head despondently at
-it. What good would that do? And for that matter, how should one go to
-work to quarrel with that tough-hided, fatuous, conceited, dense-witted,
-imperturbable, and impenetrable idiot? He would never even perceive
-that the attempt was being made. David piled up in reverie the loathly
-epithets upon the over-large bald head of his friend with a savage
-satisfaction. “You preposterous clown!” he snarled at the burly blond
-image of the absent nobleman in his mind’s eye. “You gratuitous and
-wanton ass! Oh, you unthinkable duffer!”
-
-And somehow there was after all a kind of relief in these comminatory
-exercises. The dim light of a possible diversion began to filter through
-the storm-cloud of Mosscrop’s wrath. He was still bitterly depressed,
-and furious as well, of course, but self-possession was returning to
-him, and with it the capacity for planning and ordering his movements.
-It occurred to him that he ought to do something to turn his thoughts
-temporarily at least from this world-weary sadness.
-
-Up on the opposite corner his eye caught the legend “Savoy Street.” He
-stared at the small sign, perched above the dingy brick cornice of the
-first-floor, for a moment with an unreflecting gaze. Then he turned
-and walked briskly down the steep hillside thoroughfare, and into the
-courtyard of the great hotel which, like the street and the quarter,
-commemorates in its name the first of a long and steadfast line of needy
-Continental princes whose maintenance the British tax-payer has found
-himself fated to provide.
-
-At the desk, he wrote out a card and sent it up as an accompaniment to
-the inquiry whether Mr. Laban Skinner was in or not.
-
-No, it was reported presently; Mr. Skinner had gone out--but the young
-lady was in.
-
-David pondered this unexpected intelligence. “Did she tell you that she
-was in?” he asked the boy, suspiciously.
-
-Yes; she had done so.
-
-Mosscrop discovered that he had been quite unprepared for this. He knit
-his brows and ruminated upon it. His impression had been at the time
-that the girl disliked him, or at least disliked the proposition
-which her absurd father had made. It seemed to him, moreover, that he
-disliked, her in turn. She had stared rudely at poor Vestalia--but
-then it should be remembered in fairness that all women did that to one
-another. Her attitude towards him had been ostentatiously apathetic,
-almost to the point of insolence; and yet he recalled that in that
-moment when he had caught her unawares, she had been displaying a
-notable interest in what was going on. The notion that there had been
-a sort of challenge underlying the mask of studied indifference she had
-presented to him returned to his mind. And he still needed diversion,
-too, as much as ever.
-
-“If you will show the way,” he said to the boy at this juncture.
-
-The lift bore them a long distance upward, quite to the roof it seemed.
-David formed the impression that rents must be cheap at that altitude;
-hut when he took the first glance round the sitting-room into which he
-found himself presently ushered, the idea vanished.
-
-It was a large and imposingly-appointed room, exhaling, as it were, an
-effect of high-priced luxury. The broad windows at the front came down
-to the floor, and opened upon a balcony. There were awnings hung outside
-to ward off the sunshine, and this threw the whole apartment into a
-mellow twilight, contrasting sharply with the brightness of the corridor
-Mosscrop had just quitted.
-
-He looked about him, hesitatingly, to make sure that there really was
-no one in the room. The glimpse of some white drapery fluttering against
-the edge of a chair out on the balcony caught his eye, and he moved
-across to the nearest open window. The noble prospect of the Thames
-viewed from this height impressed itself with great vividness upon his
-mind, even in advance of his perception that he had indeed found Miss
-Skinner. He looked downward with a gaze which embraced both the girl
-and the river, and for a moment they preserved an equally unconscious
-aspect.
-
-The young lady then lifted her head, sidewise, and acknowledged
-Mosscrop’s presence by a slow drooping movement of her black lashes.
-“How do you do?” she remarked, placidly. “Bring out a chair for
-yourself.”
-
-He did as he was told, and seated himself near the balustrade, so that
-he partially faced her; but he looked again at the wonderful picture
-below, to collect his thoughts.
-
-“I had no idea it was so magnificent up here,” he said at last.
-
-“Indeed,” commented his companion. It was impossible to say whether the
-remark was in the nature of an exclamation or an inquiry. Mosscrop found
-himself compelled to glance up, if only to determine this open question.
-
-The realisation that she was extremely well worth looking at swept over
-him like a flood, at the instant of his lifting his eyes. It suited her
-to be hare-headed, and to wear just the creamy white cashmere house-gown
-that he beheld her in. The glossy plaits and masses of her hair were
-wonderful. In the softened, tinted half-shadow of the awning her dark
-skin glowed with a dusky radiance which fascinated him. Her mien was as
-imperious as ever, but it suggested now an empress disposed to play, a
-sultana whose inclination was for amusement.
-
-“Did you come up to see the view? I daresay it is even better from the
-leads. You call them leads here, don’t you? Your novels always do, I
-know.”
-
-This speech of hers, languidly delivered, had its impertinent side,
-without doubt, but Mosscrop caught in its tone a not unamiable
-intention. She did not smile in response to the puzzled questioning of
-his swift glance, but he convinced himself none the less that it was a
-pleasantry. He noted in this instant of confused speculation that she
-had a book in her lap--a large, red-covered volume with much gilt on the
-binding--and that she kept a finger in it to mark some particular place.
-
-“Your father was good enough to ask me to call,” he reminded her, with
-gentleness.
-
-“I asked for him, and I----”
-
-“You are disappointed to find him out?” Yes; there could be no doubt she
-was amusing herself. “Oh, that depends,” ventured David, with temerity.
-
-The girl surveyed him at her leisure. “If I remember aright,” she
-said, “you were invited conditionally. You were to come, or rather to
-communicate with us, if you decided to close with my father’s offer. So
-I suppose you’ve made up your mind to accept.”
-
-“Well, I should like to talk more about it; get a clearer idea of what
-was proposed.”
-
-“My father takes great pains in expressing himself. I should have said
-his explanation was as full as anything could well be on this earth.”
-
-“To speak frankly,” replied David, “I got the idea that you didn’t care
-much about your father’s scheme--in fact, that you disliked it. That’s
-what I wanted to be clear about. It would be ridiculous for me to be
-going round, delivering instructive lectures to you on antiquities and
-ruins and so forth, and you hating me all the while for a bore and a
-nuisance. It would place us both in a false position.”
-
-“And you can’t stand false positions, eh?”
-
-Mosscrop rose. “I’m afraid I can’t stand this one, at all events,” he
-answered, with dignified brevity.
-
-“Oh, you mustn’t think of going!” his hostess protested, with a
-momentary ring of animation in her voice. “My father’s liable to return
-any minute, and he’d be greatly put out to find he’d missed you.”
-
-“I could wait for him in the reception room downstairs,” he suggested,
-moodily--“or, for that matter, I don’t know that it’s very important
-that we should meet at all.”
-
-“I don’t call that a bit polite,” she commented.
-
-“I’m afraid your standards of politeness are beyond me,” he began,
-formally. Then the absurdity of the thing struck him, and he grinned in
-a reluctant fashion. “Do you really want me to stay?” he asked, with the
-spirit of banter in his tone.
-
-“Oh that depends,” she mocked back at him. “If you can be amusing, yes.”
-
-“Just how amusing must I be?” He propped into his chair again, and this
-time laid his hat aside.
-
-“Oh, say as much so as you were yesterday with the young lady of the
-butter-coloured hair. I think that would about fill the bill.”
-
-Mosscrop ground his teeth with swift annoyance. Then he chuckled in
-a mood of saturnine mirth. Finally he sighed, and dolefully shook his
-head.
-
-“Ah, yesterday!” he mourned, drawing a still deeper breath.
-
-“You were extremely entertaining, then,” pursued the other, ignoring
-his emotions. “Do you find yourself--as a usual thing, I mean--varying a
-good deal from day to day? I ask entirely from curiosity. I’ve never met
-anyone before in precisely your position.”
-
-“No, I should think not!” he assented, with gloomy emphasis. “I can
-well believe that my position is unique in the history of mankind. Such
-grotesque luck could scarcely repeat itself. But I beg your pardon--it
-isn’t a thing that would interest you; I had no business to mention it
-at all.”
-
-“It was I who mentioned it, I believe,” she corrected him calmly.
-
-There was obvious meaning in her insistence. He looked up at her in
-vague surprise, the while he mentally retraced the steps by which
-the conversation had reached this point. There was undoubtedly a very
-knowing expression in her eyes. Clearly she had meant to associate
-Vestalia with what she described as his position--the position which
-she deemed so unusual; it was equally plain that she desired him to
-understand that she did so. It was impossible that she should know
-anything of what had happened. He searched his memory, and made sure
-that no personal hint of any sort had drifted into that rambling
-discourse of his in the Assyrian corridors, which the Americans had more
-or less overheard. What then was she talking about?
-
-Ah, what indeed? She lay back in her chair, and met his gaze of
-bewildered interrogation with a fine show of composure. She looked
-at him tranquilly through lazy, halfclosed eyelids. His suspicions
-discerned beneath the passive surface of this regard animated
-under-currents of ironical amusement and triumph. There was nothing
-overt upon which he could found the challenge to an explanation, but as
-he continued to scrutinise her, he could fancy that her whole presence
-radiated the suggestion of repressed glee. Whatever the mystery might
-be, she was extracting great delight from her possession of a clue to
-it.
-
-“Yes, it _was_ you who mentioned my position,” he remarked, groping
-lamely for some sure footing on which to redress his disadvantage. “I
-don’t know that! quite follow you; wherein do you find my position, as
-you term it, so exceptional?
-
-“You yourself have boasted that it couldn’t be matched in all history,”
- she reminded him. Her tone was casual enough, but the sense of sport
-began to gleam unmistakably in her eyes.
-
-“Now you argue in a circle,” he remonstrated, with a shade of
-professional acerbity in his voice. “Your remark came before mine, and
-hence cannot possibly have been based upon my subsequent comment. If
-I may be permitted the observation, they seem to teach logic but
-indifferently in the United States.”
-
-“Oh, that is why we came here,” retorted the girl, with ostentatious
-_naïveté_. The conceit pleased her so much that she bent forward, and
-assumed the manner of one communicating an important fact. “That is why
-I had my father make you an offer at once. You know, most professors,
-and teachers, and so on, are so hard to understand. But the moment I
-laid eyes on you I said, ‘There’s a man that I can see through as if he
-were plate-glass; I can read him like a book.’ And, of course, that must
-be the most valuable of all qualities in an instructor.”
-
-“So I am entirely transparent, am I? I present no secrets to your
-gaze?” Mosscrop spoke like one in whom pique and a sense of the comical
-struggled for mastery. “Then I cannot do better than beg you to tell me
-some things about myself. Why, for example, do I sit here patiently and
-submit to be laughed at, heckled, satirised, and generally bully-ragged
-by a young lady, whose title to do these things is not in the least
-apparent to me?”
-
-“Why, don’t you remember? You’re waiting for papa.”
-
-“And incidentally providing his offspring, in the _interim_, with
-much harmless and chaste entertainment,” put in Mosscrop, drily. “I am
-charmed to have diverted you so successfully. It occurs to me, since you
-are so readily amused, that you must have been wofully bored before I
-made my happy appearance.”
-
-“Oh, quite the contrary,” exclaimed the girl, with a sudden stress in
-her tone, which hinted that this was what she had been waiting for. She
-opened the volume, as she spoke, at the place marked by her finger. “I
-was reading in the Peerage, you know. It is a most entrancing book. I am
-never dull when I am reading about earls and things.”
-
-“I have heard that the work enjoys a remarkable popularity in your
-country,” David remarked, sourly.
-
-“There is such romance in it!” she went on, in mock rhapsody; “it makes
-such appeals to the imagination! It puts you at once in an atmosphere
-of chivalry, of knightly adventures and exploits, of tournaments and
-chain-armour, and courts of love----”
-
-“And of divorce, and bankruptcy, too,” he interposed. “Don’t forget
-those.”
-
-The girl looked grave for a moment, and nodded her head as if in
-relenting apology. Then she recovered her high spirits by as swift a
-transition.
-
-“And such splendid old names as you get, too!” she continued, with her
-eyes on the open page. “Listen to this, for example. Could anything be
-finer?”
-
-_DRUMPIPES, Earl of. (Sir Archibald-Coro-nach-Dugal-Strathspey-Malcolm-
-Linkhaw) Viscount Dunfugle of Inverdummie, and Baron Pilliewillie of
-Slug-Angus, Morayshire, all in the peerage of Scotland, and a Baronet of
-Nova Scotia. Born August 24th, 1866. Succeeded his grandfather as 19th
-Earl January 10th, 1888. Married May 2nd, 1890, Janet-Eustasia-Marjory,
-3rd daughter of the Master of Craigie-whaup by his wife, the Hon.
-Tryphena Pincock (who deceased March 6th, 1879), elder daughter of the
-4th Baron Dubb of Kilwhissel. Seat, Skirl Castle, near Lossiewink,
-Elgin. Club, Wanderers._
-
-She read it all with marked deliberation and distinctness of utterance.
-When she finished, silence reigned for some time on the balcony.
-
-“Well, am I not right?” she asked at last, lifting her head, and
-flashing the full richness of her black eyes into Mosscrop’s face.
-“Don’t you admit the inspiration of such names?”
-
-David answered in a hesitating, dubious manner. “I am more curious about
-the source--and scope--of _your_ inspiration,” he said.
-
-“Unhappily, it cannot be pretended that _you_ are transparent. You
-confront me with an opacity against which my feeble wits beat in vain. I
-can see that it is known to you that I know Drumpipes. But why this fact
-should assume in your mind such portentous and mysterious dimensions,
-and why you should treat it with the air of one who has unearthed
-a great conspiracy, a terrible secret, I can’t for the life of me
-comprehend.”
-
-“Ah, you are more complicated than I had thought,” she replied. “I did
-not imagine you would keep up the defence so long.”
-
-“Me?--a defence? never,” cried David, incited in some vague way by this
-remark to an accession of assurance. “I defend nothing. I surrender with
-eagerness. I roll myself at your feet, Miss Skinner. All I crave in
-return is that you will put a label on my submission. It may be weak,
-but I should dearly like to know what it is that I am abandoning.”
-
-“What I should suggest that you give up is your attempt to deceive
-me--us--as to your identity.”
-
-“Ah! am I indeed someone else, then? Upon my word, I can’t congratulate
-the other fellow.”
-
-“You wrote your name down for my father yesterday, and again on this
-card here this morning, as Mosscrop--David Mosscrop.”
-
-He assented by a nod, and allowed the beginnings of an abashed and
-contrite look to gather upon his face.
-
-“Well, it just happened that, the moment I first laid eyes on you, I
-knew who you really were. By the merest accident, your picture had been
-shown to me--by a gentleman who knows you intimately, and is indeed
-distantly related to you--on shipboard coming over. I recognised you
-instantly, there in the Museum, and I made papa speak to you. I was
-curious to see what you would say and do.”
-
-“I’m afraid you were disappointed. Did you think I would shout and
-dance, or what?” He struggled with some degree of success to speak
-impassively.
-
-“I had never met any one before in your position in life, and I had the
-whim to experiment on my own account.” She said this as if defending her
-action to herself more than to her auditor.
-
-“And may I have my little whim gratified too?” he asked. “I am extremely
-curious to know how you like your experiment as far as you have got with
-it.”
-
-She did not answer immediately, and he occupied the interval by an
-earnest mental scuffle after some clue to what she was driving at. He
-knew of no man who possessed his portrait--at least among those who went
-down to the sea in ships. He had had no photograph taken for years,
-to begin with. A distant relation of his, she had said, and on a very
-recent voyage from America. Who the deuce could it be? What acquaintance
-of his had been of late in America? All at once the answer leaped upward
-in his mind. He laughed aloud, with an abruptness which took him
-not less than his companion by surprise. But then a puzzled scowl
-overshadowed the grin on his countenance. He saw a little way farther
-into the millstone, but that was all.
-
-“I hope you don’t regret your experiment,” he repeated. “It would
-have been simpler, perhaps, if your father had mentioned that you
-were friends of Mr. Linkhaw’s. That in itself would have been an ample
-introduction.”
-
-“Perhaps we should have done so, had you been alone.” Her tone was cool
-to the verge of haughtiness.
-
-He rapidly considered what this might mean. Her remark clearly indicated
-that Vestalia’s presence had seemed to her reprehensible. Why? There
-was some intricacy here which he could not fathom. That confounded
-Drumpipes had told her--what? Eureka! He had it! The picture that she
-had seen was a little cheap ambrotype of Drumpipes and himself, standing
-together, which had been made by a poor devil of a wayside photographer,
-two Derby days before. Undoubtedly that was what the Earl had shown
-her--the only one he could have shown her. And--why of course--Drumpipes
-had pointed him, David, out as the Earl. What his motive could have
-been, heaven only knew, but this was palpably the key to the riddle.
-
-He grasped this key with decision, on the instant. He straightened
-himself, frowned a little, and laboriously stiffened the tell-tale
-muscles about his mouth.
-
-“I don’t think I quite like this notion of Linkhaw’s babbling about me
-and my affairs,” he said, with austerity.
-
-“Oh, I assure you,” she protested, anxiously, “he was very cautious. He
-only gave the most sparing answers to my questions. I had to literally
-drag things from him.”
-
-“But what business had he showing my picture about to begin with? He
-shall hear what I think of it! Men’s allowances have been stopped for
-less than that.”
-
-“It will be very unjust indeed if you visit it upon him,” the girl
-urged, almost tremulously; “it was all my fault. I asked him one day
-if he had ever met a nobleman, and he, quite as a matter of course,
-mentioned that one of his own relatives was an Earl. One day, later, he
-was showing me a little tin-type of himself, and he merely said that you
-were the other person in the picture, that was all.”
-
-“And then you proceeded to drag things from him. I believe that was your
-phrase,” remarked David, in a severe tone. The sensation of having this
-proud and insolent beauty in a tremor of entreaty before him was very
-delightful.
-
-“Naturally, I asked him questions,” she replied, with a little more
-spirit. “Earls don’t grow on every bush with us. And for that matter,
-why, goodness me! he did nothing but praise you from morning till night.
-By his account, one would think butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. He
-made you out a regular saint. I was quite prepared to see you with a
-halo round your head--and instead, I----”
-
-She stopped short, with a confused and deprecatory smile. David, noting
-it, rejoiced that he had taken a peremptory tone about the garrulous
-Linkhaw.
-
-“Instead, you discovered that I was a mere flesh and blood mortal like
-the rest.” He permitted himself to unbend, and even to smile a little,
-as he furnished this conclusion to her sentence. “Was it a very painful
-disillusionment?”
-
-“Oh, I’ve read and heard enough about the lives that your class lead
-here in Europe,” she replied, with a marked reversion toward her former
-manner. “I don’t pretend that I was really surprised.”
-
-David assumed a judicial expression. “Considering the way we are brought
-up, and the temptations that are thrust upon us,” he said, impartially,
-“I would not say that we are so much worse than other men.”
-
-“But you are pretty bad--that you must admit.”
-
-Before David had satisfactorily framed the admission expected of him,
-the sound of an opening door and of footsteps came from within.
-
-“It is papa,” whispered the girl, leaning forward in a confidential
-manner. “I’m going to tell him.”
-
-“I see no valid objection,” answered David, with dignity.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-
-As the balcony was too small for another chair, and Mr. Skinner did not
-come to the window, his daughter led her guest into the sitting-room.
-
-“Papa,” she said, “you will recall the gentleman whom we met yesterday
-at the British Museum.”
-
-Mr. Skinner lifted to its place the _pince-nez_ which depended on a
-gold thread from the lapel of his carefully-buttoned frock-coat, and
-scrutinised the person indicated in a painstaking manner.
-
-“Ah, yes, indeed,” he said, continuing his gaze, but with no salutation,
-and no offer of the hand.
-
-“It’s so dark in here, I don’t believe you do,” she remarked, to cover
-the awkwardness of the moment. “The sun has gone now, any way,” and she
-moved back and put a hand upon the awning-cord.
-
-“Permit me,” said David, hurrying to her side, and pulling at the shade.
-
-“He’s out of sorts about something,” the girl murmured furtively. “Don’t
-mind it; just leave him to me.”
-
-In the brightened light, Mr. Skinner’s demeanour seemed no more cordial.
-He regarded his visitor with a doubtful glance, and gave indications of
-a sense of embarrassment in his presence. The daughter, however, was in
-no respect dismayed by her responsibility.
-
-“Papa,” she said with brisk decision, “it was all a joke yesterday. Our
-friend was so amused by your offer yesterday----”
-
-“I beg your pardon, Adele,” the father interposed ceremoniously, “but it
-becomes immediately incumbent upon me to express my dissent. To obviate
-any possible misconception, it should be explicitly stated that,
-although it is true that the task of formulating the proposal to which
-you allude did undoubtedly devolve upon me, the proposition itself, both
-in spirit and suggestion, originated in your own consciousness.”
-
-“All right,” she hurriedly went on, “have it anyway you like. The point
-is that this gentleman thought it was funny, and so he capped it with
-his own little joke by pretending to be some one else. He made up that
-name he gave you on the spur of the moment, just for sport. He came
-here this morning, just to explain. He was nervous about the deception,
-innocent though it was. Papa, let me introduce to you Mr. Linkhaw’s
-relation, of whom he spoke so often, you know--the Earl of Drumpipes.”
-
-Mr. Skinner took in this intelligence with respectful deliberation. He
-bowed meanwhile, and, after a moment’s deferential hesitation, shook
-hands in a formal way with David, and motioned him to a seat.
-
-“Sir,” he began, picking his phrases with even greater care, “you will
-excuse me if I do not address you as ‘My Lord,’ since it is a form of
-words which I cannot bring myself to regard as seemly when employed
-by one human being toward another; but I gather from my daughter’s
-explanation that your statements yesterday concerning your identity were
-conceived in a spirit of pleasantry. Under ordinary circumstances, sir,
-the revelation that an entirely serious and decorous suggestion of
-mine had been received with hilarity might not convey to my mind an
-exclusively flattering impression. But I do not, sir, close my eyes
-to the fact that a wide gulf of usage and custom, and, I might say, of
-principles, separates a simple Jeffersonian Democrat like myself from
-the professor of an hereditary European dignity. I am therefore able,
-sir, to accept, with comparatively few reservations, the explanation
-which you have tendered to my daughter, and vicariously, as I understand
-it, to me.”
-
-David repressed a groan, and hastily cast about in his mind for a decent
-pretext for flight. “I assure you that it greatly relieves me to find
-you so courteously magnanimous,” he said. “I merely yielded to the
-playful impulse of the moment; and as your daughter has so kindly
-told you, I made haste thereafter to repair my error, when its possible
-misinterpretation occurred to me.” He bowed again, in response to the
-other’s solemn genuflection, and looked toward the door.
-
-“I should be pleased, sir,” Mr. Skinner said, “if you would honour us by
-remaining to luncheon.”
-
-“Ah, I should have liked that so much,” answered David, with fervour,
-“but unhappily I have an engagement at Marlborough House. It will be no
-end of a bore, but it can’t be helped. An invitation there, you know, is
-equivalent to a command. That is one of the drawbacks of a monarchy--but
-of course every system has its weak points.”
-
-“That is a generalisation,” returned Mr. Skinner, “to which I am not
-prepared to give unmeasured adhesion. I will explain to you, sir,
-briefly, the reasons which dictate my hesitation to entirely----”
-
-“I’m afraid, Mr. Skinner, that I must tear myself away,” put in David,
-anxiously consulting his watch. “The Prince never forgives a fellow
-being late. He has to live so much on a time-table himself, you know,
-forever catching trains, and changing his uniforms, and turning up at
-the exact minute all over the place, laying corner-stones, and opening
-docks and unveiling statues, and so on, that it makes him intolerant of
-other people’s lapses. And he’s got a fearful memory for that sort of
-thing.”
-
-“I assume that you speak of the Heir Apparent,” commented the other. “Am
-I to understand that you live in a state of personal subjection--that a
-nobleman in your position, for example, contemplates with apprehension
-the contingency of causing even the most trivial and transitory
-displeasure to the personage alluded to?”
-
-“Apprehension, my dear sir? Positive horror! Ah, you little know the
-reality! Thoughtless people see us from the outside, and they lightly
-imagine that our lives are one ceaseless round of luxurious gaiety and
-gilded pleasure. They fancy that to have titles, to bear hereditary
-distinctions, to fill high places at Court, must be the sum of human
-happiness. Of course, I suppose we do have a better time than the
-average, but we pay a price for it. We smile, it is true, but there
-is always a shudder beneath the smile. A mere breath, a suspicion, the
-veriest paltry whim of royal disfavour, and we might better never have
-been born! And so,” he finished with an uneasy graciousness, “you will
-understand my abrupt leavetaking now.”
-
-“I promise myself on another occasion, sir,” said Mr. Skinner, with more
-warmth, “the privilege of discussing these topics with you at length. I
-do not deny that I am myself, to-day, somewhat preoccupied, and lacking
-in the power of intellectual concentration. Another occasion, I trust,
-will find me better fitted to bestow upon these subjects the alertness
-of comprehension and clarity of judgment which their importance demands.
-At the moment, I confess my mind is burdened with another matter.”
-
-“O, papa--you haven’t gone and lost your letter of credit!” The girl
-intervened with accents of alarm.
-
-The old gentleman shook his head, and smiled in a dubious fashion. “No,”
- he replied, hesitatingly, “it is merely that I--I have been enjoined to
-secrecy about a very curious and interesting revelation which has
-been made to me, and concealment is profoundly alien to my nature. The
-necessity for maintaining a mysterious reserve weighs upon me, sir, with
-unaccustomed oppression.”
-
-“It is something that you have learned this morning?” demanded the
-daughter. “I’ll make you tell me as soon as we’re alone.”
-
-“Ah, that cannot be,” the father answered. “My faith has been honourably
-pledged, and must be scrupulously observed.”
-
-“But surely it couldn’t have been stipulated that _I_ was not to know,”
- she urged. “That would be absurd. And besides, who knows of even my
-existence over here?”
-
-“Incomprehensible as it may appear to your perceptions,” responded Mr.
-Skinner, “it happens that you were particularly alluded to in the terms
-of the confidential compact imposed upon me.”
-
-“Then you had no business to enter into it at all,” she replied,
-vigorously. “Papa, I am surprised at you!”
-
-There was something in his thoughts which lit the old gentleman’s dry
-countenance with a transient gleam of enjoyment. “I hazard the humble
-opinion that your surprise will be appreciably augmented when, at the
-proper time, the truth shall have been revealed to you.” He turned, with
-the flicker-ings of a whimsical smile in his eye, to their guest. “It
-is an extraordinary coincidence, sir; but you are also in a manner
-associated with the occult event to which I may not at present more
-pointedly refer.”
-
-David musingly looked the old gentleman in the eye. “Yes, I know,” he
-answered; “but I agree with you that it should not be divulged to your
-daughter. As you have said, we men of the world are in duty bound to
-keep a decent veil drawn over certain phases of life. I am quite
-with you in that, sir; we cannot sufficiently respect and guard the
-sweet-minded innocence of our young ladies.”
-
-Mr. Skinner looked hard at the nobleman, and drew up his slender figure.
-“My memory, sir,” he announced stiffly, “fails to recall any observation
-resembling in the slightest degree, either in form or sentiments, that
-which you have ascribed to me. Forgive me, sir, if I venture to further
-remind you that I have no desire to regard myself, or to be regarded, as
-a man of the world, in the sense in which I understand that term to be
-used by the aristocratic class in Great Britain.”
-
-The young lady seemed to share her father’s feelings in the matter. “You
-must remember, Lord Drumpipes,” she put in, coldly, “that our standards
-in such things are not yours. I daresay it seems natural enough to one
-in your position, and with your antecedents and associations, that a
-venerable, white-haired old gentleman should have disgraceful secrets
-which he ought to conceal from his family; but we take a different view
-of the meaning of the word ‘gentleman,’ and of the obligations which it
-involves.”
-
-“Ah, now I have offended you!” cried David, with a show of remorse. “I
-assure you that my only thought was to help your good father out of
-a fix. If I have done wrong, I beg you will put it down to my
-overeagerness to be of assistance. And now,” he stole a dismayed glance
-at his watch, “now I really must run. Good-bye! Good-bye, Mr. Skinner.
-Remember that I count upon that famous discussion with you. And you
-may rely entirely upon my discretion--in the matter of your secret, you
-know.”
-
-Father and daughter stood for a moment, gazing at the door behind which
-their noble guest had disappeared. Then the girl turned her eyes with
-decision upon the author of her being.
-
-“Papa,” she said, with calm resolution, “what did he intend to convey by
-his remarks about this secret of yours?”
-
-“Why, Adele,” the other protested, faltering a little under her look,
-“you yourself repudiated, in the most eloquent and unanswerable words,
-the bare suggestion that I could possibly be animated by the desire to
-cloak any unworthy deed or incident from your observation.”
-
-“That was for _his_ benefit,” she replied, tranquilly. “I was determined
-that he should know what we thought of _his_ code of morals. But that
-does not at all affect the question of what you have been doing. Do I
-understand that you are going to insist on refusing to tell me where you
-have been, whom you have seen, what your so-called secret is about?”
-
-“Adele!” he urged, “I really must preserve a reticence as to the
-essential details of the matter in question--perhaps only for a few
-days--at least until the obligation of secrecy is removed. You would not
-have me recreant to my plighted faith, would you?”
-
-“But what business had you going and making her any such promise?”
-
-“Her!” Mr. Skinner said, feebly smiling; “you jest, my dear Adele. How
-can you conceivably imagine it was a ‘her’?”
-
-“I don’t imagine; I know,” responded the daughter, with a hard, dry
-smile. “You have been seeing that yellow-haired girl that Lord Drumpipes
-had with him at the Museum yesterday. The letter which summoned you
-forth this morning was from her. You made some paltering excuses to me,
-and went out to meet her--and you won’t look me in the eye and deny it.”
-
-In truth he did not take up her challenge. He hung his head, looked
-away, and shuffled with his feet. “All I am at liberty to say,” he
-remarked at last, with visible emotion, “is that my grief at being
-compelled to rest temporarily under the unwelcome shadow of your
-suspicion is, to some slight extent, mitigated by the consciousness that
-when you know all you will do ample justice to the probity of my motives
-and the honourable character of my actions. I might even go further, and
-express the conviction that the outcome will be of a nature to afford
-you unalloyed personal satisfaction.”
-
-“That may all be,” returned Adele; “but, in the meantime, you don’t go
-out in London any more by yourself!”
-
-*****
-
-Mosscrop laughed to himself as he ran down the stairs of the hotel.
-The spirit of mirth remained with him while he more slowly ascended the
-flight of steps, and the dingy passage and covered by-way leading up to
-the Strand. It was the most comical thing he had ever heard of, and he
-chuckled again and again during the climb. But upon the bustling crowded
-thoroughfare it somehow ceased to seem so funny, or at least its value
-as a source of entertainment began to diminish rapidly. He found his
-mind reverting irresistibly to the disappointment of the early morning.
-The image of Vestalia rose upon his mental vision, and would not go
-away. He brooded over it as he walked, and recognised that intervening
-incidents and personalities had in no sense dimmed his interest in it.
-He pictured her wonderful hair again, her bright-faced smile, her dear
-little airs and graces, with a yearning emptiness of heart.
-
-The luncheon obtainable at the Barbary Club was even more unpalatable
-than usual, which was saying much. The familiar fact that the waiters
-were Germans struck him afresh, and took on the proportions of an
-international grievance. There were some fellows upstairs playing at
-what they supposed was whist. He stood for a while over the shoulders of
-a couple of the gamesters, and noted, with a cynical eye, the progress
-of their hot rivalry as to which should contribute the larger incapacity
-and the finer stupidity to the losing of the rubber. When they asked him
-if he wanted to cut in, he turned away with a snort of derisive scorn.
-
-Over in the billiard-room there were only the marker and the member who
-played far worse than anybody else in the club. David sourly consented
-to occupy himself with this egregious outsider, and was beaten by him.
-The result was so clearly due to accident that he laid some money on
-the next game. Again the duffer fluked like mad, and won, and in a third
-game his luck was of such a glaring character, that Mosscrop could not
-refrain from loud comment. This his antagonist resented. They parted
-with harsh words, and Mosscrop, cursing the hour when it first occurred
-to him to identify himself with such a squalid pot-house, hastened
-angrily to shake its dust from his feet.
-
-He made his way, by devious streets whose old book-stalls for once
-beckoned him in vain, to Bloomsbury and the Museum. A kind of idea had
-grown up unobtrusively in the background of his thoughts, that possibly
-he might find Vestalia there. It assumed the definite outlines of an
-expectation as soon as he entered the building. When he stood in the
-reading-room itself, and began a systematic scrutiny of its radiating
-rows of readers, it was with as much confidence as if he had come by
-appointment. The failure to discover her disturbed and annoyed him. He
-made a slow tour of the inner circle, then another of the broader
-outer ring, and suffered no one of the professed students to escape his
-examining eye.
-
-What a crew they were! He had never realised it before. His hostile
-inspection laid bare the puerile devices of the young fools who came
-by concerted arrangement, took down books at random, and, sitting close
-together, carried on clandestine flirtations under the sightless mask
-of literature. He glowered with a newly-informed vision at the
-extraordinary females whom no one had planned to meet--the lone women
-with eccentric coiffures and startling costumes, who emerge from heaven
-knows where, and mysteriously gather here in quest of something which
-it seems incredible that even heaven should be able to define. Observing
-now the vacuous egotism of their flutterings and posturings in other
-people’s way, the despairing clutch at public attention made by their
-outlandish vestiture and general get-up, David’s thoughts settled grimly
-upon the fact that there were lands, the seats of ancient civilizations,
-where superfluous female children were drowned at birth. Here, he
-reflected, with sullen irony, we teach them to read and write, and build
-and stock a vast reading-room for them instead. His mood preferred the
-Ganges to the Thames.
-
-There was more pathos in the spectacle of another class of habitual
-attendants--the poor, shabby, hungry serfs of the quotation merchant.
-Mosscrop knew the genus by sight, and in other times had had amusement
-from their contemplation. How a sombre rage possessed him as he beheld
-them toiling unintelligently, hopelessly, under the lash of starvation.
-He watched one of the slave-drivers for a while, a short, red man, of
-swollen spiderish aspect, who moved about keeping these sweated wretches
-at their toil, now doling out a few pence to one who could remain erect
-unnourished not a minute longer, and who slunk out forthwith with a
-wolfish haste, now withering some other with whispered reproaches of
-threats. Mosscrop longed to go and break this creature’s neck, or at the
-very least to kick him, with loud curses and utmost contumely, from the
-room.
-
-He went out himself, instead, animated by a freshening spirit of
-resentment at the futility of existence. From sheer force of habit, he
-dawdled in front of shop-windows, turned over hooks and prints in one
-after another of his accustomed resorts for second-hand merchandise, and
-otherwise killed time till the dinner hour. But he did it all without
-any inner pretence that the process afforded him consolation. Even when
-he met some fellows from the Temple, in Chancery Lane, and joined them
-in a series of visits to ancient bars in the vicinity, where they all
-stood at wearisome length, and argued with intolerable inconsequence
-about wholly irrelevant matters over their drinks, his thoughts
-maintained a moody concentration upon the theme of his personal
-unhappiness. The stray contributions which he offered to the general
-conversation were all of an acrid, not to say truculent, character. He
-had a sort of dour satisfaction in the utterance of offensive gibes and
-bitter jokes. Twice the threat of an altercation arose, in consequence
-of these ill-natured comments of his, and David sullenly welcomed the
-imminent quarrel; but the intervention of the others, without any help
-from him, cleared the atmosphere again. Even the peacemakers, however,
-evinced the opinion that he was behaving badly, and nodded cheerful
-adieus when at last he declared that they were a parcel of uninspired
-loons, with whom he marvelled to find himself consuming valuable time.
-They lifted their glasses at him mockingly as he strode away, with the
-gleam of an unexpressed “good riddance!” in their eyes.
-
-The consciousness that he had made himself disagreeable to these
-fellows had its uses as a counter-irritant to his inner self-disgust. It
-rendered solitude at least a trifle more supportable. He bought a novel,
-and read it beside his plate at Simpson’s, where the heavy joints and
-weighty old ale just fitted his mood. The book was one which the papers
-were talking of for the moment. David reflected grimly as he skimmed
-the opening chapters that Vestalia had asked him why he didn’t write a
-Scotch novel. They were all the vogue, she said, and while the fashion
-lasted, it was nonsense for any Scotchman to pretend that he could not
-profitably occupy his leisure time. He had replied, with some flippancy,
-that his imaginative powers might compass the construction of a tale,
-hut were unequal to the task of inventing also a whole dialect to tell
-it in. How, as the whim returned to him, his fancy parodied a title for
-this unborn work. How would “A Goddess, Some Merely Ordinary Fools and
-Lord Drumpipes” do?
-
-Ah! that Drumpipes! David paid his bill, lit a cigar, and sallied forth,
-suddenly informed with the notion of going to the Inn, and having it out
-with the Earl. He doubled up his fists as he hurried along.
-
-The top floor at Dunstan’s was wrapped in darkness. Mosscrop knocked and
-kicked first at “Mr. Linkhaw’s” door to make sure that no one was in,
-then opened his own, and struck a light. The apartment wore still in
-his eyes the chill desolation of aspect which he remembered from the
-morning. There had been a change in the weather, and the suggestion of
-a fire was in the damp air. He put on his loose jacket and slippers,
-recalling sadly as he did so the vision he had beheld only twenty-four
-hours before, of that pretty little ermined footgear on the fender
-beside his, in front of the glowing grate. He brought out the decanter
-and a glass, and sighed deeply.
-
-Then all at once he caught sight of something white in the letter box.
-In the same instant he was tearing open a stamped envelope, addressed in
-a large, strange hand which yet he knew so well, and excitedly striving
-to gulp in the meaning of the whole written page before him, without
-troubling to read the lines in their sequence. Yes, it was from her,
-and--yes, it contained words of kindness and even of tenderness which
-shone brilliantly forth here and there from the context. He pulled
-himself together, and walking over to the light, began resolutely at the
-beginning.
-
-*****
-
-“Dear Mr. Mosscrop,--I hope you were not _very_ much disappointed at
-finding me gone this morning, or rather, I hope you _were_ a little
-disappointed, but will not be so any longer when you get this
-explanation. I don’t know either that it can be called an explanation,
-for it doesn’t seem to me that I am at all able to explain even to
-myself, much less to you.
-
-“The fact is that you were so kind and so sweet to me, that I simply
-_had_ to do what I have done. I saw it all, after we had parted. Under
-the circumstances, and especially considering the delicate and noble
-manner in which you had treated me, it was the _only thing_ I could do!
-
-“I should have left a message for you in your letter-box, but there
-was not a scrap of paper, not even a book out of which I could tear a
-fly-leaf, in Mr. Linkhaw’s room, nor writing materials of any sort. I
-have bought this paper at the stationer’s, and am writing this note in
-an hotel writing-room.
-
-“The dear dressing-bag, and the other beautiful things which I owe to
-you, I took away with me because it would have broken my heart to leave
-them, and I felt sure you would be glad to have me take them. Every time
-I look at them, and all other times too, I shall think of the best man I
-ever knew or dreamed of. Something _very important_ has occurred, which
-may turn out to be of the _greatest possible advantage_ to me. It is
-very _uncertain_ as yet, and I cannot tell you about it at present, but
-soon I hope to be able to do so.
-
-“In the meantime, please believe in my undying gratitude. Vestalia.”
-
-*****
-
-David drew a long breath, poured a drink for himself, lit his pipe, and
-sat down to read the letter all over again. He arrived slowly at the
-conclusion that he was glad she had written it--but beyond that his
-sensations remained obstinately undefined. The girl had disappeared
-behind a thick high wall which his imagination was unequal to the task
-of surmounting. A few stray facts assumed a certain distinctness in his
-mind: she had evidently gone off quite of her own accord, and she had
-appreciated the spirit of his attitude towards her the previous day, and
-she had encountered on this, the following day, something or somebody
-which might bring her good luck. What kind of good luck? he wondered.
-
-There was an implied promise in her words that he should be informed
-when this mysterious beneficence assumed shape. This had very little
-comfort in it for him. In fact, he found he rather hated the idea of her
-enjoying good luck in which he had no share.
-
-Suppose instead that it didn’t come off. Would she return to him then,
-or at least let him know, so that he might hasten forward again as her
-special providence?
-
-Ah, that is what he had wanted to be--her providence. The notion
-of doing everything for her, of being the source of all she had, of
-foreseeing her wants, inventing her pleasures, ministering joyfully
-to the least of her sweet little caprices--the charm of this _rôle_
-fascinated him more than ever. He recalled in detail the emotions of
-delight he had experienced in buying things for her. By some law which
-he recognised without analysing, the greatest pleasure had arisen from
-the purchase of the articles which she needed most. There had been only
-a moderate and tempered ecstasy in paying for champagne, but oh, the
-bliss of buying her boots, and those curling-irons, and the comb! He
-thrilled again with it, in retrospect. What would it have been to see
-her clad entirely in garments of his providing?
-
-But the cage was empty--the bird had flown. Would she come back again?
-Was there really the remotest hint of such a possibility in her letter?
-
-No. He read it still again, and shook his head at the fender with a
-despairing groan. The gloom of his reverie benumbed his senses. He
-let his pipe go out, and suffered the glass at his elbow to remain
-untouched, as he sat with his sad thoughts for company, and did not even
-hear the footsteps which presently ascended the stairs.
-
-A soft little knock at the door startled him from his meditations. He
-stood up, with his heart fluttering, and lifted his hand in wonderment
-to his brow. Had he been asleep and dreaming?
-
-The dainty tapping on the panel renewed itself. David moved as in a
-trance toward the door.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-Mosscrop turned the spring-lock noiselessly, and drew the door open
-with caressing gentleness. His eyes had intuitively prepared themselves
-to discern the slender form of Vestalia in the dim light of the passage.
-They beheld instead, with bewildered repulsion, a burly masculine bulk.
-Wandering upward in angry confusion from the level on which they had
-expected her dear face, they took in the fatuous, moon-like visage of
-Lord Drumpipes.
-
-“Dear God!” groaned David, in frank abandonment to disgust.
-
-“I came up quietly this time,” said the Earl. “You made such a row about
-my being noisy last night, I thought to myself, ‘Now, anything to please
-Davie! I’ll steal up like a mouse in list-slippers.’”
-
-David scowled angry impatience at him. “Who the deuce cares what _you_
-do?” he demanded, roughly. “You might have marched up with a Salvation
-Army band, for all it matters to me.”
-
-“Ah,” said Drumpipes, placidly pushing his way past Mosscrop through
-the open door. “Well, give me a drink, Davie, man, and then tell me all
-about it. Where may the lady be at the present moment?”
-
-Mosscrop came in, and produced another glass with a gloomy air. He
-watched the Earl seat himself in the biggest chair and help himself
-from the decanter, and light his pipe, all in moody silence. “She’s gone
-away,” he said at last, coldly.
-
-“And a good job, too!” remarked the other. “Distrust all yellow-hair,
-Davie! Have you been in my place and seen what that woman did? There was
-my Athabaska moose actually torn from the wall, and pulled to bits
-on the floor! It’s a matter of fifty shillings, or even more, Davie.
-Considering what you’d already spent on her, I call that heartless
-behaviour on her part. She must be a bad sort indeed to take all you
-would give her, and fool you to the top of your bent, and then wantonly
-destroy property that she knew you’d have to make good, before she took
-French leave. Ah, women are not given that kind of hair for nothing!
-You’re well out of a thankless mess, Davie.”
-
-Mosscrop looked musingly at his friend. He smiled a little to himself,
-and then sighed as well. A calmer temper returned to him. “I don’t take
-your view of it, Archie,” he said, almost gently. “I have been as sad
-about it as a child who’s lost its pet, but I’m less disconsolate than
-I was. Some compensations occur to me--and besides, I have a letter from
-her. It came to-night, and from its tone----”
-
-“Burn it, man, burn it!” the other adjured him, with eager fervour.
-“Drive the whole business from your mind! If you’ll give me your solemn
-word, Davie, not to see her again”--the Earl paused, to invest his
-further words with a deeper gravity--“if you’ll promise faithfully to
-have no more to do with her, I’ll forgive you the moose. I said fifty
-shillings, but I doubt your getting a good job much under three pounds.
-Well, then, if you say the word, I’ll pocket that loss. Hang it all,
-you’re my boyhood friend, and I’d go to a considerable length to save
-you from a dangerous entanglement of this sort. Although it was by no
-means an ordinary head. Man, I fair loved that moosie!”
-
-Mosscrop’s smooth-shaven and somewhat sallow visage had gradually lost
-its melancholy aspect. A cheerful grin began now to play about
-the corners of his mouth. “Archie,” he said with an affectation of
-exaggerated seriousness, “a moose more or less is not worth mentioning
-by comparison with the situation which is about to confront you. I know
-the particular beast you speak of. It was not up to much. The fur was
-dropping out in patches on its neck, one of its eyes was loose, and
-the red paint on the nostrils was oxidized. You would not have got
-twelve-and-six for it anywhere in the world. But if it had been
-the choicest trophy that was ever mounted, and then its value were
-multiplied a hundred-fold, it would still be a waste of your time to
-give it a second thought. Graver matters demand your attention, Archie.”
-
-The Earl’s countenance lengthened, and he set down his glass. He
-apparently did not trust himself to speak, but stared in alarmed inquiry
-at his friend.
-
-“As you said a while ago,” pursued David, with vexatious deliberation,
-“we have been pals from boyhood. My father was your grandfather’s man of
-business, and was your factor till his death. You and I played together
-before we were breeched. We went to school together, and I spent more
-holidays at Skirl with you than I did at home. So I know the ins and
-outs of your family and its affairs practically as well as you do. I
-know your sisters----”
-
-“You don’t mean that Ellen has given up her Zenana mission work in
-Burmah, and returned here to England?” Drumpipes interposed, with a
-convulsive catch in his breath.
-
-“No; the Lady Ellen, so far as I know, is still peacefully occupied in
-harrowing up the domestic life of the Orient in her well-known and most
-effective manner.”
-
-“Well, anything else _must_ be a minor evil,” said the Earl, with an
-accent of relief. “Whichever of the rest of them it is, Davie, I tell
-you at the outset that I wash my hands of the business. My sisters
-rendered the first twenty-five years of my life a torment upon earth.
-They bullied me out of all peace in life as a youngster; they made
-my rotten marriage for me; they took my money and then blackened my
-character in reward; they----”
-
-“Oh, I know all those gags by heart,” interposed Mosscrop. “They’re
-really very decent bodies, those sisters of yours; if they had a fault,
-it was in believing that they could make a silk purse out of a sow’s
-ear. But it’s not about them at all that I was speaking. The point is,
-Archie, that I have made the acquaintance of Mr. Laban Skinner and his
-extremely attractive daughter.”
-
-The Earl took in this intelligence with ponderous slowness. He sipped at
-his glass in silence, and then stared for a little at his friend. “Well,
-what is there so alarming about that?” he demanded at last, roughening
-his voice in puzzled annoyance. “They’re respectable people, aren’t
-they? And what the deuce are you driving at, anyway?”
-
-“Ah, if you take that tone with me, old man, I pull out of the affair at
-once.”
-
-Drumpipes scowled. “What affair? How do you know there is any affair!
-And what business have you got being in it, if there is an affair?
-You’re over-officious, my friend. You take too much on yourself.”
-
-Mosscrop laughed with tantalising enjoyment in his eyes. “Confess that
-you think of making a Countess of the lady.”
-
-“Well, and what if I do?” the Earl retorted. “Damn it all, man, I
-haven’t to ask your leave, have I? And, come now, I put it to you
-straight, have you ever seen a finer woman in your life?”
-
-David lifted his brows judicially, and held his head to one side. “Oh,
-I’m not saying she’s amiss--in externals,” he admitted.
-
-“Man, she’s wonderful! Just wonderful!” cried the other. “Did you mind
-her walk? It is as if she’d never been outside a palace in her life.
-And the face, the eyes, the colour, the figure--what Queen in Europe can
-match them? Man, since I first laid eyes on her, I’ve not been myself at
-all. The thought of her bewitches me. I hardly know what I’m doing. I’ve
-been to-day to my tailor’s, and I gave him orders that fair took his
-breath away. The most expensive clothes, and even furs, I ordered with
-as light a heart as if it were a matter of sixpences. The man knows
-me from childhood, and he gazed at me as if I was clean daft. He was
-shaking his head to himself when I came away. Oh, I’m quite a different
-person, I assure you. I literally hurl money about me, nowadays.”
-
-“You must indeed be in love,” said Moss-crop. “The father--he gives one
-the notion of a man of wealth.”
-
-The Earl’s face glistened. “He’s in the Standard Oil Company!” he
-whispered, impressively.
-
-This fact created an atmosphere of dignified solemnity for itself. The
-two men looked at each other gravely for a while, saying nothing. Then
-the Earl, with a contemplative air, refilled his glass.
-
-“She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he said, earnestly;
-“and I think she will marry me.”
-
-“Physical beauty and Standard Oil do make an alluring combination,”
- remarked David philosophically; “but----”
-
-“Oh, there are no ‘buts,’” Drum-pipes insisted. “She’s as fine in mind
-and temper as she is in body. I’m very particular about intellect, as
-you know, and I’ve studied her closely. She has a very sound brain,
-Davie--for a woman. But how on earth did you come to stumble upon them?”
-
-Mosscrop did not explain. “The thing that impressed me about her,
-curiously enough,” he said, with tranquil discursiveness, “was her
-extremely democratic aversion to our ranks and hereditary titles. She
-and her father seem to be the most violent anti-aristocrats I ever
-knew.”
-
-“Yes, that _is_ a trifle awkward,” the Earl admitted. “I don’t think
-it’s more than skin-deep with the old man, but Adele--that’s her name,
-as beautiful as herself, isn’t it?--she’s tremendously in earnest about
-it. That has rather queered my pitch--I haven’t told them, you know,
-about the title and all that. They know me just as simple Mr. Linkhaw.”
-
-“‘Simple’ is so precisely the word,” commented Mosscrop.
-
-“Well, what was I to do?” the other protested in self-defence. “I was
-travelling under that name in Kentucky--went there to look at a big sale
-of thoroughbreds, you know--and met the father, and then I met the girl,
-and they had me to their house in the country--a magnificent place, by
-George--and she had so much to say against the classes here, and took
-such a strong position against titles and all that--why, I _would_
-have been a juggins to tell her at the start; and after, it gradually
-occurred to me that I wouldn’t say anything at all, but just go on and
-win her as plain Mr. Linkhaw. Then I could be sure I was being loved for
-myself alone, couldn’t I?”
-
-“Your sentimentality is most touching,” said David; “but I fear it will
-cost you heavily.”
-
-“Oh, by the way, yes,” remarked Drum-pipes, collecting his thoughts;
-“you said something awhile ago about there being a bother of some
-sort. What is it?” Then an idea occurred to him, and he lifted his head
-eagerly. “You haven’t gone and blabbed about me, have you--told her who
-I was, and all that?”
-
-“Quite the contrary,” smiled David. “It was she who recognised _me_ at
-once as the Earl of Drumpipes. It seems you showed her my picture on
-shipboard, and told her who I was, and all about me. Do you recall the
-incident?”
-
-The Earl nodded, foolishly. “It’s my confounded imagination,” he
-groaned. “I’m always making an ass of myself like that. God only knows
-why I should have gone out of my way to invent that idiotic rubbish. But
-you get awfully bard up for conversation on shipboard, you know. And so
-it all came out, and she’s chuckling to think what a clumsy liar and guy
-I made of myself--and I’ve gone and ordered all those clothes--and----”
-
-“Be reassured, most noble Thane,” cried David, gaily. “There has been no
-disclosure. Nothing came out. I accepted the situation. I did not for an
-instant betray you. I said, ‘Certainly: I _am_ the Earl of Drumpipes,’
-without so much as the flicker of an eyelid. There’s friendship for you,
-if you like.”
-
-“And did she believe--” the Earl began to ask. Then he choked with
-rising mirth, gasped, rolled about in his chair, and finally burst forth
-in resounding laughter. “She thinks you--you”--he started out again, and
-once more went off in loud merriment. “It’s the funniest thing I ever
-heard of,” he murmured at last, restoring his composure with difficulty,
-and grinning at Mosscrop through eyes wet with joyful tears.
-
-“It delights me to see how keenly the humorous aspect of the matter
-appeals to you,” observed David, “because there is another phase of it
-which may seem to be deficient in gaiety.”
-
-“No; you as the Earl, that’s too funny!” persisted Drumpipes, with a
-fresh outbreak of laughter. But this somehow rang a little false at
-the finish. A half-doubtful look came into his eyes, and sobered his
-countenance. “But you’ll stand by me in this thing, old man, now that
-you’ve begun it, won’t you?” he asked, in in an altered tone.
-
-“But I didn’t begin it,” David pointed out calmly. “You began it
-yourself, and she took it up of her own accord. I’ve simply sacrificed
-myself in your interest. I stood still, and heard my motives aspersed,
-my character vilified, my objects in life covered with contumely, all on
-account of your hereditary crimes, and took it all like a lamb. But
-to assume that I’m going to do this again, or indefinitely, is another
-matter. I don’t mind submitting to a single temporary humiliation for
-a friend’s sake, but to make a profession of it is too much. If it
-were even a decent fullblown peerage it might be different, but to be
-traduced for nothing better than a Scotch title--no, thank you!”
-
-“You’re not the friend I took you for,” commented the Earl, in depressed
-tones. “For that matter,” he added, defiantly, “we were Pilliewillies in
-Slug-Angus before the Campbells were ever heard of, or the Gordons had
-learnt not to eat their cattle raw. And no Linkhaw has ever said to a
-Mosscrop, ‘I see you’re in a hole and I’ll leave you there.’”
-
-David smiled. “No, you would always give a hand--for a fixed price.
-Well, Archie, I’m not saying I won’t see you through all this, but
-there must be conditions. And there must be a plan. What on earth do you
-intend to do?”
-
-“Well, my idea is,” the other answered, hesitatingly, “that I should ask
-her to be my wife while she still supposes I am merely Mr. Linkhaw. She
-is like all American girls in this, that she believes entirely in love
-matches. So if she will marry me as Mr. Linkhaw, it will signify that
-she loves me. Very well then, that being the case, I can say to her
-afterward that I ventured upon a trifling deception, solely to have the
-chance to win the woman I wanted, and to make sure that I was being
-loved for myself alone. And then, hang it all, I don’t believe it lies
-in any woman’s skin to be angry at finding that she’s been made a
-countess unawares. If I said I was an Earl and turned out not to be one,
-then she’d have a grievance, but it’s the other way about.”
-
-“Precisely,” put in David, “that particular ignominy is reserved for me.
-But suppose she doesn’t accept you.”
-
-“That’s hardly worth supposing. It’s as good as understood between us, I
-think, that she will accept me.”
-
-“But then suppose she jilts you, after you disclose to her that you are
-not plain Mr. Linkhaw.”
-
-“If that’s well managed, I’m not afraid of it, either. You see, her
-father’s not an out-and-out American. He was really born in England,
-and went out there as a boy. That’s a very curious thing, you know.
-Englishmen who go there, and like the place, get to be more American
-than the Yankees are themselves. But they don’t change their blood, do
-they? And women are pretty much alike, too, whatever their blood may be.
-They’re all organised to stand a coronet on the corner of their pocket
-handkerchiefs. No, it’ll be all right, if only you stay by me.”
-
-“Ah, now we come to realities,” said Moss-crop, genially. “It’ll be
-rather an expensive business, Archie. I have very high notions, my
-friend, as to the scale on which an Earl should comport himself. I could
-not dream of doing the thing on the thrifty and contracted basis which
-suits you. The task is a difficult one to me. I shall have to sit and
-look entirely devoid of mental sensations of any sort for hours at a
-time. I know nothing of football and cricket, and have not the name of
-a single jockey on my tongue; this will render conversation an
-embarrassing matter for me. I shall suffer continually from the
-knowledge that I am being regarded as a vicious fool, a rake, a gambler,
-and libertine of the most heartless description, and this will wear a
-good deal on my nerves. Compensation of some sort I must have. Now, I
-entertain the theory that a nobleman should never have any small change
-about him at all. Tips to waiters I would make a great point of. They
-should invariably be of gold. To slip a sovereign into a hall-porter’s
-hand is also a valuable action. His subsequent demeanour gives the cue
-to the attitude of the whole visible world toward you. A four-in-hand
-to Brighton is good substantial form, too, if enough pains be taken with
-the outfit. A private hansom in town is, of course, indispensable.
-I realise, Archie,” he concluded’ apologetically, “that I am not
-displaying a specially comprehensive grasp of the requirements of rank.
-I can only think of a few things now, on the spur of the moment; but
-I will concentrate all my energies on the task once I take it up in
-earnest. You may trust me to rise to the occasion. I will be a nobleman
-that mere baronets will turn round in the street to look after.”
-
-Drumpipes exhibited a wan and troubled smile. “You’d have your joke,
-Davie, out of any man’s distress,” he said, weakly.
-
-“Joke!” cried Mosscrop. “You make a woful error there, Archie. Never was
-man more serious.”
-
-“But there’d be no opportunity for you to spend money, or display
-yourself,” urged the other. “Not, of course, that I would begrudge a
-pound or two, more or less, if there were a real need of it. But in this
-case, the whole point is that you should lie low, and not be seen any
-more. There is no necessity that she should meet you again. In fact, the
-more I think of it, the clearer it is that she shouldn’t. It might spoil
-everything, don’t you see?”
-
-“Oh no, my lad!” rejoined David, cheerfully. “I’m not of the hermit
-variety of aristocrat. I’m the kind of Earl who’s on the spot, and who
-lets people know that he is present. I will have rings on my fingers and
-bells on my toes. I will--why, let me see!”
-
-His face brightened at some wandering thought. “Why, man, I have a
-birthday in six days’ time! That’s it, the 24th. I knew there was the
-difference of a year lacking a week between us. She read it to me
-this morning out of the peerage--August 24th. Very well, then, I will
-celebrate the anniversary as it has never been celebrated before. I will
-provide an entertainment for my immediate friends upon a scale befitting
-my position and the importance of the event commemorated. What do you
-think of a special saloon-carriage to Portsmouth, and a dinner on my
-yacht, eh? One could be hired and manned for the occasion, and a staff
-of cooks and servants sent down from an hotel here. Or could you get
-them in Portsmouth? Does anything more appropriate occur to you?”
-
-“Go on with your jest,” replied the other, sullenly. “All I can say is,
-it’s in damned bad taste, though. Here I am in this predicament, and you
-pour vinegar into my wounds instead of oil.”
-
-“Standard Oil, I assume that you refer to. No, you shall have the oil,
-Archie. You shall be my guest on the occasion, and you shall meet Mr.
-and Miss Skinner. We four will constitute the party; and I will provide
-such an engaging spectacle of the nobleman, the bearer of hereditary
-dignities and titles, seen close at hand among his intimate friends,
-that the lady will be moved to admiration. She will say, ‘Ah, I never
-guessed before how delightful an Earl could be, how perfect in manners,
-how admirable in tact, how superb in his capacity as host.’ I will
-reconcile her to the aristocracy _en bloc_.”
-
-“Say, you know,” interposed Drumpipes, “I’m not sure there isn’t
-something in that.”
-
-“Something in it? My dear sir, it’s rammed with fructifying
-probabilities. I give this party, and I do it as an Earl should do
-things. I exert myself to fascinate this transatlantic twain. I lead
-their imaginations captive to my hereditary seductiveness. I make them
-feel that to be the guests of an Earl is more than beauty and fine
-raiment and Standard Oil. I excite them to a warm glow of tenderness
-toward feudalism, a mood that melts at mere thought of the mediaeval. At
-that psychological moment you jump in and intimate that you’re something
-of an Earl yourself--and there you are!”
-
-Drumpipes nodded approving comprehension, while he pondered the project
-thus outlined. “I’m not sure I don’t like the scheme,” he repeated.
-“It’s risky, though. She’s fearfully keen of scent, that girl is. If
-you didn’t play it for all you were worth, every minute, she’d twig the
-thing like a shot. You’d leave her with me a good deal, wouldn’t you,
-and devote yourself to the old man? That would be the safest, you know.”
-
-“That would hardly do. It wouldn’t be in character. When an Earl is
-giving a party, and there is a beautiful young woman about, he doesn’t
-go and talk with windy old fossils in frock-coats. It would look
-unnatural. It might as like as not excite suspicion. And now you’d
-better clear out. I want to go to bed.”
-
-The Earl rose, stood irresolute for a moment, and then put a hand on
-Mosscrop’s shoulder. “Davie,” he said gravely, “there’s one thing you
-must remember. You’re not a good man to handle money--if I didn’t know
-your forbears, I’d never credit your being a Scot at all--remember,
-laddie, that those lawyers have run up terrible bills against me, and
-farm values have all dropped in the most fearful fashion, and I’ve not
-kept so tight a hand on the purse-strings of late, myself, as usual, and
-so do this thing as moderately----”
-
-“Oh, you be damned!” laughed Mosscrop, and pushed him from the room.
-
-When he was alone, the notion of going to bed seemed to have lost its
-urgency. He lighted his pipe, and sat down to read Vesta-lia’s letter
-once again.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-At breakfast, three mornings later, Mr. Laban Skinner and his daughter
-dallied over their plates, and sent the waiter out again with some
-asperity when he, taking it for granted they must have finished the
-meal, came in to clear the table.
-
-Each had been reading a letter, from the early morning mail.
-
-“It is an invitation from the Earl of Drumpipes,” remarked the father,
-regarding his daughter over his _pince-nez_, “expressing, in what I am
-constrained to describe as somewhat abrupt and common-place terms, his
-desire that we should consider ourselves as his guests during the
-entire day upon the approaching 24th instant, the occasion being the
-anniversary of his birth.” He handed over the note for her inspection
-as he spoke. “The impression which his phraseology produces upon me,”
- he added, “is that of one performing a perfunctory act of courtesy
-to foreigners of his acquaintance, to whom he extends the ceremonial
-proffer of a hospitality which he assumes will be declined.”
-
-“Oh, not at all, papa,” commented Adele, briefly glancing at the
-note. “All noblemen write in that formal way. It is a part of their
-bringing-up. No; he wants us to come, right enough. I have a letter here
-from Mr. Linkhaw, explaining the thing. Of course it was a suggestion of
-his.”
-
-“I venture the hope,” said Mr. Skinner, “that he improves the
-opportunity to also explain the otherwise unintelligible fact that
-during an entire week we have had neither ocular evidence nor any other
-tangible manifestation of his presence upon this side of the Atlantic.
-I do not hesitate to avow my surprise at what, after his manifold and,
-I might say, even importunate professions of eagerness to place his
-services at our disposal in London, I find myself unable to refrain from
-regarding as his indifference to our--our being here.”
-
-“No,” said Adele, confidently, “it’s all right. He was kept longer in
-Scotland than he expected--very urgent family business of some sort--and
-only arrived in London a couple of days ago, and has been up to his eyes
-in work since he came. Besides,” she continued with a little smile, “he
-is very frank; he says he has no clothes fit to go about in London with,
-but his tailor is working at some new ones for him day and night,
-and they are promised for the 23d, so that at the birthday party next
-day----”
-
-“I am far from presuming, Adele,” interrupted the father, gravely,
-“to ascribe to you a deficiency or obtuseness of perception where
-considerations of delicacy are involved; but I think I am warranted in
-pointing out that at home, at least in the social environment to which
-you have been from your infancy accustomed, a young gentleman would
-intuitively eschew a subject of this nature in his correspondence with a
-young lady.”
-
-“Oh, they’re different here,” explained the daughter, with nonchalance.
-“They talk quite openly over here of lots of things which we never dream
-of mentioning. You remember that lady in front of us at the theatre
-last night--when the men in their dress suits came over to talk with her
-between the acts--how she told them right out, that although it was
-so hot she had to fan herself all the while, still her legs felt quite
-shivery. Now, a speech like that would stand Louisville on its head, let
-alone Paris, Kentucky, but here it passes without the slightest notice.
-It’s the custom of the country. I rather like it myself.”
-
-Mr. Skinner sighed, and pecked timorously at his egg with a spoon. “I am
-not wanting, I trust, in tolerance for the natural divergences of
-habit and manner which distinguish the widely-separated branches of
-the Anglo-Saxon race, or in a desire to accommodate myself to their
-peculiarities when I confront them in the course of foreign travel;
-but I with difficulty bring myself to contemplate with satisfaction the
-method of partaking of a soft-boiled egg which obtains favour in these
-islands. To my mind, the negation of the principle of a centre of
-gravity involved in the construction of this egg cup, combined with the
-objectionably inadequate dimensions of the spoon----”
-
-“Dig it out on to your plate, then; the waiter won’t come in again till
-I ring,” suggested the daughter.
-
-“I prefer the alternative of abstention,” he answered. “The spectacle of
-stains upon the cloth or upon the plate would be equally suggestive to
-the servant’s scrutiny.”
-
-He rose as he spoke. Adele, gathering up the letters, did likewise, and
-rang the bell.
-
-Mr. Skinner, having glanced out at the river panorama from the balcony
-window for a little, and then looked over the market columns of a
-newspaper, turned again to his daughter.
-
-“I gather that we are to accept the invitation of the Earl of
-Drumpipes,” he remarked, tentatively.
-
-Adele nodded. “Why, of course,” she said; “that’s to be the formal
-beginning of everything. It is intended to make our position here
-perfectly regular. Lord Drumpipes is the head of Mr. Linkhaw’s
-family. It is entirely becoming that he should take the initiative in
-recognising us.”
-
-“Ah yes, in recognising us,” he repeated. “I suppose, Adele, it would
-be futile for me to recur to the question whether you have sufficiently
-weighed the opposing considerations with regard to Mr. Linkhaw, and
-the----”
-
-“Mercy, yes!” interposed Adele, with promptitude. “Don’t let’s have that
-all over again. I’ve quite settled everything in my own mind.”
-
-“Since I was afforded the opportunity of personally observing and
-conversing with the Earl of Drumpipes,” pursued the father, “and of thus
-forming authoritative conclusions as to the British nobility in general,
-I have devoted much thought to the subject. While I do not suggest that
-my well-known views upon the aristocratic institution, as a whole,
-have undergone any perceptible transformation, I do not shrink from
-the admission that the thought of being connected by marriage with the
-bearer of an hereditary title no longer presents itself to me in such
-repulsive colours as was formerly the case. If, therefore, with your
-undoubted advantages, it should occur to you to entertain the idea of a
-possible alliance with the nobility, I would not have you feel that my
-convictions formed a necessarily insuperable barrier to----“,
-
-“No, no!” the daughter broke in, with a laugh. “I’ll promise to
-disregard your convictions as much as you like. But now I want you to
-go out, and kill time by yourself somewhere till luncheon. I want to be
-left alone. There _is_ some place where elderly American gentlemen can
-go, isn’t there, without getting into mischief? Oh yes, you must go, and
-not just downstairs to hang about the hotel entrance, but straight away
-somewhere. Why? My dear papa, I have my secrets as well as you.”
-
-“But that secret of mine,” he protested feebly, “I assure you, Adele,
-that it is really nothing at all. That is, it does involve matters
-both interesting and important; but the fact that I am precluded from
-mentioning them is in the nature of a pure accident, and wholly without
-significance.”
-
-“Good-bye till luncheon time,” answered Adele, with affable firmness.
-“And mind you quit the premises.”
-
-Mr. Skinner found his hat, smiled dubiously at his daughter, and without
-further parley took himself off.
-
-Adele, left alone, looked at the watch in her girdle, and compared its
-record with that of the ornate clock on the mantel. She took up the
-paper and ran an aimless eye over one page after another. Then she
-walked about with a restless movement, pausing from time to time to bend
-a frowning yet indifferent inspection upon the scene spread out beyond
-the balcony.
-
-At last there came a tap on the door, and at sound of this, even as
-she called out a clear, commanding “Come!” she withdrew all signs
-of perturbation, or of emotion of any sort, from her beautiful dark
-countenance.
-
-It was Vestalia who entered the room--Vestalia, clad in daintily
-unpretentious and becoming garments, neatly gloved, and with much
-radiant self-possession upon her pretty face. She paused upon the
-threshold, nodded rather than bowed to her hostess, and let a little
-smile sparkle in her eyes and play about her rosebud of a mouth.
-
-“Your father does not succeed very well in keeping his secrets,
-I observe,” she remarked, pleasantly, by way of an overture to
-conversation.
-
-“Won’t you please to be seated,” said Adele, with exaggerated calmness.
-She herself took a chair, and slowly surveyed her visitor as she went
-on: “My father has no secrets from me. He tries to have--once in a blue
-moon--but it doesn’t come off. I may tell you frankly, however, that
-he has in this case told me nothing. I found your address, and other
-information, in looking through his pockets. I am under no obligation to
-tell you this: I simply feel like it, that’s all. I hate dissimulation.”
-
-“And I suppose you have your things made up without pockets,” suggested
-Vestalia, amiably.
-
-Adele put some added resolution into her glance. “I wrote asking you to
-call,” she said coldly, “because it became a nuisance not to know what
-you were up to.”
-
-“Ah,” replied Vestalia, “it looks as if your father must have destroyed
-some of our correspondence. How thoughtless of him!”
-
-Miss Skinner paused, and knitted her queenly brows a trifle. She did
-not seem to be getting on. “I have no wish to waste time in trying to be
-funny,” she avowed, after some hesitation. “Now that you are here, have
-you any objection to telling me why you swore my father to keep a secret
-from me?”
-
-“Oh, just a whim of mine, nothing more,” Vestalia assured her, lightly.
-“I frequently have notions like that, that I can’t in the least account
-for.”
-
-“No, you had a reason,” insisted the other, with gravity. “And you must
-tell me what it was. I have been frank with you.”
-
-“And I will not be behind you in candour,” said Vestalia, as if won by
-an appeal to her better self. “It was because you looked at me in the
-Museum as if you thought my hair was dyed.”
-
-“Well, so it is, isn’t it?” demanded Adele, bluntly.
-
-“Upon my honour, no!” the other replied. “And now you look at me as if
-you thought that that wasn’t much to swear by. It’s possible that you
-do not realise it, but your eyes leave something to be desired in the
-matter of politeness.”
-
-“I’m afraid that’s true,” Adele assented. “I have an effect of looking
-very hard at things, simply because I’m near-sighted. I ought to wear
-glasses, but they do not suit me.”
-
-“Yes,” said Vestalia, with a meditative look, “it would be a pity for
-you to put them on. They _would_ detract from your face. It is very
-beautiful as it is--for a dark style.”
-
-“Sometimes I feel that I am almost tired of being dark,” confessed
-Adele. “Your hair is the most wonderful thing I ever saw. I could see
-that your gentleman-friend at the Museum admired it immensely.”
-
-“Oh yes, he said so repeatedly,” Vestalia replied, with a demure display
-of pleasure at the recollection.
-
-Again there was a little pause. Then Miss Skinner essayed another
-opening. “Your name--Peaussier--would indicate French extraction,” she
-remarked. “And French people are so very dark, as a rule, aren’t they?
-My mother was a Creole--from Louisiana, you know--and I suppose that
-accounts for my colour.”
-
-“Well, my mother was Scotch,” explained Vestalia, “and they are sandy.”
-
-“The Scotch gentleman that you were with at the Museum--he was decidedly
-a dark man,” suggested Adele, with a casual manner.
-
-“Now that I think of it, so he was,” said Vestalia.
-
-The measured and ceremonious ticking of the expensive clock on the
-mantel had the silence to itself for a space, while the two ladies
-looked at each other.
-
-“So you won’t tell me anything?” Miss Skinner exclaimed at last.
-
-“The trouble is, don’t you see, that I am quite in the dark as to what
-you want to know. If you will tell me just what was in your father’s
-pockets, I can judge then what gaps exist in your information.”
-
-Adele laughed aloud. “I believe you are really a tip-top good fellow,
-in spite of everything,” she declared. “Do tell me what it is you are
-doing! I assure you you’re utterly wrong in thinking that I am a person
-to guard against, to keep secrets from. Come, don’t you see how much
-I really like you? And you won’t trust me! I suppose it is the blonde
-temperament, suspicious and unresponsive and calculating. Or no, I don’t
-mean that, you know I don’t, but you might repose more confidence in me,
-when I have told you everything.”
-
-“Everything?” murmured Vestalia, sweetly.
-
-“About papa’s pockets, you know.”
-
-“Ah, yes.”
-
-“It was all your fault,” urged Adele. “It was you who drove me to it.
-And if you don’t tell now, goodness only knows what crimes I may not be
-driven to commit, in addition.”
-
-“Let me hasten to avert this woful catastrophe,” cried Vestalia. “The
-matter is simplicity itself. I am by profession, trade, whatever you
-call it, a tracer of pedigrees, genealogies. I served my apprenticeship
-under an American lady, who worked entirely for American customers. She
-is dead now, and the business is broken up, and I have been idle for
-a long time. When I saw your father and heard his name, a thought
-occurred to me. I know a good deal about the Skinners in England.”
-
-“Papa was born in England himself, you know,” interposed Adele, with
-rising interest.
-
-“Yes, I know,” Vestalia went on. “As I said, I have exceptional sources
-of information about the family, and it occurred to me that very likely
-he would be glad to have the records searched, and a full pedigree drawn
-up. I wrote to him, accordingly--he had mentioned this hotel--and I came
-and saw him downstairs in the reception-room, and he seemed delighted
-with the idea, and gave me a commission at once. What was more important
-still, he was kind enough to pay me something in advance. It came just
-at the moment to--to supply a very urgent want, too, I can tell you.”
-
-“Ah, poor girl!” said Adele, tenderly. “But why on earth were you afraid
-that _I_ should know? I don’t believe your story about the hair, you
-know.”
-
-“Really it _was_ that,” protested Vestalia. “I could see that you didn’t
-like me. I _was_ afraid of you--that is, of your prejudicing your father
-against me. And if you only knew how desperately I was in need of the
-job! Don’t you remember, you did look very sharply at me.”
-
-“If I did, it was because I was surprised to--to--see who you were
-with.”
-
-“How do you mean?” queried Vestalia, puzzled. “We were both entire
-strangers to you, surely.”
-
-“No. I recognised the gentleman from a picture I had seen of him. I had
-a kind of idea that he was not precisely a nice gentleman for you to be
-with.”
-
-“Then you had a preposterous and wickedly mistaken kind of idea,”
- said Vestalia, with decision. “There isn’t a truer or nobler-spirited
-gentleman on this earth than he is. I have reason to know what I say. If
-anybody has told you otherwise, you have been lied to, that’s all.”
-
-“Dear, dear, how much you are in earnest,” cried Adele. “You must be
-_my_ friend, and defend me behind my back like that, too. If he liked
-your hair immensely, why, so do I.”
-
-“Don’t let us joke about him,” put in Vestalia, with seriousness. “I
-feel very keenly about my obligation to him. He saved my life--and--and
-I’d rather talk about something else. We were speaking of the
-Skinners--and their pedigree.”
-
-Adele assented, with an inclination of the head, to the diversion,
-though her eyes retained their gleam of surprised curiosity. “Yes, the
-Skinners,” she said, vaguely.
-
-“I can trace them up to Sir Theobald Skinner, Knight, who obtained a
-grant of the Abbey lands of Coggesthorpe, Suffolk, in 1541--who in turn
-was the grandfather of Walter Skinner, who married Elizabeth, daughter
-and co-heir of John Banstock, Esquire, of Meechy, Norfolk, and became
-first Lord Gunser.”
-
-Adele pricked up her ears. “What is that? Are we related to the
-nobility? Oh, that is what papa meant by something interesting and
-important! Who would have supposed he could be so sly? Oh, sure enough,
-that would account for----” She broke off short, and smiled, first
-knowingly to herself, then with frank cordiality to Vestalia. “Oh, go
-on,” she urged. “Tell me about our lords.” Vestalia shook her head.
-“We--that is, you have no lords nowadays,” she admitted, ruefully. “The
-Gunser peerage became extinct in the male line nearly two hundred years
-ago. The collateral branches of the family sank to be yeomen on the
-soil their ancestors had owned--some of them became even peasants,
-agricultural labourers. There are no prosperous or polite Skinners
-nowadays--except _your_ immediate branch.”
-
-“And even I haven’t got polite eyes,” laughed Adele. “Yes, I remember
-papa telling how poor his people were. He hardly knew the taste of meat,
-he said, till he went to America as a boy. And so you have traced all
-his relations out. Are there any cousins or near connections living now,
-do you know? He had a brother older than himself, Abram was his name,
-I fancy, and he enlisted in the army and went to the dogs, I think. At
-least, father never heard of him afterward.”
-
-“He is dead,” Vestalia re-assured her. “He did go to the dogs, as you
-say. He had some sons, but they are dead too.”
-
-“And so there were actually Skinners in the peerage!” mused Adele,
-aloud. The thought seemed to excite her. She rose and looked at herself
-in the mirror, over Vestalia’s head. The latter stood up as well.
-
-“Oh, must you be going?” said Adele. “There was so much I wanted to say
-to you. We must meet soon again. I am going to insist upon that. You
-see, I know absolutely no one over here of my own sex, except you. It
-will be different in a few days, now, but that won’t make any difference
-with my liking you. Oh, yes--I wanted to ask you--do you know a Mr.
-Linkhaw?”
-
-Vestalia looked blankly at her interrogator for a moment, then flushed a
-little and smiled confusedly. “I have heard the name,” she replied, “but
-I have never seen the gentleman bearing it.”
-
-Adele drew her brows together in a half-frown. “He is a great friend of
-the gentleman who was with you at the Museum,” she said, doubtingly.
-
-“Yes, I gathered that,” answered Vestalia. “It was in that way that I
-heard the name.”
-
-“Really, how curiously we two are mixed up together!” cried the other,
-with dawning impatience. “You could tell me ever so many things that I
-am dying to know, if you only chose to. It is provoking to have to grope
-about in the dark like this. And you won’t even get vexed with me, and
-talk back. Even that way I might learn something--and we could make it
-up afterward, as easy as not.”
-
-“Ah, but that is what I came resolved under no circumstances to do,”
- explained Ves-talia, with affable placidity. “Nothing would tempt me to
-get vexed with you.”
-
-“Suppose I insisted upon talking unpleasantly about the gentleman at the
-Museum,” suggested Adele, with potential malice in her tone.
-
-“I don’t say you can’t grieve me and hurt me, but you can’t make me
-angry with you. You see, I know things which you don’t know, which would
-entirely alter your views about me, and about other matters, if you were
-aware of them. So it would be unfair in me to blame you for remarks made
-in ignorance of the truth.”
-
-“But it is precisely against this ignorance that I protest with all my
-might!” said Adele with vehemence. “It is that that is unfair. It makes
-me ridiculous.”
-
-“I don’t see the sense of it myself,” agreed Vestalia, simply. “I always
-thought it would be the simplest course to tell you everything at once.
-Or no--what have I said?” she hastened to add, in deprecation of the
-other’s kindling eye; “I didn’t feel that way at first. It was I who
-originally suggested that you shouldn’t be told, at the start. I _was_
-afraid of you, you know. But now I feel quite differently. I would
-gladly have you know everything--but your father has other views. It is
-his secret, now, much more than it is mine. I don’t think there is any
-reason why I shouldn’t tell you that much.”
-
-“Oh-h!” groaned Adele, in wrath at her helplessness. “Well, tell me
-this, anyway, how long is this tomfoolery to be kept up?”
-
-“No, don’t ask me,” answered Vestalia, sympathetically at last. “I don’t
-know. I can only say that I’m as tired of it now as you are. I wish you
-would believe that. It would make me easier in my mind.”
-
-“Well, I do believe it, then,” the dark girl replied, with impulsive
-readiness. “Oh, and something occurs to me that I daresay you _can_ tell
-me. You remember the day at the Museum. Well, the gentleman who was with
-you called here next day, papa having in the meantime seen you secretly,
-downstairs. Now, papa seemed clearly annoyed with that gentleman, when
-he came up and found him here. Now, why was that?”
-
-Vestalia reflected. It was evident enough that the question honestly
-puzzled her. “All I can think of,” she replied, after consideration,
-“is that your father had taken it for granted that this gentleman was my
-husband--and when it came out in our interview that he wasn’t then your
-father questioned me very closely about him, and it happened that it was
-a subject upon which I couldn’t very well tell him much, and I daresay
-he formed an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Mosscrop on that account. That
-is the only explanation I can think of. I know he said he thought it
-would be well for me not to see him again, or even hold communication
-with him--but I did write him a letter that very day all the same.” It
-was Adele’s turn to ponder. “But why,” she began, hesitatingly, “why
-should papa take it upon himself to tell you what to do and not to do?
-What business is it of his? And, if he disliked the thing, why should
-he remain friendly to you, and snub the gentleman you call Mr. Mosscrop?
-Not that he minded it, or that it amounted to anything, but it puzzles
-me that papa should behave in that curious fashion.”
-
-“Yes, it would have been more natural to show the woman the cold
-shoulder, and think nothing amiss of the man,” assented Vestalia,
-gravely. “I quite agree with you there.”
-
-“Well, that _is_ the way of the world, isn’t it?” put in Adele, in
-apologetic tones. “Don’t dream that I suggest anything wrong.”
-
-“Oh no,” said the other patiently, but with a note of weariness in her
-voice. “It doesn’t matter, one way or the other.”
-
-“You love him, then?” Adele’s black eyes glowed with a sudden kindly
-warmth which went to Vestalia’s heart.
-
-“Oh, how can I tell you?” she faltered. “It is all so stupid--and I
-am so unhappy? He was goodness itself to me, and he must think that I
-behaved like a brute--a common girl of the streets--or meaner still,
-for at least it’s said they have _some_ sense of gratitude. He came like
-Providence itself to help me, when I was absolutely starving and turned
-out of doors like a dog--and I _was_ grateful, and yet here he must be
-thinking that I’m the very scum of the earth!”
-
-She gazed at her companion out of swimming eyes, and for answer Adele
-kissed her.
-
-“I will go now,” she stammered, hastily, as if the caress had further
-unnerved her. “I’ve stayed longer than I meant. Yes, I will come
-again--if you tell your father that I’ve been, and he says I may come.”
-
-“I’d like to see him say anything else!” cried the young lady from
-Paris, Kentucky. “The idea!”
-
-And when the door had closed upon Vestalia, this dark beauty clenched
-her hands, and strode indignantly about the room, and repeated between
-set teeth, “The very idea!”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI
-
-Vestalia paused at the street entrance of the hotel, and looked
-doubtfully up the hill toward the shifting outline of the strident,
-crowded Strand.
-
-The prospect repelled her, and she bent her slow steps in the other
-direction. Crossing the empty, sun-baked roadway of the Embankment, she
-strolled westward in the partial shade of the young lime-trees, which
-maintain a temerarious existence along the line of the river’s parapet.
-
-She looked over the stonework to the water from time to time as she
-walked, and every glance instinctively wandered up-stream toward the
-stretch of Westminster Bridge, poised delicately in the noonday haze
-across the body of the sleepy flood. The stately beauty of the opposing
-piles of buildings which it linked one with the other, and brought
-together into the loftiest picture the Old World knows, came as she
-moved toward it to soothe and uplift her spirits. Her lips parted
-with pleasure at the spectacle, and at the thought that there, in that
-glorious span between St. Thomas’ and St. Stephen’s, her own romance had
-been born.
-
-The warm serenity of the scene, the inimitable composure of its vast
-parts, lying under the sunshine in such majestic calm, seemed to chide
-the weak flutterings and despondencies to which she had surrendered her
-bosom. The romance which absorbed her mind, of which, indeed, her whole
-being had become a portion, had its home there, in the heart of that
-benignant grandeur. The grace and charm and noble strength of what she
-gazed upon rebuked her timid want of confidence in Destiny, as it shapes
-itself on Westminster Bridge. She walked forward with a firmer step,
-her head up, and her eyes drying themselves by the radiance of their own
-glance.
-
-And so, being borne along by the powerful spell which this great vista
-has cast about her, she had no sense of surprise when it caught up also
-David Mosscrop in its train, and placed him at her side. It was at the
-corner of the bridge, and a momentary clustering of pedestrians brought
-to a stand-still by a policeman’s uplifted hand had diverted her
-thoughts, and then someone touched her on the arm.
-
-She turned and drank in what had happened with tranquil, tenderly
-self-possessed eyes. She gave no start, as of a mind caught unawares.
-She was conscious of no wonder, no tremor of disturbance at the
-unexpected. The luminous regard in which she embraced the newcomer
-was as unreasoningly ready for him as are the spontaneous raptures of
-dreamland. No words came to her lips, but it was in the air that she had
-known he was coming.
-
-“I was just going to hunt a fellow up at his club across there,” said
-Mosscrop, his coarser masculine sense suggesting an explanation, “and I
-chanced to look over here, and I made sure it was you, and----”
-
-He stopped short too, and the slower fires kindled in the glance which
-met hers. They looked into each other’s eyes, in a long moment of
-silence. He drew her arm in his, while the glamour of this sustained
-gaze rested still upon them. Then, with a lengthened happy sigh she
-spoke.
-
-“I want to go again to that dear little place where we breakfasted,” she
-said softly. “You must let me have my own way. I have money in my purse,
-now, and you must come and lunch with me. And it must be--oh, it _must_
-be there.”
-
-They drove thither, this time in a high-hung, sumptuous, noiseless
-hansom, which sped with an entranced absence of motion through the busy
-streets.
-
-“It is like fairyland again,” she whispered, nestling against him in
-the narrow, deeply-padded enclosure. And he, resting his hand upon hers
-under the shelter of the closed doors, breathed heavily, and murmured a
-cadence without words in ecstatic response.
-
-In some ridiculous fraction of time they were at their journey’s end.
-The impression of having travelled on a magic carpet was in their minds
-as, almost ruefully, they woke from their day-dream of arrow-flight
-through space, stepped out, and paid the cabman. They laughed together
-at the thought, without necessity of mentioning what amused them.
-Vestalia, before they entered the restaurant, drew her companion a few
-doors up the street, and halted before the narrow window of the old
-French bootmaker’s shop. Here they laughed again, he merrily, she with a
-lingering, mellow aftermath of feeling in her tone.
-
-It was only when they were seated in the little room above and she had
-drawn off her gloves, and after a joyous insistence upon doing it all
-herself, had chosen some dishes from the card and sent the waiter off
-with the order, that their tongues were loosened.
-
-David leaned back in his chair, and beamed broad content. He began to
-talk in the measured, smooth-flowing tone which she remembered so well.
-“First of all, dear girl,” he said, “I want to put on the record my
-boundless delight at finding you once more. I take off my hat to the
-gods. They have devised in my behalf a boon which swallows up all the
-imaginable ills of a lifetime. I swear to complain of nothing they do
-for the rest of my days. They have given you back to me; and if I am
-dull enough to lose you again, why, I will bow my head submissively to
-the deserved mishaps of an ass.”
-
-The girl’s blue eyes twinkled with a soft, glad light. “It is a great
-joy to hear your voice again,” she said, gently. “The echoes of it have
-kept up a little faint murmur in my ears ever since we parted, as if
-some spirit was holding a phantom shell close to my head. And now it is
-as if we hadn’t parted at all, isn’t it?--I mean, for the present.”
-
-“Ah, it matters so little what you mean,” he replied, in affectionate
-banter. “I erred once, to my profound misfortune, in deferring to your
-mental processes, and permitting them to translate themselves into
-actions. Do not think that I shall be so weak again. The key shall never
-fail to be turned on you hereafter.”
-
-She laughed gaily, and shook her head in playful defiance. “Ah, but
-suppose----” she began, and then let a glance of merry archness complete
-her sentence.
-
-“I confess to curiosity,” he said. “I should prize highly your
-conception of the motives which prompted you to run away from me.”
-
-Her mood sobered perceptibly. “I did it because it was right.”
-
-“As a mainspring of human action, that is inadequate,” he commented.
-“Almost all painful and embarrassing things are right, but wise people
-avoid them as much as possible none the less.”
-
-“No, it was right for me to go,” she persisted. “I couldn’t stay and be
-dependent upon someone else, no matter who that someone else was. Your
-kindness to me that whole day was more grateful to me than you can
-think. I was so frightened in that early morning there on the bridge, so
-desolate and helpless and sick with dread of what was going to become
-of me, that I didn’t dream of hesitating to take shelter in your--your
-friendship. It was like going under some hospitable roof while there was
-a drenching rain outside, and I was very thankful for the refuge. But
-when it cleared up, I couldn’t go on staying, just because I had been
-made welcome, now, could I?”
-
-“Since you ask me, I declare with tearful emphasis that you could.”
-
-“No, seriously,” urged Vestalia; “don’t you agree with me that women
-should be just as self-reliant and independent as men?”
-
-“Me? I agree absolutely. I would have women insist upon the most
-unflinching independence, all the world over. I feel so keenly on that
-point, that out of the entire sex I would make only one exception. Very
-few people would take such an advanced position as that, I imagine. Just
-fancy how far I go! There are hundreds of millions of women, and I would
-have them all independent but just one. By a curious accident it happens
-that you are that one--but you will be fair-minded enough to recognise,
-I feel convinced, that this is the merest chance.”
-
-She made a droll little mouth at him, and he went on:
-
-“Yes, it is very strange. I cannot pretend to account for it, but you
-do undoubtedly form an exception to what would otherwise be a universal
-rule. The thought of other women earning their own living fills me with
-joy. I am fascinated by it, I assure you. I feel like bursting into song
-at the barest suggestion of the idea. But this very excess of reverence
-for the general principle begets a corresponding vehemence of feeling
-about the one solitary exception. That is in accordance with a natural
-law. Surely you respect natural laws? Well, the vaguest adumbration of
-an idea of your doing things for yourself convulses me with rage. The
-notion that my right to take entire charge of you is disputed seems
-monstrous and abominable to me. It is a denial of my mission on earth,
-and I am bound to combat it with all my powers.”
-
-Vestalia smiled. “I see what you mean. You are just an old prehistoric
-savage like the rest of your sex. Your one idea is to drag a woman off
-into your cave and keep her there, with a big rock rolled up in front of
-the door when you’re away.”
-
-“I would not have you disparage the primitive instincts,” urged
-Mosscrop, with an air of solemnity. “My word for it, we should be an
-extraordinarily uninteresting lot without them. They are the abiding
-bone and flesh and muscle of humanity, upon which it pleases each
-foolish generation in turn to stretch its own thin, trivial pelt of
-fashionable convention. My desire to seize you, and drag you off to
-my own cave, and make a life’s business of keeping you there, always
-beautiful, always happy, always replenishing the well-spring of joy in
-my existence--you choose that as something typical of the primeval man
-surviving within me. Let me tell you, sweet little Vestalia, that
-the human mind would cease tomorrow from its eternal wistful dream of
-progress if it were not for the hope that advancing civilisation will
-bring improved facilities for that sort of thing. The world would wilt,
-and curl up like a sapless leaf, and drop from its solar stem into
-gaseous space, if that anticipation were taken away. The race keeps
-itself going only by cherishing the faith that sometime, somewhere in
-the golden future, this planet will be arranged so that the right woman
-will always get into the right cave. That is what people mean when they
-speak of the millennium.”
-
-“That is all very well,” said Vestalia, “but it deals with everything
-from the man’s point of view. Consider the other side of the case. What
-do you say to the woman’s disinclination for cave-life--is that not
-entitled to respect?”
-
-“Possibly,” answered David, reflectively--“if one were able to believe
-in it.”
-
-The waiter entered at this point with a burdened tray in his arms, and
-Vestalia took up the wine list. “Which is it that we had--that in the
-lovely high green bottles, with arms like a vase?” she asked Mosscrop.
-“We must have the same again.”
-
-“You have told me nothing as yet,” said David, reproachfully, when they
-were alone again, “of all the thousand things I long to know.”
-
-“It is so hard to tell,” she explained, with hesitation. “That is, there
-are things that I am supposed not to tell to anybody, at present,
-at least. And as for what I ought not to tell _you_--why I have been
-instructed to avoid you altogether. I was even told not to write
-you--but I did all the same--just once.”
-
-David took a crumpled envelope from an inner pocket over his heart, held
-it up for her inspection, and replaced it. But even as he did so sombre
-shadows began to gather on his face. He laid down his knife and fork,
-and, biting his lips, looked out of the window.
-
-Vestalia swiftly recalled gruesome associations with that look. She
-stretched forth her hand, and laid it on his arm. “You mustn’t look out
-there,” she protested. “It has a bad effect on you. Look me in the face
-instead--please!”
-
-He shook his head impatiently, and stared with dogged, blinking eyes at
-the opposite roofs. “You don’t realise what it has all meant to me,” he
-said at last, his gaze still averted. The quaver in his voice profoundly
-affected the girl.
-
-“Listen to me--David,” she said, with something of his pathos reflected
-in her tone. “Turn and look at me. I haven’t the heart for even a moment
-of misunderstanding today. There isn’t anything on earth I won’t tell
-you. But you must look at me!”
-
-He slowly obeyed her, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes.
-“But apparently there are things which it would be merciful not to tell
-me,” he said, struggling for an instant for composure. Then his brows
-knitted themselves, and flashes played in the darkness of his glance.
-“Who forbids you this or that?” he demanded, the angry metallic growl
-rising in his voice. “Four days ago you were all alone in the world!
-You told me so! In detail you assured me of your isolation. What are
-you talking about now? You speak of receiving instructions--to avoid me
-altogether, to write no letter to me! Oh, I ask for no explanations----”
- he went on stormily, pushing back his chair to rise from the
-table--“don’t think I claim any right to question you. But I find myself
-mistaken, that is all! I am a silly duffer at a game of this sort. I
-take things in earnest, while the others are laughing in their sleeves.
-Well, I’ve had my lesson. Before God, I’ll never----”
-
-Vestalia screamed at him. She had half-risen in her place, gazing with
-bewildered, affrighted eyes, till some vague inkling of his meaning
-dawned upon her brain. “Foolish David! Foolish!” she cried aloud now.
-“Stop it! Stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying! Keep still, and
-let me talk to you!”
-
-She bent across the table, and peremptorily shook his shoulder to
-enforce her words. “You’re all wrong!” she clamoured, as his tempest of
-wrathful words subsided. Upon the silence which followed she implanted
-firmly the added comment: “Oh, you goose!”
-
-He looked up sullenly to her, as she stood now erect--and, meeting the
-glance in her eyes, felt himself clinging to it. There was for him
-the effect of sunshine in it--of clouds parted, of radiance and calm
-restored about him. Breathing hard, he gazed into her face, and came
-somehow to know from what he saw in it that he had been making a fool of
-himself. This perception assumed sharp outlines in his mind before she
-had spoken a word.
-
-“Now, will you behave yourself, and listen to me?” she demanded, with
-austerity. His shattered aspect of contrition was a sufficient answer,
-and she seated herself confidently. “Now I will explain things to
-you--although you don’t deserve it in the very least,” she began, in
-formal tones. “To commence with, you remember that American father and
-daughter that we met at the Museum, down in the basement?--well, it
-happened that--happened that--Oh, my poor boy, how _could_ you think so
-stupidly of me?”
-
-David had drawn up to his place again. He held Vestalia’s hands in his
-at this juncture, somehow, and the enchanted table narrowed itself until
-there was no barrier of space between their lips.
-
-The little kiss sweetened the air. The two, even while they exchanged a
-glance of shy surprise, thought of it with reverence. They instinctively
-gave to its contemplation a moment of tender silence.
-
-“How shrewd you were in discerning my leaven of savagery,” he remarked
-at last. “Or leaven? we’d better say principal ingredient!”
-
-“I like you that way,” said Vestalia, quietly.
-
-He smiled at her in dreamy incredulity. “I wonder if you do,” he mused.
-“They say women do like men who beat them. The police courts seem to
-support the idea. But there is a difficulty, you see. If you liked me
-because I behaved badly to you, then I should dislike you on precisely
-that account. So you mustn’t suggest approbation. No, I was very rude
-and stupid, and I am profoundly ashamed of myself. I should be ashamed
-to offer an excuse, too, if it were not just the one it is. I happen to
-be head over heels in love with you, dear little lady.”
-
-“And precisely what is that an excuse for?” demanded the girl, with a
-fine show of ingenuous calm.
-
-“For letting my luncheon get cold,” he replied, taking up his fork.
-
-With the laughter of pleased children, they resumed the broken course of
-the meal.
-
-“It doesn’t begin to be as nice as _your_ breakfast,” she commented
-after a little.
-
-“I don’t think it is a day for things to eat,” he said, pushing the
-plate aside. “I want to do nothing but just look at you--perhaps talk
-a little--but hear you talk much more. I am conscious of an indefinite
-hunger for the mere visual charm of you, sitting there opposite me. It
-seems as if it would take years to satisfy that alone. Do you know that
-you are very beautiful, dear, in your new clothes?”
-
-She regarded his face with a keen, almost anxious glance, before she let
-the softer look dominate her own. “I am going to hurry to tell you
-where I got them,” she said. “They are the gift of my uncle--my father’s
-brother. This was what I was beginning to explain when--when you got so
-unhappy.”
-
-“Yes--that is the merciful word--unhappy,” he assented, with gratitude.
-“I have been deeply out of sorts--mentally--since I lost you that night.
-There is a special devil inside of me, Vestalia, who sometimes lies low
-for long periods, and hardly reminds me of his existence, but since last
-Thursday he has been out on the war-path, night and day. My nerves are
-stretched like fiddle-strings, just with the effort of holding him.
-The sight of you is death to him, dear. He is gone now--clean out of
-existence. And while you stay, he won’t return. But the wretch has left
-me tired and a little tremulous. I want to rest myself by just looking
-at you.”
-
-She, smiling with demure pleasure at his speech and his look, related
-to him briefly the story of the Skinner pedigree. “It occurred to me the
-minute I woke up in the early morning,” she declared. “I shall always
-believe that I really dreamed it first. Are you interested in dreams?”
-
-“Oh immensely--at the time.”
-
-“No; but there _is_ something in them. I assure you, the idea never
-entered my head the day we met them. But before I was fairly awake
-next morning, lo, there it was, all worked out. The old gentleman
-was politeness itself. He came down immediately, when I sent my note
-upstairs. When I told him about wanting to make a pedigree of the
-Skinners, the notion appealed to him at once. Then I told him about
-something else, and that appealed to him a good deal more.”
-
-Vestalia paused here, and began to regard her companion with signs of
-diminishing confidence. “I can’t go any farther without making a most
-humiliating confession to you,” she faltered.
-
-“Then don’t go any farther, I beseech you,” he answered. “Truly, I do
-not find myself stirred very much by this entire demonstration of
-your ability to do things off your own bat. It is independent and
-praiseworthy and all that, no doubt, but I still have a lingering
-feeling that you ought to have stayed to breakfast, you know, and left
-mere commercial details to me. And I certainly shrink from humiliating
-confessions. Skip the unpleasant parts. We will have no skeletons at our
-feast to-day.”
-
-“Ah, but they can’t be skipped,” sighed Vestalia. She drew nearer to
-him, across the table, and lowered her voice. “I foolishly told you some
-things that were not so--that first morning,” she confided in doleful
-tones. “It was a kind of romance about myself that I had built up in my
-own mind, and without much thought I gave it to you as truth. So long
-as I kept it to myself it did no harm; it even made life easier and more
-endurable for me, like a poor child making-believe that she and her rag
-doll are princesses. But it was different to tell you. My father was
-not a French gentleman. He was not an officer, and he wasn’t killed in
-a duel. He was never in France any more than I was. My mother _was_
-Scotch, but she did not belong to any noble or wealthy family. She did
-not leave any family jewels with a crest on them, and no one cheated
-her out of a private fortune, because she never had such a thing. It was
-just my individual fairyland that I described to you as real. I didn’t
-even tell you my true name.” David smiled solace upon her distressed
-aspect “You speak as if it were of importance. Dear child, do we value a
-rare and beautiful lily the less, because the gardener has put the wrong
-label on it by mistake? Tut--tut! Names and lineage and all that--it is
-the idlest stuff on earth to me. The story that you told me was pleasant
-in my ears only because it came from your lips. The discovery now that
-it was _all_ yours--that it was not the mere recital of dull facts, but
-was the child of your own inner imaginings--why that only makes it the
-more delightful to me. I simply gave it store-room in my memory before;
-I love it now--and at the same time I find I have quite forgotten it.
-There is a paradox for you!”
-
-Vestalia essayed a smile through her tears. “You are always kinder than
-even I expect you to be,” she faltered; “but I did tell you a--a story,
-and by rights you should be very angry with me.”
-
-David laughed. “Hans Christian Andersen told me many stories, but I
-worshipped him increasingly to the end. Dear lady, the stories are the
-only veritable things in life. The alleged realities of existence pass
-by us, or roll over us, and leave us colourless and empty. The genuine
-possessions of our souls--the things that shape and decorate and furnish
-our spiritual habitations--are the things that never happened. I note
-a twinkle in your eye. You fancy that I have said an inept thing. You
-think that I shall have to go back and explain that at least what
-has happened to us forms an exception to the rule. Ah, sweet little
-Vestalia, have you forgotten your own remark, here in this very room?
-‘It isn’t like real life at all,’ you said; ‘it is the way things
-happen in fairy tales.’ I take my stand upon that definition. We have
-deliberately repudiated what are described as the realities of life.
-We discard them, cut them dead, decline to have anything whatever to do
-with them. We declare that it is fairyland that we are living in, and
-that we refuse to come out of it to the end of our days.”
-
-Vestalia gazed into his eyes with wistful tenderness. “To the end of
-our days!” she murmured softly, wonderingly. Then she recalled the task
-still unfinished. “I took the name of Peaussier,” she forced herself to
-continue, “because it was a translation of my own name. I looked in the
-dictionary, and found that it was the French for Skinner.”
-
-David lifted his brows. “You don’t mean----” he began, confusedly.
-
-“Yes;” she forestalled his question. “The old gentleman at the Savoy is
-my father’s own brother. My father was Abram Skinner. He was not a lucky
-man, or, in his later years, a very nice man either. He was always poor,
-and toward the end he was in other troubles too. My home was a thing to
-shudder at the recollection of. I ran away from it after mother died,
-and he’s gone, too, now. I changed the name, to wash my hands of the
-whole miserable thing. And then to think of the wonderful chance--to
-stumble upon my own uncle, a man of fortune and education, and the
-kindest heart alive--is it not the most extraordinary thing that ever
-happened in this world?”
-
-“Very possibly it might be regarded as extraordinary--out in the
-so-called world,” David assented, reflectively. “But it is just the
-thing that would be expected in fairyland. Yes, it seems, on the face
-of it, a beneficent occurrence. It is good for you to be seized and
-possessed of a rich uncle--from some points of view. But from others--a
-doubt suggests itself, Vestalia, whether your uncle is well-affected
-toward the fairies. Standard Oil does not lend itself without an effort
-to the fantastic. What if your uncle beckons you to come forth from
-fairyland?”
-
-“And leave you behind--is that what you mean?” asked Vestalia, slowly.
-“That would depend--depend on how much you wanted me to stay.”
-
-David put out his left hand to take hers, where it lay upon the cloth.
-With his right he drew out his watch. “The name Skinner,” he said, “is
-all right for the folk at the Savoy. It is not a suitable name for you.
-I sympathise fully with your impulse to abandon it. The expedient which
-you adopted was, no doubt, the best that offered itself at the moment,
-but I think I know a better. I must leave you now, and hurry into the
-City. This is Monday. Dear love, on Thursday I claim the whole day from
-you. We will breakfast here at eight--it is not too early, is it?--or
-say rather that at just eight I will come and find you on Westminster
-Bridge. The day must begin there, mustn’t it? And--strangely
-enough--Thursday is in a sort another birthday of mine.”
-
-“And of mine too?” she asked, with a light in her eyes.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-In the early afternoon of Thursday, David Mosscrop walked apart on
-shaded gravel-paths, beneath arches of roses and the feathered canopy of
-cedars high above, with Adele by his side.
-
-“Oh, it’s all right. The waiter will come out and tell us when it is
-ready,” he said reassuringly, in comment upon her backward glance. “I
-want to speak with you. There was no such thing as a word with you by
-yourself on the road.”
-
-“Why, we talked every mortal minute,” she protested.
-
-“Ah yes, we talked, but I don’t recall that anything was said.”
-
-“I daresay _my_ conversation is empty to the last degree,” she observed;
-“but I am usually spared such frank statements of the fact.”
-
-“Ah, but I want to be thought of as something a little different from
-the usual,” urged David.
-
-“Your efforts in that direction have been extraordinarily successful.
-Pray, do not imagine that they are unappreciated. I admit freely that
-you seem to have quite exhausted the unusual, my Lord.”
-
-“No; I’ve still got something up my sleeve,” said David, lightly enough.
-But the tone in which she had uttered those final two words caught his
-attention. They carried a suggestion of emphasis which fell outside the
-bounds of genial banter. Meditating upon it he stole a covert glance at
-her, and encountered two wide-awake black eyes intently scrutinising
-him in turn. “It was about that I wished to consult you,” he added,
-conscious of an embarrassed tongue.
-
-“Won’t it be better to stick to scenery?” she asked. Yes, there was
-undoubtedly a mocking touch in her voice. “That is so safe a subject.
-This dear old hotel here, now, how perfectly satisfying it is! Those
-wonderful trees out in front, and the white chalk hill behind, and this
-garden, and then the comfort and charm of everything inside, and the
-thought that people have been coming here for hundreds of years, or is
-it thousands?--it is so different from anything we have in America--even
-in Kentucky. And then the whole drive from London--through such
-delicious country, all so rich and smooth and neatly packed together,
-and so full of the notion that people are all the while planting and
-pruning and admiring every inch of it that you can’t help feeling
-affectionately toward it yourself! Perhaps there _is_ a certain hint of
-the artificial about it, but somehow that seems rather in keeping with
-the day than otherwise, doesn’t it, my Lord?”
-
-While he hesitated about an answer, she touched him on the arm. “Here
-are papa and Mr. Linkhaw coming along after us--probably to tell us
-luncheon is ready. Shan’t we wait for them?”
-
-“Heavens, no!” cried David, starting forward. “We’ve been chained
-to them on the top of the coach for two whole hours,” he went on, in
-defensive explanation of his warmth. “Really, we have earned the right
-to a few quiet words by ourselves.”
-
-“Oh, _I_ don’t mind,” said Adele, quickening her pace to suit his. “Only
-it’s fair to warn you, though, that my temper has its limitations. I am
-a variable person. Sometimes it happens that all at once I weary of a
-joke, after it has been carried to a certain length, and then I can be
-as unpleasant as they make ’em.”
-
-“I find that my own sense of humour has a tendency to flag under
-sustained effort, as I get older,” said David. “But there are so many
-pleasantries afloat--perhaps you wouldn’t mind indicating the one which
-particularly fatigues you, and I will put my foot on it at once.”
-
-“Oh, by no means! That would be far too crude. We are all your guests,
-and you are in charge of the entertainment, and I couldn’t dream of
-suggesting anything.”
-
-“Except that you find yourself no longer amused,” ventured David,
-cautiously.
-
-“Oh. not at all.” She spoke with perfunctory languor, and simulated a
-little yawn. “I daresay it is all immensely funny, only I got up earlier
-than usual this morning, and no doubt that has dulled my wits somewhat.”
-
-David perceived on the instant how matters stood. “I also rose at an
-extravagantly early hour,55 he said, and it is about my reasons for
-doing so that I want to tell you. But, first of all, let us be frank
-with each other. I have done nothing but accede to a situation created
-for me by Archie and yourself. It has been within your power to end it
-at any moment you choose. It has been all along much more your joke
-than mine. It isn’t fair to round on me for merely humouring your own
-conception of sport.”
-
-Adele halted momentarily, and surveyed his composed, swarthy countenance
-with lifted brows. “So you saw all along that _I_ knew!” she exclaimed,
-in honest surprise.
-
-“How could I have imagined that so clumsy a performance as mine would
-deceive so clever a young woman?” he rejoined, with a sprightly bow.
-
-“Oh, you did it awfully well,” she assured him, complacently. “But tell
-me, did Archie suspect that _I_ knew?”
-
-“I have been intimate with Archie from the cradle,” said David, “but I
-am still very shy about forming opinions as to his mental processes.
-In this case, however, I think it is safe to say he didn’t suspect--and
-still doesn’t suspect.”
-
-“Poor old Archie,” mused Adele, with a ripening smile. “I knew who
-he was before I’d even laid eyes on him. A school-friend of mine in
-Galveston wrote to me that she had met a real Earl, who insisted on
-being known as Mr. Linkhaw, and that he was returning to England by way
-of Kentucky. I’ve had three months of the rarest fun in never letting on
-that I had the remotest suspicion. You can’t imagine how comical it was.
-He used to get, quite tearful sometimes, I abused the aristocracy
-so fiercely. And then, the joke was, papa began--his whole idea of
-conversation is to take up to-day what I’ve said yesterday, and multiply
-my words by a hundred and twelve, and produce the result as his own; and
-he worked up the anti-Earl agitation till Archie very nearly went off
-into chronic melancholia. It was better than any comedy that ever was
-written--but then you stumbled your way into the middle of it, and
-got it all twisted and tangled up--and it hasn’t been so amusing since
-then.”
-
-“My dear Miss Skinner,” protested David, “I think my entrance upon the
-scene deserves a gentler verb. If you will search your memory, you will
-find that I came in by express invitation. It was you who deliberately
-thrust my mock honours upon me.”
-
-“Oh, I know that,” she responded, readily enough. “I thought that would
-only make the thing funnier still--but somehow it hasn’t. It isn’t
-anything about Archie and me, you know. But there is another element
-in the case that I feel very keenly about. It has been puzzling me for
-days, but I only learned the truth last night. I simply _made_ papa tell
-me. I refused flat-footed to come here to-day, or to do anything else
-that was reasonable, unless he _did_ tell me. I have a cousin here in
-England, Mr. Mosscrop, a daughter of my father’s own brother, and she is
-one of the dearest girls that ever lived.”
-
-“I can readily credit that,” declared David, pointing his meaning with a
-little inclination of the head.
-
-“Oh, she is far nicer than I am,” cried Adele. “_She_ wouldn’t trifle
-with the feelings of the man she loved, or play tricks with him just for
-the sake of fun. In fact, I almost blame her for taking such things too
-seriously. She hasn’t had too easy a time of it, poor girl, and it has
-made her, _I_ think, altogether _too_ humble. She met a young man in the
-midst of her troubles who, it seems, was civil to her, and even kind
-as men go, and what does she do but just sit down and worship the very
-memory of him, and cry out her pretty blue eyes over it--and he--he
-walks off and never gives her another thought. That’s the _man_ of it!”
-
-A gleam of indignation flashed through the moisture in her own eyes
-as she bent them upon her companion. Her bosom heaved the more as she
-discerned a broad smile extending itself upon his face.
-
-“Although I might demur to details,” he said, restraining the gaiety
-which struggled for expression in his voice, “I must not pretend to fail
-to recognise the portrait you have drawn. I am the guilty man!”
-
-“You laugh at it!” she exclaimed. “To you it seems a joke!”
-
-“Are you so certain that there isn’t a joke concealed somewhere about
-it?” he suggested, calmly.
-
-“I lose patience with you! You make a jest of everything. Tell me this
-much: Do you or do you not know her present address?”
-
-“I know precisely where she is to be found at the present moment,” said
-David, speaking now with gravity.
-
-“Well, and have you been there to see her? Have you written to her
-there? Have you given her the slightest sign since she has been there of
-any desire on your part to ever see her again?”
-
-“I must answer ‘No’ to each question, I am afraid,” he responded, and
-had the grace to hang his head.
-
-His evident humility only momentarily impressed her. “I am disappointed
-in you,” she said. “Where will you find a sweeter or truer woman? Don’t
-think I am throwing her at your head! Quite the contrary. If you were to
-ask for her now, I should advise with all my might against you. But you
-have behaved like a simpleton. I am going to have her always live with
-me, or near me. She is my own flesh and blood, and I love her as if
-she were my sister. She doesn’t know, as yet, that I am aware of the
-relationship; but I have written to her this very morning, telling her
-to come and see me to-night, when I get back. I am going to spend some
-money in Scotland.”
-
-“It will be profoundly appreciated, believe me.”
-
-She sniffed at his interjection. “I intend to buy land right and left in
-Elgin, and if Skirl Castle isn’t good enough--I don’t think much of
-it from the photographs--we’ll build a bigger one, and we’ll make
-that whole section hum; and Vestalia shall be as big an heiress as it
-contains, and the lucky man who marries her shall be treated like a
-brother of mine and Archie’s. And that is what you have thrown away.
-I say it to you frankly, because it is all over so far as you are
-concerned. She will listen to me, and my mind is quite made up--and papa
-can tell you what _that_ means!”
-
-“Even if your decision were not irrevocable,” said David, solemnly, “my
-answer would of necessity be the same. I would do much to please you,
-but I do not see my way to marrying your cousin.”
-
-They had paused to exchange these last sentences, and now upon the
-instant the Earl and his elderly companion came up. David essayed a
-revelatory wink to the nobleman, but it fell upon the stony places in
-Lord Drum-pipes wondering stare.
-
-Mr. Skinner wiped his brow decorously, and breathed appreciation of
-the halt. “Sir,” he began, addressing David, “I must assume that I am
-enjoying the opportunity of studying a district of England peculiarly
-favoured by Nature, and exceptionally embellished as well by the hand of
-man; but I wish to give expression to emotions of unmixed delight at all
-that I observe about me. We have inspected the internal appointments
-of the ancient hostelry, and have revelled, sir, in the luxurious yet
-studiously regulated beauties of this garden, and I confess that the
-novelty of the one and the charm of the other far surpass anything----”
-
-“Papa,” interposed his daughter, with cold severity, “we will leave
-these gentlemen to enjoy the novelties and charms by themselves for a
-few minutes, if you please. I have an explanation to make to you, since
-no one else offers it, and I think it should be no longer deferred.”
-
-She took her father’s arm as she spoke, and led him in a direct line
-across the sward toward the broad, low-lying, ivy-clad rear of the
-hotel. “Oh, it’s all right; they don’t mind your walking on the grass in
-England,” the two young men heard her say as she departed.
-
-These partners in deception gazed after her for a space. Then they
-looked at each other.
-
-“Davie, I don’t like it,” said the Earl.
-
-“Don’t like what?”
-
-“I’m afraid she’s got some kind of an inkling. It looks as if a
-suspicion were dawning in her mind. I warned you she was keen of scent.”
-
-Mosscrop burst forth with a peremptory guffaw of laughter. “You duffer
-of the earth,” he cried, “she knew all about you before ever she laid
-eyes on you!” He unfolded the chuckling narrative forthwith, to the
-Earl’s profound astonishment and concern.
-
-“Why then, man,” Drumpipes ejaculated at last, staring hard at the
-close-cropped lawn, “I can’t tell in the least if she loves me for
-myself alone.”
-
-“Oh, you read that in some novel,” objected David. “It’s a mere phrase;
-it has no significance in real life.”
-
-“Yes; but,” the other pursued, dejectedly, “I don’t see how I can make
-sure that she loves me in any kind of way.”
-
-“At all events, she’s going to marry you,” David re-assured him. “She
-mentioned the fact to me, casually. And she’s going to buy up Elgin
-right and left, and build a new Skirl Castle as big as Olympia, and
-generally make everything else north of the Grampians ‘sing small’--I
-believe that’s the phrase.”
-
-The Earl assimilated this intelligence with a kindling eye. “Man, it’s
-fine!” he cried, as the prospect spread itself out before his mental
-vision. “Ah, poor Davie, you dinna ken what it is to be in love!”
-
-Mosscrop sighed. “When you talk Scots, Archie,” he said, “I know it’s
-going to cost me money. I foresee that you’ll kick about the bill. But,
-hurry, man, and catch up with them. She’s quite capable of flouncing out
-of the house, and dragging her father along, too, while the fit is on
-her; and that would only mean more bother to coax them back. Come on!”
-
-He started at a brisk pace in pursuit, and Drumpipes strode eagerly
-beside him. They overtook their guests on the very threshold of the
-door, and the Earl called out a breathless, entreating “Adele!” The
-girl, upon reflection, turned, and surveyed the pair with an austere
-eye.
-
-“Wait a moment, papa,” she said in her coldest tone; “one of these two
-gentlemen seems to feel authorised to address me by my Christian name,
-and apparently has also some communication to make to us.”
-
-“Well,” stammered Drumpipes, hesitatingly, “there’s an awfully good
-luncheon been ordered, you know.”
-
-Mosscrop emitted an abrupt, resonant note of laughter, and in the
-silence which ensued displayed violent muscular efforts to keep a grin
-from convulsing his face.
-
-Adele preserved the severity of her aspect for a little. “I think it
-might occur to _you_, Lord Drumpipes,” she began, markedly addressing
-her remarks to the rightful bearer of the title, “that after what has
-happened--and on this point, I can assure you my father feels exactly as
-I do----”
-
-She stopped here, with the effect of appealing to her father for
-immediate confirmation of their inflexible joint attitude.
-
-“I need scarcely observe,” began Mr. Skinner, putting up his _pince-nez_
-and looking down upon the two young men with sternness from the vantage
-of the door-step, “that whatever course my daughter deems it consistent
-with her dignity to pursue, in the face of the extraordinary, and, I may
-confidently add, unprecedented circumstances which we are called upon
-to--to confront, has my most unswerving adhesion.”
-
-A waiter opened the door inward at this instant, and overlaid Mr.
-Skinner’s peroration with a clear-cut message, Germanic in its
-nonessentials, but broadly human in import.
-
-The old gentleman gasped, twiddled the string of his glasses in his
-fingers, and leant his head sidewise toward his daughter. “Yes, but what
-_is_ it we’re going to do?” he inquired in a nervous whisper.
-
-“Do?” cried Mosscrop, who had caught her glance in his own, and
-convicted it of latent merriment, “Do? Why we’re going to laugh at a
-harmless pleasantry happily ended, and pass in to luncheon.”
-
-“Yes, papa,” said Adele, upon consideration, and with a dawning smile
-upon her lips, “I think that _is_ what we’re going to do.” When
-they found themselves standing about the table in the private room,
-overlooking through open French windows the delightful sunlit garden
-from which they had come, Mosscrop seized the moment of hesitation about
-seats to hold up his hand. Though he had been bereft of his borrowed
-dignities, the air of natural command sat easily upon him.
-
-“I have to ask you for a minute or two of delay,” he said. “It will
-explain itself.”
-
-He wrote something on a card as he spoke, and gave it to the waiter with
-a closely-guarded whisper of injunction. As the servant left the room,
-David turned to the others with a radiant face.
-
-“Mr. Skinner,” he began, “and my younger friends, there is a toast which
-in England is always drunk standing. It occurs to me to propose it to
-you, on this single occasion, before we have taken our seats at all. As
-has been remarked with characteristic perspicacity, the circumstances
-which we find ourselves called upon to confront are extraordinary in
-character, and altogether unprecedented. Through the courtesy of
-my friends, I have for a brief period had devolved upon me the
-responsibility of behaving, at stated intervals, as a member of the
-Scotch peerage should behave. I view my deportment throughout this
-ordeal, in retrospect, with a considerable degree of satisfaction. I
-have spared no pains to realise my conception of the part. The essential
-thing about a successful peerage, I take it, is that it should be
-invested, for ordinary eyes, with a glamour of unreality. A Baron should
-be perceptibly romantic. A Viscount, if he respects his station should
-quite envelope himself in the mists of the improbable. As for an Earl,
-he should live frankly in fairyland. My imagination does not run to
-Marquises and Dukes, but I think I may say I have grasped the ideal of
-an Earl.”
-
-“The true ideal of an Earl,” interposed Drumpipes, with inspiration, “is
-never to let victuals get cold.”
-
-Mosscrop smiled and nodded. “Only a minute more,” he said. “I spoke
-about fairyland. I have been under its spell all this week. I have
-committed myself to its charm for the rest of my days. When you return
-to London this evening, northward, it is Archie Who will drive you. I
-go southward to the Loire country instead, under the magic of the
-enchantment which beckons and guides and propels me, all in one. To quit
-riddles, good people, you will notice that there is a fifth place laid
-here before us. To connect this fact with the toast, the seat is waiting
-for _my_ Queen. This is Sherry, decanted from the ‘Anchor’s’ oldest bin.
-I suggest to you the filling of your glasses.”
-
-He moved toward the door as he spoke, opened it, and turned to the
-others, with Ves-talia on his arm.
-
-“Mr. Skinner,” he said gently. “We crave your approbation for what we
-have done. We were married by the registrar of St. Dunstan’s at ten
-o’clock this morning, and your niece came on here direct by train,
-bringing her luggage and my own, which I thank God devoutly will always
-travel together in future. We love each other very, very much.”
-
-There fell here upon the masculine vision the spectacle of two
-women entwined in each other’s arms, and of two beautiful heads, one
-raven-black, one glowing like light through clouded amber, bent tenderly
-together. The sound of little moans proceeded from this swaying,
-interlocked group, and then of kisses and of subdued ecstatic sobbing
-laughter.
-
-Lord Drumpipes, staring vacantly from these women to his boyhood friend,
-gulped his sherry in an absent-minded way. David, in rapid whispers,
-outlined meanwhile the situation to his bewildered ear.
-
-“Eh!” he called out at last. “It is the same lassie? The yellow-haired
-one? The one who smashed my moosie?”
-
-“Shut up, you loon!” growled David fiercely, under his breath. “Is this
-the time to blab about such things? _I_ kicked your your old cow into
-splinters, and I’ll serve the rest of the idiotic show the same way
-if you mention the word ‘moose.’ Chuck it, man! That’s a thing for the
-girls to tell each other a year hence, perhaps. Have some delicacy about
-you!” He turned to Mr. Skinner, who stood as one petrified, his gaze
-riveted upon the young women.
-
-“I’ve been explaining to my friend, Lord Drumpipes,” David said, lifting
-his voice, “the romantic nature of my acquaintance with your niece, my
-wife. I think you have been told about it.”
-
-Mr. Skinner shifted his glance to the speaker. “To some extent--to some
-extent,” he murmured weakly. “It has taken me greatly by surprise. I
-scarcely know-----”
-
-David had advanced, and was holding out his hand, with a confident,
-masterful sort of smile.
-
-“I suppose it’s all right,” the old gentleman said, sending confused,
-appealing glances toward his inattentive daughter. “Adele seems not to
-object--I take it for granted that----”
-
-Adele lifted her head, and drew a protecting arm round Vestalia. “Hold
-up your chin,” she whispered, audibly. “They’re nothing to be frightened
-of. You know everybody except your cousin Archie, and he’s only to be
-feared by creatures who can’t shoot back.”
-
-The bride, nestling against the other’s shoulder, raised a luminous
-face, and looked about her with a smile of frank happiness.
-
-“Frightened?” she queried, and then shook her fair head joyously in
-answer.
-
-The waiter came in with the tureen.
-
-
-THE END.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of March Hares, by Harold Frederic
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