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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57447 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_THE ROMANCE OF A SHOP._
+
+[Illustration: Logo]
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF A SHOP.
+
+BY
+
+AMY LEVY.
+
+BOSTON
+CUPPLES AND HURD
+The Algonquin Press
+1889
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+                        PAGE
+IN THE BEGINNING           1
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FRIENDS IN NEED           16
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WAYS AND MEANS            36
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+NUMBER TWENTY B.          47
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THIS WORKING-DAY WORLD    65
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+TO THE RESCUE             77
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A NEW CUSTOMER            93
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A DISTINGUISHED PERSON   108
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SHOW SUNDAY              125
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+SUMMING UP               142
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A CONFIDENCE             159
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+GERTRUDE IS ANXIOUS      170
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A ROMANCE                181
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+LUCY                     190
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CRESSIDA                 203
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A WEDDING                216
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A SPECIAL EDITION        225
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+PHYLLIS                  236
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE SYCAMORES            246
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+IN THE SICK-ROOM         257
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE LAST ACT             266
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+HOPE AND A FRIEND        272
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A DISMISSAL              281
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+AT LAST                  289
+
+
+EPILOGUE                 298
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF A SHOP.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+IN THE BEGINNING.
+
+     _Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;
+     Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;
+     Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate._
+                                                   TENNYSON.
+
+
+There stood on Campden Hill a large, dun-coloured house, enclosed by a
+walled-in garden of several acres in extent. It belonged to no
+particular order of architecture, and was more suggestive of comfort
+than of splendour, with its great windows, and rambling, nondescript
+proportions. On one side, built out from the house itself, was a big
+glass structure, originally designed for a conservatory. On the April
+morning of which I write, the whole place wore a dejected and
+dismantled appearance; while in the windows and on the outer wall of the
+garden were fixed black and white posters, announcing a sale of effects
+to take place on that day week.
+
+The air of desolation which hung about the house had communicated itself
+in some vague manner to the garden, where the trees were bright with
+blossom, or misty with the tender green of the young leaves. Perhaps the
+effect of sadness was produced, or at least heightened, by the pathetic
+figure that paced slowly up and down the gravel path immediately before
+the house; the figure of a young woman, slight, not tall, bare-headed,
+and clothed in deep mourning.
+
+She paused at last in her walk, and stood a moment in a listening
+attitude, her face uplifted to the sky.
+
+Gertrude Lorimer was not a beautiful woman, and such good looks as she
+possessed varied from day to day, almost from hour to hour; but a
+certain air of character and distinction clung to her through all her
+varying moods, and redeemed her from a possible charge of plainness.
+
+She had an arching, unfashionable forehead, like those of Lionardo da
+Vinci's women, short-sighted eyes, and an expressive month and chin. As
+she stood in the full light of the spring sunshine, her face pale and
+worn with recent sorrow, she looked, perhaps, older than her
+twenty-three years.
+
+Pushing back from her forehead the hair, which, though not cut into a
+"fringe," had a tendency to stray about her face, and passing her hand
+across her eyes, with a movement expressive of mingled anxiety and
+resolve, she walked quickly to the door of the conservatory, opened it,
+and went inside.
+
+The interior of the great glass structure would have presented a
+surprise to the stranger expectant of palms and orchids. It was fitted
+up as a photographer's studio.
+
+Several cameras, each of a different size, stood about the room. In one
+corner was a great screen of white-painted canvas; there were blinds to
+the roof adapted for admitting or excluding the light; and paste-pots,
+bottles, printing-frames, photographs in various stages of finish--a
+nondescript heap of professional litter--were scattered about the place
+from end to end.
+
+Standing among these properties was a young girl of about twenty years
+of age; fair, slight, upright as a dart, with a glance at once alert and
+serene.
+
+The two young creatures in their black dresses advanced to each other,
+then stood a moment, clinging to one another in silence.
+
+It was the first time that either had been in the studio since the day
+when their unforeseen calamity had overtaken them; a calamity which
+seemed to them so mysterious, so unnatural, so past all belief, and yet
+which was common-place enough--a sudden loss of fortune, immediately
+followed by the sudden death of the father, crushed by the cruel blow
+which had fallen on him.
+
+"Lucy," said the elder girl at last, "is it only a fortnight ago?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Lucy, looking round the room, whose familiar
+details stared at her with a hideous unfamiliarity; "I don't know if it
+is a hundred years or yesterday since I put that portrait of Phyllis in
+the printing-frame! Have you told Phyllis?"
+
+"No, but I wish to do so at once; and Fanny. But here they come."
+
+Two other black-gowned figures entered by the door which led from the
+house, and helped to form a sad little group in the middle of the room.
+
+Frances Lorimer, the eldest of them all, and half-sister to the other
+three, was a stout, fair woman of thirty, presenting somewhat the
+appearance of a large and superannuated baby. She had a big face, with
+small, meaningless features, and faint, surprised-looking eyebrows. Her
+complexion had once been charmingly pink and white, but the tints had
+hardened, and a coarse red colour clung to the wide cheeks. At the
+present moment, her little, light eyes red with weeping, her eyebrows
+arched higher than ever, she looked the picture of impotent distress.
+She had come in, hand in hand with Phyllis, the youngest, tallest, and
+prettiest of the sisters; a slender, delicate-looking creature of
+seventeen, who had outgrown her strength; the spoiled child of the
+family by virtue of her youth, her weakness, and her personal charms.
+
+Gertrude was the first to speak.
+
+"Now that we are all together," she said, "it is a good opportunity for
+talking over our plans. There are a great many things to be considered,
+as you know. Phyllis, you had better not stand."
+
+Phyllis cast her long, supple frame into the lounge which was regarded
+as her special property, and Fanny sat down on a chair, wiping her eyes
+with her black-bordered pocket-handkerchief. Gertrude put her hands
+behind her and leaned her head against the wall.
+
+Phyllis's wide, grey eyes, with their half-wistful, half-humorous
+expression, glanced slowly from one to the other.
+
+"Now that we are all grouped," she said, "there is nothing left but for
+Lucy to focus us."
+
+It was a very small joke indeed, but they all laughed, even Fanny. No
+one had laughed for a fortnight, and at this reassertion of youth and
+health their spirits rose with unexpected rapidity.
+
+"Now, Gertrude, unfold your plans," said Lucy, in her clear tones and
+with her air of calm resolve.
+
+Gertrude played nervously with a copy of the _British Journal of
+Photography_ which she held, and began to speak with hesitation, almost
+with apology, as one who deprecates any undue assumption of authority.
+
+"You know that Mr. Grimshaw, our father's lawyer, was here last night,"
+she said; "and that he and I had a long talk together about business.
+(He was sorry you were too ill to come down, Fanny.) He told me all
+about our affairs. We are quite, quite poor. When everything is settled,
+when the furniture is sold, he thinks there will be about £500 among us,
+perhaps more, perhaps less."
+
+Fanny's thin, feminine tones broke in on her sister's words--
+
+"There is my £50 a-year that my mama left me; I am sure you are all
+welcome to that."
+
+"Yes, dear, yes," said Lucy, patting her shoulder; while Gertrude bit
+her lip and went on--
+
+"We cannot live for long on £500, as you must know. We must work. People
+have been very kind. Uncle Sebastian has telegraphed for two of us to go
+out to India; Mrs. Devonshire offers another two of us a home for as
+long as we like. But I think we would all rather not accept these kind
+offers?"
+
+"Of course not!" cried Lucy and Phyllis in chorus, while Fanny
+maintained a meek, consenting silence.
+
+"The question remains," continued the speaker; "what can we do? There is
+teaching, of course. We might find places as governesses; but we should
+be at a great disadvantage without certificates or training of any sort.
+And we should be separated."
+
+"Oh, Gertrude," cried Fanny, "you might write! You write so beautifully!
+I am sure you could make your fortune at it."
+
+Gertrude's face flushed, but she controlled all other signs of the
+irritation which poor hapless Fan was so wont to excite in her.
+
+"I have thought about that, Fanny," she said; "but I cannot afford to
+wait and hammer away at the publishers' doors with a crowd of people
+more experienced and better trained than myself. No, I have another plan
+to propose to you all. There is one thing, at least, that we can all
+do."
+
+"We can all make photographs, except Fan," said Phyllis, in a doubtful
+voice.
+
+"Exactly!" cried Gertrude, growing excited, and walking across to the
+middle of the room; "we can make photographs! We have had this studio,
+with every proper arrangement for light and other things, so that we are
+not mere amateurs. Why not turn to account the only thing we can do, and
+start as professional photographers? We should all keep together. It
+would be a risk, but if we failed we should be very little worse off
+than before. I know what Lucy thinks of it, already. What have you
+others to say to it?"
+
+"Oh, Gertrude, need it come to that--to open a shop?" cried Fanny,
+aghast.
+
+"Fanny, you are behind the age," said Lucy, hastily. "Don't you know
+that it is quite distinguished to keep a shop? That poets sell
+wall-papers, and first-class honour men sell lamps? That Girton students
+make bonnets, and are thought none the worse of for doing so?"
+
+"_I_ think it a perfectly splendid idea," cried Phyllis, sitting up; "we
+shall be like that good young man in _Le Nabab_."
+
+"Indeed, I hope we shall not be like André," said Gertrude, sitting down
+by Phyllis on the couch and putting her arm round her, "especially as
+none of us are likely to write successful tragedies by way of
+compensation."
+
+"You two people are getting frivolous," remarked Lucy, severely, "and
+there are so many things to consider."
+
+"First of all," answered Gertrude, "I want to convince Fanny. Think of
+all the dull little ways by which women, ladies, are generally reduced
+to earning their living! But a business--that is so different. It is
+progressive; a creature capable of growth; the very qualities in which
+women's work is dreadfully lacking."
+
+"We have thought out a good many of the details," went on Lucy, who was
+possessed of less imagination than her sister, but had a clearer
+perception of what arguments would best appeal to Fanny's understanding.
+"It would not absorb all our capital, we have so many properties
+already. We thought of buying some nice little business, such as are
+advertised every week in _The British Journal_. But of course we should
+do nothing rashly, nor without consulting Mr. Grimshaw."
+
+"Not for his advice," put in Gertrude, "but to arrange any transaction
+for us."
+
+"Gertrude and I," went on Lucy, "would do the work, and you, Fanny, if
+you would, should be our housekeeper."
+
+"And I," cried Phyllis, her great eyes shining, "I would walk up and
+down outside, like that man in the High Street, who tells me every day
+what a beautiful picture I should make!"
+
+"Our photographs would be so good and our manners so charming that our
+fame would travel from one end of the earth to the other!" added Lucy,
+with a sudden abandonment of her grave and didactic manner.
+
+"We would have afternoon tea in the studio on Sunday, to which everybody
+should flock; duchesses, cabinet ministers, and Mr. Irving. We should
+become the fashion, make colossal fortunes, and ultimately marry dukes!"
+finished off Gertrude.
+
+Fanny looked up, helpless but unconvinced. The enthusiasm of these young
+creatures had failed to communicate itself to her. Their outburst of
+spirits at such a time seemed to her simply shocking.
+
+As Lucy had said, Frances Lorimer was behind the age. She was an
+anachronism, belonging by rights to the period when young ladies played
+the harp, wore ringlets, and went into hysterics.
+
+Living, moving, and having her being well within the vision of three
+pairs of searching and intensely modern young eyes, poor Fan could
+permit herself neither these nor any kindred indulgences; but went her
+way with a vague, inarticulate sense of injury--a round, sentimental peg
+in the square, scientific hole of the latter half of the nineteenth
+century.
+
+Now, when the little tumult had in some degree subsided, she ventured
+once more to address the meeting.
+
+That was the worst of Fan; there was no standing up in fair fight and
+having it out with her; you might as soon fight a feather-bed.
+Convinced, to all appearances, one moment; the next, she would go back
+to the very point from which she had started, with that mild but
+terrible obstinacy of the weak.
+
+"I suppose you know," she said, having once more recourse to the
+black-bordered pocket-handkerchief, "what every one will think?"
+
+"Every one will be dead against it. We know that, of course," said Lucy,
+with the calm confidence of untried strength.
+
+Fortunately the discussion was interrupted at this juncture, by the
+loud voice of the gong announcing luncheon.
+
+Fanny rushed off to bathe her eyes. Gertrude ran upstairs to wash her
+hands, and the two younger girls lingered together a few moments in the
+studio.
+
+"I wonder," said Phyllis, with the complete and unconscious cynicism of
+youth, "why Fan has never married; she has just the sort of qualities
+that men seem to think desirable in a wife and a mother!"
+
+"Poor Fanny, don't you know?" answered Lucy. "There was a person once,
+ages ago, but he was poor and had to go away, and Fan would have no one
+else."
+
+This was Lucy's version of that far away, uninteresting little romance;
+Fanny's "disappointment," to which the heroine of it was fond of making
+vaguely pathetic allusion. Fan would have no one else, her sister had
+said; but perhaps another cause lay at the root of her constancy (and of
+much feminine constancy besides); but if Lucy did not say no one else
+would have Fan, Phyllis, who was younger and more merciless, chose to
+accept the statement in its inverted form; which, by the by, neither
+she, nor I, nor you, reader, have authentic grounds for doing.
+
+"Oh, I had heard about _that_ before, naturally," she answered; but
+further conversation on the subject was cut short by the appearance of
+Fanny herself, come to summon them to the dining-room, where lunch was
+set out on the great table.
+
+Old Kettle, the butler, waited on them as usual, and there was nothing
+in the nature of the viands to bring home to them the fact of their
+altered circumstances; but it was a dismal meal, crowned with a sorrow's
+crown of sorrow, the remembrance of happier things. In the vacant place
+they all seemed to see the dead father, as he had been wont to sit among
+them; charming, gay, _debonnair_, the life of the party; delighting no
+less in the light-hearted sallies of his daughters, than in his own
+neatly-polished epigrams; a man as brilliant as he had been
+unsatisfactory; as little able to cope with the hard facts of existence
+as he had been reckless in attacking them.
+
+"Oh, girls," said Fanny, when the door had finally closed upon Kettle;
+"Oh, girls, I have been thinking. If only circumstances had been
+otherwise, if only--things had happened a little differently, I might
+have had a home to offer you, a home to which you might all have come!"
+
+Overcome by this vision of possibilities, this resuscitation of her dead
+and buried might-have-been, Miss Lorimer began to sob quietly; and the
+poor eyes, which she had been at such pains to bathe, overflowed,
+deluging the streaky expanses of newly-washed cheeks.
+
+"Oh, I can't help it, I can't help it," moaned this shuttlecock of fate,
+appealing to the stern young judges who sat silent around her; an appeal
+which, if duly considered, will seem to be even more piteous than the
+outbreak of emotion of which it was the cause.
+
+Gertrude got up from her chair and went from the room; Phyllis sat
+staring, with beautiful, unmoved, accustomed eyes; only Lucy, laying a
+cool hand on her half-sister's burning fingers, spoke words of comfort
+and of common sense.
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FRIENDS IN NEED.
+
+     _And never say "no," when the world says "ay,"
+     For that is fatal._
+                                    E. B. BROWNING.
+
+
+When Gertrude reached her room she flung herself on the bed, and lay
+there passive, with face buried from the light.
+
+She was worn out, poor girl, with the strain of the recent weeks; a
+period into which a lifetime of events, thoughts, and experience seemed
+to have crowded themselves.
+
+Action, or thoughts concerned with plans of action, had become for the
+moment impossible to her.
+
+She realised, with a secret thrill of horror, that the moment had at
+length come when she must look full in the face the lurking anguish of
+which none but herself knew the existence; and which, in the press of
+more immediate miseries, she had hitherto contrived to keep well in the
+background of her thoughts. Only, she had known dimly throughout, that
+face it she must, sooner or later; and now her hour had come.
+
+There was some one, bound to her by every tie but the tie of words, who
+had let the days of her trouble go by and had made no sign; a
+fair-weather friend, who had fled before the storm.
+
+In these few words are summed up the whole of Gertrude's commonplace
+story.
+
+Only to natures as proud and as passionate as hers, can the words convey
+their full meaning.
+
+She was not a woman easily won; not till after long siege had come
+surrender; but surrender, complete, unquestioning, as only such a woman
+can give.
+
+Now, her being seemed shaken at the foundations, hurt at the vital
+roots. As a passionate woman will, she thought: "If it had been his
+misfortune, not mine!"
+
+In the hall lay a bit of pasteboard with "sincere condolence" inscribed
+on it; and Gertrude had not failed to learn, from various sources, of
+the presence at half a dozen balls of the owner of the card, and his
+projected visit to India.
+
+Gertrude rose from the bed with a choked sound, which was scarcely a
+cry, in her throat. She had looked her trouble fairly in the eyes; had
+not, as some women would have done, attempted to save her pride by
+refusing to acknowledge its existence; but from the depths of her
+humiliation, had called upon it by its name. Now for ever and ever she
+turned from it, cast it forth from her; cast forth other things,
+perhaps, round which it had twined itself; but stood there, at least, a
+free woman, ready for action.
+
+Thank God for action; for the decree which made her to some extent the
+arbiter of other destinies, the prop and stay of other lives. For the
+moment she caught to her breast and held as a friend that weight of
+responsibility which before had seemed--and how often afterwards was to
+seem--too heavy and too cruel a burden for her young strength.
+
+"And now," she said, setting her lips, "for a clearance."
+
+Soon the floor was strewn with a heap of papers, chiefly manuscripts,
+whose dusty and battered air would have suggested to an experienced eye
+frequent and fruitless visits to the region of Paternoster Row.
+
+Gertrude, kneeling on the floor, bent over them with anxious face,
+setting some aside, consigning others ruthlessly to the waste-paper
+basket. One, larger and more travel-worn than the rest, she held some
+time in her hand, as though weighing it in the balance. It was labelled:
+_Charlotte Corday; a tragedy in five acts_; and for a time its fate
+seemed uncertain; but it found its way ultimately to the basket.
+
+A smart tap at the door roused Gertrude from her somewhat melancholy
+occupation.
+
+"Come in!" she cried, pushing back the straying locks from the ample
+arch of her forehead, but retaining her seat among the manuscripts.
+
+The handle turned briskly, and a blooming young woman, dressed in the
+height of fashion, entered the room.
+
+"My dear Gertrude, what's this? Rachel weeping among her children?"
+
+She spoke in high tones, but with an exaggeration of buoyancy which
+bespoke nervousness. When last these friends had met, it had been in the
+chamber of death itself; it was a little difficult, after that solemn
+moment, to renew the every-day relations of life without shock or jar.
+
+"Come in, Conny, and if you must quote the Bible, don't misquote it."
+
+Constance Devonshire, heedless of her magnificent attire, cast herself
+down by the side of her friend, and put her arms caressingly round her.
+Her quick blue eye fell upon the basket with its overflowing papers.
+
+"Gerty, what is the meaning of this massacre of the innocents?"
+
+"'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher,' since you seem bent on
+Scriptural allusion, Conny."
+
+"But, Gerty, all your tales and things! I should have thought"--she
+blushed as she made the suggestion--"that you might have sold them. And
+_Charlotte Corday_, too!"
+
+"Poor Charlotte, she has been to market so often that I cannot bear the
+sight of her; and now I have given her her quietus as the Republic gave
+it to her original. As for the other victims, they are not worth a tear,
+and we will not discuss them."
+
+She gathered up the remaining manuscripts, and put them in a drawer;
+then, turning to her friend with a smile, demanded from her an account
+of herself.
+
+Miss Devonshire's presence, alien as it was to her present mood, acted
+with a stimulating effect on Gertrude. To Conny she knew herself to be a
+very tower of strength; and such knowledge is apt to make us strong, at
+least for the time being.
+
+"Oh, there's nothing new about me!" answered Conny, wrinkling her
+handsome, discontented face. "Gerty, why won't you come to us, you and
+Lucy, and let the others go to India?"
+
+Gertrude laughed at this summary disposal of the family.
+
+"Of course I knew you wouldn't come," said Conny, in an injured voice;
+"but, seriously, Gerty, what are you going to do?"
+
+In a few words Gertrude sketched the plan which she had propounded to
+her sisters that morning.
+
+"I don't believe it is possible," said Miss Devonshire, with great
+promptness; "but it sounds very nice," she added with a sigh, and
+thought, perhaps, of her own prosperous boredom.
+
+The bell rang for tea, and Gertrude began brushing her hair. Constance
+endeavoured to seize the brush from her hands.
+
+"You are not coming down, my dear, indeed you are not! You are going to
+lie down, while I go and fetch your tea."
+
+"I had much rather not, Conny. I am quite well."
+
+"You look as pale as a ghost. But you always have your own way. By the
+by, Fred is downstairs; he walked over with me from Queen's Gate. He's
+the only person who is decently civil in the house, just at present."
+
+Tea had been carried into the studio, where the two girls found the rest
+of the party assembled. Fan, with an air of elegance, as though
+conscious of performing an essentially womanly function, and with much
+action of the little finger, was engaged in pouring out tea. In the
+middle of the room stood a group of three people: Lucy, Phyllis, and
+Fred Devonshire, a tall, heavy young man, elaborately and correctly
+dressed, with a fatuous, good-natured, pink and white face.
+
+"Oh, come now, Miss Lucy," he was heard to say, as Gertrude entered with
+his sister; "that really is too much for one to swallow!"
+
+"He won't believe it!" cried Phyllis, clasping her hands, and turning
+her charming face to the new-comers; "it's quite true, isn't it, Gerty?"
+
+"Have you been telling tales out of school?"
+
+"Lucy and I have been explaining _the plan_ to Fred, and he won't
+believe it."
+
+Gertrude felt a little vexed at this lack of reticence on their part;
+but then, she reflected, if the plan was to be carried out, it could
+remain no secret, especially to the Devonshires. Assured that there
+really was some truth in what he had been told, Fred relapsed into an
+amazed silence, broken by an occasional chuckle, which he hastened, each
+time, to subdue, considering it out of place in a house of mourning.
+
+He had long regarded the Lorimer girls as quite the most astonishing
+productions of the age, but this last freak of theirs, as he called it,
+fairly took away his breath. He was a soft-hearted youth, moreover, and
+the pathetic aspect of the case presented itself to him with great force
+in the intervals of his amusement.
+
+Constance had brought a note from her mother, and having delivered it,
+and had tea, she rose to go. Fred remained lost in abstraction,
+muttering, "By Jove!" below his breath at intervals, the chuckling
+having subsided.
+
+"Come on, Fred!" cried his sister.
+
+He sprang to his feet.
+
+"Are you slowly recovering from the shock we have given you?" asked
+Lucy, demurely, as she held out her hand.
+
+"Miss Lucy," he said, solemnly, looking at her with all his foolish
+eyes, "I'll come every day of the week to be photographed, if I may, and
+so shall all the fellows at our office!"
+
+He was a little hurt and disconcerted, though he joined in the laugh
+himself, when every one burst out laughing; even Lucy, to whom he had
+addressed himself as the least puzzling and most reliable of the Miss
+Lorimers.
+
+Gertrude walked down the drive with the brother and sister, a
+colourless, dusky, wind-blown figure beside their radiant smartness, and
+let them out herself at the big gate. Here she lingered a moment, while
+the wind lifted her hair, and fanned her face, bringing a faint tinge of
+red to its paleness.
+
+Phyllis and Lucy opened the door of the studio which led to the garden,
+and stood there arm-in-arm, soothed no less than Gertrude by the chill
+sweetness of the April afternoon. The sound of carriage wheels roused
+them from the reverie into which both of them had fallen, and in another
+moment a brougham, drawn by two horses, was seen to round the curve of
+the drive and make its way to the house.
+
+The two girls retreated rapidly, shutting the door behind them.
+
+"Great heavens, Aunt Caroline!" said Lucy, in dismay.
+
+"She must have passed Gertrude at the gate; Fanny, do you hear who has
+come?"
+
+"Kettle must take the tea into the drawing-room," said Fanny, in some
+agitation. "You know Mrs. Pratt does not like the studio."
+
+Phyllis was peeping through the panes of the door, which afforded a
+view of the entrance of the house.
+
+"She is getting out now; the footman has opened the carriage door, and
+Kettle is on the steps. Oh, Lucy, if Aunt Caroline had been a horse,
+what a hard mouth she would have had!"
+
+In another moment a great swish of garments and the sound of a metallic
+voice were heard in the drawing-room, which adjoined the conservatory;
+and Kettle, appearing at the entrance which divided the two rooms,
+announced lugubriously: "Mrs. Septimus Pratt!"
+
+A tall, angular woman, heavily draped in the crispest, most aggressive
+of mourning garments, was sitting upright on a sofa when the girls
+entered the drawing-room. She was a handsome person of her age,
+notwithstanding a slightly equine cast of countenance, and the absence
+of anything worthy the adjectives graceful or _sympathique_ from her
+individuality.
+
+Mrs. Septimus Pratt belonged to that mischievous class of the community
+whose will and energy are very far ahead of their intellect and
+perceptions. She had a vulgar soul and a narrow mind, and unbounded
+confidence in her own judgments; but she was not bad-hearted, and was
+animated, at the present moment, by a sincere desire to benefit her
+nieces.
+
+"How do you do, girls?" she said, speaking in that loud, authoritative
+key which many benevolent persons of her sex think right to employ when
+visiting their poorer neighbours. "Yes, please, Fanny, a cup of tea and
+some bread-and-butter. Cake? No, thank you. I didn't expect to find
+cake!"
+
+This last sentence, uttered with a sort of ponderous archness, as though
+to take off the edge of the implied rebuke, was received in unsmiling
+silence; even Fanny choking down in time a protest which rose to her
+lips.
+
+With a sinking of the heart, Lucy heard the handle of the door turn, and
+saw Gertrude enter, pale, severe, and distant.
+
+"How do you do, Gerty?" cried Aunt Caroline, "though this is not our
+first meeting. How came you to be standing at the gate, without your
+hat, and in that shabby gown?"
+
+For Gertrude happened to be wearing an old black dress, having taken off
+the new mourning garment before clearing out the dusty papers.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Aunt Caroline?"
+
+The opposition between these two women may be said to have dated from
+the cradle of one of them.
+
+"You ought to know at your age, Gertrude," went on Mrs. Pratt, "that
+now, of all times, you must be careful in your conduct; and among other
+things, you can none of you afford to be seen looking shabby."
+
+Mrs. Septimus spoke, it must be owned, with considerable unction. She
+really meant well by her nieces, as I have said before, but at the same
+time she was very human; and that circumstances should, as she imagined,
+have restored to her the right of speaking authoritatively to those
+independent maidens, was a chance not to be despised. Gertrude, once
+discussing her, had said that she was a person without respect, and,
+indeed, a reverence for humanity, as such, could not be reckoned among
+her virtues.
+
+There was a pause after her last remark, and then, to the surprise and
+consternation of every one, Fanny flung herself into the breach.
+
+"Mrs. Pratt," she said, vehemently, "we are poor, and we are not
+ashamed that any one should know it. It is nothing to be ashamed of; and
+Gertrude is the last person to do anything wrong; and I believe you know
+that as well as I do!"
+
+Poor Fan's heroics broke off suddenly, as she encountered the steel-grey
+eye of Mrs. Pratt fixed upon her in astonishment.
+
+Opposition in any form always shocked her inexpressibly; she really felt
+it to be a sort of sacrilege; but Frances Lorimer was such a poor
+creature, that one could do nothing but pity her, trampled upon as she
+was by her younger sisters.
+
+"Fanny is right," said Gertrude, trusting herself to speak, "we are very
+poor."
+
+"Now do you know exactly how you stand?" went on Aunt Caroline, who
+allowed herself all the privileges of a near relation in the matter of
+questions.
+
+"It is not known yet, exactly," answered Lucy, hastily, "but Mr.
+Devonshire and our father's lawyer, and, I thought, uncle Septimus, are
+going into the matter after the sale."
+
+"So your uncle tells me. He tells me also that there will be next to
+nothing for you girls. Have you made up your minds what you are going
+to do? Which of you goes out to the Sebastian Lorimers? I hear they have
+telegraphed for two. I should say Fanny and Phyllis had better go; the
+others are better able to look after themselves."
+
+Silence; but not in the least disconcerted, Aunt Caroline went on.
+
+"It is a pity that none of you has married; girls don't seem to marry in
+these days!" (with some complacency, the well-disciplined, well-dowered
+daughters of the house of Pratt being in the habit of "going off" in due
+order and season) "but India works wonders sometimes in that respect."
+
+"Oh, let me go to India, Gerty!" cried Phyllis, in a very audible aside,
+while Gertrude bent her head and bit her lip, controlling the desire to
+laugh hysterically, which the naïve character of her aunt's last remark
+had excited.
+
+"Now, Gertrude and Lucy," continued the speaker, "I am empowered by your
+uncle" (poor Septimus!) "to offer you a home for as long as you like.
+Either as a permanency, or until you have found suitable occupations."
+
+"_We_ are in India, Fan, that's why there is no mention of us,"
+whispered naughty Phyllis.
+
+"Aunt Caroline," broke in Gertrude, suddenly, lifting her head and
+speaking with great decision. "You are very kind, and we thank you. But
+we contemplate other arrangements."
+
+"My dear Gertrude, other arrangements! And what 'arrangements,' pray, do
+you 'contemplate'?"
+
+"Fanny, Lucy, Phyllis, shall I tell Aunt Caroline?"
+
+They all consented; Fanny, whose willingness to join them had seemed
+before a doubtful matter, with the greatest promptness of them all.
+
+"We think of going into business as photographers."
+
+Gertrude dropped her bomb without delight. For a moment she saw herself
+and her sisters as they were reflected in the mind of Mrs. Septimus
+Pratt: naughty children, idle dreamers.
+
+Aunt Caroline refused to be shocked, and Gertrude felt that her bomb had
+turned into a pea from a pea-shooter.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Pratt. "Gertrude, I wonder that you haven't more
+common sense. And before your younger sisters, too. But common sense,"
+with unpleasant emphasis, "was never a family characteristic."
+
+Lucy, who had remained silent and watchful throughout the last part of
+the discussion, if discussion it could be called, now rose to her feet.
+
+"Aunt Caroline," she said in her clear young voice; "will you excuse us
+if we refuse to discuss this matter with you at present? We have decided
+nothing; indeed, how could we decide? Gertrude wrote yesterday to an old
+friend of our father's, who has the knowledge and experience we want;
+and we are waiting now for his advice."
+
+"I think you are a set of wilful, foolish girls," cried Mrs. Pratt,
+losing her temper at last; "and heaven knows what will become of you!
+You are my dead sister's children, and I have my duties towards you, or
+I would wash my hands of you all from this hour. But your uncle shall
+talk to you; perhaps you will listen to _him_; though there's no
+saying."
+
+She rose from her seat, with a purple flush on her habitually pale face,
+and without deigning to go through the formalities of farewell, swept
+from the room, followed by Lucy.
+
+"A good riddance!" cried Fan. She too was flushed and excited, poor
+soul, with defiance.
+
+Lucy, coming back from leading her aunt to the carriage, found Gertrude
+silent, pale, and trembling with rage. "How dare she!" she said below
+her breath.
+
+"She is only very silly," answered Lucy; "I confess I began to wonder if
+I was an ill-conducted pauper, or a lunatic, or something of the sort,
+from the tone of her voice."
+
+"She spoke so loud," said Gertrude, pressing her hand to her head.
+
+"I never felt so labelled and docketed in my life," cried Phyllis;
+"_This is a poor person_, seemed to be written all over my clothes. Poor
+Fred's chuckles and 'By Joves' were much more comfortable."
+
+Kettle came into the room with a letter addressed to Miss G. Lorimer.
+
+"It is from Mr. Russel," she said, examining the postmark, and broke the
+seal with anxious fingers.
+
+Mr. Russel was the friend of their father to whom she had applied for
+advice the day before. He carried on a large and world-famed business
+as a photographer in the north of England; to the disgust of a family
+that had starved respectably on scholarship for several generations.
+
+Gertrude's mobile face brightened as she read the letter. "Mr. Russel is
+most encouraging," she said; "and very kind. He is actually coming to
+London to talk it over with us, and examine our work. And he even hints
+that one of us should go back with him to learn about things; but
+perhaps that will not be necessary."
+
+Every one seized on the kind letter, and the air was filled with the
+praises of its writer, Fanny even going so far as to call him a darling.
+
+Gertrude, walking up and down the room, stopped suddenly and said: "Let
+us make some good resolutions!"
+
+"Yes," cried Phyllis, with her usual frankness; "let us pave the way to
+hell a little!"
+
+"Firstly, we won't be cynical."
+
+The motion was carried unanimously.
+
+"Secondly, we will be happy."
+
+This motion was carried, with even greater enthusiasm than the preceding
+one.
+
+"Thirdly," put in Phyllis, coming up behind her sister, laying her
+nut-brown head on her shoulder, and speaking in tones of mock pathos:
+"Thirdly, we will never, never mention that we have seen better days!"
+
+Thus, with laughing faces, they stood up and defied the Fates.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WAYS AND MEANS.
+
+     _O 'tis not joy and 'tis not bliss,
+     Only it is precisely this
+         That keeps us all alive._
+                           A. H. CLOUGH.
+
+
+"So you are really, really going to do it, Gerty?"
+
+"Yes, really, Con."
+
+It was the day before the sale, and the two girls, Gertrude Lorimer and
+Constance Devonshire were walking round the garden together for the last
+time. It had been a day of farewells. Only an hour ago the unfortunate
+Fan had rolled off to Lancaster Gate in a brougham belonging to the
+house of Pratt. Lucy was now steaming on her way to the north with Mr.
+Russel; and upstairs Phyllis was packing her boxes before setting out
+for Queen's Gate with Constance and her sister.
+
+"If it hadn't been for Mr. Russel," went on Gertrude, with enthusiasm,
+"the whole thing would have fallen through. Of course, all the kind,
+common-sense people opposed the scheme tooth and nail; Mr. Russel told
+me in confidence that he had no belief in common sense; that I was to
+remember that, before trusting myself to him in any respect."
+
+"Well, I don't think that particularly reassuring myself."
+
+Gertrude laughed.
+
+"At least, he has justified it in his own case. Delightful person! he
+actually appeared here in the flesh, the very day after he wrote. Common
+sense would never have done such a thing as that."
+
+"You are very intolerant, Gertrude."
+
+"Oh, I hope not! Well, Mr. Russel insisted on going straight to the
+studio, and examining our apparatus and our work. He turned over
+everything, remained immersed, as it were, in photographs for such a
+long time, and was throughout so silent and so serious, that I grew
+frightened. At last, looking up, he said brusquely: 'This is good work.'
+He talked to us very seriously after that. Pointed out to us the
+inevitable risks, the chances of failure which would attend such an
+undertaking as ours; but wound up by saying that it was by no means a
+preposterous one, and that for his part, his motto through life had
+always been, 'nothing venture, nothing have.'"
+
+"Evidently a person after your own heart, Gerty."
+
+"He added, that our best plan would be, if possible, to buy the
+good-will of some small business; but, as we could not afford to wait,
+and as our apparatus was very good as far as it went, we must not be
+discouraged if no opportunity of doing so presented itself, but had
+better start in business on our own account. Moreover, he says, if the
+worst comes to the worst, we should always be able to get employment as
+assistant photographers."
+
+"But, Gerty, why not do that at first? You would be so much more likely
+to succeed in business afterwards," said Conny, for her part no opponent
+of common sense; and who, despite much superficial frivolity, was at
+heart a shrewd, far-seeing daughter of the City.
+
+"If I said that one was life and the other death," answered Gertrude,
+with her charming smile, "you would perhaps consider the remark unworthy
+a woman of business. And yet I am not sure that it does not state my
+case as well as any other. We want a home and an occupation, Conny; a
+real, living occupation. Think of little Phyllis, for instance, trudging
+by herself to some great shop in all weathers and seasons!"
+
+"Little Phyllis! She is bigger than any of you, and quite able to take
+care of herself."
+
+"I wish--it sounds unsisterly--that she were not so very good-looking."
+
+"It's a good thing there's no person of the other sex to hear you,
+Gerty. You would be made a text for a sermon at once."
+
+"'Felines and Feminines,' or something of the sort? But here is Phyllis
+herself."
+
+Cool, careless, and debonair, the youngest Miss Lorimer advanced towards
+them; the April sunshine reflected in her eyes; the tints of the
+blossoms outrivalled in her cheeks.
+
+"My dear Gertrude," she said, patronisingly, "do you know that it is
+twelve o'clock, that my boxes are packed and locked, and that not a rag
+of your own is put away?"
+
+Gertrude explained that she did not intend leaving the house till the
+afternoon, but that the other two were to go on at once to Queen's Gate,
+and not keep Mrs. Devonshire waiting for lunch. This, after some
+protest, they consented to do; and in a few moments Gertrude Lorimer
+was standing alone in the familiar garden, from which she was soon to be
+shut out for ever.
+
+Pacing slowly up and down the oft-trodden path, she strove to collect
+her thoughts; to review, at leisure, the events of the last few days.
+Her avowed contempt of the popular idol Common Sense notwithstanding,
+her mind teemed with practical details, with importunate questionings as
+to ways and means.
+
+These matters seemed more perplexing without the calm and soothing
+influence of Lucy's presence; for Lucy had been borne off by the
+benevolent and eccentric Mr. Russel for a three-months' apprenticeship
+in his own flourishing establishment.
+
+"I will see that your sister learns something of the management of a
+business, besides improving herself in those technical points which we
+have already discussed," had been his parting assurance. "While, as for
+you, Miss Lorimer, I depend on you to look round, and be on a fair way
+to settling down by the time the three months are up. Perhaps, one of
+these days, we shall prevail on you to pay us a visit yourself."
+
+It had been decided that for the immediate present Gertrude and Phyllis
+should avail themselves of the Devonshires' invitation; while Fan, borne
+down by the force of a superior will, had been prevailed upon to seek a
+temporary refuge at the house of Mrs. Septimus Pratt.
+
+Poor Aunt Caroline had been really shocked and pained by the firm,
+though polite, refusal of her nieces to accept her hospitality. Their
+differences of opinion notwithstanding, she could see no adequate cause
+for it. If her skin was thick, her heart was not of stone; and it
+chagrined her to think that her dead sister's children should, at such a
+time, prefer the house of strangers to her own.
+
+But the young people were obdurate; and she had had at last to content
+herself with Fan, who was a poor creature, and only a spurious sort of
+relation after all.
+
+Reviewing one by one all those facts which bore upon her present case;
+setting in order her thoughts; and gathering up her energies for the
+fight to come; Gertrude felt her pulses throb, and her bosom glow with
+resolve.
+
+Of the darker possibilities of human nature and of life, this girl--who
+believed herself old, and experienced--had no knowledge, save such as
+had come to her in brief flashes of insight, in passing glimpses
+scarcely realised or remembered. Even had circumstances given her
+leisure, she was not a woman to have brooded over the one personal
+injury which had been dealt her; her pride was too deep and too delicate
+for this; rather she recoiled from the thought of it, as from an unclean
+contact.
+
+If the arching forehead and mobile face bespoke imagination and keen
+sensibilities, the square jaw and resolute mouth gave token, no less, of
+strength and self-control.
+
+
+     "And all her sorrow shall be turned to labour,"
+
+
+said Gertrude to herself, half-unconsciously. Then something within her
+laughed in scornful protest. Sorrow? on this spring day, with the young
+life coursing in her veins, with all the world before her, an
+undiscovered country of purple mists and boundless possibilities.
+
+There were hints of a vague delight in the sweet, keen air; whisperings,
+promises, that had nothing to do with pyrogallic acid and acetate of
+soda; with the processes of developing, fixing, or intensifying.
+
+A great laburnum tree stood at one end of the lawn, half-flowered and
+faintly golden; a blossoming almond neighboured it, and beyond, rose a
+gnarled old apple tree, pink with buds. Birds were piping and calling to
+one another from all the branches; the leaves of the trees, the lawn,
+the shrubs, and bushes, wore the vivid and delicate verdure of early
+spring; life throbbed, and pulsed, and thrust itself forth in every
+available spot.
+
+Gertrude, as we know, was by way of being a poet. She had a rebellious
+heart that cried out, sometimes very inopportunely, for happiness.
+
+And now, as she drank in the wonders of that April morning, she found
+herself suddenly assailed and overwhelmed by a nameless rapture, an
+extreme longing, half-hopeful, half-despairing.
+
+Sorrow, labour; what had she to do with these?
+
+
+     "I love all things that thou lovest
+           Spirit of delight!"
+
+
+cried the voices within her, with one accord.
+
+"Please, Miss," said Kettle, suddenly appearing, and scattering the
+thronging visions rather rudely; "the people have come from the
+Pantechnicon about those cameras, and the other things you said was to
+go."
+
+"Yes, yes," answered Gertrude, rubbing her eyes and wrinkling her
+brows--curious, characteristic brows they were; straight and thick, and
+converging slightly upwards--"everything that is to go is ready packed
+in the studio."
+
+They had decided on retaining a little furniture, besides the
+photographic apparatus and studio fittings, for the establishment of the
+new home, wherever and whatever it should be.
+
+"Very well, Miss Gertrude. And shall I bring you up a little luncheon?"
+
+"No, thank you, Kettle. And I must say good-bye, and thank you for all
+your kindness to us."
+
+"God bless you, Miss Gertrude, every one of you! I have made so bold as
+to give my address-card to Miss Phyllis; and if there's anything in
+which I can ever be of service, don't you think twice about it, but
+write off at once to Jonah Kettle."
+
+Overcome by his own eloquence, and without waiting for a reply, the old
+man shuffled off down the path, leaving Gertrude strangely touched by
+this unexpected demonstration.
+
+"We resolved not to be cynical," she thought. "Cynical! What is the
+meaning of the current commonplaces as to loss of friends with loss of
+fortune? How did they arise? What perverseness of vision could have led
+to the creation of such a person as Timon of Athens, for instance? If
+misery parts the flux of company, surely it is the miserable people's
+own fault."
+
+Balancing the mass of friends in need against one who was only a
+fair-weather friend, Gertrude refused to allow her faith in humanity to
+be shaken.
+
+Ah, Gertrude, but it is early days!
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+NUMBER TWENTY B.
+
+     _Bravant le monde et les sots et les sages,
+     Sans avenir, riche de mon printemps,
+     L'este et joyeux je montais six étages,
+     Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans!_
+                                       BERANGER.
+
+
+The Lorimers' tenacity of purpose, backed by Mr. Russel's support and
+countenance, at last succeeded in procuring them a respectful hearing
+from the few friends and relatives who had a right to be interested in
+their affairs.
+
+Aunt Caroline, shifting her ground, ceased to talk of the scheme as
+beneath contempt, but denounced it as dangerous and unwomanly.
+
+She spoke freely of loss of caste; damage to prospects--vague and
+delicate possession of the female sex--and of the complicated evils
+which must necessarily arise from an undertaking so completely devoid of
+chaperons.
+
+Uncle Septimus said little, but managed to convey to his nieces quiet
+marks of support and sympathy; while the Devonshires, after much
+preliminary opposition, had ended by throwing themselves, like the
+excellent people they were, heart and soul into the scheme.
+
+To Constance, indeed, the change in her friends' affairs may be said to
+have come, like the Waverley pen, as a boon and a blessing. She was the
+somebody to whom their ill wind, though she knew it not, was blowing
+good.
+
+Like many girls of her class, she had good faculties, abundant vitality,
+and no interests but frivolous ones. And with the wealthy
+middle-classes, even the social business is apt to be less
+unintermittent, less absorbing, than with the better born seekers after
+pleasure.
+
+Her friendship with the Lorimers, with Gertrude especially, may be said
+to have represented the one serious element in Constance Devonshire's
+life. And now she threw herself with immense zeal and devotion into the
+absorbing business of house-hunting, on which, for the time being, all
+Gertrude's thoughts were centred.
+
+After the sale, and the winding up (mysterious process) of poor Mr.
+Lorimer's affairs, it was intimated to the girls that they were the
+joint possessors of £600; not a large sum, when regarded as almost the
+entire fortune of four people, but slightly in excess of that which they
+had been led to expect. I said almost, for it must not be forgotten that
+Fanny had a modest income of £50 coming to her from her mother, of which
+the principal was tied up from her reach.
+
+There was nothing now to do but to choose their quarters, settle down in
+them, and begin the enterprise on which they were bent.
+
+For many weary days, Gertrude and Conny, sometimes accompanied by Fred
+or Mr. Devonshire, paced the town from end to end, laden with sheaves of
+"orders to view" from innumerable house-agents.
+
+Phyllis was too delicate for such expeditions, and sat at home with Mrs.
+Devonshire, or drove out shopping; amiable but ironical; buoyant but
+never exuberant; the charming child that everybody conspired to spoil,
+that everybody instinctively screened from all unpleasantness.
+
+One day, the two girls came back to Queen's Gate in a state of
+considerable excitement.
+
+"It certainly is the most likely place we have seen," said Gertrude, as
+she sipped her tea, and blinked at the fire with dazzled, short-sighted
+eyes.
+
+"But such miles away from South Kensington," grumbled Conny, unfastening
+her rich cloak, and falling upon the cake with all the appetite born of
+honest labour.
+
+"And the rent is a little high; but Mr. Russel says it would be bad
+economy to start in some cheap, obscure place."
+
+"So we are to flaunt expensively," said Phyllis, lightly; "but all this
+is very vague, is it not Mrs. Devonshire? Please be more definite, Gerty
+dear."
+
+"We have been looking at some rooms in Upper Baker Street," explained
+Gertrude, addressing her hostess; "there are two floors to be let
+unfurnished, above a chemist's shop."
+
+"Two floors, and what else?" cried Conny; "you will never guess!
+Actually a photographer's studio built out from the house."
+
+Mrs. Devonshire disapproved secretly of their scheme, and had only been
+won over to countenance it after days of persuasion.
+
+"Some one has been failing in business there," she said, "or why should
+the studio stand empty?"
+
+The girls felt this to be a little unreasonable, but Gertrude only
+laughed, and said: "No, but somebody has been dying. Our predecessor in
+business died last year."
+
+"At least we should be provided with a ghost at once," said Phyllis; "I
+suppose if we go there we shall be 'Lorimer, late so-and-so?'"
+
+"What ghouls you two are!" objected Conny, with a shudder; then resumed
+the more practical part of the conversation. "The studio is in rather a
+dilapidated condition; but if it were not it would only count for more
+in the rent; it has to be paid for one way or another."
+
+"There are a great many photographers in Baker Street already," demurred
+Mrs. Devonshire.
+
+She liked the Lorimers, but feared them as companions for her daughter;
+there was no knowing on what wild freak they might lead Constance to
+embark.
+
+"But, Mrs. Devonshire," protested Gertrude, with great eagerness, "I am
+told that it is the right thing for people of the same trade to
+congregate together; they combine, as it were, to make a centre, which
+comes to be regarded as the emporium of their particular wares."
+
+Gertrude laughed at her own phrases, and Phyllis said:
+
+"Don't look so poetical over it all, Gerty! Your hat has found its way
+to the back of your head, and there is a general look of inspiration
+about you."
+
+She straightened the hat as she spoke, and put back the straggling wisps
+of hair.
+
+"There is no bath-room!" went on Conny, sternly. She had a love of
+practical details and small opportunity for indulging it, except with
+regard to her own costume; and now she proceeded to plunge into
+elaborate statements on the subject of hot water, and the practicability
+of having it brought up in cans.
+
+The end of it was that an expedition to Baker Street was organised for
+the next day; when the whole party drove across the park to that
+pleasant, if unfashionable, region, for the purpose of inspecting the
+hopeful premises.
+
+It was a chill, bright afternoon, and notwithstanding that it was the
+end of May, the girls wore their winter cloaks, and Mrs. Devonshire her
+furs.
+
+"What number did you say, Gertrude?" asked Phyllis, as the carriage
+turned into New Street, from Gloucester Place.
+
+"Twenty B."
+
+As they came into Baker Street, a young man, slim, high-coloured,
+dark-haired, darted out, with some impetuosity, from the post-office at
+the corner, and raised his hat as his eye fell on the approaching
+carriage.
+
+Constance bowed, colouring slightly.
+
+"Who is your friend, Conny?" said her mother.
+
+"Oh, a man I meet sometimes at dances. I believe his name is Jermyn. He
+dances rather well."
+
+Conny spoke with somewhat exaggerated indifference, and the colour on
+her cheek deepened perceptibly.
+
+"Here we are!" cried Phyllis.
+
+The carriage had drawn up before a small, but flourishing-looking shop,
+above which was painted in gold letters; _Maryon; Pharmaceutical
+Chemist_.
+
+"This is it."
+
+Gertrude spoke with curious intensity, and her heart beat fast as they
+dismounted and rang the bell.
+
+Mrs. Maryon, the chemist's wife, a thin, thoughtful-looking woman of
+middle-age, with a face at once melancholy and benevolent, opened the
+door to them herself, and conducted them over the apartments.
+
+They went up a short flight of stairs, then stopped before the opening
+of a narrow passage, adorned with Virginia cork and coloured glass.
+
+"We will look at the studio first, please," said Gertrude, and they all
+trooped down the little, sloping passage.
+
+"Reminds one forcibly of a summer-house at a tea-garden, doesn't it?"
+said Phyllis, turning her pretty head from side to side. They laughed,
+and the melancholy woman was seen to smile.
+
+Beyond the passage was a little room, designed, no doubt, for a waiting
+or dressing-room; and beyond this, divided by an aperture, evidently
+intended for curtains, came the studio itself, a fair-sized glass
+structure, in some need of repair.
+
+"You will have to make this place as pretty as possible," said Conny;
+"you will be nothing if not æsthetic. And now for the rooms."
+
+The floor immediately above the shop had been let to a dressmaker, and
+it was the two upper floors which stood vacant.
+
+On the first of these was a fair-sized room with two windows, looking
+out on the street, divided by folding doors from a smaller room with a
+corner fire-place.
+
+"This would make a capital sitting-room," said Conny, marching up and
+down the larger apartment.
+
+"And this," cried Gertrude, from behind the folding-doors, which stood
+ajar, "could be fitted up beautifully as a kitchen."
+
+"You will have to have a kitchen-range, my dears," remarked Mrs.
+Devonshire, who was becoming deeply interested, and whose spirits,
+moreover, were rising under the sense that here, at least, she could
+speak to the young people from the heights of knowledge and experience;
+"and water will have to be laid on; and you will certainly need a
+sink."
+
+"This grey wall-paper," went on Conny, "is not pretty, but at least it
+is inoffensive."
+
+"And the possibilities for evil of wall-papers being practically
+infinite, I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies in that
+respect," answered Gertrude, emerging from her projected kitchen, and
+beginning to examine the uninteresting decoration in her short-sighted
+fashion.
+
+Upstairs were three rooms, capable of accommodating four people as
+bed-rooms, and which bounded the little domain.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Maryon and their servant inhabited the basement and the
+parlour behind the shop; and it was suggested by the chemist's wife
+that, for the present at least, the ladies might like to enter on some
+arrangement for sharing Matilda's services; the duties of that maiden,
+as matters now stood, not being nearly enough to fill up her time.
+
+"That would suit us admirably," answered Gertrude; "for we intend to do
+a great deal of the work ourselves."
+
+They drove away in hopeful mood; Mrs. Devonshire as much interested as
+any of them. It took, of course, some days before they were able to come
+to a final decision on the subject of the rooms. Various persons had to
+be consulted, and various matters inquired into. Mr. Russel came flying
+down from the north directly Gertrude's letter reached him. He surveyed
+the premises in his rapid, accurate fashion; entered into details with
+immense seriousness; pronounced in favour of taking the apartments; gave
+a glowing account of Lucy; and rushed off to catch his train.
+
+A few days afterwards the Lorimers found themselves the holders of a
+lease, terminable at one, three, or seven years, for a studio and upper
+part of the house, known as 20B, Upper Baker Street.
+
+Then followed a period of absorbing and unremitting toil. All through
+the sweet June month the girls laboured at setting things in order in
+the new home. Expense being a matter of vital consequence, they
+endeavoured to do everything, within the limits of possibility,
+themselves. Workmen were of course needed for repairing the studio and
+fitting the kitchen fire-place, but their services were dispensed with
+in almost every other case. The furniture stored at the Pantechnicon
+proved more than enough for their present needs; Gertrude and Conny
+between them laid down the carpets and hung up the curtains; and Fred,
+revealing an unsuspected talent for carpentering, occupied his leisure
+moments in providing the household with an unlimited quantity of
+shelves.
+
+Indeed, the spectacle of that gorgeous youth hammering away in his shirt
+sleeves on a pair of steps, his immaculate hat and coat laid by, his
+gardenia languishing in some forgotten nook, was one not easily to be
+overlooked or forgotten. It was necessary, of course, to buy some
+additional stock-in-trade, and this Mr. Russel undertook to procure for
+them at the lowest possible rates; adding, on his own behalf, a large
+burnishing machine. The girls had hitherto been accustomed to have their
+prints rolled for them by the Stereoscopic Company.
+
+In their own rooms everything was of the simplest, but a more ambitious
+style of decoration was attempted in the studio.
+
+The objectionable Virginia cork and coloured glass of the little passage
+were disguised by various æsthetic devices; lanterns swung from the
+roof, and a framed photograph or two from Dürer and Botticelli, Watts
+and Burne-Jones, was mingled artfully with the specimens of their own
+work which adorned it as a matter of course.
+
+A little cheap Japanese china, and a few red-legged tables and chairs
+converted the waiting-room, as Phyllis said, into a perfect bower of art
+and culture; while Fred contributed so many rustic windows, stiles and
+canvas backgrounds to the studio, that his bankruptcy was declared on
+all sides to be imminent.
+
+Over the street-door was fixed a large black board, on which was painted
+in gold letters:
+
+
+     G. & L. LORIMER: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO
+
+
+and in the doorway was displayed a showcase, whose most conspicuous
+feature was a cabinet portrait of Fred Devonshire, looking, with an air
+of mingled archness and shamefacedness, through one of his own elaborate
+lattices in Virginia cork.
+
+The Maryons surveyed these preparations from afar with a certain amused
+compassion, an incredulous kindliness, which were rather exasperating.
+
+Like most people of their class, they had seen too much of the ups and
+downs of life to be astonished at anything; and the sight of these
+ladies playing at photographers and house decorators, was only one more
+scene in the varied and curious drama of life which it was their lot to
+witness.
+
+"I wish," said Gertrude, one day, "that Mrs. Maryon were not such a
+pessimist."
+
+"She _is_ rather like Gilbert's patent hag who comes out and prophesies
+disaster," answered Phyllis. "She always thinks it is going to rain, and
+nothing surprises her so much as when a parcel arrives in time."
+
+"And she is so very kind with it all."
+
+The sisters had been alone in Baker Street that morning; Constance being
+engaged in having a ball-dress tried on at Russell and Allen's; and now
+Gertrude was about to set out for the British Museum, where she was
+going through a course of photographic reading, under the direction of
+Mr. Russel.
+
+"Look," cried Phyllis, as they emerged from the house; "there goes
+Conny's impetuous friend. I have found out that he lodges just opposite
+us, over the auctioneer's."
+
+"What busybodies you long-sighted people always are, Phyllis!"
+
+At Baker Street Station they parted; Phyllis disappearing to the
+underground railway; Gertrude mounting boldly to the top of an Atlas
+omnibus.
+
+"Because one cannot afford a carriage or even a hansom cab," she argued
+to herself, "is one to be shut up away from the sunlight and the
+streets?"
+
+Indeed, for Gertrude, the humours of the town had always possessed a
+curious fascination. She contemplated the familiar London pageant with
+an interest that had something of passion in it; and, for her part, was
+never inclined to quarrel with the fate which had transported her from
+the comparative tameness of Campden Hill to regions where the pulses of
+the great city could be felt distinctly as they beat and throbbed.
+
+By the end of June the premises in Upper Baker Street were quite ready
+for occupation; but Gertrude and Phyllis decided to avail themselves of
+some of their numerous invitations, and strengthen themselves for the
+coming tussle with fortune with three or four weeks of country air.
+
+At last there came a memorable evening, late in July, when the four
+sisters met for the first time under the roof which they hoped was to
+shelter them for many years to come.
+
+Gertrude and Phyllis arrived early in the day from Scarborough, where
+they had been staying with the Devonshires, and at about six o'clock
+Fanny appeared in a four-wheel cab; she had been borne off to Tunbridge
+Wells by the Pratts, some six weeks before.
+
+When she had given vent to her delight at rejoining her sisters, and had
+inspected the new home, Phyllis led her upstairs to the bedroom,
+Gertrude remaining below in the sitting-room, which she paced with a
+curious excitement, an irrepressible restlessness.
+
+"Poor old Fan!" said Phyllis, re-appearing; "I don't think she was ever
+so pleased at seeing any one before."
+
+"Fancy, all these months with Aunt Caroline!"
+
+"She says little," went on Phyllis; "but from the few remarks dropped, I
+should say that her sufferings had been pretty severe."
+
+"Yes," answered Gertrude, absently. The last remark had fallen on
+unheeding ears; her attention was entirely absorbed by a cab which had
+stopped before the door. One moment, and she was on the stairs; the
+next, she and Lucy were in one another's arms.
+
+"Oh, Gerty, is it a hundred years?"
+
+"Thousands, Lucy. How well you look, and I believe you have grown."
+
+Up and down, hand in hand, went the sisters, into every nook and corner
+of the small domain, exclaiming, explaining, asking and answering a
+hundred questions.
+
+"Oh, Lucy," cried Gertrude, in a burst of enthusiasm, as they stood
+together in the studio, "this is work, this is life. I think we have
+never worked or lived before."
+
+Fan and Phyllis came rustling between the curtains to join them.
+
+"Here we all are," went on Gertrude. "I hope nobody is afraid, but that
+every one understands that this is no bed of roses we have prepared for
+ourselves."
+
+"We shall have to work like niggers, and not have very much to eat. I
+think we all realise that," said Lucy, with an encouraging smile.
+
+"Plain living and high thinking," ventured Fanny; then grew overwhelmed
+with confusion at her own unwonted brilliancy.
+
+"At least," said Phyllis, "we can all of us manage the plain living. And
+as a beginning, I vote we go upstairs to supper."
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THIS WORKING-DAY WORLD.
+
+     _O the pity of it._
+                OTHELLO.
+
+
+If a sudden reverse of fortune need not make us cynical, there is
+perhaps no other experience which brings us face to face so quickly and
+so closely with the realities of life.
+
+The Lorimers, indeed, had no great cause for complaint; and perhaps, in
+condemning the Timons of this world, forgot that, as interesting young
+women, embarked moreover on an interesting enterprise, they were not
+themselves in a position to gauge the full depths of mundane perfidy.
+
+Of course, after a time, they dropped off from the old set, from the
+people with whom their intercourse had been a mere matter of social
+commerce; but, as Phyllis justly observed, when you have no time to pay
+calls, no clothes to your back, no money for cabs, and very little for
+omnibuses, you can hardly expect your career to be an unbroken course of
+festivities.
+
+On the other hand, many of their friends drew closer to them in the hour
+of need, and a great many good-natured acquaintances amused themselves
+by patronising the studio in Upper Baker Street, and recommending other
+people to go and do likewise.
+
+Certainly these latter exacted a good deal for their money; were restive
+when posed, expected the utmost excellence of work and punctuality of
+delivery, and, like most of the Lorimers' customers, seemed to think the
+sex of the photographers a ground for greater cheapness in the
+photographs.
+
+One evening, towards the middle of October, the girls had assembled for
+the evening meal--it could not, strictly speaking, be called dinner--in
+the little sitting-room above the shop.
+
+They were all tired, for the moment discouraged, and had much ado to
+maintain that cheerfulness which they held it a point of honour never to
+abandon.
+
+"How the evenings do draw in!" observed Fan, who sat near the window,
+engaged in fancy-work.
+
+Fanny's housekeeping, by the way, had been tried, and found wanting; and
+the poor lady had, with great delicacy, been relegated to the vague duty
+of creating an atmosphere of home for her more strong-minded sisters.
+Fortunately, she believed in the necessity of a thoroughly womanly
+presence among them, womanliness being apparently represented to her
+mind by any number of riband bows on the curtains, antimacassars on the
+chairs, and strips of embroidered plush on every available article of
+furniture; and accepted the situation without misgiving.
+
+"Yes," answered Lucy, rather dismally; "we shall soon have the winter in
+full swing, fogs and all."
+
+She had been up to the studio of an artist at St. John's Wood that
+morning, making photographs of various studies of drapery for a big
+picture, and the results, when examined in the dark-room later on, had
+not been satisfactory; hence her unusual depression of spirits.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Lucy, don't speak in that tone!" cried Phyllis,
+who was standing idly by the window. "What does it matter about Mr.
+Lawrence's draperies? Nobody ever buys his pokey pictures. You've not
+been the same person ever since you developed those plates this
+afternoon."
+
+"Don't you see, Phyllis, Mr. Russel introduced us to him; and besides,
+though he is obscure himself, he might recommend us to other artists if
+the work was well done."
+
+"Oh, bother! Come over here, Lucy. Do you see that lighted window
+opposite? It is Conny's Mr. Jermyn's."
+
+"What an interesting fact!"
+
+"Conny said he danced well. I wish he would come and dance with us
+sometimes. It is ages and ages since I had a really good waltz."
+
+"Phyllis! do you forget that you are in mourning?" cried Fanny, shocked,
+as she moved towards the table, where Lucy had lit the lamp.
+
+Gertrude came through the folding-doors bearing a covered dish. Her
+aspect also was undeniably dejected. Business had been slacker, if
+possible, than usual, during the past week; regarded from no point of
+view could their prospects be considered brilliant; and, to crown all,
+Aunt Caroline had paid them a visit in the course of the day, in which
+she had propounded some very direct questions as to the state of their
+finances; questions which it had been both difficult to answer and
+difficult to evade.
+
+Phyllis ceased her chatter, which she saw at once to be out of harmony
+with the prevailing mood, and took her place in silence at the table.
+
+At the same moment the studio-bell echoed with considerable violence
+throughout the house.
+
+"What can any one want this time of night?" cried Fan, in some
+agitation.
+
+"They must have pulled the wrong bell," said Lucy; "but one of us had
+better go down and see."
+
+Gertrude lighted a candle, and went downstairs, and the rest proceeded
+rather silently with their meal.
+
+In about five minutes Gertrude re-appeared with a grave face.
+
+"Well?"
+
+They all questioned her, with lips and eyes.
+
+"Some one has been here about work," she said, slowly; "but it's rather
+a dismal sort of job. It is to photograph a dead person."
+
+"Gerty, what _do_ you mean?"
+
+"Oh, I believe it is quite usual. A lady--Lady Watergate--died to-day,
+and her husband wishes the body to be photographed to-morrow morning."
+
+"It is very strange," said Fanny, "that he should select ladies, young
+girls, for such a piece of work!"
+
+"Oh, it was a mere chance. It was the housekeeper who came, and we
+happened to be the first photographer's shop she passed. She seemed to
+think I might not like it, but we cannot afford to refuse work."
+
+"But, Gertrude," cried Fan, "do you know what Lady Watergate died of?
+Perhaps scarlet fever, or smallpox, or something of the sort."
+
+"She died of consumption," said Gertrude shortly, and put her arm round
+Phyllis, who was listening with a curious look in her great, dilated
+eyes.
+
+"I wonder," put in Lucy, "if this poor lady can be the wife of _the_
+Lord Watergate?"
+
+"I rather fancy so; I know he lives in Regent's Park, and the address
+for to-morrow is Sussex Place."
+
+A name so well known in the scientific and literary world was of course
+familiar to the Lorimers. They had, however, little personal
+acquaintance with distinguished people, and had never come across the
+learned and courteous peer in his social capacity, his frequent presence
+in certain middle-class circles notwithstanding.
+
+Mrs. Maryon, coming up later on for a chat, under pretext of discussing
+the unsatisfactory Matilda, was informed of the new commission.
+
+"Ah," she said, shaking her head, "it was a sad story that of the
+Watergates." So passionately fond of her as he had been, and then for
+her to treat him like that! But he took her back at the last and forgave
+her everything, like the great-hearted gentleman that he was. "And do
+you mean," she added, fixing her melancholy, humorous eyes on them,
+"that you young ladies are actually going by yourselves to the house to
+make a picture of the body?"
+
+"I am going--no one else," answered Gertrude calmly, passing over
+Phyllis's avowed intention of accompanying her.
+
+"She always has some dreadful tale about everybody you mention," cried
+Lucy, indignantly, when Mrs. Maryon had gone. "She will never rest
+content until there is something dreadful to tell of us."
+
+"Yes, I'm sure she regards us as so many future additions to her Chamber
+of Horrors," said Phyllis, reflectively, with a smile.
+
+"And oh," added Fan, "if she would only not compare us so constantly
+with that poor man who had the studio last year! It makes one positively
+creep."
+
+"Nonsense," said Gertrude; "she is quite as fond of pleasant events as
+sad ones. Weddings, for instance, she describes with as much unction as
+funerals."
+
+"We will certainly do our best to add to her stock of tales in that
+respect," cried Phyllis, with an odd burst of high spirits. "Who votes
+for getting married? I do. So do you, don't you, Fan? It must be such
+fun to have one's favourite man dropping in on one every evening."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At an early hour the next morning, Gertrude Lorimer started on her
+errand. She went alone; Lucy of course must remain in the studio;
+Phyllis was in bed with a headache, and Fan was ministering to her
+numerous wants. As she passed out, laden with her apparatus, Mdlle.
+Stéphanie, the big, sallow Frenchwoman who occupied the first floor,
+entered the house and grinned a vivacious "_Bon jour!_"
+
+"A fine, bright morning for your work, miss!" cried the chemist from his
+doorstep; while his wife stood at his side, smiling curiously.
+
+Gertrude went on her way with a considerable sinking of the heart. She
+had no difficulty in finding Sussex Place; indeed, she had often
+remarked it; the white curve of houses with the columns, the cupolas,
+and the railed-in space of garden which fronted the Park.
+
+Lord Watergate's house was situated about midway in the terrace.
+Gertrude, on arriving, was shown into a large dining-room, darkened by
+blinds, and decorated in each gloomy corner by greenish figures of a
+pseudo-classical nature, which served the purpose of supports to the
+gas-globes.
+
+At least a quarter of an hour elapsed before the appearance of the
+housekeeper, who ushered her up the darkened stairs to a large room on
+the second storey.
+
+Here the blinds had been raised, and for a moment Gertrude was too
+dazzled to be aware with any clearness of her surroundings.
+
+As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she perceived herself to be
+standing in a daintily-furnished sleeping apartment, whose open windows
+afforded glimpses of an unbroken prospect of wood, and lawn, and water.
+
+Drawn forward to the middle of the room, well within the light from the
+windows, was a small, open bedstead of wrought brass. A woman lay, to
+all appearance, sleeping there, the bright October sunlight falling full
+on the upturned face, on the spread and shining masses of matchless
+golden hair. A woman no longer in her first youth; haggard with
+sickness, pale with the last strange pallor, but beautiful withal,
+exquisitely, astonishingly beautiful.
+
+Another figure, that of a man, was seated by the window, in a pose as
+fixed, as motionless, as that of the dead woman herself.
+
+Gertrude, as she silently made preparations for her strange task,
+instinctively refrained from glancing in the direction of this second
+figure; and had only the vaguest impression of a dark, bowed head, and a
+bearded, averted face.
+
+She delivered a few necessary directions to the housekeeper, in the
+lowest audible voice, then, her faculties stimulated to curious
+accuracy, set to work with camera and slides.
+
+As she stood, her apparatus gathered up, on the point of departure, the
+man by the window rose suddenly, and for the first time seemed aware of
+her presence.
+
+For one brief, but vivid moment, her eyes encountered the glance of two
+miserable grey eyes, looking out with a sort of dazed wonder from a pale
+and sunken face. The broad forehead, projecting over the eyes; the fine,
+but rough-hewn features; the brown hair and beard; the tall, stooping,
+sinewy figure: these together formed a picture which imprinted itself as
+by a flash on Gertrude's overwrought consciousness, and was destined not
+to fade for many days to come.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"They are some of the best work you have ever done, Gerty," cried
+Phyllis, peering over her sister's shoulder. The habits of this young
+person, as we know, resembled those of the lilies of the field; but she
+chose to pervade the studio when nothing better offered itself, and in
+moments of boredom even to occupy herself with some of the more pleasant
+work.
+
+Gertrude looked thoughtfully at the prints in her hand. They represented
+a woman lying dead or asleep, with her hair spread out on the pillow.
+
+"Yes," she said, slowly, "they have succeeded better than I expected. Of
+course the light was not all that could be wished."
+
+"Poor thing," said Phyllis; "what perfect features she has. Mrs. Maryon
+told us she was wicked, didn't she? But I don't know that it matters
+about being good when you are as beautiful as all that."
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+TO THE RESCUE.
+
+     _We studied hard in our styles,
+       Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
+     For air, looked out on the tiles,
+       For fun, watched each other's windows._
+                                 R. BROWNING.
+
+
+"Mr. Frederick Devonshire, I positively refuse to minister any longer to
+such gross egotism! You've been cabinetted, vignetted, and carte de
+visited. You've been taken in a snowstorm; you've been taken looking out
+of window, drinking afternoon tea, and doing I don't know what else. If
+your vanity still remains unsatisfied, you must get another firm to
+gorge it for you."
+
+"You're a nice woman of business, you are! Turning money away from the
+doors like this," chuckled Fred. Lucy's simple badinage appealed to him
+as the raciest witticisms would probably have failed to do; it seemed to
+him almost on a par with the brilliant verbal coruscations of his
+cherished _Sporting Times_.
+
+"Our business," answered Lucy demurely, "is conducted on the strictest
+principles. We always let a gentleman know when he has had as much as is
+good for him."
+
+"Oh, I say!" Fred appeared to be completely bowled over by what he would
+have denominated as this "side-splitter," and gave vent to an unearthly
+howl of merriment.
+
+"Whatever is the matter?" cried his sister, entering the sitting-room.
+She and Gertrude had just come up together from the studio, where Conny
+had been pouring out her soul as to the hollowness of the world, a fact
+she was in the habit periodically of discovering. "Fred, what a shocking
+noise!"
+
+"Oh, shut up, Con, and let a fellow alone," grumbled Fred, subsiding
+into a chair. "Conny's been dancing every night this week--making me
+take her, too, by Jove!--and now, if you please, she's got hot
+coppers."
+
+Miss Devonshire deigned no reply to these remarks, and Phyllis, who,
+like all of them, was accustomed to occasional sparring between the
+brother and sister, threw herself into the breach.
+
+"You're the very creature I want, Conny," she cried. "Come over here;
+perhaps you can enlighten me about the person who interests me more than
+any one in the world."
+
+"Phyllis!" protested Fan, who understood the allusion.
+
+"It's your man opposite," went on Phyllis, unabashed; "Lucy and I are
+longing to know all about him. There he is on the doorstep; why, he only
+went out half an hour ago!"
+
+"That fellow," said Fred, with unutterable contempt; "that
+foreign-looking chap whom Conny dances half the night with?"
+
+"Foreign-looking," said Phyllis, "I should just think he was! Why, he
+might have stepped straight out of a Venetian portrait; a Tintoretto, a
+Bordone, any one of those _mellow_ people."
+
+"Only as regards colouring," put in Lucy, whose interest in the subject
+appeared to be comparatively mild. "I don't believe those old Venetian
+nobles dashed about in that headlong fashion. I often wonder what his
+business can be that keeps him running in and out all day."
+
+Fortunately for Constance, the fading light of the December afternoon
+concealed the fact that she was blushing furiously, as she replied
+coolly enough, "Oh, Frank Jermyn? he's an artist; works chiefly in black
+and white for the illustrated papers, I think. He and another man have a
+studio in York Place together."
+
+"Is he an Englishman?"
+
+"Yes; his people are Cornish clergymen."
+
+"All of them? 'What, all his pretty ones?'" cried Phyllis; "but you are
+very interesting, Conny, to-day. Poor fellow, he looks a little lonely
+sometimes; although he has a great many oddly-assorted pals."
+
+"By the bye," went on Conny, still maintaining her severely neutral
+tone, "he mentioned the photographic studio, and wanted to know all
+about 'G. and L. Lorimer.'"
+
+"Did you tell him," answered Phyllis, "that if you lived opposite four
+beautiful, fallen princesses, who kept a photographer's shop, you would
+at least call and be photographed."
+
+"It is so much nicer of him that he does not," said Lucy, with decision.
+
+Phyllis struck an attitude:
+
+
+     "It might have been, once only,
+     We lodged in a street together ..."
+
+
+she began, then stopped short suddenly.
+
+"What a thundering row!" said Fred.
+
+A curious, scuffling sound, coming from the room below, was distinctly
+audible.
+
+"Mdlle. Stéphanie appears to be giving an afternoon dance," said Lucy.
+
+"I will go and see if anything is the matter," remarked Gertrude,
+rising.
+
+As a matter of fact she snatched eagerly at this opportunity for
+separating herself from this group of idle chatterers. She was tired,
+dispirited, beset with a hundred anxieties; weighed down by a cruel
+sense of responsibility.
+
+How was it all to end? she asked herself, as, oblivious of Mdlle.
+Stéphanie's performance, she lingered on the little dusky landing. That
+first wave of business, born of the good-natured impulse of their
+friends and acquaintance, had spent itself, and matters were looking
+very serious indeed for the firm of G. and L. Lorimer.
+
+"We couldn't go on taking Fred's guineas for ever," she thought, a
+strange laugh rising in her throat. "Perhaps, though, it was wrong of me
+to refuse to be interviewed by _The Waterloo Place Gazette_. But we are
+photographers, not mountebanks!" she added, in self-justification.
+
+In a few minutes she had succeeded in suppressing all outward marks of
+her troubles, and had rejoined the people in the sitting-room.
+
+"Mrs. Maryon says there is nothing the matter," she cried, with her
+delightful smile, "and that there is no accounting for these
+foreigners."
+
+Laughter greeted her words, then Conny, rising and shaking out her
+splendid skirts, declared that it was time to go.
+
+"Aren't you ever coming to see us?" she said, giving Gertrude a great
+hug. "Mama is positively offended, and as for papa--disconsolate is not
+the word."
+
+"You must make them understand how really difficult it is for any of us
+to come," answered Gertrude, who had a natural dislike to entering on
+explanations in which such sordid matters as shabby clothes and the
+comparative dearness of railway tickets would have had to figure
+largely. "But we are coming one day, of course."
+
+"I'll tell you what it is," cried Fred, as they emerged into the street,
+and stood looking round for a hansom; "Gertrude may be the cleverest,
+and Phyllis the prettiest, but Lucy is far and away the nicest of the
+Lorimer girls."
+
+"Gerty is worth ten of her, _I_ think," answered Conny, crossly. She was
+absorbed in furtive contemplation of a light that glimmered in a window
+above the auctioneer's shop opposite.
+
+As the girls were sitting at supper, later on, they were startled by the
+renewal of those sounds below which had disturbed them in the afternoon.
+
+They waited a few minutes, attentive; but this time, instead of dying
+away, the noise rapidly gathered volume, and in addition to the
+scuffling, their ears were assailed by the sound of shrill cries, and
+what appeared to be a perfect volley of objurgations. Evidently a
+contest was going on in which other weapons than vocal or verbal ones
+were employed, for the floor and windows of the little sitting-room
+shook and rattled in a most alarming manner.
+
+Suddenly, to the general horror, Fanny burst into tears.
+
+"Girls," she cried, rushing wildly to the window, "you may say what you
+like; but I am not going to stay and see us all murdered without lifting
+a hand. Help! Murder!" she shrieked, leaning half her body over the
+window-sill.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Fanny, stop that!" cried Lucy, in dismay, trying to
+draw her back into the room. But her protest was drowned by a series of
+ear-piercing yells issuing from the room below.
+
+"I will go and see what is the matter," said Gertrude, pale herself to
+the lips; for the whole thing was sufficiently blood-curdling.
+
+"You'd better stay where you are," answered Lucy, in her most
+matter-of-fact tones, as she led the terrified Fan to an arm-chair.
+
+Phyllis stood among them silent, gazing from one to the other, with that
+strange, bright look in her eyes, which with her betokened excitement;
+the unimpassioned, impersonal excitement of a spectator at a thrilling
+play.
+
+"Certainly I shall go," said Gertrude, as a door banged violently
+below, to the accompaniment of a volley of polyglot curses.
+
+"I will not stay in this awful house another hour," panted Fanny, from
+her arm-chair. "Gertrude, Gertrude, if you leave this room I shall die!"
+
+With a sickening of the heart, for she knew not what horror she was
+about to encounter, Gertrude made her way downstairs, the cries and
+sounds of struggling growing louder at each step. At the bottom of the
+first flight she paused.
+
+"Go back, Phyllis."
+
+"It's no good, Gerty, I'm not going back."
+
+"I am going to the shop; and if the Maryons are not there we must call a
+policeman."
+
+Swiftly they went down the next flight, past the horrible doors, on the
+other side of which the battle was raging, still downwards, till they
+reached the little narrow hall. Here they drew up suddenly before a
+figure which barred the way.
+
+Long afterwards Gertrude could recall the moment when she first saw
+Frank Jermyn under their roof; could remember distinctly--though all at
+the time seemed chaos--the sudden sensation of security that came over
+her at the sight of the kind, eager young face, the brilliant, steadfast
+eyes; at the sound of the manly, cheery voice.
+
+There were no explanations; no apologies.
+
+"There seems to be a shocking row going on," he said, lifting his hat;
+"I only hope that it does not concern any of you ladies."
+
+In a few hurried words Gertrude told him what she knew of the state of
+affairs. Meanwhile the noise had in some degree subsided.
+
+"Great heavens!" cried Frank; "there may be murder going on at this
+instant." And in less time than it takes to tell he had sprung past her,
+and was hammering with all his might at the closed door.
+
+The girls followed timidly, and were in time to see the door fly open in
+response to the well-directed blows, and Mrs. Maryon herself come
+forward, pale but calm. Within the room all was now dark and silent.
+
+Mrs. Maryon and the new comer exchanged a few hurried words, and the
+latter turned to the girls, who clung together a few paces off.
+
+"There is no cause for alarm," he said. "Pray do not wait here. I will
+explain everything in a few minutes, if I may."
+
+"Now please, Miss Lorimer, go back upstairs; there's nothing to be
+frightened at," chimed in Mrs. Maryon, with some asperity.
+
+A few minutes afterwards Frank Jermyn knocked at the door of the
+Lorimers' sitting-room, and on being admitted, found himself well within
+the fire of four questioning pairs of feminine eyes.
+
+"Pray sit down, sir," said Fan, who had been prepared for his arrival.
+"How are we ever to thank you?"
+
+"There is nothing to thank me for, as your sisters can tell you," he
+said, bluntly. He looked a modest, pleasant little person enough as he
+sat there in his light overcoat and dress clothes, all the fierceness
+gone out of him. "I have merely come to tell you that nothing terrible
+has happened. It seems that the poor Frenchwoman below has been in money
+difficulties, and has been trying to put an end to herself. The Maryons
+discovered this in time, and it has been as much as they could do to
+prevent her from carrying out her plan. Hence these tears," he added,
+with a smile.
+
+When once you had seen Frank Jermyn smile, you believed in him from
+that moment.
+
+The girls were full of horror and pity at the tale.
+
+"We have had a great shock," said Fan, wiping her eyes, with dignity.
+"Such a terrible noise. But you heard it for yourself."
+
+A pause; the young fellow looked round rather wistfully, as though
+doubtful of what footing he stood on among them.
+
+"We must not keep you," went on Fan, whose tongue was loosened by
+excitement; "no doubt (glancing at his clothes) you are going out to
+dinner."
+
+She spoke in the manner of a fallen queen who alludes to the ceremony of
+coronation.
+
+Frank rose.
+
+"By the by," he said, looking down, "I have often wished--I have never
+ventured"--then looking up and smiling brightly, "I have often wondered
+if you included photographing at artists' studios in your work."
+
+Lucy assured him that they did, and the young man asked permission to
+call on them the next day at the studio. Then he added--
+
+"My name is Jermyn, and I live at Number 19, opposite."
+
+"I think," said Lucy, in the candid, friendly fashion which always set
+people at their ease, "that we have an acquaintance in common, Miss
+Devonshire."
+
+Jermyn acknowledged that such was the case; a few remarks on the subject
+were exchanged, then Frank went off to his dinner-party, having first
+shaken hands with each of the girls in all cordiality and frankness.
+
+Mrs. Maryon came up in the course of the evening, to express her regret
+that the ladies had been frightened and disturbed; setting aside with
+cynical good-humour their anxious expressions of pity and sympathy for
+the heroine of the affair.
+
+"It isn't for such as you to trouble yourselves about such as her," she
+said, "although I'm sorry enough for Steffany myself--and never a penny
+of last quarter's rent paid!"
+
+"Poor woman," answered Lucy, "she must have been in a desperate
+condition."
+
+"You see, miss," said Mrs. Maryon circumstantially, "she had been going
+on owing money for ever so long, though _we_ knew nothing about it; and
+at last she was threatened with the bailiffs. Then what must she do but
+go down to the shop and make off with some of Maryon's bottles while we
+were at dinner. He found it out, and took one away from her this
+afternoon when you complained of the noise. Later he missed the second
+bottle, and went up to Steffany, who was uncorking it and sniffing it,
+and making believe she wanted to do away with herself."
+
+"How unutterably horrible!" Gertrude shuddered.
+
+"You heard how she went on when he tried to take it from her. Such
+strength as she has, too--it was as much as me and Maryon and the girl
+could do between us to hold her down."
+
+"Where has she gone to now?" said Lucy.
+
+"Oh, she don't sleep here, you know, miss. She's gone home with Maryon
+as meek as a lamb; took her bit of supper with us, quite cheerfully."
+
+"What will she do, I wonder?"
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Maryon, thoughtfully; "there's no saying what she and
+many other poor creatures like her have to do. There'd be no rest for
+any of us if we was to think of that."
+
+Gertrude lay awake that night for many hours; the events of the day had
+curiously shaken her. The story of the miserable Frenchwoman, with its
+element of grim humour, made her sick at heart.
+
+Fenced in as she had hitherto been from the grosser realities of life,
+she was only beginning to realise the meaning of life. Only a plank--a
+plank between them and the pitiless, fathomless ocean on which they had
+set out with such unknowing fearlessness; into whose boiling depths
+hundreds sank daily and disappeared, never to rise again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mademoiselle Stéphanie actually put in an appearance the next morning,
+and made quite a cheerful bustle over the business of setting her house
+in order, preparatory to the final flitting.
+
+Gertrude passed her on the stairs on her way to the studio, but feigned
+not to notice the other's morning greeting, delivered with its usual
+crispness. The woman's mincing, sallow face, with its unabashed smiles,
+sickened her.
+
+Phyllis, who was with her, laughed softly. "She does not seem in the
+least put out by the little affair of yesterday," she said.
+
+"Hush, Phyllis. Ah, there is the studio bell already. No doubt it is Mr.
+Jermyn," and she unconsciously assumed her most business-like air.
+
+A day or two later Mademoiselle Stéphanie vanished for ever; and not
+long afterwards her place was occupied by a serious-looking
+umbrella-maker, who displayed no hankering for Mr. Maryon's bottles.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A NEW CUSTOMER.
+
+     _Stately is service accepted, but lovelier service rendered,
+     Interchange of service the law and condition of Beauty._
+                                                    A. H. CLOUGH.
+
+
+Frank Jermyn, whom we have left ringing at the bell, followed Gertrude
+down the Virginia-cork passage into the waiting-room.
+
+The curtains between this apartment and the studio were drawn aside,
+displaying a charming picture--Lucy, in her black gown and holland
+pinafore, her fair, smooth head bent over the re-touching frame;
+Phyllis, at an ornamental table, engaged in trimming prints, with great
+deftness and grace of manipulation.
+
+Neither of the girls looked up from her work, and Frank took possession
+of one of the red-legged chairs, duly impressed with the business-like
+nature of the occasion; although, indeed, it must be confessed that his
+glance strayed furtively now and then in the direction of the studio and
+its pleasant prospect.
+
+Gertrude explained that they were quite prepared to undertake studio
+work. Frank briefly stated the precise nature of the work he had ready
+for them, and then ensued a pause.
+
+It was humiliating, it was ridiculous, but it was none the less true,
+that neither of these business-like young people liked first to make a
+definite suggestion for the inevitable visit to Frank's studio.
+
+At last Gertrude said, "You would wish it done to-day?"
+
+"Yes, please; if it be possible."
+
+She reflected a moment. "It must be this morning. There is no relying on
+the afternoon light. I cannot arrange to go myself, but my sister can, I
+think. Lucy!"
+
+Lucy came across to them, alert and serene.
+
+"Lucy, would you take number three camera to Mr. Jermyn's studio in
+York Place?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"I have some studies of drapery I should wish to be photographed," added
+Frank, with his air of steadfast modesty.
+
+"I will come at once, if you like," answered Lucy, calmly.
+
+"You will, of course, allow me to carry the apparatus, Miss Lorimer."
+
+"Thank you," said Lucy, after the least possible hesitation.
+
+Every one was immensely serious; and a few minutes afterwards Mrs.
+Maryon, looking out from the dressmaker's window, saw a solemn young man
+and a sober young woman emerge together from the house, laden with
+tripod-stand and camera, and a box of slides, respectively.
+
+"I wish I could have gone myself," said Gertrude, in a worried tone;
+"but I promised Mrs. Staines to be in for her."
+
+"Yes, he _is_ a nice young man," answered Phyllis, unblushingly, looking
+up from her prints.
+
+"Oh Phyllis, Phyllis, don't talk like a housemaid."
+
+"I say, Gerty, all this is delightfully unchaperoned, isn't it?"
+
+"Phyllis, how can you?" cried Gertrude, vexed.
+
+The question of propriety was one which she always thought best left to
+itself, which she hated, above all things, to discuss. Yet even her own
+unconventional sense of fitness was a little shocked at seeing her
+sister walk out of the house with an unknown young man, both of them
+being bound for the studio of the latter.
+
+She was quite relieved when, an hour later, Lucy appeared in the
+waiting-room, fresh and radiant from her little walk.
+
+"Mrs. Staines has been and gone," said Gertrude. "She worried
+dreadfully. But what have you done with 'number three?'"
+
+"Oh, I left the camera at York Place. I am going again to-morrow to do
+some work for Mr. Oakley, who shares Mr. Jermyn's studio."
+
+"Grist for our mill with a vengeance. But come here and talk seriously,
+Lucy."
+
+Phyllis, be it observed, who never remained long in the workshop, had
+gone out for a walk with Fan.
+
+"Well?" said Lucy, balancing herself against a five-barred gate, Fred
+Devonshire's latest gift, aptly christened by Phyllis the White
+Elephant. "Well, Miss Lorimer?"
+
+"I'm going to say something unpleasant. Do you realise that this latest
+development of our business is likely to excite remark?"
+
+"'That people will talk,' as Fan says? Oh, yes, I realise that."
+
+"Don't look so contemptuous, Lucy. It is unconventional, you know."
+
+"Of course it is; and so are we. It is a little late in the day to
+quarrel with our bread-and-butter on that ground."
+
+"It is a mere matter of convention, is it not?" cried Gertrude, more
+anxious to persuade herself than her sister. "Whether a man walks into
+your studio and introduces himself, or whether your hostess introduces
+him at a party, it comes to much the same thing. In both cases you must
+use your judgment about him."
+
+"And whether he walks down the street with you, or puts his arm round
+your waist, and waltzes off with you to some distant conservatory, makes
+very little difference. In either case the chances are one knows nothing
+about him. I am sure half the men one met at dances might have been
+haberdashers or professional thieves for all their hostesses knew. And,
+as a matter of fact, we happen to know something about Mr. Jermyn."
+
+"Oh, I have nothing to say against Mr. Jermyn, personally. I am sure he
+is nice. It was rather that my vivid imagination saw vistas of
+studio-work looming in the distance. It was quite different with Mr.
+Lawrence, you know," said Gertrude, whom her own arguments struck as
+plausible rather than sound. "One thing may lead to another."
+
+"Yes, it is sure to," cried Lucy, who saw an opportunity for escaping
+from the detested propriety topic. "To-day, for instance, with Mr.
+Oakley. He is middle-aged, by the bye, Gerty, and married, for I saw his
+wife."
+
+They both laughed; they could, indeed, afford to laugh, for, regarded
+from a financial point of view, the morning had been an unusually
+satisfactory one.
+
+Gertrude's prophetic vision of vistas of studio work proved, for the
+next few days at least, to have been no baseless fabric of the fancy.
+The two artists at York Place kept them so busy over models, sketches,
+and arrangements of drapery, that the girls' hands were full from
+morning till night. Of course this did not last, but Frank was so full
+of suggestions for them, so genuinely struck with the quality of their
+work, so anxious to recommend them to his comrades in art, that their
+spirits rose high, and hope, which for a time had almost failed them,
+arose, like a giant refreshed, in their breasts.
+
+In all simplicity and respect, the young Cornishman took a deep and
+unconcealed interest in the photographic firm, and expected, on his
+part, a certain amount of interest to be taken in his own work.
+
+Frank, as Conny had said, worked chiefly in black and white. He was
+engaged, at present, in illustrating a serial story for _The Woodcut_,
+but he had time on his hands for a great deal more work, time which he
+employed in painting pictures which the public refused to buy, although
+the committees were often willing to exhibit them.
+
+"If they would only send me out to that wretched little war," he said.
+"There is nothing like having been a special artist for getting a man on
+with the pictorial editors."
+
+There is nothing like the salt of healthy objective interests for
+keeping the moral nature sound. Before the sense of mutual honesty, the
+little barriers of prudishness which both sides had thought fit in the
+first instance to raise, fell silently between the young people, never
+again to be lifted up.
+
+For good or evil, these waifs on the great stream of London life had
+drifted together; how long the current should continue thus to bear them
+side by side--how long, indeed, they should float on the surface of the
+stream at all, was a question with which, for the time being, they did
+not very much trouble themselves.
+
+No one quite knew how it came about, but before a month had gone by, it
+became the most natural thing in the world for Frank to drop in upon
+them at unexpected hours, to share their simple meals, to ask and give
+advice about their respective work.
+
+Fanny had accepted the situation with astonishing calmness. Prudish to
+the verge of insanity with regard to herself, she had grown to look upon
+her strong-minded sisters as creatures emancipated from the ordinary
+conventions of their sex, as far removed from the advantages and
+disadvantages of gallantry as the withered hag who swept the crossing
+near Baker Street Station.
+
+Perhaps, too, she found life at this period a little dull, and welcomed,
+on her own account, a new and pleasant social element in the person of
+Frank Jermyn; however it may be, Fanny gave no trouble, and Gertrude's
+lurking scruples slept in peace.
+
+One bright morning towards the end of January, Gertrude came careering
+up the street on the summit of a tall, green omnibus, her hair blowing
+gaily in the breeze, her ill-gloved hands clasped about a bulky
+note-book. Frank, passing by in painting-coat and sombrero, plucked the
+latter from his head and waved it in exaggerated salute, an action which
+evoked a responsive smile from the person for whom it was intended, but
+acted with quite a different effect on another person who chanced to
+witness it, and for whom it was certainly not intended. This was no
+other than Aunt Caroline Pratt, who, to Gertrude's dismay, came dashing
+past in an open carriage, a look of speechless horror on her handsome,
+horselike countenance.
+
+Now it is impossible to be dignified on the top of an omnibus, and
+Gertrude received her aunt's frozen stare of non-recognition with a
+humiliating consciousness of the disadvantages of her own position.
+
+With a sinking heart she crept down from her elevation, when the omnibus
+stopped at the corner, and walked in a crestfallen manner to Number 20B,
+before the door of which the carriage, emptied of its freight, was
+standing.
+
+Aunt Caroline did not trouble them much in these days, and rather
+wondering what had brought her, Gertrude made her way to the
+sitting-room, where the visitor was already established.
+
+"How do you do, Aunt Caroline?"
+
+"How do you do, Gertrude? And where have you been this morning?"
+
+"To the British Museum."
+
+Gertrude felt all the old opposition rising within her, in the jarring
+presence; an opposition which she assured herself was unreasonable. What
+did it matter what Aunt Caroline said, at this time of day? It had been
+different when they had been little girls; different, too, in that first
+moment of sorrow and anxiety, when she had laid her coarse touch on
+their quivering sensibilities.
+
+Yet, when all was said, Mrs. Pratt's was not a presence to be in any way
+passed over.
+
+"It is half-past one," said Aunt Caroline, consulting her watch; "are
+you not going to have your luncheon?"
+
+"It is laid in the kitchen," explained Lucy; "but if you will stay we
+can have it in here."
+
+"In the kitchen! Is it necessary to give up the habits of ladies because
+you are poor?"
+
+"A kitchen without a cook," put in Phyllis, "is the most ladylike place
+in the world."
+
+Mrs. Pratt vouchsafed no answer to this exclamation, but turned to Lucy.
+
+"No luncheon, thank you. I may as well say at once that I have come here
+with a purpose; solely, in fact, from motives of duty. Gertrude, perhaps
+your conscience can tell you what brings me."
+
+"Indeed, Aunt Caroline, I am at a loss----"
+
+"I have come," continued Mrs. Pratt, "prepared to put up with anything
+you may say. Gertrude, it is to you I address myself, although, from
+Fanny's age, she is the one to have prevented this scandal."
+
+"I do not in the least understand you," said Gertrude, with
+self-restraint.
+
+Mrs. Pratt elevated her gloved forefinger, with the air of a
+well-seasoned counsel.
+
+"Is it, or is it not true, that you have scraped acquaintance with a
+young man who lodges opposite you; that he is in and out of your rooms
+at all hours; that you follow him about to his studio?"
+
+"Yes," said Gertrude, slowly, flushing deeply, "if you choose to put it
+that way; it is true."
+
+"That you go about to public places with him," continued Aunt Caroline;
+"that you have been seen, two of you and this person, in the upper boxes
+of a theatre?"
+
+"Yes, it is true," answered Gertrude; and Lucy, mindful of a coming
+storm, would have taken up the word, but Gertrude interrupted her.
+
+"Let me speak, Lucy; perhaps, after all, we do owe Aunt Caroline some
+explanation. Aunt, how shall I say it for you to understand? We have
+taken life up from a different standpoint, begun it on different bases.
+We are poor people, and we are learning to find out the pleasures of
+the poor, to approach happiness from another side. We have none of the
+conventional social opportunities for instance, but are we therefore to
+sacrifice all social enjoyment? You say we 'follow Mr. Jermyn to his
+studio;' we have our living to earn, no less than our lives to live, and
+in neither case can we afford to be the slaves of custom. Our friends
+must trust us or leave us; must rely on our self-respect and our
+judgment. Convention apart, are not judgment and self-respect what we
+most of us do rely on in our relations with people, under any
+circumstances whatever?"
+
+It was only the fact that Aunt Caroline was speechless with rage that
+prevented her from breaking in at an earlier stage on poor Gertrude's
+heroics; but at this point she found her voice. Sitting very still, and
+looking hard at her niece with a remarkably unpleasant expression in her
+cold eye, she said in tones of concentrated fury:
+
+"Fanny is a fool, and the others are children; but don't _you_,
+Gertrude, know what is meant by a lost reputation?"
+
+This was too much for Gertrude; she sprang to her feet.
+
+"Aunt Caroline," she cried, "you are right; Lucy and Phyllis are very
+young. It is not fit that they should hear such conversation. If you
+wish to continue it, I will ask them to go away."
+
+A pause; the two combatants standing pale and breathless, facing one
+another. Then Lucy went over to her sister and took her hand; Fanny
+sobbed; Phyllis glanced from one to the other with her bright eyes.
+
+Now, Gertrude's conduct had been distinctly injudicious; open defiance,
+no less than servile acquiescence, was understood and appreciated by
+Mrs. Pratt; but Gertrude, as Lucy, who secretly admired her sister's
+eloquence, at once perceived, had spoken a tongue not understanded of
+Aunt Caroline.
+
+As soon, in these non-miraculous days, strike the rock for water, as
+appeal to Aunt Caroline's finer feelings or imaginative perceptions.
+
+"If you will not listen to me," she said, suddenly assuming an air of
+weariness and physical delicacy, "it must be seen whether your uncle can
+influence you. I am not equal to prolonging the discussion."
+
+Pointedly ignoring Gertrude, she shook hands with the other girls;
+angry as she was, their shabby clothes and shabby furniture smote her
+for the moment with compassion. Poverty seemed to her the greatest of
+human calamities; she pitied even more than she despised it.
+
+To Lucy, indeed, who escorted her downstairs, she assumed quite a gay
+and benevolent manner; only pausing to ask on the threshold, with a good
+deal of fine, healthy curiosity underlying the elaborate archness of her
+tones:
+
+"Now, how much money have you naughty girls been making lately?"
+
+Lucy stoutly and laughingly evaded the question, and Aunt Caroline drove
+off smiling, refusing, like the stalwart warrior that she was, to
+acknowledge herself defeated. But it was many a long day before she
+attempted again to interfere in the affairs of the Lorimers.
+
+Perhaps she would have been more ready to renew the attack, had she
+known how really distressed and disturbed Gertrude had been by her
+words.
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A DISTINGUISHED PERSON.
+
+     "... _I can give no reason, nor I will not;
+     More than have a lodged hate and a certain loathing
+     I bear Antonio._"
+                                     MERCHANT OF VENICE.
+
+
+One morning, towards the middle of March, the sisters were much excited
+at receiving a letter containing an order to photograph a picture in a
+studio at St. John's Wood.
+
+It was written in a small legible handwriting, was dated from The
+Sycamores, and signed, Sidney Darrell.
+
+"I wonder how he came to hear of us?" said Lucy, who cherished a
+particular admiration for the works of this artist.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Jermyn knows him," answered Gertrude.
+
+"He would probably have spoken of him to us, if he did."
+
+"Here," said Gertrude, "is Mr. Jermyn to answer for himself."
+
+Frank, who had been admitted by Matilda, came into the waiting-room,
+where the sisters stood, a look as of the dawning spring-time in his
+vivid face and shining eyes.
+
+"I have brought the proofs from _The Woodcut_," he said, drawing a damp
+bundle from his painting-coat. The Lorimers always read the slips of the
+story he was illustrating, and then a general council was held to decide
+on the best incident for illustration.
+
+Lucy took the bundle and handed him the letter.
+
+"Aren't you tremendously pleased?" he said.
+
+"Do you know anything about this?" asked Lucy.
+
+"How?"
+
+"I mean, did you recommend us to him?"
+
+"Not I. This letter is simply the reward of well-earned fame."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Jermyn; I really think you must be right. Do you know
+Sidney Darrell?"
+
+"I have met him. But he is a great swell, you know, Miss Lucy, and he is
+almost always abroad."
+
+"Yes," put in Gertrude; "his exquisite Venetian pictures!"
+
+"Oh, Darrell is a clever fellow. Too fond of the French school, perhaps,
+for my taste. And the curious thing is, that, though his work is every
+bit as solid as it is brilliant, there is something rather sensational
+about his reputation."
+
+"All this," cried Gertrude, "sounds exciting."
+
+"I think that must be owing to the man himself," went on Frank. "Oakley
+knows him fairly well; says you may meet him one night at dinner, and he
+will ask you up to his studio. The first thing next morning you get a
+note putting you off; he is very sorry, but he is starting that day for
+India."
+
+"Does he paint Indian pictures?"
+
+"No, but is bitten at times with the 'big game' craze; shoots tigers and
+sticks pigs, and so on. I believe his studio is quite a museum of
+trophies of the chase."
+
+"By the by, Lucy, which of us is to go to The Sycamores to-morrow
+morning?"
+
+"You must go, Gerty; I can't trust any one else to finish off those
+prints of little Jack Oakley, and they have been promised so long."
+
+Gertrude consulted the letter.
+
+"I shall have to take the big camera, which involves a cab."
+
+"I wish I could have walked up with you," said Frank; "but, strange to
+say, I am very busy this week."
+
+"I wish we were busy," answered Gertrude; "things are a little better,
+but it is slow work."
+
+"I consider this letter of Darrell's a distinct move forward," cried
+hopeful Frank; "_he_ will be able to recommend you to artists who are
+not a lot of out-at-elbow fellows," he added, holding out his hand in
+farewell, with a bright smile that belied the rueful words. "Now, please
+don't forget you are all coming to tea with Oakley and me on Sunday
+afternoon. And Miss Devonshire--you gave her my invitation?"
+
+"Yes," said Lucy, promptly; then added after a pause: "May her brother
+come too; he says he would like to?"
+
+Frank scanned her quickly with his bright eyes.
+
+"Certainly, if you like; he is not a bad sort of cub."
+
+And then he departed abruptly.
+
+"That was quite rude, for Mr. Jermyn," said Gertrude.
+
+Lucy turned away with a slight flush on her fair face.
+
+"It would be quite rude for anybody," she said, and went over to the
+studio.
+
+Phyllis was spending the day at the Devonshires, but came back for the
+evening meal, by which time her sisters' excitement on the subject of
+Darrell's letter had subsided; and no mention was made of it while they
+were at table.
+
+After the meal, Phyllis went over to the window, drew up the blind, and
+amused herself, as was her frequent custom, by looking into the street.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't do that," said Lucy; "any one can see right into
+the room."
+
+"Why do you waste your breath, Lucy? You know it is never any good
+telling me not to do things, when I want to."
+
+Gertrude, who had herself a secret, childish love for the gas-lit
+street, for the sight of the hurrying people, the lamps, the hansom
+cabs, flickering in and out the yellow haze, like so many fire-flies,
+took no part in the dispute, but set to work at repairing an old skirt
+of Phyllis's, which was sadly torn.
+
+Meanwhile the spoilt child at the window continued her observations,
+which seemed to afford her considerable amusement.
+
+"There is a light in Frank Jermyn's window--the top one," she cried; "I
+suppose he is dressing. He told me he had an early dance in Harley
+Street. I wish _I_ were going to a dance."
+
+There was a look of mischief in Phyllis's eyes as she looked round at
+Lucy, who was buried in the proof-sheets from _The Woodcut_.
+
+"Phyllis, you are coughing terribly. Do come away from that draughty
+place," cried Gertrude, with real anxiety.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, Gerty. Ah, there goes Master Frank. It is wet
+underfoot, and he has turned up his trousers, and his pumps are bulging
+from his coat-pocket. I wonder how many miles a week he walks on his way
+to dances?"
+
+"It is quite delightful to see a person with such an enjoyment of every
+phase of existence," said Gertrude, half to herself.
+
+"You poor, dear _blasée_ thing. It _is_ a pretty sight to see the young
+people enjoying themselves, as the little boy said in _Punch_, is it
+not? I wonder if Mr. Jermyn is going to walk all the way? Perhaps he
+will take the omnibus at the corner. He never 'soars higher than a
+'bus,' as he expresses it."
+
+Wearying suddenly of the sport, Phyllis dropped the blind, and, coming
+over to Gertrude, knelt on the floor at her feet.
+
+"It is a little dull, ain't it, Gerty, to look at life from a top-floor
+window?"
+
+A curious pang went through Gertrude, as she tenderly stroked the
+nut-brown head.
+
+"You haven't heard our news," she said, irrelevantly. "There, read
+that." And taking Mr. Darrell's note from her pocket, she handed it to
+Phyllis.
+
+The latter read it through rather languidly.
+
+"Yes, I suppose it is a good thing to be employed by such a person," she
+remarked. "Sidney Darrell?--Didn't I tell you I met him last week at
+the Oakleys, the day I went to tea?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Sycamores was divided from the road by a high grey wall, beyond
+which stretched a neglected-looking garden of some size, and, on the
+March morning of which I write, this latter presented a singularly
+melancholy appearance.
+
+The house itself looked melancholy also, as houses will which are very
+little lived in, and appeared to consist almost entirely of a large
+studio, built out like a disproportionate wing from the main structure.
+
+Gertrude was led at once to the studio by a serious-looking manservant,
+who announced that his master would join her in a few minutes.
+
+The apartment in which Gertrude found herself was of vast size, and bore
+none of the signs of neglect and disuse which marked the house and
+garden.
+
+It was fitted up with all the chaotic splendour which distinguishes the
+studio of the modern fashionable artist; the spoils of many climes,
+fruits of many wanderings, being heaped, with more regard to
+picturesqueness than fitness, in every available nook.
+
+Going up to the carved fire-place, Gertrude proceeded to warm her hands
+at the comfortable wood-fire, a position badly adapted for taking stock
+of the great man's possessions, of which, as she afterwards confessed,
+she only carried away a prevailing impression of tiger-skins and
+Venetian lanterns.
+
+The fire-light played about her slim figure and about the faded richness
+of a big screen of old Spanish leather, which fenced in the little bit
+of territory in the immediate neighbourhood of the fire-place; a spot in
+which had been gathered the most luxurious lounges and the choicest
+ornaments of the whole collection; and where, at the present moment, the
+air was heavy with the scent of tuberose, several sprays of which stood
+on a small table in a costly jar of Venetian glass.
+
+In a few minutes the sound of footsteps outside, and of the rich, deep
+notes of a man's voice were audible.
+
+
+     "Et non, non, non,
+     Vous n'êtes plus Lisette,
+     Ne portez plus ce nom."
+
+
+As the footsteps drew nearer the words of the song could be clearly
+distinguished.
+
+Gertrude turned towards the door, which fronted the fire-place, and as
+she did so the song ceased, the curtain was pushed aside, and a person,
+presumably the singer, came into the room.
+
+He was a man of middle height, and middle age, with light brown hair,
+parted in the centre, and a moustache and Vandyke beard of the same
+colour. He was not, strictly speaking, handsome, but he wore that air of
+distinction which power and the assurance of power alone can confer. His
+whole appearance was a masterly combination of the correct and the
+picturesque.
+
+He advanced deliberately towards Gertrude.
+
+"Allow me, Miss Lorimer, to introduce myself."
+
+He spoke carelessly, yet with a note of disappointment in his voice, and
+a shade of moodiness in his heavy-lidded eyes.
+
+Gertrude, looking up and meeting the cold, grey glance, became suddenly
+conscious that her hat was shabby, that her boots were patched and
+clumsy, that the wind had blown the wisps of hair about her face. What
+was there in this man's gaze that made her, all at once, feel old and
+awkward, ridiculous and dowdy; that made her long to snatch up her heavy
+camera and flee from his presence, never to return?
+
+What, indeed? Gertrude, we know, had a vivid imagination, and that
+perhaps was responsible for the sense of oppression, defiance, and
+self-distrust with which she followed Mr. Darrell across the room to one
+of the easels, on which was displayed a remarkable study in oils of a
+winter aspect of the Grand Canal at Venice.
+
+There was certainly, superficially speaking, no ground for her feeling
+in the artist's conduct. With his own hands he set up and fixed the
+heavy camera on the tripod stand, questioned her, in his low, listless
+tones, as to her convenience, and observed, by way of polite
+conversation, that he had had the pleasure of meeting her sister the
+week before at the Oakleys.
+
+To her own unutterable vexation, Gertrude found herself rather cowed by
+the man and his indifferent politeness, through which she seemed to
+detect the lurking contempt; and as his glance of cold irony fell upon
+her from time to time, from beneath the heavy lids, she found herself
+beginning to take part not only against herself but also against the
+type of woman to which she belonged.
+
+Having made the necessary adjustments, and given the necessary
+directions, Darrell went over to the fire-place, and cast himself into a
+lounge, where the leather screen shut out his well-appointed person from
+Gertrude's sight. She, on her part, set about her task without
+enjoyment, and was glad when it was over and she could pack up the
+dark-slides. As she was unscrewing the camera from the stand, the
+curtain before the doorway was pushed aside for the second time, and a
+man entered unannounced. At the same moment Darrell advanced from behind
+his screen, and the two men met in the middle of the room.
+
+"Delighted to see you back, my dear fellow."
+
+It seemed to Gertrude that a shade of deference had infused itself into
+the artist's manner, as he cordially clasped hands with the new comer.
+
+This person was a tall, sinewy man of from thirty-five to forty years of
+age, with stooping shoulders and a brown beard. From her corner by the
+easel Miss Lorimer could see his face, and her casual glance falling
+upon it was arrested by a sudden sense of recognition.
+
+Where had she seen them before; the ample forehead, the clear, grey
+eyes, the rough yet generous lines of the features?
+
+This man's face was sunburnt, cheery, smiling; the face which it
+recalled had been pale, haggard, worn with watching and sorrow. Then, as
+by a flash, she saw it all again before her eyes; the dainty room
+flooded with October sunlight; the dead woman lying there with her
+golden hair spread on the pillow; the bearded, averted face, and
+stooping form of the figure that crouched by the window.
+
+"I only hope," she reflected, "that he will not recognise me. The
+recollections that the sight of me would summon up could scarcely be
+pleasant. I have no wish to enact the part of skeleton at the feast."
+
+With a desponding sense that she had no right to her existence, Gertrude
+gathered up her possessions and made her way across the room.
+
+Darrell came forward slowly, "Oh, put down those heavy things," he said.
+
+Lord Watergate, for it was he, went over to the fire-place and stood
+there warming his hands.
+
+"May I trouble you to have a cab called?"
+
+Gertrude spoke in her most dignified manner.
+
+"Certainly. But won't you come to the fire?"
+
+Darrell rang a bell which stood on the mantelshelf, and indicated to
+Gertrude a chair by the screen.
+
+Gertrude, however, preferred to stand, and for some moments the three
+people on the tiger-skin hearthrug stared into the fire in silence.
+
+Then Darrell said in an offhand manner: "Miss Lorimer has been kind
+enough to photograph my 'Grand Canal' for me."
+
+Lord Watergate, looking up suddenly, met Gertrude's glance. For a moment
+a puzzled expression came into his eyes, then changed to one of
+recognition and recollection. After some hesitation, he said:
+
+"It must be difficult to do justice in a photograph to such a picture."
+
+She threw him back his commonplace:
+
+"Oh, the gradations of tone often come out surprisingly well."
+
+Inwardly she was saying, "How he must hate the sight of me."
+
+Darrell looked from one to the other, dimly suspicious of their mutual
+consciousness, then rejected the suspicion as an absurd one.
+
+"I will write to you about those sketches," he said, as the cab was
+announced.
+
+Lucy and Phyllis were frisking about the studio, as young creatures will
+do in the spring, when Gertrude entered, weary and dispirited, from her
+expedition to The Sycamores.
+
+The girls fell upon her at once for news.
+
+She flung herself into the sitter's chair, which half revolved with the
+violence of the action.
+
+"Say something nice to me," she cried. "Compliment me on my beauty, my
+talents, my virtues. There is no flattery so gross that I could not
+swallow it."
+
+Phyllis looked from her to Lucy and tapped her forehead in significant
+pantomime.
+
+"You are everything that is most delightful," said Lucy; "only do tell
+us about the great man."
+
+"He was odious," cried Gertrude.
+
+"She has never been quarrelling, I will not say with her own, but with
+_our_ bread-and-butter," said Phyllis, in affected dismay.
+
+"I will never go there again, if that's what you mean."
+
+"But what is the matter, Gerty? I found him quite polite."
+
+"Polite? It is worse than rudeness, a politeness which says so plainly:
+'This is for my own sake, not for yours.'"
+
+"You are really cross, Gerty; what has the illustrious Sidney been doing
+to you?" said Lucy, who did not suffer from violent likes and dislikes.
+
+"Oh," cried Gertrude, laughing ruefully; "how shall I explain? He is
+this sort of man;--if a woman were talking to him of--of the motions of
+the heavenly bodies, he would be thinking all the time of the shape of
+her ankles."
+
+"Great heavens, Gerty, did you make the experiment?"
+
+Phyllis opened her pretty eyes their widest as she spoke.
+
+"We all know," remarked Lucy, with a twinkle in her eye, "that it is
+best to begin with a little aversion."
+
+Phyllis struck an attitude:
+
+"'Friends meet to part, but foes once joined----'"
+
+"Girls, what has come over you?" exclaimed Gertrude, dismayed.
+
+"Gerty is shocked," said Lucy; "one is always stumbling unawares on her
+sense of propriety."
+
+"She is like the Bishop of Rumtyfoo," added Phyllis; "she does draw the
+line at such unexpected places."
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SHOW SUNDAY.
+
+     _La science l'avait gardé naïf._
+                     ALPHONSE DAUDET.
+
+
+The last Sunday in March was Show Sunday; and Frank, who was of a
+festive disposition, had invited all the people he knew in London to
+inspect his pictures and Mr. Oakley's before they were sent in to the
+Royal Academy.
+
+Mr. Oakley was a middle-aged Bohemian, who had made a small success in
+his youth and never got beyond it. It had been enough, however, to
+launch him into the artistic world, and it was probably only owing to
+the countenance of his brothers of the brush that he was able to sell
+his pictures at all. Oakley was an accepted fact, if nothing more; the
+critics treated him with respect if without enthusiasm; the exhibition
+committees hung him, though not indeed on the line, and the public
+bought his pictures, which had the advantage of being moderate in price
+and signed with a name that everybody knew.
+
+Of course this indifferent child of the earth had a wife and family; and
+he had been only too glad to share his studio expenses with young
+Jermyn, whose father, the Cornish clergyman, had been a friend of his
+own youth.
+
+"I wonder," said Gertrude, as the Lorimers dressed for Frank's party,
+"if there will be a lot of gorgeous people this afternoon?" And she
+looked ruefully at the patch on her boot, with a humiliating
+reminiscence of Darrell's watchful eye.
+
+"I don't expect so," answered Phyllis, whose pretty feet were
+appropriately shod. "You know what dowdy people one meets at the
+Oakleys. Oh, of course they know others, but they don't turn up,
+somehow."
+
+"Then there will be Mr. Jermyn's people," said Lucy, inspecting her
+gloves with a frown.
+
+"A lot of pretty, well-dressed girls, no doubt," answered Phyllis; "I
+expect that well-beloved youth has a wife in every port, or at least a
+young woman in every suburb."
+
+"_Apropos_," said Gertrude, "I wonder if the Devonshires will be there.
+We never seem to see Conny in these days."
+
+"Isn't it rather a strain on friendship," answered Phyllis, shrewdly,
+"when two sets of our friends become acquainted, and seem to prefer one
+another to _us_, the old and tried and trusty friend of each?"
+
+"What horrid things you say sometimes, Phyllis," objected Lucy, as the
+three sisters trooped downstairs.
+
+Fanny was not with them; she was spending the day with some relations of
+her mother's.
+
+A curious, dreamlike sensation stole over Gertrude at finding herself
+once again in a roomful of people; and as an old war-horse is said to
+become excited at the sound of battle, so she felt the social instincts
+rise strongly within her as the familiar, forgotten pageant of nods and
+becks and wreathed smiles burst anew upon her.
+
+Frank shot across the room, like an arrow from the bow, as the Lorimers
+entered.
+
+"How late you are," he said; "I was beginning to have a horrible fear
+that you were not coming at all."
+
+"How pretty it all is," said Lucy, sweetly. "Those great brass jars with
+the daffodils are charming; and what an overwhelming number of people."
+
+Conny came up to them, splendid as ever, but with a restless light in
+her eyes, an unnatural flush on her cheek.
+
+"How do you do, girls?" she said, abruptly. "You look seedy, Gerty."
+Then, as Frank moved off to fetch them some tea: "I do so hate afternoon
+affairs, don't you?"
+
+"How pretty Frank looks," whispered Phyllis to Lucy; "I like to see him
+flying in and out among the people, as though his life depended on it,
+don't you? And the daffodil in his coat just suits his complexion."
+
+"Phyllis, don't be so silly!"
+
+Lucy refrained from smiling, but her eyes followed, with some amusement,
+the picturesque and active figure of her host, as he went about his
+duties with his usual air of earnestness and candour.
+
+"Come and look at the pictures, Lucy. That's what you're here for, you
+know," remarked Fred, who had joined their group, and was looking the
+very embodiment of Philistine comeliness. "I haven't seen you for an
+age," he added, as they made their way to one of the easels.
+
+"That is your own fault, isn't it?" said Lucy, lightly.
+
+"Conny has got it into her head that you don't care to see us."
+
+"How can Conny be so silly?"
+
+"Don't tell her I told you. She would be in no end of a wax," he added,
+as Phyllis and Constance pressed by them in the crush.
+
+Gertrude was still standing near the doorway, sipping her tea, and
+looking about her with a rather wistful interest. She had caught here
+and there glimpses of familiar faces, faces from her own old world--that
+world which, taken _en masse_, she had so fervently disliked; but no one
+had taken any notice of the young woman by the doorway, with her pale
+face and suit of rusty black.
+
+"I feel like a ghost," she said to Frank, as she handed him her empty
+cup.
+
+"You do look horribly white," he answered, with genuine concern; "I
+wish you were looking as well as your sisters--Miss Phyllis for
+instance."
+
+He glanced across as he spoke with undisguised admiration at the slim
+young figure, and blooming face of the girl, who stood smiling down with
+amiable indifference at one of his own canvasses.
+
+Phyllis Lorimer belonged to that rare order of women who are absolutely
+independent of their clothes.
+
+By the side of her old black gown and well-worn hat, Constance
+Devonshire's elaborate spring costume looked vulgar and obtrusive; and
+Constance herself, in the light of her friend's more delicate beauty,
+seemed _bourgeoise_ and overblown.
+
+The effect of this contrast was not lost on two men who, at this point
+of the proceedings, strolled into the room, and whom the Oakleys came
+forward with some _empressement_ to receive.
+
+"I have brought you Lord Watergate," Gertrude heard one of them say, in
+a voice which she recognised at once, the sound of which filled her with
+a vague sense of discomfort.
+
+"Darrell, by all that's wonderful!" said Frank, _sotto voce_, his eyes
+shining with enthusiasm; "there, with the light Vandyke beard--but you
+know him already."
+
+"Hasn't he a Show Sunday of his own?" replied Gertrude, in a voice that
+implied that the wish was father to the thought.
+
+"He has a gallery all to himself in Bond Street this season. I wonder if
+he will sing this afternoon."
+
+"Mr. Darrell is a person of many accomplishments it seems."
+
+"Oh, rather!" and Frank went off to offer a pleased and modest welcome
+to the illustrious guest.
+
+Sidney Darrell, having succeeded in escaping from the Oakleys and their
+tea-table, made his way across the room, stopping here and there to
+exchange greetings with the people that he knew, and moving with that
+ostentatious air of lack of purpose which is so often assumed in society
+to mask a set and deliberate plan.
+
+"How do you do, Miss Lorimer?" He stopped in front of Phyllis and held
+out his hand.
+
+Phyllis's flower-face brightened at this recognition from the great man.
+
+"Now, don't you think this is the most ridiculous institution on the
+face of the earth?" said Darrell, as he took his place beside her, for
+Conny had moved off discreetly at his approach.
+
+"Which institution? Tea, pictures, people?"
+
+"Their incongruous combination under the name of Show Sunday."
+
+"Oh, I think it's fun. But then I have never seen the sort of thing
+before."
+
+"You are greatly to be envied, Miss Lorimer."
+
+"How lovely Phyllis is looking," cried Conny, who had joined Gertrude
+near the doorway; "she grows prettier every day."
+
+"Do you think so?" answered Gertrude. "She looks to me more delicate
+than ever, with that flush on her cheek, and that shining in her eyes."
+
+"Nonsense, Gerty; you are quite ridiculous about Phyllis. She appears to
+be amusing Mr. Darrell, at any rate. She says just the sort of things
+Mr. Lorimer used to. She is more like him than any of you."
+
+"Yes." Gertrude winced; then, looking up, saw Mr. Oakley and a tall man
+standing before her.
+
+"Lord Watergate, Miss Lorimer."
+
+The grey eyes looked straight into hers, and a deep voice said--
+
+"We have met before. But I scarcely ventured to regard myself as
+introduced to you."
+
+Lord Watergate smiled as he spoke, and, with a sense of relief, Gertrude
+felt that here, at least, was a friendly presence.
+
+"I met you at The Sycamores on Wednesday."
+
+"If it could be called a meeting. That's a wonderful picture of
+Darrell's."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oakley has been telling me about the great success in photography of
+you and your sisters."
+
+"I don't know about success!" Gertrude laughed.
+
+"You look so tired, Miss Lorimer; let me find you a seat."
+
+"No, thank you; I prefer to stand. One sees the world so much better."
+
+"Ah, you like to see the world?"
+
+"Yes; it is always interesting."
+
+"It is to be assumed that you are fond of society?"
+
+"Does one follow from the other?"
+
+"No; I merely hazarded the question."
+
+"One demands so much more of a game in which one is taking part," said
+Gertrude; "and with social intercourse, one is always thinking how much
+better managed it might be."
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Now what is your ideal society, Miss Lorimer?"
+
+"A society not of class, caste, or family--but of picked individuals."
+
+"I think we tend more and more towards such a society, at least in
+London," said Lord Watergate; then added, "You are a democrat, Miss
+Lorimer."
+
+"And you are an optimist, Lord Watergate."
+
+"Oh, I'm quite unformulated. But let us leave off this mutual
+recrimination for the present; and perhaps you can tell me who is the
+lady talking to Sidney Darrell."
+
+Lord Watergate's attention had been suddenly caught by Phyllis; Gertrude
+noted that he was looking at her with all his eyes.
+
+"That is one of my sisters," she said.
+
+He turned towards her with a start; there was a note of constraint in
+his tones as he said--
+
+"She is very beautiful."
+
+What was there in his voice, in his face, that suddenly brought before
+Gertrude's vision the image of the dead woman, her golden hair, and
+haggard beauty?
+
+Phyllis, on her part, had been aware of the brief but intense gaze which
+the grey eyes had cast upon her from the other side of the room.
+
+"Who is that person talking to my sister?" she said.
+
+Darrell looked across coldly, and answered: "Oh, that's Lord Watergate,
+the great physiologist."
+
+"I have never met a lord before."
+
+"And, after all, this isn't much of a lord, because the peer is quite
+swallowed up in the man of science."
+
+Oakley came up, entreating Darrell to sing.
+
+"But isn't it quite irregular, to-day?"
+
+"Oh, we don't pretend to be fashionable. This isn't 'Show Sunday,' pure
+and simple, but just a pretext for seeing one's friends."
+
+"By the by," said the artist, as Oakley went off to open the little
+piano, "is it any good my sending the sketches this week? though it's
+horribly bad form to talk shop."
+
+"You must ask my sister about those things."
+
+"Oh, your sister is far and away too clever for me."
+
+"Gertrude is clever, but not in the way you mean."
+
+"Nevertheless, I am horribly afraid of her."
+
+Darrell went over to the piano and sang a little French song, with
+perfect art, in his rich baritone. Gertrude watched him, as he sat there
+playing his own accompaniment, and a vague terror stole over her of this
+irreproachable-looking person, who did everything so well; whose quiet
+presence was redolent of an immeasurable, because an unknown strength;
+and who, she felt (indignantly remembering the cold irony of his glance)
+could never, under any circumstances, be made to appear ridiculous.
+
+At the end of the song, Phyllis came over to Gertrude.
+
+"Aren't we going, Gerty?" she said; "It is quite unfashionable to 'make
+a night of it' like this. One is just supposed to look round and sail
+off to half-a-dozen other studios."
+
+Lord Watergate, who stood near, caught the half-whispered words, and
+smiled, as one smiles at the nonsense of a pretty child. Gertrude saw
+the expression of his face as she answered--
+
+"Yes, it is time we went. Tell Lucy; there she is with Mr. Jermyn."
+
+Darrell came over to them as they were going, and shook hands, first
+with Gertrude, and then with Phyllis.
+
+"Thank you," he said to the latter, "for a very pleasant afternoon."
+
+Both he and Lord Watergate lingered in York Place till the other guests
+had departed, when they fell upon Frank for further information
+respecting the photographic studio.
+
+"It doesn't look as if it paid them," remarked Darrell, by way of
+administering a damper to loyal Frank's enthusiasm.
+
+"I wonder," said Lord Watergate, "if they would think it worth while to
+prepare some slides for me?"
+
+"For the Royal Institution lectures?" Darrell sat down to the piano as
+he spoke, and ran his hands over the keys. "She is a charming
+creature--Phyllis."
+
+"Charming!" cried Frank; "and so is Miss Lucy. And Gertrude is charming,
+too; she is the clever one."
+
+"Oh, yes, Gertrude is the clever one; you can see that by her boots."
+
+Meanwhile the Lorimers and the Devonshires were walking up Baker Street
+together, engaged, on their part also, in discussing the people from
+whom they had just parted.
+
+"You are quite wrong, Gerty, about Mr. Darrell," cried Phyllis; "he is
+very nice, and great fun."
+
+"What, the fellow with the goatee?" said Fred.
+
+"Oh, Fred, his beautiful Vandyke beard!"
+
+"I don't care, I don't like him."
+
+"Nor do I, Fred," said Gertrude, with decision, as the whole party
+turned into Number 20B, and went up to the sitting-room.
+
+"I think really you are a little unreasonable," said Lucy, putting her
+arm round her sister's waist; "he seemed quite a nice person."
+
+"He looks," put in Conny, speaking for the first time, "as though he
+meant to have the best of everything. But so do a great many of us mean
+that."
+
+"But not," cried Gertrude, "by trampling over the bodies of other
+people. Ah, you are all laughing at me. But can one be expected to think
+well of a person who makes one feel like a strong-minded clown?"
+
+They laughed more than ever at the curious image summoned up by her
+words; then Phyllis remarked, critically--
+
+"There is one thing I don't like about him, and that is his eye. I
+particularly detest that sort of eye; prominent, with heavy lids, and
+those little puffy bags underneath."
+
+"Phyllis, spare us these realistic descriptions," protested Lucy, "and
+let us dismiss Mr. Darrell, for the present at least. Perhaps our
+revered chaperon will tell us something of her experiences with a
+certain noble lord," she added, placing in her dress, with a smile of
+thanks, the gardenia of which Fred had divested himself in her favour.
+
+"It was very nice of him," said Gertrude, gravely, "to get Mr. Oakley to
+introduce him to me, if only to show me that the sight of me did not
+make him sick."
+
+"I like his face," added Lucy; "there is something almost boyish about
+it. Do you remember what Daudet says of the old doctor in _Jack_, 'La
+science l'avait gardé naïf.'"
+
+"What a set of gossips we are," cried Conny, who had taken little part
+in the conversation. "Come along, Fred; you know we are dining at the
+Greys to-night."
+
+"Botheration! They are certain to give me Nelly to take in," grumbled
+Fred, who, like many of his sex, was extremely modest where his feelings
+were concerned, but cherished a belief that the mass of womankind had
+designs upon him; "and we never know what on earth to say to one
+another."
+
+"There goes Mr. Jermyn," observed Phyllis, as the door closed on the
+brother and sister; "he said something about coming in here to-night."
+
+Lucy, who was seated at some distance from the window, allowed herself
+to look up, and smiled as she remarked--
+
+"What ages ago it seems since we used to wonder about him and call him
+'Conny's man.'"
+
+"'Conny's man,'" added Phyllis, with a curl of her pretty lips, "who
+does not care two straws for Conny."
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+SUMMING UP.
+
+     _J'ai peur d'Avril, peur de l'émoi
+     Qu'éveille sa douceur touchante._
+                       SULLY PRUDHOMME.
+
+
+April had come round again; and, like M. Sully Prudhomme, Gertrude was
+afraid of April.
+
+As Fanny had remarked to Frank, the month had very painful associations
+for them all; but Gertrude's terror was older than their troubles, and
+was founded, not on the recollection of past sorrow, so much as on the
+cruel hunger for a present joy. And now again, after all her struggles,
+her passionate care for others, her resolute putting away of all
+thoughts of personal happiness, now again the Spring was stirring in
+her veins, and voices which she had believed silenced for ever arose
+once more in her heart and clamoured for a hearing.
+
+Often, before business hours, Gertrude might be seen walking round
+Regent's Park at a swinging pace, exorcising her demons; she was
+obliged, as she said, to ride her soul on the curb, and be very careful
+that it did not take the bit between its teeth--this poor, weak
+Gertrude, who seemed such a fountain-head of wisdom, such a tower of
+strength to the people among whom she dwelt.
+
+At this period, also, she had had recourse, in the pauses of
+professional work, to her old consolation of literary effort, and had
+even sent some of her productions to Paternoster Row, with the same
+unsatisfactory results as of yore, she and Frank uniting their voices in
+that bitter cry of the rejected contributor, which in these days is
+heard through the breadth and length of the land.
+
+One morning she came into the studio after her walk, to find Lucy
+engaged in focussing Frank, who was seated, wearing an air of immense
+solemnity, in the sitter's chair. Phyllis, meanwhile, hovered about,
+bestowing hints and suggestions on them both, secretly enjoying the
+quiet humour of the scene.
+
+"It is Mr. Jermyn's birthday present," she announced, as Gertrude
+entered. "He is going to send it to Cornwall, which will be a nice
+advertisement for us."
+
+Frank blushed slightly; and Lucy cried from beneath her black cloth,
+"Don't get up, Mr. Jermyn; Gertrude will excuse you, I am sure."
+
+Gertrude, laughing, retreated to the waiting-room; where, throwing
+herself into a chair, and leaning both her elbows on a rickety scarlet
+table, she stared vaguely at the little picture of youth and grace which
+the parted curtains revealed to her.
+
+How could they be so cheerful, so heedless? cried her heart, with a
+sudden impatience. Was this life, this ceaseless messing about in a
+pokey glass out-house, this eating and drinking and sleeping in the
+shabby London rooms?
+
+Was any human creature to be blamed who rebelled against it? Did not
+flesh and blood cry out against such sordidness, with all the revel of
+the spring-time going on in the world beyond?
+
+It is base and ignoble perhaps to scorn the common round, the trivial
+task, but is it not also ignoble and base to become so immersed in them
+as to desire nothing beyond?
+
+"What mean thoughts I am thinking," cried Gertrude to herself, shocked
+at her own mood; then, gazing mechanically in front of her, saw Lucy
+disappear into the dark-room, and Frank come forward with outstretched
+hand.
+
+"At last I can say 'good-morning,' Miss Lorimer."
+
+Gertrude gave him her hand with a smile; Jermyn's was a presence that
+somehow always cleared the moral atmosphere.
+
+"You will never guess," said Frank, "what I have brought you."
+
+As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a number of _The Woodcut_, damp
+from the press, and opening it at a particular page, spread it on the
+table before her.
+
+Phyllis, becoming aware of these proceedings, came across to the
+waiting-room and leaned over her sister's shoulder.
+
+"Oh, Gerty, what fun."
+
+On one side of the page was a large wood-engraving representing four
+people on a lawn-tennis court. Three of them were girls, in whom could
+be traced distinct resemblance to the three Lorimers; while the fourth,
+a man, had about him an unmistakable suggestion of Jermyn himself. The
+initials "F. J." were writ large in a corner of the picture, and on the
+opposite page were the following verses:--
+
+
+     What wonder that I should be dreaming[A]
+       Out here in the garden to-day?
+     The light through the leaves is streaming;
+                 _Paulina cries, "Play!"_
+
+     The birds to each other are calling;
+     The freshly-cut grasses smell sweet--
+     _To Teddy's dismay comes falling
+                 The ball at my feet!_
+
+     "_Your stroke should be over, not under._"
+     "_But that's such a difficult way!_"
+     The place is a spring-tide wonder
+                 Of lilac and may.
+
+     Of lilac and may and laburnam;
+     Of blossom--"_we're losing the set!
+     Those volleys of Jenny's, return them,
+                 Stand close to the net!_"
+
+
+               ENVOI.
+
+     You are so fond of the may-time,
+           My friend far away,
+     Small wonder that I should be dreaming
+           Of you in the garden to-day.
+
+
+The verses were signed "G. Lorimer"; and Gertrude's eyes rested on them
+with the peculiar tenderness with which we all of us regard our efforts
+the first time that we see ourselves in print.
+
+"How nice they look, Gerty," cried Phyllis. "And Mr. Jermyn's picture.
+But I think they have spoilt it a little in the engraving."
+
+"It is rather a come down after _Charlotte Corday_, isn't it?" said
+Gertrude, pleased yet rueful.
+
+Frank, who had been told the history of that unfortunate tragedy,
+answered rather wistfully--
+
+"We have all to get off our high horse, Miss Lorimer, if we want to
+live. I had ten guineas this morning for that thing; and there is the
+_Death of OEdipus_ with its face to the wall in the studio--and likely
+to remain there, unless we run short of firewood one of these days."
+
+"Do you remember," said Gertrude, "how Warrington threw cold water on
+Pendennis by telling him to stick to poems like the _Church Porch_ and
+abandon his beloved _Ariadne in Naxos_?"
+
+"Yes," answered Frank, "and I never could share Warrington's--and
+presumably Thackeray's--admiration for those verses."
+
+"Nor I," said Gertrude, as Lucy emerged triumphantly from the dark-room
+and announced the startling success of her negatives.
+
+She was shown the wonderful poem, and the no less wonderful picture, and
+then Phyllis said--
+
+"Don't gloat so over it, Gerty." For Gertrude was still sitting at the
+table absorbed in contemplation of the printed sheet spread out before
+her.
+
+Gertrude laughed and pushed the paper away; and Lucy quoted gravely--
+
+
+     "'We all, the foolish and the wise,
+     Regard our verse with fascination,
+     Through asinine-paternal eyes,
+     And hues of fancy's own creation!'"
+
+
+A vociferous little clock on the mantelpiece struck ten.
+
+"I must be off," said Frank; "there will be my model waiting for me. I
+am afraid I have wasted a great deal of your time this morning."
+
+"No, indeed," said Lucy, as Gertrude rose and folded the seductive
+_Woodcut_, with a get-thee-behind-me-Satan air; "though I am glad to say
+we are quite busy."
+
+"There are Lord Watergate's slides," added Phyllis; "and Mr. Darrell's
+sketches to finish off; not to speak of possible chance-comers."
+
+"How do you get on with Darrell?" said Frank, who seemed to have
+forgotten his model, and made no movement to go.
+
+"He has only been here once," answered Lucy, promptly; "but I like what
+I have seen of him."
+
+"So do I," cried Phyllis.
+
+"And I," added Frank.
+
+In the face of this unanimity Gertrude wisely held her peace.
+
+"Well then, good-bye," said Frank, reluctantly holding out his hand to
+each in turn--to Lucy, last. "I am dining out to-night and to-morrow, so
+shall not see you for an age, I suppose."
+
+"Gay person," said Lucy, whose hand lingered in his; held there firmly,
+and without resistance on her part.
+
+"It's a bore," cried Frank, making wistful eyebrows, and looking at her
+very hard.
+
+Gertrude started, struck for the first time by something in the tone and
+attitude of them both. With a shock that bewildered her, she realised
+the secret of their mutual content; and, stirred up by this unconscious
+revelation, a conflicting throng of thoughts, images, and emotions arose
+within her.
+
+Gertrude worked like a nigger that day, which, fortunately for her state
+of mind, turned out an unusually busy one. Lucy was industrious too, but
+went about her work humming little tunes, with a serenity that
+contrasted with her sister's rather feverish laboriousness. Even Phyllis
+condescended to lend a hand to the finishing off of the prints of Sidney
+Darrell's sketches.
+
+All three were rather tired by the time they joined Fanny round the
+supper-table, who, herself, presented a pathetic picture of ladylike
+boredom.
+
+The meal proceeded for some time in silence, broken occasionally by a
+professional remark from one or other of them; then Lucy said--
+
+"You're not eating, Fanny."
+
+"I'm not hungry," answered Fan, with an injured air.
+
+She looked more like a superannuated baby than ever, with her pale
+eyebrows arched to her hair, and the corners of her small thin mouth
+drooped peevishly.
+
+"This pudding isn't half bad, really, Fan," said Phyllis,
+good-naturedly, as she helped herself to a second portion. "I should
+advise you to try it."
+
+Fanny's under-lip quivered in a touchingly infantile manner, and, in
+another moment, splash! fell a great tear on the table-cloth.
+
+"It's all very well to talk about pudding," she cried, struggling
+helplessly with the gurgling sobs. "To leave one alone all the blessed
+day, and not a word to throw at one when you do come upstairs, unless,
+if you please, it's 'pudding!' Pudding!" went on Fan, with contemptuous
+emphasis, and abandoning herself completely to her rising emotions. "You
+seem to take me for an idiot, all of you, who think yourselves so
+clever. What do you care how dull it is for me up here all day, alone
+from morning till night, while you are amusing yourselves below, or
+gadding about at gentlemen's studios."
+
+"That sounds just like Aunt Caroline," said Phyllis, in a stage-whisper;
+but Lucy, rising, went round to her weeping sister, and, gathering the
+big, silly head, and wide moist face to her bosom, proceeded to
+administer comfort after the usual inarticulate, feminine fashion.
+
+"Fanny is right," cried Gertrude, smitten with sudden remorse. "It is
+horribly dull for her, and we are very thoughtless."
+
+"I am sorry I said anything about it," sobbed Fanny; "but flesh and
+blood couldn't stand it any longer."
+
+"You were quite right to tell us, Fan. We have been horrid," cried Lucy,
+as she gently led her from the room. "Come upstairs with me, and lie
+down. You have not been looking well all the week."
+
+In about ten minutes Lucy re-appeared alone, to find the table cleared,
+and her sisters sewing by the lamplight.
+
+"Fan has gone to bed," she announced; "she was a little hysterical, and
+I persuaded her to undress."
+
+"It _is_ dull for her, I know," said Gertrude, really distressed; "but
+what is to be done?"
+
+"And she has been so good all these months," answered Lucy. "She has had
+none of the fun, and all the anxiety and pinching, and this is the first
+complaint we have heard from her."
+
+"Yes, she has come out surprisingly well through it all."
+
+Gertrude sighed as she spoke, secretly reproaching herself that there
+was not more love in her heart for poor Fanny.
+
+Mrs. Maryon appeared at this point to offer the young ladies her own
+copy of the _Waterloo Place Gazette_, a little bit of neighbourly
+courtesy in which she often indulged, and which to-night was especially
+appreciated, as creating a diversion from an unpleasant topic.
+
+"'A woman shot at Turnham Green,'" cried Phyllis, glancing down a column
+of miscellaneous items, while the lamplight fell on her bent brown head.
+"'More fighting in Africa.' Ah, here's something interesting at
+last.--'We understand that the exhibition of Mr. Sidney Darrell,
+A.R.A.'s pictures, to be held in the Berkeley Galleries, New Bond
+Street, will be opened to the public on the first of next month. The
+event is looked forward to with great interest in artistic circles, as
+the collection is said to include many works never before exhibited in
+London.' _I_ shall go like a shot; sha'n't you, Gerty?"
+
+"Yes, and slip little dynamite machines behind the pictures. Let me look
+at that paper, Phyllis."
+
+Phyllis pushed it towards her, and, as she took it up, her eye fell on
+the date of the month printed at the top of the page.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "that it is a year to-day that we finally
+decided on starting our business?"
+
+"Is it?" said Lucy. "Do you mean from that day when Aunt Caroline came
+and pitched into us all?"
+
+"Yes; and when Mr. Russel's letter appeared on the scene, just as we
+were thinking of rushing in a body to the nearest chemist's for
+laudanum."
+
+"And when we made a lot of good resolutions; do you remember?" cried
+Phyllis.
+
+"What were they?" said Gertrude. "One was, that we would be happy."
+
+"Well, I think we have kept that one at least," observed Lucy, with
+decision.
+
+Gertrude looked across at her sister rather wistfully, as she answered,
+"Yes, on the whole. What was the other resolution? That we would not be
+cynical, was it not?"
+
+"There hasn't been the slightest ground for cynicism; quite the other
+way," said Lucy. "It is not much credit to us to have kept that
+resolution."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," observed Phyllis, lightly; "some people have been
+rather horrid; have forgotten all about us, or not been nice. Don't you
+remember, Gerty, how Gerald St. Aubyn dodged round the corner at Baker
+Street the other day because he didn't care to be seen bowing to two
+shabby young women with heavy parcels? And, Lucy, have you forgotten
+what you told us about Jack Sinclair, when you met him, travelling from
+the north? How he never took any notice of you, because you happened to
+be riding third class, and had your old gown on? Jack, who used to make
+such a fuss about picking up one's pocket-handkerchief and opening the
+door for one."
+
+"It seems to me," said Gertrude, "that to think about those sort of
+things makes one almost as mean as the people who do them."
+
+"And directly a person shows himself capable of doing them, why, it
+ceases to matter about him in the least," added Lucy, with youthful
+magnificence.
+
+Gertrude was silent a moment, then said, with something of an effort:
+"Let us direct our attention to the charming new people we have got to
+know. One gets to know them in such a much more pleasant way, somehow."
+
+Lucy bent her head over her work, hiding her flushed face as she
+answered, "That is the best of being poor; one's chances of artificial
+acquaintanceships are so much lessened. One gains in quality what one
+loses in quantity."
+
+"How moral we are growing," cried Phyllis. "We shall be quoting
+Scripture next, and saying it is harder for the camel to get through the
+needle's eye, &c., &c."
+
+Gertrude laughed.
+
+"There is another point to consider," she said. "I suppose you both know
+that we are not making our fortunes?"
+
+"Yes," answered Lucy; "but, at the same time, the business has almost
+doubled itself in the course of the last three months."
+
+"That sounds more prosperous than it really is, Lucy. If it hadn't done
+so, we should have had to think seriously of giving it up. And, as it
+is, we cannot be sure, till the end of the year, that we shall be able
+to hold on."
+
+"You mean the end of the business year; next June?"
+
+"Yes; Mr. Russel is coming, and there is to be a great overhauling of
+accounts."
+
+Gertrude lay awake that night long after her sisters were asleep. Her
+brief rebellious mood of the morning had passed away, and, looking back
+on the year behind her, she experienced a measure of the content which
+we all feel after something attempted, something done. That she had been
+brought face to face with the sterner side of life, had lost some
+illusions, suffered some pain, she did not regret. It seemed to her that
+she had not paid too great a price for the increased reality of her
+present existence.
+
+She fell asleep, then woke at dawn with a low cry. She had been dreaming
+of Lucy and Frank; had seen their faces, as she had seen them the day
+before, bright with the glow of the light which never was on sea and
+land. Oh, she had always known, nay, hoped, that this, or rather
+something akin to this, would come; yet sharp was the pang that ran
+through her at the recollection.
+
+It had always seemed to her highly improbable that her sisters,
+portionless as they were, should remain unmarried. One day, she had
+always told herself, they would go away, and she and Fanny would be left
+alone. She did not wish it otherwise. She had a feminine belief in love
+as the crown and flower of life; yet, as the shadow of the coming
+separation fell upon her, her spirit grew desolate and afraid; and,
+lying there in the chill grey morning, she wept very bitterly.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[A] From _Lawn Tennis_.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A CONFIDENCE.
+
+     _It may be one will dance to-day,
+        And dance no more to-morrow;
+     It may be one will steal away,
+        And nurse a lifelong sorrow;
+     What then? The rest advance, evade,
+        Unite, disport, and dally,
+     Re-set, coquet, and gallopade,
+        Not less--in "Cupid's Alley."_
+                          AUSTIN DOBSON.
+
+
+"Mr. Darrell has sent us a card for his Private View," announced
+Gertrude, as they sat at tea one Saturday afternoon in the sitting-room.
+
+"Oh, let me look, Gerty," cried Phyllis, taking possession of the bit of
+pasteboard. "'The Misses Lorimer and friends.' Why Conny might go with
+us."
+
+Constance Devonshire had dropped in upon them unexpectedly that
+afternoon, after an absence of several weeks. She was looking wretchedly
+ill. Her usually blooming complexion had changed to a curious waxen
+colour; her round face had fallen away; there were dark hollows under
+the unnaturally brilliant eyes.
+
+"I should rather like to go, if you think you may take me," she said;
+then added, with an air of not very spontaneous gaiety; "I suppose it
+will be what the society papers call a 'smart function.'"
+
+Stoicism, it has been observed, is a savage virtue. There was something
+of savagery in Conny's fierce reserve; in the way in which she
+resolutely refused to acknowledge, what was evident to the most casual
+observer, that there was something seriously amiss with her health and
+spirits.
+
+"Is it not fortunate," said Lucy, "that Uncle Sebastian should have sent
+us that cheque? Now we shall be able to get ourselves some decent
+clothes."
+
+"I mean to have a grey cachemire walking-dress, and my evening dress
+shall be grey too," announced Phyllis, who was one of the rare people
+who can wear that colour to advantage. Fanny, who had rigid ideas about
+mourning, declared with an air of severity that her own new outfit
+should be black, then sighed, as though to call attention to the fact of
+her constancy to the memory of the dead, in the face of the general
+heedlessness.
+
+"Gerty is thinking of rose-colour, is she not?" asked Phyllis,
+innocently, as she marked Gertrude's rapidly-suppressed movement of
+irritation.
+
+"As regards a gown for this precious Private View--I am not going to
+it."
+
+"The head of the firm ought to show up on such an occasion, as a mere
+matter of business," observed Lucy, smiling amiably at every one in
+general.
+
+"Yes, really, Gerty," added Phyllis, "you are the person to inspire
+confidence as to the quality of our work. No one would suspect
+_us_"--indicating herself and her two other sisters--"of being clever.
+It would be considered unlikely that nature should heap up _all_ her
+benefits on the same individuals."
+
+"Am I such a fright?" asked Gertrude, a little wistfully.
+
+"No, darling; but there could be no doubt about your brains with that
+face."
+
+"Wait a few years," said Conny; "she will be the best looking of you
+all."
+
+"We will 'wait till she is eighty in the shade,'" quoted Phyllis; "but
+when one comes to think of it, what a well-endowed family we are. Not
+only is our genius good-looking; that is a comparatively common case;
+but our beauties are so exceedingly intelligent; aren't they, Lucy?"
+
+Constance Devonshire was right. Sidney Darrell's Private View at the
+Berkley Galleries, held on the last day of April, was a very smart
+function indeed. There were duchesses, beauties, statesmen, and clever
+people of every description galore. In the midst of them all Darrell
+himself shone resplendent; gracious, urbane, polished; infusing just the
+right amount of cordiality into his many greetings, according to the
+deserts of the person greeted.
+
+"I never saw any one who possessed to greater perfection the art of
+impressing his importance on other people," whispered Conny to Gertrude,
+as the two girls strolled off together into one of the smaller rooms.
+Lucy had been led off by Frank and one of his friends. That young woman
+was never long in any mixed assembly without attracting persons of the
+male sex to her side.
+
+As for Phyllis, radiant in the new grey costume, its soft tints set off
+by a knot of Parma violets at the throat, she was making the round of
+the pictures under the escort of no less a person than Lord Watergate,
+who had come up to the Lorimers at the moment of their entrance; and
+Fanny, in a jetted mantle and bonnet, clanked about with Mr. Oakley,
+happy in the consciousness of being for once in the best society.
+
+"What a dreary thing a London crowd is," grumbled Conny, who was not
+accustomed, in her own set, to being left squireless.
+
+"Oh, but this is fun. So different from the parties one used to go to,"
+said Gertrude, smiling, as Lord Watergate and her sister came up to
+them, to direct their attention to a particular canvas in the other
+room.
+
+As they sauntered, in a body, to the entrance, Darrell came up with a
+young man of the masher type in his wake, whom he introduced to Phyllis
+as Lord Malplaquet.
+
+"Lord Malplaquet is dying to hear your theories of life," he said
+playfully, bestowing a beaming and confidential smile upon her.
+
+"Mr. Darrell, you shall not amuse yourself at my expense," she responded
+gaily, as she plunged into the crowd under the wing of her new escort,
+who was staring at her with the languid yet undisguised admiration of
+his class.
+
+"Now this is the real thing," said Lord Watergate to Gertrude, as they
+stopped before the canvas they had come to seek.
+
+"Yes," said Gertrude, in mechanical acquiescence.
+
+She was thinking: "What a mean soul I must have. Every one seems to like
+and admire this Sidney Darrell: and I suspect everything about him--even
+his art. For the sake of a prejudice; of a little hurt vanity, perhaps,
+as well."
+
+"That, 'yes,' hasn't the ring of the true coin, Miss Lorimer."
+
+"This is scarcely the time and place for criticism, Lord Watergate,"
+laughed Gertrude.
+
+"For hostile criticism, you mean. You are a terrible person to please,
+are you not?"
+
+As the room began to clear Darrell took Frank aside, and glancing in
+the direction of the sisters, who had re-united their forces, said: "You
+know those girls, intimately, I believe."
+
+"Yes." (Very promptly.)
+
+"I wonder if that beautiful Phyllis would sit to me?"
+
+"She would probably be immensely honoured."
+
+"Well, you see, it's this: I want her for Cressida."
+
+"Rather a disagreeable sort of subject isn't it?" said Frank,
+doubtfully; then added, with professional interest: "I didn't know you
+had such a picture on hand, Mr. Darrell."
+
+"The idea occurred to me this very afternoon. It was the sight of the
+fair Phyllis, in fact, which suggested it."
+
+"Were you thinking of the scene in the orchard, or in the Greek camp?"
+
+"Neither; one could hardly ask a lady to sit for such a picture. No, it
+is Cressida, before her fall, I want; as she stands at the street corner
+with Pandarus, waiting for the Trojan heroes to pass, don't you know?
+Half ironical, half wistful; with the light of that little _tendre_ for
+Troilus just beginning to dawn in her eyes. She would be the very thing
+for it."
+
+"Are you going to propose it to her?" said Frank, who looked as if he
+did not much relish the idea.
+
+"I shall ask her to sit for me, at any rate. There's the dragon-sister
+to be got round first."
+
+"Indeed you are mistaken about Miss Lorimer."
+
+Darrell gave a short laugh. "I beg your pardon, my dear fellow!"
+
+Frank frowned, and Darrell, going forward to the Lorimers, preferred his
+request.
+
+Phyllis looked pleased; and Gertrude, suppressing the signs of her
+secret dislike to the scheme, said, quietly:
+
+"Phyllis must refer you to her sister Fanny. It depends on whether she
+can spare the time to bring her to your studio."
+
+She glanced up as she spoke, and met, almost with open defiance, the
+heavy grey eyes of the man opposite. From these she perceived the irony
+to have faded; she read nothing there but a cold dislike.
+
+It was an old, old story the fierce yet silent opposition between these
+two people; an inevitable antipathy; a strife of type and type, of
+class and class, rather than of individuals: the strife of the woman who
+demands respect, with the man who refuses to grant it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Phyllis was in high feather at her successful afternoon, at the
+compliment paid her by the great Sidney in particular; and Fanny rather
+brightened at the prospect of what bore even so distant a resemblance to
+an occupation, as chaperoning her sister to a studio.
+
+Only Conny was silent and depressed, and when they reached Baker-street,
+followed Gertrude to her room. Here she flung herself on the bed,
+regardless of her new transparent black hat, and its daffodil trimmings.
+
+"Gerty, 'the world's a beast, and I hate it!'"
+
+"You are not well, Conny. If you would only acknowledge the fact, and
+see a doctor."
+
+"Gerty, come here."
+
+Gertrude went over to the bed, secretly alarmed; something in her
+friend's tones frightened her.
+
+Conny crushed her face against the pillows, then said in smothered
+tones:
+
+"I can't bear it any longer. I must tell some one or it will kill me."
+
+Gertrude grew pale; instinctively she felt what was coming;
+instinctively she desired to ward it off.
+
+"Can't you guess? Oh, you may say it is humiliating, unworthy; I know
+that." She raised her face suddenly: "Oh, Gerty, how can I help it? He
+is so different from them all; from the sneaks who want one's money;
+from the bad imitations of fashionable young men, who snub, and
+patronise, and sneer at us all. Who could help it? Frank----"
+
+"Conny, Conny, you musn't tell me this."
+
+Gertrude caught her friend in her arms, so as to shield her face. She
+disapproved, generally speaking, of confidences of this kind,
+considering them bad for both giver and receiver; but this particular
+confidence she felt to be simply intolerable.
+
+"Gerty, what have I done, what have I said?"
+
+"Nothing, really nothing, Con, dear old girl. You have told me nothing."
+
+A pause; then Conny said, between the sobs which at last had broken
+forth: "How can I bear my life? How can I bear it?"
+
+Gertrude was very pale.
+
+"We all have to bear things, Conny; often this kind of thing, we women."
+
+"I don't think I _can_."
+
+"Yes, you will. You have no end of pluck. One day you are going to be
+very happy."
+
+"Never, Gerty. We rich girls always end up with sneaks--no decent person
+comes near us."
+
+"There are other things which make happiness besides--pleasant things
+happening to one."
+
+"What sort of things?"
+
+Gertrude paused a minute, then said bravely: "Our own self-respect, and
+the integrity of the people we care for."
+
+"That sounds very nice," replied Conny, without enthusiasm, "but I
+should like a little of the more obvious sorts of happiness as well."
+
+Gertrude gave a laugh, which was also a sob.
+
+"So should I, Conny, so should I."
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+GERTRUDE IS ANXIOUS.
+
+     _Lady, do you know the tune?
+     Ah, we all of us have hummed it!
+     I've an old guitar has thrummed it
+     Under many a changing moon._
+                             THACKERAY.
+
+
+When Frank next saw Sidney Darrell, the latter told him that he had
+abandoned the idea of the "Cressida," and was painting Phyllis Lorimer
+in her own character.
+
+"Grey gown; Parma violets; grey and purplish background. Shall let Sir
+Coutts have it, I think," he added; "it will show up better at his place
+than amid the _profanum vulgus_ of Burlington House."
+
+"Mr. Darrell doesn't often paint portraits, does he?" Lucy said, when
+Jermyn was discussing the matter one evening in Baker Street.
+
+"Not often; but those that he has done are among his finest work. That
+one of poor Lady Watergate for instance--it is Carolus Duran at his very
+best."
+
+"By the bye, what an incongruous friendship it always seems to me--Lord
+Watergate and Mr. Darrell," said Lucy.
+
+"Oh, I don't know that it's much of a friendship," answered Frank.
+
+"Lord Watergate often drops in at The Sycamores," put in Phyllis,
+helping herself from a smart _bonbonnière_ from Charbonnel and Walker's;
+for Sidney found many indirect means of paying his pretty model; "I
+think he is such a nice old person."
+
+"Old," cried Fanny; "he is not old at all. I looked him out in Mr.
+Darrell's Peerage. He is thirty-seven, and his name is Ralph."
+
+"'I love my love with an R..' You said it just in that way, Fan,"
+laughed Phyllis. "Yes, it is an odd friendship, if one comes to think of
+it--that big, kind, simple, Lord Watergate, and my elaborate friend,
+Sidney."
+
+"Mr. Darrell is a perfect gentleman," interposed Fan, with dignity.
+
+The occasional mornings at The Sycamores, afforded a pleasant break in
+the monotony of her existence. Darrell treated her with a careful, if
+ironical politeness, which she accepted in all good faith.
+
+"Fan, as they call her, is a fool, but none the worse for that," had
+been his brief summing up of the poor lady, whom, indeed, he rather
+liked than otherwise.
+
+It was the end of May, and the sittings had been going on in a
+spasmodic, irregular fashion, throughout the month. Both the girls
+enjoyed them. Darrell, like the rest of the world, treated Phyllis as a
+spoilt child; gave her sweets and flowers galore; and what was better,
+tickets for concerts, galleries, and theatres, of which her sisters also
+reaped the benefit.
+
+Gertrude secretly disliked the whole proceeding, but, aware that she had
+no reasonable objection to offer, wisely held her peace; telling herself
+that if one person did not turn her little sister's head, another was
+sure to do so; and perhaps the sooner she was accustomed to the process
+the better.
+
+"Why won't you come up and see my portrait?" Phyllis had pleaded; "I am
+going next Sunday, so you can have no excuse."
+
+"I shall see it when it is finished," Gertrude had answered.
+
+"Oh, but you can get a good idea of what it will look like, already. It
+is a great thing, life-size, and ends at about the knees. I am standing
+up and looking over my shoulder, so. I suppose Mr. Darrell has found out
+how nicely my head turns round on my neck."
+
+Gertrude had laughed, and even attempted a pun in her reply, but she did
+not accompany her sister to The Sycamores. Indeed, more subtle reasons
+apart, she had little time to spare for unnecessary outings.
+
+The business, as businesses will, had taken a turn for the better, and
+the two members of the partnership had their hands full. Rumours of the
+Photographic Studio had somehow got abroad, and various branches of the
+public were waking up to an interest in it.
+
+People who had theories about woman's work; people whose friends had
+theories; people who were curious and fond of novelty; individuals from
+each of these sections began to find their way to Upper Baker Street.
+Gertrude, as we know, had refused at an early stage of their career to
+be interviewed by _The Waterloo Place Gazette_; but, later on, some
+unauthorised person wrote a little account of the Lorimers' studio in
+one of the society papers, of which, if the taste was questionable, the
+results were not to be questioned at all.
+
+Moreover, it had got about in certain sets that all the sisters were
+extremely beautiful, and that Sidney Darrell was painting them in a
+group for next year's Academy, a _canard_ certainly not to deprecated
+from a business point of view.
+
+Such things as these, do not, of course, make the solid basis of
+success, but in a very overcrowded world, they are apt to be the most
+frequent openings to it. In these days, the aspirant to fame is inclined
+to over-value them, forgetting that there is after all something to be
+said for making one's performance such as will stand the test of so much
+publicity.
+
+The Lorimers knew little of the world, and of the workings of the
+complicated machinery necessary for getting on in it; and while chance
+favoured them in the matter of gratuitous advertisement, devoted their
+energies to keeping up their work to as high a standard as possible.
+
+Life, indeed, was opening up for them in more ways than one. The calling
+which they pursued brought them into contact with all sorts and
+conditions of men, among them, people in many ways more congenial to
+them than the mass of their former acquaintance; intercourse with the
+latter having come about in most cases through "juxtaposition" rather
+than "affinity."
+
+They began to get glimpses of a world more varied and interesting than
+their own, of that world of cultivated, middle-class London, which
+approached more nearly, perhaps, than any other to Gertrude's ideal
+society of picked individuals.
+
+And it was Gertrude, more than any of them, who appreciated the new
+state of things. She was beginning, for the first time, to find her own
+level; to taste the sweets of genuine work and genuine social
+intercourse. Fastidious and sensitive as she was, she had yet a great
+fund of enjoyment of life within her; of that impersonal, objective
+enjoyment which is so often denied to her sex. Relieved of the pressing
+anxieties which had attended the beginning of their enterprise, the
+natural elasticity of her spirits asserted itself. A common atmosphere
+of hope and cheerfulness pervaded the little household at Upper Baker
+Street.
+
+The evening of which I write was one of the last of May, and Frank had
+come in to bid them farewell, before setting out the next morning for a
+short holiday in Cornwall; "the old folks," as he called his parents,
+growing impatient of their only son's prolonged absence.
+
+"The country will be looking its very best," cried Frank, who loved his
+beautiful home; "the sea a mass of sapphire with the great downs rolling
+towards it. I mean to have a big swim the very first thing. No one knows
+what the sea is like, till they have been to Cornwall. And St. Colomb--I
+wish you could see St. Colomb! Why, the whole place is smaller than
+Baker Street. The little bleak, grey street, with the sou'wester blowing
+through it at all times and seasons--there are scarcely two houses on
+the same level. And then--
+
+
+     "'The little grey church on the windy hill,'
+
+
+and beyond, the great green vicarage garden, and the vicarage, and the
+dear old folks looking out at the gate."
+
+He rose reluctantly to go. "One day I hope you will see it for
+yourselves--all of you."
+
+With which impersonal statement, delivered in a voice which rather
+belied its impersonal nature, Frank dropped Lucy's hand, which he had
+been holding with unnecessary firmness, and departed abruptly from the
+room.
+
+Gertrude looked rather anxiously towards her sister, who sat quietly
+sewing, with a little smile on her lips. How far, she wondered, had
+matters gone between Lucy and Frank? Was the happiness of either or both
+irrevocably engaged in the pretty game which they were playing? Heaven
+forbid that her sisterly solicitude should lead her to question the
+"intentions" of every man who came near them; a hideous feminine
+practice abhorrent to her very soul. Yet, their own position, Gertrude
+felt, was a peculiar one, and she could not but be aware of the dangers
+inseparable from the freedom which they enjoyed; dangers which are the
+price to be paid for all close intimacy between young men and women.
+
+After all, what do women know about a man, even when they live opposite
+him? And do not men, the very best of them, allow themselves immense
+license in the matter of loving and riding away?
+
+As for Frank, he never made the slightest pretence that the Lorimers
+enjoyed a monopoly of his regard. He talked freely of the charms of
+Nellie and Carry and Emily; there was a certain Ethel, of South
+Kensington, whose praises he was never weary of sounding. Moreover,
+there could be no doubt that at one time or other he had displayed a
+good deal of interest in Constance Devonshire; dancing with her half the
+night, as Fred had expressed it; a mutual fitness in waltz-steps
+scarcely being enough to account for his attentions. And even supposing
+a more serious element to have entered into his regard for Lucy, was he
+not as poor as themselves, and was it not the last contingency for a
+prudent sister to desire?
+
+"What a calculating crone I am growing," thought Gertrude; then
+observing the tranquil and busy object of her fears, laughed at herself,
+half ashamed.
+
+The next day Mr. Russel came to see them, and entered on a careful
+examination of their accounts: compared the business of the last three
+months with that of the first; praised the improved quality of their
+work, and strongly advised them, if it were possible, to hold on for
+another year. This they were able to do. Although, of course, the money
+invested in the business had returned anything but a high rate of
+interest, their economy had been so strict that there would be enough of
+their original funds to enable them to carry on the struggle for the
+next twelve months, by which time, if matters progressed at their
+present rate, they might consider themselves permanently established in
+business.
+
+Before he went Mr. Russel said something to Lucy which disturbed her
+considerably, though it made her smile. He had been for many years a
+widower, living with his mother, but the old lady had died in the course
+of the year, and now he suggested, modestly enough, that Lucy should
+return as mistress to the home where she had once been a welcome guest.
+
+The girl found it difficult to put her refusal into words; this kind
+friend had hitherto given everything and asked nothing; but there was a
+delicate soul under the brusque exterior, and directly he divined how
+matters stood, he did his best to save her compunction.
+
+"It really doesn't matter, you know. Please don't give it another
+thought." He had observed in an off-hand manner, which had amused while
+it touched her.
+
+Lucy was magnanimous enough to keep this little episode to herself,
+though Gertrude had her suspicions as to what had occurred.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A ROMANCE.
+
+     _When strawberry pottles are common and cheap
+       Ere elms be black or limes be sere,
+     When midnight dances are murdering sleep,
+       Then comes in the sweet o' the year!_
+                                      ANDREW LANG.
+
+
+The second week in June saw Frank back in his old quarters above the
+auctioneer's. He had arrived late in the evening, and put off going to
+see the Lorimers till the first thing the next day. It was some time
+before business hours when he rang at Number 20B, and was ushered by
+Matilda into the studio, where he found Phyllis engaged in a rather
+perfunctory wielding of a feather-duster.
+
+She was looking distractingly pretty, as he perceived when she turned
+to greet him. Her close-fitting black dress, with the spray of tuberose
+at the throat, and the great holland apron with its braided bib suited
+her to perfection; the sober tints setting off to advantage the delicate
+tones of her complexion, which in these days was more wonderfully pink
+and white than ever.
+
+"And how are your sisters? I needn't ask how you are?" cried Frank, who
+in the earlier stages of their acquaintance had been rather surprised at
+himself for not falling desperately in love with Phyllis Lorimer.
+
+"Everybody is flourishing," she answered, leaning against the little
+mantelshelf in the waiting-room, and looking down upon Frank's sunburnt,
+uplifted face.
+
+A look of mischief flashed into her eyes as she added, "There is a great
+piece of news."
+
+Frank grasped the back of the frail red chair on which he sat astride in
+a manner rather dangerous to its well-being, and said abruptly, "Well,
+what is it?"
+
+"One of us is going to be married."
+
+"Oh!" said Frank, with a sort of gasp, which was not lost on his
+interlocutor.
+
+"I am not going to tell you which it is. You must guess," went on
+Phyllis, looking down upon him demurely from under her drooped lids,
+while a fine smile played about her lips.
+
+"Oh, I'll begin at the beginning," said poor Frank, with rather strained
+cheerfulness. "Is it Miss Gertrude?"
+
+Phyllis played a moment with the feather-duster, then answered slowly,
+"You must guess again."
+
+"Is it Miss Lucy?" (with a jerk.)
+
+A pause. "No," said Phyllis, at last.
+
+Frank sprang to his feet with a beaming countenance and caught both her
+hands with unfeigned cordiality. "Then it is you, Miss Phyllis, that I
+have to congratulate."
+
+Her eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth as she answered ruefully, "No,
+indeed, Mr. Jermyn!"
+
+Frank dropped her hands, wrinkling his brows in perplexity, then a light
+dawned on him suddenly, and was reflected in his expressive countenance.
+
+"It must be Fan!" He forgot the prefix in his astonishment.
+
+Phyllis nodded. "But you musn't look so surprised," she said, taking a
+chair beside him. "Why shouldn't poor old Fan be married as well as
+other people?"
+
+"Of course; how stupid of me not to think of it before," said Frank,
+vaguely.
+
+"It is quite a romance," went on Phyllis; "she and Mr. Marsh wanted to
+be married ages and ages ago. But he was too poor, and went to
+Australia. Now he is well off, and has come back to marry Fan, like a
+person in a book. A touching tale of young love, is it not?"
+
+"Yes; I think it a very touching and pretty story," said Frank, severely
+ignoring the note of irony in her voice.
+
+He had all a man's dislike to hearing a woman talk cynically of
+sentiment; that should be exclusively a masculine privilege.
+
+"Perhaps," said Phyllis, "it takes the bloom off it a little, that
+Edward Marsh married on the way out. But his wife died last year, so it
+is all right."
+
+Frank burst out laughing, Phyllis joining him. A minute later Gertrude
+and Lucy came in and confirmed the wonderful news; and the four young
+people stood gossiping, till the sound of the studio bell reminded them
+that the day's work had begun.
+
+Jermyn came in, by invitation, to supper that night, and was introduced
+to the new arrival, a big, burly man of middle age, whose forest of
+black beard afforded only very occasional glimpses of his face.
+
+As for Fanny, it was touching to see how this faded flower had revived
+in the sunshine. The little superannuated airs and graces had come
+boldly into play; and Edward Marsh, who was a simple soul, accepted them
+as the proper expression of feminine sweetness.
+
+So she curled her little finger and put her head on one side with all
+the vigour that assurance of success will give to any performance; gave
+vent to her most illogical statements in her most mincing tones,
+uncontradicted and undisturbed; in short, took advantage to the full of
+her sojourn (to quote George Eliot) in "the woman's paradise where all
+her nonsense is adorable."
+
+"I don't know what those girls will do without me," Fanny said to her
+lover, who took the remark in such good faith as to make her believe in
+it herself; "we must see that we do not settle too far away from them."
+
+And she delicately set a stitch in the bead-work slipper which she was
+engaged in "grounding" for the simple-hearted Edward.
+
+Fanny patronised her sisters a good deal in these days; and it must be
+owned--such is the nature of woman--that her importance had gone up
+considerably in their estimation.
+
+As for Mr. Marsh, he regarded his future relatives with a mixture of
+alarm and perplexity that secretly delighted them. Never for a moment
+did his allegiance to Fanny falter before their superior charms; never
+for a moment did the fear of such a contingency disturb poor Fanny's
+peace of mind.
+
+Only the girls themselves, in the depths of their hearts, wondered a
+little at finding themselves regarded with about the same amount of
+personal interest as was accorded to Matilda, by no means a specimen of
+the sparkling _soubrette_.
+
+Gertrude, who had rather feared the effect of the contrast of Fanny's
+faded charms with the youthful prettiness of the two younger girls, was
+relieved, and at the same time a little indignant, to perceive that, as
+far as Edward Marsh was concerned, Phyllis's hair might be red and
+Lucy's eyes a brilliant green.
+
+For once, indeed, Fan's tactlessness had succeeded where the finest
+tact might have failed. In dropping at once into position as the Fanny
+of ten years ago; as the incarnation of all that is sweetest and most
+essentially feminine in woman; in making of herself an accepted and
+indisputable fact, she had unconsciously done the very best to secure
+her own happiness.
+
+"There really is something about Fanny that pleases men. I have always
+said so," Phyllis remarked, as she watched the lovers sailing blissfully
+down Baker Street, on one of their many house-hunting expeditions.
+
+"You know," added Lucy, "she always dislikes walking about alone,
+because people speak to her. No one ever speaks to us, do they, Gerty?"
+
+"Nor to me--at least, not often," said Phyllis, ruefully.
+
+"Phyllis, will you never learn where to draw the line?" cried Gertrude;
+"but it is quite true about Fan. She must be that mysterious creature, a
+man's woman."
+
+"Mr. Darrell likes her," broke forth Phyllis, after a pause; "he laughs
+at her in that quiet way of his, but I am quite sure that he likes her.
+I hope," she added, "that she won't get married before my portrait is
+finished. But it wouldn't matter, I could go without a chaperon."
+
+"No, you couldn't," said Gertrude, shortly.
+
+"Why are you seized with such notions of propriety all of a sudden?"
+
+"I have no wish to put us to a disadvantage by ignoring the ordinary
+practices of life."
+
+"Then put up the shutters and get rid of the lease. But, Gerty, we
+needn't discuss this unpleasant matter yet awhile. By the by, Mr.
+Darrell is going to ask me to sit for him in a picture, after the
+portrait. He has made sketches for it already--something out of one of
+Shakespeare's plays."
+
+"Oh, I am tired of Mr. Darrell's name. Go and see that your dress is in
+order for the Devonshires' dance to-night."
+
+"_Apropos_," said Lucy, as Phyllis flitted off on the congenial errand,
+"why is it that we never see anything of Conny in these days?"
+
+"She is going out immensely this season," answered Gertrude, dropping
+her eye-lids; "but, at any rate, we get a double allowance of Fred to
+compensate."
+
+"Silly boy," cried Lucy, flushing slightly, "he has actually made me
+promise to sit out two dances with him. Such waste, when one is dying
+for a waltz."
+
+"Oh, there will be plenty of waltzing. I wish you could have my share,"
+sighed Gertrude, who had been won over by Conny's entreaties to promise
+attendance at the dance that night.
+
+"It is time you left off these patriarchal airs, Gerty. You are as fond
+of dancing as any of us; and I mean you to spin round all night like a
+teetotum."
+
+"What a charming picture you conjure up, Lucy."
+
+"You people with imaginations are always finding fault. Fortunately for
+me, I have no imagination, and very little humour," said Lucy, with an
+air of genuine thankfulness that delighted her sister.
+
+Thus, with work and play, and very much gossip, the summer days went by.
+The three girls found life full and pleasant, and Fanny had her little
+hour.
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+LUCY.
+
+     _Who is Silvia? What is she,
+     That all our swains commend her?_
+              TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
+
+
+There was no mistaking the situation. At one of the red-legged tables
+sat Fred, his arms spread out before him, his face hidden in his arms;
+while Lucy, with a troubled face, stood near, struggling between her
+genuine compunction and an irrepressible desire to laugh.
+
+It was Sunday morning; the rest of the household were at church, and the
+two young people had had the studio to themselves without fear of
+disturbance; a circumstance of which the unfortunate Fred had hastened
+to avail himself, thereby rushing on his fate.
+
+They had now reached that stage of the proceedings when the rejected
+suitor, finding entreaty of no avail, has recourse to manifestations of
+despair and reproach.
+
+"You shouldn't have encouraged a fellow all these years," came hoarsely
+from between the arms and face of the prostrate swain.
+
+"'All these years!' how can you be so silly, Fred?" cried Lucy, with
+some asperity. "Why, I shall be accused next of encouraging little Jack
+Oakley, because I bowled his hoop round Regent's Park for him last
+week."
+
+Lucy did not mean to be unkind; but the really unexpected avowal from
+her old playmate had made her nervous; a refusal to treat it seriously
+seemed to her the best course to pursue. But her last words, as might
+have been supposed, were too much for poor Fred. Up he sprang, "a
+wounded thing with a rancorous cry"--
+
+"There is another fellow!"
+
+Back started Lucy, as if she had been shot. The hot blood surged up into
+her face, the tears rose to her eyes.
+
+"What has that to do with it?" she cried, stung suddenly to cruelty;
+"what has that to do with it, when, if you were the only man in the
+world, I would not marry you?"
+
+Fred, hurt and shocked by this unexpected attack from gentle Lucy,
+gathered himself up with something more like dignity than he had
+displayed in the course of the interview.
+
+"Oh, very well," he said, taking up his hat; "perhaps one of these days
+you will be sorry for what you have done. I'm not much, I know, but you
+won't find many people to care for you as I would have cared." His voice
+broke suddenly, and he made his way rather blindly to the door.
+
+Lucy was trembling all over, and as pale as, a moment ago, she had been
+red. She wanted to say something, as she watched him fumbling unsteadily
+with the door-handle; but her lips refused to frame the words.
+
+Without lifting his head he passed into the little passage. Lucy heard
+his retreating footsteps, then her eye fell on a roll of newspapers at
+her feet. She picked them up hastily.
+
+"Fred," she cried, "you have forgotten these."
+
+But he vouchsafed no answer, and in another moment she heard the outer
+door shut.
+
+She stood a moment with the ridiculous bundle in her hand--_Tit-Bits_
+and a pink, crushed copy of _The Sporting Times_--then something between
+a laugh and a sob rose in her throat, the papers fell to the ground, and
+sinking on her knees by the table, she buried her face in her hands and
+burst into bitter weeping.
+
+Gertrude, coming in from church some ten minutes later, found her sister
+thus prostrate.
+
+The sight unnerved her from its very unusualness; bending over Lucy she
+whispered, "Am I to go away?"
+
+"No, stop here."
+
+Gertrude locked the door, then came and knelt by her sister.
+
+"Oh, poor Fred, and I was so horrid to him," wept the penitent.
+
+"Ah, I was afraid it would come."
+
+Gertrude stroked the prone, smooth head; she feared that the thought of
+some one else besides Fred lay at the bottom of all this disturbance.
+She was very anxious for Lucy in these days; very anxious and very
+helpless. There was only one person, she knew too well, who could
+restore to Lucy her old sweet serenity, and he, alas, made no sign.
+
+What was she to think? One thing was clear enough; the old pleasant
+relationship between themselves and Frank was at an end; if renewed at
+all, it must be renewed on a different basis. A disturbing element, an
+element of self-consciousness had crept into it; the delicate charm, the
+first bloom of simplicity, had departed for ever.
+
+It was now the middle of July, and for the last week or two they had
+seen scarcely anything of Jermyn, beyond the glimpses of him as he
+lounged up the street, with his sombrero crushed over his eyes, all the
+impetuosity gone from his gait.
+
+That he distinctly avoided them, there could be little doubt. Though he
+was to be seen looking across at the house wistfully enough, he made no
+attempt to see them, and his greetings when they chanced to meet were of
+the most formal nature.
+
+The change in his conduct had been so marked and sudden, that it was
+impossible that it should escape observation. Fanny, with an air of
+superior knowledge, gave it out as her belief that Mr. Jermyn was in
+love; Phyllis held to the opinion that he had been fired with the idea
+of a big picture, and was undergoing the throes of artistic conception;
+Gertrude said lightly, that she supposed he was out of sorts and
+disinclined for society; while Lucy held her peace, and indulged in many
+inward sophistries to convince herself that her own unusual restlessness
+and languor had nothing to do with their neighbour's disaffection.
+
+It was these carefully woven self-deceptions that had been so rudely
+scattered by Fred's words; and Lucy, kneeling by the scarlet table, had
+for the first time looked her fate in the face, and diagnosed her own
+complaint.
+
+"Lucy," said Gertrude, after a pause, "bathe your eyes and come for a
+walk in the Park; there is time before lunch."
+
+Lucy rose, drying her wet face with her handkerchief.
+
+"Let me look at you," cried Gertrude. "What is the charm? Where does it
+lie? Why are these sort of things always happening to you?"
+
+"Oh," answered Lucy, with an attempt at a smile, "I am a convenient,
+middling sort of person, that is all. Not uncomfortably clever like you,
+or uncomfortably pretty like Phyllis."
+
+The two girls set off up the hot dusty street, with its Sunday odour of
+bad tobacco. Regent's Park wore its most unattractive garb; a dead
+monotony of July verdure assailed the eye; a verdure, moreover,
+impregnated and coated with the dust and soot of the city. The girls
+felt listless and dispirited, and conscious that their walk was turning
+out a failure.
+
+As they passed through Clarence Gate, on their way back, Frank darted
+past them with something of his normal activity, lifting his hat with
+something like the old smile.
+
+"He might have stopped," said Lucy, pale to the lips, and suddenly
+abandoning all pretence of concealment of her feelings.
+
+"No doubt he is in a hurry;" answered Gertrude, lamely. "I daresay he is
+going to lunch in Sussex Place. Lord Watergate's Sunday luncheon parties
+are quite celebrated."
+
+The day dragged on. The weather was sultry and every one felt depressed.
+Fanny was spending the day with relations of her future husband's; but
+the three girls had no engagements and lounged away the afternoon rather
+dismally at home.
+
+All were relieved when Fanny and Mr. Marsh came in at supper-time, and
+they seated themselves at the table with alacrity. They had not
+proceeded far with the meal, when footsteps, unexpected but familiar,
+were heard ascending the staircase; then some one knocked, and before
+there was time to reply, the door was thrown open to admit Frank Jermyn.
+
+He looked curiously unlike himself as he advanced and shook hands amid
+an uncomfortable silence that everybody desired to break. His face was
+pale, and no longer moody, but tense and eager, with shining eyes and
+dilated nostrils.
+
+"You will stay to supper, Mr. Jermyn?" said Gertrude, at last, in her
+most neutral tones.
+
+"Yes, please." Frank drew a chair to the table like a person in a dream.
+
+"You are quite a stranger," cried arch, unconscious Fan, indicating with
+head and spoon the dish from which she proposed to serve him.
+
+Frank nodded acceptance of the proffered fare, but ignored her remark.
+
+Silence fell again upon the party, broken by murmurs from the enamoured
+Edward, and the ostentatious clatter of knives and forks on the part of
+people who were not eating. Every one, except the plighted lovers, felt
+that there was electricity in the air.
+
+At last Frank dropped his fork, abandoning, once for all, the pretence
+of supper.
+
+"Miss Lucy," he cried across the table to her, "I have a piece of news."
+
+She looked up, pale, with steady eyes, questioning him.
+
+"I am going abroad to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, where are you going?" cried Fanny, vaguely mystified.
+
+"I am going to Africa."
+
+He did not move his eyes from Lucy as he spoke; her head had drooped
+over her plate. "They are sending me out as special from _The Woodcut_,
+in the place of poor Leadpoint, who has died of fever. I heard the first
+of it last night, and this morning it was finally settled. It makes,"
+cried Frank, "an immense difference in my prospects."
+
+Edward Marsh, who objected to Frank as a spoilt puppy, always expecting
+other people to be interested in his affairs, asked the young man
+bluntly the value of his appointment. But he met with no reply; for
+Frank, his face alight, had sprung to his feet, pushing back his chair.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy," he cried in a low voice, "won't you come and speak to me?"
+
+Lucy rose like one mesmerised; took, with a presence of mind at which
+she afterwards laughed, the key of the studio from its nail, and
+followed Frank from the room, amidst the stupefaction of the rest of the
+party.
+
+It was a sufficiently simple explanation which took place, some minutes
+later, in the very room where, a few hours before, poor Fred had
+received his dismissal.
+
+"But why," said Lucy, presently, "have you been so unkind for the last
+fortnight?"
+
+"Ah, Lucy," answered Frank; "you women so often misjudge us, and think
+that it is you alone who suffer, when the pain is on both sides. When it
+dawned upon me how things stood with you and me--dear girl, you told me
+more than you knew yourself--I reflected what a poor devil I was, with
+not the ghost of a prospect. (I have been down on my luck lately,
+Lucy.) And I saw, at the same time, how it was with Devonshire; I
+thought, he is a good fellow, let him have his chance, it may be best in
+the end----"
+
+"Oh, Frank, Frank, what did you think of me? If these are men's
+arguments I am glad that I am a woman," cried Lucy, clinging to the
+strong young hand.
+
+"Well, so am I, for that matter," answered Frank; and then, of course,
+though I do not uphold her conduct in this respect, Lucy told him
+briefly of Fred Devonshire's offer and her own refusal.
+
+It was late before these two happy people returned to the sitting-room,
+to receive congratulations on the event, which, by this time, it was
+unnecessary to impart.
+
+Fanny wondered aloud why she had not thought of such a thing before; and
+felt, perhaps, that her own _rechauffé_ love affair was quite thrown
+into the shade. Phyllis smiled and made airy jests, submitting her soft
+cheek gracefully to a brotherly kiss.
+
+Edward Marsh looked on mystified and rather shocked, and Gertrude
+remained in the background, with a heart too full for speech, till the
+lovers made their way to her, demanding her congratulations.
+
+"Don't think me too unworthy," said Frank, in all humility.
+
+"I am glad," she said.
+
+Glancing up and seeing the two young faces, aglow with the light of
+their happiness, she looked back with a wistful amusement on her own
+doubts and fears of the past weeks.
+
+As she did so, the beautiful, familiar words flashed across her
+consciousness--
+
+"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late that night, when the guests had departed and the rest of the
+household was asleep, Gertrude heard Lucy moving about in the room
+below, and, throwing on her dressing-gown, went down stairs. She found
+her sister risen from the table, where she had been writing a letter by
+the lamp-light.
+
+"Aren't you coming to bed, Lucy? Remember, you have to be up very
+early."
+
+The shadow of the coming separation, which at first had only seemed to
+give a more exquisite quality to her happiness, lay on Lucy. She was
+pale, and her steadfast eyes looked out with the old calm, but with a
+new intensity, from her face.
+
+"Read this," she said, "it seemed only fair."
+
+Stooping over the table, Gertrude read--
+
+
+     "DEAR FRED,--I am engaged to Frank Jermyn, who goes abroad
+     to-morrow. I am sorry if I seemed unkind, but I was grieved and
+     shocked by what you said to me. Very soon, when you have quite
+     forgiven me, you will come and see us all, will you not?
+     Acknowledge that you made a mistake, and never cease to regard me
+     as your friend.--L. L."
+
+
+Gertrude thought: "Then I shall not have to tell Conny, after all."
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CRESSIDA.
+
+     _Beauty like hers is genius._
+                  D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+Lucy slept little that night. At the first flush of the magnificent
+summer dawn she was astir, making her preparations for the traveller's
+breakfast.
+
+She had changed suddenly, from a demure and rather frigid maiden to a
+loving and anxious woman. Perhaps the signet-ring on her middle finger
+was a magic ring, and had wrought the charm.
+
+Frank's notice to quit had been so short, that he had been obliged to
+apply for various necessaries to Darrell, who, with Lord Watergate, had
+supplied him with the main features of a tropical outfit. His ship
+sailed that day, at noon, so there was little time to be lost. He came
+over at an unconscionably early hour to Number 20B, for there was much
+to be said and little opportunity for saying it.
+
+Lucy, displaying a truly feminine mixture of the tender and the
+practical, packed his bag, strapped his rugs, and put searching
+questions as to his preparations for travel. Already, womanlike, she had
+taken him under her wing, and henceforward the minutest detail of his
+existence would be more precious to her than anything on earth.
+
+Gertrude, when she had kissed the vivid young face in sisterly farewell,
+saw the lovers drive off to the station and wondered inwardly at their
+calmness.
+
+Later in the day, coming into the studio, she found Lucy quietly engaged
+in putting a negative into the printing-frame.
+
+"It is his," she said, looking up with a smile; "I never felt that I had
+a right to do it before."
+
+At luncheon, Phyllis reminded her that to-night was the night of Mr.
+Darrell's _conversazione_ at the Berkeley Galleries, for which he had
+sent them two tickets.
+
+"It's no good expecting Lucy to go; you will have to take me, Gerty,"
+she announced.
+
+Gertrude had a great dislike to going, and she said--
+
+"Can't Fanny take you?"
+
+"Edward and I are dining at the Septimus Pratts'," replied Fanny.
+
+After much hesitation, she and her betrothed had had to resign
+themselves to the inevitable, and dispense with the services of a
+chaperon; a breach of decorum which Mr. Marsh, in particular, deplored.
+
+"Are you very anxious about this party?" pleaded Gertrude.
+
+"Oh Gerty, of course. And if you won't take me, I'll go alone," cried
+Phyllis, with unusual vehemence.
+
+Gertrude was indignant at her sister's tone; then reflected that it was,
+perhaps, hard on Phyllis, to cut off one of her few festivities.
+
+Phyllis, indeed, had not been very well of late, and demanded more
+spoiling than ever. She coughed constantly, and her eyes were
+unnaturally bright.
+
+Gertrude ended by submitting to the sacrifice, and at ten o'clock she
+and Phyllis found themselves in Bond Street, where the rooms were
+already thronged with people.
+
+Phyllis had blazed into a degree of beauty that startled even her
+sister, and made her the frequent mark for observation in that brilliant
+gathering.
+
+Her grey dress was cut low, displaying the white and rounded slenderness
+of her shoulders and arms; the soft brown hair was coiled about the
+perfect head in a manner that afforded a view of the neck and its
+graceful action; her eyes shone like stars; her cheeks glowed
+exquisitely pink. Wherever she went, went forth a sweet strong
+fragrance, the breath of a great spray of tuberose which was fastened in
+her bodice, and which had arrived for her that day from an unnamed
+donor.
+
+Darrell's greeting to both the sisters had been of the briefest. He had
+shaken hands unsmilingly with Phyllis; he and Gertrude had brought their
+finger-tips into chill and momentary contact, without so much as lifting
+their eyes, and Gertrude had felt humiliated at her presence there.
+
+She had not seen Darrell since his Private View, more than six weeks
+ago; and now, as she stood talking to Lord Watergate, her eye, guided by
+a nameless curiosity, an unaccountable fascination, sought him out. He
+was looking ill, she thought, as she watched him standing in his host's
+place, near the doorway, chatting to an ugly old woman, whom she knew to
+be the Duchess of Kilburne; ill, and very unhappy. Happiness indeed, as
+she instinctively felt, is not for such as he--for the egotist and the
+sensualist.
+
+Her acute feminine sense, sharpened perhaps by personal soreness, had
+pierced to the second-rateness of the man and his art. Beneath his
+arrogance and air of assured success, she read the signs of an almost
+craven hunger for pre-eminence; of a morbid self-consciousness; an
+insatiable vanity. And for all the stupendous cleverness of his
+workmanship, she failed to detect in his work the traces of those
+qualities which, combined with far less skill than his, can make
+greatness.
+
+As for her own relations to Darrell, the positions of the two had
+shifted a little since the first. In the brief flashes of intercourse
+which they had known, a drama had silently enacted itself; a war
+without words or weapons, in which, so far, she had come off victor. For
+Sidney had ceased to regard her as merely ridiculous; and she, on her
+part, was no longer cowed by his aggressive personality, by the
+all-seeing, languid glance, the arrogant, indifferent manner. They stood
+on a level platform of unspoken, yet open distaste; which, should
+occasion arise, might blaze into actual defiance.
+
+Lord Watergate, as I have said, was talking to Gertrude; but his glance,
+as she was quick to observe, strayed constantly toward Phyllis. She had
+wondered before this, as to the measure of his admiration for her
+sister; it seemed to her that he paid her the tribute of a deeper
+interest than that which her beauty and her brightness would, in the
+natural course of things, exact.
+
+As for Phyllis, she was enjoying a triumph which many a professional
+beauty might have envied. People flocked round her, scheming for
+introductions, staring at her in open admiration, laughing at her
+whimsical sallies.
+
+"That young person has a career before her."
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"Oh, one of Darrell's discoveries. Works at a photographer's, they say."
+
+"Darrell is painting her portrait."
+
+"No, not her portrait; but a study of 'Cressida.'"
+
+"Cressida!
+
+
+     "'There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip;
+     Nay, her foot speaks----'"
+
+
+"Hush, hush!"
+
+Such floating spars of talk had drifted past Gertrude's corner, and had
+been caught, not by her, but by her companion.
+
+Lord Watergate frowned, as he mentally finished the quotation, which
+struck him as being in shocking taste. He had adopted, unconsciously, a
+protective attitude towards the Lorimers; their courage, their
+fearlessness, their immense ignorance, appealed to his generous and
+chivalrous nature. He made up his mind to speak to Darrell about that
+baseless rumour of the Cressida.
+
+Gertrude, on her part, was not too absorbed in conversation to notice
+what her sister was doing. She saw at once that, in spite of some
+thrills of satisfied vanity, Phyllis was not enjoying herself. There was
+a restless, discontented light in her eyes, a half-weary recklessness in
+her pose, as she leant against the edge of a tall screen, which filled
+Gertrude with wonder and anxiety. She felt, as she had felt so often
+lately, that Phyllis, her little Phyllis, whom she had scolded and
+petted and yearned over for eighteen years, was passing beyond her ken,
+into regions where she could never follow.
+
+The evening wore itself away as such evenings do, in aimless drifting to
+and fro, half-hearted attempts at conversation, much mutual staring, and
+a determined raid on the refreshment buffet, on the part of people who
+have dined sumptuously an hour ago.
+
+"Our English social institutions," Darrell said aside to Lord Watergate;
+"the private view, where every one goes; the _conversazione_, where no
+one talks."
+
+Lord Watergate laughed, and went back to Gertrude, to propose an attack
+on the buffet, by way of diversion; and Sidney, with his inscrutable air
+of utter purposelessness, made his way through the crowd to where
+Phyllis stood in conversation with two young men.
+
+Some paces off from her he paused, and stood in silence, looking at her.
+
+Phyllis shot her glance to his, half-petulant, half-supplicating, like
+that of a child.
+
+It was late in the evening, and this was the first attempt he had made
+to approach her. Darrell advanced a step or two, and Phyllis lowered her
+eyes, with a sudden and vivid blush.
+
+"At last," said Darrell, in a low voice, as the two young men
+instinctively moved off before him.
+
+"You are just in time to say 'good-night' to me, Mr. Darrell."
+
+Darrell smiled, with his face close to hers. His smile was considered
+attractive--
+
+
+     "Seeming more generous for the coldness gone."
+
+
+"It is not 'good-night,' but 'good-bye,' that I have come to say."
+
+The brilliant and rapid smile had passed across his face, leaving no
+trace.
+
+"What do you mean, Mr. Darrell?"
+
+"I mean that I am going away to-morrow."
+
+"For ever and ever?" Phyllis laughed, as she spoke, turning pale.
+
+"For several months. I have important business in Paris."
+
+"But you haven't finished my portrait, Mr. Darrell."
+
+Sidney looked down, biting his lip.
+
+"Shall you be able to finish it in time for the Grosvenor?"
+
+"Possibly not."
+
+"Now you are disagreeable," cried Phyllis, in a high voice; "and
+ungrateful, too, after all those long sittings."
+
+"Not ungrateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Under cover of the
+crowd he had taken both her hands, and was pressing them fiercely at
+each repetition, while his miserable eyes looked imploringly into hers.
+
+"You are hurting me." Her voice was low and broken. She shrank back
+afraid.
+
+"Good-bye--Phyllis."
+
+Gertrude, coming back from the refreshment-room a minute later, found
+Phyllis standing by herself, in an angle formed by one of the screens,
+pale to the lips, with brilliant, meaningless eyes.
+
+"We are going home," said Gertrude, walking up to her.
+
+"Oh, very well," she answered, rousing herself; "the sooner the better.
+I am not well." She put her hand to her side. "I had that pain again
+that I used to have."
+
+Lord Watergate, who stood a little apart, watching her, came forward and
+gave her his arm, and they all three went from the room.
+
+In the cab Phyllis recovered something of her wonted vivacity.
+
+"Isn't it a nuisance," she said, "Mr. Darrell is going away for a long
+time, and doesn't know when he will be able to finish my portrait."
+
+Gertrude started.
+
+"Well, I suppose you always knew that he was an erratic person."
+
+"You speak as if you were pleased, Gerty. I am very disappointed."
+
+"Put not your trust in princes, Phyllis, nor in fashionable artists, who
+are rather more important than princes, in these days," answered
+Gertrude, secretly hoping that their relations with Darrell would never
+be renewed. "He has tired of his whim," she thought, indignant, yet
+relieved.
+
+Mrs. Maryon opened the door to them herself.
+
+Phyllis shuddered as they went upstairs. "That bird of ill-omen!" she
+cried, beneath her breath.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Maryon. How can you be so silly?" said Gertrude, who herself
+had noted the long and earnest glance which the woman had cast on her
+sister.
+
+In the sitting-room they found Lucy sewing peacefully by the lamplight.
+
+"You hardly went to bed at all last night; you shouldn't be sitting up,"
+said Gertrude, throwing off her cloak; while Phyllis carefully detached
+the knot of tuberose from her bodice, as she delivered herself for the
+second time of her grievance.
+
+Afterwards, going up to the mantelpiece, she placed the flowers in a
+slender Venetian vase, its crystal flecked with flakes of gold, which
+Darrell had given her; took the vase in her hand, and swept upstairs
+without a word.
+
+"I do not know what to think about Phyllis," said Gertrude.
+
+"You are afraid that she is too much interested in Mr. Darrell?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She does not care two straws for him," said Lucy, with the conviction
+of one who knows; "her vanity is hurt, but I am not sure that that will
+be bad for her."
+
+"He is the sort of person to attract----" began Gertrude; but Lucy
+struck in--
+
+"Why, Gerty, what are you thinking of? he must be forty at least; and
+Phyllis is a child."
+
+Something in her tones recalled to Gertrude that clarion-blast of
+triumph, in the wonderful lyric--
+
+
+     "Oh, my love, my love is young!"
+
+
+"At any rate," she said, as they prepared to retire, "I am thankful that
+the sittings are at an end. Phyllis was getting her head turned. She is
+looking shockingly unwell, moreover, and I shall persuade her to accept
+the Devonshires' invitation for next month."
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A WEDDING.
+
+     _A human heart should beat for two,
+       Whate'er may say your single scorners;
+     And all the hearths I ever knew
+       Had got a pair of chimney-corners._
+                    F. LOCKER: London Lyrics.
+
+
+The next day, at about six o'clock, just as they had gone upstairs from
+the studio, Constance Devonshire was announced, and came sailing in, in
+her smartest attire, and with her most gracious smile on her face.
+
+"I have come to offer my congratulations," she cried, going up to Lucy;
+"you know, I have always thought little Mr. Jermyn a nice person."
+
+Lucy laughed quietly.
+
+"I am glad you have brought your congratulations in person, Conny. I
+rather expected you would tell your coachman to leave cards at the
+door."
+
+Conny turned away her face abruptly.
+
+"What is the good of coming to see such busy people as you have been
+lately?... And with so much love-making going on at the same time! What
+does Mrs. Maryon think of it all?"
+
+"Oh, she finds it very tame and hackneyed, I am afraid."
+
+"You see," added Phyllis, who lounged idly in an arm-chair by the
+window, pale but sprightly, "the course of true love runs so
+monotonously smooth in this household. And Mrs. Maryon has a taste for
+the dramatic."
+
+Conny laughed; and at this point the door was thrown open to admit Aunt
+Caroline, whose fixed and rigid smile was intended to show that she was
+in a gracious mood, and was accepted by the girls as a signal of truce.
+
+"What is this a little bird tells me, Lucy?" she cried archly, for Mrs.
+Pratt shared the liking of her sex for matters matrimonial.
+
+Fanny, who was, in fact, none other than the little bird who had broken
+the news, put her head on one side in unconsciously avine fashion, and
+smiled benevolently at her sister.
+
+"I am engaged to Mr. Jermyn," said Lucy, her clear voice lingering
+proudly over the words.
+
+Conny winced suddenly; then turned to gaze through the window at the
+blank casements above the auctioneer's shop.
+
+"Then you have found out who Mr. Jermyn _is_?" went on Aunt Caroline,
+still in her most conciliatory tones.
+
+"We never wanted to know," said Lucy, unexpectedly showing fight.
+
+Aunt Caroline flushed, but she had come resolved against hostile
+encounter, in which, hitherto, she had found herself overpowered by
+force of numbers; so she contented herself with saying--
+
+"And have you any prospect of getting married?"
+
+"Frank has gone to Africa for the present," said Lucy.
+
+Aunt Caroline looked significant.
+
+"I only hope," she said afterwards to Fanny, who let her out at the
+street-door, "that your sister has not fallen into the hands of an
+unscrupulous adventurer. It will be time when the young man comes home,
+if he ever does, for Mr. Pratt to make the proper inquiries."
+
+Fanny had risen into favour since her engagement; Mr. Marsh, also, had
+won golden opinions at Lancaster Gate.
+
+"I believe," Fanny replied, speaking for once to the point, "that Frank
+Jermyn is going to write, himself, to Mr. Pratt, at the first
+opportunity."
+
+Meanwhile, upstairs in the sitting-room, Conny was delivering herself of
+her opinion that they had all behaved shamefully to Aunt Caroline.
+
+"She had a right to know. And it is very good of her to trouble about
+such a set of ungrateful girls at all," she cried. "You can't expect
+every one besides yourselves to look upon Frank Jermyn as dropped from
+heaven."
+
+"Aunt Caroline is cumulative--not to be judged at a sitting," pleaded
+Gertrude.
+
+Very soon Constance herself rose to go.
+
+"I shall not see you again unless you come down to us; which, I suppose,
+you won't," she said. "We go to Eastbourne on Friday; and afterwards to
+Homburg. Mama is going to write and invite you in due form."
+
+"It is very kind of Mrs. Devonshire. Lucy and I cannot possibly leave
+home, but Phyllis would like to go," answered Gertrude; a remark of
+which Phyllis herself took no notice.
+
+"Well then, good-bye. Lucy, Fred sends his congratulations. Phyllis, my
+dear, we shall meet ere long. Fanny, I shall look out for your wedding
+in the paper. Come on, Gerty, and let a fellow out!"
+
+On the other side of the door her manner changed suddenly.
+
+"Do come home and dine, Gerty."
+
+"I can't, Con, possibly."
+
+"Gerty, of course I can guess about Fred. I knew it was no good, but I
+can't help being sorry."
+
+"It was out of the question, poor boy."
+
+"Oh, don't pity him too much. He'll get over it soon enough. His is not
+a complaint that lasts."
+
+There was a significant emphasis on the last words, that did not escape
+Gertrude.
+
+"You look better, Conny, than when I last saw you."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right. There's nothing the matter with me but too many
+parties."
+
+"I think dancing has agreed with you."
+
+"I don't know about dancing. I have taken to sitting in conservatories
+under pink lamps. That is better sport, and far more becoming to the
+complexion."
+
+"I shouldn't play that game, Conny. It never ends well."
+
+"Indeed it does. Often in St. George's, Hanover Square. You are shocked,
+but I do not contemplate matrimony just at present. But I see you agree
+with _Chastelard_--
+
+
+     "'I do not like this manner of a dance;
+     This game of two and two; it were much better
+     To mix between the dances, than to sit,
+     Each lady out of earshot with her friend.'"
+
+
+"Have you been taking to literature?"
+
+"Yes; to the modern poets and the French novelists particularly. When
+next you hear of me, I shall have taken probably to slumming; shall have
+found peace in bearing jellies to aged paupers. Then you might write a
+moral tale about me."
+
+Gertrude sighed, as the door closed on Constance. It was the Devonshires
+who, throughout their troubles, had shown them the most unwavering
+kindness; and on the Devonshires, it seemed, they were doomed to bring
+misfortune.
+
+At the end of August, Fanny was quietly married at Marylebone Church.
+She would have dearly liked a "white wedding;" and secretly hoped that
+her sisters would suggest what she dared not--a white satin bride and
+white muslin bridesmaids. Truth to tell, such an idea never entered the
+heads of those practical young women; and poor Fanny went soberly to the
+altar in a dark green travelling dress, which was becoming if not
+festive.
+
+Aunt Caroline and Uncle Septimus came up from Tunbridge Wells for the
+wedding, and the Devonshires, who were away, lent their carriage. It was
+a sober, middle-aged little function enough, and every one was glad when
+it was over.
+
+Aunt Caroline said little, but contented herself with sending her hard,
+keen eyes into every nook and corner, every fold and plait, every dish
+and bowl; while she mentally appraised the value of the feast.
+
+One result of the encounters with her nieces was this, that she was more
+outwardly gracious and less inwardly benevolent than before; a change
+not wholly to be deprecated.
+
+Lucy, with bright eyes, listened, with the air of one who has a right to
+be interested, to the words of the marriage service, taking afterwards
+her usual share in practical details. She was upheld, no doubt, by the
+consciousness of the letter in her pocket; a letter which had come that
+very morning; was written on thin paper in a bold hand; and in common
+with others from the same source, was bright and kind; tender and
+hopeful; and very full of confidential statements as to all that
+concerned the writer.
+
+Phyllis, pale but beautiful, alternated between langour and a fitful
+sprightliness; her three weeks at Eastbourne seemed to have done her
+little good; while Gertrude went through her part mechanically, and
+remembered remorsefully that she had never been very nice to Fanny.
+
+As for the bride, she was subdued and tearful, as an orthodox bride
+should be; and invited all her sisters in turn to come and stay with her
+at Notting Hill directly the honeymoon in Switzerland should be over.
+Edward Marsh suffered the usual insignificance of bridegrooms; but did
+all that was demanded of him with exactness.
+
+In the evening, when that blankness which invariably follows a wedding
+had fallen upon the sisters, Mrs. Maryon came up into the sitting-room,
+and beguiled them with tales of the various brides she had known; who,
+if they had not married in haste, must certainly, to judge by the
+sequel, have repented at leisure.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A SPECIAL EDITION.
+
+                 _We bear to think
+     You're gone,--to feel you may not come,--
+     To hear the door-latch stir and clink,
+             Yet no more you!...._
+                               E. B. BROWNING.
+
+
+It was true enough, no doubt, that Phyllis did not care for Darrell in
+Lucy's sense of the word; but at the same time it was sufficiently clear
+that he had been the means of injecting a subtle poison into her veins.
+
+Since the night of the _conversazione_ at the Berkeley Galleries, when
+he had bidden her farewell, a change, in every respect for the worse,
+had crept over her.
+
+The buoyancy, which had been one of her chief charms, had deserted her.
+She was languid, restless, bored, and more utterly idle than ever. The
+flippancy of her lighter moods shocked even her sisters, who had been
+accustomed to allow her great license in the matter of jokes; the
+moodiness of her moments of depression distressed them beyond measure.
+
+At Eastbourne she had amused herself with getting up a tremendous
+flirtation with Fred, to the Devonshires' annoyance and the satisfaction
+of the victim himself, whose present mood it suited and who hoped that
+Lucy would hear of it.
+
+After Phyllis's visit to Eastbourne, which had been closely followed by
+Fanny's wedding, the household at Upper Baker Street underwent a period
+of dulness, which was felt all the more keenly from the cheerful fulness
+of the previous summer. Every one was out of town. In early September
+even the country cousins have departed, and people have not yet begun to
+return to London, where it is perhaps the most desolate period of the
+whole year.
+
+Work, of course, was slack, and they had no longer the preparations for
+Fanny's wedding to fall back upon.
+
+The air was hot, sunless, misty; like a vapour bath, Phyllis said. Even
+Gertrude, inveterate cockney as she was, began to long for the country.
+Nothing but a strong sense of loyalty to her sister prevented Lucy from
+accepting a cordial invitation from the "old folks." Phyllis openly
+proclaimed that she was only awaiting _der erste beste_ to make her
+escape for ever from Baker Street.
+
+Phyllis, indeed, was in the worst case of them all; for while Lucy had
+the precious letters from Africa to console her, Gertrude had again
+taken up her pen, which seemed to move more freely in her hand than it
+had ever done before.
+
+So the days went on till it was the middle of September, and life was
+beginning to quicken in the great city.
+
+One sultry afternoon, the Lorimers were gathered in the sitting-room;
+both windows stood open, admitting the hot, still, autumnal air; every
+sound in the street could be distinctly heard.
+
+Lucy sat apart, deep in a voluminous letter on foreign paper which had
+come for her that morning, and which she had been too busy to read
+before. Phyllis was at the table, yawning over a copy of _The Woodcut_;
+which was opened at a page of engravings headed: "The War in Africa;
+from sketches by our special artist." Gertrude sewed by the window, too
+tired to think or talk. Now and then she glanced across mechanically to
+the opposite house, whence in these days of dreariness, no picturesque,
+impetuous young man was wont to issue; from whose upper windows no
+friendly eyes gazed wistfully across.
+
+The rooms above the auctioneer's had, in fact, a fresh occupant; an
+ex-Girtonian without a waist, who taught at the High School for girls
+hard-by.
+
+The Lorimers chose to regard her as a usurper; and with the justice
+usually attributed to their sex, indulged in much sarcastic comment on
+her appearance; on her round shoulders and swinging gait; on the green
+gown with balloon sleeves, and the sulphur-coloured handkerchief which
+she habitually wore.
+
+Presently Lucy looked up from her letter, folded it, sighed, and smiled.
+
+"What has your special artist to say for himself?" asked Phyllis,
+pushing away _The Woodcut_.
+
+"He writes in good spirits, but holds out no prospect of the war coming
+to an end. He was just about to go further into the interior, with
+General Somerset's division. Mr. Steele of _The Photogravure_, with whom
+he seems to have chummed, goes too," answered Lucy, putting the letter
+into her pocket.
+
+"Perhaps his sketches will be a little livelier in consequence. They are
+very dull this week."
+
+Phyllis rose as she spoke, stretching her arms above her head. "I think
+I will go and dine with Fan. She is such fun."
+
+Fanny had returned from Switzerland a day or two before, and was now in
+the full tide of bridal complacency. As mistress of a snug and hideous
+little house at Notting Hill, and wedded wife of a large and
+affectionate man, she was beginning to feel that she had a place in the
+world at last.
+
+"I will come up with you," said Lucy to Phyllis, "and brush your hair
+before you go."
+
+The two girls went from the room, leaving Gertrude alone. Letting fall
+her work into her lap, she leaned in dreamy idleness from the window,
+looking out into the street, where the afternoon was deepening apace
+into evening. A dun-coloured haze, thin and transparent, hung in the
+air, softening the long perspective of the street. School hours were
+over, and the Girtonian, her arm swinging like a bell-rope, could be
+discerned on her way home, a devoted _cortège_ of school-girls
+straggling in her wake. From the corner of the street floated up the
+cries of the newspaper boys, mingling with the clatter of omnibus
+wheels.
+
+An empty hansom cab crawled slowly by. Gertrude noticed that it had
+violet lamps instead of red ones.
+
+A lamplighter was going his rounds, leaving a lengthening line of
+orange-coloured lights to mark his track. The recollection of summer,
+the presage of winter, were met in the dusky atmosphere.
+
+"How the place echoes," thought Gertrude. It seemed to her that the boys
+crying the evening papers were more vociferous than usual; and as the
+thought passed through her mind, she was aware of a hateful, familiar
+sound--the hoarse shriek of a man proclaiming a "special edition" up the
+street.
+
+No amount of familiarity could conquer the instinctive shudder with
+which she always listened to these birds of ill-omen, these carrion,
+whose hideous task it is to gloat over human calamity. Now, as the sound
+grew louder and more distinct, the usual vague and sickening horror
+crept over her. She put her hands to her ears. "It is some ridiculous
+race, no doubt."
+
+She let in the sound again.
+
+Her fears were unformulated, but she hoped that Lucy upstairs in the
+bed-room had not heard.
+
+The cry ceased abruptly; some one was buying a paper; then was taken up
+again with increased vociferousness. Gertrude strained her ears to
+listen.
+
+"Terrible slaughter, terrible slaughter of British troops!" floated up
+in the hideous tones.
+
+She listened, fascinated with a nameless horror.
+
+"A regiment cut to pieces! Death of a general! Special edition!" The
+fiend stood under the window, vociferating upwards.
+
+In an instant Gertrude had slipped down the dusky staircase, and was
+giving the man sixpence for a halfpenny paper. Standing beneath the
+gas-jet in the passage, she opened the sheet and read; then, still
+clutching it, sank down white and trembling on the lowest stair.
+
+Noiseless, rapid footfalls came down behind her, some one touched her on
+the shoulder, and a strange voice said in her ear, "Give it to me."
+
+She started up, putting the hateful thing behind her.
+
+"No, no, no, Lucy! It is not true."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes! don't be ridiculous, Gerty."
+
+Lucy took the paper in her hands, bore it to the light, and read,
+Gertrude hiding her face against the wall.
+
+The paper stated, briefly, that news had arrived at head-quarters of the
+almost total destruction of the troops which, under General Somerset,
+had set out for the interior of Africa some weeks before. A few
+stragglers, chiefly native allies, had reached the coast in safety, and
+had reported that the General himself had been among the first to
+perish.
+
+Messrs. Steele and Jermyn, special artists of _The Photogravure_ and
+_The Woodcut_, respectively, had been among those to join the
+expedition. No news of their fate had been ascertained, and there was
+reason to fear that they had shared the doom of the others.
+
+"It is not true." Lucy's voice rang hollow and strange. She stood
+there, white and rigid, under the gas-jet.
+
+Mrs. Maryon, who had bought a paper on her own account, issued from the
+shop-parlour in time to see the poor young lady sway forward into her
+sister's arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Those were dark days that followed. At first there had been hope; but as
+time went on, and further details of the catastrophe came to light,
+there was nothing for the most sanguine to do but to accept the worst.
+
+Gertrude herself felt that the one pale gleam of uncertainty which yet
+remained was, perhaps, the most cruel feature of the case. If only
+Lucy's hollow eyes could drop their natural tears above Frank's grave
+she might again find peace.
+
+Frank's grave! Gertrude found herself starting back incredulous at the
+thought.
+
+Death, as a general statement, is so easy of utterance, of belief; it is
+only when we come face to face with it that we find the great mystery so
+cruelly hard to realise; for death, like love, is ever old and ever new.
+
+"People always come back in books," Fanny had said, endeavouring, in
+all good faith, to administer consolation; and Lucy had actually
+laughed.
+
+"Your sister ought to be able to do better for herself," Edward Marsh
+said, later on, to his wife.
+
+But Fanny, who had had a genuine liking for kind Frank, disagreed for
+once with the marital opinion.
+
+"He was good, and he loved her. She has always that to remember,"
+Gertrude thought, as she watched Lucy going about her business with a
+calmness that alarmed her more than the most violent expressions of
+sorrow would have done.
+
+"Dear little Frank! I wonder if he is really dead," Phyllis reflected,
+staring with wide eyes at the house opposite, rather as if she expected
+to see a ghost issue from the door.
+
+Fortunately for the Lorimers they had little time for brooding over
+their troubles. Their success had proved itself no ephemeral one. As
+people returned to town, work began to flow in upon them from all sides,
+and their hands were full. Labour and sorrow, the common human portion,
+were theirs, and they accepted them with courage, if not, indeed, with
+resignation. September and October glided by, and now the winter was
+upon them.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+PHYLLIS.
+
+     _Die æltre Tochter gæhnet
+     "Ich will nicht verhungern bei euch,
+     Ich gehe morgen zum Grafen,
+     Und der ist verliebt und reich."_
+                                   HEINE.
+
+
+"Lucy, dear, you must go."
+
+"But, Gerty, you can never manage to get through the work alone."
+
+"I will make Phyllis help me. It will be the best thing for her, and she
+works better than any of us when she chooses."
+
+The sisters were standing together in the studio, discussing a letter
+which Lucy held in her hand--an appeal from the heartbroken "old folks"
+that she, who was to have been their daughter, should visit them in
+their sorrow.
+
+"It is simply your duty to go," went on Gertrude, who was consumed with
+anxiety concerning her sister; then added, involuntarily, "if you think
+you can bear it."
+
+A light came into Lucy's eyes.
+
+"Is there anything that one cannot bear?"
+
+She turned away, and began mechanically fixing a negative into one of
+the printing frames. She remembered how, on that last day, Frank had
+planned the visit to Cornwall. Was he not going to show her every nook
+and corner of the old home, which many a time before he had so minutely
+described to her? The place had for long been familiar to her
+imagination, and now she was in fact to make acquaintance with it; that
+was all. What availed it to dwell on contrasts?
+
+The sisters spoke little of Lucy's approaching journey, which was fixed
+for some days after the receipt of the letter; and one cold and foggy
+November afternoon found her helping Mrs. Maryon with her little box
+down the stairs, while Matilda went for a cab.
+
+At the same moment Gertrude issued from the studio with her outdoor
+clothes on.
+
+"No one is likely to come in this Egyptian darkness," she said; "it is
+four o'clock already, and I am going to take you to Paddington."
+
+"That will be delightful, if you think you may risk it," answered Lucy,
+who looked very pale in her black clothes.
+
+"I have left a message with Mrs. Maryon to be delivered in the
+improbable event of 'three customers coming in,' as they did in _John
+Gilpin_," said Gertrude, with a feeble attempt at sprightliness.
+
+Matilda appeared at this point to announce that the cab was at the door.
+
+"Where is Phyllis?" cried Lucy. "I have not said good-bye to her."
+
+"She went out two hours ago, miss," put in Mrs. Maryon, in her sad
+voice.
+
+"No doubt," said Gertrude, "she has gone to Conny's. I think she goes
+there a great deal in these days."
+
+Mrs. Maryon looked up quickly, then set about helping Matilda hoist the
+box on to the cab.
+
+"How bitterly cold it is," cried Gertrude, with a shudder, as they
+crossed the threshold.
+
+An orange-coloured fog hung in the air, congealed by the sudden change
+of temperature into a thick and palpable mass.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised if we had snow," observed Mrs. Maryon, shaking
+her head.
+
+"Oh, how could Phyllis be so wicked as to go out?" cried Gertrude, as
+the cab drove off: "and her cough has been so troublesome lately."
+
+"I think she has been looking more like her old self the last week or
+two," said Lucy; then added, "Do you know that Mr. Darrell is back? I
+forgot to tell you that I met him in Regent's Park the other day."
+
+"I hope he will not wish to renew the sittings; but no doubt he has
+found some fresh whim by this time. I wish he had let Phyllis alone; he
+did her no good."
+
+"Poor little soul, I am afraid she finds it dismal," said Lucy.
+
+"I mean to plan a little dissipation for us both when you are away--the
+theatre, probably," said Gertrude, who felt remorsefully that in her
+anxiety concerning Lucy she had rather neglected Phyllis.
+
+"Yes, do, and take care of yourself, dear old Gerty," said Lucy, as the
+cab drew up at Paddington station.
+
+The sisters embraced long and silently, and in a few minutes Lucy was
+steaming westward in a third-class carriage, and Gertrude was making her
+way through the fog to Praed Street station. At Baker Street she
+perceived that Mrs. Maryon's prophecy was undergoing fulfilment; the fog
+had lifted a little, and flakes of snow were falling at slow intervals.
+
+Before the door of Number 20B a small brougham was standing--a brougham,
+as she observed by the light of the street lamp, with a coronet
+emblazoned on the panels.
+
+"Lord Watergate is in the studio, miss," announced Mrs. Maryon, who
+opened the door; "he only came a minute ago, and preferred to wait. I
+have lit the lamp." As Gertrude was going towards the studio the woman
+ran up to her, and put a note in her hand. "I forgot to give you this,"
+she said. "I found it in the letter-box a minute after you left."
+
+Gertrude, glancing hastily at the envelope, recognised, with some
+surprise, the childish handwriting of her sister Phyllis, and concluded
+that she had decided to remain overnight at the Devonshires.
+
+"She might have remembered that I was alone," she thought, a little
+wistfully as she opened the door of the waiting-room.
+
+Lord Watergate advanced to meet her, and they shook hands gravely. She
+had not seen him since the night of the _conversazione_ at the Berkeley
+Galleries. His ample presence seemed to fill the little room.
+
+"It is a shame," he said, "to come down upon you at this time of night."
+
+She laid Phyllis's note on the table, and turned to him with a smile of
+deprecation.
+
+"Won't you read your letter before we embark on the question of slides?"
+
+"Thank you. I will just open it."
+
+She broke the seal, advanced to the lamp, and cast her eye hastily over
+the letter. But something in the contents seemed to rivet her attention,
+to merit more than a casual glance. For some moments she stood absorbed
+in the carelessly-written sheet; then, suddenly, an exclamation of
+sorrow and astonishment burst from her lips.
+
+Lord Watergate advanced towards her.
+
+"Miss Lorimer, you are in some trouble. Can I help you, or shall I go
+away?"
+
+She looked up, half-bewildered, into the strong and gentle face. Then
+realising nothing, save that here was a friendly human presence, put the
+letter into his hand.
+
+This is what he read.
+
+
+     "MY DEAR GERTY,--This is to tell you that I am not coming home
+     to-night--am not coming home again at all, in fact. I am going to
+     marry Mr. Darrell, who will take me to Italy, where the weather is
+     decent, and where I shall get well. For you know, I am horribly
+     seedy, Gerty, and very dull.
+
+     "Of course you will be angry with me; you never liked Sidney, and
+     you will think it ungrateful of me, perhaps, to go off like this.
+     But oh, Gerty, it has been so dismal, especially since we heard
+     about poor little Frank. Sidney hates a fuss, and so do I. We both
+     of us prefer to go off on the Q.T., as Fred says. With love from
+
+     "PHYLLIS."
+
+
+As Lord Watergate finished this characteristic epistle, an exclamation
+more fraught with horror than Gertrude's own burst from his lips. He
+strode across the room, crushing the paper in his hands.
+
+"Lord Watergate!" Gertrude faced him, pale, questioning: a nameless
+dread clutched at her.
+
+Something in her face struck him. Stopping short in front of her, in
+tones half paralysed with horror, he said--
+
+"Don't you know?"
+
+"Do I know?" she echoed his words, bewildered.
+
+"Darrell is married. He does not live with his wife; but it is no
+secret."
+
+The red tables and chairs, the lamp, Lord Watergate himself, whose voice
+sounded fierce and angry, were whirling round Gertrude in hopeless
+confusion; and then suddenly she remembered that this was an old story;
+that she had known it always, from the first moment when she had looked
+upon Darrell's face.
+
+Gertrude closed her eyes, but she did not faint. She remained standing,
+while one hand rested on the table for support. Yes, she had known it;
+had stood by powerless, paralysed, while this thing approached; had
+seen it even as Cassandra saw from afar the horror which she had been
+unable to avert.
+
+Opening her eyes, she met the gaze, grieved, pitiful, indignant, of her
+companion.
+
+"What is to be done?"
+
+Her lips framed the words with difficulty.
+
+A pause; then he said--
+
+"I cannot hold out much hope. But will you come with me to--to--his
+house and make inquiries?"
+
+She bowed her head, and gathering herself together, led the way from the
+room.
+
+The snow was falling thick and fast as they emerged from the house, and
+Lord Watergate handed her into his brougham. It had grown very dark, and
+the wind had risen.
+
+"The Sycamores," said Lord Watergate to his coachman, as he took his
+seat by Gertrude, and drew the fur about her knees.
+
+Mrs. Maryon, watching from the shop window, shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Who would have thought it? But you never can tell. And that Phyllis!
+It's twice I've seen her with the fair-haired gentleman, with his beard
+cut like a foreigner's. It's what you'd expect from her, poor
+creature--but Gertrude!"
+
+"They have got the rooms on lease," grumbled Mr. Maryon, from among his
+pestles and mortars.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE SYCAMORES.
+
+     _How the world is made for each of us!
+       How all we perceive and know in it
+     Tends to some moment's product thus,
+       When a soul declares itself--to wit,
+     By its fruit the thing it does!_
+                           ROBERT BROWNING.
+
+
+The carriage rolled on its way through the snow to St. John's Wood,
+while its two occupants sat side by side in silence. Now that they had
+set out, each felt the hopelessness of the errand on which they were
+bound, to which only that first stifling moment of horror, that absolute
+need of action, had prompted them.
+
+The brougham stopped in the road before the gate of The Sycamores.
+
+"We had better walk up the drive," said Lord Watergate, and opened the
+carriage door.
+
+By this time the snow lay deep on the road and the roofs of the houses;
+the trees looked mere blotches of greyish-white, seen through the rapid
+whirl of falling flakes, which it made one giddy to contemplate.
+
+"A terrible night for a journey," thought Lord Watergate, as he opened
+the big gate; but he said nothing, fearing to arouse false hopes in the
+breast of his companion.
+
+They wound together up the drive, the dark mass of the house partly
+hidden by the curving, laurel-lined path, and further obscured by the
+veil of falling snow.
+
+Then, suddenly, something pierced through Gertrude's numbness; she
+stopped short.
+
+"Look!" she cried, beneath her breath.
+
+They were now in full sight of the house. The upper windows were dark;
+the huge windows of the studio were shuttered close, but through the
+chinks were visible lines and points of mellow light.
+
+Lord Watergate laid his hand on her arm. He thought: "That is just like
+Darrell, to have doubled back. But even then we may be too late."
+
+He said: "Miss Lorimer, if they are there, what are you going to do?"
+
+"I am going to tell my sister that she has been deceived, and to bring
+her home with me."
+
+Gertrude spoke very low, but without hesitation. Somewhere, in the
+background of her being, sorrow, and shame, and anger were lurking; at
+present she was keenly conscious of nothing but an irresistible impulse
+to action.
+
+"That she has been deceived!" Lord Watergate turned away his face. Had
+Phyllis, indeed, been deceived, and was it not a fool's errand on which
+they were bent?
+
+They mounted the steps, and he rang the bell; then, by the light of the
+hanging lamp, while the snow swirled round and fell upon them both, he
+looked into her white, tense face.
+
+"Do not hope for anything. It is most probable that they are not there."
+
+A long, breathless moment, then the door was thrown open, revealing the
+solemn manservant standing out against the lighted vestibule.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Darrell," said Lord Watergate, shortly.
+
+"He's not at home, your lordship."
+
+Gertrude pressed her hand to her heart.
+
+"He is at home to me, as you perfectly well know."
+
+"He has gone abroad, your lordship."
+
+Gertrude swayed forward a little, steadying herself against the lintel,
+where she stood in darkness behind Lord Watergate.
+
+"There are lights in the studio, and you must let me in," said Lord
+Watergate, sternly.
+
+The man's face betrayed him.
+
+"I shall lose my place, my lord."
+
+"I am sorry for you, Shaw. You had better make off, and leave the
+responsibility with me."
+
+The man wavered, took the coin from Lord Watergate's hand, then,
+turning, went slowly back to his own quarters.
+
+Gertrude came forward into the light.
+
+"You must not come in, Lord Watergate."
+
+Her mind worked with curious rapidity; she saw that a meeting between
+the two men must be avoided.
+
+"I cannot let you go alone. You do not know----"
+
+"I am prepared for anything. Lord Watergate, spare my sister's shame."
+
+She had passed him, with set, tragic face. He saw the slim, rapid
+figure, in the black, snow-covered dress, make its way down the passage,
+then disappear behind the curtain which guarded the entrance to the
+studio.
+
+Gertrude had entered noiselessly, and, pausing on the threshold, hidden
+in shadow, remained there motionless a moment's space.
+
+Every detail of the great room, seen but once before, smote on her sense
+with a curious familiarity. It had been wintry daylight on the occasion
+of her former presence there; now a mellow radiance of shaded,
+artificial light was diffused throughout the apartment, a radiance
+concentrated to subdued brilliance in the immediate neighbourhood of the
+fireplace.
+
+A wood fire, with leaping blue flames, was piled on the hearth, its
+light flickering fitfully on the surrounding objects; on the tiger-skin
+rug, the tall, rich screen of faded Spanish leather; on Darrell himself,
+who lounged on a low couch, his blonde head outlined against the screen,
+a cloud of cigarette smoke issuing from his lips, as he looked from
+under his eye-lids at the figure before him.
+
+It was Phyllis who stood there by the little table, on which lay some
+fruit and some coffee, in rose-coloured cups. Phyllis, yet somebody new
+and strange; not the pretty child that her sisters had loved, but a
+beautiful wanton in a loose, trailing garment, shimmering, wonderful,
+white and lustrous as a pearl; Phyllis, with her brown hair turned to
+gold in the light of the lamp swung above her; Phyllis, with diamonds on
+the slender fingers, that played with a cluster of bloom-covered grapes.
+
+For a moment, the warmth, the overpowering fragrance of hot-house
+flowers, most of all, the sight of that figure by the table, had robbed
+Gertrude of power to move or speak. But in her heart the storm, which
+had been silently gathering, was growing ready to burst. For the time,
+the varied emotions which devoured her had concentrated themselves into
+a white heat of fury, which kindled all her being.
+
+The flames leapt, the logs crackled pleasantly. Darrell blew a whiff of
+smoke to the ceiling; Phyllis smiled, then suddenly into that bright
+scene glided a black and rigid figure, with glowing eyes and tragic
+face; with the snow sprinkled on the old cloak, and clinging in the
+wisps of wind-blown hair.
+
+"Phyllis," it said in level tones; "come home with me at once. Mr.
+Darrell cannot marry you; he is married already."
+
+Phyllis shrank back, with a cry.
+
+"Oh, Gerty, how you frightened me! What do you mean by coming down on
+one like this?"
+
+Her voice shook, through its petulance; she whisked round so suddenly
+that her long dress caught in the little table, which fell to the ground
+with a crash.
+
+Darrell had sprung to his feet with an exclamation. "By God, what brings
+that woman here!"
+
+Gertrude turned and faced him.
+
+His face was livid with passion; his prominent eyes, for once wide open,
+glared at her in rage and hatred.
+
+Gertrude met his glance with eyes that glowed with a passion yet fiercer
+than his own.
+
+Elements, long smouldering, had blazed forth at last. Face to face they
+stood; face to face, while the silent battle raged between them.
+
+Then with a curious elation, a mighty throb of what was almost joy,
+Gertrude knew that she, not he, the man of whom she had once been
+afraid, was the stronger of the two. For one brief moment some fierce
+instinct in her heart rejoiced.
+
+Phyllis, cowering in the background, Phyllis, pale as her splendid
+dress, shrank back, mystified, afraid. Her light soul shivered before
+the blast of passions in which, though she had helped to raise them, she
+felt herself to have no part nor lot.
+
+Reckoned by time, the encounter of those two hostile spirits was but
+brief; a moment, and Darrell had dropped his eyes, and was saying in
+something like his own languid voice--
+
+"To what may I ascribe this--honour?"
+
+Gertrude turned in silence to her sister--
+
+"Take off that----" (she indicated the shimmering garment with a pause),
+"and come with me."
+
+Darrell sneered from the background; "Your sister has decided on
+remaining here."
+
+"Phyllis!" said Gertrude, looking at her.
+
+Phyllis began to sob.
+
+"Oh, Gerty, what shall I do? Don't look at me like that. My dress is
+there behind the screen; and my hat. Oh, Gerty, I shall never get it on;
+I am so much taller."
+
+With rapid fingers Gertrude had unfastened her own long, black cloak,
+and was wrapping it about her sister.
+
+"Great heavens," cried Darrell, coming forward and seizing her hands;
+"You shall not take her away! You have no earthly right to take her
+against her will."
+
+With a cold fury of disgust she shook off his touch.
+
+"Oh, Sidney, I think I'd better go. I oughtn't to have come." Phyllis'
+voice sounded touchingly childish.
+
+Something in the pleading tones stirred his blood curiously.
+
+"Do you know," he cried, addressing himself to Gertrude, who was
+deliberately drawing the rings from her sister's passive hands, "Do you
+know what a night it is? That if you take her away you will kill her?
+Great God, you paragon of virtue, don't you see how ill she is?"
+
+She swept her glance over him in icy disdain; then going up to the
+mantelpiece, laid the rings on the shelf.
+
+"I swear to you," he cried, "that I will leave the house this hour,
+this minute. That I will never return to it; that I will never see her
+again--Phyllis!"
+
+At the last word, his voice had dropped to a low and passionate key; he
+stretched out his arms, but Gertrude coming between them put her strong
+desperate grasp about Phyllis, who swayed forward with closed eyes.
+Darrell retreated with a muffled exclamation of grief and rage and
+baffled purpose, and Gertrude half led, half carried her sister from the
+room, the hateful satin garment trailing noisily behind them from
+beneath the black cloak.
+
+A tall figure came forward from the doorway; the door was standing open;
+and the white whirlpool was visible against the darkness outside.
+
+"She has fainted," said Gertrude, in a low voice.
+
+Lord Watergate lifted her gently in his arms. At the same moment Darrell
+emerged from the studio, then remained rooted to the spot, dismayed and
+sullen, at the sight of his friend.
+
+"You are a scoundrel, Darrell," said Lord Watergate, in very clear,
+deliberate tones; then, his burden in his arms, he stepped out into the
+darkness, Gertrude closing the door behind them.
+
+Half an hour later the brougham stopped before the house in Upper Baker
+Street.
+
+Lord Watergate, when he had carried the fainting girl upstairs, went
+himself for a doctor.
+
+"I think I have killed her," said Gertrude, before he went, looking up
+at him from over the prostrate figure of her sister; "and if it were all
+to be done again--I would do it."
+
+Mrs. Maryon asked no questions; her genuine kindness and helpfulness
+were called forth by this crisis; and her suspicions of Gertrude had
+vanished for ever.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+IN THE SICK-ROOM.
+
+       _A riddle that one shrinks
+     To challenge from the scornful sphinx._
+                             D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+The doctor's verdict was unhesitating enough. Phyllis's doom, as more
+than one who knew her foresaw, was sealed. The shock and the exposure
+had only hastened an end which for long had been inevitable.
+Consumption, complicated with heart disease, both in advanced stages,
+held her in their grasp; added to these, a severe bronchial attack had
+set in since the night of the snowstorm, and her life might be said to
+hang by a thread. It might be a matter of days, said the cautious
+physician, of weeks, or even months.
+
+"Would a journey to the south, at an earlier stage of her illness, have
+availed to save her?" Gertrude asked, with white, mechanical lips.
+
+It was possible, was the answer, that it would have prolonged her life.
+But almost from the first, it seemed, the shadow of the grave must have
+rested on this beautiful human blossom.
+
+"Death in her face," muttered Mrs. Maryon, grimly; "I saw it there, I
+have always seen it."
+
+Meanwhile, people came and went in Upper Baker Street; sympathetic,
+inquisitive, bustling.
+
+Fanny, dismayed and tearful, appeared daily at the invalid's bedside,
+laden with grapes and other delicacies.
+
+"Poor old Fan," said Phyllis; "how shocked she would be if she knew
+everything. Don't you think it is your duty, Gerty, to Mr. Marsh, to let
+him know?"
+
+Aunt Caroline drove across from Lancaster Gate, rebuke implied in every
+fold of her handsome dress.
+
+"I cannot think," she remarked to her friends, "how Gertrude could have
+reconciled such culpable neglect of that poor child's health to her
+conscience."
+
+Gertrude avoided her aunt, saying to herself, in the bitterness of her
+humiliation: "It is the Aunt Carolines of this world who are right. I
+ought to have listened to her. She understood human nature better than
+I."
+
+The Devonshires, who had not long returned from Germany, were
+unremitting in their kindness, the slackened bonds between the two
+families growing tight once more in this hour of need.
+
+Lord Watergate made regular inquiries in Baker Street. Gertrude found
+his presence more endurable than that of the people with whom she had to
+dissemble; he knew her secret; it was safe with him and she was almost
+glad that he knew it.
+
+Gertrude had written a brief note to Lucy, telling her that Phyllis was
+very ill, but urging her to remain a week, at least, in Cornwall.
+
+"She will need all the strength she can get up," thought Gertrude. She
+herself was performing prodigies of work without any conscious effort.
+
+Frozen, tense, silent, she vibrated between the studio and the
+sick-room, moving as if in obedience to some hidden mechanism, a
+creature apparently without wants, emotions, or thoughts.
+
+She had gathered from Phyllis' cynically frank remarks, that it was by
+the merest chance she had not been too late and that Darrell had
+returned to The Sycamores.
+
+"We were going to cross on our way to Italy that very night," Phyllis
+said. "We drove to Charing Cross, and then the snow began to fall, and I
+had such a fit of coughing that Sidney was frightened, and took me home
+to St. John's Wood."
+
+Gertrude, who had received these confidences in silence, turned her head
+away with an involuntary, instinctive movement of repugnance at the
+mention of Darrell's Christian name.
+
+"Gerty," said Phyllis, who lay back among the pillows, a white ghost
+with two burning red spots on her cheeks, "Gerty, it is only fair that I
+should tell you: Sidney isn't as bad as you think. He went away in the
+summer, because he was beginning to care about me too much; he only came
+back because he simply couldn't help himself. And--and, you will go out
+of the room and never speak to me again--I knew he had a wife, Gerty; I
+heard them talking about her at the Oakleys, the very first day I saw
+him. She was his model; she drinks like a fish, and is ten years older
+than he is----I put that in the letter about getting married, because I
+didn't quite know how to say it. I thought that very likely you knew."
+
+Gertrude had walked to the window, and was pulling down the blind with
+stiff, blundering fingers. It was growing dusk and in less than half an
+hour Lucy would be home. It was just a week since she had set out for
+Cornwall.
+
+"Shall you tell Lucy?" came the childish voice from among the pillows.
+
+"I don't know. Lie still, Phyllis, and I will see if Mrs. Maryon has
+prepared the jelly for you."
+
+"Kind old thing, Mrs. Maryon."
+
+"Yes, indeed. She quite ignores the fact that we have no possible claim
+on her."
+
+Gertrude met Mrs. Maryon on the dusky stairs, dish in hand.
+
+"Do go and lie down, Miss Lorimer; or we shall have you knocked up too,
+and where should we be then? You mustn't let Miss Lucy see you like
+that."
+
+Gertrude obeyed mechanically. Going into the sitting-room, she threw
+herself on the little hard sofa, her face pressed to the pillow.
+
+She must have fallen into a doze, for the next thing of which she was
+aware was Lucy's voice in her ear, and opening her eyes she saw Lucy
+bending over her, candle in hand.
+
+"Have you seen her?" she asked, sitting up with a dazed air.
+
+"I am back this very minute. Gertrude, what have you been doing to
+yourself?"
+
+"Oh, I am all right." She rose with a little smile. "Let me look at you,
+Lucy. Actually roses on your cheek."
+
+"Gertrude, Gertrude, what has happened to you? Have I come--Oh, Gerty,
+have I come too late?"
+
+"No," said Gertrude, "but she is very ill."
+
+Lucy put her arms round her sister.
+
+"And I have left you alone through these days. Oh, my poor Gerty."
+
+They went upstairs together, and Lucy passed into the invalid's room,
+Gertrude remaining in the outer apartment, which was her own.
+
+In about ten minutes Lucy came out sobbing. "Oh, Phyllis, Phyllis," she
+wept below her breath.
+
+Gertrude, paler than ever, rose without a word, and went into the
+sick-room.
+
+"Poor old Lucy, she looked as if she were going to cry. I asked her if
+she had any message for Frank," said Phyllis, as her sister sat down
+beside her, and adjusted the lamp.
+
+"You are over-exciting yourself. Lie still, Phyllis."
+
+"But, Gerty, I feel ever so much better to-night."
+
+Silence. Gertrude sewed, and the invalid lay with closed eyes, but the
+flutter of the long lashes told that she was not asleep.
+
+"Gerty!" In about half an hour the grey eyes had unclosed, and were
+fixed widely on her sister's face.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Gerty, am I really going to die?"
+
+"You are very ill," said Gertrude, in a low voice.
+
+"But to die--it seems so impossible, so difficult, somehow. Frank died;
+that was wonderful enough; but oneself!"
+
+"Oh, my child," broke from Gertrude's lips.
+
+"Don't be sorry. I have never been a nice person, but I don't funk
+somehow. I ought to, after being such a bad lot, but I don't. Gerty!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Gerty, you have always been good to me; this last week as well. But
+that is the worst of you good people; you are hard as stones. You bring
+me jelly; you sit up all night with me--but you have never forgiven me.
+You know that is the truth."
+
+Gertrude knelt by the bedside, a great compunction in her heart; she put
+her hand on that of Phyllis, who went on--
+
+"And there is something I should wish to tell you. I am glad you came
+and fetched me away. The very moment I saw your angry, white face, and
+your old clothes with the snow on, I was glad. It is funny, if one comes
+to think of it. I was frightened, but I was glad."
+
+Gertrude's head drooped lower and lower over the coverlet; her heart,
+which had been frozen within her, melted. In an agony of love, of
+remorse, she stretched out her arms, while her sobs came thick and fast,
+and gathered the wasted figure to her breast.
+
+"Oh, Phyllis, oh, my child; who am I to forgive you? Is it a question of
+forgiveness between us? Oh, Phyllis, my little Phyllis, have you
+forgotten how I love you?"
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE LAST ACT.
+
+     _Just as another woman sleeps._
+                     D. G. ROSSETTI.
+
+
+It was not till a week or two later that Gertrude brought herself to
+tell Lucy what had happened during her absence. It was a bleak afternoon
+in the beginning of December; in the next room lay Phyllis, cold and
+stiff and silent for ever; and Lucy was drearily searching in a cupboard
+for certain mourning garments which hung there. But suddenly, from the
+darkness of the lowest shelf, something shone up at her, a white,
+shimmering object, lying coiled there like a snake.
+
+It was Phyllis's splendid satin gown, which Gertrude had flung there on
+the fateful night, and, from sheer repugnance, had never disturbed.
+
+"But you must send it back," Lucy said, when in a few broken words her
+sister had explained its presence in the cupboard.
+
+Lucy was very pale and very serious. She gathered up the satin gown,
+which nothing could have induced Gertrude to touch, folded it neatly,
+and began looking about for brown paper in which to enclose it.
+
+The ghastly humour of the little incident struck Gertrude. "There is
+some string in the studio," she said, half-ironically, and went back to
+her post in the chamber of death.
+
+In her long narrow coffin lay Phyllis; beautiful and still, with flowers
+between her hands. She had drifted out of life quietly enough a few days
+before; to-morrow she would be lying under the newly-turned cemetery
+sods.
+
+Gertrude stood a moment, looking down at the exquisite face. On the
+breast of the dead girl lay a mass of pale violets which Lord Watergate
+had sent the day before, and as Gertrude looked, there flashed through
+her mind, what had long since vanished from it, the recollection of
+Lord Watergate's peculiar interest in Phyllis.
+
+It was explained now, she thought, as the image of another dead face
+floated before her vision. That also was the face of a woman, beautiful
+and frail; of a woman who had sinned. She had never seen the resemblance
+before; it was clear enough now.
+
+Then she took up once again her watcher's seat at the bed-side, and
+strove to banish thought.
+
+To do and do and do; that is all that remains to one in a world where
+thinking, for all save a few chosen beings, must surely mean madness.
+
+She had fallen into a half stupor, when she was aware of a subtle sense
+of discomfort creeping over her; of an odour, strong and sweet and
+indescribably hateful, floating around her like a winged nightmare.
+Opening her eyes with an effort, she saw Mrs. Maryon standing gravely
+at the foot of the bed, an enormous wreath of tuberose in her hand.
+
+Gertrude rose from her seat.
+
+"Who sent those flowers?" she said, sternly.
+
+"A servant brought them; he mentioned no name, and there is no card
+attached."
+
+The woman laid the wreath on the coverlet and discreetly withdrew.
+
+Gertrude stood staring at the flowers, fascinated. In the first moment
+of the cold yet stifling fury which stole over her, she could have taken
+them in her hands and torn them petal from petal.
+
+One instant, she had stretched out her hand towards them; the next, she
+had turned away, sick with the sense of impotence, of loathing, of
+immeasurable disdain.
+
+What weapons could avail against the impenetrable hide of such a man?
+
+"She never cared for him," a vindictive voice whispered to her from the
+depths of her heart.
+
+Then she shrank back afraid before the hatred which held possession of
+her soul. The passion which had animated her on the fateful evening of
+Phyllis's flight, the very strength which had caused her to prevail,
+seemed to her fearful and hideous things. She would fain have put the
+thought of them away; have banished them and all recollection of Darrell
+from her mind for ever.
+
+It was a bleak December morning, with a touch of east wind in the air,
+when Phyllis was laid in her last resting-place.
+
+To Gertrude all the sickening details of the little pageant were as the
+shadows of a nightmare. Standing rigid as a statue by the open grave,
+she was aware of nothing but the sweet, stifling fragrance of tuberose,
+which seemed to have detached itself from, and prevailed over, the
+softer scents of rose and violet, and to float up unmixed from the
+flower-covered coffin.
+
+Lucy stood on one side of her, silent and pale with down-dropt eyes;
+Fanny sobbed vociferously on the other. Lord Watergate faced them with
+bent head. The tears rolled down Fred Devonshire's face as the burial
+service proceeded. Aunt Caroline looked like a vindictive ghost. Uncle
+Septimus wept silently.
+
+It seemed a hideous act of cruelty to turn away at last and leave the
+poor child lying there alone, while the sexton shovelled the loose earth
+on to her coffin; hideous, but inevitable; and at midday Gertrude and
+Lucy drove back in the dismal coach to Baker Street, where Mr. Maryon
+had put up alternate shutters in the shop-window, and the
+umbrella-maker had drawn down his blinds.
+
+Gertrude, as she lay awake that night, heard the rain beating against
+the window-panes, and shuddered.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+HOPE AND A FRIEND.
+
+     _Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love._
+                     SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
+
+
+Gertrude was sitting by the window with Constance Devonshire one bleak
+January afternoon.
+
+Conny's face wore a softened look. The fierce, rebellious misery of her
+heart had given place to a gentler grief, the natural human sorrow for
+the dead.
+
+This was a farewell visit. The next day she and her family were setting
+out for the South of France.
+
+"I tried to make Fred come with me to-day," Constance was saying; "but
+he is dining with some kindred spirits at the Café Royal, and then going
+on to the Gaiety. He said there would be no time."
+
+Fred had been once to Baker Street since the unfortunate interview with
+Lucy; had paid a brief visit of condolence, when he had been very much
+on his dignity and very afraid of meeting Lucy's eye. The
+re-establishment of the old relations was not more possible than it
+usually is in such cases.
+
+"How long do you expect to be at Cannes?" Gertrude said, after one of
+the pauses which kept on stretching themselves baldly across the
+conversation.
+
+"Till the end of March, probably. Isn't Lucy coming up to say 'good-bye'
+to a fellow?"
+
+"She will be up soon. She is much distressed about the over-exposure of
+some plates, and is trying to remedy the misfortune. Do you know, by the
+by, that we are thinking of taking an apprentice? Mr. Russel has found a
+girl--a lady--who will pay us a premium, and probably live with us."
+
+"I think that is a good plan," said Conny, staring wistfully out of
+window.
+
+How strange it seemed, after all that had happened, to be sitting here
+quietly, talking about over-exposed negatives, premiums, and
+apprentices.
+
+Looking out into the familiar street, with its teeming memories of a
+vivid life now quenched for ever, she said to herself, as Gertrude had
+often said: "It is not possible."
+
+One day, surely, the door would open to give egress to the well-known
+figure; one day they would hear his footstep on the stairs, his voice in
+the little room. Even as the thought struck her, Constance was aware of
+a sound as of some one ascending, and started with a sudden beating of
+the heart.
+
+The next moment Matilda flung open the door, and Lord Watergate came,
+unannounced, into the room.
+
+Gertrude rose gravely to meet him.
+
+Since the accident, which had brought him into such intimate connection
+with the Lorimers' affairs, his kindness had been as unremitting as it
+had been unobtrusive.
+
+Gertrude had several times reproached herself for taking it as a matter
+of course; for being roused to no keener fervour of gratitude; yet
+something in his attitude seemed to preclude all expression of
+commonplaces.
+
+It was no personal favour that he offered. To stretch out one's hand to
+a drowning creature is no act of gallantry; it is but recognition of a
+natural human obligation.
+
+Lord Watergate took a seat between the two girls, and, after a few
+remarks, Constance declared her intention of seeking Lucy in the studio.
+
+"Tell Lucy to come up when she has soaked her plates to her
+satisfaction," said Gertrude, a little vexed at this desertion.
+
+To have passed through such experiences together as she and Lord
+Watergate, makes the casual relations of life more difficult. These two
+people, to all intents and purposes strangers, had been together in
+those rare moments of life when the elaborate paraphernalia of everyday
+intercourse is thrown aside; when soul looks straight to soul through no
+intervening veil; when human voice answers human voice through no medium
+of an actor's mask.
+
+We lose with our youth the blushes, the hesitations, the distressing
+outward marks of embarrassment; but, perhaps, with most of us, the
+shyness, as it recedes from the surface, only sinks deeper into the
+soul.
+
+As the door closed on Constance, Lord Watergate turned to Gertrude.
+
+"Miss Lorimer," he said, "I am afraid your powers of endurance have to
+be further tried."
+
+"What is it?" she said, while a listless incredulity that anything could
+matter to her now stole over her, dispersing the momentary cloud of
+self-consciousness.
+
+Lord Watergate leaned forward, regarding her earnestly.
+
+"There has been news," he said, slowly, "of poor young Jermyn."
+
+Gertrude started.
+
+"You mean," she said, "that they have found him--that there is no
+doubt."
+
+"On the contrary; there is every doubt."
+
+She looked at him bewildered.
+
+"Miss Lorimer, there is, I am afraid, much cruel suspense in store for
+you, and possibly to no purpose. I came here to-day to prepare you for
+what you will hear soon enough. I chanced to learn from official
+quarters what will be in every paper in England to-morrow. There is a
+rumour that Jermyn has been seen alive."
+
+"Lord Watergate!" Gertrude sprang to her feet, trembling in every limb.
+
+He rose also, and continued, his eyes resting on her face meanwhile:--
+
+"Native messengers have arrived at head-quarters from the interior,
+giving an account of two Englishmen, who, they say, are living as
+prisoners in one of the hostile towns. The descriptions of these
+prisoners correspond to those of Steele and Jermyn."
+
+"Lucy!" came faintly from Gertrude's lips.
+
+"It is chiefly for your sister's sake that I have come here. The rumour
+will be all over the town to-morrow. Had you not better prepare her for
+this, at the same time impressing on her the extreme probability of its
+baselessness?"
+
+"I wish it could be kept from her altogether."
+
+"Perhaps even that might be managed until further confirmation arrives.
+I cannot conceal from you that at present I attach little value to it.
+It was in the nature of things that such a rumour should arise; neither
+of the poor fellows having actually been seen dead."
+
+"What steps will be taken?" asked Gertrude, after a pause. She had not
+the slightest belief that Frank would ever be among them again; she and
+Lucy had gone over for ever to the great majority of the unfortunate.
+
+"A rescue-party is to be organised at once. The war being practically at
+an end, it would probably resolve itself into a case of ransom, if there
+were any truth in the whole thing. I may be in possession of further
+news a little before the newspapers. Needless to say that I shall bring
+it here at once."
+
+He took up his hat and stood a moment looking down at her.
+
+"Lord Watergate, we do not even attempt to thank you for your kindness."
+
+"I have been able, unfortunately, to do so little for you. I wish to-day
+that I had come to you as the bringer of good tidings; I am destined, it
+seems, to be your bird of ill-omen."
+
+He dropped his eyes suddenly, and Gertrude turned away her face. A pause
+fell between them; then she said--
+
+"Will it be long before news of any reliability can reach us?"
+
+"I cannot tell; it may be a matter of days, of weeks, or even months."
+
+"I fear it will be impossible to keep the rumour from my poor Lucy."
+
+"I am afraid so. I trust to you to save her from false hopes."
+
+"So I am to be Cassandra," thought Gertrude, a little wistfully. She was
+always having some hideous _rôle_ or other thrust upon her.
+
+Lord Watergate moved towards the door.
+
+A sudden revulsion of feeling came over her.
+
+"Perhaps," she said, "it is true."
+
+He caught her mood. "Perhaps it is."
+
+They stood smiling at one another like two children.
+
+Constance Devonshire coming upstairs a few minutes later found Gertrude
+standing alone in the middle of the room, a vague smile playing about
+her face. A suspicion that was not new gathered force in Conny's mind.
+Going up to her friend she said, with meaning--
+
+"Gerty, what has Lord Watergate been saying to you?"
+
+"Conny, Conny, can you keep a secret?"
+
+And then Gertrude told her of the new hope, vague and sweet and
+perilous, which Lord Watergate had brought with him.
+
+"But it is true, Gerty; it really is," Conny said, while the tears
+poured down her cheeks; "I have always known that the other thing was
+not possible. Oh, Gerty, just to see him, just to know he is alive--will
+not that be enough to last one all the days of one's life?"
+
+But this mood of impersonal exaltation faded a little when Constance
+went back to Queen's Gate, where everything was in a state of readiness
+for the projected flitting. She lay awake sobbing with mingled feelings
+half through the night.
+
+"Even Gerty," she thought; "I am going to lose her too." For she
+remembered the smile in Gertrude's eyes that afternoon when she had
+found her standing alone after Lord Watergate's visit; a smile to which
+she chose to attach meanings which concerned the happiness of neither
+Frank nor Lucy.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A DISMISSAL.
+
+     _O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?_
+
+
+Lucy has always since maintained that the days which followed Lord
+Watergate's communication were the very worst that she ever went
+through. The fluctuations of hope and fear, the delays, the prolonged
+strain of uncertainty coming upon her afresh, after all that had already
+been endured, could be nothing less than torture even to a person of her
+well-balanced and well-regulated temperament.
+
+"To have to bear it all for the second time," thought poor Gertrude,
+whose efforts to spare her sister could not, in the nature of things, be
+very successful.
+
+A terrible fear that Lucy would break down altogether and slip from her
+grasp, haunted her night and day. The world seemed to her peopled with
+shadows, which she could do nothing more than clutch at as they passed
+by, she herself the only creature of any permanence of them all. But
+gradually the tremulous, flickering flame of hope grew brighter and
+steadier; then changed into a glad certainty. And one wonderful day,
+towards the end of March, Frank was with them once more: Frank, thinner
+and browner perhaps, but in no respect the worse for his experiences;
+Frank, as they had always known him--kind and cheery and sympathetic;
+with the old charming confidence in being cared for.
+
+"And I was not there," he cried, regretful, self-reproachful, when Lucy
+had told him the details of their sad story.
+
+"I thought always, 'If Frank were here!'"
+
+"I think I should have killed him," said Frank, in all sincerity; and
+Lucy drew closer to him, grateful for the non-fulfilment of her wish.
+
+They were standing together in the studio. It was the day after Jermyn's
+return, and Gertrude was sitting listlessly upstairs, her busy hands
+for once idle in her lap. In a few days April would have come round
+again for the second time since their father's death.
+
+What a lifetime of experience had been compressed into those two years,
+she thought, her apathetic eyes mechanically following the green garment
+of the High School mistress, as she whisked past down the street.
+
+She knew that it is often so in human life--a rapid succession of
+events; a vivid concentration of every sort of experience in a brief
+space; then long, grey stretches of eventless calm. She knew also how it
+is when events, for good or evil, rain down thus on any group of
+persons.--The majority are borne to new spheres, for them the face of
+things has changed completely. But nearly always there is one, at least,
+who, after the storm is over, finds himself stranded and desolate, no
+further advanced on his journey than before.
+
+The lightning has not smitten him, nor the waters drowned him, nor has
+any stranger vessel borne him to other shores. He is only battered, and
+shattered, and weary with the struggle; has lost, perhaps, all he cared
+for, and is permanently disabled for further travelling. Gertrude smiled
+to herself as she pursued the little metaphor, then, rising, walked
+across the room to the mirror which hung above the mantelpiece. As her
+eye fell on her own reflection she remembered Lucy Snowe's words--
+
+"I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning dress, a faded, hollow-eyed
+vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle.... I still felt life
+at life's sources."
+
+That was the worst of it; one was so terribly vital. Inconceivable as it
+seemed, she knew that one day she would be up again, fighting the old
+fight, not only for existence, but for happiness itself. She was only
+twenty-five when all was said; much lay, indeed, behind her, but there
+was still the greater part of her life to be lived.
+
+She started a little as the handle of the door turned, and Mrs. Maryon
+announced Lord Watergate. She gave him her hand with a little smile:
+"Have you been in the studio?" she said, as they both seated themselves.
+
+"Yes; Jermyn opened the door himself, and insisted on my coming in,
+though, to tell you the truth, I should have hesitated about entering
+had I had any choice in the matter--which I hadn't."
+
+"Lucy has picked up wonderfully, hasn't she?"
+
+"She looks her old self already. Jermyn tells me they are to be married
+almost immediately."
+
+"Yes. I suppose they told you also that Lucy is going to carry on the
+business afterwards."
+
+"In the old place?"
+
+"No. We have got rid of the rest of the lease, and they propose moving
+into some place where studios for both of them can be arranged."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"It is uncertain. I think Lucy will want me for the photography."
+
+"Miss Lorimer, first of all you must do something to get well. You will
+break down altogether if you don't."
+
+Something in the tone of the blunt words startled her; she turned away,
+a nameless terror taking possession of her.
+
+"Oh, I shall be all right after a little holiday."
+
+"You have been looking after everybody else; doing everybody's work,
+bearing everybody's troubles." He stopped short suddenly, and added,
+with less earnestness, "_Quis custodet custodiem?_ Do you know any
+Latin, Miss Lorimer?"
+
+She rose involuntarily; then stood rather helplessly before him. It was
+ridiculous that these two clever people should be so shy and awkward;
+those others down below in the studio had never undergone any such
+uncomfortable experience; but then neither had had to graft the new
+happiness on an old sorrow; for neither had the shadow of memory
+darkened hope.
+
+Gertrude went over to the mantelshelf, and began mechanically arranging
+some flowers in a vase. For once, she found Lord Watergate's presence
+disturbing and distressing; she was confused, unhappy, distrustful of
+herself; she wished when she turned her head that she would find him
+gone. But he was standing near her, a look of perplexity, of trouble, in
+his face.
+
+"Miss Lorimer," he said, and there was no mistaking the note in his
+voice, "have I come too soon? Is it too soon for me to speak?"
+
+She was overwhelmed, astonished, infinitely agitated. Her soul shrank
+back afraid. What had the closer human relations ever brought her but
+sorrow unutterable, unending? Some blind instinct within her prompted
+her words, as she said, lifting her head, with the attitude of one who
+would avert an impending blow--
+
+"Oh, it is too soon, too soon."
+
+He stood a moment looking at her with his deep eyes.
+
+"I shall come back," he said.
+
+"No, oh, no!"
+
+She hid her face in her hands, and bent her head to the marble. What he
+offered was not for her; for other women, for happier women, for better
+women, perhaps, but not for her.
+
+When she raised her head he was gone.
+
+The momentary, unreasonable agitation passed away from her, leaving her
+cold as a stone, and she knew what she had done. By a lightning flash
+her own heart stood revealed to her. How incredible it seemed, but she
+knew that it was true: all this dreary time, when the personal thought
+had seemed so far away from her, her greatest personal experience had
+been silently growing up--no gourd of a night, but a tree to last
+through the ages. She, who had been so strong for others, had failed
+miserably for herself.
+
+Love and happiness had come to her open-handed, and she had sent them
+away. Love and happiness? Oh, those will o' the wisps had danced ere
+this before her cheated sight. Love and happiness? Say rather, pity and
+a mild peace. It is not love that lets himself be so easily denied.
+
+Happiness? That was not for such as she; but peace, it would have come
+in time; now it was possible that it would never come at all.
+
+All the springs of her being had seemed for so long to be frozen at
+their source; now, in this one brief moment of exaltation, half-rapture,
+half-despair, the ice melted, and her heart was flooded with the stream.
+
+Covering her face with her hands, she knelt by his empty chair, and a
+great cry rose up from her soul:--the human cry for happiness--the
+woman's cry for love.
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+AT LAST.
+
+     _We sat when shadows darken,
+       And let the shadows be;
+     Each was a soul to hearken,
+       Devoid of eyes to see.
+
+     You came at dusk to find me;
+       I knew you well enough....
+     Oh, Lights that dazzle and blind me--
+       It is no friend, but Love!_
+                       A. MARY F. ROBINSON.
+
+
+      _Hotel Prince de Galles, Cannes, April 27th._
+
+     My dearest Gerty,--You shall have a letter to-day, though it is
+     more than you deserve. Why do you never write to me? Now that you
+     have safely married your young people, you have positively no
+     excuse. By the by, the poor innocent mater read the announcement of
+     the wedding out loud at breakfast to-day.--Fred got crimson and
+     choked in his coffee, and I had a silent fit of laughter. However,
+     he is all right by now, playing tennis with a mature lady with
+     yellow hair, whom he much affects, and whom papa scornfully
+     denominates a "hotel hack."
+
+     All this, let me tell you, is preliminary. I have a piece of news
+     for you, but somehow it won't come out. Not that it is anything to
+     be ashamed of. The fact is, Gerty, I am going the way of all flesh,
+     and am about to be married. Believe me, it is the most sensible
+     course for a woman to take. I hope you will follow my good example.
+
+     Do you remember Sapho's words: "J'ai tant aimé; j'ai besoin d'être
+     aimée"? Do not let the quotation shock you; neither take it too
+     seriously, I think Mr. Graham--you know Lawrence Graham?--does care
+     as caring goes and as men go. He came out here, on purpose, a
+     fortnight ago, and yesterday we settled it between us....
+
+
+Gertrude read no further; the thin, closely-written sheet fell from her
+hand; she sat staring vaguely before her.
+
+Conny's letter, with its cheerfulness, partly real, partly affected,
+hurt her taste, and depressed her rather unreasonably.
+
+This was the hardest feature of her lot: for the people she loved, the
+people who had looked up to her, she had been able to do nothing at all.
+
+She was sitting alone in the dismantled studio on this last day of
+April. To-morrow Lucy and Frank would have returned from Cornwall, and
+have taken possession of the new home.
+
+Her own plans for the present were vague.
+
+One of her stories, after various journeys to editorial offices, had at
+last come back to her in the form of proof, supplemented, moreover, by
+what seemed to her a handsome cheque.
+
+She had arranged, on the strength of this, to visit a friend in
+Florence, for some months; after that period she would in all
+probability take part with Lucy in the photography business.
+
+There was no fire lighted, and the sun, which in the earlier part of the
+day had warmed the room, had set. Most of the furniture and properties
+had already gone to the new studio, but some yet remained, massed and
+piled in the gloom.
+
+The black sign-board, with its gold lettering, stood upright and forlorn
+in a corner, as though conscious that its day was over for ever.
+Gertrude had been busying herself with turning out a cupboard, but the
+light had failed, and she had ceased from her work.
+
+A very dark hour came to Gertrude, crouching there in the dusk and cold,
+amid the dismantled workshop which seemed to symbolize her own life.
+
+She who held unhappiness ignoble and cynicism a poor thing, had lost for
+the moment all joy of living and all belief. The little erection of
+philosophy, of hope, of self-reliance, which she had been at such pains
+to build, seemed to be crumbling about her ears; all the struggles and
+sacrifices of life looked vain things. What had life brought her, but
+disillusion, bitterness, an added sense of weakness?
+
+She rose at last and paced the room.
+
+"This will pass," she said to herself; "I am out of sorts; and it is not
+to be wondered at."
+
+She sat down in the one empty chair the room contained, and leaning her
+head on her hand, let her thoughts wander at will.
+
+Her eyes roved about the little dusky room which was so full of memories
+for her. Shadows peopled it; dream-voices filled it with sound.
+
+Lucy and Phyllis and Frank moved hither and thither with jest and
+laughter. Fanny was there too, tampering amiably with the apparatus; and
+Darrell looked at her once with cold eyes, although, indeed, he had been
+a rare visitor at the studio.
+
+Then all these phantoms faded, and she seemed to see another in their
+stead; a man, tall and strong, his face full of anger and sorrow--Lord
+Watergate, as he had been on that never-forgotten night. Then the anger
+and sorrow faded from his face, and she read there nothing but
+love--love for herself shining from his eyes.
+
+Then she hid her face, ashamed.
+
+What must he think of her? Perhaps that she scorned his gift, did not
+understand its value; had therefore withdrawn it in disdain.
+
+Oh, if only she could tell him this:--that it was her very sense of the
+greatness of what he offered that had made her tremble, turn away, and
+reject it. One does not stretch out the hand eagerly for so great a
+gift.
+
+She had told him not to return and he had taken her at her word. She was
+paying the penalty, which her sex always pays one way or another, for
+her struggles for strength and independence. She was denied, she told
+herself with a touch of rueful humour, the gracious feminine privilege
+of changing her mind.
+
+Lord Watergate might have loved her more if he had respected her less,
+or at least allowed for a little feminine waywardness. Like the rest of
+the world, he had failed to understand her, to see how weak she was, for
+all her struggles to be strong.
+
+She pushed back the hair from her forehead with the old resolute
+gesture. Well, she must learn to be strong in earnest now; the thews and
+sinews of the soul, the moral muscles, grow with practice, no less than
+those of the body. She must not sit here brooding, but must rise and
+fight the Fates.
+
+Hitherto, perhaps, life had been nothing but failures, but mistakes. It
+was quite possible that the future held nothing better in store for her.
+That was not the question; all that concerned her was to fight the
+fight.
+
+She lit a solitary candle, and began sorting some papers and prints on
+the table near.
+
+"If he had cared," her thoughts ran on, "he would have come back in
+spite of everything."
+
+Doubtless it had been a mere passing impulse of compassion which had
+prompted his words, and he had caught eagerly at her dismissal of him.
+Or was it all a delusion on her part? That brief, rapid moment, when he
+had spoken, had it ever existed save in her own imagination? Worst
+thought of all, a thought which made her cheek burn scarlet in the
+solitude, had she misinterpreted some simple expression of kindness,
+some frank avowal of sympathy; had she indeed refused what had never
+been offered?
+
+She felt very lonely as she lingered there in the gloom, trying to
+accustom herself in thought to the long years of solitude, of
+dreariness, which she saw stretching out before her.
+
+The world, even when represented by her best friends, had labelled her a
+strong-minded woman. By universal consent she had been cast for the
+part, and perforce must go through with it.
+
+She heard steps coming up the Virginia cork passage and concluded that
+Mrs. Maryon was bringing her an expected postcard from Lucy.
+
+"Come in," she said, not raising her head from the table.
+
+The person who had come in was not, however, Mrs. Maryon.
+
+He came up to the table with its solitary candle and faced her.
+
+When she saw who it was her heart stood still; then in one brief moment
+the face of the universe had changed for her for ever.
+
+"Lord Watergate!"
+
+"I said I would come again. I have come in spite of you. You will not
+tell me that I come too soon, or in vain?"
+
+"You must not think that I did not value what you offered me," she said
+simply, though her voice shook; "that I did not think myself deeply
+honoured. But I was afraid--I have suffered very much."
+
+"And I.... Oh, Gertrude, my poor child, and I have left you all this
+time."
+
+For the light, flickering upwards, had shown him her weary, haggard
+face; had shown him also the pathetic look of her eyes as they yearned
+towards him in entreaty, in reliance,--in love.
+
+He had taken her in his arms, without explanation or apology, holding
+her to his breast as one holds a tired child.
+
+And she, looking up into his face, into the lucid depths of his eyes,
+felt all that was mean and petty and bitter in life fade away into
+nothingness; while all that was good and great and beautiful gathered
+new meaning and became the sole realities.
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+
+There is little more to tell of the people who have figured in this
+story.
+
+Fanny continues to flourish at Notting Hill, the absence of children
+being the one drop in her cup and that of her husband.
+
+"But, perhaps," as Lucy privately remarks, "it is as well; for I don't
+think the Marshes would have understood how to bring up a child."
+
+For Lucy, in common with all young matrons of the day, has decided views
+on matters concerned with the mental, moral, and physical culture of the
+young. Unlike many thinkers, she does not hesitate to put her theories
+into practice, and the two small occupants of her nursery bear witness
+to excellent training.
+
+The photography, however, has not been crowded out by domestic duties;
+and no infant with pretensions to fashion omits to present itself before
+Mrs. Jermyn's lens. Lucy has succumbed to the modern practice of
+specialising, and only the other day carried off a medal for photographs
+of young children from an industrial exhibition. Her husband is no less
+successful in his own line. Having permanently abandoned the paint-brush
+for the needle, he bids fair to take a high place among the black and
+white artists of the day.
+
+The Watergates have also an addition to their household, in the shape of
+a stout person with rosy cheeks and stiff white petticoats, who receives
+a great deal of attention from his parents. Gertrude wonders if he will
+prove to have inherited his father's scientific tastes, or the literary
+tendencies of his mother. She devoutly hopes that it is the former.
+
+Conny flourishes as a married woman no less than as a girl. She and the
+Jermyns dine out now and then at one another's houses; her old affection
+for Gertrude continues, in spite of the fact that their respective
+husbands are quite unable (as she says) to hit it off.
+
+Fred has not yet married; but there is no reason to believe him
+inconsolable. It is rather the embarrassment of choice than any other
+motive which keeps him single.
+
+Aunt Caroline, having married all her daughters to her satisfaction,
+continues to reign supreme in certain circles at Lancaster Gate. She
+speaks with the greatest respect of her niece, Lady Watergate, though
+she has been heard to comment unfavourably on the shabbiness of the
+furniture in Sussex Place.
+
+As for Darrell, shortly after Phyllis's death, he went to India at the
+invitation of the Viceroy and remained there nearly two years.
+
+It was only the other day that the Watergates came face to face with
+him. It was at a big dinner, where the most distinguished
+representatives of art and science and literature were met. Gertrude
+turned pale when she saw him, losing the thread of her discourse, and
+her appetite, despite her husband's reassuring glances down the table.
+
+But Darrell went on eating his dinner and looking into his neighbour's
+eyes, in apparent unconsciousness of, or unconcern at, the Watergates'
+proximity.
+
+The Maryons continue in the old premises, increasing their balance at
+the banker's, and enlarging their experience of life.
+
+The Photographic Studio is let to an enterprising young photographer,
+who has enlarged and beautified it beyond recognition.
+
+As for the rooms above the umbrella-maker's: the sitting-room facing the
+street; the three-cornered kitchen behind; the three little bed-rooms
+beyond;--when last I passed the house they were to let unfurnished, with
+great fly-blown bills in the blank casements.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+The Gresham Press,
+UNWIN BROTHERS,
+CHILWORTH AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romance of a Shop, by Amy Levy
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57447 ***