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diff --git a/old/54986-0.txt b/old/54986-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9f2077f..0000000 --- a/old/54986-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5624 +0,0 @@ -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 - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCH HARES *** - -***** This file should be named 54986-0.txt or 54986-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/9/8/54986/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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