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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Spring Days, by George Moore
+(#3 in our series by George Moore)
+
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+
+
+Title: Spring Days
+
+Author: George Moore
+
+Release Date: July, 2004  [EBook #6029]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on December 10, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPRING DAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+SPRING DAYS
+
+BY GEORGE MOORE
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+When Henry Vizetelly, that admirable scholar, historian, and
+journalist, was sent to prison for publishing Zola's novels mine were
+taken over by Walter Scott, and all were reprinted except "Spring
+Days." This book was omitted from the list of my acknowledged works,
+for public and private criticism had shown it no mercy; and I had lost
+faith in it. All the welcome it had gotten were a few contemptuous
+paragraphs scattered through the Press, and an insolent article in
+_The Academy_, which I did not see, but of which I was notified by a
+friend in the Strand at the corner of Wellington Street.
+
+"Was the article a long one?"
+
+"No, I don't think they thought your book worth slashing. All I can
+tell you is that if any book of mine had been spoken of in that way I
+should never write another."
+
+I left my friend, hoping that the number of _The Academy_ would not
+fall into the hands of the editor of the great London review, to whom I
+had dedicated the book after a night spent listening to him quoting
+from the classics, Greek, English, and Latin. "A very poor testimony,
+one which he won't thank me for," I muttered, and stopped before St.
+Clement Danes to think what kind of letter he would write to me. But he
+did not even acknowledge through his secretary the copy I sent to him,
+and I accepted the rebuff without resentment, arguing that the fault
+was mine. "The proofs should have been submitted to him, but the
+printers were calling for them! There's no going back; the mischief is
+done," and I waited, putting my trust in time, which blots out all
+unfortunate things, "even dedications," I said.
+
+Three months later, on opening my door one day, I found him standing
+with a common friend on the landing. I remember wondering what his
+reason was for bringing the friend, whether he had come as a sort of
+chaperon or witness. He left us after a few minutes, and I sat
+watching the great man of my imagination, asking myself if he were
+going to speak of "Spring Days," hoping that he would avoid the
+painful subject. The plot and the characters of my new book might
+please him. If he would only allow me to speak about it he might be
+persuaded to accept a second dedication as some atonement for the
+first.
+
+"You were kind enough to dedicate your novel---"
+
+"'Spring Days'?"
+
+"Yes, 'Spring Days.' I know that you wished to pay me a compliment,
+and if I didn't write before it was because----"
+
+"Was it so very bad?"
+
+A butty little man raised Oriental eyes and square hands in protest.
+
+"You have written other books," he said, and proposed that we should
+go out together and walk in the Strand.
+
+"Yes, 'The Confessions of a Young Man' was much liked here and in
+France. Will you let me give it to you?" We stopped at a book shop.
+"It will please you and help you to forget 'Spring Days.'" He smiled.
+"Never mention that book again," I added. "I wonder how I could have
+written it."
+
+We were in a hansom; he turned his head and looked at me without
+attempting to answer my question; and from that day till six months
+ago my impulse was to destroy every copy that came my way. A copy of
+"Spring Days" excited in me an uncontrollable desire of theft, and
+whenever I caught sight of one in a friend's house I put it in my
+pocket without giving a thought to the inconvenience that the larceny
+might cause; the Thames received it, and I returned home
+congratulating myself that there was one copy less in the world of
+"Spring Days."
+
+When the Boer War drove me out of London I said: "Dublin doesn't
+contain a copy of that book;" and for nearly eight years I was left in
+peace, only Edward Martyn teasing me, saying that one of these days he
+must read the book.
+
+"R---- always says, 'I like "Spring Days".'"
+
+"Insolent little ass," I answered, "I'll cut him dead when we meet
+again."
+
+But Edward was not joking as I thought he was, and some time
+afterwards he told me that after a good deal of advertising he had
+succeeded in obtaining a copy of "Spring Days." The moment he left the
+room I searched the table and bookcase for it, but he kept it at
+Tillyra, else it would have gone into the Liffey, which receives all
+things.
+
+"My dear George, I like the book better than any of your novels," he
+said one day on his return from Galway. "It is the most original, it
+is like no other novel, and that is why people didn't understand it."
+
+Of course it was impossible to quarrel with dear Edward, but I
+wondered if I ever should find pleasure in speaking to him again; and
+when A. E. told me a few weeks later that he had come upon a novel of
+mine which he had never read before--"Spring Days," I said.
+
+"Edward gave it to you?"
+
+"No," he answered, "I haven't seen him for many months."
+
+"The worst book I ever wrote." A. E. did not answer. "What do you
+think of it?" To my surprise I found him of the same opinion as
+Edward.
+
+"My dear A. E., you know how I rely on your judgment. For twenty-five
+years I have refused to allow this book to be reprinted. Shall I
+relent?"
+
+A. E. did not seem to think the book unworthy of me, and pressed me to
+read it.
+
+"I'll lend you my copy."
+
+I received it next day, but returned it to him unread, my courage
+having failed me at the last moment.
+
+A few months later I met Richard Best, one of the librarians at the
+National Library. He had just returned from his holidays; he had been
+spending them in Wales for the sake of the language.
+
+"By the way," he said, "I came across an old novel of yours--'Spring
+Days.'"
+
+"You didn't like it?"
+
+"On the contrary, I liked it as well, if not better, than any novel
+you have written. It is so entirely original. My wife... I think you
+value her opinion--"
+
+"She liked it?"
+
+"Come home with me, and she'll tell you how it struck her."
+
+"I will, on one condition, that you don't mention that you spoke to me
+about the book."
+
+Best promised, and we had not been many minutes in the house before
+Mrs. Best interrupted my remarks about the weather to tell me what she
+thought of "Spring Days."
+
+"The matter is important. Sooner or later I shall have to think about
+a collected edition. Is it to be included?"
+
+Mrs. Best, like A. E., offered to lend me her copy, but I could not
+bring myself to accept it, and escaped from the book till I came to
+live in London. Then Fate thrust it into my hands, the means employed
+being a woman to whom I had written for "Impressions and Opinions."
+She had lost her copy; there was, however, an old book of mine which
+she had never heard me speak of--"Spring Days"--and which, etc., she
+was sending me the book.
+
+"Omens are omens," I muttered, "and there's no use kicking against the
+pricks eternally;" and cutting the string of the parcel I sat down to
+read a novel which I had kept so resolutely out of my mind for twenty-
+five years, that all I remembered of its story and characters was an
+old gentleman who lived in a suburb, and whose daughters were a great
+source of trouble to him. I met the style of the narrative as I might
+that of an original writer whose works I was unacquainted with. There
+was a zest in it, and I read on and on; I must have read for nearly
+two hours, which is a long read for me, laying the book aside from
+time to time, so that I might reflect at my ease on the tenacity with
+which it had clung to existence. Every effort had been made to drown
+it; again and again it had been flung into the river, literally and
+metaphorically, but it had managed to swim ashore like a cat. It would
+seem that some books have nine hundred and ninety and nine lives, and
+God knows how long my meditation might have lasted if the front door
+bell had not rung.
+
+"Are you at home, sir, to Mr.--?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+There is time for one word more, dear reader, and whilst my visitor
+lays his hat and coat on the table in the passage I will beseech you
+not to look forward to a sentimental story; "Spring Days" is as free
+from sentiment or morals as Daphnis and Chloe.
+
+G. M.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+
+"Miss, I'll have his blood; I will, miss, I will."
+
+"For goodness' sake, cook, go back to your kitchen; put that dreadful
+pair of boots under your apron."
+
+"No, miss; I'll be revenged. He has insulted me."
+
+"You can't be revenged now, cook; you see he has shut himself in; you
+had better go back to your kitchen."
+
+The groom, who was washing the carriage, stood, mop in hand, grinning,
+appreciating the discomfiture of the coachman, who was paying the
+penalty of his joke.
+
+"Cook, if you don't go back to your kitchen instantly, I'll give you
+notice. It is shameful--think what a scandal you are making in the
+stable-yard. Go back to your kitchen--I order you. It is half-past
+six, go and attend to your master's dinner."
+
+"He has insulted me, he has insulted me. I'll have your blood!" she
+cried, battering at the door. The rattling of chains was heard as the
+horses turned their heads.
+
+"Put those boots under your apron, cook; go back to your kitchen, do
+as I tell you."
+
+The woman retreated, Maggie following. At intervals there were
+stoppages, and cook re-stated her desire to have the coachman's blood.
+Maggie did not attempt to argue with her, but sternly repeated her
+order to go back to her kitchen, and to conceal the old boots under
+her apron.
+
+"What business had he to rummage in my box, interfering with my
+things; he put them all along the kitchen table; he did it because I
+told you, miss, that he was carrying on with the kitchenmaid. He goes
+with her every evening into the wood shed, and a married man, too! I
+wouldn't be his poor wife."
+
+"Go back to your kitchen, cook; do as I tell you."
+
+With muttered threats cook entered the house, and commanded the
+kitchenmaid to interfere no more with the oven, but to attend to her
+saucepans.
+
+"What a violent woman," thought Maggie, "horrid woman. I am sure she's
+Irish. I'll get rid of her as soon as I can. The place is filthy, but
+I daren't speak to her now. She's stirring the saucepan with her
+finger."
+
+At that moment quick steps were heard coming down the corridor, and
+Sally entered.
+
+"Cook, cook, I want you to put back the dinner half an hour. I have to
+go down the town."
+
+"O Sally, I beg of you, what will father say?"
+
+"Father isn't everybody. I daresay the train will be a little late; it
+often is. He won't know anything about it, that is if you don't tell
+him."
+
+"What do you want to go down the town for?"
+
+"Never you mind. I don't ask you what you do."
+
+"You want to go down the slonk," whispered Maggie.
+
+The cook stopped stirring the saucepan, and the kitchenmaid stood
+listening greedily.
+
+"Nothing of the kind," Sally answered defiantly. "You're always trying
+to get up something against me. Cook, will you keep back the dinner
+twenty minutes?"
+
+"Cook, I forbid you. I'm mistress here."
+
+"How dare you insult me before the servants! Grace is mistress here,
+if it comes to that."
+
+"Grace has given me over the housekeeping. I am mistress when she is
+too unwell to attend to it."
+
+"Nothing of the sort. Grace is the eldest, I would give way to her,
+but I'm not going to give way to you. Cook, the dinner won't be ready
+for another half hour, will it?"
+
+"I don't know when the dinner will be ready, and I don't care."
+
+"It is a quarter to seven now, dinner won't be ready before seven,
+will it, cook? Keep it back a bit. Now I must be off."
+
+And, as Maggie expected, Sally ran past the glass houses and the pear
+and apple trees, for there was at the end of the vegetable garden a
+door in the brick wall that enclosed the manor house. It was used by
+the gardeners, and it communicated with a path leading through some
+corn and grass land to the high road. There were five acres of land
+attached to the manor house, tennis lawn, shady walks, flower garden,
+kitchen garden, stables, and coach house at the back, and all this
+spoke in somewhat glaring fashion the wealth and ease of a rich city
+merchant.
+
+"There she goes," thought Maggie, flaunting her head. "What a fool she
+is to bully father instead of humouring him. We shall never hear the
+end of this. His dinner put back so that she may continue her
+flirtation with Meason! I shall have to tell the truth. Why should I
+tell a lie?"
+
+"Please, miss," said the butler as Maggie passed through the baize
+door, "I think it right to tell you about cook. We find it very hard
+to put up with her in the servants' hall. She is a very violent-
+tempered woman; nor can I say much for her in other respects. Last
+week she sold twenty pounds of dripping, and it wasn't all dripping,
+miss, it was for the most part butter."
+
+"John, I really can't listen to any more stories about cook. Has the
+quarter-to-seven come in yet?"
+
+"I haven't seen it pass, miss, but I saw Mr. Willy coming up the drive
+a minute ago."
+
+Willy entered, and she turned to him and said: "Where have you been
+to, Willy?"
+
+"Brighton. Has father come in yet?"
+
+"No. You came by the tramcar?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+With shoulders set well back and toes turned out, Willy came along the
+passage. His manner was full of deliberation, and he carried a small
+brown paper parcel under his arm as if it were a sword of state.
+Maggie followed him up the steep and vulgarly carpeted staircase that
+branched into the various passages forming the upper part of the
+house. Willy's room was precise and grave, and there everything was
+held under lock and key. He put the brown paper parcel on the table;
+he took off his coat and laid it on the bed, heaving, at the same
+time, a sigh.
+
+"Did you notice if the quarter-to-seven has been signalled?"
+
+"Yes, but don't keep on worrying; the train is coming along the
+embankment."
+
+"Then there will be a row to-night."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Sally told cook to keep the dinner back; she has gone down the slonk
+to speak to Meason."
+
+"Why didn't you tell cook that she must take her orders from you and
+no one else?"
+
+"So I did, but Sally said I was no more mistress here than she was. I
+said Grace had given me charge of the house, when she could not attend
+to it; but Sally will listen to no one, she'll drive father out of his
+mind. There's no one he hates like the Measons."
+
+"What is the matter with Grace? Where is she?"
+
+"She's in her room, lying on the bed crying. She says she wants to
+die; she says that she doesn't care what becomes of her. She'll never
+care for another man, and father will not give his consent. What's-
+his-name has nothing--only a small allowance; he'll never have any
+more, he isn't a working man. I know father, he'll never hear of any
+one who is not a working man. I wish you'd speak to her."
+
+"I've quite enough to do with my own affairs; I've had bad luck enough
+as it is, without running into new difficulties of my own accord."
+
+"If she refuses Berkins, father'll never get over it. I wish you would
+speak to her."
+
+"No, don't ask me. I never meddle in other people's affairs. I've had
+trouble enough. Now I want to dress."
+
+When Maggie went downstairs, she found her father in the drawing-room.
+
+"The train was a little late to-night. Has Willy come back from
+Brighton?"
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"I've been looking over his accounts and I find he has lost nearly two
+thousand pounds in Bond Street, and I don't think he is doing any good
+with that agency in Brighton. I never approved of one or the other. I
+approve of nothing but legitimate city business. Shops in the West
+End! mere gambling. Where is Grace?"
+
+"She's in her room."
+
+"In her room? I suppose she hasn't left it all day? This is very
+terrible. I don't know what to do with you. Since your poor mother
+died my life has been nothing but trouble and vexation. I can't manage
+you, you are too strong for me. So she hasn't left her room; crying
+her eyes out, because I won't consent to her marrying a penniless
+young officer! But I will not squander my money. I made it all myself,
+by my own industry, and I refuse to keep young fellows in idleness."
+
+"I don't give you any trouble, father."
+
+"You are the best, Maggie, but you encourage your sister Sally. I hear
+that you, too, were seen walking with young Meason."
+
+"It is not true, I assure you, father. I met him as I was going to the
+post-office. I said, 'How do you do?' and I passed on."
+
+"Where is Sally?"
+
+"She went out a few minutes ago."
+
+"Didn't she know the time? She ought to be dressing for dinner. Do you
+know where she's gone?"
+
+"I think she went down the slonk."
+
+His children had inherited his straight, sharp features and his small,
+black, vivid eyes. Their hair was of various hues of black. Maggie's
+was raven black and glossy; Sally's was coarse and of a hue like
+black-lead; Grace's was abundant and relieved with sooty shades;
+Willy's hair was brown. He was the fair one of the family, and his
+hair was always closely cut in military fashion, and he wore a long
+flowing military moustache with a tinge of red in it. His father and
+he were built on the same lines--long, spare bodies, short necks and
+legs, and short, spare arms, and if the father's white hair were dyed
+the years that separated him from his son would disappear, for
+although the son had only just turned thirty, he was middle-aged in
+face and feeling.
+
+Sally and Grace were both thickly built, the latter a little inclined
+to fat. Maggie was thin and elegantly angular, and often stood in
+picturesque attitudes; she stood in one now, with her hands linked
+behind her back, and she watched her father, and her look was subtle
+and insinuating.
+
+"When I came here," he said, speaking rapidly, and as if he were
+speaking to himself, "the place was well enough; there was nothing but
+those wretched cottages facing the sea, the green, and a few cottages
+about it; but since those villas have been put up, Southwick has
+become unbearable. All my troubles," he murmured, "originated in the
+Southdown Road."
+
+Maggie turned aside, smiled, and bit her lip; she did not speak,
+however, for she knew her father did not care to be interrupted in his
+musings.
+
+"A hateful place--glass porticoes, and oleographs on the walls." Here
+Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk to admire one of his favourite Friths.
+"Those ridiculous haberdashers, with a bas-relief of the founder of
+their house over the doorway. The proprietors of the baths, the
+Measons, poor as church mice, the son a mate of a merchant vessel--
+these are not proper associates for my daughters. I will not know
+them; I will not have them in my house."
+
+"The Measons are quite as good as we are, father. They may be poor,
+but as far as family goes--"
+
+"You are just the same as the others, Maggie; once there is a young
+man to flirt with, you don't care what he is or where he comes from.
+When there are no young men, you will snub the old ladies fast enough;
+and as for Sally, she is downright rude. I didn't want to see the
+haberdashers, but while they were in my house I was polite to them."
+
+"It was the Horlocks who told them to call."
+
+"I know it was. If Mrs. Horlock likes to know these people, let her
+know them; but what does she want to force them upon us for? That's
+what I want to know. We might never have known any one in the
+Southdown Road; I mean we never should, we never could have known any
+one in the Southdown Road if Mrs. Horlock hadn't come to live there.
+We had to call upon her."
+
+"Every Viceroy in India called upon her. She was the only woman whom
+every Viceroy did call upon."
+
+"I know she was. Of course we had to call upon her. Most interesting
+woman; the General is very nice, too. I like them exceedingly. I often
+go to see them, although the smell of that mastiff is more than I can
+bear in the hot weather, especially if lilies or strong smelling
+flowers are in the room."
+
+"She feeds the mice, she won't let them be destroyed, she lets the
+traps down at night."
+
+"Don't let us go into the animal question. The constant smell of dogs
+is unpleasant, but I could put up with it--what I can't stand are her
+acquaintances in the Southdown Road, and when I think that we should
+not have known any of them if it hadn't been for her! Indirectly--I do
+not say directly--she is the cause of all my difficulties. It was at
+her house Sally met young Meason; it was at her house Grace met that
+young officer for whom she is crying her eyes out; and it was at her
+house--yes, I hadn't thought of it before--it was at her house that
+Willy met that swindler who induced him to put two thousand pounds
+into the Bond Street shop. The Southdown Road might have remained here
+for the next five hundred years, and we should have known nothing of
+it had it not been for Mrs. Horlock; if she likes to know these people
+let her know them, but why force them upon us? It was only the other
+day she was talking to me about calling on some new friends of hers
+who have come to live there. I dare say it is the custom to call on
+every one at Calcutta, but I say that Calcutta etiquette is not
+Southwick etiquette, and I don't care how many Viceroys called upon
+her, I will not know the Southdown Road."
+
+The enunciation of this last sentence was deliberate and impassioned.
+Mr. Brookes walked twice across the room; then he stood, his hands
+crossed behind his back, looking at his admired Goodall. His anger
+melted, and he mused on the price he had paid, and the price he
+thought it was now worth. Fearing he would return to the Southdown
+Road trouble, Maggie said: "I am afraid we shall be obliged to get rid
+of the new cook. She is Irish. Just before you came in I found her in
+the stable-yard threatening to break Holt's head with a pair of
+dreadful old boots."
+
+"I don't want to hear about the cook. The money you spend in
+housekeeping is enormous. Since your poor mother died I haven't had a
+day's peace. If it isn't one thing it is another. You are fit for
+nothing but pleasure and flirtation; there isn't a young man in the
+place or within ten miles you haven't flirted with. I am often ashamed
+to look them in the face at the station. It is past seven; why isn't
+dinner ready?"
+
+"Sally told the cook to put the dinner back half an hour."
+
+"Sally told the cook to put my dinner back half an hour!"
+
+Mr. Brookes's face grew livid. The end of all things was at hand; his
+dinner had been put back half an hour! This was a climax in the
+affairs of his life, which for the moment he failed to grasp or
+estimate. Was a father ever cursed with such daughters as his? He had
+been in the City all day working for them; he did not marry because he
+wished to leave them his money, and this was the return they made to
+him. His dinner had been put back half an hour! Passion sustained him
+for a while; but he gave way, and, pulling out a silk handkerchief, he
+sank into a chair.
+
+"Don't cry, father, don't cry. Sally is thoughtless; she didn't mean
+it."
+
+Mr. Brookes wept for a few minutes; Maggie strove to soothe him; he
+waved her away, he wiped his eyes and in a voice broken with anguish,
+"Ah, well," he said, "I suppose it will be all the same a hundred
+years hence." In moments of extreme trouble he sought refuge in such
+philosophy, but now it seemed inadequate and superficial, and Maggie
+had begun to fear the violence of the storm she had brewed. She did
+not mind stimulating ill-feeling, but she did not wish Sally to
+provoke her father recklessly.
+
+The possibility of his marrying again and having a second family was
+the one restraining influence Mr. Brookes still retained over his
+daughters, so Maggie, who was always keenly alive to the remotest
+consequences of her actions, took care that his home never became
+quite unbearable to him; and when Sally entered the room, dark and
+brilliant in red velvet, and in no way disposed to admit she had been
+guilty of heinous wrong in countermanding the dinner, Maggie attempted
+a gentle pouring of oil on the waters. But waving aside her sister's
+gentle interposition, she said: "You mustn't think of yourself only,
+father. I admit I told the cook to put back the dinner a few minutes.
+What then?"
+
+"You did it that you might finish your conversation with young
+Meason," said Mr. Brookes, but his words were weak, it being doubtful
+if even Meason could add to the original offence, so culminating and
+final did it seem to him.
+
+"Maggie didn't tell you that last week she met him on the sea road,
+and walked with him into Portslade."
+
+"Father, father, I beg of you, now, don't cry; think of the servants."
+
+And it was in such unity of mind and feeling that this family sat down
+to dinner in the great dining-room, rich with all comforts and adorned
+with pictures by Frith and Goodall. Sally, who unfortunately knew no
+fear, talked defiantly; she addressed herself principally to her
+brother, and she questioned him persistently, although the replies she
+received were generally monosyllabic. As he chewed his meat with
+reflection and precaution, broke his bread with deliberate and well-
+defined movements, and filled his mouth with carefully chosen pieces,
+he gradually ventured to decide that he would not speak to his father
+that evening of the scheme he had been hatching for some months. It
+was one of his strictest rules not to think while eating, so it may be
+said that it was against his will that he arrived at this conclusion.
+Willy suffered from indigestion, and he knew that any exercise of the
+brain was most prejudicial at meal times.
+
+After dinner Mr. Brookes and his son retired to the billiard-room to
+smoke.
+
+"Your sisters are a great trouble to me--a very great anxiety. Since
+your poor mother died I've had no peace, none whatever. Poor Julia,
+she's gone; I shall never see her again."
+
+Willy made no answer. He was debating; he was still uncertain whether
+the present time could be considered a favourable one to introduce his
+scheme to his father's notice, and he had made up his mind that it
+was, when he was interrupted by Mr. Brookes, who had again lapsed into
+one of his semi-soliloquies.
+
+"Your sisters give me a great deal of trouble, a very great deal of
+anxiety. I am all alone. I have no one to help me since the death of
+your poor mother."
+
+"My sisters are fitted for nothing but pleasure," Willy replied
+severely.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+
+Mr. Brookes went to London every day by the five minutes to ten; Willy
+walked into Brighton. There he had been for some time striving to
+found an agency for artificial manures, and in the twilight of a small
+office he brooded over the different means of making money that were
+open to him. The young ladies worked or played as it struck their
+fancy. Sally admitted that she infinitely preferred walking round the
+garden with a young man to doing wool-work in the drawing-room. Maggie
+shared this taste, although she did not make bold profession of it.
+Grace was the gentlest of the sisters, and had passed unnoticed until
+she had fallen in love with a penniless officer, and tortured her
+father with tears and haggard cheeks because he refused to supply her
+with money to keep a husband. The doctor had ordered her iron; she had
+been sent to London for a change, but neither remedy was of much
+avail, and when she returned home pale and melancholy she had not
+taken the keys from Maggie, but had allowed her to usurp her place
+inthe house. Sally was supposed to look after the conservatories, but
+beyond her own special flowers she left everything to the gardeners.
+
+On Sundays Mr. Brookes walked through the long drawing-rooms
+aimlessly. Sometimes he would stop before one of his pictures. "There,
+that's a good picture, I paid a lot of money for it, I paid too much,
+mustn't do so again." Passing his daughters, sometimes without
+speaking, he then stopped before one of the big chimney-pieces, and,
+pulling out his large silk pocket handkerchief, dusted the massive
+clocks and candlesticks.
+
+In the billiard-room, at a table drawn up close to the coke fire,
+Willy slowly and with much care made pencil notes, which he slowly and
+with great solemnity copied into his diary.
+
+"Your sisters are a great source of trouble to me, a source of deep
+anxiety," said Mr. Brookes, and he flicked the rearing legs of a
+bronze horse with his handkerchief.
+
+"My sisters are only fit for pleasure," said Willy and he finished the
+tail of the y, passed the blotting paper over, and prepared to begin a
+fresh paragraph.
+
+"I am afraid Grace is scarcely any better; she will not leave her
+room. I hear she is crying. It is too ridiculous, too ridiculous. What
+she can see in that man I can't think; he is only a man of pleasure.
+I've told her so, but somehow she can't get to see why I will not
+settle money upon her--money that I made myself, by hard work,
+judicious investments."
+
+"That's a smack at the shop," thought Willy, as he placed his full
+stop.
+
+"I'll not settle my money upon her," said Mr. Brookes, as he resumed
+his dusting; "and for what? to keep an idle fellow in idleness. No,
+I'll not do it. She'll get over it--ah, it will be all the same a
+hundred years hence. But tell me, have you noticed--no, you notice
+nothing--"
+
+"Yes, I do; what do you want me to say, that she is looking very ill?
+I can't help it if she is. I've quite enough troubles of my own
+without thinking of other people's. I'm sure I am very sorry. I wish
+she'd never met the fellow."
+
+"That's what I say, I wish she'd never met the fellow, and she never
+would had it not been for that horrible Southdown Road. Southwick has
+never been the same since those villas were put up."
+
+"I know nothing about them; I won't know them. I don't go to the
+Horlocks because I may meet people there I don't want to know. If you
+hadn't allowed the girls to go there, she never would have met him."
+
+"But we had to call on the Horlocks. Every Viceroy that ever came to
+India called upon her, and they're excellent people--titled people
+come down from London to see them: but I daresay their banking
+accounts wouldn't bear looking into. She walks about the green with
+the chemist's wife, and has the people of the baths to dinner.
+Mostextraordinary woman. I like her, I enjoy her society; but I can't
+follow her in her opinions. She says that only men are bad; that all
+animals are good; that it is only men who make them bad. Her views on
+hydrophobia are most astonishing. She says it is a mild and easy
+death, and sees no reason why the authorities should attempt to stamp
+it out. She quite frightened me with the story she told me of a mad
+dog that died in her arms. But that by the way. The point is not now
+whether she is right to feed mice in her bedroom instead of getting
+rid of them, but whether we should call on people we don't want to
+know because she asks us to do so. I say we should not. When she spoke
+to me the other day about the lady whose mother was a housemaid, I
+said, 'My dear Mrs. Horlock, it is very well for you to call on those
+people. I approve of, I admire magnanimity; but what you can do I
+cannot do. You have no daughters to bring out; every Viceroy that ever
+came to India called on you, your position in the world is assured,
+your friends will not think the less of you no matter how intimately
+you know the chemist's wife, but you could not do these things if you
+had daughters to bring out.'"
+
+"What did she say to that?"
+
+"She was just going out to walk with her pugs. Angel began to--you
+know, and for the moment she could think of nothing else; when the
+little beast had finished I had forgotten the thread of my argument.
+However, I spoke to her about Grace; and she promised that she
+shouldn't meet the fellow again. I can't think of his name, I get lost
+in the different names, and they are all so alike I scarcely know one
+from the other. I have had nothing but trouble since your poor mother
+died. Your sisters give me a great deal of trouble, and you have given
+me a great deal of trouble. We couldn't get on in business together on
+account of your infernal slowness. No man is more for keeping his
+accounts and letters straight than I, but your exactitude drives me
+mad; it drives me mad; there you are at it again. I should like to
+know what you are copying into that diary. One would think you were
+writing an article for the _Times_, from the care with which you're
+drawing out every letter; 'pon my word it isn't writing at all, it's
+painting. You can't write for a pair of boots without taking a copy of
+the letter, entering it into this book, and entering it into that book;
+'pon my word it is maddening."
+
+Willy laughed. "Each person has his own way of doing business; I don't
+see how it interferes with you, or what difference it makes to you, if
+I spend three minutes or three days writing a letter."
+
+"Perhaps not, perhaps not; but I am terribly upset about Grace," said
+Mr. Brookes, and he walked slowly across the room and stood looking at
+his Bouguereau; "she'll get over it, but in any case she'll miss her
+chance of marrying Berkins; that is what distresses me. The man stinks
+of money. I hear that he has been appointed manager of a colliery,
+that alone will bring him another thousand a year. His business is
+going up, he must be worth now between seven and eight thousand a
+year. And he began as an office boy, he hadn't a penny piece, made it
+all himself."
+
+"So I should think; a purse-proud ass!"
+
+"Never mind, his eight thousand is as good an eight thousand as any in
+the land, better than a great many. I wouldn't give a snap of my
+fingers for your broken-down landowners; Berkins has always made
+excellent investments, and I hear he is now getting as much as fifteen
+per cent. for money invested."
+
+Willy had been to Oxford, and the arrogance and pomposity of this
+purse-proud man shocked his sense of decorum. Berkins's vulgarity was
+more offensive than that of Mr. Brookes. Mr. Brookes was a simple,
+middle-class man, who had made money straightforwardly and honestly,
+and he had cultivated his natural taste for pictures to the limit of
+his capacities and opportunities. Berkins, however, had been born a
+gentleman, but had had to shift for himself, even when a lad, and he
+had caught at all chances; he was more sophisticated, he was a
+gentleman in a state of retrograde, and was in all points inferior to
+him whom he crossed in his descent. Berkins had bought a small place,
+a villa with some hundred acres attached to it, on the other side of
+Preston Park. There he had erected glass houses, and bred a few
+pheasants in the corner of a field, and it surprised him to find that
+the county families took no notice of him. Mr. Brookes had
+sympathised, but the young people laughed at him and Willy had told a
+story how he had been to shoot at ----, and when a partridge got up
+right in front of his gun, Berkins turned round and shot it,
+exclaiming: "That's the way to bring them down!"
+
+And now whenever his name was mentioned, Willy thought of this
+incident, so very typical did it seem to him of the man, and he liked
+to twit his father with it. But Mr. Brookes could not be brought to
+see the joke, and he fell back on the plausible and insidious argument
+that, notwithstanding his manners, Berkins was worth eight thousand a
+year.
+
+"And very few girls get the chance of catching eight thousand a year;
+and she'll miss it, she'll miss it if she doesn't take care."
+
+"You talk of it as if it were an absolute certainty; you don't know
+that Berkins wants to marry Grace; he hasn't been here for the last
+month."
+
+"Mr. Berkins is not like the young good-for-nothings your sisters
+waste their time with, he is a man of means, of eight thousand a year;
+you don't expect him to come round here every evening to tea, and to
+play tennis, and to walk in the moonlight and talk nonsense. Berkins
+is a man of means, he is a man who can make a settlement."
+
+"Has he spoken to you on the subject, then?"
+
+"No, Mr. Berkins is a man of tact, however you may laugh at him for
+having shot your partridge. He spoke to your Aunt Mary, or rather she
+spoke to him. Ah, clever woman, your Aunt Mary, wonderful manner,
+wonderful will, when she wants a thing done it must be done. Your poor
+mother--I mean no disparagement--but I must say she couldn't compare
+with her for determination; Sally reminds me of her, but Sally's
+determination is misdirected, deplorably misdirected; it is directed
+against me, entirely against me. She must be made submissive; when I
+spoke to Aunt Mary about her, she said her spirit must be broken; and
+if she were here she'd break it. If she were here things would be very
+different, your sisters wouldn't be flirting with all the little
+clerks in the Southdown Road; but I am alone. I have no one to turn
+to."
+
+"You were telling me that Berkins had spoken to Aunt Mary about
+Grace."
+
+"Your Aunt Mary spoke to Berkins about Grace; she told him he ought to
+be thinking of marrying; that he wanted a wife. Then the conversation
+turned on my daughters, and Mary no doubt mentioned that at my death
+they would all have large fortunes."
+
+"Ah, so it is the money that Berkins is after."
+
+"Money comes first. If a man can make a settlement he will naturally
+demand a--that is to say he will naturally look forward, he will
+consider what her prospects are; not her immediate prospects, that
+would be mercenary, but her future prospects."
+
+Willy smiled. "And what did Berkins say?"
+
+"He said he wanted to marry, and he spoke of Grace; he said he admired
+her. I shouldn't be surprised if we saw him at church to-day."
+
+"Are you going to ask him to lunch?"
+
+"Certainly, if he's there." Then, after a long silence, Mr. Brookes
+said: "He'll come in here to smoke. Of course you'll leave us alone.
+Do you mind leaving out your cigars?"
+
+"I have only half a box left; I think really you might keep some in
+the house to supply your own guests with. You always object if I
+interfere with your things."
+
+"I am out of my best cigars--it is so hard to remember. He won't smoke
+more than one."
+
+"I'll put one in the cigar case then."
+
+"You had better fill it; it will look so bad if there is only one; he
+won't take it."
+
+"He'll take all he can get; he took my bird, I know that!"
+
+"This is a matter of great importance."
+
+"To you and to Grace, not to me," said Willy, and with very bad grace
+he unlocked a drawer, and placed a box of cigars on the table.
+
+"Thank you. Now what time is it? Half-past ten. By Jove! we must be
+thinking of starting; I suppose you aren't coming?"
+
+"I am afraid I've too much to do this morning."
+
+The young ladies appeared in new dresses, and with prayer-books in
+their hands. Mr. Brookes took his hat and umbrella, and Willy watched
+them depart with undisguised satisfaction. "Now I shall be able to get
+through some work," he said, untying a large bundle of letters. He
+wrote a page in his diary, tied up the letters, diary, and notebook in
+brown paper, and, with a sigh, admitting that he did not feel up to
+much work to-day, he took up the envelopes that had contained his
+letters and began tearing off the stamps, and he did this very
+attentively as if he did not trust his dry thick fingers. Somebody had
+told him that ten thousand old stamps were worth--he had forgotten the
+price of old stamps, and wondering he dozed off. When he awoke he
+cried: "Half-past twelve, they must be on their way back; I wonder if
+Berkins is with them!" And he strolled out on the gravel.
+
+A few spring flowers marked the brown earth about the trees, and a
+beautiful magnolia, white as a bride, shed its shell-like petals in an
+angle beneath a window; the gold of the berberis glowed at the end of
+the path; and the greenery was blithe as a girl in clear muslin and
+ribbons. The blackbirds chattered and ran, and in turn flew to the pan
+of water placed for them, and drank, lifting their heads with
+exquisite motion. The trees rustled in the cold wind; the sky was
+white along the embankment, where an engine moved slowly up and down
+the line.
+
+Willy was sensible that the scene was pleasant and pretty, and
+remembering he was fond of birds, he thrust his hands deeper in his
+pockets and walked slowly down the drive, his toes well turned out. "I
+wonder if they met Berkins at church?" was the question he put to
+himself gravely. "What a cad he is! No wonder the county people fight
+shy of us; a fellow like that is enough to close their doors against
+us for ever. My father pooh-poohs everything but riches; he positively
+flies in their faces, so what can I do? I don't care to ask my Oxford
+friends down here; one never knows how he will receive them. He can
+talk of nothing but his business. Had I a free hand, had I not been so
+hampered, we might have known all the best county families, even
+theduke."
+
+The latch of the gate clicked, and Mr. Brookes and his family
+appeared. Maggie and Sally walked on the right and left of their
+father; Grace came on behind with Berkins, and it seemed to Willy that
+the city magnate bore himself with something even more than his usual
+dignity. At first sight he suggested that anomalous creature--a
+footman with a beard; and the slow, deliberate enunciation marked him
+as one accustomed to speak in public. His manner of sitting at a table
+suggested letters and dictation of letters, his manner of moving his
+glasses on his nose accounts, and at no moment would it have been
+surprising to see him place his strong finger at the bottom of a line
+of figures, and begin "Gentlemen," etc.
+
+During lunch, Sally and Maggie spoke in undertones; they glanced
+occasionally at Grace, who sat by and received Berkins's bald remarks
+with deference. The girls trembled with excitement; they had pressed
+and extorted from Grace a hurried statement of what had happened.
+Berkins had proposed to her, he had told her he had never seen any one
+except her whom he would care to make his wife. What had she said? She
+didn't know. She couldn't really remember. She had been taken so
+suddenly, she was so upset, that she hadn't known what to say. She
+thought she had said something about the honour--but she really had
+not had time to say much, for at that moment they were at the gate.
+Did she intend to accept him? She didn't know; she could not make up
+her mind. It was a terrible thing to throw over poor Jack; she didn't
+think she could do it--no matter what father might say. However, she
+knew he would never give his consent, so it was no use thinking,
+
+"I hope she won't begin to cry," whispered Sally, who had followed
+Maggie to the sideboard.
+
+"Father looks as if he were going to cry," replied Maggie, moving the
+decanters and pretending to look for a glass.
+
+Seven thousand a year, ten thousand a year! Would Grace have him? What
+would father settle on her? The sum he settled on her he must settle
+on them when they married. As Berkins's wife Grace would have
+servants, jewels, rich dresses, and a house in London, and they
+thought of the advantage this marriage would be to them.
+
+The knives clattered; cheese and celery were being eaten. Mr. Brookes
+had drunk several glasses of port, and was on the verge of tears.
+Berkins's high shoulders and large voice dominated the dining-table;
+he was decidedly more than usually impressed by his own worth, and the
+worth of the money of which he was the representative. Willy chewed
+his cheese; there were many wrinkles about his eyes--deep lines
+turning towards the ears; and when he lifted his tumbler one noticed
+the little nails, almost worn away, of his lean hands.
+
+At last Mr. Brookes said: "I daresay you would like a cigar, Berkins--
+will you come into the billiard-room?"
+
+Berkins inclined to this suggestion. Willy, who had not quite
+finished, remained at table. The girls watched each other, and as soon
+as the elderly men turned their backs they fled upstairs to their
+rooms.
+
+"Will you try one of these?" said Mr. Brookes, offering a box of
+choice havannas.
+
+"Thank you. My tobacconist--I must ask you to visit his shop--receives
+just a few cases of a very special cigar; I have at least two-thirds
+of them, sometimes more; when you dine with me I'll give you one. This
+is Chartreuse, I think. My wine merchant knows a man whose cousin is
+one of the monks. Now the monks set aside the very cream of the
+liqueur, if I may so speak, for themselves. This liqueur cannot be
+bought in the open market. You may go up to London prepared to write a
+cheque for any figure you may like to name, and I will defy you to buy
+a bottle. I never have any other. It is really quite delicious. I
+daresay I could get you some."
+
+Mr. Brookes expressed thanks for the amiable offer, and both men
+smoked on in silence.
+
+"Do you play billiards?"
+
+"No. Do you?"
+
+"No."
+
+Inwardly they congratulated themselves. Presently Mr. Brookes said: "I
+hear you have been staying with my sister, Mrs. Haltom. You were
+shooting there, were you not?"
+
+"Yes, they were kind enough to ask me. Very nice shooting they have,
+too."
+
+"I hear that you have gone in for rearing pheasants."
+
+"Yes; we shot a hundred brace last year."
+
+The conversation dropped, and in an impressive silence both men
+wondered what they had better say to lead honourably up to the subject
+they had come to speak on.
+
+"Is your house your own design? Did you build it entirely yourself?
+Iforget. I ought to know; you told me all about it when I dined with
+you."
+
+"There was a house there, but I altered it considerably after my own
+idea, and not a bad idea, I flatter myself. I spent a good deal of
+money in laying out the grounds, putting up conservatories, and so
+forth."
+
+"You are a single man?"
+
+"For a single man the house is, of course, too large; but I do not
+intend to remain always single, and--and now, Mr. Brookes, as we are
+on the subject, I had better tell you that I have asked Miss Brookes
+to be my wife."
+
+Mr. Brookes grasped at the first words. "I am sure I am very pleased
+to hear it, Mr. Berkins, and I hope the answer was a favourable one."
+
+"Miss Brookes is a modest girl. She has been well brought up, as a
+girl who is, I hope, to be my wife should be, and she was naturally a
+little overcome. I did not exactly catch what she said, and I didn't
+like to press her for an immediate answer. But suppose we assume for
+the moment that Miss Brookes's reply will be a favourable one--I have,
+I confess, much faith in her good sense--we might consider the
+business side."
+
+Notwithstanding his admiration of a man who had made three thousand a
+year more than he had succeeded in doing, Mr. Brookes could not but
+feel irritated at Berkins, who, with increasing gravity, continued to
+assume all things to his own advantage. It had not occurred to him to
+consider that Grace might refuse him. Why should she refuse him? She
+could not hope to do better. She appeared to him as a very nice girl
+indeed, one entirely fitted for the position for which he intended
+her. He understood that all girls, at least those in society, were
+innocent and virtuous; he understood that when they married they made
+faithful and dutiful wives; and he had chosen her not because he had
+fallen in love, nor yet because he had noticed she was likely to make
+a better wife than her sisters, but because she was the eldest. Even
+so he would be twenty years his wife's senior, and he had chosen to
+marry one of the Brookes girls because he knew them and saw them
+constantly; because he knew that at their father's death his fortune
+would be divided between them. Grace was, therefore, an heiress in
+perspective. The prospect was agreeable, but he foresaw that it would
+be put forward as an excuse for fixing the sum of marriage settlements
+as low as possible. It would, however, be difficult for Brookes to
+settle less on his daughter than he, Berkins, was willing to settle on
+his wife; so partly in the hopes of forcing Mr. Brookes, and partly
+because of the pleasure it gave him to speak of himself, he continued
+talking of his position and possessions.
+
+"In dealing with me," he said, "you are dealing, as you know, Mr.
+Brookes, with a man of means, a man who can afford to do the thing
+properly; you will not misunderstand me--you remember you told me that
+you had great difficulty in keeping the little folk who live here out
+of your house."
+
+"The neighbourhood has never been the same since they put up that row
+of villas. A lot of indigent fortune-hunters, they know my girls will
+have large fortunes at my death, so they come sneaking round the place
+like so many wolves."
+
+"I can readily sympathise with you; one doesn't make money to keep
+idle young fellows in the luxuries of life."
+
+"That is what I say."
+
+"But you aren't sufficiently firm, Mr. Brookes; had you been brought
+up in the hard school that I was you would be more firm; firmness is
+everything. You married early, I couldn't afford to do that. At
+sixteen I had to shift for myself. I was three years a clerk at two
+pounds a week, and not many chances to rise come in the way of a clerk
+at two pounds a week; he must be pretty sharp, and if he doesn't seize
+the little chance when it comes, he will remain a little clerk all his
+life. It is the first steps that are difficult, the rest are nothing.
+You don't know what the first steps are; I do. Once you've made a
+thousand pounds you can swim along a bit, but the first hundred, I
+shall never forget it! Afterwards it is just the same; the proportions
+are changed, that is all. The first twenty thousand is very uphill
+work, the second is on the flat, the third is going downhill--it
+brings itself along."
+
+"A very good simile indeed. There's no doubt that it is money that
+makes money. When you have none you cannot make it. It is like corn;
+give a man a handful, and he must be a fool if he can't fill his barn.
+The beginnings are hard; none knows that better than I. But for the
+last ten years I've been doing fairly well."
+
+"I had never intended to get married, but when money really begins to
+accumulate it pushes you along. It is curious how money takes you
+along. It is like a tide. You first begin thinking of a little place
+in the country where you can stay from Saturday till Monday. The
+little place grows; it is extraordinary how it grows. You find you
+want flowers, and you put up a glass house; then you begin to get
+interested in orchids or roses, and you put up two, maybe half a dozen
+glass houses. Suddenly you find the rabbits are breeding in the
+hedgerows, and you go out yonder ferretting, but the coachman does not
+know how to manage the ferrets, and you start a keeper. The keeper
+says one morning, 'It wouldn't require much to get up a stock of
+pheasants in that little wood.' You say, 'Very well;' and there you
+are before you know it, with glass houses, rabbit-shooting, and a
+pheasant preserve. You have friends to stay with you for the shooting,
+you get talked about in the clubs, people ask why you aren't married--
+the place where the wife ought to be stares you in the face: a man of
+money, of real money, must get married. The friends who come and stay
+with you suggest a little dance, you think it would be very pleasant;
+but you know no one in the neighbourhood, the county people won't
+visit you, so the thing comes about, and you are head over heels in
+settlements before you know where you are."
+
+"Do you find the county people very standoffish over Preston Park
+way?"
+
+"I am not in a position to judge; they could not very well call on me
+situated as I am, a young--well, I will say, a marriageable--man,
+known to be wealthy; but I have no doubt when I am married they will
+call on us."
+
+"Twirl them round my little finger, stuck-up lot; I should like to
+know what they have to be proud of, half of them are broken--their
+land is worthless. Give me good sound investments, five or six per
+cent. For some money I am getting seven; the waterworks pays
+fourteen."
+
+The conversation suddenly dropped, they looked at each other blankly;
+they felt they had talked a good deal, but without approaching any
+nearer the subject they had met to speak on.
+
+"Our intention was," said Berkins, in his most solemn and professional
+manner, "assuming that Miss Brookes is not averse from my suit, to
+discuss the business side, for there is a business side to all
+questions, as you, Mr. Brookes, will be the first to see."
+
+Mr. Brookes had begun to anger; he would have liked to have answered
+that such a discussion was altogether premature, but he yielded before
+Berkins's authoritative manner, and he replied instead that he would
+be glad indeed to hear whatever proposal Mr. Berkins had to make.
+
+"I should like to say, then--I will assume that we stand as man to
+man, equal; you have probably more money invested than I; I am making
+possibly a larger income--you will forgive me if I am mistaken, but
+you told me the other day as we went up in the train that you had had
+a very bad year."
+
+"Three thousand dead loss. It does not matter so much to me, my money
+is invested, but it would have gone hard with many a man who was
+relying on his business. Three thousand pounds dead loss!"
+
+"How was that? I suppose the temperance societies affect you; they
+must have had a great effect on the sale of liquor."
+
+"No one who was not in the trade would believe in the falling off in
+the quantity of whisky drunk. But it was not that."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Trade generally, trade depression affects every one; the failure of
+one makes bad debts for the other. It was bad debts that did it. It
+was very stupid of me, but I was worried at home: those fortune-
+hunters from the villas--my daughters are very young, and since their
+poor mother died they have had no one to look after them. Willy, too,
+is a great trial to me. Poor boy, he is most anxious to do something,
+but things don't go right with him; he thought he was going to do a
+good thing in a Bond Street shop that was converted into a company,
+but he lost two thousand pounds."
+
+"I thought he was in the distillery with you."
+
+"He was for a while, but he irritated me; he is so confoundedly
+methodical, everything must go into his diary, he spends half the day
+filling it up. Besides after you have conducted a business so many
+years you don't want a partner; you have your own way of doing things,
+and don't want to be interfered with. He draws a certain income, but
+he has nothing now to do with the business. We were talking of
+settlements."
+
+"You do not act as I should regarding the villa residences. I would
+put them down. I would not have it; but, as you say, we were talking
+of settlements. I think I said we stood as man to man. In round
+numbers your fortune equals mine, mine equals yours--very well, let us
+act equally. I will settle five hundred a year on Miss Brookes, do you
+likewise; what do you say to that?"
+
+"Pooh, pooh! I couldn't think of such a thing. Five hundred a year!"
+said Mr. Brookes, and throwing his cigar into the fireplace, he walked
+up the room indignantly. "I was wrong to consent to discuss the
+matter; to say the least, it is premature; I never heard of such a
+thing. Five hundred a year! This is worse than the Southdown Road,
+many degrees worse."
+
+"Sir, such insinuations are most uncalled for; I must beg of you to
+withdraw them. I must ask you to remember you are talking to one at
+least in the same position as yourself, to a man of seven thousand a
+year!"
+
+"Pooh, pooh! seven thousand a year--you are making that to-day, to-
+morrow you mayn't be making three. Yours isn't invested money."
+
+Berkins had risen from the great leather armchair, and he stood
+expressionless as a piece of office furniture, his grave face divided
+by the green shade of the billiard lamp; Mr. Brookes remained with his
+back--his straight fat back bound in a new frock coat that defined the
+senile fatness of the haunches--turned to his guest. He stooped as if
+to examine his favourite Linnell, but, in his passion, he did not see
+it. The table, covered with a grey cloth, lay like an account spread
+out between the moneyed men.
+
+"Taking your words into due consideration, I think I had better wish
+you good-morning, Mr. Brookes."
+
+"Mr. Berkins, I would not wish you to misunderstand me," said Mr.
+Brookes, whom the prospect of losing seven thousand a year had
+suddenly cooled. "My daughter will have--my children, I should say--
+will have my fortune divided amongst them at my death, and when we
+come to go into figures you will find--"
+
+"But in the meantime, what do you propose to settle on her?"
+
+Mr. Brookes hesitated. He was angry at being pressed. Berkins's
+domineering tone irritated him; he would have liked to bundle him from
+the house.
+
+Presently he said: "I think, considering the very large sums of money
+my daughters will come into at my death, that a settlement of two
+hundred a year is ample."
+
+"Very well, in that case I shall settle the same."
+
+"I could not, I will not, consent to any such arrangement. The man my
+daughter marries must settle on her a sum of money equivalent--"
+
+"To what you settle on her."
+
+"To her position, to her expectations," replied Mr. Brookes, growing
+more and more angry.
+
+"But I don't know what her expectations are; you may marry again."
+"I do not intend to marry again."
+
+"Very possibly, but I know nothing of that; business is business, and
+I should be a fool if I settle five hundred to your two hundred."
+
+Mr. Brookes stopped in his walk, and he looked at Berkins, who stood,
+his hand laid upon the billiard table as upon a huge balance sheet.
+The word business had carried the men back to their offices in London,
+and, quite forgetful of the subject of their bargaining, each strove
+to obtain an advantage over the other.
+
+"Well, let us say two hundred and fifty, that is my last word."
+
+"Then, Mr. Brookes, I will not take your daughter."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+
+"Willy, make haste, I beg of you; I shall miss my train. It is now
+exactly half-past nine."
+
+"You had better go without me; I cannot start now. I haven't nearly
+got my things together."
+
+"Very well, very well."
+
+Willy walked from room to room tying and untying brown paper parcels
+in his most methodical and most dilatory manner. His sisters stood
+watching him from the drawing-room door.
+
+"Did father tell you nothing when Berkins left? They had a row, hadn't
+they? It isn't off, is it?"
+
+"I wish you would not speak so loud, Sally; you can be heard all over
+the house."
+
+"Do tell us."
+
+"But I don't know. Father was very much upset. I couldn't speak to him
+about my own business, I know that."
+
+"Well, I suppose we shall hear about it to-night. You are going to
+meet Frank in Brighton, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes; he is coming to lunch with me."
+
+"Don't keep him all day; send him on here, we might have a game of
+tennis."
+
+Willy did not answer; and he thought as he went upstairs, what a
+trouble young girls were in a house. "They think of nothing but
+pleasure, nothing but pleasure."
+
+One, two, or three more delays, and he was ready, and with his brown
+paper parcel tucked under his arm he set forth. Upon the young blue of
+the sky, the fresh green of the buds melted. There were a few elms,
+but hardly enough to constitute an avenue. The house looked as if it
+had been repeatedly altered. It ran into unexpected corners and
+angles; but it was far enough from the road to justify a gate lodge.
+The swards were interspersed with shrubs in the most modern fashion,
+and the sumptuous glass-houses could be seen gleaming in the sun. It
+was a hot day, and the brick wall was dappled with hanging foliage,
+and further out, opposite the windows of the "Stag and Hounds," where
+Steyning's ales could be obtained, the over-reaching sprays of a great
+chestnut tree fell in delicate tracery on the white dust. The road led
+under the railway embankment, and looking through the arched opening,
+one could see the dirty town, straggling along the canal or harbour,
+which runs parallel with the sea. A black stain was the hull of a
+great steamer lying on her side in the mud, but the tapering masts of
+yachts were beautiful on the sky, and at the end of a row of
+slatternly houses there were sometimes spars and rigging so strange
+and bygone that they suggested Drake and the Spanish main.
+
+Southwick is half a suburb, half a village. In the summer months the
+green seems a living thing. It is there the children talk and tumble
+when school is over. They are told to go to the green, they are
+forbidden to go to the green, and it is from the green the eldest girl
+leads the naughty boy howling. When they are a little older they avoid
+the green, it is too public then. It is to the green that elevens come
+from far and near to play their matches. All the summer through the
+green is a _fete_ of cricket. It is to the green the brass bands come
+on Saturday. On the green, bat and trap is played till the ball
+disappears in shadow. The green is common; horses and cows are turned
+out there. All profit by the green. It is on the edge of the green the
+housewives come to talk in the limpid moonlight. It is on the green
+the fathers smoke when the little cottage rooms are unbearable with
+summer heat. It is on the green that Mrs. Horlock walks with her pugs
+and the chemist's wife, to the enormous scandal of the neighbourhood.
+
+To the right, facing the embankment, and overlooking some fields, is
+the famous Southdown road, and parallel with the green is Mr.
+Brookes's property--a solid five acres, with all modern improvements
+and embellishments, and surrounded by a brick wall over six feet high.
+
+Willy hated Southwick. He thought it ugly and vulgar; he regretted
+deeply that his father would make no advances, and that they were as
+far from county society to-day as when they came to live in the place
+thirty years ago. "I knew the best people when I was at Oxford, why
+can I not know them now? Here we are doing the same thing from year's
+end to year's end; why, with our money we ought to be hob-nobbing with
+the duke." In moments of dejection this was one of Willy's commonest
+thoughts. "I did my best, but I was opposed. Father doesn't care, and
+as for the girls, they'll take up with any man so long as he is young.
+Still, in spite of them I should have got on if I hadn't lost my nerve
+and had to give up hunting; and without hunting there is no way of
+making acquaintances."
+
+Willy had relied on a hunter as Berkins had on pheasants and glass-
+houses. But he hated hunting, and finding he got no further than a few
+breakfasts, he had told a story of a heavy fall and sold his horses.
+He had then insisted on dinner-parties, and some few people more or
+less "county" had been collected; the pretext was politics, but Willy
+and politics were but a doleful mixture, and the scheme collapsed. The
+family was not endowed with any social qualifications, Willy least of
+all, and having failed to advance himself individually, and his family
+collectively, he threw up the game.
+
+We rarely cultivate for long things in which we may not succeed in--
+the lady with a small waist pinches it, the man with pretty feet wears
+pretty shoes, and in no circumstances could Willy have shone in
+society. He failed to interest the ladies he met on the King's Road,
+he knew this; and to sum up his deficiencies, let us say he was
+lacking in "go." He was too timid to succeed with the more facile
+loves whom he met in the evenings on the pier. All the same he had had
+his love affair.
+
+Oh! men of inferior aspect and speech, often in you a true heart
+abides; you, and you only, are faithful to the end.
+
+To this unromantic person a shred of pure romance was attached. None
+knew the whole story, and none spoke of it now; but his sisters
+remembered that Willy had fallen in love with a girl whom he had seen
+play "Sweet Anne Page." They remembered long letters, tears and wild
+looks. He had sent her diamonds; and one night he had attempted
+suicide. All was now forgotten; at least it was the past, and nothing
+remained but one little melody which he had heard her sing, and which
+he sometimes whistled out of tune.
+
+But sooner or later a man's talents, and if not his talents, his
+tastes, appear through the mists of youth, and henceforth they lead
+him. Willy's efforts in society had resulted in abortive dinner-
+parties, his efforts in sport had been cut short by nerves, his
+efforts in dissipation had left him with a tolerably well-filled
+wardrobe, his efforts in love had brought him tears and a commonplace
+mistress, whom he kept in the necessaries of life in various lodging-
+houses. So his youth had passed; but in all this mediocrity a certain
+spirit of resistance endured. His taste for figures grew more
+pronounced; he surrounded himself with account books, letter books,
+and diaries; he took note of every penny that passed through his
+hands. Money-making, profitable investments--that was to be his aim in
+life; and as each year closed his thoughts fixed themselves more
+definitely and entirely on it; and it was natural that it should be
+so, since all other outlets for the passion of life were barred to
+him. His forced retirement from the distillery did not worry him. No
+one could please his father in business; his uncle had once threatened
+to throw his brother out of the window. Besides, the business was a
+declining one, and twelve thousand pounds for a junior partnership was
+not bad. Nor did his failure to make a success of the manure agency
+discourage him; the shop was a different matter, that was his own
+idea, he had thought of a fortune, and had lost two thousand pounds.
+It had crippled him for life. True enough, there were other things to
+do. Some stockbrokers make twenty per cent. on their money, not in
+wild speculation, but in straightforward genuine business. He might go
+up to London and learn the business--he had heard that it would not
+take more than six months or a year to pick it up--and start on his
+own account. A thousand pounds would be sufficient to begin with; or
+he might buy a partnership--he could do that for three or four
+thousand. Either of these courses would suit him, the latter for
+preference, but a certain amount of capital would be necessary before
+he could take either, and that he hadn't got, and to all appearances
+it would be very difficult to persuade his father to consent to drawany
+more money out of the distillery.
+
+So Willy's thoughts ran as he ascended the flight of wooden steps that
+led to the platform of the little country station. "The folk down here
+think there is nothing in me, that I am good for nothing but walking
+up and down the King's Road, but they little know what I have in my
+head. I'll make them open their eyes one of these days." The sting of
+vanity is in us all. Our heads may be greed, our bellies lust, our
+limbs charity, faithfulness, truth, and goodwill, but in some cranny
+of our tails vanity always lies, only it may be marvellously well
+hidden, as in Willy. The keenest observer would not have detected it
+in him, and when he came out of his habitual reserve and lamented that
+bad luck had always followed him and spoke of his projects, one might
+have suspected him of greed, but hardly of vanity. Now he stood
+leaning on the wooden paling, and his movements showed the back and
+loins in strong outline, marking the thick calves. Without taking any
+heed, his eyes followed the cricket ball, which was in turn slogged
+into the horse-pond and cottage gardens. Through long familiarity, the
+green had faded from his notice, nor did the burnt-up crops on the
+Downs attract his thoughts, nor yet the sinuous lines of the hills.
+From the platform one saw the whole of Southwick. The green with its
+cricket match, Mrs. Horlock and her dogs, the forge, the stile, the
+various cottages, the long fields full of green wheat, and, far away,
+the carriages passing like insects along the road under the Downs;
+then on the right were the back gardens of the cottages, a large
+inscription announcing the different branches of the grocery business,
+a few fields with cows leaning their muzzles over the rough palings,
+some more cottages, a barn, and then the magnificent five acres of the
+Manor House, rich with glass-houses, and beautiful in a cloud of
+trees. From the platform of the station one could see the sea, not
+much of it, but one could see the sea; the slates of the street that
+went along the water's edge did not quite bar the view. The very small
+presence of Southwick contrived to hide the sea; even when one walked
+to the water's side the great mass of shingle which forms the outer
+bank of the canal allowed only one narrow rim of blue to appear. The
+inhabitants forget they live by the sea, and when the breeze fills
+their gardens with a smell of boats and nets they think of the sea
+with surprise.
+
+Tired of the monotonous running to and fro of the cricket players,
+Willy walked up the platform. Arrow-like, the line lay in front of
+him, and in the tinted distance, in faint lines and flashes of light
+and shade, Brighton stretched from hill to hill. Morning was still in
+the sky, and the sea was deep blue between the yellow chimney-pots. A
+puff of steam showed up upon a distant field, and the train came along
+from Portslade, one of the links of the great chain of towns that
+binds the south coast. "I hope Frank won't arrive in Brighton before
+me," thought Willy.
+
+They had been big boy and little boy at school. The vivacity of the
+Celt amused the good-natured south Saxon, and when Lord Mount Rorke
+called to see his nephew, he found him talking with Brookes. Once
+Willy had been invited to spend part of his holidays at Mount Rorke.
+Afterwards they visited each other's rooms, and so their friendship
+had been decided, and, in spite of--or, perhaps, on account of--a very
+marked difference in their characters and temperaments, gathered
+strength as it matured. Another link between the men was that Escott
+had accompanied Willy to the theatre when he went to see the actress
+whom he had loved so madly. Frank had heard her sing the song which
+Willy whistled when his thoughts went wandering. Willy confided in no
+one--great sorrows cannot be and never are confided; but Frank had
+seen her, and he played her songs on the piano, and that was enough
+for Willy.
+
+The young men had not seen each other for two years. Frank had shown
+some taste for painting, and his uncle, whose heir he was, had sent
+him, if not to study, at least to think about art in Italy. From Italy
+he had gone to Greece and Russia, he had returned home through
+Germany, he had visited Holland and France.
+
+"Is the London train come in?" Willy asked when he arrived in
+Brighton.
+
+"Yes, sir, just come in, about five minutes," said the man as he
+opened the door. Willy waited until the train had stopped dead, he got
+out carefully, and, looking through the confusion of luggage and
+bookstall trade, he saw Escott questioning a porter and hailing a
+carriage. "By Jove! I shall miss him," cried Willy, and he hastened
+his steps and broke into a sharp trot. "Frank! Frank!" he cried.
+
+"Oh, there you are!" cried Frank, and he lifted his stick, and called
+sharply to a large black and white bull-dog that paddled about on its
+bow legs, saliva dripping from its huge jaws, looking in its
+hideousness like something rare and exquisite from Japan. He dismissed
+the porter and the carriage, which he had hailed with an arrogant wave
+of his stick. He was tall and he was thin. His trousers were extremely
+elegant, a light cloth, black and white check, hung on his legs in
+graceful lines, and he wore tiny boots with light brown cloth tops.
+The jacket and waistcoat were in dark brown cloth, and the odour of
+the gardenia in his buttonhole contrasted with that of the sachet-
+scented silk pocket-handkerchief which lay in his side pocket. His
+throat showed white and healthy in the high collar tied with a white
+silk cravat in a sailor's knot, fastened with a small diamond. His
+hands were coarse and brown; he wore two rings, and a bracelet fell
+out of his cuff when he dropped his arm. His chest was broad and full,
+but the shoulders were too square; the coat was padded. There was
+little that could be called Celtic in his face or voice, the admixture
+of race was manifested in that dim blue stare, at once vague and wild,
+which the eyes of the Celt so often exhibit. The nose was long, low,
+and straight, the nostrils were cleanly marked, the mouth was
+uncertain, the chin was uncertain, the face was long, deadly pale,
+rather large, the forehead was high, receding at the temples. The hair
+(now he removes his hat, for the air is heavy and hot, and the sun
+falls fiercely on the pavement) is pale brown, and it waves thinly
+over the high forehead, so expressive of a vague and ill-considered
+idealism. Frank Escott was of Saxon origin on his father's side, but
+the family had been in Ireland for the last two hundred years, and had
+married into many Irish families that had at different times received
+direct contributions of Celtic blood. Long residence in England had
+removed all Irish accent and modes of speech; but in hook, and book,
+and cook he lengthened the vowel sound. Occasionally a something
+strange grated on the ear, and declared him not of the south of
+England, suggested the north, and insinuated Cumberland; an actor
+could not reproduce these trifling differences with caricaturing them.
+He was absolutely good-looking, and he was too well dressed. He
+laughed a good deal, and his conversation was sprinkled with cynical
+remarks and cutting observations.
+
+"You don't seem to go in for dress now as you used to."
+
+"I haven't the money to spend on it; but tell me, don't you like this
+suit?"
+
+"Well, pretty well; whose is it? Did Walpole make it? Do you deal with
+him still?"
+
+"Yes, it is one of Walpole's, but I have had it turned."
+
+"Had it turned? I have heard of turning an overcoat, but a morning
+coat! I did not know it could be done; that's what makes it look so
+shaky."
+
+"Now don't you get laughing at my coat, it looks very well indeed. I
+suppose you think I am not fit to walk with you. I daresay it doesn't
+look as smart as yours, which has just come out of Walpole's shop."
+
+The young men had so much to say, and were so genuinely glad to see
+each other, that their thoughts hesitated and they were embarrassed.
+
+"I suppose you enjoyed your trip abroad very much," Willy said drily
+and punctiliously; "you were more than a year away--nearly eighteen
+months, I think."
+
+"About that. I enjoyed myself. I think I liked Italy best; it has been
+more painted and described than any country, and yet it is quite
+different from what one imagines; it is grey and dim and green and
+dusty. It looks--how shall I put it?--it looks worn out and faded."
+
+"The women aren't worn out and faded if all one hears is true," said
+Willy, with a short laugh.
+
+"The women are right enough. I must tell you about them one of these
+days, lots of stories. There was a little Italian girl I met at Milan.
+It was a job to get away from her; she followed me, 'pon my word, she
+did; she declared she would commit suicide. I was awfully frightened.
+Naples is really too shocking. I'm not a prude, but Naples is really--
+"
+
+"I suppose it is the same all over the Continent. One of these days I
+must go abroad and have a look round. You were a long time in Rome?"
+
+"No, only a few weeks, but I was too taken up with the pictures to
+think of anything else. The Michael Angelos are beyond anything any
+one can imagine. He is the only one who can compare with the Greeks,
+and I don't see why one shouldn't say he is as great. Of course there
+are things, the daughters of--I forget the name--the group of two
+women leaning back in each other's arms in the British Museum. But I
+don't know, Michael Angelo is quite different, and I can't see that
+anything can be said to be finer than the figures of Day and Night--
+how often I have drawn them--the figure of Night, the heavy breasts to
+show that she has suckled the Day."
+
+"But which way are we going? I must go to Truefitt's to have my hair
+cut."
+
+"You haven't forgotten the old place, I see. Do you still keep up your
+subscription?"
+
+"I suppose mine has run out, I have been abroad so long. Nothing like
+a good shampoo; for a guinea a year you can have it done as often as
+you like."
+
+"I haven't subscribed lately. There used to be such a pretty girl at
+the counter. Do you remember?"
+
+"You dog, always thinking of them," and laughing loudly they passed
+through the shop, and it was Frank that stared most at the young lady.
+They read _Punch_ aloud to each other; they cracked jokes with the
+hairdressers; they snorted and laughed through the soap and jets of hot
+and cold water. Frank allowed scent and ivories to be pressed upon him
+by the young lady at the counter; Willy declined to be led into such
+extravagances.
+
+As he stepped out into the shine of the street, and took step from his
+friend, he said: "By George! it makes me feel young again. It is just
+like old times."
+
+"Yes, it does make one feel jollier, doesn't it?"
+
+"How jolly it is here; not too warm, just nice. What shall we do? Sit
+down on that bench in front of the pier?"
+
+"I'm agreeable. How jolly it is. Just look at those boats! One could
+make a picture of that."
+
+Over the sea hung a white veil of mist, but the sun glowed through and
+melted into it, and harmonised it with the water green and
+translucent. The sea sucked about the shingle with little sudden
+sighs; the sails of the pleasure boat waved in the fairy-like depths,
+and all the little brown fishing-boats lay becalmed, heaving
+tremulously like tired butterflies upon the breast of a blue flower.
+The nursemaids lay together on the shingle, and their novels slipped
+down the stones to their feet. The children played with the tide and
+the sand. There were crowds of women--Jewesses with loud dresses: and
+the strange world of bath chairs! Ladies so old that they seem certain
+to fall to pieces when they are taken out; ladies with chestnut curls
+soft and fresh--why were they in bath chairs? General officers,
+mounted on white Arabs; acrobats and songs.
+
+The young men sat facing the sea. Frank called, "Triss, Triss.
+Splendid dog that is. If I were to let him he would guzzle the other
+dog in about two minutes."
+
+"He looks a ferocious brute."
+
+"You don't like dogs? You couldn't see a handsomer dog than that;
+unfortunately, he's the wrong colour; if he were brindle or white,
+he'd take a first prize. Come here, you brute."
+
+Amid some little excitement and anxious looks, Triss came up, growling
+and showing his teeth. Frank explained that it was only his manner.
+Frank took the paw that was extended to him, but Triss's friendliness
+seemed somewhat dubious, for he still further uncovered his formidable
+fangs.
+
+"I really don't care to sit here with that ferocious brute."
+
+"I assure you he won't bite, it is only his manner. Isn't it, Triss?
+Kiss me, kiss me at once," and amid many growls of almost subterranean
+awfulness, the dog licked his master's face.
+
+"I wish you would tie him up--to oblige me."
+
+Highly pleased at the fear and wonder his dog had struck in the gaudy
+Jewesses and the shaky generals, Frank threatened and finally forced
+the dog to lie down. He continued to expatiate on the dog's points--
+the number of wrinkles, the bandiness of the legs, etc. The
+conversation dropped in heat and glare, and the picturesqueness of the
+sea.
+
+"How horribly out of tune you do whistle--you go into a different key;
+this is more like it."
+
+"Yes, how sweetly she used to sing it. Do you remember the night we
+went to see her, the last time the piece was played? I threw her a
+bouquet, a splendid one it was, too, cost me three guineas in Covent
+Garden. We went afterwards and had supper at Scott's in the Haymarket.
+How jolly those days were. I don't seem to be able to enjoy myself now
+as I used to then."
+
+"What has become of her? One never hears of her."
+
+"She died soon after."
+
+"I am sorry I spoke of her; I didn't know."
+
+"Oh, it doesn't matter." Then after a long silence, Willy said: "I
+hear your engagement is broken off."
+
+"Yes." Frank drew a long and expressive breath, and, with melodramatic
+movements of the shoulders, he sighed. "I have not seen you since. Oh,
+I had terrible scenes with the father. They had a house up the river.
+I followed them, and put up at the Angler's Hotel. She told her father
+that I must be allowed to come to the house, and he had to give way.
+You don't know the river? Well, it is wonderful to awake at Maidenhead
+in the morning and hear the sparrows twittering in a piece of tangled
+vine; to see that great piece of water flowing so mildly in all the
+pretty summer weather. We used to live in flannels, and spent long
+afternoons together in the boat--we had such a spiffing boat, as light
+and as clean in the water as a fish--and we used to linger in the
+bulrushes, and come back when the moon was rising with our hands full
+of flowers."
+
+"But why was it broken off?"
+
+"My uncle, old Mount Rorke, wants me to marry an heiress, and I have
+nothing except what he allows me, or scarcely anything. She used to
+wear a broad-brimmed straw hat, and the shadow fell over her face. I
+made a lot of sketches. I must show them to you one of these days when
+you come up to town, and I filled an album with verses. I used to
+write them at night. My window was right in front of the river, and
+the moon used to sail past, and in the morning I used to read her the
+poems I made overnight beneath the branches of the cedar, where we
+used to run the boat. But the father was a brute. I got the best of
+him once though. It was a private view day at the Academy, and he had
+forbidden Nellie to speak to me--even to notice me. I went straight up
+to her, and took her away under his very nose before he could stop us.
+We walked about all day. Oh! he was mad."
+
+"If she was willing to brave her father in that way, why was your
+engagement broken off?"
+
+"My uncle was so very difficult to deal with. I didn't see her for
+some time." Frank did not say--perhaps, he did not know--that his
+engagement had been broken off through his own instability and
+weakness of character. The young lady, whom he called Nellie, had told
+him she would wait if he would elect a profession and work for a place
+in it. But Frank had not been able to forego late hours and
+restaurants, and Nellie had married some one who could. "You know I
+converted her. Doesn't her father hate me for that! We used to go to
+high mass at the oratory. I explained to her the whole of the Catholic
+religion."
+
+"But I thought you didn't believe in it yourself?"
+
+"I am talking of some time ago; besides, a woman, it isn't quite the
+same thing; and if I have saved her soul! I don't know if I told you
+that I was writing a novel; I don't think I did. The idea of it is
+this: A young man has loved three women. The first charmed him by her
+exceeding beauty; he lives with her for a time. The second captivates
+him, or rather holds him through his senses; his love for her is
+merely a sensuality; then he falls in love with a fair young girl as
+pure as falling snow of any stain in deed or in thought; he is engaged
+to marry her--or, I don't know, I haven't made up my mind on that
+point, perhaps it would be better if he did marry her. Well, the woman
+whom he has loved with a merely sensual passion comes back, and to
+revenge herself she tries to tempt the good girl to go wrong; she
+talks to her of men and pleasures; this is a good idea, I think, for I
+feel sure it is women far more than men who lead women astray. Then
+the first woman whom he has loved for her beauty merely, comes along
+and continues the diabolical work of the first, by suggesting--I don't
+know, anything--that the young girl should go in for dress; the young
+man finds out the scheme, and to save the girl he murders her, he is
+thrown into prison, he is tried, and in the crowded Court he makes a
+great speech--he tells how he murdered her to save her from sin, he
+tells the judge that on the Judgment Day a pure white soul will plead
+for him. What an opportunity for a piece of splendid writing! The
+Court would be filled with fashionable women, that weep and sob, they
+cannot contain themselves, the judge would wish to stop the young man,
+but he cannot. What a splendid scene to describe! And the young man
+goes to execution confident, and assured that he has done well. What
+do you think of it?"
+
+"It is really difficult for me to say; I never like giving an opinion
+on a subject I don't understand."
+
+"I know; but what do you think?"
+
+Fortunately for Willy's peace, the conversation was at this moment
+violently interrupted by Triss. He rushed forth, and Frank was only in
+time to prevent a pitched battle. He returned leading the dog by his
+silk handkerchief, amid the murmur of nurse-maids and Jewesses.
+
+"That's the worst of him; he never can see a big dog without wanting
+to go for him. Down, sir, down--I won't have you growl at me."
+
+"I can't see what pleasure you can find in a brute like that."
+
+"I assure you he's very good-tempered; he has a habit of growling, but
+he does not mean anything by it. What were we talking about?"
+
+"I think we were talking about the ladies. Have you seen anything nice
+lately? What's the present Mrs. Escott like, dark or fair?"
+
+"There isn't one, I assure you. I met rather a nice woman at my
+uncle's, about two months ago, a Lady Seely. I don't know that you
+would call her a pretty woman; rather a turned-up nose, a pinched-in
+waist, beautiful shoulders. Hair of a golden tinge, diamonds, and
+dresses covered with beads. She flirted a great deal. We talked about
+love, and we laughed at husbands, and she asked me to come and see her
+in rather a pointed way. It is rather difficult to explain these
+things, but I think that if I were to go in for her--"
+
+"That you would pull it off?"
+
+The young men laughed loudly, and then Frank said: "But somehow I
+don't much care about her. I met such a pretty girl the other day at
+the theatre. There were no stalls, and as I wanted to see the piece
+very much, I went into the dress circle. There was only one seat in
+the back row. I struggled past a lot of people, dropped into my place,
+and watched the piece without troubling myself to see who was sitting
+next to me. It was not until the _entr'acte_ that I looked round. I
+felt my neighbour's eyes were fixed upon me. She was one of the
+prettiest girls you ever saw in your life--a blonde face, pale brown
+hair, and such wonderful teeth--her laughter, I assure you, was
+beautiful. I asked her what she thought of the piece. She looked away
+and didn't answer. It was rather a slap in the face for me, but I am
+not easily done. I immediately said: 'I should have apologised before
+for the way I inconvenienced you in crushing into my seat, but,
+really, the place is so narrow that you don't know how to get by.'
+This rather stumped her, she was obliged to say something. The girl on
+the other side (not half a bad looking girl, short brown curly hair,
+rather a roguish face) was the most civil at first. She wasn't as
+pretty as the one next to me, but she spoke the more willingly; the
+one next to me tried to prevent her. However, I got on with them, one
+thing led to another, and when the piece was over, I fetched their
+hats and coats and we walked a little way up the street together. I
+tried to get them to come to supper; they couldn't do that, for they
+had to be in at a certain time, so we went to Gatti's and had some
+coffee. I couldn't make out for a long time what they were; they were
+evidently not prostitutes, and they did not seem to me to be quite
+ladies. What do you think they were?"
+
+"I haven't an idea--actresses?"
+
+"No. They wouldn't tell me for a long time. I got it out of them at
+last; they're at the bar in the Gaiety Restaurant."
+
+"Bar girls?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Some of those bar girls are very pretty; rather dangerous, though, I
+should think."
+
+"They seemed to me to be very nice girls; you would be surprised if
+you heard them talk. I assure you the one that sat next to me spoke
+just like a lady. You know in these hard times people must do
+something. Lots of ladies have to buckle to and work for their bread."
+
+Frank lapsed into silence. Willy sat apparently watching the blue and
+green spectacle of the sea. Frank knew that it interested him not the
+least, and he wondered if his friend had heard what he had been
+saying. Triss, seeing that smelling and fighting were equally vain
+endeavours, had laid himself out in the sun, and he returned his
+master's caresses by deep growls. One more menacing than the others
+woke Willy from his meditation, and he said: "What's the time? It
+ought to be getting on to lunch time."
+
+"I daresay it is."
+
+"Where shall we go? Do you know of a good place? What about that
+restaurant opposite the pier?"
+
+"Well," said Willy, with a short, abrupt laugh, "the fact is, I must
+lunch at my office; but I shall be very glad if you will come."
+
+"I didn't know you had an office--an office for what?"
+
+"I started an agency at the beginning of the year for artificial
+manure, but I think I shall drop it. I am arranging to go on the Stock
+Exchange. The difficulty is whether I shall be able to get my father
+to allow me to take enough money out of the business."
+
+"What business?"
+
+"The distillery."
+
+"Oh, but what about this office? Why are you obliged to lunch at your
+office? Are you expecting customers? I know nothing about that sort of
+thing."
+
+"No, I wish I were. The fact is, my missis is staying in Brighton for
+a few weeks. The child has been ailing a good deal lately, and the
+doctor ordered change of air."
+
+"Child! Missis! I know nothing of this."
+
+"A very nice woman, I think you'll like her. She is devoted to me.
+We've been together now two years or more, I can't say exactly, I
+should have to refer to my diary."
+
+"But the child?"
+
+"The child isn't mine. She had the child before I knew her."
+
+"And what is the matter with it?"
+
+"Curvature of the spine. The doctor says she will outgrow it. Cissy
+will be quite strong and healthy although she may never have what you
+would call a good figure. But there is a matter on which I want to
+speak to you. The fact is, I am going to be married."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To the lady whom you will see at lunch, Cissy's mother."
+
+Frank said: "If you really love her I have nothing to say against it."
+Willy did not answer. Frank waited for an answer and then broke the
+silence: "But do you love her?"
+
+"Yes, I am very fond of her; she is a very good sort."
+
+Frank was implacable. "Do you love her like the other one?" The
+question wounded, but Frank was absorbed in his own special
+sentimentalities.
+
+"I was younger then, it is not the same; I am getting old. How many
+years older am I than you--seven, I think? You are three-and-twenty, I
+am thirty. How time flies!"
+
+"Yes, I am three-and-twenty--you don't look thirty."
+
+"I feel it, though; few fellows have had so much trouble as I have.
+Your life has been all pleasure."
+
+"If a man really loves a woman he is always right to marry her. Why
+should we suppose that a woman may not reform--that true love may not
+raise her? I was talking to a novelist the other day; he told me
+thestory of a book he is writing. It is about a woman who leaves the
+husband she has never loved for the man she adores; she goes away with
+him, he marries her, and she sinks lower and lower, until she becomes
+a common prostitute."
+
+"You are quite mistaken. I am sure that when you see the missis--"
+
+"My dear fellow, pray do not misunderstand me. I would not for worlds.
+I am only telling you about a book, if you will only listen. I told
+him that I thought the story would be ten times as interesting if,
+instead of being degraded, the woman were raised by the love of the
+man who took her away from her husband. He made the husband a
+snivelling little creature, and the lover good-looking--that's the old
+game. I would have made the lover insignificant and the husband good-
+looking. Nevertheless she loved the lover better. I know of nothing
+more noble than for a man to marry the woman he loves, and to raise
+her by the force of his love; he could teach her, instruct her. Nellie
+will never forget me. I gave her a religion, I taught her and
+explained to her the whole of the Catholic faith--"
+
+"I hope you won't try to convert my sisters."
+
+"You do pull me up so! Don't you understand that I was very young
+then? I was only twenty, not much more; besides, I was engaged to
+Nellie."
+
+"Come back to what we were talking about."
+
+"Well, I have said that if you love her I believe you are quite right
+to marry her. But do you love her?"
+
+"Yes, I do; how many times more do you want me to say I do?"
+
+"Of _course_ if you are going to be rude--"
+
+"No--you understand what I mean, don't you? I am very fond of the
+missis; if I weren't I shouldn't marry, that goes without saying, but
+one likes to have things settled. I have been with her now more thantwo
+years. I've thought it out. There's nothing like having things
+settled. I'm sure I'm right."
+
+The young men looked at each other in silence--Frank quite at a loss;
+he could nowise enter into the feelings of a man whom an undue sense
+of order and regularity compelled to marry his mistress, as it did to
+waste half his life in copying letters and making entries in a diary.
+
+"Then why did you consult me?" he said, for he came to the point
+sharply when his brain was not muddled with sentiment.
+
+"I am not heir to an entailed estate, like you."
+
+"I am not heir to an entailed estate. Mount Rorke might marry to-
+morrow."
+
+"He is not likely to do that. It is an understood thing that you are
+heir. My father might cut me off with a shilling if he were to hear I
+had married without his consent, and I should be left with the few
+hundreds which I draw out of the distillery, a poor man all my life."
+
+"If that is so, why marry? You are not in love with her--at least not
+what I should call being in love."
+
+"But can't you understand--"
+
+"No, I can't, unless you mean that you are down with marriage fever."
+
+"I have considered the matter carefully, and am convinced I am right,"
+he answered, looking at Frank as if he would say, but didn't dare,
+"don't let's talk about it any more, it only distresses me." "The
+marriage must be kept a secret. If my father were to hear of it I
+should be ruined, whereas if Mary will consent to go on living as we
+are living now, one of these days she will be a rich woman. I daresay
+my share of his money will come to at least fifteen hundred a year,
+and then I shall be able to recompense her for the years she has
+waited for it. Do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly. The only thing I don't see is how I am to influence her.
+You've no doubt told her and fully explained to her what the
+consequences would be if you were to publish the banns."
+
+"I have, but it would strengthen my hand if you were to tell her all
+you know of my father. Tell her that he is very obstinate, pig-headed,
+and would certainly cut me off; tell her that he is sixty-six, that it
+is a hundred to one against his living till he is eighty, even if he
+did there would be only fourteen years to wait for fifteen hundred a
+year; tell her if she tells that I have married her it is just as if
+she threw fifteen hundred a year out of the window."
+
+"And when shall I tell her all this?"
+
+"Now. We are going to have lunch at my offices, she'll be there. We'll
+talk the matter over after lunch."
+
+"Very well, let's start. Come along, Triss."
+
+With Triss tugging dangerously at the silk handkerchief whenever he
+saw a likely pair of legs or a dog that he fancied, the young men
+sauntered up West Street.
+
+"But tell me: how do you manage to have so many people to lunch in
+your office; your premises must be pretty extensive?"
+
+"I have the whole house; I was obliged to take it. I couldn't get
+another place that would suit me, and I thought I should be able to
+let the upper part; I did have a tenant for a little while, but he was
+obliged to leave. I believe I am the unluckiest fellow alive. Here's
+the place."
+
+"Agency for Artificial Manure" was printed over the door. Willy asked
+the office-boy if there were any letters, and they went upstairs. The
+windows of the front room were in view of a church spire, and
+overlooked a little shadowy cemetery; and at one window Cissy sat, the
+little crutches by her side, watching the children playing amid the
+tombs.
+
+"Where's your mother, Cissy?"
+
+"In the back room cooking herrings, uncle."
+
+Mrs. Brookes was a homely, honest-eyed woman, with dingy yellow hair.
+
+"Let me introduce you. This is my friend, Mr. Escott, you have often
+heard me speak of him."
+
+"You must excuse my shaking hands with you, sir, I have been cooking."
+
+"She is an excellent cook, too. Just you wait and see. What have we
+got?"
+
+"Some herrings and a piece of steak."
+
+"Is that good enough for you?"
+
+"I love herrings."
+
+"I am glad of that, these are quite fresh; they were caught this
+morning. You must excuse me, I must go back; they want a deal of
+attending to." Presently she appeared with a tray and a beer jug.
+Willy called to the office-boy. "We have no cheese," said Mrs.
+Brookes.
+
+Cissy begged to be allowed to fetch the cheese and beer.
+
+"No, dear, I am afraid you aren't well enough."
+
+"Yes, I am, uncle; give me a shilling, and let me go with Billy."
+Then, breaking off with the unexpected garrulity of children, she
+continued: "I am getting quite strong now; I was down on the beach
+this morning, and watched the little boys and girls building mounds.
+When I am quite well, uncle, won't you buy me a spade and bucket, and
+mayn't I build sand mounds, too?"
+
+"We'll see when the time comes."
+
+"Well, let me go with Billy and fetch the cheese."
+
+"No, you can't go now, dear, there are too many people about; this is
+not like London."
+
+Cissy had the long sad face of cripples, but beautiful shining curls
+hung thickly, hiding the crookedness of the shoulders. She was nine
+years old, and was just beginning to awake to a sense of the
+importance of her affliction.
+
+After lunch she was sent downstairs to the office-boy. Willy sat
+rubbing his hands slowly and methodically. After some hesitation he
+introduced the subject they had come to speak on. "Mr. Escott will
+tell you, Mary, how important it is that our marriage should be kept
+secret; he will tell you how the slightest suspicion of it would ruin
+my prospects." He then spoke of his position in the county, and the
+necessity of sustaining it. Frank thought this rather bad taste; but
+he assured Mrs. Brookes, with much Celtic gesticulation, that her
+marriage must be kept a secret till her father-in-law's death. The
+young men and Mrs. Brookes remained talking till the rays trailed
+among the green grass of the graves, and the blue roofs that descended
+into the valley, and clung about the sides of the opposite hill. It
+had been arranged that Willy and Mrs. Brookes should go to London to-
+morrow to be married. Frank was convinced that she would not break her
+promise, and he hoped they would be very happy. She had only raised
+one objection. She had said: "What is the use of my being married if I
+shall have to live with him as his mistress?"
+
+"A great deal of good. Your position will be secured. Willy will not
+be able to leave you, even if he felt inclined, and you will know that
+only one life, that of an old man, stands between you and fifteen
+hundred a year."
+
+"I want no assurance that my dear Willy will not leave me," she said,
+going over and putting her arms about him; "but as you like. I shall
+never say anything about the marriage till Willy tells me. I hope I
+shall never do anything but what he tells me." And she went over and
+sat on his knees.
+
+"You are a dear old thing," he said, squeezing and planting a vigorous
+kiss on her neck.
+
+Frank's eyes filled with hot tears, his heart seemed like bursting.
+"What a beautiful thing love is!" he said to himself, and the world
+melted away from him in the happiness he drew from the contemplation
+of these who were about to bind themselves together for life.
+
+"Be most careful what you say to my sisters. I would not trust them.
+The temptation to get me cut out of everything might--I ought not to
+say that, but one never knows. I dare say no such accident could
+happen to any one else, but if I leave the smallest thing to chance I
+am sure to come to grief. They will question you. They will want to
+know what we did all day."
+
+"I'll say we sat on the beach."
+"That's it. Good-bye. I shall be home the day after to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+
+When the young ladies at the Manor House did not get their dresses
+from London, a dressmaker came from Brighton to help them, and all
+together they sat sewing and chattering in the work-room. Maggie would
+take a bow or a flower, and moving it quickly, guided by the instinct
+of a bird building its nest, would find the place where it decorated
+the hat or bonnet best. Neither Sally nor Grace could do this, nor
+could they drape a skirt or fit a bodice, but they could work well and
+enjoy their work. But what they enjoyed more was the opportunity these
+working days afforded for gossip. Mrs. Wood had the Brighton scandal
+at her tongue's tip, and what she would not tell, her niece told them
+when her aunt left the room. Secrecy was enjoined, but sometimes they
+forgot, and in Mrs. Wood's presence alluded too pointedly to stories
+that had not yet found their way beyond the precincts of the servants'
+hall, and then the dressmaker raised her mild eyes, and looked through
+large spectacles at Susan, who sat biting her lips. Susan told the
+young ladies of her love affairs; they told Susan of theirs; and the
+different codes of etiquette gave added zest to the anecdotes, in
+themselves interesting. The story of the young man who had said, "I am
+afraid that parcel is too heavy for you, miss," and had been promised
+a walk in the twilight on the cliff, evoked visions of liberty, and
+the story of the officer at the Henfield ball, with whom Sally had
+discovered a room that none knew of, did not fail to impress the
+little dressmaker. They talked a great deal about Frank. His face and
+manner called up the name, and after a few hesitations they used his
+Christian name as they did when he came to see them years ago.
+
+"He is a very good fellow--I don't say he isn't. No one could say he
+wasn't nice-looking, but somehow he doesn't make you feel--you know,
+right down, you know, through and through."
+
+"Electricity," said Maggie, with a low, subtle laugh, and her thread
+cracked through the straw of the hat.
+
+"Yes," cried Sally boisterously. "Electricity, I never heard it called
+that before; but it isn't a bad name for it; it is like electricity.
+When a man looks at you--you know, in a peculiar way, it goes right
+down your back from the very crown of your head."
+
+"No, not down my back; I feel it down my chest, just like forked
+lightning. Isn't it horrid? You know that it is coming and you can't
+help it. Some men fix their eyes on you."
+
+"It is just when you meet a man's eyes--a man you like, but haven't
+seen much of."
+
+"I don't think liking has anything to do with it. I hate it; don't
+you?"
+
+"No, I don't know that I do. I can't see anything so disagreeable as
+that in it. 'Tis rather a shock, a sort of pang."
+
+Mrs. Wood raised her mild face and looked surprised through her thick
+spectacles; the merry niece bit her lips, and strove to stay her
+laughter. Then Maggie said: "Sue, have you ever felt electricity?"
+
+"Oh, miss! I don't think I understand," and she glanced at her aunt
+over the hem she was running.
+
+"Now, come, tell the truth. You mean to say you never felt
+electricity?"
+
+"I don't think I ever did, miss."
+
+"I don't believe you. Not when that nice young man you were telling us
+about looked at you? Come, now, tell the truth."
+
+"Well, miss, I don't know--I thought it was very revolting."
+
+Mrs. Wood said nothing; with her hand in suspended gesture and her
+spectacles a-glimmer with round surprise, she sat looking at Miss
+Maggie. Her reveries, however, were soon cut short, for Sally not only
+asked her if she had ever experienced the doubtful pleasure of
+electricity, but advised her when she returned home to try if her
+husband's looks could thrill her.
+
+"I don't think the conversation at all nice," said Grace, who had up
+to the present taken no part either by looks, or words, or laughter.
+
+"Who cares what you think? You used to be fond enough of sitting out
+dances with him. You mean to say he never gave you electricity?"
+
+"No, never."
+
+"Then I hope Berkins will," said Sally, with a coarse laugh.
+
+The association of Berkins with electricity proved so generally
+ludicrous that Mrs. Wood, conscious of the respect she owed Miss
+Brookes, pretended to look for her handkerchief, and it was for a
+moment doubtful if the spectacles would preserve their gravity. Tears
+started to Grace's eyes, and she bent over her work to hide them from
+her sisters, which was unnecessary, for Maggie and Sally were absorbed
+in past experiences.
+
+"What about Frank?" Sally asked, and Susan looked up curious to hear
+Maggie's answer.
+
+"Well," said Maggie, staring at the window, "Frank is very good-
+looking, but I don't think that he electrifies one... he did once."
+
+"And when was that?" said Sally.
+
+"You remember the first time he came to stay here? Willy brought him
+down from London. We went to bed early and left them playing
+billiards; I lay awake waiting to hear them come up the stairs, and as
+he passed my room Frank stopped and I thought he was coming in. I felt
+it all down my spine, but never afterwards. You see, I didn't know him
+much then."
+
+"And Jimmy?"
+
+"I never liked Jimmy."
+
+"If you don't like him why trouble about him?" Sally replied in her
+usually defiant manner. "You always take good care to trouble about my
+men. You tried all you could to get Jimmy away from me, yet you
+pretend to father that you never flirted with him."
+
+"I didn't flirt with him; once a young man looks at you you think no
+one must speak to him but yourself. If young Meason asks me to dance
+with him, I cannot refuse; I am not going to make myself ridiculous
+though you were to look all the daggers in the world at me, but as for
+flirting with him, I never cared enough about him."
+
+"And what about meeting him in London?"
+
+Maggie coloured a little, and repudiated the accusation.
+
+"You told him you were going to London, and you asked him if he were
+going, and what he would be doing that day. I don't know what more you
+could say."
+
+"I never said any such thing."
+
+"I have it from his own lips."
+
+"It isn't true; I will ask him to your face if he ever said such a
+thing; I will tell father that."
+
+"Well, there's no use in quarrelling," said Grace, "and I wouldn't
+advise you to worry father about it. You know he can't stand the name
+of Meason. It seems to me that neither of you care much whom you flirt
+with, you like so many young men."
+
+"It is better to like a dozen young men than one old one."
+
+"I shan't marry Mr. Berkins, no matter what you say. However, you
+can't accuse me of interfering in your affairs."
+
+"No, _you_ don't."
+
+"No more do I. If you want Frank, take him, only don't come sneaking
+after Charley. I don't want Frank; I don't care twopence about him. If
+you want to see it out with him, I shan't interfere; only don't you
+come interfering with me and Jimmy, or Charley either."
+
+Maggie did not like the idea of Sally getting two to her one. She
+would have liked to have introduced a proviso about Alfred, but the
+title Mount Rorke slipped between her thoughts, and she refrained. She
+knew the present treaty secured her immunity from Sally only so long
+as the affections and attentions of Jimmy and Charley showed no signs
+of declension, and she was aware that her promise would only hold good
+so long as Frank interested and Charley remained away in London.
+
+The canary that had been twittering, now burst forth into long and
+prolonged shrillings. Grace folded up her work along her knees; and
+holding it in her hand like a roll of music, she said that they would
+never hear the end of this tennis party.
+
+"I don't see why father should ever know anything about it, he has
+taken that horrid old Joseph with him, he never says more than a few
+words to the footman, and he never sees the cook or housemaid. We have
+all to-morrow to get the house straight."
+
+"It is not certain that he is going to stay the night in London."
+
+"Yes it is. Don't fidget. Have you got the wine out? We should have a
+dozen of champagne. Mind you make no mistake; '80, that is the wine
+you must get. Jimmy is most particular what he drinks, and Alfred has
+the most frightful headaches if he drinks anything but the very best.
+I hope he'll find the '80 all right."
+
+"That's father's favourite wine; you mean to say that he won't miss
+it? Then the port and Burgundy and cherry brandy--I won't take the
+responsibility."
+
+"Nobody asked you. All you have to do is to return the keys to Maggie
+that you took from her."
+
+"I don't think father will be as angry as you think, Grace; besides
+there's no drawing back now the invitations are out. I think it would
+be better to tell him that we had a few friends in for tennis. We
+needn't tell him who was there--we will suppress the name of the
+Southdown Road people; and we can take the bottles out from the back.
+The wine won't be missed for a long time, and we will invent some
+better excuse before then. We will say that two bottles were drunk at
+this party and three at that; and further than that we can't
+remember."
+
+"And what about the peaches? There are only a few ripe, and Sally says
+she'll want them all. Father has been looking forward to them for
+weeks and weeks."
+
+"He'll have to do without them; if he wants peaches, he had better
+bring some down from Covent Garden."
+
+A knock was heard at the door. "Please Miss, Mr. Escott is in the
+drawing-room."
+
+"Tell him I will be downstairs in a moment," cried Maggie.
+
+"Now off you go, my Lady Mount Rorke," said Sally, who had already
+begun to regret her promises, and to consider if she had not better
+break them.
+
+Maggie asked him what train he came down by, then she called the dog;
+"Come here, my beautiful boy, come and kiss me." The bull-dog growled
+and wagged his tail.
+
+"He won't hurt you; 'tis only his way of talking."
+
+Maggie laughed, and they walked out on the green sward. "I suppose
+you've been to a great many balls this season?"
+
+"I don't know that I have; a few, perhaps. I am glad to get away from
+town. I like no place like this. I don't know if it is the place or
+the associations."
+
+"You are used to much finer places. I can fancy Mount Rorke--the lakes
+and the mountains; somehow I think I can see it. Isn't it strange,
+there are certain things and places you can realise so much better
+than others, and for no very understandable reason?"
+
+"Yes, that is so," said Frank, obviously pleased by the remark. Then,
+after a pause, "Mount Rorke is a pretty place, and I don't think I
+could live long away from it. After a time I always find myself
+sighing for the bleakness and barrenness of the West. The hedgerows of
+England are pretty enough; but I hate the brick buildings."
+
+"What kind of buildings do you have in Ireland?"
+
+"Everything is built of grey stone, a cold grey tint on a background
+of green pasture lands and blue mountains. I daresay you wouldn't like
+it. It would recall nothing to you, but when I think of it, much less
+see it, I re-live my childhood all over again. I am a great person for
+old times. That is the reason I like coming down here. I knew you all
+so long ago; how well I can remember you--three dark little things.
+You used to sit on my knee."
+
+"And do you find nothing nice in the present?"
+
+"Of course I do; it is nice to walk in the garden with you, but it
+seems to me you have all moved away from me a little. Grace is
+engaged, you are engaged--"
+
+"Who said I was engaged?"
+
+"Ha, ha, you see I hear everything. What is his name--Alfred?"
+
+"I suppose Sally told you."
+
+"I won't tell you who told me, I never betray secrets. You had a
+desperate flirtation two years ago, and the man had to go away, and
+you promised to wait for him."
+
+"I don't mind telling you--I did meet a man about two years ago whom I
+rather liked; I used to see a great deal of him at tennis parties and
+balls; he used to ask me to marry him. He wanted me to engage myself
+to him, and I told him it would be much better to wait and see what
+father would say."
+
+"And what did your father say?"
+
+"Father, he never knew anything about it. You may as well tell me, I
+know it was Sally. I suppose she told you I was very much in love with
+him?"
+
+"She said, at least, the person who told me said, that you would never
+care for any one else."
+
+"So you've been talking about me though you promised you wouldn't talk
+any more," Maggie said to herself, "All right, my lady--very well, we
+shall see."
+
+"Grace is waving her parasol to us. Lunch must be ready."
+
+Maggie and Grace had calculated that if they could limit the champagne
+to half a dozen bottles they would be able to hide the deficit from
+their father's scrutiny; but the servants seemed to be always filling
+the glasses of the Southdown Road people, and lunch was not half over
+when they heard the fourth bottle go pop. Maggie looked at Sally
+across the pile of peaches, but Sally had no ears for the report, only
+for Jimmy's voice. Her head wagged as she talked, and Maggie wondered
+if they were exchanging napkins or rings beneath the table.
+
+At that moment the servant handed a letter on a salver to Maggie,
+saying, "From Mrs. Horlock; the servant is waiting an answer, miss."
+Grace trembled. Sally whispered to Jimmy, "What can she want?" In a
+reassuring voice Maggie said, "She has heard we are having a few
+people in to tennis, and she wants to know if she may send us round a
+young man; she will come round herself with the General some time
+during the afternoon." At the mention of a young man many eyes
+gleamed, and Sally said, "You had better go at once and write a note
+and say that we shall be delighted." When they went into the verandah
+coffee was handed round, and Maggie, as the gentlemen lit their
+cigarettes, said to Grace, "Nothing could have happened better; father
+is sure to hear of this, we couldn't have kept it from him: now we can
+say Mrs. Horlock was our chaperon. None will know when she came, or
+when she went away." Then turning to her company, Maggie said, "Now
+gentlemen, as soon as you have finished your cigarettes we will
+begin."
+
+Sally not only insisted on playing, but on playing with Jimmy; and
+Grace, who was striving to struggle into the position of Miss Brookes,
+could do nothing but set the girl in the florid dress and the man who
+stood next to her to play against them. The garden seemed to absorb
+the girls, but Maggie, catching sight of Mrs. Horlock, went to meet
+her.
+
+Mrs. Horlock was sixty, but her figure was like a girl's. She led a
+blind pug in a complicated leading apparatus, and several other pugs
+in various stages of fat and decrepitude followed her. It was not long
+before she raised a discussion on hydrophobia, defending the disease
+from all the charges of horror and contagion that had been urged
+against it, narrating vehemently how a mad dog had died in her arms
+licking her hands and face, and appealing to the General, who
+denounced muzzling; but when the mangy mastiff came near him he
+whispered to Frank, "I wish they were all shot. You must come and see
+us; you must come and see us; I have a pretty little place in the
+Southdown Road (dreadful place to mention here, they don't like it; of
+course the people there aren't all quite the thing, but what are you
+to do, you know?). Lunch at two, dinner at eight--old Indians, you
+know. I have everything I want. Too many animals, perhaps, but that
+can't be helped."
+
+"Do you live here all the year?"
+
+"Yes, all the year round. We don't go away much. We have everything
+here--coach-houses, horses, you'll see when you come. The only thing I
+want is a little occupation, a little something to bring me out, you
+know. I read the _Morning Post_ every morning, and I have the _St
+James's_ in the evening; but then there is the middle of the day," and,
+with laughter full of genial kindness and goodwill, the General
+repeated this phrase: "I want a little something to bring me out, you
+know."
+
+Forty years of Indian sun! Balls in the Government House in Calcutta!
+Viceroys, tigers, horse-racing, elephants, jealousies, flirtations,
+deaths, all now forgotten, and if not forgotten, at rest; and now glad
+to watch life unfolding itself again in an English village, this old
+couple sat in the calm sunlight of an English garden, relics of
+another generation, emblems of an England drawing to a close.
+
+At five o'clock Grace was busy at the tea-table; and very hot and
+moist Sally threw herself into a cane chair. Maggie, who had suddenly
+appeared upon the scene, arranged some fresh sets in which she and
+Frank did not take part--she having promised to walk with him; and
+they went towards the shade of the sycamores. She had neglected him
+nearly the whole day, and he was vexed with her. But she excused
+herself volubly, accusing Sally of indifference to all things except
+her own pleasures, and impressed upon him that it was her duty to show
+some politeness to Mrs. Horlock's friend.
+
+"Sally would play tennis, she played two sets, three if I am not
+mistaken, and she never left Jimmy's side. She took no notice of any
+one; for that reason I hate having people to the house when she is
+here; everything devolves upon Grace and me. It is really too bad.
+Father wouldn't mind our giving this party at all, if it weren't for
+him. If he hears that he was here, well, I don't know what will
+happen."
+
+"He doesn't look quite a gentleman, does he? He is a ship's mate,
+isn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but it isn't that; father cannot bear those Southdown Road
+people. A lot of young men live there--quite as good as ourselves, no
+doubt, but they are all so poor, and father thinks of nothing but
+money. And Sally meets them. When she goes out driving in the cart she
+picks them up, and they go off together. Father doesn't know any of
+them, and he says they laugh at him when he goes to the station in the
+morning. 'Tisn't true, it is only his imagination; but I can quite
+well understand his feelings. You know Sally won't give way in
+anything. Once she ran into the kitchen, and told cook to put back the
+dinner, so that she might run down the slonk to finish her
+conversation with him. Of course father was mad at that, coming home
+tired from the City, and finding that his dinner had been put back.
+You saw the way they went on at lunch, sitting close together."
+
+"We were all sitting close together."
+
+"Yes, but not like they were. And all that nonsense with their napkins
+under the table. If you didn't see it, so much the better. I thought
+everybody saw it. I wish Sally wouldn't do it. Father, as you know,
+has a lot of money to leave, and if she did really go too far, I fear
+he would cut her off."
+
+"But she never would go too far."
+
+"No, I don't think so; I am sure Sally wouldn't do anything that was
+really wrong, but she is very imprudent."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"I don't know that I ought to tell you."
+
+"I promise not to tell any one--you know you can trust me."
+
+"Well, she brings people up to her room."
+
+"You don't mean to her bedroom?"
+
+"She says you can't call it a bedroom, but she sleeps there for all
+that. She covers up the bed and makes it look like a couch; she keeps
+birds and dogs there; Flossie had her puppies there. That's her room,"
+said Maggie, lifting one of the boughs. "I shouldn't be surprised if
+Jimmy were there with her now."
+
+The foliage glinted in the sunset, and as Maggie stood pointing, still
+holding the bough, the picture flashed upon Frank, and he said: "Oh,
+how pretty you are now! How I should like to paint you!" And a moment
+after he said, interested, solely interested in sentimental affection,
+"Sally's ideas of love seem to me very funny; if she really loves
+Meason, why doesn't she marry him?"
+
+"He has no money, and father would never hear of it."
+
+"Never hear of it! If I loved a girl, nothing in the world would
+prevent my marrying her."
+
+"I wonder if that's true," said Maggie, and she let go the bough and
+stood facing him, her hands clasped behind her back.
+
+"Of course it is. What is life for if it isn't to get the woman we
+love?"
+
+"It is nice to hear you say so; but I am afraid very few young men
+think like you nowadays. One woman is the same as another to them."
+
+"I cannot understand any one thinking so. If it were so, the whole
+charm would be lost."
+
+So the young people talked, and lost in the charm of each thrilling
+minute, they walked through the shadows and darkening leaves. The soft
+garden echoed with the sound of a girl's voice crying, "Cuckoo,
+cuckoo," and the white dresses flew over the sward, and the young men
+ran after them and caught them. They were playing hide and seek.
+Excited beyond endurance, Triss barked loudly, and forms were seen
+flying precipitately.
+
+"Tie him up to this tree," said Maggie.
+
+"No, no, better take him to the house," said Frank; "it would make him
+savage to tie him up."
+
+When the ninth bottle of champagne had been opened, and the supper
+table was noisy, Frank whispered to Maggie, "Did you ever see
+_Macbeth_?"
+
+"Yes, but why?"
+
+"Because I can't help thinking what a splendid occasion it would be
+for Banquo's ghost to appear."
+
+Maggie pressed his hand and laughed.
+
+Soon after the sound of wheels was heard. Grace turned pale, Sally
+said: "Who would have thought it?" A moment after Mr. Brookes, with
+Berkins and Willy behind him, entered. He stood amazed, and seeing
+that the tears were mounting to his eyes, Maggie said: "Father, how
+tired and faint you look. We thought you wouldn't be coming home to-
+night. Do sit down and have a glass of wine." But neither winning
+words nor ways could soothe this storm, and in reply to a question
+from Berkins, Mr. Brookes declared passionately that he knew none of
+the young men who came to his house.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+
+"Father's just gone downstairs. I think we had better wait a minute or
+two. In that way we shall escape a scolding. Father won't miss the ten
+o'clock."
+
+"Not a bad idea. You are always up to some cunning dodge. What's the
+time?"
+
+"Twenty minutes to nine. I'll slip down the passage and tell Grace to
+go down and give him his breakfast. He won't say anything to her; he
+knows well that since Fatty went to India she wouldn't see a soul if
+she could help it."
+
+"Father never says anything to you either; you tell him a lot of lies,
+and leave him to understand that I do everything."
+
+"That's not true; I never speak against you to father; but at the same
+time I must say that if it weren't for you we could do as we liked.
+You don't try to manage father."
+
+"Manage him, indeed! that's what I can't bear in you, you're always
+trying to manage some one; I hate the word."
+
+"You got out of bed the wrong side this morning. However, I must go
+and tell Grace to go down at once, or father will be ringing for us."
+
+"What did she say?" said Sally, when Maggie returned.
+
+"'Tis all right; I got her to go, and she said she was always being
+made a cat's-paw of. I assure you it wasn't easy to persuade her to go
+down to father, but I told her she might be the means of averting a
+very serious row."
+
+"I suppose you said there was no counting on what answers I might make
+to father?"
+
+This was exactly what Maggie had said.
+
+"Very well; you are always objecting to what I do, and the way I do
+it. I wish you would go and do things yourself. You think of nothing
+but yourself, or some young man you are after. I wouldn't do what you
+did yesterday. I wouldn't go sneaking round the garden with a young
+man I had never seen before."
+
+Maggie shrugged her shoulders and went on dressing. Sally, who had
+taken a seat on the bed, watched her. She thought how she might best
+pursue the quarrel, but her stomach called her thoughts from her
+sister, and she said: "I don't know how you feel, but I am dying of
+hunger. What time is it now?"
+
+"Nine o'clock."
+
+"Another half-hour. I suppose he won't start before the half-hour."
+
+"Miss," said the maid, knocking at the door, "Mr. Brookes wants to
+know if you are coming down to breakfast."
+
+"Say that we are not nearly ready; that there's no use waiting for
+us."
+
+"I think I had better go back to my room," said Sally.
+
+"I think you had. I wish you wouldn't bring that horrid little dog
+into my room. She made a mess here the other day."
+
+"That I am sure she didn't. Flossie is the cleanest dog in the world."
+
+"Clean or unclean, I would rather not have her in my room. There she
+is trying to drink out of my jug. Get away, you little beast!"
+
+Sally caught up her dog, and marched out of the room, slamming the
+door after her.
+
+"At last I have got rid of her," thought Maggie, and she rolled and
+pinned up the last plait of her black hair, but she did not go down to
+breakfast until the wheels grated on the gravel and the carriage was
+heard moving away. Then she begged Grace to tell her what her father
+had said.
+
+"He said his children were persecuting him, that he had not had an
+hour's peace since their poor mother died."
+
+"Fudge! Mother knew how to keep him in order. Do you remember when she
+threw the carving knife?"
+
+"Sally, for shame! How can you speak of poor mother so?"
+
+"You know it is true, Hypocrisy. There is no harm in coming to the
+point."
+
+"It was very nearly coming to the point," said Maggie, giggling.
+
+"Well, what else did he say?"
+
+"He said he didn't know what course he should adopt, but that things
+couldn't go on as they were; he thought he should write to Aunts Mary
+and Hester, and just as he was going out of the door he said that he'd
+prefer to sell the whole place up than continue living here and be the
+laughing-stock of the neighbourhood."
+
+At these words all looked frightened, even Sally. She flaunted her
+head, however, and said disdainfully: "I wonder he didn't speak of
+marrying again."
+
+"Did he say nothing more?" asked Maggie, who determined to know how
+matters stood.
+
+"He spoke of Sally; he said it must be put a stop to. I don't know
+what he has found out, but I am sure he has found out something."
+
+"Why didn't you ask him?"
+
+"I did. He said the way you were carrying on with young Meason was
+something too disgraceful, and that every one was talking of it; he
+said that you had been seen crossing the canal locks, and that you had
+spent hours with him on the beach, and he spoke about the cart and
+Bamber--I don't know if you ever drove there to meet him; I couldn't
+get anything more out of him, for he began to cry."
+
+"Didn't he speak of the party?"
+
+"Oh, yes, a great deal. He said that henceforth he would have none of
+the Southdown Road people, male or female, at the Manor House. I
+thought he was going to curse the Horlocks; but I reminded him of the
+Viceroys. As for the Measons, I don't know what he would have said if
+he hadn't been crying."
+
+"The Measons are just as good as we are, though they mayn't be so
+rich. I should like to know who has been talking to him about me; I
+wonder who told him I spent hours on the beach with Jimmy; I met him
+once there quite by accident, and we sat down for ten minutes. I
+daresay it was Berkins."
+
+"No, Sally, don't," said Grace, clasping her hands. "Father said that
+Maggie was nearly as bad, and was a great deal too much disposed
+towards young men."
+
+"I should think she is indeed; I wonder what father would say if he
+had seen her walking round the garden out of sight of every one with
+that fellow, a man she had never seen before."
+
+"There is no harm in walking round the garden with a man, but I should
+like to know what father would say if he knew that you brought Jimmy
+up to your bed-room."
+
+"My bed-room isn't a bed-room. How dare you make such accusations, how
+dare you? I should not be surprised if you were at the bottom of all
+this. I know you are mad with jealousy. Do you think I don't know how
+you flirted with Jimmy? Do you think I didn't see how you shifted
+Frank on to me so that you might walk with Jimmy to the station? But
+I'll tell you what, I'll not stand it, and if you try to come between
+me and him I'll knock you down."
+
+Sally sprang from her place and raised her fist. Maggie rushed from
+the room, or, more correctly speaking, into the arms of Willy.
+
+"What the deuce are you up to?" cried this staid young man, who had
+been twisted round and thrown against the wall.
+
+"Oh, save me! Sally says she'll knock me down," cried the girl,
+clinging for a moment to her brother's shoulder, but as if conscious
+of the dubiousness of his protection, she loosed him and fled upstairs
+to her room.
+
+"What damned nonsense this is! The trouble young girls are in a
+house!--Nothing but pleasure; from one year's end to another, it is
+nothing but pleasure. I am sick of it."
+
+Having by such unusual emphasis of manner reduced his sisters to
+silence, Willy sat down, and chewed with gravity and deliberation.
+Grace and Sally watched him. After a long and elaborate silence he put
+some brief questions, and appeared to devote to them the small part of
+his attention not already engaged in the judicious breaking of his
+bread. He did not answer nor did he comment; and when he had finished
+eating he commenced packing up his diary and letters in a brown paper
+parcel, and for three-quarters of an hour he walked up and down stairs
+collecting and forgetting; finally he left the house with many
+parcels.
+
+As some days are sweet and fugitive, others are obtuse, complex, and
+tortuous as nightmares--difficult to understand and well-nigh
+impossible to relate. And the day after the tennis party was such a
+day in the Brookes household, nor did its tumult cease when the lights
+were turned out in the billiard-room. It was revived with fierce gusts
+of passion and despair during several succeeding days.
+
+In the afternoon both Sally and Maggie wanted to go out in the cart.
+The wrangle was a long one, but the argument of the fist eventually
+brought it to a close, and Maggie was obliged again to shut herself
+into her room. Thence Grace's solicitations could not move her, and
+she remained there until she saw her father coming up the drive; then
+she ran down to meet him, and made a frank accusation of Sally's
+treatment of her. But he was enthralled by his own woes, and without
+even promising her protection and immunity, at least from her sister's
+right arm, the old gentleman launched forth into more than usual
+lamentations.
+
+He had had a stormy interview with Berkins going up in the train, and
+Berkins had so upset him that he had not been able to get through any
+business in the City. Berkins admitted of no equivocation. He had told
+him that he would not allow the young lady that was going to be his
+wife to spend her days feasting and skylarking with a lot of vulgar
+and penniless young men from the Southdown Road. He had declared that
+it was time to settle definitely the terms and the day of the
+marriage. He had been engaged now more than two months, and was
+prepared to do his share; Mr. Brookes must be prepared to do his,
+viz., to settle four hundred a year on his daughter.
+
+The idea of parting for ever with so much of his money convulsed Mr.
+Brookes. He burst into tears, and their bitterness was neither
+assuaged nor softened by Grace's rather haughty statement that she
+didn't care at all for Mr. Berkins, and was not at all sure whether
+she would have him or not.
+
+"So, father, you may be able to keep your money."
+
+"But did any one ever know me to think of myself?" and he drew his
+silk handkerchief forth. In the new trouble, suddenly created, all
+other considerations were lost, and Grace became the centre of many
+conflicting interests; everybody asked if this marriage so long looked
+forward to was going to tumble into ruin among so many ruins? At
+dinner Willy seemed to consider himself called from the problem of
+perfect mastication, and he said a few words intended to allay this
+new family excitement; but his efforts were vain, for it had occurred
+to Mr. Brookes that he might find calm in a bottle of '34 port. There
+were a few bottles left which he appreciated at their right value. He
+rang for the wine, and old Joseph announced, with all the intolerable
+indifference of a well-trained servant, that the young gentleman had
+drunk it all up yesterday. Mr. Brookes kept his temper better than the
+girls anticipated, and it was not until he had drunk a bottle of a
+latter-day wine that he seemed to realise the wrong that had been done
+to him. He begged of Willy to listen to him, and he talked so
+vehemently, and cried so bitterly, and laughed so joyously, and
+declared so often that it would be all the same a hundred years hence,
+that letters and diary had to be packed away in the brown paper
+parcel, and all work abandoned for that evening. The next day and the
+next passed in continual quarrel and argument, and at the end of the
+week the aunts were summoned.
+
+Aunt Mary's features were sharp, her eyes were bright and she sat bolt
+upright on the sofa, her hands crossed over a shawl drawn tightly
+about her.
+
+"Now, my dear James," she said, "I am very sorry for you; of course I
+am. I know it is very trying, but there is no use in sitting there
+lamenting. Put up your silk handkerchief and come to the point. We all
+know it will be the same a hundred years hence, but in the meantime
+you don't want your dinner put back, so that Sally may continue her
+flirtations in the slonk," and Aunt Mary burst into a merry peal of
+laughter.
+
+"You are most unsympathetic, I never knew one so unsympathetic; you
+were always so, you'll never change."
+
+"Unsympathetic," said Aunt Mary, shaking with laughter; "how can you
+say so? I have never done anything all my life but listen to you and
+sympathise with you. When you were a boy and sold my books to the boys
+at your school, and when you were a young man and took my poor husband
+to oyster shops--you remember the stories you used to tell me?"
+
+Mr. Brookes waved his handkerchief, and Aunt Hester, who was a
+spinster, cast down her eyes and fidgeted with some papers which she
+had taken from her hand-basket.
+
+"Of course, if my afflictions are only a subject for laughter--"
+
+"I am not laughing at your afflictions, my dear James. I laughed
+because you said I was not a sympathetic listener. You used to think
+me so once." Then becoming instantly serious, Aunt Mary said: "Of
+course I think this is a matter of great importance--the health, the
+welfare of my dear nieces, and your happiness."
+
+"And their salvation," murmured Aunt Hester.
+
+"If I did not think it important, do you think I would have left home,
+and at such a time, when I am most wanted? I always said that that big
+place would kill me, I never wanted to leave the Poplars; a little
+place like that is no trouble--my greenhouse, a few servants, and just
+as I had got everything to look nice--I could do it all in a few
+hours; but now I am never still, there is always something to be done.
+No one can take up my work. I am behindhand; oh, I assure you when I
+go back I shall be afraid to go into the greenhouse. I am worn out, I
+really am; it never ends. In a big house like Woborn one is always
+behindhand. The days aren't long enough, that's the fact of it; when
+one thinks one is getting through one thing one is called away to
+another. 'Please, mum, the cook would like to speak with you for a
+moment.' 'There is no tea in the house, mum.' 'What! is all the tea I
+gave out last week gone?' 'Yes, mum. There was, you remember, the
+dressmaker here three days, and we had Mrs. Jones in to help. And we
+shall want another piece of cheese for the servants' hall.' I don't
+know how it is with you, but at Woborn the cloth is never off the
+table in the servants' hall. They have five meals a day--breakfast at
+eight, and they won't eat cold bacon, they must have it hot; of course
+the waste is something fearful; at eleven they have beer and cheese; at
+one there is dinner; at five they have tea; and at nine supper.
+Five meals a day--it really is terrible, it is wicked, it really is!
+You have had none of these troubles, Hester, and you may think
+yourself very lucky.
+
+"We have just got rid of our cook; the trouble she gave us, it really
+is beyond words. She said she was troubled with fits, hysteria, or
+something of that sort--at least that is the reason she gave for her
+conduct. I knew there was something wrong, I could see it in her eyes.
+I said: 'This is not right; it can't be right.' One night she left the
+dinner half cooked and went roaming all over the country; she came
+back the next afternoon, and I found her baking. Then there was
+Robinson. Do you remember the pretty housemaid? You saw her when you
+were at Woborn. I am sure she must have had gentle blood in her veins;
+she wasn't a bit like a servant, so elegant and graceful. Those soft
+blue eyes of hers. I often used to look at them and think how
+beautiful they were. Well, she fell madly in love with West.
+Notwithstanding his bandy legs, there was something fascinating about
+him. He had a way about him that the maid-servants used to like;
+Robinson wasn't the first. Well, she completely lost her head,
+perfectly frantic--frantic; her eyes on fire. I saw it at once; you
+know I am pretty sharp. I just look round, one look round; I see it
+all, I take it all in. I said: 'This is not right; this cannot be
+right. Robinson is a respectable girl.' Her people I knew to be most
+respectable people in Chichester; I had heard all about them through
+the Eastwicks. I said, 'Robinson, you must go, I will give you a
+month's wages, but you must go back to your people. You know why I am
+sending you away; it is for your own good, otherwise I am sorry to
+part with you; but you must go.'
+
+"Robinson didn't say much, she was always rather haughty, a reserved
+sort of girl; but soon after--I always hear everything--I heard that
+she had not gone back to her people, but was living in lodgings in
+Brighton, and that West used to go and see her. I didn't say anything
+about it to West, but he saw there was something wrong. When I told
+him to put the carriage to, he said, 'Yes, mum, where to, mum?'
+'Brighton.' I could see he saw there was something wrong, and when I
+told him not to put the carriage up, but to drive up and down the
+King's Road, and that I would meet him in about an hour at the bottom
+of West Street, he looked so frightened that I could hardly help
+laughing; he did look so comical, for he knew now that I was going to
+see Robinson. (Here the remembrance of West proved too much for Aunt
+Mary, and she shook with laughter.) Of course if I had let him put up
+the horses he would have run round to Robinson's and warned her that I
+was coming. Oh, I shall never forget that day! It was broiling, the
+sun came down on the flagstones in those narrow little back streets,
+and there was I toiling, toiling up that dreadful hill, inquiring out
+the way. I found the street, it was on the very top of the hill: such
+a poor, miserable place you never saw. Such a dreadful old woman
+opened the door to me, and I said, 'Is Miss Robinson in?' She said,
+'Yes.' I could hear Robinson whispering over the banisters, saying,
+'No, no, no, say I am out.' And then I said, 'It is no use, Robinson,
+I must see you, and I will not leave this place until I have seen
+you.' I went upstairs to her room. At first she was rather haughty,
+rather inclined to impertinence. She said, 'Mum, you have no right to
+come after me--you sent me away; I am looking out for a place in
+Brighton--I don't want to go back to my people.' I said, 'Robinson, it
+is no use trying to deceive me, I know very well why you are in
+Brighton; no good can come of this, it is nothing but wickedness. You
+must try to be good, Robinson. West has, as you know, a wife and
+children, and you must not think of him any more. You have taken this
+lodging so that you may see him. You must think of your future; this
+can't last.'"
+
+"No, indeed, this life is but a moment," sighed Aunt Hester. "I wish
+you had had one of these books to give her."
+
+"I did better, Hester. I told her some plain truths, and she put off
+her high and mighty airs and began to cry. I shall never forget it.
+Oh, how hot it was in that little room just under the slates, with one
+garret window and the sun pouring in. There was scarcely any
+furniture, and I was sitting on her bed. I said, 'Now, Robinson, you
+must give me back the presents West made you, and you must promise me
+to go back to Chichester.' And I didn't leave her until she promised
+me to go home next day.
+
+"When I stepped into the carriage you should have seen West's face. He
+didn't know what had happened; I didn't speak to him till next day. As
+I was going into the garden I called him. I said, 'West, I want to
+speak to you.' 'Yes, mum.' We went into the back garden; I was
+planting there. Edward was out riding, so I knew we shouldn't be
+disturbed. I said, 'West, I saw Robinson yesterday, and I have a
+parcel for you; she has promised me not to see you, and you must
+promise me not to see her.' 'Very well, mum, since you say it.' 'This
+is a very sad affair, West.' 'A bad business, mum--a bad business,
+mum.' There was always something in West's stolid face that used to
+amuse me. You should have heard him. 'I don't think she could help it,
+mum; she never loved another man--I really don't. But I was going to
+tell you, mum, I once knew a servant, a married man, he was in love
+with a young woman, and they waited long years, and when the wife died
+they married, mum.' 'That was all very well long ago, West, but wives
+don't die nowadays.'"
+
+So Aunt Mary talked, realising and giving expression to both the
+pathos and the comedy of her story. Then, feeling that she
+wasdigressing at too great length, she strove to generalise from the
+particular incident which she had related, and get back to the theme
+of the conversation.
+
+"I don't know what we shall do, I don't know what we are coming to;
+servants are getting too strong for us. My last cook gave us no end of
+trouble; the butler used to have to lock himself up in the pantry; and
+yet I had to give her a character. Of course it was very wrong of me
+to enable her to thrust herself upon another family, but what was I to
+do? I couldn't deprive her of the means of earning her living. She'll
+give trouble wherever she goes. There is no remedy, there really
+isn't; I don't know what's to be done unless we ladies combine and
+refuse to give them characters."
+
+Here Aunt Mary's thoughts and words began to fail her, for she felt
+she was not getting back to the point where she had entered on her
+various digressions, and without further ado, and quite
+undisconcerted, she said, "But I forget where I was; what were we
+talking about?"
+
+"We were talking about dear Sally and Maggie, and the need they stand
+of counsel and help. Their conduct is to be deeply regretted; but
+theirs is only youthful folly. They have not done anything, I am sure,
+that--"
+
+"Quite so, Hester; of course. But at the same time a stop must be put
+to all this nonsense; it cannot be allowed. I have only to look round
+to take it all in. They are worrying their father into his grave. His
+position is a very trying one. He has no one whom he can depend on--no
+one."
+
+"I am alone since poor Julia--"
+
+Aunt Mary and Aunt Hester looked at each other, and they wondered if
+the terrors of the carving knife were completely forgotten.
+
+"Poor James," said Aunt Mary, recrossing her hands, "is obliged to go
+to London every morning, from ten till, I may say, half-past six."
+
+"I am never home before seven."
+
+"These girls are their own mistresses; they go out when they like,
+they order the carriage whenever they like, and they invite here every
+one it pleases their fancy to invite without consulting their father.
+I believe he doesn't even--"
+
+"I know none of the young men who come to my house. All I know of them
+is that they come from the Southdown Road."
+
+"Don't be so silly, James, put up that handkerchief. Of course, the
+Southdown Road is one of the great disadvantages of the place. Those
+villa residences have brought into Southwick a host of people that a
+man living in a big place like the Manor House cannot know--little
+people who have--"
+
+"Not two hundred pounds invested--no, nor yet a hundred."
+
+"Well, I don't wish to offend them, I'll say small incomes. They are
+all devoured with envy, and all they think of is what goes on at the
+Manor House."
+
+"A lot of penniless young jackanapeses. Every morning I see them at
+the station watching me over the tops of their newspapers."
+
+"You must understand, Hester, poor James up in London, toiling, not
+knowing what is going on in his own home; feasting and pleasure going
+on morning, noon, and, I may say, night, for when James returned home
+unexpectedly about ten o'clock at night, he found them--how many were
+there?"
+
+"About a dozen, the others had gone."
+
+"Feasting, drinking his champagne--his very best."
+
+"The last few bottles of '34 port were drunk; the peaches, that the
+gardener has been forcing so carefully for months past, were all
+eaten. I returned home unexpectedly; I had intended to spend the night
+in London--you know I went there to see about starting Willy on the
+Stock Exchange; he has drawn three thousand more out of the
+distillery; I hope he won't lose it. Well, I met Berkins in Pall Mall,
+and he said if I would return by the late train that he would spend
+the night here, and we would go up to town together in the morning. I
+suspected nothing; I went into my dining-room, and there I found them
+all at supper. Had it not been for Berkins it wouldn't have mattered.
+He was indignant when he saw one of those jackanapeses with his arm
+round the back of Grace's chair; he says that such company is not fit
+for the lady that is going to be his wife; and he now insists on
+fixing the day, the settlements, and everything, or of breaking off
+the match."
+
+"Then why don't you fix the day and the settlements?"
+
+"Grace is not willing; she is quite undecided. She says she doesn't
+know whether she will have him or not. Sally tries to set her against
+him; she laughs at him, says he is pompous, and imitates him. Of
+course, it is quite true that he thinks everything he has is betterthan
+anybody else's. She says he is old, and says that kissing him
+would be like rubbing your face in a mattress."
+
+"The fact is," said Aunt Mary, "Sally ought to have been a man; had
+she been a man, it would have been all right."
+
+Aunt Hester, who had spent her life in a vicarage, glanced uneasily at
+her sister, and fidgeted with the papers in her satchel.
+
+"I suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence."
+
+"No, James, it will not," replied Aunt Hester, with unusual
+determination.
+
+The conversation dropped, and the speakers stared at each other at a
+loss how to proceed.
+
+"She is a very difficult girl to manage. If it were not for her we
+could get on very well; it is she who upsets everything. She can't
+agree with Maggie; they are always quarrelling. The day after the
+party she threatened to knock her down if she interfered with her
+young man."
+
+"Is it possible! Did she say that? Well, when it comes to young ladies
+knocking each other down! Young ladies were very different in my young
+days. It only proves what I said about Sally--she ought to have been a
+man, she really ought to have been a man. I see it all; I have only to
+give one look round to take it all in one glance. When she came to
+meet me in Brighton I understood it all at once; I saw she could not
+restrain herself, no powers of self-restraint. Her eyes fixed on every
+man as if she couldn't see enough of him; her black eyes flashing. I
+wanted no telling--I saw it all; the moment a young man went by her
+eyes flashed. Here she was--'Aunt Mary, Aunt Mary, there's Meason,
+there's Meason, Aunt Mary, Meason, Meason, Aunt Mary.' It is not
+right, it can't be right; and to my thinking Maggie is just as bad--a
+little more sly perhaps."
+
+"No, not dear Maggie."
+
+"I say it is not right; girls in good health could not go on like
+that. If I were you, James, I would take them up to a first-rate
+London physician, the very best that can be had for money. Those girls
+are highly organised, highly sensitive; their nerves are highly
+strung. They want something to bring them down," said Aunt Mary; but
+catching at that moment sight of her sister's face, she laughed
+consumedly, and, speaking through her laughter, said, "So-and-so, a
+first-rate man, I can't think of his name--he will give you the very
+best advice."
+
+"I think if our dear nieces could be brought to understand the
+sinfulness of their disobedience. I have here one or two little books
+which I think it would be advisable for them to read."
+
+"Later on, my dear Hester; the best thing that James can do is to see
+to their health. No girls in good health could act as they do; it is
+radically impossible."
+
+"I suppose that is what I must do; I don't know if I shall succeed,
+but I will try to get them to come up to London and have medical
+advice. Since the death of poor Julia I have been all alone; my
+position is a very hard one. I have no one to talk to, to assist me,
+to take my place in any way. I am obliged to go to London every day,
+and I assure you my heart is all of a flutter in the morning when I
+take the train, for I don't know what may happen before I return. The
+girls can do what they like; they are mistresses of this big house,
+they take the carriage into Brighton when they like, Sally takes the
+cart. I have thought of getting rid of that cart."
+
+Although passionately fond of talking, Aunt Mary would with patience,
+and even with pleasure, cross her hands and settle herself down to
+listen to one of Uncle James's interminable lamentations, but Aunt
+Hester, a nervous and timid creature who talked but little, not only
+declared that she could not bear to hear the same stories over and
+over again, but interrupted her brother with firmness and
+determination. Indeed, it was only on occasion of Uncle James's
+soliloquies that she had ever shown any strength of will.
+
+"We know very well, James, that your position is a trying one--that
+since the death of poor Julia you have no one whom you can look to.
+There is no use in telling us this over again; it is mere waste of
+time. What we have to do now is by all means in our power to convince
+dear Sally of the sinfulness of her conduct, and so strive to bring
+her back to a state of grace."
+
+"Her spirit must be broken, she must be subdued," interjected Aunt
+Mary.
+
+"Christ is the real healer, prayer is the true medicine, and by it
+alone is the troubled spirit soothed."
+
+It being impossible to contravene these opinions, the conversation
+came to a pause, which was at length interrupted by Mr. Brookes, who
+through the folds of his handkerchief declared again that it would be
+all the same a hundred years hence. Even Aunt Mary's realism did not
+offend Aunt Hester as did this un-Christian philosophy; she gathered
+her strength for a grave reproof, but was cut short by her sister's
+laughter. All the teeth were glittering now, and peal after peal of
+laughter came. Aunt Hester's courage died, and her long, freckled face
+drooped like a sad flower.
+
+"Now let us hear something about Grace. What about this marriage? Is
+Berkins as amorous as ever? That man does amuse me--his waistcoat
+buttons are better than any other man's."
+
+"Mary, Mary, I beg of you to remember Mr. Berkins is a man of eight
+thousand a-year."
+
+"He may make eight thousand a-year, but he has very little money
+invested," said Aunt Mary.
+
+"That is true," Mr. Brookes replied reflectively, and he was about to
+rush off into a long financial statement when his sister, who already
+regretted her joke, checked him with an abrupt question.
+
+"My dear James, is this marriage to be or not to be? That is what I
+want to know."
+
+"I really can't say, Mary; Sally has contrived to upset her sister;
+she would have been, I feel sure, glad to marry Mr. Berkins if she had
+not been upset by Sally."
+
+"Upset by Sally, what do you mean?"
+
+"I told you that Sally tries to turn Berkins into ridicule, laughs at
+his beard among other things."
+
+"I must see Grace about this," said Aunt Mary; "you must excuse my
+laughing, but Sally is often very droll."
+
+Choosing the first occasion when Maggie and Sally were absent from the
+room, Aunt Mary said, "Come, Gracie, dear, tell me about this
+marriage. I hear that your mind is not made up--that you are not at
+all decided. This is not acting fairly towards your father. You are
+placing him in a very false position."
+
+"I don't think so, aunty. No one, so far as I can make out, is either
+decided or satisfied. Mr. Berkins is not satisfied with the society we
+see."
+
+"The Southdown Road you mean," interrupted Mr. Brookes, "and very
+properly, too."
+
+"And father and he cannot agree upon money matters, and I don't like a
+beard--"
+
+"You never objected to a beard until Sally put you against it."
+
+"Yes, I did, father; I always told you--"
+
+"Never mind the beard, tell me about the money matters that your
+father and Mr. Berkins can't agree upon."
+
+"Mr. Berkins has offered to settle twelve thousand pounds upon me if
+father will settle the same amount. But father won't agree to this; he
+wants Mr. Berkins to settle twelve, but does not want to settle more
+than seven himself upon me."
+
+"Is this so, James?" asked Aunt Mary.
+
+Mr. Brookes avoided answering the question, and entered into a long
+and garrulous statement concerning himself and his money: he had made
+it all himself! he spoke of his investments with pride, and
+pathetically declared that he would not marry again because he would
+not deprive his dear children of anything. Aunt Mary crossed her hands
+over her shawl, and set herself to listen to the old gentleman's
+rigmarole. Aunt Hester tried several times to cut him short, but this
+time he would not be silenced.
+
+Then Aunt Mary started the story of a girl whom she had known
+intimately in early life, which she no doubt thought would help Grace
+to a better comprehension of her difficulties; but the dear lady lost
+herself in the domestic entanglement of many families, on the subject
+of which she contributed much curious information, without, however,
+elucidating the matter in hand. She wandered so far that at length all
+hope of return became impossible, and she was obliged to pull up
+suddenly and ask what she had been talking about.
+
+"What was I talking about, James; you have been listening to me--what
+was I talking about?"
+
+Mr. Brookes made no attempt to give the information necessary for the
+blending of her many narratives, and she was forced to seek unaided
+for the lost thread. Soon after the girls came in with their gin and
+water. They drank their grog, kissed their relations, and retired to
+bed.
+
+And the next evening, and the next, and the next, so long as Aunt Mary
+and Aunt Hester remained at the Manor House, the evenings passed in a
+similar fashion; and, notwithstanding the doleful faces they
+occasionally assumed, they found pleasure in lamenting the follies of
+the young people. The same stories were told, almost the same words
+were uttered. The only malcontent was Willy. He had no interest in his
+sisters, and the hours after dinner in the billiard-room when his
+sisters were in the drawing-room were those he devoted to looking
+through his letters and filling up his diary; so when Sally's name was
+mentioned he caught at his short crisp hair and gnashed his teeth.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+
+"My dear fellow, just as I'm settling down to do some work, Aunt Mary
+comes along the passage; I know her step so well. And then it begins,
+the old story that I have heard twenty times before, all over again.
+You have no idea how worrying it is."
+
+Frank laughed, and talked of something else. These discussions of
+Sally's character and general behaviour did not appeal to him in
+either a comic or serious light, and the havoc they made of Willy's
+business hours did not perceptibly move him; he was full of his good
+looks, his clothes, his affections, his bull-dog, and the fact that
+his youth was going by, as it should go by, among girls, in an old
+English village, in a garden by the sea.
+
+Aunt Mary was a woman that a rarer young man would have been attracted
+by; indeed the delicacy of a young man may be tested by the sympathy
+he may feel for women when age has drawn a veil over, and put sexual
+promptings aside. Her bright teeth and eyes, the winsome little face,
+so glad, would have at once charmed and led any young man not so
+brutally young as Frank Escott. It would have pleased another to watch
+her, to wait on her, to listen to her rambling stories all so full of
+laughter and the sunshine of kindness and homely wit; it would have
+pleased him to note that she was gratified by the admiration of a
+young man; it would please him to hear himself called by his Christian
+name, while he must address her as Mrs. So-and-so, and in maintaining
+this difference they would both become conscious of pleasing
+restraint.
+
+His comprehension of life was invariably a sentimental one, so the
+aunts were to him merely middle-aged women--uninteresting, and useful
+only so far as their efforts contributed to render the lives of young
+people easy and pleasurable. In abrupt and passing impressions he
+concluded that Aunt Mary was bright and pleasant, but tediously
+voluble, given to wasting that time which he would have liked to spend
+talking to the young ladies of poetry and Italy.
+
+He scorned poor Aunt Hester. She shrank from him, frightened by his
+harsh, blunt manners; she was afraid he led a sinful life in London.
+Aunt Mary had few doubts on the subject, and her comments made her
+sister tremble. She spoke of him as a most desirable husband for
+Maggie. "He will be a peer, my dear James. Lord Mount Rorke will never
+marry again. He is the acknowledged heir to the title and estates."
+
+And the young man went as he came--full of himself, his clothes, his
+good looks; bumptious and arrogant, effusive in his love of his
+friends, and yet sincere. He looked out of the railway carriage window
+to seize a last look of the green, with its horse pond and its downs,
+and the cricketers all in white, running to and fro (young Meason had
+just made a three, and Sally was applauding). The porches of
+the Southdown Road he could just see over the fields, and Mr. Brooke's
+glass glittered amid the summer foliage. At that moment he loved the
+ugly little village, with its barren downs and all its anomalous
+aspects of town and country. He thought of his friends there, and his
+life appeared to be theirs, and theirs his, and he wished it might
+flow on for ever in this quiet place. He seemed to understand it all
+so well, and to love it all so dearly. He accepted it all, even its
+vulgarest aspects. Even pompous Berkins appeared to him under a
+tenderer light--the light of orange-flowers and married love. For Aunt
+Mary had smoothed away all difficulties, hirsute and monetary, and the
+wedding had been fixed for the autumn. The gaiety of the day he had
+spent with the girls, its feasting and its flirtation, arose,
+memorised in a soft halo of imagination--a day of fruit, wine, and
+light words, and the dear General, with his St James's politics and
+his only desire--"a little something to do--something to bring me out,
+you know." The pugs, the mangy mastiff, the hospitable house always
+open, its ready welcome, and, above all, the air which it held of the
+lives of its occupants; its pictures of white arab horses, and
+elephants richly caparisoned; the wonderful goats in the field, and
+the tropical birds and animals in the back garden! Above all, the
+walks on the green with the chemist's wife, and the annoyance such
+familiarity caused Mr. Brookes--how funny, how charming, how amusing!
+He was smiling through the tears that rose to his eyes when the train
+rolled into Brighton.
+
+On arriving in London he drove straight to the Temple. The creaking,
+disjointed staircases, with the lanterns of old time in the windows,
+jarred his thoughts, which were still of Southwick; and when he
+entered his rooms their loneliness struck him with a chill. He
+pictured Maggie sitting in the arm-chair waiting for him, and he
+imagined how she would lay her book aside and say, "Oh, here you are!"
+He sat down to read his letters. One was from Lord Mount Rorke,
+enclosing a cheque, another a daintily cut envelope, smelling
+daintily, came from Lady Seveley.
+
+"DEAR MR ESCOTT,--I have not seen anything of you for a very long
+time; you promised to lunch with me before you left town, but I
+suppose amid the general gaieties and friends of the season you were
+carried far away quite out of my reckoning. However, I hope when you
+return you will come and see me. I got your address from Mr. ---, but
+you need not tell him that I wrote to you; he is, as you know, a
+dreadful chatterbox, and somehow or other, without meaning it,
+contrives to make gossip and mischief out of everything.
+
+"The weather here is delicious--perhaps a trifle too hot; and
+sometimes I envy you your cool sea-side resort. I wonder what the
+attraction is? It must be a very special one to keep you out of London
+in June.
+
+"Should you be in town next Thursday, come and dine; I have a box for
+the theatre. And as an extra inducement I will tell you that I have
+two very nice girls staying with me, who will interest you.--Yours
+very truly, HELEN SEVELEY."
+
+Some men of thirty would have instantly understood Lady Seveley's
+letter. But age gives us nothing we do not already possess, the years
+develop what is latent in us in youth, and it is certain that Frank at
+thirty would have understood the letter as vaguely and incompletely as
+he did to-day. We read our sympathies and antipathies in all we look
+upon, and Frank read in this letter an old woman with diamonds and
+dyed hair. He had met her twice. The first time was at a ball where he
+knew nobody; the second was at a dinner party. She had fixed her eyes
+upon him; she had prevented him from talking after dinner to a young
+girl whom he had admired across the table during dinner. He did not
+like her, and he thought now of the young girls he would meet if he
+accepted her invitation. Lady Seveley was a shadow; and when the
+shadow defined itself he saw the slight wrinkling of the skin about
+the eyes, the almost imperceptible looseness of the flesh about the
+chin; but, worse to him than these physical changes, were the hard
+measured phrases in which there is knowledge of the savour and worth
+of life. He unpacked his portmanteau, and, dallying with his
+resolutions, he wondered if he should go to Lady Seveley's:
+conclusions and determinations were constitutionally abhorrent, self-
+deception natural to him. Were he asked if he intended to turn to the
+right or the left, although he were going nowhere and an answer would
+compromise him in nothing, he would certainly say he did not know; and
+if he were expostulated with, he would reply rudely, arrogantly. This
+is worthy of notice, for what was special in his character was the
+combination it afforded of degenerate weakness and pride, complicated
+with a towering sense of self-sufficiency. Youth's illusions would not
+pass from him easily; in his eyes and heart the hawthorn would always
+be in bloom, young girls would always be beautiful, innocent, true to
+the lovers they had selected; nor was there of necessity degradation
+nor forced continuance in any state of vice. Love could raise and
+purify, love could restore, love could make whole; if one woman were
+faithless, another would be constant; if to-day were dark, to-morrow
+would be bright. Life had no deep truth for him, no underlying
+mysteries; it was not a problem capable of demonstration, capable of
+definition; it was not a thing of limitations and goals and ends; he
+could feel nothing of this--the philosophic temperament was absent in
+him. Life had no deep truth for him, no underlying mysteries; he did
+not dream of past times, and he placed few hopes in the future; life
+was a thing to be enjoyed in the moment of living, and the present
+moment was a very pleasant one. He leaned over the doors of the hansom
+resting his gloved hand upon his crutched stick. He was struck with
+the pride we feel when we are dressed for amusement and contemplate
+those in workaday garb; and in these sensations of pride he leaned
+forward, proud of his good looks, his shirt front, his shirt cuffs,
+his glazed shoes; he pleasured in the knowledge that many saw he was
+going to elegant company, to amusement. He was full of scorn for the
+women loitering, for the clerks hurrying, and especially for the
+crowds pressing about the entrances of the theatres.
+
+London opened up upon a little black space of asphalt; crimson clouds
+moved over the many windowed walls of the great hotels, the black
+monumented square foamed with white water, children played, and the
+gold of the inscriptions over the shops caught the eye. London was
+tall on the heavens. Regent Street was full of young men as elegant as
+himself driving to various pleasures, and Frank wondered what sort of
+dinners they would eat, what kind of women they would sit by. Then as
+he drove through Mayfair he thought of his own party. He wondered what
+the girls would think of him.
+
+Lady Seveley lived in Green Street. When he had rung the bell he
+listened impatiently for approaching steps, for he tingled with
+presentiment that he would somehow be disappointed, and he dreaded
+dinner by himself and his lonely lodgings. Nor was he wholly wrong.
+The butler who opened the door seemed surprised at seeing him, and in
+reply to his question if Lady Seveley was at home, replied
+hesitatingly:
+
+"Her ladyship is at home, but she is not at all well, sir. She is, I
+think, in her room lying down, sir."
+
+"Oh, but did she not expect me? I was to have dined here to-night."
+
+"I heard nothing about it, sir; but I'd better ask. Will you come in,
+sir?"
+
+Lady Seveley's house was a house of scent and soft carpets. The
+staircase was covered with pink silk, and in the recess on the first
+landing, or rather where the stairs paused, there was an aviary in
+which either hawks screeched or owls blinked; generally there was a
+magpie there, and the quaint bird now hopped to Frank's finger,
+casting a thievish look on his rings. The drawing-room was full of
+flowers. There was a grand piano, dark and bright; the skins of tigers
+Lord Seveley had shot carpeted the floor, and on their heads, Helen
+rested her feet, showing her plump legs to her visitors. On the walls
+there were indifferent water-colours, there were gold screens, the
+cabinets were full of china, there were three-volume novels on the
+tea-table--it was the typical rich widow's house, a house where young
+men lingered. Frank stood examining a portrait on china of Lady
+Seveley, it was happily hung with blue ribbon from the top of the
+mirror. It represented a woman inclined to stoutness, about three and
+thirty. The chestnut hair was piled and curled with strange art about
+the head. Above the face there was a mask, roses wreathed, and a
+swallow carrying a love missive, butterflies and arrows everywhere,
+and below the face there was a skull profusely wreathed and almost
+hidden in roses. This portrait would have stirred the imagination of
+many young men, but Frank thought nothing of it--the theatrical
+display displeased him, it seemed to him even a little foolish. He
+crossed over to the flowers.
+
+"Lady Seveley will be down in a moment, sir," said the maid. A few
+minutes after the door opened.
+
+"How do you do? I am so glad to see you. Won't you sit down? I have
+been suffering terribly to-day--neuralgia; nothing for it but to lie
+down in a dark room."
+
+"I hope you are better now."
+
+"Oh, when I have had some champagne I shall be quite well. Now tell me
+something; talk to me."
+
+Helen was sitting thrown back on the little black satin sofa; she had
+crossed her legs, and her foot was set on a tiger's head. The ankle
+was too thick, the foot slightly fat, but stocking and shoe were
+perfect, and these drew Frank's eyes too attentively. Helen noticed
+this and was glad.
+
+"So you like Maggie the best?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I like her the best, Sally is too rough. How those girls do
+worry their father. He has to go up to town every day; he is in the
+City, and the girls give tennis parties, and drink his best wine.
+There was an awful row there the other day about the peaches; he had
+been going in for forcing, and was counting the days when they would
+be ripe. The young men ate them all."
+
+Helen laughed. "A sort of comic King Lear."
+
+"Just so, the girls will have large fortunes at their father's death.
+I have known them all my life. I used to spend my holidays with them
+when I was a small boy."
+
+"And you haven't seen them for a long time?"
+
+"No, I was in Ireland two years, and then I went to Italy. This was
+the first time I saw them since they were really grown up."
+
+"And you say they are beautiful girls and will have large fortunes."
+
+"Yes, I suppose Maggie is a good-looking girl; she is more a
+fascinating girl than a beautiful girl." A sudden remembrance of
+Lizzie Baker dictated this opinion of Maggie Brookes.
+
+"Dinner is on the table, my lady."
+
+"I think you said in your letter that you were going to have two young
+girls staying with you."
+
+"Yes, but they could not come; they were to have been here on Monday. I
+am very sorry; had I known for certain that you were coming, I would
+have arranged to have some one to meet you."
+
+"I am very glad you didn't." The conversation dropped. "You said you
+were going to the theatre. What theatre are you thinking of going to?"
+
+"My neuralgia put all thoughts of the theatre out of my head. I have a
+box for the Gaiety. We will go if you like."
+
+The name of the theatre reminded him of Lizzie Baker, and he compared
+the pale, refined face of the bar girl with the over-coloured woman--
+his hostess. He had not seen Lizzie for a long time. Why had he not
+gone to the bar room the last time he was in London?
+
+"You have not answered me--would you like to go to the Gaiety?"
+
+"I am sure I beg your pardon," and then, in a sudden confusion of
+memories and desires, he said: "I don't know that I care much about
+going to the theatre. You are not feeling well."
+
+"My neuralgia is almost all gone. There's nothing like champagne for
+it. Hardwick, Mr. Escott will take some more champagne."
+
+There were engravings after Burne Jones and Rossetti on the walls, and
+Frank stopped to look at them as he followed Lady Seveley upstairs.
+She went straight to the piano.
+
+"Are you fond of music?" she said.
+
+"Yes; there is nothing I like more than fiddling at the piano."
+
+"Then do play something."
+
+"Oh, no, not for worlds. I only strum, I don't know my notes. I strum
+on the piano as I strum on the violin."
+
+"Do you play the violin?"
+
+"I can't call it playing, I was never taught."
+
+"How did you learn, then? It is a most difficult instrument; I
+couldn't get on with it at all; I will get mine out if you will play
+something."
+
+"If you promise not to laugh, I will try, but I assure you I know
+nothing about it. I borrowed a violin once, and I taught myself to
+play a tune; then I bought a violin, and I amuse myself when I am
+alone."
+
+"How very clever of you. There, you will find it under the piano
+behind that music; do play something, it will be so good of you."
+
+"What shall I play?"
+
+"Anything you like."
+
+Frank had no knowledge of the instrument, but his ear was exquisitely
+just and appreciative; his artistic desire was febrile and foolish,
+but you thought less of this in his music than in his painting and
+poetry. His soul went out in the strain of melody sentimentally; and
+it leaned him in varying and beautiful attitudes. The sweeping, music-
+evoking arm was beautiful to behold, and the music seemed to cry for
+love; all about him was shadow; only the light fell on the long
+throat, so like a fruit to the eye; the charm was enervating and
+nervous. Helen looked at him again, and shuddering, she rose from the
+piano.
+
+"What did you break off like that for? Was I playing so badly?"
+
+"No, no--come and sit down here, come and sit by me. I want you to
+talk to me." She stretched herself in a low wicker chair by the open
+window. There was a church opposite, the painted panes were now full
+of mitre and alb, and the vague tumult of the service came in contrast
+with the summer murmur of London and the light of the evening skies.
+The woman's body moved beneath the silk, and the faint odour of her
+person dilated the nostrils of the young man. "Talk to me."
+
+"I don't know what to talk to you about. You would not care for my
+conversation any more than you do for my music--one is as bad as the
+other."
+
+"No, pray--I assure you--I would not have you think that, no." Helen
+made a movement as if she were going to lay her hand on his arm;
+checking herself, she said: "I do not think your playing bad; on the
+contrary, perhaps I think it too good. How shall I explain? There are
+times when I cannot bear music; the pleasure it brings is too near,
+too intense, too near to pain; and that 'Chanson d'Eglise' seems to
+bear away your very brain; you play it with such fervour, on the
+violin each phrase tears the soul."
+
+"But it is so religious."
+
+"Yes, that is just it; no sen--no; well, there is no other word; no
+sensuality is so terrible as religious sensuality."
+
+"I don't know what you mean. I can understand any one saying that
+Offenbach is sensual, but I don't see how the term can be applied to a
+hymn."
+
+"Perhaps not to a hymn, although--but 'La Chanson d'Eglise' is not a
+hymn."
+
+Her arm hung along the chair, the flesh showing through the silk as
+soft as a flower. He might take it in his hands and bear it to his
+lips and kiss it; he might lean and loll and kiss her. He wondered if
+he might dare it; but her air of ladyhood was so marked that it seemed
+impossible that she would not resent. He could not quite realise what
+her looks and words would be afterwards.
+
+"I do not wish to flatter you, but I think you play beautifully. I do
+not mean to say that I have never heard any one play the violin
+better--that would be ridiculous. Your playing is full of emotion.
+That lovely passage thrilled me; I do not know why, nor can I exactly
+explain my feeling--nerves perhaps. Now I come to think of it I am
+ashamed. It was the summer evening, the perfume of those flowers; it
+was--" Helen fixed her eyes on Frank, as if she would like to say, "It
+was you." With a sigh she said: "It was the music." Then as if she
+feared she was showing too plainly what was passing in her mind, she
+said: "But it is nearly nine o'clock. Perhaps you would like to go to
+the theatre, the ticket for the box is on the table. I should not be
+more than a few minutes changing my dress. Would you like to go?"
+
+"I don't much mind, just as you like. I heard that the new burlesque
+was very amusing."
+
+"Then let us go."
+
+Both regretted their words; and, embarrassed, each waited for the
+other to say No, let us stay here, it is far sweeter here. But it was
+difficult to draw back now without avowal. Helen had rung for her
+maid. She put on a white satin. Her opera cloak was edged with deep
+soft fur, and she came into the room putting on her long tan gloves.
+
+"Were you ever in love?" Helen asked, and she leaned back behind the
+curtain of the box out of sight of the audience.
+
+"I suppose I have been in love; but why do you ask?"
+
+"It just occurred to me."
+
+"I have never been in love with a ballet girl, if you mean that."
+
+In blue tights and symmetrical rows the legs of the chorus ladies were
+arranged about the stage; the low comedians cracked jokes close to the
+footlights; the stalls laughed, the pit applauded.
+
+"Haven't you? Is that really so? I shouldn't think it would be nice.
+And yet, if all we hear is true, young men do make love to low women;
+I'm not speaking now of ballet girls, but of cooks and housemaids. A
+lady, a friend of mine, cannot keep a housemaid under fifty in her
+house on account of her son, and she sent him to Eton."
+
+"Yes, I know; I have heard of such things, but I never could
+understand."
+
+"I am glad. But you say you have been in love. Tell me all about it. I
+want to know. What was she like? Was she fair or dark?"
+
+"Fair. She used to wear a Gainsborough hat."
+
+"Did you like those great hats?"
+
+"I did on her."
+
+"I suppose she was tall, then."
+
+"No, she was short."
+
+"Then I don't see how she would wear a Gainsborough hat."
+
+"She did, and looked exquisite in it too."
+
+"I suppose you were very much in love with her?"
+
+"Yes; we were engaged, and going to be married."
+
+"Why was it broken off?"
+
+"Her father was a brute."
+
+"Fathers generally are brutes on such occasions, and there are
+generally excellent reasons for their brutality."
+
+"Husbands, too, are brutes, and if all I have heard is correct, there
+are excellent reasons for their brutality."
+
+Lady Seveley turned pale. "I did not come to the theatre to be
+insulted," she said, hesitating whether she should rise from her seat.
+Frank Escott was constantly guilty of such indelicate and stupid
+speeches, and it would be easy to cite instances in which his conduct
+was equally unpractical. Were friends to speak ill of any one he was
+especially intimate with, he would answer them in the grossest manner,
+forgetful that he was making formidable enemies for himself without in
+the least advancing the welfare of him or her whose defence he had
+undertaken. With some words and looks the storm was allayed, and they
+felt that the wind that might have capsized had carried their craft
+nearer the port where they were steering. Their eyes met, and for a
+moment they looked into each other's souls. Her arm hung by her side,
+white and pure, could he take it and press it to his lips the worst
+would be over--he would have admitted his desire. But the box curtain
+did not hide him, and the faces opposite seemed to watch; and then she
+spoke, and with her words brought a sense of distance, of
+conventionality.
+
+"Tell me, did you fall in love with her the first time you saw her?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Tell me all about it. When did you see her for the first time?"
+
+"It was on the Metropolitan Railway. We were in the same carriage, she
+sat opposite to me; for some time we were alone, and I thought of
+speaking to her, but was afraid of offending her."
+
+"Are you always afraid of offending people?"
+
+"I don't know--I don't think I am." Then it struck him that she was
+alluding to his rudeness, which she declared she had forgiven, and he
+said: "I am sure I can't do more, I told you I was sorry--that I did
+not mean--"
+
+"Oh, never mind, that is forgiven; tell me about her."
+
+A little perplexed, he continued: "She was dressed in white, and her
+face was like a flower under the great hat."
+
+"It is clear that you can admire no one who doesn't wear a
+Gainsborough hat. What will you do now that they have gone out of
+fashion? I am sure I can't gratify you."
+
+"I wondered where she was going. I wished I was going to the same
+house, I imagined what it would be like, and so the time went till we
+got to Kensington. She turned to the right, so did I; I hoped she did
+not think I was following her--"
+
+"You were both going to the same house?"
+
+"Yes. There were some carnations behind her in a vase, and you know
+how I love the perfume of a carnation--so did she. She told me of the
+flowers they had in their cottage at Maidenhead. I love the river, so
+did she, and we spoke of the river all the afternoon. And when the
+season was over I went up to Maidenhead too. I had my boat there (I
+must show you my boat one of these days, one of the prettiest boats on
+the river). We used to go out together, and, tying the boat under an
+alder, I used to read her Browning. Oh, it was a jolly time." The
+conversation came to a pause, then Frank said "Were you ever in love?"
+
+"I suppose I was."
+
+"With your husband?"
+
+"No, I was not in love with my husband, he was twenty years older than
+I. When I was eighteen I was very much in love with a young fellow who
+used to come to play croquet at our place. But my parents wouldn't
+hear of it. I was not at all strong when I was a girl; they said I
+wouldn't live, so I didn't care what became of me. Lord Seveley
+admired me; it was a very good match, I was anxious to get away from
+home, so I married him. You are quite wrong in supposing I treated him
+badly."
+
+"Forgive me, don't say any more about that."
+
+"We had rows, it is true; he said horrible things about my mother, and
+I wouldn't stand that, of course."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"Oh, I can't tell you--no matter. Once I said that I wouldn't have
+married him only I thought I was going to die. He never forgave me
+that. It was, I admit, a foolish thing to say."
+
+At that moment the curtain came down, and the young men moved out of
+the stalls. "There are two men I know," she said, fixing her glass.
+"Do you see them? The elder of the two is Harding, the novelist, the
+other is Mr. Fletcher, an Irishman."
+
+"I know Fletcher--or, rather, I know of him. His father was a
+shopkeeper in Gort, the nearest town to Mount Rorke Castle."
+
+"He is a journalist, isn't he? I hear he is doing pretty well."
+
+"In London, I know, you associate with that class, but in Ireland we
+wouldn't think of knowing them."
+
+"I thought you were more liberal-minded than that. If they come up
+here, what shall I do? I mustn't introduce you?"
+
+"I don't mind being introduced. I should like to know Harding."
+
+"I can't introduce you to Harding and not to his friend."
+
+"I don't mind being introduced to Fletcher; I'll bow and slink off to
+smoke a cigarette. Is it true what they say about him, that he is
+irresistible, that no woman can resist him? I don't think he is good-
+looking--a good figure, that's all."
+
+"He has the most lovely hands and teeth."
+
+"I see; perhaps you are in love with him?"
+
+A knock came at the door; the young men entered. Lady Seveley
+introduced them to Frank; he bowed coldly, and addressed Harding. But
+Lady Seveley said: "O Mr. Harding, I want to speak to you about your
+last novel; I have just finished reading it."
+
+"What do you think of this piece?" Fletcher asked Escott, in a
+hesitating and conciliatory manner.
+
+"I am afraid he will not be able to tell you; he hasn't ceased talking
+since we came into the theatre."
+
+"I should have done the same had I been in his place."
+
+Lady Seveley smiled, Frank thought the words presumptuous. "Who the
+devil would care to hear you talk--and that filthy accent." And at
+that moment he remembered Lizzie Baker. Fletcher and Harding were now
+speaking to Lady Seveley, and taking advantage of the circumstance he
+slipped out, and, lighting a cigarette, entered the bar room. Behind
+the counter the young ladies stood in single file, and through odours
+of cigarettes and whisky their voices called "One coffee in order,"
+and the cry was passed on till it reached the still-room. Frank
+remembered having read a description of the place somewhere, he
+thought for a moment, and then he remembered that it was in one of
+Harding's novels. He could detect no difference in the loafers that
+leaned over the counter talking to the barmaids; they were dingy and
+dull, whereas the young men from the stalls of the theatre were black
+and white and clean; but the keenest eye could note nothing further,
+and a closer inspection showed that even a first division rested on no
+deeper basis than the chance of evening dress. Civilisation has given
+us all one face and mind. He walked to where Lizzie was serving;
+soldiers were ordering drinks of her, so he was obliged to apply to
+the next girl to her for his brandy and soda. He drank slowly, hoping
+her admirers would leave her, but one soldier was stationery, and this
+spot of red grew singularly offensive in Frank's eyes, from the
+clumsy, characterless boots, to the close-clipped hair set off with
+the monotonously jaunty cap. The man sprawled over the counter
+drinking a glass of porter. Frank tried to listen to what he was
+saying. Lizzie smiled, showing many beautifully shaped teeth, so
+beautifully shaped that they looked like sculpture. Behind her there
+were shelves charged with glasses and bottles, gilt elephants, and
+obelisks, a hideous decoration; she passed up and down with cups of
+coffee, she filled glasses from various taps, she saluted Frank.
+
+"How are you this evening? Come to see the piece again?"
+
+"Come to see you."
+
+"Get along; I don't believe you," she said, and she passed back to her
+place, and continued talking to the soldier as steadily as her many
+occupations would allow her.
+
+A few moments after the bell rang, and Frank went upstairs annoyed.
+
+"Oh, so it is you; you have come back," said Helen, turning; "sit down
+here. Nellie Farren has just sung such an exquisitely funny song; they
+have encored it; just listen to it, do," and Helen fixed her opera
+glass on the actress. The light and shadow played about her neck andarm
+in beautiful variations, but noticing nothing, Frank leaned
+forward.
+
+"Isn't it funny; isn't it delightfully funny?"
+
+"Yes, it is funny."
+
+Having heard one song they listened to the rest of the act. "Now give
+me my cloak. Thank you, and now give me your arm." Frank complied.
+"You will come home to Green Street with me, and have some supper?"
+
+"I am afraid, I am sorry I can't; I must get home early to-night."
+
+"You have a key, you surely can get in at any hour."
+
+"Yes, but I am afraid--the fact is I am dreadfully tired."
+
+"Oh, just as you like."
+
+Then at the end of an irritating silence, "I am afraid you will have
+to wait, I do not think I shall be able to get your carriage yet
+awhile; in a few minutes this crowd will disperse. No use getting
+crushed to death! What became of Harding and Fletcher? Did they remain
+long with you?"
+
+"No, not very, they went away just before you came. There is Mr.
+Harding. How did you like the piece, Mr. Harding?"
+
+"I always enjoy these pieces, they are so conscientiously illiterate;
+what I can't bear is unconscientious illiterateness. Nellie Farren has
+caught something of the jangle of modern life; she has something of
+the freshness of the music-hall about her that appeals to me very
+sharply."
+
+"Do you like music-halls? I have always heard they were so vulgar."
+
+"Vulgarity is surely preferable to popularity. The theatre is merely
+popular."
+
+While Harding was thus exerting himself with epigram, Fletcher stood
+tall and slender, with a grey overcoat hanging over his arm, and his
+intense eyes fixed on Lady Seveley. His gaze troubled her, and when he
+withdrew his eyes she looked at him, anticipant and fearing. He spoke
+to her until Frank, feeling that he was receding out of all interest
+and attention, said abruptly, "If you will come now, Lady Seveley, I
+think I shall be able to get you your carriage. May I see you home?"
+he said, holding the door.
+
+"No thank you, I will not take you out of your way. Go home at once
+and get rested, and come and see me one of these days; don't forget."
+Lady Seveley smiled, but Frank felt that she was annoyed.
+
+"I wonder if she wanted me to go home with her. That impertinent brute
+Fletcher daring to come up to speak to us! I was very nearly telling
+him to go and fetch the carriage."
+
+He pushed open the swinging doors with violence, nearly upsetting the
+fat porter. The bar was nearly empty, and he found Lizzie disengaged.
+
+"You look very vexed. Has any one been pinching you?"
+
+"I am not vexed."
+
+"What will you have to put you straight?"
+
+"Well, that is a question. Let me see. I don't care about another
+brandy and soda, and if I have coffee it may keep me awake."
+
+"Have half milk."
+
+"Very well." He hesitated, but the inclination to speak soon
+overpowered him. "I call it bad form, when you are with a lady for
+another fellow to come up and speak to her."
+
+"Three of Irish, miss."
+
+"Why, didn't he know her?"
+
+"Of course he knew her, but that doesn't give him a right to come up
+and enter into a long conversation when I am with her. I wish I had
+knocked him down."
+
+"He might have knocked you down."
+
+"A glass of bitter, miss."
+
+"I should have had to take my chance of that. In London people don't
+seem to me to mind whom they speak to--a low-bred Irishman, who never
+spoke to a lady until he left his own country."
+
+"Oh! what a rage we are in."
+
+"No, I am not in a rage," said Frank, who at that moment felt the
+folly of these confidences. "I don't care a hang. It isn't as if it
+were a woman I cared about. Had it been you--"
+
+"Get along, don't you tell me."
+
+"I assure you I speak only in a general way, and you must admit that
+if you go out with a fellow it would not be nice of you to begin
+talking to some one else."
+
+"Oh! I never do that."
+
+"There, then you admit I was right, I was sure you would; I don't care
+a hang for the lady I was with, but I don't intend to allow any one to
+insult me. But I wonder how you can speak to soldiers."
+
+"They are no worse than the others. Besides, in our business we have
+to be polite to every one."
+
+"Polite, yes--but I wanted to speak to you, I came down from my box on
+purpose to speak to you, and I couldn't, you were so engaged with that
+soldier."
+
+"He was here before you; you would not like it if you were talking to
+me, and I were to rush off to speak to some one else."
+
+"One Scotch and three Irish, miss, and out of the bottle please, our
+friend here's most particular, he would like it in a thin glass, too--
+wouldn't you, Ted? and if he could have a go at that pretty mouth he
+would like it better still. A rare one after the ladies is Teddy.
+Aren't you, old chap?"
+
+Full of scorn Frank watched this noisy group. Lizzie remained talking
+with them for some little time, and she did not return until he called
+to her twice for a cigar.
+
+"How very impatient you are," she said, handing him the box.
+
+"You were talking to me, and you go away to talk to those cads."
+
+"I must serve the customers, you naughty man. You can't have me all to
+yourself. I believe you would like to."
+
+"That I should. I wish you would come out with me. I wish you would
+come to dinner."
+
+"And what would the lady say who you went to the theatre with to-
+night, and were so mad because some one spoke to her?"
+
+"I assure you she is nothing to me, a mere acquaintance. I was angry
+because I thought it a piece of impertinence of the fellow to come
+intruding his conversation when it wasn't wanted; but as for the woman
+I don't care a snap for her; never did, I assure you: she is nothing
+to me. I suppose you don't get out much here."
+
+"We are off duty for so many hours every day; but we must be in at a
+certain time."
+
+"But you have got Sundays."
+
+"We get Sunday in our turn."
+
+"When will your turn come?"
+
+"I am going out next Sunday."
+
+"I wish you would come with me; I would take you up the river. You
+know the river?"
+
+"No, I don't know even what you mean."
+
+"You mean to say you have never been up the river, not even so far as
+Twickenham?" "No."
+
+"Well, then, you have a treat. The most beautiful thing in England is
+the Thames--perhaps in the world. Last year I spent nearly three
+months at Marlow and Maidenhead--we positively lived in a boat. I have
+a beautiful boat. I should like to take you out--you would enjoy it.
+Are you fond of boating?"
+
+"I love it. I haven't been in a boat since I left Wales."
+
+"So you are a Welsh girl. My boat is now at Reading. If you could get
+away early in the morning we might manage to catch the nine o'clock
+express that takes us down in a little over the hour. I'd have the
+hamper packed, and we would have our lunch up in Pangbourne Woods. It
+would be so jolly. I wish you would come."
+
+"I should like it immensely; I don't know if I could manage it."
+
+"Do you say you will come, do."
+
+Lizzie stood hesitating, her finger on her lip. A girl entered the bar
+and whispered something to her as she passed.
+
+"I must go away now, I'm off duty."
+
+"Say you will come."
+
+"I can't say yet; I shall see you again."
+
+As Frank turned to go he caught sight of Harding and Fletcher. He did
+not see that they had been watching him, and when they called him he
+went over to their table.
+
+"What will you have?" said Harding.
+
+"Nothing, thanks, I could not drink anything more."
+
+"Have a cigarette."
+
+"Thanks, I will; I cannot smoke this beastly cigar. I do not know why
+I asked for it."
+
+"Sit down."
+
+The conversation turned on the play, but at the first pause in the
+conversation, Harding said: "Pretty girl, that girl you were talking
+to at the bar."
+
+"Yes; is she not? I think she is one of the prettiest girls I ever saw
+in my life."
+
+"Far better looking than Lady Seveley."
+
+"I should rather think so; Lady Seveley is over thirty."
+
+"The choice would be a nice test of a young man's moral character."
+
+"Did you write that this morning, or are you going to write it to-
+morrow morning?"
+
+"You have not told me which, when you do--"
+
+"I see you are not in a hurry to bring your book out."
+
+Harding laughed, and Frank was pleased at the idea of getting the
+better of Harding; Fletcher sat with his eyes glittering and his lips
+slightly parted. Who would hesitate between a lady of rank and a
+barmaid? She might be a pretty girl, but what of that? There are
+hundreds as pretty. He had never been the lover of a lady, and his
+heart was aflame. Soon after the men parted in the street, and Frank
+went from them, fearful of his lonely rooms, and longing for his
+friends at Southwick.
+
+He lunched every day at the Gaiety, and he at length succeeded in
+persuading Lizzie to come to Reading with him.
+
+Town was miserably Sunday when he drove up to Paddington at a quarter
+past eight. "If it should rain, if it should turn out a pouring wet
+day, what should I do? That would be too terrible!" He felt the boat
+alive beneath his oars, the river placid and gentle, and all the charm
+of the rushes, the cedars, the locks, and the blonde beautiful girl in
+the stern with the parasol he had bought her aslant. Let him have this
+day, and he didn't care what happened! He wanted to show her the
+river, he wanted to joy for a day in her presence.
+
+He was more than a half an hour in advance. Would she come? She had
+promised, but she might disappoint. That would be worse than the rain.
+He would wait till ten o'clock. There was another train at ten, but if
+they missed the ten to nine the day would be spoilt, lost. Supposing
+she did not come, what would he do?--drive back through dingy London
+and eat a lonely breakfast in that horrible brick Pump Court? He could
+scarcely do that. Would he go to Reading by himself? The light of the
+flowing stream, the secrets of the rushes and murmuring woods died;
+nature became voiceless.
+
+"It will be a pity if she doesn't come. We shall have a fine day, I am
+sure it is going to be a fine day, but we shall miss that train. I
+wonder if I can see anything of her. I don't know what side she will
+come from. I suppose she'll take a cab. Perhaps she won't come at all;
+will she come?--she promised me. By Jove, twenty minutes to nine. If
+she isn't here in five minutes we shall miss the train." His passion
+grew in intensity, and hope was dead, when he heard sounds of running
+footsteps, and saw the great girl holding her hat with one hand and
+her dress with the other. The torture of expectation was worth the
+rapture of relief, and he said, delighted: "So you have come, have
+you? One minute more and you would have been late."
+
+"Why, were you going?"
+
+"No, but the train is. We have three minutes. I'll run and get the
+tickets. How is it that you are so late?"
+
+"I just missed the train."
+
+"What train?"
+
+"The Metropolitan."
+
+"The Metropolitan? What nonsense! Why didn't you take a cab?"
+
+She had been afraid of spending the money, fearing she might not see
+him after all; and out of breath she followed him along the platform.
+"No, not in there; I don't like travelling alone with gentlemen."
+Frank looked at her in amazement, and they got into a carriage where
+an old gentleman was sitting.
+
+"So you thought I wouldn't come, you naughty boy?"
+
+"Oh, I should have been so disappointed. I don't know what I should
+have done."
+
+Lizzie watched the young aristocratic face; his earnestness drew her
+towards him, and she wondered she did not like him better. "Now tell
+me what we are going to do. I had such difficulty in getting away. It
+is against the rules; and the manageress (the fat woman who stands at
+the end of the bar and goes round and collects the money) hates me.
+She would have stopped me if she could, but I went to the manager; he
+is a friend of mine."
+
+"That fellow with the long fair moustache that walks about at the rate
+of seven miles an hour, with his frock-coat all unbuttoned. Harding
+the novelist--the fellow I was sitting with the other night, said such
+a good thing--he said he was a sort of apotheosis of sherry and
+bitters. I don't know why it is good, but it is; whether it is the
+colour of his face and moustache--"
+
+"He is very proud of his moustache, and your friend is quite right; he
+is very fond of sherry and bitters--too fond. I have served him with
+as many as three in an afternoon, and I am sure he wouldn't have
+refused another if he could have found any one to stand it. Oh, look
+at the country! How pretty it is!--the cows, the corn growing, the
+birds and all the light clouds; we are going to have a lovely day.
+Shall we see much of the country at Reading? Tell me, where are you
+going to take me? Shall we go for a walk in the woods? Are there any
+woods? I hope there are."
+
+"The most beautiful woods in England--Pangbourne Woods. We shall
+arrive in Reading about a quarter to ten. We'll walk down to the
+river, or drive if you like; it is only a few minutes to walk to the
+boat-house. My boat is there--such a beauty! We'll row up to the--and
+that reminds me, I ordered the luncheon basket at the best place in
+London, you know; it was to have been at my place last night at eight
+o'clock, and they never sent it. We shall have to lunch at the hotel.
+Such a beautiful hotel, high up, overlooking the river; I hope you are
+not disappointed, it really wasn't my fault. We shall have an
+excellent lunch, I assure you, at the hotel."
+
+The miles fled away, and in the comfort and speed of the broad
+gaugeline, an hour and a half seemed to them like a minute.
+
+"What kind of town is Reading?" said Lizzie, springing from the
+carriage.
+
+"Not much more than a biscuit manufactory. A lot of red brick pill-box
+looking buildings scattered over a flat piece of ground. We shan't see
+the town. It is a mile from here. Huntley and Palmer, you know--"
+
+"Oh, yes, we deal with them."
+
+"Catch hold of this rug while I get the tickets out. Shall we walk or
+drive?"
+
+"Let's walk."
+
+They stepped along gaily, and they were soon standing on the wharf,
+Frank criticising the boats and the rowing, Lizzie all white in the
+sunlight, a little dumbfounded and astonished. Then he turned into the
+boat-house, and reappeared soon after, his arms bare, the sun on his
+neck.
+
+"You got my telegram? My boat is ready?"
+
+"Yes, sir, we got her out this morning."
+
+"I suppose a lot of people wanted to have her, they all went for her,
+I'll bet."
+
+"Yes, sir, a good many gentlemen asked if they could have her."
+
+It seemed to please Frank that he had caused so many to be
+disappointed. "Well, get her out, we have no time to lose."
+
+The man stepped from one fleet of skiffs to another, he caught at
+several boats with his boat-hook, but Frank's boat could not be found.
+He shouted to his man who was sculling towards an island opposite:
+"What has become of Mr. Escott's boat? I took her out myself this
+morning."
+
+"I should like to know what is the use of my sending you telegrams if
+I am delayed in this way?"
+
+"My man will be here in a second, sir."
+
+"Now, then, do be quick, stir yourself, I don't want to stand about
+here all day."
+
+The assistant scratched his head. Finally it transpired that that
+party down the river--that party just gone away--must have had the
+boat. He didn't know anything about it, it wasn't his fault. They said
+they had engaged that boat over-night.
+
+"My boat let out for hire! How dare you do this? I never heard of such
+a thing; I shall write to the papers."
+
+"I will give you just as good a boat, sir--"
+
+"As good a boat! You haven't a boat like it. How do I know you don't
+let my boat out for hire every day?"
+
+"No danger of that, sir; I will give you another boat, one that you
+will be pleased with."
+
+"My boat knocked about by some cad! He won't be back till nine o'clock
+to-night, perhaps. I never heard of such a thing. Which is it?"
+
+"That one with the lady in the stern--the red parasol."
+
+"He must be caught up, he must. Have you got an outrigger?" Assuring
+Lizzie that he would be back in less than half an hour, Frank bent to
+his work.
+
+"If he rows like that he will run down some one," muttered the
+boatman. "Confound him and his boat!"
+
+The outrigger shot through the water; the various craft paused,
+surprised at such furious rowing. Lizzie watched the race, asking the
+boatman if there was danger.
+
+"Danger? No; but he'd better not say too much to that gent when he
+does catch him up, or there'll be a row, I expect. He's going round
+the bend; if he doesn't run into something, he'll catch them," said
+the boatman. "Would you like to look through my glass, miss? They'll
+be coming back presently."
+
+Angry language was indulged in, but the apologies of the boatmen saved
+the young men the unpleasantness of blows, and, elated at his success,
+Frank handed Lizzie into the truant boat and paddled out into the
+stream. When he had got out of earshot and out of the notice of the
+boat-house he rested on his oars. "Did you see me overhaul them?"
+
+"No, you passed out of sight round the bend."
+
+"Yes, by George! I had a good pull for it. There are a lot of red
+parasols up higher, and I had to look out for my boat. What did they
+say about my rowing?"
+
+"They said you'd catch them if you didn't run into something."
+
+"Did they? I was wild; and--would you believe it?--when I did catch
+them up the fellow began to object; he didn't want to come back, if
+you please. He said he had hired the boat, that he did not know the
+boat was mine--no proof. I said, 'I will give you proof,' and so I
+would have."
+
+"I was afraid. I began to regret that I had come out with you."
+
+"What nonsense! Done the fellow good if I had punched his head. Well,
+it has taken it out of me a bit. I had to put on a bit of a spurt to
+catch them; they had such a start, and they were going along a pretty
+fair pace, too. It has made me feel a bit peckish, a pull like that on
+an empty stomach; it must be close on twelve o'clock. What do you say,
+are you beginning to feel that it is lunch time?"
+
+"I am not very hungry, and you forgot the luncheon basket. I ought to
+have reminded you to get some sandwiches at the railway station."
+
+"Sandwiches! I don't want sandwiches; I want something more
+substantial than sandwiches. I'll paddle on; we aren't more than a
+tenminutes' paddle from the 'Roebuck,' a ripping nice hotel, I can tell
+you."
+
+"Couldn't we have something to eat without going to an hotel?"
+
+"I don't think so. I want a bottle of fizz, and the fizz there is
+excellent; one of the best hotels on the river; splendid gardens and
+tennis grounds, a great room overlooking the river; the best people go
+there; sometimes one can't get a table."
+
+"I don't think I am well dressed enough."
+
+"You look charming, a cotton dress and a parasol is all one wants for
+the river."
+
+"You are not ashamed of me, then; you'll take me as I am?"
+
+"Ashamed of you! Steer straight for that post--that's it, bravo!"
+Frank shipped the oars, and when he felt the girl's arm laid on his as
+he helped her to land, it seemed to him that all the world was
+happiness. The spirit of the river, the fields and sky, leaped to his
+eyes. He assisted her to ascend the steps cut in the hillside. She
+laughed and laughed again, and stopped to rest. At last they stood on
+the railway line. It swept round another hill all overshadowed and
+dark with cedars.
+
+"Here comes a train, let's wait. I must see it go round the curve."
+
+"You should see the Bath express come along the broad gauge at the
+rate of sixty miles an hour."
+
+"This is not an express?"
+
+"No."
+
+The luggage train came with an interminable rumble and jingle, and
+Lizzie waited till the last truck passed under the branches. Then they
+went to an hotel full of daylight and stained wood, with glimpses of
+barmaids far away, and waiters running about; the rooms glistened with
+table linen; the waiters carved at a sideboard covered with pies,
+sirloins, hams, tongues. Only one table was occupied, and the waiters
+were lavishing all attention upon it. Lady Seveley leaned back smoking
+a cigarette. Fletcher sat next to her, alternately affecting
+indifference and fixing her with his eyes. Harding was voluble and
+observant. There was about them an air of thirty and the dissipations
+of thirty. And, not in the least ashamed of Lizzie, Frank bowed to
+Lady Seveley; she returned his bow by a slight nod; and Lizzie, very
+much embarrassed, nodded to the men; they smiled in return.
+
+"Who is that lady you saluted?"
+
+"Lady Seveley; the lady I told you about, who I went to the theatre
+with the other night."
+
+"Fancy a lady like that smoking a cigarette!"
+
+A waiter approached with the bill of fare. "We had better not have
+anything hot, we shall lose the whole day. What do you say?"
+
+"Cold sirloin of beef is excellent, sir; pigeon pie is also very good
+--young birds."
+
+"Shall we try the pigeon pie? Get me the wine list. Take off your hat,
+Lizzie, do."
+
+"I am afraid my hair will come down."
+
+"Never mind, so much the better."
+
+With some difficulty she extracted her hat from the hairpins, and the
+bright hair hung loose about her white plump face. Frank drank a glass
+of champagne; he was proud of her beauty.
+
+"By Jove, how this does pick one up! not half bad tipple, is it?"
+
+They hastened through their lunch, unconsciously avoiding the too
+critical looks of those at the far corner table; nor did they suspect,
+as they descended the hill and got into their boat and rowed away,
+that they were still the subject of conversation.
+
+"She is no doubt a very pretty girl. He seems very fond of her. I hope
+he won't make a fool of himself."
+
+"I think he is 'mashed.' We saw him the other night in the bar. He was
+paying her a great deal of attention--the night we saw you at the
+theatre."
+
+Lady Seveley's face slightly altered. Harding noticed the change of
+expression, and he said: "She is called the belle of the bar. Hers is
+the kind of prettiness that appeals to a young man, for somehow, I
+cannot explain, it is a thing you must feel; she epitomises as it were
+the beauty of the English girl; she is the typical pretty English
+girl; all that English girls have of charm, she has; and the co-
+ordination is an irresistible force against some young men; their
+natures demand the freshness the spontaneity, the innocence of--"
+
+"Of the Gaiety bar! I have never been there, but from what you tell me
+of it, it is the last place to find innocence and freshness."
+
+"That may be or not be. We find a rose blooming in very out-of-the-way
+places; but, as a matter of fact, I made no accusation of virtue; vice
+does not rob a youth of its spontaneity. You may rouge the cheeks of
+May and blacken her eyes, but she is May nevertheless. I say that the
+lover of the young girl cannot love the woman of thirty. Her charms
+touch him not at all; but there are others who may love only the woman
+of thirty, and, strange to say, they are only loved by the woman of
+thirty. The universal Don Juan is a myth, and does not exist out of
+literature. There is the Don Juan who plays havoc among the women of
+thirty, there is the Don Juan who plays havoc among young girls, but--
+"
+
+"And you think our friend Frank Escott belongs to the latter class?"
+
+"No, I don't. He is good-looking; he is to all appearance a young man
+that any woman would like, but I don't think you'd find this to be so
+if it were given to you to see into his life. Every man of the world
+must have noticed that there are times when, speaking generally, every
+second woman will run after him--ladies of rank, prostitutes, maid-
+servants--when he may pick and choose his mistresses, and change his
+mind as often as he pleases; there are other times when he finds
+himself womanless, when none will look at him, when in fact without an
+allusion to rings, and sometimes a very direct allusion is required,
+he will not be able to persuade a chorus girl to come out to supper
+with him. He thinks he is getting old, he looks in the glass with
+fear."
+
+"You mean to say there are men who look in the glass with fear?"
+
+"Of course, after five-and-thirty the glass whispers as awful truths
+to the man as to the woman--worse, for woman's youth is longer than
+man's. The contrary is the received opinion, but, like all popular
+opinions, it is wrong; a woman is frequently loved after forty, a man
+never. I was saying that a man often thinks he is getting old because
+the chorus girl took an early opportunity of speaking of rings,
+because the lady of fashion begged of the old gentleman who had taken
+up his hat to go to stay a little while longer, because the chamber-
+maid did not look lusciously round the corner when he passed her in
+the passage. He looks in the glass and imagines all kinds of monstrous
+changes in his person. His fears have no foundation in fact--or should
+I say in the flesh? A year after the duchess makes overtures, the
+chorus girl threatens to throw up her engagement for him, and the
+chambermaid pesters him with unnecessary questions concerning baths
+and towels. These facts tend to show, indeed I think they prove, that
+love is a magnetism, which sometimes we possess in almost irresistible
+strength, and which sometimes fades away into powerless and apparent
+extinction."
+
+"Then you think that good looks have nothing to do with the faculty of
+making oneself beloved?" said Fletcher.
+
+"The phenomenon of love has hitherto eluded our most eager
+investigation; when we have traced each desire to its source, and
+classified--"
+
+"We women will have ceased to take any interest in the matter. What a
+humbug you are, Mr. Harding; one never knows when you are serious. But
+what has all this to do with that poor boy who has gone off with his
+barmaid?"
+
+"This: he is unquestionably good-looking, but I don't think he
+possesses at all the magnetism, the power--call it what you will--that
+I have been speaking of. He will never influence either men or women,
+he will never make friends; that is to say, he will never make use of
+his friends. He will, I should think, always remain a little outside
+of success. It will never quite come to him; he will be one of those
+muddled, dissatisfied creatures who rail against luck and bad
+treatment. I cannot see him really successful in anything; yes I can,
+though, I believe he would make an excellent husband. I have spoken a
+great deal to him. He has told me a lot about himself, and I can see
+that he asks and desires nothing but leave to devote himself to a
+woman, to pander to her caprices. All that violent exterior will wear
+off, and he will yield to and love to be led by a woman. He writes a
+little, and he paints. I don't know if he has any talent; but he never
+will be able to work until he is obliged to work for a woman."
+
+"Then you think he will marry that barmaid?"
+
+"Most probably. He will struggle against it; but unless chance
+intervenes--she may die, she may run away with some one to-morrow, for
+she does not care for him--he will be sucked into the gulf."
+
+"He is Lord Mount Rorke's heir; he will have twenty thousand a year
+one of these days."
+
+"Mount Rorke will never forgive him a bad match. I know Mount Rorke,"
+said Lady Seveley, "and you do, too, Mr. Fletcher."
+
+"Yes, a little."
+
+Unfearing prophecy and oracle launched from the windows of the hotel,
+the young people rowed, lost to all but each other, amazed at the
+loveliness of the river. They floated amid the bulrushes. Cries and
+regret when Frank's oar crushed the desired blossom. Never before were
+lilies as desirable as those that were gathered that day--that bud, it
+must be possessed, that blown flower must not be left behind. Lizzie
+dipped her arm to the elbow, and rejoiced in the soft flowing water.
+The river rose up into what beautiful views and prospects. The locks,
+the sensation of the boat sinking among the slimy piles with Frank
+erect holding her off with the boat-hook, or the slow rising till the
+banks were overflowed, and the wonderful wooden gates opened,
+disclosing a placid stream with overhanging boughs and a barge. And
+the charming discoveries they made in this water world, the moorhen's
+indolence, and the watchful rat swimming for its hole; each bend was a
+new picture. How beautifully expressive of the work of the field were
+the comfortable barns. If life is never very fair, a vision of life
+may be fair indeed, and once the tears came to the bar girl's eyes,
+for she, too, suddenly remembered her life of tobacco and whisky; long
+weary hours of standing, politeness, washing glasses, and listening to
+filthy jokes. Would there be no change? If she might live her life
+here! She thought of the morning light, and the home occupations of
+the morning, and then the languid and lazy afternoons in this boat,
+amid the enchantment of these river lands.
+
+Frank laid by his oars, and as regardless as a shopboy of observers,
+he took her hand and begged of her to confide in him. He thought, too,
+of seeing her daily, hourly, of her presence in his daily life; he saw
+her amid his painting and poetry, and this pleasant scenery. Then the
+vision vanished like the shine upon the stream, she withdrew her
+hands, a shadow had fallen.
+
+They passed a summer-house where three girls were sitting; one sat on
+the edge of a table and sang the ballad of "Biddy Malone." There was a
+house so red, and so full of gables and narrow windows, that Frank
+said it was a perfect specimen of Elizabethan architecture; and he
+treated Lizzie to all he could pretend to know on the subject, and he
+condemned the owner for the glaringly modern garden benches with which
+the swards were interspersed. The sun was setting, there was lassitude
+in every passing boat, the girls leaned upon the arms of the young
+men, and the woods stood up tall and contemplative, as beautiful in
+the deep blue river as upon the pale sky.
+
+They landed at Pangbourne Woods by the wide grassy path between the
+reedy river and the spreading beeches. There a man was boiling a
+kettle. He spoke to them; he instructed them in the life of camping
+out, and he invited them to tea. Lizzie went into the tent and got out
+the tea-things. Two men came up, jolly fellows enough; and such little
+adventures endeared and memorised the day.
+
+They climbed, oh! what a climb it was, Lizzie's ankles and courage
+giving way alternately; but at last they reached a pathway, and they
+walked at ease into the green solitudes of the wood. It seemed
+endless, so soft and so still. He spoke to Lizzie, whom he now called
+Liz, of her past, of the reasons that had led her to leave home and
+"go to business." Her brother, she said, was a painter, a celebrated
+bird-painter.
+
+"Then we should know each other, I am a painter." He told her of his
+ideas and projects, of how he had been to France; he might go there
+again, unless something happened to keep him in England. He wrote a
+little too, in the papers, and he might do something to help her
+brother--a paragraph in _Fashion_, he could get one in. For fear of
+wounding her he did not ask if her brother was a decorative painter,
+employed by a firm, or an artist who exhibited pictures. Her father had
+married again. She did not like her stepmother, and that had determined
+her to go into business.
+
+Had she ever been in love? Yes, she supposed she had; but it was all
+over now. The last words sounded, and died away in a great abyss of
+soul.
+
+Parts of the path were marked "Dangerous." The earth had given way,
+creating fearful chasms, over which trees leaned dangerously or hung
+out fantastically by a few roots. In the dell below there stood a
+small green painted table, and the young people leaning on the
+protecting railing wondered at this mysterious piece of furniture.
+There was in them and about them an illusive sense of death and the
+beauty of life. One slight push would hurl them headlong hundreds of
+feet down to the painted table.
+
+The silver of the river sparkled through silence and the foliage of
+June, and the songs of the boatmen came and went like voices in a
+dream.
+
+The days of youth are long, and in tender idleness the hours lingered,
+their charm unbroken in the rattle of London; and happy with love and
+tired with the great air of the river and its leafy scenery, Frank
+fell asleep that night.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+
+One of the French artists he had met in Rome wrote to him from Paris.
+Why should he not go there? There was nothing for him to do in London;
+Lizzie Baker had disappeared, and in the year and a half that he spent
+in Paris learning to draw he forgot her and his friends in Southwick.
+Nor did he remember them when he returned to London; not until one
+evening, strolling down Regent Street, he came upon Willy Brookes
+suddenly.
+
+"How do you do, my dear Willy? I haven't seen you for--for--how long?"
+
+"I should think it must be now, let me see, I have got it down
+somewhere; when I get home I'll look it up."
+
+"Hang the looking up; better come and look me up."
+
+The young men laughed.
+
+"It must be nearly a year and a half."
+
+"I should think it must. Where are you staying? I am staying at
+Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square. Come and dine with me to-night."
+
+Willy reflected. He stroked his moustache reflectively.
+
+"No," he said, "I am afraid I can't. I have something to do."
+
+"Nonsense! I don't believe you. What have you to do?"
+
+"I have some cheques to write."
+
+"That won't take you a moment. You can do that at my place."
+
+"I couldn't, I assure you. I must have my books and my own pen. I
+wouldn't write a cheque in that way for worlds."
+
+"Why not? We'll go to a music-hall afterwards."
+
+"I am very sorry, but I really couldn't--not to-night."
+
+"You never go in for amusing yourself."
+
+"Yes, I do; but what amuses you doesn't amuse me. I assure you I would
+sooner stay at home, write my cheques, and enter them carefully, than
+go to a music-hall."
+
+Frank looked at Willy for a moment in mute amazement. Then he said:
+"But what's that you have under your arm in that brown paper parcel?"
+
+Willy laughed. "A leg of mutton; I have just been to the stores."
+
+"You mean to say you buy legs of mutton at the stores, and carry them
+home? Supposing you met some one, if we were to--"
+
+"Not very likely, a foggy night like this. I have a small house in
+Notting Hill. I take the 'bus at the Circus. I shall be very glad if
+you will come with me; so will the missus."
+
+"I forgot to ask about her, how is she?"
+
+"Very well. Come and see for yourself. Come and dine with us to-
+morrow. I can't give you one of your restaurant dinners, but if leg of
+mutton will suit, all I can say is that I shall be very happy."
+
+"I'll come whenever you like."
+
+"Can you come to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes. We might go to the theatre afterwards."
+
+"We might. Be at my place at half-past six, that will give us plenty
+of time."
+
+"What a queer fish he is," thought Frank, as he walked down Regent
+Street, looking at the women. "Can't come and dine with me because he
+has two or three cheques to write, must have all his books out to make
+entries--what a clerk for the Government--an ideal clerk! What a
+genius for red tape!"
+
+Willy was standing on the steps of the little house, and he commented
+on his friend's extravagances as he welcomed him.
+
+"You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that
+cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an
+hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep
+a servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up."
+
+Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet
+suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room,
+kept for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room--a
+little more alive--where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts,
+but there the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry,
+bread-like days that wore themselves away; life there was too
+obviously dry and bare, joyless and mean.
+
+Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused
+on the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one,
+making entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the
+humbleness, nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the
+reception rooms of the Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and
+poverty, another burning out in light and riches; timeworn truths
+float on the surface of this little pool of life, and so modernised
+are they that they appear for a moment "new and original." But further
+than a regret that there were no flowers in the window, and a sense of
+the horrible when his eyes fell on a piece of Swiss scenery, his
+thoughts did not wander; they soon were fixed and absorbed in the
+consideration of the happiness that Willy had attained by "doing the
+right thing by the woman." He was hers, she was his. Dreams of things
+marital, the endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of the
+being of some men and women, and are to them a perennial delight.
+Frank was such a one.
+
+He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees,
+and put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed,
+and stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders.
+
+They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called
+indignantly to the crowd not to press him. "Did they not see that he
+was carrying a child?" He did not think that his friends might
+recognise him, nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of
+some face in the stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside;
+nor would he have pretended that he was not with the pale, worn,
+shabbily-dressed woman by his side. He was wholly filled with his
+friends, their interests and concerns; so complete was the investment
+of himself that Lizzie Baker did not snatch a fugitive thought from
+them; and it was not until he sat smoking with Willy in the back
+parlour that he said:
+
+"I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl."
+
+"You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't
+you? Do you think she went off to live with some one?"
+
+"No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was
+a pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had
+such a jolly day in the woods and on the water--amid the water-lilies
+and bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up
+the river."
+
+"I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if
+I can help it--I am too nervous."
+
+"How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!"
+
+"But I never understood how it was you lost sight of her. You said in
+your letter that she had left the bar; but she must have gone
+somewhere. I am sure you didn't make sufficient enquiries. You are too
+impatient."
+
+"I did all I could. One girl told me that a lot of them--Lizzie among
+the number--had suddenly been transferred to Liverpool Street. That
+was true, for I saw at Liverpool Street several girls I had known
+previously at the 'Gaiety.' Those poor bar girls, how pitiful they
+look! all over London they stand behind their bars! Breathing for
+hours tobacco smoke, fumes of whisky and beer, listening to abominable
+jokes, the subjects of hideous flirtations; and then the little
+comedy, the effort to appear as virtuous young ladies--'young ladies
+of the bar.' It is very pitiful. In such circumstances how do you
+expect a girl to keep straight? I do not think it is the men who do
+the harm. There are, of course, a few blackguards who crack filthy
+jokes over the counter, but if a girl likes she needn't listen--a girl
+can always keep a man in his place. Then if a man flirts with a girl
+he always loves her, likes her, if you think 'like' a better word; but
+you must admit that in the most beery flirtation there must be a
+certain amount of liking. There is, therefore, something to save a
+girl. I feel sure that it is girls, not men, who lead innocent girls
+astray. Those poor bar girls are quite unprotected; they have a
+sitting-room into which they may not bring a friend--a man, I mean. In
+the bedrooms there is always a lot of illicit talking and drinking
+going an. A girl who has gone wrong herself is never content until she
+has persuaded another girl to go wrong; a girl is so mean! I feel very
+much on this subject. I am thinking of writing a book on the subject.
+Did I ever tell you about the novel I intended to write?"
+
+"You told me once in Brighton about a novel you intended to write. I
+forget what it was about, but you said you were going to call it 'Her
+Saviour.'"
+
+"Oh, that is another book. I was thinking of writing the story of a
+woman who is led into vice. They get her to throw over the man who
+loves her; he follows her, never loses sight of her until at last,
+determined to save her, and although he knows that he is wrecking his
+own life, he marries her. What do you think?"
+
+Being pressed for an answer, Willy stroked his moustache with great
+gravity. "I really can't say, my dear fellow; you know I never like
+giving opinions on questions I do not understand."
+
+The conversation came to a pause, and Willy began to whistle.
+
+"Just a little flat--quarter of a note wrong there and there!"
+
+"Do you whistle it? Oh, yes, that's it! I can hear the difference! I
+wish you had your violin. I should like to hear you play it."
+
+"What, with the missus overhead?"
+
+"She doesn't know anything about it. How prettily _she_ used to sing
+it; a pretty tune, isn't it? Good old days they were! Do you remember
+when you used to come to the Princess's with me? Didn't she look
+pretty?"
+
+"You never told me why you didn't marry her; I never heard the end of
+that story."
+
+"There is nothing to tell. It's all over now. Do you remember how I
+used to dress myself up to go to the theatre? We used to go to supper
+at Scott's afterwards. I did not mind what I ate in those days."
+
+"You hardly ever go to the theatre now, do you?"
+
+"Hardly ever. I shouldn't have gone to-night if it had not been for
+you. I don't know how it is, but I don't seem to enjoy myself as I
+used to."
+
+The men ceased talking. Presently Frank broke the silence.
+
+"I hope you are getting on all right on the Stock Exchange. You
+haven't mentioned the subject."
+
+"I don't know that there is much to say. Times are very bad just now.
+I don't think any one is doing much good."
+
+"But you are with a very good firm. Nothing is going wrong, I hope."
+
+"I don't think any one is making money. We have all been hard hit
+lately--war scares. But I daresay it will all come right."
+
+"I never understood what you ever wanted to go into the business for.
+What do you, with your handsome place at Southwick, and your father
+with his thousands and thousands, want to turn yourself into a city
+clerk for?"
+
+"You see, you don't care about making money; I do--it was bred in me.
+Besides, I am an unselfish fellow. I never think of myself; I like to
+think of others. If I were to make a good thing out of this, I should
+be able to leave the missus independent." Then, after a slight pause,
+Willy said: "But, by the way, I was forgetting. I got a letter this
+morning saying that if I met you in London I was to tell you that you
+were to come to Southwick for a ball."
+
+"What ball?"
+
+"A subscription ball at Henfield--a county ball. Will you come?"
+
+"Yes, I don't mind. It should be rather fun. Are you going?"
+
+"Yes, I must go, worse luck, to chaperon my sisters."
+
+"How do you go? Will the governor let you have the horses?"
+
+"Not he! We generally have a large 'bus. I am going down to-morrow by
+the twelve o'clock train. Will that be too early for you?"
+
+"Not if I go home now and pack up."
+
+"You won't like that. You had better sleep here and get up early in
+the morning; your room is all ready."
+
+"I couldn't manage it. I never could get back to the Temple, pack up,
+and meet you at twelve at London Bridge."
+
+"It will be rather a cold walk for you; you are too late for the
+train, and the last 'bus, I am afraid, has gone."
+
+"I shall have a hansom. The only thing that worries me is not being
+able to say good-bye to the missus."
+
+"She's fast asleep. She won't mind--I'll make that all right."
+
+"Then, at twelve o'clock at London Bridge!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+
+Sally rushed down to meet him, and she took him off for a walk in the
+garden.
+
+"What a time it is since we have seen you. What have you been doing--
+amusing yourself a great deal, I suppose?"
+
+"I have been the whole time in Paris. I have been studying very hard.
+I only returned home about two months ago."
+
+"I don't believe about the studying."
+
+"I have been working at my painting. I worked morning and afternoon in
+the studio from the nude. Last summer I had a delightful time. I took
+a little place on the Seine--a little house near Bas Meudon. I had a
+garden; I used to breakfast every morning in the garden--fresh eggs,
+new bread, an omelette, such as only a Frenchwoman can make, a cutlet,
+or a piece of chicken. The wine, too, so fresh and generous. I don't
+know how it is, but Burgundy here is not the same as Burgundy on the
+banks of the Seine. I worked all day in my garden, or down by the
+river. I was painting a large picture. I haven't finished it yet. I
+must go back there in the summer to finish it."
+
+"Why can't you finish it here? Haven't you got it here?"
+
+"Yes, but the Seine is not here."
+
+"Wouldn't the Adour do? The river at Shoreham?"
+
+"No; but the Thames might. My picture is really more English than
+French. There were a lot of willow trees there, and my picture
+represents a girl lying in a hammock, foot hanging over, showing such
+a pretty piece of black stocking. There are two men there, they are
+both swinging the hammock, but while one is looking at her ankle the
+other only sees her face."
+
+Sally laughed coarsely and evasively.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" he asked, feeling a little nettled.
+
+"Don't you think people will think it rather improper?"
+
+"Not at all. Why should they? The idea I wish to convey is that one
+man loves her truly for herself alone, the other only loves her
+because she is a pretty girl. I have composed some triolets for the
+picture, which will be printed in the catalogue--
+
+      "In a hammock I swing,
+        My feet hanging over;
+      'Neath Love's bright wing,
+        In a hammock I swing,
+      Loves come and they bring
+        A truth to discover,
+      In a hammock I swing,
+        My feet hanging over.
+
+"That is the first stanza. There are six, and they tell the story of
+the picture. I will copy them into your album, if you like."
+
+"Will you? That will be so nice, if you will. The only thing is, I
+haven't an album."
+
+"Haven't you? I'll get you one. I'll send you one from London."
+
+Sally asked him to explain the triolets, and very loyally she strove
+to understand.
+
+"Ah, I see a thing when I am told, but I never can understand poetry
+or pictures until they are explained to me."
+
+Mollified, Frank thought of going upstairs to fetch the copy book in
+which he wrote such things, but speaking out of an unperceived
+association of ideas, he said: "What a clever girl your sister is. I
+had once a long talk with her about pictures and poetry, and I was
+surprised to find how well she talked. She understands everything."
+
+"Maggie is a clever girl; I know she is far cleverer than I am; but if
+you knew her as well as I do, you would find she did not understand
+all you think she understands."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Maggie's cleverness lies in being able to pretend she understands
+what she knows nothing about; I have often caught her out."
+
+"Really; but how do you get on together now?"
+
+"Pretty well! I don't think there is much love lost on either side. I
+don't know why--I never could understand Maggie. You have no idea of
+the reports she spreads about me all over the place--the stories she
+tells the Grahams, the Prestons, the Wells. She told Mrs. Wells that I
+fell in love with every young man that came to Southwick. She said
+awful things about me. As for that story about telling cook to put
+father's dinner back, I don't think I ever shall hear the last of it.
+What made father so angry was because he thought it was to talk to
+Jimmy in the slonk."
+
+"You told me the last time I was here that you wanted to finish a
+conversation with him in the slonk."
+
+"I may have told you that it was to speak to him about his sister
+Fanny," Sally replied evasively. "I would not care if I never saw him
+again; but I couldn't get on if I weren't allowed to see Fanny. Father
+wanted me to promise never to enter the house again!"
+
+"But you have flirted with him?"
+
+"I don't know that I have; certainly not more than Maggie. Last summer
+she was hanging round his neck every evening under the sycamores. I
+caught them twice."
+
+"I don't see any harm in going under the sycamores. I daresay Maggie
+has allowed him to kiss her; so have you!"
+
+"That I assure you I haven't."
+
+"You mean to say a man never kissed you?"
+
+"I didn't say that. I haven't kissed any one for years."
+
+"Who did kiss you?"
+
+"You don't know him. I was only eighteen. He was a married man; it was
+very wrong of me."
+
+"I wish I had been he."
+
+"Do you? I hate him; he was a beast for doing it."
+
+Sally often indulged in these half confessions; one of her aunts used
+to call them her "side lights." By their aid she succeeded in
+interesting Frank. "How candid she is to tell me--to confide in me!"
+Sally was handsome now; the evening suited her dark skin and coal
+black eyes, and her strong figure was rich and not ungraceful in a
+dress of ruby velvet. Should he kiss her? What would she say? He
+threwhis arm about her.
+
+"I am surprised. Certainly not!"
+
+"I don't see any harm." Then, with a sensation of saying something
+foolish, he said: "You told me you kissed a married man."
+
+"That was ages ago--I was very silly. I shouldn't think of doing
+sonow."
+
+In the silence which followed Frank wondered why he had tried to kiss
+her. Decidedly he liked the other better.
+
+Now every evening Maggie went to the writing-table, and all knew what
+it meant. Mr. Brookes occasionally lamented in a minor key, but
+without having recourse to his handkerchief. Willy said nothing; his
+losses on the Stock Exchange had been heavy; and owing to a
+conversation Frank had drawn him into during dinner the other day, his
+digestion, he feared, was not quite up to the mark. So on the night of
+the ball he only answered with an occasional monosyllable the splendid
+young man of the embroidered waistcoats who related his pleasures in a
+deep bass; nor did he pretend to take any interest in the crude
+militia officer who sometimes broke the silence by a declaration that
+he did not care for politics or poetry, that he liked history better.
+The young ladies listened devoutly to all that the young men said; Mr.
+Brookes carved valiantly at the head of the table and appeared
+resigned. Bouquets were fixed in button-holes in the billiard-room and
+the 'bus was announced. A greasy oil-lamp hung from the roof.
+Sometimes Sally rubbed the windows and said she could tell by the
+bushes where they were, and the embroidered waistcoat continued to
+drone out the measure of his amusements. He would have to run up to
+London, then he must have a shy at _trente et quarante_ at Monte Carlo,
+then he must get back for the spring meeting at Newmarket. Frank asked
+him if he didn't think he could manage to amuse himself without talking
+it all out beforehand. But undaunted and unchecked he wandered from
+Homburg to Paris, and from Paris to Ross-shire, until the 'bus drew up
+among a small crowd of people.
+
+The ball was a failure. When they entered the rooms there were
+scarcely twenty people present. It was very cold, and the men said;
+"How can the women bear it with their naked shoulders?"
+
+"We shall never get near this fire," said Sally, looking in dismay on
+the circle of damsels who stood warming themselves, their dresses
+relieved upon the masses of laurel with which the room was decorated;
+"there is a beautiful fire in one of those little rooms at the end."
+
+"Very well, let us come and sit there; or shall we dance this waltz
+first?"
+
+"Let's dance it."
+
+They danced, and Frank shuddered in his evening clothes as he danced.
+
+"Did you notice," said Sally, as they hurried to the retiring room,
+"how upset father seemed at dinner? I thought he was going to cry, but
+he bore up to the end better than I expected."
+
+"So he did, but I don't see what there was particularly to upset him
+this time. Meason is away at sea, and you have promised not to see him
+any more."
+
+"Oh, I wasn't thinking about the Measons--but haven't you heard? I
+only heard it through a friend, but I know for a fact that Willy has
+lost nearly all his money on the Stock Exchange."
+
+"You don't say so; I am so sorry."
+
+"Father hasn't heard it all yet; if he had he wouldn't have come down
+to dinner. I don't fancy he knows more than that things have not been
+going well, and that Willy has been a loser."
+
+"But how can he have lost? I thought he was junior partner in an old
+established business."
+
+"So he is. I can't tell you how the mischief was done, but I know he
+has lost all his money."
+
+"What do you mean by all his money?"
+
+"All the money--three thousand--that father let him draw out of the
+distillery."
+
+"This is very sad."
+
+"Yes, isn't it? And particularly for a fellow who has so few
+amusements, and only cares about making money. Just look at him now;
+he wanders about speaking to no one. Come, let's dance this dance--are
+you engaged?"
+
+"No!"
+
+This news about Willy fixed the Harfield ball in Frank's thoughts, and
+he remembered the pretty girl in white of whom he could make nothing,
+of the raw just-brought-out girl who had bored him, of the
+communicative girl who had amused him by her accounts of her dogs and
+horses; he remembered, too, how he had seen Maggie disappearing down
+the ends of certain passages with a young man whose name he did not
+catch, and whose face he had not noticed. He had danced twice with
+her, only twice; she was distracted, she did not look at him, her eyes
+wandered all over the room, she answered his questions indifferently.
+Sally, on the contrary, had devoted herself to him, and on several
+occasions he thought that her blunt straightforward manner was better
+than the other's slyness. The 'bus came with its draughts, its sickly
+lamp and its doleful jolting. Sally was too tired to rub the windows
+and declare how far they were from home, and the dancers endured their
+discomforts almost in silence; even the embroidered waistcoat
+occasionally ceased to talk about Homburg; and in all the extreme
+bitterness and greyness of a March morning they pulled up before the
+door of the Manor House.
+
+"I beg of you not to make a noise. If you wake up father he will never
+let us go to a ball again. Is there a fire in the billiard-room,
+Gardner?"
+
+"Yes, miss, there's a lovely fire; the decanters are on the table and
+the kettle is on the hob."
+
+"I think you would all like a glass of something hot," said Maggie.
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"But don't make a noise, please."
+
+They stole along the passages to the billiard-room shivering, their
+feet aching, feeling very uncomfortable indeed. The waistcoat was now
+considering if it would be good form to come forward in the
+Conservative interest at the next election; but every one was too
+tired, they could not laugh, and amid a few general remarks the young
+ladies drank their gin and water, casting sheep's eyes at the young
+men, and then, glad and yet loth to part, all retired limping to their
+rooms.
+
+Breakfast was a pleasant meal--full of laughter and anecdotes of the
+ball, and, laden with Gladstone bags, the young men departed in ones
+and twos. Frank was going with Willy to London, and when they
+disappeared among the laurels Sally and Maggie turned indoors,
+conscious of reaction, and wondering what they should do with the long
+day that stretched before them. Maggie walked upstairs; she lingered,
+undecided, and then went down the passage to Frank's room. He had
+forgotten a shirt stud; on the chest of drawers there was a crumpled
+white tie and a soiled pair of white gloves. "How careless he is!" she
+thought, "I must send him this," and she put the stud in her pocket.
+She straightened out the gloves and determined to send the necktie to
+the wash. Next time he came down she would have it to give him, nice,
+clean, and white--she must see that it was beautifully made up. Then
+she found his ball programme. He had danced four times with Sally--
+only twice with her--what a fool she had been; she had wasted her
+whole evening with that other fellow. It did make her feel so angry.
+Then the housemaid entered and turned the bed down.
+
+"What a lot of washing there will be this week, Gardner."
+
+"There will indeed, miss. Three pairs of sheets, and only slept in
+once."
+
+"Yes, isn't it a pity? It seems absurd to send these sheets to the
+wash, doesn't it?"
+
+"It do, indeed, miss."
+
+"Absurd!" said Sally, who had just come in. "I want a pair of fresh
+sheets for my bed. I'll have these."
+
+"No you won't--I was going to take them."
+
+"I should like to know what right you have to them more than I."
+
+"You promised not to interfere with me, and you have done nothing
+else. You did nothing at the ball but ask him for dances."
+
+"That's a lie! I didn't ask him for a dance. You went off to hide; no
+one saw anything of you all the evening."
+
+"You mean to say you didn't promise?"
+
+"I never promised anything; if I did I should keep my promise. I am
+not like you. I want a pair of sheets, and I mean to have these."
+
+"They are too big for your bed."
+
+Sally seized the sheet and strove to drag it from Maggie, who,
+although the weaker, held her own bravely for some time. Finding her
+strength failing her, she loosed her hold, letting her sister fall
+against the wall, and taking up the pillow she launched it with her
+full force. "If you want what he slept in, you can have it all."
+
+"I'll give it to you, my lady," cried the bully, making a rush round
+the bed, but Maggie fled through the dressing-room, shutting the door
+behind her, and locked herself into her room.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+
+As Willy would not pay the extra fare, Frank had to travel second
+class. He was telling his friend of the Stock Exchange, and his
+losses--nearly four thousand pounds. He had suspected that the firm of
+which he was junior partner had not played fair with him. Anyhow, he
+was going to get out of the business, having something better in view
+--a shop in Brighton. Yes, a shop in Brighton, a greengrocer's shop. No
+one had any idea, until they went into the calculation, of the amount
+of profit that was made on vegetables. Lord This and Lord That, every
+one who had a handsome place with large gardens, counted on being able
+to pay his gardener's wages by the sale of the surplus carrots,
+artichokes, potatoes, parsley, onions, tomatoes, especially tomatoes--
+every one nowadays ate tomatoes. He had it all down in figures, and
+was perfectly astonished at the sums of money that could be made.
+Grapes had been overdone, that was true; but a profit could be made
+out of everything else. Flowers, especially gardenias, were sold in
+the London market at two shillings apiece. Now, there was he within
+five miles of a large town like Brighton; the rent of a shop in the
+Western Road would not come to more than seventy or eighty pounds a
+year; the missus he would put in as shopwoman, and, there was no doubt
+of it, she would make as good a shopwoman as you could find, after a
+little practice; the child could run on errands, so it should be all
+profit. "I shall have none of the expenses that other people have to
+contend with. In the garden at the Manor House about three times as
+much stuff is grown as required. I shall buy all the fruit,
+vegetables, and flowers from my father at cost price, or a little
+over, and shall sell in my shop at retail price, that is, twenty or
+thirty per cent more. There is, therefore, no reason why the shop
+should not bring in from three to four hundred a year. And--would you
+believe it?--my father, who will be benefited by my scheme, if not
+more, quite as much as I shall be, is opposed to it; he will get a
+fair price for a lot of things for which he now gets nothing. But no.
+He cannot, or will not, see it. I never saw any one like my father. He
+will not help himself and you can do nothing to help him. The
+distillery business is going very badly. He had a bad year last year.
+I know for a fact that he did not make five per cent on his capital.
+Putting these things together, I should have thought that he would
+have been glad to make a little money to retrench; but no! he prefers
+to go on in the old way. He made money in the old way, and he doesn't
+see why he shouldn't make money again in the old way. Odd man my
+father is, isn't he?"
+
+It appeared to Frank that Mr. Brookes had managed to help himself very
+liberally indeed to all the good things in life; but with his false,
+facile, Celtic nature, he had no difficulty in re-adjusting his ideas
+and adopting a view of Mr. Brookes more in harmony with Willy's. He
+was, as usual, enthusiastic about his friends, and was effervescing
+with love and goodwill. He saw nothing of their faults--they were the
+best and truest people he had ever known, and he could not love them
+too much. Indeed he was angry, and regretted the limitations that
+nature has set on the human heart, and would if he could have lost
+himself in one immense and eternal love of the Brookeses.
+
+When he bade Willy good-bye at London Bridge, and wished him well with
+his shop, these sentiments ceased to be active forces in him, and they
+lay latent in his life of restaurants and bar rooms until the summer
+returned, and he received an invitation from the Manor House to come
+down for a garden party at Mrs. Berkins's. When he opened the letter
+he basked in thoughts of them--of Maggie and her fascinating
+subtleties, of Sally's blunt speech and sturdy good looks, of Willy,
+and all the quiet talks they would have together. He counted the
+tunnels, and, striving to recall the landscape, guessed extravagantly
+the number of miles that separated him from them. He walked up the
+drive with a beating heart, looking for the girls between the laurel
+bushes. He found them, and their habits which endeared them to him,
+unchanged; and to slip back into the old ways without experiencing the
+slightest difficulty or jar was like waking from a dream and entering
+again on a pleasant reality. There was the excellent dinner and the
+usual complaints about the Southdown Road, the cigars in the billiard-
+room, conversation about pictures and investments, gin and water, and
+then a long yarn with Willy in his bedroom. Life moved at the Manor
+House without any spring creaking, without jolt or jar, and it was
+this beautiful regularity that made Frank feel so healthily and so
+unexpectedly happy. He loved the desolation of Ireland. This was the
+stronger sense, but there was another sense, a half stifled sense,
+that found an echo in these southern downs interwoven with suburban
+life--in other words, a faint resurrection of the original English
+mind in him. He enjoyed and he grew akin to this Saxon prosperity; he
+learned to recognise it as manifested in the various prospects of the
+weald and the wold, and he loved this medley of contradictory aspects
+--the spires of the village churches, the porches of the villas, the
+rich farmhouses and their elm trees, the orchards jammed between
+masses of chalk, the shepherds seen against the sky of the Downs. It
+is true that he felt that this country was alien to him, but he was
+not individually conscious that his love of suburban Sussex was a
+morbid affection, opposed to the normal and indissoluble bonds of
+inherited aspirations and prejudices, and the forms and colours that
+had filled his eyes in childhood. Consciousness in Frank Escott was
+always slow, and always so governed and coloured by the sentiment of
+the moment that his comprehension of things were always deformed or
+incomplete. In his mind the phenomenon of life was ever in nebulae,
+and though very often one thought would define itself, no group of
+thoughts, or part of a group, ever became clear, so there was no
+abiding principle, nothing that he might know and steer by. He was, of
+course, aware that the Brookes were not equal to him in rank, but he
+did not know, or, rather, he would not know, that they were vulgar;
+nor did he think that Mount Rorke might marry again, if he were to
+marry Maggie or Sally. All that was really alive and distinct in him
+was love of them; and this love thrived in a sensation of class which
+he would not acknowledge, even to himself, had any existence. The
+glass-houses, and swards, and laurels had a meaning and fascination
+for him that he could not account for or describe, and he found these
+feelings, which were mainly class feelings of an unusual kind, not
+only in the aspect of the country but in the accent and speech of his
+friends, in the expression of their eyes and very hands. The English
+servants pleased him, and he strove to detect qualities in the
+carriage and horses, and he compared them to their advantage with
+Mount Rorke's. He loved to wrap the rug about the young ladies' knees,
+and they seemed to him quite perfect and delightful as they lay back
+in their carriage, driving beneath a sky full of blue, and through the
+changing views of the Downs, all distinct with light and shade. Sally
+and Maggie made much of him, covered him up, and addressed to him
+pleasant speeches. His eyes and ears were open and eager for new
+impressions, and his heart panted with readiness to admire and praise
+all he saw. He was ready to think that he had never seen anything so
+lovely as the laurels and the numerous glass-houses; and he wondered
+why he had ever thought so little of Berkins, and he listened with
+interest to that gentleman's explanation of the superiority of his
+possessions over everybody else's possessions. He even allowed himself
+to be persuaded that there was no pheasant shooting in the kingdom--
+for its size--equal to that in the little wood. Sally, who did not
+attempt to conceal her dislike of her brother-in-law, whispered:
+"That's the way to bring them down," and Frank was obliged to laugh.
+Then she and Maggie disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them for
+several hours. The Grenadier Guards played on the lawn, and Frank was
+introduced to ladies of all ages and sizes; and as these bored him, he
+began to see that the place was vulgar and the people shoddy, and he
+wondered what Mount Rorke would say if he were to come suddenly across
+him. Grace was the subject of much concern, and obviously _enceinte,_
+she passed through the different groups. She had introduced Frank as
+Lord Mount Rorke's son, then as his nephew, then as his heir, and,
+fearing she might succumb to the temptation of introducing him as Mount
+Rorke himself, Frank escaped from her, and joined a party that Berkins
+was personally conducting through the grounds.
+
+The stables had been built by So-and-so on the most approved
+principles. There were no stables like them in Sussex--the fittings of
+the harness-room alone had cost him three hundred. The horses he had
+bought at the Duke's sale, the Duke would not have thought of parting
+with them had he known how they would turn out. He had driven them
+along the Brighton road at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; he would
+back them to do fifteen miles in the hour. There was not a pair of
+horses in England equal to them. That was Mrs. Berkins's riding horse
+--was it possible to imagine a more perfect cob? He could get a hundred
+for him any day, he did not know of anything like him. "Did any of you
+gentleman ever see anything like him?" They went to the kennels. A
+brace of Irish setters were declared to be the finest dogs that
+Ireland had ever produced, they had taken two prizes, one in Dublin
+and another in Brighton--and the little fox terrier was the gamest dog
+in Sussex. She would go into any hole after a fox, and never leave him
+till she brought him out. You couldn't find her equal. Then the glass-
+houses were perfect. They contained all the latest improvements, and
+all these were fully explained. "Berkins is excelling himself to-day,"
+thought Frank.
+
+Presently they came upon a basket of peaches.
+
+"These peaches were, of course, grown under glass, but I think I am
+right in saying, Jackson, that they were produced without artificial
+heat."
+
+"Yes, sir, quite right, sir. It couldn't be done nowhere else, sir,
+but all the sun in Sussex seems to come down here--a regular little
+sun trap, I think that's what you called it the other day, sir, when
+you were speaking to me about them there peaches."
+
+"Yes, I did. If you move nearer the sea you get fogs and cold winds,
+further inland you lose the sun, but just here the climate is equal to
+the south of Europe! I ask you to look at these peaches, it seems
+impossible--does it not?--to have peaches like these at the end of
+May, and without any heat, merely glass."
+
+"It seems to me quite impossible," declared a little fat man with
+flaxen hair. "I am devoted to peach-growing, and I confess I am quite
+at a loss. Gardener, did you say that those peaches were grown
+entirely without artificial heat?"
+
+The gardener pretended not to hear, and tried to slip away, but the
+little man, who had been taken on his hobby, was not to be baulked,
+and he pursued the wretched horticulturist.
+
+"You mean to say that these peaches ripened without any artificial
+heat, any?"
+
+"You have no idea what a sun we get here, sir. I have never seen
+anything like it. In my last situation, when I was living with
+Lord ---, we couldn't get our fruit forward, use whatever heat he
+might, and Houghton is not more than fifty miles from here--the
+difference of climate is positively wonderful."
+
+Jackson had reckoned that Mr. Berkins would move on, and that the
+inquisitive little man would find himself obliged to follow, but
+chance was against him, for Berkins, with his guests around him, stood
+listening to the discussion.
+
+"You mean to say that these peaches were grown without heat. I
+wouldn't mind giving you five-and-twenty pounds for the recipe for
+doing it."
+
+"You must take a small place down here, sir, and then you will be able
+to do it."
+
+This raised a laugh, but the little man was not to be beaten, and he
+said: "I should like to see some of those peaches of yours on the
+trees. You haven't plucked them all; let me see them."
+
+"Yes, Jackson, show us the trees. Some will not believe without
+seeing; let us see the peaches on the trees."
+
+Jackson appeared to be a little disconcerted; he murmured excuses, and
+strove to escape. Driven to bay he brought them into a glass-house
+where there were hot water-pipes, and when his tormentor pointed
+triumphantly to the pipes he attempted a faint explanation--he had
+meant to say that heat had only been used within the last three weeks.
+
+"So you see, Berkins," exclaimed little flaxen-haired fatty, "your
+south of Europe is no better than my south of Europe, or anybody
+else's south of Europe."
+
+"Jackson, you have told me many deliberate falsehoods about these
+peaches. I keep no one in my employment whose word cannot be depended
+upon. You take your warning."
+
+"Falsehoods! What do you want a man to do, if you will have everything
+better than anybody else's?"
+
+Berkins turned suddenly on his heel, he drew himself up to his full
+height, and stood speechless with indignation. Never, not even on the
+most important Board meetings, did his friends wait to hear him speak
+with more anxiety; but at that moment a crash of flower pots was
+heard, and Sally and a young man were discovered hiding in the potting
+shed; and to make matters worse, in the very next house they visited,
+they suddenly came upon Maggie sitting with another young man in
+strangely compromising circumstances. Explanations were attempted, and
+some stupid remarks were made. Berkins was seriously annoyed, and he
+took the first opportunity of taking Mr. Brookes's arm and leading him
+away to a quiet path. Frank saw the men pass through the laurels, and
+ten minutes after he saw them return. Evidently Berkins had read Mr.
+Brookes an exhaustive lecture on the conduct of his daughters.
+
+"Now, Mr. Brookes, now Mr. Brookes, I must beg of you--calm yourself.
+What would my guests think if they found you in tears? What would they
+think I had been saying to reduce you to such a condition? It is
+veryunfortunate that Sally and Maggie should act as they do,
+particularly at my place; but really you must not give way."
+
+"Since the death of their poor mother I am all alone. My position is a
+very trying one." Then, with a sudden burst of laughter, "However, I
+suppose it will be all the same a hundred years hence!"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+
+The girls walked to the station with Escott. A fleecy evening, with
+the clouds growing pale towards the sea, the sun like fire in the
+elms, and the woods showing upon a purple tinge.
+
+"How delightful!" exclaimed Frank. "How charming this is--this old
+English green, the horse pond at one end, the various houses, the inn,
+the grocery business, the linen drying in that yard, the smith, and
+the wheelwright. I don't like that modern Queen Anne school-house, and
+I wish I could remove the dead level of the embankment and see the
+sea. The green is better from this side with the view of the Downs--
+those lines waving against the sky, where the gorse grows and the
+sheep feed, and inclining to the road all the fields pale green and
+deep green. But what game are those men playing--what game do you call
+that?"
+
+"Bat and trap."
+
+"I have passed the green twenty times before, and I never really saw
+it till now. It is charming--so thoroughly English. I should like to
+live here for a month--for two months. How nice it would be to
+breakfast in the morning looking out on the green, to see the cocks
+and hens and all the children and all this English life! How different
+from Pump Court! I am sick of Pump Court--dirt and smoke, a horrid
+servant, stale eggs. I suppose you can always get fresh eggs and new
+bread here? I would give anything to spend a month on the green."
+
+"Well, you can!" cried Sally. "I wish you would, and you could come
+and play tennis with us every afternoon. Mrs. Heald has some rooms to
+let; why it was only last week I heard that she hadn't let her rooms
+this season, and was most anxious to do so."
+
+"There's no use my coming here until I begin to write my novel. I am
+painting now, and I must see if I can get my picture finished for one
+of the autumn exhibitions."
+
+"I knew you would find some excuse."
+
+"No, I assure you, but I can't do anything without a studio, and I'm
+not likely to find a studio on Southwick Green."
+
+"I don't suppose Mrs. Heald has a room large enough for a studio,"
+said Maggie; "but I don't see why you shouldn't find a place where you
+can paint."
+
+"Where? Not in that eighteenth-century house where the two old ladies
+are standing! Supposing I were to go and ask them if they would let me
+have their drawing-room to paint in! That is the only house on the
+green, all the rest are cottages."
+
+"I suppose you are not very particular where you paint," said Maggie
+reflectively. "You don't mind appearances, I suppose? I wonder if you
+could manage to fit up a farm building."
+
+"There is the famous barn where Charles the First hid himself, I don't
+suppose the authorities would allow me to turn that into a studio."
+
+"No, probably not; but I think you might find a house that would do."
+
+"What nonsense, Maggie," said Sally, who began to grow jealous of her
+sister.
+
+"Why is it nonsense? I see no reason why Frank shouldn't come to some
+arrangement with the smith, and turn his house into a studio."
+
+"Which is the smith's house? I'll tell you in a moment if it could be
+turned into a studio."
+
+"That house standing quite by itself in the corner of the green."
+
+"That tall narrow house with the bit of broken wall and the elder
+bushes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I daresay I could rig up a very nice studio out of that place, indeed
+it looks quite picturesque amid its elder bushes. There is the stile,
+and there is the cornfield. But I couldn't live there."
+
+"No, you would live at Mrs. Heald's, and you could walk over every
+morning to the studio."
+
+"Yes, I could do that. I prefer to live with my work. There is nothing
+like walking from the breakfast table across the room to the easel."
+
+"Of course you can find fault with everything; nothing is perfect."
+
+"There goes the train!" cried Sally. "No use in running now, you've
+missed it."
+
+"How very provoking; the next isn't till half-past seven--just an hour
+to wait."
+
+"Well," said Maggie, "if you have missed the train we may as well go
+at once and ask Mrs. Heald if she has let her rooms."
+
+They walked towards a block of cottages--at one end the "Cricketer's
+Arms," at the other the grocery business; and the cottage that joined
+the grocery business was remarkable for a bit of green paling and
+wooden balcony, now covered with Virginia creeper. Frank thought at
+once of new-laid eggs, and the sunlight glancing through a great mass
+of greenery, and he resolved if a sacrifice were necessary to live at
+Southwick, he would put his picture aside and begin his novel. The
+people in the house pleased him, and he ran on in his way thinking how
+English and trustworthy they seemed, liking the green parrot that
+rubbed its head affectionately against the grey ringlets of a very
+ladylike old person; and Mrs. Heald, brisk as a bee, notwithstanding
+her lame leg, who led the way up the ladder-like cottage staircase.
+
+"How nice and clean everything is; books and engravings along the
+passages. How unlike Ireland!"
+
+But the sitting-room was full of horsehair sofas and chairs. These
+displeased Frank, but some handsome china--an entire tea service in
+Crown Derby--reconciled him to the room. In the bedroom they found a
+huge four-poster of old time, with a lengthy bolster and imposing
+pillows, and they were shown into another and a similar room. One
+looked out on the green, the other on the fields that lay between the
+green and the Manor House.
+
+"If that elm were cut down you could see my window," said Sally.
+
+"Which room do you like the best?" said Maggie.
+
+"It is hard to say. The other room looks on the green, but here there
+is a nice large wardrobe, and I don't see how I can get on without a
+wardrobe."
+
+"If you like the other room best, sir, I can turn out the chest of
+drawers."
+
+"Oh, that would be very nice if you can manage it, the room will do
+very well. I can have a bath every morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir; there will be no difficulty about that."
+
+Maggie had taken off her hat and was settling her hair before the
+glass. Sally opened the wardrobe, revealing various petticoats and
+skirts, but she thought of it as full of Frank's light overcoats, the
+scarves he wore round his throat when he went out in evening clothes,
+the patent leather shoes in the corner. Suddenly the conversation
+dropped, and after a pause Frank said: "I think these rooms suit me
+very well, but I can do nothing; it is impossible for me to say if I
+can take them until I find out if there is any place in the immediate
+neighbourhood that I could convert into a studio. Do you know of any
+such place?"
+
+"No, I do not, sir."
+
+"Mr. Escott was thinking of seeing the smith about his house. I wonder
+if Town would let it to Mr. Escott for a consideration," said Maggie.
+
+"Of course, I should have to get leave to make what alterations I
+pleased."
+
+"I don't suppose the house belongs to Town, sir; I don't think he is
+more than a weekly tenant."
+
+"If that's the case, we must see the landlord. Do you know who is the
+landlord?"
+
+"I can't say I do, sir."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Heald, I will let you know in a day or two if I can take
+your rooms--you can give me a day or two?"
+
+"Yes, sir, but I should like to know as soon as possible; several
+people have been asking after my rooms."
+
+"I'll let you know in a day or two."
+
+"If Town is only a weekly tenant, you'll be able to get his house by
+paying a little more for it," said Maggie, as they walked down the
+green towards the smith's forge.
+
+"That would be hardly fair; I should like to act squarely by the
+smith. What is his name?"
+
+"Town."
+
+Town was cutting out the hoof of a shaggy grey cart horse when his
+visitors entered the cindery blackness.
+
+"Town, this gentleman would like to speak to you," said Maggie,
+raising her voice above the wheezy bellows. He threw the hoof out of
+his apron, and, drawing his blackened arm across his forehead, he came
+forward.
+
+"Town, I am anxious to find a place on the green that I could convert
+into a studio; I think your house would suit my purpose very well. Do
+you think we could come to some arrangement? Of course I would give
+you a reasonable compensation."
+
+"Well, I really hardly know, sir; I dunno that I hardly understand.
+You want my house to turn into a--"
+
+"A studio--a place where I can paint pictures."
+
+"I don't see how I can do without my 'ouse."
+
+"But I will compensate you--make it worth your while."
+
+"You see it is so near my work. Was I to go and live at Ada Terrace, I
+should, you see, be out of the way. If people want a job done they
+always knows where to find me."
+
+"Yes, but if I compensate you?"
+
+Seeing that Frank was exciting the smith with too wild hopes of
+wealth, Sally thought fit to interpose. "Mr. Escott would require
+permission to make any alterations in the building he thought proper--
+you couldn't give him permission; he would in any case have to see
+your landlord. Who is your landlord?"
+
+"I don't see how I can give up my 'ouse to be turned into a painting
+place; it wouldn't suit me at all."
+
+"If I make you sufficient compensation--"
+
+Again the smith was reduced to silence. He scratched his head, and
+Frank watched the sparks fly, and heard the rhythmical sledge. "I wish
+he wouldn't talk so much about compensation," thought Sally. "I don't
+know what the man won't be asking if Frank doesn't shut up."
+
+"Do you think we shall be able to come to an understanding? I want to
+know."
+
+"Well, you see, sir, my wife is delicate, and I'm that afraid she
+wouldn't like to give up her 'ome. But I'll speak to 'er if you like
+to-night, sir."
+
+"Mr. Escott will have to see your landlord; he will have to arrange
+with him about the alterations."
+
+"There will be no difficulty about the alterations."
+
+"Very probably; but you are only a weekly tenant. It is a question
+your landlord must decide. If he agrees to allow Mr. Escott to make
+the alterations, Mr. Escott will no doubt compensate you for
+disturbance."
+
+"It is all very well to talk about compensation. How do I know what
+your compensation will be? How do I know you will make it worth my
+while? I don't want no compensation. I want my 'ouse. Cheek I calls
+it, to come down here wanting to muck me out of my house."
+
+"Now, sir, we want no impertinence. I shall do exactly as I please in
+the matter. Your landlord is the person I should have spoken to."
+
+"Spoken to! Who are you, I should like to know, coming round here
+interfering in my business?"
+
+All Frank's discussions ended in angry words, and he never came to
+terms with any one without threatening blows. Town returned to the
+forge; Frank and the young ladies made their way across the green. At
+the corner of Southdown Road they found the General, the schoolmaster,
+and a retired farmer ardently gossiping; Mrs. Horlock, prim in her
+black gown and poke bonnet, waited with admirable patience, and Angel,
+the blind pug, in horrible corpulence, waddled and sniffed the grass.
+The story of Town's impertinence was told. The General was shocked--it
+was surprising. What are we coming to? The retired farmer said that
+Town was a hot-tempered man, but not a bad sort when you knew how to
+take him, and all, except Mrs. Horlock, agreed that the landlord was
+the person who should be consulted.
+
+"I really don't see why you should turn the poor man out of his house
+if he doesn't want to go. How would you like some one to come and turn
+you out of your house?" she said, turning to her husband.
+
+The General laughed. "My dear Lucy, whatever you say must be right. So
+you are coming to live at Southwick. Very glad to hear it. You know
+where to find us, the gate's always open; lunch at half-past one,
+dinner at eight--old Indians, you know; come in when you like. Pretty
+place I have here, everything I want--stables and horses, and (the
+General looked to see if Lucy was out of hearing) plenty of dogs, you
+know--a few too many; but my wife, you know--" The rest was lost in a
+burst of good-natured laughter.
+
+They bade the Horlocks good-night and walked up the Southdown Road,
+looking with its line of trees along the pavement like a little mock
+boulevard. Frank was particularly severe in his remarks on the trim
+privet hedges and the little bronze sphinxes standing before the
+portico of yellow glass; he declared that a man must be born to put up
+such things, and he clearly thought this sneer a very happy one, for
+he repeated it, fearing that Sally had not understood. The grocer who
+had placed a bas-relief of himself over his door was greatly wondered
+at, and Sally told an amusing anecdote regarding the invitations he
+sent out for the first dinner party. The conversation turned on the
+Measons. Jack's ship had gone to China, and he was not expected back
+much before Christmas.
+
+"That's very sad, Sally. How will you be able to live through so many
+months?"
+
+"I don't care for him. I don't care if I never saw him again--it was
+Fanny who was my friend. Some nice people have come to live in that
+corner house--a young man, who is learning farming. Mr. Berkins
+insists on father not allowing us to visit any one in the Southdown
+Road, and Mr. Berkins can turn father round his finger, he is so much
+richer. I'm not allowed to see Fanny at the Manor House. As for Jack,
+I daresay you won't believe me, but I shouldn't care if I never saw
+him again."
+
+Maggie shrugged her shoulders. The gesture exasperated Sally, and she
+turned on her sister.
+
+"You needn't shrug your shoulders at me, miss; I never flirted with
+him; you did, and then you set father against me."
+
+"Well, for goodness' sake don't quarrel; what does it matter? The idea
+of Berkins telling your father whom he should visit; and the idea of
+your father permitting it merely because he makes two or three
+thousand a year more! He surely doesn't object to your visiting Mrs.
+Horlock?"
+
+"No, he couldn't do that."
+
+Still engaged in discussion, they entered the gates of the Manor
+House, and Mr. Brookes was told that Frank would stay at Southwick a
+few days longer, so that he might arrange about a studio. The news was
+not at first wholly pleasing to the old gentleman, but he remembered
+the anecdotes he should hear concerning his favourite painters, and
+was consoled. The evening passed away in the security and calm of
+habit, sweetened by the intimacy of familiar thoughts and customs.
+There was the usual expensive dinner; Mr. Brookes lit a cigar, handed
+the box to Frank, and said, puffing lustily, "That's a good picture,
+paid a lot of money for it, too much money, mustn't do it again. You
+were a pupil of Bouguereau; great painter; you have seen him paint;
+you would know his touch amid a thousand, I suppose?"
+
+About ten o'clock steps in the passage, then the squeak-squeak of the
+cork; then the goggle-guggle of the water, and the young ladies came
+in with their grog. They kissed their father and brother, shook hands
+with Frank, and went to bed. Further anecdotes concerning the painters
+were told; further condemnations of the Southdown Road were
+pronounced; the house was locked up; Mr. Brookes retired, and the
+young men continued the conversation in their rooms. Willy told Frank
+all about his shop, Frank told Willy all about his studio, and they
+went to sleep delighted with each other and at peace with the world.
+
+Mr. Brookes had gone when the young men came down next morning. Willy
+was down first, and when Frank finished breakfast he found him busy in
+the garden making purchases for his shop.
+
+"How much am I to charge for these peaches, sir?" said the gardener.
+
+"I intend to pay the market price for everything. I don't know what
+peaches are selling at in Covent Garden. I will look it up and let you
+know. I am taking two dozen."
+
+"Yes, sir, there are only very few more ripe."
+
+"It is a pity I can't have them all," Willy whispered to Frank. "There
+is a tremendous profit to be made on peaches. Now, I want some new
+potatoes. How many can you let me have?"
+
+"Really, sir, we are very short; you see it is so early in the year.
+We have only a few, none too many for the house."
+
+"I must have some, if it is only a sample. How much are potatoes
+selling at now?"
+
+"Well, sir, I hardly know. Last year we bought some off Hooper at--"
+
+"These are the things I have to contend with. How am I to keep my
+books right if I don't know exactly the price things are selling for?
+I may be paying more for his potatoes than they are selling in
+Brighton for. My father gets more out of the shop than any one, and he
+isn't satisfied."
+
+The woes of this suburban Lear amused Frank. No sooner was the arch
+enemy Meason on the high seas, and the Southdown Road had quieted
+down, than another demon had risen up against him; his garden was
+ravished of its fairest fruits and vegetables, his carriages were
+turned into market carts, and all, as he said, for the sake of
+practising an elaborate system of book-keeping. Maggie, who had
+finished her house-keeping, came into the garden, and she went with
+Frank down the town in search of the landlord of the tall house amid
+the elder bushes. For a small increase in the rent, and a promise to
+undo all alterations before leaving, putting the house back in the
+same arrangement of rooms as it at present stood, the landlord agreed
+to allow Frank to do his will with the place. For twenty pounds the
+smith was silenced, and Frank explained to the local builder that the
+house was to be thrown into one room, and the ceilings of the upper
+rooms were to be removed. He had thought of having the rafters
+painted, but at the builder's suggestion he decided to have them lined
+with fresh timber and stained. This would look very handsome. A large
+window, some six feet by eight, would have to be put in the north
+wall. Of course, all the doors, windows, etc., would have to be taken
+away and replaced by new. He would have a book-case in stained wood.
+An estimate was drawn up. It came to a good deal more than he had
+intended to lay out, and Frank dreaded the expense. But he must live
+somewhere, he was sick of Pump Court, and his friends and this little
+south-coast village were now ardent in his mind; why not live here?
+True that the country was in no way beautiful and offered no
+temptations to a landscape painter, but he seldom painted landscapes,
+and if he wanted a bit of woodland he would find it over the Downs.
+Then there was the sea, and that was always interesting. Perhaps Mount
+Rorke would let him have the money. The old fellow had never refused
+him an extra hundred when he asked for it. Yes, he would risk it. So
+the order was given, and all the delays and broken promises of a
+builder began to be experienced and endured. Frank, who now lodged at
+Mrs. Heald's, hung around the workmen, counting each brick, and
+commenting on every piece of woodwork. He at once took to grumbling at
+their slowness, and he soon declared that all hopes of his being able
+to finish his picture for the Academy were at an end, and he paraded
+his misfortunes at the Manor House, at Mrs. Horlock's, and, indeed, at
+all the houses he went to for tea or tennis parties. The painters
+especially annoyed him, and he even went so far as to threaten them
+with an action.
+
+Long before they had finished his pictures had arrived from London,
+and several pieces of furniture from Brighton. The ideas of this young
+man were now in full revolt against oriental draperies and things from
+Japan. The furniture was, therefore, to consist of large cane sofas
+with pillows covered with a yellow chintz pattern which pleased him
+much. The selection of a carpet was a matter of great moment. He
+received with scornful smiles his upholsterer's suggestions of Persian
+rugs. Turkey, Smyrna, and Axminster were proposed and rejected, he
+even thought of an Aubusson--no one knew anything about Aubusson at
+Southwick, and the vivid blues and yellows and symmetrical design
+would have at least the merit of disturbing if not of wrecking the
+artistic opinions of his friends. He discovered one of these carpets
+in a back street in Brighton, and with some cleaning and mending he
+felt sure it could be made to look quite well. But no, if you have an
+Aubusson carpet you must have Louis XIV. furniture in the room, and
+Louis XIV. in Southwick would be too absurd. Clearly the Aubusson
+scheme must be abandoned--he would have a rich grey carpet, soft and
+woolly, and there should be a round table covered with a dark blue
+cloth, set off with a yellow margin, and the chairs drawn about the
+table should be covered with dark blue and painted yellow. A grand
+piano was indispensable in Frank's surroundings, both for its
+appearance in the studio and the relaxation it afforded in the various
+interludes. Several journeys to London were made before the lamps to
+be used were determined on (a modern design was essential), and the
+brass fittings to hang candles from the rafters required still more
+delicate and cautious consideration; at last it was decided to have
+none.
+
+All this while Willy was busy with his shop. He had taken a whole
+house, and at first he had thought of letting a room, but for many
+reasons this scheme had to be abandoned. He did not know who might
+take the room. "Who knows--perhaps one of my own friends, a member of
+my club, for instance?" Then it would give the missus a lot of bother
+and worry, and she had all she could do in looking after the shop. To
+make a thing a success you must think of nothing else. It was a pity,
+but it wasn't to be thought of. Otherwise he seemed fairly well
+satisfied. There was a back door leading on to a back lane, in turn
+leading on to a back street, so with his latch-key he could pop in and
+out unobserved. All his books and papers in the drawing-room, the
+ledger, the day-book, the cash-book all ready, all to hand, so that
+after dinner, when he had smoked his pipe, he could go to work. Frank
+alone was in the secret. And how the young men enjoyed going to
+Brighton together. Frank worried Willy, who ran up and down stairs
+collecting his brown paper parcels, calling upon him to make haste.
+They set forth, Willy firm and methodical, his shoulders set well
+back: Frank loose and swaggering, over-dressed. How to get to the shop
+was a matter of anxious consideration. Willy was fearful of detection,
+and all sorts of stratagems were resorted to. Sometimes they would
+walk down to the Old Steyne, and suddenly double and get back through
+a medley of obscure streets, or else they would publicly walk up and
+down the King's Road, and when they thought no one was looking, hurry
+up one of the by-streets, and so gain their haven, the lane. Once they
+were in the lane they slackened speed, all danger was then over, and
+they laughed consumedly at their escapes, and delighted in telling
+each other how So-and-so and his daughter had been successfully
+avoided. Willy always had his latch-key ready; in a moment they were
+inside, and Frank would rush upstairs and throw himself into the
+armchair, crying: "Here we are!" One day they were at the window,
+when, to their amazement, the Manor House carriage pulled up before
+the shop, and they had only just time to dodge behind the curtain and
+escape Sally's eyes. Never before had the carriage arrived later than
+five o'clock, and now it was nearly six. What could be the meaning of
+this? Begging of Frank not to move, Willy went out on the landing and
+listened to his sisters talking to his wife. The girls--who were, of
+course, ignorant of their relationship to the shop-woman--liked Mrs.
+Brookes very much, and were fond of a chat with her; and, looking
+through the blinds, Frank saw the footman in all the splendour of six
+feet and grey livery carrying a small pot of flowers worth sixpence
+from the carriage to the shop.
+
+On ordinary days the shop was shut at eight, but when Willy and Frank
+dined there it was closed an hour earlier. Frank enjoyed his evenings
+there; he enjoyed it all--the homeliness and the quiet. He enjoyed
+seeing Willy nurse the missus after dinner, and he found no difficulty
+in pretending a certain interest in the book-keeping, and an
+admiration for the lines of figures all carefully formed, and the
+beautifully ruled lines. Cissy adored him. He took her on his knee,
+and she leaned her hollow cheek against his handsome face. She would
+have probably rushed to death to serve him. His height, his
+brightness, his rings, his spotted neckties--all seemed so perfect, so
+beautiful, to her; and when he brought his fiddle she would sit and
+look at him, her little hands clasped with an intensity of love that
+was strange and pitiful. Swaying from side to side, he ran on from
+tune to tune--waltzes, reminiscences from operas, fragments of
+overtures, delightful snatches from Schubert; and when he introduced
+Willy to one tune--a tune in which all his _might-have-been_ was bound
+--the dry man seemed to grow drier: perhaps it brought a glow of
+pleasure to his heart: but be this as it may, he only sat and puffed
+more emphatically at his pipe.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+
+For Frank this pleasant English village was now a happy _fete_ of
+summer joys and occupations. Oh! the hill prospects and the shady
+gardens around the coasts. And when he went inland he would return by
+choice across the Downs, and in the patriarchal valleys where nothing
+is heard but the bell-wether he would stand in the great, lonely
+darkness, and see the lights of Brighton brighten the sky above the
+ridges, and climbing up the ridges, he gazed on the vague sea, and the
+long string of coast towns were like a golden necklace.
+
+His days went like dreams. The morning hours--bachelor hours--were
+full of intimacy and joy. The joy of waking alone with a strange and
+secret self that, like a shy bird, is all the day chased out of sight
+and hearing, but is with you when you awake in sweet health in the
+morning; that of waking alone with the sunlight in the curtains, that
+of being alone with your body as well as your mind, and no presence to
+jar the communion. There is a dear privacy in morning hours of single
+life.
+
+But although the desire to exchange these for the joys of wedlock was
+germinating in Frank, although it was inherent in him to understand
+the husband's happiness when he puts his arm round a dear wife's neck
+and draws her to him with marital kisses and affectionate words, he
+was certainly conscious that each hour seemed to bring its special
+pleasure. His room was airy and pleasant, the window full of the
+colour of the green and its aspects; the little water-course with its
+brick bridge, the trees along the embankment, the rigging of the ships
+in the harbour, the linen drying in the yard. Of these views Frank
+seemed never to grow tired; he noted them as he brushed his brown
+curls over his forehead, and when he sat at breakfast eating fresh
+eggs and marmalade. After breakfast he lay on the sofa, and read
+society papers and smoked cigarettes. He could not drag himself to the
+studio. "A man should live at his studio, impossible to settle down to
+work, if he doesn't," he thought, and he watched Mrs. Horlock coming
+up the green accompanied by the chemist's wife and the pugs.
+
+"Dear old lady, how nice she looks in her black dress and poke bonnet!
+And there goes the General--he is giving all his coppers to the
+children."
+
+Frank took up a volume of Browning, turned over the leaves, and laid
+the book down to watch a drove of horses that had suddenly been turned
+out on the green to feed, and he laughed to see the children throwing
+stones, making them gallop frantically. Very often the thunder of the
+hoofs alarmed Triss, and he stood on his hind legs and barked. "What
+is it, old dog? What is it? Like to have a go at the horses? Shall we
+go out and play with the pugs?" At the mention of going out Triss
+cocked his ears and barked. "I suppose I must make a move. I wonder
+what the time is--half-past eleven. Good Heavens! The post will be
+here at twelve. I had better wait for it." On waking his first
+thoughts were for his letters, and almost before he had finished
+reading them he had begun to think of what the mid-day delivery would
+bring him. To see the boy pass and so have ocular proof that there was
+nothing for him seemed to lighten his disappointment. He saw him waste
+his time with the doctor's horse and then with the maid-servant, and
+if the old ladies were not about he would stand talking many minutes
+with their servants. Then he visited the short line of cottages,
+passed sometimes round the yard or open space at the back of the
+wheelwright's, where the linen hung on poles between the elms, and
+once Frank saw the provoking boy hide behind the cricketers' tent and
+remain watching the match. For half an hour the question--letters or
+no letters--hung in suspense, and when the loiterer came, stopping
+every minute to see where the ball was hit to, the joy, heightened by
+anticipation, was great in receiving a packet of newspapers and
+various correspondence. Frank often went to meet him. True, he might
+have nothing for him, he might be going to deliver at the grocer's
+shop, or at the "Cricketer's Arms."
+
+"Any letters for me, to-day?"
+
+"Yes, sir, two postcards and a newspaper."
+
+It was disappointing not to get a letter--postcards meant nothing. He
+only exchanged a few words with Mrs. Horlock, and passed on to the
+General, who, at the corner of the Southdown Road where the gossipers
+met, was discussing a local candidature.
+
+"So you are off to paint. You must come and see the model my wife has
+done of a horse I once had. I mustn't say much about him, though--it
+is a sore subject. After winning over a thousand with him I lost it
+all, and five hundred with it. She never would paint his picture for
+me; but yesterday was my birthday--I suppose she thought she would
+give me a treat, she began to model him from memory--wonderful
+likeness--she knows every bone and sinew in a horse--clever woman,
+never seen any one like her. Come in to-night, dinner always at eight
+--old Indians. She'll show it to you."
+
+"Thanks, not to-night, General; to-morrow night, if you like."
+
+"Very well, to-morrow night at eight. What a terrible dog that is of
+yours! You need fear nobody while you have him with you. You must ask
+my wife to paint him for you, but I forgot, I beg your pardon--you are
+a painter; you should paint him yourself."
+
+"I don't paint animals. I shall be very glad if Mrs. Horlock will
+paint him; there is some beautiful drawing about him--those fore-
+legs."
+
+Probably attracted by the dog, Mrs. Horlock came walking towards them.
+Triss went sidling after Rose, and when Mrs. Horlock called him, he
+growled.
+
+"I beg of you, Mrs. Horlock, do not touch him; he isn't safe, I assure
+you. He once bit a man's nose off who was trying to train him to do
+something or other. I will not be answerable."
+
+"All nonsense! No dog ever bit me, they know I love them. 'Come to me,
+sir.' No dog ever bit me but once, and he was a poor mongrel that had
+been hunted by a lot of horrid men. I was dressing to go to a ball at
+the Government House, and I heard him under my bed. He had taken
+refuge under my bed, poor thing. He was frightened to death; he
+couldn't see me, and he bit me through the wrist. I went to the ball
+all the same. A dog died of hydrophobia in my arms. He died like a
+child, licking my hands and face. 'Come here, sir. Come to me.'"
+
+"I wish you wouldn't do it, Mrs. Horlock. I am afraid to call him, for
+fear he should think I intended to set him at you."
+
+Triss showed a terrible set of teeth, and his nose seemed to curl back
+almost into his eyes; but stooping down Mrs. Horlock extended her
+hands to him. She looked so like herself in the poke bonnet and the
+black dress, and the kind, intelligent eyes softened the dog's humour,
+and he came to her.
+
+"You see--what did I tell you? Dogs know so well those that love them.
+No animal ever did bite me except that poor frightened creature, and
+he didn't mean it. We kept him for ten years after that, and how he
+did love me!"
+
+"Wonderful woman, my wife; she can do what she likes with animals. I
+was telling Mr. Escott that he must come in and see the model you are
+making of Snap-dragon."
+
+"Only an amateur, I never had a lesson in my life. Mr. Escott would
+think nothing of it, I am sure. But I wish he'd come in and dine with
+us."
+
+"He promised to come to-morrow, Lucy; but stay, isn't that the day we
+are going to have the Bath people in to dine?"
+
+"Never mind--Mr. Escott won't mind, I'm sure. They are very nice, good
+people, indeed. I'm sure you'll think so. They are all snobs about
+this place. I never heard of such snobbery in my life. Mrs. So-and-so
+--over there--once said to me, 'I believe you know all the people who
+live in those little houses.' She said she wouldn't allow her children
+even to walk across the green. Did you ever hear of such snobbery?"
+
+"Well, Mrs. Horlock, as I have always said, your position is made; you
+have your friends who will like you and value you just the same no
+matter whom you may walk about the green with. Every Viceroy that ever
+went to India called on you; your position is made."
+
+"There are a lot of snobs about here; but I mustn't keep Angel
+waiting, he is never well unless he gets a little exercise. We shall
+see you then at eight."
+
+"The cleverest woman I ever knew. I don't say the cleverest that you
+ever knew. But we have got too many animals; I often wish I could get
+rid of the brutes," and the General laughed as he stumped along. "Five
+horses when two would be sufficient--five horses eating their heads
+off; then the Circassian goats that the neighbours complain of, and
+the parrots and the squirrels. There are a few too many, there's no
+doubt. But once an animal comes into the place she will cherish it for
+ever. I try to keep Prince out of the drawing-room as much as
+possible, she says she can't smell him. If that little beast Angel
+would only die!"
+
+"Why don't you poison him?"
+
+"I would if I dared; but just think, if my wife heard of it she would
+go out of her mind. I don't think she'd have me in the house." The
+General laughed.
+
+"We all have our troubles, General. Good-bye, I'm off to work."
+
+"Lucky man to have something to do. If I had a little something--just
+a little something to bring me out, I should be perfectly happy. Then
+at eight. Good-bye."
+
+"Half-past twelve! Half the day gone, I really must make an effort to
+get to the studio earlier. It is, as I said, useless to hope to get
+through work unless you wake up where your work is. A man doesn't get
+a chance. I wonder if I could build a bedroom out at the back? I have
+let Mount Rorke in for three hundred extra this year; he would turn
+rusty if I spent any more. I must give him a rest; besides, I don't
+want to have the workmen in again. I wish I could get ivy to grow over
+those walls, they do look precious shabby."
+
+He looked at the tall dilapidated walls showing above the dark green
+of the elder bushes, and lingered, for it was a soft blue summer's day
+with just a breeze stirring, and the corn waved yellow, and the dim
+expanses of the Downs extended in faint lines and dim tints.
+
+When he entered his studio his colour scheme pleased him, and looking
+at the rafters he thought that the stained wood was handsome and
+appropriate. The grey carpet was soft under foot, and the lustre and
+form of a grand piano suggested Chopin and Schubert. His studio seemed
+to him a symbol of his own refinement, and being moved, perhaps, by
+the silence and the quiet of the north light, he took his violin, and
+turning from time to time to look on himself on the glass or his
+picture on the easel, he played Stradella's "Chanson d'Eglise."
+
+Then seeing, or rather thinking he saw, how he could improve his
+landscape, he took up his palette, and in a desultory and uncertain
+fashion he painted till five o'clock. "It is no use," he thought, "I
+can do nothing with it until I get a model, but the devil of it is,
+there are no models in Brighton--at least, I don't know where to go
+and look for one, and it is no use asking Sally or Maggie to sit.
+They'll sit for five minutes, and then say they have some work to do
+at home, and must be off. You must have a professional model, a girl
+you pay a shilling an hour--I might sling the hammock from there to
+here--I wonder where I could get a girl who would do. I can't have a
+girl off the street; she must be more or less respectable--I wonder
+whom I can get. That girl in the bar-room at the station would do."
+Putting his palette away with a lazy gesture, he thought for a few
+minutes of Lizzie Baker. What had become of her? And why had she
+disappeared?
+
+It was nearly a year and a half ago now. What a jolly day up the
+river! All the beauty of the flowing water, the crowning woods and
+whispering rushes filled his mind, and yielding to the moment's
+emotion he took some verses out of an escritoire and altered several
+lines. Another abandoning the search for a suitable rhyme he turned to
+a portrait of Maggie which he had begun a few days before. She stood
+in a pose that was habitual to her--her hands linked behind her, the
+head leaned on one side, the little black eyes--but not ugly eyes--
+fixed in a sweet subtle and enquiring look. The thinness, and, indeed,
+the angularity of her figure was almost powerfully indicated with
+broad lines of paint and charcoal. It was Frank's most successful
+effort. He knew this, and he said to himself, "Not half bad, very like
+her, quite the character; the drawing is right, if I could only go on
+with it; if I could only model the face. I see very well where I shall
+get into trouble--that shadow about the neck, the jawbone, the
+cheekbone, and then all that rich colour about the eyes." Then he
+thought he would walk over to the Manor House, and he must hasten, for
+it was half-past five, and tea was always ready in the verandah.
+
+He stayed for dinner; he talked to Mr. Brookes about painters in the
+billiard-room; he strayed through the shadows and the perfumes of
+leaves and flowers through the gentle moonlight with his arms about
+the girls. And as they walked it seemed to Frank that his life was so
+mingled with theirs that he could not think of one sister apart from
+the other. The dusk gathered; the sky became a decoration in blue and
+gold; the scent of the sea came over the embankment, filling the
+garden. Day followed day, without anything happening to stay or check
+the gentle tide of their mutual affections; neither was jealous of her
+sister, for their desires were set upon others. Frank was but an
+ideal, a repose, a pious aspiration which joined their hands and
+hearts leaving them free of any stress of passion, Maggie claiming him
+a little more than Sally, and Sally yielding her claim to her without
+knowing that she was yielding it.
+
+It is only natures that are never gross--calm and tepid livers--that
+are really incapable of ideality, of real and adequate aspiration;
+nature works by flux and reflux; and if we waive the rough temper and
+the coarse edge of passion due to youth, it will not be impossible to
+conceive another picture of these girls. Sally, good-hearted and true,
+full of sturdy, homely sense, willing to take care of a man's money,
+and make him a straightforward wife; Maggie, gentle and sinuating--
+always a little false, but always attractive, the enchantment of a
+man's home. Frank, notwithstanding his genuine admiration of all that
+was young and sweet and pure, was of poor and separating fibre, and it
+is clear that it will take all the strength of society to support him
+and save him from sinking of his own weight.
+
+One day, as he was coming through the station from the post-office, he
+met Maggie with a young man. He was introduced, and they returned to
+the Manor House to play tennis. Instead of playing they talked, and
+the set fell through, and after tea they disappeared, and Sally
+proposed not to disturb them, for they had gone, she said, to sit in
+the shade at the end of the garden. The marked mystery of the new
+flirtation piqued Frank's curiosity, and, striving to veil his
+question, he asked Sally who the young man was, and if her father knew
+he was coming to the Manor House.
+
+"He! Don't you know? That's the fellow we often speak of--the only
+fellow Maggie ever really cared for. He has just come back from
+America. He is going to begin business in London."
+
+A sickening pain rose from his heart to his eyes, and he longed to
+place his hand on his heart.
+
+"So that is the man she is engaged to," he said, after a pause. "I
+remember, now, you have spoken to me of him."
+
+"She is not exactly engaged to him. Father would never hear of it; he
+hasn't a cent, and I believe he lost the little he had in America--now
+mind you must take care not to let out to father that he has been
+here; there would be the deuce of a row, and I promised Maggie not to
+tell any one; she has been nice to me lately, and I want to play fair
+with her if she will play fair with me."
+
+"Oh, I won't tell any one; I won't even let Maggie know that I know it
+was he."
+
+"It doesn't matter about Maggie, she will tell you herself, no doubt;
+she doesn't mind your knowing. What do you think of him? Isn't he
+nice-looking?"
+
+"I confess I should never have thought of calling him handsome--would
+you? And do you think he is quite a gentleman?"
+
+"He seems to me to be all right."
+
+"All right, yes, but isn't there a something? You can see he is in
+trade--all the trading people look alike, at least so I think."
+
+"But we are in trade, and I think he is quite as good as we are. But
+you seem quite put out. Would you like to take his place? I didn't
+know you were in love with Maggie."
+
+"I don't know that I am in love with her. I like her very much; but,
+love or no love, I don't think it is right for her to walk round the
+garden alone with that fellow the whole afternoon. I don't think it is
+very polite to me, and she knows her father does not like--"
+
+"But you mustn't say anything to father; mind you have promised me."
+
+"Oh, I shan't say anything about it."
+
+Frank longed to get up from the tea-table and rush after Maggie. His
+heart ached to see her. He trembled lest she loved the man she was
+with, and rejoiced and took courage from the knowledge that she had
+not formally pledged herself to him. Frank was the romantic husband,
+not the lover; he found neither charm nor excitement in change; his
+heart demanded one single, avowed, and binding faith. He could take a
+woman who had sinned to his heart, and admit her to all his trust, for
+stolen kisses and illicit love were unfelt and imperfectly understood
+by him, and were considered as shadows and thin fancies, and not as
+facts full of mental consequences. He answered Sally in monosyllables,
+and on the first opportunity he pleaded letters to write, and
+withdrew. The gladness he felt that Maggie was truly not engaged to
+this fellow quickened and dominated his regret that the girls were
+inclined to behave so indiscreetly. The moment Mr. Brookes turned his
+back it began--that perpetual going and coming of men--it really
+wasn't right. Sally was a coarser nature, but Maggie! He might speak
+to Mr. Brookes; no, that wouldn't do. He might speak to Willy; but
+Willy didn't care--he was absorbed in his wife and his speculations.
+
+His little dinner at Mrs. Heald's passed in irritation and discomfort,
+and after dinner he stood at the window, his brain full of Maggie--her
+graces, her fascinating cunning, and all her picturesqueness. He knew
+nothing yet of his passion, nor did he think he could not bear to lose
+her until he went from the stuffy cottage towards his studio thinking
+of his portrait of her. He wanted to muse on the little eyes as he had
+rendered them. He saw the faults in the drawing hardly at all, and his
+pain softened and almost ceased when he took up the violin, but when
+he put it down the flow of subjective emotion ceased, and he stared on
+the concrete and realistic image of his thought--Maggie passing
+through the shade with the young stranger.
+
+Who was he? By whose authority was he there? Was he one of those men
+whose only pleasure is to tempt girls, to corrupt them? Had he thought
+of this before his duty would have been to interpose; and he saw
+himself striding down the garden and telling Maggie that he insisted
+on her coming back to the verandah to her sister. It did not matter if
+he had no right, he was prepared to answer for his conduct to her
+father and brother. Did that man look like one of those men who are
+always sitting with girls in far corners out of sight? Ah, if he were
+sure that he was one of those dastardly ruffians he would seek him
+out, force him to speak his intentions. If a girl's father and brother
+will not look after her, a friend must say "I will." Yes, he would
+have to thrash him, kill him, if it were necessary. She might hate him
+for it at first, but in the end she would recognise him as her
+saviour.
+
+It was too late now, the man was in Brighton. To-morrow? Elated with
+what he deemed "duty," with what he deemed "for the sake of the girl,"
+he strode about, thinking of "the ruffian"; no thought came to him of
+how much of the sin, if sin there was, had originated in Maggie; he
+saw her merely as a poor little thing, led like a lamb. Following the
+idea of saving came the idea of possession. When she clung to the
+husband she would tremble at the danger she had escaped. Their home,
+their table, their fireside; protection from evil, now all wild winds
+might rage--they would be safe. The vision was constitutional and
+characteristic of his soul. He was out of thought of all but himself,
+his dream evolved in pure idea, removed from and independent of all
+limitations--out of concern of the world's favour--Mount Rorke, Mr.
+Brookes, or even the girl's grace. As this temper passed, as reality
+again interposed, and as he saw the garden with Maggie leaving him for
+another, he viewed her conduct suddenly in relation to himself. What
+did she mean by treating him so, and for whom? One day he would be
+Lord Mount Rorke! The Brookes knew nobody. He had only met a lot of
+cads at their house; they did not know any one but cads. The Brookes
+were cads! The father was a vulgar old City man, who talked about
+money and bought ridiculous pictures. The girls, too, were vulgar and
+coarse. God only knew how many lovers they had not had. Willy was the
+best of the bunch, but he was a fool. His miserliness and his
+vegetable shop--hateful! The whole place was hateful; he wished he had
+never come there; since he had been there he had never been treated
+even as a gentleman. The Brookes had treated him shamefully.
+
+The skeleton of Frank's soul is easy to trace in this mental crisis--
+his quixotism, his wish to sally forth and save women, his yearning
+for a pretty little wife, who would sit on his knee and kiss him,
+saying, "Poor old boy, you are tired now;" therefore an emotional and
+distorted apprehension of things, a tendency to think himself a
+wronged and persecuted person, and under much bravado and swagger the
+cringe that is so inveterate in the Celt.
+
+Next morning he thought of her lightly, without bitterness and almost
+without desire; but after breakfast his heart began to ache again. He
+strove to read, he went to his studio, he went to Brighton; but he saw
+Maggie in all things. She was with him--a sort of vague pain that kept
+him strangely conscious of life.
+
+Once convinced he was a lover he became the man with a mission; his
+heart swelled with mysterious promptings, and felt the spur of duty.
+No longer was delay admissible. A day, an hour might involve the loss
+of all. Should he go round to the Manor House and tell Maggie of the
+message he had received to love her and save her? She would now be
+watering her flowers in the green-houses. But that other fellow might
+be there--he had heard something about an appointment. No, he had
+better write. If he wrote at once, absolutely at once, he would be in
+time for the six o'clock delivery. Snatching a sheet of paper he
+wrote:--
+
+"DEAREST MAGGIE,--I have loved you a long while, I remember many
+things that make me think that I have always loved you; but to-day I
+have learnt that you are the one great and absorbing influence--that
+without you my life would be stupid and meaningless, whereas with you
+it shall be a joy, an achievement.
+
+"I have frittered away much time; my efforts in painting and poetry
+have been lacking in strength and persistency. I have vacillated and
+wandered, and I did not know why; but now I know why--because you were
+not by me to encourage me, to help me by your presence and beauty. I
+will not speak of the position I offer you--I know it is unworthy of
+you. I would like to give you a throne; but, alas, I can but promise
+you a coronet."
+
+His hand stopped and he raised his eyes from the paper. He recollected
+the day he saw her a child, the day they went blackberrying over the
+hills. He saw her again, she was older and prettier, and she wore a
+tailor-cut cloth dress. How pretty she looked that day, and also when
+she wore that summer dress, those blue ribbons. All the colour,
+innocence, and mirth of his childhood came upon him sweetly, like an
+odour that passes and recalls. He sighed, and he murmured, "She is
+mine by right, all this could not have been if she were not for me."
+Ah! how he longed to sit with her, even at her feet, and tell her how
+his life would be but worship of her. He regretted that he was not
+poor, for to unite himself more closely to her he would have liked to
+win her clothes and food by his labour; and hearing himself speaking
+of love and seeing her as a maiden with the May time about her, his
+dreams drifted until the ticking of the clock forced him to remember
+that he could tell her nothing now of all his romance, so with pain
+and despair at heart he wrote,
+
+"Never before did I so ardently feel the necessity of seeing you, of
+sharing my soul with you, and yet now is the moment when I say, I must
+end. But let this end be the beginning of our life of love, devotion,
+and trust. I will come to-night to see you; I will not go into the
+billiard-room, but will walk straight to the drawing-room. Do be
+there. Dearest Maggie, I am yours and yours only."
+
+He seized his hat and rushed to the post. He was in time, and now that
+the step had been taken, he walked back looking more than usually
+handsome and tall, pleased to see the children run out of school and
+roll on the grass, pleased to linger with the General.
+
+"Where are you going, sir?" said the old man.
+
+"I'm going to my studio to play the fiddle. Will you come? I'll give
+you a glass of sherry, and--"
+
+"Never touch anything, except at meals. I used to when I was as young
+as you, but not now. But I will go and hear a little music."
+
+Glad to have a companion, Frank took out the violin, and he played all
+the melodies he knew; and his mind ran chiefly on Schubert and Gounod.
+The "Soir," the "Printemps," and "La Chanson du Printemps" carried his
+soul away, nor could he forbear to sing when he came to the phrase,
+"La Neige des Pommiers." When musical emotion ran dry he tried
+painting, but with poor result. During dinner he grew fevered and
+eager to see Maggie, and mad to tell her that he loved her, and could
+love none but her. At half-past eight the torture of suspense was more
+than he could endure, and he decided that he would go to the Manor
+House. He passed round the block of cottages, and got into the path
+that between the palings led through the meadows. It was a soft summer
+evening--moonlight and sunset played in gentle antagonism, and in a
+garden hat he saw Maggie coming towards him. He noticed the pink shawl
+about her shoulders, and the thought struck him, "had she come to ask
+him to elope." She stopped, and she hesitated as if she were going to
+turn back again.
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, speaking with difficulty, "but I wanted
+you to get this before nine."
+
+"Never mind, darling," he answered, smiling; "you can tell me all
+about it--it will be sweeter to hear you talk. Which way shall we go?"
+
+"I really don't think I can now; father doesn't know I am out. This
+letter will--"
+
+"No, no; I cannot bear to part with you. How pretty you look in that
+hat! Come."
+
+"No, Frank, I cannot now, and you had better leave me. I cannot walk
+with you to-night. Read this letter."
+
+"Then am I--is it really so?" said Frank, growing suddenly pale. "You
+will not have me?"
+
+"You must read this letter, it will tell you all. I am truly sorry,
+but I did not know you cared for me--at least not like that. I don't
+think I could, I really don't. But I don't know what I am saying. How
+unfortunate it was meeting you. I but thought to run round and leave
+the letter, it would have explained all better than I could. We have
+known you so long. You will forgive me?"
+
+She stood with the letter in her hand. He snatched it a little
+theatrically and tore it open. She watched, striving to read the
+effect of her words in his face. They dealt in regrets. There was an
+exasperating allusion to engaged affections. There was a long and
+neatly-worded conclusion suggesting friendship. She had taken a great
+deal of trouble with the composition, and was very fearful as to the
+result. She felt she could not marry him--at least, not just at
+present, she didn't know why. Altogether Frank's proposal had puzzled
+and distressed her. She felt she must see her flirtation out with
+Charlie, but at the same time she did not want to utterly lose Frank,
+or worse still, perhaps, to hand him over to Sally. She was determined
+that Sally should not be Lady Mount Rorke, and she thrilled a little
+when she saw he would not give her up easily, and her heart sank when
+she thought of the difficulty of continuing her intrigue without
+prejudicing her future. If Frank would only leave Southwick for a
+little while.
+
+"Is this all? The meaning is clear enough; it means that you love the
+man I saw yesterday at the Manor House. But he shall not have you; I
+will save you from him. Listen to me--I swear he shall not have you; I
+will strive to outwit him by every means in my power. If I don't get
+you, none shall. I will shoot the man rather than he should get you."
+
+"O Frank, you wouldn't commit murder!"
+
+"I would, for you; but it will not be necessary. I can challenge him
+to fight a duel, and if he is cowardly enough to refuse, I will
+horsewhip him before your face, and I don't suppose you will marry him
+after that."
+
+Maggie struggled with feelings of laughter, fear, and delight; delight
+overpowered laughter, for Frank was young and handsome, and full of
+what he said. It was quite romantic to be talked to like that. She
+would like to see the men threaten each other. But then--the scandal--
+father might never get over it. And if he married again? Speaking
+slowly, and in an undertone so as not to betray herself, she said: "O
+Frank, I'm sure you would not do anything that would injure me."
+
+"My darling, I love you better than the whole world. My whole life, if
+you will, shall be spent in striving to make you happy."
+
+"You are very good." She took his hand and squeezed it; he returned
+the pressure with rapturous look and motion. She drew from him a
+little, for there were some people coming towards them, and she said:
+"Take care." When the fisher folk had passed, she looked at him
+stealthily. She had always liked him in that necktie, and those cloth
+shoes were perfect. Had she never known Charlie, or if she had not
+gone so far with him!--There was something in Frank that was very
+nice--she could like the two. What a pity the two were not one! "If he
+were always as nice as he is now, and not lecture me!" Then she
+remembered she must return home. "I must really go home; I can't go
+any farther--"
+
+"No, no, I cannot leave you. I must see and hear you now. If you knew
+what I have endured waiting for you, you would not be so cruel. Come
+and let us sit on the beach."
+
+"I couldn't. I must go back; father will miss me. Besides, what have
+we to say? If I were only free and could tell you that I loved you, it
+would be different."
+
+"Free! then you regret; if a woman wills it she can always free
+herself."
+
+"No, it is harder than you think for a girl to get out of an
+engagement she has entered into, even if no absolute promise has been
+given."
+
+"What do you mean? If you have entered into no formal engagement you
+are surely free."
+
+"I don't know. Do you think so? I am afraid men think that a promise
+may be broken after marriage as well as before."
+
+"You are wrong. Women who are jealous, who are old, tell girls that
+men are always unfaithful, but I'm sure that if I loved a girl I could
+never think of another. Do you really think I could think of any girl
+but you?"
+
+"I don't know. I wonder if all you say is true."
+
+"Do you think me different from other men?"
+
+"Yes, but I cannot go on the beach; some other evening I will walk
+there with you."
+
+"No, now, now--I want to tell you how and when I began to love. Do you
+remember when I used to spend part of my holidays at the Manor House
+when I was only so high, and you were all in short frocks? Come, there
+is much I want to say to you; I cannot part with you. Come, and let us
+sit on the shingle. Oh, the beautiful evening!"
+
+She could love him a little when she looked at him, but when he talked
+she lost interest in him. She had allowed him to take her hand, he had
+bent towards her, and she had let him kiss her; and then they talked
+of love--she of its bitterness and disappointments; he of its
+aspirations, and gradually their souls approached like shadows in the
+twilight, paused for a few vague moments, seemed as if lost in dreams.
+
+"I shall never forget this night! O my love, tell me one day you will
+be mine!"
+
+"I cannot promise, you must not ask me."
+
+"We are meant for each other. It was not blind fate that cast us
+together. Does no voice tell you this? I hear it in my heart."
+
+The abandonment, the mystery of the gathering dusk, touched Maggie's
+fancy. They were alone in the twilight, and it was full of the romance
+of a rising tide.
+
+"Never did I know such happiness; I am supremely happy, alone with you
+beneath this sky, listening to the vague, wild voice of the sea. It
+would be bitter sweet to die in such a triumphant hour. Supposing
+wewere to lie here and allow the sea to take us away."
+
+"No, I don't want to die. I want to live and enjoy my life."
+
+The answer fell a little chillingly on Frank's rapture. Then after a
+pause, Maggie said: "I think I have read of that somewhere--in anovel--
+lovers caught by the tide."
+
+"Yes, I daresay you have. I was thinking of two lovers who were so
+overcome with happiness that they decided that they would not trust
+themselves again to the waves and storms of life, but would let the
+calm, slow tide of death take them away with all their happiness
+unassoiled."
+
+Maggie did not answer. The double fear had come upon her--first, that
+the tide might rise higher than usual and cut off their retreat.
+Secondly, that Frank--he was a poet--might insist on remaining there
+and being drowned. Getting up, she said: "I do not know what father
+will say when I get home, really it is quite dark. Come, Frank."
+
+"Death is better than a life of abomination--loss of innocence, and of
+delight in simple things. I ask you," he said, stopping her suddenly.
+
+"Yes, no doubt it is so; but I want to get home. Do go on, Frank."
+
+"I will save you from a life of abomination--in other words I will
+save you from him; he shall not get you. I have sworn it; you did
+notknow that when you were lying down on the beach--you had ceased
+speaking, and in the silence my life seemed stirred to its very
+essence; and I knew that I must struggle against him, and conquer. I
+want to know this: Have you ever thought of what your life would be
+with him? Have you ever thought what he is?"
+
+"But you don't know him, Frank. You have never spoken to him. I am
+sure you misjudge him."
+
+"Do you think I cannot see what he is? He is one of those men whose
+one ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are
+women to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her,
+and though he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have
+daughters, he will never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite
+latent feelings which, had it not been for him, would never have been
+developed into base and abnormal desire. I know what the foul-minded
+beast is. Such men as he ought to be killed; we don't want them in our
+society. I want to save you, I want to give you a noble, a pure life,
+full of the charms of a husband's influence, a home where there would
+be love of natural things. You are capable of all this, Maggie, your
+nature is a pure one, but your life is unwholesome and devoid of
+purity."
+
+"Frank, how can you speak so? You have no right to say such things
+about us. I am sure you have always been well treated--"
+
+"You do not understand me, I will explain what I mean. Your life is
+rich and luxurious, but you are not happy, no one is happy in
+idleness; above all no woman is happy without love. A woman's mission
+in life is to love, she must have her home, her husband, and her
+children. These are the things that make a woman happy; and these are
+the things I want to give you--that I will give you; for, listen to
+me, I swear you shall not have that adventurer. He would degrade you
+with pleasure at first, and afterwards with neglect. You are too good
+for this, Maggie--it must not be, it shall not be. As I said before,
+death would be better." They stood in front of the canal locks and
+Maggie looked with a beating heart on the deep water that a ray from a
+crescent moon faintly indicated. "A woman is helpless until she finds
+her lord, he who shall save, the saviour who shall bring her home safe
+to the fold. He exists! and all are in danger till they find him. Some
+miss him--they wander into misery and ruin; those that find him are
+led to happiness and content. I am yours. I would tell you how I
+became convinced that I am the one appointed by God to lead you to
+Him."
+
+"I thought you didn't believe in God."
+
+"Not as we have been taught to understand Him but I believe in a
+presiding power--call it luck, fate, or destiny that--that exists and
+wills; that is to say, watches over--rules out that this man is for
+that woman, and ordains that he shall protect her from danger, shall
+save her from those that seek her destruction. Much has happened to
+prove that I was intended for you. We have known each other since we
+were children. Do you not remember when I kissed you in the verandah
+as I was going to school? I was the first man who kissed you; you were
+the first woman who kissed me--have you never felt that we were for
+each other? Nor can I forget that when I thought we had drifted for
+ever apart, that I was brought back. Do you think it was accident--
+blind chance? I don't. Now I see this man striving to win you, and
+whether it be for your money, whether it be for yourself, or for both,
+it is my duty to say: No, this must not be."
+
+"I think you are mistaken about Charlie. I admit that a man is often a
+better judge than a girl; and as for you, Frank, I am sure I am very
+fond of you. It is very good of you to take such interest in me--but
+we must get home. I don't know what father will think."
+
+"No, before you go a step further you must promise me not to see that
+man again. I cannot tell you how, but I know no good can come of it.
+He is one of those creatures who cannot love, and only care for women
+for the excitement they afford. I know what sort of brute he is. It is
+more depraving to walk alone with him, than to be the mistress of a
+man who loved you."
+
+"He is leaving Brighton in a few days."
+
+"So much the better for all of us. But you must promise me. I would
+sooner see you lying drowned in that lock than his wife."
+
+Maggie trembled. It was ridiculous to think of such a thing. Surely he
+did not mean to drown her if she refused to promise. Charlie was going
+to London in a few days; he would be away for three or four months.
+Heaven only knows what would happen in that time. She didn't see what
+right Frank had to bully her--to extort promises from her by night on
+the edge of a dangerous lock. But a promise wasn't much, and a promise
+given in such circumstances was not a promise at all.
+
+"If you are really in earnest--if you think it is for my good, I'll
+promise you not to see him again."
+
+"O Maggie, if you only knew what a load of trouble you have taken off
+my mind! Thank you--give me your hand, and let me thank you. I know I
+am right. And now, tell me, can you love me? Will you marry me?"
+
+"I will promise nothing more to-night; we shall see how you behave
+yourself," the girl replied winningly. "And now go on, sir, we have
+been here quite long enough."
+
+He crossed the gate mechanically, she followed eagerly, and when she
+reached the other side her heart beat with pride at her pretty
+triumph. Now I'll twit him, she thought, as they ascended the shore
+and entered the town.
+
+"I wonder why you think Charlie so wicked; I think if you knew him you
+would change your opinion."
+
+"I am very thankful indeed that I do not know him."
+
+The conversation dropped, but a moment after he gave her the chance
+she wanted.
+
+"Mind you have promised me not to see him again. I trust you."
+
+"But suppose he calls and if I should be in the drawing-room, I cannot
+walk out of the room without speaking to him."
+
+"I think you had better write and say you do not wish to see him."
+
+"I couldn't do that; we have known him a long time, and father has
+always said that we must be rude to no one. Besides, what reason could
+I give?"
+
+"You need not give a reason. But let that pass. I can't see why you
+should meet; you can surely tell your servant to say 'Not at home,'
+when he calls."
+
+"I might be in the garden--Sally would not allow it. If John said 'Not
+at home,' she would run down and let him in."
+
+"I see you are raising difficulties--I see you do not intend to keep
+your promise."
+
+"You have been quite rude enough for one evening. You have kept me out
+on the beach by force till nearly ten o'clock at night, and you said
+that my life at the Manor House was not a pure one--I don't know what
+you mean. No man ever spoke to me like that before."
+
+"You misunderstood me. If you knew how I loved you, you would not twit
+me with my own words. Heaven knows I would sooner go back and drown
+myself in the lock than do anything or say anything that would offend
+you. Remember also that I asked you to be my wife."
+
+"You are not the first. I daresay it may appear strange to you, but
+others have asked me the same question before."
+
+"It does not seem strange to me, it only seems strange to me that
+every one doesn't love you, but I daresay they do. O Maggie, remember
+that you gave me hope, you said that you might--"
+
+"Did I? Well, it's too late to talk any more. Goodnight. I suppose
+you're not coming in?"
+
+She left him in a cruel dispersal of hope. He avoided, and then he
+tenderly solicited a regret that he had not thrown her into the lock.
+To end on that hour by the sea would have been better than the trivial
+and wretched conclusion of a broken promise, and everything, even
+murder, were better than that a brute should have her woman's
+innocence to sully and destroy. His love of the woman disappeared in
+his desire to save, the idea which she represented at that moment; and
+lost in sentiment he stood watching the white sickle of the moon over
+against the dim village. The leaves of some pollarded willows whitened
+when the breeze shot them up to the light, and a moment after became
+quite distinct in the glare and the steam of an approaching engine. He
+might go and tell Willy all about it; he would ask him to interfere-
+could he catch that train? If he ran for it, yes. He ran full tilt
+across the green under the archway up the high stone steps. He just
+did it.
+
+It was the last train; he would sleep in Brighton. His plan, so far as
+he had a definite plan, was to ask Willy to come with him and tell
+"that brute" that his visits to the Manor House must end, and request
+him to pay his sister no further attentions. His other plans were--
+Willy must speak to Maggie and tell her all he knew of the man; Willy
+must speak to his father; Mr. Brookes must not be kept in ignorance.
+But of course the right thing to do would be for Willy and him to call
+at the brute's hotel, tell him what they thought, and give him a
+licking. The train jogged on, and Frank made plan after plan. It was
+now past eleven, and he would not be at East Street before twelve
+o'clock. As he hurried along the streets he doubted more than ever how
+Willy would receive him. He might just as well have waited till
+morning. However, it was too late now to think of going back, there
+was no train, and he rapped at first timidly and then noisily at the
+shop door. He had to wait some time, and then he heard a voice asking
+from the top windows who was there.
+
+"'Tis I, Frank; awfully sorry, but must see you--particular business."
+
+There was no answer; he heard the voice grumbling, and more than ever
+doubtful of the cordiality of his reception, he listened. The door
+opened.
+
+"Who is it?" he said.
+
+"'Tis I, Cissy; but I'm in my nightdress."
+
+"I won't look at you, Cissy, if that's what you mean. But won't yougive
+me a kiss?"
+
+"Stoop down, then."
+
+"I am sorry for waking you up, Cissy."
+
+"Never mind, I'd get up at any hour to see you."
+
+"There, run upstairs, and take care you don't catch cold, or I shall
+never hear the end of it."
+
+"Father is in bed with mother. He says you are to go up, for if he
+were to get out of bed it might give him cold. You know his room?"
+
+"Yes, here it is, now run along."
+
+"Come in."
+
+Frank was a little shocked, and he waited stupidly on the threshold.
+He could see a fragment of Mrs. Brookes's profile, and beneath the
+clothes the outline of Willy's bony body.
+
+"Come in, come in," he said, "don't stand there filling the room with
+cold air. Now, what is it? Why the deuce do you come here waking us up
+at this ungodly hour? What has happened?"
+
+"I have proposed to your sister Maggie."
+
+"I am sure I am delighted to hear it, old chap; but I can't help
+thinking that I could have congratulated you equally as well, if not
+better, in the morning." Then, noticing the distressed look in Frank's
+face, he said: "I hope she has not refused you."
+
+"No; she asked me to wait, she said it would depend--"
+
+"Then you may depend it is all right; now go away and let me go to
+sleep, we'll talk about it in the morning. You can't get back to-
+night. You are sleeping in Brighton, I suppose? You'll come and
+breakfast here?"
+
+"Yes, with pleasure, but it wasn't exactly to tell that I had proposed
+to Maggie that I came here to-night; there is something more than
+that. You know that fellow she calls Charlie? I don't know his other
+name."
+
+"Stracey?"
+
+"I dare say. I mean the man you said you hated more than any man
+alive; I hate him, too."
+
+"You don't mean to say she is still thinking of that fellow. Has he
+come back?"
+
+"He was at the Manor House all day yesterday."
+
+"If she marries that fellow I'll never speak to her again, it will be
+dead cuts."
+
+"It is only natural that I should love Maggie. You remember the first
+day I came down to the Manor House? How young I was then--how young we
+all were; there are no days like the old days! There is a beautiful
+poem by Wordsworth; I only remember one line now--
+
+    "'When every day was long
+       As twenty days are now'--
+
+Do you remember the poem?" Willy did not answer, and noticing that his
+eyes were blinking, Frank hastily returned to more recent events." I
+wrote to her this afternoon telling her how much I loved her, and I
+said that I would call about nine in the evening at the Manor House,
+and that I hoped to find her in the drawing-room where we could talk
+without being disturbed. However, I was too excited, and could not
+hold out till nine; I thought I had better hear my fate at once, and
+as I was walking across the field--you know, at the back of Mrs.
+Heald's--I met her half way. She had a letter in her hand, which she
+said she was going to leave at Mrs. Heald's for me--She admitted that
+the letter was in point of fact a refusal, and when I questioned her
+she admitted that she was obliged to refuse me because she had half
+promised Charlie. We went for a walk on the beach; we sat on the beach
+and watched the sunset, and I told her all. I spoke to her about the
+past, how we had grown up together--how we had been, as it were, from
+the first fated for each other; for you must admit, Willy, that it is
+very curious--I don't know if you ever think of it, but I do--how we
+have met again even when the chances of life seemed to have put us for
+ever apart. "Here a slight sound warned Frank that the present moment
+was one as equally unfitted for psychological analysis as for poetry,
+and he hurried to his story, hoping that the incident of the lock
+would secure him attention. "Willy, I think I convinced her that I
+liked her better than that other fellow. We were standing by the lock
+--Willy, I really do think you might listen."
+
+"My dear fellow, I am listening. You were both looking at the sunset."
+
+"It really is too bad. Of course, if you don't want to hear, and would
+prefer to go to sleep, you have only to say so."
+
+"My dear fellow, I assure you I wasn't asleep. I only closed my eyes
+because I can't bear the glare of that candle. I know where you were--
+you were looking at the sunset."
+
+"No, we weren't."
+
+"Weren't they, Jessie? Are you asleep?"
+
+"No, I am not asleep. Do hold your tongue, Willy, I want to hear the
+story. You were standing by the lock, Mr. Escott."
+
+"Ah, yes, so they were."
+
+"I felt it was my duty, so I told her that I felt it was my mission to
+save--to save her from that man, and I made her promise me not to see
+him again."
+
+"Then it is all right. Nobody can be more glad than I am. I hate the
+fellow."
+
+"She will not keep her promise. Of course she may only have done it to
+tease me; but as we were going home she said she could not walk out of
+the room if she happened to be there when he called, nor could she
+leave word with the servants to say that they were not at home. She
+made a lot of excuses. What are you laughing at, Mrs. Brookes?"
+
+"I am really very sorry, Mr. Escott, but I couldn't help wondering if
+she would change her mind again if you were to go back to the lock."
+
+Frank took up the candle and turned to go.
+
+"Don't go," Willy murmured faintly.
+
+"I am very sorry, Mr. Escott--if circumstances permitted, I would do
+all I could to help you."
+
+This was delicate ground, and Willy woke up.
+
+"What do you want me to do? Have you anything to suggest?"
+
+"Yes, it struck me that we might both go round to the fellow's hotel--
+Stracey, you call him, I think--and you might tell him that his visits
+must cease at the Manor House, and that he must not speak to your
+sister if he should happen to meet her. That should bring the matter
+to an end. He is in Brighton--he is staying at the 'Grand.' We might
+go round there to-morrow morning."
+
+"He might kick us out."
+
+"I only hope he may try. I would give him such a hammering. But you
+need not be afraid of that. It wouldn't do to have Maggie's name
+mentioned in connection with a vulgar brawl--people are not too
+charitable. My idea is that this business should be conducted in the
+quietest and most gentlemanly manner possible."
+
+"I think I had better speak to father first."
+
+"No necessity; he will be only too glad to get rid of the penniless
+brute. Don't you think so, Mrs. Brookes?"
+
+"I do."
+
+They then spoke of other things--of the shop, the profit they had made
+on tomatoes, and the losses that had resulted from over-stocking
+themselves with flour. At last a loud snore brought the conversation
+to a full stop, and Frank hurriedly bade them good-night.
+
+"Cissy will let you out," said Willy, with a sigh of relief.
+
+The little girl had pulled on her stockings and tied a petticoat round
+her waist. "So you are going to be married."
+
+"O Cissy, you have been listening!"
+
+"Is she very nice? She must be very nice for you to marry her. I
+should like to marry you."
+
+"Would you, Cissy, and why?"
+
+"Oh, because you are so very handsome. But you will come and see us
+all the same, and let me sit on your knee?"
+
+"Of course I will, Cissy, and now good-night."
+
+Next morning Willy declared himself ready to go and see Mr. Charles
+Stracey, and to tell him that he was not to call any more at the Manor
+House, or speak to Miss Brookes if he should happen to meet her. Frank
+wondered if this decision was owing to Mrs. Brookes's influence.
+
+"I slept last night at the 'Grand' It seemed odd sleeping in the
+same house--perhaps within a few doors of him. If you only knew how I
+love her, if I could only tell you, you would pity me. You ought to
+know what I feel--the anxiety, the heart-ache. I know you have gone
+through it all."
+
+"Yes, I think I know what it is," Willy replied thoughtfully.
+
+"Mr. Stracey is staying here?"
+
+"Will you enquire at the office, sir?"
+
+While the books were being searched the young men consulted together.
+Frank said: "Send up your card, and say you will be glad to speak to
+him on a matter of importance. Of course he will see you, but before
+you speak about Maggie you must apologise for my presence; you must
+say that I am a very particular friend, and that you thought it better
+that the interview should take place in the presence of a witness."
+
+"I wish it were all over. I wouldn't do what I am doing for any one
+else, I can tell you, Frank."
+
+"Mr. Stracey is in the hotel, sir."
+
+"Will you give him my card, and say I should be glad to speak to him
+on a matter of importance?"
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+(In an undertone to Frank), "Was that right?"
+
+"Quite right."
+
+"Oh, one thing I had forgotten to ask you--am I to shake hands with
+him?"
+
+"You mean if he offers you his hand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is impossible to settle everything beforehand. One must act
+according as the occasion requires." "That's all very well for you,
+but I am a slow man, and am lost if I don't arrange beforehand."
+
+"Pretend not to see his hand, and apologise for my presence; he will
+then see that we mean business."
+
+"The waiting is the worst part."
+
+"Will you walk this way, sir?" said the page boy. "Mr. Stracey is not
+out of bed yet, but he said if you wouldn't mind, sir."
+
+They shrank from their enterprise instinctively, but the door was
+thrown open, and they saw a bath, and a sponge, and a towel, and Mr.
+Stracey lying on his back reading _The Sporting Times_. He extended a
+long brawny arm. The strength of the arm fixed itself on Willy's mind,
+and he doubted if he had not better take the proffered hand.
+
+"I brought my friend Mr. Escott with me, for I thought a witness--I
+mean, that this interview should be conducted in the presence of a
+third party."
+
+At this speech Charlie opened his eyes and dropped his paper. Willy
+leaned over the rail of the bed; Frank looked into the bath, but
+remembering himself suddenly, he examined the chest of drawers.
+
+"I have come to speak to you about my sister."
+
+Charlie changed countenance, and both men noticed the change.
+
+"I mean to say I have come to tell you that you must discontinue your
+visits to the Manor House, and I must beg of you not to address my
+sisters should you meet them."
+
+"May I ask if you are your father's representative, if you speak with
+his authority?"
+
+"I do not. I--"
+
+"Then I should like to know on what authority you forbid me a house
+that doesn't belong to you, and I should like to know, if your father
+doesn't disapprove of my knowing your sisters, why you should? I shall
+speak to Miss Brookes as long as she cares to speak to me. The very
+idea of a man like you coming here to bully me! You have got my
+answer."
+
+"If, after this warning," said Frank, who, seeing that things were
+going against them, thought he had better interfere, "you speak to
+Miss Brookes, you will do so at your peril."
+
+"Peril! What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that you must be prepared to take the consequences."
+
+"Who are you? I should like to know what you have to do in this
+matter?"
+
+"I speak as Miss Brookes's future husband."
+
+"Future husband be damned! She'll never marry you," said Charlie,
+springing out of bed.
+
+Frank threw himself on his guard, and they would have struck each
+other if Willy had not cried out: "Frank, remember you promised me
+there must be no scandal."
+
+"I had almost forgotten. For Miss Brookes's sake, I refrain. Do you
+also, for her sake, cease to provoke me."
+
+Charlie hesitated for a moment, then rushing to the door, he said: "I,
+too, for Miss Brookes's sake, refrain, and I give you three seconds to
+clear out."
+
+In attempting to carry out the injunction Willy nearly fell in the
+bath. Frank had to bite his lip to avoid a smile, and he stalked out
+of the room assuming his most arrogant air.
+
+"I think, on the whole, we got the best of it," he said as they went
+down stairs.
+
+"Do you? He turned us out of his room!"
+
+"That's the worst of tackling a man in his own room--if he tells you
+to go, and you don't go, he can ring for the servants."
+
+"I was as nearly as possible going into the bath."
+
+"Yes, a touch more and down you'd have gone." Frank laughed, and Willy
+laughed, "and that fellow in his nightshirt fishing you out!"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't--"
+
+Frank asked Willy to lunch with him at Mutton's, and he ordered a
+bottle of champagne in honour of the day.
+
+"I say, just fancy pulling you out of the bath, and wiping you with a
+towel. I can see you dripping!"
+
+"Don't set me off again. Let me enjoy my cutlets."
+
+"By Jove! there's something I hadn't thought of."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"We must be off. We must tell Maggie what has happened before he has
+time to communicate with her. What is the next train to Southwick?"
+
+"There's one at half-past one."
+
+"It was after twelve when we saw him, he won't have time to catch
+that. We must be off. Waiter, the bill, and be quick. Look sharp,
+Willy, finish the bottle, pity to waste it."
+
+"What a nuisance women are, to be sure. Just as I was enjoying my
+cutlet! I can't walk fast in this weather, I should make myself ill."
+
+"We must take a cab."
+
+"What a fellow you are, you never think of the expense. I don't know
+where I should be if I were as reckless as you are."
+
+"Supposing he were at the station. It would be rather a sell if we
+went down by the same train! What should we do? He would surely never
+attempt to force his way in!"
+
+"I don't think he would attempt that. If he did, we should have to
+send for the police."
+
+The young men strove to decide how the news should be broken to
+Maggie. But they had arranged nothing before they arrived at
+Southwick, and Frank stopped Willy time after time by the footpath,
+until at last in despair the latter said: "We must make haste; there's
+another train in twenty minutes."
+
+"By Jove! I had not thought of that; we must get on. Well, then, it is
+all arranged. You must tell her that you thought it your duty. Put it
+all down to duty, and it was your duty to do what you did--putting
+entirely out of the question the service you did me."
+
+"I can tell you what, Frank, I am very sorry I ever meddled in the
+matter. Had I known the vexation and annoyance it would have caused--
+and mark my words, and see if they don't come true, we are only
+commencing the annoyances that the affair will cause us. Ah, had I
+only foreseen! What a fool I was; I ought to have known better; I have
+had nothing but bad luck all my life. It is perfectly wonderful the
+bad luck I have had; no matter what I did, nothing seemed to go right.
+I dare say if you had gone to see that fellow without me it would have
+turned out differently. But I don't see how I am to tell my sister
+point blank that I have forbidden him the house. What will she say?
+She may fly at me. Women have queer tempers, particularly when you
+interfere with their young men. My sisters have the very worst of
+tempers; you don't know them as I do. Fortunately it is not Sally. I
+assure you I wouldn't face Sally with such news for all the money you
+could give me."
+
+"I am very sorry, old chap, but we must now go through it. You must
+forbid her to communicate with him."
+
+"She won't heed what I say. It will only excite her. She will fly at
+me, and call me names, and burst into tears. I should not be surprised
+if she went off her head--she has been very strange once before. I
+don't mean to say she was ever wrong in her head, but she is a
+nervous, excitable girl--most excitable; my sisters are the most
+excitable girls I have ever known."
+
+It was surprisingly soon over. Willy had not spoken a dozen words,
+when he was interrupted.
+
+"You mean to say you have been to call on him?"
+
+"Yes; and we told him he was never to speak to you again."
+
+
+Frank expected her eyes to flash fire, but he only noticed a slight
+change in her face, a movement of the muscles of the lower jaw.
+
+"Then I will speak to neither of you again!" and she walked out of the
+room, and in dismay they listened to her going upstairs.
+
+"She didn't fly at me," said Willy; and, looking a little terrified,
+he stroked his moustache softly. "I told you she would give no heed to
+what we said; nor do I see how we can prevent her seeing that fellow
+if she chooses. He cannot come into the house, it is true, but she can
+go out when she pleases."
+
+"We must follow her."
+
+Conscious of defeat, Willy desired compromise. He could not be induced
+to take a share of watching and following which Frank declared
+essential; and, dreading an encounter with Stracey, whose brawny arm
+it was impossible to forget, he shut himself up in the shop, and
+devoted himself to drawing up a most elaborate balance-sheet, showing
+how he would stand if he were obliged to close the business to-morrow,
+whereas Frank loitered about the roads, till Mrs. Horlock came along
+with her dogs, and engaged him in conversation; and no matter at what
+corner he stationed himself, he found he was not free from
+observation. A few days after he could not bring himself to return to
+his post, and contented himself with looking out of his window, and
+taking an occasional stroll by the embankment, when he saw a train
+signalled.
+
+A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulder the day he heard that
+his rival's holiday had come to an end, and that he had been forced to
+return to his counting-house in London. True it is that Mr. Brookes
+had in a certain measure approved of Willy's action in forbidding
+young Stracey the Manor House, and therefore of his, Frank Escott's,
+suit, but neither of these gains compensated him for the crowning loss
+of not being able to see his beloved, for although the Manor House was
+still theoretically open to him, practically it was closed. The
+sisters, although at variance on all subjects, had united in
+condemning him and Willy, and during one dinner, the misery of which
+he declared he could never forget, they had sat whispering together,
+refusing to address him either by look or word. Willy took all this
+calmly. It is an ill wind that blows no good, and the silence enabled
+him to thoroughly masticate his food. Mr. Brookes wept a little and
+laughed a little, and reminded them of the oblivion that awaited all
+their little quarrels.
+
+All this, like much else in life, was ridiculous enough; but because
+we are ridiculous, it does not follow that we do not suffer, and Frank
+suffered. He was five-and-twenty, and light love had him fairly by the
+throat; he winced, and he cried out, but very soon his dignity gave
+way, and he craved forgiveness. But Maggie passed without heeding him.
+For more than a week she resisted all his appeals, and it was not
+until she saw that she was taking the neighbourhood into her
+confidence, and to feel that if she did not relent a little he might
+leave Southwick, and not return, she answered him with a monosyllable.
+With what bliss did he hear that first "no," and how passionately he
+pleaded for a few words; it did not seem to matter what they were, so
+long as he heard her speak one whole sentence to him. Feeling her
+power, she was shy of yielding, and with every concession she drew him
+further into the meshes of love. He dined now nearly every day at the
+Manor House, and he spent an hour, sometimes two, with her in the
+morning or afternoon; he followed her from greenhouse to greenhouse,
+but all his efforts were in vain, and he failed not only to obtain her
+promise to marry him, but even a renewal of the feeble and partial
+hopes which she had given him that night on the beach. He prayed, he
+wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of suicide, and he hinted at
+murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out of the way with the
+watering-pot, threatening to water him too, until one day he drew a
+revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, but on the next
+occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was produced, and
+with a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be a miserable
+thing. It was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was not a
+little pathetic; he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie put
+down the watering-pot, and she would probably have allowed him to take
+her hand and kiss her, if he had not spoken roughly about Charlie, and
+called her conduct into question. So she told him she would not speak
+to him again, and she continued watering the flowers in silence. Amid
+vague remembrances of murders she had read of, Frank's words and
+behaviour remained present in her mind, and that evening when Willy,
+who rarely took the trouble to speak, much less to advise his sisters,
+told her that she might never get such a chance again, she said: "I am
+not going to marry a madman to please your vanity."
+
+"Marry a madman! What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, I call a man that who comes regularly to see a girl with a
+revolver in one pocket and a stiletto in the other, and threatens to
+leave himself wallowing in a pool of blood at her feet--"
+
+"You mean to say he does that? You are clearly determined to drive the
+poor fellow out of his mind with your infernal coquetry. Well, women
+are the most troublesome, and I believe in many cases, the wickedest
+creatures on the face of God's earth."
+
+"You shut up. Men who don't get on with women always abuse them; you
+are soured since Miss ----, the actress, jilted you."
+
+"If you ever dare mention that subject, I will never speak to you
+again. You know I don't break my word."
+
+"Why do you interfere in my affairs? You don't think of me when you go
+down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don't think of what would have
+been said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the
+papers." Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat
+puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment
+that had not turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in
+the conversation, and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+
+Frank uttered a cry of surprise when he opened the studio door to his
+friend. It was his favourite complaint that Willy never came to see
+him.
+
+"At last, at last! This is the second time you have been in the place
+since it was finished, faithless friend!"
+
+"My dear fellow, you know it is not my fault. I have been very busy
+lately trying to get on with my accounts. There's not a room in the
+Manor House where I can work in; my sisters' things are everywhere,
+and they must not be interfered with--their ball-dresses, their birds,
+their work. My sisters think of nothing but pleasure."
+
+"Triss, go back, go to your chair, sir; I'll get the whip."
+
+Showing his fangs, the bull-dog retired; then with a hideous growl
+sprang upon his chair, and sat eyeing Willy's calves.
+
+"I cannot think what pleasure it can give you to keep such a brute.
+Even if I had my accounts finished, I don't think I should care to
+come here much. It isn't safe."
+
+"You are quite mistaken. There's not a better-tempered dog alive than
+Triss; he wouldn't bite any one unless he attacked me. Give me a slap,
+and you'll see--I won't let him come near you."
+
+"Thank you, I'd rather not. But he sometimes growls even at you, and
+shows his teeth, too."
+
+"That's only a way of his, and when he does it I kick him. Come here,
+Triss--come here, sir!" The dog approached slowly; he sat down and
+gave his paw to his master, but he did not cease to growl. "There! We
+have had enough of you, go back to your chair. What will you take--a
+glass of Chartreuse--a cigarette?"
+
+"Thanks, both if you will let me. I see you like pretty things," he
+said, admiring the tall legs of the table--early English--and the
+quaint glasses into which Frank poured the liqueur. "You've got the
+place to look very nice."
+
+"Very different from what is was when the smith and his boisterous
+brood were here," and as if he intended an apt illustration of his
+words, he stretched his leg out on the white fur rug and surveyed his
+calf and red silk stocking. "Just look at that dog, isn't he a beauty?
+I always think he looks well in that attitude, leaning his head over
+the rail. I began a picture of him the other day in a pose somewhat
+like that. I'll show it you." Frank propped his sketch against the leg
+of the sofa, and returned to his place on the sofa. "What do you think
+of it? Your father said it was very like."
+
+"It is like him, but I can see no merit in it. I'm afraid of the
+brute. I can't help hating him, for he always looks as if he were
+going for my legs. What else have you been painting? Any pretty women
+about? I should admire them more."
+
+"I haven't been painting lately," he said, sighing a little
+melodramatically, as was his wont, "I think I have been playing the
+piano more than anything else. I have composed something too, I don't
+think it bad, I'll play it to you: a dialogue between a gentleman and
+a lady. He speaks first, then she answers, then I blend the two
+motives, and that is what they both say."
+
+Willy sat enwrapped in his own thoughts, not having heard a note.
+Though he knew that Willy was incapable of judging of music, it
+disappointed him that his dialogue had passed unperceived. Then
+smiling, he struck a few notes, and Willy awoke. "You haven't been
+listening," he said, reproachfully. "You don't care for any music,
+except that little tune."
+
+"Yes, I do; I heard what you played, and I think it very pretty."
+
+"Willy, I am the most miserable man in the world. Every hour, every
+minute of my life is a pain to me. I never knew before what you must
+have suffered, but I know now; it is a sickening feeling, it takes you
+by the throat, it rises in the throat, and you are almost suffocated.
+Last night I lay awake hour after hour thinking. I could see Maggie as
+plainly as I can see you--she looked down upon me out of space with
+strange, steadfast eyes, and my whole soul went out to her, and I
+cried to her that I loved her beyond all things; and we seemed to be
+so near each other; it seemed such an intimate and perfect communion
+of spirit and sense that I seemed, as it were, lifted out of actual
+life; I seemed to myself holier, purer, better than I had ever been
+before; I seemed to loose all that is gross and material in me, and to
+gain in all that is best and worthiest in man. Did you feel like that
+when you were in love?"
+
+"I don't know that I felt exactly like that. But never mind how I
+felt; you are too fond of alluding to that subject, it is a very
+painful one to me; you will make me regret that I ever told you
+anything about it."
+
+"I am sorry I mentioned it. It is strange, but when one suffers one
+likes to speak of and to compare with one's own the suffering that
+another has endured. Your sister treats me most cruelly. She has
+forgiven me that miserable business, but she refuses to hold out any
+hope that she will ever be my wife. I don't understand--I am utterly
+at sea. I don't believe for a moment that she cares for that horrid
+brute; he is gone away. She tells me she never cared for him. If so, I
+should like to learn your explanation of her conduct."
+
+Willy stroked his moustache, apparently declining the responsibility
+of apologist; but his manner showed he had something on his mind, and
+Frank sought more eagerly than ever to enlist his sympathy and
+support.
+
+"I have done everything I could to win her. I don't know why she
+should be so difficult to please. I am not bad looking, I am at least
+as good looking as that damned brute" (here he paused to glance at
+himself in the glass and smooth the curls above his forehead). "I am
+certainly quite as clever" (here he thought of his painting, and his
+eye sought one of his pictures), "and my position--I will not speak of
+that, it would be snobbish. Women have cared for me. I have told
+Maggie hundreds of times that I never could care for any but her. Fate
+seems to have specially marked us for each other. You must admit that
+there is something very remarkable in the way we have been brought
+together over and over again. I have told her that my life is
+worthless without her. The day before yesterday, when I was speaking
+to her, I burst into tears. That a man should cry, no doubt, seems to
+you very ridiculous but if you knew how I suffer you would pity me. I
+often think I shall commit suicide." Frank took the stiletto from his
+pocket. "I don't mind telling you, when you knocked at the door I was
+lying on the sofa thinking it over. One stab just here and I should be
+at peace for ever. I told her so yesterday."
+
+"I'm not fond of giving advice, as you know--I have quite enough to do
+to think about my own affairs--but as you have often spoken to me on
+this matter, and as you have asked me for my opinion and my help, I
+had better tell you that I differ entirely from you concerning the
+wisdom of the course you are pursuing."
+
+"How's that?" said Frank, at first surprised and then delighted at
+Willy's breaking from his reserve.
+
+"What I mean is, that I think you would be more successful if you
+would lay aside daggers and revolvers, and try to win her affection by
+patience and gentleness. Maggie was talking to me about it no later
+than last night, and I could see clearly that you frighten her with
+bluster. I am sure there are times when she dreads you; it must be a
+positive terror to her to sit with you alone--so it would be to any
+girl."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Maggie is a very delicate and nervous girl, and it wouldn't surprise
+me if your threats to commit suicide seriously affected her health;
+you come with a revolver and a stiletto, and you ask her to marry you,
+and if she doesn't at once say yes, you abuse her, declaring all the
+time that you'll stab yourself with the revolver and shoot yourself
+with the stiletto--I beg your pardon, I mean--"
+
+"Of course, if you've come here only to turn me into ridicule--"
+
+"I assure you I didn't mean it--a slip of the tongue," and as their
+eyes met at that moment, neither could refrain from laughter.
+
+"Admit that there is something in what I say. If you will behave a
+little more quietly--if you will talk to her nicely; leave off
+assuring her of your love, she knows all that already; have some
+patience and forbearance; you will see if before long she doesn't
+change towards you."
+
+His interest in the matter was a desire that his sister should not
+miss this chance of marrying the future Lord Mount Rorke. But Maggie
+felt too sure of Frank to resist the temptation to tantalise him;
+besides her moods were naturally various, and the first relapse into
+her former coldness was answered by a sudden reversion to threats of
+murder and suicide, and one summer evening about six o'clock, when
+Mrs. Horlock took her dogs out and stood at the corner waiting for
+Angel, a rumour was abroad that Mr. Escott had stabbed himself to the
+heart, and had fallen weltering in his blood at Miss Brookes's feet.
+
+Dr Dickinson walked across the green, watched with palpitating anxiety
+from the corner of the Southdown Road. The General spoke to the
+farmer, and the farmer's pupil nudged the general dealer. Mrs. Horlock
+spoke to the grocers, and the owners of the baths declared they had
+just heard from their servant that the young man was not dead, but
+mortally wounded.
+
+There was, therefore, no doubt that Dr Dickinson was going to Mrs.
+Heald's, and would not turn to the right and walk to the station for
+the quarter-to-seven train; and expectation on this point ceasing, the
+group expressed its sympathy for the young man. Poor young man--and so
+good-looking too--what will she do if he should die?--and he must die
+--there was no doubt of it. Maria had met Mary--that was the housemaid
+at the Manor House--it was Mary who had mopped up the blood. She said
+there was a great pool right in the middle of the new carpet under the
+window--they were sitting there on the ottoman when he said suddenly,
+"I have come to ask you to marry me; if you won't I must die."
+Notwithstanding this she continued to play with him--the cruel little
+minx! He could stand it no longer, and he pulled out a dagger he had
+brought from the East, and stabbed himself twice close to the heart.
+What will she do?--she is his murderer--to all intents and purposes
+she is his murderer--she will have to go into a convent--she won't go
+into a convent--she'll brazen it out. No one thinks much of those
+girls--the way Sally carried on with young Meason--it was disgraceful
+--they say she used to steal her father's money and give it to him--Dr
+Dickinson could tell fine tales.
+
+Then gossip ceased, and they were in doubt if they might intercept the
+doctor and obtain news of his patient when he left Mrs. Heald's. Some
+strolled about the green, pretending to be taking the air. Mrs.
+Horlock, however, had no scruples, and picking up Angel and calling to
+Rose and Flora, she walked straight to Mrs. Heald's, and was seen to
+go in. Some five minutes after she came out with the doctor. Frank was
+not dead, nor mortally wounded, nor even dangerously wounded, but he
+had had a very narrow escape.
+
+"I said to him, 'You have had a very narrow escape.' The fact is--(I,
+of course, examined the weapon)--a small part of the point had been
+broken away; it was this that saved him. The first blow scarcely
+pierced his clothes; the second was more effective, it entered the
+flesh just above the heart, and I have no doubt if the steel had
+penetrated a quarter of an inch deeper that he would have killed
+himself. But so far as I can see at present, he will get over it
+without much difficulty."
+
+"When did it occur?"
+
+"About an hour ago, at the Manor House. It appears that he has gone
+there every day for the last three weeks to ask Miss Brookes to marry
+him; she, however, would not give him any definite answer--"
+
+"Horrid girl!"
+
+"I never liked her; most deceitful; no doubt she flirted with him
+outrageously."
+
+"I can't say. I hear that he often threatened to kill himself, and to-
+day, to conclude, he pulled out his stiletto."
+
+"I thought it was a dagger he had brought from the East?"
+
+"No, the weapon they showed me was an Italian stiletto."
+
+The grocer's daughter shuddered, her mother murmured, "And for that
+girl."
+
+"We didn't know him. The Brookes never allow their friends to know any
+one in Southwick, but I have heard that he is an exceedingly nice--"
+
+"He will be Lord Mount Rorke, if his uncle doesn't marry again."
+
+"He must have been desperately in love; no one ever heard of such a
+thing before. It sounds like the Middle Ages--a stiletto!"
+
+"But what could he see in her? That's what I can't make out; can you?"
+
+"Ah! there I can't assist you. I hope to be able to cure him of the
+stiletto wound, but Cupid's arrows are beyond me. They did not fly so
+thickly or strike so hard in my time." And, laughing, the doctor
+withdrew.
+
+"I suppose that after this she will marry him; she never intended to
+let him slip through her fingers. I can see her face when she heard
+that another quarter of an inch and her chance of being Lady Mount
+Rorke was gone for ever."
+
+"I daresay he won't marry her now. It would serve her right. I should
+be so glad."
+
+And so pouring their gall out upon the unfortunate Maggie, the
+tradespeople returned to their homes. The stiletto was so utterly
+unprecedented, and so complete a reversal of all conception of the
+chances of life at Southwick, that every one felt puzzled and
+dissatisfied, even when gossip had brought to light every
+circumstantial detail of the romantic story. Had the deed been done
+with a knife, with anything but a stiletto; had he hanged himself, or
+cut his throat with a razor, or shot himself with his revolver, the
+wonder of the Southwickians would not have been so excited. But a
+stiletto! And for a week an Italy of brigands and bravoes, and
+stealthy surprises haunted shadows of picturesque archways, an Italy
+of chromo-lithographed skies and draperies in the Southdown Road.
+Maggie was spoken of with alternate fear and hate; her wickedness
+seemed more than natural, and had the Southdown Road known anything of
+Italian opera, there is little doubt that Miss Brookes would have been
+compared to Lucretia Borgia. The young women looked out of their
+windows at night, and wondered how they'd feel if a troubadour were
+suddenly to sing to them from behind the privet hedges. The young men
+were even more impressed than their womenfolk; they cursed their place
+of birth and habitation, knowing that it incapacitated them from
+knowing her; they wasted their mothers' candles sitting up till two in
+the morning writing odes to cruel women with raven hair; and all gazed
+sadly on the old ship in the harbour, and the Spanish main seemed
+nearer, and those gallant days more realisable than they had ever been
+before.
+
+The direct cause of this revival of romance lived, however,
+unconscious of it. She was genuinely frightened. She said her prayers
+with great fervour, begging God that He might save Frank, and that she
+might not be a murderess. She made him soups, she sent him wine, she
+brought him books, and she sat with him for hours. She thought he had
+never looked so nice as now--so pale, so aristocratic, so elegantly
+weak, his head laid upon a cushion, which she had brought him, and
+when he took her hand and said, "Will you, darling?" and she murmured,
+"Yes," then it seemed that the happiness of his life was upon his
+face.
+
+Three days after Frank was sitting at his table writing to Mount
+Rorke, and on the following Sunday he walked to the Manor House to
+tell Mr. Brookes that he was engaged to his daughter, and to ask his
+consent. He did not think of his folly, he was too happy; he seemed
+like one in a quiet dulcet dream; he walked slowly, leaning from time
+to time against the wooden paling, for he wished to prolong this
+meditative moment; he saw everything vaguely, and loved all with a
+quiet fulness of heart; he took in the sense of this village and its
+life as he had never done before. He compared it with Ireland; Mount
+Rorke, with its towers, and lakes, and woods arose, and he was
+grateful that Maggie was going there, yet he was sure that he could
+not live without sometimes seeing this village where he had found so
+much happiness.
+
+His wound had sucked away his strength, the sunlight dazzled him, and
+feeling a little overcome, and not equal, without pause, to the long
+interview that awaited him, he stayed awhile in a shady laurel corner,
+and leaning against a piece of iron railing, watched Mr. Brookes and
+Mr. Berkins as they paced the tennis lawn to and fro. The old
+gentleman frequently stopped in his walk to point at the glass houses.
+
+"My dear Berkins, I wish you would try to get Willy some appointment;
+he would, I am sure, take anything over two hundred and fifty a year.
+He would do marvellously well in an office--he loves it. I assure you
+his eyes twinkle when one speaks of how books are kept, or alludes in
+any way to the routine of office work. You should see his accounts and
+his letter books, they would make the best clerk you ever had feel
+ashamed of himself; but left to himself I am afraid he will do no
+good; he has all the method, but nothing else. He lost money in Bond
+Street; I am afraid to tell you how much he dropped on the Stock
+Exchange, but that was not entirely his fault--the firm went bankrupt;
+nobody could have foreseen it, it was quite unheard of."
+
+"I have always noticed that successful men do not buy partnerships in
+firms that go bankrupt."
+
+"Very true, Berkins; I wish I had asked your advice on the subject."
+
+"I wish you had, Mr. Brookes. You are no doubt a very clever man, but
+on one or two points you are liable to make mistakes; you are, if I
+may so speak, a little weak. You should come and live with me for a
+few months, I would put you right."
+
+"This is really too much," thought Mr. Brookes; and had it not been
+for the certain knowledge that Berkins had lately increased his income
+by a couple of thousands a year, he would have answered him tartly
+enough; but as this fact admitted of no doubt he bridled his anger and
+said: "If you could put my boy right it would be more to the point. He
+has all the method of the best clerk in London; he loves the work, he
+would do honour to any office, but on his own hook I am afraid he will
+never do anything but lose his money."
+
+"Your money, you mean."
+
+"Well, my money if you like. You are very provoking, Berkins. I don't
+know if you do it with the express purpose of annoying me. I was
+saying, when you interrupted me, that Nature had evidently intended my
+son for a clerk rather than for a speculator. I fear he is doing very
+badly with his shop in Brighton. The rents are very high in East
+Street, and I don't think he sells anything. He takes enough away from
+here, though. I don't remember if I ever told you that I was foolish
+enough to agree to his taking away, buying from me at the market price
+he calls it, the surplus produce of my garden and greenhouses. I dare
+say I shall get the money one of these days, but at present I see no
+sign of it. He is always making up the accounts, and, so far as we
+have gone, the result of this arrangement is that, when I complain
+that there is neither fruit nor vegetables on my table, I am told that
+everything went to Brighton. I am forced, I assure you, to send my
+carriage and my horses, that I paid two hundred guineas for, to fetch
+potatoes, and he, too, uses my carriage to take his vegetables to the
+shop. He gets his sisters to bring them when they go out driving, nor
+can I even buy my fruit and vegetables off him at cost price; he says
+that would interfere with his book-keeping, and so I am obliged to buy
+everything from Hutton, and you know what his prices are. I assure
+you, it is most annoying."
+
+"Mr. Brookes, your fortune will not bear this constant drain; you must
+remember that we are living in very bad times--times that are not what
+they were. I have heard that your distillery--"
+
+"Yes, times are very bad. I have never known them worse, and no doubt
+you find them so too. They ought to affect you even more than they do
+me. My income is, as you know, all invested money, whereas yours is
+all in your business."
+
+"Of course, I am affected by the times; had they remained what they
+were, even what they were towards the end of the seventies, I should
+be making now something over ten thousand pounds a year. But, thank
+God! I have not to complain. Next year I hope to invest another five
+thousand pounds. The worst of it is, that there is no price for money
+in legitimate securities."
+
+"Everything is very bad; you never will invest your money as I did
+mine ten years ago. My business is not, of course, what it used to be,
+but I don't complain; if it weren't for troubles nearer home I should
+get on very well."
+
+"I hope that Sally has commenced no new flirtation in the Southdown
+Road. I thought she had promised you--since she gave up Meason--that
+she would for the future know no one that lived there."
+
+"I was thinking for the moment of Willy, not of Sally; she has not
+been so troublesome lately. But no sooner are we out of one trouble
+than we are in another. It is, of course, very regrettable that young
+Escott should have stabbed himself, and in my garden too. I, who hate
+scandals, seem always plunged in one. I hear they are talking of it in
+the clubs in Brighton. I hope Lord Mount Rorke will not hear of it; if
+he did, do you think it would prejudice him against the match?"
+
+"Then you're prepared to give your consent?"
+
+"Why not? Surely! I really don't see--Lord Mount Rorke is a very rich
+man."
+
+"Possibly, but Irish peers are not always as rich as they would like
+us to believe they are. The connection is, of course, desirable, but I
+hope your anxiety to secure it will not lead you into making foolish,
+I will say reprehensible, monetary concessions. What I mean is this. I
+am a straightforward man, Mr. Brookes, brought up in a hard school,
+and I always come straight to the point. You are a rich man, Mr.
+Brookes--you have the reputation of being a richer man than you are--
+and it is possible, I don't say it is probable, that Lord Mount Rorke
+will expect you to make a large settlement. He will possibly--mind
+you, I do not say probably--taking the coronet into consideration--
+those people think as much of their titles as we do of our money--ask
+you to settle a thousand a year, may be fifteen hundred a year, upon
+your daughter."
+
+"Settle a thousand--maybe fifteen hundred--a year on my daughter!"
+cried the horror-stricken Brookes.
+
+"He may even ask for two thousand a year. Remember, you are a
+distiller--he is a peer of the realm. And now I say," continued
+Berkins, growing more emphatic as he reached the close of his
+declamation, "that in my wife's interest I will oppose any and all
+attempts to purchase a coronet for Maggie at her sister's expense."
+
+Mr. Brookes stood for a moment stupefied--as if some great calamity
+had befallen him. The housekeeping bills, the loss of his fruit and
+vegetables, even the Southdown Road seemed as nothing in the face of
+this new misfortune. Troublesome as his daughters were, he preferred
+an occasional recrudescence of flirtation in his garden to settling
+the money that he had made himself and letting them go; no pen can
+describe the anguish that the surrendering of the ten thousand pounds
+which he had settled on Grace had caused him; but to be told now that
+the alliance with a lord which he so greedily coveted, and which had
+been so agreeably tickling him for the last few days, would cost him
+perhaps two thousand a year, was more than he could bear. He had
+avoided as much as possible even thinking of the money question. One
+hundred--two hundred--the shadow of three hundred had fallen for a
+moment on his mind, but he had successfully chastened these
+unpleasantnesses by thoughts of the liberality, the generosity of the
+aristocracy, and he had encouraged a hope that Mount Rorke would let
+him off with a statement of how much Maggie would have at his death.
+And now to hear these terrible prognostications, and from his own son-
+in-law, too. It was too bad--it was too cruel. "You don't know what
+you are talking about, Berkins. If it were business I would listen to
+you, but really when it comes to discussing the aristocracy it is more
+than I can stand. What do you know about the aristocracy--not that,"
+cried Mr. Brookes, snapping his fingers. "You were brought up in an
+office--what should you know? You were a clerk once at thirty
+shillings a week--what should you know? Lord Mount Rorke would never
+think of making such ridiculous proposals to me. You judge him by
+yourself, Berkins, that's it, that's it! I dare say he has heard of me
+in the City--many of your great lords do business in the City. I dare
+say he has heard of me, and if he has he'll not try any nonsense with
+me. Twist him round my finger, twist him round my finger."
+
+Berkins liked a lord, but Berkins liked lords without thinking himself
+one jot their inferior, and he was sure that his horse and his dog and
+his house and everything belonging to him were better than theirs; and
+secure in the fact that his grandfather had been a field officer, he
+did not think it amiss to brag that he had begun life with thirty
+shillings a week, so he only smiled at his father-in-law's wrath,
+feeling now easy in his mind that Grace's future fortune would not be
+prejudiced for Maggie's glorification.
+
+The discussion had fallen, and Mr. Brookes went to meet the young man
+whom he caught sight of coming across the sward.
+
+"Most imprudent of you to come out to-day," he said, scanning the
+white face.
+
+"Oh, I am very well now, thanks. The sun is a little overpowering,
+that is all. I want to speak to you, Mr. Brookes."
+
+"Speak to me? Yes. Will you go into the billiard-room, my boy? I can
+see the heat has upset you. Take my arm."
+
+Frank took the offered arm. He was feeling very faint, but the cool
+and dim colour of the billiard-room revived him, and when he had had
+some claret and water, he said that he felt quite strong, and listened
+patiently to Mr. Brookes.
+
+"Well, I never! No, I never heard of such a thing. A stiletto, too.
+You brought it from Italy? It makes me feel quite young again. Ah!
+'tis hard to say what we won't do for a girl when Miss Right comes
+along. I was just the same--pretty keen on it, I can tell you, when I
+was your age; and I don't know, even now,--but a man with grown-up
+daughters must be careful. Still when I see a little waist, high
+heels, plump--you know, that's the way I used to like them when I used
+to go to the oyster shops; there was one at the top of the Haymarket.
+Ah! I was young then, young as you are; I was keen on it--Aunt Mary
+will tell you that--there was nothing I wouldn't do; I never went as
+far as stabbing--walking about at night, tears, torments as much as
+you like, but I never went so far as stabbing. Wonderful what love
+will make a man do! Supposing you had killed yourself; in my garden,
+too--awful! What would people say? I hear they are talking of it in
+the clubs--hope it won't go any further. Should Mount Rorke hear of
+it! Eh? Might set him against us; might not give his consent--eh? We
+should be up a tree, then."
+
+"I don't think there is much danger of that. I came to-day, Mr.
+Brookes, to ask for your consent; am I to understand that you give
+it?"
+
+"Well, my dear Frank, I don't see why I should refuse it; I have known
+you since you were quite a small boy. I don't want to flatter you. I
+don't know that I care much about young men as a rule, but you, I have
+always found you--well, just what you should be. Of course the
+connection is very flattering. You will one day be Lord Mount Rorke,
+and to see my darling Maggie sharing your honours will be--that is to
+say if I live to see it--a great, a very gre--great hon--our."
+
+Feeling much embarrassed Frank begged of him not to mention it. "I
+shall be writing to-morrow or next day to my uncle; shall I say that
+you have given your consent to my marriage with your daughter? I may
+say that I have already written to him on the subject."
+
+"By all means, my dear boy. I think I can say you have my consent--
+that is to say, you have my consent if the money's all right. All is,
+of course, subject to that. Now you are for love in a cottage, bread
+and cheese romance; a man who will use a stiletto can't be expected to
+know much about money, but I am a father, my stiletto days are over,
+and I couldn't give my daughter without a settlement. You will, no
+doubt, be--of course you will be--Lord Mount Rorke one of these days;
+but in the meantime there must be a proper settlement. My daughter
+must be properly provided for; it is my duty to look after her
+interests, so you may as well tell your uncle that I shall be pleased
+to meet him and talk the matter over with him. I will meet him in
+London, when it suits his convenience; I need hardly say that if he
+should choose to come down here that I shall be pleased to see him.
+And now tell me--of course he will be prepared to act handsomely; I
+have no doubt he will, the aristocracy always do act handsomely, no
+one is so liberal as your aristocrat. I hope he will settle a good
+round sum on my daughter--money invested in first-class securities,
+not what Berkins would call first-class, but what I should call first-
+class securities; and should your uncle prove the liberal man that I
+have no doubt he is, I don't say that I won't behave handsomely. Of
+course you know that my dear children will have all my money at my
+death. I shall never marry again, that is a settled thing; but in the
+meantime I will do something. When Grace was married I behaved very
+generously--too generously--a lot of money--mustn't do it again, times
+are not what they were. But at my death I shall make no difference,
+all three will share and share alike."
+
+Frank hoped when Brookes and Mount Rorke met, that the former would
+modify his demands, and what was still more important, his mode of
+expressing them. But why should Mr. Brookes appear to him in such a
+sudden glow of vulgarity? He had never thought of him as a refined and
+cultivated gentleman, but was unprepared for this latest
+manifestation.
+
+"Lord Mount Rorke allows me a certain annual income, he will no doubt
+double this income upon my marriage; I daresay he would--since he has
+recognised me as his heir--make this income legally mine by deed, I
+could then settle a certain sum on Maggie, in case of my death; but
+then further settlements would be required when I succeed to the title
+and the property. I had thought--and indeed I think still--that if my
+uncle makes me a sufficient allowance, that we might avoid touching on
+this matter at all. Lord Mount Rorke is an irritable man, and I am
+sure that if you were to speak to him as you--"
+
+"Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! nonsense! You don't suppose I am going to give
+my daughter to a man unless he can settle a sufficient sum of money
+upon her? Berkins wouldn't hear of it. He was only telling me just
+now--"
+
+"But I don't think you understand me, Mr. Brookes. I do not propose
+that you should give me any money with your daughter. Let what you
+give her be settled upon her, and let it be tied up as strictly as the
+law can tie it."
+
+"Pooh! pooh! the man that marries my daughter must settle a sum of
+money at least equal to what I settle upon her; and it must be money
+invested in first-class security, otherwise I couldn't think of giving
+her one penny."
+
+"I am sorry, Mr. Brookes, that you are so determined on this point.
+These matters generally arrange themselves if people incline to meet
+each other half way, and I am sure that my uncle will resent it if you
+insist on pounds, shillings, and pence as you propose doing. He is not
+accustomed to strict business--marriages in our family were never made
+on such principles; my happiness is bound up in Maggie. I hope you
+will consider what you are risking."
+
+"I would do more for you than any one else, Frank, but business is
+business, and the man who has my daughter must settle a sum of money
+equivalent to what I settle."
+
+"I am afraid I have talked too much, I am not very strong, yet with
+your permission we will adjourn this discussion to another day--in the
+meantime I will write to my uncle."
+
+Mr. Brookes did not offer the assistance of his arm, and had he, Frank
+would certainly not have accepted it. Holding the door, the old man
+waited for his visitor to pass out. "Southdown Road or the heir to a
+peerage: it is all the same, my money is what is wanted--the money I
+had made myself," thought Mr. Brookes. "Dreadful old man, he would
+sell his daughter for a settlement of a few hundred pounds a year. I
+never knew he was so bad, my eyes are opened," thought Frank. Both
+were equally angry, and without secrecy or subterfuge they sought
+consolation in different parts of the garden. Mr. Brookes resumed his
+walk on the tennis ground with Berkins, and stopping frequently to
+point to his glass-houses, he described his misfortunes with profuse
+waves of his stick. Frank had found Maggie, and they now walked
+together in the shade and silence of the sycamores--he, vehement and
+despairing of the future; she, subtle and strangely confident that
+things would happen as she wished them.
+
+Having once yielded and felt the pang of possession she was wholly
+his, in all ramifications of spirit and flesh, both in her brain and
+blood, and the utmost ends of her sense mingled with him. But to him,
+she was the symbol of the desire of which he was enamoured, the desire
+which held together his nature and gave it individuality--love of
+_the_ young girl.
+
+"Oh! my darling, if he should speak so to Mount Rorke, we should be
+parted for ever--no, that could never be--nothing in heaven or earth
+would induce me to give you up, be true to me and I will be true to
+you; but our happiness--no, not our happiness, that is in ourselves--
+but all our prospects in life will be wrecked if he will not give way.
+Should he and Mount Rorke meet--"
+
+"But they won't meet; have patience--I know how to manage father. He
+doesn't like to part with his money, and I can understand it, he made
+it all himself; but he will get used to the idea in time, leave him to
+me; put your trust in me."
+
+She extended her hand, he took it, pressed it to his lips; he took her
+in his arms and kissed her, and the leaves of the sycamores were
+filled with the sunset.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I received a letter this morning from my nephew, apprising
+me of his engagement to your daughter. He has apparently obtained your
+consent, and he asks for mine, and he also asks from me not only an
+increase of income to meet the requirements of altered circumstances,
+but he tells me that you will expect me to settle some seven, eight,
+or ten thousand pounds upon your daughter.
+
+"I do not propose to discuss the reasonableness of his or your
+demands, but it seems that a statement of his prospects is owing to
+you.
+
+"Having never married when I was a young man, many have assumed--I
+among the number--that I never would marry; and I admit that I have
+allowed my nephew to grow up in the belief that he is my heir and the
+successor to the title of Mount Rorke; but beyond a general assumption
+existing in my mind, his mind, and the minds of those who know us,
+there is no reason to suppose that I shall not marry, or that I shall
+leave him a single sixpence, and I willingly make use of this
+opportunity to say that I have no faintest intention of entering
+intoany engagement either verbal or written with him upon this matter.--
+Yours very truly,                      MOUNT RORKE."
+
+"MY DEAR FRANK,--The enclosed is a copy of the letter which I send by
+this post to Mr. Brookes. And I make no disguise of the fact that it
+was written with the full intention of rendering your marriage an
+impossibility. It will no doubt appear to you a harsh and cruel
+letter; it will no doubt grieve you, madden you--in your rage you may
+call me a brute. The epithet will be unjust; but knowing very well
+indeed what love is at twenty-five, I will forgive it. And now to the
+point. I know something about old Brookes, and I remember the lean boy
+you used to bring here, and judging from some slight traces that Eton
+had not succeeded in effacing, I think I can guess what the rest of
+the family is like; indeed, the old gentleman's preposterous demand
+that I should settle ten thousand pounds on his daughter throws a
+sufficient light on his character, and in some measure reveals what
+sort of manner of man he is. But let all this be waived. I admit that
+with some show of reason, you may say it is unjust, nay more, it is
+ridiculous, to pronounce judgment on people I have never seen, and it
+is cruelty worthy of a Roman Emperor to wreck the lifelong happiness
+of two young people for the sake of a prejudice that the trouble of a
+journey to Brighton will most certainly extinguish. I will not
+irritate you by assuring you that the world is full of desirable
+women-women that will appeal to you two years hence precisely as Miss
+Brookes appeals to you now. Were I to whisper that it is unwise to
+give up all women for one woman, you could not fail, in your present
+mood, to see in my philosophy only the nasty wisdom of a cynical old
+reprobate. Therefore I will not weary you with advice--what I have
+said must be considered not as advice, but rather as an expression of
+personal experience in the love passion, serving as illustration of
+the attitude of my mind towards you. I will limit myself to merely
+asking you--no, not to think again of Miss Brookes--that would be
+impossible, but to leave Southwick for London or Paris, the latter for
+preference. I will give you a letter of introduction to a charming
+lady (ah! were I thirty years younger). Put yourself in her hands, and
+I have no doubt in the world but that she will send you back cured in
+six months, as my bank-book will abundantly prove.
+
+"If you cannot do this--if so drastic a remedy should be too repugnant
+to your present feelings, I would remember, were I in your place, that
+my uncle had never refused me anything; that I could draw upon him for
+what money I liked--that is to say, for all pleasures and satisfaction
+save one. I would remember that at his death I was to inherit ten
+thousand a year and a title; and I would weigh (first examining each
+weight carefully, to see if it were true weight) all these present and
+future advantages against the gratification of possessing a woman I
+loved when I was twenty-five for a period of time extending perhaps
+over half a century; I would think--at least I think and hope I should
+hesitate--before I refused to obey one of whose affection I was sure,
+and I feel certain it would go hard with me before I refused to
+gratify the whim--call it a whim if you like--of one who had often
+given but never asked before.
+
+"Somehow I think you owe me this sacrifice; I have done much for you
+and am prepared to do more, and to speak quite candidly, I want
+something in return; I do not mean that I am desirous of striking a
+bargain with you, but we all expect to receive--of course not
+directly, but in some remote way--something for what we give, and I
+confess that I look forward to your companionship to assist me through
+the last course of life. I do not want you now--for the next few years
+I want you to see the world, to educate yourself; I want you to
+improve your taste in art and letters, and later on, if possible, to
+turn yourself to some public account. Besides other work, I am now
+working at my memoirs; they are to be published after my death, as I
+have arranged, under your supervision. I regard these memoirs as being
+of the first importance, and it is advisable that you should be in
+full possession of all my intentions respecting them. Hitherto I have
+always looked after everything myself, but the time will come when I
+shall not be able to do this, and shall require you to relieve me of
+the burden of business. Then I wish you to live here, so that you may
+learn to love Mount Rorke. I am very busy now with improvements, and I
+would wish you to be with me so that you might adequately enter into
+my views and ideas. To conclude, I do not marry for your sake; do you
+not marry for mine, at least do not marry for the present. I do not
+say that if I knew and liked the girl of your choice--if she were in
+your own set--that I could not be won over, but on the whole I would
+sooner you didn't marry. But I could not really endure a lot of new
+acquaintances--people who had never dined in a lord's house, and would
+all want to be asked--no, I could not endure it. I am an old man, and
+now I want to enjoy myself in my own way, and my desire is to get
+through the last years of my life with you.
+
+"You can do what you please, ask here whomever you please, give me a
+few hours of your time when I am particularly busy with my memoirs,
+and, above all, let us be alone sometimes after dinner, so that we can
+turn our chairs round to the fire and talk at our ease.--Your
+affectionate uncle, MOUNT RORKE."
+
+"So he won't pay for a secretary, and wants me to do the work; that's
+about the meaning of that letter." Frank re-read the letter sentence
+for sentence, and as he read new sneers and new expressions of scorn
+rose in his brain in tremulous ebullition. There was scarcely a plan
+for the chastisement of his uncle that he did not for some fleeting
+moment entertain, and one most ironical letter he committed to paper;
+but Maggie would not hear of its being sent, and he was surprised and
+glad to see that she was not depressed and disheartened at the turn
+affairs had taken.
+
+"I can do what I like with father; Sally can't, but I can. You leave
+it me."
+
+"What's the good of that? You can't get round Mount Rorke."
+
+"Never mind; we don't want to get married yet awhile. We'll be
+engaged, it is nearly the same thing. We shall be able to go anywhere
+together--up to town, if we only come back the same day. Write a nice
+letter to your uncle, saying you'll do nothing without his consent;
+that it is true your affections are very much engaged, but that your
+first thought is of him--"
+
+"Oh! but my darling, I want to make you mine."
+
+"So you shall--we shall be engaged; father won't consent to our being
+married, but he can't prevent us being engaged. You'll see, I'll get
+round father sooner or later; he'll give in."
+
+"But you won't get round Mount Rorke; if he would only come here and
+see you."
+
+"He won't do that; but one of these days he'll be in London. I suppose
+he goes to the Park sometimes; we'll go too, you'll introduce me--a
+little impromptu, and I'll see if I can't get him to like me."
+
+"How clever you are!"
+
+"I understand father."
+
+Still it required all Maggie's adroitness to even partially reconcile
+Mr. Brookes to Lord Mount Rorke's letter. She accepted without
+argument that marriage in the present circumstances was out of the
+question. She even went so far as to cordially assent that a man would
+be a fool to give his daughter to a man who could not settle a
+substantial sum of money upon her, and she only ventured to suggest
+that it would be foolish not to give Lord Mount Rorke the opportunity
+of changing his mind. She spoke of his immense fortune, and
+exaggerated it until she made even Berkins seem a paltry creature in
+the old man's eyes.
+
+Frank was anxious to propitiate Sally. He returned from London with
+presents for her, and he always spoke to her, looking at her
+admiringly.
+
+He showed much anxiety, and, fearing that she found it dull at his
+studio, when the sisters came to tea he begged her to give him
+Meason's address. Sally tossed her head; she had had enough of Meason,
+and her manner left no doubt as to her sincerity. But happening to
+meet Meason a few days after in the train, Frank slipped easily into
+asking him to come and see him; and in the easy atmosphere of the
+studio the acquaintanceship soon ripened into intimacy, and after a
+preliminary ruffling of plumage, Sally restored her old sweetheart to
+all the rights of wrong. Life went well amid incessant secrets,
+letter-writing, and tea parties. Grace came to the studio to lunch
+sometimes, and she had been betrayed into a promise not to say a word
+about Meason. It was never ascertained whether, in the indiscretion of
+the marital night, she had betrayed this trust, or whether some
+jealous enemy had spoken or written to Mr. Brookes on the subject; but
+certain it is that one joyful day when Meason, Sally, and Maggie were
+eating oysters, and Frank was twisting the corkscrew into a bottle of
+Chablis, there came an ominous ringing at the door.
+
+"I wonder who that can be. Shut up, Triss."
+
+"Perhaps it is father."
+
+"He is in London."
+
+"I'm not so sure about that."
+
+"No matter--we don't want to see them."
+
+"Rather not! They wouldn't have known we were here had it not been for
+that dog."
+
+"I must go and see who it is. Come here, sir; come here, you brute."
+
+"Supposing it is father?"
+
+"Get behind that piece of tapestry. I'll say that Meason and I were
+having some oysters."
+
+"Come here, sir. I'd better tie up that dog--I wonder who it is?"
+
+"Open the door."
+
+"Oh! Mr. Brookes, quite an unexpected pleasure."
+
+"I have come, sir, for my daughters."
+
+"Your daughters? Your daughters are not here. Mr. Brookes."
+
+"I have reason to know they are here, and I will not leave without
+them."
+
+"You will do well to let us in, Mr. Escott; we are determined--"
+
+"Who are you? What business is it of yours?"
+
+"Should you refuse us admission we are resolved to wait here till
+evening, till midnight if necessary!" exclaimed Berkins. "I say again
+you will do well to admit us, and so avoid a scandal on the green."
+
+"You can come in if you like."
+
+"Will you kindly chain up that dog of yours?"
+
+"Well, this is coming it too strong; this is a little too 'steep.' If
+Mr. Brookes refuses to believe my word that his daughters are not here
+he may come in and look for them, and to facilitate his search I will
+tie up the dog--(the dog is tied up). But you, what brings you here?
+What the devil, I should like to know, brings you here, poking your
+nose into other people's business?"
+
+"Mr. Brookes, will you answer him?"
+
+"I must decline your offer to admit me unaccompanied by my son-in-law.
+We shall not stay long."
+
+"All this seems to me very extraordinary, but since you wish it, Mr.
+Brookes, pray enter."
+
+"Is that dog tied up quite securely?"
+
+"Quite. I think you know Mr. Meason?"
+
+"Mr. Meason knows very well that I do not wish to know him."
+
+"If you only come here to insult my guest, the sooner you go out the
+better. Had I known that you intended to behave in this fashion I
+should have left you standing outside till morning. I'll not have--"
+
+"Never mind, Escott; I'm off. Mr. Brookes and I are no longer on
+speaking terms, that's all! I'll see you later on."
+
+"Don't go, pray."
+
+"I think I must."
+
+"I am surprised, Frank," said Mr. Brookes, when Meason was gone, "that
+you should seek your friends among the enemies of my family."
+
+"We will not discuss that question now. I never heard of such conduct
+--you force your way into my studio, and apparently for no purpose but
+to insult my guest. You see your daughters are not here."
+
+"I am by no means satisfied with that," said Berkins, opening a door.
+"I must see behind that piece of tapestry."
+
+"No, you shall not. I have had just about enough of this. How dare
+you? God's truth--" and as Berkins seemed determined to continue his
+search, Frank caught him by the collar.
+
+But Berkins was tall and strong, and showed no intention of allowing
+himself to be thrown out. His long legs were soon extended here and
+there; his body was sometimes bent back by Frank's weight, once he had
+succeeded in nearly throwing Frank over on the sofa. Mr. Brookes had
+fled to the door, which, in his excitement, he failed to open, and the
+struggle was continued until at last, maddened by a most tight and
+tempting aspect of Berkin's thigh, Triss broke his collar, and in a
+couple of bounds, reached and fixed his teeth deep in the flesh.
+
+"Triss, you brute, leave go." But Triss clung to the long-desired
+thigh. "I'll twist his tail, it will make him leave go."
+
+With a savage yelp of pain the dog turned on his master and was hauled
+instantly off Berkins's thigh.
+
+"I need hardly say that so far as the dog is concerned, I regret, and
+I am truly sorry for what has occurred."
+
+"Sir, do you not see what a state I am in; do not stand there making
+excuses, but lend me your handkerchief. I shall bleed to death if you
+don't."
+
+"Shall I tie it up for you?"
+
+"If those girls there would only fetch a doctor."
+
+Mr. Brookes could not refrain from foolish laughter, and in a moment
+of wretched despair he declared that it would be all the same in a
+hundred years time--a remark which would not have failed to irritate
+Berkins if he had not fainted.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+
+Next day Willy called at the studio, and Frank told him what had
+occurred.
+
+"But I don't see why you shouldn't come to the Manor House," said
+Willy. "If you will only say something about the Measons, I think it
+can be made all right."
+
+"No, I'm not going to turn against Meason; I have always found him a
+good fellow. I know nothing about his flirtation with Sally."
+
+"No more do I; I think it has been exaggerated, but, as you know, I
+never interfere. I wish you would come in to dinner one night."
+
+"Supposing I were to meet Berkins?"
+
+Willy stroked his moustache.
+
+"No, it is quite impossible that I could return to the Manor House.
+Your father behaved in a way--well, I will not say what I think of
+it."
+
+"Berkins hasn't been to the City since. Grace was over here yesterday,
+she says he limps about the garden. He'll never forgive you; he says
+that you didn't call the dog off at once."
+
+"That's a lie; and I said, 'So far as the incident with the dog is
+concerned, I am very sorry.'"
+
+"I think that made him more angry than anything else; he thought you
+were laughing at him."
+
+"I was not. It was most unfortunate. I shall not give Maggie up. I am
+writing to-morrow or next day to Mount Rorke."
+
+All were agreed that things must come right sooner or later. Maggie
+fought for her lover, and emphatically asserted her engagement. She
+yielded on one point only--not to visit the studio; but she maintained
+her right in theory and in practice to go where she liked with him in
+train or in cart, to walk with him on the cliff, to lunch with him at
+Mutton's. They found pleasure in thus affirming their love, and it
+pleased them to see they were observed, and to hear that they were
+spoken about. Nevertheless the string that sung their happiness had
+slipped a little, and the note was now not quite so clear or true.
+Frank could not go to the Manor House; Maggie could not go to the
+studio. Whether Mount Rorke would consent to their marriage perplexed
+them as it had not done before.
+
+The summer fades, the hills grow grey, and a salt wind blew up from
+the sea, blackening the trees, and the beauty of autumn was done.
+Frank thought of Ireland, and what personal intercession might
+achieve. She begged of him to go, and he promised to write to her
+every day.
+
+"Every day, darling, or I shall be miserable."
+
+"Every day."
+
+"Arrived safe after a very rough passage. Every one was ill, I most of
+all."
+
+She received a post-card:--
+"It was raining cats and dogs when I got out of the train. Mount Rorke
+sent a car to meet me; the result is that I am in bed with a bad cold.
+The house is full of company--people I have known, or known of, since
+I was a boy; we shall begin pheasant-shooting in a few days. When I am
+out of bed I shall write a long letter. Do you write to me; I shall be
+awfully disappointed if I do not get a letter to-morrow morning."
+
+Extract from a letter:--
+
+"Mount Rorke is considered to be a handsome place, but as I have known
+it from childhood, as my earliest memories are of it, I cannot see it
+with the eyes of a professed scenery hunter. I have loved it always,
+but I do not think I ever loved it more than now, for now I think that
+one day I shall give it to you. Should that day come--and it will
+come--what happiness it will be to walk with you under the old trees,
+made lovelier by your presence, to pass down the glades to the river,
+watching your shadow on the grass and your image in the stream. We
+will roam together through the old castle, and I will show you the
+little bed I used to sleep in, the school-room where I learned my
+lessons. When I entered the old room I saw in imagination--and oh, how
+clearly!--the face of my governess; and how easily I see her in the
+corridor she used to walk down to get to her room.
+
+"Poor, dear, old thing, I wonder what has become of her!
+
+"I saw again the pictures that stirred my childish fancy, and whose
+meaning I once vainly strove to decipher.
+
+"I came to live here when I was four, immediately after my father's
+death. I can just remember coming here. I remember Mount Rorke taking
+me up in his arms and kissing me. I will not say there is no place
+like home--I do not believe that; but certainly no place seems so
+real. Every spot of ground has its own particular recollections. Every
+bend of the avenue evokes some incident of childish life (in Ireland
+we call any road leading to a house an avenue, even if it is
+absolutely bare of trees; we also speak of rooks as crows, and these
+two provincialisms jarred on my ear after my long stay in Sussex).
+Mount Rorke is covered with trees--great woods of beech and fir--and
+at the end of every vista you see a piece of blue mountain. A river
+passes behind the castle, winding through the park; there are bridges,
+and swans float about the sedges, and there are deer in the glades.
+The garden,--I do not know if you would like the garden; it is old-
+fashioned--full of old-fashioned flowers--convolvuluses, Michaelmas
+daisies, marigolds; hedges clipped into all sorts of strange and close
+shapes. There is a beautiful avenue behind the garden (an avenue in
+the English sense of the word) where you may pace to and fro and feel
+an exquisite sense of solitude; for when the castle had passed out of
+the hands of Irish princes--that is to say, brigands--it was turned
+into a monastery, and I often think, as I look on the mossy trees--the
+progeny of those under whose leafage the monks told their beads--that
+all happened that I might throw my arm about you some beautiful day,
+and whisper, 'My wife, this is yours.'"
+
+"How beautifully he writes," said Sally reflectively.
+
+"You never had a lover who wrote to you like that. Do you remember how
+Jimmy used to write?"
+
+"I don't know how he wrote to you, but his letters to me, I will say
+that, were quite as nice as anything Frank could write. You needn't
+toss your head, you are not Lady Mount Rorke yet."
+
+Sally refused to hear, but presently, seeing a cloud on her sister's
+face, and thinking the letter contained some piece of unpleasantness,
+she relented, and pressed her to continue.
+
+"The house is full of people--people whom I have known all my life--
+and they make a great deal of me. I have to tell them about Italy, and
+they ask me absurd questions about Michael Angelo or Titian, Leonardo
+or Watteau.... The house party is a large one, and we have people to
+dinner every day; and in the evening the drawing-room, with its grim
+oak and escutcheons and rich modern furniture, is a pretty sight
+indeed. There is a lady here whom I knew in London, Lady Seveley; and
+I have had suspicions that Mount Rorke would like me to marry her. But
+she has the reputation of being rather fast, so perhaps the old
+gentleman is allowing his thoughts to wander where they should not. I
+hope not for his sake, for I hear she is devoted to a young Irishman,
+a Mr. Fletcher, a journalist in London. I met them at Reading once in
+most suspicious circumstances. He is the son of a large grazier, one
+of my uncle's tenants, and she is, I suppose, so infatuated that she
+could not resist the temptation of calling on his family. She was
+careful not to speak of her intentions to anybody, but waited until
+she got a favourable opportunity and slipped off to pay her visit. The
+Fletchers live about half a mile from the castle. I was riding that
+way, and met her coming out of their house. I got off my horse and
+walked back together. I hope Mount Rorke will not hear of her
+ladyship's escapade; he would be very angry, for the Fletchers are
+people who would be asked to have something to eat in the
+housekeeper's room if they called at the Castle. In London one knows
+everybody, but in the country we are more conservative."
+
+ "I hope she won't cut you out," said Sally. "It would be a sell for
+you if she did. Go on."
+
+"No, I shan't, you are too insulting."
+
+"Who began it? You told me that I didn't get such nice letters as you.
+Pray go on."
+
+"I do not know if you would think her handsome. I don't. She is,
+however, an excellent musician; we play duets together every evening,
+to Mount Rorke's intense delight. You know my dialogue between a lady
+and a gentleman? She has written it down for me and corrected a few
+mistakes; I think I shall publish it. Darling, I love you better than
+any one in the world; you are all the world to me; try to love me a
+little--you will never find any one to love you as I do."
+
+"Well, you can't find anything peculiarly disagreeable to say about
+that, I think."
+
+Extract from another letter:--
+
+"All the visitors have gone; Mount Rorke and I are quite alone. He is
+kindness itself, and does not bother me about his memoirs; but from
+what I hear that book will make one of the biggest sensations ever
+made in the literary world. I want him to publish it now, but he only
+smiles and shakes his head. He says: 'What is the use of setting the
+world talking about you when you are alive; as long as I am alive I
+can see those I want to see, and be with them far more personally than
+I could by placing in their hands three volumes in 8vo; the 8vos are
+only useful when you have passed into darkness, and are not yet
+reconciled to dying quite out of the minds of men. I do not desire to
+be remembered by those who will live three hundred years hence, but I
+confess that I should like to modulate the pace of forgetfulness
+according to my fancy, and be remembered, let us say, for the next
+sixty or seventy years. I find no fault with death but its abruptness,
+and that I hope to be able to correct. The vulgar and most usual plan
+is children, but children are no anodyne to oblivion, whereas a good
+book in a certain measure is.'
+
+"These are almost the words Mount Rorke used, and I quote them as
+exactly as possible, so that you may see what kind of man he is. We
+pulled our chairs round to the fire and had a real good talk. I know
+no better company than Mount Rorke. He has seen everything, read
+everything, and known everybody worth knowing; he is a mine of
+information, and, what is far better, he is a complete man of the
+world; and long contact with the world has left him a little cynical,
+otherwise he is perfect. I told him the story about Berkins, and he
+laughed; I never saw him laugh so before; and when I told him that I
+had told Berkins, as he was tying up his leg, that so far as the
+incident with the dog was concerned, I regretted deeply what had
+occurred, he could not contain himself. He rang the bell, and we had
+old Triss up. He asked a great deal about you; I leave you to imagine
+what I said. How did he expect me to describe my darling? I told him
+of your subtle, fascinating ways, of your picturesque attitudes, and
+your exquisite little black eyes. 'I think I see her,' he said;
+'little eyes that light up are infinitely more interesting than those
+big, limpid, silly eyes that everybody admires.' I am now doing a
+water-colour sketch from the photograph--the one in which you stand
+with your hands behind your back and your head on one side--for him. I
+am getting on with it pretty well. Ah! if only I had you here for an
+hour (I should like to have you here for ever, of course; but now I am
+speaking artistically, not humanly), I think I could get it really
+like you; there are one or two things that the photo does not give me.
+I shall send the sketch to Dublin to be framed; it will be a nice
+present for Mount Rorke.
+
+"My darling, you must not be anxious; all will come right in time--
+have a little patience. He is already much more reconciled to the
+match than he was when I arrived, and if your father will refrain from
+speaking too much about that hateful question, I am sure that all
+difficulties can be surmounted."
+
+She wrote to him three or four times a week, and on beautiful hand-
+made paper, delicately scented.
+
+Extract from a letter:--
+
+"We went up to town yesterday by the ten o'clock train West Brighton;
+and so that we might have more money to spend, we went third class.
+Father doesn't like us going third class, but I don't think it matters
+if you get in with nice people. We were very jolly. The Shaws went
+with us. They are very nice girls. They had to leave us at Victoria,
+and I and my cousin, Agnes Keating, went shopping together. We met the
+Harrisons at Russell & Allen's. We saw there some lovely dresses--I
+wish you had been with us, for I have confidence in your taste, and
+when I choose a thing myself I am never sure that I like it. The
+assistant was so polite; she told me to ask for Miss ---; she said she
+would like to fit me. Sally was coming up with us, but she changed her
+mind and remained at home, I was very glad, for she is wretchedly
+cross, and not looking at all well. You would not admire her in the
+least; she is growing very yellow. But I don't mean to be ill-natured,
+so we'll let Sally bide, as we say in Sussex. After Russell & Allen's
+we went to Blanchard's, and had a nice lunch. Grace was in town; she
+chaperoned us, and paid for everything; it was very kind of her. Then
+we went to the theatre, and saw a play which we did not care about
+much. There was a very stupid 'tart' in it. I do like 'gadding,' don't
+I? But, oh, my darling Frank, gadding is not really gadding without
+you. How I miss you, how we all miss you, but I especially. The
+Keatings came over to tea to-day, and they asked about you. Blanche
+wants you to write something in her album, and she admired immensely
+the drawing you gave me. She is very artistic in her tastes; I think
+you would like her.
+
+"But I have a bit of news that I think will amuse you. You remember
+Mrs. Horlock's old dog--not the blind Angel; he's old too. But I mean
+the real old dog,--the one twenty years old, that once belonged to a
+butcher. He never smelt very sweet, as you know, but latterly he was
+unbearable, and the General resolved on a silent and secret
+destruction. He purchased in Brighton a bottle of chloroform. It was
+the dead of the night and pitch dark. However, he reached the end of
+the passage in safety; but suddenly he uttered a fearful shriek and
+dropped the chloroform. He thought he had seen a ghost; but it was
+only Mrs. Horlock, who was going her rounds, letting down the mouse-
+traps and supplying the little creatures with food. The General
+blurted out various excuses. He said that he had come to relieve the
+cock parrot's tooth-ache--that he feared the Circassian goat was
+suffering from spinal complaint and the squirrels from neuralgia. But
+his protestations proved unavailing, and now he eats his meals in
+silence. And to make matters worse, the old dog did die a few days
+after--the General says from old age, but Mrs. Horlock avows that his
+death resulted from fright. 'He was a sweet, cunning old thing, and no
+doubt knew all about that plan to destroy him.' I think this would
+make an excellent subject for a comic sketch; I wish you would do one
+--the General dropping the bottle; Mrs. Horlock, surrounded by closed
+mouse-traps and crumbs, sternly upbraiding him.
+
+"I see lots of Emily Pierce. Every Sunday I have tea with her, and
+sometimes lunch; but she doesn't come here. I am afraid I couldn't get
+on at all without her; we do everything together, and we hit it off so
+well.
+
+"Sally has been staying in Kent. I do not know what's up, but she seems
+to see everything _couleur de rose_; everything in Kent is better in
+her estimation than anywhere else. The men dance so much better for one
+thing. I am glad she is so happy, and I wish she would get married and
+stay there. Father says he has a cough that tears him to pieces, but I
+haven't heard it yet."
+
+The elementary notion of a woman in love is to surround, to envelop
+the man she loves, with her individuality, and to draw him from all
+other influences. And the woman in love strives to accomplish this by
+ceaseless reiteration of herself or himself seen through herself. So
+Maggie with her nervous, highly-strung, febrile temperament could not
+refrain from constantly striking the lyre of love. Her hands were for
+ever on the chords. Letters and notes of all kinds; impetuous messages
+asking him when he would return; letters apologising for her
+selfishness--he had better remain with Mount Rorke until his consent
+had been obtained; resolutions and irresolutions, ardours, lassitudes,
+forgetfulness followed fast in strange and incomprehensible
+contradiction. And Frank was asked daily to perform some small task.
+There was always something; and Frank undertook all he was asked to
+do, for he loved to be as much as possible in that circle of life in
+which his sweetheart lived, and to feel her presence about him.
+
+Extract from a letter:--
+
+"Mount Rorke and I had a long and serious talk about you last night.
+He is against the marriage, but then he is against marriage in
+general. He said with his quiet, cynical laugh, 'I daresay she is a
+pretty girl--I can read the truth through your romantic descriptions.
+I am convinced that she is very charming. But are you quite sure that
+you will never meet another equally charming girl? Remember the world
+is a very big place, and the stock of women is large; are you sure
+that you will be able to enjoy the charm which now rules and enchants
+you for thirty, forty years without wearying of it? These are the
+questions you have to consider, which marriage entails.' I need hardly
+tell you what answer I made, and how I tried to convince him that your
+charms are those that a man capable of appreciating them could not
+weary of. Indeed I think I made him rather a neat answer--I said there
+are books in one volume, in two volumes, in three volumes, and there
+are books that you can take down and read at any time. He laughed; it
+rather tickled his fancy. And he said, 'Quite true, there are some
+books and some women that one never tires of--that is to say, that
+some people never tire of. I haven't been so fortunate or unfortunate,
+but that by the way. I admit such cases may occur. I will go further--
+I will admit that a man's life may be made or marred by his taking to
+himself a wife; and if Miss Brookes were a really nice girl--if she
+were the one girl in a million, and if I were sure that your passion
+for each other has its root in deeper and more lasting sympathies than
+those of the skin (these were his exact words)--believe me, my dear
+Frank, I should not think of opposing the marriage. I shall be in
+London during the season, and no doubt an occasion will arise, of
+which I promise you to avail myself, of making this model young lady's
+acquaintance. I will tell you what I think of her; she won't deceive
+me, let her try how she will. There is only one thing I bar--one thing
+must not be, one thing I will not tolerate--a bad marriage.' I lost my
+temper for a moment, but Mount Rorke did not lose his, and I soon came
+round. It is annoying to be spoken to in that way; but I remembered
+that he had not seen you, and I consoled myself by thinking of how
+great his conversion will be when he does. My only fear is that he'll
+want to marry you himself. So, you see, my own darling, my uncle is on
+the 'give,' and we shall win soon and easily. The only real obstacle
+is your father's pig-headedness on all matters in which money enters.
+I think with terror of his meeting with Mount Rorke. If he speaks to
+Mount Rorke as he spoke to me, my uncle will take up his hat and wish
+him good-morning. Do you exert all your influence. Do leave no stone
+unturned. All depends upon you."
+
+Extract from another letter:--
+
+"I am weary of this place, and I long to see you. My longing is such
+that I can resist it no longer. Besides, nothing would be gained by
+remaining here. Mount Rorke will not say more than he has said. In a
+few days--think of that--I shall be with you. With what eagerness I
+look forward. How gladly I shall see the train leave the dreary bogs
+and the blue mountains of the West and pass into the pasture lands of
+Meath; how gladly I shall hail the brown, slobber-faced city of
+Dublin; with what delight I shall step on board the packet--I shall
+not think of sea sickness--and watch the line of the low coast
+disappear, then the Welsh mountains and castles, looking so like an
+illustrated history of England. I must spend two days in London, alas!
+I must order some new clothes. Victoria Station, with all its doors
+and cab stands, and book-stalls, the Sussex scenery, the woodlands,
+the Downs, the plunging through tunnels, and then you. Darling, I
+cannot believe that such happiness is in store for me."
+
+All happened as he had anticipated. At Victoria the usual difficulties
+had arisen about the dog. Triss was growling, the guard was cringing,
+and, with reference to no stoppage before we come to Redhill, the
+necessity of a muzzle was being argued.
+
+"I am certain it is she," and he followed with his eyes the tall,
+swinging figure in the black cloth dress. Then he saw the clear plump
+profile, so white, of Lizzie Baker.
+
+"Here, give me the chain, I'll tie the dog up."
+
+"But the muzzle, sir."
+
+A muzzle was procured, and Frank ran to the third class carriage where
+he had seen Lizzie enter.
+
+"Lizzie! Lizzie!"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Escott, who would have thought of seeing you! It is such a
+time--"
+
+"Yes, isn't it; how long? But are you going to Brighton?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So am I; but--let me get you a first-class ticket. Guard, have I time
+to change my ticket?"
+
+"No, sir, the train is going to start; get in."
+"Do you get out, Lizzie; I'll pay the difference at Brighton."
+
+"No time for changing now, sir; are you getting into this carriage?"
+
+He could not forego the pleasure of being with Lizzie. An old woman
+with a provision basket on her lap drew her skirts aside and made way
+for him; there were three dirtily dressed girls--probably shop girls;
+they sat whispering together, a little troubled by the publicity;
+there were two youths, shabbily dressed, their worn boots and trousers
+covered with London mud. He was surprised, and he did not for a moment
+understand or realise his company. Frank had never been in a third-
+class carriage before.
+
+"I'm afraid you won't be comfortable here."
+
+"Oh, yes, I shall; I'd just as soon travel in one class as another--
+much sooner when it means being with you."
+
+"None of your nonsense; I see you haven't changed. Well, who'd have
+thought it? Just fancy meeting you, and after all this time."
+
+"How long is it? It must be nearly two years. I haven't seen you
+sincethat day we went up the river."
+
+"Yes, you have."
+
+"No; where did I see you since?"
+
+"At the bar; I didn't leave the 'Gaiety' for several days after."
+
+"No more you did; I remember now. But why did you leave without
+letting me know where you were going?"
+
+"I didn't know I was leaving till the morning, and I left in the
+afternoon. A lot of us were changed suddenly. The firm couldn't get
+enough young ladies to do the work at the Exhibition."
+
+"But you didn't leave an address."
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"No, you didn't; I asked the manager, and he told me you had left no
+address. They didn't know where you had gone."
+
+"Did he say so? You mean Mr. Fairlie, I suppose--now I come to think
+of it, it is the rule of the firm not to give information about the
+young ladies. I am sorry."
+
+"Are you?"
+
+"I am, really. We had a very pleasant day up the river--Reading; you
+took me to Reading."
+
+"Yes; but you would never come again."
+
+"Wouldn't I? I suppose I couldn't find time--I did enjoy myself. What
+a lovely day it was."
+
+"Yes; and do you remember how like a beautiful smile the river lay?
+And do you remember the bulrushes? I rowed you in among the rushes;
+you wet the sleeve of your dress plunging your arm in. I remember it,
+that white plump arm."
+
+"Get along with you."
+
+"I wanted to make a sketch of you leaning over the boatside with your
+lapful of water-lilies; I wish I had."
+
+"I wish you had, too; you wrote a little poem instead. It was very
+pretty, but I should have liked the picture better. You gave me the
+poem next day when you came in to lunch. You had lunch at the bar, and
+I was so cross with you because you said I hadn't wiped the glass. It
+was all done to annoy me because I had been talking to that tall,
+rather stout young man, with the dark moustache, whom you were so
+jealous of. Don't you remember?"
+
+"Yes, I remember; and I believe it was that fellow who prevented you
+from coming out with me again."
+
+"No, it wasn't; but don't speak so loud, all these people are
+listening to you."
+
+Frank met the round stare of the girls; and, turning from the dormant
+curiosity of the old woman, he said--
+
+"Do you remember the locks, how frightened you were; you had never
+been through a lock before; and the beautiful old red brick house
+showing upon the lofty woods; and coming back in the calm of the
+evening, passing the different boats, the one where the girls lay back
+in the arms of the young men, the flapping sail, and the dreamy
+influences of the woods where we climbed and looked into space over
+the railing?"
+
+"At the green-table--don't you remember?"
+
+"Yes, I remember every hour of that day; we had lunch at the
+'Roebuck.'"
+
+"You haven't spoken of the lady we saw there. Lady Something--I forget
+what you said her name was; you said she had been making up to you."
+
+"I dined with her one night, and we went to the theatre."
+
+"You may do that without it being said that you are making up to a
+gentleman."
+
+"Of course; I should never think of saying you made up to me."
+
+"I should hope not, indeed."
+
+"I should never think of accusing you of having made up to me; you
+have always treated me very badly."
+
+Lizzie did not answer. He looked at her, puzzled and perplexed, and he
+hoped that neither the girls nor the old lady had understood.
+
+"I am sorry; I really didn't mean to offend you. All I meant to say
+was that the lady we saw at the 'Roebuck' had been rather civil to me;
+had--well I don't know how to put it--shown an inclination to flirt
+with me--will that suit you?--and that I had not availed myself of my
+chances because I was in love with you."
+
+Encouraged by a sunny smile, Frank continued: "You wouldn't listen to
+me; you were very cruel."
+
+"I am sure I didn't mean to be cruel; I went out on the river with
+you, and we had a very pleasant day. You didn't say then I was cruel."
+
+"No, you were very nice that day; it was the happiest day of my life.
+I was in love with you; I shall never care for any one as I cared for
+you."
+
+"I don't believe you."
+
+"I swear it is true. When you left the 'Gaiety' I searched London for
+you. If you had only cared for me we might have been very happy. As
+sure as a fellow loves a woman, so sure is she to like some other
+chap. Tell me, why did you go away and leave no address?"
+
+"I did leave an address."
+
+"Well, we won't discuss that. Why didn't you write to me? You knew my
+address. It's no use saying you didn't."
+
+"Well, I suppose I was in love with some one else."
+
+"Were you? You always denied it. Ah! so you were in love with some one
+else? I knew it--I knew it was that thick-set fellow with the black
+moustache. I wonder how you could like him--the amount of whisky and
+water he used to drink."
+
+"Yes, usen't he? I have served him with as many as six whiskies in an
+afternoon--Irish, he always drank Irish."
+
+"How could you like a man who drank?"
+
+"But it wasn't he--I assure you; I give you my word of honour. It
+really wasn't. I'd tell you if it was."
+
+"Well, who was it, then? It couldn't be the old man with the beard and
+white teeth?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Was it that great tall fellow, clean shaven?"
+
+"No, it wasn't; you'll never guess; There's no use trying. However, it
+is all over now."
+
+"Why? Did he treat you badly? Whose fault was it?"
+
+"His. And the chances I threw away. He behaved like a beast. I had to
+give up keeping company with him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. He changed very much towards me lately; he went
+messing about after other girls, and we had words, and I left."
+
+"You will make it up. Perhaps you are mistaken."
+
+"Mistaken--no; I found their letters in his pocket."
+
+"There are always rows between sweethearts; and then they kiss and
+make it up, and love each other the more."
+
+"No, I shall not see him again. We were going to be married; no, it is
+all over. It was a little hard at first, but I am all right now."
+
+"I am sorry. Do you think there is no chance of making it up?"
+
+"I should have thought that you would be glad; men are so selfish they
+never think of any one but themselves."
+
+"How do you mean? Why should I be glad that your marriage was broken
+off?"
+
+"You said just now that you liked me very much, I thought--"
+
+"So I do like you very much. Once I was in love with you--that day
+when we walked up the steep woods together."
+
+"And you don't care for me any longer?"
+
+"I don't say that; but I am engaged to be married."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Had you not snubbed me so I might have been married to you."
+
+"Who are you going to be married to--to the lady we saw that day?"
+
+"Oh, no, not to her."
+
+"I don't believe you. You mean to say you haven't been to see her
+since."
+
+"I assure you---"
+
+"You mean to say you haven't seen her?"
+
+"I don't say that. I've just come from Ireland. I've been staying with
+my uncle. She spent a week with us; that's all I have seen of her. I
+am going now to see the young lady whom I am engaged to."
+
+"And when will you be married?"
+
+"I don't know; there are a great many difficulties in the way. Perhaps
+I shall never marry her."
+
+"Nonsense. I know better. You think it will take me in. I'll never be
+taken in again, not if I know it."
+
+"I don't want to take you in."
+
+"I don't know so much about that. Is she very pretty? I suppose you
+are very much in love with her?"
+
+"Yes, I love her very much. Dark, not like you a bit--just the
+opposite."
+
+"And you met her since you saw me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Ah, I thought as much, and yet you told me the day we went up the
+river together that you never had and couldn't care for any one elsebut
+me. Men are all alike--they never tell the truth."
+
+"Wait a minute; wait a minute. I knew her long before I knew you; I
+have known her since I was a boy, but that doesn't mean that I have
+been in love with her since I was a boy. I never thought of her until
+you threw me over, until long after; it was last summer I fell in love
+with her."
+
+Lizzie's eyes were full upon him, and it seemed to them that each
+could see and taste the essence of the other's thought.
+
+"What have you been doing ever since? You have told me nothing about
+yourself."
+
+"Well, after trying vainly to find you--having searched, as I thought,
+all Speirs and Pond's establishments in London, I tried to resign
+myself to my fate. I assure you, I was dreadfully cut up--could do
+nothing. My life was a burden to me. You have been in love, and you
+know what an ache it is; it used to catch me about the heart. There
+was no hope; you were gone--gone as if the earth had swallowed you. I
+got sick of going to the 'Gaiety' and asking those girls if they knew
+anything about you; so to cure myself I went to France, and I worked
+hard at my painting. In such circumstances there is only one thing--
+work."
+
+"You are right."
+
+"Yes; nothing does you any good but work. I worked in the _atelier_--
+that's the French for studio--all the morning, and in the afternoon I
+painted from the nude in a public studio. I had such a nice studio--
+such a jolly little place. I was up every morning at eight o'clock, my
+model arrived at nine, and I worked without stopping (barring the ten
+or twelve minutes' rest at the end of every hour) till twelve. Then I
+went to the cafe to have breakfast--how I used to enjoy those
+breakfasts--fried eggs all swimming in butter, a cutlet, after, nice
+bread and butter, then cock your legs up, drink your coffee, and smoke
+your cigarette till one."
+
+"Did you like the French cafe better than the 'Gaiety'?"
+
+"It is impossible to compare them. I made a great deal of progress. I
+began one picture of a woman in a hammock, a recollection of you. You
+remember when we passed under those cedar branches, close to the
+'Roebuck,' we saw a hammock hung by the water's edge, and I said I
+would like to see you in it, and stand by and rock you. I had intended
+to send it to the Academy, but I never could finish it, the French
+model was not what I wanted--I wanted you; and I was obliged to leave
+France, and I could get no one in Southwick. Once a fellow changes his
+model he is done for; he never can find his idea again."
+"Where's Southwick?"
+
+"A village outside Brighton, three or four miles, not more. I have a
+studio there; you must come and see it."
+
+"You must paint me. But what would your lady love say if she found me
+in your studio? She'd have me out of it pretty quick. Tell me about
+her; I want to hear how you fell in love."
+
+"It happened in the most curious, quite providential way. I have told
+you that I knew them since I was a boy. Maggie has often sat on my
+knee."
+
+"Maggie is her name, then?"
+
+"Yes, don't you like the name? I do. Her brother was a school-fellow
+of mine. We were at Eton together, and one time when Mount Rorke was
+away travelling they asked me to spend my holidays at Southwick.
+That's how I got to know them. One day Maggie and Sally were at my
+studio; Sally has a sweetheart--"
+
+The sentence was cut short by a sudden roar. The train had entered a
+tunnel, and the speakers made pause, seeing each other vaguely in the
+dim light, and when they emerged into the cold April twilight Frank
+told the story of Triss and Berkins, Mr. Brookes struggling with the
+door, and the girls rushing screaming from their hiding-place; and
+Frank's imitation of Berkin's pomposity amused Lizzie, and she laughed
+till she cried. He continued till the joke was worn bare; then,
+fearing he had been talking too much of himself, he said: "Now, I have
+been very candid with you, tell me about yourself."
+
+"There is nothing to tell; I think I have told you all." Then she
+said, slipping, as she spoke, into minute confidences: "When I left
+the 'Gaiety' I went for a few days to the Exhibition, but _he_ wanted
+to leave London, so I applied to the firm to remove me to Liverpool
+(not Liverpool Street; the girl--I suppose it was Miss Clarke, for I
+wrote to her--made a mistake, or you misunderstood her). We remained in
+Liverpool a year, and then we came back to London, and I went to the
+'Criterion,' but I couldn't stop there long; he was so awfully jealous
+of me; he used to catechise me every evening--who had I spoken to? How
+long I had spoken to this man? Once I slapped a man's face in fun
+because he squeezed my hand when I handed him the change across the
+counter. There was such a row about it. I don't know how _he_ heard of
+it. I think he must have got some one to watch me. I often suspected
+the porter--the bigger one of the two; but you don't know the
+'Criterion.' You used to go to the 'Gaiety.'"
+
+"Perhaps he saw you himself. I suppose he used to come to the bar?"
+
+"No, not unless--no, not very often. He banged me about."
+
+"Banged you about, the brute! Good heavens! How could you like a man
+who would strike a woman? Who was he? Was he a gentleman--I mean, was
+he supposed to be a gentleman? Of course he wasn't really a gentleman,
+or he wouldn't have struck you."
+
+"He was in a passion, he was very sorry for it afterwards. Then I left
+the firm and went to live in lodgings; he allowed me so much a week."
+
+"He was a man of some means?"
+
+"No, but it didn't cost him much, he knew the people. We were going to
+be married, but he got ill, and we thought we had better wait; and I
+went to the 'Gaiety' again. I was a fool, of course, to think so much
+about him, for I had plenty of chances. One man who used to lunch
+there three times a week wanted me to marry him, and take me right
+away. I think he was in the printing business--a man who was making
+good money; but I could not give Harry up."
+
+"Harry is his name, then?"
+
+"Yes; but it all began over again. It was just the same at the
+'Gaiety' as it was at the 'Criterion.' He would never leave me alone,
+but kept on accusing me of flirting with the gentlemen that came to
+the bar. Now, you know as well as I do what the bar is. You must be
+polite to the gentlemen you serve. There are certain gentlemen who
+always come to me, and don't care to be served by any one else, and if
+I didn't speak to them they wouldn't come to the bar. The manager is
+very sharp, and would be sure to mention it."
+
+"Whom do you mean? That fellow with the yellow moustache that walks
+about with his frock-coat all open--a sort of apotheosis of sherry and
+bitters?"
+
+"That's what you called him once before. You see I remember. He is
+very fond of sherry and bitters. But I was saying that Harry would
+keep on interfering with me, pulling me over the coals. We had such
+dreadful rows. He accused me of having gone with gentlemen to their
+rooms--a thing I never did. I could stand it no longer, and we agreed
+to part."
+
+"How long is that ago?"
+
+"About three weeks. I could stand it no longer, I couldn't remain at
+the 'Gaiety,' so I resolved to leave."
+
+"Why couldn't you remain at the 'Gaiety,' the manager didn't know
+anything about it?"
+
+"No, he knew nothing about it, it wouldn't have mattered if he had,
+but after a break up like that you can't remain among people you know
+--you want to get right away; there's nothing like a change. Besides I
+mightn't get such a good chance again; I had the offer of a very good
+place in Brighton, and I took it--a new restaurant, they open to-
+morrow. I get thirty pounds a year and my food."
+
+"And lodging?"
+
+"No, they are very short of accommodation, and I have taken a room in
+one of the streets close by--Preston Street. Do you know it?"
+
+"Perfectly, off the Western Road."
+
+"The lady who has the house knew my poor mother--a very nice woman--
+will let me have a bedroom for five shillings a week, and I shall be
+allowed to use her sitting-room when I want it, which, of course,
+won't be very often, for I shall be at business all day."
+
+The train rolled along the platform; Frank asked the porter when there
+would be a train for Southwick, and was told he would have half an
+hour to wait.
+
+"I shall have time to drive you to Preston Street."
+
+"Oh, no, please don't! She will be waiting for you--you will miss your
+train."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+
+About four in the afternoon he left off painting, and went to Brighton
+for a couple of hours. The little journey broke up the day, he bought
+the evening papers, and it was pleasant to glance from the news to
+those who passed, and to look upon the sunny and hazy sea. He liked to
+go to Mutton's, and regretted Lizzie was not there, instead of behind
+a bar serving whisky and beer. But he went to the bar. It was a German
+establishment, decorated with the mythological art of Munich, and
+enlivened with a discordant band. The different rooms were fitted with
+bars of various importance. Lizzie was engaged at the largest--that
+nearest the entrance. At half-past five this bar was thronged with all
+classes. Beer and whisky were drunk hurriedly, with a look of trains
+on the face. The quietest time was from half-past three to half-past
+four, during these hours the dining-room was alone in the presence of
+the awful goddesses and a couple of drowsy waiters. Most of the girls
+were out, some two or three read faded novels in the sloppy twilight;
+a group of four or five men who had lingered from half-hour to half-
+hour turned their backs, and talked among themselves; sometimes a
+couple would condescendingly address Lizzie, and tease her with rude
+remarks; or else Frank found her having a little private chat with an
+old gentleman, a youth, or, may be, the waiter.
+
+Lizzie had her bar manners and her town manners, and she slipped on
+the former as she would an article of clothing when she lifted the
+slab and passed behind. They consisted principally of cordial smiles,
+personal observations, and a look of vacancy which she assumed when
+the conversation became coarse. From behind the bar she spoke
+authoritatively, she was secure, it was different--it was behind the
+bar; and she spoke with a cheek and a raciness that at other times
+were quite foreign to her. "I will not sleep with you to-night if you
+don't behave yourself," so Frank once heard her answer a swaggering
+young man. She spoke out loud, evidently regarding her words merely in
+the light of gentle repartee. What she heard and said in the bar
+remained not a moment on her mind, she appeared to accept it all as
+part of the business of the place, and when Frank was annoyed she only
+laughed.
+
+"Men will talk improper--what does it matter? One doesn't pay
+attention to their nonsense, and it is only in the bar. Never mind all
+that, tell me what you have been doing. You didn't come into Brighton
+yesterday, I suppose?"
+
+"No, I had to go to the Manor House."
+
+"And how is she--the only one? Are you as much in love with her as
+ever?"
+
+"I suppose I am; I have begun a portrait of her."
+
+"What, another! You never finish anything. I shan't have that when I
+come and sit for you. I shall make you finish my portrait."
+
+"Ah, yes; when you come and sit. But, joking apart, when will you
+come? I should so like to show you my studio. It really looks very
+nice now. When will you come?"
+
+"I have no time."
+
+"Why not come next Sunday; it is your Sunday off."
+
+"What would Maggie say if she found me there? She'd have my eyes out."
+
+"If she did find it out she'd know you came to sit; but as a matter of
+fact she'd know nothing about it. You come and lunch with me about
+twelve--they're all in church about that time."
+
+"And you never go to church, you wicked boy. I don't know that I dare
+trust myself with you."
+
+A scruple jarred the even strain of his desire to paint Lizzie's
+portrait, but his scruple vanished in one of her sweet sunny smiles,
+and he gave her all information about the train she would have to take
+to reach Southwick by twelve o'clock.
+
+He ordered some delicacies in the way of potted meats, and there was a
+bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice when she arrived.
+
+"Do you keep your champagne in ice? We never do in the bar. When the
+gentlemen want it they have a piece to put in their wine."
+
+"I wish you'd try to forget your gentlemen when you come here."
+
+Lizzie began to cry, and it was hard to console her; she said that
+Frank had spoilt her lunch for her.
+
+"It is because you are so much superior to the men I see you speaking
+to. How can I help feeling annoyed that you should be serving drinks?"
+
+"But I've got to get my living. You don't suppose I serve in a bar
+because I like it?"
+
+"No, of course not; but don't let us talk any more about it. You're
+going to sit to me, and I want to do as pretty a portrait of you as I
+can. All that beautiful brown hair, and that hat! Let me take it from
+your head!" Frank had bought this hat for her and had handed it to her
+over the counter, thereby bringing censure upon her from the manager.
+"Let's forget what I said. The hat suits you. There, now against the
+light, just a three-quarter face."
+
+At the end of half an hour he said she was a very good sitter and this
+pleased her, and she tried to keep the pose till the clock struck, but
+at the end of fifty minutes she said: "I must get up," and she came
+round to see what he was doing.
+
+"Now you mustn't criticise it," he said. "It's only a beginning.
+You've forgiven me my remarks about the bar?"
+
+"Don't remind me of it again."
+
+But he could not get it out of his head that he had annoyed her, and
+was unable to apply himself to his painting; perhaps for this reason
+his drawing went wrong, and his colour became muddy, and the thought
+struck him that if Maggie were to find this portrait about the studio
+she would certainly ask him whose portrait it was,
+
+"I can't paint to-day," he said, getting up from his easel.
+
+"And why can't you paint?" The question seemed to him at first a
+stupid one, and then she showed a perception that surprised him. "Are
+you afraid the young lady you're engaged to might come and catch me
+sitting to you?"
+
+The fear that this might happen had been floating in the back of his
+mind for the last half hour; he had kept Lizzie too long in the
+studio, and it was not improbable that the girls might knock at his
+door at any moment, and if they did it would be impossible for him not
+to answer. Triss would bark.
+
+"Well," she said, "I won't keep you any longer."
+
+"No, I assure you," he said aloud, and within himself, "I'd give a
+sovereign if I could get her to the station without being seen."
+
+And he thought he had done so as he returned half an hour afterwards
+across the green. Maggie was waiting for him. "Come to ask me to dine
+at the Manor House," he thought; but she told him that she knew all
+about his visitor, and, despite all Frank's efforts to pacify her she
+grew more violent, more excited until at last she told him she didn't
+want to see him any more, that he was to go away, that she gave him
+his liberty.
+
+"What an excitable girl she is! I'll go there this evening and try to
+coax her out of her anger. I must try to explain to her that a painter
+must have models. If we were married we shouldn't have more than a
+thousand a year to live on at the outside--that is to say, if Mount
+Rorke and Brookes come to terms, which is not very likely, they might
+make up a thousand a year between them, that would not be enough for
+two, and I should have to work; and I couldn't work without a model.
+The thing is absurd! She'll have to learn that a model is absolutely
+necessary; we were bound to have a row over that model question, so it
+might as well come off now as later on, and we shall understand each
+other better when this has blown over. There is nothing, and never has
+been anything, between me and Lizzie--my conscience is clear on that
+score. How pretty she looked to-day--that pale brown hair, so soft and
+so full of colour. To-day was an unlucky day; I began by being
+unfortunate with my painting; I never made a worse drawing in my life,
+and the worst of it was that I did not see that my drawing was wrong
+until I had begun to paint."
+
+A remembrance of Maggie's gracefulness came dazzling and straining his
+imagination, and in sharp revulsion of desire he assailed Lizzie with
+angry and contemptuous memory. She was always in low company--was
+never happy out of it; it was part of her. How this man liked six
+dashes of bitters in his sherry, and the other would not drink whisky
+except in a thin glass.
+
+As he was leaving the studio he received a letter from Maggie, and
+when he thought of the circumstances in which it was written, he grew
+genuinely alarmed, for there was no forgetting the seriousness of the
+letter, and she stated her reasons for the step she was taking without
+undue emphasis. In its severity and quiet determination the letter did
+not seem like her, and he suspected forgery, sisterly advice, paternal
+influence--a family conspiracy. There was but one thing to do. He
+looked through the various furniture for his hat; and with his head
+full of citations from the lives of artists illustrative of their
+conduct, he went to her. But Maggie would not see him.
+
+"Miss Brookes," the servant said, "is in her room and cannot see you,
+sir."
+
+"She will never be mine, she will never be mine," he muttered as he
+passed into the town. "But why do I think she'll never be mine?" And
+looking at the grey sea with only a trace of the sunset left in the
+grey sky he asked himself if the thought that had crossed his mind
+were a conviction, a fore-telling or merely a passing fancy created by
+the difficulty of the moment. He asked himself if he had heard himself
+saying, "She'll never be mine" and mistaken his own voice for the
+voice of Fate. Over the shingle bank the sea faded, a thin illusion,
+dim and promiseful of peace, and as the darkness and the sea filled
+Frank's soul he, the lightest and most life-loving of men, was filled
+for once with a sense of failure of life, and as his sorrowing
+thoughts drifted on he remembered that he had stood with her in
+hearing of the rising tide, and all his pleading and passion came back
+to him.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+It was Willy.
+
+"I don't know. Maggie has broken off her engagement; she will never
+speak to me again, she hopes we may never meet."
+
+"I don't understand. When did she break off her engagement?"
+
+Frank told his story, and they walked across the green towards the
+studio.
+
+"Oh, you don't care. I don't believe you are listening to me."
+
+"I am listening. You never think any one understands what is said to
+them if they do not instantly jump and call the stars to witness."
+
+"I suppose I am like that--excitable--the difference between the Celt
+and the Saxon; and yet I don't know, your sisters are quite as
+excitable as I am."
+
+"They take after their mother; I am more like my father."
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad character for a play--a man who never would
+believe what you said, unless you threw up your arms and called on the
+stars."
+
+"He can't be very bad if he can think about plays," thought Willy.
+
+"Tell me, Willy, you won't offend me; tell me exactly what you think,
+did I do anything wrong? I swear to you there is nothing between me
+and Lizzie--I believe she is over head and ears in love with some
+fellow who has treated her very badly. She never would tell me who he
+was. In fact, she told me she had left London so that she might get
+over it. There would be no use my humbugging you, and I swear there is
+not, and never was, anything between me and Lizzie Baker. I never
+expected to see her again. It is very strange how people meet. I have
+told you all about it. When I go to Brighton I must go somewhere to
+get a drink, and I really don't see there is any harm in going to the
+'Tivoli'; it didn't occur to me to think I should avoid the place
+merely because she was serving there. I have often been there, I don't
+deny it. Do you see there is any harm in my going there?"
+
+"I don't like giving an opinion unless I am fully acquainted with the
+facts; but it seems to me that you might have gone to the 'Tivoli' to
+have a drink without asking her to your studio."
+
+"Stay a bit, we'll speak of that presently. I am now telling you how I
+see Lizzie when I go to Brighton. I often go to Brighton by the four
+o'clock train, I often go to the 'Tivoli,' and when she is not talking
+to some one else I talk to her about things in general; but I swear I
+have never been out with her, that I never saw her except in the bar,
+and yet Maggie accuses me of keeping a woman in Brighton, and won't
+hear what I have to say in my defence. This is what she says: 'I have
+it on unquestionable authority that you have been keeping this woman
+since you returned from Ireland, perhaps before, and that you go in by
+the four o'clock train almost daily to see her.' Now I ask you if it
+is fair to make such accusations--such utterly false and baseless
+accusations--and then to refuse to hear what a fellow has to say in
+his defence? By Jove! if I caught the fellow who has been telling lies
+about me, I'd let him have it. Some of those Southdown Road people
+have been writing to her, that's about the long and short of it.
+
+"As for having asked her to come to the studio, I assure you my
+intentions were quite innocent. Perhaps you won't understand what I
+mean; you don't care for painting, but very often an artist has a
+longing to paint a certain face, and the desire completely masters
+him. Well, I had a longing of this kind to paint Lizzie; hers is just
+the kind of head that suits me--she offered to give me a sitting, Idid
+not see much harm in accepting, and as I could not paint her in
+the bar-room, I asked her to the studio. But as for making out there
+was anything wrong--I assure you she is not that sort of girl. If we
+were married (I mean Maggie and I) I would have to have models; we'll
+have to come to an understanding on that point. Now what I want you to
+do is to explain to Maggie that there is nothing wrong between me and
+Lizzie, you can tell her there is nothing--I swear there is nothing;
+and then you had better explain that an artist must have models to
+work from."
+
+"Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't ask me. I make a rule never to
+interfere in my sisters' affairs. I did once, you remember, and I
+thought I should never hear the end of it."
+
+"I think you might do this for me."
+
+"Don't ask me. I wish you wouldn't, my dear fellow. I am an
+exceedingly nervous chap, and I have had nothing but bad luck all my
+life."
+
+"You think of nothing but yourself. You certainly are the most selfish
+fellow I ever met. You take no interest in any affairs but your own."
+
+Willy made no answer. He sat stroking his moustache softly with slow
+crumpled hand. After a long silence, he said: "Tell me, Frank, are you
+really in love with my sister, or is it only imagination? I know
+people often think they are in love when their fancy is only a little
+excited. Very little will pass for being in love, but the real thing
+is very different from such fancies."
+
+"I assure you I never loved any one like Maggie. Yes, I am sure I love
+her."
+
+"You may be in love, I don't say you aren't; but I am sure there's no
+more common mistake than to fancy one's self in love because one's
+imagination is a bit excited. When you do fall in love, you find out
+your mistake."
+
+"You think no one was ever in love but yourself. Do you remember when
+you took me to see her, when we heard her sing 'Love was false as he
+was fair, and I loved him far too well'?"
+
+Frank knew no more of the story than that: Willy had loved this
+actress vainly. On occasions Willy had alluded to her, but he had
+never shown signs of wishing to confide.
+
+"Yes, I remember. How I loved that woman, and what a wreck it has made
+of my life. I daresay you often think me dull; I can quite understand
+your thinking me narrow-minded, selfish, and incapable of taking
+interest in other people's affairs: losing her took the soul out of my
+life. Now nothing really amuses me--now nothing really interests me. I
+often think if I were to die, it would be a happy release."
+
+"You never told me anything about it before; wouldn't she marry you?"
+
+"I never knew her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her,
+and my love swallowed up everything else. Then I wasn't wrapped up in
+account-books, although I was always a precise and methodical sort of
+chap; I was young enough then, now I am an older man than my father.
+Some fellows have all the luck; everything succeeds with them, every
+one loves them, men and women, they get all they ask for and more,
+others get nothing. No matter what I tried to do, something went wrong
+and I was baulked. I set my heart on that girl, she was the one thing
+I wanted. I saw her play the same piece fifty times. I knew my passion
+was hopeless, but I couldn't resist it. Had I known her I might have
+won her, but there were no means; I never saw her but once off the
+stage, and that was but a moment. I often sent her presents, sometimes
+jewellery, sometimes fans or flowers, anything and everything I
+thought she would like. I sent her a beautiful locket; I paid fifty
+pounds for it."
+
+"Did she accept your presents?"
+
+"I sent them anonymously."
+
+"Why did you not try to make her acquaintance?"
+
+"I knew nobody in the theatrical world. I was not good at making
+acquaintances. You might have done it. I am a timid man."
+
+"Did you make no attempt? You might have written."
+
+"At last I did write."
+
+"What did you write?"
+
+"I tried to tell her the exact truth. I told her that I had refrained
+from writing to her for three years. That I quite understood the folly
+and the presumption of the effort; but I felt now, as drowning men
+that clutch at straws, that I must make my condition known to her. I
+told her I loved her truly and honourably, that my position and
+fortune would have entitled me to aspire to her hand if fate had been
+kind enough to allow me to know her. It was a very difficult letter to
+write, and I just tried to make myself clear. I told her I knew no one
+in the theatrical world, and that waiting and hoping for some chanceto
+bring us together would only result in misery long drawn out; that
+I had some faint hope that this letter might lead her to consider that
+there might be an exception to the rule that a young lady should not
+stop to speak to a young man she didn't know. I remember I said 'when
+men are in deadly earnest, truth seems to shine between the lines they
+write. I know I am in earnest, and may say that all I hold dear and
+precious in life is set in the hope that this letter may not appear to
+you in the light of one of those foolish and wicked letters which I
+believe men often write to actresses, and of which I suppose you have
+been the recipient.' Then I said that I would be at the stage door on
+the following night, and that I hoped she would allow me to speak a
+few words to her."
+
+"And did she?"
+
+"I could not speak to her; I lost all courage in that moment. She
+walked close by me."
+
+"You mean to say you did not speak to her after writing that letter?"
+
+"Call me a fool, an idiot, what you will; I could not do it. I can
+only compare my feeling to what Livingstone says he felt when he found
+himself face to face with a lion. He stood staring in the lion's eyes,
+unable to move."
+
+"She must have thought your letter a practical joke. I wonder what she
+did think."
+
+"I wrote explaining the unfortunate circumstances as well as I could,
+and telling her I would come the following night."
+
+"Did you go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you speak to her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And she wouldn't speak?"
+
+"She passed on with her maid, but I didn't lose hope until she
+married. It was always a sort of sad pleasure to go to the theatre to
+see her. I used to live at the Manor House for two or three months at
+a time, saving up my money so as to be able to make her some nice
+present. I wished her to remember me, although she would not speak to
+me. No one came to the Manor House; there was nothing to do except to
+read the paper and smoke my pipe. I was sick of my life, and I counted
+the days that would have to pass till I saw her again--only thirty
+more days, only nineteen days, only one more week--so I used to count,
+marking off each day in an almanac, until one day I read the
+announcement of her marriage; then I knew all hope was at an end. I
+went mad that night and rushed out of the house, and I should have
+drowned myself had I not fainted. When I came to, I was weak and
+delirious, and wandered along the beach, not knowing where I was
+going. Some fishermen brought me home. My sisters were at school at
+the time. I believe I was very near dying. I fainted three times one
+afternoon. I used to lie on the sofa and cry for hours. She married a
+stockbroker. I believe she didn't care for him at all. Then she died.
+She was buried in Kensal Green. Whenever I am in London I go and see
+her grave."
+
+"This is awfully sad."
+
+"Yes; it ruined my life. I never had any luck. Things always went
+wrong with me."
+
+"I should like to see those letters."
+
+"I haven't got copies. I didn't keep a letter-book in those days.
+Let's talk of something else. I have some news. I am going in for
+breeding race-horses."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say. I have calculated it all out, and I find I shall make
+from fifteen to twenty per cent, on my money."
+
+"By breeding race-horses! And where are you going to breed them?"
+
+"You know those stables on the Portslade Road where the veterinary
+surgeon used to live? I am going to take that place. The rent is three
+hundred pounds a year; there are fifty acres of pasture, and stabling
+for thirty horses. The dwelling-house is not a very aristocratic-
+looking place, but it will do for the present; when I begin to make
+money I shall go in for alterations. You can't do everything at once."
+
+"You do astonish me. And where are you going to get the money to do
+all this? You will require at least twenty thousand pounds capital."
+
+"More than that. You would not be able to work a place like that under
+twenty-five thousand pounds," Willy replied sententiously. "I have got
+about eight thousand left of my own, and I came in for a legacy of
+three thousand at the beginning of this year--an aunt of mine left me
+the money; and my father has agreed to let me have fourteen thousand
+on condition of my abandoning all further claim upon him. The bulk of
+his fortune will now be divided among my sisters. Berkins advised him
+to accept my offer."
+
+"I should think so indeed; your father is worth ten thousand a year."
+
+"No, nothing like that. His business has been going down for years
+past. Last year he lost heavily again; if it weren't for his
+investments he wouldn't be able to go on with it. The business is done
+for; I knew that long ago. My father and I could never agree about how
+the accounts should be kept. That head clerk of his is an awful
+duffer."
+
+"Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?"
+
+"The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I
+dare say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and
+I could never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and
+vegetables, and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no one
+else, I had assured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected
+something in return--I expected him to let me have peaches in April
+and strawberries in March. You cannot do this without using a good
+deal of heating power. I spoke to the gardener several times. Often
+when I went into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired
+of this, and I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces
+properly stoked, and--would you believe it?--my father actually raised
+objections--objected to my paying a man to look after his glass-houses
+as they should be looked after. He said he would not order in any more
+coke, that I'd have to get along with what there was in the garden; he
+said he wished the shop at the devil. I saw it was hopeless. You
+cannot help my father, and he won't help himself, so I threw the whole
+thing up."
+
+"And when are you going to start the new scheme?"
+
+"Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds
+down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that
+he might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard
+lately, I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze
+out, and I thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock."
+
+"And you told him? What did he say?"
+
+"What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives
+without knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I
+want to tell you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the
+winner of the Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the
+Cambridgeshire, a three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most
+unlucky horse--if he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won
+one or both. He broke down when he was four years old. By King Tom out
+of Merry Agnes, by Newminster out of Molly Bawn."
+
+"I didn't know you knew so much about racing."
+
+"I know more than you think. I don't let out all I know."
+
+"And how much did you pay for Blue Mantle?"
+
+"Dirt cheap. I can imagine myself two years hence, when my first batch
+of yearlings is put up for sale--500, 650, 800, 1000, knocked down for
+1000 guineas, brown colt by Blue Mantle out of Wild Rose, bred by
+William Brookes, Esq."
+
+"I don't think money will come in quite so fast as that."
+
+"Perhaps not; but can't you let a fellow enjoy himself? I never knew
+any one like you for throwing cold water. I believe you are jealous."
+
+"What nonsense!"
+
+"Well, never mind. I shall be the deuce of a dog, see if I shan't. I
+always like to kill two birds with one stone if I can, and my business
+will bring me into connection with the very best in the land.
+Unfortunately! my people don't care about getting on; now I do. I like
+to know people who are better than myself--at all events, who are no
+worse. I shouldn't be surprised if I were dining at Goodwood and
+Arundel before long. When I go up to town I shall be calling on Lady
+This and Lady That, and later on I might get in somewhere in the
+Conservative interest."
+
+"How long you may know a man, and then find you are mistaken in his
+character," thought Frank. "So vanity is at the bottom of all these
+efforts to make money."
+
+"When are you coming to the Manor House?"
+
+"Impossible. You know I can't go there so long as your father--"
+
+"Come in one afternoon; he'll ask you to stay to dinner. He has
+forgotten all about it."
+
+"I cannot come to the Manor House until my engagement to your sister
+is sanctioned by him."
+
+"The way to get that is to come to the Manor House and talk him into
+it. For my part, I think, even from his point of view, that it would
+be better that he should recognise the engagement; nothing can be more
+damaging than these clandestine meetings."
+
+"What can I do? I will not give her up."
+
+"I never interfere. I have quite enough worries of my own. I must be
+getting home. It is very late. Good-bye."
+
+The green was as bright as day in the moonlight and Frank watched
+Willy walking, his shoulders thrown back. He sighed; an undefinable,
+but haunting melancholy hung about Willy; he often impressed Frank as
+an old book--a book whose text is trite--which no one will read, and
+which yet continues to make its mute appeal; a something that has
+always missed its way, that can hardly be said to be an adequate thing
+to offer for any man's money, that will soon disappear somehow out of
+all sight and reckoning.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+
+A few days after he got a letter from Lizzie, saying she was alone and
+ill, and asking him to come and see her. He took the next train to
+Brighton. The land-lady's daughter, a girl of about twelve, opened the
+door to him.
+
+"How is Miss Baker? Is she any better?"
+
+"Please, sir, she is not at all well, she has cold shivers; and mother
+went away yesterday."
+
+"And who looks after Miss Baker?"
+
+"Please, sir, I do."
+
+"You do! Is there no one else in the house?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Is Miss Baker in bed?"
+
+"No, sir. She said she would get up a little while this afternoon,
+'cause she said she thought you was coming."
+
+"Go and tell her I am here."
+
+"Please, sir, she said you was to go upstairs--the back room on the
+second floor, please."
+
+"Come in."
+
+"I am so sorry you are ill, Lizzie. What is the matter?"
+
+"I don't know; I think I caught a severe chill. I stayed out very late
+on the beach."
+
+"But why are you crying? Do tell me. Can I do anything?"
+
+"No no. What does it matter whether I laugh or cry? Nothing matters
+now. I don't care what becomes of me."
+
+"A pretty girl like you; nonsense! Some one rich and grand will fall
+in love with you, and give you everything you want."
+
+"I don't want any one to fall in love with me; I am done for--don't
+care what becomes of me."
+
+"Do tell me about it. Have you heard anything further about him? Do
+tell me; don't cry like that."
+
+"No, no, leave me, leave me! I am so miserable. I don't know why I
+wrote to you. I hope I shall die."
+
+"It is very lucky you did write to me, for you are clearly very ill.
+What is the matter?"
+
+"I don't know; I can't get warm. This room is very cold--don't you
+think so?"
+
+"Cold? No."
+
+"I feel cold; my throat is very bad--perhaps I shall be better in the
+morning."
+
+"You must see a doctor."
+
+"Oh, no! I don't want to see a doctor."
+
+"You must see a doctor."
+
+"No, no, I beg of you. I only wrote to you because I was feeling so
+miserable."
+
+Lizzie stood between him and the door, imploring him not to fetch a
+doctor, but to go away at once, and to tell no one she had written to
+him, or that he had been to see her. "Nothing matters now--I am
+ruined--I don't care what becomes of me." He marvelled; but soon all
+considerations were swept away in anxiety for her bodily health; and
+having extorted a promise from her that she would not leave the room
+until he came back, he rushed to the nearest chemist and hence to the
+doctor.
+
+"I want you to come at once, if possible, and see a young lady who, I
+fear, is dangerously ill. She has not been in Brighton long. She is
+quite alone. She sent for me. I live at Southwick. I came out at once.
+I have known her a long time. I may say she is a great friend of mine.
+I found her very ill--I must say her condition seems to me alarming. I
+should like her to see a doctor at once. Can you come at once?"
+
+"I am just finishing dinner. I will come in about ten minutes' time.
+What is the address?"
+
+"20 Preston Street.--I hope he does not think there is anything
+wrong," thought Frank. "He look's as if he did," and with a view of
+removing suspicion, he said: "She is a young lady whom I have known
+for some years. We had lost sight of each other until we travelled
+down in the train together. I say this because I do not wish you to
+think there is anything wrong."
+
+"My good sir, I should not allow myself to have any opinions on the
+matter. I am summoned to attend a patient, and I give the best advice
+in my power."
+
+"Yes, but one can't help forming opinions--a beautiful young girl
+living alone in lodgings, and having apparently for sole protector a
+young man, are circumstances that might be easily misconstrued, and as
+I am engaged to be married, I think it right to tell you exactly how I
+stand in relation to this young woman."
+
+The doctor bowed.
+
+"Do you not think I did well in making this explanation?"
+
+"It can do no harm; we medical men see so much that we take no notice
+of anything but our patient. But tell me something of this young
+lady's suffering. Can you describe the symptoms?"
+
+"She has a racking headache--she is shivering all over--she sits by
+the fire and cannot get warm. It looks to me as if it were fever."
+
+"Does she complain of her throat?"
+
+"Yes; she cannot swallow."
+
+"Probably an attack of quinsy."
+
+"Is that dangerous?"
+
+"No; but it is infectious."
+
+"I don't mind about that--she is alone. I will see her through it."
+
+"I will go round to Preston Street immediately I have finished dinner
+--in about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour."
+
+When the doctor had seen Lizzie, he said to Frank, who accompanied him
+downstairs: "Just as I expected--quinsy. She will take from eight to
+ten days to get well. We have taken it in time, that's one good thing.
+The throat is very bad. She must have a linseed poultice, and she must
+use the gargle. Is there any one in the house who can attend to her?"
+
+"I am afraid not; the landlady went away this morning, leaving no one
+in the house but that child. She will, I hope, be home to-morrow."
+
+"In that case you had better have a nurse in; I will give you the
+address of one."
+
+When Frank returned he found her lying on the bed weeping. As before,
+she refused to tell him the cause of her grief. She would make no
+other answer than that nothing mattered now, that she didn't care what
+became of her; and when he spoke of going to fetch a nurse, she waved
+her hands excitedly, declaring she would on no consideration stop in
+the house with a woman she didn't know. And, hardly able to decide
+what course he should take, he promised not to leave her; she clung
+about him, and he was forced to send the child (whose name he now
+found to be Emma) to the chemist for the linseed, and he wrote a note
+asking for explicit directions how it should be used. Then he had to
+persuade Lizzie to go to bed. She resisted him, and it was with great
+difficulty that he got her boots and stockings off; then she collected
+her strength, unbuttoned her dress, and took off her stays. Then she
+said: "Go out of the room for a moment."
+
+He found his way into the kitchen, and guessing that hot water would
+be required, he lit a fire. But there was no muslin, and he had to
+send Emma for some. Lizzie smiled faintly when they entered--Frank
+with a basin, Emma with a kettle and a parcel of linen. Frank poured
+some rum into a glass, and beat an egg up with it.
+
+"What is that?" she asked; and her voice was so faint and hoarse that
+he turned, quite startled.
+
+"Something that will do your throat good and keep your strength up.
+Possibly you will not be able to eat much to-morrow." He held the
+tumbler to her lips, and at length succeeded in getting her to drink
+it. "Emma, is the kettle boiling?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You had better go downstairs and get some coals, and if you can't
+find any nightlights you must go out and buy a box. Have you got any
+money over?"
+
+"Yes, sir, sixpence."
+
+"Now, Lizzie, let me put this on your throat. Throw your head well
+back. There, it isn't too hot?"
+
+And all that night he sat by her bedside. Often she could not get her
+breath, and he had to lift her and prop her up with pillows; and four
+times he lit the candle, and, with tired eyes, mixed the meal and
+placed it on her throat. The firelight played upon the ceiling, the
+kettle sang softly, the sufferer moaned, the light brought the rumble
+of a cart, and they awoke from shallow sleeps that blurred but did not
+extinguish consciousness of the actual present. "You must not uncover
+yourself; you will catch cold. Let me pin this shawl about you." About
+eight o'clock Emma knocked at the door. Frank asked her to make him a
+cup of tea. The morning dragged along amid many anxieties, for he
+could see she was worse than she had been over night.
+
+"The disease must take its course," said the doctor; "we shall be
+fortunate if by poulticing we can stop it; if we can't, it will come
+to a head in about eight or nine days' time, and then it will break.
+Did you see the nurse last night? Couldn't she come?"
+
+"She," said Frank, pointing to the sufferer, "wouldn't allow me to
+send for her; she said she would not stay in the house with a strange
+woman. She was very excited; I fancy she has had some great mental
+trouble--a sweetheart, I suppose. I did not like to cross her. I
+thought I could nurse her; I did my best. Was the poultice all right?"
+
+"Quite right. But you will have to sit up with her to-night. You will
+be very tired; you had better get in a nurse."
+
+"I think I shall be able to manage. The landlady is expected home this
+evening or to-morrow morning. What had she better have to eat?"
+
+"She won't be able to eat anything for some days. Try to get her to
+take an egg beat up in a wine-glass of rum."
+
+Hourly she grew worse, and on the following day Frank stood by her bed
+momentarily fearing that she would suffocate; once her face blackened
+and he had to seize and lift her out of bed, and place her in a chair.
+When she seemed a little easier he called Emma, and they made the bed
+and cleaned up the room together. Then he ate a sausage and drank a
+glass of beer that had been brought from the public-house.
+
+The first night had seemed long and weary, but now the hours passed
+quickly; he had forgotten all but the suffering woman, and in the
+interest of inducing her to swallow some beef-tea, in the pride of
+such successes another and then another day fled lightly. Nor did he
+feel tired as he had done, and now a nap in an arm-chair seemed all
+that he required. So the landlady came as an unwelcome interruption of
+an absorbing occupation. Haggard and unshaven, he returned to
+Southwick, where he found a note on his table from General Horlock,
+asking him to dinner that evening.
+
+"I know the meaning of this: Maggie will be there--a reconciliation!
+Can I?" He turned his ear quickly from his conscience; he was
+frightened of the voice that would tell him that Maggie was nothing to
+him, never had been, never could be; that he had been born for Lizzie
+Baker, as the soldier is for the sword or the bullet that kills him;
+others had passed him, had been heard sharply, had gleamed dangerously
+in his eyes. They were but signs and omens meant for others, not for
+him, and they had passed. But this one had remained, though often
+lost, as that remains which is to be, and she was now no less for him
+than before, though now seemingly lost irrevocably to another; and in
+all the seeming of irrevocable loss was drawing nearer--not with the
+victory and destiny of old in her eyes, but with no less victory and
+destiny inherent in her. Though far from him, she had been for long a
+disintegrated influence, but what had been distant was now near, and
+all was yielding like a ship in the attraction of the fabulous
+loadstone mountain. That room!--the wash-hand-stand, the dirty panes
+of glass, the iron bed-there his fate had been sealed. That body which
+he had lifted out of bed still lay heavy in his arms. He still
+breathed the odour of the hair he had gathered from the pillow and
+striven to pin up; those eyes of limpid blue, pale as water where
+isles are sleeping, burned deep and livid in his soul; the touch and
+sight of that flesh, the sound of that voice, those tears, the
+solicitude and anxiety of those hours of night and day conspired
+against him, and his life was big with incipient overthrow.
+
+Lizzie was with him at all times. He saw her eyes, then her teeth, and
+the perfume and touch of her hair was often about him; and yet he was
+hardly conscious that a revolution of feeling was in progress within
+him; and when the time came for him to go to Horlock's he went there
+avoiding all thoughts of Maggie, although he knew he would be called
+upon that night to take a decisive step. He saw little of her before
+dinner, and during dinner the General's allusions to the quarrels of
+lovers being the renewal of love vexed him, and he thought, "Confound
+it! If I want to make it up I will; but I am not going to be bullied
+into it." When the ladies left the room he found it difficult to
+pretend to the kind-hearted old soldier that he did not believe that
+Maggie would forgive him. "Forgive me for what? I have done nothing."
+
+"To get on with women you must always admit you are in the wrong--ha,
+ha, ha!" laughed the General; "now I have it from my wife--women know
+everything--ha, ha, ha!" laughed the General. "Have another glass of
+sherry?"
+
+"No, thanks; couldn't take any more."
+
+"I took I won't tell you how many glasses before I proposed to my
+wife, and then I was afraid; enough to make me--a clever woman like
+Mrs. Horlock, I believe you wouldn't find a woman in England like Mrs.
+Horlock. Look round; all that's her work. Look at that white Arab--
+exactly like him. I won five hundred pounds with that horse; but I
+wouldn't be satisfied, and I ran him again the following day and lost
+it all and five hundred more with it. I had another horse. My wife is
+modelling him in wax; she will show it to you in the next room.
+Marvellous woman!"
+
+Passing Maggie by who was sitting in the window, Frank inveigled Mrs.
+Horlock into an anatomical discussion. The General stretched out his
+feet, put on his spectacles, and took up the _St James's_. The
+conversation dropped, and, full of apprehension and expecting
+reconciliation, Frank went to Maggie and talked to her of the tennis
+parties he was going to, of the people he had seen--of indifferent
+things. The time was tense with the fate of their lives. Once she
+turned her head and sighed. Time slipped by, and still they talked of
+their friends--of things they knew perfectly. Maggie said: "I hope you
+are not angry; I hope we shall remain friends." Frank replied: "I hope
+so," and again the conversation paused. The General denounced
+Gladstone, and praised his wife's sculpture. Ten o'clock! Angel was
+lifted out of his basket. If Maggie had been Helen and Southwick Troy,
+he would not be kept waiting; the dogs had to be taken out; Willy came
+to fetch Maggie; hands were tendered, lips said good-bye, and, with a
+sense of parting, they parted.
+
+Feeling adrift and strangely alone, he walked to his lodging. His
+future loomed up in his mind as vague and as illusive as the village
+that now glared through the mist, white and phantasmal. He did not
+regret--we can hardly regret the impossible. Then, falling back on a
+piece of prose, he said: "Where was the good? Mount Rorke would never
+have given his consent. Poor Lizzie; I hope she is better. I hope it
+has broken. She won't get any relief until it does."
+
+And next day, towards evening, he went to Brighton. He found her
+shrinking over the fire, wrapped in a woollen shawl.
+
+"How are you to-day? You look a little better. I did not expect to
+find you out of bed."
+
+"I am better, thank you; it broke yesterday, and I feel relieved. You
+are very good. I think I should have died if it had not been for you.
+Think of that landlady leaving me in the way she did."
+
+"What was the reason? Why did she rush off in that way?"
+
+"She went to town to see her sister, and she says she was taken ill.
+She drinks."
+
+"Does she? I hope she looked after you yesterday?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"As well as I did?"
+
+"I don't know about that; you are a very good nurse. It was very good
+of you; no one else would have done it."
+
+"What, not even _he_?"
+
+"You were with me for four days, and you never even went to bed--never
+took your clothes off."
+
+"Never even washed myself. By George! I was glad to get home and have
+a good wash. I was a sorry-looking object--haggard and unshaven."
+
+"Where did you say you had been to?"
+
+"Nobody asked me."
+
+"Not Maggie?"
+
+"No; I didn't tell you our engagement is broken off."
+
+"No; you didn't say nothing about it."
+
+"On account of you. She discovered that you had been to my studio, and
+she said I was keeping a woman in Brighton."
+
+"Keeping a woman in Brighton--she thinks you are keeping me! I will
+write to her and tell her that it is not true. What right has she to
+say such things about me?"
+
+"She doesn't say it about you. She says a woman."
+
+"She means me."
+
+"No, she doesn't; she doesn't know anything about you. Some one told
+her I went into Brighton every day by the four o'clock train, and she
+put two and two or rather two and three together, and said it was
+six."
+
+"But I will write to her. I will not be the cause of any one's
+marriage being broken off."
+
+"You need not trouble. I saw her last night, and I could have made it
+all right had I chosen--she was quite willing."
+
+"You can't care for her!"
+
+"I suppose not. I don't think I ever really loved her. I thought I
+did. I was mistaken."
+
+"You are very changeable."
+
+"No, I don't think I am--at least not so far as you are concerned. I
+was mistaken. I was in love with some one else--with you."
+
+"With me?"
+
+"Yes, with you. I was in love with you when we went to Reading, and
+never got over it. I thought I had, but when love is real we never get
+over it. I always loved you, and those four days I spent nursing you
+have brought it all out. I shall never love any one else. I know you
+don't care for me; you said once you couldn't care for me."
+
+"I! I am too miserable to care for any one. I wish you had let me die;
+but that is ungrateful. You must excuse me, I am so miserable. Why
+speak of loving me? I can love no one. I don't care what becomes of
+me. I am ruined; nothing matters now."
+
+"I wish you would confide in me; you can trust me. Has he forsaken
+you? Can you not make it up?"
+
+"No, never now; I shall never see him again."
+
+"Has anything happened lately, since you came to Brighton?"
+
+Lizzie nodded.
+
+"Don't cry like that; tell me about it."
+
+"What's the use? Nothing matters now."
+
+"Has he been here?"
+
+Lizzie nodded, and Frank folded the shawl about her, and wiped her
+tears away with his pocket handkerchief. "Since you were ill?"
+
+"No, before I was ill; he was down here watching me. He found out I
+had gone to your studio, and he said the most dreadful things--that he
+would break your head, and that I had never been true to him, and that
+I was not fit to be the wife of an honest man."
+
+"But I will tell him that you came to my studio to sit for your
+portrait."
+
+"No, you mustn't write; it would only make matters worse. No use; he
+says he will never see me again."
+
+"Where can I see him? Has he gone back to London? I will follow him
+and tell him he is mistaken." "No, please don't, and please don't go
+to the 'Gaiety'; he is a violent-tempered man; something dreadful
+might occur. Please, promise me."
+
+"Not go to the 'Gaiety'? He doesn't know me."
+
+"Yes, he does."
+
+"Have I seen him? Do tell me; you know you can trust me. I am your
+friend. Tell me--"
+
+"You have seen him in the 'Gaiety,' in the grill-room--the waiter,
+number two, the good-looking tall man."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"He wasn't always a waiter; his people are very superior. He has been
+unfortunate."
+
+"And it was he you loved this long while?"
+
+"I never cared for another man."
+
+"I must write and tell him he is committing an act of injustice. I
+will make this matter right for you, Lizzie."
+
+"Do you think you can?"
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+He rang for the landlady, and asked for writing materials. She
+apologised for the penny bottle of ink, and spoke of getting a table
+from the next room, but he said he could write very well on the
+chimney-piece. "I suppose I had better begin, 'Sir'?"
+
+"Don't people generally begin, 'Dear Sir'?"
+
+"Not when they don't know the people they are writing to."
+
+"But you do know him a little. He always said you were very haughty.
+You used to sit at his table."
+
+"I think I had better begin the letter with 'Sir.'"
+
+"Very well. You know best. He was always very jealous."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+
+"SIR,--I hear from Miss Baker that you were in Brighton last week,
+and, drawing the inference from the fact that she came to my studio to
+sit for her portrait, you accuse her of very grievous impropriety. I
+beg to assure you that this is not so. At my urgent request, Miss
+Baker, whom I had better say I have known for some years, consented to
+give me a sitting. My intentions were purely artistic; hers were
+confined to a wish to oblige an old friend, and I deeply regret that
+they should have been misinterpreted, and I fear much unhappiness
+caused thereby."
+
+"Do you think that will do?"
+
+"Yes, it is a beautiful letter."
+
+"Do you think so--do you really think so? Do you think I have said
+all?"
+
+"You might say something--that I never even kissed you; and that you
+respected me too much."
+
+"I will if you like, but don't you think that is implied?"
+
+"Perhaps so; but you see he does not read many books. He hasn't time
+for much reading, and you put things in a difficult way. They sound
+beautiful, but I--"
+
+"Show me."
+
+"Well, this 'grievous impropriety.' I know what you mean, but I
+couldn't explain it."
+
+"Shall I say 'serious impropriety'? but grievous is the right word.
+You say a grievous sin for a mortal sin. If we had done any wrong it
+would have been a grievous sin; but I'll change the word if you like."
+
+"No, don't change it on my account; but I think he would understand an
+easier word better."
+
+"A 'heinous impropriety'? No, that won't do. A 'serious impropriety.'
+That will do. Is there anything else you would like me to alter?"
+
+"No, I don't think there is."
+
+"You think this letter will convince him that there was nothing
+wrong?"
+
+"I hope so; but he is a very suspicious man."
+
+"I will post it when I go out." Then after a long silence: "Do you
+know what time it is? It must be getting late."
+
+"It must be getting on for nine."
+
+"Then I must say good-bye; but I forgot, I want to ask you--you must
+be hard up, and want some money--do you? If you do, I assure you I
+shall be only too glad."
+
+"Well, I am rather hard up, for you know that this illness has
+prevented my doing anything; and I am afraid I have lost my place at
+the 'Tivoli.'"
+
+"What do you intend to do?"
+
+"I should like to go back to London. I shall see him there, and if the
+letter makes it right we may be married. I will write to you."
+
+"You will?--Do. Here is five pounds. I have no more about me, but if
+anything should occur, you know where to write to."
+
+"You are very good; I don't deserve it. I don't know why you take so
+much trouble about me. If he doesn't marry me I'll try to get another
+place; I shall go back to the firm."
+
+"When do you intend to leave?"
+
+"As soon as I am well enough, in a day or two; but you will not come
+here again."
+
+
+"I had thought that I might."
+
+"I know; but if he were to hear that you had been here, it would be
+worse than ever. You don't mind, do you? You aren't angry, are you?"
+
+"No; good-bye, Lizzie. Write to me when you are married." Frank walked
+into the street. There was neither rage nor will in him. He was a
+sorrowing creature in a bitter world. The sea was cruelly blue in the
+coming night; the sky was also blue, only deeper, a red streak like a
+red bar of iron stretched across the embaying land, relieving into
+picturesque detail the outlines of coast-towns and villages. His eyes
+rested on and drew grief from this dim distance so illusive; and for
+jarring contrast, the pier hung with gaudy and gross decoration in the
+blue night, and a brass band replied to the waves.
+
+Then the clouds lifted, and when he returned to Southwick the moon was
+shining and some boys pursued the resounding ball through the shadows.
+He undressed with an effort, and he lay down hoping never to rise
+again. Next morning he went to his studio full of resolve. His picture
+must be finished for one of the winter exhibitions. He did not take up
+his palette, nor did he sit at his piano for more than a few minutes;
+and when he met Willy he raged against Lizzie, jeered at her
+vulgarity, heaped ridicule upon her lover, the waiter; he spoke of
+writing a novel on the subject; he set out her character at length;
+and was alarmed when told that Maggie was ill. He must win her. She
+must be his wife. So he told Willy, so he assured himself that she
+would. He knew that Lizzie was nothing to him. She had left Brighton,
+thank God! He went to sleep, certain he had torn this page out of his
+life, and he awoke to find it still there; and day after day he
+continued to brood upon, and still unable to understand its meaning,
+he longed to turn it over and read, for there were other pages; but
+they were sealed, and he might only read this one page.
+
+"I'm afraid that our old friend Brookes is having a hard time of it,"
+said the General, taking the spectacles from his nose, and laying down
+the _St James's_, "they are all at him tooth and nail," and the General
+laughed gleefully. "You are the young man who has upset them. The young
+lady won't dress herself."
+
+"My dear Reggie, you shouldn't talk like that. I do hate to hear
+scandal; you'll repent it," said Mrs. Horlock, and she adroitly
+smoothed the wax on the horse's quarters.
+
+"I assure you, Mrs. Horlock, I never repeat what I hear; the guiding
+principle of my life is not to repeat conversations. Particularly in a
+village like Southwick, it is most essential that none of us should
+repeat conversations; I have always said that."
+
+"Do tell me about Maggie; I hear she is very ill. What is the matter
+with her? What did you say--the young lady won't dress herself?"
+
+"My dear Reggie, I will not stay here and listen to scandal. Not a
+word of it is true, Mr. Escott."
+
+"What is not true, Mrs. Horlock?"
+
+"What he told you about her walking about the house with her hair
+down."
+
+"I don't think the General said anything about walking about the house
+with her hair down; he said some one wouldn't dress herself. I suppose
+he meant Maggie. I am sure I am sorry--I am most sorry--to hear she is
+ill, but it is unjust to assume that I had anything to do with her
+illness. We can speak freely among ourselves, you know. You know the
+circumstances; no one is more capable of understanding the case than
+you, for you are an artist. Maggie heard that I had had a model,
+that's what it amounts to, and she broke off the engagement; nothing
+could be more unjust, nothing could be more unwarranted."
+
+"It could be brought on again, I know that," said Mrs. Horlock, and
+she turned the shoulders of her horse to the light.
+
+"We will not go into that question, Mrs. Horlock. I confine myself to
+what has happened, and I say I was treated unjustly, most shamefully;
+and when I have been cast aside like an old hat, I hear indirectly
+that it can be made up again. I have borne quite enough, and will bear
+no more. Old Brookes came down to my studio with that cad Berkins, and
+forced his way in, and then forbade me the house because my dog bit
+Berkins's thigh. I couldn't help it. What did he attack me for? He
+didn't suppose a bull-dog would be still while his master was being
+knocked on the head."
+
+"What should a common City man know about dogs? He wouldn't sign the
+petition when I asked him, to Sir Charles Warren, to cancel the
+regulations about muzzling."
+
+"And then they set a report going that I had set the dog on, and if I
+hadn't set it on, that I hadn't called him off. As if I could! You
+know what a bull-dog is, Mrs. Horlock? Is a highly-bred dog likely to
+let go when he has fixed his teeth in the fleshy part of a thigh? The
+Brookes are old friends of mine, and I wouldn't say a word against
+them for the world; but of course it is as obvious to you as it is to
+me that they are not quite the thing. I mean--you know--I would not
+think of comparing them with the Southdown Road; but there is a little
+something. City people are not the Peerage; there's no use saying they
+are. Mount Rorke was upset; but I would not give in, and I think I
+should have won his consent in the long run. After all I have borne
+for her sake I think I might expect better treatment than to be thrown
+over, as I have said, like an old hat; and I don't mind telling you
+that I do not intend to be made a fool of in this matter; I shall turn
+a very deaf ear to stories of a broken heart and failing health. I
+shall not cease to think of Maggie. I loved her once very deeply, and
+I should have loved her always if--But tell me, General. You know I
+will not repeat anything."
+
+"I advise you to say no more, Reggie. I will not be mixed up in any
+scandal. I shall leave the room. Sally is dining here to-night; she is
+only too anxious to talk of her sister. If Mr. Escott will stay and
+take pot-luck with us, he will no doubt hear everything there is to
+hear in the course of the evening."
+
+"What have we got for dinner, Ethel? I know we have got a leg of
+mutton, and there is some curry."
+
+"Your dinners are always excellent, Mrs. Horlock. I shall be delighted
+to stay. Here is Sally. Oh, how do you do, Sally? We were talking of
+you."
+
+"I'm afraid every one is talking of me, now," she whispered, and the
+big girl passed over to Mrs. Horlock and kissed her. "How is it that
+no one has seen anything of you lately?" she said, taking the seat
+next him. "What have you been doing?"
+
+"Nothing in particular. But I want to ask you about Maggie. I hear she
+is very ill."
+
+Perceiving that his tone did not bespeak a loving mood, Sally's face
+brightened, and she became at once voluble and confidential.
+
+"Oh, we have been having no end of a time at home. Father has been
+speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick."
+
+"Speaking of selling the place and leaving Southwick! And where does
+he think of going to live, and what is the reason of this?"
+
+"Oh, the reason! I suppose he would say I was the reason; and where
+heis going to live, that is not settled yet--probably one of the big
+London hotels. He says everybody is laughing at him, and that when he
+meets the young men at the station he can see them laughing at him
+over their newspapers, for, according to father, they have all flirted
+with us. Maggie has been saying all kinds of things against me, and I
+am afraid that the Southdown Road people have been writing him
+anonymous letters again. Some one--I don't know who it is--I wish I
+did--has been telling him the most shocking things about Jimmy Meason
+and me; things in which I assure you there is not a word of truth. You
+know yourself that we have hardly spoken for nearly two years; last
+year, it is true, we made it up a bit in your studio, but it didn't
+last long. I don't think I saw him twice afterwards, and never alone--
+and now to have everything that happened two years ago raked up and
+thrown in my face! I don't say I haven't--I don't know what you'd call
+it, I suppose you'd call it spooning. I admit I infinitely preferred
+walking about the garden with a young man to sitting in the drawing-
+room and doing woolwork. I was a silly little fool then, but I do
+think it hard that all this should be raked up now. I don't know what
+will happen. Maggie pretends to be frightened at me; 'tis only her
+nonsense to set father against me. She won't dress herself, and she
+walks about with her hair down her back, wringing her hands."
+
+"But what does she say? This is very bewildering. I don't understand--
+I am quite lost."
+
+"The fact is that Maggie doesn't know what she is saying, so I suppose
+I oughtn't to blame her. She is a little off her head, that's the
+truth of it; but you mustn't say I said so, it will get me into worse
+trouble than I am already in. She was like that once before, and had
+to be put in the charge of a lady who was in the habit of dealing with
+excitable people. I don't mean lunatics, don't run away with that
+notion. I don't know what would happen if it got about that I was
+putting that about. Maggie is very excitable, and she has been
+exciting herself a great deal lately--you were the principal cause.
+She did all she could to get you to make it up when you met her here
+at dinner--the dinner was given for that--but you said nothing about
+it, and she came home in an awful state, accusing every one of
+combining to ruin her. She said I was jealous of her, that I was wild
+with fear that she would one day be Lady Mount Rorke. She said father
+had done everything to break off her marriage, because he did not like
+parting with his money. She had set her heart on being married, and it
+was a terrible disappointment. She has been disappointed two or three
+times. Father doesn't know what to do. Her thoughts seem to run on
+that one subject. She walks about the garden saying the most
+extraordinary things."
+
+"But tell me about the illness."
+
+"I don't know if I ought to tell you."
+
+"Oh, do!"
+
+"I don't know how to say it. She used to say she longed to become a
+mother."
+
+"Longed to become a mother? Well, that is the last thing--"
+
+"You know what I mean."
+
+"But tell me about the illness."
+
+"I should call it more than being a little excited, but of course she
+isn't mad. She has, however, the most curious notions. She is always a
+little too imaginative at the best of times; at least, I find her so,
+but now her delusions are really too absurd, and, as I have said, the
+worst of it is that her thoughts run on that one thing; it really is
+most unfortunate. Poor father."
+
+"But what are her delusions?"
+
+"Well, I scarcely know how to tell you."
+
+"Try; anything can be told. It depends how it is told."
+
+"She thinks that the coachman has spread it all over Southwick--how
+shall I say it? I don't know that I ought to tell you. Well, that she
+has gone wrong with you and Berkins. I thought I should die of
+laughing--the idea of Berkins was too funny for words."
+
+"But your father doesn't believe it?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"He doesn't suspect me, I hope?"
+
+"No; I am sure he doesn't. He knows Maggie doesn't know what she is
+saying. But he was dreadfully put out about Berkins; he is frightened
+out of his wits lest he should hear of it. But for goodness' sake
+don't mention that I said anything to you about it; I am in trouble
+enough as it is. Father says he can stand it no longer. I am very much
+afraid that he will leave Southwick. It depends on what Aunt Mary
+says. He has sent for her; she will be here to-morrow."
+
+These family councils were held in the billiard-room, and when Aunt
+Mary and Aunt Hester had had their tea they came along the passage,
+Aunt Mary of course in front, Aunt Hester timid and freckled and with
+her usual air of tracts. Uncle James stood with his back to the fire
+waiting for them. Willy caught at his hair, but an expression of
+resignation overspread his face, he packed his diary and accounts in
+brown paper and lit a pipe.
+
+"Now, James, let us hear about these new troubles. Something must be
+done, that is clear."
+
+"Yes, something must be done, Mary, and I can think of nothing for it
+but to leave this place. It is no longer a place for me to live in.
+The Southdown Road has proved too strong for me, it has conquered me."
+
+"Don't speak like that, James. We must try to bear our burdens, if not
+for our own sakes, for the sake of Him who died for us. He bore a very
+heavy cross for us."
+
+"There's no use in talking to me like that, Hester, you only provoke
+me. You forget what a cross two daughters are, and the Southdown Road
+has become intolerable. It is more than any man can bear; I will bear
+it no longer. I have borne it long enough, and am determined to get
+rid of it. I am afraid there's nothing for it but to sell the place
+and go and live in London."
+
+Aunt Hester cast her eyes into her satchel, afraid even to think that
+her brother had intentionally misinterpreted her words; but Aunt Mary
+laughed at the idea of the slonk-hill, as a latter-day Golgotha, with
+poor Uncle James staggering beneath the weight of the Southdown Road,
+young men and all, upon him. It was very irreverent. He burst into
+tears, Hester moved to leave the room, but was restrained by her
+sister.
+
+"My position is a most unfortunate one; since the death of poor Julia
+I have had no one to turn to, there has been no restraining influence
+in this house. Here am I working all day long in the City for those
+girls, and when I come home in the evening I find my house full of
+people I don't know. I assure you, Mary, I don't know any of the
+people who come to my house. I am consulted in nothing. It is not
+fair--I say it is not fair; and at my death those girls will have
+thirty thousand pounds a-piece."
+
+"I knew you had the money, James, I knew you had," exclaimed Aunt
+Mary, and even Aunt Hester could not help casting a look of admiration
+on her weeping brother.
+
+"I say it is not fair; a man of my money should have a comfortable
+home to return to. Even the Southdown Road people have that; but no
+consideration is shown to me. My dinner is put back so that Sally may
+continue her flirtation with Meason in the slonk. Did any one ever
+hear of such a thing? A man's dinner put back so that--that--that--"
+
+"Yes, we know all about the dinner being put back; that was three
+years ago."
+
+"Why," Mr. Brookes asked himself, "had he invited his sisters to his
+help?" He was only adding bitterness to his bitter cup. "You have no
+sympathy, Mary," he went on; "you cannot understand the difficulties
+of my position--these two girls are for ever quarrelling and fighting;
+sometimes they are not even on speaking terms, but I think I prefer
+their sullen looks to their violence. Sally threatened to knock her
+sister down if she interfered with her young men."
+
+"What, again?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know if she has threatened to beat her lately. I don't
+remember when was the last time. Their various rows are all jumbled up
+in my head. All I know is that Maggie says she cannot live in the
+house with Sally. Maggie is very ill, she is in a very excited state,
+as she was once before, when I would not consent to her marriage with
+--I have forgotten his name, but it doesn't matter. Now she won't dress
+herself, and she walks about the house with her hair hanging down. I
+know there is nothing for it but to send her away under the charge of
+some lady who has had experience in such matters. She can't remain
+here. She has the strangest delusions. Among other things, she fancies
+the coachman has spread it all over Southwick that she has gone wrong
+with Berkins and that fellow Escott. Just fancy if Berkins--a ten
+thousand a year man--should hear of it! I don't know what he would
+say. He would peg into me; he is at times very hard indeed upon me. I
+don't say he is not a first-rate man of business, I know he has made
+several excellent investments; but for all that I do not and cannot
+think him competent to advise me on all my affairs, and that's what he
+is always doing. He talks of putting down that Southdown Road. I
+should like to see how he would set about doing it."
+
+"James, Maggie must go away; she is very highly organised, very
+sensitive, and if she were to remain here, Sally might have a real
+effect on her mind. It is clear the sisters don't get on together;
+have you had medical advice? I told you before that you should have
+medical advice about those girls; I told you to spare no expense, but
+to go to a first-rate London physician and take his opinion. I said
+before, and I say it again, that no girls in good health could carry
+on as dear Sally, and I will include dear Maggie; for although she
+does not defy you to the same extent, there is no doubt that she is
+too fast, too fond of young men; her thoughts run too much in that
+way, and now she is ill, of course she has delusions. You ought to
+have medical advice."
+
+"Mary, dear, the body is not everything; to cure the flesh you must
+first cure the soul. I believe our dear nieces rarely, if ever, attend
+church, rarely, if ever, remember that this life is not eternal and
+that there is a hereafter."
+
+The conversation came to a pause. Presently Aunt Mary asked Willy, who
+sat resigned to his fate, calm and solemn as a Buddha, his hands
+clasped over his rotund stomach, if he thought that Maggie's state was
+one to cause immediate anxiety, to which he replied: "My sisters think
+of nothing but pleasure. The trouble girls are in a house is more than
+any one would believe. Here I am, I can do nothing; every night it is
+the same thing, over and over again." And the lean man lapsed into
+contemplation.
+
+"But to come to the point, James, I want to hear about Sally. You said
+in your letter that a great deal had come to light, and that you now
+find that her conduct has been worse than you had ever imagined it,
+even in your moments of deepest dejection. Now, I want to hear about
+all this. What has she done? Let's have it in plain English. What has
+she done?"
+
+"To put it plainly, Mary," said Mr. Brookes, wiping his tears away,
+and turning his back upon his Goodall, "I don't know what she hasn't
+done--everything. She is at the present moment the talk of Southwick.
+The doctor here has seen her in the field at the back here with Meason
+at nine o'clock at night."
+
+"Why did you allow her to leave the house at that hour? No young girl--
+"
+
+"She always takes her dogs out in the evening; I cannot prevent her
+doing that. It appears, too, that she has had Meason up in her
+bedroom."
+
+"O James, you do not mean to say that my dear niece had a man in her
+bedroom!"
+
+"Hester, dear, you have lived in a rectory and know nothing of the
+world. She says it isn't a bedroom. She pushes the bed away in the
+daytime, and covers it up to make it look like a couch. Besides, she
+keeps birds in her room, and Flossy had her puppies there. I am not
+excusing her conduct, pray do not think that, I am only telling you
+what she says."
+
+"This is very serious. Are you quite sure? Perhaps she only meant to
+show the young man her birds or puppies. Her spirit must be broken, I
+can clearly see that."
+
+"I allow them, as you know, one hundred pounds a year apiece. Maggie
+keeps none, but Sally always keeps accurate accounts of what she
+spends. I asked to see those accounts, for I had heard she had been
+giving her money to Meason, and she refused to let me see them. There
+is a sum of twenty pounds for which she can give no explanation. Then
+it is well known she gave a set of diamond studs to that fellow, and
+that he pledged them for five pounds in Brighton. He boasted he had
+done so, and said he intended to get plenty of money out of me before
+he had done with me. After that I ask you, how can I live in this
+place? When I go to the station in the morning I see these young
+fellows laughing at me over the tops of their newspapers. When I come
+home of an evening after a hard day's work, I find that my dinner--"
+
+"Her spirit must be broken," said Aunt Mary, drawing her shawl about
+her, and crossing her hands. "Her spirit must be broken; she cannot be
+allowed to remain here to drive dear Maggie into a lunatic asylum. I
+am with you in that, James, but I cannot think you did well to let
+Frank Escott slip through your fingers. Had you not talked so much
+about money your daughter might have been Lady Mount Rorke."
+
+"Talked too much about my money? Who would talk about it, I should
+like to know, if I didn't? I made it all myself. What do I care for
+that lot--a stuck-up lot, pooh, pooh! twist them all round my finger.
+I am not going to give my daughter to a man who cannot make a
+settlement upon her."
+
+Seeing he was not to be moved in anything that concerned his pocket,
+Aunt Mary returned to the consideration of what was to be done with
+Sally. "From what you tell me it is clear that Sally must not remain
+in Southwick a day longer than can be helped. I will take her with me
+to Woburn; and I think she had better go abroad as soon as we can hear
+of some one in whose charge we can place her. But it must not be a sea
+voyage--there is nothing more dangerous than to be on board a ship for
+a young girl who is at all inclined to be fast. All are thrown so much
+together. The cabins open out one into the other, and there is always
+a looking for something--a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, a lot of
+stooping and playing, twiddling of moustaches," said Aunt Mary, with a
+peal of laughter.
+
+"Mary, dear, we should not speak lightly of wickedness."
+
+"It was so that all the mischief was done when Emily Evans was sent
+out to the Cape--it was all done on board a ship. You remember the
+Evanses, James?--you ought to, you used to flirt pretty desperately
+with Lucy, the younger sister." And then Aunt Mary rattled off into
+interminable tales concerning the attachment contracted on board a
+ship in particular, its unfortunate consequences, how it brought about
+a divorce later on by sowing the seeds of passion (Aunt Mary always
+pronounced the word "passion" in her narratives with strong emphasis),
+in the young girl's heart; and at various stages of her discourse she
+introduced fragments of the family history of the Evanses; she
+followed the wanderings of the different sisters from Homburg to
+Paris, from Paris to Scotland, from Scotland to the Punjab, explaining
+their different temperaments by heredity, which led her back into the
+obscure and remote times of grandfathers and grandmothers, and, having
+finally lost herself, she said: "What was I talking about? You have
+been listening to me, James, what was I talking about?"
+
+Till the end of a week the discussion was continued. Aunt Mary tried
+hard to reconcile all parties to their different lots, and, as is
+usual in such cases, without attaining any result. And yet Aunt Mary
+went with her sister to see Frank in his studio. Willy accompanied
+them, and when they left he complained bitterly of how his time was
+wasted. "Regularly every evening, just as I am sitting down to work, I
+hear them coming along the passage. First of all they go to get their
+grog--squeak, squeak, pop. I know it all so well. Then they come in
+with their tumblers, and they sit down on the sofa, and they begin.--I
+don't know what is to be done with dear Sally, unless we can send her
+abroad in the care of some relation. How is dear Maggie to-day? I hope
+I shall be able to induce her to put on her frock to-morrow, and come
+for a drive with me in the carriage. What a trouble young girls are in
+the house, to be sure. Then father begins to groan, and pulls out his
+handkerchief; he is quite alone, he has no one he can depend upon,
+then he laughs, 'Well, well, I suppose it will be all the same a
+hundred years hence.' So it goes on night after night. Here am I
+starting a big business, and I haven't a room to work in. Just as I am
+adding up a long column of figures, perhaps when I am within three of
+the top, Aunt Mary asks me a question, and it has to be gone over
+again. It is most provoking, there's no denying that it is most
+provoking." Frank agreed that nothing could be more provoking than to
+be interrupted when you were within three of the top of a long column
+of figures. On the following day he heard that the aunts had left,
+taking Sally with them. They had promised their brother to find a lady
+who would take dear Maggie under her care--one who would soon wean her
+from dressing-gowns and delusions, and restore her to staid remarks
+and stays; and hopes were entertained that the Manor House would not
+have to be sold after all.
+
+But many days had not sped when an event occurred that precipitated
+the five acres into the jaws of the builders. Meason had sailed for
+Melbourne, and his sister, thinking that some of Sally's letters might
+be of use to Mr. Brookes, offered to surrender them upon the receipt
+of a cheque for one hundred pounds--a very modest sum, she urged,
+considering the character of the letters, most of which concerned
+artfully laid plans to meet in the train going or coming from London.
+Mr. Brookes called on the shade of dear Julia, but he was not a man to
+be blackmailed--he had made all his money himself, and on that point
+was immovable. He prepared to leave Southwick. He looked fondly on his
+glass-houses, and despairingly on his Friths, Goodalls, and
+Bouguereaus, and he wondered if they would look as well in the new
+rooms as in the old, and what sum they would realise if he were to
+include them in the auction; for an auction was necessary. Mr. Brookes
+did not thus decide to abandon his acres without many a sob, nor is it
+certain that the final step would have been taken if the gentle
+builder had not gilded his insidious hand, and if certain rumours were
+not about that the villas in the Southdown Road were not letting, and
+that Southwick would never be anything but what it was, a dirty little
+village--half suburb, half village.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+
+Frank was grieved and troubled at the sad accounts that came to him of
+Maggie's health; he was perplexed, too, for he knew himself to be the
+cause, and he longed to relieve and to cure her. It seemed to him that
+he would give his life to go to her, and comfort her with love, and
+yet he was impotent to make the least effort to attain the end he
+desired. He lay in the sad and cruel memory of Lizzie, his mind filled
+with ignoble visions of her life with the waiter, or with delicate
+fancies of her beauty amid the summer of the Thames. He mused on her
+gracious figure and face, illuminated by reflections from the water,
+set off by the bulrushes and floating blossoms which she so eagerly
+coveted, and varied by the movements of the waist and shoulders, the
+round white arm, the trailing scarf, and all the wistful charm of the
+slumbering evening. He thought of the country light, the sound and
+smell of cows, of the sparrows in the vine, the cottage looking so
+cosy amid the foliage, the bit of garden full of old-fashioned
+flowers, tall lilies, convolvuluses, and marigolds, and the sitting-
+room full of things belonging to her--her flowers, her books, her
+music, and he thought of this until his life was sick with desire, and
+there grew a burning pain about his heart.
+
+A man's struggles in the web of a vile love are as pitiful as those of
+a fly in the meshes of the spider; he crawls to the edge, but only to
+ensnare himself more completely; he takes pleasure in ridiculing her,
+but whether he praises or blames, she remains mistress of his life;
+all threads are equally fatal, and each that should have served to
+bear him out of the trap only goes to bind him faster. A man in love
+suggests the spider's web, and when he is seeking to escape from a
+woman that will degrade his life, the cruelty which is added completes
+and perfects the comparison. A man's love for a common woman is as a
+fire in his vitals; sometimes it seems quenched, sometimes it is torn
+out by angry hands, but always some spark remains; it contrives to
+unite about its victim, and in the end has its way. It is a cancerous
+disease, but it cannot be cut out like a cancer. It is more deadly; it
+is inexplicable. All good things, wealth and honour, are forfeited for
+it; long years of toil, trouble, privation of all kinds, are willingly
+accepted; on one side all the sweetness of the world, on the other
+nothing of worth, often vice, meanness, ill-temper, all that go to
+make life a madness and a terror; twenty, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty
+years lie a head of him and her, but the years and their burdens are
+not for his eyes any more than the flowers he elects to disdain. Love
+is blind, but sometimes there is no love. How then shall we explain
+this inexplicable mystery; wonderful riddle that none shall explain
+and that every generation propounds?
+
+Frank lingered in Southwick, for he had promised Willy to stay with
+him when he went to live at the stables on the Portslade Road. Summer
+was nearly over, hunting would soon commence, and he could keep a
+couple of hunters--Willy had calculated it out--for two and twenty
+shillings a week. He had ceased to paint, and when he went to the
+studio it was to play the piano or the violin. None knew of Lizzie,
+and all knew of Maggie. It was thought a little strange that he would
+not forgive her, but the obscurity of the story of this point and the
+delight felt in her misfortune helped to intensify and idealise Frank
+in the popular mind, and when he played Gounod in the still evenings
+the young ladies would steal from the villas and wander sentimentally
+through the shadows about the green. He got up late in the morning, he
+lingered over breakfast, and until it was time to go to Brighton he
+lay on the sofa watching the cricketers and the children playing,
+shaping resolutions, and striving with himself and deceiving himself.
+A dozen times, a hundred times, he had concluded he must see Maggie;
+he had decided he would write to Lord Mount Rorke, that he would go to
+Mr. Brookes and settle the matter off-hand. But, somehow, he did
+nothing. His mind was absorbed in a novel, which he narrated when
+Willy came to see him. It concerned the accident that led a man not to
+marry the woman he loved, and was in the main an incoherent version of
+his own life at Southwick.
+
+"I don't think I told you," said Willy, "that they are removing the
+furniture to-day."
+
+"You don't say so--to-day? And where is your father?"
+
+"He is in London, at the 'Metropole.'"
+
+The young men walked on slowly in silence, and when they came to the
+lodge gate, standing wide open, and saw the curtainless windows and
+the flowerless greenhouses, Willy said: "It is very sad to see all the
+things you have known since you were a child sold by auction."
+
+"Oh, yes, it is. Look at the swards. Do they not look sad already?
+Those beautiful elms, under whose shade we have sat, will be cut down,
+and stucco work and glass porticoes take their places. Oh, it is very
+sad."
+
+"My father never had any feeling, he never cared for the place. Had I
+been in his place I should have invested my money in land and gone in
+for the county families."
+
+"How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time--
+fourteen, I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look,
+through that glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they
+were then only ten or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind's
+eye, quite distinctly, walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and
+now she is a mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I
+had never seen girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you
+remember how your father scolded Sally for carrying me round the
+garden on her back, and she used to wake me up in the mornings by
+rolling croquet balls along the floor into my room. Oh, what good,
+dear days those were, and to think they are dead and gone, and that
+the house is going to be pulled down; and the garden--oh! the
+moonlights in that garden, where I walked with the girls, with scarves
+round their shoulders, through the dreamy light and shade. We have
+sung songs, and talked of all manner of things. You don't feel as I
+feel."
+
+"Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I
+don't talk so much about it."
+
+"I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie's
+window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome
+face, and I shall never look again."
+
+"You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the
+same a hundred years hence."
+
+"No, no, it won't be the same. Why should all I feel and love be
+forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I
+hate that man."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too,
+and those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with
+that fool. True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be
+other gardens, and other girls, but that doesn't make it the least
+less sad to see this garden pass into bricks and mortar."
+
+Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him
+to take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon
+loudly ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the
+Friths from the walls.
+
+"Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this
+end of the picture. There, that's better! That's the way to do it!"
+
+"That's what he said when he shot my bird," Willy whispered; and they
+tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded
+hollow, and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes,
+stood wide open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and
+heard the voices of the work-people.
+
+"How very sad it is," said Frank; then, after a long silence: "How
+beautiful a scene like this would be in a book--a young girl leaving
+her home, straying through the different rooms musing on the different
+pieces of furniture, all of which recall the past. I think I shall
+write it. I wish you would tell me what you feel; I mean, I wish you
+would tell me what impresses itself most on your mind, and, as it
+were, epitomises the whole. You have known all this since you were a
+child. You have played in these passages; some spot, some piece of
+furniture, your toys--I suppose they are gone long ago; but something
+must stand out and assert itself amid conflicting thoughts. Do tell
+me."
+
+Willy stroked his moustache. "Of course it is very sad, but it is
+difficult to put one's feelings into words. I should have to think
+about it; I don't think I could say off-hand."
+
+At that moment there came a great crash.
+
+"What the devil is that?" cried Frank.
+
+"I hope they haven't broken the statue of Flora," said Willy, and a
+look of alarm overspread his face. Frank felt that if such were the
+case he should feel no great sorrow. They ran down the echoing stairs.
+The workmen had got drunk in the cellars and in removing the statue
+they had let it fall, and it strewed the floor--an arm here, a
+fragment of drapery there.
+
+"I knew what would happen. I told Mr. Brookes so. All my statues are
+in marble."
+
+"Come away, I can't listen to that cad. I wouldn't have had Flora
+broken for a hundred pounds. When I was a child I used to stand and
+look at her. I never could make out how she was made, and I always
+wanted to look inside. If you'd like to know what I feel most sorry
+for, it is Flora. She has stood amid the flowers in the bow window as
+long as I can remember."
+
+They followed the high road by Windmill Inn, where they struck across
+the Downs, and when they reached the first crest they could see the
+paddocks and enclosures situated along the road in the valley, and the
+private house so trim and middle-class. "Splendid paddocks and first-
+rate stabling. The house is not much. When I am making fifteen per
+cent. on my money I shall go in for a little architecture. If I had a
+glass I could show you Blue Mantle's stable. Do you see two horses in
+the paddock, right away on the left, in the far corner--Apple Blossom
+and Astarte? Apple Blossom is by See-saw out of Melody, by Stockwell
+out of Fairy Queen. Is that good enough for you? Astarte is by Blue
+Gown out of Merry Maid, by Beadsman out of Aurora. What do you say to
+that?"
+
+"I see you have been looking up the Stud Book."
+
+"Business, sir, business. And if I were to go in for owning a racer or
+two, just look and see what a magnificent training ground; miles upon
+miles of downland. Did you ever see a handsomer view? You must paint
+me some landscapes for my dining-room."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+
+"The pain is always here--just over the heart. You know what I mean?
+Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice
+and the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache.
+I know I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad;
+but glad or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life
+will not be complete. You have felt all this."
+
+"Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am
+sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I
+often think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy
+release."
+
+"If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father
+had not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched
+money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite
+unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I
+should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good
+husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a
+husband better than she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they
+were to be made that you could make a better husband than I should be
+--I feel it."
+
+"I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself.
+He never went in for the country people; he never would have people at
+the Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a
+convent, and if they don't get the right people they'll have the wrong
+people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't
+understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have
+expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount
+Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds,
+shillings, and pence with him--not likely. My sisters might have
+married very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would
+have been saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my
+father brings all his troubles on himself."
+
+"So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I
+had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now."
+
+"But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never--"
+
+"Yes, I did love her."
+
+"I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course,
+a very delicate question, but we have been friends so long--would you
+like me to see if--if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as
+you know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to
+do to look after my own; but if you would like--You, of course, do not
+think of marrying Lizzie Baker?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would
+you like to marry Maggie?"
+
+"Yes, of course I should."
+
+"I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best
+thing you could do."
+
+They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking
+a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's
+box. The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his
+beautiful crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as
+fine as steel, and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from
+their hands.
+
+The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in
+the pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely
+solitary and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in
+shadow, and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace.
+
+Their dinner awaited them--a little dinner, simple and humble. After
+dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with
+affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her
+stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At ten
+every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his
+accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields
+talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and
+so the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life.
+There were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every
+citadel of reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would
+fall at the first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in
+the deadly hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he
+waited unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment;
+and in such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a
+letter from Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as
+comes on swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment,
+and was sucked down in his passion.
+
+The little village--a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of
+the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the
+villas with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos
+and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and
+Berkins--how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical--
+his eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were
+falling, the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some
+trees had been cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the
+Manor House, some of the walls had already fallen revealing the wall
+paper, the pattern of which he could almost distinguish. He was going
+to the woman he loved, but he was leaving his youth behind, and those
+whom he had known as children, as girls, as women; he remembered all
+the gossip, all the quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now,
+looking on the beautiful garden where he had played and passioned in
+all varying moments of grief and glee, he re-lived the past; and
+leaning out of the carriage window he gazed fondly, and cried out:
+"Alas, those were Spring Days."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SPRING DAYS ***
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