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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The cost of wings</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>and other stories</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Richard Dehan</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 22, 2022 [eBook #69202]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COST OF WINGS ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<h1>THE COST OF WINGS<br> -<small>AND OTHER STORIES</small></h1> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt=""></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<p><span class="xlarge">THE</span><br> -<span class="xxlarge">COST OF WINGS</span><br> -<span class="large">AND OTHER STORIES</span></p> - -<p>BY<br> -<span class="large">RICHARD DEHAN</span><br> - -AUTHOR OF<br > -“ONE BRAVER THING,” “BETWEEN TWO THIEVES,” ETC.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt=""></div> - -<p>NEW YORK<br> -<span class="large">FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY</span><br> -PUBLISHERS</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1914, by</i><br> -<span class="smcap">Frederick A. Stokes Company</span><br> -<br> -<i>All rights reserved</i></p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_verso.jpg" alt=""></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table> - -<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Cost of Wings</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1"> 1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Faded Romance</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11"> 11</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">An Indian Baby</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41"> 41</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Yvonne</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_52"> 52</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Delusion of Mrs. Donohoe</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70"> 70</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Ponsonby and the Pantheress</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92"> 92</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Fat Girl’s Love Story</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_104"> 104</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">In the Fourth Dimension</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_116"> 116</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Gewgaw</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_122"> 122</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Night of Power</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134"> 134</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Man Who Could Manage Women</span>    </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_145"> 145</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Obsessed</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155"> 155</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Vanished Hand</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_164"> 164</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">An Ordeal by Fire</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_179"> 179</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">How the Mistress Came Home</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_198"> 198</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Motor-Burglar</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_212"> 212</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Lost Room</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_219"> 219</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Father to the Man</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_226"> 226</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Fly and the Spider</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235"> 235</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">For Valor!</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_243"> 243</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Mellicent</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_248"> 248</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Collapse of the Ideal</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_263"> 263</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Hand That Failed</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_272"> 272</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">His Silhouette</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_280"> 280</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Nocturne</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_292"> 292</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Last Expedition</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_298"> 298</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE COST OF WINGS</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">SHELDRICK, returning, refreshed and exhilarated, -from a spin with a friend who had brought down a -racing car of forty horse-power and an enthusiasm to -match, found his wife sitting in the same chair, in the -same attitude, as it seemed to him, in which he had left -her, in the bare, dull sitting-room of their quarters at -the Pavilion Hotel, on the edge of Greymouth Links, -from which starting point Sheldrick, in fulfillment of his -recent engagement with the Aero Club of France, had -arranged to take wing for Cherbourg, wind and weather -permitting, on the morrow.</p> - -<p>It would be difficult exceedingly to imagine Caruso as -an engineer or a bank manager, or in any capacity other -than that of operatic star. It would be equally difficult -to picture Shackleton as a side-splitting antic and quip-monger, -or Pélissier in the rôle of the dauntless explorer. -Sheldrick, the most recent idol of the flying world, was -the type-ideal of the aviator.</p> - -<p>Mathematician, engineer, meteorologist, and athlete, -his tall, lightly built but muscular frame carried the head -of an eagle. The wide forehead, sloping to the temples, -the piercing prominently set eyes, the salient nose, and -the wide, firm, deep-cut mouth characterizing the long-winged -birds of powerful flight, were Sheldrick’s. His, -too, the long, supple neck, the curiously deceptive shoulder -slope that disguises depth of chest while his long<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> -arms looked as though, were they clothed with feathers, -they might cleave the air; and his feet gripped the -ground through the thin, soft boots he always wore, as -the eagle’s talons grip the rock.</p> - -<p>Perhaps he was not unaware of the suggested resemblance. -He had certainly christened his recently completed -monoplane “Aquila,” and had piloted her to victory -in two minor events at the Moncaster Spring Flying -Meeting in April of that year, and at the Nismes -Concours des Aviateurs of three weeks before had carried -off the Grand Prix of 25,000 francs for the longest flight -under favorable weather conditions. And at the Club -dinner following the presentation of the prizes, Sheldrick, -flushed with conquest and congratulations, had -given that pledge whereby the soul of the woman who -yet loved him was wrung to torture anew.</p> - -<p>“After all that I have borne,” Mrs. Sheldrick had said -to herself, sitting in her hideous red moreen-covered -chair by the green Venetian-blinded window of the staring -hotel sitting-room—“after three years of agony, silently, -patiently endured—after all his promises, I am -still upon the rack.”</p> - -<p>She looked rather like it as she sat by the window, the -center one of three that gave a view across the gray-green -links, and the gray-brown beach of smooth, sliding -pebbles that gave place to the gray-white, throbbing -water of the English Channel. And the white, drawn -face that masked her frenzy of anguish, and the dark-gray, -haunted eyes through which her suffering spirit -looked, greeted her husband as he burst into the room, -fresh from his banquet of speed and clean, salt, buoyant -air, and sympathetic, enthusiastic companionship, like -an unexpected douche of ice water.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>“Haven’t you been out?”</p> - -<p>Sheldrick uttered the words recorded, upon a pause -implying the swallowing of others less neutrally amiable. -And his face, which had already clouded, darkened -sullenly as his wife replied: “I have traveled some distance -since you left here with your friend.”</p> - -<p>“Where have you been?” asked Sheldrick unwillingly, -as a man who suspects that the question may open some -unwelcome topic.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Sheldrick looked at her husband full; and, though -it had seemed to him that he had read the book of her -beauty from preface to finis, there was something new -to him in her regard as she answered:</p> - -<p>“I have gone over in memory every week of the last -three years that we have spent together, Edgar; and the -road has been a rough and stony one, without one green -patch of grass to rest on by the wayside, or one refreshing -spring at which to drink. But I was patient while -I plodded after you, because I saw an end to what I was -enduring. Now it seems that I am mistaken. It is only -my endurance that is at an end.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you talk in allegory, Ella?” Sheldrick broke -out impatiently. He threw down his leather motoring -cap with the talc eye shields upon the sofa, and pitched -his heavy overcoat upon a chair in a corner of the ugly -room, and let his long, lithe body down into a hideous -Early Victorian plush armchair beside the empty fireplace, -where nothing crackled but some fantastically -bordered strips of red and green gelatine paper, shuddering -under the influence of a powerful chimney -draught. “I’m not an imaginative man,” he went on. -“Even if my mind were not occupied with a dozen affairs -of supreme urgency I should still boggle at interpreting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> -your cryptic utterances. If you want them understood, -make them to some minor poet at a garden -party or an At Home. You’ve stacks of invitations from -the nicest people to all sorts of functions ever since I -pulled off those two events at Moncaster and the Grand -Prix at Nismes. And now that it’s May, and the season -in full swing, you might be having no end of a capital -time at home in London instead of——” She interrupted -him with a passionate gesture.</p> - -<p>“I have no home!”</p> - -<p>“No?” said Sheldrick coolly, leaning back his head -against the knobby back of the Early Victorian armchair.</p> - -<p>“No!” said Mrs. Sheldrick, and her passion seemed -to dash itself against and break upon the man’s composure -as a wave beats and breaks upon a rock. “It was -a home, once, when you were working partner in the -firm of Mallard, Mallard and Sheldrick, Manufacturers -of Automobiles; and the life you led was a normal, ordinary, -everyday life, and the risks you ran were everyday, -ordinary risks, such as a woman who loved you—note -that I say <i>who loved you</i>—might bear without going -mad or dying of terror. But it is a prison now. I -cannot breathe in it. Even when you are there with -me—and when every postman’s knock, or telegraph -boy’s ring, or telephone message has for the moment -ceased to be fraught with hideous, often-dreamed-of, -never-forgotten possibilities ... when each newsboy’s -voice, yelling in the streets, has temporarily ceased to be -the voice of Fate for me—it is no longer home! It is a -caravanserai, from which Hope and Content and Peace -of Mind may go out before the next day’s dawning, leaving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> -the door open that Death and Despair may the more -freely enter in!”</p> - -<p>“Ella!” exclaimed Sheldrick, looking at her open-eyed. -She had always been such a quiet, calm, self-possessed -woman, that now, as she rose up out of her chair suddenly, -as though she had been prodded with a bayonet, -she was strange and new, and rather awe-inspiring. As -she stood before him, her passion-breathing face an ivory -cameo between the drooping folds of her rich blue-black -hair, her gray eyes glittering fiercely between the narrowed -lids under the straight black brows, her lips two -bitterly straightened lines of scarlet showing the gleaming -teeth, her firm chin implacable in its set upon the -dainty cravat of muslin and black silk ribbon, her slight -bosom panting fiercely under her bodice folds, her slender -limbs rigid beneath the sheath-fitting gown of silken -chestnut-colored cloth, the man, her husband, looked at -her more attentively than he had looked for years.</p> - -<p>“Ella, what is the matter? What has upset you like -this? If there is anything I can do to put things right, -why not tell me, and—and——”</p> - -<p>Sheldrick’s voice faltered, and his eyes looked away -from his wife’s as he saw the reviving hope leap desperately -into her face. It died instantly, leaving her -gray eyes more somber, and the lines of her scarlet, -parted lips more bitter than before.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes!” she said. “Why not tell you what you -know already, and be coaxed and patted into compliance -and meek, patient submission for the hundredth -time! You will kiss me good-bye to-morrow morning, if -the weather permits of your starting, and make this -flight. It is to be the last, the very last, like the others -that have gone before it; it is only so much more daring,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> -only so much more risky, only so much more dangerous -than the things that other aviators have dared and -risked and braved. If it blows from the north you will -not dream of making the venture—the jagged rocks and -shoals, and the towering, greedy seas of the Channel -Islands threaten things too grim. You will wait, and -I with you—oh, my God!—for a favorable wind. Your -successes at Brookfields and at Nismes have made the -‘Aquila’ patent worth a moderate fortune; they are turning -out replicas of her at your workshops as rapidly as -they can make them—your manager took on twenty -more skilled hands only last week. You have done what -you set out to do; we are freed from poverty for the -rest of our lives—we might live happily, peacefully together -somewhere, if this unnatural love of peril had -not bitten you to the bone. ‘One more contest,’ you will -keep on saying; ‘one more revenge I am bound to give -this and that or the other man whom I have beaten, or -who has challenged me.’” Her bosom heaved, and the -ivory paleness of her face was darkened with a rush of -blood. “Honor is involved. You are bound in honor -to keep your word to others, but free to deceive, to defraud, -to cheat and lie to—your wife!”</p> - -<p>“Take care what you’re saying!”</p> - -<p>Sheldrick leaped out of his chair, fiery red and glaring -angrily. Mrs. Sheldrick looked at him out of her -glittering, narrowed eyes, and laughed, and her laugh -was ugly to hear.</p> - -<p>“Your wife! Did you ever realize what it meant to -me to be your wife? When we were married, and for -eighteen months after that! Heaven upon earth! Have -you ever dreamed what sort of life began for me when -you were first bitten by this craze of flying, three years<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> -ago? Hell—sheer, unmitigated hell! To the public I -am a woman in an ulster, or in a dust cloak and a silk -motor veil, thick to hide the ghastly terror in my face!—a -woman who kisses you before the start, and keeps pace -with your aeroplane in an automobile through the long-distance -flights, with what the English newspaper men -describe as ‘unswerving devotion,’ and the French -press correspondents term ‘a tenderness of the most -touching.’ They are wrong! I am not conscious of any -special devotion. The springs of tenderness have frozen -in me. I am like every other spectator on the course, -possessed, body and soul, by the secret, poignant, momentary -expectation of seeing a man hurled to a horrible -death. Only the man is—my husband! <i>Now</i> I remember -this, Edgar, but a day will dawn—an hour will -come to me—is coming as surely as there is a God in -heaven—when he will be no more than the flying man -who may possibly be killed!”</p> - -<p>There was silence in the room, and the hoarse, dry -sound that broke it was not a sob. It came from Sheldrick, -a single utterance, like the sound of something -breaking.</p> - -<p>“I—understand!”</p> - -<p>There was no response, for the woman, having unsealed -and poured out the last drop of her vials of bitterness -and wrath, was dumb. Sheldrick added, after a -long pause:</p> - -<p>“What do you ask? That I should give up the attempt -to fly to Cherbourg? That I should break the -engagement with the Aero Club—withdraw the challenge -given to M. Ledru? Is that what you demand?”</p> - -<p>She said with a hopeless gesture:</p> - -<p>“I ask nothing! I demand nothing!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>Sheldrick muttered an oath. But in his soul he was -yielding. “Aquila No. 1,” “Aquila No. 2,” and “Aquila -No. 3” were dear to his soul. But he had awakened to -the fact that his dearest possession was the love of his -wife. And he had been killing it by inches. He met -her eyes now—the stern gray eyes that had learned to -see him as he was and look on the bare realities of life, -shorn of its love glamour, and muttered:</p> - -<p>“It is true. I have promised over and over.... And -I owe it to you to take no more risks, even more than if -we had a living child to.... Where are those cable-forms?”</p> - -<p>He strode to the ink-splashed writing table between -the windows, and routed the bundle of greenish papers -out of the frowsy blotting book, and dipped the blunt -pen into the thick, dirty ink, and wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>“<i>To Ledru, Hôtel National, Cherbourg, France.</i><br> -    “Unavoidably compelled break engagement——”</p> -</div> - -<p>He was struck by a sudden idea, ceased writing, and -left the room, going into the adjoining bedroom. His -wife, standing dumb and frozen on the gaudy hearthrug -near the empty grate, heard him rummaging for -something. He came back in a few minutes with a -heavy brow and preoccupied look, and took a leather -strap from the pocket of the heavy overcoat he had -thrown upon the sofa. With this he went back into the -bedroom. The door handle rattled as though something -were being hitched about it, the stout door groaned -and creaked under a violent pull from the other side, -there was a horrible, suggestive crack, and a stifled oath -from Sheldrick. Next moment he was back in the room,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -dipping the blunt pen into the bad ink, and finishing the -cablegram:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“Left wrist badly sprained—<span class="smcap">Sheldrick</span>, <i>Pavilion Hotel, -Links, Greymouth, England</i>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>Having finished writing, he brought the filled form to -his wife. She read, and looked at him in eloquent silence. -And, in answer to the question in her eyes, he -held out his left hand, already swollen and purple, and -with a swelling of the dimensions of a cricket ball, indicating -the dislocated joint. A cry broke from her:</p> - -<p>“Oh! how could you....”</p> - -<p>“It was the easiest way,” said Sheldrick, flushed and -scowling. “Call me a coward, if you like. I deserve it—as -well as the other names!” He rang the bell, and -fished with the sound hand for silver in a trouser -pocket.</p> - -<p>“We’ll send the cable now,” he said.</p> - -<p>She bit her lips, that were no longer scarlet, and went -to the blotted blotter, dipped the worn pen into the -blobby ink, and made an alteration in the cablegram. -Then she showed it to him, and the message ran:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>To Ledru, Hôtel National, Cherbourg, France.</i><br> - -    “Unavoidably compelled postpone engagement. Left -wrist badly sprained.—<span class="smcap">Sheldrick</span>, <i>Pavilion Hotel, -Links, Greymouth, England</i>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>As Sheldrick looked at Mrs. Sheldrick, in intent -amazement, the bell was answered by a German waiter. -Mrs. Sheldrick took the silver out of Sheldrick’s sound -hand, dismissed the attendant to dispatch the message,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -closed and locked the door of the sitting-room against -intruders, and then went quickly to her husband and fell -upon his breast. He clasped her with his sound arm as -she broke into passionate weeping, and only whispered -when at last she lifted her face to his:</p> - -<p>“Why ‘postponed’?”</p> - -<p>“Because,” whispered Ella Sheldrick, with her cheek -against her husband’s, “because you are not chained to -your rock, my darling, with iron bars between you and -the free fields of space, forged by the wife you love. You -are free to give and take as many challenges as you desire. -When you have finished ‘Aquila No. 4,’ that shall -be built with a seat for a passenger beside you, run what -risks you choose, brave as many dangers as seem good -to you; I will not say one word, provided that I share -the risk and brave the danger too.”</p> - -<p>This is why the successful aviator Sheldrick never flies -without a passenger. And the story has a moral—of a -kind.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">A FADED ROMANCE</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In Two Parts</span></p> -</div> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE ladies of the household at Charny les Bois usually -sat in the library on sunny mornings. At the -southern end of the long room, paneled in black walnut, -and possessing a hooded stone fireplace of the fifteenth -century, there was a bay, with wide glass doors opening -upon a <i>perron</i> of wrought iron and copper work, -which led down into the lovely garden—a piece of land -originally reclaimed from the heart of the ancient beech -forest, whose splendid somberness set off the dazzling -whiteness of the <i>château</i> and made the parterres glow -and sparkle like jewels—rubies, turquoises, emeralds, -sapphires—poured out upon the green velvet lap of -princess or courtesan.</p> - -<p>The Marquis de Courvaux, lord of the soil and owner -of the historic mansion, was absent. One must picture -him leading the hunt through the forest alleys, attired -in a maroon and yellow uniform of the most exquisite -correctness, three-cocked hat, and immense spurred jack-boots, -and accompanied by a field of fifty or sixty, of -which every individual had turned out in a different costume: -green corduroy knickerbockers with gold braid -accompanying cut-away coats and jockey caps, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> -bowlers of English make, sported in combination with -pink and leathers, adding much to the kaleidoscopic effect. -Half a dozen <i>cuirassiers</i> from the neighboring garrison -town were upon their London coach, driving a -scratch four-in-hand and attired in full uniform; various -vehicles, of types ranging from the capacious <i>char-à-banc</i> -to the landaulette, were laden with ardent votaries -of the <i>chasse</i>.</p> - -<p>The distant fanfare of the horns sounding the <i>ragot</i> -reached the ears of the ladies sewing in the library at the -<i>château</i>. One of these ladies, detained by urgent nursery -reasons from joining in the morning’s sport, was -the young and pretty wife of the Marquis; the other, old -as a high-bred French lady alone knows how to be, and -still beautiful, was his mother. Over the high-arched -cover of the great carved fireplace was her portrait by -Varolan, painted at sixteen, in the full ball costume of -1870. One saw, regarding that portrait, that it was possible -to be beautiful in those days even with a chignon -and waterfall, even with panniers or bustle, and absurd -trimmings of the ham-frill type. Perhaps some such -reflection passed through the calm mind behind the -broad, white, unwrinkled forehead of Madame de Courvaux, -as she removed her gold spectacles and lifted her -eyes, darkly blue and brilliant still, to the exquisite -childish flower face of the portrait. The autumn breeze -coming in little puffs between the open <i>battants</i> of the -glass doors, savoring of crushed thyme, late violets, moss, -bruised beech leaves, and other pleasant things, stirred -the thick, waving, gold-gray tresses under the rich lace, -a profusion of which, with the charming coquetry of a -venerable beauty, the grandmamma of the chubby young -gentleman upstairs in the nursery, the thirteen-year-old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span> -schoolboy on his hunting pony, and the budding belle but -newly emancipated from her convent, was fond of wearing—sometimes -tied under her still lovely chin, sometimes -floating loosely over her shoulders.</p> - -<p>“There again!” The younger Madame de Courvaux -arched her mobile eyebrows and showed her pretty teeth -as she bit off a thread of embroidery cotton. “The third -time you have looked at that portrait within ten minutes! -Tell me, do you think it is getting stained with -smoke? In north winds this chimney does not always -behave itself, and Frédéric’s cigars and pipes——” The -speaker shrugged her charming shoulders. “But he is -incorrigible, as thou knowest, <i>Maman</i>.”</p> - -<p>“I was not thinking of Frédéric or the chimney.” The -elder lady smiled, still looking upward at the girlish face -overhead. “It occurred to me that forty years have -passed since I gave Carlo Varolan the first sitting for -that portrait. His studio in the Rue Vernet was a perfect -museum of lovely things.... I was never tired of -examining them.... My <i>gouvernante</i> fell asleep in a -great tapestry chair.... Varolan drew a caricature of -her—so laughable!—with a dozen strokes of the charcoal -on the canvas, and then rubbed it all out with a grave -expression that made me laugh more. I was only just -sixteen, and going to be married in a fortnight.... -And I could laugh like that!” The antique brooch of -black pearls and pigeons’ blood rubies that fastened the -costly laces upon the bosom of Madame la Marquise -rose and fell at the bidding of a sigh.</p> - -<p>“I cried for days and days before my marriage with -Frédéric,” the little Marquise remarked complacently.</p> - -<p>“And I should cry at the bare idea of not being married -at all!” said a fresh young voice, belonging to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> -Mademoiselle Lucie, who came up the steps from the -garden with the skirt of her cambric morning frock full -of autumn roses, her cheeks flushed to the hue of the -pinkest La France. She dropped her pretty reverence -to her grandmother, kissed her upon the hand, and her -mother on the forehead, and turned her lapful of flowers -out upon the table, where vases and bowls of Sèvres and -China ware stood to receive them, ready filled with water. -“You know I would, Grandmamma!”</p> - -<p>“It is a mistake either to laugh or to weep; one should -smile only, or merely sigh,” said Grandmamma, with the -charming air of philosophy that so became her. “One -should neither take life too much to heart, nor make a -jest of it, my little Lucie.”</p> - -<p>“Please go on with the story. Your <i>gouvernante</i> was -asleep in the chair; Monsieur Varolan caricatured her. -You were laughing at the drawing and at his droll face, -as he rubbed it out, and then——”</p> - -<p>“Then a gentleman arrived, and I did not laugh any -more.” Grandmamma took up her work, a delicate, -spidery web of tatting, and the corners of her delicately -chiseled lips, pink yet as faded azalea blossoms, quivered -a little. “He was staying at the British Embassy with -his brother-in-law, who was Military Attaché, and -whose name I have forgotten. He came to see his sister’s -portrait; it stood framed upon the easel—oh! but -most beautiful and stately, with the calm, cold gaze, the -strange poetic glamour of the North. He, too, was fair, -very tall, with aquiline features, and light hazel eyes, -very piercing in their regard, and yet capable of expressing -great tenderness. For Englishmen I have never -cared, but Scotch gentlemen of high breeding have always -appeared to me quite unapproachable in <i>ton</i>, much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> -like the Bretons of old blood, with whom their type, indeed, -has much in common. But I am prosing quite intolerably, -it seems to me!” said Grandmamma, with a -heightened tint upon her lovely old cheeks and an embarrassed -laugh.</p> - -<p>Both Lucie and the little Marquise cried out in protestation. -Lucie, snipping dead leaves from her roses, -wanted to know whether Monsieur Varolan had presented -the strange Scotch gentleman to Grandmamma.</p> - -<p>“He did. At first he seemed to hesitate, glancing toward -Mademoiselle Binet. But she slept soundly, and, -indeed, with cause, having over-eaten herself that day at -the twelve o’clock breakfast upon duck stewed with -olives, pastry, and corn salad. An excellent creature, -poor Binet, but with the failings of <i>ces gens-là</i>, and you -may be assured that I did not grudge her her repose -while I conversed with Monsieur Angus Dunbar, who -spoke French almost to perfection. How it was that I, -who had been brought up by my mother with such absolute -strictness, yielded to the entreaties of Monsieur -Varolan, who was quite suddenly inspired with the idea -of what afterward proved to be one of his greatest pictures, -I cannot imagine,” said Grandmamma; “but it is -certain that we posed together as the Lord of Nann and -the Korrigan standing in the forest by the enchanted -well. It would have been a terrible story to travel home -to the Faubourg St. Germain, I knew, but Mademoiselle -still slept sweetly, and out of girlish recklessness and -<i>gaieté de cœur</i> I consented, and down came my long -ropes of yellow hair, which had only been released from -their schoolroom plait, and dressed in grown young-lady -fashion six months before. Monsieur Varolan cried out, -and clasped his hands in his impulsive southern way.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> -Monsieur Dunbar said nothing—then; but by his eyes -one could tell, child as one was, that he was pleased. -But when Varolan’s sketch was dashed in, and the -painter cried to us to descend from the model’s platform, -Monsieur Dunbar leaned toward me and whispered, -as he offered me his hand, ‘If the fairy had been -as beautiful as you, Mademoiselle’—for Varolan had -told him the story, and he had pronounced it to be the -parallel of an antique Highland legend—‘had the fairy -been as beautiful as you, the Lord of Nann would have -forgotten the lady in the tower by the sea.’ He, as I -have told you, my children, spoke French with great -ease and remarkable purity; and something in the earnestness -of his manner and the expression of his eyes—those -light hazel, gleaming eyes”—Grandmamma’s delicate -dove-colored silks rustled as she shuddered slightly—“caused -me a thrill, but a thrill——”</p> - -<p>“Young girls are so absurdly impressionable,” began -the little Marquise, with a glance at Lucie. “I remember -when our dancing master, hideous old M. Mouton, -praised me for executing my steps with elegance, I would -be in the seventh heaven.”</p> - -<p>“But this man was neither hideous, old, nor a dancing -master, my dear,” said Grandmamma, a little annoyed. -She took up her tatting, which had dropped upon her -silver-gray lap, as though the story were ended, and Lucie’s -face fell.</p> - -<p>“And is that all—absolutely all?” she cried.</p> - -<p>“Mademoiselle Binet woke up, and we went home to -the Faubourg St. Germain to five o’clock tea—then the -latest novelty imported from London; and she overate -herself again—upon hot honey cake buttered to excess—and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> -spoiled her appetite for supper,” said Grandmamma -provokingly.</p> - -<p>“And you never saw Monsieur Varolan or Monsieur -D ...—I cannot pronounce his name—again?”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur Varolan I saw again, several times in fact, -for the portrait required it; and Monsieur Dunbar, quite -by accident, called at the studio on several of these occasions.”</p> - -<p>“And Mademoiselle Binet? Did she always fall asleep -in the tapestry chair?” asked the little Marquise, with -arching eyebrows.</p> - -<p>Grandmamma laughed, and her laugh was so clear, so -sweet, and so mirthful that the almost living lips of the -exquisite child portrayed upon the canvas bearing the -signature of the dead Varolan seemed to smile in sympathy.</p> - -<p>“No, but she was occupied for all that. Monsieur -Varolan had found out her weakness for confectionery, -and there was always a large dish of chocolate <i>pralines</i> -and cream puffs for her to nibble at after that first sitting. -Poor, good creature, she conceived an immense -admiration for Varolan; and Monsieur Dunbar treated -her with a grave courtesy which delighted her. She had -always imagined Scotchmen as savages, painted blue and -feeding upon raw rabbits, she explained, until she had -the happiness of meeting him.”</p> - -<p>“And he—what brought him from his bogs and mountains?” -asked the little Marquise. “Was he qualifying -for the diplomatic service, or studying art?”</p> - -<p>Grandmamma turned her brilliant eyes calmly upon -the less aristocratic countenance of her daughter-in-law. -“He was doing neither. He was staying in Paris in attendance -upon his <i>fiancée</i>, who had come over to buy her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> -<i>trousseau</i>. I forget her name—she was the only daughter -of a baronet of Leicestershire, and an heiress. The -match had been made by her family. Monsieur Dunbar, -though poor, being the cadet of a great family and heir -to an ancient title—his brother, Lord Hailhope, having -in early youth sustained an accident in the gymnasium -which rendered him a cripple for life.”</p> - -<p>“So a wife with a ‘dot’ was urgently required!” commented -the little Marquise. “Let us hope she was not -without <i>esprit</i> and a certain amount of good looks, in the -interests of Monsieur Dunbar.”</p> - -<p>“I saw her on the night of my first ball,” said Grandmamma, -laying down her tatting and folding her delicate, -ivory-tinted hands, adorned with a few rings of -price, upon her dove-colored silk lap. “She had sandy -hair, much drawn back from the forehead, and pale eyes -of china-blue, with the projecting teeth which the caricatures -of ‘Cham’ gave to all Englishwomen. Also, her -waist was rather flat, and her satin boots would have -fitted a <i>sapeur</i>; but she had an agreeable expression, and -I afterward heard her married life with Monsieur Dunbar -was fairly happy.”</p> - -<p>“And Monsieur himself—was he as happy with her as—as -he might have been, supposing he had never visited -Paris—never called at the studio of Varolan?” asked the -little Marquise, with a peculiar intonation.</p> - -<p>Grandmamma’s rosary was of beautiful pearls. She -let the shining things slide through her fingers meditatively -as she replied:</p> - -<p>“My daughter, I cannot say. We met at that ball—the -last ball given at the Tuileries before the terrible -events of the fifteenth of July. I presented Monsieur -Dunbar to my mother. We danced together, conversed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> -lightly of our prospects; I felt a <i>serrement de cœur</i>, and -he, Monsieur Dunbar, was very pale, with a peculiar expression -about the eyes and mouth which denoted violent -emotion strongly repressed. I had noticed it when -Monsieur de Courvaux came to claim my hand for the -second State quadrille. He wore his uniform as Minister -of Commerce and all his Orders.... His thick nose, -white whiskers, dull eyes, and bent figure contrasted -strangely with the fine features and splendid physique of -Monsieur Dunbar. Ah, Heaven! how I shivered as he -smiled at me with his false teeth, and pressed my hand -within his arm.... He filled me with fear. And yet -at heart I knew him to be good and disinterested and -noble, even while I could have cried out to Angus to save -me.... But I was whirled away. Everyone was very -kind. The Empress, looking tall as a goddess, despotically -magnificent in the plenitude of her charms, noticed me -kindly. I danced with the Prince Imperial, a fresh-faced, -gentle boy. Monsieur de Courvaux was much -felicitated upon his choice, and <i>Maman</i> was pleased—that -goes without saying. Thus I came back to Monsieur -Dunbar. We were standing together in an alcove -adorned with palms, admiring the porphyry vase, once -the property of Catherine the Great, and given by the -Emperor Alexander to the First Napoleon, when for the -first time he took my hand. If I could paint in words -the emotion that suddenly overwhelmed me!... It -seemed as though the great personages, the distinguished -crowds, the jeweled ladies, the uniformed men, vanished, -and the lustres and girandoles went out, and -Angus and I were standing in pale moonlight on the -shores of a lake encircled by mountains, looking in each -other’s eyes. It matters little what we said, but the history<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -of our first meeting might have prompted the sonnet -of Arvers.... You recall it:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“Mon cœur a son secret, mon âme a son mystère,</div> -<div class="verse">Un amour éternel dans un instant conçu:</div> -<div class="verse">Le mal est sans remède.”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>“<i>Sans remède</i> for either of us. Honor was engaged on -either side. So we parted,” said Grandmamma. “My -bouquet of white tea-roses and ferns had lost a few buds -when I put it in water upon reaching home.”</p> - -<p>“And——”</p> - -<p>“In three days I married Monsieur de Courvaux. As -for Monsieur Dunbar——”</p> - -<p>“Lucie,” said the little Marquise, “run down to the -bottom of the garden and listen for the horns!”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur Dunbar I never saw again,” said Grandmamma, -with a smile, “and there is no need for Lucie to -run into the garden. Listen! One can hear the horns -quite plainly; the boar has taken to the open—they are -sounding the <i>débuché</i>. What do you want, Lebas?”</p> - -<p>The middle-aged, country-faced house-steward was -the medium of a humble entreaty on the part of one -Auguste Pichon, a forest keeper, that Madame the Marquise -would deign to hear him on behalf of the young -woman, his sister, of whom Monsieur le Curé had already -spoken. This time, upon the exchange of a silent -intelligence between the two elder ladies, Mademoiselle -Lucie was really dismissed to the garden, and Pichon -and his sister were shown in by Lebas.</p> - -<p>Pichon was a thick-set, blue-bearded, vigorous fellow -of twenty-seven, wearing a leather gun pad strapped -over his blouse, and cloth gaiters. He held his cap in -both hands against his breast as he bowed to his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -master’s mother and his master’s wife. His sister, a -pale, sickly, large-eyed little creature, scarcely ventured -to raise her abashed glance from the Turkey carpet as -Pichon plucked at her cotton sleeve.</p> - -<p>“We have heard the story from Monsieur le Curé,” -cried the younger lady, “and both Madame la Marquise -and myself are much shocked and grieved. Is it not so, -Madame?”</p> - -<p>Grandmamma surveyed the bending, tempest-beaten -figure before her with a sternness of the most august, yet -with pity and interest too.</p> - -<p>“We did not anticipate when we had the pleasure of -contributing a little sum to your sister’s dower, upon -her marriage with the under-gardener, Pierre Michaud, -that the union would be attended with anything but -happiness.”</p> - -<p>“Alas! Nor did I, Madame.... I picked out -Michaud myself from half a dozen others. ‘Here’s a -sound, hale man of sixty,’ thinks I, ‘will make the girl a -good husband, and leave her a warm widow when he -dies’; for he has a bit put by, as is well known. And she -was willing when he asked her to go before the Maire -and Monsieur le Curé and sign herself Michaud instead -of Pichon. Weren’t you, girl?”</p> - -<p>No answer from the culprit but a sob.</p> - -<p>“So, as she was willing and Michaud was eager, the -wedding came off. At the dance, for it’s a poor foot that -doesn’t hop at a wedding, what happens? Latrace, Monsieur -le Marquis’s new groom, drops in. He dances with -the bride, drops a few sweet speeches in her ear. Crac! -’Tis like sowing mustard and cress.... Latrace scrapes -acquaintance with Michaud—more fool he, with respect -to the ladies’ presence, for when one has a drop of honey<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -one doesn’t care to share with the wasp! Latrace takes -to hanging about the cottage. Ninette, the silly thing, -begins to gape at the moon, and when what might be -expected to happen happens, Michaud turns her out of -house and home. What’s more, keeps her dowry, to pay -for his honor, says he. ‘Honor! leave honor to gentlemen; -wipe out scores with a stick!’ says I, ‘and eat one’s -cabbage soup in peace.’ But he’ll bolt the door and stick -to the dowry, and Ninette may beg, or worse, for all he -cares. And my wife flies out on the poor thing; and -what to do with her may the good God teach me.... -Madame will understand that who provides for her -keeps two! And she so young, Madame, only seventeen!”</p> - -<p>The little Marquise uttered a pitying exclamation, and -over the face of the elder lady passed a swift change. -The exquisite faded lips quivered, the brilliant eyes under -the worn eyelids shone through a liquid veil of tears. -Rustling in her rich neutral-tinted silks, Madame rose, -went to the shrinking figure, and stooping from her -stately height, kissed Ninette impulsively upon both -cheeks.</p> - -<p>“Poor child! Poor little one!” whispered Grandmamma; -and at the caress and the whisper, the girl -dropped upon her knees with a wild, sobbing cry, and -hid her face in the folds of what seemed to her an angel’s -robe. “Leave Ninette to us, my good Pichon,” said -Grandmamma. “For the present the Sisters of the Convent -at Charny will take her, all expenses being guaranteed -by me, and when she is stronger we will talk of -what is to be done.” She raised the crying girl, passing -a gentle hand over the bowed head and the convulsed -shoulders. “Life is not all ended because one has made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -one mistake!” said Grandmamma. “Tell Madame -Pichon that, from me!”</p> - -<p>Pichon, crushing his cap, bowed and stammered gratitude, -and backed out, leading the girl, who turned upon -the threshold to send one passionate glance of gratitude -from her great, melancholy, black eyes at the beautiful -stately figure with the gold-gray hair, clad in shining -silks and costly lace. As the door closed upon the -homely figures, the little Marquise heaved a sigh of relief.</p> - -<p>“Ouf! Pitiable as it all is, one can hardly expect anything -better. The standard of morality is elevated in -proportion to the standard of rank, the caliber of intellect, -the level of refinement. Do you not agree with -me?”</p> - -<p>Grandmamma smiled. “Are we of the upper world so -extremely moral?”</p> - -<p>The little Marquise pouted.</p> - -<p>“<i>Noblesse oblige</i> is an admirable apothegm, but does -it keep members of our order from the Courts of Divorce? -My dear Augustine, reflect, and you will come -to the conclusion that there is really very little difference -in human beings. The texture of the skin, the shape of -the fingernails, cleanliness, correct grammar, and graceful -manners do not argue superior virtue, or greater -probity of mind, or increased power to resist temptation, -but very often the reverse. This poor girl married -an uninteresting, elderly man at the very moment when -her heart awakened at the sight and the voice of one -whom she was destined to love.... Circumstances, environments, -opportunities contributed to her defeat; but -I will answer for it she has known moments of abnegation -as lofty, struggles as desperate, triumphs of conscience<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -over instinct as noble, as delicate, and as touching -as those experienced by any Lucretia of the Rue -Tronchet or the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. She has been -beaten, that is all, worsted in the conflict; and it is for -us, who are women like herself, to help her to rise. But -I prose,” said Grandmamma; “I sound to myself like a -dull tract or an indifferent sermon. And Lucie must be -getting tired of the garden!”</p> - -<p>Grandmamma moved toward the open <i>battants</i> of the -glass doors to call Mademoiselle, but arrested her steps -to answer the interrogation which rose in the eyes, but -never reached the lips, of the little Marquise. “I have -said, my dear, that we never met again. Whether Monsieur -Angus Dunbar was nobler and stronger than other -men—whether I was braver and purer than others of my -sex—this was a question which never came to the test. -Fate kept us apart, and something in which Monsieur le -Curé, and perhaps ourselves, would recognize the hand of -Heaven!”</p> - -<p>Grandmamma went out through the glass doors and -stood upon the <i>perron</i>, breathing the delicious air. The -sun was drowning in a sea of molten gold, the sweet -clamor of the horns came from an island in the shallow -river. “Gone to the water! Gone to the water!” -they played.... And then the death of the boar was -sounded in the <i>hallali</i>. But a nobler passion than that -of the hunter, who follows and slays for the mere momentary -lust of possession, shone in the exquisite old -face that lifted to the sunset the yearning of a deathless -love.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span></p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>The boar, a <i>ragot</i>, had met his end at the point of the -Marquis’s hunting knife, an ancestral <i>couteau de chasse</i> -with a blade about three feet long. The field had dispersed, -one or two of the <i>valets de chien</i> gone after the -missing hounds, leading the decoy dogs on leashes. Afternoon -tea at the <i>château</i> was a very lively affair, the -clatter of tongues, cups, and teaspoons almost deafening. -A <i>cuirassier</i>, whose polished boot had suffered abrasion -from the tusk of the wounded animal, recounted his adventure -to a circle of sympathetic ladies. A fire of -beech logs blazed on the wide hearth, the leaping flames -playing a color symphony, from peacock green to -sapphire, from ruby to orange, dying into palest lemon-yellow, -leaping up in lilac, deepening to violet, and so -<i>da capo</i>.... The silver andirons had sphinx heads -adorned with full-bottomed periwigs of the period of -Louis le Grand.... The exquisite Watteaus and -Bouchers, set in the paneling—painted white because the -little Marquise had found oak so <i>triste</i>—shone with a -subdued splendor. The perfume of fine tobacco, green -tea, and many roses, loaded the atmosphere, producing -a mild intoxication in the brain of the tall, fair, well-dressed -young fellow, unmistakably British, whom a -servant had announced as Monsieur Brown....</p> - -<p>“Monsieur Brown?” Monsieur de Courvaux read the -card passed over to him by his wife. “Who under the -sun is Monsieur Brown?”</p> - -<p>“Fie, Frédéric!” rebuked the little Marquise. “It is -the English tutor!”</p> - -<p>Then they rose together and welcomed the newcomer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -with hospitable warmth. Charny les Bois was hideously -difficult of access; the railway from the junction at -which one had to change was a single line, and a perfect -disgrace. Monsieur de Courvaux had long intended to -bring the question—a burning one—before the proper -authorities. Both Monsieur and Madame were horrified -to realize that Monsieur Brown had walked from the -station, where cabs were conspicuous by their absence. -A conveyance had been ordered to be sent, but at the last -moment it was wanted for the hunt. Monsieur Brown -had hunted in England, of course?</p> - -<p>Mr. Brown admitted that he had followed the hounds -in several counties. Looking at the new tutor’s square -shoulders, sinewy frame, long, well-made limbs, and -firmly knit, supple hands, tanned like his face and throat -by outdoor exercise, Monsieur de Courvaux did not doubt -it. Brown came of good race, that was clear at the first -glance. Harrow and Oxford had added the <i>cachet</i> of -the high public school and the university. He had recommendations -from the Duke of Atholblair, who mentioned -him as the son of a dear old friend. And Atholblair -was of the old <i>régime</i>, a great nobleman who chose -his friends with discretion. Clearly Brown would do. -His French was singularly pure; his English was the -English of the upper classes. Absolutely, Brown was the -thing. He was, he said, a Scotchman. The late Queen -of England, to whom the little Marquise had the honor -of being god-daughter’s daughter, had had a valuable attendant—also -a Scotchman—of the name of Brown! Did -Monsieur Brown happen to be any relation?</p> - -<p>“Unhappily no, Madame!” said Mr. Brown, who -seemed rather tickled by the notion. He took the next -opportunity to laugh, and did it heartily. He was standing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -on the bear-skin before the fireplace, measuring an -equal six feet of height with Monsieur de Courvaux, -when he laughed, and several people, grouped about a -central figure—that of the elder Madame de Courvaux, -who sat upon a gilt <i>fauteuil</i> with her back to the great -windows, beyond which the fires of the sunset were -burning rapidly away—the people glanced round.</p> - -<p>“What a handsome Englishman!” a lady whispered, a -tiny brunette, with eyes of jet and ebony hair, who consequently -adored the hazel-eyed, the tawny-haired, the -tall of the opposite sex. Madame de Courvaux, superb -in her laces and dove-colored silks, sat like a figure of -marble. Under her broad white brow, crowned by its -waves of gray-gold hair, her eyes, blue and brilliant still, -fixed with an intensity of regard almost devouring upon -the face of the new tutor, whom the Marquis, stepping -forward, presented to his mother with due ceremony, and -to whom, offering her white, jeweled hand, she said:</p> - -<p>“Welcome once more to France, Monsieur Dunbar!”</p> - -<p>“But, Mamma,” put in Monsieur de Courvaux, as -young Mr. Brown started and crimsoned to the roots of -his tawny hair, “the name of Monsieur is Brown, and he -has never before visited our country.”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur Brown will pardon me!” Madame de -Courvaux rose to her full height and swept the astonished -young fellow a wonderful curtsy. “The old are -apt to make mistakes. And—there sounds the dressing -gong!”</p> - -<p>Indeed, the metallic <i>tintamarre</i> of the instrument -named began at that instant, and the great room emptied -as the chatterers and tea drinkers scurried away. A -rosy, civil footman in plain black livery showed Mr. -Brown to his room, which was not unreasonably high<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> -up, and boasted a dressing cabinet and a bath. As -Brown hurriedly removed the smuts of the railway with -oceans of soap and water, and got into his evening -clothes—much too new and well cut for a tutor—he pondered. -As he shook some attar of violets—much too expensive -a perfume for a tutor, who, at the most, should -content himself with Eau de Cologne of the ninepenny -brand—upon his handkerchief, he shook his head.</p> - -<p>“I’ll be shot if she didn’t, and plainly too! It wasn’t -the confusion of the beastly all-night train journey from -Paris. It wasn’t the clatter of French talk, or the delusion -of a guilty conscience—decidedly not! The thing -is as certain as it is inexplicable! I arrive under the -name of Brown at a country house in a country I don’t -know, belonging to people I have never met, and the -second lady I am introduced to addresses me as Mr. -Dunbar. There’s the second gong! I wonder whether -there is a governess for me to take in, or whether I trot -behind my superiors, who aren’t paid a hundred and fifty -pounds a year to teach English?”</p> - -<p>And Mr. Brown went down to dinner. Somewhat to -his surprise, he was placed impartially, served without -prejudice, and conversed with as an equal. The De -Courvaux were charming people, their tutor thought—equal -to the best-bred Britons he had ever met. His -pupils—the freckled boy with hair cropped <i>à la brosse</i>, -and the pretty, frank-mannered girl of sixteen—interested -him. He was uncommonly obliged to the kind old -Duke for his recommendation; the bread of servitude -eaten under this hospitable roof would have no bitter -herbs mingled with it, that was plain. He helped himself -to an <i>entrée</i> of calves’ tongues stewed with mushrooms, -as he thought this, and noted the violet bouquet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -of the old Bordeaux with which one of the ripe-faced, -black-liveried footmen filled his glass. And perhaps he -thought of another table, at the bottom of which his -place had been always laid, and of the grim, gaunt dining-room -in which it stood, with the targets and breast-pieces, -the chain and plate mail of his—Brown’s—forebears -winking against the deep lusterless black of the -antique paneling; and, opposite, lost in deep reflection, -the master of the house, moody, haggard, gray-moustached -and gray-haired, but eminently handsome still, -leaning his head upon his hand, and staring at the gold -and ruby reflections of the wine decanters in the polished -surface of the ancient oak, or staring straight before him -at the portrait, so oddly out of keeping with the Lord -Neils and Lord Ronalds in tartans and powdered wigs, -the Lady Agnes and the Lady Jean in hoops and stomachers, -with their hair dressed over cushions, and shepherds’ -crooks in their narrow, yellowish hands.... -That portrait, of an exquisite girl—a lily-faced, gold-haired, -blue-eyed child in the ball costume of 1870—had -been the object of Mr. Brown’s boyish adoration. -Varolan painted it, Mr. Brown’s uncle—whose name -was no more Brown than his nephew’s—had often said. -And on one occasion, years previously, he had expanded -sufficiently to tell his nephew and expectant heir that -the original of the portrait was the daughter of a ducal -family of France, a star moving in the social orbit of -the Faubourg Saint-Germain, married to a Minister of -the Imperial Government a few weeks previous to that -Government’s collapse and fall.</p> - -<p>“I believe the dear old boy must have been in love -with her before Uncle Ronald died, and he came in for -the family honors,” mused Mr. Brown, and then began<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -to wonder whether he had treated the dear old boy badly -or <i>vice versa</i>. For between this uncle and nephew, who, -despite a certain chilly stiffness and rigor of mental -bearing, often mutually exhibited by relations, were sincerely -attached to each other, a breach had opened, an -estrangement had occurred. Hot words and bitter reproaches -had suddenly, unexpectedly been exchanged, old -wrongs flaming up at a kindling word, forgotten grudges -coming to light in the blaze of the conflagration....</p> - -<p>And so it had come to pass that the son of Lord Hailhope’s -younger brother, named Angus after his uncle, had -not been thrown, had hurled himself upon his own resources. -And the Duke of Atholblair had found him the -place of English tutor in the family of Madame de Courvaux.</p> - -<p>“It is the only thing that presents itself,” the aged -peer had explained, “and therefore, my dear boy, you -had better take it until something better turns up.”</p> - -<p>For the present. But the future? Mr. Brown wondered -whether he and the English grammar and lexicon—the -phrase book, dictionary, and the other volumes -which constituted his tutorial equipment—were doomed -to grow gray and dog’s-eared, drooping and shabby together?</p> - -<p>Then he looked up, for some one touched him upon -the arm.</p> - -<p>“The ladies permit us to smoke in the library, which -is the best room for music in the house,” said the pleasant -voice of Monsieur de Courvaux; “so we will take our -<i>café</i> and <i>chasse</i> in their company, if you please.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Brown reached the door in time to open it, and -to comprehend that the act of gallantry was not expected -of him. And the feminine paroquets and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -sable-coated male rooks went by, and Mademoiselle Lucie -gave the handsome, well-groomed Englishman a shy -glance of approval from under her black eyelashes, and -Monsieur Frédéric, puffy with incipient indigestion, -grinned feebly. Brown put his hand upon the boy’s -shoulder, and followed the rest.</p> - -<p>“You don’t want me to do any English to-night, do -you, Monsieur Brown?” young hopeful insinuated, as -they went into the long walnut-paneled room with another -bay at the southern end with blinds undrawn, revealing -a wonderful panorama of moonlit forest and -river and champaign. “I can say ‘all-a-raight!’ ‘wat-a-rot!’ -and ‘daddle-doo!’ already,” the youth continued. -“The English groom of papa, I learned the words of him, -<i>voyez</i>! You shall know Smeet, to-morrow!”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, old fellow!” said Mr. Brown, with a good-humored -smile.</p> - -<p>“Grandmamma is making a sign that you are to go -and speak to her, Monsieur,” said Mademoiselle Lucie, -Brown’s elder pupil-elect. “Everybody in this house -obeys Grandmamma, and so must you. Mamma says it -is because she was so beautiful when she was young—young, -you comprehend, as in that portrait over the fireplace—that -everybody fell down and worshiped her. -And she is beautiful now, is she not, sir? Not as the -portrait; but——”</p> - -<p>“The portrait, Mademoiselle?... Over the fireplace.... -Good Lord, what an extraordinary likeness!” -broke from Mr. Brown. For the counterpart of -the exquisite picture of Varolan that had hung in the -dining hall of the gray old northern castle where Mr. -Brown’s boyhood, youth, and earliest manhood had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> -spent, hung above the hooded fifteenth-century fireplace -of the noble library of this French château.</p> - -<p>There she stood, the golden, slender, lily-faced, -sapphire-eyed young aristocrat of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, -with her indefinable air of pride and hauteur -and exclusiveness mingled with girlish merriment and -mischief. And there she sat—the original in the flesh—Madame -la Marquise de Courvaux, the Grandmamma of -these young people—regal in sweeping folds of amethyst -velvet and wonderful creamy Spanish point lace.</p> - -<p>Obedient to the bidding of her fan, Mr. Brown crossed -the library and took the chair she indicated near her. -And the diamond cross upon her still beautiful bosom -moved quickly, with the beating of Grandmamma’s -heart, as he did this.</p> - -<p>“How like he is!—how like!” she whispered to herself; -and the electric lights became crystal girandoles, -and the library became a ballroom at the Tuileries. The -Empress, beautiful and cold, passed down the ranks of -curtsying, bare-backed, bejeweled women and bowing, -gold-laced men. Monsieur de Courvaux, with his orders, -his bald forehead, and his white whiskers, released -mademoiselle at the claim of a tall, tawny-haired, hazel-eyed, -fair-faced partner, a Highland gentleman, in plaid -and philabeg, with sporran and claymore, the antique -gold brooch upon his shoulder set with ancient amethysts, -river pearls and cairngorms. And he told her -how he loved her, there in the alcove of palms, and heard -her little confession that, had she not been bound by a -promise of marriage to Monsieur de Courvaux she would—oh, -how gladly!—become the wife of Monsieur Angus -Dunbar.</p> - -<p>“As you say.... Fate has been cruel to both of us....<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> -And—and I am engaged. She lives in Leicestershire. -I met her one hunting season. She is in Paris, -staying at Meurice’s with her mother now. They’re -buying the trousseau.... God help me!” groaned Angus -Dunbar.</p> - -<p>But the little lady of the Faubourg Saint-Germain -drew back the hand he snatched at, and swept him a -haughty little curtsy, looking straight in his face: “The -State Quadrille is beginning. Be so good as to take me -to Mamma.... And I wish you all happiness, sir, and -your <i>fiancée</i> also.” Another little curtsy he got, poor -lad, with her “Adieu, and a thousand thanks, Monsieur!” -and then—he walked the dusty streets of Paris until -morning; while Mademoiselle lay sleepless on her tear-drenched -lace pillows. And——</p> - -<p>Grandmamma awakened as though from a dream, to -meet the frank hazel eyes of Mr. Brown, the English -tutor.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur will forgive the curiosity of an old woman,” -she said, with her inimitable air of grace and sweetness. -“I wished to ask whether you were not of Northern race—a -Scot, for example? Yes? Ah, I thought I had -guessed correctly. The type is not to be mistaken, and I -once had—a dear friend!—whom Monsieur resembles to -identity. But his name was not Brown.”</p> - -<p>“I was within an ace of telling her mine was not, -either,” reflected the English tutor as, an hour or so later, -he got into bed. “How perfectly beautiful Madame—not -the <i>agaçante, espiègle</i> little Madame, but the old one—must -have been in the rich prime of her womanhood! -Did she and my uncle ever meet again, I wonder? No, -I should think not. The dear old boy is just the sort of -character to hug a romance all his life, and she—she is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> -just the woman to be the heroine of one. Are all French -country-house beds in this style, and is one supposed to -draw these rosebudded chintz curtains modestly round -one, or let them alone?” Mr. Brown concluded to let -them alone, and fell very soundly asleep.</p> - -<p>At the late breakfast, an elaborate meal, beginning -with soup and fish, and ending with tea and cakes, it -was explained to the tutor that no English lesson was to -be given that day, as a costume ball of the calico type -was to take place that evening, and the children’s study, -a homely, comfortable little wainscoted parlor on the -ground floor, looking out upon a grass-grown courtyard -with a bronze fountain in the middle, was to be given up -to hats, coats, and opera cloaks. Monsieur Frédéric was -to personate one of his own ancestors, page to the Duke -of Burgundy, killed in a jousting match in 1369, Monsieur -le Marquis and Madame respectively appearing as -the Chevalier de Courvaux and his lady, parents of the -youth referred to, represented in a miniature by Othea. -Mademoiselle Lucie chose to be “Undine” in gauze and -water-lilies. For Monsieur Brown a character could -surely be found, a costume devised, even at the eleventh -hour. There were jack-boots, <i>salades</i>, and coats of mail -innumerable in the great hall, Mr. Brown, who shared -the objection of his British countrymen to being made -to appear ridiculous, shook his head. He preferred not -to dress up; but he had, or thought he had, packed away -in one of his portmanteaux (which were too numerous -for a tutor) something that would do. A Highland costume, -in fact, of the modified kind worn by gentlemen -of Caledonia as dinner dress or upon occasions of festivity.</p> - -<p>Thus Mr. Brown unconsciously pledged himself to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -bring about a crisis in the lives of two people, one of -whom was actively engaged at that moment in trying to -find him. For Lord Hailhope was genuinely attached to -his nephew, and the basis of the quarrel between them, -never very secure, had been shaken and shattered, firstly, -by the indifference manifested by the young lady concerned, -a rather plain young heiress, at the news of the -said nephew’s disappearance, and, secondly, by her marriage -with her father’s chaplain, a Presbyterian divine -of thunderous eloquence and sweeping predestinary convictions.</p> - -<p>“Tell him that I was in the wrong—that I apologize—that -everything shall be as it was before, if he will come -back! The money shall be secured to him; I will guarantee -that,” Lord Hailhope wrote to the London solicitor -employed in the search for Young Lochinvar, who had -sprung to the saddle and ridden away—without the lady. -“If he will not come to me, I will go to him. The insult -<i>was</i> gross; I admit it, and will atone to the best of my -ability!”</p> - -<p>“The hot-headed old Highlander!” commented the man -of law, as he filed the letter. “He adopts the boy—his -dead brother’s son—brings him up in the expectation of -inheriting his private fortune as well as the title, and -then turns him out of doors because he won’t marry a -girl with teeth like tombstones and a fancy for another -man. If Master Angus Dunbar is wise, he will hold out -against going back until that question of the money has -been disposed of irrevocably. Though people never have -sense—lucky for my profession!”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, at Charny les Bois preparations for the -ball—the materials of which owed much more to the -lordly silkworm than the plebeian cotton pod—went on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -apace. Evening came, the band of the <i>cuirassiers</i>, generously -lent by Monsieur the Colonel, drove over from -the barracks in a couple of <i>chars-à-bancs</i>, the Colonel -and the officers of that gallant regiment, arrayed to kill -in the green and gold costumes of the hunt of the Grand -Monarque, followed upon their English <i>drague</i>. <i>Voitures</i> -of every description disgorged their happy loads. Monsieur, -Madame, the young ladies and the young gentlemen, -hot, happy, smiling, and fearfully and wonderfully -disguised.</p> - -<p>“Their unconsciousness, the entire absence of the conviction -that they are ridiculous, makes them quite lovable,” -thought Mr. Brown. “That fat, fair papa, with -spectacles and large sandy whiskers, as Pluton, from -<i>Orphée aux Enfers</i>, in red satin tunic and black silk -tights spotted with yellow, a satin cloak with a train, -a gilt pasteboard crown and trident pleases me tremendously. -He is, I believe, a magistrate from Charny. His -wife is the even fatter and fairer lady attired as Norma, -and those three little dumpy girls, flower girls of a period -decidedly uncertain.”</p> - -<p>“Does not Monsieur dance?” said Mademoiselle Lucie, -looking, with her filmy green draperies, her fair locks -crowned, and her slim waist girdled with water-lilies and -forget-me-nots, a really exquisite river sprite.</p> - -<p>“If Mademoiselle would accord me the honor of her -hand in a valse,” Mr. Brown began; then he broke off, -remembering that in England the tutor did not usually -dance with the daughters of the house—if, indeed, that -functionary danced at all. But——</p> - -<p>“Mamma has been telling me that Englishmen dance -badly,” observed Mademoiselle, with a twinkle in her -blue eyes. “Grandmamma will have it, by the way, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -you are Scotch! Do not look round for her; she was a -little fatigued by so much conversation and fuss, and -will not come down to-night.... Heavens! look at -Frédéric,” she added, in a tone of sisterly solicitude, as -the page of the Court of Burgundy moved unsteadily -into sight, clinging to the arm of a bosom friend in a -“celadon” costume and a condition of similar obfuscation. -“Alas! I comprehend!” she continued. “Those -plums conserved in cognac have a fatal fascination for -my unhappy brother. Quick, Monsieur! make to remove -him from the view of Papa, or the consequences -will be of the most terrible.... Frédéric has been already -warned....”</p> - -<p>And outwardly grave and sympathetic, albeit splitting -with repressed laughter, Mr. Brown went in chase of the -unseasoned vessels, and conveyed them to the safe harbor -of the small study on the second floor, which had -been allotted to him as a den. Locking them in, he was -about to descend in search of seltzer water, when, in the -act of crossing the gallery, unlighted save for the dazzling -moonlight that poured through the long mullioned -windows, giving a strange semblance of fantastic life to -the dark family portraits on the opposite wall, and lying -in silver pools upon the shining parquet islanded with -threadbare carpets of ancient Oriental woof, he encountered -the elder Madame de Courvaux, who came swiftly -toward him from the opposite end of a long gallery, carrying -a light and a book that looked like a Catholic -breviary. With the glamour of moonlight upon her, in -a loose silken dressing robe trimmed with the priceless -lace she affected, her wealth of golden-gray tresses in -two massive plaits, drawn forward and hanging over her -bosom, almost to her knees, her beauty was marvelous.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -Mr. Brown caught his breath and stopped short; Madame, -on her part, uttered a faint cry—was it of delight -or of terror?—and would have dropped her candle had -not the tutor caught it and placed it on a <i>console</i> that -stood near.</p> - -<p>“Pardon, Madame!” he was beginning, when....</p> - -<p>“Oh, Angus Dunbar! Angus, my beloved, my adored!” -broke from Madame de Courvaux. “There is no need -that either of us should ask for pardon.” Her blue eyes -gleamed like sapphires, her still beautiful bosom heaved -and panted, her lips smiled, though the great tears -brimmed one by one over her underlids and chased down -her pale cheeks. “We did what was right. The path of -honor was never easy. You married, and I also, and all -these years no news of you has reached me. But I understand -now that you are dead, and bound no longer by -the vows of earth, and that you have come, brave as of -old, beautiful as of old, to tell me that you are free!”</p> - -<p>With an impulse never quite to be accounted for, Angus -Dunbar, the younger, stepped forward and enclosed -in his own warm, living grasp Madame’s trembling -hands....</p> - -<p>“My name is Angus Dunbar, Madame,” he said, “but—but -I believe you must be speaking of my uncle. He -succeeded to the peerage twenty years ago; he is now -Lord Hailhope, but he—he never married, though I believe -he loved, very sincerely and devotedly, a lady -whose portrait by Varolan hangs in the dining-room at -Hailhope, just as it hangs in the library here at Charny -les Bois.”</p> - -<p>“I—I do not understand.... How comes it that——” -Madame hesitated piteously, her hands wringing -each other, her great wistful eyes fixed upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> -splendid, stalwart figure of the young man. “You are -so like.... And the costume——”</p> - -<p>“It is customary for Highland gentlemen to wear the -kilt at social functions; and when I left Hailhope—or, -rather, was turned out of doors, for my uncle disowned -me when I refused to marry a girl who did not care for -me, and who has since married to please herself—Gregor -packed it in one of my kit cases. The cat is out of the -bag as well as the kilt.... I came here as English -tutor to your grandchildren, Madame, at the suggestion -of an old friend, the Duke of Atholblair, to whom I told -the story of the quarrel with my uncle.”</p> - -<p>Madame began to recover her courtly grace and self-possession. -Her hands ceased to tremble in Dunbar’s -clasp; she drew them away with a smile that was only a -little fluttered.</p> - -<p>“And I took you for a ghost ... a <i>revenant</i>.... I -was a little agitated.... I had been suffering from an -attack of the nerves.... Monsieur will make allowances -for a superstitious old woman. To-morrow, after -breakfast, in the garden Monsieur will explain the whole -story to me—how it came that Monsieur Dunbar, his -uncle, now Lord Hailhope—ah, yes! there was a crippled -elder brother of that title—disowned his nephew for refusing -to give his hand to one he did not love.... I -should have imagined—— Good-night, Monsieur!”</p> - -<p>In the garden, after breakfast, Angus Dunbar, no -longer handicapped by the plebeian name of Brown, told -his story to a sympathetic listener. Madame’s head was -bent—perhaps her hearing was not so good as it had -been when, more than forty years previously, Angus -Dunbar, the elder, had whispered his secret in that delicate -ear. But as footsteps sounded upon the terrace, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -one of the fresh-faced, black-liveried footmen appeared, -piloting a stranger, a tall, somewhat stern-featured, gray-moustached -gentleman, she started and looked round. In -the same moment the late Mr. Brown jumped up, over-setting -his chair, the pugs barked, and——</p> - -<p>“I owed it to you to make the first move,” said Lord -Hailhope, rather huskily, as the uncle and nephew -grasped hands. “Forgive me, Angus, my dear boy!”</p> - -<p>“Lady Grisel has married the Presbyterian minister, -sir, and we’re all going to be happy for ever after, like -people in a fairy tale,” said Angus Dunbar. Then he -turned to Madame de Courvaux, and bowed with his -best grace. “Madame, permit me to present my uncle, -Lord Hailhope, who I believe has had the honor of meeting -you before!”</p> - -<p>And, being possessed of a degree of discretion quite -proper and desirable in a tutor, Mr. Angus Dunbar -moved away in the direction of a rose walk, down which -Mademoiselle Lucie’s white gown had flitted a moment -before, leaving the two old lovers looking in each other’s -eyes.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">AN INDIAN BABY</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">WHEN old Lovelace-Legge sank into a stertorous -final coma which his lovely marble tombstone -called by a much prettier name, and the blinds were -drawn up after a decent interval, and a tremendous -heraldic joke, furnished by Heralds’ College, was dismounted -from over the front door, Mrs. Lovelace-Legge, -after the requisite period of seclusion, took an exquisite -little gem of a house in Sloane Street, furnished it to a -marvel, and began, with discreetness, to enjoy herself. -All her affairs flourished, her pet plans prospered, her -gratifications were many, her disappointments nil; people -began to call her “Lucky Lotta Legge.” She took -her good fortune as her due.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps she feels she deserves something of Providence -for putting up patiently with old Lovelace-Legge -during those ten awful years,” said Lady Cranberry, her -dearest friend, to another just a shade less dear, as they -walked up Sloane Street one fine morning.</p> - -<p>“I suppose he <i>was</i> awful?” hazarded the second-best -beloved.</p> - -<p>Lady Cranberry crumpled her eyebrows. “He had a -complexion like New Zealand meat,” she said. “Next -time you walk up the King’s Road with Lotta, watch her -as you pass a cheap butcher’s shop. She will wince and -look the other way, and you may guess what she is -thinking of, poor darling!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>“She said to me once,” remarked the second-best one, -“‘<i>I always fretted for children, but perhaps they were -wisely withheld.</i>’”</p> - -<p>“I should think so,” consented Lady Cranberry. -“When there is a chance of an infant’s coming into the -world with three chins and a nose like Punch, to say -nothing of bandy legs and patent shoes like bicycle gear -cases——”</p> - -<p>The second-best reminded Lady Cranberry that children -were not usually born with shoes.</p> - -<p>“Of course, I meant feet,” said Lady Cranberry. “Feet -of that size and flatness, too. And if there is the merest -chance of a child’s coming into the world thus handicapped, -it is infinitely better that the child should keep -out of it. Here we are at Lotta’s door. Isn’t that cream -enamel with the old Florentine copper-embossed knocker -and bells too divine for anything? Great Heavens!”</p> - -<p>She had evidently received a shock, for she was paler -than her powder, and as she clutched her companion’s -arm her eyes were fixed in quite a ghastly stare.</p> - -<p>“Mercy!” the next best-beloved friend of the owner of -the cream-white door with the Florentine copper work -adjuncts exclaimed, “you saw something—what?”</p> - -<p>But Lady Cranberry, with more energy than her weak -state seemed to warrant, had ascended Mrs. Lovelace-Legge’s -brown doorsteps, and was plying the Florentine -knocker. The servant who responded to the summons -thought that Mrs. Lovelace-Legge was at home, but -knew her to be profoundly engaged.</p> - -<p>“Take up the names. We will wait,” said Lady Cranberry. -Then, as the respectful servant went upstairs, she -drew her companion into the shelter of a little reposeful -niche, in Liberty draperies and Indian carved wood,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -where palms and things flourished in pots, and an object -of familiar shape, in bamboo work, and newly freed -from swathings of brown paper, stood upon a table. To -this she pointed with a neatly gloved forefinger that -trembled with emotion.</p> - -<p>“Oh! Why,” cried the other, “it is <span class="allsmcap">A BABY’S CRADLE</span>!”</p> - -<p>“It was delivered,” said Lady Cranberry, “at this door -as we came up. It cannot be for a doll: it is full-sized. -What on earth can Lotta want with such a thing?”</p> - -<p>As she uttered these words the servant returned. His -mistress begged the ladies to come upstairs. He delivered -his message, and then, with well-trained gravity, -lifted the compromising cradle and led the way upstairs. -Mrs. Lovelace-Legge did not purpose to receive her -friends in the drawing-room, it appeared, or even on the -floor above, where her bedroom and boudoir were situated. -The ladies were conducted by their guide to regions -more airy still; indeed, their progress knew no -pause until they reached the highest landing. Here Lady -Cranberry received another shock, for a gaily-painted -wooden gate, newly hung, gave access to a space where -a rocking-horse stood rampant in all the glory of bright -paint and red leather trappings; and beyond, through an -open door, shone a glimpse of an infantile Paradise, all -rosebud dimity, blue ribbons, and brightness, in the midst -of which moved Mrs. Lovelace-Legge radiant in a lawn -apron with Valenciennes insertion, issuing directions to -a head nurse of matronly proportions, an under-nurse of -less discretionary years, and a young person dressed in -blue baize, trimmed with red braid and buttons, whose -functions were less determinable.</p> - -<p>“My dears!” Mrs. Lovelace-Legge fluttered to her -friends and kissed them, and nothing save Lady Cranberry’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -imperative need of an explanation kept that lady -from swooning on the spot. “You find me all anyhow,” -said Lotta, with beaming eyes. “But come—come and -look.” She pioneered the way into the room beyond, -with its Lilliputian fittings, its suggestive cosiness, its -scent of violet powder and new flannel. “Do you think -he will be happy here?” she asked, with a tender quasi-maternal -quaver of delightful anticipation.</p> - -<p>“Who is—He?”</p> - -<p>Lady Cranberry hardly recognized her own voice, so -transformed was it by the emotions she suppressed; but -Mrs. Lovelace-Legge noticed nothing. “Who?” she -echoed, and then laughed with moist, beaming eyes. -“Who but the baby? Is it possible I haven’t told you? -Or Lucy?” The second-best-beloved shook her head. -“No. You see—the news of his coming was broken so -suddenly that I was carried off my feet, and since then -I’ve done nothing but engage nurses and buy baby -things. This is Mrs. Porter”—she turned to the matronly -person—“who will have entire charge of my pet—when -he arrives; and this is Susan, her assistant. This”—she -indicated the anomaly in blue baize and red braid—“is -Miss Pilsener, from the Brompton Kindergarten. She -is going to teach me how to open his little—<i>little</i> mind, -and be everything to him from the very beginning!”</p> - -<p>“Won’t you open <i>our</i> little minds?” implored the second-best -friend. “You know we are in a state of the -darkest ignorance.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lovelace-Legge dismissed her attendants, and -made her friends sit down on the nursery sofa, and sank -into a low nursing-chair. She absently tried on an india-rubber -apron as she spoke, and it was plain her heart -was with the invisible infant. “Ask me questions,” she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -said. “I don’t seem able to keep my thoughts concentrated -on anything but—baby!”</p> - -<p>“You must understand, Lotta,” said Lady Cranberry, -“that to find you in possession of”—she gulped—“a baby -is a shock in itself to your most intimate friends. And -in the name of your regard for Lucy, supposing myself -to have no claim upon your confidence, I must ask you -to explain how you come to be in possession of such a—such -a thing? And to—to whom it belongs—and where -it is coming from?”</p> - -<p>“I came into possession of baby through a dear -friend,” explained Mrs. Lovelace-Legge. She added: -“Perhaps you have heard of General Carabyne—Lieutenant-General -Ranford Carabyne of the Ordnance Department, -Calcutta?”</p> - -<p>Her friends replied simultaneously: “Never!”</p> - -<p>“He is the father of my child,” continued Mrs. Lovelace-Legge, -“and, I am given to understand, a charming -person!”</p> - -<p>Lady Cranberry’s lips moved soundlessly. She might -have been breathing a prayer for patience.</p> - -<p>“The General,” went on Lotta, “married my old school-fellow, -Julia Daubeny, in the spring of last year. He -had already been married—in fact, had been twice a -widower—when Julia met him at a Garrison Gymkhana. -It was a case of love at first sight, and I gave Julia her -trousseau as my wedding present. And now she is sending -me home the General’s baby—the child of his last -wife—as it cannot stand the climate, and she knows how -I dote on little children.”</p> - -<p>“How old is this child?” queried Lady Cranberry.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lovelace-Legge produced a thin crackling envelope -from her pocket, and unfolded Mrs. Carabyne’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> -letter. “Julia always writes without punctuation, and all -her capitals are in the wrong places,” she said, apologizing -for the hesitation with which she attacked the -scrawled pages. “‘<i>I forgot to mention</i>,’” wrote Julia, -“‘<i>that the General has one son quite a darling and a -favorite with everybody. He was christened Dampierre. -There is French blood on the mother’s side, but everybody -calls him ‘Dumps.’ He has the sweetest nature -and splendid teeth until about six months old——</i>’”</p> - -<p>“Incoherent, isn’t she, rather?” hinted Lady Cranberry.</p> - -<p>“‘<i>Six months old when he was thrown out of his bamboo-cart</i>’—Anglo-Indian -for perambulator, I suppose—‘<i>thrown -out of his bamboo-cart with a woman who had -got hold of him at the time a most dreadful creature -and sustained a severe concussion of the brain. You will -gather by this that the poor dear is inclined to be more -than a little child.</i>’”</p> - -<p>“Is not the sense of that rather—involved?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lovelace-Legge held out the letter.</p> - -<p>“It is ‘child’ or else ‘wild,’” Lady Cranberry said, -dropping her eyeglasses.</p> - -<p>“As if an infant of six months old could be called -‘wild’!” giggled Mrs. Lovelace-Legge. She read on:</p> - -<p>“‘<i>Now the doctors have positively ordered him home, -and we have not the least idea where to send him. In -this dilemma I thought of you. The General shakes his -head, but I have carried my point, and Dumps and his -nurse sail by the “Ramjowrah” next Thursday, and when -arrived in London will come straight to you. I have -every faith in your goodness of heart, and know that poor -dear Dumps could be placed in charge of no kinder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> -friend. He is extremely affectionate—from pursuits -which ruin many of the most promising young.</i>’”</p> - -<p>“Humph!” ejaculated the puzzled Lady Cranberry.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps Julia means tearing his clothes and sucking -the paint off his toys?” suggested the second-best dearest -friend.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Lovelace-Legge read on: “‘<i>Men in India if you -have read Rudyard Kipling I need not be more definite -we shall look to your gentle influence to wean him.</i>’”</p> - -<p>“One thing at least is clear,” remarked Lady Cranberry. -“The child is not yet weaned. As to your correspondent’s -style, Lotta——” She said no more, but in -her mind she harbored a most definite conviction that -Julia Carabyne drank. “Eau de Cologne or red lavender,” -she thought, “or pure, unadulterated cognac. I pity -the General from my heart!”</p> - -<p>A few more confused and comma-less paragraphs, and -the letter wound up.</p> - -<p>“You think I did right?” Mrs. Lovelace-Legge glanced -round at her preparations. “But, indeed, I had no choice. -How could any woman with a heart—and a nursery——”</p> - -<p>“Both unoccupied?” said Lady Cranberry.</p> - -<p>“Close her doors against a little sick baby, coming all -the way from India in a nurse’s arms? The bare idea -strikes one as horrible! Besides, the poor darling may -arrive at any moment!” Mrs. Lovelace-Legge dried her -pretty eyes with a fragment of gossamer cambric, and -then—rat-tatter, tatter, <span class="allsmcap">TAT</span>! went the hall-door knocker.</p> - -<p>The three ladies started to their feet. Mrs. Lovelace-Legge -rushed to the window.</p> - -<p>“Can it be?”</p> - -<p>“The baby—arrived?”...</p> - -<p>“It has! I see the top of a cab piled with luggage!”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -cried Mrs. Lovelace-Legge, leaning eagerly from the -nursery window. “I can make out the Harries Line label -on the portmanteaux——”</p> - -<p>The second-best friend joined her at the casement.</p> - -<p>“One thing puzzles me,” she said, peering downward. -“Would a child of that age travel with gun-cases and a -bicycle?”</p> - -<p>“They may belong to a passenger friend who promised -to see the dear child delivered safely into my hands. Ah, -here is Simmons!”</p> - -<p>Simmons it was, with a salver and a card. He wore a -peculiar, rather wild expression, and his countenance was -flushed and somewhat swollen; perhaps with the effort of -climbing so many stairs. All three ladies hurried to -meet him.</p> - -<p>“He—it—the——”</p> - -<p>“<i>They</i> have arrived?” gasped little Mrs. Lovelace-Legge.</p> - -<p>Simmons bowed his head. His mistress could not -speak. She took the card without looking at it, and -turned away.</p> - -<p>“Show them up here!” commanded Lady Cranberry, -sympathetically comprehending Lotta’s emotion.</p> - -<p>“And pay the cabman,” added the second-best friend.</p> - -<p>Left together, the three women broke out into anticipatory -ejaculations:</p> - -<p>“The pet!”</p> - -<p>“The wumpsy!”</p> - -<p>“Will it be pretty?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I hope so! But even if it is not,” cried little Mrs. -Lovelace-Legge, clasping her hands, “I feel that I shall -love it. Ought we”—her eyebrows crumpled inquiringly—“ought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -we to give it a warm bath at once? Where is -Nurse?”</p> - -<p>Nurse and her understrapper appeared on the scene -with the young lady from the Kindergarten. Six eager -feminine heads were projected over the balusters of the -top landing as masculine footsteps creaked upon the -staircase, and a tall young man, dressed in a rough -yachting suit of blue serge, raised his eyes—a handsome -and ingenuous pair—and blushed under the salvo of -optical artillery which greeted his appearance. Behind -him followed a grizzled, middle-aged person, evidently a -soldier-servant in mufti.</p> - -<p>“I—I presume ...,” the young gentleman began, “I—I -have the honor....”</p> - -<p>“I am Mrs. Lovelace-Legge,” cried the charming -widow, craning forward, “and where—oh, where is the -baby?”</p> - -<p>The young man turned pale. “The—the baby?”</p> - -<p>“Haven’t you brought it?” cried all the ladies.</p> - -<p>Tears welled up in Mrs. Lovelace-Legge’s lovely eyes.</p> - -<p>“Don’t tell me it is dead!” she gasped. “Oh, if that -were true, how could I break the news to Julia and General -Carabyne?”</p> - -<p>“Madam,” stammered the young gentleman, “I am -the only son of General Carabyne—Dampierre Carabyne.” -He blushed again. “People usually call me -‘Dumps,’” he said, and broke off as all six women -screamed at once:</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">You! You the baby!</span>”</p> - -<p>And the nurses flung their clean cambric aprons over -their heads, and rushed in titters from the scene, as poor -little Mrs. Lovelace-Legge went into screaming hysterics -in the arms of her second-dearest friend.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>“It is all a ridi—a ridiculous misunderstanding!” -gasped Lady Cranberry, an hour later, as the recovered -hostess, her friends, and her newly-arrived guest sat together -in the drawing-room. “Let him see Mrs. Carabyne’s -letter, Lotta. Perhaps he will be able to—— No! -Better give it to me.” She mounted her gold eyeglasses -upon her aquiline nose, and conned the Runic -scroll a while. “We were misled,” she explained to the -young man, “principally by a reference to your nurse.”</p> - -<p>“Molloy <i>is</i> my nurse,” explained Mr. Dampierre Carabyne. -“He was one of the hospital orderlies at Calcutta, -and looked after me when I was ill. And the Pater -thought it best that he should valet me on the voyage, -being a useful, experienced kind of man.”</p> - -<p>“As to this illness you speak of?” said Lady Cranberry.</p> - -<p>“It happened six months ago....”</p> - -<p>“Ago! I see a glimmer,” said Lady Cranberry.</p> - -<p>“When I was thrown out of a bamboo-cart in which I -was driving a friend of mine—a very great friend.”</p> - -<p>Again the young man colored.</p> - -<p>“<i>The woman who had got hold of him</i>,” murmured -Lady Cranberry to herself. “And ‘<i>more than a little -child</i>’ means ‘<i>more than a little wild</i>.’ I should have -seen <i>that</i> in his eye without a hint from Mrs. Carabyne.”</p> - -<p>Thus, bit by bit, the determined lady translated Julia’s -letter, which ran as follows:</p> - -<p>“He was christened Dampierre (there is French blood -on the mother’s side); but everybody calls him ‘Dumps.’ -He has the sweetest nature, and splendid health until six -months ago, when he was thrown out of his bamboo-cart -with a woman who had got hold of him at the time—a -most dreadful creature—and sustained a severe concussion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -of the brain. (You will gather by this that the poor -dear is inclined to be more than a little wild.) Now the -doctors have positively ordered him home, and we have -not the least idea where to send him. In this dilemma -I thought of you. The General shakes his head, but I -have carried my point, and Dumps and his nurse sail by -the <i>Ramjowrah</i> next Thursday, and when arrived in London -will come straight to you. I have every faith in -your goodness of heart, and know that poor dear Dumps -could be placed in charge of no kinder friend.... He -is extremely affectionate.... From pursuits which ruin -many of the most promising young men in India (if you -have read Rudyard Kipling I need not be more definite) -we look to your gentle influence to wean him.”</p> - -<p>Lady Cranberry took off her <i>pince-nez</i> and refolded -the letter. As she did so she glanced toward the snug -nook by the fireplace, where the pretty widow, entrenched -behind the barricade of her afternoon tea-table, was -making but a feeble show of resistance to the raking fire -of Dumps’s handsome eyes. In such a mood such a -woman as Lady Cranberry shares a corner of the mantle -of the Prophets. It occurred to her that the infantile -Paradise upstairs might not, if all went merrily as marriage -bells, remain so very long untenanted.</p> - -<p>And, indeed, at the expiration of a twelvemonth from -that date Mrs. Dampierre Carabyne——</p> - -<p>Please see the left-hand top corner reserved in the -morning papers for these delicate and personal intimations.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">YVONNE</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In Two Parts</span></p> -</div> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">A MILE or so north of the fishy little Breton harbor -town of Paimpol, the hamlet of Pors Lanec is represented -by a scattered cluster of low-pitched, straggling -cottages built of gray granite boulders splashed with yellow -lichen, their thatch of furze and reeds or broom-bush -secured by lashings of rope, and heavy flagstones -from the fierce assaults of the western gales. One in -especial stands on an incline trending toward the beach, -below the level of the Paimpol road. Its rear wall is -formed by a low cliff against which it has been built, -and which, rearing some twenty feet above the level of -its shaggy brown roof, and throwing out a natural buttress -toward the sea, protects the poor dwelling from the -icy northern winds. Three uneven steps, worn by the -feet of generations of fisher-dwellers, lead to the door, -whose inner latch is lifted by a length of rope-yarn, -reeved through a hole. On each side of the door a window -has been hollowed out in the solid masonry of the -wall, and roughly glazed; and beneath the rude slate -ledge of each is a weather-beaten bench of drift-oak, -blackened by age and usage. The door standing open -gives a glimpse of the usual Breton interior, bunches of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -dried herbs, nets, and baskets depending from the blackened -rafters, carved sleeping-bunks set about the walls, -a few quaint pewter and copper flagons hanging on pegs -driven into the chimney, and reflecting the leaping blaze -of the pine and beechwood branches burning on the -hearth.</p> - -<p>I do not know who lives in Mademoiselle Yvonne’s -cottage now, but a year ago the western gale was churning -the gray sea into futile anger, and thrashing the -stunted bushes into a more bending shape. The sky was -somber as the sea, with eastward-hurrying drifts of slaty -cirrus, which separated to reveal pale, sun-washed sky-spaces, -and closed again, making the gloom seem deeper -than before.</p> - -<p>It was the eighth of December, the Feast of the -Immaculate Conception—the day of the Pardon des Islandais—and -the morning Angelus was ringing from the -storm-beaten little chapel on the heights above, where -nosegays of artificial flowers and strings of shells adorned -the image of Our Lady of Good Help, and white-capped -women, and rugged-faced, long-haired men knelt, rapt -and serious, on the sandy stone pavement. Others were -hurrying into Paimpol, where the streets were decorated -with white sheets bordered with holly and ivy leaves in -readiness for the procession. And a fine, icy rain was -driving before the wind, and Yvonne’s tables and chairs -stood out of doors while their owner beat and scrubbed -them vigorously with a birch-broom dipped in soap-suds.</p> - -<p>“She works upon the <i>fête</i> day, yes; but for all that she -is no heretic, the poor Yvonne,” a passer-by explained to -a companion—a stranger who showed surprise at the -unusual spectacle. “All days are alike to her—and Our -Lady understands.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>The speaker, a brown-faced, vigorous woman of fifty, -paused on the pathway, littered with brown trails of -slippery seaweed, and cried:</p> - -<p>“Hey! So you’re not going with us to Paimpol, -Mademoiselle Yvonne?”</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle Yvonne ceased flogging her table, and -turned her face toward the questioner. It was a full, -straight-featured, rather massive face, framed in the -shell-fluted cap worn by unmarried women. The brows -were broad, and from under the straight eyebrows looked -a pair of eyes that were blue and clear and candid as -those of the little boy who clung to the skirts of the -woman who addressed her. As she drew herself up, resting -on her birch-broom, it might be seen that she was -tall and deep-chested and broad-bosomed, and that the -massive plaits of hair coiled upon her temples were gray.</p> - -<p>“Going to Paimpol! Sure, it is impossible,” said -Mademoiselle Yvonne. “There is so much to do getting -the house ready.” A rich deep color flushed her cheeks, -staining her temples and tinting her full throat to the -edge of her bodice. “When one is to be married, Madame -understands——”</p> - -<p>“So then! You have heard?” cried the neighbor with -an elaborate pantomime of delight at the good news. -“You have had a letter from Iceland at last?”</p> - -<p>The clear blue eyes looked troubled for a moment.</p> - -<p>“No. Not that,” said Mademoiselle Yvonne. “Not -precisely a letter, but I have made out why the <i>Marie au -Secours</i> delays so long. You see, they must have had a -great catch at the cod-fisheries, and, being a man of -brains, my Yann set out to make the most of his good -luck. So the <i>Marie au Secours</i> will have merely touched -at Paimpol, and then sailed down to the Gulf of Gascony,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -where fish fetch high prices, or even to the Sandy Isles.” -One of her massive plaits, released by her vigorous -movements from the confining pin, uncoiled and fell -below her waist. “That is how it will have been, Madame -Pilot!” exclaimed Yvonne, smiling and coiling up the -beautiful hair.</p> - -<p>“Without doubt, that is how it will have been!” -assented the other.</p> - -<p>She drove her stout elbow into the ribs of the woman -who had whispered to her. “Not so loud! We people of -the coast have sharper ears than you folks from inland.”</p> - -<p>“When did he sail?”</p> - -<p>“Twenty years ago, when she was eighteen, and all -that gray hair gold.”</p> - -<p>“Pfui! There was a blast!”</p> - -<p>“We shall have to pick the wind’s bones all the way to -Paimpol. So good-day, Mademoiselle.... Gaos, run -and bid Mademoiselle Yvonne good-day.”</p> - -<p>Madame Pilot nudged the other woman again, as -much as to say: “Watch her with the child!”</p> - -<p>Gaos obediently quitted his mother’s skirts, and -Yvonne knelt down to kiss him. She whispered in the -child’s ear coaxingly, and, as he hesitated, watched the -innocent lips as though her fate in some inexplicable way -hung upon their utterance.</p> - -<p>“She always tries to get him to say it, and he never -will!” said Madame Pilot under her breath.</p> - -<p>“What?” mouthed the inland woman, with round, interested -eyes.</p> - -<p>The child spoke at that moment loudly and clearly.</p> - -<p>“He will come back to-day!”</p> - -<p>“Lord above! if he hasn’t said it!” cried Madame<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> -Pilot, and crossed herself under her ample cloak as the -boy came running to her.</p> - -<p>She caught his hand, and clattered on in her heavy -wooden shoes, fighting her way resolutely against the -wind, followed more slowly by the gaping inlander.</p> - -<p>“You rogue! You little villain!” she cried to the child -she dragged. “What made you say it?”</p> - -<p>“Be-be-cause—bub—bub—boo—because it’s true!” -roared Gaos, through angry sobs.</p> - -<p>His mother, with a hasty invocation of her patron -saint, dropped his hand, stopped where the beach-pathway -merged in the Paimpol road, and looked back. -Mademoiselle Yvonne was nowhere to be seen at first, -but presently her figure mounted into view climbing the -pathway to the chapel.</p> - -<p>“She has gone to burn a candle for her good news,” -said Madame Pilot. “Now which have I for a son ... -a liar or a prophet? If one were to mistake and smack -the prophet, it’s enough to bring a judgment down....” -She shook her head mournfully. “But it is to be -prayed for, all the same, that that great rogue Yann may -never come wheedling back. Drowned, did you suppose? -Dead? Not a bit of it!... He’s living on the fat of -the land in Ploubazou, where he landed his last cargo of -fish nineteen years ago, married a tavern-keeper’s daughter, -and set up a sailor’s drinking-house himself; ‘The -Chinese Cider Cellars,’ they call it. May Heaven punish -such vagabonds!” panted Madame Pilot. “As for us in -Pors Lanec, we’re peace-lovers and law-abiders, but there -are stones and cudgels waiting for Monsieur Yann Tregnier -whenever he shows his nose here.”</p> - -<p>Madame Pilot stopped, as a broad-shouldered young -man in a sailor’s cap and pilot-cloth jacket came tramping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -toward her along the puddly Paimpol road, whistling -a cheerful tune. He wore thick town-made brogues instead -of wooden <i>sabots</i>, and saluted the women in the -country fashion, though to him personally they were -unknown, and passed by, leaving the mother of the possible -prophet staring; for he was known to her as the -son of the Ploubazou tavern-keeper Yann Tregnier, -christened Jean-Marie after his mother’s father. He was -a well-looking, sturdy young fellow of eighteen, who -had always hankered to join the Icelanders, as the cod-trawlers -are called, and sail with the yearly fleet on the -last day of February for the big, dangerous fisheries in -the icy regions where the summers have no night. But -Yann, his father, would not hear of it, and Jean-Marie -had been apprenticed to a cooper in Paimpol. He had -grumbled, but his fate appeared less hard now that he -was in love with Gaud. Gaud lived with an aunt in the -village of Pors Lanec, a place Jean-Marie knew as yet -only by hearsay, since her parents lived in Paimpol, and -she had met her lover while upon a visit to them. Pors -Lanec lay by the beach a mile or two from Paimpol, -Gaud had told him. The cottage was built against a -great rock, the doorstep was the beach, and the sea the -duck-pond before the door; he could not fail to recognize -the place, Gaud had described it so clearly.</p> - -<p>Gaud was a little delicate creature, with hair of burning -gold hidden under her shell cap, and great violet-gray -eyes, full of possible adoration for any likely young -fellow who should come wooing to Pors Lanec, and the -likely young fellow had come along in the person of -Jean-Marie. And he had won her promise, and meant -to marry her and settle down to the cooper’s trade in -earnest. True, the girl was without a dower, and his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -father, with whom he had had a talk at Ploubazou last -Sunday, had pulled a long lip at that piece of information, -and he had said to the old man straight out: -“Either I get Gaud or go to sea!”</p> - -<p>“Either I get Gaud—or go to sea!” Jean-Marie repeated -now in the most deep and manly voice he had at -command. For the cottage built against the cliff had -come in sight, a dwelling so weather-worn and lichen-stained -that it might have been an excrescence upon the -side of the rock that sheltered it. “Either I get Gaud....” -Jean-Marie squared his shoulders, and marched -down upon the cottage where Gaud lived. As his firm -footsteps crossed the plateau of sandy rock that lay before -the cottage door he heard a cry from within, and -before he could lift a hand to the rope-yarn of the latch, -the door was pulled violently back, thrown open, and a -woman fell upon his breast with a sobbing shriek of joy.</p> - -<p>“Yann! Oh, my beloved, at last!”</p> - -<p>“Madame!” he stuttered.</p> - -<p>“Our Lady sent me word you would return to-day, and -even as I was upon my way to thank her for such grace, -I turned back thinking. ‘If he should come and miss -me!’”</p> - -<p>The wind blew shrilly; the sky grew black with storm. -Jean-Marie’s cheek was wet with rain or the woman’s -tears. He was conscious of a dizziness. It was as though -a web of some strange tissue were weaving in the chambers -of his brain, and the pattern grew more and more -familiar. The arms that clasped him were not those of -a stranger; the heart that throbbed upon his own had -rested there before. Even the cottage interior shown -through the low doorway was familiar, and the oaken<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -benches to right and left, had he not carved his name -on one of them, his and another’s?</p> - -<p>But even as these strange questions awakened in the -mind of the young man, he was thrust violently back, -and Yvonne was gazing, with still streaming eyes, at the -face of a stranger, while, partly hidden by the tall figure -of her aunt, appeared the little shrinking figure of -Mademoiselle Gaud!</p> - -<p>“Who is it?” asked Yvonne dully, without removing -her eyes from that unknown face of the man whose step -was like Yann’s.</p> - -<p>“I—I believe—I think—’tis Monsieur Jean-Marie,” -panted Gaud. “Sweet St. Agnes!” she prayed inwardly -to her patron saint, “make her not ask me his other -name! If she does I am sure I shall lie and say I do -not know; so, sweetest St. Agnes, preserve me from sinning!” -Next moment she breathed freely, for Yvonne -stepped aside, leaving the threshold free to the stranger.</p> - -<p>“Ask of his business, little one!” she said, without -looking at Gaud, “and let him know that he was mistaken -for one who has a right to be welcomed with open -arms.”</p> - -<p>She had a black woollen cloak loosely thrown about -her shoulders. She sat down upon the seat to the right -of the door, her elbow on her knee, her chin upon her -hand, the dark folds half concealing the noble outlines of -her form, her eyes fixed upon the most distant turn in -the Paimpol road.</p> - -<p>Jean-Marie was at liberty to proceed with his courting; -Yvonne seemed to hear and see him no longer. Only -as the lover grew gayer, and the clear laugh of Gaud -sounded in unison with his, a quiver passed over the -face of Yvonne. At twelve o’clock, when the dinner was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -ready, Gaud came dutifully to tell her. She only shook -her head, and the midday meal of salt fish, potatoes, and -cider was shared by the lovers.</p> - -<p>When the dishes were washed, Jean-Marie proposed a -stroll to the chapel on the cliff. Gaud, her pale cheeks -tipped with a little crimson, like the leaves of a daisy, -came to ask Yvonne’s permission.</p> - -<p>“My mother allowed him to visit us in Paimpol,” she -said meekly, flushing deeper as she remembered that she -had introduced him as Monsieur Jean-Marie, the cooper’s -apprentice, and that her mother knew nothing of his relationship -to the man who had used her Aunt Yvonne so -wickedly. Through the crystal of Gaud’s nature ran a -little streak of deceptiveness. Like all weak things, she -could be cunning where her love or her interest was concerned, -and what did it matter what Jean-Marie’s father -had done? she argued. He was not Jean-Marie. So she -and her sweetheart set out upon their walk, keeping a -decorous distance of at least six feet between them, and -swinging unoccupied hands that, when the path grew -narrow, would meet and cling. And Yvonne saw two -figures appear in the distance upon the Paimpol road, -neither of which caused her any emotion. Monsieur -Blandon, the Paimpol doctor, was hirpling out upon his -old white mare, to visit some of his Pors Lanec patients; -half an hour must elapse before he could dismount at -Yvonne’s door, the mare was so old and the road so -stony. She looked away, far out to sea, and watched a -tossing white sail upon the inky horizon, and with the -instinct of one bred by the sea knew that there would -be weather yet more stormy, for the seagulls and kittiwakes -were hurrying inland. Then a heavy pair of -wooden shoes clacked over the stones, and a vinous voice<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> -gave her “good-day.” It was one Piggou Moan, once a -smart young fisherman and avowed rival of Yann, now -the smuggler, the loafer, the drunkard of the hamlet.</p> - -<p>“A drop o’ cider, Mademoiselle Yvonne, for old friendship’s -sake and charity,” begged the toper. Yvonne -scarcely looked at him, but made a slight motion of her -hand toward the cottage door. With a slobbered blessing, -red-nosed, ragged Piggou lurched in, lucky in the -absence of Gaud, who would have found enough courage, -at need, to have driven him forth with a broomstick. He -reached a copper flagon from its peg, and went as if by -instinct to the cider-cask that stood by the great, carved -clothes-press. Minutes passed, and Piggou came out, -brighter of eye if redder of nose than when he entered, -wiping his dripping beard on his ragged sleeve.</p> - -<p>“It’s long since you and Piggou had a crack together, -Mademoiselle Yvonne—years it is, and years! I’m not -as fine a fellow as I used to be, though you’re a comely -figure of a woman still. Excuse the freedom, Mademoiselle!...”</p> - -<p>She looked at the drunkard with cold dislike, and -moved toward the farther end of the bench as his -liquored breath and flaming face came near her.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>Piggou took the movement of Yvonne toward the end -of the bench as an invitation, and sat down, as the -doctor, hidden by a bend in the road, hirpled nearer on -his old white mare.</p> - -<p>“I bear no malice,” the toper went on, “though, I take -the saints to witness, what I am I owe to you, Mademoiselle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -Yvonne—for being so handsome and so proud, for -giving me the back of your hand, and the whole of your -heart to Monsieur Yann Tregnier, who went away with -it and never came back.”</p> - -<p>“He is coming back!” said Yvonne quietly, her eyes -upon the most distant turn of the Paimpol road.</p> - -<p>Piggou chuckled drunkenly.</p> - -<p>“So you’ve said, Mademoiselle, for twenty years, since -the <i>Marie au Secours</i> sailed for Iceland, Captain Yann -aboard her.”</p> - -<p>She repeated: “He is coming back to-night!”</p> - -<p>Piggou leered drunkenly.</p> - -<p>“Come, my old gossip, my handsome Yvonne, don’t -play the fool with Daddy Piggou. You’re not so cracked -as you pretend to be, d’ye comprehend me? You know -this waiting game’s a farce. He, your Yann, won’t come -back; not because he’s dead, but because he’s alive. -Alive and married to Louet Kergueven, that he had an -eye on because of her dad’s money; and they’ve as many -children as peas in a pod—the eldest as fine a lad of -eighteen as ever trod in his father’s footsteps all the -ways to Pors Lanec. Didn’t I see him just now with that -little white cat, Mademoiselle Gaud....”</p> - -<p>The rest was strangled in the drunkard’s throat as -upon the whitewashed wall behind him fell the stout -shadow of Dr. Blandon, and the serviceable horn handle -of an old-fashioned hunting-crop wielded by an arm still -muscular hooked itself in Piggou’s cravat and plucked -him from his seat. He sprawled, spluttering oaths.</p> - -<p>“Begone, rascal! and if I ever hear of your trying this -again, I’ll poison you next time I catch you in hospital,” -foamed the doctor.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>“Why shouldn’t one tell the truth and shame the -devil!” grunted Piggou.</p> - -<p>“Would you like me to tell Messieurs les Douaniers at -the Paimpol Quay House the truth about those fine cod -you were carrying when I met you last month on the -road to Ploubazou? Ten whopping fellows, each with a -box of prime Habanas in his gullet, and every box -wrapped round in Spanish lace?... Be off with you!” -And, assisted by some additional impetus from the toe -of the doctor’s riding-boot, Piggou scrambled to his feet -and clattered away.</p> - -<p>Yvonne had not stirred while this little scene was -in action. Her elbow on her knee, her chin upon her -hand, she sat and watched that distant bend in the Paimpol -road as she had watched it, to quote Madame Pilot, -“when all that hair was gold.” Now she turned toward -the doctor, who was her good friend.</p> - -<p>“That is done with,” Monsieur Blandon pointed to the -ragged figure of the receding Piggou. “He knows what -he will get if he troubles you with his rubbish again. -And how is the heart, Mademoiselle? Those drops I left -last time.... You take them?”</p> - -<p>“I take them; but,” said Yvonne, her quiet eyes upon -the road, “they make my heart beat.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what they are for, Mademoiselle.”</p> - -<p>“They make my heart beat,” she said, “until night -and day, day and night, the beating seems like the sound -of footsteps coming to me along the road. Nearer and -nearer—louder and louder. Then they grow hesitating, -irregular, and stop. Stop, and then go back. And as -they become fainter in the distance, I seem to grow more -quiet and more cold.”</p> - -<p>Said the doctor, possessing himself of Yvonne’s wrist<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -and watching her as he counted the pulse-beats as intently -as she watched the road:</p> - -<p>“They are footsteps of one you know, Mademoiselle?”</p> - -<p>She turned on him those startlingly blue and brilliant -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Surely.... They are his!”</p> - -<p>The doctor had often met a tall man muffled in a great -country cape of frieze walking on the Paimpol road. -They had never exchanged words, scarcely even looks, -but the brass buttons in the back of Blandon’s old riding-coat -were eyes, and he had observed how the walker -turned back before reaching that last bend from which -the cottage could be plainly seen.</p> - -<p>“His evil conscience keeps him restless—or he loves -her still, though he bartered her love for a tavern and a -scolding wife,” the Doctor thought, noting, without seeming -to do so, the changes time had made in the bold, -handsome face and giant frame of Captain Yann Tregnier, -late of the <i>Maria au Secours</i>, now landlord of the -Chinese Cider Cellars at Ploubazou. “But to set foot in -Pors Lanec he will not dare. The men and women would -rise up and stone him out of the village.”</p> - -<p>And Monsieur Blandon bade Yvonne adieu, and turned -up his collar and got upon his shambling old white horse -to ride back to Paimpol.</p> - -<p>Yvonne sat where he had left her. The early winter -evening was closing in. The wind had fallen, and the sea -had gone down; only it breathed from time to time like a -sleeping monster of the diluvian age. Through the black -curtains of the sky some pale stars looked forth, and -white spectral clouds, in shapes appalling to the sense, -pursued a flying moon. The lovers had not returned, the -hearth-fire was dying out. Guessing at this, Yvonne<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> -bestirred herself to go within and feed it with fresh -branches. The fading flame wakened again; she turned -toward the door, and as she did so the step for which -she had waited twenty years crashed over the gravel, -sounded on the stone plateau before the cottage, and the -figure of a man—massive, almost a giant in height and -breadth, his great proportions increased in bulk by a -heavy cape of the country frieze—filled up the doorway.</p> - -<p>It had come—the moment for which she had waited -through the years. She did not scream and fall upon his -neck; he made no movement toward her. Only he pulled -his rough cap from his head with a deference that had -awe in it, and fear, and his heavy black curls, grizzled -now, fell over the brow that was lined and rugged, and -the eyes that were no longer bright with youth and hope, -but bleared with a dull, sordid life and much strong -drink, and the hopeless outlook on a life that was bare -of all joy.</p> - -<p>“Yann! My love ... Yann! You have come back -to me at last!”</p> - -<p>The words were not uttered in a cry, but almost whispered. -As the light of love and joy kindled in her eyes -she became young once more. Her arms swept out to -clasp him and found him not, for he had sunk down upon -his knees; but he clutched her apron and drew her to -him, and broke into hoarse, uncouth weeping, his head -hidden against her, his arms clasping her, her love and -pity overshadowing him like an angel’s wings.</p> - -<p>“He weeps for joy!” she thought, whereas he wept for -shame; but had she known the truth she would still have -comforted him. After a while he grew calmer, and they -went out together into a night suddenly become beautiful -and glorious with stars—or it seemed so to Yvonne—and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> -sat together on the bench beneath the window, cheek to -cheek and arms entwined, and she poured out her brimming -heart to him. How she had waited, she told. -Patiently, hoping always, loving him always, never despairing, -sure of his return. Had he been dead she -would have known it. But in the absence of the warning -that never fails to come—the midnight wail beneath -the window, the midnight knock upon the door or -window-pane, given by no hand of mortal flesh—she had -remained quite certain that he was alive. Had she not -been right in guessing that the <i>Marie au Secours</i> had -only touched at Paimpol and sailed down into the Gulf -of Gascony, or even to Bayonne, to sell her cargo of salt -cod?</p> - -<p>“Ay. ’Twas as you thought, Yvonne!” he answered.</p> - -<p>“And you sold well?”</p> - -<p>“Ay!” he answered again. Truly, he had sold well, -more than his fish. Honor and love, both had gone into -the scales against the dowry of the tavern-keeper’s scolding -wife, a houseful of children—a sordid existence -flavored with the fumes of stale drink and stale tobacco, -a few bags of dirty five-franc pieces stowed away in a -safe hiding-place, for the Breton is a hoarder by instinct, -and distrusts the Bank of France: for these rags and -fardels he had bartered Yvonne. He was dully conscious -of such thoughts as these even as he was conscious of -the joy of being near her. Coarse-fibered as he was, this, -the one pure passion of his life, revived in all its old -strength at the clasp of Yvonne’s hands and the meeting -of their eyes. He began to believe that the desire to -be near her once more again had brought him to Pors -Lanec. Perhaps he was right, but the motive, he had -admitted to himself, was mean and sordid. He wished<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> -to bring about a rupture between Jean-Marie and Gaud. -The girl was penniless; Jean-Marie a love-sick young -fool. Besides, his wife would never consent to a union -of their families; she had never ceased to be jealous of -the sweetheart to whom Yann had played false. “You -threw her over for my money, rogue that you are!” she -would say to him, when red wine dashed with cider had -made her quarrelsome.</p> - -<p>The night drew on. Drifting clouds no longer obscured -the faces of the stars; the December night might, -for mildness, have been May, or so it seemed to Yann -and to Yvonne. There was a fragrance in the air like -hawthorn, and the shrill chirping of a cricket rose from -the glowing hearth in the darkened room behind them.</p> - -<p>The lovers found few words to utter, but their silence -was eloquent; the air they breathed in unison seemed the -revivifying essence of joyous life. Yann yielded to the -exquisite intoxication. In the glamour of that meeting he -was young again, clean of heart and soul, looking forward -to their wedding day with the eagerness of a true -lover. He found himself replying in low, eager tones to -Yvonne’s questions.... No, he would not sail for Iceland -in February as a bachelor; they must get married -before the Blessing of the Boats. The official papers -must be filled and signed, the banns put up ... there -would be a honeymoon for Yann and Yvonne before the -<i>Marie au Secours</i> (poor old vessel, long ago cast up in -driftwood on the shores of Iceland) should set sail.</p> - -<p>“Ay, indeed, my love, we have waited long enough!” -he said.</p> - -<p>Yvonne laughed, a low melodious laugh of happiness, -and owned that the wedding dress, handsomely made and -trimmed with broad bands of velvet, just as he liked best—had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -been ready a long time. She took him back to her -pure heart, without a word, without a question.... -He had been long in coming, but he had come at last, -and she was utterly content. He drew her into his strong -embrace, and she laid her head on his great shoulder with -the sigh of a child that is weary with too much bliss. His -arm encircled her; both her hands, clasped together, -rested in his large palm. Sleep came to her, and peace; -even the breath that at first had fluttered fitfully beneath -his cheek could be felt no more. And the night -wore on apace, and the glamour fell from him, little by -little, and he was again the landlord of the Chinese -Cider Cellars, with a scolding wife, and an obstinate -whelp of a son, mad to marry a penniless little draggle-tail. -Ay, he could speak now, and he would! He unwound -his arm from the waist of Yvonne and withdrew -the support of his rough palm from her clasped hands, -and as he did so a long faint sigh escaped her and her -head fell back against the whitewashed wall. Ay, he -could speak, and did!</p> - -<p>“Lord knows what nonsense we have been talking, -you and me.... Something bewitched me.... The -fine night or the sight of the old place. In truth, Yvonne, -you know as well as I do that I’m a married man; that -cat must ha’ got out of the bag long ago. And hearing -that you never would believe I’d played fast and loose -with ye made me a bit shamefaced, hence we never have -clapped eyes on one another until now, Yvonne. Though -my young cub has been hanging about here after the girl -Gaud—threatening me with going to sea if she’s denied -him—and seeing as she hasn’t a sou of dowry, I look to -you to stop that foolery. For my good woman at home....<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> -I’ll own her a bit of a Tartar, and, to tell ye the -truth, Yvonne——”</p> - -<p>“Father!” said Jean-Marie, stepping forward out of -the darkness, the dimly-seen, shrinking figure of Gaud -behind him.</p> - -<p>Yann rose up, threatening and formidable, his clenched -fist ready to strike. Gaud cried out in fear; but Yvonne, -the silvery moonlight filling the hollows of her quiet eyes -and resting in the curves of her white cheeks, and kissing -her closed, patient lips into the semblance of a smile, -never stirred. The night wind played with a little lock -of hair escaping from the edge of her shell-fluted cap, and -her bosom neither rose nor fell.</p> - -<p>“Pretty goings on.... Look here, you cub!” Yann -was beginning, but his son’s eyes looked past his at the -placid face of the sleeper on the bench, and the fear and -awe in them were not inspired by his father. Yann -looked round then, and a hoarse cry broke from him.</p> - -<p>“Speak to her,” whispered Jean-Marie, and Gaud -tremblingly touched Yvonne’s clasped hands. They were -cold as the smiling lips and the sealed eyes on which -rested the white peace that is the kiss of Death.</p> - -<p>The cricket chirped within the cottage, and the deep -slumbrous breathing of the sea came from beyond a curtain -of chill white mist. Yvonne’s long time of waiting -had ended at last.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE DELUSION OF MRS. DONOHOE</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In Two Parts</span></p> -</div> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT was in the spring of 19— that the Dapple Grays -returned from South Africa, covered with wounds, -glory, boils, and khaki, this last presenting many solutions -of continuity. One finds the arrival of H. M. -troopship <i>Paradise</i> at Porthampton Dockyard referred -to in the newspapers bearing the date of that occurrence -as an event calculated to awaken emotions of gratitude -and enthusiasm in the bosom of every Briton. An illuminated -address was presented to the Chief by the -Mayor and Corporation of the borough, and the Dapple -Grays were subsequently entertained, the Colonel and -officers to a banquet, and the rank and file to a blowout.</p> - -<p>“You return to us, Captain,” the Mayor is reported to -have said in a complimentary rider addressed to the -commanding officer of the <i>Paradise</i>, “with a freight of -heroes.”</p> - -<p>“A freight of devils, sir!” the Captain remarked in -loud-toned confidence to the neighbor on his left. “If -the Admiralty had any sense of humor—or any sense of -fitness, by George!—the name of the ship would have -been changed before we sailed. But the <i>Paradise</i> has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -seemed almost like one, sir, since we disembarked ’em, -and that’s a fact. What’s the next toast on the list, did -you ask? ‘The united healths of the two regimental -V. C.’s, Captain the Hon. Gerald Garthside and Private -Dancey Juxon.’”</p> - -<p>“What were the special acts of gallantry, do you—ah!—happen -to—ah!—remember?” asked the Captain’s left-hand -neighbor (a pompous local magnate), “for which -the Cross has been—ah!—conferred?”</p> - -<p>“Usual thing. Garthside—that’s Garthside, on the -Mayor’s left hand, trying to look modest, and succeedin’ -uncommon badly—Garthside rode from Mealiekloof to -Blitzfontein with despatches for the Brigadier, peppered -by Cronje’s outposts from overlooking ground nearly the -whole distance. Juxon was cut off while out on scout -with a detachment, and got away from twenty Boers with -his officer on the crupper. Young Bogle, next-of-kin to -Lord Baverstone, died before Juxon got back to the regiment, -chipped in too many places for recovery! Better -off if he’d been left behind, do you say? Probably—probably. -But Juxon has the V. C., and they’re bringin’ -him in to hear his health proposed.... Fine-lookin’ -young Tommy, isn’t he? Looks quiet and well-behaved, -you think? Ah, you ought to have been with us on the -voyage from the Cape. The evil genius of the lower -troop-deck, and that’s facts. Ringleader in every act -of insubordination, up to all sorts of devilment, a black -sheep, sir, a black—hip, hip, hurray! For he’s a -jolly——”</p> - -<p>“And so,” said the Colonel of the Dapple Grays to his -Senior Major, a few weeks later, when the regiment had -shaken down in its old barracks at Studminster; when its -feminine complement had rejoined it; when wives once<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -more “upon the strength” were washing the tattered -remains of shirts which had seen more service than soap-suds, -and husbands were employing eloquence in the -effort to convince civilian visitors to the canteen that, -despite the solemn warning recently issued from the most -authoritative quarters, to treat the newly-convalescent -enteric patient to beer or ardent spirits is to accelerate -and not to retard his return to perfect health—— “And -so it’s a settled thing, the engagement between your little -girl and Garthside? Affair not jumped up in a hurry? -Began a year before the regiment was ordered to the -Front? Of course. My wife saw the attachment growing -between ’em, and helped it on, she tells me. Every -married woman’s a match-maker, you know—don’t you -know—whether she’s put her own private pot on a bit -of good blood, with temper and stayin’ power and so -forth, or a dee-d confounded showy screw. And your -little girl, not having a level-headed mother of her own -alive to look after her!... Deucedly raw weather, you -know, don’t you know!”</p> - -<p>Sir Alured broke off, anticipating rather than seeing -the gray change in Major Rufford’s face, and remembering -that the handsome wife, who had died when -Emmie was a hoyden of thirteen, had signalized the close -of her career upon earth as Major Rufford’s wife and -the mother of his children by an act of desperate folly. -But the Senior Major’s wounds had been cicatrized by -the great healer Time, and he looked back quietly enough -as the Colonel cleared his throat with unnecessary violence, -and twisted the great moustache that had been -iron-gray and was now snow-white.</p> - -<p>“Lady Gassiloe has been very kind, and Emmie doesn’t -forget how much she owes her. And there’s the right<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> -stuff in Garthside; I can trust him to make my little girl -a good husband. It’s odd, when one comes to think of -it, that our other Victoria Cross man is going to be married, -and to Emmie’s foster-sister, Peggy Donohoe.”</p> - -<p>“The deuce!” said Sir Alured. “Is that dee-d young -scoundrel, Juxon, going to settle down? Seems too good -to be true. Why, the old <i>Paradise</i> was hell when Juxon -wasn’t in the cells. Nearest approach to a rhyme I ever -made in my life, by George! But Juxon’s character apart -it’s not a bad match. The young blackguard has plenty -of good looks, and Peggy’s as pretty a girl as you may -see, look high or low. And she thinks Juxon a <i>proo -shevally</i> with his V. C.; and so do poor Bogle’s people, -and so do the public, by Jove! You should have heard -him when he reported himself.... ‘<i>What did you -mean, you dee-d idiot</i>,’ I asked him, ‘<i>by picking up a -man who’d had the top of his head shot clean off, and -couldn’t live five minutes? D’ye call that philanthropy? -In my opinion it’s dee-d foolery!</i>’ ‘Beggin’ your pardon, -Colonel, sir!’ says Juxon, ‘I calls it precaution. When I -’oisted Mr. Bogle up be’ind me, I see’d ’e’d ’ad ’is gruel, -an’ the last breath went out of ’im before old ’Andsome-Is—that’s -wot I calls that ’ere spavined gray o’ -mine—’ad got into ’is stride. But the bullets was ’ummin’ -round me like ’ornets, an’ pore Mr. Bogle, lyin’ as -’e wos acrost my ’ams, drawed fire an’ furnished cover.’ -Furnished cover! The cool young beggar fortifies his -rear with the next in succession to one of the oldest -peerages in the United Kingdom, gets mentioned in despatches, -and receives his V. C.! Too dee-d funny, you -know, don’t you know!”</p> - -<p>And Sir Alured mixed a brandy and soda, and chose -an enormous cigar from a case resembling a young Gladstone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> -bag. The conversation took place in a curious -ground-glass hutch, sacred to the inner mysteries of Official -business, and labeled “Private.” And as the second -in command charged and kindled a meerschaum of incredible -age and foulness, there came a knock at the -door.</p> - -<p>“C’min!” barked the Chief over the rim of the tilted -tumbler, and the regimental Doctor looked round the -door. “Oh! it’s you, Assassin!” he said, as he wiped the -froth off the great white moustache. “How many exenterics -have you kicked out of the convalescent ward -this morning?”</p> - -<p>“Three,” said the Assassin—“Denver, Moriarty, and -Jarman. Garthside’s lambs all.”</p> - -<p>“And dee-d malingerers, in my opinion!” said Sir Alured.</p> - -<p>“I’m with you there, sir,” responded the Assassin with -a twinkle. Then he relapsed into professional gravity, -and said as he accepted a cigar and a peg, “There are one -or two bad cases of relapse, I’m sorry to say—as the result -of incautious indulgence in alcoholic beverages.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, of course!” growled Sir Alured. “When a -man with a granulated stomach uses the organ as a receptacle -for whisky, beer, and gin, contributed in unlimited -quantities by admirin’ friends, he oughtn’t to be surprised -when he finds himself drivin’ to the cemetery on -a gun carriage to the tune of the Dead March in <i>Saul</i>, -with his boots following as chief mourners. Stands to -reason!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t anticipate any serious results, except in the -case of Sergeant Donohoe,” the Assassin said, with a -worried look in his usually cheerful countenance.</p> - -<p>“Donohoe down again. Poor devil! I’m sorry to hear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -it!” The Chief tugged at the ends of the great white -moustache and looked grave.</p> - -<p>“Only yesterday,” said the Senior Major, “I thought -him looking about as fit as a man needs to be. He told -me about Juxon’s engagement to his daughter, and went -off as pleased as Punch——”</p> - -<p>“To drink their healths,” interpolated the Assassin.</p> - -<p>“Hah! That’s about it,” grumbled the Chief. “Well, -I shall go round and look Donohoe up presently. Can’t -afford to lose my Senior Color-Sergeant, you know, don’t -you know!” Sir Alured frowned savagely, and cleared -his throat with ominous vigor.</p> - -<p>“You’ll find him pretty low down,” said the Assassin, -“and I fancy Father Haggarty will be on duty. They’d -sent for him before I came away.”</p> - -<p>“Is it as bad as that?” said the Senior Major, and -there was a moment’s silence, broken by a clinking step -on the stone flags outside and a respectful knock on the -glass door.</p> - -<p>“A ’ospital horderly, sir,” said the passage orderly to -Major Rufford, “with Color-Sergeant Donohoe’s respectful -duty, and would you mind the trouble of steppin’ -over and hearin’ somethin’, sir, wot ’e ’as to say? It’s -Ward C., and a case of perforation—and, beggin’ your -pardon, sir, there ain’t much time to lose.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I’ll come! Say, at once!” Major Rufford -lumbered up out of his chair, emptied the office kitten -out of his undress cap, took his cane, which the office -puppy had been chewing, and went.</p> - -<p>“Donohoe’s wife was Rufford’s girl’s foster-mother, you -know, don’t you know!” said Sir Alured. “There’s not -more than a month’s difference between Peggy Donohoe -and Emmie Rufford in age. When they were babies I’ve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> -seen ’em sleepin’ in the same cradle; and dee me if I -knew which of ’em was which, though I suppose their -mothers did. Not that Rufford’s poor wife was over and -above devoted to her babies. Odd now if the little beggars -had got mixed up somehow, and Donohoe had sent -for Rufford with the object of easin’ his conscience before -he gave up the number of his mess.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, that’s all Gilbert and Sullivan!” said the Assassin, -getting up. “Such things don’t happen in real life, -Colonel, and I’m going back to the hospital.”</p> - -<p>“You think not? Differ with you there. Walk over -with you, if you’ve no objection.” And the Chief and -the Assassin followed in the wake of Major Rufford, who -had only a moment before received point-blank and at -short range from Sergeant Donohoe’s puffy blue lips—parted -for easier passage of the slow, painful breaths -that were taken with such agony—the second overwhelming -surprise of his life.</p> - -<p>For Sir Alured’s stray shot had registered a bull’s-eye. -Donohoe, conscious that the grim messenger who had -beckoned and passed by so many times—under the -heights of Jagai, in the clammy Burmese hill jungles, -amid the muddy swamps of West Africa, or the karroo -scrub or grass veldt of the South—meant business on -this occasion—had given up the secret less hidden than -forgotten for many years. Many years since, according -to her own confession, faltered out to the Sergeant upon -her dying bed, the pretty young wife of Private Donohoe, -urged by the promptings of motherly love, or incited, -as Father Haggarty would have said, by the temptation -of the Devil, arrayed her own nursling in the long-tailed -cambric robe with insertion of Valenciennes, -properly appertaining to the foster-babe; enduing the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> -said foster-babe, namely Emmeline, infant daughter of -Captain and Mrs. Rufford, not only with the abbreviated -cotton frock which was the birthright of a Donohoe, but -with all the privileges appertaining to a daughter of the -rank and file; including a share in the Christmas tree -and bran-pie diversions annually given under the patronage -of the Colonel’s wife and other ladies of the Regiment—including -her own mother.</p> - -<p>“Don’t say it, Donohoe,” pleaded the bewildered Major, -sitting on the foot of Donohoe’s cot-bed, holding the -rigid hand, and shaken by the throes that were rending -the Sergeant’s soul from the Sergeant’s body. “It’s an -idea you’ve got into your head—nothing more! She—your -wife—never changed the babies.... For God’s -sake, man, say you know she didn’t!”</p> - -<p>But Father Haggarty’s kindly, pitying look had in it -knowledge, religiously kept sacred, now freed by voluntary -confession from the sacramental seal. He held the -Crucifix to Donohoe’s livid lips, and they moved, and a -living voice came forth as from a sepulchre:</p> - -<p>“She did ut. Sure enough she did ut; but for the right -rayson why, sorr, I’m yet asthray. For wan thing—herself -was a poor hard-workin’ woman—an’ the choild -would be wan if ut lived. ’Twas ten years she carried -the saycret—a mortial weight for a wake crayture, an’ a -Prodesdan’ at that, wid no relief av clargy—and it wore -her to the grave. On her dyin’ bed she confessed ut to -me. I had my thoughts av makin’ a clane breast, and -then—wurra! ’twas the divil at my elbow biddin’ me -whisht or I’d lose my Peggy that was the pride av me -eyes an’ the joy av me harrut. An’ I held off from Father -Haggarty, till I could hould no longer. That was -six Aysthers back; and—‘Tell the truth,’ says his Reverence,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> -‘or you’ll get no more of an absolution from me, -me fine man, than Micky-would-you-taste-it?’ An’ at -that I stiffened me upper lips an’ riz from me marra -bones an’ wint me way. But the Hand is on me now, -an’ I’ve made my paice wid Thim above; an’ I’d be glad -you’d send for my Peggy to be afther biddin’ her ould -dada good-bye—more by token she’s your Miss Emmeline -by rights, and not my purty Peggy at all, at all!”</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>Miss Margaret Donohoe—popularly known in the -regiment as “Peggy,” and, as it will be remembered, betrothed -to Private Dancey Juxon, V. C.—Miss Margaret -Donohoe was not summoned to the bedside of her -hitherto-reputed father in time to hear from his own -lips the secret of her birth. She was trimming an old -hat with new crape for mourning exigencies, the day -after the Sergeant had been consigned with the usual -military honors to the Catholic division of the cemetery, -when heavy footsteps sounded in the flagged passage -of the Married Quarters, and the Colonel and the -Senior Major, both visibly disturbed, walked into Donohoe’s -clean sanded kitchen, and, in as few words as possible, -broke the news.</p> - -<p>“It’s a terrible shock to you, my poor girl—as it has -been to me!” said the Major, very white about the gills. -“And to—to another I needn’t name!” He was thinking -of his Emmie, and how piteously she had sobbed last -night and hung about his neck, with her pretty hair all -coming down over his mess waistcoat, as she begged him -not to send her away from him, because it wasn’t her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -fault that she had turned out to be Donohoe’s daughter -and not his own; and how at that moment she was -breaking the news to Garthside—that Junior Captain -and Victoria Cross hero to whom, it will be remembered, -she was engaged. Poor Emmie, poor darling Emmie!—or -Peggy, as she ought now to be called! Major Rufford -felt that he never would be able to do it. “But—I’ll -try and do my duty to you as your father should, -and—I must look to you to—to do as much by me!” -he concluded lamely.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Major!” cried Peggy—Peggy with the hard, -bright, black eyes, the red lips, the tip-tilted nose, the -Milesian upper lip, and the coarse but plenteous mane of -dark brown hair liberally “banged” in front and arranged -behind in massive rope coils, secured by hairpins -of imitation tortoiseshell as long as the farrier’s pincers. -“Oh, Major! can you ax it? Sure I’ll thrate you as dacent -as ever I did him that’s gone, an’ the Colonel hears -me say it!...”</p> - -<p>She checked the inclination to weep for one who was, -all said and done, no relation, and put her crackling six-penny-three-farthings -black-bordered handkerchief back -in her pocket with an air of resolution. A flood of new -ideas inundated her brain. All that she had ever -dreamed of in the way of the unattainable lay hence-forth -within her reach, and everything that had hitherto -appeared most desirable and possible was from this bewildering -hour rendered impossible. Her eyes fell on -Private Dancey Juxon, V. C., who had been sitting on -the kitchen table when the tall shadow of Sir Alured -fell upon the sanded floor, and who had remained, from -that moment until this, petrified in an attitude of military -respect, against the whitewashed wall; and she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> -realized that Dancey—Dancey, the Adonis of the rank -and file, the hero once desired above all others, wrested -at the expense of the most costly and variegated hats -and the most dazzling toilettes from the clutches of how -many other women!—Dancey must now be numbered -among the impossibles. If a cold dash of regret mingled -with the inward exultation of Miss Peggy, it was excusable.</p> - -<p>“Sure, the dear knows! ’Tis like a tale out av the -<i>Pinny Romancir</i>,” she said, “an’ troth it’s no wondher -av my breath was tuk away wid the surprise. To think -of that bould craythur, Donohoe’s wife!——”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean your mother, my girl?” began the Colonel, -but Peggy gave Sir Alured a look that put him in -his place.</p> - -<p>“I mane the woman that changed me in me cradle, -bad cess to her for a thrickster!” said Peggy, “an’ put -her own sojer’s brat in the place av me—me that belonged -to the Quality by rights. Not that I’m not pityin’ -Miss Emmeline—now that she’s Peggy Donohoe, a poor -craythur sprung from nothin’.” The Major turned a -groan into a cough, and the Colonel hauled at the ends of -his huge white moustache, but the tide of Peggy’s brogue -was not to be stemmed. “It’ll be a change for her, it -will so, afther livin’ on the fat av the land—an orphan’s -pinsion to find her in stirabout, an’ never a chick nor a -child in the woide wurruld but her ould Aunt Biddy Kinsella!”</p> - -<p>“Who—haw!—is Biddy Kinsella?” broke in the Colonel.</p> - -<p>“Av’ she’s alive—an’ a bag av dhry bones she must be -av she is,” says Peggy—“it’s at Carricknaclee, in Aher, -you may find her. She used to live wid her niece—manin’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> -Mrs. Donohoe—an’ she wint back to Ireland -whin me mother died—manin’ Mrs. Donohoe agin—a -matter av eight years ago. An’ ’tis natural Donohoe’s -daughter would call her to mind at a time like this. -Maybe the young woman would go to live wid her,” -continued Miss Peggy calmly. “An’ that brings to me -own mind, Major—I mane Papa—whin do ye want me -to come home?”</p> - -<p>“Home! Oh, Lord!” said the poor Major, before he -could stop himself.</p> - -<p>“Dee-d cool!” growled Sir Alured, under the huge -moustache, squeezing the Major’s arm with his great, -gaunt, brown hand. “But she’s got the right—got the -right, Rufford, you know, don’t you know. Ha—hum!”</p> - -<p>“You shall hear from me soon—very soon, Peggy,” -said the Major brokenly. “Good-bye for now, my girl.” -He took her coarse red hand, so unlike his Emmie’s, and -kissed her equally red cheek; and as he did so the petrified -Juxon recovered the temporarily suspended powers -of speech and motion, stepped forward, and saluted.</p> - -<p>“Beg pardon, gentlemen,” he began, “and pre-’aps I -oughtn’t to take the freedom; but ’avin’ over’eard....”</p> - -<p>“Saw you, Juxon! Knew you were there! Thought -you had a right to hear, you know, don’t you know!” -said Sir Alured.</p> - -<p>But a shrill feminine note of indignation pierced the -Colonel’s bass, as Miss Peggy cried, “Right! I’d be glad -you’d tell me what right you have, Misther Dancey -Juxon, to be afther pokin’ the nose av you into business -that doesn’t consarn you, let alone the privit affairs av -an officer’s daughther. Away wid you, an’ larn your -place! your room’s more welcome than your company; -an’ if it’s a wife you’re lookin’ afther, maybe when wan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> -av thim that’s av your own station stands up before the -priest wid you, I’ll be making you a little prisint toward -the housekeepin’, av the young woman’s dacent an’ respictable!”</p> - -<p>And the bewildered Juxon found himself outside the -black-painted door—marked III. in large white numerals—in -the character of a lover dismissed.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m blowed!” he said, and said no more, but -clinked away in search of the Lethean streams of the -canteen.</p> - -<p>“Rufford,” said Sir Alured solemnly, as the Chief and -the second in command exchanged the atmosphere of -coals and potato peels prevailing in the Married Quarters -for the open air of the barrack square, “I’m confoundedly -afraid she’s a Tartar! Sharp as a needle, sir, -and knowing as a pet fox, if you ask me!”</p> - -<p>And the Major said in reply, “These things are supposed -to be hereditary. I wonder where she gets it -from!” Then he broke out, “I can’t believe it, Colonel! -I couldn’t, if fifty dying men had taken an oath to it. -That my poor Clara’s girl! It’s impossible! If an angel -were to come down from Headquarters Above, with despatches -confirming the report, I couldn’t credit it!”</p> - -<p>“And dee-d if I should blame you,” the Chief responded. -“Breed’s bound to show, somewhere, and -there’s not a drop of good blood in the girl’s veins, I’ll -swear!”</p> - -<p>“There’s an Irish strain in my family, too,” said poor -Rufford despondently, “and my Emmie has brown hair -and eyes; and her nose, bless it! is a little tilted at the -end.”</p> - -<p>“<i>A nay retroussy.</i> So it is, by George! But there are -noses and noses, y’know,” said Sir Alured. “And Emmie’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> -a Rufford, from the crown of her head to the ends -of her toes; and we’ll prove it, we’ll prove it, sir! Donohoe -hasn’t a leg to stand on”—which was true—“and as -to that Mullingar heifer”—thus the Chief designated -Peggy—“she’ll be sorry one day for throwing Juxon over, -mark my words. Send for that old aunt of Donohoe’s -dead wife—the bag of bones Peggy talked of—and pump -her for all she’s worth. Turn her inside out!—it’s the -only advice I can give you, for my head’s in as dee-d -a muddle as yours. And remember, whatever happens, -my Lady is staunch to Emmie! Game woman, my -Lady. Doesn’t care a dee what society says, as long -as—— God bless me, Rufford! I’m talkin’ as though -Emmie wasn’t your daughter. But the whole thing’s infernally -confusin’, you know, don’t you know!”</p> - -<p>An opinion in which the regiment concurred. An excited -beehive would have furnished but a poor comparison -to the barracks upon the morrow, when Peggy’s great -news, imparted in ostentatious secrecy to Mrs. Quartermaster -Casey and a few other non-commissioned officers’ -ladies, had percolated through them. Visitors thronged -the Donohoes’ quarters; Peggy was the heroine of the -hour. Press reporters from the town hung about the -barracks on the chance of seeing either of the heroines -of what was termed in the local paper “An Extraordinary -Romance in Real Life,” and the officers’ wives -called in a body to condole with Emmie Rufford, who, -as we have heard, had broken off her engagement with -Captain Gerry Garthside.</p> - -<p>“I shall not break my heart over things,” she had said, -with an attempt at being everyday and common-sensible -that was plucky, if not convincing, “and I hope you -won’t dwell too much upon the collapse of our house of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> -cards. I hope—I pray you’ll build more solidly, with—with -somebody else. Don’t, Gerry! Oh, don’t! It’s not -fair to make my duty harder to do than——”</p> - -<p>Then Emmie had broken down, wept wildly, been -kissed, consoled, and assured of her lover’s undying love -and eternal fidelity. Part? Never! Lose such a pearl -of a wife! Not for all the Donohoes past, present, or to -come! I believe, in spite of Emmie’s woe and Captain -Gerry Garthside’s agitation, the young people secretly -enjoyed the scene dramatic; and when Lady Alured -came rustling in, about the time when Gerry’s eloquence -attained its utmost pitch of fervor, and hugged and cried -over the hero and heroine of the little drama, that dear -woman was not the least happy of the three.</p> - -<p>And later on, after returning to quarters, Captain -Garthside found a letter on his doormat. The contents -of the soiled envelope, directed in a sprawling hand, ran -as follows:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">Door No. 3, Ground floor, Block Q.</span></p> - -<p>“Miss E. Rufford presents comps And wold be Glad -to see Cap Garthside & if Yu will call at 2 remane</p> - -<p class="right"> -“Your Oblidged      <br> - -“<span class="smcap">E. Ruffor</span>”</p> -</div></div> - -<p>Of course the Captain knew Peggy Donohoe; had -danced with her at non-commissioned officers’ balls; -given her gloves and chocolates, and sipped the roses of -her cheek in common with many another passing admirer. -“And who’d be the worse of a kiss,” as Peggy -would have said, “from a dacent girl?” “Dacent” she -undoubtedly was, if not from pure innate virtue, perhaps -from the consciousness that a depreciation in marketable -value attaches to goods that have been soiled by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -handling. Had it been otherwise, the state of Major -Rufford had been less gracious, thought Captain Gerry -Garthside.</p> - -<p>And he looked at Emmie’s photograph standing in a -silver frame upon his mantelshelf, and remembered the -piteous smile with which she had told him that everything -must now be over between them, and mentally renewed -his vows of fealty before he went round to “look -up Peggy.”</p> - -<p>The rooms occupied by the late Sergeant Donohoe -were three—a kitchen and two bedchambers. One of -these latter, Peggy, with the assistance of Mrs. Quartermaster -Casey, a dozen yards of cheap Liberty muslin, a -gross of Japanese fans, one or two pieces of Oriental -drapery, and a few articles of furniture of the tottery -bamboo kind, had converted for the time being into a -boudoir. Only for the time being, she said to herself, -because when she got her rights she would enjoy all the -splendors now usurped by the real Peggy Donohoe—Miss -Emmie, as she called the usurper when she forgot, -which was not often. She would dress for dinner every -evening, and attend balls and theaters in low-necked, -long-trained frocks, chaperoned by Lady Alured, adorned -with the late Mrs. Rufford’s diamond stars, and attended -by Captain Gerry Garthside, V. C. For not one, but all -the possessions held and prerogatives hitherto enjoyed by -the false Miss Rufford would naturally devolve to the -real one, once formally recognized and received by her -papa and the regiment; the “ould duds” and bits of sticks -once pertaining to the supposed Margaret Donohoe being -transferred to the veritable Peggy, together with all -rights in Private Dancey Juxon, V. C. The topsy-turvy, -comic-operatic whimsicality of her own idea did not appeal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> -to Peggy’s sense of humor. She was very much in -earnest as she waited for her visitor, seated in state upon -one of her own ornamental chairs, her red hands—hands -which could not be transferred to the real Peggy Donohoe -with the other things—folded in her lap.</p> - -<p>“She’s here, Captain,” Mrs. Quartermaster Casey—retained -as chaperon until Lady Alured should awaken -to a sense of her duties—had said, opening the door.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Captain,” said Peggy, rising coyly, “is it yourself?”</p> - -<p>And, owning the soft impeachment as he squeezed the -red hand (Gerry Garthside’s manners to the plainest -woman were fatally caressing), the Captain inquired -how he could serve her.</p> - -<p>“Sure,” said Peggy, making play with her fine eyes, -“you’ll maybe thinking me forward, Captain, for makin’ -the first sign. But me papa—the Major—will be takin’ -up a great dale of me toime by-an’-by, and wid Mrs. -Casey sittin’ in the kitchen widin call, we’re givin’ no -handle to the tongue of scandal, as the sayin’ is——”</p> - -<p>“My dear Miss Peggy!—” the Captain was beginning, -when Peggy took him up short.</p> - -<p>“I’ll trouble you,” she said, “to remimber that I’m not -takin’ any more Peggy from anywan, high or low, an’ -I’d be glad it was ginerally known. ‘Miss Emmeline,’ -or ‘Emmie’ for short, you’re free to use, or any pet name -ye may pick.” She cast a languishing glance upon Captain -Gerry. “I’m not likely to quarrel wid it”—she -moved nearer—“or wid you. Och, thin! but ’tis quare -how things have turned round wid me! Peggy Donohoe -a week ago, an’ walkin’ out wid Dancey Juxon—an’ now—the -Major’s daughter, an’ your promised bride, Captain -jewel! Sure ’tis like a dhrame, it is!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>And Peggy rested her rather large head upon the shoulder -of the astonished Captain, who hastily withdrew the -support.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Peggy, my girl!” he said hastily. “What’s -this notion you’ve got into your noddle? You don’t -think....”</p> - -<p>“I think that you’re a gintleman, Captain,” said -Peggy, with a tender smile, “and would never go back -on the promise you gev to the Major’s daughter. An’ -now that I’m her, an’ she’s me, you’ll do your duty by -me, as Dancey Juxon will do his to Donohoe’s poor unfortunate -girl. You may thrust him. We’ve had it out -betune us, an’ he’s with her now.”</p> - -<p>“With—her—now?” repeated the bewildered Captain.</p> - -<p>“I sent him to the Major’s—I mane papa’s—quarters -ten minnits ago, wid a flea in his ear!” said Peggy, folding -her red hands about the elbow of her captive, and -rubbing her cheek against his shoulder strap. “‘I dar’ -you,’ sez I, ‘to hang about here,’ sez I, ‘makin’ sheep’s -eyes at a daughter av the Quality, whin that poor crayture -you gev your promise to is cryin’ her two eyes out -for the gliff av a glimpse av your red head. Away wid -you,’ sez I, ‘an’ prove yourself a man av your word, -Dancey Juxon, or maybe Peggy Donohoe’ll be takin’ the -law av you wan av these fine days!’”</p> - -<p>“My good girl,” said Gerry Garthside, almost pleadingly, -“you can’t really believe what you say you’ve -told Juxon—that he is obliged to marry Miss Rufford, or -the lady who has borne that name until now, because he -happens to have given a promise of marriage to Peggy -Donohoe, and Miss Rufford and Peggy have changed -places?”</p> - -<p>“I mane that!” Peggy’s black eyes snapped out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -sparks of fire; as she tossed her head, a loosened coil of -black hair tumbled upon her shoulder. Her fine bust -heaved, her cheeks burned scarlet—she had never looked -finer in her life. “Do I not mane just that? Think! -Isn’t her father mine? Isn’t her home my home?—the -dhress she wears upon her back mine?—the ring she has -upon the finger av her mine? Ah, musha, an’ the man -that put it there!” Her grasp on Captain Gerry’s arm -tightened, her eyes sought his and held his; her warm, -fragrant breath came and went about his face like a personal -caress. “Sure, dear, you’ll not regret ut,” said -Peggy, “for I loved you iver since I clapped my two -eyes on you—I take the Blessed Saints to witness! An’ -Dancey Juxon’ll be dacent to Donohoe’s daughter, an’ -you an’ me will be afther lendin’ the young couple a -hand, lettin’ her have the washin’ maybe, or the waitin’ -at our table—or by-an’-by”—she lowered her black -lashes—“she might come as nurse to the children. So, -darlin’....”</p> - -<p>The sentence was never finished, for the alarmed Captain -broke from the toils and fled. The Mess story goes -that he double-locked his outer door, barricaded the inner -one with a chest of drawers and a portable tin -shower bath, and spent the rest of the day in reconnoitering -from behind the window curtains in anticipation -of a descent of the enemy. But in reality he bent -his steps toward the North Quadrangle, where the Major’s -quarters were, and over the familiar blue crockery -window boxes full of daffodils, he caught a glimpse of -Emmie’s sweet face, not pale or bearing marks of secretly -shed tears as when he last kissed it, but bright-eyed, -flushed, and dimpling with laughter as she nodded -and waved her hand to a departing visitor, who, absorbed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> -in the charming vision, glimpsed above the daffodils, -collided with and cannoned off the Captain.</p> - -<p>“Hullo! You, Juxon?”</p> - -<p>“Beg pardon, sir,” said Private Juxon, rigidly at the -salute. “I ’ope I ’aven’t ’urt you!” He grinned happily.</p> - -<p>“Have you come into a fortune, or inherited a title? -You look pretty chirpy!” said the Captain.</p> - -<p>“Not a bad ’it of ’is by ’arf,” said Private Juxon critically -to Private Juxon, “about the comin’ into a title. -‘For,’ says she, ‘<i>the greatest gentleman in the land -couldn’t ’ave done more—and though I can’t accept your -offer, I shall always look up to you and respect you as -the most chivalrousest and honorablest man I ever -met</i>!’ Wot price me, after that?”</p> - -<p>For, as may be guessed, Private Juxon had proposed, -and been rejected. Standing very stiff and red and upright -on the passage door mat, he had confessed his sense -of responsibility and explained his views.</p> - -<p>“The general run of feelin’ in the regiment bein’ the -same, Miss, as her own, that I’m bound as a man to keep -my promise to Peggy Donohoe, whether she’s you or you -are ’er. I’ve took the freedom of callin’ to say as wot -I’m ready,” said Juxon. “An’ the weddin’ was to come -off in June; but you’ve only got to name an earlier day, -Miss, an’ I’ll ’ave the banns put up, you not bein’ a -Catholic, like Peggy—which I ought to call ’er Miss Rufford -now, as owing to ’er station, Miss. But if you think -I’ll ever come short in duty an’ respect to the Major’s -daughter, because she’s turned out to be only the Sergeant’s, -you’re wrong, Miss, you’re wrong—upon my -bloo——upon my ’tarnal soul!”</p> - -<p>And then it was that Emmie Rufford conferred upon -Private Juxon the title of nobility, which made him a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -proud man—and unconditionally refused his offer, making -him a happy one.</p> - -<p>She is now married to Captain Gerry Garthside, who -yet fulfilled his engagement to the Senior Major’s daughter -in leading her to the altar. For within a week the -bubble had burst, topsy-turvydom reigned no more, the -barracks ceased to seethe like one of its own mess cauldrons, -and Peggy Donohoe was compelled to relinquish -the privilege of calling Major Rufford “Papa.” For old -Aunt Biddy Kinsella had been discovered in the smokiest -corner of her grandson’s cottage at Carricknaclee, in -Aher, by a smart young solicitor’s clerk; and her sworn -deposition, duly marked with her cross and attested by -her parish priest, dispersed the clouds of doubt from the -Major’s horizon, relieved Sir Alured’s moustache from -an unusual strain, and proved the deceased Mrs. Donohoe -to have been the victim of a delusion.</p> - -<p>“For ’twas at Buttevant Barracks where the regiment -was stationed nineteen years ago, an’ me stayin’ on -a visit wid me niece, that I saw her—Maggie Donohoe—rest -her unaisy soul, the misfortnit craythur!—I saw her -change the children’s clothes wid the two eyes I have in -my head,” said Aunt Biddy Kinsella, “barrin’ that only -wan av thim was at the keyhole. ‘Och, murdher!’ sez I, -lettin’ a screech an’ flyin’ in on her—for I had the use -av me legs in thim days—‘what have you done, woman, -asthore?’ ‘Made a lady av little Peggy,’ says she, wid -the fingers av her hooked like claws ready to fly at me, -‘an’ I dar’ you to bethray me.’ ‘Bethray!’ sez I. ‘It’s -bethrayed her to the divil, you mane—that she’ll be -brought up a black Prodesdan’, and not a dacent Catholic, -as a Donohoe should be by rights.’ ‘Holy Virgin, -forgive me! Sure, I never thought av that!’ sez herself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -and all thrimblin’ we undhressed the children an’ -changed the clothes again. An’ a day or so afther the -Major’s baby was waned an’ wint back to uts mother. -But Maggie Donohoe was niver the same in her mind -afther that day. Sit an’ brood she would, an’ hour by -hour; an’ creep out av her own bed an’ into mine night -afther night, and wake me wid her cowld hand upon me -mouth an’ the whisper in me ear to know had she given -little Peggy’s sowl to the divil or changed the childhren -back afther all! An’ as years wint on she kem to a -quieter mind, but on her dyin’ bed the ould fear and -thrimblin’ got hould av her ag’in, an’ she tould Donohoe—not -what she’d done at all, at all!—but what she -wanst had the intintion av doin’, but that her heart -failed her; an’ so made a fool av the man that owned -her, as many another woman has done before!”</p> - -<p>Thus Aunt Biddy Kinsella, who, having spoken, may -be dismissed to her smoky corner under the turf thatch, -where a greasy parcel reached her in the middle of the -following June, containing, not an olive branch, but a -concrete slab of wedding cake, with the joint compliments -of Mr. and Mrs. Dancey Juxon. For “the general -run of feelin’ in the regiment” was in favor of Private -Juxon’s renewing his matrimonial engagements to Peggy -Donohoe, now that she had been proved, past all doubt, -to be herself. And by the last advices received from -headquarters it appears that Mrs. Lance-Corporal Juxon -is acting at this moment as nurse to the Garthside baby.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">PONSONBY AND THE PANTHERESS</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">I  HAVE called this story “Ponsonby and the Pantheress,” -because Ponsonby’s nocturnal visitor undoubtedly -belonged to the genus <i>Carnaria</i>, species <i>F. -pardus</i>, the <i>Pardalis</i> of the ancients. The whole thing -hinges on Ponsonby’s getting a ticket of invitation to a -mighty dinner given by one of the great City Livery -Companies. Had he refused the invitation, and stayed -at home with Mrs. Ponsonby, it would have been better -for him—and for her. He would not to-day have been -a silent, atrabilious man, who goes upon his way in loneliness—that -mated loneliness which is of all desolate conditions -on this earth the most desolate—with a vampire -gnawing underneath his waistcoat. She would not have -been a much-wronged, cruelly neglected woman—or the -other type of sufferer, the woman who has been found -out; and for ever robbed of that which women hold dearest -in life—the power to create illusions.</p> - -<p>It was a great dinner at that City Hall—a feast both -succulent and juicy, and upon a scale so prodigious as to -put it utterly beyond the power of a single-stomached -man to do justice thereto. Many of the guests had -thoughtfully provided themselves with several of these -necessary organs, but Ponsonby—who had recently sold -out of the Army, and invested his commission money in -business, and settled down with Mrs. Ponsonby in a neat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> -little house in Sloane Street—was still young, and fairly -slim.</p> - -<p>The baked meats and confectionery were excellent, and -“the drinks”—as Betsey Prig might have observed—“was -good.” It was revealed to Ponsonby that he had -absorbed a considerable quantity only by the swollen -condition of his latchkey when he tried to fit it into the -door of the little house in Sloane Street. But after a -short struggle the door opened, and Ponsonby paused a -moment on the doorstep to take some observations on the -weather. It was just one o’clock as he looked at his -watch in the moonlight. Ponsonby was reminded of Indian -moons by the lucent brightness of the broad silver -orb that floated so majestically on the calm bosom of the -dark overhead. She was getting near her wane, but only -notifying it by an exaggerated handsomeness, like a professional -Society beauty. Ponsonby thought of that -simile—all by himself—and was proud of it, as he had -always been a man more celebrated for his moustache -than his intellect. He tied a knot in his mental pocket -handkerchief to remember it by, and, facing round to go -into the house, was a little disconcerted to find the hall -door gaping to receive him.</p> - -<p>Then he went in, barred and bolted very carefully, -and set the spring burglar alarum—for once. Ponsonby -was unusually careful and deliberate in his movements -on this particular night. Then he sat down on the hall -bench and took off his boots. Then he switched off the -electric hall light. Then he pondered whether he should -or should not have just one brandy and soda before going -to bed—because he had come home so clear and -calm and cool-headed from that City dinner. Ay or No—and -the Ayes had it. He went into the dining-room.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> -It had been furnished for the Ponsonbys on the best -authority; in oak, with Brummagem-Benares brass pots -and tea trays. The window curtains, and the drapery -which hung before a deepish recess in the wall to the left -of the door as you entered, were plush, of that artistic -shade of olive-green which is so shabby when it is new -that you can’t tell when it gets old. The recess had -originally been intended for a book case; but young -married people just starting in life never have any books—they -are too much bound up in each other—and so it -had been covered up. You can put things behind a covering -of this sort which you do not care to expose to the -gaze of the casual guest—a row of old slippers, or a pile -of superannuated Army Lists, or a collection of summonses—or -the Family Skeleton.</p> - -<p>Ponsonby switched on the light, and opened the liquor -case with his watch-chain key, and got a tumbler and -soda siphon from the buffet, and lighted a cigar. Then -he sat down in an armchair, unbuttoned his white waistcoat, -loosened his collar, and prepared to be lonelily convivial. -He thought of his girl-like bride asleep upstairs, -with her cheek upon her hand, and her gold-brown hair -swamping the pillow. It says much for the state of -Ponsonby’s affections, that while he knew the uses of -the monthly half pint of peroxide which was an unfailing -item on the chemist’s bill, he could still be poetical -about that tinge of gold. But newly married men seldom -look into the roots of anything. He lifted his glass and -drank her health. “To Mamie!” he said, as the frisky -gas bubbles snapped at his nose. And then he glanced -over the edge of the tumbler at the curtained recess behind -the door. And the short hairs of his head rose up -and began to promenade. And his teeth clicked against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> -the glass he held. For a bolt of ice had shot through -either ear orifice straight to his brain. In other words—Something -had laughed—an ugly laugh—behind that -drawn curtain.</p> - -<p>In another moment it was put aside. A woman came -out of the recess that had concealed her, and stood before -him.</p> - -<p>Not to mince matters, she belonged to the class we are -content to call unfortunate. From her tawdry bonnet to -the mud-befouled hem of her low-necked silk dress—a -preposterous garment, grease-stained and ragged, and -partly hidden by an opera cloak of sullied whiteness—the -nature of her profession was written on her from -head to foot. She was not without beauty, or the -archæological traces of what had been it; but as she -grinned at the astonished man, showing two rows of -strong square teeth, yellowed with liquor and cigarette -smoking, and the gathered muscles of her cheeks pushed -up her underlids, narrowing her fierce, greedy eyes to -mere slits, and the hood of her soiled mantle fell back -from her coarsely dyed hair, she was a thing unlovely. -She seemed to snuff the air with her broad nostrils, as -scenting prey; she worked her fingers in their dirty white -gloves, as though they were armed with talons that -longed to tear and rend; and, as she did so, Ponsonby -was irresistibly reminded of a panther.</p> - -<p>Ponsonby had shot panthers in India, and had once -been slightly mauled by a female specimen. It was an -odd coincidence that the old scars on his left shoulder -and thigh should have begun to burn and throb and -shoot unpleasantly as the yellow-white fangs of the intruder -gleamed upon him, framed in by her grinning, -painted lips.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>But Ponsonby recovered himself after a moment, and -asked her, without ceremony, how the devil she came -there? He was not a particularly bright man, but he -knew, even as he asked. She had been crouching in the -shadow under the portico—some of the Sloane Street -houses have porticoes—when his cab drove up. She had -watched him get out. Then, when he had been standing -with his foolish back to the open door, gaping at the -moon, the Pantheress had skulked in, with the noiseless, -cushioned step that distinguishes her race. And now he -had to get rid of her.</p> - -<p>Which was not as easy a task as one might think.</p> - -<p>He began by telling her that he was a married man.</p> - -<p>“Knew that,” said the Pantheress. “Saw you take off -your boots in the hall. Saw you drink her health.” She -mimicked him. “To Mamie!” And laughed again—that -unspeakably jarring laugh.</p> - -<p>Ponsonby grew irate. He took his courage in both -hands and went into the hall, where he softly undid the -door fastenings. Then he came back, and offered to -show his visitor out.</p> - -<p>She was in the act of pocketing a silver race cup, won -by Ponsonby at a Pony Hurdle Handicap on the Bombay -course in 1890, when Ponsonby came back. He -caught her wrist and bade her drop it. She gave it up -sullenly. Then, with a sudden accession of feminine -meekness, she said she would go—if he would stand her -a drink.</p> - -<p>It seemed a cheap bargain. The unwitting Ponsonby -got out another glass from the buffet cupboard, and -mixed her a brandy and soda, not too weak. She drew a -chair—his wife’s chair—to the table, and sat down, -throwing her dingy cloak from her whitewashed shoulders.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> -She put her hand to her head, and drew thence -a long steel pin with a blue glass head, and took her -gaudy bonnet off and threw it on the table. She did not -hurry over the consumption of the liquid, and Ponsonby -began to grow impatient. When he hinted this, she -asked for a cigar.</p> - -<p>He gave her one, and a light. And she drained the -last drop in the tumbler, and stuck the burning weed -between her teeth, with a coarse masquerade of masculinity. -Ponsonby heaved a sigh of relief.</p> - -<p>“Now, my girl, come along—time’s up!” He started -for the door.</p> - -<p>The Pantheress got up, and leaned against the mantelshelf, -smoking. She intimated that she had changed her -mind—and would remain. Ponsonby lost his temper, -and threatened ejection by main force.</p> - -<p>“Put me out? You daren’t!” rejoined the Pantheress. -She added some adjectives reflecting upon Ponsonby and -the honor of his family—but with those we have nothing -to do.</p> - -<p>Ponsonby’s under jaw came out, and his forehead lowered. -He strode toward the Pantheress; her sex was not -going to plead for that delicate piece of femininity, it -was evident.</p> - -<p>“I daren’t, eh?”</p> - -<p>“You daren’t. Because I’d tear, and scratch, and -scream, I would—till the police came—till your wife -woke up and came downstairs to see what the row was -about. Nice for you, then! Easy for you to explain—with -<i>two</i> glasses on the table!”</p> - -<p>Ponsonby broke into a cool perspiration. He spake in -his soul and cursed himself for a fool—of all fools the -one most thoroughly impregnated with foolery. For he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> -saw that he had been trapped. The Pantheress rocked -upon her hips and laughed, shaking out a coarse aroma -of patchouli from her shabby garments.</p> - -<p>“You had me in and stood me drinks. I can swear to -that. My swell toff, I think you’d better knock under!”</p> - -<p>Ponsonby had to arrive at that conclusion, thinking of -his wedded happiness and the golden-brown hair scattered -on the pillow upstairs. He was awed to the pitch -of making overtures—of asking the Pantheress how -much she would take to go?</p> - -<p>The Pantheress sprang high. Twenty pounds.</p> - -<p>Ponsonby had not as much in the house. With great -difficulty, and much exercise of eloquence, he got her to -bate five. It was necessary that she should be brought -to forego another five, for all the ready cash he could -muster did not amount to much more than ten. How to -attain this desirable end? Ponsonby had a dramatic inspiration.</p> - -<p>He had read many novels and seen many plays. In -most of these the main plot turned upon the ultimate -victory of Human Virtue and Truth over Vice and Disintegrity. -In these books or dramas Vice was generally -personified by an adventuress—a brazen, defiant person, -who had made up her mind to ruin somebody or another; -and Virtue, by an innocent girl or pure young -wife, who pleaded until the hardened heart was melted, -the fierce eyes moistened by an unaccustomed tear—until, -in short, the naughty woman abandoned her unhallowed -purpose and left the nice one mistress of the field. -The theory is an admirable one in a book or in a play, -but in real life it does not hold good. Ponsonby has -since learned this; but at that time he was youngish and -inexperienced.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>He would weave a net, with those golden-brown tresses -upstairs, in which to catch the Pantheress. He begged -her to listen, and told his story quite prettily. He explained -how, three years before, his regiment having -newly returned from India, he had met at a certain -South Coast resort, separated by a mile or two of arid -common from a great dockyard town, a lovely girl. She -was a friendless orphan, the daughter of a clergyman, -had been a governess, had broken down in health, and, -with the last remnant of her little savings, taken a humble -lodging near the sea, in order to benefit by the ozone. -How she had found, during her innocent strolls on the -beach, not only that health of which she had been in -search, but a husband. And, finally, how every fiber of -her soul, being naturally bound up in that husband, and -her present state of health delicate, the infliction of such -a blow as the Pantheress contemplated striking might -not only strike at the roots of love, but of life.</p> - -<p>With which peroration counsel concluded, not wholly -dissatisfied with himself. He wiped his brow, and sent a -hopeful glance at the Pantheress. Her features had not -softened, nor was her eye dimmed. Her lips twitched, -certainly, but the convulsive movement was merely the -herald of a yawn.</p> - -<p>“You’re a good one to jaw!” she said, when he had -finished. “Come, I’ll not be hard on you. How much -have you got?”</p> - -<p>He named the amount.</p> - -<p>“Hand out!” the Pantheress bade him.</p> - -<p>He would give her half the sum then and there, Ponsonby -said, with a gleam of strategic cunning, and the -other half when she was fairly outside the hall-door—not -before.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>The Pantheress nodded, and clutched the first installment -from his hand greedily, and caught her dirty bonnet -from the table and threw it on her head. “No -larks!” she said warningly—“come on!” and moved to -the room door, where she paused. “Ain’t you got manners -enough to open it for a lady?” she remarked in an -aggrieved tone. Ponsonby, hastily restoring the tell-tale -second glass to the sideboard, sprang forward and -grasped the handle—and dropped it as though it had -been red-hot, for he had caught the sound of footsteps—light, -regular, measured footsteps—descending the stairs. -He could not utter a word. He turned a white face and -glaring eyes upon the Pantheress. And the steps came -nearer. As the dining-room door opened, he fell back, -helplessly, behind it. The wall seemed to open and -swallow him—thick, suffocating folds fell before his -face; he had backed into the curtained recess whence the -Pantheress had emerged thirty fateful minutes previously. -Through a three-cornered rent in the stuff, just -the height of his eye from the ground, and through which -that beast of prey had probably watched him, he looked—and -saw his wife!</p> - -<p>She wore a loose white wrapping gown; her hair—the -hair—hung in waves about her shoulders. Barring the -bedroom candle she carried, and losing sight of her prosaic -nineteenth-century surroundings, she resembled one -of Burne Jones’s angels. But her calm expression -changed, and her voice was tuned to a key of unangelic -indignation, as her glance lighted on the painted, brazen -Defiance, erect and bristling, before her.</p> - -<p>“You ... a woman, what do you want? How did -you?—how dared you come here?”</p> - -<p>The Pantheress was about, in answer, to launch the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> -first of an elaborate flight of insults, couched in the easy -vernacular of Leicester Square, when she stopped short. -Her thick lips rolled back from her gleaming fangs in a -triumphant grin. She bent forward, with her hands -upon her thighs, and made a close inspection of the face -of Ponsonby’s wife.</p> - -<p>“<i>What! Luce?</i>”...</p> - -<p>The other recoiled, with a slight cry. And Ponsonby, -in his retirement, was conscious of a deadly qualm—for -Mrs. Ponsonby’s Christian name was Lucy! When he -opened his shut eyes and peeped through the rent again, -it was only to receive a fresh shock—for Mrs. Ponsonby -and the Pantheress were sitting, one on either side of -the table, chatting like old friends.</p> - -<p>“Luck was poor,” the Pantheress was saying, “and me -low down in my spirits. So when I found the door of a -swell house like this open, ‘I’ll pop in,’ says I to myself, -‘and look about for a snack of something and a drop to -drink, and then make off if I can, clear, or else go to -quod—like a lady.’ And I did pop in—and I did look -about—and the first thing that turns up is—you! On a -smooth lay, ain’t you? Always a daring one, you were. -A clergyman’s daughter, and an orphan! We’ve most of -us been clergymen’s daughters and orphans in our time, -but not a girl of us ever looked it more than you. And -you’re married! Ha! ha! With a swell church service, -and singin’, and a Continental tour to give the orphan -a little change of scenery. She’d seen so little in her -time, the poor dear! Lord! I shall die of it!”</p> - -<p>The woman rocked with silent laughter. It seemed to -the man behind the curtain that her eyes, across his -wife’s shoulder, glared full into his—that her coarse -jeers were leveled at him. He could not have uttered a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> -sound, or stirred a finger, for the dear life. A kind of -catalepsy had possessed him. But he saw them drink -together, and heard them talk ... turning over with -conversational pitchforks the unspeakable horrors of the -dunghill whence his white butterfly had taken wing.... -Ponsonby had never been an imaginative man, but that -midnight conference wrought his sensibilities to such a -pitch that, leaning against the wall in the corner of the -curtained recess, he quietly fainted.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>He came back to consciousness in darkness through -which struggled no gleam of light. He did not know -where he was until he staggered out from behind the -stifling draperies and switched on the light with shaking -hands. Then he found himself in his own dining-room. -There were no glasses on the table—the spring bar of -the liquor stand was in its place, the brandy decanter -was, as he remembered to have left it, half full. He -found his candle on the sideboard and lighted it, and -went into the hall. The hall-door was barred and bolted.</p> - -<p>“Thank God, I <i>have</i> been dreaming!” said Ponsonby, -and went upstairs.</p> - -<p>There she lay—a breathing picture of reposeful innocence—fast -asleep. Ponsonby stooped and kissed the -hair that flooded her pillow and invaded his own, and -silently swore by all his deities that he would never go to -another City dinner as long as he lived. Before he crept -into bed he knelt down—a thing he had not done since -he was a boy—and said awkwardly, “O God, I’m glad it -was a dream! Thank you!”</p> - -<p>He slept the sleep of the weary, and rose, not a giant, -it is true, but very much refreshed. He dandered down -to the breakfast table in a leisurely way, humming a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -tune. As he shook out his newspaper, the absurdity and -improbability of his recent vision struck him for the first -time; he laughed until he ached. Then he dropped his -newspaper, and stooped to pick it up. Something bright -that lay upon the carpet under the table attracted his -notice. The man put forth his hand and took it, and his -ruddy morning face underwent a strange and ghastly -alteration. For the thing was a long steel bonnet pin, -with a vulgar blue glass head! Men have died suddenly -of pin pricks before now.</p> - -<p>But Ponsonby’s tortures are lingering. He is alive -still, and she is still Mrs. Ponsonby. He has never -spoken—the Secret of the Blue Glass Pin is hidden from -the woman who walks Life’s path with him. But sometimes -she is haunted by a dreadful Doubt, and at all -times he is bestridden by an overwhelming Certainty.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">A FAT GIRL’S LOVE STORY</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In Three Parts</span></p> -</div> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE first thing I remember being told is that I was a -Parksop, and the second that it was worth while -living, if only to have that name. Some years after, it -dawned upon me that we had got very little else.</p> - -<p>Father was a landed proprietor upon a reduced scale, -and a parent on a large one. There were twelve of us, -counting Prenderby, who had passed into the Army a -few years previously, and passed out of it later on at the -unanimous request of his superior officers. Father cut -him off with a shilling—which he forgot to send him—and -sternly forbade him to bear the name of Parksop -any more. He has done well since, and attributes his rise -in life entirely to that deprivation. Nobody ever writes -to Prenderby except Charlotte.</p> - -<p>If an abnormally fat girl could possibly be the heroine -of a romantic love story, Charlotte—“Podge,” as she has -been nicknamed ever since I can remember—would -stand in that relation to this narrative. But, you know, -such a thing isn’t possible. If it had been, Belle, who -comes in between Podge and Prenderby, and is the acknowledged -beauty of the family, having all the hereditary -Parksop points besides several of her own, nobody -would have wondered.</p> - -<p>How did the story begin? With Roderick and me—coming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> -home to spend a vacation. It was likely to be -a pretty long one, for the Head of the School had behaved -in a most ungentlemanly way, showing absolutely -crass insensibility, as father said, to the advantage of -having one of the best names in England on his school -list, while it remained written at the bottom of a check -for fifty-nine pounds, odd shillings, and half-pence, -marked by a groveling-spirited bank cashier “No Assets.”</p> - -<p>You may guess Roddy and me didn’t grumble much—the -Parksops have never been strong in grammar and -orthography, so I’m not going to apologize for a slip -here and there—didn’t grumble much at hearing that we -were to stay at home for the present, and be “brought -on” by the curate in Euclid and Latin and Greek, and -all the rest of the rot. He wouldn’t strike for wages, -father knew, because for one thing he was very modest -and shy, and for another he was spoons on Belle. If he -wasn’t, why was he always glaring at our pew in -church? And for the same reason we shouldn’t be overworked—a -thing the most reckless boys acknowledge to -be bad for them. So the morning after our return we -went down to breakfast feeling as jolly as could be.</p> - -<p>Father shook hands with us in his lofty way. We -could see that he was deeply indignant with the Head -from the way in which his aquiline nose hooked itself -when we gave him a letter we’d brought with us. We -almost wished we had torn it up, because, having made -up our minds to go fishing that morning, we had meant -to ask him for the key of the old boat house by the pond, -where the punt was kept, which key, with a disregard of -opportunity quite unnatural, as Roddy said—in a man -with so large a family—he always kept hidden away.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>Belle gave us two fingers to shake and her ear to kiss, -and the others, as many as were allowed to breakfast -with the elders, crowded round, and then Podge came -bouncing in and hugged us for everybody. We didn’t -care about the hugging, because it was such a smothering -business, like sinking into a sea of eiderdown, Roddy -used to say, who was imaginative for a Parksop. And -here, as it’s usual to describe a heroine—though I don’t -acknowledge her for one, you know—it would be best to -describe Podge a little.</p> - -<p>It describes her kind of temper pretty well to say that -she didn’t mind being called Podge—even before -strangers. The name describes her exactly. You -couldn’t tone it down and call her plump; she was simply -one of the fattest girls you ever saw. Her large -face was rosy, and usually beamed, as people say in -books, with smiles and good temper. Her hair was -black, and done up in the way that took the least time, -and her eyes were black and bright, and would have been -big if her face had been a little less moonlike. She had -little dumpy hands and little dumpy feet, rather pretty—in -fact, the only family landmarks, as Belle said, that -had not been effaced by the rising tide of fat. In a -regular story there is always something about the -heroine’s waist: not that I give in to Podge being—you -know! I suppose she had a waist; at least, it was possible -to tell where her frock bodies left off and her skirts -began—then. It isn’t now! The frocks were always old, -because whenever Podge had a new one she gave it to -Belle, and you couldn’t deny that Belle did them more -justice. Then, she had a nice kind of voice, though the -Parksop drawl had been left out of it, and I think that’s -all—except that, considering her beam, she moved about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> -lightly, and that she always sat down like a collapsing -feather bed and got up like an expanding balloon.</p> - -<p>Breakfast didn’t make the school commons look very -foolish. There wasn’t much difference, except that the -coffee wasn’t so groundy. Father had his little dish of -something special—kidneys, this time—and Roddy, sitting -at his right hand—we were treated as guests the first -day at home—dived in under his elbow when he was -deep in his coffee cup and harpooned half a one. Of -course, he had to bolt it before father came to the surface, -and Podge was dreadfully anxious, seeing him so -purple in the face, lest he should choke.</p> - -<p>I did as well as I could with my rasher of bacon and -hers, and I remember her whispering to me, just before -Nuddles came in with the Squire’s card, that the housekeeping -money had been lately more limited than ever. -And as I looked across the table, out at the window, and -over the green, rolling Surrey landscape—all Parksop -property in our ancestors’ times—and remembered that -such a small slice of it was left to be divided between -such a lot of us, it did occur to me that it would have -been better if they—meaning the ancestors—had been a -little less Parksopian in the way of not being able to -keep what they had got. Then Nuddles, the butler, came -in with Squire Braddlebury’s card, and the curtain drew -up—we had had a performance of one of the plays of -Terence that very half year, and I had done the part of -a dumb slave to everybody’s admiration—and the curtain -drew up on what would have been “Podge’s Romance,” -if Podge had only been thinner.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span></p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>Father broke up the breakfast party with getting up -and going out. As a rule nobody dared push back his or -her chair until <i>he</i> had finished, and when he took it into -his head to read one of the leaders in the <i>Times</i> aloud to -us, we had to make up our minds to spend the afternoon. -But as a rule he went to the library as soon as -he’d done, and worked until lunch. He usually worked -leaning back in his armchair, with his feet on a footstool, -and a silk handkerchief thrown over his head. He went -to the library now, to meet the Squire, whose gruff -“Good-morning” Roddy and I heard as father opened -the door. He didn’t quite shut it afterward, and as -Roddy and I stood by the hall table, carefully sewing -up the sleeves of the Squire’s covert coat—for Podge had -given us each a neat pocket needle-and-thread case, to -teach us to be tidy, she said, and a taste for practical -joking isn’t incompatible with lofty lineage—we couldn’t -help hearing some of the conversation.</p> - -<p>It was most of it on the Squire’s side, and the words -“title deeds,” “unentailed,” and “mortgage” occurred -over and over again. Then “unpaid,” “due notice,” -“neglected,” and, finally, “foreclosure.” Perhaps it was -father’s giving a hollow groan at this, and being seen by -me through the crack of the library door to tear his hair, -beautifully white, without tearing any of it out, that -made me listen. At any rate, I left Roddy busy with the -coat, and—any other boy, even a Parksop by birth, -would have done as much under the circumstances.</p> - -<p>Well, I made out that Squire Braddlebury had got -father on toast. It became quite plain to me, boy as I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -was, that he could, whenever he chose, strip us of the -last remaining hundreds of our old acres, and send us, -generally, packing to Old Gooseberry—with a word. -Then he asked father why he thought he didn’t say the -word then and there? and father said something about -respect for ancient title and hereditary something or -other; and Squire Braddlebury, who had made his vulgar -money in trade, said ancient title and hereditary -something or other might be dee’d. And then——</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you why, Parksop,” he blustered. “It’s because -of your girl! When you came to me for money to -waste on your gobbling, selfish old self, caring, not you, -not one snap whether your family went bare for the rest -o’ their lives, so long as you got what you wanted for the -rest of yours, I lent you the cash on your title deeds, -signed by Edward Plantagenet—and more fool he to -waste good land on you! I lent you the cash, I say, because -I knew you’d not come up to the mark when pay -day came, and I wanted your girl. What’s that you say? -Belle! Not if I know it! Sandy hair and aquiline profiles -don’t agree with me. I mean Miss Charlotte. -She’s a fine, full figure of a woman; she’s a good ’un, too! -Don’t I know how she keeps your house a-going? Don’t -I know how she makes and mends, plans and contrives, -teaches the children when your foreign governesses take -French leave, because they can’t get their wages out of -you, Parksop, and does the Lord knows what besides! I -shouldn’t have spoken so soon, but another fellow’s got -his eye on her—Noel, the parson—you know who I mean. -I believe they’re secretly engaged, or something.”</p> - -<p>“Gracious Heavens!” cried father.</p> - -<p>“If they are,” growled the Squire, “it don’t matter. -We’ll soon put the curate to the right-about, and on the -day I take her to church you’ll get your title deeds back.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> -You’re reasonable, I see. It’s a bargain. So go and -fetch her, Parksop; go and fetch her.”</p> - -<p>There was a scroop and shriek of overstrained springs -and tortured leather. The Squire had thrown himself -into father’s armchair. I had only time to drag Roddy -behind the green baize door that shuts off the servants’ -wing from the rest of the house, when father came out -of the library.</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>The whole house was topsy-turvy. The secret of the -mortgage was out, for one thing. Everybody knew that -the Squire had proposed to Podge, that Podge had said -“No” to him, in spite of father’s dignified commands, and -that the Squire had rushed out of the house, foaming at -the mouth, with his coat half on and half off, stormed -his way round to the stables, where he saddled his horse -himself, and galloped homeward, scattering objurgations, -threats, and imprecations right and left.</p> - -<p>“Stuck-up paupers! Make Parksop know better! -Sell ’em up, stick and stone! Prefer d—d curate to -me, Thomas Braddlebury! Fool! Must be crazy!”</p> - -<p>Roddy and I and everybody else agreed with him, except -Podge. She was regularly downright obstinate. She -had given in to all of us all her life, and now, just when -her giving in meant so much, she wouldn’t. What was -the good of beginning, we asked, if she didn’t intend to -go on? We were very severe with her, because she deserved -it. Falling in love at her size—like a milkmaid—and -with an elderly curate—an old-young man, with -shabby clothes and a stoop! Belle had put up with his -staring at our pew when he read the Litany on Sundays, -but now that she was quite sure he hadn’t been doing it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -because of her, she regarded it as an unpardonable insult. -She stirred up father to write to the Rector demanding -Mr. Noel’s instant dismissal, and the Rector -sent back an old, unsettled claim for tithe money, and -referred father to the Bishop of the diocese.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Podge was the victim of love. It was -really funny. She cried quarts at night, according to -Belle. Her red nose and swollen eyes made her funnier -still. And old Noel stooped more going about his parish -work. He was a gentleman—that was one thing to be -said for him—and if two perfectly healthy lives had not -stood between him and the title, he’d have been a baronet, -with a rent roll worth having, the Rector’s wife said.</p> - -<p>They say dropping wears away a stone. We dropped -on Podge from morning till night, and she gave in at last. -She put on her hat and trotted down to the Rectory—waddled -would be the best word. She saw Noel, and had -it out <i>vivâ voce</i>. She’d tried to do it by letter—Belle -found a torn-up note of dismissal in her room, beginning -“My lost Darling.” We yelled over the notion of -old Noel being Podge’s lost darling; almost before we’d -done yelling she was back again, and had smothered the -little ones all round, and gone to the library with a flag -of truce—a wet pocket handkerchief—to announce the -capitulation to father. She spoke to me afterward, -looked appealing, as if she wanted to be praised for doing -a simple thing like that for her family! I didn’t praise -her, and Roddy gave her even less encouragement.</p> - -<p>The Squire was sent for by special messenger, and -came without hurrying. He said he was glad she’d come -to her senses and showed a proper appreciation of the -gifts Providence had placed within her reach. He -brought a diamond engagement ring, which wouldn’t go -on the proper finger. We laughed again at that; we were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> -always laughing in those days. And he gave father one -of the title deeds back, and stayed to dinner, and had a -little music in the drawing-room afterward, and kissed -Podge when he went away, at which Roddy and I and -Belle nearly went into convulsions, and in a little time -the wedding day was fixed.</p> - -<p>As it came near, Podge didn’t get any thinner. She -ate her dinner just as usual, and smothered the children -a good deal. She was to have half a dozen or so of them -to live with her; she stipulated for that, and the Squire -grinned and scowled and said, “All right, for the present!” -He turned out to be quite generous, and tipped -us sovereigns and Belle jewelry and new frocks, and she -said every time she tried them on that she had quite -come to regard him as a relative. Everybody had except -Podge, and I dare say if you’d asked her she’d have -said she was the person whose opinion mattered most. -You never know how selfish unselfish people can be till -they’re tried! It’s true the Squire was awfully ugly and -as rough as a bear, and a little too fond of drinks that -made his temper uncertain and his legs unsteady. But -he had done a great deal for the family, and women can’t -expect us men to be angels.</p> - -<p>Podge was a little too quiet as the wedding drew near. -You know, there’s no fun in pinning a cockchafer that -doesn’t spin round lively. The presents came in and the -invitations went out, the breakfast was planned, the cake -came from London, with heaps of other things; but she -kept quiet. The night before the wedding it rained. -Somebody wanted her for one of the thousand things -people were always wanting her for, and she couldn’t be -found. She stayed out so long that father sent word to -the stablemen and gardeners to take torches and drag -the pond. Of course, he was anxious, for you can’t have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> -a wedding without a bride. But why the pond? A thin -girl might have tried that without seeming ridiculous, -but not a fat one, and Podge couldn’t have sunk if she’d -tried! She came in at last among us, looking very queer, -and wet to the skin, with only a thin cloak on over her -evening dress. She said she’d been to the churchyard, -to mother’s grave, praying that we might be forgiven. -She laughed the next moment, catching a glimpse of her -own droll figure in the drawing-room glass.</p> - -<p>Next day was the wedding day. Everybody had new -clothes, and the bridesmaids’ lockets had the initials of -Podge and the Squire, “C” and “R,” in diamonds. -Roddy and I had pins to match—Hunt and Roskell’s. I -forget how many yards of white satin went into Podge’s -wedding gown, but it measured thirty-eight inches round -the waist—no larks. She cried all the way going to -church, so that father was nearly washed out of the -brougham.</p> - -<p>How did the wedding go off? It never came off at all! -There were the county people in the smart clothes -they’d taken the shine off in London; there were the -school children, with washed faces and clean pinafores, -and baskets of rose leaves all ready to strew on the path -of the happy pair. There were the decorations, palms -and lilies, as if the occasion had been a kind of martyr’s -festival; and there was the Bishop at the altar rails, -with the Rector, waiting to tie the knot; and the Squire, -in a blue frock-coat, buff waistcoat, and shepherd’s plaid -trousers, with a whole magnolia in his buttonhole, waiting -for Podge.</p> - -<p>Father tried to lead her up the aisle, but it was too -narrow, so he walked behind. Just as she put her foot -on the chancel step, out comes old Noel out of the vestry, -to everybody’s surprise, looking flushed and excited.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> -He said something I didn’t hear, and then Podge calls -out, “Oh, I can’t! Have mercy!” or something like that, -and surged down with a flop, like the sound a big wave -makes dashing into a cave’s mouth, on the red and white -tiles. Old Noel ran to lift her up, but couldn’t do it. -The Squire called out, “D—— you! Let my wife alone!” -And the Bishop rebuked him for swearing in a sacred -edifice. Then father and the Squire and old Noel hoisted -Podge up—for two of ’em weren’t strong enough—and -tottered with her into the vestry.</p> - -<p>What happened? I got in, and so I know all about it. -We sprinkled Podge with water, and set fire to a feather -duster and held it under her nose, and she came to, with -her hair down, and her wreath and veil hanging by one -hairpin. And old Noel bent over her, and said, “Dearest -Charlotte, there is no need for the sacrifice now!” And -he pulled a newspaper out of his pocket and handed it -to father, who said, “What! what! how dare you, man?” -and then dropped his eye on a paragraph marked in red -ink, and said in the best Parksop manner, “I really beg -your pardon, Sir Clement! Your uncle and his son both -drowned yachting in the Mediterranean? Most deplorable! -but really affords you no excuse for—ah—interrupting -a solemn ceremony in so extraordinary a manner.” -And then he and old—I mean Sir Clement Noel—had a -few confidential words in a corner, and I heard old—I -mean the Baronet—say, “On my word and honor, a -sacred pledge!” And father astounded everybody by -turning on the Squire, and telling him in the most gentlemanly -way to go about his business, which he did, -swearing awfully, while Podge was crying for joy, and -Sir Noel comforting her with his arm round her waist—I -mean as far as it would go.</p> - -<p>That happened three years ago, and Podge and Sir<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -Clement Noel have been married three years all but a -week. We all live with Podge and her husband—I don’t -think they’ve ever been alone together for a day since -their honeymoon. Father is very fond of Charlotte now, -and says the baby is a real Parksop. That always makes -Sir Clement Noel wild—I can’t think why.</p> - -<p>I’ve often thought since, after seeing what they call a -domestic drama, that what happened to Podge and Noel -might have happened to the hero and heroine of one. -Only, a hero never has gray hair and a stoop, and there -never yet was a heroine who measured as much as thirty-eight -inches round the waist. It’s impossible!</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE balloon ascended from the Chiswick Gasworks at -twelve-thirty, amid the thin cheers of an outer -fringe of Works <i>employés</i> and an inner circle composed -of members of the Imperial Air Club, who had motored -down expressly for the start. It was by courtesy a summer -day, a June gale having blown itself out over night, -a June frost having nipped vegetation over morn. Now -there was not a breath of wind, and the sky vault arching -over London and the suburbs was of purplish-gray, -through which a broad ray of white-hot sunshine pierced -slantingly with weird effect as the order “Hands off!” -was given, and the <i>Beata</i>, of forty-five thousand cubic -feet, owner Captain the Honorable H. Maudslay-Berrish, -of the I. A. C., soared rapidly upward.</p> - -<p>Hitherto Maudslay-Berrish, occupied with the thousand -cares devolving on the aeronaut, had not looked -directly at either of his traveling companions. These -were his wife’s friend and his wife. We all remember -the sumptuous Miss Fennis, of the Hyperion and other -West End comedy theaters. Many of the masculine -readers of this truthful record have laid offerings of hot-house -flowers, jewelry, sweetmeats, and settlements, at -those high-arched insteps in their pre-nuptial days, and -not all have had cause to mourn the rejection of the -same. But Maudslay-Berrish, son of a philanthropic -Nonconformist peer, to whom the theater is the antechamber -to the Pit, married her, and, as too far south<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> -is north, the men of his set thenceforth tacked on “Poor -chap!” or “Poor beggar!” to the mention of his name, -when another stage triumph of his gifted wife, who did -not resign her profession, was recorded in the newspapers.</p> - -<p>The friend of Mrs. Maudslay-Berrish, whom we may -know as “Teddy,” gasped one or two private gasps as -the <i>Beata</i> shot up to an altitude of three thousand feet, -and Chiswick Gasworks fell away underneath her into a -tinted relief map of West London, and then was buried -under a sea of swirling dun-gray vapors. The hoot of a -motor-car—the needle-sharp screech of a railway locomotive—were -the last sounds to reach the ears of the -<i>Beata’s</i> three passengers. Then the sounds of Earth sank -into the silence of Eternity. And the soul of Mrs. -Maudslay-Berrish’s friend felt very thin and small, -knowing itself adrift upon that tideless sea. The wicker -car seemed also small—small to unsafeness—and the -ropes as frail as the strands of a spider web. Cautiously -Teddy put forth his immaculately gloved hand and -touched one. Madness, to have trusted limb and life -to things like these. Madness, to have left the good -solid ground, where there were clubs and comfort and -other men to keep you from feeling alone—for Teddy -realized with vivid clearness that in this particular moment -and at this particular point Mrs. Maudslay-Berrish -counted for nothing. He even forgot to look to see -if she was there. But she was there, and looking at him -across her husband’s back. For Maudslay-Berrish was -in the middle of the oblong basket, and he was leaning -over, peering down into the swirling gray sea below, his -folded arms upon the wicker car edge, his chin upon -them.</p> - -<p>As matter of fact, he did not wish his wife and her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> -friend to see how heartily he was laughing. When you -have set a trap for two beings whom you hate with an -intensity beyond all the range of human expression, and -waited patiently for years—it had taken him, Maudslay-Berrish, -just three years to qualify as a member of the -Air Club—to see them fall into it, you laugh when it -happens. And if they chance to see your face while you -are doing it, it makes them feel uncomfortable.... -And when they know!... The purple veins swelled -upon his narrow forehead under the leather peak of his -Club cap. His muscles cracked, his shoulders heaved -with that hidden, terrible, convulsive laughter.</p> - -<p>“Harwood,” cried his wife, her strong voice ringing -loud in the thin, untainted air, “what is the matter? Is -anything wrong?”</p> - -<p>“The balloon is not leaking, the valve is in proper order, -there is plenty of ballast on board, the car is sound, -the ropes are new and have been tested,” said Maudslay-Berrish. -“There is scarcely a breath of wind to move us, -and yet something <i>is</i> wrong. What are you trying to ask -me, Beryl ... whether we are in danger? At the risk -of spoiling your evident enjoyment of your first ascent, -I answer ‘Yes!’”</p> - -<p>Then he straightened his bowed figure and turned so as -to face the wife who had betrayed him so often, and -Teddy, her friend. She, Beryl, looked at him with wild -eyes set in a face suddenly grown sharp and thin. She -clenched her gloved left hand upon a rope of the car, -and the splitting of the glove back revealed her wedding -ring and its keeper of sparkling diamonds. At the sight -of that consecrated symbol another gust of mad laughter -seized Maudslay-Berrish, and the tears poured down -his purple face, and he roared and roared again, until -every fiber of the car vibrated with his ugly merriment.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>“For God’s sake, Berrish, don’t laugh like that!” -shrieked Teddy, blue-white and gibbering. “Are you -mad, or what?”</p> - -<p>“Were you sane, you infernal fool—you two infernal -fools—when you got into this car with the man whom -you have outraged?” shrieked Maudslay-Berrish. -“Haven’t you dragged my good name in the mud, made -me a by-word and a laughing-stock, a mockery even to -myself—even to myself, in the last five years! Why, -you d—— ——” (he called Mrs. Maudslay-Berrish an -unlovely name) “my very servants sneer at me, the people -at the theater grin when I come loafin’ round behind -the scenes. They’re quite aware of what I’ve swallowed -without gaggin’. They know I’ve lived on your money -when I’d got through my own, quite fly as to where most -of it came from”—he pointed a shaking finger at the -stricken Teddy—“and as downy as you pleased. Teddy, -old chap, I’ve <i>called</i> that blue-gilled funker there, and -half a dozen like him. Well, Teddy, old chap, say your -prayers quick, for you’re going to die suddenly!”</p> - -<p>The woman and her lover knew now what their late -dupe and butt meant to do. He had the ripping cord -half-hitched about his left wrist—the ripping cord, a -sharp tug at which will, when a balloon is dangerously -dragged during a descent, take an entire panel out of the -envelope in two seconds, immediately deflating the bag. -And in his right hand Maudslay-Berrish manipulated a -neat little revolver.</p> - -<p>Certainly he played the star part in the drama, and -held the audience breathless. Half of the audience, that -is, for Teddy, old chap, was at his prayers. Down on his -knees at the bottom of the car, his gloved hands rigidly -clasped, his handsome, weak face turned up to the sustaining -ball of gas that hovered in its imprisoning net<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> -above, between him and the Illimitable Void, he cowered -and slavered. In pleading for Heaven’s mercy upon a -miserable sinner, he set forth that his Eve had tempted -him; he asked for time to make up, another chance, a -year, six months, a week only of sweet life. Hearing -him, Eve herself grew sick with contempt of his infinite -littleness, and even Maudslay-Berrish half turned away -his eyes.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t <i>you</i> pray?” he said, sneeringly, to his -wife. “Why don’t <i>you</i> grovel like that thing you have -kissed?”</p> - -<p>Miss Fennis, of the Hyperion, would have held an -audience mute and breathless by the quiet scorn conveyed -in Mrs. Maudslay-Berrish’s look and tone.</p> - -<p>“I dare say when you have done what you are going -to do, I shall wake up in Hell,” she said; “and I believe -I shall have earned it!”</p> - -<p>Teddy, still spinning out the smeared records of his -Past, was now prostrate and bathed in tears.</p> - -<p>“If I doubted the existence of such a place before, I do -not now. For I have loved that man”—she bit her white -underlip sharply—“and I have seen and heard him. -Henceforth there can be nothing worse to bear, here or -hereafter. Why do you delay? Pull the cord and have -done with it, or I shall say <i>you</i> are afraid!”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>The <i>Beata</i> came sailing gently down upon a delightful -green expanse of turf at Aldershot—the tennis ground, -in fact, of a dandy Cavalry Regiment. The anchor -dropped and caught in a pollard oak; a dozen delightfully -pink lieutenants in correct flannels assisted the -handsome Miss Fennis, of the West End theaters, to -alight from the basket. Maudslay-Berrish, calm and -imperturbable as usual, followed. In the midst of congratulations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> -and offers of luncheon, a lieutenant exclaimed:</p> - -<p>“Great Scott! Why didn’t you say you’d another passenger -in the car? Here’s a man lying in a dead faint -at the bottom of it!”</p> - -<p>And they brought out Teddy, very white and limp, -and gave him brandy.</p> - -<p>“Heart weak, what?” said the lieutenant who had exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“He has certainly had some—cardiac trouble,” returned -Maudslay-Berrish placidly; “but I think he will -be less liable to the—ahem!—the weakness after this -little trip of ours together in the Fourth Dimension.”</p> - -<p>And he smiled as he lighted a very large cigar.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE GEWGAW</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE iron doors of the auction-room were closed -tightly as the valves of an oyster shell; the forward -rush of a smartly attired throng awaited their rolling -back in the polished steel grooves. It was to be a -woman’s field day; the contents of a notable jewel -casket were to be dispersed under the hammer. And the -<i>bonne-mouche</i> of the occasion—a superb blue diamond -of sixty-five carats, a gem worthy to rank among the historic -stones of the world, fit to be counted among the -treasures of a Sultan or to blaze upon the bosom of an -Empress—was discussed by watering mouths. Some of -them were old and some of them were young, but all were -tinted with the newest shade in lip bloom, and all wore -the same expression of almost sensual desire. Paradise -plumes fought together as wonderfully hatted heads -bent and swayed and nodded in animated discussion. -The stone had brought a hundred thousand louis and -the Grand Monarque’s own patent of nobility to the -Portuguese adventurer who had stolen it from a Hindu -temple midway in the seventeenth century. It had -gleamed between the wicked, white breasts of the -Duchesse de Berry, the shameless daughter of the Régent -d’Orleans, at that final supper on the Terrace of -Meudon. It had been seized by the Revolutionists in -the stormy days of 1792, and had mysteriously vanished -from the Garde Meuble, to reappear in the taloned -clutches of a London money lender and gem dealer, notorious -as a rogue among the spendthrift fine gentlemen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> -of White’s and Crockford’s. And it had been bought by -a big banker, and bid for by a Tsar, and sold to a great -Tory nobleman, and left as an heirloom, and given to an -Italian opera singer, and got back by arbitration and -made a ward in Chancery, and sold in Paris by sanction -of the Court; and now the woman who had bought and -owned and worn it—sometimes as the swinging central -stone of a tiara, at other times as the pendant to a -matchless collar of black pearls—was dead, and Briscoe’s -famous auction-room, which is the chief clearing-place -of the world, was about to witness a new record in -progressive bidding.</p> - -<p>The live women who had known and envied the dead -owner of the blue diamond clustered thick about the -iron doors, and loaded the atmosphere of the crowded -place with their perfumes, and chattered like the inmates -of the parrot house at the Zoological Gardens. -Not one of them but would have given her soul in exchange -for even a lesser jewel if Satan had appeared at -her elbow and suggested the exchange. He did come to -one of them. She was a pretty woman, still almost -young; she was beautifully dressed in painted silken -muslin, and wore a whole king bird of Paradise in her -Paris hat. The bronze-gold wires of the wonderful tail, -tipped with vivid emerald at the ends, curved and sprang -about the wearer’s well-waved and well-dressed head like -living snakes of incredible slenderness. The rich red -plumage of the dead creature’s head and throat gleamed -like rubies; the delicate feather tufts that sprang from -beneath the wings quivered with her every movement; -the orange bill held a seed, cunningly placed; the cobalt-blue -legs were perched upon a rose stem. To insure such -beauty in the plumage the skin must be torn from the -living bird. Any woman might be happy in possessing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> -such a hat; but this one was miserable.... She wanted -the big blue diamond.... And this urbane, polished -person, elegantly attired, had told her that, if she chose, -it might be hers in exchange for a possession only half -believed in—to wit, the woman’s soul—disposed of to a -personage held, until that psychological moment, to be -non-existent.</p> - -<p>This was not the devil of St. Dunstan, with horns and -a tail, or the cloaked and ribald wine seller of St. Anthony, -or the lubberly fiend of Luther, or the clawed and -scaly tempter of Bunyan. Nor did this personage bear -the least resemblance to the swaggering, scarlet-and-black, -sinister Mephistopheles of Goethe, as represented -by the late Sir Henry Irving—upon whom be the Peace -of Heaven!—but the woman entertained no doubt that -it was the very devil himself. In this urbane and polished -gentleman in the light gray, tight-waisted frock-coat -and trousers of Bond Street cut, from beneath -whose snowy, polished double collar flowed a voluminous -cascade of pearl-colored cravat pinned with a small but -perfect pigeon’s-blood ruby; whose lapel bore a mauve -orchid, whose immaculate white spats, perfectly polished -patent boots, slender watch-chain, jade-headed walking -stick, and pale buff gloves, betokened the most studied -refinement and the most elegant taste, the daughter of -Eve recognized the hereditary enemy of the Human -Race.</p> - -<p>She did not scream or turn ghastly with mortal -fear; her Crême Magnolia and Rose Ninon were quite -too thick for that. But her heart gave a sickening jolt, -and fear immeasurable paralyzed her faculties, and her -veins ran liquid ice—or was it liquid fire?—and for one -swooning instant, under the regard of those intolerably -mocking, unspeakably hateful eyes, the life in her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> -seemed to dwindle to a mere pin’s point of consciousness. -But she revived and rallied, and the terror passed.</p> - -<p>“Come!” he said, “you do not fear me—we have been -friends too long; and to me, who know the world so well, -and to you, who know it and are of it, there is nothing so -undesirable as to create a scene.” His voice was polished, -gracious. It caressed like the touch of velvet, even -if it crisped the nerves as velvet does. “You know me.... -I know you, and how your heart is set upon this -jewel that is to be sold to-day. Rest easy! Though -you have with you in that gold chain purse-bag notes for -fifteen thousand pounds, ten thousand of it raised by -what rigorous moralists ... those unpleasant persons! -... might call unlawful means....”</p> - -<p>“Hush!” she cried, trembling, unable to remove her -eyes from that face—long, oval, benevolent—with wide, -arched brows and features exquisitely regular, framed in -long waving hair—dark auburn mingled with gray—which -fell nearly to his collar and mingled with a curling -beard of natural growth. She trembled as the thought -shot through her that it caricatured a Face that hung, -pictured with a Crown of Thorns, above the cot in her -child-daughter’s nursery; and her thought was mirrored -in those intolerable eyes, and the sculpturesque lips -smiled in impious mockery.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes! It seems to you I bear some likeness to—shall -I say a distant—or an estranged Friend of yours.... -But I have many other faces, and you have ... -other friends. Do not be afraid, or waste time in denying, -the money is only borrowed; you are your young -daughter’s mother, as well as trustee and executor under -her father’s will.... And, surely, you may borrow the -ten thousand pounds at a pinch for an investment? Besides, -you will put it back before any unpleasant inquiries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> -are made by your fellow-guardian and co-trustee. -The manager of the Bank was quite deceived by the -second signature upon the deed of withdrawal, so admirably -counterfeited, so.... No, no, I do not wish to -alarm you! Be quite at ease upon this matter, really so -innocent and easily explained away. But with regard -to your project of buying the Blue Diamond—you have -no chance of carrying out your plan, not the faintest. -Between those sedate persons already assembled by high -privilege behind these shut iron doors an understanding -has already been arrived at. The Diamond will be put -up to public auction and actively bid for, it is true; but -the Diamond is already bought and sold.” His tone was -of the gentlest sympathy, but the mockery in his glance -and the gibing irony of his dreadful smile were to the -baffled woman like white-hot irons laid upon a bleeding -wound. “Mr. Ulysses Wanklyn, whose great duel with -Mr. Cupid Bose at the De Lirecourt sale over that Régence -commode of marqueterie thrilled all London, will -be the winner of the treasure at ninety-four thousand -guineas. Paragraphs in the afternoon papers—most excellent -publications I find them, and supremely useful—will -refer to the coup as ‘the climax of screeching -finance,’ and ‘the hall-mark on an enhanced standard of -jewel-values.’ And Messrs. Moreen and Blant, who will -retire, ostensibly beaten, from the field after a bid of -eighty-eight thousand, will be condoled with by writers -who are quite aware that Wanklyn, Bose, Moreen, Blant, -and half a dozen others constitute the Blue Diamond -Purchasing Syndicate, capital ninety-four thousand -guineas.”</p> - -<p>The wearer of the king bird of Paradise caught a sharp -breath, and bit her sensuous, scarlet-dyed underlip -fiercely. Stung to desperate courage by baffled desire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -and the thwarted jewel-lust that had robbed even her -child and made of her a forger, she even dared to question....</p> - -<p>“If that is so,” she said, with angry, dark eyes and a -rebelliously-heaving bosom, “why did you whisper to me -just now that I could have the Diamond for my own if I -gave you ... as the people do in the old German -legends ... my Soul in exchange for it?”</p> - -<p>He smiled, and caressed the strange, orchidaceous -flower he wore with perfectly-gloved fingers.</p> - -<p>“Have you not heard me called the Father of Lies ... -the Arch-Deceiver?”</p> - -<p>Rage intolerable possessed and rent her. She said -hoarsely, and in tones unlike her own:</p> - -<p>“You can give me the Blue Diamond, and I will have -it—<i>at your price</i>!”</p> - -<p>“You are really a woman of excellent sense,” he said—and -she was afraid to look because she knew how he was -smiling. “Present good for future gain!... Doubtless -you will recall the quotation, but so uncertain a futurity -is well bartered for such a jewel as they have in there. -Think—you will snatch it from the great dealers—from -the private connoisseurs. You will hold and display and -flaunt it in the face of society. You will be beautiful—wearing -it! You should be envied, wearing it! You may -be happy—doubtless you will be so! And now, just as a -mere form, prick your left wrist slightly with this -diamond-pointed pencil and inscribe your name upon a -leaf of these ebony tablets. First, though, be pleased -to remove that ... ahem!... miniature religious -symbol from your golden chain. The Crucifix means -nothing to you—you do not even remove it when you -draw your wedded lover to your embrace—but I am an -old-fashioned personage, and my prejudice extends back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span> -over nineteen hundred years—to the reign of Herod Antipas, -and is practically unalterable. So ... thanks! -That will serve me excellently!”</p> - -<p>From the woman’s hand something fell with a golden -tinkle to the parqueted floor. A surge of the crowd drove -her forward, her French heel crushed what she had -dropped. The diamond pencil pricked the white wrist -between the buttons of her dainty glove; she withdrew -it, a little scarlet bead glistening on the shining point, -and hesitated, only an instant, looking at the offered -tablets of ebony and gold.</p> - -<p>“Come, sign!... It will be over in an instant, and, -believe me, you will feel far more comfortable afterward!” -She remembered that her dentist had employed -the same phrases only a day or two before in persuading -her to consent to the removal of a decayed incisor. That -tooth’s successor—a perfect, polished example of human -ivory—gleamed as her lips drew back in a nervous laugh -provoked by the absurdity of the analogy. She scrawled -her signature, and the promise was fulfilled. She was -calm—at ease—had no more worrying doubts and silly -scruples. He wore no indiscreet expression of proprietorship; -his lips did not even smile. And if there was -mocking triumph in his eyes, his discreetly dropped lids -concealed it.... He bowed profoundly as he took -the ebony tablets, and then he lifted his gloved left hand -and laid a finger on the iron doors. And they rolled -apart, revealing the great safe with many patent locks, -and the auctioneer at his desk, and the clerk at his; and -the chosen already in their seats, and the elaborate preparations -for the elaborate farce that was to be played, -all ready. A savage rage boiled up in her as she looked -at the smug faces of the secret Syndicate, actors well-versed -in their separate parts. But the pressure of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> -chattering, screaming, perfumed crowd behind her carried -her over the threshold, and her companion too. Packed -tightly as sardines in the confined space about the rostrum, -Society waited the great event. And a bunch of -master-keys was produced by the senior partner of -Briscoe’s, and with much juggling of patent locks the -great safe gave up the big, square jewel-case containing -the famous collection, and a sibilant “<i>Ss’s!</i>” of indrawn -breaths greeted the lifting of its lid.</p> - -<p>“Do not look at me! Listen—and look at the jewels,” -whispered the smooth, caressing voice in the ear of the -woman who had just signed away her soul in exchange -for the sensation of the day. And as a giant commissionaire -bearing pearl ropes and tiaras, bracelets and -rings and necklaces, nervously paraded up and down the -central aisle left for his convenience, and the chattering -and screaming of the society cockatoos redoubled, in -envious admiration of each swaggering, glittering, covetable -gewgaw, the devil told the woman very plainly how -the thing was to be done.</p> - -<p>“The stone that I shall give you is an exact replica in -a newly-invented paste of the stone that is the price of -what I have bought from you. When the commissionaire -brings round the Blue Diamond, touch the jewel boldly—take -it in your hand, as it is permissible to do—and -substitute the paste. Have no fear! I will undertake -that the act is undetected. Thenceforth wear your prize -undismayed; boast of it as you will. The one—the only—drawback -to your perfect happiness must be that society -will believe your jewel to be false, while you have -the exquisite joy of knowing it to be genuine. So take -<i>this</i>, and act as I have counseled. Two hours to wait -before you can dare to escape with it, for the Blue -Diamond will be the last lot of the day. But what are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> -two hours, even spent in a vitiated atmosphere, with -such a prize your own, hidden in your glove or in your -hand? A mere nothing! And here comes the commissionaire -with the Diamond.... Only an alumina in -hexagonal arrangement crystallized in the cooling of this -planet you call ‘the World’ as arrogantly as though there -were no others, and yet how unique, how exquisite! See -how the violet rays leap from the facets, even the noblest -sapphire looks cold and pale beside the glorious gem. -Murder has been committed for its shining sake over -and over again in ages of which your history has no -cognizance. It has purchased the faith of Emperors and -the oaths of Kings. Rivers of blood have flowed because -of it. Peerless women have laid down their honor to gain -it. And it will be yours ... yours! Quick, the commissionaire -is coming. School your hand to steadiness; -no need to hide your lust, for all faces wear the same -look here. Only be quick, and have no fear!”</p> - -<p>The eyes of the commissionaire were fastened upon the -woman’s white, ringed, well-manicured hand, as in its -turn it lifted the Blue Diamond—slightly set in platinum -as a pendant—from its pale green velvet bed. But yet -she effected the exchange. The substituted paste jewel -was borne on—the paroquets and cockatoos chattered -and screamed as loudly over the false stone as they had -over the real, which lay snugly hidden in the thief’s fair -bosom. The syndicate of dealers played out their farce -to its end, and Mr. Ulysses Wanklyn, to the infinite -chagrin of Mr. Cupid Bose, and the gnashing discomfiture -of Messrs. Moreen and Blant, secured the paste -diamond at ninety-four thousand pounds. And amidst -cries and congratulations the day ended. And the -woman, with her price in her bosom, escaped into the -open air, and signaled to the chauffeur waiting with her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> -motor-brougham and drove home. Fear and triumph -filled her. When would the theft be discovered? How -soon would voices in the streets begin to clamor of -the stolen gem? How should she who had stolen it ever -dare to wear or to vaunt it, with Scotland Yard—with -the detective eyes of all the world upon her? She had -been befooled, duped, defrauded; she moaned as she bit -her lace handkerchief through.... She reached her -dainty boudoir just in time to have hysterics behind its -locked and bolted doors. And when she had quieted -herself with ether and red lavender, she drew the Blue -Diamond from its hiding-place, and it gleamed in her -palm with a diabolical splendor, as though the stone -were sentient, and knew what it had cost. Could the -great dealers be deceived—a probability quite impossible—she -would be at liberty to wear this joy, this glory, -to see its myriad splendors reflected in envious eyes. She -kissed it as she had never kissed her child or any of her -lovers—with passion, until its sharp facets cut her lips. -And, as she kissed it, her quick ears were alert to catch -the shoutings of the newsmen in the streets. But there -were none. She dined in her boudoir, and slept, with the -aid of veronal; and in the morning’s newspaper there -was not a wail, not a word! She gave the king bird of -Paradise hat to her maid—she was so pleased, so thankful! -The afternoon papers, and those of the next day -and the next, were dumb upon the subject of the daring -theft of the big Blue Diamond from Briscoe’s famous -auction-room. She grew more and more secure. And -one never-to-be-forgotten night she put on a Paquin -gown and went to a great reception at a ducal house -with the Blue Diamond as pendant to her pearl-and-brilliant -collar. She counted on the cockatoos screeching, -but they did not screech. The eyes that dwelt on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -Blue Diamond were astonished, surprised, covertly -amused, contemptuous.</p> - -<p>“That is for luck, I suppose, dear?” cooed one of her -intimate friends. “I mean that large blue crystal you -are wearing.... I bought some last winter at a jeweler’s -in the bazaar at Rangoon—they find them with -moonstones and olivines and those other things in the -<i>débris</i> at the Ruby Mines, I understood. I must have -mine mounted. By the way, do you know that——” -(she mentioned the name of a great financier of cosmopolitan -habits and international fame) “has bought -the Blue Diamond from Ulysses Wanklyn for a hundred -and ten thousand pounds: <i>She</i>”—her voice dropped a -little as she referred to a lady upon whom the great -financier was reputed to have bestowed his plutocratic -affections—“will be here to-night. Probably she will -wear it! They say she was absolutely determined on his -getting it for her, and so.... <i>À porte basse, passant -courbé</i>, especially when the circumstances are pretty. -<i>What</i> do you say? You heard it had been discovered -by the dealers that the Blue Diamond had been found -to be false ... a paste imitation, or a cut crystal like -that thing you are wearing? Oh, my dear, how quite too -frightfully absurd a <i>canard</i>! As though Ulysses Wanklyn -and Cupid Bose and Blant, and all the other connoisseurs, -could be deceived! What a very remarkable-looking -man that is who is bowing to you!... The -graceful person with the Apostolic profile and the beautiful -silky beard”—and the intimate friend gave a little -shudder. “And the extraordinary eyes that give one a -crispation of the nerves?...”</p> - -<p>It was he—her Purchaser—moving suddenly toward -her through the throng of naked backs and bare bosoms.</p> - -<p>“I hope,” he said, and bowed and smiled, “that you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> -are satisfied with the result of our ... negotiations the -other day?” Then, as the fashionable crowd parted and -the Great Financier walked through the rooms, his imperious -mistress upon his arm, her husband looking amiable -behind them, he added, indicating the swinging -central pendant of the lady’s superb diamond tiara, with -a wave of a slender white-gloved hand, “My substitute -was convincing, you think; you suppose it has deceived -even the experts? Not in the least—the substitution of -the paste stone for the Blue Diamond was discovered -as soon as the public had quitted the auction-room. But -Messrs. Wanklyn and Bose and my other very good -friends who lay down the law in jewels as in other things, -to Society, agreed not to lose by the fraud. The paste -has the <i>cachet</i> of their approval, and has been sold for a -great sum. ‘What water!’ the world is crying. ‘What -luster!’ ‘How superb a gem!’ While you, my poor -friend, who display upon your bosom the real stone, have -merely been credited with a meretricious taste for wearing -Palais Royal jewelry. Pardon! I have not deceived -you—or not in the way you imagine.... I said the -Blue Diamond should be yours.... It is! I said you -should be envied; you should, certainly. It is a thousand -pities you are only sneered at. I said you might be -happy.... It is most regrettable that you do not find -the happiness you looked for. <i>Au revoir</i>, dear lady, -<i>au revoir</i>!”</p> - -<p>She felt indisposed, and went home....</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE NIGHT OF POWER</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In Two Parts</span></p> -</div> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE Doctor, stepping softly forth from the sick-room, -paused for a brief confidential parley with -the print-gowned, white-capped hospital nurse, who had -followed him. That functionary, gliding from his side, -evanished, with the falling of a curtain-sheet soaked in -disinfectant and the closing of a door, into the Blue-Beard -chamber beyond, leaving the man of medicine -free to pursue his portly way downstairs.</p> - -<p>At the bottom of the second flight one of the hotel servants -stopped him with a respectful murmur and a salver -with a card upon it; and the Doctor, reading the name -thereon by the help of a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, -inclined his neatly-shaved, gray-blue chin toward the -mourning diamond discreetly twinkling amid the billows -of black satin that rolled into the bosom of his -capacious waistcoat, saying:</p> - -<p>“The wife of my patient upstairs? Certainly; I will -see the lady at once. Which way?”</p> - -<p>His responsible, square-toed, patent-leather boots had -not much farther to carry him. The lady and her maid -were waiting in a sitting-room upon the next landing. -Under the fashionable physician’s heavy yellow eyelids—livery -eyelids, if one might dare to hint so—lay the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> -faculty of keen observation. He noticed, in the moment -of recovery from a justly-celebrated bow, that the maid -was in tears, and the mistress was not.</p> - -<p>He presupposed that he had the pleasure of addressing -Mrs. Rosval. Mrs. Rosval answered that he had. Then -the maid uttered a sob like the popping of a soda-water -cork, and Mrs. Rosval said:</p> - -<p>“Matilda, be quiet!”</p> - -<p>She was a woman of supple figure and of medium -height. She appeared to be elegantly dressed, though -no one garment that she wore asserted itself as having -been expensive. The eyes that looked at the Doctor -through her thick black veil struck him as being unnaturally -brilliant. This fact, together with the composure -of her voice and manner, confirmed him in the belief -that the woman was in a highly-strung condition of -emotional excitement. He was mentally evolving a little -prescription—with bromide in it, to be taken every three -hours—when she lifted her hands and unpinned the veil. -Then the Doctor looked in the face of a woman who was -as perfectly calm, cool, and composed as he was himself. -Even more so because the revelation rather surprised -him.</p> - -<p>She addressed him in clear, quiet tones:</p> - -<p>“A telegraphic message was delivered to me this morning——”</p> - -<p>“At Mirkwood Park, near Bradford,” the Doctor unconsciously -quoted aloud from the card he still held between -his plump white thumb and forefinger.</p> - -<p>“It purported to come from the proprietor of this -hotel. It said that Mr.—that my husband was dangerously -ill—that my presence was urgently needed.” Mrs. -Rosval’s lips—delicately chiseled lips, but totally devoid -of color—shaped themselves into something that might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -have been a smile. And as the maid, who nursed a -dressing-bag in the background, at this juncture emitted -a sniff, the mistress glanced again over her shoulder, and -said, with a slight accent of weariness or contempt, or -both together: “Really, Matilda, there is no need for -that!”</p> - -<p>The irrefragable Doctor had gauged the shallow depths -of the woman’s nature by this time. She was merely a -polished and singularly adamantine specimen of the unfeeling -wife. He allowed a tinge of rebuke to color the -tone of his explanation.</p> - -<p>“The proprietor acted upon my—ah—advice. The -condition of my patient may be truthfully described as—er—dangerous. -The illness is—in fact—typhoid fever. -And your husband has it in a bad form. There are complications -which——”</p> - -<p>The Doctor stopped short. For Mrs. Rosval was not -listening. She was crumpling a piece of pinkish paper -into a ball—probably the telegram to which she had -alluded—and pondering. Then she leveled those strangely -brilliant, narrow-lidded eyes of hers point-blank at the -Doctor, and asked: “Am I to understand that Mr. Rosval -has nothing to do with—my being sent for?”</p> - -<p>The Doctor conveyed the information that Mr. Rosval -had not prompted the step. Mr. Rosval had been—since -the third day following on the—ah—development of the -illness—ringing the changes between delirium and—ah—coma. -For—as the Doctor had already said—there were -complications——</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rosval neatly stopped the ball, for the second -time.</p> - -<p>“How did you know, if <i>he</i> did not tell you, that there -was a Mrs. Rosval? How did you get at my address?”</p> - -<p>The Doctor, swelling with the indignity of being supposed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -to have got at anybody’s address, explained that -the proprietor of the hotel, having some faint inkling -that Mr. Rosval belonged to the class of landed gentleman, -had looked up the name in <i>Burke</i>.</p> - -<p>The sharp suspicion faded out of Mrs. Rosval’s eyes as -she listened. It was a perfectly credible, perfectly simple -explanation. She tossed the crumpled telegram into the -fire—which devoured it at a gulp—and began to pull off -her gloves. That was her way of intimating that she -accepted the situation. Then she rang the bell. The -decorous waiter appeared, and she gave the man a quiet -order, handing him some loose silver and a slip of paper, -upon which she had penciled a few words.</p> - -<p>“A cab is waiting at the door. Pay the driver and -send him away. A person who is—not quite a gentleman—is -waiting in the vestibule. Say to him that Mrs. -Rosval is satisfied, and there is no need to wait. Give -him that paper at the same moment, or he will not believe -you!” As the waiter vanished she turned to the -Doctor with the faintest flicker of a smile upon her sensitive -pale lips. “I thought it wisest to keep the cab, in -case I required to leave this place hurriedly,” said Mrs. -Rosval. “The man waiting downstairs is a detective -from a well-known Agency. I judged it best to enlist -his services—he would have proved useful supposing this -business of the telegram to have been a Trap.”</p> - -<p>The Doctor spread his large white hands, danglingly, -like a seal’s flappers.</p> - -<p>“A trap?” he repeated, helplessly. “My dear madam! -You suspected that some designing person or persons unknown -might—possibly use your husband’s name, invent -a story of his illness as a ruse to—entrap you?”</p> - -<p>“I suspected,” returned Mrs. Rosval, “no unknown -person. The inventor of the ruse would have been my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> -husband. We separated some years ago by mutual consent. -At least, I refused to live with him any longer, -and he—knowing what grounds I had for the refusal—was -obliged to submit. But he resented my action in the -matter.” Mrs. Rosval raised her delicate dark eyebrows -with weary disdain, and imparted to her shoulders a -mute eloquence of contempt which is not the prerogative -of an English-bred woman. “And he has, more than -once, had recourse to what, for want of a better word, -I call Traps. That is all. Matilda,” she addressed the -tearful maid, “dry your eyes and tell the people downstairs -that I engage this suite of rooms. Two bedrooms, -a bathroom, and sitting-room at ten guineas a week, I -think they said? Horribly expensive, but it cannot be -helped. And now, Doctor”—she turned again to the -Doctor—“when do you wish me to see your patient? At -once? It shall be at once if you say so! I am completely -in your hands!”</p> - -<p>The Doctor, a little staggered by the deftness of his -patient’s wife in transferring the onus of the situation -from her shoulders to his own, absolutely prohibited any -suggestion of her entering the sick-room until refreshed -and rested. Mrs. Rosval acquiesced, with a repetition of -that compromising statement about being completely in -his hands—and the Doctor took his leave, promising to -return later that evening. She gave him her cool fingers, -and they parted. He had no sooner reached the door -than she called him back.</p> - -<p>“I only wanted to ask—— Of course, you have a -library. Does the catalogue of your library include a -file of the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>?” It did, the Doctor admitted. -File in question extending some twelve years -back.</p> - -<p>“Three will do,” said Mrs. Rosval, warming one slender<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> -arched foot upon the fender. “Next time you are in -want of a little light reading, look in the Law Intelligence, -Divorce Division, month of February, 1899, where -you will find a case: ‘Ffrench <i>v.</i> Ffrench; Rosval cited.’ -The details will explain a good deal that may appear -puzzling to you with regard to the strained relations between -Mr. Rosval and myself. Though doctors never -allow themselves to be puzzled, do they? <i>Au revoir!</i>”</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>The Doctor had had an unusually busy day of it. But -he curtailed his after-dinner nap in order to glance -through the Law Intelligence records of the month of -February, 1899. There was much in the case to which -Mrs. Rosval had referred that went far toward justifying -the “strained relations” she had hinted at. And it is -the duty of the medical profession to rally at the war-cry -of the outraged Proprieties. But, when alone and unobserved, -doctors have many points in common with -mere men. And as this Doctor stepped into his brougham -he said, “Women are very hard! In all human probability -the man was innocent.” He said again, “Women -are hard!” as he creaked up the hotel staircase.</p> - -<p>He found her in the sick-room. She had changed her -dress for something that gave out no assertive silken -rustle in answer to her movements, something that draped -the charming contour of her figure—she had a charming -figure—with soft, quiet folds, like the wings of a dun -hawkmoth. That fell composure still walled her in as -with ramparts of steel. She held the bed-curtain back -as the Doctor stooped over the livid, discolored face upon -the pillow. She took a linen cloth from the nurse, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> -deftly, lightly wiped away the froth and mucus that had -gathered about the cracked and bleeding lips. But the -hand that rendered these offices was as steady as though -it had been carved out of white marble.</p> - -<p>Disturbed from his lethargy by the invasion of candlelight -upon his haggard eyelids and the Doctor’s bass -murmur in his ear, the sick man began to talk a little. -For the most part it was mere gabble, but some sentences -were plain. He moaned piteously for a barber, because -he was unshaven. Rosval had always been foolishly vain -of his personal appearance. And he damned the one -glass of bad water, to the imbibition of which he attributed -his disease, promising, if he got well, never to -drink any more. To do him credit, he had never been -addicted to that particular form of liquid refreshment. -The Doctor inferred as much from his diagnosis—and -from the faint sarcastic quiver of Mrs. Rosval’s white -lips. Then the tongue of the man ceased wagging—but -the burning head began to thresh to and fro upon the -pillow, and the claw-like hands to scratch at the bed-clothes -in a fresh access of the maddening enteric irritation. -Alleviating measures proved as effective as alleviating -measures generally do prove; the head went on -rolling, and the crooked talons continued to tear. All -at once they were quiet. Mrs. Rosval had laid her hand -upon the clammy forehead—about as tenderly, to all -appearance, as she would have laid it upon the back of -a chair. And the man was still. She placed the other -hand beside the first—the drawn lines about the nostrils -relaxed, the clenched teeth parted, the breast rose and -fell with the indrawing and outgoing of a sigh of relief. -And the man slept. So soundly that she moved from -him presently, without disturbing him, and passed into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -the room adjoining, where the Doctor and the nurse were -holding a whispered confabulation.</p> - -<p>There would be no need to send in another professional -attendant, the nurse said, now that the patient’s wife -had arrived. She possessed a remarkable ability for -nursing, and extraordinary self-command. She shrank -from nothing—not even the most repugnant duties of -the sick-chamber. The nurse had met in her time with -ladies who took things coolly; but this lady really surprised -her.</p> - -<p>The Doctor was in the act of shaking his head—not -from side to side, but up and down—a gesture which expressed -indulgent tolerance of the nurse’s surprise while -it repudiated the notion of his entertaining any on his -own account—when he jumped. For a calm, quiet voice -at his elbow said:</p> - -<p>“You told me that Mr. Rosval was dangerously ill. -Is he dying?”</p> - -<p>The nurse had vanished into the carbolic-laden atmosphere -of the Chamber of Horrors.</p> - -<p>“My dear madam, your husband is in the Hands——” -So the Doctor was beginning, when the obvious inappropriateness -of the stereotyped formula stopped him short. -Then he admitted that the condition of the man in the -other room was very precarious. That he could not, -when not in <i>articulo mortis</i>, be said to be dying—but -that, toward the small hours of the morning, he might -attain to a pitch of prostration closely allied to that condition. -And that nothing could be done for him but to -give him milk and medicine regularly, and—— The -Doctor would have ended “and trust in Providence,” but -for obvious reasons he thought better of it. Then he -went away, feeling quite certain in his own mind that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> -Mrs. Rosval would be a widow before twenty-four hours -were over.</p> - -<p>That lady, meanwhile, returning to the sick-room, had -persuaded the fagged nurse to go and lie down. She -understood how to do all that was necessary, she whispered, -and would call the attendant if any change occurred. -Then she sat down at the foot of the bed, and -prepared to keep her vigil with unshaken fortitude. The -sleeping woman in the next room breathed heavily, the -sounds of rolling wheels and jarring voices grew less and -less—then all fell quiet. About three hours before the -dawn the sleeper awakened. The hollow eyes no longer -turned on her with the blind, glassy stare of delirium. -There was reason in Rosval’s look, and memory.</p> - -<p>He seemed to beckon, and she came near. She had to -stoop to catch the moaning whisper that asked: “How—did -you—come here?”</p> - -<p>She answered steadily, “They sent for me.”</p> - -<p>“They’d not have—if <i>I</i> had known!” Rosval gasped.</p> - -<p>“If I annoy you,” said Mrs. Rosval, with icy tolerance, -“I can go!” She turned, meaning to call the nurse; -but a claw-like hand went weakly out and caught at her -skirts. The grasp was no stronger than that of a newborn -child, but, just for that it <i>was</i> so feeble, it held her.</p> - -<p>“You’ll not go! Three years—you’ve treated me—like -a leper! Never would—listen to what I’d got to -say. But now ... I—tell you, she—sat on—my knee -and—kissed me! Before I knew it—and then—the husband -came in! A plant, by Gad!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rosval said, “You must not talk. The Doctor -says you are not to talk,” and busied herself with the -bottles and glasses that occupied a little stand near the -bedside.</p> - -<p>Rosval condemned the Doctor. Mrs. Rosval measured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> -out his medicine, raised his head with professional skill, -and offered him the glass. He clenched his teeth, and -defied her with gaunt eyes across the brim.</p> - -<p>“No! No milk—no doctor’s stuff. I’ve been going to -the devil—for three years past,” proclaimed the sinner, -feebly. “Why not go—at once—and have done with it?” -Then he fell back heavily on the pillow.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rosval summoned the nurse. The nurse could do -nothing. For the moribund was obdurate, and every -fresh manifestation of obduracy drove not one, but half a -gross of nails into his coffin. That casket was fast progressing -toward completion, when Mrs. Rosval conceived -a desperate idea. The execution of it cost her a severe -struggle. Stooping down, she whispered to the sinking -man:</p> - -<p>“Jack!”</p> - -<p>His faded eyes rolled in their sunken sockets until they -rested on her. He said with difficulty:</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“What will make you take it?”</p> - -<p>Something like a gleam of cunning came into the face. -The answer came:</p> - -<p>“Kiss me!”</p> - -<p>She battled with herself for a moment silently, and -then, bending closer, touched his forehead with her lips.</p> - -<p>“That isn’t all! You must say: ‘<i>I forgive you!</i>’”</p> - -<p>“I can’t!”</p> - -<p>“All—right, then!”</p> - -<p>Silence ensued. The angles of the features were growing -pinched and sharp; a bluish shade was creeping -about the mouth. She cast a glance of scorn at her own -reflection, caught in a mirror that hung against the opposite -wall, and said the words:</p> - -<p>“I forgive you! Isn’t that enough?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>“Not quite. ‘<i>I love you—and——</i>’”</p> - -<p>The voice was getting very faint.</p> - -<p>“I love you—dear—and——”</p> - -<p>“And ‘<i>I take you back!</i>’”</p> - -<p>“I take you back.” Her iron fortitude was broken. -She said it with a sob, and gathered the weak head to -her bosom, being the kind of woman who does not do -things by halves.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>A month later the Doctor received a check. It was a -handsome check, enclosed with the thanks and compliments -of Mr. and Mrs. Rosval, on leaving London.</p> - -<p>“Carried him off with her into the country,” said the -Doctor, tapping his teeth with a paper-knife as he closed -the volume of the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> which contained the -case “Ffrench <i>v.</i> Ffrench; Rosval cited.” “In other -words, taken him back. And in all human probability -the man was guilty. Women are very weak!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE MAN WHO COULD MANAGE -WOMEN</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">OR thought he could. Which comes to the same -thing. His name was Yethill, and he was a Junior -Captain in the R. A.</p> - -<p>Yethill belonged to the New School; he was a specimen -of the latest military development of the age. By -their smoked spectacles shall ye know Yethill and his -peers; by the right foot, which is broadened by the lathe; -by the right thumb, which is yellowed with acids and -sticky with collodion; by the hard-bitten, pragmatical, -theoretical, didactic way of treating all mysteries in -heaven—a locality which is interesting only in virtue of -the opportunities afforded to trick aviators—and earth, -in which mines may be dug, and upon which experiments -may be carried on. These men wake themselves -in the morning, and heat their shaving water by means -of electrical machines of their own invention. They -carry kodaks in their bosoms, and are, in the matter of -imparting information, human volcanoes continually in -eruption.</p> - -<p>Yethill was not behind his fellows in this respect. -When he had said his little say upon the Theory of Wireless -Photophony, the Detection of Subterranean Mines -by the K Rays, and the irresponsibility of the bedbug -in connection with beri-beri; when he had told the Head -of the Electrical Department how many watts are equivalent -to a horse-power, and explained to the Colonel, -who is sinfully proud of his men, that the employment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> -of the uneducated inferior in warfare will cease with the -century, and that the army of the future will consist -entirely of officers, he would drop his voice to a confidential -whisper and control his elbows. He talked heliographically -as a rule, and if a man were left to listen to -him—he could, as a rule, clear the Mess smoking-room -in ten minutes from the start—he would dilate at length -upon his best-loved hobby, the art of managing women.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Yethill was no Adonis. He had a knobby, argumentative -head, a harlequin set of features, each separate one -belonging to a different order and period of facial architecture; -and a figure which was not calculated, as his -tailor observed with bitterness, to do justice to a good -cut. But it was wonderful to hear him talk in that conquering, -masterful way of his. He had an appalling -array of statistics to prove that the majority of marriages -were miserable; that life, connubially speaking, -was dust and ashes in the mouths of nineteen Benedicts -out of twenty. But the darkest hour presaged the dawn. -Let the man about to marry, let the already-married, -but adopt the Yethill system of sweetheart-and-wife -breaking, and thenceforth all would be well. And thousands -of voices arising from the uttermost ends of the -civilized earth would hail with one accord Yethill as -their deliverer.</p> - -<p>Then came an essay on the New Art of Courtship.</p> - -<p>“To a man,” Yethill would say, jerking his knee and -stammering a little, as his custom was when excited, -“who is a reasonable being, the woman he loves is a -woman—only spelt with a big ‘W’; the woman he likes -is a woman spelt in the ordinary way; and the woman -he doesn’t like is a mere creature of the female sex. To -a woman,” Yethill would continue, “who is, nineteen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> -times out of twenty, a perfectly unreasonable being;—the -man she loves is a demi-god; the man she doesn’t -love is a man;—and the man she dislikes is a gorilla. -She quite overlooks the fact that in every individual -human male these three may be found united. And man -is weak enough to humor her. So that out of so many -marriages that take place, a majority—a frightful majority—are -founded upon illusions. And the subsequent -state of conjugality may be called a state of evolution, -in which these primary illusions, after undergoing a -process of disarrangement and disintegration, are finally -reduced to impalpable powder, and the Bed Rock of -Reality is laid bare. We know what happens after that!”</p> - -<p>The listening man generally knew enough to grunt an -affirmative. And Yethill would, with many weird facial -jerks and twitches, go on to explain the system.</p> - -<p>The great system was, like all other wonderful discoveries, -involved in a very simple plan of procedure. It -consisted only in reversing the accepted order of things. -A man, supposedly desirous of getting married, recognizing -in himself the existence of the trinity above mentioned, -should assert the existence of the third person -from the very outset—suppress the demi-god, show the -gorilla. Let the woman you were about to make your -wife see the worst of you before you showed her the -best. Let her pass through the burning fiery furnace -before you admitted her into the Paradise that is the -reward of proved devotion. Let her know what bullying -meant before you took to petting—blame her weaknesses -before you praised her virtues. Under this <i>régime</i> there -would be no illusions to commence with; and married -life, instead of being full of disappointments, would be -replete with delightful surprises. Your wife married you, -believing you to be a gorilla.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>“There’s the weak point,” the listener would interpolate. -“What woman, unless a lunatic of sorts, <i>would</i> -marry a gorilla?”</p> - -<p>Yethill would not hear of this objection. He was always -deaf when you came to it. He would pound on—dilate -on the surprise and joy with which she found that -she had married a man, and the rapture with which she -would greet the final discovery that she had got hold of -a demi-god.</p> - -<p>“It sounds splendid,” the other men would say, “but -it won’t wash. Look here, I’m going to take Miss So-and-So -up to a Gaiety <i>matinée</i> to-morrow. To follow -up your system I ought to call for her in my worst -clothes, be surly on the way to the station, and neglectful -in the tunnels. I ought to dump her into her stall -like a sack, go out to ‘see a man’ between every act, and -take it for granted that she doesn’t want cool tea and -warm ices. You know that’d never do! She’d give me -the bag to-morrow. And she’d be right!”</p> - -<p>But Yethill hearkened not. There was excitement at -the Arsenal, and much babbling in barracks, the day on -which it was publicly made known that Yethill contemplated -giving an object-lesson in support of his great -system very shortly.</p> - -<p>The object was Miss Sallis.</p> - -<p>Miss Sallis was a fluffy little pink-and-white girl, the -daughter of a retired Admiral, who lived near the Dockyard.</p> - -<p>Men had dined with Miss Sallis, and played tennis -with Miss Sallis, and flirted with Miss Sallis, during -several seasons past. Some of them had asked for her -hand—she wore fives in gloves—and had not got it. -Thus, Yethill’s announcement was received with a certain -degree of risibility. No bets were made upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> -chances of Yethill’s getting her, the odds against his acceptance -were too tremendous. Yethill proposed. He -mentioned that his prospects of advancement in the -Service were not very promising; that his scientific pursuits -would have to be relinquished if he were to set up -an establishment on even a moderate scale, and that he -did not intend to relinquish those pursuits; that there -were several hereditary diseases in his family; that, -while bestowing upon the lady he honored with the offer -of his hand a regard which justified his proposal, he -should not have made that proposal had the lady been -poor—with other statements of equal candor. A more -wonderful proposal was never made.</p> - -<p>What was more wonderful still, Miss Sallis accepted -him! He bought her a ring, containing three small fragments -of petrified red-currant jelly, embedded in fifteen-carat -gold; and when she asked him to put it on her -finger said, “Oh, rot!” and wouldn’t. He spent a certain -amount of time with his betrothed, but invariably carried -a scientific work in his pocket, wherein he might -openly take refuge when the primrose paths of love -proved wearisome. He forbade her to dance with other -men, and did not dance with her himself. He snubbed -her when she asked questions about his camera, his lathe, -his batteries, and tried timidly to be interested in magnets -and inductors, acids and cells, because they interested -<i>him</i>. He carried out his system thoroughly. If -Miss Sallis <i>had</i> any illusions about Yethill he bowled -the poor little thing over, right and left, like ninepins, -long before the wedding day.</p> - -<p>With the loss of her illusions went some of her good -looks. She made a pretty-looking little bride. With her -fluffy pale hair, her pink nose, and her pink eyelids, a -not remote resemblance to an Angora kitten was traced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> -in her. She was married in a traveling-gown, without -any bridesmaids; and after the wedding-breakfast Captain -and Mrs. Yethill drove home to their lodgings on -the Common. The wedding-trip had been abandoned—from -no lack of money, but because Yethill said he had -had enough of traveling, and the custom of carrying a -bride away, as if in triumph, to the accompaniment of -rice and slippers, was “guff.” He certainly played the -gorilla as if to the manner born. The poor little woman -loved him; he loved her. But as his skull was made of -seven-inch armor-plate, he went on knocking it against -his system. He had got used to the gorilla-business, and -couldn’t leave it off. Yet, out of his wife’s sight and -hearing, he was a doting husband. The Duke in the -<i>Story of Patient Griseldis</i> must have been a man of Yethill’s -stamp.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Yethill, as time went on, began to be a walking -manifestation of the effects of the system. She lost her -gaiety and her pink cheeks; her smile became nervous -and her dress dowdy. The little vanities, the little weaknesses, -the little affectations, which had helped to make -Miss Sallis charming, had been bullied out of Mrs. Yethill’s -character until it was as destitute of any blade of -verdure as a skating-rink. She had proved herself the -most patient, loving, tolerant of wives; but Yethill went -on trying her. She stood the trials, and he invented new -tests—exactly as if she had been a Government bayonet -or a regulation sword-blade. A bright man Yethill!</p> - -<p>They were called upon, and returned visits, at intervals. -A taste for society was one of the tendencies which -were to be chastened. Female friends were prohibited, -as being likely to sow the seed of incipient rebellion -against the system.</p> - -<p>“I don’t care, Tom, if I have you!” said Mrs. Yethill,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> -patting her gorilla, who, mindful of his own tenets, was -careful not to exhibit any appreciation of her attention. -But he made up for it by boasting that evening in the -smoking-room, until those who hearkened with difficulty -prevented themselves from braining him with legs of -chairs. Their wives would have commended them for -the deed. Yethill had not many admirers about this -period.</p> - -<p>But he went on blindly. Can one ever forget how he -crowed over having cured Mrs. Yethill of a tendency -toward jealousy, of the vague and indiscriminating kind? -The prescription consisted in posting to himself letters -highly scented and addressed in a variety of feminine -scrawls. Yethill was good at imitating handwriting!—and -he absented himself from the domestic hearth for -several days together whenever there was a recurrence -of the symptoms. The method wrought a wonderful -cure; but Mrs. Yethill began to grow elderly from about -this period. You could hardly have called her a young -woman, when the baby came, and brought his mother’s -lost youth back to her, clenched in one pudgy hand. The -vanished roses fluttered back and perched upon her thin -cheekbones again. She was heard to laugh. Her husband, -who secretly adored her, and who had continued -to stick to the system more from a desire for <i>her</i> glorification -than his own, feared a retrogression. So he -thought out a new torture or two, and put them into -active application. He sneered at the puerilities of -nursery talk. He downcried the beauty and attainments -of the baby when she praised them. He pooh-poohed -her motherly fears, when the ailments inseparable from -the joyous period of infancy overtook his heir. This was -the last straw laid upon Mrs. Yethill’s aching shoulders. -The downfall of the great system followed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>In this way. His wife came into his workshop one -morning. The workshop was forbidden ground, and Yethill -dropped the negative he was developing, and turned -to stare. He saw that she was very pale, and that her -lips were bitten in. He heard her say that there was -something the matter with baby, and she wanted the -doctor.</p> - -<p>Solely in the interests of his wife whom he esteemed -above all living women, Yethill refused to allow the doctor -to be sent for. The child was as right as a trivet. -Women were always worrying. She was to get away -with her nonsense, and leave him in peace. With more -to the same effect. She drooped her head, and went -away obediently, only to return in half an hour, with -another version of the same prayer upon her lips. Would -he—would he come and look for himself? Yethill was -thoroughly annoyed. Yethill refused. Yethill went on, -stubbornly, dabbling with his negatives, until right from -overhead—baby’s nursery was above the workshop—Yethill -had never heard a woman scream like that before.... -Something like an ice-bolt shot down his -spine. He dashed up to the nursery, and looked in. The -sight he saw there sent him tearing across the Common, -a hatless, coatless man, to the Doctor’s house.</p> - -<p>When the Doctor came he said he could be of no use; -he ought to have been called in an hour ago. And -Yethill, hearing this fiat, and meeting his wife’s eyes -across the table, felt the system totter to its foundations.</p> - -<p>He found himself wondering at her for taking baby’s -end so quietly; but he had schooled her to endure silently. -There were no tears—he had always jeered at -tears. The Doctor took him aside before he left.</p> - -<p>“You must treat your wife with kindness—and consideration,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -Yethill,” said the Doctor, “or I won’t answer -for the consequences!”</p> - -<p>As if Yethill needed to be told to be kind or considerate! -As if Yethill had never loved—did not love—the -late Miss Sallis! He planned a revelation for her -without delay. He would take her in his arms; kiss her, -and tell her that her time of trial was overpast; give -her her meed of praise for her heroism, her meed of sympathy -for her grief—and his. And he would own that he -had made a mistake in the matter of baby deceased. -And she would forgive—as she always had forgiven.</p> - -<p>As he decided this, she came into the room. She was -quite composed. She carried something behind her. She -spoke to him very quietly in a dull, strange, level voice—so -strange a voice that, just as he was about to open his -arms and say, “Annie!” in the voice he had been saving -up for the Day of Revelation, the gesture and the word -wouldn’t come.</p> - -<p>“Tom,” said Mrs. Yethill, “what should you say if I -told you that I had made up my mind to kill myself?”</p> - -<p>She brought her hand from behind her; it held one of -Yethill’s revolvers. She had been very much afraid of -these lethal instruments in the early days of her marriage, -but under the system had learned to clean them, -and even drew the cartridges. But the thing she held -wasn’t loaded, Yethill was quite sure of that. It sealed -up the fountain of his admiring tenderness to have her -treat him to commonplace, vulgar heroics. It put her -out of drawing, and Yethill out of temper.</p> - -<p>She asked again:</p> - -<p>“What would you say if I told you I mean to kill -myself?”</p> - -<p>Yethill ran his armor-plated head against the last wall. -He answered brutally:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>“I should tell you, if you were such a fool as to -threaten such a thing, to do it, and have done with it!”</p> - -<p>She said, “Very well!”—and did it.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>When people came running in, they found something—perhaps -it was the system—scattered on the walls, on the -floor, everywhere. And Yethill was howling, and beating -his seven-inch skull against heavy pieces of furniture, -and calling on Annie to come back. But she had escaped, -and was in no hurry; and he hadn’t the pluck to -follow her out of the world and apologize.</p> - -<p>“Was she mad?” somebody asked the Doctor; and the -Doctor said:</p> - -<p>“No; but she might have become so if she had lived -much longer with a lunatic!”</p> - -<p>“You mean——?”</p> - -<p>“I mean,” said the Doctor, “that Yethill has been suffering -from dementia for years. I mean that he will see -the inside of a Lunatic Asylum in six months from date.”</p> - -<p>But the Doctor was wrong. He did—in three!</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">OBSESSED</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap2">ANDREW FENN is known to the world as an art -critic and essayist of unerring instinct and exquisite -refinement, a writer of charming <i>vers de société</i>, -and teller of tales supposedly designed for children, but -in reality more appreciated by children of a larger -growth. He is much sought after, but little to be found, -unless one has the <i>entrée</i> to his pleasant, roomy old -house in Church Street, Chelsea, where he lives in the -midst of his library—the whole house is a library—his -etchings and Japanese curios. He is less of a traveler -than he used to be; getting old, he says, and lazy, content -with old friends, soothed by old pipes, fortified by -old wine—he has a supreme <i>goût</i> in wines—and nourished -by excellent cookery.</p> - -<p>His household staff consists but of an elderly valet and -butler, and a housekeeper-cook. She has been in her -master’s service twenty years, and is beginning to grow -handsome, Andrew is wont to say. Certainly, if her -master speaks the truth, she must have been, when comparatively -young, extraordinarily unlovely, this most excellent -of women. Even now she infallibly reminds the -casual beholder of an antique ecclesiastical gargoyle -much worn by weather. Her name is Ladds. She has -never been married, but respect for the position of authority -she occupies in Andrew’s household universally -accords her brevet rank. She might have occupied another, -and more important position, if——</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Andrew says, when he is disposed to tell the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -story—and he often does tell it to intimate friends, -leaning back on the library divan, after a cosy dinner, -holding his gray beard in one big fist, still brown with -tropical sunshine—“Ladds is an excellent creature. She -might have married me, might Ladds!”</p> - -<p>We invariably chorus astonishment. Then some of -Ladds’ famous coffee comes in, and Andrew gets up to -hunt for precious liquors, and, having found them, continues:</p> - -<p>“I came <i>very</i> near marrying her—once.”</p> - -<p>Somebody growls: “Good job you pulled up in time!”</p> - -<p>Andrew rounds on the somebody. “<i>I</i> didn’t pull up. -<i>She</i> did. Refused me!”</p> - -<p>There is a general howl.</p> - -<p>“I am telling you men the truth,” Andrew says, pulling -the gray beard. “Fifteen years ago I was infatuated -with that woman. She possessed my every thought; she -dominated me, like——”</p> - -<p>“Like a nightmare!”</p> - -<p>“Apposite illustration,” says Andrew, nodding. “<i>Like</i> -a nightmare. It was just about the time I published my -book, <i>Studies of the Human Grotesque in Art, Ancient -and Modern</i>. You remember, some of you, I was keen -on the subject—had been for years. And I was a traveler -and collector in those days: I’d got together a wonderful -show of illustrative subjects. You won’t see many -of ’em now. I gave them to the Smoketown Mechanical -Institute afterward.”</p> - -<p>He pulls at his long cherrystick, and blows a cloud of -Latakia, and goes on:</p> - -<p>“I’d the whole house full. Peruvian idols, Aztec picture -writings, Polynesian and Maori war masks; Chinese -and Japanese, Burmese and Abyssinian, Hindu and -Persian monstrosities of every kind; Egyptian, Carthaginian,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -Babylonian, Druidical, Gothic—— Well, well! -I’m thoroughgoing, and when I do a thing I do it thoroughly. -It’s enough to say that every variety of libel -upon the human face and form that human ingenuity or -depravity has ever perpetrated, I’d carefully collected -and brought together here.”</p> - -<p>He waves his hand, with a curious cabalistical ring -upon it that once belonged, it is said, to Eliphas Lévi, -who had it from Albertus Magnus. But this may be -mere report.</p> - -<p>“I worked hard, and drank a great deal of coffee,” -says Andrew, “so much that my old housekeeper began -to be afraid something mysterious was the matter with -me. She expostulated at last, and I explained. Then -she got interested in the book; she was an intelligent -woman, poor dear old soul, and she got specially interested -in that section of the work which deals with the -Grotesque in Nature. Everything in humanity that is -purely grotesque—not deformed, unnatural, outrageous, -but purely quaint and bizarre—I piled into those chapters. -The work is illustrative, you know, as well as -descriptive, and the queer photographs and engravings -that scientific friends had contributed to this particular -portion of it absolutely fascinated the dear old lady.</p> - -<p>“‘To be sure, Master Andrew’ (she had known me -from my knickerbocker and peg-top days), ‘but them -are queer folk. And, my heart alive!’—she uttered a -sharp scream—‘if that picture isn’t the exact moral of -Jane Ladds!’</p> - -<p>“I glanced over her shoulder. It <i>was</i> a portrait of -Jane, certainly—a rude little wood cut of the sixteenth -century, purporting to be a portrait of a female jester, -attached, in her diverting capacity, to the Court of -Mary Tudor, during the latter part of her reign, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> -mentioned by name in some of the accounts of the Royal -household as ‘Jeanne la Folle.’ Unless the long-dead -delineator of her vanished charms has shamefully belied -them, Jeanne must have been one of the most grotesquely -hideous specimens of womanhood that ever existed. -Judge, then, whether the exclamation of my housekeeper -awakened my interest, excited my curiosity, or left me -apathetic and unmoved!”</p> - -<p>We are silent. Our interest, our curiosity, are urging -us to hurry on the conclusion of Andrew’s story.</p> - -<p>“You may suppose that I bombarded my housekeeper -with questions. What? Did a living counterpart of the -sixteenth-century joculatrix exist in the nineteenth? -What was her station in life? Where was she to be -found? In reply, I elicited the fact that Jane Ladds -was a countrywoman of my own, the daughter of a -wheelwright living in the village of Wickham, in Dorsetshire, -where I myself had first seen the light. Jane was -some half dozen years my junior, it appeared. My -mother had once taken her into her service as under-scullerymaid, -but in a casual encounter with the last new -baby (my brother Robert, now commanding his battery -of the Royal Horse Artillery at Jelalabad), Jane’s facial -eccentricities had produced such a marked effect -(resulting in convulsions) that the unfortunate <i>protégée</i> -had been hastily dismissed. Since when she had kept -house for her father, and was probably keeping it still; -there not being, said my housekeeper, the slightest human -probability that any potential husband would endeavor -to interfere with the wheelwright’s domestic arrangements.” -There comes a twinkle into Andrew’s -brown eyes.</p> - -<p>“‘No man would be mad enough!’ the old lady said. -Judge of her surprise when I turned upon her and ordered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -her to write—write at once to Dorsetshire, ascertain -whether Jane was still alive, still available, willing -to take service, under an old acquaintance, in a bachelor’s -London establishment? Stunned as she was, my -housekeeper obeyed. The wages I instructed her to offer -were good. An answering letter arrived within the space -of a week, announcing Jane Ladds’ willingness to accept -the offered situation. The letter was nicely written. I -read and reread it with morbid excitement. I looked -forward to the day of the writer’s arrival with an excitement -more morbid still. At last the day came, and -the woman....”</p> - -<p>We inspire deep breaths, and unanimously cry, “Go -on!”</p> - -<p>“My writing table was piled high with books—I -couldn’t see her until she came round the corner,” says -Andrew, “and stood by my chair. She wore her Sunday -clothes—Wickham taste inclines to garments of many -colors. In silence I contemplated one of the finest examples -of the Animated Grotesque it had ever been my -fortune to look upon. Her hair was then red—the -brightest red. Her nose was not so much a nose as a -pimple. Her mouth was the oddest of buttons. Her -forehead a ponderous coffer of bone, overhanging and -overshadowing the other features. She was lengthy of -arm, short of leg, dumpy of figure. She did not walk—she -waddled; she did not sit—she squatted. Her smile -was a gash, her curtsy the bob of an elder-pith puppet. -She was, as she is now, unique. You are all familiar -with her appearance. Search your memories for the moment -when that appearance dawned upon you first, intensify -your surprise, quadruple your sensations of delight—add -to these, imagine yourself dominated by a -fascination, weird, strange—inexplicable. In a word——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>Andrew’s pipe is out; he is gesticulating excitedly, and -his eyes have an odd gleam under his shaggy brows.</p> - -<p>“She took possession of me. I had her constantly -about me. She brought me everything I wanted. I was -never tired of gloating over my new-found treasure. -Every accent of her voice, every odd contortion of her -features, every awkward movement of her body was a -fresh revelation to me. All this while I was working at -my book. It was said afterward, in the newspapers, that -the entire work, especially the closing chapters on the -Human Grotesque, had been written in a fever of enthusiasm. -The reviewer never knew how rightly he had -guessed. Some of the theories I propounded and proved -were curious. That Ugliness is in reality the highest -form of Beauty—beauty in the abstract—was one of the -mildest. I believed it when I wrote it; for I was madly, -passionately infatuated with the ugliest woman I had -ever seen—my parlor maid, Jane Ladds!”</p> - -<p>We hang upon his words so that our pipes go out, and -our whisky and sodas stand untasted at our elbows.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” says Andrew, drawing a long, hard breath, “she -possessed my thoughts—dominated me—waking and -sleeping. I had the queerest of dreams, in which, with a -joy that was anguish, a rapture that was horror, I saw -myself attending crowded assemblies with my wife, Jane -Fenn, <i>née</i> Ladds, upon my arm. She wore my mother’s -diamonds, a <i>décolletée</i> gown from Worth’s; and as we -moved along together, sibilant whispers sounded in my -ears, and astonished eyes said as plainly, ‘<i>What</i> an ugly -woman!’</p> - -<p>“Then would come other visions ... Jane at the -head of my table ... Jane rocking the cradle of our -eldest born—an infant who strongly resembled his -mother ... Jane here, Jane there—Jane everywhere!...<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span> -My nerves, you will guess, must have been in a -very queer state.</p> - -<p>“All the time Jane Ladds would be deftly moving -about me, dusting my books and curios, or going on with -her sewing, or, to the utter stupefaction of my housekeeper, -I had issued orders that she should sit in the -window, where my glance might dwell upon her whenever -I lifted my head from my work. Late, late into -the small hours, when the sky began to gray toward the -dawning, and the ink in my stand got low, she used to -keep me company. Not the faintest shadow of impropriety -could attach to the association in any sane mind. -My housekeeper thought it queer, but nothing more.</p> - -<p>“She had—she has—very large, very rough, very red -hands. I used to imagine myself kissing one of those -hands when I should ask her to be my wife, and conjure -up the grotesque smile of shy delight with which she -would accept the unheard-of honor. The temptation to -snatch and kiss that awful hand became so powerful -that it cost me more effort than I can explain to resist -its ceaseless promptings. And I would chuckle as I -looked at it, and at the bizarre countenance that bent -over the stocking that was in process of being darned—Jane’s -peculiar, shuffling gait seemed to have a peculiarly -wearing effect on stockings—and wonder, <i>if she knew</i>, -how she would look, what she would say? Then she -would thread her needle, or bite the end of her worsted.... -That hand! that hand! The struggle between the -masterful impulse to seize and kiss it, and the shuddering -desire not to do anything of the kind, would, upon -these occasions, be perfectly indescribable. And—one -day—the very day that saw the completion of my book—I -yielded!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>“Yes?” we cry, interrogatively. All our eyes are -rounded, all our mouths wide open.</p> - -<p>“She saw some of my papers flutter to the carpet as I -pushed back my chair,” Andrew continues, “and obligingly -crossed the room, stooped and gathered them up. -A kind of mist came over my eyes, and when it cleared -away, she was there—by my side—holding the written -sheets out to me. That hand! I must—I must! Before -the poor creature could hazard a guess at my intentions, -I seized it—I kissed it—with a resounding smack. I -cried deliriously, ‘Jane, will you be my wife? I adore -you, Jane!’”</p> - -<p>“And what did she do? What did she say?...”</p> - -<p>“I’m coming to that! She drew away from me, and -turned very white, and her poor red hands trembled, and -her little button features twitched absurdly with the effort -she made to keep from crying. But, as I seized her -hands, and went on with my wild asseverations and -protestations—Heaven only knows what I said!—the -absurdity of the whole thing came on her, and she burst -out laughing wildly. Then I caught the infection, and -followed suit. Once I began, I couldn’t stop. I was -shaken like a rag in the wind—torn, possessed by seven -devils of risibility. But I went on raging, all through it, -that she must marry me! At last she tore herself away, -and ran out of the room, breathlessly to burst upon my -housekeeper with the information that ‘Master was mad, -and wanted the doctor.’ And she was not far wrong, for -by the time he came I was fit for nothing but to be carried -to bed. Twenty-four hours later I was raving in -brain fever. Seven weeks that red-hot torture lasted, -and then I came to myself, and found that through all -the delirium and fever I had been patiently, uncomplainingly, -tenderly nursed by poor Jane....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>Andrew’s voice grows a little husky as he nears the -finish.</p> - -<p>“Well, when I was convalescent, and knew that I owed -my life to her devotion, it seemed to me that only one -reparation was possible for the wrong I had done Jane. -It was a hard thing to do—the madness being over—the -morbid impulse that had swayed me being no longer in -the ascendant. But I did it! You may have noticed”—he -clears his husky throat—“that is, those among you -who have spoken to Ladds—<i>that she has a singularly -sweet voice</i>—a voice curiously out of keeping with her -personality. Well, when she thanked me for my ‘kindness’ -and—refused me, I might, supposing my eyes had -been shut, have fancied that I was listening to a beautiful -woman. She had been ‘marked out by the Lord’ to -lead a lonely life, she said. When she was a young girl -it used to make her cry when the lads went by <i>her</i>, ‘wi’ -their vaices turned away,’ and the girls laughed when -she put on a ribbon or a flower. But she got used to it; -and she quite understood that I was trying to make up—like -a gentleman as I was;—(a mighty poor kind of gentleman, -I felt)—‘for summat as I’d said when I didn’t -know what I was a-saying!’ Crazy people had queer -ideas, and the village ‘softy’ had once taken it into his -head that he was in love with Jane.... And she -thanked me for sticking to my word now that I was well, -and she’d be my faithful servant always and for ever, -Amen! Years have passed since then.... Well, she -has kept her word. I hope, when the end of everything -comes for me, that honest, tender, devoted heart will be -beating by my pillow. I hope——”</p> - -<p>Andrew breaks off abruptly, and gets up and wishes -us all good night.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">A VANISHED HAND</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap3"><i>“WHY,”</i> Daymond wrote, “<i>do you imagine that I -shall despise you for this confession? None but -a whole-souled, high-hearted woman could have made it! -You have said you love me, frankly; and I say in return -that had the fountains of my heart not been hopelessly -dried up at their sources, they must have sprung forth -gladly at such words from you. But the passion of love, -dear friend, it is for me no more to know; and I hold you -in too warm regard to offer you, in exchange for shekels -of pure Ophir gold, a defaced and worthless coinage!”</i></p> - -<p>As Daymond penned the closing words of the sentence, -the last rays of the smoky-red London sunset were withdrawn. -Only a little while ago he had replenished the -fire with fresh logs; but they were damp, and charred -slowly, giving forth no pleasant flame. He struck a -match and lighted a taper that stood upon his writing -table. It created a feeble oasis of yellow radiance upon -the darkness of the great studio, and the shadow of Daymond’s -head and shoulders bending above it, was cast -upward in gigantesque caricature upon the skylight, reduced -to frosty white opacity by a burden of March -snow.</p> - -<p>Daymond poised the drying pen in white, well-kept -fingers, and read over what he had written. Underlying -all the elegance of well-modeled phrases was the sheer -brutality of rejection, definitely expressed. His finely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> -strung mental organization revolted painfully at the imperative -necessity of being cruel.</p> - -<p>“She asks for bread,” he cried aloud, “and I am giving -her a stone!” The lofty walls and domed roof of his -workshop gave back the words to him, and his sensitive -ear noted the theatrical twang of the echo. Yet the -pang of remorse that had moved him to speech was quite -genuine.</p> - -<p>“<i>You have heard my story</i>,” he wrote on.</p> - -<p>A great many people had heard it, and had been bored -by it; but, sensitive as Daymond’s perceptions were, he -was not alive to this fact.</p> - -<p>“<i>Seventeen years ago, while I was still a student -dreaming of fame in a draughty Paris studio, I met the -woman who was destined—I felt it then as I know it -now—to be the one love of my life. She was an American, -a little older than myself. She was divinely beautiful -to me—I hardly know whether she was really so or -not. We gave up all, each for each. She left husband, -home, friends, to devote her life to me. I</i>——”</p> - -<p>He paused, trying to sum up the list of his own sacrifices, -and ultimately left the break, as potent to express -much, and went on:</p> - -<p>“<i>Guilty as I suppose we were, we were happy together—how -happy I dare not even recall. Twenty-four -months our life together lasted, and then came the end. -It was the cholera year in Paris; the year which brought -me my first foretaste of success in Art, robbed me of all -joy in life.... She died. Horribly! suddenly! And -the best of me lies buried in her grave!</i>”</p> - -<p>The muscles of his throat tightened with the rigor that -accompanies emotion; his eyelids smarted. He threw -back his still handsome head, and a tear fell shining on -the delicately scented paper underneath his hand. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> -looked at the drop as it spread and soaked into a damp -little circle, and made no use of the blotting paper to -remove the stain. If any crudely candid observer had -told Daymond that he dandled this desolation of his—took -an æsthetic delight in his devotion to the coffined -handful of dust that had once lived and palpitated at his -touch, he would have been honestly outraged and surprised. -Yet the thing was true. He had made his sorrow -into a hobby-horse during the last fifteen years of -honest regret, of absolute faithfulness to the memory of -his dead mistress. It gratified him to see the well-trained -creature dance and perform the tricks of the -<i>haute école</i>. He was aware that the romance of that -past, which he regretted with such real sincerity, added -something to the glamour of his achieved reputation, his -established fame, in the eyes of the world. The halo -which it cast about him had increased his desirability -in the eyes of the great lady who, after affording him -numberless unutilized opportunities for the declaration -of a sentiment which her large handsome person and her -large handsome property had inspired in many other -men, had written him a frank, womanly letter, placing -these unreservedly at his disposal.... And Daymond, -in his conscious fidelity and unconscious vanity, must -perforce reply wintrily, nipping with the east wind of -non-reciprocity the mature passion tendrils which sought -to twine themselves about him. It was a painful task, -though the obligation of it tickled him agreeably—another -proof of the inconsistency of the man, who may be -regarded as a type of humanity; for we are all veritable -Daymonds, in that the medium which gives us back to -our own gloating eyes day by day is never the crystal -mirror of Truth, but such a lying glass as the charlatans<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> -of centuries agone were wont to make for ancient Kings -and withered Queens to mop and mow in.</p> - -<p>Daymond pushed back his chair, and got up, and began -to pace from end to end of the studio. The costly -Moorish carpets muffled the falling of his footsteps, -which intermittently sounded on the polished interspaces -of the parqueted floor, and then were lost again in velvet -silence. In the same way, his tall figure, with its -thoughtfully bending head and hands clasped behind it, -would be swallowed up among the looming shadows of -tall easels or faintly glimmering suggestions of sculptured -figures which here and there thrust portions of limbs, or -angles of faces, out of the dusk—to appear again with -the twilit north window for its background, or emerge -once more upon the borders of the little island of tapershine. -So he moved amid the works of his genius restlessly -and wearily to and fro; and the incoherent mutterings -which broke from him showed that his thoughts -were running in the beaten track of years.</p> - -<p>“If I could see her again—if our eyes and lips and -hands and hearts might meet for even the fraction of a -minute, as they used to do, it would be enough. I could -wait then patiently through the slow decay of the cycles -for the turning of the key in the rusty wards, and the -clanking of my broken fetters on the echoing stone, and -the burst of light that shall herald my deliverance from -prison!...” He lifted his arms above his head. “Oh, -my dead love, my dear love! if you are near, as I have -sometimes fancied you were, speak to me, touch me—once, -only once!...” He waited a moment with closed -eyelids and outstretched hands, and then, with a dry sob -of baffled longing, stumbled back to his writing table, -where the little taper was flickering its last, and dropped -into his armchair.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>“And other women talk of love to me. What wonder -I am cold as ice to them, remembering her!”</p> - -<p>It was a scene he had gone through scores upon scores -of times—words and gestures varying according to the -pathetic inspiration of the moment. He knew that he -was pale, and that his eyes were bleared with weeping, -and he had a kind of triumph in the knowledge that the -pain of retrospective longing and of present loneliness -was so poignantly real and keen. Out of the blackness -behind his chair at that moment came a slight stir and -rustle—not the sough of a vagrant draught stirring -among folds of tapestry, but an undeniably human -sound. But half displeased with the suspicion that there -had been a witness to his agony, he turned—turned and -saw Her, the well-beloved of the old, old time, standing -very near him.</p> - -<p>Beyond a vivid sensation of astonishment, he felt -little. He did not tremble with fear—what was there -in that perfectly familiar face to fear? He did not fall, -stammering with incoherent rapture, at her feet. And -yet, a few moments ago, he had felt that for one such -sight of her, returned from the Unknowable to comfort -him—dragged back from the mysterious Beyond by his -strong yearnings—he would have bartered fame, honor, -and wealth—submitted his body to unheard-of tortures—shed -his blood to the last heart’s drop. He had prayed -that a miracle might be performed—and the prayer had -been granted. He had longed—desperately longed—to -look on her once more—and the longing was satisfied. -And he could only stare wide-eyed, and gape with -dropped jaw, and say stupidly:</p> - -<p>“<i>You?</i>”</p> - -<p>For answer she turned her face—in hue, and line, and -feature, no one whit altered—so that the light might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> -illumine it fully, and stood so regarding him in silence. -Every pore of her seemed to drink in the sight of him;—her -lips were parted in breathless expectancy. Every -hair of the dark head—dressed in the fashion of fifteen -years ago; every fold of the loose dress she wore—a garment -he knew again; every lift and fall of her bosom -seemed to cry out dumbly to him. There was a half-quenched -spark glimmering in each of her deep eyes, -that might have wanted only one breath from his mouth -to break out into flame. Her hands hung clasped before -her. It seemed as if they were only waiting for the signal -to unclasp—for the outspread arms to summon him -to her heart again. But the signal did not come. He -caught a breath, and repeated, dully:</p> - -<p>“You! It is you?”</p> - -<p>She returned:</p> - -<p>“It is I!”</p> - -<p>The well-known tones! Recollection upsprang in his -heart like a gush of icy waters. For a moment he was -thrilled to the center of his being. But the smitten nerve -chords ceased to vibrate in another moment, and he rose -to offer her a chair.</p> - -<p>She moved across and took it, as he placed it by the -angle of the wide hearth; and lifted her skirts aside with -a movement that came back to him from a long way off, -like her tone in speaking—and, shading her deep gray -eyes from the dull red heat with her white left hand, -looked at him intently. He, having pushed his own seat -back into the borders of the shadowland beyond the -taper’s gleam and the hearth glow, looked back at her. -That hand of hers bore no ring. When he had broken -the plain gold link that had fettered it in time past, he -had set in its place a ruby that had belonged to his -mother. The ruby was on his finger now. He hid it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -out of sight in the pocket of his velvet painting coat, not -knowing why he did so. And at that moment she broke -the silence with:</p> - -<p>“You see I have come to you at last!”</p> - -<p>He replied, with conscious heaviness:</p> - -<p>“Yes—I see!”</p> - -<p>“Has the time seemed long?... We have no time, -you know, where.... Is it many days since?...”</p> - -<p>“Many days!”</p> - -<p>“My poor Robert!... Weeks?... Months?... Not -years?...”</p> - -<p>“Fifteen years....”</p> - -<p>“Fifteen years! And you have suffered all that time. -Oh, cruel! cruel! If there was more light here, I might -see your face more plainly. Dear face! I shall not love -it less if there are lines and marks of grief upon it—it -will not seem less handsome to me at forty than it did at -twenty-five! Ah, I wish there was more light!” The -old pettishly coaxing tones! “But yet I do not wish for -it, lest it should show you any change in <i>me</i>!”</p> - -<p>“You are not changed in the least.” He drew breath -hard. “It might be yesterday——,” he said, and left the -sentence unfinished.</p> - -<p>“I am glad,” said the voice that he had been wont to -recall to memory as wooingly sweet. “They have been -kinder than I knew.... Oh! it has always been so -painful to recall,” she went on, with the old little half -shrug, half shudder, “that I died an <i>ugly</i> death—that I -was not pretty to look at as I lay in my coffin!...”</p> - -<p>Daymond recoiled inwardly. That vanity, in a -woman, should not be eradicated by the fact of her having -simply ceased to exist, was an hypothesis never before -administered for his mental digestion.</p> - -<p>“How curiously it all happened,” she said, her full<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> -tones trembling a little. “It was autumn—do you remember?—and -the trees in the Bois and the gardens of -the Luxembourg were getting yellowy brown. There -were well-dressed crowds walking on the Boulevards, and -sitting round the little tables outside the restaurants. -One could smell chloride of lime and carbolic acid crossing -the gutters, and see the braziers burning at the corners -of infected streets, and long strings of hearses going -by; but nothing seemed so unlikely as that either of us -should be taken ill and die. We were too wicked, you -said, and too happy! ... only the good, miserable people -were carried off, because any other world would be more -suitable to them than this.... It was nonsense, of -course, but it served us to laugh at. Then, because you -could not sell your great Salon picture, and we could -not afford the expense, you gave a supper at the <i>Café -des Trois Oiseaux</i> (<i>Cabinet particulier No. 6</i>)—and -Valéry and the others joined us. I was so happy that -night ... my new dress became me ... I wore yellow -roses—your favorite Maréchal Niel’s. When I was putting -them in my bosom and my hair you came behind -and kissed me on the shoulder. O, <i>mon Dieu! mon Dieu!</i> -I can feel it now! We went to the Variétés, and then to -supper. I had never felt so gay. People are like that, I -remember having heard, just when they are going to die. -Valéry gaped—I believe he was half in love with me—and -I teased him because I knew you would be jealous. -In those days you would have been jealous of the studio -<i>écorché</i>. Ha! ha! ha!”</p> - -<p>Daymond shuddered. The recurrent French phrases -jarred on him; something in her voice and manner scarified -inexpressibly his sensitive perceptions. He wondered, -dumbly, whether she had always been like this? -She went on:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>“And then, suddenly, in the midst of the laughter, the -champagne, the good dishes—the pains of hell!” She -shuddered. “And then a blank, and waking up in bed at -the hospital, still in those tortures—and getting worse -and seeing in your white face that I was going to die! -Drip-drip! I could feel your tears falling upon my face, -upon my hand; but I was even impatient of you in my -pain. Once I fancied that I heard myself saying that I -hated you. Did I really?”</p> - -<p>“I think—I believe you did! But, of course——” -Daymond stopped, and shuddered to the marrow as she -leaned across to him caressingly, so near that her draperies -brushed his knee and her breath fanned upon his -face.</p> - -<p>“Imagine it!” she cried, “that I <i>hated</i> you! <i>You</i> to -whom I had given myself—you for whom I left my——”</p> - -<p>He interrupted, speaking in an odd, strained voice: -“Never mind that now.”</p> - -<p>“I had always wished to die first,” she resumed, “but -not in that way; not without leaving you a legacy of -kind words and kisses. Ah!” (her voice stole to his ears -most pleadingly), “do you know that I have been here, -I cannot tell how long, and you have not kissed me once, -darling?”</p> - -<p>She rose up in her place—she would have come to him, -but he sprang to his feet, and thrust out both hands to -keep her off, crying:</p> - -<p>“No! no!”</p> - -<p>She sank back into her seat, looking at him wide-eyed -and wonderingly. “Is he afraid of me?” she whispered -to herself.</p> - -<p>“I am not afraid of you,” Daymond returned almost -roughly. “But you must make allowances for me at -first. Your sudden coming—the surprise——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>“Ah yes! the surprise—and the joy——?”</p> - -<p>He cleared his throat and looked another way. He -was shamedly conscious that the emotion that stiffened -his tongue and hampered his gestures was something -widely different from joy. He spoke again, confusedly. -“This seems like old times—before——”</p> - -<p>“Before I died,” she said, “without bidding good-bye -to you. Dear! if you guessed how I have longed to -know what you said and did when it was all over, you -would not mind telling me.... ‘<i>Are they grieving—those -whom I have left behind?</i>’ is a question that is -often asked in the place I come from. You were sorry? -You cried? Ah! I know you must have cried!”</p> - -<p>“I believe,” Daymond returned, moving restlessly in -his chair, “that I did. And I—I kissed you, though the -doctors told me not to. I wanted to catch the cholera -and die, too, I believe!...”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“And when the people came with—the coffin, I”—he -bit his lip—“I would not let them touch you!...”</p> - -<p>“My poor boy!”</p> - -<p>He winced from the tenderness. He felt with indescribable -sensations the light pressure of that well-known -once well-loved touch upon his arm.</p> - -<p>“And then—after the funeral, I believe I had a brain -fever.” He passed his hand through his waving, slightly -grizzled hair, as if to assist his lagging memory—really, -as an excuse for shaking off that intolerable burden of -her hand. “And when I recovered I found there was no -way to forgetfulness”—he heard her sigh faintly—“except -through work. I worked then—I am working still.”</p> - -<p>“Always alone?”</p> - -<p>“Generally alone. I have never married.”</p> - -<p>“Of course not!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>A faint dissent began to stir in him at this matter-of-fact -acquiescence in his widowed turtle-like celibacy. -“It may interest you to know,” he observed, with a touch -of the pompous manner which had grown upon him with -the growth of his reputation, “that my career has been -successful in the strongest sense of the word. I have become, -I may say, one of the leaders of the world of Art. -Upon the decease or resignation of the President of the ——, -it is more than probable that I shall be invited to -occupy his vacant place. And an intimation has reached -me, from certain eminent quarters”—he paused weightily—“that -a baronetcy will be conferred upon me, in -that event!”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>The tone betrayed an absolute lack of attention. She -had once been used to take a keen interest in his occupations; -to be cast down by his failures and elated by his -successes. Had that enthusiasm constituted the greater -part of her charm? In its absence Daymond began to -find her—must it be confessed?—but indifferent company.</p> - -<p>In the embarrassment that momentarily stiffened him, -an old habit came to his rescue. Before he knew it, he -had taken a cigar from a silver box upon the writing -table, and was saying, with the politely apologetic accent -of the would-be smoker:</p> - -<p>“May I? You used not to mind!”</p> - -<p>She made a gesture of assent. As the first rings of -bluish vapor mounted into the air, Daymond found her -watching him with those intent, expectant eyes.</p> - -<p>Feeling himself bound to make some observation, he -said: “It is very wonderful to me to see you here! It -was very good of you to come!”</p> - -<p>She returned: “They had to let me come, I think! I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> -begged so—I prayed so, that at last——” She paused. -Daymond was not listening. He was looking at her -steadfastly and pondering....</p> - -<p>It had been his whim, in the first poignancy of bereavement, -to destroy all portraits of her, so that with -the lapse of years no faulty touch should bewray the -memory of her vanished beauty. It struck him now for -the first time that his brush had played the courtier, and -flattered her, for the most part, unblushingly. He found -himself criticizing unfavorably the turn of her throat -and the swell of her bosom, and the dark voluptuous -languishment of her look. The faint perfume of heliotrope -that was shaken forth now, as of old time, from -her hair and her garments no longer intoxicated, but -sickened him. This, then, was the woman he had -mourned for fifteen years! He began to feel that he had -murmured unwisely at the dispensation of Providence. -He began to revolt at this recrudescence of an outworn -passion—to realize that at twenty-five he had taken a -commonplace woman for a divinity—a woman whom, if -she had not died when she did, he would have wearied of—ended -perhaps in hating. He found himself in danger -of hating her now.</p> - -<p>“At last they let me come. They said I should repent -it—as if I could!” Her eyes rested on him lingeringly; -her hand stilled the eager trembling of her lips. “Never! -Of course, you seemed a little strange at first. You are -not quite—not quite yourself now; it is natural—after -fifteen years. And presently, when I tell you—— Oh! -what will you say when I tell you all?”</p> - -<p>She left her chair and came toward him, so swiftly -that he had not time to avoid her. She laid her hand -on his shoulder and bent her mouth to his ear. One of -her peculiarities had been that her lips were always cold,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> -even when her passion burned most fiercely. The nearness -of those lips, once so maddeningly desirable and -sweet, made Daymond’s flesh creep horribly. He -breathed with difficulty, and the great drops of agony -stood thickly on his forehead—not with weak, superstitious -terror of the ghost; with unutterable loathing of -the woman.</p> - -<p>“Listen!” she said. “They are wise in the place I -came from; they know things that are not known here.... -You have heard it said that once in the life of -every human being living upon earth comes a time when -the utterance of a wish will be followed by its fulfilment. -The poor might be made rich, the sick well, the sad -merry, the loveless beloved—in one moment—if they -could only know when that moment comes! But not once -in a million million lifetimes do they hit upon it; and so -they live penniless and in pain, and sorrowful and lonely, -all their lives. I let my chance go by, like many others, -long before I died; but yours is yet to come.” Her voice -thrilled with a note of wild triumph; the clasp of her -arm tightened on his neck. “Oh, love!” she cried; “the -wonderful moment is close at hand! It is midnight now”—she -pointed to the great north window, through which -the frosty silver face of the moon was staring in relief -against a framed-in square of velvet blackness, studded -with twinkling star-points—“but with the first signs of -the dawn that you and I have greeted together, heart of -my heart!—how many times in the days that may come -again!—with the graying of the East and the paling of -the stars comes the Opportunity for you. Now, <span class="allsmcap">DO YOU -UNDERSTAND</span>?”</p> - -<p>He understood and quailed before her. But she was -blindly confident in his truth, stupidly reliant on his -constancy.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>“When it comes, beloved, you shall take me in your -arms—breathe your wish upon these lips of mine, in a -kiss. Say, while God’s ear is open, ‘Father, give her -back to me, living and loving, as of old!’ and I shall be -given—I shall be given!”</p> - -<p>She threw both arms about him and leaned to him, and -sobbed and laughed with the rapture of her revelation -and the anticipation of the joy that was to come.</p> - -<p>“Remember, you must not hesitate, or the golden -chance will pass beyond recall, and I shall go back -whence I came, never more to return—never more to -clasp you, dearest one, until you die too, and come to me -(are you cold, that you shudder so?)—and be with me -for always. Listen, listen!”</p> - -<p>As she lifted her hand the greatest of all the great -clock voices of London spoke out the midnight hour. As -other voices answered from far and near Daymond shuddered, -and put his dead love from him, and rose up -trembling and ghastly pale.</p> - -<p>They moved together to the window, and stood looking -out. The weather was about to change; the snow -was melting, the thaw drip plashed heavily from roof -gutters and balconies, cornices and window ledges. As -she laid her hand once more upon his shoulder the stars -began to fade out one by one, and in a little while from -then the eastward horizon quivered with the first faint -throes of dawn.</p> - -<p>“Wish!” she cried. “Now! now! before it is too late!” -She moved as if to throw herself again upon his breast; -but he thrust her from him with resolute hands that -trembled no more.</p> - -<p>“I wish,” he said very distinctly, “to be Sir Robert -Daymond, Baronet, and President of the —— before the -year is out!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>She fell away from him, and waned, and became unsubstantial -and shadowy like the ghost she was, and unlike -the thing of flesh and blood she had seemed before. -Nothing remained to her of lifelikeness but the scorn -and anger, the anguish and reproach of her great eyes.</p> - -<p>“Only the dead are faithful to Love—because they are -dead,” she said. “The living live on—and forget! They -may remember sometimes to regret us—beat their -breasts and call upon our names—but they shudder if we -answer back across the distance; and if we should offer -to come back, ‘Return!’ they say! ‘go and lie down in -the comfortable graves we have made you; there is no -room for you in your old places any more!’ They told -me I should be sorry for coming; but I would not listen, -I had such confidence. I am wiser now! Good-bye!”</p> - -<p>A long sigh fluttered by him in the semi-obscurity, like -a bird with a broken wing. There was a rattling of curtain -rings, the dull sough of falling tapestry, and the -opening and closing of a door. She was gone! And -Daymond, waking from strangely dreamful slumbers to -the cheerlessness of dying embers and burned-out candle, -rang the bell for his servant, and ordered lights. A few -minutes later saw him, perfectly dressed, stepping into -his cab.</p> - -<p>“Chesterfield Gardens, Mayfair,” he said, giving the -direction to his valet for transference to the groom.</p> - -<p>“Beg pardon, sir, but Lady Mary Fraber’s servant is -still waiting!” The man pointed back to the house.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” said Daymond, who had had a passing glimpse -of alien cord gaiters reposing before his hall-fire. “Tell -him I have taken the answer to his mistress myself.”</p> - -<p>And as he spoke he scattered a handful of torn-up -squares of paper—the fragments of a letter—in largesse -to the night and the gusty weather.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">AN ORDEAL BY FIRE</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">MR. LANTER was bookkeeping clerk in a New -York dry-goods store. For his services he was -remunerated at the rate of fifteen dollars per week. His -bedroom at the boarding house with daily breakfast and -three meals on the Sunday, cost him ten dollars; the remaining -five supplied all other necessities—fed him at -cheap restaurants, dressed him from cheap clothing -stores, and allowed him to send a cash bill now and then -to his mother, who lived in a New Hampshire village on -tea, bread and sauce, wore her hair in looped bell-ropes -on either side of her forehead and a rosette behind, and -thought her son the most splendid man in the world. But -despite heroic efforts, Mr. Lanter had not succeeded in -putting by anything against a rainy day. As to marriage, -it was not to be dreamt of, which is probably the -reason why Mr. Lanter dreamed of it so frequently. But -the feminine form that figured in those dreams was not -that of a typist, or a sales-lady, or even a chorus-girl or -variety artist. Mr. Lanter was a young man with a turn -for reading, who regularly spent his Sundays at the -Cooper Institute, and he did not feel that he could undertake -to do his duty as a husband by anything short of a -heroine of romantic classical fiction. He had had imaginary -love passages with several of these, both ancient -and modern. <i>The Faëry Queen</i> had given him Britomart, -and the <i>Volsunga Saga</i> had supplied him with Brunhild. -Hypatia’s erudition made her a little alarming, but the -affair was pleasant while it lasted; and Iseult was too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> -dark for Mr. Lanter’s taste, but he changed the color of -her locks as expeditiously as a French hairdresser, and -roamed the forest ways with her more appreciatively -than Prosper. Theaters Mr. Lanter did not frequent, -because Mrs. Lanter regarded such places as pitfalls dug -by the devil for the capture of unwary young America, -and he had promised his mother he would not visit them. -Indeed, had he been inclined to go back on his word, he -could not have afforded to do so. But neither concert-halls, -museums, nor circuses figured on Mrs. Lanter’s -black list, because she had forgotten to specify them; -and one half-holiday Mr. Lanter found himself entering -Kneeman’s Star Musée with an order.</p> - -<p>The Kneeman Musée is a big, opulent building, with a -central dome of colored glass, a gorgeous façade ornamented -with groups of sculptured figures and a gilded -vestibule where are displayed an array of life-sized -photographs and gigantic colored posters illustrating the -wonders to be seen within; promising upon this occasion, -among other exquisite novelties, the unique whistling -entertainment of Madame Smithers, the Kentucky -Mocking Bird; the Celebrated Centaur Family, in -their feats of Equitation; the Balancing Bonellis, -in their electrifying plank-and-ladder interlude; Madame -la Comtesse Püspök Ladany, the Beautiful Hungarian -(heroine of one of the most sensational European -elopements) in her Elegant Effects of Equestrianism -upon the highly-trained Arab Maimoun, assisted by -Rurik the Gitano, who had the honor, upon the sensational -occasion above alluded to, of eloping with Madame -la Comtesse. Then came the Mermaids in a Tank -Act, and three-inch notes of exclamation clamorously -invited attention to the American Girl Giantess, -Mademoiselle Minota, nineteen years of age, nine feet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> -in height, weighing four hundred and twenty-six pounds, -able to lift a weight of one hundred and forty pounds -with one hand.... The remainder of the bill was filled -with dwarfs, performing lions, snake-charmers, and ventriloquists.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lanter presented nothing remarkable to the ordinary -observation. He was fair, undersized, and short-sighted, -and the necktie he had chosen was of a vivid -salmon-pink, trying to his complexion, which had been -injured by overwork and close confinement in a glass -counting-hutch lighted by electricity, and heated by -steam. He followed his companion, who was a smart, -bustling young salesman with a lady-killing reputation, -and sporting proclivities; and as he went he smiled a -little vaguely, and his mouth was not quite shut, a negligence -which deprives the expression of intellectuality. -They had fauteuil seats so close to the Ring that their -knees rubbed against the low velvet-cushioned barrier -that enclosed the sand-strewn space, which seemed to -Mr. Lanter to be a brown central-patch, in a gorgeous, -multi-colored dream. The dome above, all glass and -gilding, the pretty women in the boxes, the perambulating -vendors of candy and ices, the orchestra tuning up -in a gilded balcony on the left of the stage, the whiffs -of menagerie, gas, and stabling which escaped from the -coulisses, the people who pushed past into their places, -Madame Smithers trilling and piping in emulation of the -feathered songsters of American groves, the Centaur -Family upon their gaily-trapped steeds, the bursts of -applause, the shouts of laughter, were all made of dream-stuff.... -But when heavy tableau-curtains rose upon -a scene representing a mediæval banqueting-hall, and revealed -the American Girl Giantess, throned upon a high -seat, arrayed in gilded chain-mail and flowing purple<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -draperies, a sword in her large white right hand, a crimson -cloak upon her shoulders and a dragon-crested helm -upon her large fair head, the start Mr. Lanter gave -would have awakened any ordinary sleeper. But the -dream closed in again, as Miss Minota rose, and, bowing -to the right, to the left, to the middle, descended the -baize-covered staircase which led from the stage to the -Ring.... Other spectators saw a young woman monstrously -overgrown, with tow-colored hairplaits as thick -as coir-cable, and blue eyes as round as silver dollars, -who was well-proportioned in her huge way, and who, if -looked at through the wrong end of an opera-glass, when -divested of her tawdry theatrical trappings, might have -appeared an honest, ordinary young person of -average good looks. But Mr. Lanter saw a golden roof-ridge -and a ring of magic fire roaring up, and the Brunhild -of his visions; and breathed hard, and felt a clammy -sensation about the palms of the hands, while his heart -drummed heavily against the lining of his ready-made -waistcoat. He must have been very pale or very purple -in the face, for his companion nudged him.</p> - -<p>“Guess you’re feeling off color!... Like to get out -into the air?... If so, I’ll keep your seat,” he whispered; -but Mr. Lanter shook his head.</p> - -<p>The band struck up a march, Miss Minota descended -into the arena, a voluble gentleman in evening dress, -who acted as showman, and, when necessary, as interpreter, -walking in the shadow of her elbow. She seemed, -indeed, an overwhelming example of feminine physical -development as she gravely performed her round, replying -in monosyllables to the remarks that were made to -her by members of the audience, complying with their -expressed desire to shake her enormous hand. Mr. Lanter -was hot and cold by turns as her monumental proportions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -drew nearer; he meant to rise in his place and -boldly engage her in conversation; he got as far as -getting on his legs. It seemed that the large blue eyes -of the giantess dropped upon him inquiringly; he almost -fancied her about to pause. But his tongue refused to -utter the word which would have arrested her progress.... -She swept past, and it was as though the mainsail -of a yacht had gone over on the starboard tack, emptying -a whole breeze out of an acre of canvas. Another -moment and she had ascended to the stage, her draperies -of crimson and purple trailing as she went; she had -lifted her weights, respectively guaranteed at one hundred -and one hundred and forty pounds avoirdupois; she -had made her three bows, and the tableau-curtains had -descended and closed. Thenceforward Mr. Lanter took -no interest in the entertainment. With fishy eyes he sat, -retrospective, unobservant; and his companion, the lively -Mr. Goter, found him mighty dull.</p> - -<p>“Oh, look here!... Say now! what’s up with you?” -he protested, as they walked home together through the -crowded streets.</p> - -<p>The clang of street-car gongs, the intermittent roar -and rattle of the elevated railway, mingled with the blare -of tin horns, and the clamor of voices. It was hot May -weather, and there was a smell upon the languid air that -seemed to combine in itself the flavor of rotten fruit, the -musky odor of African skins, the pungent acridity of -frying oil, and the rankness of coarse tobacco.</p> - -<p>“Up with me? Why, I’m all right,” said Mr. Lanter, -“and I’ve had a real good time, thanks to you, old man!”</p> - -<p>“Come, have a drink?” said the pacified Goter, and -they turned in at the swing doors of a beer saloon. -“Bully, wasn’t she?” he broke out, after ordering two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> -iced bocks. “My style all over! Guess I’ve a good -mind to take her on!” and he winked knowingly.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lanter set down his tall glass of untasted Münchener. -“Look here, who are you talking about?” He -was salmon-pink to the edge of his black Derby hat, and -his pale blue eyes had angry sparks in them.</p> - -<p>“That girl that did the jugglin’ business on the plank-and-ladder,” -responded Goter. “Black eyes, black hair, -high color, and spankin’ action. Did you s’pose I meant -that walkin’ grain-elevator in the tin armor? No, sir!”</p> - -<p>He had yet another fulminating witticism on hand, and -he discharged it. Before it had done crackling he saw -stars, for the placable Lanter had suddenly smitten him -upon the nose.</p> - -<p>“Good thunder! what are you up to, anyway?” spluttered -the astonished Mr. Goter.</p> - -<p>“Hol’ off there! Go easy!” shouted the barkeeper. -Half a dozen men, their drinks in their hands, their hats -tilted back from interested faces, had gathered round, -and a colored boy was mopping the red-stained marble -table with a wet cloth.</p> - -<p>“He—he insulted a lady!” gasped Mr. Lanter, “and I -struck him! If he does it again—I’ll do it again!... -Mind that!” The tone and the look with which he delivered -the final warning convinced Mr. Goter that he -had better mind.</p> - -<p>Thenceforward he ceased to regard Mr. Lanter as a -“Willie” and Mr. Lanter ceased to regard himself as a -Christian young man. His own violence had shocked -him. There must be a good deal of cold reason, he reflected, -at the bottom of Mrs. Lanter’s inveterate prejudice -against public places of entertainment, and his conscience -pricked him. But she had made him promise -that he would not go to “theaters,” and he salved his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> -conscience by reminding himself that he had kept his -word. But he went again and yet again to Kneeman’s -Star Musée. And upon the third occasion he mustered -up courage to speak to Miss Minota.</p> - -<p>“How do you do?” he blurted out. Then as an afterthought -he blurted out, “Mademoiselle.” He had to tilt -his head quite back to look up into Miss Minota’s large -fair moon-face. He wondered what she would say if -anybody told her that she was his ideal of womanhood?</p> - -<p>“I guess I am very well, thank you,” responded the -giantess. She had a plaintive, mooing voice, and despite -the usage of a public career, she seemed little less bashful -than Mr. Lanter.</p> - -<p>“Do you like N’York?” Mr. Lanter inquired.</p> - -<p>“Well,” Miss Minota returned, “I guess I do!” She -sighed as she continued: “But one place is much the -same as another to you—when you don’t see anythin’ -more of it than the inside of the hotel where you happen -to be located, and the inside of the hall where you chance -to be exhibitin’.”</p> - -<p>“Why, now, that’s a shame!” said Mr. Lanter, growing -red with sympathy. “Don’t your friends take you around -some, when you feel you’d like to go?”</p> - -<p>“I suppose they’d be real pleased,” said Miss Minota, -after an instant’s consideration, “if I didn’t attract so -much attention. But when you’re too big to go on the -cars, like other folk, or pass along the sidewalk without -blockin’ it——” She shrugged her enormous shoulders -with a little air of fatigue, and the gentleman in evening -dress, who officiated as showman, gave her the signal to -move. “Good-afternoon!” she said graciously, and -passed on.</p> - -<p>But Mr. Lanter’s brain was surging with sympathy. -“My gracious!” he cried to himself, “is it possible that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -that splendid creature isn’t happy?” A vague look of -gentle melancholy was certainly floating on the surface -of those limpid china-blue eyes. He breathed through -his nose and clenched his fists, one of which already bore -a proof impression of Mr. Goter’s projecting front tooth. -And the very next half-holiday found him waiting at the -side-door through which professionals found entrance to -the back scenes of Kneeman’s. One or two sallow, -cropped men in furred overcoats passed in, one of them -in company with a black-eyed, vivacious, middle-aged -woman, who conversed with her fingers, her shoulders, -and every muscle of her face—and in whom Mr. Lanter -recognized Goter’s houri. Then a vehicle like a hotel-omnibus, -only taller and shinier, drawn by a pair of stout -horses, pulled up by the curb; two men, moustached, -and dressed in a kind of buff uniform faced with red -(Mr. Lanter recognized it as the livery common to the -attendants of the Musée), got down from the box seat -and opened the omnibus door.... Mr. Lanter’s heart -thumped wildly as a colossal foot and ankle, appareled -in a pink silk stocking and rosetted black satin shoe, -cautiously descended to the ground, and the rest of Miss -Minota followed by gradual instalments until the giantess -stood upright on the pavement, her nine feet of -height handsomely accentuated by an umbrageous hat, -with a plume of nodding feathers which might have -served for the central ornament of a canopy of state. -She inclined this tremendous headgear in gracious recognition -of Mr. Lanter. Mr. Lanter took off his hat with -his best manner, and boldly stepped forward.</p> - -<p>A large pink flush invaded the giantess’s immense -cheeks, previously of a pale or dough-colored complexion. -“Won’t you walk in a minute?” she said, in a timid, -fluttering way. Then, not without difficulty, she went in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> -at the side-door, Mr. Lanter followed, the attendants -mounted to their seats, and the large shiny omnibus -drove away.</p> - -<p>The sensation of moving and speaking in a dream bore -heavily upon Mr. Lanter as he followed the tall, stooping -figure of the giantess up a short flight of stairs and -through what seemed to be a labyrinth of winding -passages, each of which seemed more dark and dusky -than the preceding one, and conveyed a stronger olfactory -impression of gas, mice, and turpentine. But the -labyrinth ended in a vast echoing chaos of shaky canvas -scenes and machinery, which Miss Minota introduced -as the stage. The iron curtain that separated the stage -from the auditorium was down, and they stood together -in the midst of a heterogeneous jumble of properties -among which Mr. Lanter recognized the plank-and-ladder -of the equilibrists, the gilded props and rubber-covered -block-tackle used by the tight-rope dancer, the -belled and ribboned saddles employed by the Centaur -Family, and Miss Minota’s mediæval throne, flanked by -the gilded weights employed in her exhibition of manual -strength.</p> - -<p>“Won’t you——” Involuntarily he pointed to the -gaudy throne-seat.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the giantess, “I don’t know but what I -will sit down—just a minute.” Seated, her large round -face and china-blue, rather foolish eyes were above the -level of Mr. Lanter’s as he stood before her. Certainly, -but for the suet dumpling pallor of her fair complexion -and a prevailing flabbiness, the result of insufficient exercise, -Miss Minota would have been good-looking. “I -guess I ought to thank you for being so polite!” she said, -and her tone and accent were homely as those of the -New England village-folk among whom Mr. Lanter had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> -been raised. “I guess you thought I acted like I was -silly just now; but boys do scare me so.... If there’s -one thing more than another I dasn’t face, it’s a boy; -and you bet boys know it, and lay along for me—the -nasty little things! So there’s another reason why I can’t -go round like other folks—even if the management -wouldn’t object to my givin’ the show away!” She -folded her immense hands upon her knees and looked -placidly at Mr. Lanter.</p> - -<p>“But why should the management object, Miss—Mademoiselle?” -asked Mr. Lanter, standing, very red -and stiff and embarrassed, at Miss Minota’s knee, like a -somewhat dull little boy about to say a lesson.</p> - -<p>“Because once folks have seen me for nothin’, they’ll -leave the pay-place alone,” said Miss Minota. “It’s -human natur’, take it how you will. An’ I’m only -Mademoiselle on the posters. My first professional exhibitin’ -tour was in the State of Minnesota, an’ that’s -how I got my professional name. My own name seemed -kind of one-horse for a poster—Quilt—Miss Hattie Quilt -of Smartsville, New Hampshire, I was when I lived to-home.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been to Smartsville,” said Mr. Lanter eagerly, as -though it were a bond. “It’s only forty miles from -Saunderstown where I was raised. My mother, Mrs. -Lanter, she lives there now. And Quilt’s a name I’ve -heard.... There was old Deacon Quilt that had the -lawsuit——”</p> - -<p>“I guess he was my grandfather!” said Miss Minota -soberly.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lanter tilted his head, trying to remember what -the lawsuit had been about.</p> - -<p>“It was a suit about an iron bedstead,” said Miss -Minota. “It’s ’most ten years ago. Grandfather bought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -it for me, because I’d crowded mother out of hers. We -slep’ together till I was ’bout eleven years old. Well, -grandfather measured me himself for that bed, but it -didn’t get delivered for a month on end, and I’d growed -beyond my measure, and didn’t fit it, or it didn’t fit me. -Mother tried to convince the old man by showin’ him my -frocks—she’d let ’em down eight inches only four weeks -back, an’ they was hardly on speakin’ terms with my -boot-tops by then—but he said on’y Jonah’s gourd -growed at that rate, an’ the dry-goods man must change -the bedstead or he’d go to law. An’ the dry-goods man -said rather than have legal trouble he’d change the bed -for a bigger, ’n he did; but the new one was six weeks in -gettin’ delivered, and it was the same story over again—it -didn’t fit me, nohow! So grandfather went to law, an’ -the case was tried in the Smartsville court-house, an’ -grandfather would ’a got damages if the dry-goods man’s -lawyer hadn’t asked to have me produced in court. It -was my first public appearance, an’ I was dretful shy. -People used to laugh at me bein’ so shy, but you’ve no -idee what a tryin’ thing it is bein’ bigger ’n anybody -else—when you first find it out!” The large form of -Miss Minota was convulsed by a shudder. “You’d hide -yourself in a mousehole, if it was big enough to hold you. -Well, they called Miss Hattie Quilt, an’ I got up an’ -straightened out, for I’d been settin’ cramped in a kind -of pew, an’ it seemed even to myself as if I’d never end. -An’ the judge looked at me through his glasses. My! -didn’t he stare! An’ he asked how old I was, an’ I said -‘Risin’ twelve’; an’ the judge allowed if I kep’ on risin’ -I might get somewheres in time; an’ that a man with a -granddaughter like that growin’ up about him ought to -provide india-rubber bedsteads an’ a sliding roof. An’ all -the folks laughed an’ grandfather had to pay sixty dollars<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> -damages an’ costs.” Miss Minota’s gentle, monotonous, -mooing voice left off talking; she paused to draw -breath.</p> - -<p>“And then——?” said Mr. Lanter, in whose brain -dim and faded hearsays connected with the Quilt law-case -were stirring.</p> - -<p>“Then grandfather took a kind of down on me,” Miss -Minota explained, “though he’d set a deal of store on me -before. An’ mother used to beg me with tears in her eyes -not to grow at that rate; an’ I tried not—hard; but I kep’ -on. I stinted meals an’ wore an iron pound-weight on -my head under my hat—but still I kep’ on. An’ at last -grandfather opinioned to father and mother it was time -to let out the house—or to let out me. So they hired me -to Dan Slater—perhaps you’ve heard of Slater’s Traveling -Museum of Marvels—an’——”</p> - -<p>“I should have thought they’d been ashamed!” burst -out Mr. Lanter, flushing to the temples. “Their own -flesh and blood!”</p> - -<p>“That’s what other people kep’ saying to grandfather, -‘your own flesh and blood’!” returned Miss Minota. -“But all grandfather ever said was that there was more -flesh and blood than he’d bargained for, and he’d thank -’em to ’tend to their own affairs.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think he was a nice kind of man,” said little -Mr. Lanter, thrilling with indignation to his toes and -finger-tips, “to send a young girl away from her home and -her mother—out into the world—among strangers who -might have treated her badly!” He looked up at his -ideal of womanhood with passionate chivalry.</p> - -<p>“Oh, but they didn’t treat me badly!” said Miss -Minota. “Dan Slater was real kind. An’ when I outgrew -the caravan I traveled in at first, he telescoped two -together—an’ as one of ’em had been made for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -giraffe, I got on pretty well. But I’ve never got used to -bein’ made a show of, an’ stared at, and asked questions -by people, whether they’re ordinary folks or Kings an’ -Queens an’ Serene Highnesses—an’ I guess I never will. -Perhaps you wouldn’t believe it’s lonsome to be bigger -’n anybody else—but it makes me feel so, times!”</p> - -<p>“I wish I could prevent your feeling lonesome!” burst -out Mr. Lanter, before he was aware. “I wish I could -carry you right away from this”—he waved his hand -comprehensively—“and take care of you. I wouldn’t let -a rough breath blow on you as I could help. I’d stand -between you and the world, and shelter you—I’d spend -my life in doing it—and spend it gladly!” He forgot -himself in what he was saying, and therefore did not -blush, but his awkward, plain, and homely little figure in -its badly-fitting store clothes was a spectacle to smile at. -“Oh! if you knew all I’d thought and dreamed of since I -saw you first!” he said, with a quiver of passion in his -voice. “It seems like a dream to be talking to you -here.... If it didn’t how could I tell you straight out -as I am telling you now, what I haven’t even had the -courage to write—that I—I——”</p> - -<p>Miss Minota modestly reared her Alpine height from -the mediæval throne as a trampling of feet sounded from -the dusty passage beyond. “I guess I have got to go and -dress,” she said modestly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, please wait one minute!” pleaded Mr. Lanter. -“You must know it, if you never speak to me or look at -me again. I think you the grandest, most glorious -woman I ever saw! I’m ready to die for you right now, -if the dying of a common store clerk would be any use! -But it wouldn’t,” said Mr. Lanter, “and so I must go on -thinking of you, and worshipping you, and loving you to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> -the end of my days——” He broke down, blushing and -stammering.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my!” cried Miss Minota. In her surprise she -sat down again so unguardedly that the mediæval throne -creaked and tottered. “You don’t mean it? Honest, -you don’t?”</p> - -<p>“I mean it with all my soul!” asseverated Mr. Lanter.</p> - -<p>Miss Minota blushed a dull red all over her immense -face, as she met the young man’s rather ugly, candid -gaze. Then her large china-blue eyes brimmed over; she -pulled from her pocket a cambric handkerchief as large -as the mainsail of a toy yacht, and began to cry like a -thunder-cloud.</p> - -<p>“Don’t!” begged Mr. Lanter. “Please don’t! If you’re -angry with me I don’t know what I should do. I don’t, -indeed!” He was dreadfully in earnest, and quite pale, -and large drops stood upon his forehead, for the air in the -Musée was insufferably hot and close. There was a smell -of charred wood and blistering paint, and the unsettled -dust of the place made the straggling rays of daylight -that bored their way into it seem blue and smoky. A -sudden clamor of voices broke out below, almost under -the stage it seemed, and then came the trampling of -feet, the crash of broken glass, and the smell of some -spilled chemical mingled with the grosser odors of the -place. The scent, the stir, the sounds, seemed vaguely -associated in Mr. Lanter’s mind with something dangerous -and sinister. But he was listening to Miss Minota.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t a mite angry,” said the giantess, giving her -overflowing eyes a final dab with the handkerchief, now -crumpled into a damp ball. “I should hate to have you -believe it! I—I think you’re real generous, an’ kind, an’ -noble. And I shall be grateful to you all my life”—she -mopped her eyes again—“for makin’ me feel—for once—like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -I’d been an ordinary-sized girl; for I—I’ll own I -have fretted considerable. But there, when things can’t -be altered, anyhow, it’s no good frettin’, is it? An’, of -course, there could never be nothin’ between us—I -couldn’t ever play it so low down on a man that’s as -generous and kind as you are, as to say there could be. -But I’m just as obliged. And now I’ll say good-bye, and -if we don’t never meet again you’re to remember I was -grateful. My land! I do believe the show’s afire!”</p> - -<p>For the crackling, blistering heat that parched the -flooring underfoot, with the sudden volume of smoke that -rolled upward, betrayed the condition of things no less -than the thin tongues of flame that licked upward between -the boards. In the regions under the stage the -conflagration had broken out; they heard the shouts of -the stage-hands, the crash of glass fire-bombs breaking -one after another, and next moment a solitary man, -smoke-blackened and red-faced, burst upward from the -regions below, and, rushing to the fire-hose, coiled like -a brown snake against the bare masonry of the wall, -began to haul it down. As the man tugged and swore -at the hose, other voices shouted and other feet clattered, -and half a dozen other men, singed and blackened like -so many demons, emerged as the first had done, from -those conjectural lower depths.</p> - -<p>“It’s no use—no use!” they shouted as they ran, and -the fireman dropped the hose and ran with them. They -did not have to cross the charring, blistering stage, for -they were on the right side for the passage-way. They -fought and struggled, shrieking, in the narrow exit, -blocked by their terrified bodies.</p> - -<p>“Come! Didn’t you hear?” shouted Mr. Lanter. He -caught Miss Minota by the skirt and tugged at it like a -faithful terrier. “Run!” he shouted again. But a choking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -volume of smoke, a blast of fiercer heat fanned up -from below. The boards of the stage were now in flames. -And the flames were of beautiful, ravishingly-delicate -shades of blue and hyacinth and orange-red. And they -devoured where they licked with a deadly greed and a -purring, crackling kind of satisfaction.... “Come!” -Mr. Lanter shouted again. The giantess had sunk upon -her knees, he shook her violently by the shoulder, and she -lifted her large, terrified face and staring blue eyes, now -for the first time upon a level with his own.</p> - -<p>“I dasn’t!” she cried. “The floor wouldn’t bear me—I -should never git across! Save yourself while you have -time!” As she sobbed and shuddered, Mr. Lanter put -his arm round her, as though she had been quite an ordinary-sized -girl.</p> - -<p>“Pluck up!” he shouted, for the fire roared as triumphantly -as though Kneeman’s Star Musée were the -choicest morsel in the world. “I’ll get you out of this or -burn with you, by—thunder!” and he kissed her. The -kiss seemed to revive Miss Minota, for she gasped, and -struggled to her feet, and looked with him upon a wall of -rejoicing flame that soared upward between them and -the passage-way. “These doors behind us—where do -they lead?” Mr. Lanter shouted, and Miss Minota -shouted back, “To the dressing-rooms!”</p> - -<p>There was no way of escape before them; the iron curtain -walled them in. As the slim greedy tongues of fire -began to lick the boards on which they stood, they retreated -to the back of the stage. But the stifling smoke -and the greedy fire followed them, and the end of things -seemed not far off.... It seemed quite natural now -that they should be holding hands. They were blackened -both, and smoke-begrimed, parched and giddy with the -terrific heat, and the incandescent air fanned on their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -smirched faces as though the wings of Azrael had stirred -it; but they were a comfort to each other. To be heard -by each other in that fiendish tumult of insentient things -was impossible; but they pressed close to one another -like children in the smoky dark, and held one another’s -hands.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know as I’d choose to have things different,” -said a grip of Mr. Lanter’s; and the answering squeeze -of Miss Minota’s large hand said, “Thank you for helping -me to die so like an ordinary-sized girl!” But the -hand she pressed seemed to melt in hers and slip away, -and, groping downward in the dun-colored smother, the -giantess touched the senseless body of Mr. Lanter lying -at her feet. And then she gave a cry of love and grief -and anger mingled, as an ordinary-sized woman might -have done—and lifted her lover from the blistering floor -as though he had been a baby. The smoke seemed less -dense a few feet beyond where she stood, and, moving -forward with Mr. Lanter held upon one arm, the other -outstretched gropingly, Miss Minota bruised her knuckles -against a wooden door. It was the high, narrow door of -solid, iron-clamped timber (usually situated at the back -of the scene-dock), by which scenery and the more bulky -properties were hoisted up to or removed from the stage -of Kneeman’s Musée. In the joy of the discovery Miss -Minota cried out. Then she laid down Mr. Lanter very -gently on the floor, and fumbled for the door-bolts. But -the door opened by a winch and lever, and Miss Minota -fumbled in vain. A chill despair seized her. He lay so -helpless and inert at her feet that he might have been -dead! “O Lord!” Miss Minota prayed, “where’s the -use in You havin’ made me so much bigger than other -folk if I can’t save him? Help me to do it, and I’ll never -go back on You by grumblin’ at my size any more!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>A dizziness overcame her, she reeled and staggered against -the side wall of the scene-dock, bruising her knee -against something that fell with a dull, reverberating -crash. It was a solid bar of iron used by a professional -athlete in a weight-lifting exhibition, and it might have -weighed a hundred and sixty pounds. The crash of its -fall brought Miss Minota to herself. She stooped, and -found and lifted it, and exultant, for the first time, in the -stature and the strength that marked her out and set her -apart from her ordinary-sized sisters, the giantess attacked -the door. One battering blow from the weapon -wielded by those tremendous arms, and the hinges started -and the stout planks split; a second, and a plank crashed -splintering outward; a third, and a shout went up from -the crowd assembled in the street below, as, amid volumes -of escaping smoke, the begrimed and fire-scorched -figure of Miss Minota appeared, carrying the insensible -body of Mr. Lanter in her arms.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>“Well,” said Madame Lanter, the Colossal American -Marvel, some months later, to an interviewer specially -despatched from the office of the <i>Boston Magpie</i>, “I -guess you know what happened after that!” She blushed -a little, being yet a bride, and coyly turned her wedding -ring, a golden circlet of the dimensions of a baby’s bracelet, -upon her colossal finger. “We brought him to, and -then <i>he</i> brought it off. Flesh an’ blood is flesh an’ blood, -an’ we all have our weak p’ints!—and if I did lay out -never to marry a man as I couldn’t look up to—I guess -it would take half a dozen of my size, standing on each -other’s heads, to equal the loftiness of Mr. Lanter’s -mind!”</p> - -<p>The young man thus eulogized presented to the reporter’s -view a spare and rather undersized personality,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> -plain of feature, and awkward of manner, drawbacks -afterward transmuted by the magic touch of the stylographic -pen into “<i>slightness, unpretending elegance, and -unaffected simplicity. The beaming affection discernible -in the glance he turned upon his stately bride justified -the eulogistic terms in which that lady spoke of her husband. -Their brief but thrillingly romantic courtship, -with its strikingly sensational ‘dénouement,’ created a -‘furore’ when detailed by the New York press. The disinterested -nature of the attachment of Mr. Lanter (who -is a member of one of our oldest New England families) -to the superb specimen of American womanhood who -bears his aristocratic name may be gathered from the -fact that the marriage ceremony was some weeks old -before Mr. Lanter discovered that Mrs. Lanter had -amassed, during the period of time spent by her in exhibiting -her personal developments in the principal cities -of Europe and the States, a fortune of ninety-five thousand -dollars.</i>”</p> - -<p>And in this final statement the stylographic pen distilled -pure truth.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">HOW THE MISTRESS CAME HOME</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE avenue of lofty elms was veiled in a white fog; -upon the low-lying parklands, cropped meadows, -and sere stubble-fields, the same woolly vapor lay -dankly. But the square windows of the fine old Tudor -manor-house flashed with ruddy light, and the hospitable -hearth-fires of the hall diffused glow and radiance -through open doors. Sir Vivian and Lady Wroth were -coming home after a honeymoon of eight months’ duration -spent in scampering over the face of the habitable -globe; and the village was in a state of loyal ferment -over the advent of the lord and lady of the manor. Already -the local band, heavily primed with home-brewed, -was posted at the station in readiness to burst into the -strains of “See the Conquering Hero” upon the arrival -of the London express. Eight sturdy laborers, in clean -smock-frocks, waited, rope in hand, for the opportunity -of harnessing themselves to the bridal brougham, while -Venetian masts, upbearing strings of flags and fairy -lanterns, testified to the strength and temperature of -popular goodwill.</p> - -<p>“A sweet pretty creature, ’m, I hear!” said Mrs. Ansdey, -the white-haired, handsome, black-silk-clad housekeeper -to the Rector’s wife, who had driven up to the -house to ask for a cup of tea, and leave a parcel addressed -to the new mistress of the manor, containing -three dozen very raspy cambric handkerchiefs, hemmed -and initialed by the Girls’ Sewing Class at the National -Schools.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>“Quite a picture, Sir Vivian’s valet said!” added the -butler, who was comparatively young, not being over -sixty, and therefore looked down upon by Mrs. Ansdey -from her vantage of fifteen summers.</p> - -<p>“Beauty is grass!” said the Rector’s wife, who was not -overburdened with the commodity. She was a long, thin, -high-nosed woman, with color distributed over her countenance -in little islands. She drank her tea, and toasted -her large, useful feet at the glowing wood-fire, and -praised the Sally Lunns.</p> - -<p>Her reverend partner was down at the village reading-rooms, -rehearsing the shrill-voiced school children in the -“Greet Ye To-night, Thrice Happy Pair,” chorus from -<i>Lohengrin</i>. She knew the quality of the cocoa to be -obtained there, and longed to share with him the hospitable -burden of Mrs. Ansdey’s silver tray. But as this -amicable division of spoil was manifestly impossible, the -Rector’s wife consoled herself by making a clean sweep. -And so she ate and drank and chatted to the not displeased -Mrs. Ansdey with unflagging vigor, while the -famous Reynolds portraits of departed ladies of the -manor smiled and simpered from the shining paneled -walls, and the gray-muzzled bloodhounds, last of a -famous race and favorite of the last Baronet, snored -upon the leopard-skin hearthrug.</p> - -<p>“You have had many visitors this season?” queried -the Rector’s wife, with a calculating glance at the donation -box, the contents of which went to the Cottage Hospital -twice in the year.</p> - -<p>“Troops of them,” returned the housekeeper, nodding -her lace lappets. “And, as usual, half of ’em with American -twangs. Even if they didn’t talk through their -noses, I should guess ’em from the States, shouldn’t you, -Mr. Cradell?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>“Without doubt, ma’am,” rejoined the butler. “There’s -a feverish anxiety to get the greatest amount of information -in the shortest possible time, and an equally ardent -determination to finger what isn’t meant to be fingered, -price what can’t be priced, and buy what isn’t for sale, -which, to my mind, is a trademark distinguishing the -bearer, male or female, as hailing from the other side of -the Atlantic.”</p> - -<p>“Even if he didn’t call me ‘marm’—if he’s a man and -middle-aged, and put American dollars in the box instead -of English half-crowns if he happens to be a lady,” continued -Mrs. Ansdey. “But what I will say is, if it was -with my latest breath, that the young ladies are most -elegant and have a real appreciation for old and what -you might call romantic things,” she added somewhat -hastily; and the Rector’s wife said, as she added sugar to -her fourth cup:</p> - -<p>“The new Lady Wroth is an American, I have always -understood.”</p> - -<p>“Born in Washington, but edicated in Paris,” said Mr. -Cradell, putting a fresh log of apple-wood upon the glowing -fire at the lower end of the hall.</p> - -<p>“She comes of a fine old family, we have always understood,” -said the housekeeper, smoothing her lace apron -with her plump white hands. “Rutherfoord her maiden -name was, and with her beauty and her jewels—for her -late papa was a Senator, besides being what I’ve heard -called a Railway King—she created a sensation when -she was presented by the Duchess of Balgowrie last May -but one.”</p> - -<p>“As to her style of good looks,” said Mr. Cradell, dusting -lichen from his coat, “Sir Vivian was always partial -to dark beauty. ‘What is she like?’ says he to me when -I took the liberty of asking, as an old servant may. ‘A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> -black pearl, Cradell, and I hope to wear my jewel in my -bonnet as my ancestor Sir Guy wore Queen Elizabeth’s -ruby—until the day I die!’ He’d a light in his eyes when -he said it, and what with love and happiness and all, he -looked more like a boy of twenty-three than a man of -forty. And I said to Mrs. Ansdey, ‘If ever there was a -love-match,’ I says, ‘Sir Vivian’s is one.’ And now the -carriage is waiting at the station to bring home both the -master and the mistress—bless them both!”</p> - -<p>“She wrote to me from Mentone,” went on Mrs. Ansdey, -“and I truly call it a pretty thought, and a gracious -one, of me that have been my master’s nurse, and held -him on my knees when he picked out bounding ‘B’ and -curly ‘Q’ with an ivory crotchet-hook.” She produced -from a morocco pocketbook, of solid and responsible appearance, -a letter written with violet ink on thin, foreign -paper, in delicate upright characters. “‘<i>My husband has -told me of all your faithful service and true devotion to -him and his</i>,’ she read; ‘<i>and I hope before long to take -your kind hand in mine and thank you for him and for -myself!</i>’ There now!”</p> - -<p>“Gracious and graceful too,” said old Cradell, who -had beaten noiseless time to the reading of the young -mistress’s letter with one wrinkled finger on a withered -palm. “Good breeding there—and old blood—in every -line!”</p> - -<p>“And she looks forward to seeing her husband’s dear -old English home,” went on the housekeeper, “and prays -God to give them many days in it together—and I trust -He will!”</p> - -<p>“Let us hope so, for all concerned!” said the Rector’s -wife, who resented theological references as trenching -upon her own particular province.</p> - -<p>“Though in this family it’s been like a fate, or a doom,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> -or whatever you might please to term it,” said Mrs. Ansdey, -“that the course of true love, the deeper it was and -the truer it was, was always to be broken—not by change -or faithlessness of one that loved, but by the hand of -death. There was Sir Geoffrey and Lady Euphrasia—hundreds -of years back—that were drowned crossing the -ford on the ride home from their baby’s christening and -the baby lived to be Sir Launcelot, whose bride was carried -off by the Black Death before the roses on her wedding -garland were withered.... And then there were -Sir Alan and Sir Guy, who were both killed in battle -within a year of their weddings, and Sir Vivian’s great-grandfather, -old Sir Vivian, found his young wife dead -at her tapestry-frame when he’d crept up quiet to surprise -her with his unexpected return from the Embassy -to Rome. And Sir Vivian’s own dear mother lived but -a very few years after the dear child came to comfort -her for his father’s early loss. But time goes by, and the -curse—if it be a curse, as they say it is, brought upon -the founder of the family for some secret deed of evil—the -curse may have passed over, or worn itself out. -What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“What’s what, ma’am?” asked the butler, as Mrs. -Ansdey rose in her rustling silks and made a sign for -silence.</p> - -<p>“I fancied I heard a timid kind of tap on the hall -door,” said the housekeeper.</p> - -<p>“A robin blew against it, perhaps,” said the butler. -“They’re stupid with the frost.”</p> - -<p>“There was a footstep too,” said Mrs. Ansdey, holding -up her hand and making her old-fashioned rings gleam -and twinkle in the firelight. “At least, if there wasn’t, -Mr. Cradell, I admit I’ve been deceived!”</p> - -<p>“We’ll see, we’ll see!” said Cradell, moving to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> -great oaken door. “It may be a tramp.” The handle -turned, the massive oak door moved inward. The fog -had thinned, it had grown clearer beyond doors. Within -the frame of the massive lintels appeared the glimmering -stone steps, a segment of the formal garden, with its -black Irish yews, pale marble urns, and cartwheel beds -of late flowers, enclosed within borders of box. Beyond -the trees reared a somber barrier, shutting out the sky, -and the chill wind of winter drove the dead leaves in -swirls and drifts across the melancholy picture. The -Rector’s wife, thinking of her walk across the park to -the Rectory, sniffed and shivered, and the housekeeper -motioned to the butler to shut the door.</p> - -<p>“For I was mistaken, as you see, and there’s not a -living soul about, unless it’s skulking in the shadow of -the trees,” she said. “Another cup of tea, or a drop of -cherry-brandy, ma’am, to keep the bitter air out as you -walk home? Though there’s no reason you should walk -when there’s the pony-chair.... Or perhaps you would -rather——” She started. “Call me nervous, or finical, -or what you like,” she said, peering anxiously through -her gold-rimmed spectacles in the direction of the door. -“But, if I spoke with my dying breath, there was a tap, -and then a pause, and then another tap, as plain as plain -could be!”</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” The Rector’s wife, alarm in her eyes and -crumbs on her chin, rose from her chair, dropping her -imitation sable boa. “I really believe I heard it too!... -Had you not better——?”</p> - -<p>Cradell shook his old head and clucked softly with his -tongue. “The ladies must always have their way!” he -said, shuffling on his neatly polished shoes toward the -hall-door. He opened it, and both the housekeeper and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> -the Rector’s wife uttered a simultaneous exclamation of -surprise.</p> - -<p>For a woman was standing in the moonlight outside. -She was of slight form, and wore a wide-brimmed feathered -hat, and the heavy shadow of the portico fell -blackly over her, so that she seemed no more than a -silhouette with a pale glimmering background. But a -delicate perfume stole upon the senses of those who, from -within, looked out at her, and when she moved there was -the unmistakable frou-frou of silken linings.</p> - -<p>“Ma’am!” the butler began.</p> - -<p>“I came on before,” a sweet plaintive voice said—a -voice that was viola-like in its rather thin, but sweet and -vibrating quality. “And you must be Cradell.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Ma’am?</i>” the old servant said again, while the Rector’s -wife and the housekeeper listened with strained -anxiety.</p> - -<p>“I am Lady Wroth,” came in the clear, vibrating tones. -“I came on before.... It does not matter why. There -was a slight accident between Greystoke Station and the -Elvand Tunnel. Do not be alarmed. Sir Vivian is safe, -quite safe,” she went on, as agitated exclamations broke -from the three listeners. “Indeed only one person was -killed, though two or three are injured, and he—my husband—is -helping the sufferers. He is always like that, so -ready to help, so full of sympathy....”</p> - -<p>She was now standing in the firelight, whose ruddy -glow illumined the slight figure, and drew gleams of -crimson and emerald from the jewels at her throat and -shone in the depths of her great dark eyes. Her face was -of delicate, pearly paleness, her hair had the tints of -autumn leaves, and her draperies, too, were of the tints -of autumn. She drew off a glove, and her wedding ring, -with its diamond keeper, showed upon the slight and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> -pretty hand, as her traveling mantle of velvet trimmed -with costly sables fell to the floor.</p> - -<p>“Oh, your ladyship!” cried the housekeeper. “What -must you think of us—standing here and staring? But -as goodness sees us—what with your sudden coming, and -the news about the accident, and all—we’ve lost our -heads, me and Mr. Cradell!”</p> - -<p>“So very alarming!” said the Rector’s wife. “I trust -Lady Wroth will excuse what may seem like an intrusion——”</p> - -<p>“The intrusion is mine,” said the sweet viola-voice. “I -should have given warning of my coming, but it was not -to be. Oh! the dear house!” She looked with wondering, -shining eyes upon the paneled walls, the trophied arms, -the noble pictures, and the quaint antique furniture, and -between her lips, of the faintest rose, her delicate teeth -gleamed like pearls, as her breath came quick and eager. -“Vivian’s old home ... Vivian’s home, and mine!” she -whispered to herself, and laid a hand upon her heart, as -though to check its beating.</p> - -<p>“I will not intrude,” said the Rector’s wife. “I will -hope for the pleasure of calling, with the Rector, at a -more fitting time. Good-night, Lady Wroth.”</p> - -<p>The Rector’s wife had held out her large hand in its -cheap glove, but the new mistress of the manor only -smiled upon her with vague wistful sweetness, and did -not touch the massive extremity. Whereupon its owner -set down Lady Wroth as “proud,” and made a mental -note to tell the Rector so, as her large feet carried her -out of the house and out of the story.</p> - -<p>The two old servants exchanged a glance as the slight -figure of their mistress moved across the polished floor, -strewn with Oriental rugs and skins of wild beasts.</p> - -<p>“Would my lady wish to go to her room, or to have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> -some refreshment in the dining-room?” the housekeeper -asked.</p> - -<p>My lady declined.</p> - -<p>“I have no need of anything. I only wish to rest a -little and see my husband’s home before starting upon a -journey,” she explained.</p> - -<p>“A journey? Dear, gracious me! And your ladyship -just fresh from travel, and shaken by an accident and -all!” cried Mrs. Ansdey, shaking her lace lappets.</p> - -<p>“I am so used to travel,” said her ladyship, “though -this is the longest journey I have ever taken—or ever -shall take!” She smiled upon the two old people, and -settled herself in the seat she had chosen, and resting her -elbow upon the arm of it, and her pretty chin in her delicate -palm, let her sweet shining eyes travel about the -place. “All as he described it, yes!” she whispered to -herself. “The mullioned windows with the coats of arms, -the carved and painted ceiling, the hooded Tudor fireplaces, -the arms and the pictures.... That is the great -Gainsborough portrait of Sir Alan’s young wife, the girl -who died of grief when they brought her husband’s <i>bâton</i> -of Field Marshal to her—won an hour before he was -killed in battle. There is the painting by Velasquez of -the Wroth who was made Bishop of Toledo. That must -be the Vandyck of Lady Marjorie with the deerhound -by her side, and there is the Watts picture of Vivian’s -young mother playing ball with her boy. Ah! what a -sweet, sweet child!”</p> - -<p>The plaintive voice thrilled and trembled. Tears might -not have been far from the shadowy dark eyes, as Lady -Wroth rose and moved to the foot of the great staircase, -attended by the housekeeper.</p> - -<p>“Shall I show you your rooms, my lady?” Mrs. Ansdey -began. “The fires are burning beautifully, and everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> -is quite ready, and I feel sure your ladyship must -need rest after——”</p> - -<p>“I will rest presently. But what I wish now, is to be -shown the house, if you are not too tired. Lady Audrey’s -turret, and the paneled chamber where Sir Roger fought -the duel with the Spanish cavalier, and the bedroom -where Queen Elizabeth slept, and the banqueting-hall -and the chapel where the Templar’s heart is buried under -the altar, and the gallery where Lady Euphrasia danced -with King Henry VIII., in masquing dress, and the -whispering corridor, and the painted room——”</p> - -<p>“And the ghost-chamber, my lady? Oddly enough, -that’s the first room that American ladies ask to see!... -But maybe your ladyship doesn’t believe in ghosts, -or the fact of its being late and getting dark——”</p> - -<p>Lady Wroth laughed quietly and sweetly. “Do you -believe that the spirits of those who have passed on can -only appear in the dark, dear Mrs. Ansdey?”</p> - -<p>The housekeeper rustled her stiff silken skirts as she -followed her new mistress up the broad staircase with -its carven balusters and mossy carpets.</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe in ghosts at all, my lady!”</p> - -<p>“Not in ghosts as they are commonly imagined; those -shadowy white things that point and scare and hover,” -came floating back in the thin, sweet tones; “but in the -spirits of the departed—it may be long-dead, or newly -called from earth—who borrow for a little while the semblance -in which they lived and loved, and return for one -last look at a beloved home, or come for one dear glimpse -of what might, but for the Infinite Eternal Will, have -been a home. You believe in them, do you not? Or, if -you do not now, you will! Ah, yes! you will, dear Mrs. -Ansdey!”</p> - -<p>Looking upward from the hall, the butler saw the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> -slight figure of Sir Vivian’s bride traverse the first landing -and pass out of view, followed by the portly figure of -the housekeeper; and in that moment came the grind of -wheels upon the avenue, a loud knock at the hall-door, -and a sharp peal at the bell. Two liveried servants, appearing -in haste, admitted the master of the house, and -at the first glimpse of Sir Vivian’s ghastly face and torn -and disordered garments, Cradell cried out in alarm.</p> - -<p>“Sir Vivian—sir! It’s worse than what my lady said!... -You’ve been hurt! Shall I send for the doctor?”</p> - -<p>“He is with us!” came the hoarse reply, and Cradell, -peering out into the chill, gathering darkness, saw a -strange carriage drawn up before the door, whose lamps -threw a yellow reflection on the clouds of steam rising -from the flanks of a pair of jaded horses. They were -busy about the door; something was being lifted out? -<i>What?</i> asked the old servant’s shaking lips dumbly.</p> - -<p>“Drove in from Greystoke ... hospital carriage.... -Send the men to help.... Get me some brandy,” came -from Sir Vivian in hoarse shaking tones. “I can’t ... -my arm ... dislocated, that’s all. I wish to Heaven——” -His face expressed the nature of the wish, and -the old butler cried with spirit, as he brought the brandy -from the dining-room. “You should be thankful, sir, that -you’ve been spared to her!”</p> - -<p>“Spared to—her?”</p> - -<p>The decanter clinked against the glass. Sir Vivian set -it down upon the tray, and turned a white, seamed face -and haggard eyes upon Cradell.</p> - -<p>“Spared to my lady, sir, God bless her!” the old servant -said. “Your hand shakes sadly; let me pour the -brandy out.”</p> - -<p>Sir Vivian laughed, or made a grimace of laughter, -showing his teeth and stretching his pale lips.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>“Lord, sir! don’t look like that!” Cradell begged. -“Think if her ladyship were to see you! She——”</p> - -<p>“If her ladyship were to see me!” repeated Sir Vivian. -He drank off a glass of brandy and laughed again. “Cradell—are -you mad, or am I?”</p> - -<p>“Neither of us, sir, I hope!” said Cradell. Then a light -broke upon him, and he cried, “Good gracious, Sir Vivian, -is it possible that you don’t know ... my lady is here?”</p> - -<p>“I know it.” An awful agony was expressed in Sir -Vivian’s face. “I know it too well!” Great drops stood -upon his forehead; he turned aside, clenching his hand, -and fighting for self-command.</p> - -<p>“She came half an hour ago,” began the butler. “Me -and Mrs. Ansdey were quite took aback. Mrs. Ansdey is -upstairs with her ladyship now....”</p> - -<p>“Man—man!” cried Sir Vivian, “do you know what -you are saying?”</p> - -<p>He turned his streaming face upon the frightened butler -and gripped him by the arm, fiercely.</p> - -<p>“Lady Wroth—my wife, she is dead! There was an accident—she -was killed instantaneously, with little pain, -thank God! They said so at the Greystoke Hospital.... -She is outside—there!” He pointed a shaking hand -toward the partly open hall-door, through which a pale -line of moonlight came stealing as the careful, measured -tread of men carrying a precious burden sounded on the -stone. “Yet you say to me—she arrived half an hour -ago! You are raving—or I am delirious!”</p> - -<p>For answer the butler pointed to the velvet mantle -trimmed with costly sables that lay upon the floor.</p> - -<p>“It’s heaven’s truth, Sir Vivian! And there lies the -proof! ... and here is Mrs. Ansdey to confirm it.”</p> - -<p>Both men looked up as the portly figure in its rustling -black silken robes hurried down the great staircase.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>“Sir Vivian! Oh, welcome home, Sir Vivian, a thousand -times!” The housekeeper’s face was very pale, her -hands worked nervously, crumpling her fine lace apron. -“But something dreadful has happened! it’s written in -your face!” she cried, “and God forgive a sinful woman, -but I am beginning to believe that I have spoken with a -spirit!”</p> - -<p>“Cradell tells me that——” Sir Vivian made an upward -gesture.</p> - -<p>“It’s true,” cried Mrs. Ansdey. “Her ladyship—if -’twas her ladyship—explained that you were delayed. -Someone was killed in the railway accident——”</p> - -<p>“Someone <i>was</i> killed!”</p> - -<p>“And you were coming on after you had seen to the -wounded.... She—she would not eat, or drink, or rest; -she wished—all she wished was to see the house, and I -obeyed, and we went through room after room until—there -was a ring at the hall-door bell, and a knocking, -and I turned to speak to my lady as we stood together in -the painted chamber—and she was gone! Oh, Sir Vivian, -what does it all mean?” cried Mrs. Ansdey.</p> - -<p>“It means—that!”</p> - -<p>As the hall-door opened to admit the bearers with their -precious burden, and as the men laid that cold, lovely, -smiling image of Death reverently on the settle, the -bloodhound wakened from his slumber and rising, uttered -a long plaintive howl.</p> - -<p>“Welcome home, my wife!” said Sir Vivian. “Now -please to leave us here together!”</p> - -<p>So the servants and the bearers withdrew.</p> - -<p>“It was the same face!” Mrs. Ansdey whispered, as -her faithful old comrade led her away. “Why did she -come?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>Cradell said: “Because she’d made up her mind to—and -she was a woman! There’s two answers in one!”</p> - -<p>He stooped mechanically to pick up the sable-trimmed -mantle that had lain upon the floor. No hand had -touched it, but it was no longer there.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE MOTOR-BURGLAR</h2> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">A Development of the Age of Petrol</span></p> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“A QUITE remarkable case of coincidence, dear fellars—a -parallel without precedent,” said Hambridge -Ost to a select circle of listeners in the smoking-room -of the Younger Sons’ Club, “is that the giant plate-burglary -successfully accomplished at Lord Whysdale’s -shooting-box in Deershire on Tuesday last by a party of -three polite persons traveling in a large, roomy and handsomely-appointed -pale blue ‘Flygoer’ automobile, was -echoed, so to put it—on Friday by a colossal robbery at -the seat of my cousin, Lord Pomphrey; the defrauding -persons being also, in that case, a trio of civil-spoken -and well-dressed strangers, occupying a light green -‘Runhard’ of twenty-eight horse-power with a limousine -body and singularly brilliant nickel fittings. The <i>most</i> -remarkable point on one side, and one which has given -cause for the noisy derision of the <i>profanum vulgus</i>—do -you foller me?—being that Lord Pomphrey—I regret -to add—assisted and abetted by the humble individual -now speaking, actually assisted the thieves to get clear -off with his property, includin’ an Elizabethan beaker -with a cover, out of which the Virgin Monarch graciously -quaffed a nightcap of the cordial called ‘lambswool’ when -staying at The Towers during a Royal progress in the -year 1566, and a silver tea-kettle and punch-bowl presented -by the tenants on the late Earl’s coming-of-age, -with a cargo of other valuables, out of which I had the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> -melancholy privilege of rescuing one Queen Anne Apostle -spoon.</p> - -<p>“My cousin Wosbric, between attacks of his hereditary -gout, is an ardent golfer. Residing at his Club during the -absence of Lady Pomphrey and the family in the Tyrol, -he takes every feasible opportunity of cultivating his skill -and renewing his enthusiasm for the game, the intricacies -of which, dear fellars, I may own I have never been able -to master. To me, when a large, cheerful, whiskered -man, dressed in shaggy greenish clothes, with gaiters, announces, -rubbing his hands, which are invariably encased -in woolen mitts, that he has <i>taken his driver twice going -to the twelfth hole; did not altogether mishit either shot, -and yet was not up to the green, because the wind bore -down like a Vanguard omnibus</i>;—to me nothing wildly -incredible or curious has been said. The large man in the -shaggy clothes is talking a shibboleth I do not and never -could understand, dear fellars, if I bent my whole intelligence—considered -by some decent judges not altogether -contemptible—to the task, until the final collapse of the -present Social System. But, nevertheless, Lord Pomphrey -is partial to the company of this humble individual -upon his golfing days, and to me the Head of my -House—d’ye foller me?—in mentioning a preference -issues a mandate. Enveloped in a complete golfing costume -of Jaeger material, surmounted by two fur-lined -overcoats, the pockets of the under one containing two -patent ‘keep-hot’ bottles of warm and comforting liquids—coffee -and soup—which aid to maintain the temperature -of the outer man at normal, before being transferred -to the inner individual—I manage to defy the rigors of -the English climate and support the exhaustion consequent -upon indulgence in the national game of North -Britain. My walking-stick is convertible into a camp-stool;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> -the soles of my thick boots are protected by -goloshes, a peaked cap with flaps for the ears crowns my -panoply; and, place in the mouth of the individual thus -attired one of Dunhill’s ‘Asorbal’ cigarettes, each of -which is furnished with a patent hygienic mouthpiece-filter -which absorbs the deleterious oil of nicotine, and -catches the stray particles of tobacco—d’ye foller me, -dear fellars?—which otherwise find their way into the -system of the smoker—and the picture is complete.</p> - -<p>“The run by road from the Club doorsteps to Cluckham -Pomphrey, where the Fargey Common Golf-links -equal any that our country can boast, faithful copies of -the eighteen best holes in the world having been carefully -made under the supervision of Lord Pomphrey—the run -can be made within four hours. We started. I had received -the Fiery Cross from my kinsman, so to put it, in -a laconic note, running: ‘Golf to-morrow if the weather -keeps up and the gout keeps down.—Yours, Pomphrey.’ -We started in a mild drizzle, at six-thirty. Our car, a -‘Rusher,’ of twenty-six horse-power, with a detachable -top and glass driving-screen, behaved excellently. Driving -through Cluckham, our county town—it happened to -be market-day!—we accidentally converted a lamb into -cutlets; but the immolated creature, as it chanced, being -the property of one of my cousin’s farmer-tenants, the -casualty passed over with fewer comments than generally -ensue. Bowing to several well-known yeomen and -county land-holders, my cousin and myself alighted at -the Pink Boar, kept by an old retainer of the family, -took a light but nourishing ante-luncheon or snack of a -couple of raw eggs beaten up with whisky, and proceeded -on our way to the Fargey Common Links.</p> - -<p>“A mile from The Towers, whose picturesque battlements -could be descried, dear fellars, embosomed, as it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -were, in surroundin’ trees, we encountered some motorists -upon the road in quite a regrettable plight. Their car, a -large, light green ‘Runhard’ of twenty-eight horse-power, -was drawn up by the roadside;—quite an arsenal of tools -glittered in the wintry rays of the sun, spread out upon -an india-rubber sheet, and what had occurred was plain -to the meanest automobiling capacity. A tire had exploded -after a long, stiff climb of the steep hill, a notable -feature in our county landscape—the descent of which -we were about to negotiate. And the spare tire, after -being attached, had proved to be leaky beyond repair.</p> - -<p>“Fellar-feeling, dear fellars!—would have moved any -fellar of you to foller our example. We raised our hats, -the three strangers in the ‘Runhard’ car politely returning -the salutation; we offered aid, and met with grateful -acceptance. Larger than our own locomotive—the ‘Runhard’ -wheels were of exactly the same diameter—the -‘Runhard’ tires were ‘Fridolines,’ like our own. We -offered our spare tire, it fitted to a miracle. We were -overwhelmed with the grateful acknowledgments of its -three polite proprietors.</p> - -<p>“‘You will at least permit me to pay for the tire!’ -pleaded the gentleman who appeared to take the lead. -As Lord Pomphrey refused, with the courtly wave of the -hand that distinguishes this thirteenth wearer of the -coronet, he continued: ‘For you do not know—you never -can know!—how inestimable a service your lordship has -rendered us!’</p> - -<p>“Wosbric was known, then. He elevated his eyebrows -in polite surprise. Not being able to discern the features -of the strangers behind their cap-masks and goggles, he -could not recall ever having met them before. Then the -second polite stranger, who was even more polite than the -first, explained in a slight American accent the reason of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> -his companion’s recognition of Lord Pomphrey. ‘We -have, like many other tourists,’ he said, ‘recently enjoyed -the privilege of going over your lordship’s antique and -noble family pile. In the hall, the feudal stateliness of -which especially appealed to me as an American citizen, -hangs a portrait of your lordship taken, in company with -a gold-hilted sword and a red velvet curtain, as Lord-Lieutenant -of the County.’</p> - -<p>“Lord Pomphrey bowed. ‘As Lord-Lieutenant of the -County,’ I put in. ‘Quite so. The likeness is agreed to -be a striking one. And as you have viewed the other -treasures of The Towers, I presume you did not miss the -large oak cabinet of Jacobean silver plate—magnificent -and unique as having belonged to Queen Anne of Denmark—which -stands at the end of the smaller library -behind the large Chinese screen?’</p> - -<p>“The polite strangers looked at me and then at Lord -Pomphrey and then at each other. A cloud passed over -the bright intelligent eyes that shone through their -motor-goggles as they sorrowfully shook their heads.</p> - -<p>“‘We missed that cabinet!’ said the first polite -stranger, with a sigh.</p> - -<p>“‘I guess we did!’ said the second.</p> - -<p>“‘Just like wot I calls our beastly, blooming luck!’ -sighed the third stranger who was sitting in the car, and -who, though polite, was not in the least a refined sort of -person. As all three of them seemed unfeignedly depressed, -Lord Pomphrey, who is the soul of hospitality, -begged them to return to The Towers, accept refreshment, -and examine under his personal superintendence, -the magnificent contents of the oak cabinet in the second -library.</p> - -<p>“‘We thank your lordship profoundly!’ said the first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> -polite stranger, bowing, ‘but we are unable to accept your -invitation!’ He bowed again, and got into the car.</p> - -<p>“‘And we shall never cease to regret, I guess,’ said the -second, ‘that we have missed the most valuable item of -your lordship’s collection of silver heirlooms. But we -have garnered many precious momentos’—it struck me -at that moment that there were a great many waterproof-covered -bundles in the ‘Runhard’ car, and as he spoke he -patted one of these affectionately—‘of our visit to this -country which must serve to sweeten life for us when we -are far away. And with these we must endeavor to be -content!’</p> - -<p>“He too bowed, dear fellars, and got into the car. The -machinery began to splutter at a touch upon the lever.</p> - -<p>“‘Let ’er rip, Cocky,’ advised the third stranger; ‘we -ain’t got none too much of a start with this yere tire -a-busting. So long!’ he said, and like an arrow from a -bow, so to put it, dear fellars, the large, light green ‘Runhard’ -leapt forward and was out of sight in an instant. -We proceeded in the ‘Rusher’ toward our destination.</p> - -<p>“Presently, dear fellars, we met two large, hot, county -constables on bicycles. They did not recognize us, so -great was their haste. Their large boots vigorously trod -the pedals, their bulky, blue-uniformed figures were -crouched over the handle-bars as they pounded up the -hill from Cluckham Pomphrey. We wondered whither -they might be going? We questioned what agricultural -breach of the peace, what local felony, had spurred them -to such an unusual display of energy. We found out.</p> - -<p>“For at the next bend of the road, dear fellars, we -encountered quite a little cavalcade of hot and red-faced, -or pale and panting persons. The steward from Pomphrey -Towers in his T-cart, the head-bailiff from Pomphrey -Towers on his cob, the coachman driving a light<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> -gig with two armed grooms on the back seat, an excited -mob of stable-helpers and gardeners straggling along behind.... -Even before they recognized us, those in the -van of the pursuers shouted to us, asking if we had -passed an automobile upon the road—a large, light green -‘Runhard’ containing three men?</p> - -<p>“In a few gasped sentences, dear fellars, the ghastly -truth stood revealed; the facts were laid bare to us. -Pomphrey Towers had been, to employ the expression of -the bailiff, ‘cracked and burgled,’ only an hour previously, -of a quantity of silver articles and a mass of valuable -plate. Lord Pomphrey and myself had met the -burglars upon the road, had supplied them with the -means of continuing their flight, had entered into conversation -with them, and returned their polite farewells.</p> - -<p>“We joined the pursuit, all thoughts of golf submerged -in the bosom of Lord Pomphrey, beneath the boiling -lava-flood of rage and indignation. To be robbed is bad; -to be placed in the position of confederate to the robbers, -unknowing aider and abettor of their nefarious flight, is -maddening. The three polite individuals in the large, -light green motor-car have not, up to the present, been -traced. One small spoon of the Apostle-headed kind, -found by the roadside where they replaced their own deflated -tire, with that so generously bestowed upon them -by Lord Pomphrey, is the only clue so far.</p> - -<p>“A distressin’ experience, dear fellars!—confoundedly -so in the estimation of this humble individual. Thanks, -I <i>will</i> take another of those long Dutch cigars and a -Scotch, with Hebinaris’—the new mineral water, do you -foller me?—with iridescent bubbles that snap at your -nose. My love to you, dear fellars, and a Happy New -Year!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE LOST ROOM</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THEY were going to part at last—to separate quietly, -but formally—after a married life of nearly three -years.</p> - -<p>There was no Other Woman, even she was quite sure -of that; there wasn’t even the shadow of another man. -He rather wished there were, with a good solid six-foot -personality to project it. He was so confoundedly tired -of conjugal life.</p> - -<p>He had an old historic title, a large estate unencumbered -by the prodigalities of ancestors, unhampered by -his own. She had inherited from an American mother a -large fortune and some of the biggest jewels Tiffany had -ever set. Their tastes were similar, their constitutions -robust, their tempers strong and healthy, their temperaments -ardent and enthusiastic, their moral and mental -temperatures since the last decisive meeting between the -trustees of her property and his family lawyers had been -slowly descending to normal. Never, oh, never would -either of them put their heads again, they were determined, -into the noose of marriage! even if a <i>decree nisi</i> -should ever make it possible. Because naturally, as time -went on, she would meet somebody she liked, he thought.... -Because men were so constituted, reflected she, that -if a woman only told one of them often enough that he -was in love with her, he would begin to believe it.</p> - -<p>They had used up all their capability for passion, devotion, -and so on, during their romantic wooing, their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> -short but divine engagement, and the incandescent eight -weeks’ honeymoon that had followed the wedding. They -wanted to forget the world then, and be alone together; -and they got what they wanted, one April, one May, in -that great old granite-built pepper-box turreted Scotch -mansion on the banks of the silver Tweed.</p> - -<p>It was heavenly, or at the very least Paradisaical. -They wanted it to be quite an old-fashioned honeymoon, -so they did not go down by motor, but by the Euston -express. Ten hours of traveling, and then they got out -at a little gray station of a little Scots town with a dreadful -tweed-factory in it whose dye and grease terribly -defiled the silvery river reaches, and does so to this day—and -drove through lovely woods of larch and birch and -hawthorn, just breaking into green leaf, to Maryhouse, -the cradle of the race from which she sprang, the unhappy -lovely Queen—whose great wrought gates of -rusted iron, with the Stuart shield of arms in faded gold -and crimson and blue, would never be unlocked again -until a Stuart should reign once more upon the throne of -England.</p> - -<p>The great avenue had been turned into park, and you -reached the house by the lesser way. It had a square -courtyard, closed by another pair of great wrought gates, -and bears with ragged staves were on the pillars, and -even held up the antique scraper at the low-browed door, -and the knocker was the tiniest bear of all. There were -no rooms to some of the four hundred casements that -winked out of the lichened walls. You pulled the bear-handle -of the house-bell, and it clanged up high out of -sight somewhere among the twisted chimneys and the -great slants of stone-tiled roof studded with pinky house-leek -and gay with yellow moss.</p> - -<p>Then the low, square, iron-studded door had opened,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> -and two people had gone in, to commence, among the -tragic relics of vanished, forgotten existences, their own -new life together. Perhaps some sorrowful shadow of -failure and disillusion had fallen upon them from those -old gray walls. A week before they went there a piece -of paneling had fallen from the wall in the great hall, -revealing in a niche behind it a skull, and what else Time -had left of the man who had suffered such a tragic ending.</p> - -<p>As I have said, the Deed of Separation had been -formally signed by both parties, their trustees and lawyers. -She was beautifully free. She sang a little song as -her motor-victoria ran her homeward to the house which -he had no right to enter now, and she ordered the touring -limousine to be at the door very early in the morning -before she ran upstairs.</p> - -<p>She was as gay as possible. She told her maid, as she -hummed the “Dream Waltz,” to have a cabin trunk and -a bag packed. Only these, because she would be back in -a week. She was only going to visit some old great, -quiet people in an old great, quiet house up North, who -had been very fond of society in their time, but now -never even dressed for dinner. She meant the fair murdered -Scots’ Queen and the Kings who had dwelt at -Maryhouse, of course.</p> - -<p>“Fancy that, my lady!” said the maid, thanking her -own stars that she was not to accompany her mistress. -Many silken calves and much company above and below -stairs constituted the waiting-woman’s ideal of Life.</p> - -<p>Well, the itinerary of the Great North road—that -would take too long. Behind the glass screen she sat, -swathed in her sables, while the taciturn, clean-shaven -chauffeur made England spin by. She chose her own -road, the collieries were left behind in their smoke, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> -ruins of St. Oswald’s Chapel of Ease were passed, standing -gray and battered on their battle-site. Serving-shields, -where under the enchanted hall sleep Arthur and -his Knights, she saw before she lost the vision. She -slept at Carlisle, and went on next morning to Peebles, -where Needpath elevates its single fang above the salmon -pool.</p> - -<p>And so to Maryhouse, not even a telegram having been -sent ahead of her. She knew her dear friends, the owners -of the place, were still abroad. But there was always -Mistress Dumphie, the old, old lady-housekeeper, who -had been born and reared and wooed and married, too, at -Maryhouse. Mistress Dumphie would take her in for a -night, and if not—there was an inn in the ugly little -weaving village. The great limousine rolled through the -gates of the smaller avenue and over the bridge of the -Arbalestiers Tower, and stopped before the great, rusty -crowned gates of the sunny courtyard.</p> - -<p>The larks were singing. The Quhair brook ran under -the hazel-banks. Oh! what sweet quiet after the roar of -Paris and London and the dust of the roads.</p> - -<p>The rusty chain was pulled, the great bell clanged on -the side of a pepper-box turret ever so high overhead. -Mistress Dumphie, in her morn’s merino and black net -cap, appeared behind the rusty grille.</p> - -<p>“Guid preserve ’s a’! It’s the young lord’s leddy!” she -said.</p> - -<p>The “young lord’s leddy” came in. She was to stay. -The chauffeur went back to the hotel.</p> - -<p>“I feel as though I should find something here,” said -the “young lord’s leddy,” “something that I have lost -somehow. It is very odd!”</p> - -<p>She wandered about the beautiful old house all the -rest of the day.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>“Here is the great oak window-seat where we used to -sit together. Here is the little stone parlor where we -quarreled and made it up. Here is the vast tapestried -chamber, with the faded Stuart portraits on the walls, -that was my bedroom; and this smaller room, with the -acorn-shaped stone mullions and the ebony and tulip -wood furniture, was <i>his</i>!”</p> - -<p>What fine days they had spent in those daisied avenues, -under those huge oaks. What wet ones under the -old painted, diapered ceilings. The wettest of all they -had spent in looking for the Lost Room.</p> - -<p>The Lost Room was a chamber that everybody knew -of, but nobody ever discovered. Counting from outside, -you could be sure there was an extra window, but go -where you would about the hushed mysterious house, you -never opened a door that led into the Lost Room.</p> - -<p>She supped in a little dining-parlor that those dead -Queens had used before her. She went to bed in the -tapestried room. She slept well and woke in the middle -of the night with a great bell clanging in her ears. She -could not sleep after that. Lights flickered before her -shut eyes in the darkness.</p> - -<p>“I <i>did</i> hear a step on the staircase! I <i>did</i> hear the -shutting of a door!” she said to herself, and got out of -the great bed on the daïs and put warm slippers on her -white little naked feet, and threw on a dressing gown -lined with unborn Persian lambskin—such a cruel idea, -you know, but very fashionable. And she took her electric -torch, and unlocked the door noiselessly, and stepped -out boldly into the wide, dusky corridor.</p> - -<p>She trod upon something soft, and repressed a scream. -She held the light downward and picked up a man’s dogskin -glove.</p> - -<p>“Ah, now I know that I am dreaming!” she said quite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> -cheerfully. She need not be afraid of mice or rats, because -she knew that she was all the time lying in bed in -the big tapestried room. As for ghosts, she wanted to see -one frightfully—always had.</p> - -<p>The door of the room that had been his was just opposite. -Something made her go in, on her noiseless -dream-feet, carrying the dream-glove in her hand. The -dream went on quite as dreams usually do. She had gone -back to the sweet old half-forgotten honeymoon time.</p> - -<p>“This is the night on which we had tiffed, and I was the -first to make it up!” She smiled and went in. It was -just as she had expected. There he lay, fast asleep in the -big tapestry-hung bed.</p> - -<p>She went up to the side of it, and pulled back the curtain -without waking him, and sat down, shading the -light from the dear, handsome, manly face, and devouring -it with famished eyes. This was what she had come -seeking; some glamour of the old time; some sweet remembrance -unspoiled by anything that had happened -since.</p> - -<p>The jars, the disagreements, the quarrels had never -happened.... She was back in the old times, and he -was not yet regretting his lost freedom, but tightening -the bond a little closer every day by words and deeds of -love.</p> - -<p>This was the Lost Room, this dream-chamber where -he lay. She was glad to have come down to Maryhouse -for this. Who would not take a journey to find your old -self and your old self’s self at the end of it, and Love -lying sleeping in the shadow of dear memories, ready to -be wakened with a kiss?</p> - -<p>She stooped and gave the kiss. He started and awakened. -He stared at her, and the light of the old joy -leaped into his eyes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>“Alice! You’re only a dream, I know, but it is better -than the real Alice, who grew to hate me. Oh! put your -arms round me again! let me have your heart on mine -again; let both of us forget what a ruin we have made -of the life that we set out to make so sweet and fair!”</p> - -<p>He caught her hands. The torch fell with a crash, and -went out. The dark was full of light, and warm, throbbing -memories, and they were one again. Just for a -little while, only in a dream....</p> - -<p>But day came through the diamond casements, laughing, -and hand in hand with Hope. There were tears and -laughter in her train. Two real people. No dream -after all.</p> - -<p>He had wanted to look at Maryhouse again, and had -traveled down in the express from Euston, hours after -she had started. It was he who had rung the bell in the -night.</p> - -<p>Mistress Dumphie had let him in and given him -supper, and lighted the old room for him. He had -thought there was a curious twinkle in her eye.</p> - -<p>The Deed of Separation, now waste-paper, may be had -on application, by any young, wealthy couple who are -desirous, upon a sensible arrangement, to part.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">FATHER TO THE MAN</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<div class="hangingindent"> -<p><i>Being a Confidential Letter from the Right Hon. Viscount -Tynstone, at the Rev. O. Gotobed’s, Eton -College, to the Lady Mary Cliffe-Bradlay, ooo Wessex -Street, Park Lane, W.</i></p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Good Old Poll</span>,—</p> - -<p>It is awfully nice of you to be so fritefully sick about -it—<i>i. e.</i>, my Getting Swished this Half, but fellows -get Hardened to these things at School. Hemming major -says there is something in a rotten poetry-book about a -Divinity that shapes our Ends. I expect the beggar who -wrote it was trying to get round the Head for his own -Reesons. Your simpathy about the Ladies’ Plate is cumforting, -but the Eton Eight must give other Crews a -chance sumtimse. So everyboddy says, and as far as -stile went our Fellowse boddies were better under controle, -and the whole Appearanse of the Rowing was up -to the best traddishunse of Eton. No. 7, Biggly-Wade, -presenting a beautiful example of rithm and elastissity; -and Henson No. 4, simply being a Tower of strength. -N. B., he is Captain of my Tutor’s and Has licked me -awfully several timse, so I am in a pusition to Judge.</p> - -<p>While the Thames Cup was being slogged for I made -up my mind to Sacrifise myself for the good of my Fammaly, -and drop into Lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Le Moser, -those Millionaire Friends of Mother’s, who she said were -such Howling Cads, and so anxhus to know me. They -Had an A.1. Motor-Launch, sedar-built, with plated fittingse -and with salloons 4 and aft, and Green Awnings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span> -second on the Bucks side 2 Private Lawns billow the -Kingston Rowing Club. There were Moundse of Flowers, -and though lots of other awfully smart launches filled -up the First Section of the Bank before the Houseboats -Began, where you, and Mother, and the Girls were on -Uncle Todmore’s <i>Roulette</i>, the Le Moser craft collared -the bikker for sumshuous splender. Regger minor of my -house, who is quite an awfully Brilliant umorist, made -an eppigram about the general Swellness of boats and -launches billonging to people like the Le Moser’s. He -said: “On the Berks side there are piles only, and no -Booms. On the Bucks side there are <i>both</i> Boomse and -Piles.”</p> - -<p>Regger was so awfully Pleased with himself for saying -such a clever Remark that I Had to Kick him to Tone -Him down. He is Fritefully litterary and Artistic, because -his Father Has just Bought a Weakly Illustrated -Journal, and He is to Eddit it when He leaves Oxford; -and the Things he said about the akwatic Fairy Palaces -bineath the Pine treese and the Green-clad Hilly Vista, -kombining to make up a Picture uneek in its English -beauty, and without Paralel in the sivilised World were -like hearing bitts read out of some Rotten Newspaper the -day after the Rigatta.</p> - -<p>I had Not Had much Brekker, bicause our Boys’ Maid -is quite awfully spoons on Henson No. 4 of the Eight, -and forgetse where she has Hidden the Knives and -Forkse to kepe Other Fellows from getting at Them. I -Found them in my Cricket Pads after I had Eaten eggs -and Sausages with my Fingers like one of those Prehistorick -Beggers with Stone Hatchets. So the Hospitallity -of the Le Mosers was ixtremely Welcome. Mrs. -Le Moser was Frightfully Civil. She Had Diamond -buttons on a White Reefer Jacket, and Rows and Rows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> -of pearls as big as Sparrows’ eggse. A White Gangway, -railed with gilt chains on posts with gilt Knobs, led to a -Markay on Shore, which was Decorated as a Medievil -Banqueting Hall, and there was a Footman in the Le -Moser livery behind everybody’s chair. The Dalmatian -Band and the Castillian Minstrels Played, and it was an -awfully ripping lunchon, with everything you could think -of to Eat and Drink and lots more bissides. There were -4,000 Pot plants on Board, and when it Got Dark the -Fairy Litse looked awfully fine.</p> - -<p>Mr. Le Moser was a ripping good Host, though his -waistcoat and necktie were frightfully loud, and he wares -his Nails as long as the front ends of a Pair of Swedish -Skates. N. B., Perhaps it is to Rake in the Money with? -He told me that my Distinguished Father’s Name was -Down as One of the Directors of His New Company, and -that He Hoped to have Mine in a Few Years. He said -the Risponsibilities of Rank were fritefully tremendous, -and never seemed to Notice how I kept Slogging into the -Champagne. He told me to keep the Cigarretts biside -me, and offered me a Partagga in a glass case, price 8s. -6d., which I expect comes to a frightfully big price for a -box of 100. I acsepted the luxurious Weed, but Did Not -Smoak it. (N. B., I have got it now, and Regger, who -has been swotting Pericles this half for English Classics, -calls it “a glorious casket stored with ill.” I can’t think -what makes him.)</p> - -<p>After everybody was stodged we went on Board the -launch, and Miss Le Moser—Mother is quite rite about -her being a pretty girl, though her Pater and Mater are -such awful form, and her Pater doesn’t know how to stop -talking about the money he has Bagged on the Stock -Ixchange, and in other Places, the Diamond Mines in -South Africa particularly. A chap in the Guards who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> -was on the launch said it was a well-developed case of -I. D. B., but Forgot to tell me what the Letters ment. -He said, “Josie would carry the pile” (Josie is Miss Le -Moser), and that if I was a sensible young beggar, and -not a rotten Ass, I would see where my own advantidge -lay even before I left School for Sandhurst. He went on -about an infusion of Radical blood being a good thing -to mingel with the ancient Tory blue, and rather Valuable -than otherwise to one’s descendents, and said that -to win a young and distinctly decently-looking wife with -a hundred and eighty thousand jimmies in her wedding -nightcap would be getting the Grand Slam in mattrimony. -I checked him a bit and asked him if he had -Praktised what he jolly well preached, and he twisted his -mustash and said: “Unfortunately, no, young ’un; as -like a Good many other fellows, I Came under the Married -Women’s propperty Act before I was eighteen.”</p> - -<p>Then he pointed out a weedy, long-legged Beggar with -the ghost of a red mustash and fritefully swagger -clothes, who was making himself tremendously nice to -Josie Le Moser, and said he was the Son of Mr. Joyd -Lorge’s privite Secretary and an <i>enfant gâtày</i> of the -Liberal Government, with a seat in the Lower House -being kept warm for him until he should come of age, -and a lot more, ending up by asking me if I was driving -an Automobile and saw a Dog trying to Bite through -one of my Tyres, what I should do to the dog? I said I -should Drive over it, of course, which seemed to pleese -him frightfully, for he tipped me a sov, and then winked -towards the Fellow who was showing his teeth at Miss -Le Moser and said, “Then, there’s the Dog, don’t you -know!” and went off to talk to a frightfully swell woman -who called him to come over to her. I should rather -like to be like that Guardsman when I go into the Army.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span> -His name is Gerald, for I heard the lady call him by it; -he is Lord Dennismore, and he was so jolly Respectful -and attentive to the lady, who wore quite a lot of vales -and had heaps of golden hair, though she was quite old, -and a tremendously red and white Complection, and a -front figure that rinkled and bulged when she stooped -or sat down, that I thought she must be his Mother, until -Mrs. Le Moser told me she was the Duchess of Rinkhorn -and his great friend. What I said about the Duchess -being his mother seemed to amuse Mrs. Le Moser like -mad, for I Heard her tell quite a lot of people, and they -All yelled, as if I had been trying to be funny, which I -was Not.</p> - -<p>She told me lots more About Lord Dennismore, which -made me feel beastly proud of his having talked to me, -and given me Advice. He was out with his battalion in -the South African War, and did splendid thingse at the -Front, and got speshally mentioned in Despatches, after -Jaegersfontein and for Rescewing twenty wounded Tommies -who had fallen in the Grass which the liddite from -the shells had set on fire—I think it was liddite. And -he got potted in the Shoulder, and was getting quite fit -again, and would have done a lot more fiting if the -Duchess hadn’t come out in a Speshul Hospital ship and -carried him back “to England, Home and Duty,” as a -lady who was listening to Mrs. Le Moser put in. I think -it was jolly mean of the Duchess, don’t you? As if a -chap could be properly grateful for being muffed like -that! I forgot to say that Lord Denismore, when a little -chap, was Father’s fag at school, and used to field for -him when stump cricket in the passage in wet weather -first came in. And he, Lord Denismore, was picked to -Play in the School Eleven when he was still only a Lower -Boy, and was Captain for a half before he left. And I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> -feel awfuly Glad I met him, but I wonder why he said -that about coming under the Married Women’s Property -Act before he was eighteen? There is a Duke of Rinkhorn, -who goes about in a Bath Chair with a Nurse in a -white cap and apron to feed him and blow his nose when -it wants it, so Perhaps the Duchess is the married woman -he meant after all.</p> - -<p>I must say Josie Le Moser seemed to like me talking -to her and explaining things more than she seemed to -when the weedy chap with the ghost of a red mustash -was trying to. After the phinal of the Diamonds, when -the Crowds began to thin, and later when the Twilite -came down and the Nats came out, and the Le Moser’s -launch and their markay were elluminated up with about -twice as many Fairy Lites as anybody else had, and the -Castillian Minstrils played splendidly on their mandalins, -I began to think her an awfully pretty girl. I don’t -believe it was the crême de Menth her Pater had made -me have with my coffy after Lunch and the Champagne, -or the Russian rum they sent round in little dekanters, -with the five o’clock tea, because the fellows say my -Head is frightfully strong. But I got her hand and -squeezed it a lot of times, and whenever the sucking -M. P. edged a word in, and he tried to keep in Josie’s -pocket the Most of the time, I wanted to fit him, and I -think He guessed it from my Manner. He let Out He -had been Edducated by Private Tutors at Home because -his constitushion was dellicate as a Boy, and I said “Oh!” -and I think Josie began to feel him rather in the way -after that. His name is Wenham-Biggs, and I xpect his -Constitushion is giving him a lot more trouble by now.</p> - -<p>The thing happened like this. I had only leeve till -7.30, but Mr. Le Moser asked me to stop and Dine, and I -thought I could work the squash at the Station, and being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> -three tranes late for an extra 2 hours so consentid with -thanx, as it is a Poor Heart that Never rejoices, as Regger -says. Josie and Me were up in the Bows where there -is just Room for 2, and Wenham-Biggs was sitting on the -Steersman’s Box rubbing his chin against the Wheel, to -make his Beard grow I suppose, and Getting more Sickeningly -Sweet and Centimental in the things He was saying -to Josie every Minute. I call it Nerve to go on like that -with another fellow nearly as old as yourself listening to -every Word. At last he Said he was ready to Die for the -Woman he Loved—I like that, don’t you?—Whenever -she asked the sacrafice, and I said it would be the Leest -he could Do, if she had an objection to a red mustash. -It must be being so much with Regger makes me bat off -these Things I xpect. Wenham-Biggs was perfeckly -wild, and Josie giggled so mutch that she Forgot she was -Close to the Edge and the Rubber mat slipped or something, -the Launch being polished like a Looking Glass, -and she went plump into the River, and it is pretty Deep -on the Bucks side, and there is a good deal of Streem.</p> - -<p>I was Glad of all the Swimmers I had gone in for at -Cuckoo Weir. I was Beestly sorry about my Swagger -Flannelse and my new colors I had sported for the 1st -time; but of corse I had to go in after Josie and thogh -I don’t suppose I showed much skill, People made an -awful Row, crowding to the Bullarks, and throwing life-boys -and cork fenders at us like ennything. Mr. Le -Moser kept offering rewards in lbs. and making it ginnies, -and Mrs. Le Moser had histerrics in Lord Dennismore’s -arms, which shows she was not quite unconshus because -He was the best-bread and best-looking man of the -Launch-party.</p> - -<p>What price your Little Brother when Me and Josie -were Hauled up into the Launch all over pslime and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> -Duckweed. Everybody Shook Hands with Me and said -things that Made me Tingal all Over, and all the Women -kept kissing Josie who they took away and put to Bed. -Mr. Le Moser lent me a Change of his Thingse. O -crumbs! if you Had seen me in them ispeshally the -Wastecoat and the etsetras with stripes down the Legs. -And he rote me a letter to Take back to my Tutor, and -left it ungummed. And the things He said about my -Pluck and Daring and his Eternal obbligation made me -feel quite Shy when I read them going back in the last -trane. There were two other Lower Boys in the carriage, -and besidse them, a Fellow of my house who is One of the -Swells of the Sixth Form, who was awfully annoyed at -being obbliged to travel with us.</p> - -<p>The Butler was sitting up for us at my tutor’s, and -everyone Else in Bed, as it was past 12, when we Got -Back, but beyond a Slite Cold in my Head the Risults -of the Outing were Not Paneful, my Letter putting -Things in an awfully good light, which made the Other -Fellows rather envious thogh they were let off with midling -paenas.</p> - -<p>I Forgot to say Mr. Le Moser tipped me £100, which -will come in very usefull. Also I am to try and get leave -to go and Spend the Day at their Place at Staines next -week, and they will send me Home in one of their motor-carse. -Xcuse Spelling and mistakes as my Cold is making -me Sneaze pretty Frequently, and with love to -Mother, and all at home.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">Bilieve me,</span><br> - -<span class="indentright2">Your loving Brother,</span><br> - -<span class="smcap">Toby</span>.</p> - -<p>P.S.—You Never saw a Fellow with plenty of conceat -and Nerve about Him look as small as Wenham-Biggs -when Lord Dennismore asked Him why He did not Dive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> -in after Josie too, and he Had to own up He Could not -swim a Stroak. What price private Tutors and being -Edducated at Home?</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>P.P.S.—I saw Josie before I came away, and Mrs. Le -Moser kissed me, which was horrid, and so did the -Duchess and Several Other Ladies, and then they told -Josie to and she did and gave me a little Diamond Duck -to wear on my watch chane. N.B.—I think I see myself -doing it and getting fitted by my fagmaster for side.</p> - -<p class="right">T.</p> - -<p>P.P.S.S.—Lord Dennismore neerly rung my hand off -when I said Good-bye, and said, “You’ve tumbled in for -a good thing, you lucky little beggar, and I’m ½ inclined -to billeve....” And then he left off without saying -What. But he tipped me 3 soverins more, and asked me -to come and lunch with Him when Next he is on Duty, -and you bet I said delighted thanks....</p> - -<p class="right">T.</p> - -<p>P.P.P.S.S.S.—As my Fagmaster seemed inclined to be -Nasty about my not getting Up in Time to Fill his Bath -and make his tost and cofy in the morning I gave Him -Mr. Le Moser’s 8s. 6d. Partagga in the glass case. First -he bitt the end of the case off and it neerly choaked Him, -and then He had a lot of trouble in getting it to Lite, and -before it was ½ through he had a lot more trubble of a -different kind. (N.B.—Ask mother if it would Not be a -good Thing for me <i>i. e.</i> marrying Josie Le Moser when I -am of Age? I shall be fritefully poor and she will be -awfully Rich, so her Father and Mother would not matter -much. Also it would be Better than coming under the -Married Women’s Propperty Act at 18, like poor Dennismore!)</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Tynstone.</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE FLY AND THE SPIDER</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<div class="hangingindent"> -<p><i>Being a Confidential Letter from the Right Hon. Viscount -Tynstone, on board the Yacht “Spindrift,” -Cowes Roads, to the Lady Mary Cliffe-Bradlay, -Silversands Park, Sussex.</i></p> -</div></div> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Tuesday</span>, <i>August —</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Good Old Poll</span>,—</p> - -<p>I thought you were Rotting about Lord Dennismore -and the Duchess at the baginning of your Letter, -but your Locking him up in the Peech House was a Stunning -Lark. The Duchess must Have been in a Regular -Wax, and He must have been Fritefully Wild, only you -can’t Hit a Girl, they are so Soft and Go down so Easily.</p> - -<p>Uncle Todmore Has the Usual Yacht Party for the -Rigatta, and the old <i>Spindrift</i> looks A.1. painted white -with a new Copper Rail and a New Sett of Lifeboyse, etc. -I asked Uncle Todmore How Much it had Cost, and He -Heeved a Sigh, and said sufficient to the Day was the evil -Thereof, so I xpect it comes to a Lump, and He and Aunt -Honoria will Have to spend the Winter down at that -Beestly Place of His in Devonshire instead of Going to -the Riviara or Egipt this time.</p> - -<p>I said He Had the Usual Party on Board; but there -are Two New People—a Captain Clanarthur, late of the -Malta Artillery, a Man who Parts His Hair Down the -Back, and Wares a Gold Braselet on his Left Wrist, and -his Wife. Mrs. Clanarthur is a simply Fritefully pretty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> -woman, with Long Black ilashes that Curl at the endse, -and Eyes you Cant tell the right Colour of, never Being -the Same Twise Running. Aunt Honoria is a Great -Friend of Hers. And she Wares a Silver Belt with her -Ruff weather Serge Gown that was a saint Bernard Dog’s -Collar—so you may immagine How Small her waste is. -She says I am a Mear Boy, and Ought Not to Notice -Such Things; but I shall be Sixteen in September, and -lots of Our Fellows at My Tutors are in love. Greening -Minor, Who is a Regular Shrimp, regularly rites verses -To the Barmade in the Slough Station refreshment room. -First class—I mean the Refreshment Room, not the -Verses. One Poem bigins—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“How Nobly Does Thy Fair Form Tower,</div> -<div class="indent">Whenare I Gaze On Thee.</div> -<div class="verse">I Wish thou Wert a Lilly Flower,</div> -<div class="indent">& I a Hunney Bee.”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>Which is Not Half Bad for a Lower Boy. And Regger is -Secretly ingaged to his Sisters Jerman Guverness, who is -30 if a Day. She Has Promised to Wate for Regger, who -is a Year Older than Me, and simply awfully Divoted to -Her. She Makes Splendid Gingerbred with Nuts in it, -which will come in Usefull if Regger’s Pater Cuts Him -Off with a Shilling.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Clanarthur’s Christian Name is Ermengarde, but -Her Friends call Her Nini for short. The Divise on Her -Note Paper is a Gold Spider in a silver Web, and she -Wares a little Broach with a Diamond Spider in a Gold -Web. She keeps on Telling me she is Not Young, but -That must be All Rot, because She is so mutch moar -Girlish than the 2 Girls on Board. They are the Pope-Baggotes, -and Lady Jane is Fatter than ever.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span></p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Wednesday.</span></p> - -<p>I can’t Immajin Why Mrs. Clanarthur ever married -such a regular Scug as Captain Clanarthur, though she -Says she was a mear Child, and did It to Pleese Her -Family. They have been 10 Yearse married, so if she -was so young at the time she cannot be as old as she says -she is. She says she Had Her Hair Done up and wore -Long Skirts For the first Time on her Wedding Day, and -thought more of the Cake and the Presents than what -was to Come. She cried when she Told me that, after -dinner on Deck, when an Italian Opera Fellow, whose -Name I can’t spell, was singing Love songs to the Acompaniment -of the Mandolin, and the Starse were shining -more Brightly than I ever remember to Have Seen -Them. Her Hair has a Scent like Violets, and when Her -Head Comes Near you it makes you Feel Hot and cold -and Swimmy—at leest it does Me. Clanarthur was -Away Racing a Yawl of His at the Royal Portsmouth -Corinthian Yacht Club Rigatta, and I thoght if He -should Get Drowned what a Jolly Good thing it would -Be. He Ought to be Kicked for Making that woman so -frightfully wretchid when She is 10,000 times Too Good -For Him. N.B.—Of course She did Not Tell me what -he has Done, but I bet you ½ a crown it is sumthing -Beastly caddish.</p> - -<p>I think the Men on Board a Not very Well Bred Sett, -as they chaff Me like mad about Mrs. Clanarthur; and -even when she is Within Earshott, which makes Me want -Frightfully to Kick them all Round. I Cannot Sleep at -Night as I used to Do, and my Head Aches in a Beastly -way in the Morning. I have got a handkerchief of Mrs. -Clanarthur’s I Stole when She was Not Looking, and I -Keep it Under My Pillow at Night and Switch the illectric -light On and Look at it every Now and Then. There<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span> -is “Nini” imbroidered in the Corner, and it Smells of -Violets, like her Hair. If I was married to a Lovely -Woman like that I should not be a Beast like Clanarthur. -She Told Me that she Never has suffered Him to Kiss -her on the Lips Since She Knew Him to be Unworthy of -a Pure Woman’s Love. Sumhow I am glad of that, thogh -it is Rough on Clanarthur.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Saturday.</span></p> - -<p>Last Night Sumthing Happened I am Now Going to -tell you about. They were Throwing Coloured Lites on -the Sea from the Victoria Pier, and all the Big Steam -Yachts Had Fairy lamps Hung Out, and the Music of -the Bands and things Comming Over the Water quite -made it simply ripping. It was after dinner, and I was -Sitting on Deck with Mrs. Clanarthur, and She thought -She would like a Moonlight Pull in the Yacht’s dinghy, as -the Sea was so Beautifully Smooth. So I tipped two of -the <i>Spindrift</i> men to get the boat reddy, and not say -ennything to ennybody and We Started. There was a -Fritefully Stiff Tide on. I Rowed Her Round and Down -a Lane made of Torpedo Gun-boats on One Side and 1st -Class Cruisers on the other, All Reddy for the King to -inspect on Saturday. It was Ripping Fun, and Nini was -Delighted. Then we Drifted dreemily along Towards -Ryde, and I Forgot there was such a Fritefully Stiff Tide -Running out to Spithead because I was Holding Nini’s -Hand—she let me—and thinking there were Worse -Things than Coming under the Married Women’s Property -Act after All.</p> - -<p>When We Had got a Good Distance Out I found I -could Not Get Back For Nuts, However Hard I Pulled.</p> - -<p>The Perspirashun was Running off me like Water and -my Arms Ached like Mad. Nini—she had said I might -call her Nini the Evening Before—Nini Could not See<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> -ennything was Wrong, but I knew we were being Carried -Out to Sea at About 100 miles an Hour and it Kept Getting -Darker. N.B.—Of course, I did Not Care For myself, -but I Kept Thinking of Nini. She said the Poetry -of the illimittible Oshan made Her Trill like a Smitten -Lute, and I said, “Does it?” and Kept Slogging Away -against the Tide without making 1 Not in 1,000 Hours, -as the Signals in Coes Roads kept getting Smaller. Then -a Southampton Liner came Rushing out of the Dark. I -Saw Both her Port and Starboard Litse as I Turned my -Head, so she must have been Coming Straight down on -Us. You may Suppose I had Fits, thinking of Mrs. Clanarthur, -and I would have tried to Shout, but I Had Lost -my Wind completely.</p> - -<p>“How pretty,” said Nini—Mrs. Clanarthur I mean—“that -must be the <i>Campania</i> for New York from -Southampton.” And she went on Gassing about the -Beauty of the Seen without an Idea that we might be cut -in 2 Next Minute. But we got off. The liner swerved -to port and went by us lighted up like a sea Alhambra, -all her deckse crowded with People and her Band Playing -‘The Merry Widow,’ and Clanarthur lost his chance of -being a Merry Widower. But she passed so jolly close -to us that a lot of Wash slopped in, and Nini screamed -and called out, “You silly boy, it’s all your Fault!” which -I like, considering the sittuation. And She Pulled her -White Evening Wrap round her and said, “Let’s get back -to the yacht; it’s shockingly cold and the sea is getting -abominably Rough!” And then I had to own up what a -jolly Hat we were in, and that we had been steddily -Drifting Out to Sea for Some time Past.</p> - -<p>What price me? I felt small enough to get into a -cricket-ball case already, but I felt something worse when -Mrs. Clanarthur Boxed my Ears. She said I was a Little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -Idiot, and that she had been culpably Reckless to alow -Me to Take Her on the Water, and what would Freddy -say? Freddy is Captain Clanarthur. So I said I would -stand up to Him with or without Gloves, Fight Him with -Rivolverse across a necktie if he liked, and that He could -Divorse Her afterwardse and then she could marry me, -and everything would be jolly well settled all Round, as -she Had Told me He was aborrent to Her only the night -before when she kissed me under the Aft Awning three -Times—which she Had Done, though she called me an -untruthful little Retch for saying so, and then she had -Histericks, and then what Uncle Podmore calls the Mallady -of the Wave came on, and I had to ship the oars -and Hold Her Up, and she was Awfully Bad. Mother on -the Turbean xing to Boulogne was Nothing To it. I am -not Joking When I Tell You that We Drifted About in -That beestly Dinghy all night at the immanent Risk of -Being Run Down by anything from a Tramp Steamer to -a Government Crooser, and if the Tide Had Not Turned, -which it did at 4 o’clock in the Morning, we should be -as dead now as Two People can be.</p> - -<p>O crumbs, when I looked at Nini, who After jawing at -me till she was Tired Had Gone to sleep with Her Head -on my Shoulder! By the Glimmaring Light of Dawn she -Looked as Old as Aunt Honoria, and not Half as Nice. -Her Swagger Evening Gown and Mantal were Ruined -with Seawater, and one Long Tale of her Lovely Hair -was Washing about in the Bilje at the Bottom of the -Dinghy, we had shipped such a lot in the Night. Her -Forhead and one Eye were nearly Hidden by a Top Piece -with curls that had come off, though there was lots of -Hair underneath it, and she was Perfectly Blue with Cold -and Fright.</p> - -<p>I thought she must have been Pretty Old when she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> -Married Captain Clanarthur after all, and when I Remembered -how mad I had been about Her, and how I -wanted to Snipe Clanarthur and Marry Her, I felt awfully -sick at having been such an unlimited ass.</p> - -<p>She woke up and called me some more Names and then -a Pilot cutter came along bound for Portsmouth Pier, and -I Haled the Pilot and He agreed to take us back to Cowes -Road for £1. And they Hawled us on Board because we -were too jolly stiff to clime up the cutter’s side and we -Got back to the Yacht in Time for Breakfast.</p> - -<p>You may guess if the men of the Party chaffed me Before -how frightfully they chaff Now, I am Roasted about -the Beastly Business from morning till Night. Uncle -Podmore told me they had sent out 2 Boats to Find us -and burned blue Lights. All Captain Clanarthur Said -when He saw Mrs. Clanarthur come up the yacht’s side -like a Ragbag, was, “So there You are, are you?” But -suppose he is Lying Low to bring an Axion for Divorse, -do you suppose I shall have to marry Mrs. Clanarthur?</p> - -<p>I do jolly well Hope Not. She is old enough to be my -mother, and Has a Perfectly awful temper.</p> - -<p>Fancy me being as Pleased as a Fox-terrier with 2 tails -when she let me Kiss Her under the Deck Awning after -dinner. Fellows with lots of good sense can be asses at -times.</p> - -<p>Of course I tell you All this in Confidence on the Strict -Q.T., because you are Not like other Girls about Keeping -a Secret. There is a Big Review of the Home Fleet and -the Swedish Squadron by the King to-day, and the Fleet -will be elluminated in the Evening after dinner, and there -will be Fireworks from the Victoria Pier. But whether it -is my having been Out all Night with Nini—I mean Mrs. -Clanarthur—in that rotten Dinghy or something else I -don’t ixactly know, but I feel jolly miserable.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>I wish Greening minor was here, it would do me Good -to give the little Brute a regular licking. Fancy him -Being in love with a Barmade and writing her verses. -And Regger, who has the nerve to make up to his sister’s -Jerman Governess. I can’t think why Fellows do such -idiotic Things.</p> - -<p>I Think rather than Have to marry Mrs. Clanarthur I -would Run away and be a stoker like that Fellow in the -newspapers. She looks quite young again this afternoon -and her Hair is beautifully done, but I keep on seeing -Her as she was at 4 this morning, when that pilot-cutter -Found us.</p> - -<p>I am getting rather sorry for Clanarthur tied up to a -Woman who Boxes a Fellow’s ears and calls him Names -for Nothing—that is, I should feel sorry for him if I was -quite Eesy in my mind about his bringing an Axion for -Divorse.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright2">Ever your affeckshionate Brother,</span><br> -<span class="smcap">Tynstone</span>.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">FOR VALOR!</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE city of Smutborough was holding a solemn public -function in honor of one of her sons. Formerly -a soldier in the Smutborough Regiment, he had won his -V. C. a long time back in the early days of the last South -African War. At the conclusion of hostilities, having, like -many other men, attained perfect competency and ripe -experience with the expiration of the age-limit, Color-Sergeant -Stoneham was naturally shelved as being of no -further use to the nation, except in an emergency like the -last.</p> - -<p>The rear of the Town Hall, Smutborough, formed one -side of an unsavory blind alley: a dingy <i>cul-de-sac</i> -blocked at the end by the high, sooty, spike-bordered wall -of what was termed, with mordant but unconscious -humor, the Workhouse Recreation Yard. The Workhouse -loomed large upon the opposite side. Though the -great main entrance for misery was in another street, a -solid oaken door, hospitably garnished with large nails -and a double row of bristling prongs, exhibited upon a -mud-splashed fanlight above it the black-lettered legend, -“Casual Ward.”</p> - -<p>It was only one o’clock, and the door would not open -before seven, but a queue of deplorable applicants had -already mustered before it. A tall, upright, gaunt man -of about forty, dressed in a weather-stained jacket-suit of -tweed, and wearing a shabby deerstalker low over his -haggard eyes, had been one of the last to attach himself -to Poverty’s kite-tail.</p> - -<p>Against the wall of the Workhouse Recreation Yard -was the excuse for a considerable expenditure of public<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> -funds at a moment felt by the humbler citizens of Smutborough -to be extremely inopportune. The excuse was -let into the sooty brick masonry. It made a queerly-shaped -bulge in the middle of an oppressively new Union -Jack which covered it, and upon each side of this tantalizing -mystery stood a large, pink, shining police-constable, -in the largest size obtainable of brand-new white -woolen gloves.</p> - -<p>At the bottom of the blind alley were more constables, -ready in case of the mob of unemployed making a rush -round from the front of the Town Hall. But at present -it surged, a human sea lashed to fury by the whip of -hunger and the voice of Socialism, in the square outside -the long row of first-floor windows where the sumptuous -luncheon was laid for a hundred guests.</p> - -<p>“A’a’ah! T’ss’s! Ya’-’aah!”</p> - -<p>“Close up here, close up!” A police-sergeant, hurrying -from the bottom of the alley, herded the struggling -queue before the door of the casual ward into a compact -bunch. Then the rearward portals of the Town Hall, -before which a red-and-white striped awning had suddenly -sprouted, were thrown wide. A crush of rosetted -stewards, carrying very shiny hats, preceded the Mace-Bearer; -the Mayor, a plump and rosy personage, in his -furred robes and chain of office, appeared, walking between -a lovely lady in sumptuous sables and an accurately-attired -gentleman, whose intense vacuity of eye, -mechanical bow and smile, and inability to utter anything -without being first prompted by an attendant secretary -from behind, denoted him a Personage of the first -importance.... The Sheriff followed with the Mayoress, -the Aldermen and the guests trooped after. And the -mob at the other side of the Town Hall, making a charge -round the corner, and being repulsed by the police, vented<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> -its indignation in such an outburst of boo’s that the -Mayor’s speech was delivered in dumb show. Everybody -clapped when he had done, though. Upon which -the Personage, prompted by his attendant spirit, delivered -himself in short, House of Commons gasps of the -contents of a Be-ribboned roll of typoscript. The last -sentence was audible: “And let this! Be a perpetual! -Reminder to this! And succeeding generations! How -our! Mother country! Rewards her! Heroic sons!” -Everybody clapped and applauded the Personage. The -Personage, then, advancing upon exquisitely-polished -boots to the Union Jack with the mysterious bulge under -it pulled a white cord with a lavender kid glove, and -brought the flag down, revealing a square block of Caen -stone bearing some sculptural figures in low relief set in -the masonry above a neat little drinking fountain. Then -the Personage, the lovely lady in furs, the Mayor and -Mayoress, Sheriff, Aldermen, guests, and stewards -trooped back into the Town Hall to luncheon, and the -crowd surged back again to boo the banqueters. But -after the last of these had, under a cross-fire of gibes and -taunts, taken himself away, the turbulent ocean of humanity -rolled back into its foodless garrets and cellars, -and the Socialist leaders who had urged on the ring-leaders -retired to dine at a hotel. Subsequently the alley -behind the Town Hall became gorged with homeless persons -seeking shelter for the night, and when seven o’clock -struck and the Casual Ward door opened, one rush of -misery packed it instantly from wall to wall, and Stoneham, -V. C., late Color-Sergeant in the Smutborough Regiment, -found himself shut out.</p> - -<p>He wondered, as he ruefully felt in his empty pockets, -whether it would end in his having to sell the Cross? He -had never failed to raise money on his reserve-pension<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> -when the General Brushmaker’s Union had forced him to -come out with the other men, because a non-union -<i>employé</i> had been taken on at the factory. Since then -he had navvied, stoked, scavenged, done everything and -anything that a capable man might do to get bare bread -and common shelter for himself and his. Now the wife -was in Clogham Infirmary with two of the children, and -another was dead of clemming, and ... and the old -wound from the cross-nicked Mauser bullet pained him -horribly. He was giddy and sick with starvation, and -the world was spinning round....</p> - -<p>Just in time he caught at the edge of the new drinking -fountain, and saved himself from falling. The grudging -glimmer from the fanlight over the door of the Casual -Ward showed him something that roused him as a swooning -man may be roused by a splash of icy water in his -face. It was his own name in shining gold letters, boldly -incised upon a handsome tablet under the sculptured -block that jutted from the sooty brick wall.</p> - -<p>“Lord above, what’s this?” gasped the man whom -Smutborough had that day toasted. He struck a match, -the last he had, and read, beneath the bas-relief which -represented the city’s hero in the act of shielding a -wounded officer with his body from a supposititious volley -of Boer bullets:</p> - -<p class="center">TO COMMEMORATE THE GALLANT ACTION<br> -BY WHICH COLOUR-SERGEANT H. STONEHAM,<br> -OF THE SMUTBOROUGH REGIMENT,<br> -AND A NATIVE OF THIS CITY,<br> -WON THE VICTORIA CROSS.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In Action, Paardfontein, Transvaal, South Africa, 1901.</span></p> - -<p>“Move on, you!” said the voice of a police-constable -behind him. And Stoneham, V. C., drove his freezing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> -hands deep into his ragged pockets, wheeled and obeyed.</p> - -<p>“It’s a rum world!” He reeled a little in his gait, and -whispered thickly to himself, as if some of the champagne -and grub that had been consumed that day in his honor -had got into his head by proxy. “Damned queer from -start to finish! But, in the long run, I’m a bit better off -than the bloke in the Bible. He asked for bread, and -they gave him a stone. And I’ve got a drinking fountain -into the bargain!”</p> - -<p>And the wet night swallowed him up.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">MELLICENT</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“HAPPY is the corpse, they say, that the rain rains -on,” observed Mr. Popham, “but knowing his -rheumatic nature, I could have wished him a drier day. -However, we must take what comes, and it’s curious that -what comes is generally what one would have preferred -to be without. Life is very like a switchback railway,” -continued Mr. Popham. “Now you’re up, a-looking down -upon other human beings; and now you’re down a-looking -up at ’em. And similarly your fellow-creatures as -regards you. It’s a curious reflection that I shan’t ever -measure out his colchicum again; or soothe the morning -twinges in his knees and elbers with a lithia lollipop in a -glass of warm water; or hear him swear when I tighten -his straps and buckles; or fetch and carry his wigs -between this and the hairdresser’s in Regent Place. Who -do those wigs belong to now? Yesterday his coffin, an -extra-sized, double oak casket, metal-lined, with plated -handles and silver name-plate, stood in there!” He -jerked his head at the double doors leading into the bedroom. -“This morning we accompanied him to Woking -Cemetery. This afternoon they are a-reading of the -Will in Portland Place, and Odlett gave me his solemn -word that John Henry shouldn’t remove his ear from -the library keyhole without finding out whether a little -bit on account of faithful services rendered hadn’t been -left to Frederick T. Popham, valet to the above. For -he promised to leave me something all along, and almost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> -with his last breath, ‘I haven’t forgotten you, Popham,’ -says he. ‘You’ve been remembered, you’ll find, in the -Will.’ And ... Lord! Was that you? What a turn -you gave me, Miss Mellicent!”</p> - -<p>“Why, you’re quite nervous, Mr. Popham, sir,” said -Miss Mellicent.</p> - -<p>Miss Mellicent had bumped at the door with the end -of a coal-scuttle, and now apologized, bringing it in. Miss -Mellicent was a thin person of some thirty London summers, -dressed in a worn black gown with stray threads -sticking out where crape had been ripped off. Her hair -would have been a nice brown if it had been less dusty, -her gray eyes were timid and kind, and her dingy pale -face had a look of belated girlhood—was sometimes quite -transfigured into prettiness when she smiled.</p> - -<p>“I’ll own I am a little unlike myself,” agreed Mr. Popham. -“Perhaps it’s his luggage all ready in a pile near -the door, as if we were off to a foreign Spa within the -next five minutes, or going down to Helsham to stop in -his usual rooms in the south wing. Perhaps it’s his going -off so sudden in quite a mild attack. Perhaps it’s the -strain of the funeral this morning, perhaps it’s sympathy -for Sir George and the family, perhaps it’s a little anxiety -on my own account! I know what he had, and I’ve my -notions as to how he’s disposed of it! The likeliest way -to bring about a lawsuit and get it into Chancery would -be his way, bless you! The embroilingest way; the way -to bring about the greatest amount of jealousy and bitterness; -the way to cost the most to all concerned and bring -about the smallest return in the way of satisfaction and -profit to ’em, would be the way he’d give the preference -to over all. And if he was a-listening to me at this -minute,” said Mr. Popham, with a slight uncomfortable -glance toward the folding doors that led into the bedroom—“and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> -I’m sure I hope he’s better employed!—he’d -own I’ve done him no more than justice!”</p> - -<p>“The many years I’ve known General Bastling,” said -Miss Mellicent, “and it’s going on for twenty that he’s -lodged with us four months in each twelvemonth—I’ve -never asked or cared to know. Was he a rich gentleman?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I should call him pretty snug at that,” said -Mr. Popham. “Ten thousand in Home Rails; a pretty -little nest-egg of five thousand in Government Three per -Cents; a matter of sixteen hundred invested in the Chillianmugger -Anthracite Mining Company; and a nice little -bit of loose cash in the current account at Cox’s. That’s -what I’ve my eye on, to tell you the truth; and I don’t -think it’s unnatural or greedy.”</p> - -<p>“I would never believe you selfish or money-seeking,” -said Miss Mellicent, folding her hard-worked red hands -upon her worn stuff apron, “not if an Angel was to come -down out of the stained-glass window in church—I sit -under it on a Sunday evening sometimes, when I’m not -wanted at home—and tell me so!”</p> - -<p>“I hope I’m not naturally more of a groveler than -other men in my situation—my late situation—would be,” -returned Mr. Popham. “But forty odd is getting on in -years, and I’m reluctant at my time of life to go looking -for another middle-aged gentleman to valet. The young -ones are too harum-scarum and given to late hours for a -man like me; and if they weren’t, they’d be unnatural -phenomenons. A nice little inn in a country town, with a -decentish bar custom and a solid bottle-and-jug department, -and a cold lunch in the coffee-room on market-days, -would suit me; with Hunt, Harriers, Freemasons, -and Friendly Societies’ dinners to cater for; and a private -understanding with a few gamekeepers anxious to promote<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> -their own interests in a quiet, unassuming way—the -guards of the late and early Expresses—and one or two -West End poulterers and greengrocers as I have met in -what I might call the butterfly stage of my existence, -when I wore silk stockings and livery, floured my hair -regular, wore a bookay on Levée and Drawing-Room -days, and would as soon have eaten cold joint or cleaned -the carriage as taken up coals. And why I haven’t relieved -you of the scuttle before this, is a question between -me and my conscience. Let me take it and put it -down. It won’t be the first time, if it is the last, will it?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t, Mr. Popham, sir!” pleaded Miss Mellicent; -“don’t speak in that downhearted way.” Her red hands -plucked at a corner of her dingy stuff apron, her gray -eyes were already pink about the rims. Tears rose in -them. She coughed and swallowed nervously.</p> - -<p>“The Bastling Arms is the name of that there little -inn,” said Mr. Popham. “The sign is the same as the -crest on <i>his</i> notepaper and his seal-ring and the lock of -that despatch-box.” He pointed to the despatch-box -crowning the pile of solid, well-used, much be-labeled -portmanteaux and imperials that occupied the corner -near the door of the room—a comfortably furnished, -rather dingy second-floor apartment in a quiet street -above, and running parallel with, Oxford Circus. “The -landlord died the day before yesterday—as if to oblige -or aggravate me, I don’t know which!—and the widow, -knowing my ambitions, dropped me a postcard to inform. -Three hundred is wanted for the lease, stock, and goodwill, -and fifty for the furniture, stable and yard-effects. -A bargain, Miss Mellicent, if I only had the money! -But as it goes, I’m a hundred and fifty short—unless -John Henry’s ear is tingling at this moment with tidings -of comfort and joy. Now, what do you mean by lighting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span> -a fire as if I wanted coddling, when you’ve a dozen people -to look after, if you’ve one?”</p> - -<p>Miss Mellicent was down on her knees at the old-fashioned -grate, laying a fire. She struck a match and -lighted the kindling, and, though it was mid-June, the -bright blaze was welcome in the dingy sitting-room, -whose window-panes streamed with torrents of rain.</p> - -<p>“The gentlemen are all out but the third-floor front,” -she said, “and when the rain began, and I thought of you -sitting up here in the dim light alone, it seemed as if I -might do this much to make things cheerfuller. For -you’ve done so much for me ever since I came here”—her -red and blackened knuckles went up to her pink-rimmed -eyes—“you always done so much for me!”</p> - -<p>“For you, my dear soul!” ejaculated Mr. Popham, -with circular eyes. “You make too much of things, Miss -Mellicent!”</p> - -<p>“That’s one of ’em,” cried grateful Mellicent, turning -upon him a thin, blushing face down which two tears -openly trickled. “You’ve called me ‘Miss Mellicent’ -from the first. From the time I came here to Mr. and -Mrs. Davis, an orphan, ten years old, in my cheap black -frock, made out of the skirt of poor mother’s mourning -for poor father, you’ve always called me ‘Miss.’ It -helped me, somehow; just as your carrying up the heavy -cans of hot water and the coals did.”</p> - -<p>“You was a bright-eyed, grateful little mouse, too,” -said Mr. Popham retrospectively, “and many’s the time -I’ve had it in my mind to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Davis -about their driving a little thing like you so hard. -They’re past driving now, that’s one comfort! It’s years -since I’ve set eyes on either of ’em, now I come to think -of it!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>“It’s years!” Mellicent echoed in a slightly bewildered -way. “Why of course it would be years!”</p> - -<p>“She was a mountain, was the venerable lady, and the -old gentleman was a mere lath,” said Mr. Popham meditatively. -“He used to answer the letters we wrote year -by year, season in and season out, from the family seat -at Helsham, from the Engadine, Aix, or Ems, Paris, or -the Riviera, to say we were coming on such a day. Ten -years ago the writing of the letters changed to a feminine -hand—and since then I haven’t seen him.”</p> - -<p>“Why—don’t you know—he died?” said Mellicent.</p> - -<p>“Did he really?” cried Mr. Popham. “Well, it was -like him to keep it so quiet, and like the old lady, too. -Reminds me—I haven’t set eyes on <i>her</i> for a matter of -five year and over!”</p> - -<p>“Oh dear, Mr. Popham! she’s dead too!” gasped Mellicent -in distress.</p> - -<p>“She’d be pleased to know how little we’ve missed -her, I know,” responded Mr. Popham cheerfully. “Now, -quite between ourselves, Miss Mellicent, since for the -first time since I’ve known you we’re indulging in a confidential -conversation—who’s carrying on the house?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you know? No—you’ve never asked or -thought to ask in all these years,” returned Mellicent. -“The person who carries on the house is—not quite—but -I suppose she would be called so—a lady!”</p> - -<p>“And very sensibly she manages,” approved Mr. Popham, -“in keeping out of the way and letting you do it -for her. And a nice income she makes, I’ll be bound! -Why, the house has never been empty since first I come -here. Old gentlemen with ample means on every floor, -toddling out to their clubs when their various complaints -permit, and dining at home—and dining comfortably, -too—when they don’t. Such a polish on the boots, such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span> -a crispness of the breakfast bacon, such a flavor about -the coffee and the curries, such a tenderness about the -joints, such a dryness about the daily newspaper, and -such an absence of over-statement about the total of the -weekly bill as, with all my experience, I’ve never found -elsewhere. And all owing to You! If your modesty allowed -you to think over yourself for one moment—which -I truly believe you’ve never done since you were born—you’d -admit, Miss Mellicent—that you’re a wonder!”</p> - -<p>“Oh! do you truly mean it?” she cried, with her heart -upon her lips.</p> - -<p>“I do,” answered Mr. Popham, with warmth. “And -if the present proprietor of the lodgings wasn’t a lady—and -knew what was good for him—he’d——”</p> - -<p>“Oh no! No, Mr. Popham, sir, no! He wouldn’t. -No one could ever think of me in such a way!” Her -red and blackened hands went up to the piteous, quivering -face, and her lean bosom heaved behind the meager -bib of her scorched stuff apron. “Never!”</p> - -<p>“Tell me now, upon your honor,” Mr. Popham pressed. -“Haven’t you never looked at nobody in that way yourself?”</p> - -<p>Miss Mellicent fairly writhed and shuddered with -nervousness. But she laughed, looking away from Mr. -Popham and into the old-fashioned but handsome glass -over the mantelshelf, in which, within an Early Victorian -frame of fly-spotted gilding, the reflection of Mr. -Popham’s alert, well-featured, respectable profile and -her own poor, wistful face appeared together.</p> - -<p>“If you won’t ask me no more—yes, then! but he -never dreamed o’ me!”</p> - -<p>“More shame for him!” asseverated Mr. Popham -stoutly. “Why, what a put-upon young woman you are, -Miss Mellicent! Since you were ten years old, I do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> -verily believe you’ve never had a pleasure, never had a -present, never had a friend, never had an outing—no -more than you’ve had a sweetheart.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but,” she cried, with a happy laugh, “I have had -a friend! You’ve been my friend, haven’t you? And I -have had pleasure in knowing that. And I’ve had an -outing—twice. Once Uncle Davis took me to the -World’s Fair—it was my twelfth birthday—and once, -two years later, you treated me to the pantomime.”</p> - -<p>“Did I? And uncommon generous and considerate it -was of me, I must say, to have done that much for you, -you poor little neglected, lonely creature!” uttered the -remorseful Mr. Popham.</p> - -<p>“I never forgot it,” Mellicent cried, with beaming eyes. -“The glory and the splendor, the living roses and the -talking animals and the shining fairies, and you to explain -it all and be so kind. I never forgot it! Who -could?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I’m beginning to remember something about it -myself!” said Mr. Popham, clearing. “We partook of a -dozen oysters and some shandy-gaff at a fish-bar on the -way home. According to present views, we ought to -have shaken carbolic powder over that shellfish instead -of pepper, and washed it down with Condy’s Fluid; but, -being behind the present times, we enjoyed ourselves.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t we!” Mellicent clapped her hands. “I have -gone back to that beautiful evening in memory hundreds -and hundreds of times! It has helped me through such -a lot of hard things—for things are hard sometimes. -Sometimes, when you aren’t here, and there isn’t no one -to speak to on the stairs, and the gentlemen are over-particular -about their boots and changeable about the -hours for their meals, things get the better of me to that -extent that I scream and run!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>“Scream and run, do you?” said the puzzled Mr. Popham. -“And how do you do it? Or do you do it without -knowing how, eh?”</p> - -<p>“I shriek out loud and hear myself as though my voice -came from a long way off,” said Mellicent, opening her -large eyes, “and then my feet begin to run. I scream, -and I run screaming up to the little top attic I slept in -when I came here as a child, where my old rag doll is -still, and mother’s patchwork counterpane covers the -truckle-bed. And I hide my head in that, and cry -myself quiet and patient again!”</p> - -<p>“And Lord have mercy on your lonely little soul!” -cried Mr. Popham. “Patient you are, and that’s the -truth!” He took the knotty red hand and held it in -both of his for an instant, looking at the downcast face. -“But don’t scream and run any more. It isn’t good for -you!”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t screamed and runned for quite a long time -now,” she answered. “But”—her poor lips trembled—“I -think I shall when you are gone for good.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, nonsense!” Mr. Popham squeezed the red -hand and dropped it gently. “I’ll come and see you -from time to time.”</p> - -<p>“And leave your little country inn?” said Mellicent, -trying to smile. “You won’t be able!”</p> - -<p>“I could leave the landlady in charge,” suggested Mr. -Popham. “Stop, though, a landlady is the kind of -article that doesn’t go with the furniture and fixtures. I -shall have to look out for her myself.” His face changed. -“Upon my word I shall!”</p> - -<p>“I know the kind you’ll choose,” sighed Miss Mellicent. -“And the best won’t be good enough for you, Mr. -Popham. She must be young and fair and plump and -rosy and blue-eyed, with golden curls like the Fairy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> -Queen in that pantomime, or the lovely dolls I see in the -shop windows when I’m out buying meat and groceries -for the gentlemen. And her hands must be as white and -soft as mine are red and hard. And——”</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry, my dear!” begged Mr. Popham. He -stooped over her as she hid her flaming cheeks in the -hard-worked hands. “You have pretty hair, Miss Mellicent,” -he said, with a sensation of surprise at the discovery.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been turning out rooms,” she sobbed, “and it’s -full of dust!”</p> - -<p>“And you’d have a pretty figure,” said Mr. Popham, -now embarked upon a career of discovery, “if you took -the trouble to pull ’em in. And you’re young—barely -thirty—and I’m ten years older. And you’re a first-class -double extra A.1. housekeeper, cook, and manager. See -here! Give the lady proprietor a month’s notice, and -come and be landlady of the Bastling Arms at Helsham!”</p> - -<p>“You—you’re not in earnest?”</p> - -<p>She faced him, quivering, transfigured, panting.</p> - -<p>“Ain’t I?” remarked Mr. Popham simply. “Say ‘Yes,’ -Miss Mellicent, give me a kiss, and we shall both begin -to believe it. Run and change your dress, and we’ll call -a cab and make another evening of it, and if the Alhambra -ballet won’t do as well as the pantomime, under the -present circumstances, I shall be surprised! There’s -John Henry’s knock at the hall-door. He brings good -news, or it wouldn’t be such a loud one. It takes the -girl ten minutes to get up the kitchen stairs; she’s a born -crawler, if ever there was one, and I’ve a fancy I should -like you to let the boy in—if you’ve no objection?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, no!” she cried gladly, and flashed out of the -room.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>“She’s wonderfully nimble on her feet,” mused Mr. -Popham; “and though I’ve never seen ’em to my knowledge, -I shouldn’t mind putting a bit on the chance of -their being pretty ones. Lord! I seem in for discoveries -to-day. Come in, John Henry!”</p> - -<p>But it was not John Henry, but the butler from Portland -Place.</p> - -<p>“Odlett! Well, this is kind; and you with such an -objection to getting your feet damp!” Mr. Popham -shook the large dough-colored hand of Mr. Odlett until -the butler secured the member from further assault by -putting it into his pocket.</p> - -<p>“The boy was wanted to go upon an errand,” explained -Mr. Odlett, in the voice of the description known -as rich. “And as a friend!”—his smile creased his large -pale cheeks, and caused the temporary disappearance of -his small twinkling eyes—“as a friend, no more port -being wanted for the party in the library, I thought I’d -come and put you out of your misery!”</p> - -<p>“That was uncommon kind of you, Odlett!” breathed -the acutely-anxious Mr. Popham. He wiped his brow, -and fixed an intense gaze on the particular feature from -which intelligence might be expected.</p> - -<p>“The boy did his duty faithful from first to last,” said -Mr. Odlett, selecting a chair and carefully separating his -coat-tails as a preliminary to sitting down; “and when -he laughed, ’ad the presence of mind to drop his ’ead to -the level of the library door mat, consequently it was -supposed to be the pug a-sneezing!”</p> - -<p>“Well,” gasped Mr. Popham. “Well?”</p> - -<p>“The Will come up to our fondest expectations,” continued -Mr. Odlett. “Sir George, who never shoots, ’ave -the General’s old saloon-pistols and sporting Mantons, -and <i>Bell’s Life</i> and the <i>Army Gazette</i> for twenty year<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> -back. Mr. Roderick is left the Chinese and Indian -curiosities on condition of his dusting ’em hisself regularly. -My Lady ’ave ten pounds to purchase a mourning-ring, -provided she’ll undertake to wear it; the young -ladies ditto; and the money——”</p> - -<p>“The money——” choked Mr. Popham.</p> - -<p>“The money, with the exception of several smaller -legacies, goes, with the consent of the Mayor and Corporation -of Helsham, to purchase and lay out a Public -Park for the people in memory of the Testator. There’s -to be a mausoleum in the middle of it, in which his -crematory urn is to be kep’, and a bandstand at each -end, because he always loved to see people cheerful -about him. Also, he bequeaths to Miss Mellicent Davis, -at his lodgings in Margaret Place, five guineas and a set -of ivory chessmen; and to his old and valued friend, -William Odlett, which is me, the sum of two hundred -pounds. He adds, he hopes I’ll drink myself to death -on it, inside of a month; but he always was a playful old -gentleman. No—you’re not forgotten!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Popham wiped his brow with an air of relief.</p> - -<p>“You’re not forgotten—which ought to be a consolation -to you!” repeated Mr. Odlett, creasing all over with -a vast, comprehensive smile. “You’re to ’ave his walking-sticks, -clothes, wigs, the rugs and plaids, and the -spare set of teeth, hoping you’ll always have something -to employ ’em on. I came over a-purpose to tell you; -you’re so fond of a joke, Popham.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t deny it,” said the crushed and disappointed -Mr. Popham; “but where the humor of this one is, hang -me if I know!”</p> - -<p>“You’ll see by-and-by,” said Mr. Odlett consolingly. -“When you’ve ’ad time to think it over. Meanwhile I’ll -stand a couple of whiskies hot. A man don’t come into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> -two hundred, cool, every day, and this windfall is particularly -welcome. You know Madgell, the landlord of -the Bastling Arms at Helsham, is gone over to the -majority?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Popham nodded a pale face.</p> - -<p>“The lease, stock, goodwill, and fixtures of that pleasant -little ’ouse is to be ’ad for what I call a song. And -I’m going—in a week or so, when I’ve laid my hand -secure on this here little legacy—to pop in and settle -down. Plummer, the cook, a plump and capable young -woman, ’ave expressed her willingness to be the landlady. -I did suppose she had had a bit of an understanding -with you. But she’s quite come round my way since -the reading of the will, and I thought you’d like to -know it!”</p> - -<p>“You’re uncommon considerate,” said the rasped and -tingling Mr. Popham, “but I’ve made arrangements elsewhere.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps the Other One will change her mind when -she finds out you’re diddled in your expectations!” said -the comforting Mr. Odlett, shaking hands heartily. -“Good-night. I shan’t hear of you coming to the door!”</p> - -<p>But Mr. Popham did come, and slammed it behind the -departing form of Mr. Odlett with great heartiness.</p> - -<p>“Damn his wigs and walking-sticks!” he said in the -murky passage, “and his spare teeth as well! A nice -Job’s comforter, Odlett! ‘Perhaps she’ll change her -mind when she knows you’ve been diddled in your expectations.’ -Beg pardon, Miss Mellicent, I didn’t see -you were there! You’re not hurt, are you?”</p> - -<p>“Only by your thinking I could change!” said Miss -Mellicent, with a sob.</p> - -<p>The ground-floor sitting-room door stood ajar; the -room was unoccupied. Mr. Popham led Miss Mellicent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> -in, turned up one of the blackened incandescent gas-jets, -and stood petrified at the sight its hissing white glare -revealed.</p> - -<p>“A gray silk gown, trimmed with real lace, and a gold -chain!” cried the bewildered Mr. Popham. “A diamond -brooch, as I’m a living sinner! and an opera-mantle and -kid gloves and a fan! And your pretty brown hair done -up quite tastefully, and your eyes a-shining over the -roses in your cheeks! What’s done it? Who’s responsible -for it? How did it come about?”</p> - -<p>If she had been less shy of him, she would have answered -in two words, “Through love!” But she only -faltered:</p> - -<p>“I’m so glad you think I look a bit nice in them. -They—they belonged to poor Aunt Davis, and I’ve had -’em altered to fit. She—she left them to me when she -died!”</p> - -<p>“And handed over the lodging-house and furniture to -the present lady proprietor,” observed Mr. Popham, -searching in his trouser pocket for a cab whistle, “whom -I don’t happen to know by sight.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, you do!” Miss Mellicent’s blush and smile -made quite a pretty little face of hers, and Mr. Popham -boldly kissed it on the spot. “Oh yes, you do, for she’s -me! I should say, I am her! Law bless you, dear Mr. -Popham, I didn’t mean to startle you like that! Who -cares about your being left a lot of old clothes and wigs -instead of a sum of money—though you deserved it, true -and faithful as you was to him that’s gone! Haven’t I -plenty for both? And landlord of the Bastling Arms -you shall be to-morrow, if you’ve set your heart on it! -and we shall be late for the beautiful sights at the -theater if you don’t whistle for a taxicab.”</p> - -<p>“Life is certainly a switchback!” said Mr. Popham, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> -he breathed and trilled alternately on the damp doorstep. -“Now you’re down a-lookin’ up at your fellow-mortals, -and now you’re up, a-lookin’ down upon ’em!... -We’ll have a bit of supper at that very fish-bar, if -it’s still in existence, on our way home, carefully drawing -the line at oysters as risky and uncertain articles of diet -for two middle-aged people about to enter upon the -duties and privileges of married life!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE COLLAPSE OF THE IDEAL</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">CANWARDEN did not write sonnets, or he would -have composed many, not only in celebration of -Petronella’s eyebrows, but of her crystalline blue eyes -and burnished hair, her willowy figure of the latest and -most wonderful shape, and her slim, white hands and -arched insteps. But in all his plays—for he was a budding -dramatist of exceeding promise—he described her -in red-lined type:—“<i>Enter So-and-So, a fair and graceful -girl of not more than twenty-five summers, with -sapphire eyes and golden locks, attired in the costume -of the period</i>” (whatever the period might be). “<i>She -exhales the joyous freshness of a May morning, and -her gurgling laugh rivals the spring song of the thrush.</i>” -This pleased the leading ladies hugely, even when their -eyes were not of sapphire; but stage-managers found -Urban Canwarden’s stage directions a trial. If he had -been firmly seated in the motor-car of public approval, -both hands on the driving-wheel as he ripped along the -track of success, they would have smiled even while -they writhed. But Canwarden was not yet famous, and -the stage-managers were free not to disguise their feelings. -However, he went on; getting thin—thin for a -plump man—in the effort to make enough to marry on. -For the beloved of his soul was not of the bread-and-cheese-and-kisses -type of betrothed of whom we read -in novels that have many years ago silted to the bottom-shelves -in public libraries, and are occasionally issued -as new in paper covers at fourpence-halfpenny. Her -full name was Petronella Lesser, and she dwelt with her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> -parents in an Early Victorian villa on Haverstock Hill, -a residence which had been slowly settling down on one -side ever since the Tube borings had started. The lease -would be out, old Mr. Lesser calculated, a day or two -before the Corinthian-pillared stucco and brick porch -sat down. He was something in the Italian warehouse -supply-line in the City, and a singular judge of olives, -Gruyère, and barreled Norwegian sprats. Petronella -never looked a fairer, more poetic thing than when concealing -vast quantities of these zests behind the latest -thing in blouses, day or evening wear, and Urban Canwarden, -as he gazed upon his betrothed, or very nearly -so, swore to himself that she should never know what it -is to go lacking the <i>hors d’œuvres</i> that lend piquancy to -the Banquet of Life.</p> - -<p>Petronella was a girl whose white and well-developed -bosom was the home of emotions but little livelier than -those that animate the beautiful person of a Regent-street -wax-doll. Sawdust will burn, it is true, but the -costlier puppets are stuffed with choicer stuffing. She -had not fallen in love with Urban Canwarden; she had -simply frozen on to him. She had liked sitting in the -author’s box on First Nights, while the author tore his -hair at his Club or in his chambers. She liked his person, -his friends, his prospects. She looked forward to -an elegantly-furnished villa on Campden Hill, with a -cottage at Sonning or Hampton Wick, and mid-winter -runs to the South of France, when a distinguished -dramatist, the husband of a charming and attractive -wife, whose <i>salon</i> would be the constant resort of the -fine flower, the top of the basket of London Society, -should require rest and change of air after his exhausting -labors undergone in the composition and rehearsal -of the brilliant play, in four acts and eleven scenes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> -destined to be the opening attraction of Mr. James Toplofty’s -Spring Season at the West End Theater. She -would dream thus paragraphically, whenever she did -dream, which was seldom, for her imaginative region was -small. She was stupid and narrow, cold-hearted and -mercenary.</p> - -<p>“Since I have loved you,” Canwarden would say, “I -have been able to write of noble women. You have inspired -me; everything that is best in me comes from -you; everything I have done that is good I owe to -you....”</p> - -<p>“You dear, exaggerating, Romantic Thing!” was invariably -the reply of Petronella. “And when we are -married we shall have a 28 h.p. Gohard with nickel -fittings and a changeable body, and a chauffeur in livery. -I used to dream of a dear little private brougham when -we were first engaged, but nobody who wants to be -thought Anybody would have such an old-fashioned -thing now. How the world is changing, isn’t it, with -motors and airships and Tubes to travel in?”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>The Haverstock Hill villa vibrated as she prattled, and -the porch settled lower by the fraction of an inch. It -was a July evening, and the lovers, arm-in-arm, paced -up and down the damp and puddly graveled avenue -under the liquid-soot-distilling lilacs and acacias. The -reflection of a large fire danced upon the windows of -Mrs. Lesser’s drawing-room, and Petronella, despite the -warmth of Canwarden’s love, felt chilly. She wondered -why Urban had pressed her to put on goloshes and a -warm wrap after dinner and take this clammy evening -stroll arm-in-arm with him. And then she was conscious -that the heart against which her right hand rested -thumped heavily, and she felt his arm tremble, and remembered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> -that at dinner her betrothed had shown a -poor appetite in conjunction with a well-developed -thirst. As pigs are said to feel wind coming, as cats—even -the most sedate—set up their backs and sprint -about the garden at the approach of a storm, Petronella -instinctively felt that bad news was in the air. A more -sentimental and much prettier girl might have anticipated -a shipwreck of the affections—expected to be told -that Canwarden had found his Fate in another’s eyes. -Petronella’s previsions of disaster concerned only his -banking account. It was that to which she was really -referring when she said she felt that something had happened.</p> - -<p>“It is true, dearest,” Canwarden said, with the kind -of hoarse groan that he had not been able to extract -from the leading young man in his last romantic drama -even with the grappling-hooks of continued effort. -“Something has happened. My great play—for that it -is great I feel, and always shall, despite the slings and -arrows of that eater of red meat, the Transatlantic critic -... my great play, ‘<i>The</i> ...’”</p> - -<p>“I know, ‘<i>The Popshop Hearse</i>’ ...” Petronella put -in hurriedly.</p> - -<p>“No, no ... ‘<i>The Poisoned Curse</i>,’” corrected the -author, with a wince. “My play, produced a fortnight -ago at Barney and Keedler’s Classical Theater, New -York, is a failure ... a blank and utter failure! Yes, -yes! the management did cable to me to say it had been -enthusiastically received. I showed the message to you, -and you shared my gladness. But here—here is another -cable from my agent, Loris K. Boodler, of Skyscraper -Mansions, 49,000,000 Broadway, that says....” He -drew a crackling, flimsy paper from his waistcoat pocket, -and tried to unfold it with hands that shook. “I can’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> -read it because it’s too dark, but I remember every -word. ‘<i>Your—play—taken—off—Saturday—following—production. -Variety vaudeville substituted. Writing. -Boodler.</i>’ And I was looking forward to the author’s -fees to”—he coughed in a choky way—“to furnish our -house and ... and buy that motor-car you were talking -about. It ... it seemed so sure a thing! I had -got such capital percentages; Barney and Keedler had -cabled to say the play was a success....” He choked. -“And now!...”</p> - -<p>“You told me all that before, dear,” said Petronella. -“But you have two other plays coming out, haven’t you, -in London theaters?... West End houses.... And -one failure doesn’t spell ruin....”</p> - -<p>“One failure can break a dramatist, when it is a -failure of this kind,” said her disconsolate lover. “Those -two other plays are ... were coming out at theaters -held by the same lessees—Barney and Keedler, of the -Mammoth American Dramatic Trust. And so, don’t -you see, all my balloons are deflated at once. I’ve come -down with a crash, and ... it hurts! But you will trust -me, won’t you? You will go on believing in me, though -I’ve had what technical people will call a set-back. And -if our ... our marriage must be delayed....” He -stopped under one of the liquid soot-distilling lilacs, and -caught Petronella in his arms, crushing the draperies -arranged by her Hampstead dressmaker roughly against -his damp evening overcoat. “You will not mind!... -We will wait and hope, and love each other ... love -each other.... After all, while we are together, nothing -is too hard to bear....”</p> - -<p>Thus spoke Canwarden, counting his chickens ere their -emergence from the shell, after the fashion of a young -man too deeply in love to see clearly what manner of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> -young woman his heart is set upon. But Petronella -shivered, conscious that the Hampstead garden was -clammy, and that the dazzling halo of coming fame and -approaching prosperity had been banished from Canwarden’s -brow. He stood before her, tall and straight, -and sufficiently good to look at, with his bright brown -eyes, straight, short nose, and sensitive, clean-shaven -lips, though his curly hair, it must be added, was receding -too fast from a brow more bumpy than, according -to the accepted canons of classical proportion, a brow -should be. Upon his shirt-front a lilac had shed an -inky tear, and his voice was husky with love and sorrow, -not of an utterly selfish kind, as he promised Petronella -to work hard, never to cease working until he had regained -the lost ground.</p> - -<p>“But you never may!...” she said, and the doubt -in those shallow blue eyes—he never had realized before -that they were shallow—pierced him to the soul. “And -Nora will be married before me, and she is two years -younger, and everybody in Hampstead will say....”</p> - -<p>Canwarden, with heat, devoted Hampstead to the -devil. I am not defending him. Petronella thought him -brutal, coarse, and profane. Women of Petronella’s kind -always enthusiastically uphold the dignity of the devil. -She told him what she thought, and she wound up in -the red-papered hall of the one-sided Hampstead villa -by saying that he and she had better part. She added, -as women of Petronella’s type invariably do add, that -the dead past might bury its dead. And she drew off her -engagement ring—an olivine, imposed by a Bond Street -jeweler upon the too-confiding Canwarden as an emerald, -harnessed between two indifferent diamonds of yellowish -hue—and thrust it back upon him, and went -upstairs to her room and locked the door; and as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> -hall-door banged violently and the iron avenue gates -clashed behind the haggard Canwarden, his late betrothed -sat down to pen a little note to Percy Flicker—a -young man without a chin, junior partner of a small -but pushing firm of shipbrokers at No. 35,000 Cornhill. -The porch made up its mind and sat down that night, -and Percy the chinless called upon the following evening, -and was compelled to enter his Love’s bower by the -back-door.</p> - -<p>And Canwarden, seeing volcanic ruins smoking where -his Castle of Hope had stood, wandered the West End -and the Strand like a thing accursed. He went into his -club, and men slapped him on the shoulder and congratulated -him upon the New York success. They would -learn the truth later, he said to himself, and then they -would chuckle and sneer. The rustling of the cablegram -in his waistcoat pocket whispered “<i>Yes s’s’!</i>” Meanwhile -he had no appetite for solid food, and, quenching -the thirst that consumed him with iced brandy and soda, -he, Canwarden, usually the most temperate of -men, realized how easily spanned is the gulf that severs -the sober man from the inebriate. He might, perhaps, -have crossed it for good and all had he not chanced to -pass the invitingly open door of Grow’s Transatlantic -Bureau of Exchange. The shipping advertisements -loomed large and gaily-colored in the window; passenger -lists and railway guides hung from hooks upon the walls, -and lay in piles upon the counter, and a civil clerk and -an attractive girl with squirrel-colored hair were busy -over ledgers and things. Prompted by his guardian -angel Canwarden went in and asked for the New York -papers. The mail was just in, and he got them, and, -leaning on the polished shelf-desk where people write out -code telegrams, he turned to the theatrical column. His<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> -drama, <i>The Poisoned Curse</i>, had been withdrawn a fortnight -ago from the stage of Barney and Keedler’s Theater—slain -as a thing unfit to live—and a variety vaudeville -substituted in its stead. Did not the cablegram—Loris -K. Boodler’s cablegram—say so? He would see -the hideous announcement for himself, and then go -under, as men went who had broken the golden bowl of -Youth and Hope, and were too weary to go on fighting.</p> - -<p>Could it ... could it be a mistake...? Was the -play a success after all? It looked like it. For in flamboyant -type <i>The Poisoned Curse</i>: a Romantic Drama in -four acts and eleven scenes, by Urban Canwarden, was -announced by the <i>New York Trumpeter</i> as being presented -to-night, and every night, and to-day at 1.30, and -Saturday <i>matinées</i> as announced. The play had been -running when Loris K. Boodler sent the cablegram announcing -its withdrawal; the play was running now—would -run. Canwarden’s hands shook so that the flimsy -news-sheet tore. He glanced at the girl with the squirrel-colored -hair and apologized, saying that he would pay -for the paper. She smiled, and he found that he was -able to smile back again. He despatched a short but -expressive cablegram to the office of Mr. Loris K. Boodler, -relieving that smart and go-ahead agent from further -responsibility in connection with the collection of -his percentages, and walked out of Grow’s Transatlantic -Bureau of Exchange with his head up—a free man.</p> - -<p>Petronella married Percy Flicker. Canwarden is a -flourishing and popular dramatist, with a thumping bank -balance and a permanent predilection for bachelor existence. -All the female villains in his plays are blondes. -The stage directions, underlined in red, run thus: “<i>Enter -So-and-So, a fair and slightly formed woman of barely -thirty, with icy and repellent blue eyes and hair of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> -pale and sunless straw color. She conveys the impression -of cold insincerity and self-centered absorption, and -her hard and mocking laugh falls gratingly upon the -ear.</i>” Which goes to prove that Human Nature is and -never will be anything but Human Nature until the -Curtain drops.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE HAND THAT FAILED</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">FOUR men were seated about a round table, with -dessert and wine upon it, in the dining-room of a -luxuriously furnished house in a fashionable street in -the West End of London—a street which is the Eldorado -of the struggling professional man, the Tom Tiddler’s -ground of successful members of the faculties of surgery -and medicine. The aroma of Turkish coffee and choice -Havanas was warm and fragrant upon the air, and the -Bishop consented to a second Benedictine. His left-hand -neighbor was a dry-faced, courteous gentleman, a -King’s Counsel, famous by reason of several <i>causes -célèbres</i>. The third man at table was merely a hard-working, -small-earning practitioner of medicine and -surgery, settled in a populous suburb of the high-lying -North. Coming to the host, with whom the Highgate -Doctor had walked the hospitals in his student days, one -may describe him as a world-famous Consulting Specialist -and operator; one of the kings of the scalpel, the -bistoury, and the curette; a man of medals, orders, and -scientific titles innumerable. Forty-three years of age, -shortly about to be married (to a widowed niece of the -Bishop), and in excellent spirits—a thought too excellent, -perhaps....</p> - -<p>“Wants rest, decidedly. Pupils of the eyes unnaturally -dilated, circulation not what it ought to be. Overdone.... -Changed color when the servant dropped a -fork just now.... He had better take care!” said the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> -Highgate Doctor to himself. He had to deal with many -cases of nervous breakdown up Highgate way, where -there are so many compositors and clerks and journalists. -But the Bishop and the King’s Counsel had never -seen the Distinguished Surgeon look more fit, and so -they told him.</p> - -<p>“What makes it more remarkable, in my poor opinion”—the -Bishop, employing his favorite phrase, emptied -his liqueur-glass and folded his plump, white hands—“being -that our distinguished friend here”—he waved -the fattest and whitest of his thumbs toward his host—“seldom, -if ever, takes a holiday.”</p> - -<p>“When,” said the Distinguished Surgeon, playing with -a gold fruit-knife belonging to a set which had formed -part of the First Napoleon camp-equipment at Leipsic, -“when a professional man’s brain is absolutely clear, his -nerves infallibly steady; when his digestion, sleep, appetite -are unimpaired by any amount of physical and -mental labor; when his hand is the ready, unerring, unflinching -servant of his will at all times and all seasons, -what need has that man of rest and relaxation?” The -strong, supple, finely-modeled hand went on playing -with the historical fruit-knife, as its owner added: -“Work is my play! For change of air, give me change -of experience; for change of scene, new cases, or fresh -developments of familiar ones. The excitement of the -gaming table, or any other form of excitement, would be -a poor exchange for the sensations of the operator, the -skilled, experienced, unerring operator, who calculates to -the fraction of an inch the depth of the incision his -scalpel makes in the body of the anæsthetized patient -extended on the glass-table before him. Life or Death -are his to give, and the trembling of the balance one -way or the other is to be guided and controlled by his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> -unerring eye, his unerring brain, and his skilled, infallible -hand. He holds the balances of Fate—he guides -and controls Destiny, and knows his power and glories -in it. He is a supreme artist—not in clay or marble, -gold or silver, pigments or enamels—but in living flesh -and blood!”</p> - -<p>The Bishop shifted in his chair uneasily, and turned a -little pale about the gills. The removal of the episcopal -appendix some months previously had preserved to the -Church of England one of its principal corner-stones; -and the neat, red seam underneath the Bishop’s apron on -the right side, on the spot that would have been covered -by the vest-pocket of an ordinary layman, twitched and -tingled. And the King’s Counsel, who had once undergone -a minor operation for throat-trouble, hurriedly -gulped down a mouthful of port. The Highgate Doctor -alone answered, fixing his steel-rimmed pince-nez securely -on his nose, and tilting his chin so as to get the -host’s face well into focus: “He is a supreme artist, as -you say, and he delights in his work. But supposing him -to delight too much? Supposing him to have arrived at -such a pass that he cannot live without the excitement -of it!—that he indulges in the exercise of his beneficent -profession as a cocaine-drinker or hashish-eater, or -morphinomaniac, indulges in the drug that destroys him, -morally and physically—how long will he retain in their -perfection the faculties which have made him what he -is?”</p> - -<p>“As long as he chooses!” said the Distinguished Surgeon, -putting down the gold fruit-knife, and rising with -the easy air of the well-bred host. “He is no longer a -mere man, but a highly-geared and ingeniously-planned -machine, in all that concerns the peculiar physical functions -brought to bear upon the exercise of his profession.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> -To lie idle, for such a machine, means rust and ruin; to -work unceasingly is to increase facility and gain in -power, and, provided it be carefully looked after—and -I assure you my nuts and bearings receive the necessary -amount of attention!—the machine of which I speak -may go on practically for ever!” And he ushered his -guests through the folding doors into his luxurious consulting-room.</p> - -<p>“Unless there happened,” put in the King’s Counsel, -“to be a screw loose?”</p> - -<p>“My dear fellow,” said the Distinguished Surgeon, -with a smile, “my screws are never neglected, I have -assured you. The machine won’t come to grief that -way!”</p> - -<p>“It might come to grief in another way,” said the -Highgate Doctor in a queer voice. “The Inventor might -stop it Himself, just to prove to His handiwork that it -<i>was</i> a machine—and something more!”</p> - -<p>At this remark, plopped into the middle of the calm -duck-pond of sociality, the Bishop looked pained, as -might an elderly spinster of severe morals at an allusion -savoring of impropriety. The King’s Counsel, feeling -for the Bishop, turned the conversation; but the Distinguished -Surgeon and the Highgate Doctor were at it -again, hammer and tongs, in a minute.</p> - -<p>“I do not simply believe I shall not fail, my dear -fellow! I <i>know</i> I shall not! As for——” (the Distinguished -Surgeon, sitting smoking in his Louis Quinze -consulting-chair, mentioned a certain operation in abdominal -surgery, delicate, difficult, and dangerous in the -extreme) “I have performed it hundreds of times, successfully, -within the last twelvemonth, leaving minor -operations—scores of them”—he waved the scores aside -with a movement of the supple hand—“entirely out of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> -the question! At the Hospital to-day” (mentioning the -name of a great public institution) “I operated in seven -cases, bringing up the number to one thousand and one. -The last was the most interesting case I have met with -for some time, presenting complications rendering the -use of the knife both difficult and risky, but——”</p> - -<p>The sharp whirring tingle of the telephone bell punctuated -the Distinguished Surgeon’s sentence: “But she’ll -pull through; I guarantee it! We’ll have the bandages -off in three weeks. She’ll be walking about before the -month’s out like the others!”</p> - -<p>“Under Providence let us hope so!” said the Bishop, -encircled by a halo of fragrant cigar smoke. “Thank -you, yes, I will take a whisky-and-soda. Without presumption, -let us hope so, remembering, trusting in—arah—the—arah—the -Divine assurance.”</p> - -<p>“You may take the assurance from me, my lord!” -said the Distinguished Surgeon. He got up and went to -the fireplace (carved by Adam), and leaned one elbow -lightly on the mantelshelf—an easy attitude, but instinct -with pride and power. “As I have said, Case One Thousand -and One is a difficult case. I could name surgeons -of repute who would have hesitated to operate; but, -given the requisite skill and the necessary care, failure, -I hold, is out of the question. I have never failed yet—I -do not intend to fail. It’s impossible!”</p> - -<p>The second shrill, imperative summons of the telephone -bell ended the Distinguished Surgeon’s sentence.</p> - -<p>“Tch! They’re ringing ye up on the telephone from -somewhere,” said the Highgate Doctor.</p> - -<p>“Find out what they want, Donald, there’s a good -fellow,” said the Distinguished Surgeon, buttonholed by -the Bishop, whose urbane benevolence had creased into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> -smiles tinctured with roguishness, as he related a clerical -after-dinner story.</p> - -<p>And the Highgate Doctor rang back, and unhooked -the receiver and cried: “Halloa?” and listened to the -thin ghost of a voice that droned and tickled at his ear, -and turned toward the Distinguished Surgeon a face -that had suddenly been bleached of all color.</p> - -<p>“Well, who is it?” the Distinguished Surgeon asked.</p> - -<p>“It’s the House Surgeon at the Hospital. Perhaps -ye would speak to him yourself?” the Highgate Doctor -said thickly; and the Distinguished Surgeon, released -by the chuckling Bishop, strolled over and took the -Highgate Doctor’s place at the receiver.</p> - -<p>“Halloa! Yes, it’s Sir Arthur Blank!” he called, and -the ghostly voice came back.... “One of the abdominal -sections in the Mrs. Solomon Davis Ward ... -Number Seven ... Mrs. Reed ... Hæmorrhage.... -Imminent danger ... collapse.... Come at once!”</p> - -<p>The Distinguished Surgeon glanced round, with eyes -that were sunk in pits quite newly dug. The Bishop, still -in his anecdotage, was buttonholing the King’s Counsel. -Plainly they had not overheard. And as the Distinguished -Surgeon took out his handkerchief and wiped the -cold damps from a face that had gone gray and shiny, he -knew relief. He avoided looking point-blank at the -Highgate Doctor as he made his courteous excuses to -his guests. “An urgent case—suddenly called away for -an hour. My dear Lord, my dear Entwhistle, my dear -Donald, entertain yourselves for that space of time, and -don’t deprive me of a pleasant end to this delightful -evening!”</p> - -<p>But the Bishop, recently wedded for the third time, -took leave, accepting his host’s offer of dropping him -at his hotel, and the pair got into fur coats and a snug<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> -ante-brougham and drove away together. Soon after, -somebody from the Chancery Buildings came with -an urgent summons for the King’s Counsel, and he -melted away with regrets, and the Highgate Doctor sat -in the luxurious consulting-room, and started at every -stoppage of swift wheels in the streets.</p> - -<p>The silent servants came and looked to the fire, the -Pompadour clock upon the mantel chimed eleven! And -then, looking up out of a brown study, the Highgate -Doctor saw his host returned, and started at his worn -and haggard aspect. As the demure servant relieved -him of his coat and hat, and vanished, the Distinguished -Surgeon dropped into an easy-chair and sat shading his -face with the right hand, whose steadiness he had so -vaunted. And that infallible, unerring hand shook as -if with palsy.</p> - -<p>The Highgate Doctor could bear no more....</p> - -<p>“O man,” he said—in moments of excitement his accent -savored of from north of the Tweed—“dinna sit -glowering and shaking there! I ken weel what has happened! -Your pride has got the killing thrust; she is in -her death-pangs at this minute I’m talking, and you -stand face to face wi’ One you have denied! Am I richt -or no?”</p> - -<p>The Distinguished Surgeon moved the shaking hand -and said, not in the calm level tone the Highgate Doctor -knew, but one jerky and uneven:</p> - -<p>“You are right! You shall know the truth, though it -places my reputation at your mercy....”</p> - -<p>“Forget your reputation a meenute,” said the Highgate -Doctor. “As to Case One Thousand and One ... -is the woman dead?”</p> - -<p>“No ...” said the other—“no, I reached the Hospital<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span> -in time ... we called up the chart-nurse and the Matron, -had her taken up to the theater and——”</p> - -<p>“Found that ye had bungled—for once in your life!” -said the Highgate Doctor. “And weel for you, if not for -your patient, that it is so. The ligature had slipped, I -take it, being insecurely tied?”</p> - -<p>The Distinguished Surgeon looked him steadily between -the eyes and answered:</p> - -<p>“The ligature was not tied at all! A grosser instance -of neglect I never met with.” He got up and leaned -against the mantelshelf, folding his arms. “I said so -pretty plainly, and I have made a minute on the Hospital -register to that effect. I shall also draw the attention -of the Committee to the matter without delay!”</p> - -<p>The Highgate Doctor blew his nose violently. His -eyeglasses were misty.</p> - -<p>“Ye have censured yourself? Ye will report yourself? -O man! I kenned ye were a great one, but ye have -never been so great—in my eyes—as ye are this night!”</p> - -<p>“Thank you!” said the Distinguished Surgeon, as the -two men gripped hands. “And—Donald, old fellow—I -am going to take a holiday!”</p> - -<p>“Where is the whisky-and-soda?” said the Highgate -Doctor gleefully.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">HIS SILHOUETTE</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“HE walked down Upper Bond Street, after leaving -his chambers, half-way up on the left-hand side. -The ground floor is occupied by the only London purveyor -of American chewing-gum, who does a tremendous -business in the imported article, and the shop is crowded -all day by ladies, young and old, whose jaws, even in -moments of repose from conversation, are in perpetual -motion. Englishwomen do not yet chew gum. Let us -hope that our wives, sweethearts, sisters, and cousins -will be slow to acquire what, in my opinion, is an unpleasant -habit, but too suggestive of arboreal tendencies -inherited from anthropoid ancestors.”</p> - -<p>The man who was telling the story stretched out his -hand across the coffee-cups to select a toothpick. The -man who opposed him at the table promptly annexed -the glass-and-silver receptacle containing the article required.</p> - -<p>“The original ape,” he said, “probably employed a -twig. I cannot encourage you in a practice you so -strongly denounce. Waiter, take these things away! -Bonson, my good fellow, let us hear your story—if it is -worth hearing. If not, keep it to yourself. The man -began by walking down Bond Street. There is nothing -original in that. I myself do it every day without being -the hero of a story.”</p> - -<p>“This man was the hero of a tragedy,” said the man -who was telling the story. “Other people might smile -at it for a farce—it was a tragedy to him.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>“Where did the horror of it come in?” asked the other -man.</p> - -<p>“Under Shelmadine’s waistcoat,” said the man who -had been addressed as Bonson. “Shelmadine was losing -his figure, which had been his joy and pride and the -delight of the female eye ever since he left Oxford, -without his degree, and, thanks to the influence of his -uncle, Colonel Sir Barberry Bigglesmith, K.C.B., Assistant -Under-Secretary to the Ordnance Office Council, -took up a Second Division Higher-grade Clerkship at -£280 per annum, which sufficiently supplemented his -younger son’s allowance of £500 to make it feasible to -get along with some show of decency—don’t you follow -me?”</p> - -<p>“If I had followed this beggar down Upper Bond -Street,” hinted the other man, knocking an ash off a -long, slim High Dutch cigar, “where would he have led -me?”</p> - -<p>“Into his tailor’s,” said the man who had been addressed -as Bonson promptly. “He walked in there regularly -every day on his way to the War Office. Clothes -were his passion—in fact, he simply couldn’t live without -clothes!”</p> - -<p>“Could we?” answered the other man simply.</p> - -<p>“I have heard that Europeans shipwrecked on the -palm-fringed shores of a Pacific Island,” said Bonson, -“have managed to do very well without them. Under -those circumstances, let me tell you, Shelmadine would -still have managed to be well dressed. He would have -evolved style out of cocoa-fiber and elegance out of -banana-leaves, or he would have died in the attempt. I -am trying to convey to you that he had a genius for -clothes. He evolved ideas which sartorial artists were -only too happy to carry out. He gave bootmakers hints<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> -which made their reputations. He would run over to -Paris every month or so to look at Le Bargy’s hat and -cravats. He never told anyone where he got his walking -sticks, but they were wonderful. I tell you——”</p> - -<p>“Every man likes to be well dressed,” said the man -who was listening to the story, “but this beggar seems -to have had coats and trousers on the brain.”</p> - -<p>“Rather,” said the narrator. “He thought of clothes, -dreamed of clothes—lived for clothes alone. Garments -were his fad, his folly, his passion, his mania, his dearest -object in life. Men consulted him—men who wanted to -be particularly well got-up couldn’t do better than put -themselves in Shelmadine’s hands. He permitted no -servile copying of the modes and styles he exhibited on -his person. ‘Forge my name,’ he said to a fellow once, -‘but never copy the knot of my necktie!’ Chap took the -advice, and did forge his name—to the tune of £60. -Shelmadine would not prosecute. He was planning an -overcoat—a kind of Chesterfield, cut skirty—with which -he made a sensation at Doncaster this year, and when a -certain Distinguished Personage condescended to order -one like it, Shelmadine made the three he had got, quite -new, and wickedly expensive, into a parcel, poured on -petrol, and applied a match. Shut himself up for three -days, and appeared on the fourth with a perfectly new -silhouette.”</p> - -<p>“A perfectly new what?” said the listener, with circular -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Shelmadine’s creed was that for a man to look thoroughly -well dressed he must have a perfect silhouette. -Every line about him must be perfect. The sweep of -the shoulders, the spring of the hips, the arch over the -instep, and so forth, must display the cut of scissors -wielded by an artist—not a mere workman. Now, on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> -this particular morning, not so very long ago, it had -been brought home to him, as he looked in his full-length, -quadruple-leaved, swing-balance, double lever-action -cheval glass, that the reflection it gave back to -him was not quite satisfactory. His silhouette did not -satisfy him. Then all at once came with a rush the -overwhelming discovery that he was——”</p> - -<p>“Getting potty,” said the listener. “Those Government -clerkships play the devil with a man’s waist. -Nothing to do but eat, drink, sleep, walk, or drive to -the Office and sit in a chair gumming up envelopes or -drawing heads on the blotting paper when you’re there, -until you fall asleep. Once you’re asleep, you don’t -wake till it’s time to go home. Consequently you develop -adipose tissue.” He yawned.</p> - -<p>“Do you suppose,” asked the teller of the tale, with -large contempt, “that Shelmadine lived the life of one -of those human marmots—Shelmadine, a man so sensitively, -keenly alive to the beauty of Shape, Form, Line, -and Proportion? Do you dream that he lightly risked -the inevitable result of indulgence in the pleasures of -the table or the delights of drowsiness? If so, you are -wrong. He rose at 5 a.m., winter and summer, in town -or country, and after a hot bath, followed by a cold -douche, pursued a course of physical exercises until -seven, when he breakfasted on milkless tea, dry toast, -or gluten biscuits”—the other man shuddered—“with, -perhaps, a little plain boiled fish, its lack of flavor undisguised -by Worcester sauce or any other condiment.”</p> - -<p>“Horrible!” said the other man. “I once tried....”</p> - -<p>“After breakfast, in all weathers, he walked five miles, -within the Radius, returning to dress for the day. Anon -he would saunter down Bond Street, look in at the shops, -where he was adored, and criticize the new models submitted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span> -to him, as only Shelmadine could, show himself -at his Club, stroll in the Park, and get to the Ordnance -Office about eleven. The floors at Whitehall are solidly -built, consequently his habit of jumping backward and -forward over the office-table when he felt his muscles -dangerously relaxed, met with little, if any, opposition -in the Department. Dumb-bells, of course, were always -ready to hand. At his Club the invariable luncheon -supplied to him was the eye of a grilled cutlet, a glass of -claret and water, eight stewed prunes, and, of course, -more gluten biscuits. He shunned fat-forming foods -more than he would the devil!”</p> - -<p>“And made his life a hell!” said the other man, with -conviction.</p> - -<p>“My dear fellow,” said the relater, “you can’t understand -what a man’s life is or is not until you have seen -both sides of it. A Second Division Higher-Grade War -Office clerkship allows of a good deal of liberty. Picture -Shelmadine as the <i>enfant gâté</i> of Society, followed, -stared at, caressed and courted, by the smartest feminine -leaders of fashion, as well as by the swellest men, as -the acknowledged Oracle in Clothes. There’s a position -for a young man single-handed to have achieved. To -be the vogue—the rage—the <i>coq de village</i>—the <i>village</i> -being London—and at twenty-seven.”</p> - -<p>“Exhausting,” said the other man, “to keep up, but -sufficiently agreeable. Quite sufficiently agreeable! And -I realize that at the psychological moment, when the -fellow discovered that his figure had begun to run to -seed, he sustained a shock—kind of cold moral and -mental <i>douche</i> a professional beauty gets when her toilet -glass shows her the first crow’s-foot. Did your friend -have hysterics and ask his valet for sal-volatile? I -should expect it of him!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>“Shelmadine did not employ a man,” said the teller -of the tale, fixing his eyeglass firmly in its place, “to do -anything but brush his clothes. For all other purposes -connected with the toilet he preferred a Swiss lady’s-maid. -Do not misunderstand, my friend,” he added -sternly, as the listener exploded in a guffaw of laughter. -“<i>Honi soit</i> ... the rest of the quotation is familiar to -you. And Mariette Duchâtel had been strongly recommended -to him by his aunt, Lady Bigglesmith, as a most -desirable person for the post of housekeeper. She was -at least fifty—retained the archæological remains of -good looks, and owned a moustache a buddin’ Guardsman -might be jealous of, by Jingo! But her heart had -remained youthful, or we may so conjecture.”</p> - -<p>“I begin to tumble to the situation of the swelling -subject of your story,” said the other man, pouring out -a Benedictine. “When your elderly housekeeper happens -to be in love with you, it is bad enough. Things become -complicated when the victim of your charms happens to -be your maid. Continue!”</p> - -<p>“A visit to his tailor’s on the day on which my story -begins,” said Bonson, “convinced Shelmadine that—in -fact, his outlines were becoming indefinite. ‘This will -not do, sir,’ said his tailor, a grave and himself a portly -personage, ‘with your reputation for silhouette to keep -up—and at your years. We will let out the garment one -inch—a thing I decline to do even for Royal Personages, -as destructive of the design—and as this is now the -Autumn Season I recommend you to obtain leave. -Klümpenstein in the Tyrol has a reputation for reducing -weight; its waters have done wonders for several of my -customers, and the Rittenberg affords several thousand -feet of climbing opportunity to tourists who wish to be -quickly rid of superfluous girth. But, first of all, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span> -should consult Dr. Quox, of Harley Street. Good-morning.’</p> - -<p>“Quox of Harley Street went into Shelmadine’s case, -elicited the fact that his maternal grandfather had -turned the scale at twenty stone, that his mother, Lady -Fanny, hadn’t seen her own shoe-buckles for eighteen -years, except when the shoes weren’t on—don’t you -twig?—and that he possessed what Quox pleased to call -‘a record of family obesity.’ So Shelmadine, who, in -spite of rigorous diet and redoubled physical exercises, -kept getting more and more uncertain in his outlines, -rushed frantically off to Klümpenstein in the Tyrol, with -what was, for him, quite a limited wardrobe. He drank -the water—infernally nasty, too—and climbed the Rittenberg -religiously, without finding his lost silhouette. -Only on the Dolomittenweg, a pine-shaded promenade -of great promise in the flirtatious line, he did find—a -girl. And, despite his anxiety with regard to his silhouette, -they had an uncommonly pleasant time together.”</p> - -<p>“He had left his lady’s-maid behind, I presume?” -hinted the listener.</p> - -<p>“He had,” said Bonson. “When he got back to London, -though, Mariette met him with a shriek. ‘Heavens!’ -cried she, throwing up her hands, ‘the figure of Monsieur—the -silhouette on which he justly prided himself, where—where -has it gone? Hélas! those beautiful clothes -that have arrived from the tailor’s during the absence of -Monsieur—<i>jamais de la vie</i> will he be able to get into -them, <i>j’en suis baba</i> in contemplating the extraordinary -<i>embonpoint</i> of Monsieur.’</p> - -<p>“‘Hang it, Mariette!’ said Shelmadine, quite shocked; -‘am I so beastly bulged as all that comes to?’ Mariette -broke down at that, and went into floods of tears. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span> -took the best part of a bottle of Cognac to bring her -round, and then Shelmadine set about overhauling his -wardrobe.”</p> - -<p>“Nothing would meet, I presume?” hinted the man -who had been listening.</p> - -<p>“Not by three finger-breadths,” said the man who was -telling the story. “Plowondllellm Wells in North Wales -has got a kind of reputation for making stout kine lean. -Shelmadine got extension of leave on account of bereavement....”</p> - -<p>“When a man loses his figure he may be said to be -bereaved!” nodded the listener.</p> - -<p>“Shelmadine tried the Wells, without success. All he -ate was weighed out in ounces, all he drank measured -out with the most grudging care; nothing was allowed to -enter his system that contained anything conducive to -the accumulation of the hated tissue, but nothing could -keep him from putting it on!”</p> - -<p>“Poor brute!” said the hearer.</p> - -<p>“He had gone to the Wells a distinctly roundabout -figure. He came back a potty young man! Despair -preyed upon his vitals without reducing his bulk, however. -He saw ‘Slimaline’ advertised.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said the listener. “A harmless vegetable -compound which reduces the bulkiest middle-aged human -figure of either sex in the course of a few weeks to -the slender proportions of graceful youth. Three-and-sixpence -a bottle, sent secretly packed, to any address -in the United Kingdom. <i>Bis!</i>”</p> - -<p>“He then,” continued the narrator, “went in for -‘Frosher’s Fat-Reducing Soap.’ Perhaps you are not -acquainted with that compound, which is rubbed briskly -into the—ah—the——”</p> - -<p>“Personality,” put in the other man.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>“... Until a strong lather is obtained. The lather -proved ineffectual; Shelmadine took to stays.”</p> - -<p>“Phew!” puffed the other man.</p> - -<p>The first man continued:</p> - -<p>“As the weary weeks went on he was compelled to return -to his desk at Whitehall—crouching in a taxicab to -avoid observation. But concealment was useless. From -the Department allotted to the Second Division Higher-Grade -clerks the secret crept out, and Society pounced -upon it and tore it to shreds, shrieking.”</p> - -<p>“Like ’em,” said the listener—“like ’em!”</p> - -<p>“That night, as Shelmadine sat in his dainty dressing-room -surrounded by mountains of costly and elegant -clothes, which, though only of the previous season’s -make, would no longer accommodate his proportions,” -went on Bonson—“lounging clothes, shooting clothes, -walking clothes of all descriptions—London did not contain -a wretcheder man. The exquisitely chosen waist-coats, -the taffetas shirts of the once slim dandy of the -War Office—a world too narrow for the fat man who -now represented him were in piles about him. Dozens -of lovely gloves in all the newest shades—squirrel-gray, -dead-leaf yellow, Havana-brown, chrysanthemum-buff—were -scattered around by the hands that were now too -stout to wear them. Piles of boots—afternoon boots, -with uppers of corduroy leather, gray, fawn, or the white -antelope, emblematical of the blameless pattern of virtue; -walking boots, shooting boots, and shoes of all descriptions; -slippers in heliotrope, rose-petal pink, and -lizard-skin green, obscured the furniture. The pedal -extremities that had bulged beyond all reasonable limits -must now be accommodated in large Number Nines. -Even Shelmadine’s dressing gowns—foulard silk, lined -with cashmere—had declined to contain him.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>“’Pon my word, you make me sorry for the idiot,” -said the listener; “mere clothes-peg, as he seems to have -been!”</p> - -<p>“Suicide—the thought of suicide had occurred to him.”</p> - -<p>“He ought to have swallowed a set of enamel evening -buttons or a set of five jeweled tie-pins,” suggested the -listener, “and taken leave of the world in an appropriate -manner.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t go so far as to say that he would not have -done something desperate,” continued the man who was -telling the story, “had not Mariette—who may or may -not have suspected that things were getting to a desperate -pitch—appeared upon the scene. ‘Poor lamb! thou -art in despair’—thus she addressed Shelmadine in the -affectionate idiom with which her native language -abounds—‘confide in Mariette, who alone can restore -the silhouette that seems for ever lost to thee. Seems -only, Monsieur; for at the bidding of me, myself, it will -return. A little condition is attached to the recovery of -thy figure, my child—not to be carried out if I cannot -be as good as my word. <i>Passe moi la casse, je te passerai -le séné.</i> All I want, Monsieur, is senna for my -rhubarb—your written promise to marry Mariette -Duchâtel, daughter of Marius Duchâtel, druggist of -Geneva, if within three months you recover your beautiful -figure. What do you say? Is it a bargain? Will -you be fat and free, or slim and no longer single? -Speak, then! You agree? <i>Pour sûr!</i> I thought you -would!’”</p> - -<p>“And did he marry his lady’s-maid?” asked the listening -man quite eagerly.</p> - -<p>“He did not,” said the teller of the tale, “though he -was very near it. Fortunately for Shelmadine, the girl -he had met on the Dolomittenweg Promenade stepped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> -in. She was an American, original, independent, and -determined. When Shelmadine wrote—on Ordnance -Office paper—to her in Paris, saying that Fate had -stepped in between them, and that she never could be -his, she asked the reason why. Not getting a satisfactory -answer, she ran over to London to see for herself -... bringing her mother—a vast person, who wore a -diamond tiara, mittens, and diamond shoulder-straps in -the evening, and carried them in a hip-bag by day—with -her.”</p> - -<p>“The American mother is an appendage,” said the -listener, “rather than a necessity.”</p> - -<p>“The sight of Shelmadine, who had expanded like a -balloon in the filling-shed since the happy days at -Klümpenstein, was to Miss Van Kyper—Miss Mamie -Van Kyper was her complete name,” went on the man -who had been called Bonson—“an undoubted shock.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” agreed the man who was being told the -story.</p> - -<p>“They met at the Carlton Hotel, where she had engaged -a suite of reception-rooms for the interview.”</p> - -<p>“Not being quite certain whether one would hold -Shelmadine?” suggested the other.</p> - -<p>“And the matter was thrashed out satisfactorily in -five minutes, where an English girl would have taken -five weeks. ‘I guess there’s a good deal more of you -than ever either of us expected there would be,’ said -Mamie; ‘but I’ve got to choose between having too -much of the man I love, or nothing at all. And it seems -mighty unreasonable—when I felt plum-sure at Klümpenstein -that I could never have enough of you—that I -should be miserable here in London because there happens -to be a good deal more than there was then.’ With -a gush of warm and affectionate devotion she twined<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> -her arms as far round Shelmadine as they would go, -and he, in accepting the fate that made him the husband -of Miss Mamie Van Kyper, renounced his silhouette -for ever!”</p> - -<p>“But you said he got it back again!” said the second -man.</p> - -<p>“He has,” said the first man.</p> - -<p>“Without the assistance of Mariette Duchâtel, daughter -of Marius Duchâtel, herbalist, of Geneva?” queried -the second man.</p> - -<p>“Mariette,” said the first man, “on finding Shelmadine -indisposed to accept her offer, first attempted to commit -suicide in a cistern; then threw up the sponge and made -a clean breast of everything. A peculiar vegetable preparation, -the secret of which she had had from her father, -the herbalist of Geneva, administered in Shelmadine’s -food, had caused the extraordinary accumulation of adipose -tissue. The antidote, which she had promised to administer -in the intervals of her own designs on my -poor friend’s freedom, she confided to him, with bitter -tears and many entreaties for forgiveness, before she -went out of the Bond Street flat and Shelmadine’s life -for ever.”</p> - -<p>“He married Miss Van Kyper immediately. He has -an Assistant-Principal clerkship at the Ordnance Office; -he has recovered his silhouette, but he no longer cares -for clothes. You could scare rooks with him as he -dresses now. Fact!”</p> - -<p>“Facts are confoundedly rummy things!” said the man -who had been told the story.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">A NOCTURNE</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“YOU look,” He said nastily, as She raised her disheveled -<i>coiffure</i> and tear-blurred features from -the center of a large muslin-flounced and covered cushion -that sat at the end of the lounge that opened like a -box, and held frilled petticoats—“you look like a wilted -prize chrysanthemum.”</p> - -<p>She mechanically put up one hand to drive home deserting -hairpins into the mass of hair He had, in the -lyrical days of early passion, celebrated as Corinthian -gold-bronze, in a halting sonnet of which he was now -profoundly ashamed. Stifling the recurrent hiccough -that accompanies a liberal effusion of tears, she stared -at him blankly.</p> - -<p>A silver timepiece, a wedding present from His -mother, who had objected to the match, struck the midnight -hour. The thin sound of the last stroke, spun into -tenuity by silence, died, and the clanking, hooting, nerve-shattering -scurry of racing motor-buses went by like a -wild hunt of iron-shackled fiends. A private car passed -with its exhaust wailing like an exiled banshee, a belated -hansom or two bowled along the sloppy asphalt, -the raucous screech of a constable-defying nymph of the -pavement rent the muggy air. He hardly heard it; he -had been agreeing with his mother ever since the clock -had struck. To-morrow he would go and look in at -000, Sloane Street, and tell her that she had always -known best. In imagination he was telling her so, when -the sable-bordered tail of a dove-colored Indian cashmere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> -dressing gown he had worshiped during the -honeymoon swept across the feuille-rose carpet in the -direction of the boudoir; Sada Yacco and Abé San, -snub-nosed, blue-and-pink-bowed canine causes of the -conjugal quarrel, joyously yelping in its wake.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you going to bed?” He demanded.</p> - -<p>“You did not seem inclined to go to your dressing-room,” -She returned with point, “and as I have to write -an important letter, I may as well do it now!”</p> - -<p>He knew that the letter would be addressed to Her -mother, who had also objected to the match, and would -contain a daughter’s testimony to the correctness of the -maternal judgment. Sada Yacco and Abé San, sitting -on their haunches, with their pink tongues lolling, looked -as though they knew it too. How he loathed those -Japanese pugs! As he glared at them she gathered them -up, one under each arm, protectingly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t be afraid!” He said, with the kind of laugh -described by the popular novelist as grating; “I am not -going to murder the little brutes, after paying thirty -pounds for the pair.” This was a touch of practical -economy that made Her lip curl. “What I say is, I -decline to have those animals galloping over me in the -middle of the night.”</p> - -<p>“It is the middle of the night now,” She said, concealing -a yawn behind three fingers—his wedding ring -and keeper upon one—“and they are not galloping over -you. Men are supposed to be more logical than women. -I have often wondered why since last May.”</p> - -<p>“We were married in May,” He said, folding his arms -after a method much in favor with the popular novelist -when heroes are grim.</p> - -<p>“It seems,” She said, rather drearily, “a long time -ago.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>“If I had told you last May,” He retorted, “that I -object to wake in the middle of the night with one -Japanese pug snorting upon my—ah—my chest, and -the other usurping the greater part of my pillow, you -would have sympathized with my feeling, understood -the objection, and relegated Sada Yacco and Abé San -to their comfortable basket in the corner of the kitchen—or -anywhere else,” he added hurriedly, seeing thievish -early errand-boys on the tip of her tongue, “except your -bedroom!”</p> - -<p>The popular novelist would have described her pose as -“sculpturesque,” her expression as “fateful,” and her -tone as “icy,” as She said:</p> - -<p>“The bedroom being mine, perhaps you will permit me -to remind you that you possess one of your own, and -that it is nearly one o’clock!”</p> - -<p>It was, in fact, a quarter-past twelve. But the door -closed behind Him with such a terrific bang that the -thready little utterance of the silver timepiece was completely -unnoticed.</p> - -<p>She put her hand to her throat, as a leading actress -invariably does in moments of great mental stress, and -uttered a choking little laugh of sorrow and bitterness. -Men were really like this, then! Fool, oh, fool, to -doubt! Had she not read, had she not seen, had not -other women whispered?... And had her mother not -plainly told her that this man—now her husband!—was -more like other men than any of the other men resembled -others? She sobbed a few sobs, dried her eyes, -and prepared for bed. But when arrayed in white -samite, mystic and wonderful, with the traces of tears -effaced by perfumed hot water, the pinkness of nose and -eyelids ameliorated by a dab or two of powder, the -gold-brown tresses He had once sonneted, and now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span> -sneered at, brushed out and beautiful, she took up the -double basket owned by Sada Yacco and Abé San, -placed it in the boudoir, returned for the canine couple, -deposited them inside it, and then, resolutely shutting -the door of communication upon their astonished countenances, -got into bed, cast one indifferent glance at the -twin couch adjoining, shrugged her shoulders, and -switched off the light.</p> - -<p>“S’n’ff!”</p> - -<p>That was Abé San snuffing inquiringly at the bottom -of the door. Sada Yacco joined him, and they snuffed -together. It was impossible to sleep, especially when -they began to discuss the situation in whimpers and -short yelps. Then they began to race round the boudoir, -barking in whimpers. Then, just as She had made up -her mind to buy peace by letting them in, there was a -sharp bark from Sada Yacco, a joyous scrape at a distant -door, and a rattling of claws as the couple, emancipated -from vile durance in the boudoir, joyously galloped -down the passage. Then sleep soporifically stole -over the senses of a wronged and brutally injured -woman. It was not chilly, sloppy December: it was -radiant July. She was not in a London flat. She was in -a well-known back-water above Goring-on-Thames, -cosy in a red-curtained punt, with a Japanese umbrella -and two Japanese pugs and a husband, very handsome, -almost quite new, madly devoted, not the quite plain, -absolutely sulky, unspeakably disagreeable He now conjecturally -snoring on the opposite side of the passage. -And so She slept and dreamed.</p> - -<p>He was not asleep. Propped up in his own beautiful -little bed in his own cosy dressing-room, he was smoking -a long cigar, and, as a further demonstration of bachelor -independence, a brandy and Apollinaris stood untouched<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> -beside him. By the electric light dangling over his head, -where sardonically hung suspended a wooden Cupid—ha, -ha!—he was perusing a book. She objected to reading -in bed, that was why—ha, ha! again. The thin-paper -volume, supposed to be an enlightening work on -Oval Billiards, proved, by a tricky freak of Fate, to be -an English translation of <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra</i>. This -is what he read:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“Calm is the bottom of my sea:</div> -<div class="verse">Who would divine that it hideth droll monsters?</div> -<div class="verse">Unmoved is my depth, yet it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters.</div> -<div class="verse">An imposing One saw I to-day—a solemn One, a penitent of the Spirit....</div> -<div class="verse">Should he become weary of his imposingness, this imposing one....”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>There came a scratch at the bottom of the door, a -snuffling sound, and a sneeze he knew well. What did -Abé San straying about draughty passages by night? -But it was no business of his. Let the beast’s owner -see to it. He read on:</p> - -<p class="center">“Gracefulness belongeth to the generosity of the magnanimous.”</p> - -<p>Sada Yacco had joined her lord. Together they burrowed, -mutually they snuffed. It was not to be borne. -He got up and opened the door. Sada Yacco and Abé -San rushed in, their tongues lolling, their eyes bulging -with curiosity, and, after a brief excursion round the -apartment, which they found small, fawned upon him -with a sickening devotion. He scowled on the small -black-and-white silky handfuls. Then he yielded to the -impulse that plucked at his maxillary muscles and -grinned. The little brutes were so painfully sorry for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span> -him. They were so clearly under the impression that -he was in disgrace.</p> - -<p>He got back into bed, and lay there, grinning still, if -unwillingly. Sada Yacco, with the forwardness of her -sex, scrambled up and sat upon him. Abé San scratched -at the coverlet imploringly, until, hoisted upward by the -scruff, he, too, gained the desired haven. They had -plainly come to stay, so He resigned himself with a -sigh, switched off the electric light, and fell asleep before -Abé San had turned round the regulation number of -times.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile She, wakened by the toot of a belated -motor-taxi, began to wonder whither the Japanese couple -had strayed. Urged and wearied by the unbroken silence, -she rose, arrayed herself in her dressing gown, -armed herself with a lighted wax taper in a silver -candlestick—another wedding present—and began a tour -of discovery. The pugs had vanished. Had the maids -yielded to their entreaties and taken them in? She -listened at two doors; the steady snoring of the sleepers -within was unmingled with snort or slumbering whimper -of Sada and her mate. Then, returning, she noticed -that His dressing-room door was open.</p> - -<p>Taper in hand, She went in. He was sound asleep, -Sada Yacco sweetly slumbering on the surface covered -by daylight with a waistcoat, Abé San curled up, a -floss-silk ball, on the pillow by his ear. If he had seen -her eyes as she bent over him, shading the light, he -would have regained his old opinion of them in the -twinkling of the tear She dropped upon His cheek.</p> - -<p>Don’t say there are no such things as guardian angels. -His woke him up just as She kissed him—the kiss was -so light it would not have wakened him by itself.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">THE LAST EXPEDITION</h2> -</div> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">SUPPOSE that you see Captain Arthur Magellison, -late of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, with the eyes -of the writer’s remembrance, as a thick-set, fair man of -middle height, neat in appearance and alert in bearing. -His skin was a curious bleached bronze, and his wide-pupilled -pale gray eyes, netted about with close, fine -wrinkles, had looked on the awful desolation of the -Arctic until something of its loneliness and terror had -sunk into them and stamped itself upon the man’s brain, -never to be effaced, or so it seemed to me. For his wife, -once the marble Miss Dycehurst, who had not married -a semi-Celebrity for nothing, took her husband much -with her into London Society, and at gossipy dinner-tables -and in crowded drawing-rooms; on the Lawn at -Ascot and in a box on the Grand Stand at Doncaster, -as on a Henley houseboat, and during a polo tournament -at Ranelagh, I have seen Magellison, to all appearance -perfectly oblivious of the gay and giddy world about -him, sitting, or standing with folded arms and bent -head, and staring out with fixed and watchful eyes, over -Heaven knows what illimitable wastes of snow-covered -land or frozen ocean....</p> - -<p>I have described Captain Arthur Magellison as a semi-Celebrity. -Erstwhile Commander of the Third-class Armored -Destroyer <i>Sidonia</i>, he became, after his severance -from the Royal Navy, and by reason of the adventures -and hardships by him undergone as leader of the Scottish -Alaskan Coastal Survey Expedition of 1906-1908,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> -something of a hero. A series of lectures, delivered at -the Edinburgh Hall of Science, in the course of which -the explorer, by verbal descriptions as well as cinematographic -effects, completely disposed of the theory regarding -the existence of a range of active volcanoes to -the north of Alaska, previously accepted by the illuminati, -made a sensation among scientists, and induced, -in the case of Sir Jedbury Fargoe, F.R.G.S., M.R.I., a -rush of blood to the cerebrum, followed by the breaking -out of a Funeral Hatchment over his front door, a procession -in slow time, with wreaths, palls, and feathers, -and a final exit <i>per</i> trolley into the Furnace at Croking -Crematorium.</p> - -<p>The Public, never having bothered about the volcanoes, -remained unmoved by the intelligence of their -non-existence, but the Professors and the Press shed -much ink upon the subject. Upon a wave of which sable -fluid Captain Arthur Magellison was borne, if not into -the inner court, at least into the vestibule of the Temple -of Fame. Then the wave, as is the way of waves, receded; -leaving Magellison, by virtue of certain researches -and discoveries in Natural History, Botany and -Physiology, a Member of the Royal Institution, Associate -of the Zoological Society, Fellow of the Institute -of Ethnology, and the husband of the marble Miss Dycehurst.</p> - -<p>Never was a more appropriate sobriquet bestowed. -Down in Clayshire, her native county, the statuesque -Geraldine, orphan heiress of a wealthy landholder not -remotely connected with the Brewing interests of his -native isle, dispensed, under the protective auspices of a -maternal aunt of good family—Miss Dycehurst’s -mother’s deceased papa had wedded a portionless spinster -of noble blood—dispensed, I say, a lavish but stony<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span> -hospitality. In London she went out a great deal, looking -like a sculptured Minerva of the Græco-Latin school, -<i>minus</i> the helmet but <i>plus</i> a tower of astonishing golden -hair, received proposals from Eligibles and Ineligibles, -petrified their makers with a single stare, and proceeded -upon her marmorean way in maiden meditation, fancy -free. Until she attended that series of lectures, delivered -at the Edinburgh Hall of Science by the eminent -Arctic Explorer, Captain Arthur Magellison.</p> - -<p>Society in Clayshire and Society in London expressed -ardent curiosity to know how the engagement had been -brought about? All that is known for certain is, that -after the lecture, when the Explorer held a little reception -in a draughty enclosure of green baize screens, Miss -Dycehurst, looking rather like a mythical goddess of the -Polar Regions, her frosty beauty crowned with its diadem -of pale golden hair, and her fine shape revealed in -greenish-blue, icily-gleaming draperies, asked a local -magnate to present the lecturer, and met him at a public -dinner given in his honor upon the following night. -Later on in London, where the lecture was, by invitation -of the learned heads of the nation, repeated, Miss Dycehurst -with a large party occupied the second row of -stalls. Later still, Magellison dined with the heiress at -000, Chesterfield Crescent, her town address, and later -still the couple were Hanover-Squared into one flesh. It -was in May, and the sacred edifice was garlanded with -white Rambler roses and adorned with lilies and smilax -and palms. A Bishop tied the knot, and the choir rendered -the anthem with exquisite effect, as well as “Fight -the Good Fight” and “The Voice that Breathed——.” -And the Bride, in dead white, with a swansdown train -and a Malines veil, and ropes of pearls and brilliants, -and a crown of diamond spikes that might have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span> -sparkling icicles, gleaming and scintillating on the summit -of her wonderful tower of hair, looked more like the -Lady of the Eternal Snows than ever.</p> - -<p>No one knew whether the Magellisons’ married life -was happy or the other thing. Suffice it, as the popular -three-volume novelist used to say when not compelled to -pad, that, to all outward seeming, the couple agreed. -But I think that when the high tide of Fame receded (as -during 1909, when the thrilling adventures of the dauntless -explorer, Blank, were electrifying the newspaper-reading -world, it certainly did, leaving nothing but a -vague halo of heroism and adventure hanging about the -name of Magellison, and a sedimentary deposit of honorary -letters at the tail of it) the woman who had married -Magellison knew disillusion. As for Magellison, he -had always been a silent, absorbed and solitary man. -And that strange look in those wide-pupilled pale gray -eyes of his, the eyes of one who has lived through the -half-year-long twilight of Arctic nights, and seen the -ringed moon with her mock moons glimmer through the -ghostly frost-fog, and the pale pink curving feathers of -the Aurora Borealis stream across the ice-blue sky, and -the awful crimson of the Polar Day rush up beyond the -floe and strike the icy loneliness into new beauty and -new terror—never changed. Perhaps, in discovering the -true nature of his Geraldine, the Explorer found himself -traversing a colder and more rugged desert than he had -encountered when he led the Scottish-Northumbrian -Polar Expedition in quest of those volcanic ranges -proved to be non-existent—in Alaska to the North.</p> - -<p>I believe he really loved the woman he had married. -I know that, while he acted as the unpaid steward of her -estates, he spent nothing beyond his half-pay, eked out -by articles which he wrote now and then for the kind of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> -Scientific Review that rewards the contributor with ten -shillings per page of one thousand words, <i>plus</i> the honor -of having contributed. In his own houses—his wife’s, I -should say—he was a pathetic nonentity. At 000 Chesterfield -Crescent, and at Edengates in Clayshire, the recent -Miss Dycehurst’s country seat, he hugged his own -rooms, about which, arranged in cases and hung upon -the walls, were disposed native weapons, stuffed birds, -geological specimens, dried algæ, water-color sketches, -and such trophies of the Survey Expedition as had not -been presented by Magellison to needy museums. When -his name appeared in newspaper-paragraphs as the -writer of one of the articles referred to, or as the donor -of such a gift, his wife would pluck him from his beloved -solitude, and compel him to tread the social round with -her. But as the slow years crept on, the man himself, -long before the ebbing tide of Fame left a desolate -stretch of seaweedy mud where its waters had heaved -and whispered, was so rarely seen, in his wife’s company -or out of it, that her all-but-newest friends believed Mrs. -Arthur Magellison to be the wife of an incurable invalid, -and the most recent were convinced that she was a -widow. Proposals of marriage were sometimes made to -the lady, who by the way was handsomer and stonier -than ever, by Eligibles or Ineligibles laboring under this -conviction.</p> - -<p>“I am extremely sensible of the honor you have done -me,” said Mrs. Magellison upon one of these occasions, -“but as a fact, my husband is alive. Which relieves me -of the necessity—don’t you think?—of coming to a decision!”</p> - -<p>The man who had proposed, a barely middle-aged, -extremely good-looking, well-made, well-bred Hawting-Holliday -of Hirlmere, sufficiently endowed with ancient,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span> -if embarrassed, acres, and a sixteenth-century Baronetcy, -to have tempted the marble Geraldine, had her frosty -hand been disengaged, to its bestowal on him, was, -though impecunious enough to be strongly attracted by -the lady’s wealth, yet honestly enamored of her sculpturesque -person. Consequently as the final syllable of the -foregoing utterance fell from the lady’s lips, he assumed, -for a fleeting instant or so, the rosy complexion of early -adolescence, and stared upon the conquering Geraldine -with blank and circular eyes. Then he said:</p> - -<p>“By—Jove! that does let me out, doesn’t it? My -dear lady, I entreat you to consider me as prostrate in -humiliation at your feet. With”—he felt over the surface -of an admirably thought-out waistcoat for his eyeglass, -which was still in his eye—“with sackcloth and -ashes, and all the appropriate trimmings. Let me retrieve -my character in your eyes by saying, that if it—ahem!—gives -you any gratification to have a live husband -at this juncture—I will endeavor to share the sentiment. -But you really have run him as a Dark Horse, -now haven’t you?”</p> - -<p>He lifted his eyebrows in interrogation, and the eyeglass -leaped into the folds of his well-chosen cravat, the -kind of subdued yet hopeful thing in shades a man of -taste and brains would put on to propose in.</p> - -<p>“My dear Sir Robert,” Mrs. Magellison said, in well-chosen -language and with an icy little smile, “I am not -an adept in the use of sporting phraseology. Captain -Magellison is of studious habits, retiring nature, and—shall -I say?—an indolent disposition. It would not very -well become me if I insisted on his society when he is -not disposed to bestow it upon me, and therefore I generally -go out alone. When, unless I give a formal dinner, -upon which an occasion my husband must necessarily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span> -take his place at the other end of the board—when -I entertain intimates——”</p> - -<p>“You put your people at a round table,” said Hawting-Holliday -of Hirlmere. “And a round table is the very -deuce—and—all for obliterating a husband!” He found -his eyeglass and screwed it firmly in.</p> - -<p>“I do not altogether blame the table,” said Mrs. -Magellison coldly. “Because, upon nine occasions out -of ten my husband prefers a cutlet in his rooms. Pray -do not suppose that I find fault with the preference. He -is not by nature sociable, as I have said, and prefers to -follow, at Edengates and in Scotland and in Paris, as -well as here in town, his own peculiar bent. And what -that is you are probably aware?” She turned her head -with a superb movement, and her helmet of pale hair -gleamed in the wintry sunshine that streamed through -the lace blinds of the Chesterfield Crescent drawing-room.</p> - -<p>“I had a general idea,” said the man she addressed, -who, hampered in early life by the fact of being born a -Hawting-Holliday of Hirlmere, had not succeeded in -being anything else, “that the late—I beg your pardon!—the -present Captain Magellison was—I should say -is—a Scientific Buffer—of sorts!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Magellison smiled coldly and rose.</p> - -<p>“The term you employ is slang, of course,” she said, -“but it is quite appropriate and really descriptive. My -husband was once a famous man, he is now a Scientific -Buffer—and as you say—of sorts. Would you like to -see him?”</p> - -<p>She moved to the drawing-room door and turned her -head with another fine movement, and Hawting-Holliday’s -eclectic taste was charmed with the sculpturesque -pose. He followed her and they crossed a landing, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span> -Mrs. Magellison knocked at the door of one of a suite -of rooms that had been thrown out over what had been -a back-yard. And as nobody said “Come in,” she entered, -followed by the visitor.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>The room was long, carpeted but uncurtained, and -lighted by that most depressing of all forms of illumination, -a skylight. Dwarf bookcases ran round it, and the -walls were covered with frames and glass cases, primitive -weapons, and a multitude of quaint and curious -things. There was a low couch, covered with seal skins -and feather rugs, and a leather writing-chair was set at -the table, which had on it a fine microscope and many -scientific instruments, of which the uses were unknown -to the head of the Hawting-Hollidays of Hirlmere. -Piles of dusty papers there were, and a couple of battered -ship’s logs, stained and discolored by sea-water -and grease. And in the writing-chair, with his feet on a -magnificent Polar bear-skin and the receiver of a telephone -at his ear, sat the Scientific Buffer of sorts, staring -fixedly before him, apparently over an illimitable waste -of frozen drift-ice covering uncharted Polar seas.</p> - -<p>“Arthur!” said Mrs. Magellison, with a cold kind of -impatience, rattling the handle of the door as if to attract -his attention. He came back with a start and hung -up the receiver, and rose. He had a simple, courteous -manner that won upon the suitor who had just proposed -to his wife; and oddly enough, the appearance of a servant -with a message that summoned the lady to an interview -with her <i>modiste</i> was not greatly regretted by -Hawting-Holliday.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>“I have seen you before, of course,” said his host, -making him free of a rack of Esquimaux pipes and pushing -over a jar of Navy-cut.</p> - -<p>“Have you though?” rose to the visitor’s lips, but the -words were not allowed to escape. Looking round he -saw that there were piles of receipted accounts, and orderly -piles of tradesmen’s books upon the table with the -reams of dusty MSS., and as servants came in for orders -and went away instructed, and messages were telephoned -to various purveyors, Hawting-Holliday arrived at the -conclusion that Mrs. Magellison’s husband was regarded -less in that capacity by Mrs. Magellison and her household -than as major-domo, head-bailiff and house-steward.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>The two men chatted a little, and presently one spoke -while the other listened. The capacity for hero-worship -is quick in every generous nature, and the extravagant, -impoverished, high-bred county gentleman and man-about-town -was conscious that this modest, absent-minded -little ex-naval Commander was of the stuff that -went to build great heroes. Franklin and Nansen were -brothers to this man, and that the justly-honored names -of Shackleton and Peary, and the cognomen of Cook -(King of terminological inexactitudinarians), were hot -upon the public’s mouths just then, mattered nothing to -Hawting-Holliday, as he heard how in the year of Our -Lord Nineteen Hundred and Six, ten men sailed from -San Francisco for Bering Sea on board a sixty-ton -schooner, to settle the question of the existence of Undiscovered -Ranges of Volcanic Origin in Alaska to the -North. And how great storms and awful blizzards hindered -the Coastal Survey Expedition, and sickness crippled -its members, yet they struggled gamely on.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>“Good God!” said Hawting-Holliday, whose pipe had -long since gone out. He heard next how the Expedition -suffered the loss of their ship and all their stores, and -how their leader sent his crew home by a passing whaler -and, for the enlargement of his own experience, chose to -journey back to civilization along the Alaskan coast, -three thousand miles of solitary sledge-traveling, aided -only by the Esquimaux he chanced on in his terrible -journey. And as he went on narrating in his calm and -even voice, enforcing a point by a modest gesture of the -hand that had lost the top-joints of the first and second -fingers, and sometimes looking through and beyond the -face of the listener with those strange, sorrowful, far-away -eyes, what he related the other man saw, and——</p> - -<p>“Good Lord!” said Hawting-Holliday again, “what -an Odyssey the whole thing is! And so you got back to -Ithaca after eighteen months of tramping it on your -lonesome along a frozen coast and sleeping in holes dug -in the snow, and living on blubber and seal-meat or -boiled skin-boots when you couldn’t get anything else; -and gathering knowledge and experience when there -wasn’t even reindeer moss to scrape off the rocks!” He -got up and held out his hand. “As a perfectly useless -and idle kind of beggar, I don’t know that my sincere -admiration and respect are worth having, Captain, but -if they were!——”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>He gulped, and went, quite clumsily, away, but came -back again, and so a friendship grew between the “perfectly -useless and idle kind of beggar,” Hawting-Holliday, -and the hero of the three-thousand-mile tramp back -to Civilization. Perhaps Hawting-Holliday had really -never been seriously attached to the handsome piece of -statuary that bore Magellison’s name. It is certain that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> -her cold neglect and open contempt of her husband -eventually kindled the wrath of Magellison’s newly-won -champion to boiling-point. Not that the Captain gave -any perceptible sign of suffering under the icy blizzard -of his wife’s scorn. Endurance was the lesson he had -learned best of all, and he agreed with her in regarding -himself as a Failure.</p> - -<p>“A beautiful and gifted woman has a right to be -ambitious for the man she marries,” he said once to -Hawting-Holliday. “And if he has no power to keep at -high-level, if he makes no more way than a schooner -frozen in the floe, it is natural that she should feel keenly -disappointed and—and manifest the feeling by a—a certain -change of attitude as regards him.”</p> - -<p>“The schooner may be frozen in the floe, Captain,” -said Hawting-Holliday, lounging in the window-seat of -the Captain’s big, bare room at Edengates, that was—only -barring the skylight—exactly like the Captain’s -other big bare room at 000, Chesterfield Crescent. “But -the floe is traveling all the time. That’s a bit of scientific -information that I got from you. And I rather -pride myself on applying it neatly.”</p> - -<p>The Captain looked hard at him, and Hawting-Holliday -noticed for the first time that the curly fair hair -that topped the deep-lined pale-bronze face was growing -white. Then Magellison said, with a queer smile:</p> - -<p>“You have found me out, I see! And yet I thought I -had kept the secret—or rather, the arrangement, quite -closely. But on the whole I’m rather glad you guessed. -For I like you, young man”—Hawting-Holliday was at -least thirty-five—“and I shall give you the parting -hand-shake with sincere regret—with very sincere regret, -when the ice breaks up and the little engine helps -the hoisted sails, and the floe-bound vessel that never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> -really stopped, although her journey was only of inches -in the month—moves on not North but South, along the -thawed and open sea-lanes——”</p> - -<p>He stopped, for Hawting-Holliday dropped his pipe -and got off the window-seat, and caught the maimed -right hand and wrung it until its owner winced.</p> - -<p>“You gave me credit for too much perspicuity, Captain. -I hadn’t seen as much as the cat’s tail until you -let her out of the bag. Where are you going, man, and -when do you go?”</p> - -<p>Briefly, Magellison told him.</p> - -<p>“All right, Captain,” said Hawting-Holliday. “You’re -going to take charge of the Steam and Sail Antarctic -Geological Research Expedition, financed by the Swedish -Government, sailing from Plymouth for King Edward -Land in April, so as to get the summer months of December, -January, and February for exploration, botanizing, -deep-sea-dredging, and scientific observations. -You calculate on being away not quite three years. -Very well, but remember this! If you don’t turn up in -three years’ time and no definite news has reached us as -to your whereabouts, the most useless and idle dog of -my acquaintance—and that’s myself—will take the liberty -to come and look for you. I swear it—by the Great -Barrier and the Blue Antarctic Ooze!”</p> - -<p>They shook hands upon it, laughing at the humorous -idea of the Captain’s not coming back, and a little later -the news of her husband’s impending departure was imparted, -<i>per</i> the medium of the Press, to the marmorean -lady to whom the explorer had frozen himself some few -years previously. She was radiant with smiles at the -revival of newspaper interest in Magellison, and postponed -her spring visit to the Riviera for the purpose of -giving a series of Departure Dinners in honor of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span> -Captain. All the leading scientific lights of the day -twinkled in turn about the board. And Geraldine wore -all her diamonds, and was exceedingly gracious to her -Distinguished Man. She saw him off from Plymouth, -one balmy April day, and shed a few discreet tears in a -minute and filmy pocket handkerchief as the Swedish -oak-built, schooner-rigged steamship-sailer <i>Selma</i> ran up -the Swedish colors and curtsied adieu to English waters -at the outset of the long South Atlantic voyage, and the -petrol steam-launch containing the friends and relatives -of the Expedition rocked in her wake, and the red-eyed -people crowding on the oily-smelling little vessel’s decks -raised a quavering farewell cheer. Two men stood together -at the <i>Selma’s</i> after-rail: a short, square man of -muscular build, with a slight stoop that told of scholarly -habits, and thick, fair hair, streaked with white, and a -deeply-lined, clean-shaven face, with pale, far-seeing -eyes that were set in a network of fine wrinkles. The -other man was Hawting-Holliday, who had announced -his intention, at the last minute, of accompanying the -Expedition as far as Madeira for the sake of the sea-blow.</p> - -<p>“Tell Geraldine I shall mail home from the Cape and -Melbourne,” the leader of the Expedition said, three -days later, as the boat that was to convey Hawting-Holliday -ashore bobbed under the <i>Selma’s</i> side-ladder in -a clamoring rout of tradesmen’s luggers and Funchal -market-flats. “Tell her I shall certainly communicate -from Lyttelton, and after that she must trust to luck -and homeward-bound whalers for news of me.” He -wrung Hawting-Holliday’s hand, and added, “And in -case—anything should happen to me—not that such a -chance is worth speaking of!—I know that I can rely -upon you to act towards my—my dear girl as a friend!”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span> -The Captain’s voice shook a little, and a mist was over -those clear, wide-pupilled, far-away-gazing gray eyes.</p> - -<p>“I promise you that, faithfully,” said Hawting-Holliday, -and gripped the maimed right hand of the man he -loved as a brother, and went down over the side of the -<i>Selma</i> with a sore heart.</p> - -<p>That was in April, 1910, and news of the loss of the -<i>Selma</i>, in the ice of the Antarctic Circle was cabled from -Honolulu at the beginning of last month. An American -Antarctic Expedition, having concluded a mission of exploration -in the summer season of 1910, finding upon the -coast of King Edward Land the few survivors of the -Swedish Steam and Sail Antarctic Research Expedition -making preparations to winter in a wooden hut built out -of the wreckage of their teak-built sailing-steamer—rescued -and carried them on their homeward route. The -saved men, later interviewed at San Francisco, were -unable to give news of their leader, save that the Captain, -taking a dog-sledge and a little stock of provisions -and instruments, and a hearty leave of all of them, -turned that lined bronze face of his and those eyes with -the far-away look in their wide pupils, to the dim, mysterious, -uncharted regions lying South, in the lap of the -mysterious Unknown, and with a wave of a fur-gloved -hand, was lost in them.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>“He is dead, Arthur is dead!” moaned Geraldine -Magellison, in the depths of conjugal anguish and a lace-covered -sofa-cushion, when the Press and Hawting-Holliday -broke the news between them. “Dead!—and I -loved him so—I loved him so!”</p> - -<p>“It is a pity, under the circumstances,” said Hawting-Holliday, -carrying out his promise of being a friend to -Magellison’s wife by telling that wife the truth, “that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span> -you were so economical in your expressions of affection. -For I do not think that when the Captain left you he -had any remaining illusions as to the nature of your -regard for him.”</p> - -<p>“How cruel you are—how cruel!” gasped Geraldine, -as her maid bore in a salver piled with the regrets of -Learned Societies and the sympathy of distinguished -Personages and private friends.</p> - -<p>“Let me for once use the trite and hackneyed saying -that I am cruel only to be kind!” said Hawting-Holliday, -emphatically, “and that I speak solely in the interests -of—a friend whom I love.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Magellison flushed to the roots of her superb -golden hair, and consciously drooped her scarcely-reddened -eyelids as she held up a protesting hand.</p> - -<p>“No, no, Sir Robert!” she pleaded. “If I—as you -infer—have gravely erred in lack of warmth toward -poor, poor, dearest Arthur! let me at least be ungrudging -in respect of his great memory. Forget what you have -said, carried away by a feeling which in honor you subdued -after the rude awakening of many months ago, and -do not revert to—the subject for—for <i>at least</i> a year to -come!”</p> - -<p>At that Hawting-Holliday got upon his legs, and -thrusting his hands deep into his trouser-pockets, made -the one and only harangue of his existence.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Magellison, when you suggest that in the very -hour when the intelligence of grave disaster to your husband’s -vessel has reached us, I am capable of addressing -you in what the poetic faculty term—Heaven knows how -idiotically and falsely!—the language of love, <i>you</i> -gravely err. The friend in whose interests I spoke just -now, was—your husband. <i>Is</i> your husband—for I do -not accept by any means the theory that because he has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> -been lost sight of, he is dead. I believe him to be living. -I shall go on believing this until I see his body, or meet -with some relics of him that supply me—his friend!—with -the evidence that you, his wife, are so uncommonly -ready to dispense with.”</p> - -<p>His eyes burned her with their contempt. She gasped:</p> - -<p>“You—you mean that you are going South to try and -find him?”</p> - -<p>“You comprehend my meaning perfectly,” said Hawting-Holliday, -and bowed to Mrs. Magellison with ironical -deference and left her.</p> - -<p>He was, though not a wealthy man, far from being a -poor one. He chartered a stout vessel that was lying in -Liverpool Docks, the Iceland Coast Survey Company’s -steam-and-sail schooner <i>Snowbird</i>, and equipped and -provisioned and manned her with a speed and thoroughness -that are seldom found in combination. The <i>Snowbird’s</i> -own skipper goes in charge of his ship, but Hawting-Holliday -is the Leader of the Expedition.</p> - -<p>And yesterday the <i>Snowbird</i> sailed, in search of that -man who has been swallowed up by the great Conjecture. -And of this I am sure, that whether Hawting-Holliday -succeeds or fails, lives or dies, he will grasp the hand of -his friend again Somewhere. Either upon this side of -the Great Gray Veil that hangs in the doorway of the -Smoky House, or upon the other....</p> - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> -</div></div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COST OF WINGS ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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