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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75372 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                                FENELLA
+
+                               _A NOVEL_
+
+                        BY HENRY LONGAN STUART
+
+                      _Author of "Weeping Cross"_
+
+               "NAY, MY MOTHER CRIED: BUT THEN THERE WAS
+                    A STAR DID DANCE AND BENEATH IT
+                              I WAS BORN"
+
+                              GARDEN CITY
+                               NEW YORK
+                       DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+                                 1911
+
+          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
+          INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+             COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+                                PART I
+
+                             I. Morgengabe
+
+                          II. Shadows Before
+
+                            III. An Eclipse
+
+                     IV. To Introduce Paul Ingram
+
+                           V. "Sad Company"
+
+                     VI. A Child Speaks the Truth
+
+                         VII. Mostly Lady Anne
+
+                        VIII. The Second Floor
+
+                         IX. Sharland College
+
+                        X. "The Way of a Maid"
+
+                           XI. An Interlude
+
+                          XII. Richmond Park
+
+                     XIII. Find Soul--Find Sorrow
+
+                            XIV. Athea Rees
+
+                      XV. History of a Conversion
+
+                         XVI. Hoa-haka-nana-ia
+
+                     XVII. The Continental Express
+
+                        XVIII. Amende Honorable
+
+
+                                PART II
+
+                       I. Financial Intelligence
+
+                      II. Two Telegrams
+
+                     III. In the Firelight
+
+                      IV. An Affair of Outposts
+
+                       V. Cicispeo
+
+                      VI. The Benefit of the Doubt
+
+                     VII. A Dress Rehearsal
+
+                    VIII. Lady Anne's Deposition
+
+                      IX. The Man at the Wheel
+
+                       X. Monsieur de Valbonette
+
+                      XI. "_Inextricabile Error_"
+
+                     XII. A Catastrophe
+
+                    XIII. New Wine--Old Bottle
+
+                     XIV. Some Theories and a Way Out
+
+                      XV. A Last Wish
+
+                     XVI. Azrael
+
+                    XVII. A Dream Comes True
+
+                   XVIII. Ice to the Moon
+
+                     XIX. The Wages
+
+
+                               PART III
+
+                       I. The Baths of Apollo
+
+                      II. Lightning in the Fog
+
+                     III. Valedictory
+
+                      IV. Something Like Cloves
+
+                       V. A Very Vulgar Chapter
+
+                      VI. Genealogical
+
+                     VII. The Waiting-Room
+
+                    VIII. 'Twixt Shine and Shade
+
+                      IX. Beaten at the Post
+
+                       X. A Year and a Day
+
+                      XI. Two Grains of Hope
+
+
+
+
+                                PART I
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                              MORGENGABE
+
+
+Like the sudden, restless motion of a sleeper, a wave, marking the
+tide's height, broke out of the slumberous heart of the sea, and
+laid its crest low along the beach. Fenella, who had been swimming
+to shore, rose in the foam, like that other woman in the morning of
+the world, and began to walk slowly, wringing the salt water from her
+hair, toward the bleached bathing hut that stood, by itself, under a
+shoulder of the dunes. The backwash of the wave swirled past her bare
+ankles as she walked. Beyond the strip of beach that it had covered
+with weed and spume, the sand was hot and loose as ashes to the soles
+of her feet. The noontide sun seemed to rob the earth at once of
+motion, of sound, of color. It grizzled the long sharp grass with
+which the sand hills were sparsely covered, quenched the red roofs of
+the little cream-walled fishing village, and turned the watered lawn,
+which lay at the foot of the flaunting summer hotel quarter of a mile
+inland, to a level smudge of dark green. All sound was stilled--all
+movement in suspense--all beauty, even, deferred. At such an hour, the
+supreme of the sun's possession of the earth, none can stand, alone
+and without shelter in its untempered light, and not realize that he
+is intercepting an elemental force as relentless as it is impersonal.
+Upon these barren, ragged edges of the earth, where the land casts
+its detritus upon the sea, and the sea casts it back, transformed,
+upon the land, it is felt to be what it truly is--a power that blights
+as well as fosters--death no less than life. All that has its roots
+firmly fastened in the soil--that has a purpose unfulfilled--fruit to
+bear--pollen to sow, feels the impulse--spreads, aspires, swells, and
+scatters. All that is weak or ephemeral--whose purposes are frustrated
+or whose uses past, turns from that light and fervor--withers--bows its
+head--wilts at the fiery challenge. To it the sun is a torch--the earth
+an oven--noontide the crisis of its agony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the door of the gray bathing-hut the girl turned, and, bracing
+herself, with her arms against her wet sides, to which her dark tight
+bathing-dress clung sleek and shapely as its pelt to a seal, stood
+for a moment looking out to sea. Her bosom rose and fell quickly, but
+without any distress; her heart beat high with the sense, so rare to
+women until of late, of physical powers put to the test. A mile out,
+the fishing-boat to which she had swum--whose very bulwarks she had
+touched--seemed to hang like some torpid bat--its claws hooked onto
+the line where sea and sky met. She caught her breath at sight of the
+distance she had ventured: nothing in her life, she felt, had been
+pleasanter than this--to stand with the sun on her shoulders, the warm
+sand over her toes, and to measure with a glance the cold, treacherous
+and trackless space which, stroke by stroke, she had overcome.
+
+Suddenly, and as though she remembered, she turned and looked inland.
+High up on the dunes to her left a little black shadow spotted the
+gray, reed-streaked expanse. Fenella waved one brown arm toward it, and
+throwing back the wet hair from her forehead, peered anxiously under
+her hand for some signal in reply. Apparently it came, for her face
+changed. Something that had been almost austerity went out of it and
+was replaced by a look so full of tender concern that the long-lashed
+eyes and sensitive mouth seemed to brim over with it. A moment later,
+and amid a charming confusion which draped the pegs and benches of
+the hut, she was humming a waltz tune softly as she dressed. The
+happy, interrupted melody filled the hot silence like the song of a
+honey-seeking bee.
+
+The blot upon the dunes was cast by a white sketching umbrella, lined
+with green, whose long handle, spiked and jointed, was driven deep into
+the loose soil. Near it, but somewhat away from the shadow, which the
+southward roll of the earth was carrying farther and farther from his
+shoulders, a man was sitting. He sat, with knees drawn up and with his
+hands clasped across them, staring out upon the colorless ocean, over
+which a slight haze was beginning to drift. A gaunt, large-framed man,
+but with a physical economy in which fat had no place. The skin upon
+the strong hands and lean neck was brown and loose, as though years of
+exposure to a sun, fiercer and more persistent than that to which he
+heedlessly bared his head now, had tanned it for all time. His hair,
+thick, crisp, and grizzling at the temples, was cropped close over a
+shapely head. A short beard, clipped to a point, left the shape of the
+chin an open question, but his moustache was brushed away, gallantly
+enough, from the upper lip, and showed all the lines of a repressed and
+unhappy mouth. The prisoner, his dungeon once accepted, sets himself to
+carve the record of his chagrins upon its walls; no less surely will
+a soul, misunderstood and checked in its purposes, grave the tale of
+its disappointments upon the prison-house of the flesh. On the face
+that confronted the ocean now, infinite sadness, infinite distaste were
+written plain.
+
+He was oddly dressed, after a _bizarre_ fashion which complexity,
+eager, we must suppose, for such simplifications as are within its
+reach, occasionally affects. A coarse canvas smock, open at the throat,
+such as fishermen wear, and dyed the color of their sails; corduroy
+trousers of brown velvet, coarse gray knitted socks, that fell in
+careless folds round his ankles and over the low iron-shod shoes. Under
+all this uncouth parade one divined rather than saw fine linen.
+
+Suddenly that view of the ocean in which was so little present help
+was blotted out. From behind him two hands, cool and a little clammy
+from prolonged immersion in salt water, were covering his eyes. Yet for
+a while he did not move; possibly he felt the eclipse a grateful one.
+It was not until the girl who had stolen upon him so silently shook him
+gently and whispered in his ear that he took the hands from his eyes,
+and, still without turning, laid them against his lips.
+
+He might well have turned. For Fenella, one would think, would be
+always worth another look. She was quite beautiful, with the precision
+of color and texture that makes beauty for the artist, and sometimes,
+be it said, obscures it for the general. She was pale, but not from
+any retrenchment of the vital flame which burned, clear and ardent, in
+her gaze--glowed in the red of her moist and tremulous mouth. Her eyes
+were set full and a little far apart, and fringed with lashes that were
+of an almost even length and thickness on the upper and lower lids.
+Her face, broad at the temples and cheek bones, sloped to her chin
+with a slight concavity of the cheeks, in which a sort of impalpable
+dusk, that was not shadow, for no light killed it--nor bloom, for her
+tint was colorless as a lily, and which was probably caused by the
+minute and separately invisible down of the skin, seemed immanent. Her
+hair, fine, abundant, and nearer black than brown, grew low and made
+all manner of pretty encroachments upon the fair face. There was a
+peak of it in the centre of her forehead, and two little tufts waved
+near the temples which no mode of hairdressing had ever managed to
+successfully include. Her neck was slight and childish--her breasts
+scarcely formed, but her hips were already arched, of the true heroic
+mould of woman, and the young torso soared from them with the grace and
+strength of a dryad. Beyond all, face and figure possessed the precious
+and indefinable quality of romance. Fenella upon the Barrière du Trône
+in the livid light of a February morning--long, damp curls in which a
+little powder lingers drooping upon her slender shoulders: Fenella in
+_côte-hardie_ and wimple, gazing over moat and bittern-haunted
+moorland from an embrasured château window of Touraine: Fenella
+in robe of fine-fringed linen, her black hair crisped into spiral
+ringlets, couched between the hooves of some winged monster of Babylon
+or Tharshish, with the flame of banquet or sacrifice red upon her
+colorless cheek. All these were imaginable.
+
+She sank gracefully upon her knees in the yielding sand, and, putting
+her hand across the man's shoulder, laid her cheek to his. The
+spontaneity of the action and its tacit acceptance by her lover--for
+he neither moved nor checked his reverie on its account--were eloquent
+of self-surrender, and a witness also to the truth of the observation
+that, in affairs of the heart, there is one who proffers love and one
+who endures it. But she was over-young and over-fair to know the chill
+of the unrequited kiss already.
+
+"Are you still worrying, Paul?" she asked after a while, "still vexed
+and disturbed? You needn't answer. Your forehead was all gathers and
+tucks just now when I came behind you: I could feel every wrinkle. Tell
+me, this minute," with playful peremptoriness; "was he anxious about
+his young lady?"
+
+"A little," her lover answered. "It's natural, isn't it?"
+
+"But, dear, I swim so strongly," she pleaded. "There's no current when
+the tide's at flood. And, oh! Paul, it was such _fun_. I swam
+out to that fishing-boat you can _just--barely--see_. Look!"
+and she turned the listless head with her hand; "it's over there. I
+can tell you the exact number: _B759 Boulogne_. That shows I'm
+not fibbing, doesn't it, Mister Ingram. I hung onto the side and
+called out, '_Woilà!_' Have you ever noticed you can't say 'V'
+when your mouth's full of saltiness? And the man was so scared. He
+crossed himself twice, poor old soul, and his pipe nearly fell into
+the sea. Can't you imagine what he'll say when he gets home '_Cette
+Anglaise!--quelle effrontée!--quelle conduite!_' Now, who says I
+can't speak French?--Oh! Paul; why aren't you a swimmer?"
+
+"It wasn't quite such fun watching you," said Ingram; "the sea's such a
+big thing. Why, your head looked no bigger than a pin's out on all that
+water. Things happen so easily, too."
+
+The girl felt him shiver, and tightened her hold on his shoulder.
+
+"And you've such an imagination to plague you; haven't you, Paul? Oh
+dear! Well--here's the pin sticking into you again: here's the head
+back, safe and sound, light and empty as ever. Isn't it hard luck for
+you?" And she laid it on his shoulder.
+
+"Would you rather I didn't swim out so far again, Paul?" she asked
+presently, in a softened voice.
+
+"Why should I break your spirit?" the man argued, more reasonably,
+perhaps, than he intended.
+
+"Oh, but it isn't worth it if it worries you," his sweetheart said
+earnestly. "Nothing's worth that, when you have so much to bear
+besides. I've had my foolish way and now I promise you I'll paddle with
+you, dear old muff, in two feet of water all the rest of the holidays."
+
+Ingram turned to her now. "Nelly, I don't want to disappoint you,
+but--but, there won't be any 'rest of the holidays' for us this summer."
+
+She looked into his face; her own alarmed and pleading.
+
+"You're not going, Paul? Oh, you promised to stay on until we all went
+back together."
+
+"I know, I know," he answered, with an impatience that was none the
+less real because it was the expression of his reluctance to give pain.
+Silken bonds strain at times.
+
+"Something has happened then, since last night? What is it, dear?"
+
+"I had a letter this morning. It had been waiting at the
+'_Arrêt_.'"
+
+"A letter at last! Oh! Paul--Why didn't you tell me? Is it good news?"
+
+"Only a straw; but then, I'm a drowning man."
+
+"Tell me! Tell me!" the girl insisted.
+
+"It's from Prentice; the man you saw in Soho the night before we came
+away. He's taken my MSS. to Althea Rees."
+
+"You mean the woman who writes those queer books where every one talks
+alike."
+
+"What does it matter? The talk's all good. Anyhow, she's 'struck.'
+Some one's actually struck at last. She's going to try and make her
+own publishers do something. But she says she must see me first, and
+Prentice thinks she's only passing through London."
+
+Fenella's face clouded and was so far from expressing enthusiasm that
+her lover looked at her rather ruefully.
+
+"You don't seem very glad, Nelly."
+
+Nelly kept her eyes averted. She had already taken her head from his
+shoulder.
+
+"I shouldn't care to publish anything," she declared slowly. "Not--that
+way."
+
+As though he had been waiting for her words, Paul Ingram sprang to
+his feet. All his impatience and dissatisfaction seemed to boil over.
+He began to pace the dunes like a caged animal, kicking the sand from
+his feet and tugging fiercely at the grizzling beard that was a daily
+reproach to his lack of achievement.
+
+"That way! that way!" he repeated. "But isn't even 'that way' better
+than no way at all? I tell you, Nelly, I'm discouraged, aghast, at
+this conspiracy to keep a man bottled up and away from the people
+for whom his message is intended. I haven't written like all these
+clever--clever people; after a morning's motoring, and an afternoon
+'over the stubble,' isn't that the expression?--three hours every
+day, while the man is laying out the broadcloth and fine linen for a
+dinner at eight. What I did was done with as much sweat and strain as
+that shrimper uses down there, who's getting ready to push his net
+through the sand as soon as the tide turns. And when the work is done,
+between me and my public a soulless, brainless agency uprears itself
+that weighs the result by exactly the same standards as it would weigh
+a tooth-paste or a patent collar stud or a parlor game--as a 'quick
+seller.'"
+
+He would have said more, but Fenella was at his side, trying to reach
+his lips with the only comfort the poor child had.
+
+"Oh! Paul," she cried; "be patient just a little longer. Publish how
+you can! I wasn't blaming you, dear. I only meant that--that working as
+you do, it was only a question of time and you'd succeed without any
+one's help. I don't feel uneasy or impatient about you."
+
+Ingram sat down again, a little ashamed of his outburst, but his face
+was still bitter.
+
+"Just so," said he. "And it's precisely your limitless, superhuman
+patience that's doing more than anything else to kill me by inches. It
+would be a relief if you'd lose it sometimes, curse me--reproach me for
+the failure I am. After all, how do you know all these duffers aren't
+right? They're wonderfully unanimous."
+
+Fenella sat silent for a few minutes, not resenting his words, but
+racking her brain for some comforting parallel that would ring true and
+not be repulsed.
+
+"Do you remember, Paul," she said at last, "the story we read together
+at Christmas about Holman Hunt? How he got so sick of the unsold
+pictures hanging in his studio that he turned them all with their
+faces to the wall? And yet one of those pictures was the 'Light of the
+World.'"
+
+But Ingram, even if he had an equal reverence for the work in question,
+which I should doubt, was not an easy man to console. He brushed the
+poor little crumb of comfort impatiently aside.
+
+"There's no comparison at all," he declared. "A picture painted is a
+picture painted. A glance can take it in, and a glance recover for
+the artist all the inspiration and joy in his work that filled him
+when he painted it. But what inspiration is there in a bundle of
+dog-eared manuscript, that comes back to you with the persistence
+of a cur you've saved from drowning? Besides, every artist worth the
+name has his following, however small, who help him--flatter him
+perhaps--anyhow, keep him sane. There's no unwritten law against
+showing a canvas. But the unpublished author--the un-acted play
+writer--is shunned like a man with the plague. Oh! don't I know it?"
+
+Fenella gave a weary little sigh. Amid all this glorified space,
+just to be alive seemed to her simple soul a thing to be deeply and
+reverently thankful for. Her own blood was racing and tingling in her
+veins, with the reaction from her long swim. She wanted to run, to
+sing; above all, she wanted to dance. As for books, her own idea of a
+book was a very concrete one, indeed. She knew that whole rooms were
+filled with them, bookstalls littered by them, libraries building
+everywhere to catch the overflow. She was familiar, for reasons that
+will appear in their course, with the reading-room at the British
+Museum. She had confronted that overwhelming fact. And yet, one book
+could mean so much to this man that, for its sake, the holiday she had
+so joyously planned had gone to pieces. The truth must be told. She had
+to draw a rather big draft upon her love and loyalty.
+
+"When are you going?" she asked, in a little flat voice.
+
+"I ought to have caught the mid-day boat from Boulogne," the man
+answered, with a briskness that sounded ungratefully in her ears. "But
+it's too late for that to-day. There's another at six or seven. They
+stop the Paris train for you here if you signal."
+
+"Don't go till to-morrow, Paul," she urged patiently. "There's the
+eclipse to-night, you know, and you promised we should watch it
+together. Then we can talk things over quietly. I want--oh, I want
+_so_ to help you! I have a sort of foolish plan in my own
+head, but I'm afraid you'll laugh at it.... And there's poor mummy,
+struggling over the sand with our luncheon. Run and help her, dear."
+
+
+
+
+                                  II
+
+                            SHADOWS BEFORE
+
+
+Mrs. Barbour was a comely, wholesome-looking body upon the descending
+slope of fifty. Her face, like her daughter's, was of the _teint
+mât_, and her homely English figure had what a flippant mind has
+described as a "middle-aged spread" in its proportions. Her large
+oval brooch, a cunning device in hair, proclaimed to these skilled in
+rebus that without a cross there was no prospect of a crown, and a
+black bonnet of low church tendencies, trimmed with little jet-tipped
+tentacles that quivered and danced when she moved her head, honorably
+crowned her abundant silver locks. She had declined Ingram's proffered
+aid with a tenacity often to be noticed in those who have given hard
+service all their lives, and as she drooped with weary finality
+upon the sand, various parcels, string-bags, and small baskets were
+distributed to right and left.
+
+"Oh dear," she gasped breathlessly; "those dreadful, dreadful dunes."
+
+"Have they tired you very much, mummy?" the girl asked concernedly, as
+she unfastened the lavender bonnet-strings.
+
+"The sand is so loose to-day with the great 'eat--_heat_." Mrs.
+Barbour added the corrected version with almost lightning rapidity. One
+of her peculiarities, which it is sufficient to have indicated once,
+was a constant snatch at evasive aspirates. They can scarcely be said
+to have really dropped; she caught them before they fell.
+
+"No, Nelly," the good lady went on, while Ingram unravelled the
+mysteries of the string-bag, and gathered driftwood for the fire.
+"Here we are in France, where you've always wanted to be; but, another
+year, if I'm consulted, Bognor or Westgate for me, my dear. Two hours'
+comfortable travelling"--Mrs. Barbour ticked off the advantages of home
+travel on her fingers one by one, and unconsciously quoted some railway
+placard she had seen--"no Channel crossing, no customs, and the sea at
+your door. And even when you've come all this way, no amusement, unless
+you call a horrid Casino amusing, where grown men, and women who ought
+to be sent home to finish dressing, make donkeys of themselves over
+little lead horses."
+
+"There's very good music there in the afternoon," Paul hazarded, who
+was shaving a stick into kindling after the fashion of the Western
+plains.
+
+"Music--yes; but nothing really tuneful. Do you remember the Elite
+Pierrots at Westgate, Nelly, last year, with the blue masks. That
+dark-haired one, my dear, who used to sigh for the silvery moon and
+cough so terribly in the intervals. Don't tell me he wasn't some one
+in disguise. No! I hold to what I've said. The French don't understand
+amusement."
+
+The fire was lit, the kettle boiled, and luncheon eaten amid such
+conversation as a garrulous old woman and two very preoccupied people
+could contrive. Nelly was particularly silent, and had lost, besides,
+what her mother was pleased to term her "sand appetite." The talk
+ranged hither and thither listlessly. Paul's inability to swim, so
+strange in a man who had girdled the earth, was discussed in all its
+bearings till it could be borne no longer; the lurid history of Simone,
+Mrs. Barbour's strapping, smiling bonne, unmarried and unmoral, was
+matter for another half-hour. Followed various excursions into the
+obvious, and a list of "discoveries" made that morning. Mrs. Barbour
+collected facts like shells, and made some very pretty castles with
+them, too, at times.
+
+"... and Nelly, I believe I know who the two gentlemen are that you had
+your adventure with yesterday."
+
+Ingram raised his head at the two odious words very much as a horse
+would do if you were to explode two fog signals under his nose in
+succession; quickly enough, indeed, to intercept a warning and
+reproachful glance that the girl sent her mother. Mrs. Barbour clapped
+both hands playfully over her mouth. "Oh! now I _have_ done it!"
+she exclaimed. Her eyes snapped with, perhaps, a shade more of malice
+than a kind-hearted old lady's should ever hold. Without being a
+scheming or a worldly woman, she resented a little, in her heart, the
+monopoly which this man had established over her child; a man so alien
+to her in thought, so sparing of speech, so remote from her ideal,
+which, diffuse enough in all truth, would perhaps have found it nearest
+realization just now in some florid, high-spirited lad, who would have
+brought her his socks to darn and his troubles to soothe of an evening,
+been "company," in a word, to the talkative, commonplace old woman. As
+far as she was concerned, Ingram swallowed his disappointments, and she
+rather suspected him of darning his own socks.
+
+Fenella considered her mother for some time, though not as a resource
+to evade her lover's eye.
+
+"What a rummy way you have of putting things, mother!" she said at
+last. "My 'adventure' with 'two gentlemen'!"
+
+Paul's face was blank, like the page of a diary awaiting confidences.
+
+Feeling herself at bay, Mrs. Barbour grew flustered and tearful.
+
+"Well, well!" she exclaimed, waving her hands helplessly in the air.
+"I'm sure I'm sorry, Nelly, since you choose to make such a mystery of
+it. But what there is in it to make you both look as grave as judges,
+I can't see. I'm sure that, as your mother, I'd be the first to be
+offended if there was anything disrespectful."
+
+An awkward silence followed her words, which Ingram was the first to
+break.
+
+"I think, perhaps, you'd best tell now, Nelly," he said quietly.
+
+The girl blushed and covered her eyes for a moment with her hands.
+
+"It's so--so _foolish_," she said, clenching them with an impatient
+movement. "Oh, well, if I must, I must.... It was yesterday morning
+while you were both at breakfast. I ran down, you know, to catch the
+tide. After I had come out--oh, well, there wasn't a soul in sight--I
+thought they would all be at breakfast at the _Grande Falaise_;
+I was chilly, too, and there was a kind of tune in the sea. So, after
+I'd taken off my wet bathing-suit, I threw on my kimono and began to
+practise the last dance Madame de Rudder has been teaching me--you
+know the one, mother, where she won't let me use my feet as much as I
+want--out on the sand where it was hard. And then, like a little fool
+I am, I forgot everything, until I heard some one clapping hands and
+saying, 'Bravo!'--and I looked up--and there were two men on the dunes,
+smoking cigars--I suppose they were coming from the golf links to the
+hotel, and I don't know how long they'd been watching me, and--and,"
+with sudden passion, "I just _hate_ you, Paul, for dragging it out
+of me when I didn't want to tell."
+
+And Fenella, already overwrought, hid her head in her mother's
+capacious lap and had her cry out.
+
+Mrs. Barbour stroked the dark head gently, but like the wise old mother
+bird she was, made no attempt to check the burst of tears.
+
+"Such a dancing girl she is," she murmured complacently, "and she
+does hate to have it talked about so. Do you know, Mr. Ingram, I only
+discovered it myself by accident, after it had been going on months and
+months. Do you remember, dearie, that awful day, the first time I was
+up after influenza, that Druce got the spot on her nose that the doctor
+said was erysipelas, and Twyford scalded her arm and hand making a
+poultice? It's the only time, I do believe, Nelly, I've ever spoken to
+you crossly."
+
+A muffled voice, "You were _horrid_, mummy."
+
+"Well, there, I really was, Mr. Ingram. I pushed the child out of the
+way and said, 'If you can't help, don't hinder. Run upstairs and play
+with the other ornaments!' I didn't think any more about it, with all
+that trouble on my hands, till about half an hour afterward, when down
+comes Miss Rigby with her face white--you know what a coward she is,
+Nelly--and in her dressing-gown, at nearly twelve! 'Do come up, Mrs.
+Barbour,' she says, 'I believe Rock has gone mad in the box-room and
+is dashing himself against the wall.' Oh dear! I ran upstairs with the
+poker, and what do you think it was, Mr. Ingram. My own crazy child,
+dancing and waving her arms about. Such a picture of fun as she looked!"
+
+A hand was laid suddenly on her mouth, and a face, very flushed and
+penitent in its tumbled dark hair, emerged from between the parental
+knees.
+
+"I'm a silly"--_sniff_--"fool"--_sniff_--said Fenella. "Paul,
+gimme my hank."
+
+Ingram passed the handkerchief across the smouldering blaze. The girl
+looked at him as she blew her nose. He seemed absorbed, not angry, but
+_queer_, she thought. She had never seen his face look so wan and
+tired. He seemed to avoid her eyes.
+
+"Aren't you well, Paul?" she asked at last.
+
+Ingram seemed to shiver and then rouse himself. "I'm all right," he
+said; "but I think I'll go back to the chalêt. I've got letters to
+write. Isn't the sun grown pale? And I guess I've either caught cold or
+some one's walking backward and forward over my grave."
+
+They went home together, for the women would not be left behind,
+taking the longer way in order to avoid the sand-hills. Along the
+loose, tiring beach--dried sea waifs crackling underfoot, by the
+_douane_ with its toy battery and lounging sentry; up a narrow
+path that was half by-street and half flight of steps, near whose
+summit a Christ flung his saving arms wide over a yellow _affiche_
+of the _Courses_ at Wimereux, and into a straggling village
+of low-browed houses, cream, pink, light-blue, and strong as
+castles, through whose doorways leather-faced crones and tow-headed
+children swarmed and tumbled. They were nearing the inn of the
+_Toison d'Or_, where the new road to the hotel turns out of
+the village, slowly, for Mrs. Barbour climbed with difficulty and
+rejected assistance, when two men in tweed jackets, flat-capped and
+flannel-trousered, swung round the corner. At their backs two shaggy
+town urchins straggled along, each with an arsenal of clubs and cleeks
+peeping over his shoulder. The two men raised their caps and bowed
+slightly, but certainly not in response to any recognition that any of
+the party accorded them. Fenella blushed and hung her head.
+
+Paul turned sharply on his heel. "Are those the cads who stared at
+you?" he asked, in a voice which he took no pains to render inaudible.
+
+Nelly caught his arm before she answered. "Hush, dear! Yes. You're not
+to be foolish," she added.
+
+Her mother, glad of a respite, stopped and looked after them, too. She
+held it a legitimate source of pride that she had always had an eye for
+a fine man.
+
+"Those _are_ the two, then," she said triumphantly, with an air
+of sagacity justified. "Then, my dear, I can tell you who they are.
+The short, dark one is Mr. Dreyfus--no, Dollfus--who manages the
+'Dominion' in London, and the big, handsome one with the loose hair
+under his cap at the back is Sir Bryan Lumsden, the millionaire, and a
+_frightful_ reputation, my dear. Mrs. Lesueur told me all about
+him this morning when she came in to borrow Simone for ironing."
+
+Meantime, the two men whom they had passed turned likewise, but only
+to whistle up their caddies, who, with an avidity for the "_p'tit
+sou_" which would seem to be sucked in with the maternal milk in
+French Flanders, were holding out claw-like hands to the family party
+and more especially to Ingram, who had already acquired an unfortunate
+reputation in this respect.
+
+"What d'you make of it, Dolly?" the big man asked. "Husband?"
+
+The Jew shook his head decisively. "No, no, my boy! She's not a marrit
+woman. Relations, more likely. Eh?--ah?"
+
+"Or lovers, likelier still. It's highly respectable, anyway. They've
+got the old lady to come along. That looks as if he were French."
+
+"I'd like to meet the liddle girl, alone," said Dollfus, fervently.
+
+"Some dark night?--eh, Dolly!" remarked Sir Bryan, beginning to whip
+the Dominion director's stout calves and thighs with the handle of the
+putter he was carrying. "You're such a devil--such a devil, Dolly."
+
+Mr. Dollfus raised a corrective hand.
+
+"Don't mithtake my meaning, Lumpsden," he said, getting out of the
+sportive baronet's long reach as quickly as was consistent with
+dignity. "I only wanter tell her she's got a forchune in her feet and
+legth if she'd go in training. I oughter know something about legth,
+oughtn't I, old fellow. Becoth it's my bizzyness, ain't it, Lumpsden?"
+
+"Tell the lunatic in the red shirt instead," the baronet suggested,
+derisively. "She's bored, anyway. See her bat her eyelid when we bowed?
+Oh yes, she did, Dolly. Just one little flicker--but I caught it.
+Hullo! there's Grogan and old Moon at the tenth hole."
+
+And, this being a world where the incredible is always happening, it is
+possible that Bryan Lumsden didn't think of Fenella again that day.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+                              AN ECLIPSE
+
+
+Ingram took her down to the beach again that night, as he had promised,
+through a sparse, pungent pine wood that by day and night seemed to
+keep something of the peace of the primeval world in its coniferous
+shade, and across a trackless little wilderness of sand-hills, scooped
+and tortured by the earthquake storms of winter into strange, unnatural
+contours, over which the moon to-night spread a carpet so white, so
+deceptively level, that often they could only be guessed by the abrupt
+rise or fall of the ground beneath one's feet. Rabbits popped in and
+out of the earth, the sharp reeds that bind the sand barriers together
+bit spitefully at the girl's tender ankles, and withered branches,
+catching in her silk skirt, snapped dryly as her lover helped her
+through the hedges with which the dunes are ribbed.
+
+Although the night was cool, she was wearing the thin dress she had put
+on for dinner. Over his shoulder Ingram had slung a soldier's cloak of
+blue-gray cloth, long and wide, that was to cover them in to-night as
+it had often covered them before. Fenella was already familiar with
+its every fold--knew exactly when the rough backing of the clasp would
+chafe her delicate cheek, could recall at any moment the peculiar
+fragrance of cigar smoke with which the heavy frieze was impregnated,
+and some other smell, stranger still, sweet, foreign and spicy, that
+she could not define, but which, evanescent as it was--the very ghost
+of an odor--clung obstinately to her skin and dress, and which she
+loved to lie awake at night and feel exhaled from her thick hair like
+some secret earnest of joy upon the morrow.
+
+She slid her hand into the man's as they descended the slippery,
+needle-carpeted path, and turned up a face to him in the darkness of
+the wood that was contrite and humble as a reproved child's. She had
+been a bad child, in fact; had failed in sympathy--had told him in her
+passion that she hated him. Hated--him! When they had found the fire,
+still smouldering, and had blown it into a blaze, she crept silently
+within his arms, under the folds of the cloak, and, laying her head
+upon his breast, watched the flames, creeping like fern-fronds through
+the gnarled roots and sodden bleached faggots that Paul had heaped upon
+it. She began to suck her thumb too: always with Fenella the sign of a
+chastened spirit. The moon, serenely unconscious of the earth shadow
+that was creeping upon her, made a path of crinkled glory across the
+waters, straight toward them, and, like foam at the foot of a silver
+cascade, the phosphorescent surf tumbled, soft and luminous, along the
+shore.
+
+"Are you warm enough?" Ingram asked presently, feeling a tremor,
+perhaps, in the yielding figure that rested in his arms.
+
+Fenella nodded her head, but she might more truly have told him that
+she was cold and sick. For her the night was full of voices that
+threatened her happiness. The ripple of the cold wind along dry grass
+at her back, the soft thud and effervescence of the surf against
+the sand, were all so many whispers telling her that her lover was
+going--going to some other woman who could help him, and away from
+the weak arms that only clung and hindered. She had no confidence in
+herself--no belief in her own power to hold him a moment, once his
+will should feel an alien attraction. The very profuseness of the
+poor child's passion, its abandonment of one uninvaded reserve after
+another, had been proof of this inward unrest. Let no mistake be made.
+Fenella was a good girl, who could by no possibility become other than
+a good woman: nevertheless it is as true as it is, perhaps, disquieting
+that she might have remained at the same time happier and more maidenly
+in contact with an affection less worthy and less spiritual than that
+which she had encountered. For, so long as the attraction of sex for
+sex, beneath all modern refinements and sophistications, remains
+endowed with anything of the purpose for which nature instituted it--so
+long as its repulsions are a definite distance, to be annihilated
+toward a definite end, so long, if one party to the vital bargain hangs
+unduly back, must the other press unduly forward.
+
+She was silent so long that Ingram put out his hand, and, touching her
+cheek, found it wet.
+
+"You're crying!" he exclaimed sharply.
+
+"I'm n-not," Fenella protested unevenly, and even as she spoke the
+great drops splashed down on his hand.
+
+"Nelly, look up! Do you love me as much as you say?"
+
+"Oh, my heart!--my heart!" she sobbed, covering his mouth with kisses,
+salt as the sea. And while she kissed him he was making a mental note
+that women were unduly robust on the emotional side.
+
+"If you do," said he, "you'll stop crying--at once."
+
+He spoke so sternly that the girl clenched her hands and struggled and
+fought with her sorrow.
+
+"That's better," he said, when, by dint of swallowing her tears, she
+was, outwardly at least, a little calmer. "I'm sorry if I spoke harshly
+just now," he went on; "but everybody has a last straw. A woman crying
+seems to be mine. It--it strains my heart."
+
+"Do you think _I_ like it any better?" his sweetheart asked,
+desperately.
+
+"I suppose," he hazarded, with a shyness that was almost grotesque,
+"it's because I'm going to-morrow."
+
+"Oh yes, dear, yes," the girl told him, eagerly seeking relief in
+words since tears were forbidden her. "Oh, Paul! how I shall miss
+you! You don't know what it's meant to me to have you living in the
+same house--to even know you were sleeping near me. Darling, do you
+know I've sometimes wished you _snored_ so I might hear you at
+night. Don't stop me, love!" she went on, buttoning and unbuttoning
+his coat with nervous fingers. "Let me confess my full shamelessness.
+I've even helped Simone do your room sometimes in the morning. You're
+not shocked--are you? Oh! you _are_," she cried piteously, drawing
+away from his arm. "You think me unmaidenly. But I can't _help_
+it, love; I can't _help_ it. Don't you see? You are you. It's
+different to all the rest of the world."
+
+Ingram's chest rose and fell unevenly beneath her cheek. She could not
+but perceive his distress.
+
+"Listen, Nelly," he said huskily. "Don't cry again; but--but perhaps
+it's a good thing for you I am going away for a while. Things are so
+unsettled, and it may help you--get you used, supposing the worst
+happens, to the _idea_. There's so much in custom--in habit."
+
+"Paul!" she cried once, and grew rigid in his arms. It was a death-cry,
+and he flinched. Who has struck at life and not drawn the blade away
+quicker because the first blow went home.
+
+"Nelly, I'm not young."
+
+"I don't care if you were sixty--seventy." Fenella was not crying now,
+but fighting for her love like the brave little girl she was.
+
+"I'm a man without home, or country, or friends."
+
+"I'm not a baby. I'll go with you wherever you like. We'll make them
+for ourselves, together."
+
+"And I'm deadly poor."
+
+"I'll lend you money, Paul. How much do you want? I've seventy pounds
+in the Post-Office."
+
+I think if I had been Ingram and had only one more kiss to give, I
+would have given it her for this; but I am trying to tell the truth;
+and the truth is that these futile interruptions to his hateful task
+harassed and angered him. It is so much easier to confess to sin than
+to failure.
+
+"Nelly! don't interrupt me! Let me say what I have to. I'm telling
+you that at thirty-seven, an age when most men have home and wife and
+children and see their way clear to the end, I haven't taken the first
+step upon a road that is haunted by tragedy and littered with the bones
+of those who have fallen by the way."
+
+"I'll wait for you," said poor Fenella, but no longer with the same
+energy. What a gorgon head has common-sense to turn hearts of flesh to
+stone!
+
+"Yes, you'll wait for me! Spend your youth waiting for me; your middle
+age--waiting. We'll save every cent; spend hours figuring out on just
+how much or how little life for two can be supported. Hundreds of
+people are doing that to-day who, thirty years ago, would have been
+setting out, full of hope and confidence, to make money. That's a
+by-product of industrial development. And, if we're lucky, just about
+the time your own daughters should be telling you their love affairs,
+you'll come to me and we'll crawl away together to some cottage in
+Cornwall, where I'll cultivate vegetables a little, rheumatically, and
+at night you'll sit opposite me by the kitchen fire--we'll call it our
+'ingle-nook'--and listen to an old man babbling of his wrongs between
+spoonfuls of bread and milk, with enlightening criticisms upon the
+fools who succeeded where he was too clever not to fail.
+
+"You'll think it strange, I suppose," he went on, no more interrupted
+now by her sobs than by the sough of the sea; "strange that I should
+wait until now, just when I've heard I'm to have the chance I've
+been whining for, to realize what a phantom I've committed myself to
+following. But it's not as strange as it looks. As long as there's
+some petty practical obstacle in the way, mercifully or unmercifully
+everything else is obscured by it. It's like a hill, hiding the desert
+you'll have to cross when you've climbed to the top. Oh, Nelly! look
+at the moon!"
+
+Little by little, as the man talked and the woman paid in tears and
+heartscald for the reckless passion of her first love, the portent
+they had come out to watch was passing over their heads. At first it
+was but a spot--a little nibble at the silver rim of the great dead,
+shining orb; then a stain, that grew and spread, as though the moon
+were soaking up the blackness of the sky; last it took shape and form
+of the world's circumference, and for once man might watch his earth
+as, maybe, from some happier but still speculative planet his earth
+is watched, and idly conjecture at what precise spot upon that smooth
+segmental shadow any mountain or plain, roaring city or dark tumbling
+ocean that he has mapped and named, might lie. Two thousand years
+ago--a day as men have learned to count time--this man and woman, who
+had come out to watch the moon's eclipse for mere diversion, for an
+effect of light and shade, and who, in the multiplied perplexities of
+their own artificial life had even forgotten to watch it at all, would
+have been lying, prone upon their faces, wailing--praying until the
+ominous shadow had passed, while in the fire before them some victim
+of flock and herd smoked propitiation to the threatening heavens. And
+out of all the straining and striving toward knowledge of those two
+thousand years--out of all the Promethean struggle wherein learning,
+hot to unlearn, can but lop off one visionary beak or claw to find
+itself clutched more cruelly in another, not enough wisdom reached them
+now to comfort one simple, trustful heart, or to teach an intellect
+that had roamed the earth to its own undoing, the primal art of
+all--how to rear a roof and feed a hearth for the loving creature that
+clung at his breast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No! Nelly wouldn't look at the moon. She left his arms and sat apart,
+bolt upright; her lithe body quivering with resolution.
+
+"Paul Ingram," she said incisively, "I've listened patiently to you and
+you'll have to listen to me. You've been prophesying woe and misery,
+and now it's my turn. Shall _I_ tell _you_ what's really
+going to happen?"
+
+Hope is like measles. No one is too young or too foolish to catch it
+from. In spite of himself the man's face brightened.
+
+"Well, what's going to happen?"
+
+"As soon as we get home I'm going to have Mme. de Rudder to tea, just
+our two selves, nice and comfy, and when she's lapped up her cream and
+I've stroked her down a little, I'm going to say, 'Now, Madame! For the
+last two years you've been buttering me up, to my face and behind my
+back, and showing me round, and if you've meant half you said' (and I
+think she does, Paul, though she's such an old pussy), 'there ought to
+be a living for me somewhere.' And then--oh, Paul!--I'll work and I'll
+work and I'll w-o-r-k-work. I'm not sure whether I'll see you"--with
+an adorable look askance--"perhaps once a week, if you're good. And,
+at the end of the year, I'll bring you a nice, newly signed contract
+at--oh! well, _pounds_ a week, 'cos I've got a _head_, which
+you'll never have, poor dear. And then--don't stop me please--we'll get
+married, and have a little flat of our own or turn ma's lodgers out,
+and you'll write your mis-e-ra-ble, _mis-e-ra-ble_ books all day,"
+she took his head in her hands and shook it gently from side to side;
+"and at night you'll call for me and I'll go home with you, sir, in my
+own dear little taxicab, all warm and cosy from dancing--and, dear, you
+shall never have another money trouble or even hear the word mentioned
+as long as you live. Now, what does he think of that?"
+
+She looked closely at her lover's face and suddenly shrank away, with a
+little cry, at what she saw there.
+
+"Think of it?" Paul repeated, his nostrils quivering. "I'll soon
+tell you what I think of it. That if I didn't know your words were a
+mere childish fancy--if I really thought you were going to dance on
+the stage in London or Paris or New York or any city I've been in, I
+believe, Nelly"--he paused a moment--"yes, I believe I could bear to
+take you up in my arms, now, as you are, and carry you down to that sea
+and hold you under until you were dead."
+
+Fenella moaned and covered her face with her hands. Then she jumped up.
+Paul caught at her silken skirt, a momentary cold fear at his heart.
+
+"Nelly, stop! I know I shouldn't have said that."
+
+She disengaged herself with a swift turn. "Let me go!" she cried
+angrily. "I'm not the sort of person that commits suicide. You can
+drown me afterward if you like. I'm going to dance first."
+
+"To dance?" Ingram repeated, thunderstruck. "Out here? Sit down at
+once! Sit down," he pleaded in a changed voice. "Be a good child."
+
+"I'm not a child," she cried rebelliously; "that's the mistake you're
+making. And I won't be forever checked and scolded by you, Paul. I will
+have some comfort. Oh, I knew you'd laugh and storm. I'm only a silly
+little thing that dances and that you pet when she's good"; her eyes
+flamed at him. "But it means as much to me as your books and long words
+do to you."
+
+She stopped, not because she was ashamed, but because her mouth was
+inconveniently full of the pins which she was pulling from a rather
+elaborate "_chevelure_." She shook her head with the usual
+transforming result, kicked off her shoes, and, bending down, began to
+unfasten her long silk stockings under her skirt. Paul turned away his
+head, and perhaps it was as well she did not see the disgust in the
+averted face.
+
+"Sing something," she commanded, throwing the long silk stockings on
+the sand and stretching her bare toes.
+
+"I don't know anything," doggedly.
+
+"Oh yes, you do! Sing the Algerian recruit song."
+
+"It's too sad for you in your present mood of exaltation."
+
+Fenella did not seem to resent the withering tone. She had drawn a
+little away from the fire and was looking upward, her hands clasped
+behind her neck and under her hair.
+
+"Just to get a note," she said, dreamily.
+
+Without quite knowing why, and in the teeth of his own shy distaste,
+Ingram began to sing. He had a fine baritone voice, to be exact where
+exactness is not called for, full of strength and feeling, that was
+none the less tuneful because it had only been trained to the tramp
+of gaitered feet along the blinding white _chaussées_ of French
+Africa. The song rose and fell, haunting and melodious--
+
+    "_Me voilà engagé
+    Pour l'amour d'une blond--e_...."
+
+The fire was between them, throwing all the beach into shadow, and,
+sung thus, squatted upon the sand, and his feet to the dying embers,
+with the old song so many memories crowded upon the man's own brain--so
+many visions peopled the lurid shadows around him--that he had arrived
+nearly at its end before he thought of regarding the swaying, tossing
+figure beyond with any degree of attention. But, when he did, the
+last words died away in his throat. This is not the place to describe
+Fenella Barbour's dancing. Many pens have done it justice. It has been
+described and overdescribed--ignorantly arraigned and disingenuously
+defended. Tyros of the press, anxious to win their spurs, and with a
+store of purple phrases to squander, have attempted, through a maze of
+adjectives and synonyms, to convey or reawaken its charm. She burst on
+the world in a time when such things were already grown a weariness to
+the plain man; yet never, I believe, was any success due more to the
+frank and spontaneous tribute of the people who sit in cheap seats to a
+wonderful thing wonderfully done, and less to the kid-gloved applause
+of stalled and jaded eclecticism in search of new sensation. And the
+key to it all, I believe--though mine is only one opinion among
+many--was to be sought in the mechanical precision with which, through
+all the changes and postures of arms and body above the hips, unstable
+and sensuous as vapor, the feet below the swirling skirts beat--beat
+out the measure of the dance unerringly and incisively as the
+percussion of a drummer's sticks upon the sheepskin. It was this that,
+for the man in the street at least, lifted her art out of trickery
+and imposture and veiled indelicacy into some region where his own
+criticism felt itself at home. "A clog-dancer with sophistications,"
+she has been called; but at least it was upon honest toes and heels
+that Fenella danced into popular favor.
+
+And all this the man by the fire watched with a sinking heart. Not
+altogether unmoved. He could not, being flesh and blood, remember that
+the girl dancing before him had just left his arms, and at the close
+of her transport would fling herself, breathless and glowing, into
+them again, eager for his approval, and spending upon his lips the
+aftermath of her excitement, without many a desire and emotion of his
+youth awaking and clamoring for its deferred due. But his desires had
+grizzled with his beard: he had analyzed the emotions and discarded
+them. Where the passions are concerned intellect is never impartial. It
+must be either oil or water--foster or extinguish. And he had chosen
+once for all the harder way. He was full of shyness, constraint, and
+the panic instinct of flight: shocked yet arrested, like some hermit
+of the Libyan desert watching the phantoms of his old life at Rome or
+Alexandria beckon him from his cave. Not only was the old dispensation
+void. He could imagine no ground upon which it could be renewed. His
+authority had been one of those gentle tyrannies of heart over heart,
+that are valid only so long as they are unquestioned. Having claimed
+her liberty, though it was but for an hour--resumed the possession of
+herself though it was only to dazzle his eyes--Fenella became to him
+from that moment a new woman, to be wooed and won afresh; and, being
+a wistful far more than a lustful man, in the very measure that the
+delayed revelation of her beauty penetrated his senses, he shrank
+further and further from its recapture.
+
+It must have been a strange sight, had any been there to see it. The
+dying fire; the shadowed moon; the man with his head bent above his
+knees; and the barefooted girl, with fluttering skirts and dishevelled
+hair, singing and dancing on the sand before his averted face.
+
+
+
+
+                                  IV
+
+                       TO INTRODUCE PAUL INGRAM
+
+
+Exactly why it should be I who sit down to write of the loves and
+errors of Paul Ingram, his descent into hell and resurrection
+therefrom, is a thing that is not quite clear to me now, but which
+will not become clearer the more I try to justify it. It is certainly
+not because I was at one crisis of his life the instrument to save
+him, since I know how very careless Fate can be in the choice of her
+instruments. I am not his oldest friend, nor should I care to say--his
+dearest. We have done a good deal of work together--shared a good
+deal of opprobrium. I still bear upon my forehead the mark made by
+a stone that was meant for a better man, on the wild night when the
+Home Defence League roughs broke up our meeting at Silvertown. Yet,
+and notwithstanding, I am by no means sure, should the inevitable
+happen in my own lifetime, whether, of all the disciples who pass from
+the oration at the graveside to the whispers over the funeral baked
+meats, mine will be the pen chosen to write the life--mine the fingers
+authorized to untie the letters--of Paul Ingram, novelist, dreamer, and
+reformer.
+
+A good deal of what I have written I was witness to myself; a good
+deal more I learnt from Ingram during what, with so many cleaner and
+pleasanter ways of leaving the world, we all hope will be his last
+illness of the kind; and a not considerable part has been told me by
+his wife, for whom it is notorious that I entertain an affection as
+hopeless as it is happily engrossing. Even so, when all is admitted,
+each part assigned to its proper source of inspiration, I am aware a
+good deal will remain unaccounted for. This I have no alternative but
+to leave to the sagacity of my readers. Even to their discretion--a
+little.
+
+To begin with myself, only that I may get myself the sooner out of the
+way. My earlier years I have regarded from different points of view at
+different periods of my life. It is only comparatively lately that I
+have attained the true point of view and come to see that all the early
+portion should be regarded as a joke. For what legend can ask to be
+taken seriously whose sole remaining evidence is a small white towel,
+of the sort technically known, I believe, as "huckaback," lying folded
+now in a drawer of the desk at which I am writing. Two simple motions
+of the extensor and flexor muscles of one arm, and the proof of former
+greatness might lie beneath my eyes. But I will not make them. I know
+too well what would happen next. My fingers would not rest until the
+smooth bleached folds were shaken loose, nor my eyes until, written in
+indelible ink that successive launderings have only made blacker, the
+following legend appeared before them:
+
+                           "J. B. PRENTICE.
+                         Between-Maid--No. 8."
+
+You see, when a man has fallen, suddenly, from a great height, he is
+not expected to record his impressions as the third, the second, the
+first floor windows flashed successively past his startled eyes. He
+wakes up, if he wakes at all, in a nice, cosy atmosphere of iodoform,
+neatly and securely packed in antiseptic dressing, with a fluffy,
+frilly angel at his side, who has been waiting for those tired, tired
+eyes to open, and who puts her finger to her lips, the moment they do,
+for fear her voice shan't reach the muffled ears, and says--you know
+what she says--
+
+"Lie still! You're not to talk nor to agitate yourself."
+
+So I don't propose to agitate myself, and though I've only just begun
+to talk, it shall be of something better worth while. Farewell, then,
+for the last time, great showy mansion among the Chislehurst hills,
+with your orchard and shrubberies, flower gardens and pergolas, your
+pineries and fineries, your two great cedars, inlaid in the pale enamel
+of the sky, and shaven lawns, across which and toward the pink-striped
+marquee a butler hurries with an armful of white napery and flashing
+silver. And to you, dear little fellow-worker--Polly or Molly or Betsy,
+as the case may be--who once wiped your honest, grimy phiz on No. 8, a
+quite especial grip of the hand, wherever you be to-day. Your reproach
+long since kissed away, I hope; suckling some good fellow's children;
+cooking some good fellow's meals. Life is so hard on the between-maid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I awoke it was in a Pimlico bed-sitting-room, writing literally
+for dear life, and for life that is growing dearer each year. I have
+a fatal facility for descriptive writing, and my speciality is the
+psychology of crowds. As old Winstanley of the _Panoply_ would say
+when assigning me to anything I was to write up from the non-technical
+point of view, Aeroplane Meet, Palace Cup-tie, Royal Progress or what
+not: "Off with you, my boy! Column and a half, and a little more
+'tripe' than last time. Turn 'em all loose, 'the hoarse cheer,' 'the
+lump in the throat,' and the 'mist over the eyes.' Don't be afraid!
+People have time for a little sentiment on Sundays."
+
+I think they have. And I think I'm a witness to the price they are
+prepared to pay for it. Once a year, too, I write a novel whose
+circulation, for some occult reason, always stops short at eighteen
+hundred. Often when I'm reporting a football match, or anything like
+that, I try to count eighteen hundred, roughly, and imagine how my
+people would look all bunched together. A good many readers, but--what
+a gate!
+
+Of all the pranks America has played upon us, I count not the least its
+having sent us an Ingram as a recruit to the cause of reform. The name
+is familiar over there, but it is quoted, I fancy, rather as a peg upon
+which would-be subverters of established anarchy hang their arguments
+than as authority for democratic ideals. Colonel Ingram, of Omaha,
+president of the Mid-West Chilling and Transportation Syndicate, is
+of the family; so is the Hon. Randolph Ingram, the great "Corporation
+Judge" of the Supreme Court. Jared Ingram, of Milburn, author of that
+contribution to Christian Unity, "A Rod for the Back of Dumb Devills,"
+was one ancestor, and Elmer Ingram, the soldier-lawyer who helped to
+bait Arnold to his treason and damnation, was another. These names are
+not the fruit of any research on my part: I cull them from a little
+book which I saw at Ingram's rooms quite early in our acquaintance, and
+which, with a smile at my curiosity, he was good enough to lend me. It
+was one of those boastful little pamphlets "for private circulation,"
+which are multiplying across the Atlantic, as a caste which has secured
+an undue share of material welfare becomes conscious of its origins
+and uneasy amid the obliterations of the democratic spirit. Of those
+we love, however, even the generations are dear to us, and I insist
+on recalling, with vicarious pride, that "Hump. Ingraham and Damaris
+his wyffe," who landed at South Bay from the brig _Steadfast_
+in Worcester year, and rode off, saddle and pillion, through forest
+paths to the clearing where their home was to be raised, were of
+good and gentle English stock, from Ministerley in Derbyshire. Sweet
+little Damaris (one almost loves her for her name) wilted and died
+within the year, but the task of increasing and multiplying, and
+getting hold of the land, was taken up by a sterner and, let us hope,
+stronger, Deborah, eight months later, and thence the seed has spread,
+through a riot of Bestgifts, Resolveds, Susannahs and Hepzibahs, broad
+of breast and hip, strong of limb, stout and undismayed of heart.
+Westward--always westward. Across Ohio and Indiana, striking its roots
+north and south in farm and factory, store and workshop; halting here
+for twenty, there for thirty, years, but always, as a new generation
+grows to manhood, up and away again. Over the plains in crawling
+wagons, too impatient to await the harnessing of the iron horse--the
+riveting of the strangling fetters of steel: through the lawless and
+auriferous canyons of Colorado and Nevada: blown along on the mad wind
+of the 'forties and 'fifties, until, amid the grapes and roses of the
+Pacific slope and upon the pearly Californian beach, a wind, warm and
+wasted and very old from across the great still ocean, whispered them,
+"Thus far!"
+
+Paul was the last Ingram that will ever be born in the old homestead.
+His father he never saw; his sister died as a girl, and his mother,
+struck down by some obscure woman's disease, moved, within his memory,
+only from her bed to her chair, and from her chair to her bed again.
+He says he was a lazy, loafing, dreamy boy, with very little interest
+in anything beyond his meals; but the beautiful words in which he has
+enshrined that early home for us are proof how busily his brain must
+have been employed in those seemingly idle hours, and how keenly the
+spiritual significance of all that he saw came home to him from the
+first. Probably in the mere work of the house there was not enough
+to occupy strong, bony hands, such as his. Successive mortgages had
+nibbled the property away piecemeal, sparing only the house and yard;
+and even for that the last mortgage was running a race with death. He
+went to free school, but seems to have had few companions of his age.
+The village was depopulated; the house-doors opened only on old faces.
+He used sometimes to sit alone through a whole summer afternoon, he has
+told me, swinging on the garden gate and whittling wood. From the fence
+an old beaten track led away, through a marsh where a few ducks quacked
+and waddled still, up the shoulder of a little hill, and away around
+one of those woods of second growth that have sprung up all over the
+old pilgrim clearings--right into the heart of the setting sun. Often,
+he assures me, on looking up quickly from his whittling, he has seen an
+arm and hand beckoning him westward, from the edge of the trees. Set
+aside the stubborn mysticism that could conceive such a vision, and
+can still maintain its actuality--is not the picture a sufficiently
+haunting one? Within, the mother, waiting for death; outside, the lad,
+straining to be gone. And the old wattled kitchen chimney, smoking
+thinly, and the red glory through the sapling wood, and the drowsy
+quack of the ducks!
+
+After Mrs. Ingram's death the mortgage foreclosed upon the farm and
+its contents with the precision and completeness of a highly organized
+machine. It is proof how forced a growth the modern cult of the family
+in America is, that it never seems to have occurred to son or mother
+to appeal to any of the prosperous breed whom the old house had sent
+forth. The land had long been earmarked for the great weighing-scale
+factory that has since galvanized Milburn into strenuous life, and
+made it a sort of industrial model, which commissions and deputations
+from Europe are taken to see, presumably, says Ingram, as a warning
+to what devilish lengths efficiency can be carried. The old homestead
+was torn down to make a site for the boiler-house. Nothing is left of
+it now except one rafter, in the lavishly endowed Museum, with what is
+presumably an Indian arrow-head still embedded in the wood.
+
+I am bound to add that my indignation upon the subject never roused
+Paul to a corresponding heat. To his mind, already set upon first
+causes, no doubt it seemed very natural, a mere incident in the
+exploitation that dubs itself progress. He ate his last meal in the
+despoiled kitchen, warmed his coffee over a few sticks on the hearth
+that had burned away ten forests, and set off, by the path up the
+hill and round the corner of the wood, to wherever the arm might be
+beckoning him.
+
+The lad was only fourteen when he left home, but tall and strong for
+his years. He tramped to Philadelphia, "jumped" the freight by night
+as it pulled out of the clattering, flaring yard, was shunted into
+a siding at Scranton, forgotten, and found there three days later
+starving and all but mad. From Scranton he beat his way to St. Louis;
+washed dishes and set up pins in a skittle alley; tired soon of the
+smoke and blood-warm water of the old French city; fed cattle in the
+stockyards of Kansas, wrestled a drunken brakeman for his life on the
+roof of the rocking, bumping cars halfway down the Missouri canyon, and
+wrestled him so well that the man begged a job for him at the journey's
+end. He was jacking wagons in the Union Pacific workshops at Rawlins
+when the White River expedition came through, and joined the force as
+teamster at a dollar a day. He smelt powder for the first time, lay
+trapped for ten days in the stinking _corral_ at Snake River, when
+the water failed and the relief went wide, and "Bummer Jim" and "Flies
+Above," having thoughtfully strewn the carcasses of three hundred
+slaughtered horses to windward, serenaded the poisoned pale-faces
+nightly with copious obscenity, the burden of which was "come and be
+killed." After the relief and disbandment of the force, he stayed on
+in the Rockies and grew to manhood amid the silent aromatic barrenness
+of its _mesas_ and _arroyos_. Settlers were dribbling into
+the old Indian reservation. He was in turn horse-jingler, range-rider,
+prospector, stage-driver; built fences, freighted logs, dug ditches;
+spotted the banks of Bear Creek and Milk Creek, with his campfires
+and tomato tins, and was happy, until something, indefinable as the
+scent that steals down wind to the hunted stag, told him that the
+civilization from which he had fled was hard upon his heels again. He
+left Colorado the year before the railroad came through, and turned his
+face east again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I know I am telling the story of Ingram's early life very baldly and
+badly. You see, there is so little romance in it; just the instinctive
+repulsion that one so often notices in the history of the world's
+reformers toward the thing they are to do battle with in the end. As
+Paul used to tell it himself, leaning forward over the fire in my
+stuffy little sitting-room, his strong, lean hands clasped round the
+bowl of his pipe and the smoke drifting lazily about his moustache and
+beard, it was only from an occasional gleam of the deep-set eye or
+quiver of the thin nostril, as he talked, that one could gather how
+deeply every lesson of force and fraud had sunk into his soul, to bear
+its fruit later in unalterable resolve. I never saw him really moved
+from his stoicism but once. We had been walking home together from
+dinner through the West End streets and had been unwilling witnesses of
+a sordid detail of their policing. A woman, crying and screaming, was
+being led away, not roughly, I think, but very determinedly, by two men
+in blue. Her hair had come loose, and one great curl hung to her waist.
+Her fur stole had tumbled in the roadway, and some careless Samaritan
+had thrown it over her shoulders, besmearing the velvet coat with mud.
+We were very silent during the rest of the walk, and when we got to my
+rooms Ingram unbosomed himself.
+
+It was when he was working his way back east in the shiftless and
+circuitous fashion that had become habitual to him. He got off the
+train at a small city, the seat of a state university. He wouldn't
+tell me the name, but I imagine it was somewhere in the Southwest. It
+was eight o'clock on a fall morning, the hour at which the stores are
+opening and the saloons being swept out. As he left the depot, his
+grip in his hand, on a hunt for breakfast and work, he became aware
+of some unusual excitement. Men were leaving their houses, collarless
+and in shirt-sleeves--calling to one another and running down the
+street. At the end, where it joined the main business avenue, a crowd
+had gathered--old men, young men, even children, and a few women.
+"And what do you think they were watching? Well, sir, there in God's
+blessed morning light, three women in silk dresses, with satin shoes,
+and bare heads and shoulders, were sweeping the filthy street with
+brooms and shovels and pitching the mud into a zinc handcart. Think
+of it, Prentice! Every one of them somebody's daughter--some mother's
+little girl. They were all good-lookers; but one, who might be my own
+child to-night, had a face like an angel--fallen if you like--with a
+slender neck such as the artist men we've been talking to to-night
+rave about, that's got those cute little blue shadows where it joins
+the shoulders. She was the one that had the spade. A man in the crowd
+told me what it all meant. They were sporting girls from a joint that
+had been pulled three times in the last month. The magistrates had
+got tired, and, instead of fining them, had worked in a state law two
+hundred years old that treats such women as tramps and vagrants and
+sets 'em to scavenging. 'And I guess,' my man adds, 'that's where they
+b'long all right.' He was a patriarchal old billy-goat, Prentice, with
+a nice long Pharisee beard, and, I'll bet, a sin for every hair. While
+he was pitching me his simple lay, my little girl looks up, and, either
+seeing I was a stranger or because mine was the only face there wasn't
+contempt in--or worse--gave a sort of heart-breaking smile; and just as
+I was trying not to see it, a lad behind me, with his hat over his eyes
+and a cigar sticking out of his cheek, calls out:
+
+"'Get on to Mamie, fellows, with the mud-scoop!'
+
+"Well, Prentice," (Paul breathes hard) "I hit him, clean and sweet, on
+the cheekbone, just under his damned leering swine's eye. It was very
+irregular: I suppose I should have given him a chance, but, by God! I
+couldn't wait. I've had to fight all my life, in warm blood and cold
+blood, but I've never hit a man as hard as that before or since. He
+went down like a skittle, and I thought I'd killed him; but the boy
+was full of gall and devil, and knew a lot besides. He fought me five
+minutes good before they carried him into a drug store. And how those
+canting woman-drivers came round! They wanted me to drink, wanted to
+carry my grip--asked me to name the job. But I went and sat in their
+depot, without breakfast and with a face like a boil, for four hours
+until the next train pulled out. I shook their mud off my feet pretty
+smart. I'd have thrown away the shoes if I'd had another pair. But I
+couldn't shake off what I'd seen.
+
+"No, no, Prentice," he went on, stubbornly, as I, with my cockney
+worldly wisdom, tried to argue him out of what I thought an unhealthy
+view of a vexed question; "No, sir: you can split men up into sheep
+and goats, bad cases and hard cases; but women stand or fall together.
+Everything you do to one you do to the rest. On every woman's
+face--good or bad, white or black--I've seen since, down to that woman
+to-night, I've seen the shadow of the same wrong."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was twenty-five years old when the desire of seeing Europe took
+hold on him. He had no money, and, though he was strong and handy,
+there was nothing he could do that any other strong man could not do
+as well. He had his health, however, and staked that. Wages were high
+in one department of the smelter at Leadville, for reasons that forced
+themselves on the bluntest intelligence after a few months. He worked
+there for a year, laying money by and fighting with the nausea that
+grew upon him week by week. At the end of the twelve months, reeling,
+half-blind, and with his teeth loose in their gums, but with more money
+in his pockets than he had ever owned before, he turned his face to
+the healing desert. An old miner turned ranchman found him at sunset
+lying under a rock, his face pressed to the earth, and quivering, like
+a landed trout, in the full grip of the deadly lead-sickness. He laid
+him across his pony, took him to his mud-roofed hovel close by, kept
+him for six months in his own blankets, gave him all the milk of his
+one cow, drove him to the railroad as soon as he was able to travel,
+and--bade him God-speed with a torrent of invective that struck even
+Leadville dumb. Ingram had committed the capital error of offering
+him pay for his hospitality, an error over which I believe he broods
+to-day.
+
+By the time he was fit to work again his savings were gone. He was
+twenty-six, and Europe as far off as ever. This time, having damaged
+his health, he staked his reason, and for two years herded sheep
+on the Wyoming plains. Herding sheep seems at first cry a simple,
+pastoral task, with Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Biblical Associations.
+I must take Paul's word for it, then, that some special danger either
+to body or soul attends it, and that few men retire from it with a
+competence except to go into a madhouse or found a new religion. In
+either case, he says, they will have seen "Hell on the plains." The day
+before Ingram left for the sheep country he bought for a few dollars
+the entire stock of a misguided Englishman who was trying to sell
+second-hand books in Cheyenne City, loaded them into his grub-wagon
+and read them, slowly, one by one, in the exact order or disorder in
+which they were packed, and with a cold fear at his heart as the second
+year drew to a close, that his shepherding would outlast them. It
+seems absurd, but, as far as I can gather, this has been Ingram's sole
+literary education.
+
+Either the wages of loneliness, or, I fancy, something else of which
+he has not told me, must have given Paul his heart's desire, for, two
+years afterward, at the recruiting office in the Rue St. Dominique,
+which has been many a good man's alternative to Seine water or the cold
+muzzle-end, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.
+
+Whatever his reasons for this step (and I never was told them), I think
+the five years that Paul spent under the iron discipline of the Legion
+cured what, with all due allowance made for the strange ways by which
+men find themselves, was becoming an incurable unrest. Among the sad
+middle-aged soldiers who were his comrades, many of whom had come a
+longer and a stranger way than he, to find a hard bed and a bloody
+grave at the end, something, I believe, which he had roamed the world
+a-seeking and which had evaded him till now, was found at last. Out of
+that uneasy human cauldron, into which the deserter casts his broken
+oath, and the _roué_ his disillusionment, and the unloved his
+loneliness, and the branded their shame, and to which, as long as it
+or its like shall endure, from time to time the artist will turn for
+inspiration, the brave man for opportunity, the coward, perhaps, for
+the stimulus which his own quailing heart denies him, and the saint for
+relief of temptation, and the hungry for bread, a vision, I believe,
+did arise for this lonely, unlettered American which the others missed,
+a knowledge was gained that all the schools and universities of the
+world could not have taught him: the vision and the knowledge of the
+human heart.
+
+He was thirty-four years old when he left the Legion--a little gaunt
+and worn. He had given the world twenty years' hard service, and had a
+worsted stripe on one arm for his earnings.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+                             "SAD COMPANY"
+
+
+I first met Ingram by chance at the old _Café à peu près_ in
+Greek Street. The _À peu près_ of those days was far from being
+the institution which, in the capable hands of Philippe, the sulky
+waiter, who took to himself Madame's moustached daughter plus Madame's
+economies, it has since become--an over-lighted, _bruyant_
+restaurant of two stories and a basement, wherein an eighteen-penny
+meal of six exiguous courses, served at inhospitable speed to hurried
+suburban playgoers, is raised to the dignity of a _diner français_
+by various red and yellow compounds which masquerade under the names of
+the old French provinces of the _midi_. Then it was nothing but
+a secluded back room, panelled and painted green, with an oval table
+in the centre, round which the little circle of which I was, if not
+an ornament, at least an accredited unit--free lances of the press,
+war correspondents stranded during lengthening periods of peace and
+ill-will among nations, obscure authors and unbought painters--met
+nightly to dine and to nurse our chilled ambitions, under Madame's
+supplemental smile and in the warmth of a roaring fire which, during
+nine months of the year, was burning under the heavy Jacobean mantel.
+
+Strangers were not exactly resented at the _À peu près_, but by an
+elaborate unconsciousness of their presence, to which the Oxford manner
+of one or two of us was a great assistance, we contrived for a long
+time to keep the circle restricted. Thus it happened that the bronzed
+and bearded man who spoke French so volubly at coming and going, and
+who seemed so little discountenanced by our exclusive attitude--glad,
+indeed, to be let alone--had been an irregular visitor for some weeks
+before we entered upon any conversation. One night the talk had
+turned, as it often did, upon the strong British preference for death
+as a preliminary to appreciation in matters literary or artistic, and
+little Capel, burrowing, as the subject drooped, into the obvious for a
+suitable remark, repeated that well-known legend--Milton's ten pounds
+for "Paradise Lost." The big man at my shoulder laughed.
+
+"Fancy," said he, "any one getting as much as that for a poem to-day."
+
+I turned, before the guard had descended on his eyes, and saw in them
+an expression that I, of all men, should recognize at the first glance:
+the sickness of the literary hope deferred.
+
+We had become sufficiently intimate for me to receive a call from him,
+at my rooms, during an attack of the gout, which is an inheritance from
+Chislehurst, before he mentioned his book. I grieve to-day, remembering
+how often he was on the point of doing so, and waited in vain for
+the word from me that would have made the task less irksome than, I
+am sure, it was at last. By what I know now isn't a coincidence, his
+final appearance in Pimlico with the dreadful brown-paper parcel under
+his arm followed upon a period of three or four months during which
+he had practically disappeared from my consciousness. He looked worn,
+I thought, and had a new trouble in his eyes. He told me his story
+shamefacedly, and stammering like a schoolboy.
+
+He had written a book, a novel, and could not get it published. None
+of the houses to which he had offered it advanced any reason for
+rejection, and in the one or two cases where he had pressed for one,
+seemed to think his insistence a solecism. He understood I not only
+wrote but published. Would it be troubling me unduly.... If I wasn't
+too busy....
+
+Well, it _was_ a great worry. I was busy just then too, after
+my futile fashion; but somehow it didn't seem the thing to have that
+man stammering and blushing before a wretched little ink-slinger
+like myself, and I tendered the vague service that is known as one's
+"best." But I was unaffectedly sorry the thing had happened. It is such
+happenings that, in literary circles, write FINIS to many a
+promising friendship. Ten men will lend you a pound for one that will
+lend you his countenance.
+
+It was six o'clock the next morning when my lamp suddenly flared
+and went out. I stretched myself--realized that the fire was out as
+well, that I was cold and stiff, that dawn was coming up over the
+roofs of the stuccoed terrace opposite, and that the reason I had
+forgotten light and fire and the march of time lay in a disreputable,
+dog-eared typed manuscript that I had begun in weariness, gone on with
+in half-resentful surprise, and finished in a complete oblivion of
+everything save the swift rush of joys and fears, sorrows and mistakes
+to a doom that never befell. I remember a funny swelled feeling, as
+though I had been crying internally.
+
+It is late in the day to attempt a criticism or even an appreciation
+of "Sad Company." Even as it stands to-day, in the close stereotype
+of the popular reprint, it is flawed and marred to my mind with many
+a _naïveté_ and rawness, with here and there one of those lapses
+into the banal that are an evil legacy to American literature from
+the days of Poe and Hawthorne. Imagine what it must have been before,
+fearfully and reverently, for I knew I was handling a masterpiece, I
+helped brush off a little of the clay that still clung to it from the
+pit in which it had been cast.
+
+What I did, then and there, was to sit down, chilled and numbed as
+I was, in the raw morning light, and write to Ingram bidding him,
+on pain of perpetual displeasure, repair to me that evening, to be
+severely rebuked for his presumption in having, without previous
+apprenticeship or servitude, taken his livery and chair with the
+pastmasters and wardens of his craft. This letter I carried downstairs
+through the sleeping house, tremulous with the good consciences of my
+fellow-lodgers, and slipped it in the pillar box at the corner of the
+crescent. I remember I even chuckled as I posted it, to the evident
+surprise of the stolid policeman who had wished me good morning. You
+see, I thought I was making literary history.
+
+I am sorry to say that my enthusiasm didn't communicate itself to
+Paul. Six mute and incurious publishers were sitting too heavily on
+his self-esteem for that. He even took their part, with a perversity I
+have noticed before in the misunderstood of the earth. I have a theory
+that books like his are posthumous children, and that the state of mind
+which created them dies in giving them birth. What enraged him--what
+baffled him, because it was contrary to every lesson his strenuous
+life had taught him--was, that so much effort could be all in vain.
+I imagine he wrote the book with difficulty and without conscious
+exaltation of spirit.
+
+"If I had put as much pains," I remembered his saying, "into any other
+thing I've set my hand to, I should be either a famous man, or a very
+rich one, to-day, Prentice."
+
+And then, returning to the old grievance, that I could see had become a
+prepossession--
+
+"And yet--six men can't be all wrong."
+
+"Of course they can," I exclaimed indignantly, "and sixty."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders wearily. "What can a man do, then?"
+
+"One thing you can do," I answered severely, "is to sit down opposite
+me for a few hours a week and alter some of your modes of expression.
+I've made a list of some: Listen here!
+
+"'_Brightly shone the snow on the roof of the Rio Negro County
+Farmers' Institute._' You mustn't say that."
+
+"Why not?" asked Paul, simply; "it's the name."
+
+"If you don't know why, I can't tell you. You must take it from me that
+such a thing, in England, will almost secure rejection of itself. Then
+again: we don't talk of a man's 'white linen shirt _bosom_.' The
+word is _de mode_ for a woman, but used for a man, it's offensive.
+And to say that Celia '_cached the mail-bags in a wash-out_,'
+conveys no meaning at all to us."
+
+Paul laughed out, and suddenly looked ten years younger.
+
+"Sit down," he said, "and '_fais feu_!' Don't spare me!"
+
+But the revision was a thankless task. Only a determination on my part
+that such a book shouldn't be lost supported me through it at all.
+Paul came to work irregularly, and in a mood that oscillated between a
+careless acceptance of every suggestion I made and a peremptory refusal
+to consider any alteration at all. But it was done at last, and I admit
+I waited hopefully for news from Carroll and Hugus.
+
+After three weeks, in fact, I got a postcard asking me to call.
+Bonnyman was sitting in his sanctum, looking as young and as wise as on
+the day he came down from Balliol, and with his habitual air of finding
+the publishing trade a great lark.
+
+"How's the industrious Prentice?" he cried, as soon as he saw me.
+"What's he been doing with himself these many moons?"
+
+I shook hands and sat down. I profess I have never felt so jumpy when
+work of my own has been in question.
+
+Bonnyman put his finger to his forehead. "What did I want to see you
+about, Prentice?... Oh, yes!" He touched an electric button on his desk.
+
+"Byrne!" said he to the clerk who answered it, "bring me down 'Sad
+Company.' I sent it up to the packing-room the day before yesterday. It
+ought to be ready."
+
+My heart sank into my boots. "Aren't you going to publish it?" I
+faltered.
+
+Bonnyman shook his head.
+
+"No go, my boy! No go at all. You've brought it to the wrong shop."
+
+"It kept me awake a whole night," I flashed out angrily.
+
+Bonnyman smiled and yawned. "Kept me awake too, because I'd slept in
+the afternoon trying to read it."
+
+"Oh! come now, Bonnyman," I protested. "You know better than that. Take
+the one scene alone," I went on eagerly, "where Holt is sitting with
+his dead wife, and the step-daughter comes to the door and he won't
+open because----"
+
+But Bonnyman went on shaking his head with the impenetrable
+self-confidence any man acquires in time who exercises an habitual
+right of veto.
+
+"Hugo and water!" he said. "Who can't write it? No, Prentice. To tell
+you the honest truth we're cutting out a lot of this problem stuff
+lately. What we're specializing in at present is the 'light touch.' The
+'light touch,'" he repeated, illustrating what the world is hungering
+for, delicately, with an ivory paper cutter on his blotting-pad.
+
+"'Polly Prattlings!'" I sneered.
+
+"And d--d good stuff, too. Bring me some one like that, Prentice, and
+we'll talk.--Don't get angry, old man! Who is your little friend?
+American, ain't he?"
+
+I nodded gloomily.
+
+"Why don't he get a Rhodes scholarship and learn how to write English?"
+
+"He's thirty-five," I said; "he's been all round the world and done
+everything."
+
+Bonnyman pulled a long face that sufficiently disposed of Ingram's
+future. The brown-paper parcel was brought in and I slunk away with it
+under my arm, like a man repulsed from a pawnshop.
+
+I didn't see Ingram for a long time, and was secretly glad of it. For I
+had no good news to give him. Other publishers were equally emphatic,
+with unimportant variations of delay and discourtesy. I don't say
+I lost faith in the book, but I did begin to doubt whether, in the
+present state of things, great work was worth while. It was too much
+like giving grand opera on a raft in mid-Atlantic.
+
+At last, when I'd practically exhausted the firms I knew, and was
+beginning to wonder whether we wouldn't have to come down to a
+publication "by special arrangement," or a setting up in linotype by
+one of the smaller provincial weeklies, an idea flashed into my head.
+I knew one great writer, a woman, American, too; fashionable, rich,
+but with a passionate reverence for all that was worthiest in letters.
+She had succeeded by means of a brilliance and impetuosity of style
+that had literally stormed the defences of dullness. In her books I
+had noticed an underlying mysticism that I thought might find Paul's
+work akin. It was a ticklish undertaking, and I hadn't done screwing up
+my courage to it when Ingram suddenly reappeared. His long arm pushed
+open the paper curtained door of the sanctum where we dined, one raw
+night in June. By his side was absolutely the most beautiful girl I had
+ever seen. She wore a long purple coat, cut very smartly, and a big
+ribboned hat, and was swaying a little from side to side as though the
+lapsed rhythm of some tune she had just heard was still in her feet.
+She glanced round shyly but brightly and bowed with a pretty blush to
+Caulfield. We all gaped, and old Smeaton's pipe suddenly smelt very
+foul.
+
+"Don't move!" said Ingram, as I made room for them at my side. "I
+haven't come for dinner. Just to ask if you've had any news, before I
+go away."
+
+"No news at present," I confessed. "But I hope to have some soon."
+
+He smiled a little grimly, and felt in his long rubber coat for a
+pocketbook.
+
+"If anything turns up in the next month or so, write me here," he said,
+and handed me a card with an address scrawled across its face. "I'm
+going to France for a few weeks. Come, Nelly!" and was gone with his
+companion as abruptly as he had come.
+
+"'Beauty like hers is genius,'" Capel quoted, breaking the silence with
+an air of saying something apposite, for once.
+
+"Who's the pretty lady, Caulfield?" asked old Smeaton. "She bowed to
+you."
+
+"She's a little person I've met at dances, and things," said Caulfield.
+"Goes round with the De Rudder woman. Does _gavottes_ and
+_pavanes_ and _corantos_ and all that sort of thing. Pretty
+name, too,--'Fenella Barbour.'"
+
+
+
+
+                                  VI
+
+                       A CHILD SPEAKS THE TRUTH
+
+
+Fenella Barbour is the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of
+England, who remained unbeneficed to the end of his life. Younger son
+of a noble family, Scotch in origin but long settled in the Midlands,
+handsome, intellectual, and much yearned upon, the Honorable Nigel
+let opportunities for advantageous matrimony pass him one by one, to
+marry, comparatively late in his life and outside of his own class, a
+young parishioner with whose name the gossip of a small Cornish country
+town had spitefully and quite unjustifiably coupled his. To the day of
+her death Minnie Trevail never quite got over the surprise with which
+she received her pastor's offer of an honorable share in board and
+bed, and, whether it was gratitude or an uneasy sense that principles
+which do not often make for a man's happiness had played her hand for
+her, the fact remains, that to the end of his brief married life the
+Reverend Nigel Barbour continued to be a sort of married bachelor, free
+to come or go unquestioned, with a fine gift for silence and without
+obvious enthusiasms, unless it were for the girl baby who would sit for
+hours by his study fire, as he wrote his sermons, scolding her doll in
+whispers, and to whose round cheek and fine dark curls his eyes strayed
+oftener and oftener during the last year of his life.
+
+Similarly circumstanced, other women by study, by observation, by an
+endless self-correction, have lifted themselves in time to something
+like a mental level with the men who have perversely chosen them. Not
+necessarily from a sense of her own limitations, Mrs. Barbour never
+tried. It is possible that she never, deliberately measuring the
+sacrifice which the man had made for her good name, determined the
+first sacrifice should be the last, but at least the unformed idea
+governed all her conduct. She kept the ideals, the accents--inside the
+house even the dress--of her class. For the spiritual companionship
+which she could never give she substituted the silent and tireless
+service of Martha. When her baby was born, she would have had the pain
+and peril tenfold; pain and peril so dimly comprehended by the man who
+smoothed her moist hair with an awkward hand, blinked his scholarly
+eyes at this crude and rather unseemly mystery, and, once assured the
+danger was past, went back to his weaving of words with a relief that
+even his kindness failed to conceal.
+
+Nigel Barbour was one of the killed in the terrible Clee Level
+accident. He was returning from a New Year family gathering, the first
+he had attended since his marriage, and it is typical of their married
+relations that his wife never even "wondered" why she wasn't asked
+too. If reconciliation which should include her was on its way, his
+death disposed of the idea. Denied recognition during his lifetime his
+widow refrained, with what all her friends considered great lack of
+spirit, from attempting to win it after his death. He was uninsured,
+and, of the slender inheritance that devolved upon her, a great part
+consisted of house property at the "unfashionable" but expensive side
+of the Park. One of the houses, a great stuccoed mansion in a secluded
+square, happening to be empty at the time of her tragic bereavement,
+she assumed the tenancy, furnished it, and, reserving for herself only
+the basement and top floor, advertised discreetly but judiciously for
+lodgers.
+
+Although the business is one that seldom shows a profit, and although
+in order to furnish the one house adequately she had been compelled
+to mortgage the freehold of the other, yet, if happiness be revenue,
+it is hard to see how she could have made a better investment. For
+the first time in her life she tasted liberty. She had her great
+house, her establishment, the direction of her three maids, and
+the intense respect of family butchers, family bakers, and family
+candlestick-makers in staid contiguous streets. On spring or autumn
+afternoons the champing and clashing of bits and hoofs outside her
+door, the murmurs of joyous life that floated along the hall and up
+the wide stairs, sounded no less sweetly in her ears because it was
+Miss Rigby or Lady Anne Caslon and not the Honorable Mrs. Barbour who
+was at home to all the fine company. The "Honorable Mrs. Barbour!"
+Often, in passing through the big bedrooms of the second floor, with
+clean pillowcases or window blinds over her arm, she would stop and
+look at her homely reflection in the long cheval glasses, with a little
+inward smile at the incongruity. And yet in her heart, so sensitive
+to the duties, so blind to the rights, of her equivocal position, the
+obligations which the barren title involved were tacitly acknowledged.
+If it conferred no privileges, it at least restrained her judgment upon
+the caste, a corner of whose ermine rested, however grudgingly, upon
+her own shoulder. She grew indisposed to gossip. Such of her relatives
+and friends as called upon her while upon "day-trips" to London
+found themselves cut short in their pursuit of one special branch of
+knowledge. They went home to Cornwall declaring that Minnie had grown
+"stuck-up."
+
+But the rights which she abdicated so whole-heartedly for herself she
+claimed with an added fierceness for Fenella. The child was a miracle
+from the first. Even while it lay, a few pounds of pink flesh, in a
+corner of one arm and drained her breast, she was worshipping it,
+humbly and afar off. It is difficult to find words that adequately
+convey her state of mind toward her daughter without entrenching on
+a parallel that is sacred and therefore forbidden; but this much is
+certain: had the legal quibble which can prove a child to be no blood
+relation to its mother been propounded to Mrs. Barbour, it would have
+found in her a tearful and reluctant but convinced witness to its
+truth. For two successive nights before her baby's birth the same dream
+had visited her. The great house of her brother-in-law, which she had
+never seen, which her husband had never even thought of describing for
+her, had appeared to her, wrapped in flame. Pushing her way through
+the crowd that surrounded it and was watching it burn, after the
+inconsequent manner of dream people, with quiet satisfaction, she had
+run up tottering staircases and along choking passages, had reached a
+splendid room of state upon whose canopied bed a little naked infant
+lay, and, clasping it to her breast, had carried it out, smiling and
+unharmed. Fenella was no more truly her child than she was the child of
+the dream.
+
+The little girl was four and still wore a black hair ribbon and a black
+sash over her pinafore, when one afternoon in October a big shallow
+barouche drove up to the door of No. 11 Suffolk Square. The springs
+were very high, the harness was very brightly plated, the chestnut
+horses, their heads held in by a torturing bearing rein, very shiny
+and soapy. A faded, artificial woman, with a tall osprey in her black
+bonnet, lolled back against the buff cloth cushions and regarded the
+world through a tortoise-shell lorgnette. A girl, quite young, with
+fair hair cut in a straight fringe across her forehead, sat up demurely
+at her side.
+
+Fenella was taking tea in great state and composure on the window-seat
+of her nursery under the slates when the carriage drove up. A mug,
+on which Puss-in-Boots brushed back his bristling whiskers with
+one spirited paw, stood at her elbow, filled with a faintly tinted
+decoction of warm milk and sugar. A bun, delicately nibbled all
+round its lustrous circumference, was in her right hand, and a large
+over-dressed doll, with a vacant blue-eyed face, rested insecurely in
+the hollow of her left arm. From this household treasure her attention
+was just beginning to stray. James, the coachman, had pulled across
+the roadway, and was driving his fretful over-heated charges up and
+down along the railings of the Square. Fenella pressed her forehead
+against the cold window-pane.
+
+"Gee-gees; gee-gees!" she soliloquized.
+
+To her enter, without cue or warning, Druce the parlor-maid--also a
+little the nursemaid--in great excitement, and breathless after a
+non-stop run from the bottom of the house. The bun was snatched from
+the chubby fingers, Marianne saved, timely, from a headlong course to
+the floor, the Marquis of Carabas pushed unconstitutionally on one
+side, and the napkin whisked off, all in four brisk movements.
+
+"Company for my little lady!" the excited girl exclaimed. "She is to
+have her pretty hair curled, and her best frock put on, and to go
+downstairs to see mamma's fine friends."
+
+Nelly took the outrage with the docility that was one of her charms.
+
+"Gee-gees, Drucie," she said, pointing over her shoulder as she was
+borne away. "Gee-gees in the Thquare."
+
+The warm-hearted maid gave her a tight and quite unauthorized hug.
+
+"Gee-gees, indeed! Well, they may _trot! trot! trot!_ until their
+feet drop off, before they find anything finer than we're going to show
+them."
+
+The carriage folk were in the front part of the big tastelessly
+furnished drawing-room, which ran the whole depth of the house,
+and which happened to be unlet at the time. A fire, just lit, was
+crackling and smoking sullenly. The elder lady sat, with a transient
+air, as much on the edge of a little gilt chair as is compatible
+with a seat at all. I am not quite certain whether vinegar can be
+frozen at certain temperatures or not. If so, her smile recalled the
+experiment. The young girl sat back in a velvet rocking chair, her
+slender black-stockinged legs reaching the ground from time to time as
+it oscillated. She had a little pale round face; her lank, whitey-gold
+hair was cut as straight at her waist as it was at her forehead.
+She had taken off her gloves, and the bony over-manicured fingers
+were interlocked in her lap with a sort of feeble repression. Near a
+table, covered with tea-things, but from which no hospitality had been
+dispensed, Mrs. Barbour was sitting, no less upright than her visitor.
+She was flushed and there was the fullness of suppressed tears round
+her eyelids, but there was as little sign of defeat in her face and
+attitude as in the other woman's unpleasant smile. The fine lady raised
+her lorgnette as the child was carried in. She turned languidly to her
+daughter.
+
+"Your poor uncle's face. Oh, the very image!" she exclaimed, with an
+emphasis that extinguished any lingering idea poor Mrs. Barbour may
+have kept of a share in the matter.
+
+Set upon the ground, the child beauty gravitated instantly to mother's
+skirts, and from this coign of vantage surveyed her visitors. Mrs.
+Barbour put the curls back from her forehead and stooped to her ear.
+
+"Nelly," said she, "this is your aunt, Lady Lulford, your Aunty
+Hortense, come to see poor father's little girl. Won't you go and give
+her a kiss?"
+
+The grasp tightened upon her skirt.
+
+"Oh, shame!" the mother murmured, with a reproach in her voice that the
+glistening eyes belied. "Is this my kind little Nelly? Come over, then,
+with mother."
+
+With a sidelong glance at the tea-table, Fenella was led, obliquely,
+across the thick new pile carpet, and received a kiss upon her forehead
+that was not much warmer than the window against which it had just been
+pressed.
+
+"And now your cousin. Cousin----"
+
+"Leslie," said Lady Lulford, covering a slight yawn with her golden
+card-case, and glancing out of the window toward her horses.
+
+The girl's face seemed to yearn and melt as the reluctant little feet
+were guided to her. She pursed her pale lips and held out her thin
+arms. Fenella was to remember it years afterwards with a spasm of pity
+and indignation. But she was only a baby now, and struggled in the weak
+embrace. Once back at her mother's side, a violent reaction of shyness
+set in, and she buried her face in the maternal lap.
+
+"Impressionable, too; like poor Nigel," the peeress remarked to her
+daughter in the same icy voice.
+
+"Come," the mother coaxed, "hasn't Nelly a word to say? Her
+aunty"--Lady Lulford winched--"her aunty and cousin will think they've
+got a little dumb girl for a niece."
+
+Fenella raised her face. "I weally----" she began, and, not finding
+encouragement to proceed, down went the black head again.
+
+Mother lifts it gently.
+
+"----was----" Nelly's finger went to her mouth. Her glance wavered,
+wandered tortuously along the floor, and finally and suddenly focussed
+the tea equipage.
+
+"----in the middle of my tea." Louder and with sudden confidence as the
+full nature of the outrage was realized, "Weally was in the middle of
+my tea."
+
+Lady Lulford smiled abstractedly. Leslie's lips moved. The mother drew
+her little girl closer.
+
+"You shall have your tea presently, dear," she said, "but I want you to
+listen to me first. Now, tell me," she seemed to steady her voice, "how
+would you like to go into the country with your aunt and Cousin Leslie?"
+
+Nelly's eyes grew big and round. "And mother?" added she, joining the
+palms of her hands, baby-wise, with stiff outspread fingers.
+
+"No, dear. Mother must stay in London, because she has so much to do."
+
+There was an agitation of the black curls, and from under them a most
+decided negative evolved itself.
+
+"Oh, but my precious," the mother pleaded, as that other mother may
+have pleaded before the judgment seat of the great wise king; "just
+for a while; to see the green trees, and the moo-cows, and the bunnies,
+and, and----"
+
+"The deer," said Lady Lulford, raising the conversation to a higher
+and, shall we say, ancestral level.
+
+"Great--big--stags, baby," the cousin broke in, with her eager,
+unsteady voice, "great big stags with horns like this," and she made a
+pair with fingers that were almost as fleshless.
+
+Fenella refused to weigh the catalogue of attractions a moment. The
+head shook faster and faster till the dark curls whipped first one
+cheek and then another.
+
+"Not for a little while? Not for a few weeks?" Mrs. Barbour urged,
+almost roughly.
+
+At this persistence in a quarter where it was so little to be looked
+for, two fat tears distilled themselves in Fenella's eyes and rolled
+down her cheeks. She opened her mouth, and I regret to say her face
+lost, temporarily, its attractive power. Mrs. Barbour snatched her up
+and sprang to her feet.
+
+"She sha'n't be teased," she cried passionately, clasping the child to
+her breast. Then, turning quickly first to Lady Lulford and afterward
+to her daughter, "Don't you see she's too young now? She's only a baby,
+really. Perhaps later----"
+
+The Viscountess turned upon her own offspring the cold ceremonial eye
+that on company nights lifted the ladies at Freres Lulford to their
+feet and up into the drawing-room.
+
+"We must really go now, Leslie," she said, with a little explanatory
+wave of the card-case. "So many calls, you know. Well, Mrs. Barbour,"
+turning to her hostess with an evident effort, "I suppose we mustn't
+expect you to decide such a matter in a hurry. For the present I think
+I may say our offer, Myles's and mine, stands open. I still think it is
+what poor Nigel would most have wished. And even if you should decide
+not to accept it now, remember, if at any time--at any time----" and in
+this golden air of good intentions Lady Lulford's visit ended.
+
+"That is an ordeal well over, Leslie," she said, a few moments later,
+leaning back and closing her eyes slightly, as the carriage door
+slammed and the tall footman with a crook from the waist still in his
+long straight back, swung himself to his perch.
+
+"Mother," said Leslie, nervously, pulling at her gloves, "we could
+hardly--could hardly----"
+
+"Could hardly _what_, my dear? You are so disjointed at times."
+
+"----expect her to give up _such a pet_," the girl said
+impulsively, with a gush of feeling that seemed to leave her colder and
+weaker than ever.
+
+Her mother lifted the frozen gloved hand that seemed to blight like
+frost, and gave a little tinkling laugh.
+
+"My dear, when you are my age you will not rate so highly what is
+a mere animal passion. _True_ love would consider the child's
+material interests first. I still hope," with a little hostile back
+glance as the barouche rolled out of Suffolk Square, "that Nigel's
+daughter may not have to grow up in the basement of a lodging-house."
+
+"The _basement_? Mother!"
+
+"My dear, foolish girl, you surely don't think the room we were in
+to-day (atrocious taste!) is used by them. No, my dear! They live at
+the bottom of the area, eat and gossip with the servants; sometimes, I
+have no doubt, the policeman drops in to tea. The _Honorable_ Mrs.
+Barbour!" And Lady Lulford gave her unpleasant laugh again.
+
+"Mamma!" cried Leslie, really shocked now, "you don't suppose she uses
+_that_?"
+
+"Why not, my dear? She's either very foolish or has more delicacy
+than I give her credit for if she doesn't. Why, she could have her
+house full of rich vulgar Americans all the year round. Are we at Lady
+Dunsmuir's already? Thank heavens, Leslie, we're not calling on the
+servants' hall this time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, at the house they had left, an aggrieved small person sat
+on a cushion and comforted the ache at her heart very much after the
+fashion of older and presumably wiser people, with mother's rejected
+dainties. Stretched on a wolf-skin rug, in an attitude that had been
+a common one with her in days when, the Cornish sun dappling her back
+and making illuminating splashes on the novelettes that were her mental
+food, she had dreamed away whole summer afternoons thus in her father's
+orchard, the farmer's daughter watched the busy, sticky mouth at work,
+her face wholly given up to the animal affection that Lady Lulford was
+at that very moment reprehending.
+
+"Why didn't you want to kiss your Aunty Hortense?" she asked presently.
+
+No answer, but much sucking, as the sugary bottom of the cup was
+reached. The mother loosened the little fingers and put it aside.
+
+"Come, Nelly," she urged; "answer mother!" Who has not coveted a
+child's thought at times?
+
+This one seemed to consider.
+
+"_Be-tos_," she said at last, cryptically, like some little
+Chinese oracle.
+
+"_Be-tos_, of what? That's not any answer. And, oh, law! child,
+how backward you do speak for a great girl of four!"
+
+Hard pressed, Nelly struggled to her feet. She clenched her little
+hands, puckered her forehead. The mother held her breath as she waited.
+
+"Be-tos----Oh! be-tos she didn't _smell_ nice!"
+
+And, as the woman rolled back, shaking unrestrainedly with laughter.
+
+"----like you do, mummy; like you do, mummy," the child cried, flinging
+her arms round her mother's neck and burying her flushed face in the
+soft shoulder.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                           MOSTLY LADY ANNE
+
+
+So the baby hands threw their dice, and as the dice fell the game was
+played out. Life unfolded itself amid the fog or rain or thwarted
+sunlight of the staid Tyburnian square, which should have had for
+tutelary deity some sleepy god, yawning and stretching himself in the
+centre of its smoky grass plot. Before the opening consciousness, like
+figures in an enchanted frieze, such phenomena passed as are likely
+to haunt area railings: The muffin man, tinkling his bell down murky
+streets and terraces at the uplifting hour of tea-time; the policeman
+with his bull's-eye lantern, waking the rails to a good-night dance
+along blank stuccoed walls and shuttered windows; broad hipped Welsh
+milkwomen in plaid shawls, with shining pails clanking from their
+wooden yokes; the old blind Dalmatian dog that panted at the corner of
+the mews and drummed the hot pavement with his tail. Once a year for
+one blissful month the town baby became a sand baby, building castles,
+scooping moats with her wooden spade for the tide to crumble (oh,
+Nelly! there's a tide that knows all our castles are sand); racing with
+bare-legged chance companions along the purring lips of the treacherous
+sea. Child of suppressed love and of absolute surrender, she grew up
+straight, strong and ardent; fair of face, light of foot, and with
+a pitiful, generous heart that could not wait its time to love, but
+before the dimpled hands could reach or turn the stiff handle of the
+hall door, had made to itself friends of the world's wretchedness.
+The old Garibaldian accordion player, with the twisted leg, learned
+to look for the little _signorina_, beautiful as the sun of
+Naples, which he dreamed of at night in his cellar at Saffron Hill;
+the ancient mariner with snow-white hair and beard (a terrible case!
+says the Charity Organization Society) kept a bow of quite especial
+condescension for Missie's penny at Number Eleven; while it was fine
+to see with what a sweep of his great red hand to his battered hat old
+Paddy Crimmin, the drunken Delhi hero, would straighten his racked body
+of a cold Sunday morning as the little creature, her dark face aglow
+with newly discovered color against the white road and snow-burdened
+trees, stopped at his crossing to grope with mittened fingers for the
+penny, nestling in her pocket next a sixpence which I am sure she
+begrudged the cold impersonal offertory plate later on.
+
+She possessed her mother's life as a single flame possesses a dark
+room, creating its light, its color, and its motion. The slave does not
+always make the tyrant, and to the homely woman who tended her, kissed
+her limbs fragrant from the bath, twisted her curls round fingers that
+thrilled with love and worship--who coaxed her from forbidden ways
+with toys and sweets, and whose voice was never once pitched in even
+the gentlest accent of authority, Fenella gave her heart in return.
+All the fairies, it seemed, were at her christening, even to the fairy
+Gratitude, who, I hear, is not often asked out nowadays.
+
+For her child's sake, and spurred on by love, Mrs. Barbour toiled and
+schemed incessantly. Far less mercenary of soul than the aristocratic
+patrons who haggled over extras, inspected cold joints with a
+questioning eye and wanted their rooms "kept over" while they disported
+themselves at Homburg or Cannes--naturally credulous in fact, and
+inclined to believe the best of every one, the woman effected an actual
+change in her nature and under all her suave manner became distrustful,
+peremptory, and mercenary. The terms she wrung from the butcher, baker,
+and grocer before mentioned, with the bait of prompt payment in one
+hand and the threat of the big stores at Brompton and Bayswater in
+the other, were, perhaps, as unprecedented as those easy-going family
+purveyors one and all declared them to be. In bed at night while she
+should have been sleeping, in church on Sunday when she should have
+been harkening the sermon, her brain was busy with an endless double
+entry sum of receipts and outgoings, the profit of which she wrote
+off, variously, but always under the one heading, something after
+this fashion: "Fenella Account. To an amber satin eiderdown quilt,
+same as I saw at Hampton's on Friday; to plum-colored silk stockings
+such as the lady at the end of No. 6 just now is making no attempt
+to conceal; item, to a black fox stole and toque--the silver pointed
+ones are cheaper, but they say the hairs come out; item, to a silver
+manicure set like Miss Rigby's." And the poor woman, absorbed in her
+fond calculations, would scribble an imaginary total with one wrinkled,
+black-gloved finger across the gilt cross of her Book of Common
+Prayer, to the scandal of her left-hand pew-neighbor, and the no small
+mystification of Fenella on her right, wondering what mummy was "up to
+now."
+
+She kept the girl from school until she was twelve years old, making
+shift with whatever deposit of a church school education stayed in her
+own head, eked out with the ministrations of various depressing and
+untrained governesses, and last but not least with lessons from Lady
+Anne Caslon, whose only fault was that they were necessarily irregular.
+Lady Anne was the first of two permanent lodgers who, about Fenella's
+sixth year, made their home at Number Eleven, and, for a number of
+years, almost lifted Mrs. Barbour's precarious venture to the dignified
+level of a settled income. The rooms had only just been given up, by
+"parties" with whom money seemed to be no object, amid indignant tears
+on the one side and a glow of respectable resolve on the other; but
+Mrs. Barbour had not yet signified the vacancy through the columns of
+the _Morning Post_, while we need hardly add that no window-card
+ever shocked the susceptibilities of Suffolk Square. I suspect myself
+that the Lulford connection were anxious to confine the collateral
+skeleton within limits that could be controlled by them, and kept a
+furtively watchful eye on the room-letting branch of the family.
+
+Lady Anne appeared on a blustering March morning: a short, middle-aged
+woman, none the less active because she limped from an old hunting
+accident, with a long, white, bony face--the face of some great mystic
+abbess of old days--a distinct prognathous of the lower jaw, and a
+high, narrow forehead, from which her colorless fair hair was tightly
+drawn and twisted into an absurd little knob at the nape of the neck.
+On every feature, movement, and accent was stamped the indefinable
+_cachet_ of the governing caste. She was wearing a frieze coat
+and skirt, a man's collar and tie, and a green Alpine hat, carried an
+ash stick, and was pulling against, rather than leading, a hideous
+and powerful white bull-terrier, bristlingly intent upon the feline
+possibilities of successive areas.
+
+She stumped through the vacant floors on her low-heeled shoes, rapped
+the wainscot as though she rather suspected secret passages, gave a
+derogatory poke of her ashplant to the feather mattresses, turned on
+both taps in the bathroom, and concluded her tour with a sudden descent
+upon the kitchen, where three maids, busy upon a noontide lunch, rose
+and curtsied awkwardly.
+
+"I'll take 'em," she said abruptly, turning suddenly in the hall upon
+the aggrieved proprietress. "The rooms will have to be repapered of
+course--and a hard mattress, and I have my own pictures; oh! and you'll
+turn those tufty, musty armchair things with ball fringes into some
+other room, won't you?--like a good soul. Any children? I thought I
+heard----Down, Rock! _Down_, sir!"
+
+The bull-terrier, tied to the hall-stand, had lain, whining unhappily,
+sweating, and wrinkling his pink muzzle, while his mistress roamed
+up and down stairs. Now he was standing, tense and rigid, growling
+ominously, at a tiny hand that pushed a biscuit hospitably against his
+clenched, bared teeth. Lady Anne struck the threatening head aside and
+lifted the child in her strong arms.
+
+"So this is your little girl? This is Fenella?"
+
+"Yes, m' lady," said Mrs. Barbour, hasty and apologetic in manner for
+all her secret resentment. "But she's a good, quiet little thing, and
+I'll see she gives no trouble."
+
+Lady Anne did not answer. She had pushed back those rebellious curls
+and was brooding the flower-like face.
+
+"Dear heart!" was all she said aloud, and the rest was murmured under
+her breath.
+
+She set the child on the floor and held out the little nerveless hand,
+still clenched on the biscuit, toward the bull-terrier.
+
+"You must be careful with strange dogs, baby, particularly this breed.
+They aren't like any other sort of dog. Take it, Rock!"
+
+Rock crunched the biscuit wastefully between his powerful jaws.
+
+"No crumbs, sir!"
+
+He sniffed up about a third of the biscuit, which he had let fall on
+the tiled floor.
+
+"Say 'Thank you.'"
+
+The animal gave the small fist that was tendered him three enormous
+licks, and glanced at his mistress out of his savage pink eyes.
+
+"That's right! Mustn't ever bite this one, Rock! She isn't a cat, and
+never going to be one either, I know."
+
+"I hope the child will be no obstacle, m' lady," put in Mrs. Barbour,
+stiffly.
+
+"Obstacle!" Lady Anne repeated. "God bless me, no. Why should she be?
+You must have your baby, I suppose, same as I have my dog. What's her
+name?"
+
+"Fenella, m' lady."
+
+"Very well. You be good to Rock--I'll be good to Fenella. I'll send a
+postcard when I've arranged things," she said. "Come on, Rock!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Why was the lady c'yin', mummy?" asked Fenella, whose accent still
+left much to be desired.
+
+Mrs. Barbour could not enlighten her. She was wondering herself why the
+woman had first called her child Fenella and then asked her name. A
+conversation in the corner of the dining-room at the Palmyra Club half
+an hour later might have carried her mystification a little further.
+
+"I don't think I'll do a _matinée_ with you this afternoon,
+Brenda," Lady Anne was saying to her dearest friend. "Seeing Nigel's
+baby has rather upset me. I think I'll go to my room and howl for a
+bit."
+
+"What's _she_ like, Nanno?" asked the dearest, narrowing her eyes
+through the smoke of her cigarette.
+
+"Nice, comfy, child-bearing sort of person. She has no airs. That was a
+lie of the Lulford woman."
+
+"I believe," said Brenda Newcombe slowly, as if the opinion were the
+fruit of some thought and a little disillusion, "that's the sort most
+men like Nigel like in their hearts."
+
+"Men like Nigel----!"
+
+"Philosophers--I mean. Over-educated, ultra-refined. They divorce their
+intellect and their instincts so thoroughly that the result is----"
+
+Lady Anne raised her shapely white hand deprecatingly.
+
+"I know what you're going to say quite well, Brenda. You needn't finish
+it."
+
+"To give one instance," went on the irrepressible Brenda; "did you
+never hear that Don Hinchey's wife has to wear print dresses and, oh!
+everything very plain when they're alone in Northumberland."
+
+"Pshaw! Brenda; _quel conte!_"
+
+"Nanno, it's gospel. She told Lady Carphilly, and Lady Carphilly told
+me. She wore them once to a fancy dress, and looked so well that now
+when Donny's bored he makes her put them on. She hates it, but he says
+it's the only way she can keep his love."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady Anne moved in as soon as the alterations that her austere soul
+demanded had been made; the walls hung with a paper that Mrs. Barbour
+compared scornfully but exactly to a dry mustard plaster, and various
+ebullient studies of still life removed to make way for old-wood
+engraved portraits and Alken sporting prints. She began the morning,
+violently, with a cold bath at seven; breakfasted--continentally--on
+dry bread and coffee at eight, and wrote nearly all the morning at
+a roll-topped Sheraton desk, whose drawers slid in and out on brass
+rails as smoothly as the oiled pistons of a machine. It was at this
+desk that Fenella stammered through her letters. Seated upon the
+highest chair the room afforded, made higher still by an Italian gilt
+leather cushion, the little girl spelled out the adventures of Tom
+and Dick, Nat and Ned, and other monosyllabic heroes of childhood.
+Nelly's attention wandered very easily. Her voice would die away to
+a murmur--her head fall lower and lower until the dark curls quite
+covered the heavy type and wood cuts, along which a very neatly pointed
+cedar pencil, held in a firm white hand, moved with such exasperating
+deliberation. Then she would begin to suck her thumb, and, finding
+no encouragement to relaxation of effort in the lowered lids and
+compressed mouth above her shoulder, would let her eyes wander round
+the room. Under the high white mantelpiece the fire burned cheerily,
+with little bubbles of gas and spurts of flame: above it, a silver
+clock set in a horseshoe ticked so quickly that the slow passage of the
+hands across its face was one mystery the more for the child brain to
+puzzle out. The room smelt like a man's, of morocco leather and boot
+cream, and the vague but piercing scent of naked steel in between.
+Under a curtain to the right of the fireplace, which did not quite
+reach the stained floor, Lady Anne's long boots, on high wooden trees,
+stood, an orderly row of eight polished toes, like booted eavesdroppers
+behind an arras. Over the "Melton Hunt Breakfast," between crossed
+hunting crops, a fox's mask still wore the grin with which it was
+twitching one December afternoon years and years ago when the mangled
+pelt smoked upon the raw Leinster air and little, ugly, hard-riding
+Lady Anne, in long bottle-green habit and flaxen pig-tail, was held up
+amid the yelping red muzzled pack and blooded to the hunt; while--most
+interesting and distracting of all--close to the fire, with his nose
+between his paws, deliciously unemployed, lay Roquelaure, blinking
+friendly eyes which seemed to say, in the secret language that children
+and animals share for a few short years--
+
+"Oh! I say, baby, ain't lessons over yet?"
+
+Three times a week, when her correspondence was done, and a wire
+basket full of square, rough envelopes with scarlet seals awaited the
+afternoon post, Lady Anne would go riding in the Park. She stumped
+through the hall in a short habit and wide-brimmed billycock hat, under
+whose elastic band the uses of the yellow-white knot of hair became
+suddenly obvious, looking more than ever like an abbess: a hunting, not
+a praying, abbess this time. Outside a stable lad from the mews held
+a tall, nervous horse by the head. Lady Anne would hold the child up
+to pat the hairy, quivering nose, bid her have no fear of the sliding
+eyes; would run her fingers down the horse's flanks and legs, maybe
+pick up and inspect a hoof cunningly; at last, jumping into her saddle
+out of the groom's hand, would straighten the sidling beast with one
+blow of her riding crop on his buttock, and be off, her right knee
+almost in line with the maned neck, and holding in the caitiff head
+with hands that were a proverb in the shires. Fenella always watched
+her out of sight, her eyes shining--the palms of her hands pressed hard
+together.
+
+
+
+
+                                 VIII
+
+                           THE SECOND FLOOR
+
+
+By this time Miss Rigby might possibly have arisen and be watching the
+horse and its rider through her curtains. Emilie Rigby was the second
+of the permanent paying guests. She was tall, languid, graceful and
+disorderly, of uncertain age, but with a growing opacity of skin and
+with darkening shadows under her short-sighted eyes to tell of the
+ebbing life forces within: much younger in the afternoon than in the
+morning, and recovering her youth hour by hour as the day aged. In
+her rooms on the second floor she led the spoiled, sensuous life of
+an odalisque or a Persian cat. She breakfasted in bed, lunched in a
+wrapper and with her hair coiled carelessly upon her neck, had a hot
+bath, with elaborations, at three, and left the house an hour later,
+in a cab whose destinations, despite all efforts of Druce and Kendal,
+remain conjectural to this day. She dined from home almost nightly, but
+had few correspondents, and her visitors gave Mrs. Barbour no anxiety.
+She had a telephone installed in her room, whose sharp summons soon
+became one of the habitual sounds of the dark, still house. The baffled
+Druce, carrying up an unascetic luncheon at one, frequently found the
+door locked in her face and was forced to wait until a conversation,
+punctuated with bursts of laughter and far too disjointed to be worth
+listening to through the keyhole, wore itself away. Lady Anne answered
+for her.
+
+"Respectable?" she exclaimed abruptly, in response to a guarded query.
+"Of course Jasmine Rigby's respectable. We dined at the same house last
+month. Only, if I were you----" she hesitated, unwilling to spoil
+the perfect relief in her landlady's face, "if I were you, I wouldn't
+have Nelly in and out there too much, once she begins to grow up. Her
+clothes alone are enough to unsettle the girl."
+
+But it is hard, with four servants and three households to control, to
+keep an efficient eye upon inquiring youth, whose fingers are already
+beginning to pluck restlessly at the many hued skirt of life; and the
+hardship becomes greater when you are filled with pity for a loneliness
+that is part of your own contriving. As long as Fenella was a very
+little girl, beyond coaxing her in now and then to pet as one would
+pet a pretty kitten, Miss Rigby took scant notice of the child. But as
+she grew in years and stature, and a beauty that was becoming more of
+the earth and less of the angels was confirmed in her, I am afraid the
+scented, sophisticated atmosphere of the second floor began to exercise
+its delayed but inevitable charm. One of those foolish intimacies began
+which almost every pretty young girl can remember, often with shame
+and impatience. There was a year when the woman, nearly forty, and
+the girl, not yet fourteen, were "Jasmine" and "Nelly" to each other;
+when little cocked-hat notes (oh, how deftly folded!) were apt to lurk
+under the doily mats on Fenella's dressing-table, to be answered by
+ignorant, misspelt letters from the blindly adoring child. The jaded
+woman of fashion and pleasure (no; I don't know what place she filled
+in her world, nor is speculation worth while) took an early opportunity
+of showing the little parson's daughter the beauty of her arms and
+shoulders--talked unreservedly before her, dressed her up in her
+gowns and _lingerie_, let her lie upon the bed and prattle while
+she herself sat before the mirror, waging her unwearied warfare with
+time--refreshed herself with the girl's homage, laughed away as much as
+she dared of her innocence, and finally, in a last spasm of confidence,
+unlocked a drawer, hesitated, and put into the girl's hands a bundle of
+letters, bidding her, with a flushed cheek and the ghost of a giggle,
+to read them over and to let her know how their literary beauties
+affected her. "When you've read them," said she, "maybe I'll tell you
+who they came from."
+
+Fenella left the room puzzled, a little frightened, but with no
+instinct to tell her that possibly she was holding her damnation in her
+hand.
+
+What happened next? One of those happy accidents, perhaps, that good
+angels know how to arrange. The packet was returned, unopened, next
+morning, by Lady Anne, in the course of an interview which left her
+fellow-lodger considerable repairs to effect before she faced the world
+anew. An hour later the good genius, habited for her ride, knocked
+timidly at the door of Mrs. Barbour's sanctum in the hitherto unvisited
+nether regions.
+
+Mrs. Barbour rose to her feet when she saw who her caller was, but Lady
+Anne signed for her to remain seated. She seemed nervous and awkward,
+and put her hands to her side. They say her horse kicked her there the
+day she broke her ankle; oh! only a touch; no notice was taken of it at
+the time.
+
+"I've come to speak about our little girl," she said, sitting down and
+crossing her booted legs.
+
+Mrs. Barbour bridled a little; but youthful habits are strong. She
+resumed her deferential manner.
+
+"I trust she has been giving no trouble, m'lady."
+
+"She has perhaps exposed a meddling old woman to the worst snub of her
+life. I'm going to be crude, Mrs. Barbour. What on earth are you going
+to make of that child?"
+
+Mrs. Barbour plaited the table cover, but seemed to have no answer
+ready.
+
+"She's growing lovelier every day" (the foolish mother's eyes
+glistened); "she dresses like a little fashion plate; she has more
+silver stuff and finery in her room than any of us girls had at Castle
+Cullen; she hasn't a friend in the world nor an idea in her head; and
+we've an instance," with a glance up at the ceiling, "near enough at
+hand, where beauty with nothing else can bring a woman."
+
+Mrs. Barbour's eyes began to fill. Not a single harsh truth but voiced
+a reproach that had been nibbling her own heart for years.
+
+"Why don't you send her to school? Do you know that if you were a poor
+woman you could be fined or sent to prison?"
+
+"Schools are so dear."
+
+"Stuff! They're cheaper and better than they ever were. There's
+nothing young folk can't do now. You can go from a boarding school
+to the 'varsity on a string. Let's send her to school, Mrs. B.," she
+persisted. "You've no time to look after her, and neither have I."
+
+"Not boarding school," the mother pleaded. "I couldn't be parted from
+her now."
+
+"Who said anything about boarding schools? There are plenty of day
+schools. None of them are perfect, I know. But it can't be put off. All
+the danger isn't out of doors. Let her go and get a little honest mud
+on the bottom of her skirts, and come home every evening to have it
+brushed off."
+
+The poor woman struggled with her trouble. "It isn't that," she said
+brokenly, "but--but, I can't explain it. There are things that don't
+brush off--ever. She is so ignorant of what the world thinks of--of
+people like me. They'll teach her it all at school; they'll teach her
+to despise her m-m-mother...."
+
+She broke down and, burying her face in her hands, wept the
+unrestrained tears of her class.
+
+"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" she moaned. "I knew it must come. She's so
+pretty--so pretty; such a little aristocrat. I'm only her mother by
+accident, really. And she'll make fine friends and be asked out, and
+wonder why she can't ask 'em back, and I'll have to tell her: 'Nelly,
+dear, it's because your mother is only a poor woman that father married
+to save her name, that lets lodgings to her betters for a living, and
+wouldn't let you go to your own people when they asked for you; and
+you can never have a friend of your own class as long as you live with
+her.'"
+
+Lady Anne kept her arm across the broad, bowed shoulders.
+
+"Let's try it," she said cheerily. "I'll answer for Nelly, and I think
+I can answer for the others. You have no conception how the world is
+changing. I have the very school in my eye, too. I know the principal.
+Sunlight and science, and knowledge that's innocent because it's
+thorough, and open windows upon life that blow away all the whispers in
+the corners, and a proper reverence for the body that, after all, is
+all we're sure of. As for the money--well, I'm a meddlesome old body,
+and you can heap coals of fire on my head by letting me be responsible.
+I don't blame you for spending money on her clothes: besides--Sharland
+College is dressy."
+
+She wrote to her friend that night:
+
+    "DEAR LOUISA:
+
+    "I'm sending you a little girl who is the daughter of a dear, dead
+    chum of mine. She's extravagantly pretty, very dull, quite poor--is
+    being brought up as though she were an heiress and has a heart that
+    I believe will prove a greater danger to her than her face or her
+    poverty. For God's sake, Louisa, find out if she has any special
+    talent that will help her to a living, and ground her and grind
+    her until she's taken hold. I'm fond of the child, and shouldn't
+    die happy if I thought there was any risk of her joining the one
+    profession for which previous experience isn't essential.
+
+    "The old pain in the side has come back; the Swedish massage did it
+    no permanent good. But I can still ride, so I don't squeal."
+
+
+
+
+                                  IX
+
+                           SHARLAND COLLEGE
+
+
+Fenella was nearly fourteen when she went to school. After Mrs. Barbour
+had seen her into the green horse-omnibus which at that date still
+rolled sedately westward along the Park paling the poor woman went
+home and, regarding with a stricken eye the untidy relics of a hurried
+breakfast, sat down and had a good cry. She would see her daughter
+again in a few hours, but her instinct told her that the parting was
+not one to be measured by time or distance.
+
+At school Fenella achieved an instant success. At her lessons she
+remained a sad dunce, but Sharland College had the modern conception
+of bodily beauty as a supreme merit, and for its sake and also a
+little for the amiability that accompanied it, Nelly's shortcomings in
+algebra and geometry were forgiven and so mitigated by the assistance
+of plainer and cleverer girls anxious for her friendship as to be
+scarcely noticeable. She had become a fashion in the school before the
+end of her second term, and a host of extravagant, flattering nicknames
+attested this heady popularity. She was "Astarte" and "Principessa"
+in the higher forms; "Flash" in the gymnasium and swimming bath--a
+tribute to her bodily agility; "Zenobia" for one winter term, shortened
+into "Nobs" during a frenzied hockey rally and forthwith abandoned;
+"Greuzy" in artistic circles; while, oftenest of all and most eloquent
+of all--for it voiced the sense of a common possession--she was "Our
+Nelly." I do not know whether it is to her credit or discredit that
+the intimacy with Miss Rigby came to a sudden and unforced end in her
+first term. Poor Jasmine was forgotten or remembered only as a rather
+unhealthy dream. Fenella began even to refer to her flippantly as her
+"past"; "Ma, has my 'past' got up yet?" she would ask at midday on
+half-holidays when she came home to change for hockey or tennis and
+wanted to use the telephone.
+
+It was upon wintry half-holidays that poor Mrs. Barbour felt her
+desolation most keenly. It did not seem to matter so much when she
+knew Nelly was working at school. There was a hungry and noisy return
+at half-past four to be looked forward to, and a whole golden evening
+during which she might knit and watch the dark head bent above the
+irksome home task. And in the summer she would not have had the child
+otherwise employed than in winning roses on lawn or river for the
+colorless cheeks that she was uneducated enough to think indicated a
+latent delicacy. But on rainy autumn afternoons, so brief and dark,
+with the fire burning cosily in the shabby parlor and only a prospect
+of forty feet of smoky grass, a leprous plaster cupid and the black
+wall of the mews to entertain herself with, it seemed unjust, even
+vaguely ominous to her peace, that her nestling preferred to beat her
+new-fledged wings out in the dark and cold. She never complained,
+but tried for a while to tempt her child to stay at home with her
+"favorite" books, her "favorite" armchair, a box of chocolates--poor
+ineffectual wiles that the short-sighted eyes of youth, set upon the
+quest of high-spiced pleasure abroad, passed over without seeing. There
+would be a hasty gobbled luncheon, taken standing, like the last meal
+in Egypt; a frenzied search behind old magazines that were never read
+and old music that was never played, for shoes and shin-guards--"Must
+have my new shin-guards to-day, mummy. Kilburn hack simply rotten--" a
+kiss, for the chocolates, given on the wing, and Fenella in red tam o'
+shanter and belted jacket of scarlet pilot cloth was off--through the
+area and up the steps.
+
+"Expect me when you see me, mummy. I may chew with one of the girls."
+
+She was not a religious woman, but she used to pray about this time,
+miserably and humbly, for her child's heart to be left to her. And, in
+the morning, between two mouthfuls of porridge, it was just possible
+that Fenella might look at her sharply, and say--
+
+"What've you been doing to yourself, mummy? You look like a boiled owl
+this morning."
+
+Who else was to notice that an old woman's eyes were red?
+
+But there were times, also, which the mother came to look for, as
+sex stole inexorably upon the slangy, boyish woman-child, when the
+princess wearied of her kingdom, the tireless wings began to droop,
+and the fledgling crept under the old sheltering wing for comfort.
+She would come down after lunch, dressed in her house frock, sit
+down unexpectedly on her mother's knee, grip the broad shoulders,
+and held thus at arms' length, gaze at her for minutes together as
+though with some new knowledge in the steadfast eyes. She would cover
+her with tender names of disrespect--with cooing infractions of the
+fifth commandment. "Dear old fathead!" "Dear old stoopid!" "Silly old
+motherbird!" But she was strangely averse to the caresses with which
+her mother, always expansive, would have repaid the endearing insults.
+
+"Don't kiss me, donkey," she would cry, breaking away. "Can't you see
+this is one of my touch-me-notish days? Hook me up the back and send
+Drucie out for some chocolates. I'm going to stop with you all the
+afternoon."
+
+"Dearie," said the mother, timidly, one day, "won't the girls miss you
+and come looking for you?"
+
+Fenella knit her brows, but did not look up from her book.
+
+"Of course they know where you live, don't they, dear?"
+
+"No--yes. Oh! I don't know. Mother, can't you see I'm reading?"
+
+Next Saturday Fenella was "playing away." The mother, still pursuing a
+train of thought that had not really been interrupted during the week,
+was wondering whether it would not be possible, by sending Miss Rigby
+away (she had never cared for the woman), and by moving Lady Anne up
+one story, to take the whole of the first floor for herself and her
+child. The girl _must_ have somewhere to bring her friends. She
+stuck her needles into her wool and sought pencil and paper. But the
+figures that foot it merrily enough when it is a matter of addition,
+limp wearily and stubbornly when subtraction is in question. She caught
+her breath at the result of her calculations. And yet--the situation
+was intolerable.
+
+In the middle of her reverie a gate creaked and slammed. There
+was a clatter of feet on the steps--a rattle of sticks along the
+railings--Babel let loose in the area, and, before the woman could give
+a shape to the panic at her heart, into the big, shabby room, like an
+ill-trained chorus at a theatre, tumbled a rout of girls--short and
+tall--dark and fair--all dressed alike in red jackets and caps.
+
+They were of all ages from twelve to sixteen. Some had the promise of
+beauty in a few years to come--some were only comely with the freshness
+of youth and health, but from one and all, in spite of strident voice,
+awkwardness of gesture, and self-consciousness of regard, there
+radiated that evanescent and mournful charm which is possessed by any
+bevy of girl comrades that touches childhood at its one extreme and
+womanhood at the other. With a comprehensive sweep of her arm Fenella
+introduced her rabble court.
+
+"Ma--these are the girls! Girls--this is ma! Hurry up and get
+us something to eat. We've been playing at Blackheath, and they
+only gave us one biscuit each with tea. And, look here, girls,"
+turning from her mother's dazed face upon the brawling team, "if
+you make a row and upset our lodgers, you'll" (impressively)
+"_never--come--here--again_!"
+
+Fenella's popularity not only survived this shameful exposure, but
+followed her into the Christmas holidays. The most delightful of all
+missives began to lie, three and four at a time, on the breakfast
+table by her plate, "begging the pleasure." Mrs. Barbour, who did a
+considerable amount of good by stealth, had arrested a thirsty genius
+on a downward course from the Bond Street ateliers to Marylebone
+Workhouse, and, with this strange being, who wore a palpable
+transformation, smelt of brandy, and called her "Modder-moselle," Nelly
+spent many a fruitful morning, pinning, fitting, and cutting, while
+the machine whirred and bumped on a table near by. She tasted for the
+first time the delights of the waxed floor, the heavy golden air,
+the cadenced wind--all the witchery of dance-land. Sleek "freshers"
+with lacquered heads, "down for the short--" pink, alert subalterns
+on Christmas furlough from Chatham and Aldershot, with funny cropped
+moustaches like a toothbrush--delightful middies in uniform, with
+cracking voices, wrote her name stiffly and illegibly on their
+programmes or, if they were very smart, on an immaculate shirt cuff.
+She danced with the verve of one exercising a fine natural gift, but
+hated "sitting out," and acquired a distracting habit of wandering on
+her partner's arm, along corridors and up stairs, through palms and
+around screens, in search of friends similarly coupled. She called this
+the "visiting figure," but, oh! the despair of inflammable youth, its
+head full of incoherent adoration, to which darkness and solitude would
+have given such burning words. This little unchaperoned girl, with her
+perilously attractive beauty, discovered endless address and resource
+in keeping male fervor at a distance. The following conversation is on
+record, heard from palm-filled obscurity:
+
+"Look here, Bobby! I'm sitting with you in the dark, 'cos you said the
+light hurt your bad eye; but if you _paw_ you'll have two bad eyes
+to look after 'stead of one."
+
+Toward the end of her third year at Sharland College Lady Anne received
+a letter from Miss Garrett, of which the following was part:
+
+    "... About Fenella Barbour. No. I haven't forgotten the promise
+    I made you to let you know if the girl showed marked ability in
+    any one direction. Strangely enough, Madame de Rudder, of Hanover
+    Street, our dancing and calisthenic mistress, called upon me about
+    her only yesterday. She tells me the child shows a talent for
+    bodily movement (she calls it 'genius': poor abused word!) such as
+    she never marked in a girl before. She is revising some old dances,
+    _Pavanes_ and _Corantos_, for private house parties, and
+    wants Fenella to join a quartette she is making up. Remembering
+    what you told me, I mentioned (guardedly) the expense of dresses,
+    etc., but she would not hear of the girl's incurring any outlay.
+    Not only this. She says that if Fenella could come, even two days
+    a week, as assistant at Hanover Street, she could have her tuition
+    free and, in time, be employed regularly, at very good pay: much
+    better than we can afford our own under-mistresses, who are all
+    graduates, as you know.
+
+    "It seems to me, dear Anne, that a _métier_ offers here: not
+    a very exalted one, it is true, but in the only line for which the
+    girl has shown any talent at all. Will you, if you think fit, speak
+    to the mother before I do anything further and ascertain her views.
+    I have met Mrs. Barbour. She is a puzzling and, I should say,
+    rather foolish woman, who evidently married far above her class.
+
+    "The idea, if followed out, will of course abridge Fenella's school
+    career, or even terminate it; but, to tell you the truth, dear
+    Anne, although I am fond of the child, I am only half sorry for
+    this. Don't misunderstand me. The girl is as good as gold, and I
+    know (who should judge better) has a soul like crystal. But her
+    influence among us has been an unsettling one.
+
+    "... I picked out the much beloved 'Collywobble' in the
+    Country-house Supplement from among the Sea grave, with dear Lady
+    Anne 'up.' What a pretty beast it is!"
+
+Fenella was seventeen when she left school. She thought life a great
+joke, she had not said a prayer for two years, and the saddest sight
+she had seen was a fallen sparrow (counted, but number unrecorded) on
+the path in Holland Walk.
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                           THE WAY OF A MAID
+
+
+Planche's "History of British Costume," 2 vols. 2500_b_, in the
+Library of the British Museum, is a helpful work of reference. It is
+replete with information, and the wood-cuts are spirited. Its size and
+cumbersomeness, however, are disadvantages. It is emphatically a book
+you would not care to read in bed. Add to this, that it is forming
+the summit of an unsteady pile of books with which your arms are
+filled--that you are handicapped further with a big black fur muff,
+and that your nerves are already on edge with the strangeness of the
+place....
+
+_Crash!!!..._
+
+One heavy morocco-bound volume lay, open and face downward, on the
+floor; the other was following it fast, ringleader in a tragic glissade
+over the smooth black fur. Fenella bit her lip and did not quite
+suppress a word whose most obvious rhyme is "lamb." In a terror-struck
+flash she saw all the results of her carelessness: attendants bearing
+down upon her--expostulation--disgrace and final ejectment beyond those
+heavy swing doors that she never, never should have passed. She was
+really very frightened.
+
+A man who had been ransacking the shelves by her side, with a long arm
+that reached easily from top to bottom of the bookcase, turned quickly
+at the smothered exclamation. With a swift movement of one hand, he
+stayed the avalanche, and with the other picked up the fallen volume
+from the floor.
+
+"Oh! thank you--thank you!" said Fenella, almost hysterically. She
+was looking up--a good way up--into the kindest, grayest eyes she had
+ever seen.... Eyes!--eyes! the little, unprotected girl encountered
+them everywhere. In train or 'bus, in the street, in the untempered
+light of the lately constructed tube railway. Hard eyes; preoccupied
+eyes, full of some sick trouble of their own which passed her over,
+unseeing; bitter, arrogant eyes that seemed to find her beauty and her
+pretty clothes an offence; eyes vicious and bold, the worst of all,
+that would not leave her, that stung her cheeks, as though the heat of
+the evil passions behind them were being focussed upon her through a
+lens, and beneath whose level, insulting conjecture her flesh crept and
+her hands clenched themselves in an agony of shame and helpless anger.
+But these eyes were different to all the others. She could look at them
+as steadily as at a cloudy sky: they seemed full of some tender wisdom.
+And of humor too. Already their twinkle mitigated what she felt to be a
+tragedy.
+
+The stranger took the books from her one by one and bestowed them
+compactly in the hollow of his own arm.
+
+"Have you got a seat?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Fenella, in an agitated whisper. "Can I go anywhere I like?
+Are they all free?"
+
+The man's smile broadened and showed his fine long teeth.
+
+"We'll try and find you a free one," he said. "Come on with me." His
+accent was strange; not quite English, yet not foreign.
+
+She followed her protector on tip toe, averting her eyes from the
+indignant glances that she was sure were being levelled at her. One
+lean old monk _was_ scowling, but he was really thinking of
+something else. Then there was a dreadful fat negro, like Othello
+turned scholar, who rolled his eyes. Fenella could not help peeping at
+the leaves he was turning over, to confirm an unscientific conviction
+of her own, that the black _did_ really come off sometimes.
+
+Her guide stopped at an empty place, arranged her books neatly upon
+the flat leather-covered desk, pulled out a cane-seated chair on
+casters, and, bowing slightly, sat down in the next place and began to
+read one of a number of manuscript leaves with which it was strewn. She
+divested herself of gloves and furs, and commenced turning the pages
+of one of her books gingerly. Occasionally, she put her finger to her
+mouth, and then, remembering where she was, stopped with a shudder, as
+at danger escaped.
+
+The man who had helped her was writing busily on a thick paper pad.
+When he had reached the bottom of each page, he blotted it, numbered
+it in the top right-hand corner, and added it carelessly to an untidy
+pile at his left hand. Sometimes, before tearing it off, he read it
+over, apparently without enthusiasm, erased words, and sometimes whole
+sentences, with impatient curly "twiddles" of his quill pen, wrote
+words in between the lines and added various cabalistic signs and
+letters in the margin. He was very much occupied, and Fenella, whom
+no book had ever absorbed, saw that she might watch him covertly and
+safely.
+
+So this was the way books were written! She wondered who he was. Not
+Bernard Shaw--his hair was too short. Nor Rider Haggard--his face was
+too narrow. She could not think of any other writer with a beard. She
+considered him good-looking--in a strange way. She never would have, I
+will not say looked, but wanted to look after him in the street, still
+in a way she could not define, it was nice to be sitting next him. She
+liked his leanness and dryness. She hated fat men whose sleek hair
+seemed to be soaking up superabundant moisture from their bodies. Then,
+his beard was trimmed so closely to his cheek it was hard to say where
+it began, and his moustache was brushed out of the way once and for
+all. He didn't keep "twiddling" _it_. Yes; it would be quite safe
+to sit opposite while he ate soup.
+
+There was a man quite like him on the very page before her.... Ah!
+Yes. That was what he wanted. A big ruff showing the hairy throat,
+and a little cloak, swung from his shoulders, and big puffy--whatever
+they called them--nearly to his knees, and a long rapier sticking up
+in the air--how awkward on staircases though--but not a silly little
+_toque_ like that, stuck on one side, and not--oh, not earrings
+in his ears. Who was it? "Duc de Guise." What a pity she had forgotten
+(forgotten!) all her French. Yes; that was what was the matter with
+him, she decided. His good looks were simply out of fashion. She looked
+backward and forward from the book to his face, from his face to the
+book, two or three times. Suddenly she became aware he was looking
+straight at her.
+
+"_Oh! help!_"
+
+"Anything I can do?" asked the stranger helpfully, in a low voice that
+was far less obtrusive than any whisper.
+
+"C-could you translate this little bit for me, please? I'm no good at
+French," Fenella stammered, pushing her book toward him.
+
+"Which little bit?"
+
+She indicated a paragraph at random and as far from the picture as
+possible. She caught her breath at her audacity. "Forward minx, I
+am." She hoped he wouldn't hang over her shoulder to translate, like
+handsome Mr. Curzon, the drawing master at Sharland, heedless, or
+perhaps not heedless, of the burning cheek so near his own, and the
+suppressed titters of "the girls."
+
+M. de Guise drew the open book toward him, and, tearing off a slip
+of paper, began to write on it in a cranky but rapid hand, with an
+occasional glance at the foreign text.
+
+"Here you are. I hope you will be able to read my writing."
+
+"Thank you very much indeed," said Fenella, demurely.
+
+"Anything else you want? Paper?"
+
+She had dived into her muff and was splitting open various envelopes
+with her forefinger.
+
+"If you wouldn't mind. But I'm giving you so much trouble."
+
+"No trouble at all. Here are three sheets. You have a pencil?"
+
+"M--m."
+
+"If it's one you stole from the catalogue desk I wouldn't suck it.
+Those aren't the sort you suck. See! you've made a blue smudge on your
+lips."
+
+Fenella dived into her muff again, and, drawing out what I believe is
+termed a vanity bag, examined her lips on the little mirror. She rubbed
+them hard.
+
+"Is it gone now, please?"
+
+"Quite." How red the child's lips were. He glanced right and left
+and put his fingers to his own. A few fretful knowledge seekers were
+looking toward the chatter. Their glances were hostile.
+
+"_A la besogne!_" said he, beneath his breath, and turned to his
+work again.
+
+Fenella shook her shoulders and settled herself in the most industrious
+attitude she could think of. At the end of an hour she had drawn three
+figures and could think of no further excuse for remaining. Most of
+the wisdom of the world was around her and above her, but she felt no
+temptation to disturb it. The man at her side had apparently forgotten
+her existence. She put her books away, one by one, trying to prevent
+her shoes squeaking, but making a great bustle, really, yet he did not
+look round. When she came back at last to get her furs and gloves, he
+was gone. She left the room with a little sinking of the heart, but not
+more than one feels when, say, an interesting fellow-traveller whom we
+hoped was coming on all the way to London, gets out at Rugby. It is
+true that in her preoccupation she forgot to claim her umbrella.
+
+When she reached Oxford Street she was reminded by passing an Express
+Dairy that it was past five and that she would reach home late for
+tea. Tea, as a rite, retained all its old significance for Fenella.
+Some of her old school-fellows had studios or flats within easy reach,
+and, perhaps, six months ago she would have made for one of them. But,
+already, she thought she noticed a difference. The girls were growing
+up--acquiring individuality, and her own path was diverging more and
+more. They liked her to come in to tea, but preferably on a day when no
+men were expected. She was already learning the hard truth that life
+must be played with the lone hand. A good many of her triumphs lay
+behind her.
+
+She turned to the dairy, and going upstairs as far as she could, took a
+seat in the smoking-room and ordered weak tea and a teacake. She liked
+muffins and crumpets and teacakes with "heaps and heaps" of butter.
+The tea-room, being near the Museum, was full of its _habitués_.
+She saw three or four she had noticed there, playing chess or talking
+together in high mincing tones interspersed with cackling laughter.
+She did not recognize the accent of the "illuminated." Some had lined,
+seamed faces, with long hair, and would have looked better with a
+clerical collar. Those that looked strong looked rough. How different
+to her "courtier." She began to think of him anew, to calculate her
+chances of ever running across him again. One thing was certain, she
+would never, never go back to that terrible place again.
+
+The teacake was long in coming, and as she looked up impatiently she
+saw him standing in the middle of the room. She recognized him at once
+by the rather rakish felt hat that had lain on his desk. He had a long
+blue overcoat with a belt and a funny yellow silk handkerchief round
+his neck. She wanted him very much to look round, but surmised he had
+a favorite waitress and was looking for her. Perhaps the naïve wish
+reached him. He turned, and, smiling, came toward her, as straight as a
+partner about to claim his dance.
+
+"Hullo! Got tired? I missed you when I came back."
+
+"I only came to draw three pictures."
+
+He hung his coat up and sat opposite her in a matter-of-fact way that
+robbed the action of significance. Still, the lady who had brought the
+teacake waited for his order with a sub-surface smile. She had seen so
+many "Museum goings-on."
+
+"You're not often here, are you?... Yes, tea, please. No--nothing with
+it."
+
+Fenella leaned forward confidently. "It's my very first visit. Don't
+tell, will you? I _fudged_ a ticket."
+
+"'Fudged'?"
+
+"Came with another girl's--Phyllis Harmans. Do you know her?"
+
+The gray eyes twinkled. "No. You're the only lady I ever speak to in
+the Museum."
+
+"Would I get into any trouble if I was found out?"
+
+"We'd all get into trouble if we were found out. The best way is not to
+attract attention. Don't drop your books again."
+
+"Is it hard to get a ticket?"
+
+"It's criminally easy. But I shouldn't advise you to. It's a place
+for old fogies like me. You look pale. Do you get plenty of outdoor
+exercise?"
+
+Fenella rubbed her cheek. "That's not paleness. You're fussy, like
+mummy. I'm a healthy brute. And I shouldn't call you an old fogy.
+You're--brown. Have you travelled much?"
+
+"Oh!--round the world and back again."
+
+"Coming back's nice, isn't it?"
+
+"Only when it's coming home."
+
+"Isn't your home here? I _thought_ you spoke--funny. Haven't you
+any one who looks after you? A mother--or a sister?"
+
+"No mother, no sister, no wife." The stranger spoke incisively. "No
+sweetheart, even," he added, after an appreciable pause.
+
+Fenella blushed. Of course she hadn't meant to ask that; still, it
+was interesting to know. The child had a strange pertinacity in
+constructing correct views of new acquaintances that deceived a good
+many people.
+
+A sudden squall lashed the windows with rain. She looked round in
+affright.
+
+"Oh!--help!" she said again, softly.
+
+"Now what's the matter?"
+
+"I've forgotten my 'brolly'."
+
+"Your _what_?"
+
+"My brolly: my 'mush'; ma's best gold-handled umbrella."
+
+"I'll lend you mine."
+
+"Oh! it isn't that. I get the 'bus at the door, and only have a step to
+walk at the other end. But how'm I to get it back?"
+
+"Aren't you coming again soon?"
+
+She shook her head. You would never have guessed the stranger felt
+disappointed. He felt in his pocket and pushed a card across the table.
+
+"Write an address on that," he said, "and leave me your check. I'll
+have it sent to-night by a messenger boy."
+
+Fenella considered a moment. The card lay face downward, and it was a
+great temptation. But her good breeding triumphed. Without turning it
+over she wrote her name and address, very slowly, in print letters.
+Meantime she soliloquized thus:
+
+"I hate rain. It's harder on women. Your petties get wet and slop
+round your ankles. I wish I could always dress as a boy. It's so
+picture-squeak--picturesque I mean. I do sometimes. Dances, you know:
+in a quartette, gavottes and things. I'm a boy, 'cos you can't teach
+men.... There you are. I hope you can read it.... I had a ripping dress
+at the 'Bechway' in the spring. Blue and silver, and powdered hair, and
+a little diamondy sword."
+
+"Which you could use upon occasion with great spirit, I'll wager,
+Monsieur le Marquis."
+
+"Oh, rather!" rejoined Fenella. (How nicely he speaks French.) "I'm
+good at fencing. I was captain of the 'gym' at our school."
+
+The man just glanced at the card and put it into his pocket
+absent-mindedly. He was wondering what kind the school might be that
+had taught this distractingly friendly child to dance and fence, but
+not to read French and, above all, not to be careful--with that face
+and figure--how she spoke to strangers.
+
+Meantime, something in this last speech had reminded the girl of the
+first fine rapture of Ruritania, years ago.
+
+"You're a novelist, aren't you?" she said.
+
+"Of sorts," he admitted.
+
+"I wish I was intellectual"--wistfully.
+
+"You're better. You're cute."
+
+"_Cute--cute--!_ What does that mean? Clever?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Pretty, then?"
+
+"Well, a kind of clever prettiness."
+
+"You mean smart!"
+
+"Well, smart. Let us be English at all costs."
+
+"I don't see how you can think _me_ smart," she said, with a
+rueful inflection in her voice.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Talking to a strange man as I've done."
+
+At sight of the troubled young face, something that was not exactly
+suspicion, but which had guarded his manner till now, disappeared. He
+laughed quite freely, and it was wonderful how the sudden gaiety made
+him look at once younger and more foreign. He put his hand across and
+just touched the girl's arm.
+
+"Dear child," said he, "talk to as many strange men as you like. The
+stranger the better. It's ordinary ones you must be careful about."
+
+"Ordinary ones----?"
+
+"Yes. Beware the Least Common Multiple. Therein lies danger to you. I
+prophesy it."
+
+"I must go," said Nelly, rising as she spoke. "It isn't getting any
+drier."
+
+He put his coat on and followed her to the door. She noticed he left
+threepence for the waitress. How extravagant, after just a cup of tea!
+He kept beside her across the street, holding his umbrella over her
+head.
+
+"I should like to read your book when it comes out," she said, as her
+omnibus hove in sight. "Why do you laugh?"
+
+He was laughing because he knew the book. "How are you to ask for it
+without knowing the talented author's name?"
+
+She hesitated. "Well," she said, almost reluctantly, "what _is_
+his name?"
+
+He noticed the effort and his manner stiffened. "It's one I needn't be
+ashamed to tell you, and you needn't be ashamed to hear. My name is
+Paul Ingram. Here's your 'bus. Good-bye. I don't ask you yours."
+
+Fenella turned on the step and laughed at him over her muff.
+
+"Goosey! You've got it in your waistcoat pocket."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XI
+
+                             AN INTERLUDE
+
+
+All this happened on a Saturday, and Paul had a full day to think it
+over. He went back to his work on Monday, and, for reasons he did
+not stop to define, not only chose the same place, but even had the
+weakness to try to keep the desk next it free by depositing his hat and
+gloves there. It would be hard to say what he expected. He had looked
+at the address more carefully when he was sending back the umbrella,
+and it confirmed the impression he had already received from the girl's
+clothes and casual, assured manner. She was some daughter of a good
+family, he felt sure, guarded and checked, and so the more inclined to
+kick over the traces when away from watchful home eyes. Had he been an
+Englishman the very perfection of her turnout might have still further
+puzzled him, and he might have been inclined to speculate as to how so
+young a girl came by all the rings she wore; far too many, though they
+were only pretty baubles. But Ingram came from a country where beauty
+does not wait on marriage for its adornment. He was even ignorant that
+a set has arisen there, the most artificial and utterly contemptible,
+surely, in the world, which has sacrificed the healthy freedom that was
+its birthright, to ape the social hypocrisies and superstitions that
+Europe is outgrowing.
+
+Anyway, she had made him feel very old, and for the moment out of
+conceit with his self-imposed tasks, just as some wild, free creature
+of fur or feather encountered on a holiday walk in the country might
+distaste any one of us with his own humdrum workaday life. And he had
+the same further impulse that the wayfarer may have had to arrest the
+busy, aimless errand, close his hand on the furry flank--prison the
+fluttering wings, and, having made the creature share his captivity a
+moment, to open his fingers and let the throbbing quarry go free. A
+desire so innocent--so purely intellectual, that it scarcely deserves
+the hard name of the lust of the eye, and has nothing whatever in
+common with the lusts of the flesh.
+
+It must be remembered also, to account for his unusual and dangerous
+mood, that just about this time he had put his manuscript into my
+hands. No period is so demoralizing mentally as one during which we
+have relaxed our own efforts, and are indulging in the vague hope of
+some good to come to us through other people's.
+
+Tuesday--Wednesday passed. Paul ceased to look for the girl. Why should
+he? Hadn't she said she was not coming back. And what a fool he was
+even to desire it. She was a pretty memory; he, a writer, should know
+the value of such impressions, the pity of disturbing them. Suppose he
+met her again, was it likely the glamour of the first encounter would
+survive? Apart from the _bizarrerie_ of her quaint, childish
+confidences, she had said really nothing that was worth remembering.
+On a second meeting he would be sure to find her trivial and vulgar.
+Even the pretty manner was probably a trick she had tried elsewhere,
+and found "fetching." Toward the end of the week he happened to be
+reading, in the course of his work, the diary of a man some of whose
+blood, according to family tradition, ran in his own veins: the daily
+journal of Cotton Mather. Skimming through the record of that dark,
+tortured soul, he lit upon the curious passage wherein the middle-aged
+widower, with the naïve self-revelation that sweetens his persecuting
+memory, deplores the inroads which a handsome young pupil to whom he
+is teaching Latin is making in his self-respect. "The Lord," groans
+Mather, piously, "deliver me from this ingenious child!" Paul gave such
+a sudden laugh that his neighbors looked at him in wonder. "Bravo,
+Cousin Cotton!" he said to himself. "I'm not proud of you, but I'll
+forgive you a lot for that." He felt immensely relieved. Who has not
+known such a foolish moment of light-heartedness, when something we
+have read or heard seems to set us right with ourselves? "_The Lord
+deliver me from this ingenious child!_"
+
+That night after dinner he lit a cigar and strolled westward. He
+found Number Eleven Suffolk Square easily enough. It was a big,
+double-fronted house of cream-colored stucco, with wide steps and
+a pillared porch. It happened just then that all three floors were
+lit up. This illumination gave the house a festive appearance and
+exaggerated its opulent aspect. Against the amber colored blinds the
+pattern of handsome lace curtains stood out in bold silhouette. The
+kitchen blinds had not been lowered and Paul noted three maid-servants,
+two of them in black dresses and caps with long white streamers. On the
+other side of the area, across another lighted window, red curtains
+were drawn. More servants, probably--butler, coachman, and footman. He
+thought of his own home in far Massachusetts; the "hired help" who came
+to table with them; his own chapped wrists; the dying mother, rolling
+out pastry on the low table to which they wheeled her chair. A feeling
+of fierce camaraderie with the toilers, the little ones of the earth,
+possessed him; a hatred for luxury and the parade of wealth. He took
+three or four turns before the house, and went away. Before he left the
+square, however, he kissed his hand toward Number Eleven. "Good-bye,
+Fenella," he said. "You're a kind-hearted baby, but I guess the folks
+in that house will know how to spoil it when the time comes."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+
+                             RICHMOND PARK
+
+
+Next morning, when he went to the reading-room, she was sitting
+in the old place. She still wore the long blue coat with all the
+buttons--the black fur, and the big plain French hat with a single
+parrot-green feather, but, seen a second time, custom tempered somewhat
+her formidable smartness. She had a big gauze veil, too, tied round
+her hat and falling in long ends over her shoulders. It subdued the
+hard childish brightness of her face, making it look both maturer and
+softer. She met his surprised look timidly, and, diving into her muff,
+held out a white card with a blue stripe down the centre. Her gesture
+was meekly disarming--hurriedly explanatory.
+
+"I've joined," she said, anxiously. "I'm a member."
+
+Ingram twirled the card between his fingers. It was early, the great
+room was half empty, and there was no need to whisper now.
+
+"And what special line of research are you thinking of pursuing?" he
+asked, gravely.
+
+Fenella made haste to disclaim any serious purpose. "But it's a useful
+place, isn't it?" she asked. "This morning I only looked in to thank
+you."
+
+"To thank me----?"
+
+"For sending my umbrella. I couldn't send a postcard; I didn't know
+your address."
+
+"It was no trouble." He was still turning the little card round and
+round. "And so you're running away at once?"
+
+Fenella cast her eyes down. "I can't stay," she said. "I've got a dog
+with me."
+
+"A dog?"
+
+"Tied to the rails outside near the little house. They'd only keep him
+'cos I said I wouldn't be ten minutes. Do you like dogs? I'm taking him
+for a run."
+
+Paul experienced a sudden zest for adventure. "Suppose we take him for
+a run together? It's such a glorious fall morning."
+
+"Oh, _top-hole_!" said Nelly, joining her hands in the old baby
+fashion that had clung to her. "I mean, how nice! Where shall we
+ramble? The Gardens?"
+
+"No. I hate the Gardens. Even the sparrows know they're a fraud.
+Let's go out to Richmond. We can walk across the Park, have lunch at
+Kingston, and be back in time for tea."
+
+Outside the Museum lodge, a horrible old bull-terrier, chained to the
+railings, was keeping up a growling soliloquy, with occasional snaps at
+imaginary flies, suggested possibly by the late autumn sunshine. He was
+very thick and scarred and carried his head to one side.
+
+"This is Rock," announced Fenella, as, with a bewildering smile at
+the liveried keeper, she began to drag the veteran to his feet and
+along the pavement. "He's an awful old dog; I don't know how old, but
+he was a puppy when I was a baby. Isn't it funny? Now he's all lumpy
+and stiff, and I'm still growing. Ma says it's because their hearts
+beat faster. Heckle--that's a medical boy I know--says he's the oldest
+bull-terrier he ever knew, and that what he's asking for when he growls
+is a dose of pussy's acid in a dog-biscuit. What's pussy's acid?[1]
+Rock is short for Roquelaure, but some of the girls say he smells, and
+call him Roquefort. He's not my dog: he's Lady Anne's. She's hunting
+somewhere, and I promised her I'd take him out regularly. Oh, I want
+to telephone from here. Will you hold him--please? He won't bite.
+No, don't shut the doors, I shall stifle.... _B-r-r-r!_ One!
+_B-r-r-r!_ Two. I _have_ put the pennies in; didn't you hear
+them? 2309 Pad. Yes, I mean Paddington. You say Pad yourself. Hello!
+Are you there? Is this Miss Rigby? Oh, good morning, Jas. Jas, be an
+angel and tell mummy I shan't be home to lunch. I'm going to have it
+at Richmond, with a man. What d'you say? Oh, fie! Oh, tut!... Naughty
+puss! Six feet one, a long tawny, silky moustache, and cold, steel-blue
+eyes.... What?... I don't know ... I may. Good-bye, Jas. You're an
+angel."
+
+[Footnote 1: Possibly Prussic acid.--Ed.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the train Ingram took the seat opposite her, and, while she kept
+up an incessant chatter, watched her with a kind of ache at his
+heart for her beauty. It was more than prettiness: he saw that now.
+Those long heavy lashed eyes, whose full lids she had a trick of
+pulling--the plaintive, tremulous mouth, too red; the two little tufts
+at her temples which even the draught from the closed window blew
+across her cheekbone, so fine and dry was her hair; the delicate and
+rather salient nose that bespoke impulsiveness. Like all visionaries,
+crusaders and other impractical persons, he had at the same time an
+intense perception of bodily beauty and an intense jealousy for the
+coarse uses to which life puts it. To have retained one's ideals and
+to have lost one's illusions--is not this to be subject to all the
+tortures that sex can inflict?
+
+They left the station and walked through the defaced streets of the old
+Royal Borough, its noble Georgian houses half hidden by plate-glass
+shop fronts: they climbed the long ascent to the Park, and stood for
+a moment on the terrace to admire the river, an isle-set loop of
+silver, at the bottom of a steep glen filled with rusty verdure. Once
+inside the wide ciphered gates, they left the gravelled path and by
+a soft mouldy foot-track struck into the recesses of the old hunting
+pleasaunce. The air was mild and balmy; not a breeze stirred the crisp,
+sapless trees that stood waiting to surrender their ruined pomp of
+summer to the first wind that required it of them. Fenella gave her
+escort her muff and stole. She called Rock to her in a high, clear
+voice and, with shrill, chirping whistles, with cracks of her dog-whip,
+fluttering of her skirts, with endless enticements and provocations,
+lured that much-tried old pensioner on to efforts he had really
+outlived. Paul, as he watched her, ignorant no doubt of the exquisite
+old Mabinogion simile, thought that her motions resembled nothing so
+much as the swooping flight of the swallow before rain. Her limbs
+seemed to have the pliancy of whalebone.
+
+Rock wheezed and panted gallantly after his mistress, his paws drumming
+stiffly on the ground--his poor old scarred neck held more on one side
+than ever. But his heart was not in the chase. He was forever slinking
+back to heel. He looked up wistfully at this new, sober-paced friend.
+"Here are we," his dim old eyes, with their hardened cornea, seemed to
+be saying, "old fellows, both of us, who've taken sharp bites and hard
+knocks enough, and it's a bit late in the day to be asking us to show
+off our paces, isn't it? Can't we sneak away somewhere together? This
+girl will play the very devil with us both if we let her."
+
+"Rock! Rock! Rock!" the clear voice would ring out. "Come here, sir!
+Come here _thissminnit_! Lazy--_lazy_ dog!"
+
+And with a despairing throe of his knotted tail, off poor Rock must
+pump again.
+
+When they had nearly crossed the Park, they sat down on a worn seat,
+hacked nearly away with amorous knife blades, close to a pond into
+which some long-legged wading birds were digging their bills. Around
+them and behind them the noble demesne outstretched itself, in long
+tree vistas and seemingly illimitable glades, with nothing to scale
+them to insignificance. Now and then a motor car rolled softly along
+the road to White Lodge, only accentuating their loneliness by its
+speed and detachment, or a ghostly little troop of fallow deer passed
+slowly and securely to some favored feeding ground. Rock sniffed the
+air at them, growled and wrinkled his nose. "We both remember a time
+we couldn't have stood this--don't we?" the decayed old sportsman was
+no doubt grumbling to himself.
+
+Seeing the girl quiet at his side, Paul began to try and tell her
+something of his life, working back, as is the manner of men, from the
+things that are nearest their experience and yet are slipping from
+their memory, into the never forgotten far past.... The night marches
+across the silent desert, spellbound by the silver witchery of the
+moon, and through _mehallahs_, that are like a fruitful land
+smitten by an evil charm--its houses turned into boulders and brushwood
+made of its standing corn: the caravans one may meet with a grave
+bearded sheikh riding in front, and the bubbling dromedaries behind
+him, laden with great wicker "_D-raths_" full of squalling, naked
+children and silk-swathed women, who peep through the osiers and crook
+their fingers at the dusty legionaries tramping by in a cloud of their
+own dust: the sand pillars that march upon your flank, step and step,
+like jealous genii shepherding doomed strangers into their desert: the
+joy of the camp at the well, with the day's march done: the incredible
+lightness of the sweat-soaked body when the knapsack is lifted off.
+
+... Or that other camp--so far away it is hard to believe it all one
+life. Crackling cedar wood and the good smell of coffee on the sharp
+light mountain air, and the jinglers riding in the squealing cavvy
+with a pother of dust about their unshod feet, all rosy and glorious
+like a halo in the cherry-red morning sun: and the long lariats held
+wedgewise, and the scamper and scurry as the bronchos are trapped:
+and the peering through a fog of sweat and dust for your own brand
+on shoulder or buttock, and the whirling ropes, and the laughter and
+horseplay as the ponies are blanketed and bitted for the dawn-to-dusk
+round-up.
+
+I don't know whether Paul made a poor Othello, but I do know he had
+a very indifferent Desdemona. Fenella was forever interrupting the
+narrative on one frivolous pretext or another: to throw stick or stone
+for poor sleepy Rock to retrieve ("_Guffetchit-Rock! Guffetchit--lazy
+dog!_"); to gather a bunch of scarlet berries afar off, whose color
+had taken her eye and which were hardly redder than her lips; to run
+down for a minute to the pond to see what "those rummy birds" were
+digging for so industriously. She had all the _nil admirari_ of
+the modern mind: its heedlessness of anything that lies outside its
+own experience; its sedulous curiosity for all that lies within. It
+was better when they got to Ingram's early life. She could imagine
+a country road along which burdocks and hemlock and other green
+fleshy things grow as high as young trees, and little gray frame
+houses tucked away behind silver birches. She was genuinely and even
+tenderly interested in the crippled mother, and at the story of the
+sister who died, blew her nose and said she had caught cold in the
+train. She clapped her hands at the quilting bees and candy-pulls and
+sleigh rides and sugar boiling camps and wished plaintively that she
+had been born a little American girl, to have had her share in so
+rapturous an adolescence. But even this part of the story was checked
+with immaterial, trivial questions such as on children's lips weary
+the maternal patience. "What happened the gray mare in the end that
+wouldn't pass the new letter-box? How many boys went to the sugar camp?
+And how many girls? Did they ever flirt?"
+
+They had luncheon in an upper room of an old inn at Kingston, that
+had a curved iron balcony looking down upon the market place. The
+panelling was hidden by paper of an iridescent red, covered with a
+sprawling pattern of tarnished leaves and flowers. To right and left
+of the fireplace two dark pictures of bottle-necked ladies with untidy
+hair, brought here from God knows what household dispersion, looked
+disdainfully out of the canvas in opposite directions. Some fair or
+market was going on in the square below; the misty afternoon air
+was full of the bleat of sheep, the lowing of cattle, raucous cries
+of costermongers, and the crack of saloon rifles. They were waited
+on by a depressed Teuton, upon whose broad white face Paul raised a
+wintry smile by addressing him in his own guttural tongue. Fenella,
+the palms of her long kid gloves twisted round her bangles, fared
+delicately. She gave most of her meat to Rock--eschewed watery sprouts
+and fluffily mashed potatoes--and "filled up," as she would and even
+did express it, upon plum tart with unlimited cream and sugar. She
+would not drink wine or coffee, but ate all the dessert and sent out
+for more cob-nuts. She had all sorts of pretty, restless, bad manners:
+crumbled bread while she chattered--scored the cloth with a pink nail
+while she listened--counted her plum stones three times and made it
+"never"--dabbled in her tumbler for lack of a finger bowl--and upon its
+rim made, with one wet finger-tip, the hum of innumerable blue bottles,
+at which poor Rock barked and snapped under her chair.
+
+It was late when they sat down to lunch, and they had dawdled besides.
+The sun was gone and twilight closing in as they recrossed the Park
+toward Richmond. She was so silent that Paul asked her, half peering
+into the veiled face, whether she had felt the afternoon dull. She said
+not; but her negative went no further than a little shake of the head.
+She had a trick of looking back every now and then and of measuring
+the way they had come, as if to insure a clear recollection of it, and
+she allowed Rock--who, rested, fed, and with his head pointed, though
+obliquely, for home, was in spirits that contrasted with his depressed
+morning mood--to roam at his will. They had just reached the avenue of
+trees that looks over Ham House when a furious barking made them turn
+their heads. The dog, bristling, and with sidelong leaps that left his
+nose in the one direction, was pointing at something in the long grass.
+Fenella cracked the whip she had been trailing along the path.
+
+"Rock! _Rock!_ Come here, sir! Oh, Mr. Ingram, go quick and stop
+him!" She covered her eyes. "He's got some poor little rabbit or bird."
+
+Paul ran and collared the animal. A brown mottled bird with a wide
+yellow beak was fluttering away clumsily, with wings half spread.
+Fenella caught it from him as his hand was closing on it.
+
+"Give it to me! Oh, _darling_! are you hurt?" She looked on
+her gloves for blood. "Had he bitten it, Mr. Ingram?... There,
+_there_--you're quite safe now. I tink oor more f'itened dan hurt,
+dear! Is _he_ one of the birds that fly away in the winter, Mr.
+Ingram? I'm going to take him home and put him in the conservatory till
+spring.... Ah! you _wicked--bad--cruel--fierce_ dog! It's a good
+job I gave him so much meat, isn't it Mr. Ingram?--or you'd be gobbled
+up, dee-ar!... That's right; put him on the chain. Oh, yes he does, Mr.
+Ingram; he eats birds, at least he _scrunches_ them," stroking the
+smooth brown back with her lips. "Can we get a cage in Richmond, do you
+think?"
+
+Paul looked at his watch. "I think we'd better get a train in
+Richmond," he said. "We've been out quite a while, and you only said
+'luncheon' over the 'phone. Are you going to bring the bird along?"
+
+"Why--_of course I am_."
+
+"Well, put him in your muff and let us hustle."
+
+Fenella quickened her pace resolutely, but every now and then would
+stop to be sure the creature was alive, breaking into a run afterward
+to overtake her escort.
+
+"I'm sorry," she said at last, penitently, as she saw him waiting for
+her. "I tell you what I'll do. I'll put my finger in every now and then
+and, if he pecks, I'll know he's alive. Why does he peck me when I
+saved him? Birds have no brain. Cookie had a canary once that flew into
+a fly-paper; it took ever so long to unstick his wings. I hope this
+isn't one of the sort that won't sing unless its eyes are put out."
+
+In the train the bird still absorbed her. They had a compartment to
+themselves, and Paul watched her curiously through his cigar smoke. He
+was wondering whether he had been bored or amused. A little of both he
+concluded. She was a good girl, but quite immature, and utterly--oh!
+utterly trivial. There was probably some babbling old mother at home
+whom she took after, for a warning and example. She was lovely, oh,
+yes--lovely enough to make the most careless heart ache--the rashest
+"gazer wipe his eye." But for a man like himself that was not an entire
+explanation. Wherein lay her charm? For charm there was; one, too, that
+survived the long day spent in her company. There was no use denying
+it; walks in Richmond Park, alone, would be sad affairs from now on.
+Alone, because, of course, this one must never be repeated. Butterflies
+are pretty things to watch, once in a way; but, since to clutch remains
+a human instinct, and since no man who thinks in his heart ever wants
+to see that sort of down upon his clumsy fingers, it would be better
+if--be better if----What were the clanging, ringing wheels saying now?
+Hark!
+
+    "Be its beauty its sole duty:
+    Be its beauty its sole duty...."
+
+Ah! yes. That was what he has been trying to think of all day. And yet
+people could be found to called Browning "obscure."
+
+    "Be its beauty its sole duty!"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Ingram! Look! It's stopped pecking and is beginning to look
+round."
+
+He leaned across the carriage. He may have meant to do no more than
+touch the enfolding hands that lay so near his lips. But her own mouth
+was nearer still, and he kissed that.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XIII
+
+                        FIND SOUL--FIND SORROW
+
+
+In the middle of the night that followed his whole holiday Paul woke
+and cursed himself, at length and with conviction. Years ago, in the
+good old days when punishment was punishment, with no nonsense talked
+about reformatory intent, among the toiling groups that tilled the
+earth, made the road or lightered the harbored vessel, here and there
+a man was noticed who dragged his left leg a little as he walked. He
+was not crippled, nor deformed; he was likely, indeed, to be strong and
+formidable beyond his fellows; he did his day's work and earned his
+day's wage with the best. But the leg dragged--always would drag. And
+the reason passed in whispers: this was an old galley slave--a man who
+had worked at the _bagnio_. His leg, from force of habit, still
+paused for the effort that once dragged ball and chain behind it.
+
+I had not known Ingram long before I guessed that, at one period of
+his life or another, women had meant a great deal for him, but that
+they had never meant happiness. In what did the impression reside?
+I can't say. In a regard perhaps--an inflection of voice--an over
+quickness to catch sorrowful meanings--in what he did not say quite
+as much as in what he did. But I was as sure of it then when I knew
+nothing as now when I know everything. He could not always have loved
+in vain. Partings there had been, tearful, emotional, reluctant, but
+always partings. Letters reached him even now through changes and
+redirections, letters filled with bright, helpful gossip, of the new
+friends--the unimagined husband--the children that might so easily
+have been his; with only here and there between the lines, for his eye
+to see and no other, the tenderness that women keep for the man who
+could win their regard but not their persons. And if Ingram felt sure
+of anything, I knew he felt sure of this: that the chapter of his life
+from which they were a legacy was closed and dead--a great stone rolled
+to the door of its tomb, sealed and mortised, and guarded by a whole
+cohort of wise intentions. And now, in a week, he had fallen--fallen
+as precipitately as the greenest of "rash and inconsiderate youth."
+Relying on his experience and disillusionment, he had broken the
+covenant of the old, wise king, and, into some unsuspected vacuum of
+his heart, a pretty face, a plaintive regard, a few surface tricks
+of dress and manner had rushed and were not to be extricated without
+endless pain and trouble. Again and again, as he turned from side to
+side in the night watches, he went over the images of his fall, for so,
+in all seriousness, this strange man regarded it. He felt the thrill
+of the young throat stretched to meet him, caught the fragrance, so
+faint--so faint that he had not noticed it till then--of the orris
+root in which her clothes had lain folded; heard the little fluttering
+sigh as his fervor stopped her breath. It had been the first kiss of
+passion that had ever touched her lips; he knew because----oh! never
+mind how he knew. What, exactly, he wondered, and was not the first
+to wonder, did such a kiss signify to a good woman? Board and bed, he
+surmised dimly, at some future date; home and home circle, taxes and
+life insurance, doctor's bills, children clapping their hands round
+Christmas trees. And this from him! He laughed out in the darkness--so
+loud that the glass shade of the lamp by which he had read himself to
+sleep vibrated with the sound. From him, a mere embodied intelligence,
+driven by loneliness and mental suffering to self-expression, doomed
+now, while life should last, to breed and bear the calamitous offspring
+of the brain.
+
+He had given her his address because that much seemed called for in
+decency, but he did not expect a letter for a while. Yet when, after a
+few more feverish and wakeful hours and the immense solace of a cold
+tub, he passed into the sitting-room in his bath robe, a letter lay on
+the breakfast tray that he knew could be from no one else; a square
+pale mauve envelope, with an ingenious flap, addressed in a straggling
+schoolgirl hand.
+
+    "DEAR MR. INGRAM,
+
+    "I hope you got home safe and had no _haresbreath_ escapes
+    from motors. I was nearly run over the other day, I only got on the
+    pavement in the _knick_ of time.
+
+    "I have put the bird in the _conservatery_ and given him a lot
+    of seed, he throws it about with his _beek_, but hasn't eaten
+    any. I haven't given him a name because I don't know yet if he is
+    going to live. Ma was crazy, but I _smouthed_ her down.
+
+    "No one ever kissed me before, but some one did hold my hand once
+    quite a long time. I couldn't _riggle_ it away.
+
+    "Rock is ill, he has eaten a _plumb_ stone I think and will
+    have (to) have some _caster_ oil. If it was one of mine that
+    makes it this year not never. How exciting!
+
+    "I shall be at 14, Hanover Place to-morrow till 4.15. _P'raps_
+    you would be near there if you are not writing.
+
+                                                             "I remain,
+                                                   "Your loving friend,
+                                                             "FENELLA."
+
+Paul read the strange letter over and over again, from its prim
+apostrophe to the shy little breath of sentiment at its close. The ink
+just there was a lighter color than the rest. It was evident that she
+had let the letter go dry while wondering how to sign herself.
+
+"Ho! ho!" he said aloud. "So Providence has given you a loving friend,
+has it? Now what's a man like yourself, Paul Ingram, to do with a
+loving friend and a conscience at one and the same time?"
+
+"Scrap the conscience!" said counsellor the first. "The girl's pretty
+and sweet."
+
+"Pull out before any more harm's done!" said another. "She's quite
+innocent."
+
+"Give time a chance," said the third--the one that outruns the hounds
+but never quite catches up with the hare. "You've got to hurt either
+her pride or her heart by making an end of it now, and there's always a
+chance her whim will wear out if you wait."
+
+"That's what I'll do," said Ingram at last. "I'll tell her bit by bit
+what I am, and hint at what I'm likely to become. She'll see reason.
+There's often a lot of hard hog-sense at the bottom of these butterfly
+women."
+
+And, by way of starting well, he took her out to tea that afternoon,
+and was so genial and natural that the last shadow of self-reproach
+vanished from the poor child's heart. And before he left her he had
+promised to call for her at her home. He knew by now that she did not
+belong to his natural enemies, and the knowledge made it harder to
+"pull out" than ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have spent a good deal of time upon this idyll, without, I am afraid,
+leaving a very just or a very pleasant impression of Paul Ingram upon
+the reader's mind. But there are many excuses to be made for him. In
+the first place, he was very poor--poorer than any of us guessed. He
+had that profuse careless way with money which is quite as often a
+consequence of never having had it as of having had it always. The
+commonest, and perhaps the safest, investment of a little money is
+to make present life bearable with it while it lasts. But the future
+is quite another matter. A great golfer told me once that for days
+after he had won a momentous handicap he was obsessed and haunted by
+the stealthy patter of the feet that had followed him from hole to
+hole. And I have no doubt that many a night, while the child sat upon
+his knee and retailed her day's gossip, sweet and unsubstantial as
+the sugary _étrennes_ in a Paris confectioner's window, he was
+listening less to her than to the stealthy wolf-feet of poverty that
+he knew were creeping up behind him.
+
+And then he was, both constitutionally and through circumstances, an
+unhappy man. There are souls so designated and set apart for sorrow
+that it may be said of them, almost without paradox, that they are
+only at ease when bearing it. They grow to recognize in mischance the
+environment that suits them best. In such a mind an isolated reason
+for happiness cannot exist. It pines away for lack of company. Nothing
+convinces the heart of its sorrow so surely as a sudden discrepancy in
+its ill-luck--a belated and unassisted piece of good fortune. Fate has
+these freaks with those upon whose unhappiness she has determined. It
+is not so much her concern that they should have nothing as that they
+should always have a little less than might make them happy.
+
+I think he would have been a better lover for what, I if may be
+permitted a moment's plain speaking, I would call a little sane and
+healthy lust. But he was of the said race of literary lovers, the race
+of Swift, of Shelley, of Flaubert, who are as fatal to a woman's heart
+as they are harmless to her virtue.
+
+Last of all, I expect the girl, in her ignorance, was exacting, and
+had no notion how the smoothest curb can gall. I know for a fact that
+she insisted on his writing to her any evening on which he was not
+able to see her, and I can imagine no torture more refined for such
+a man than to have been forced to sit down, at the end of a long day
+of disappointment and mental drudgery, and answer some foolish, fond
+letter in language she could understand, and into which no trace of
+the _weltschmerz_ should creep that was devouring his heart and
+killing hope and ambition by inches. Some of his letters which I have
+seen show that he took refuge in an irony and fantasy which make them
+something of literary curiosities. He addressed her by all sorts of
+strange names--"Crazy kid," "Dear Pierrette," "Maddest of March
+Hares." One letter is written in Quaker dialect.
+
+    "SWEET FRIEND,
+
+    "As arranged betwixt thee and me I called for thee yestereve at
+    the house of thy worldly acquaintance, but hearkening timely the
+    laughter of fools from an upper chamber, which is like to thorns
+    crackling under a pot, refrained, and did not venture. I pray thee
+    walk soberly, and so farewell."
+
+Some, written, I fancy, in the illiterate and misspelt jargon of the
+cowboy of the plains, are, to me at least, unintelligible. At last it
+became easier to call than to write at any time, and he appeared an
+ardent lover for the very reasons that made him a laggard one.
+
+He put off the first call as long as he could, but a day came when it
+could be put off no longer. One foggy evening he found himself outside
+the railings at Number Eleven, and Fenella asked him if he was not
+coming in to show himself.
+
+"I can't stay out late, you know, until you have," she said, with a
+little reproach in her voice. It was the first time she had spoken
+sadly to him.
+
+Mrs. Barbour rose, a little flustered, as he came into the room, and
+thrust some family mending behind the cushion of her basket chair. Paul
+saw at once that she was of his own caste, and you never would have
+guessed how his heart went out to her. The heart was under disgrace
+just then, and a strict embargo laid upon its impulses.
+
+"I am so pleased to meet you at last," said Mrs. Barbour, when the
+first civilities were over, "and so interested to hear you are a
+literary man. My husband wrote a good deal during his life."
+
+Fenella was revolving, slowly, on the hearthrug before the mirror.
+
+"Paul doesn't want to hear about books, mother," she said; "he's been
+reading stodge all day."
+
+But Mrs. Barbour was already searching the shabby book-shelves, packed
+tight with tattered exercise-books, coverless magazines, broken
+cardboard boxes, and a host of other things for which book-shelves were
+never intended.
+
+"My husband had a very fine library at one time," the widow went on, as
+she rummaged, "but most of the best books are upstairs."
+
+"With our lodgers," Fenella further explained. "We're very proud of
+our 'paying jests'; aren't we, mummy. We've had them for years--and
+years--and years." She let her voice die away, and stretched out her
+arms slowly, indicating, indeed, a considerable time vista. "What an
+actress!" thought Paul, watching her.
+
+"Here's one," said her mother at last, dusting a slim volume in a brown
+cloth binding. "Where _can_ all your father's books have got to,
+Nelly?"
+
+Ingram took the book from her hand. Its pages had never been cut, and
+it exhaled the forlorn odor of the presentation copy. Its strange title
+attracted him--
+
+"Climatic Influences Upon the Reformation. A lecture delivered at Wells
+before the United Diocesan Congress, 18--. By the Honble. and Revd.
+Nigel Kedo Barbour, M. A."
+
+There was a boastful engraved book-plate inside the cover--all plumes
+and scrolls and quarterings.
+
+"Has my new hat come, mummy?" asked Fenella, suddenly, in the changed
+voice she kept for the serious affairs of life.
+
+"I bade Druce take it up to your room," answered mother. "Have you had
+tea yet, dear?"
+
+"No," said Fenella, incisively. "Ring for some while I go upstairs,"
+and disappeared forthwith.
+
+Paul kept his eyes upon the mottled page, but knew he was undergoing a
+scrutiny at once legitimate and disquieting. Mrs. Barbour spoke at last:
+
+"I hope you don't think my little girl forward, Mr. Ingram."
+
+Paul raised his eyes, closing the book upon his forefinger.
+
+"I think her entirely charming."
+
+"I know she's impulsive," the mother went on. "Yes--she is. It makes me
+anxious."
+
+"You don't expect me to quarrel with her latest impulse," Ingram said,
+with one of his rare smiles.
+
+Mrs. Barbour shook her head, secure in her own worldly wisdom and code
+of conduct.
+
+"But men make mistakes. Don't they? You know they do."
+
+"Of course they do. I've made hundreds, but never the sort I think you
+mean."
+
+"You see," explained the clergyman's relict, "Fenella leads a strange
+life. Yes"--she repeated the phrase, as though she found it vaguely
+comforting--"a strange life. She's very bright and talented, and
+receives a great deal of attention; but for reasons that--well, for
+_reasons_, she can't see much of her friends here. I assure you,
+you are the first gentleman acquaintance she has ever asked in. You
+ought to feel very much flattered, Mr. Ingram."
+
+"To an extent that verges on embarrassment, Mrs. Barbour."
+
+"And then," the mother went on, in the heedless fashion that recalled
+her daughter, "she has a great number of fine relations who would be
+glad to show her attention if she'd make the first move. But Nelly
+won't be 'taken up'--that's what she calls it--_taken up_, by any
+one."
+
+"Bravo!" said Paul. "Let us be fellow-conspirators, Mrs. Barbour, and
+confine her bounty to the laborious and deserving class."
+
+"Oh my!" exclaimed Mrs. Barbour, with sudden helplessness. "You do talk
+like my husband! It's quite uncanny."
+
+Fenella interrupted them, entering with noisy suddenness. The new hat,
+very large, very smart, was on her head. She looked quickly from one to
+the other.
+
+"What've you two been yapping about?" she asked. "Mother"--in an
+aggrieved voice--"this beastly hat is an inch too big all round. I told
+Clarice so, but you and she would talk me down. You never take my part
+with dressmakers and people. It'll have to be altered. Hats are getting
+smaller. Have you rung for tea?"
+
+"The maids are upstairs, dear. I'll go and get it myself."
+
+As soon as she had left the room the girl seated herself on Ingram's
+knee and kissed him.
+
+"What were you and mummy talking about?" she said, rubbing her lips
+after the kiss. "The hat's a bit in the way isn't it? I hate things in
+the way, don't you?"
+
+"Not when I perceive them in time."
+
+"Oh, but we aren't going to have any, are we, Paul? No difficulties--no
+quarrels--nothing horrid."
+
+Ingram didn't answer her. Perhaps he was listening to those feet
+creeping, creeping up behind his shoulder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the months passed. When it was too late, Ingram tried to tell
+her what he should have told her at first. But Nelly would admit
+nothing--listen to nothing. She turned all the clouds inside out and
+bade him confine his attention to the silver lining. Upon the subject
+of her dancing ambitions she entered an unaccountable and fatal
+reserve, but there was nothing else in her life she did not share with
+him. Through whatever fringe of whatever society she happened to be
+adorning at the moment she dragged her lover gallantly. Fenella led
+captive was Fenella less dangerous, and the old popularity revived
+at the news of her attachment. Men liked Ingram, and he was thought
+"distinguished," "unusual," even in circles that called him "Crabbed
+Age" and "The Satyr" behind his back. (Besides, when were satyrs ever
+unpopular?) A few mothers held up shuddering hands, but the daughters,
+being of the new generation, only seized the occasion to preach the
+new evangel, and, generally, to cleanse and sterilize the imagination
+of eld. Speculation, in fact, having spent itself, accepted the
+situation; and by the time the long-planned foreign holiday arrived,
+her mother thought her "improved," "more thoughtful, and more womanly."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+
+                              ALTHEA REES
+
+
+One airless July morning, a good many years ago, now, old Winstanley
+came bustling into the sporting editor's room, where I sat on a
+desk, swinging my legs and talking "bulldog" with Stedall. He had a
+typewritten slip of paper in his hand.
+
+"Probate and Admiralty for you this morning, my boy!" he said,
+addressing me. "Here's the cause list. There's two cases down.
+M--m--m! '_Vacuum Recovery Co. v. Owners of Dacia. Assessment for
+Salvage._' That's a friendly case; it shouldn't take more than a
+couple of hours. Here's something spicier: '_Hepworth v. Hepworth: no
+parties named_.' It's a defended case. Special jury. Hepworth is old
+Lord Hallamshire's grandson, younger son of a younger son, but that's
+good enough for a 'Society Divorce,' lead and about a column and a
+half. If the turtle doves come on to-day, keep your eyes and ears open,
+Prentice! There's some dashed mystery about the case; secret marriage
+and that sort of thing. Mrs. Hep's a Yankee. There appears to have been
+a separation three years ago, and now the respondent wants the kid.
+Blackmail, no doubt."
+
+And off bustled Winstanley, fretting and bawling.
+
+If secret there were, no one seemed to have winded it but Winstanley.
+There were not more than the average knot of idlers in the public
+gallery. But the body of the court was filled with a bevy of
+smartly dressed women, and the five seniors who were briefed were
+all well-known leaders. The Salvage case was called first, but the
+Trinity Masters were not ready, and so the conjugal knot was attacked
+forthwith.
+
+Hart-Milner, the well-known silk and wit, opened with an appeal to the
+press. The case, said he, raised no point of any public importance, but
+its detail was of the most painful nature with which that court could
+be called upon to deal. How far such evidence as they were about to
+hear should ever be reported in the public sheets was, he thought, a
+vexed question. The entire position of the press in such matters might,
+at some future date, have to be revised, and he believed that the final
+decision would depend a great deal upon the restraint and decency
+with which the privilege had previously been handled. The position
+of the parties, moreover--at least of the party to whom his interest
+was confined--made a further and personal claim for indulgence upon a
+body whose association with literature was growing closer each year.
+The name which appeared upon the cause list--the name which he could
+well believe had grown to be to his client the intolerable symbol of
+all she sought relief from to-day--was, it is true, as obscure as it
+was besmirched. But it was far different with the petitioner's maiden
+name. That name, a name which, in accordance with a line of defence he
+left his friend on the other side to justify if he could, it seemed was
+to be imported into this sordid case, it would be only necessary to
+mention, in order at once to strike a responsive chord in the breasts
+of all who had the interest of literature at heart. (A pause, and "Oh!
+you are _strong_," from Nicholls, leading for respondent.) In her
+capacity of authoress, petitioner was well known to the reading public
+as "Althea Rees."
+
+My! what a buzz and hum and craning of necks! And how the people who
+were _in_ congratulated themselves on being in, and of having
+refused to be frightened away by the possible technicalities of Vacuum
+Salvage, and how they determined that no luncheon interval should tempt
+them away from the precincts of the court.
+
+"I say, 'imported into the case,'" goes on Hart-Milner, when order
+had been restored, "because I believe I am divulging no secret when
+I say that the other side intend to plead condonation, and to take
+the unprecedented course of deducing it, not only from letters that
+passed between the parties subsequent to the alleged offences, but
+from passages in the published work of the petitioner bearing upon the
+position of the sexes--passages which, I make no doubt, my learned
+friend will know not only how to select, but----"
+
+Nicholls was on his feet. "M'lud! I protest most strongly against the
+line my learned friend is seeing fit to take. My learned friend can
+have no knowledge whatever of what is in my brief."
+
+"I think, Sir Frederick, I should let it alone at the present stage,"
+the president suggests pacifically. "If it's there, we'll come to it in
+time."
+
+"Very well, m'lud! Then I'll open my case. The petitioner--Althea Clara
+Hepworth, born Althea Clara Rees--only daughter of Mr. Lyman Rees,
+president of the Anglo-Occidental Bank, an American gentleman resident
+in London, and who has been for years a prominent figure ..." and so
+on, and so on, and so on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I think I see the scene now. The dim court, packed with its restless,
+seated occupants; the long shafts of light from the Gothic window over
+the judge's seat, all alive with dust motes; the bearded president,
+with chin on hand; the intent, puzzled faces of the special jurymen;
+and Hart-Milner on his feet, relating, in a voice low but distinct,
+and vibrating with the multiplex humanity that made him the darling of
+Bar and Commons, the devilish tale of physical and spiritual brutality
+in which a man had sought revenge for the inferiority that daily
+self-comparison with a woman high-spirited, witty, and admired enforced
+upon his own base soul.
+
+At the close of the opening speech the petitioner went into the box.
+She was a pathetic figure; all the more so, I thought, because she was
+so beautifully gowned. I remember her dress well. It was of brown silk,
+with the wide velvet sleeves that no one thought hideous in eighteen
+hundred and--never mind. She had a flower hat covered with pale blue
+violets, and a bunch of the same flowers at her breast. She kept her
+veil down as much as possible, and answered in low monosyllables, or in
+little, faltering sentences that one could hardly catch, and that often
+had to be repeated for the benefit of the jury. The questions were
+frightful. Even Hart-Milner could not do much with them.
+
+Nicholls, with his long, mottled face, and jaw as of a dishonest
+horse-chaunter, jumped up to cross-examine--loathing his task, but all
+the more truculent for that.
+
+"Look at these letters, please!"
+
+A bundle of letters, on a woman's fanciful note-paper, sewn into a
+stiff paper cover, was taken across by the gowned usher.
+
+"They are yours?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Some are dated, some aren't. May we take it the undated ones were
+written within two or three months of those that are?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"During your husband's absence in Norway?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Written two years after the court has been told that your happiness
+and peace of mind and health had been wrecked, your faith in human
+nature destroyed, and written to the man who was responsible for all
+these things?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Come! Let's read one or two."
+
+He read them one by one. Foolish, flippant, loving letters. The letters
+of a poor little girl-wife, hungering for love and kisses, and--yes,
+why not?--for cuddling (the very word was in one of them); and, in
+her longing, turning for it to the dishonored, tainted source whence
+alone she could ask it now. The poor soul broke down and cried as the
+merciless, rasping voice read on and on.
+
+"Now I ask you, and I ask the jury, is this condonation? And if it
+isn't, what is?"
+
+Althea threw her arms out with a little stiff, appealing gesture that
+she checked immediately.
+
+"Oh!" she sobbed, "what could I do? I was only a girl. I believed what
+he told me. He said all men were the same."
+
+The case had not concluded when the court rose. I sprinted back to the
+office. The compositor was waiting for me, but I pushed by him and
+opened the door of Winstanley's sanctum.
+
+"Hello!" said he, scarcely turning round; "you're late. What have you
+brought?"
+
+"Half a column."
+
+"Was it a dry case?"
+
+"It's one that shouldn't be reported at all."
+
+He spun round in his chair and regarded me savagely.
+
+"That means it's d----d good! What's your game, Prentice?"
+
+"Look here, Winstanley," I said nervously, "there _are_ things,
+you know----"
+
+"I don't know it at all. People who go into the courts are public
+property. If they don't like it, they can stay outside."
+
+"And besides----"
+
+"Besides what?"
+
+"She's my Mrs. Hepworth."
+
+"_Your_ Mrs. Hepworth?"
+
+"Althea Rees, the authoress."
+
+He jumped up, and began to pace the floor savagely. "That's so like
+you. I suspect something; I send you down because you can gush, and,
+instead of sending your stuff out early and getting the scoop, you turn
+up late, with ten lines for the public and a lot of tripe about 'a
+woman's heart' for me."
+
+Well, like Fenella, I '_smouthed_' him down. He wasn't a bad
+little beast, when you knew him--Winstanley. It wasn't his fault if his
+veins were full of printer's ink. I told him the _Herald_ and the
+_Courier_ were doing the same as me. He sat grumbling.
+
+"Turn in your stuff, then, and come back here. I'll send down Chaffers
+to-morrow, and you can do old Astbury at the City Carlton. You don't
+deserve anything better."
+
+But Chaffers, and a good many other people, had their trouble for
+nothing. Next morning Nicholls arose in a packed court and announced
+that, after consultation, his client had decided to withdraw his
+defence, and would take a verdict by consent; each party to pay
+their own costs, and neither custody of nor access to the child of
+the marriage to be sought. Which decision Sir William Vieille, the
+president, commended in a little speech that left no doubt which way
+his direction would have gone. And I, hearing the result at midday,
+sent Althea the biggest bunch of pale violets I could find in St.
+Swithin's Lane. The price of violets in July, was, I admit, an
+eye-opener.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You will have guessed it was not on principle alone that I took all
+this trouble and risk. I had interviewed Althea a year before on
+some shop-assistants' movement or other (she was a woman of varied
+activities); and something in the name upon the card I had sent in
+seemed to strike her. When the interview was over she asked me to wait,
+and, having left the room for a few moments, came back with her father.
+Mr. Rees was a big, old-time, orating and banqueting type of American
+citizen, with a clean-shaven, ivory-white face and thick silver hair.
+He carried a great expanse of starched shirt-front, wore a narrow
+black tie, and I rather fancied I detected Wellington boots under his
+broadcloth trousers. He had my card in his hand.
+
+"Your name is Hyacinth Prentice?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You must be some relative of Hyacinth Prentice of Prentice and
+Morales?"
+
+I said I was his son.
+
+"Give me your hand, my boy!" said the old gentleman, impulsively. It
+was the last time I was to be called a boy; but I suppose I seemed
+young to him, and, indeed, a permanent immaturity of aspect is one of
+my disadvantages.
+
+"I knew your father well," goes on old Lyman Rees. "He was one of the
+first friends I made when I came to London in sixty--sixty----? Oh,
+very well, my dear," for Althea had laid her hand gently upon his
+mouth. "We lost sight of one another before the trouble. I wrote him,
+though. I said: 'Don't try to reconstruct! Don't show the bad trading!
+Buy off the debenture holders! Give them twice the value in ordinary
+shares if they insist, and raise another hundred thousand in debenture
+on the Chili property.' But your father was an ill man to advise. Ah,
+well; it's an old tale to-day. Althea, we mustn't lose sight of Hy
+Prentice's son. When we are dining by ourselves?"
+
+Althea gave a date that was significantly far ahead.
+
+"But I'm always at home on Sundays," she added, smiling a good-bye.
+"Come in whenever the English Sunday becomes unendurable, Mr. Prentice."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My floral offering must have been only one of many she received, for
+all manner of fine friends rallied to her in her trouble; but, perhaps,
+coming from a poor devil of a working journalist, the tribute struck
+her imagination. A few days afterward I got a little note chiding me
+for never having taken advantage of the old invitation, and bidding me
+to dinner at the end of the week.
+
+I am not a sentimentalist, whatever Winstanley may pretend he believes,
+but I confess that in the course of a friendship which dated from this
+dinner Althea became a sort of a heroine with me. Poor woman! the veil
+had been so roughly snatched from all the tender privacies of her life
+that I think I had the same satisfaction in bringing her my sympathy
+and consideration as a knight-errant may have felt, covering with his
+own cloak the naked, shamefaced captive whom his sword had cut loose in
+the forest. In fact, we became so far friends that one night, more than
+six months after her decree had been confirmed, she bade me, in saying
+good-night, congratulate her on a very serious step she was taking
+on the morrow. I thought she was going to be married, and I admit my
+heart sank a little. But it was nothing of the sort, as she explained
+hastily. She was on the eve of reception into the Roman Catholic
+Church.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XV
+
+                        HISTORY OF A CONVERSION
+
+
+She first came into contact with Catholicism--I mean close personal
+contact, for, during her residence upon the Continent, such things
+had passed her like a painted show--during a stay she made in late
+autumn with the Mawhoods (pronounce "_Maud_," please!) in Norfolk.
+Harberhall, Sir Cuthbert Mawhood's seat, famous for its tapestries and
+formal gardens, is one of the great houses of England. It was also,
+for nigh upon two hundred years, while the Howards were tacking and
+trimming, the only important stronghold of the prescribed faith in East
+Anglia. It has been beset for weeks together by spies and pursuivants;
+its gray flint Tudor walls are honeycombed with secret stairways,
+sliding panels and "conveyances." Father Fitzsimon or Hopwell, the
+seventeenth-century Abelard, lay concealed there for six months during
+the Oates mystification, and a strip of sea-beach almost under the
+park walls, called Paces to-day, is said to preserve in its name the
+tradition of his restless night walks. Set upon a steep hill that
+overlooks the fowl-haunted levels of the Wash, there is everything
+in the position and associations of Harberhall to arouse a romantic
+enthusiasm, and to turn that enthusiasm toward the great central fact
+which has lifted a commonplace county family to the heights of heroism
+and self-sacrifice.
+
+The chapel of the Mawhoods is a modern Gothic building of the elder
+Pugin, whose windows are filled with stained glass from a French abbey
+demolished in the Revolution, and is connected with the hall only
+by a long wing of palm-houses and vineries. It is also the parish
+church of the village below the hill. During the last hundred years
+a small congregation of the faith has grown up there, dependents and
+old servants' children's children. The Mawhoods have married much
+abroad, and little trace remains of the Jansenism with which so many
+of the old Catholic families were once tainted. On a hunt morning,
+which also happened to be a feast of the Church, Sir Cuthbert and his
+two tall sons in pink approached the sacred altar among their servants
+and laborers. The Confiteor was recited by the surpliced server--the
+tabernacle unveiled. Above each head the chaplain, a tall, curly haired
+young doctor, himself a scion of an old West of England cavalier
+family, and predestined to the purple, bent reverently and murmured
+some formula that Althea could not catch. All returned to their places
+with downcast eyes and clasped hands, but with the easiness of long
+habit as well. Mass went on with many genuflections--many salutations
+from the altar steps, with tinkling of crystal vessels against the gold
+chalice rim, and one ecstatic minute in which the bowed congregation
+seemed to hold its breath, while a bell trilled sharply six times.
+During the mass the pupils of a convent school outside the village,
+directed by a community of French refugee nuns, many of them cousins
+and kinsfolk to the hall, sang English hymns in sweet quavering
+voices--vapid, unmetrical compositions of the veiled cloister, though
+not without a certain sentimental charm of their own:
+
+    "O Sacred Heart: behold thy children kneeling...."
+
+_or_
+
+    "Oh, turn to Jesus, Mother turn!
+    And call Him by His tenderest names...."
+
+This blessed _eau sucré_ brought tears to Althea's eyes. Harkening
+it, she seemed somehow to recover her own hapless, "ill-adventured
+youth." The spell of the old, wise religion, so guileless and yet so
+subtle, which never seeks to explain the inexplicable, and which is as
+tender to those who have lost their happiness as it is merciless to
+those who are seeking it, fell over her. The end was never in doubt.
+
+I should like to have been near Althea while she was "under
+instruction." I don't mean on account of anything she would have said,
+for, like most original thinkers, she was capable of infinite docility;
+but just to have watched her face while the Catholic doctrine, say as
+to the relation between physical and moral evil, was explained for
+her benefit. For she was a child of revolt, if ever there was one;
+far more akin to Bruno than to Augustine, to Leopardi than to Newman.
+Innately sceptical, a scoffer in the grain, I suppose she discovered
+that beyond all negation a doubt persists, and decided to give God
+and the creed that speaks most confidently for Him the benefit of
+it. Even after her conversion she liked to play at heresy--to be
+_enfant terrible_--to have grave monsignori wag their fingers
+half reprovingly at her. Her religion remained intensely personal,
+and she was never impressed, as some worthy converts have been, by
+the spectacle of the Church as a "great going concern." Its dogma
+oppressed her: she was not strong enough physically or nervously to
+endure its elaborate ritual, and would often leave her seat in church,
+suffocating, in the very middle of high mass. What she liked best was
+to creep away at dusk, when the world is busied with shopping and tea,
+and, before some dimly lit side altar in Farm Street or Brompton, to
+set herself adrift upon an ocean of sentiment that, with a little more
+conviction and a little less self-consciousness, might almost have
+become ecstasy.
+
+Her new interest was immediately made apparent in her books, for her
+characters henceforth began to talk theology in season and out of
+season. At an earlier stage of her career, I submit, this would have
+missed her her public. But her reputation was by now secure: her annual
+novel was eagerly awaited by the "passionate few" whose suffrage alone
+fine writing can win. Besides, it was noticeable her asceticism
+never strayed far from the purlieus and issues of Mayfair. One got up
+from her books feeling that one had been in very fine company indeed.
+She had that affinity to the highly placed which is less snobbery, I
+believe, than a kind of perverse idealism. And, beneath all the pomp
+and circumstance, sorrow always worked regardless of earthly shows, and
+kept the balance true.
+
+Such, as far as the world has any right to know her, was Althea Rees
+at the date I tried to make her Paul Ingram's earthly providence. I
+pleaded his cause, not perhaps as strongly as I might, because I wanted
+the man and his work to complete the impression for themselves. That
+they might do more--that in trying to work good I might be working
+mischief--was a thought that, I protest, never once occurred to me.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVI
+
+                           HOA-HAKA-NANA-IA
+
+
+It doesn't much matter how early in the autumn we come back to London;
+upon our return we always find the season has stolen a march upon
+us. Paul arrived in town on a dark, rainy afternoon. The impatient,
+scowling skies were already beginning the ruin of the short-lived
+English summer. Beyond the railway terminus the streets, with their
+stream of jostling umbrellas, their straining horses and shiny-coated
+drivers, were both bewildering and disheartening. Victoria was full
+of belated holiday makers setting an anxious face seaward. And on all
+sides, from the railway announcements with which the walls of the
+vestibule were placarded, from the covers of the summer magazines that
+still heaped the book-stalls, from advertisements of soap and jam and
+pickles and liquors, girl faces simpered and ogled. Girls in punts,
+dabbling their hands in lilied water: sunburnt girls in orchards,
+carrying baskets filled with apples: languid girls in hammocks, with
+shapely ankles peeping discreetly from their frilled skirts: girls
+smiling from carriage windows, or standing with hounds in leash on
+windy moors--but always girls, always women. In some of these journals
+there might be food for thought or fruit of experience: here and
+there--though rarely--an author's name seemed earnest of this; but in
+every case, for the written word as for bottled mineral water or patent
+cereal, the lure was the same--some pretty, foolish face; something
+to excite and feed for a moment the idle desire of the eye. Paul, as
+he viewed these things biliously, wondered whether it were true after
+all, as his French captain had declared to him once with cursing and
+swearing, that the Anglo-Saxon was the most woman-ridden race in the
+world; and, alas! remembering how he himself had been employed during
+the last fortnight, a spasm of self-contempt contracted and hardened
+his heart. He felt degraded, commonplace, banal; caught in the toils
+of the delusion that has deposed woman from her proper place as man's
+helpmeet and propounds her, tricked and adorned and set on a pedestal,
+as his reward.
+
+He put his baggage in the cloak-room, and made first of all for my
+lodgings in Pimlico. This was particularly unfortunate, as Mrs.
+McNaughten, deceived by the morning's fair promise, had driven me forth
+betimes, bidding me, under pain of her displeasure, which is no light
+threat, not to return till night, the while my room should be swept and
+scoured, "before the murk days comes, and a body canna tell dir-rt frae
+darkness." Scribbling a message in the narrow hall, while his umbrella
+made a pool upon its shabby oilcloth and Dulcinea, with pail and broom,
+ascended laboriously to her attack upon matter in the wrong place, Paul
+had an opportunity for contemplating the rewards of literature, the
+sort that does get into print. It cannot have been inspiriting.
+
+His own rooms were in Cowley Street, Westminster. He approached them,
+through Broad Sanctuary, with the sense of expectancy that every
+one feels after even a short absence who nears the spot upon which
+the activities of his life converge. He had not left his French
+address--and so much can happen in a fortnight!
+
+There was only one letter and a packet: the harvest of two weeks! The
+package contained his bank pass-book. He glanced at it hastily and
+tossed it aside. The letter was from America, from the lawyers who
+managed a slender inheritance that had devolved upon him some years
+ago, as a tardy act of justice, years after the foreclosure upon his
+mother's farm. As he read it, the blood left his cheeks under their
+superficial sunburn. He pocketed it, and made a hasty calculation
+upon his fingers--counting months perhaps--or even weeks. He looked
+round his sitting-room with hunted eyes. They were particularly
+pleasant quarters, these rooms of Ingram's, in a charming old early
+Georgian house behind the Abbey. Their windows had deep seats and
+looked across the cloistral calm of Cowley Street to similar quaint
+windows, curtained with art fabrics and with a hint of pottery and
+brass beyond. Actresses of the serious sort, journalists, an artist
+or two, one junior Cabinet Minister, were his neighbors. He was proud
+and fond of the old-world parlor--of its panelled walls, the slight
+list of its floor, its grotesque fire-back and grate. It had been his
+home now for two years; even the dust and stillness that lay on it
+after a fortnight's absence seemed consecrated--seemed _his_. All
+the books and most of the furniture was his own. It is marvellous how
+much wandering and uprooting the instinct of a home-making race will
+survive. As, give a couple of beavers in an exhibition tank a few logs,
+and watch the poor beasts start building!
+
+He had a hasty lunch and went to the Museum. He read hard: he was too
+disturbed to write. In its untroubled atmosphere little by little his
+agitation left him. A pleasant sense of comradeship reached him from
+silent neighbors, many of whom had grown gray in the same thankless
+task. He felt he would always be able to breathe freely here. There was
+a respite after all, and projects would suggest themselves once his
+mind was at rest. Once it was at rest! For certain distractions must be
+put out of his way once and for all. He was sorry, truly sorry, for the
+girl who used to sit quietly beside him reading "Who's Who" or turning
+the leaves of some illustrated book--there, in the seat where the mad
+poet was mowing and scribbling this afternoon, but he was sorry for her
+only in the same impersonal sense that he was sorry for the woes with
+which the musty volume before him was filled:
+
+    "Old unhappy, far-off things
+    And battles long ago."
+
+After all, self-preservation was the first law, and one could not
+accept a real responsibility for anything that was as inevitable
+as this. He was quite cheerful when I met him for dinner at the
+_À-peu-près_, and even pleasantly ironic at the expense of a white
+shirt-front and black tie which I was weak enough to think an evening
+call upon a lady in Portland Place demanded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Althea received us in her own sanctum upon the second floor: a long,
+beautiful Adams room with creamy white walls hung sparsely with
+Carpacciesque Italian drawings in red chalk, a few water-colors of the
+old English school, and one great painting of the mad Venetian master,
+all splash and impasto, which, seen close at hand, was like a lichen
+stain on an old red wall, but, at a little distance, teemed with form
+and color. A bookcase of dark carved wood ran breast-high round the
+walls. Along its deep shelf were ranged bronzes, old Nankin jars,
+fragmental majolica figures--with an occasional faded embroidery or red
+morocco missal clasped with hammered silver. The carpet was of thick,
+dead-leaf-colored pile, and a brass railed fender with a wide leather
+seat ran across the low marble mantelpiece. Althea's room always struck
+me, personally, as the last word in that austere taste which roams the
+world, seeking and rejecting, in its quest of the beautiful.
+
+She rose to meet us, and Paul had the impression of a woman, still
+young, in a loose pale satin gown, rather clumsy of figure but graceful
+of movement, with chestnut hair dressed low on her forehead, gray eyes
+under thick dark brows, a heavy jaw and just a hint of sensuality in
+the mouth. Her arms and hands were white and perfectly shaped; her ears
+finely modelled, and set as close to the head as though they had been
+carved from it in low relief.
+
+As long as I was there we only talked commonplace, and I left them
+early, pleading the editorial discipline. I thought I had done my
+part in bringing them together, and walked back to Pimlico "on
+eggshells." But no sooner was I gone, (so I have heard since,) than
+she recrossed the room and, seating herself upon the fender, gazed at
+Ingram in silence for a long while. Try to imagine what balm to the
+misunderstood, thwarted spirit that level, frankly admiring regard must
+have been.
+
+"Tell me all about it!" she said at last, abruptly and impulsively.
+
+Paul smiled back into the intense gray eyes.
+
+"All about what?"
+
+"How you ever came to write such a story."
+
+She reached to the mantel-shelf, and, taking down a square silver
+cigarette-box, scrawled all over its top and sides with well-known
+women's names, handed it across to him. She lit one herself and
+arranged her satin draperies.
+
+"You speak as though I had 'arrived!'"
+
+"Oh! success will come," she said confidently. "It's the beginnings
+that are most fascinating. I want to be taken behind the scenes. Come,
+wizard!" she pleaded "let me be inquisitorial and curious while I'm
+under your spell. To-morrow you'll be my rival. Who knows but that I
+may hate you then?"
+
+Ingram considered a moment, and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.
+
+"There's not much to tell," he said slowly. "You may have heard or
+guessed that I'm a poor man's son. We have our decayed families in
+Massachusetts, though I suppose we haven't quite so far back to decay.
+I didn't learn much more at free school than to read and write and
+figure, but you know with what care and reverence the first steps are
+guarded in our country. Nothing so trivial and hopeless as the average
+English taste in letters could leave even our primaries. I may say 'our
+country,' 'our primaries,' may I not?"
+
+She flashed her sympathy.
+
+"Afterward I led a very lonely life for years. I don't mean
+comparative loneliness, or even such loneliness as a man may achieve
+for himself in any big city. I mean weeks, months, with never a human
+face. And during that time I think"--he laughed--"I think I read every
+book in the world."
+
+"No writing? No early efforts?"
+
+"I was twenty-eight before I tried. When I wrote my first essay I'd
+almost forgotten how to hold a pen. Please," he urged quickly, "you
+must try and believe it."
+
+"I am believing every word you say."
+
+"I was a soldier in the French army. Oh! no glory--just drudgery.
+Very good society though: I still believe my corporal was an Austrian
+bishop. We were on detachment in the desert, and of course English
+books weren't to be had. Besides, some of the lads from Alsace were
+eager to learn, and it seemed a chance before I forgot it myself. I
+had met all sorts of strange characters, and began to try and set them
+down as I remembered them. Then it was only a step to putting them in
+new situations and figuring out how they'd make good. And then--and
+then--it seemed to me I made a discovery."
+
+He stopped, a little agitated, filled his lungs with smoke, and emptied
+them before he spoke again. Althea sat quite still.
+
+"Go on, please," she said in a low voice.
+
+"In all the stories I had read the character seemed to start,
+full-fledged, on the first page. All the action of the book develops
+it and shows it up. Now that might be literature, but it wasn't life.
+What was the reason? Not a mistake; because the best men do it. No. But
+I think unconsciously they are following the line of least resistance.
+They start the first chapter under a disadvantage: with the last one in
+their heads. And they even get praise for preserving the unities--the
+_unities_!--of _life_! What a lot of guessing it would save!
+I ended by believing there's no such thing as a consistent character
+at all. There's something we hang our convictions on as we hang
+clothes on pegs, but all the rest is just things happening--things
+happening--things happening. And in the intervals"--he laughed again,
+"as much character as you like to indulge in: as much as you feel you
+can stand yourself. Am I tiring you?"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Take my book. You've read it through?"
+
+"And through again."
+
+"What's Patty Holt? Only a ranch-woman who broils, and bakes, and
+washes, and irons, and has wandering loves. What's her husband? An
+Indian trader, who holds up trains and has views on the revision of
+Hamilton's masterpiece, the Constitution of the United States. Neither
+of them know either how good or how bad they are. Conviction for him
+would come with the rope round his neck, and for her when the Ashplant
+Vigilance Committee gave her twenty-four hours to bisect the state
+boundary line at right angles."
+
+"She'll be compared with Madame Bovary, you know."
+
+"Very unfairly, then. Emma Bovary is a romantic-minded woman set amid
+prosaic surroundings, and Holt's wife is a commonplace woman set in
+romantic ones. What's wanting to romance? Her lovers ride and kill.
+I suppose if they rode--what's the word--_destriers_ instead of
+cow-ponies, and carried two-handed swords instead of thirty-thirties,
+they'd be legitimate subjects for the most full-blooded cap and sword
+romance. And there was--I mean there is--violent and horrid death
+at hand any time the Ute bucks lift a demijohn of fifty overproof
+Peach Bloom Rye going up to a mining camp. No, what weighs them
+both down is just the sordidness of the transplanted civilization
+around them, and when the crash comes all they have to turn to is the
+little meeting-house God of their youth, which the woman has outgrown
+unconsciously during her emotional experiences."
+
+"But surely----What about Mr. Ffoulkes? You don't think that he----?"
+
+Paul jumped to his feet and thrust his hands into his pockets with an
+impatient movement.
+
+"Everard Ffoulkes! The cowboy bishop! Isn't it funny how unerringly
+even good criticism puts his finger on the one true thing, and declares
+'That couldn't happen.' Why he's '_vécu_'--'_erlebt_,' every
+word and action of him. I've ridden with him, camped with him, bunked
+with him, and even prayed with him."
+
+Althea regarded him awhile, through the smoke haze, with eyes narrowed
+to slits.
+
+"Mr. Ingram," she said, flinging her cigarette away, "I'm going to help
+you publish your book, but I'm going to hurt you first. Now--are you
+ready?"
+
+"Go right ahead."
+
+"You'll have to modify it. Oh! don't bristle and scold. I know I've
+touched a nerve. But on your own confession you've lived away from
+the world a long time, and you have no conception of"--she paused
+for a strong enough word--"the impregnable determination of our race
+that certain things shall not be--I won't say discussed, but even
+postulated. It's too strong for the strongest of us. The Inquisition
+and the Index are indulgent beside it. It's begun to hurt social
+progress; but even social progress has to mark time and wait its
+pleasure. Right in the midst of our civilization, Mr. Ingram, a great,
+rough-hewn granite god uprears his bulk. I always imagine him something
+like the Easter Island deity you have to pass on your right going into
+the Museum--no forehead, cavernous eye-sockets, vast nostrils and
+mouth--HOA-HAKA-NANA-IA: the god of things as they must be
+supposed to be. And his thighs and stomach are simply larded with the
+smoke of intellectual sacrifice. There is a legend, you know, that no
+great literary work, once carried through, has failed to somehow or
+another reach the world. I fancy Hoa could throw some light on that
+tale. Shall we go on the balcony? It's rather warm in here."
+
+She put her hand to her forehead as he followed her down the room.
+Outside the rain had ceased, and the September night was clear and
+fresh. Across the nobly planned street, the broadest and most effective
+prospect in London, the windows of the great stuccoed mansions were
+dark and shuttered, with only here and there a pale glow in fanlight
+or upper window, but the many storied Langham Hotel, filled with
+trans-Atlantic birds of passage, closed the vista cheerily, and a broad
+flare of light round the corner showed where Regent Street and the
+shops and restaurants began.
+
+"Do you know French well?" she asked, presently.
+
+"Only everyday French and a few curiosities I'm trying to forget."
+
+"It is a pity. You could have turned your book into a French novel, and
+then translated it."
+
+Paul shook his head. "I wouldn't do that. It's here or nowhere. The
+very houses, the very self-satisfied faces, are a challenge."
+
+"Isn't it wonderful?" Althea mused, leaning on the rail and regarding
+the houses opposite. "And this is only one street. There are hundreds
+like it. House after house, wealth upon wealth, millions running to
+milliards till the brain reels. And in hardly one a single misgiving, a
+single suspicion that the same fate which measures can re-measure. Only
+pleasure, food, fine raiment, and the stealthy rapture of possession.
+But it can't go on forever." She shook her head. "No, here in the
+cradle of the race the racial revolution will come about. These sober,
+policed streets will be the theatre of the completest subversion the
+world has ever known. It's one of the charms of living in London, where
+things _will_ happen. I have my visions. Westminster Cathedral
+full of little beds is one--I don't know why--and nurses and doctors
+with their sleeves rolled up.... What made you call your book 'Sad
+Company,' Mr. Ingram?" she asked, with a sudden inconsequence. "Did you
+know it was a quotation?"
+
+"I don't think so. I may have seen it somewhere and forgotten."
+
+"It wasn't this, was it?--
+
+    "'Go from me! I am one of those that fall.
+    What! has no cold wind swept your heart at all
+    In my sad company?...'
+
+"--Let us go in. It's not as warm as I thought. I'll ring for coffee,
+and introduce you to my father. I've let him dip into your manuscript.
+You don't mind? He's one of the proprietors of the _Parthenon_,
+so be very pleasant and alert. He's been in Colorado, too, and thinks
+a lot of your scenery passages." She turned and, smiling, held up a
+finger impressively. "Mind! I say your _scenery_."
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVII
+
+                        THE CONTINENTAL EXPRESS
+
+
+I heard nothing from Paul for days, and was beginning to think
+reproachfully of his conduct, when, on the morning of the third day, a
+note was brought by hand to the _Panoply_ office. It was short and
+rather cryptic. He was evidently in some trouble, the exact nature of
+which he didn't disclose. He wanted me to come to him at once, and to
+keep the afternoon open.
+
+I hurried down after lunch. Mrs. Gribble's face as she opened his hall
+door expressed relief. Paul has always been rather yearned upon by his
+landladies.
+
+"Oh! I'm that glad you've come, Mr. Prentice," the good woman said, as
+she ushered me up the wide, shallow stair. "I don't think Mr. Ingram
+oughter be alone. He's bin talkin' to hisself dreadful all night. Me
+nor my 'usband couldn't get no sleep for harkening at 'im."
+
+I entered the room with that air of boisterous incredulity which men
+keep for a stricken brother.
+
+"On your back, Ingram? Nothing much wrong, I hope."
+
+Paul was lying on the bed, half clad and in his dressing-gown. His
+pipe was in his mouth, and through the drift of tobacco smoke, with
+which the dark, oddly shaped little room was filled, I thought his face
+looked drawn. He motioned me to a chair with a wet pipe stem.
+
+"Sit down and help yourself to tobacco," he said, and smoked on in
+silence.
+
+"Prentice!" he broke out all of a sudden, so abruptly that I let the
+match I was striking fall; "did you ever break a woman's heart?"
+
+I gaped at him.
+
+"Oh, I'm not joking. I really am collecting evidence on the subject.
+I've been studying it hard now for two days and a night. There's
+not much help, is there," pointing out the open window, "in three
+chimney-pots and a demolition? If you hadn't come, I was prepared to
+take Mrs. Gribble's opinion. Come, Prentice--man to man--have you
+ever----?"
+
+"No," I answered, rather shortly. "I've been too busy all my life."
+
+"But it can be done?"
+
+"My dear Ingram, you know 'women' is not a subject I've specialized on."
+
+"But still, you keep your eyes open?"
+
+"Well, then; I can't say I think it often happens: nothing like as
+often as the other way round; and yet----"
+
+"And yet----I know. It may. And some people are doomed to knock their
+heads against exceptions all their lives."
+
+He twisted himself to one side with the weak and peevish movement of a
+man seeking relief on the rack.
+
+"Is the woman you're--er--writing about young, or only still young?"
+
+"She's very, very young," he answered, with a curious sort of
+smile--bitter and yet tender at the same time.
+
+"Good!" I commented cheerfully. "That's tremendously in her favor."
+
+Paul smoked on. "I really didn't bring you here to talk generalities,
+Prentice," he said after a while. "Can you meet some people for me on
+the 3.45 Continental train at Charing Cross?"
+
+I told him my afternoon was at his disposal.
+
+"You're a sure good friend," he said simply, and I took the little
+phrase in full payment. Paul was seldom American in idiom but when he
+was touched or excited. "There's a mother and daughter--Mrs. and Miss
+Barbour. Let's see now; how will you spot them?"
+
+"Did the daughter by any chance come with you to the _À-peu-près_,
+three weeks ago?"
+
+"That's so, Prentice; I had forgotten."
+
+"I think I shall know her again," I said, smiling a little behind my
+cigarette. Poor, unworldly Paul! "What am I to tell them?"
+
+"I'm just figuring it out."
+
+"What is really the matter, old man?"
+
+"Mental vertigo, from thinking too long in a circle, really."
+
+"I think I understand. A sort of moral fatigue."
+
+"That's a splendid name for it."
+
+"But will she--will they, be satisfied with that? Shall I be asked
+questions?"
+
+"Say I'm run down."
+
+"Run down and no visitors. Have I got it right?"
+
+"And that I'm writing. Don't forget that part. How's time?"
+
+I went to the window and looked at my watch. "Just time to do it
+comfortably."
+
+"Good-bye, then, and thank you, Prentice, from my heart. You're doing
+me a big favor. Oh! by the way," calling me back from the door. "About
+Mrs. Hepworth."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"She's written, making an appointment for to-night. The book, you know.
+More mutilation. I can't go as I am."
+
+"Very well--I'll 'phone her."
+
+I paused with my finger on the doorknob. "I can say 'moral fatigue' to
+her, I suppose."
+
+Ingram seemed to think a moment. I wondered whether I had sounded
+impertinent.
+
+"Yes," he said, slowly. "I think you can say it to her."
+
+I reached Charing Cross with nearly ten minutes in hand. The 3.45
+Continental, having probably thrown every local and slow train on the
+line half an hour out of its reckoning, was signalled "on time." A long
+line of porters was strung out along the curved platform. Motor-cars
+and carriages awaited the great ones of the earth, and a score of
+people paced the flagstones. Among them a couple of press men nodded
+absently to me. Punctually to time and quietly, as the expected always
+happens, the Folkestone express pushed its smoky old nose into the
+station. Porters shouted and jumped on the step, doors flew open, and
+the platform was covered in a trice with a jostling crowd of veiled
+women and ulstered men, the awkwardness of the long journey still
+in their cramped limbs. My trained eye searched the crowd rapidly
+but thoroughly for the girl I was to meet, and presently I saw her,
+beautiful, happily anxious, becomingly disordered from travel, and with
+perhaps a warmer pallor in her cheeks than when I had seen her last.
+She did not know me, of course, and it was the strangest, saddest thing
+in the world to feel myself scanned unconcernedly and passed over by
+the expectant eyes I had come to cloud, and maybe fill with tears. I
+reached her side and lifted my hat.
+
+"Miss Barbour, I think."
+
+She looked at me with a slight stiffening of the figure.
+
+"My name is Prentice. I am a friend of Paul Ingram's."
+
+"Of Paul's? Is he here?"
+
+"Miss Barbour, pray do not be alarmed or anxious. Ingram is not quite
+well enough to meet the train and has asked me----"
+
+Her eyes filled with terror. "Where is he? At his rooms? Oh! we will go
+at once, mother!"
+
+I had never thought it would be easy; I saw now that it was not going
+to be as easy even as I had thought.
+
+"Miss Barbour," I said, venturing to lay a hand on her coat-sleeve.
+"Pray attend to me for one moment. Ingram is to see no one to-night.
+There is no need for alarm, but----"
+
+"----Mother, mother!"
+
+A stout, comely old lady was making her way toward us. By her side a
+gnarled and grizzled railway servant walked, soothing her agitation
+with a patiently reassuring manner that, had he been a doctor and not a
+porter, concerned with chests, in fact, instead of with trunks, might
+have won him riches and a title.
+
+"Yes, marm, I understand you puffeckly. Two gladstings, you said--large
+tin trunk, and a 'at-box. No, marm, I aint a-leavin' you. I'm agoin'
+to git you a four-w'eeler. You stand 'ere until I comes back. Your two
+gladstings, your large tin trunk, and your 'at-box is all numbered the
+same, and will be put together on this 'ere counter. 'Ave your keys in
+your 'and in case they wants one opened. As soon as that there man 'as
+marked them with chork I shall come back and put 'em on my barrer; then
+I shall take 'em to your four-w'eeler. No marm; I'm your porter, and no
+one else sha'n't 'ire me. No marm; nor no one else sha'n't take your
+four-w'eeler."
+
+"Mother, Paul is ill, and I'm not to see him. This is Mr. Prentice, a
+friend of his."
+
+"There," said Mrs. Barbour, jingling her keys sharply. "What did
+I say, Nelly. Those drains at Palèze. Is it something infectious,
+mister--mister----? Is there any temperature yet?"
+
+I caught at the "infection" and lied, as I had foreseen I would. People
+were jostling and bumping against us. The girl had to catch my arm once.
+
+"Please, _please_ set your minds at rest," I said. "I am confident
+it is nothing but a little overwork and worry that will be all right
+to-morrow. But, in the meantime, Paul is, as no doubt you know, rather
+nervous and scrupulous. To-morrow we shall know for certain what it is.
+He is writing, and you may take my word for it, it will be good news.
+And now, madam, please let me pass your luggage through the customs,
+see you safely into a cab, and take a good report back before Paul
+settles for the night." I had not been asked to do this, but nothing
+fits so easily and naturally into one lie as another lie.
+
+The mother was tractable and not greatly concerned. I could see she was
+one of those ministering women upon whom sickness acts as a challenge,
+and who can look forward to a long spell of nursing, untroubled by
+misgivings as to the ultimate result. But the girl's white face and
+questioning eyes tortured me. I could feel the question in them even
+when my back was turned to her. I would not judge Paul hardly: would
+not judge him at all. I knew enough of life to know that a man may
+without a moment's warning find himself faced by some terrifying,
+insoluble problem, out of which there is no gentle, no easy, no
+honorable way. But his strange manner--his phrase, stranger still,
+about the "exceptions" it had been his lot to encounter, filled me with
+misgiving. I even wondered if mayhap I was the last man that should
+ever see perfect happiness in that perfect face.
+
+I had put them into their cab, and was leaving the terminus, when,
+passing before a telephone box, I remembered my other message. I
+rang through to Portland Place, and, for the first time since I
+had known her, heard Althea's level voice along the wire, not only
+without pleasurable emotion, but even with a sudden inexplicable
+distaste. I was surprised, too, at the concern in it when I had
+delivered my message. She pressed me for a true account, and, tired
+of mystification, I gave her Paul's own words. At her next sentence I
+nearly dropped the receiver.
+
+"My dear lady--think! Oh! you _can't_."
+
+"I'll risk it," Althea said, with a stubborn little laugh that I
+could fancy a flushed cheek accompanied. "I'm not conventional, as
+you know. Besides, you say the creature isn't in bed. Oh! you clever
+male duffers, with your insight and analysis, and not enough wit to
+know after months what a woman sees in the first five minutes--that a
+fellow-creature is perishing before your eyes of sheer intellectual
+starvation."
+
+What could I do? Ring off. Sigh and make a further mental note as to
+the insane quality in a woman's courage. For what Althea proposed was
+nothing more nor less than to call at Ingram's rooms the next day in
+her car, if fine, and discuss alterations and revisions with him in
+the course of a long motor ride. As for me, with that child's white
+face and panic-stricken eyes before me, and a pleasant sense of being
+responsible for more than I could control, it was only left to pray for
+foul weather. Which, believe me or not, I heartily did.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII
+
+                           AMENDE HONORABLE
+
+
+Meantime, with many jolts and halts, and to the accompaniment of a
+good deal of mercifully muffled blasphemy from the box, the cab drew
+out of the station yard and rolled heavily toward Suffolk Square. The
+blighting autumn rain drummed pitilessly on its roof and lashed the
+closed window-panes. So dark had the afternoon turned that Mrs. Barbour
+could only see her daughter's face as a white blur against the black
+velvet cushion, and was forced to guess at its expression. A good deal
+of new-born hope mingled with her own concern. I am a poor actor, and
+know now that after the first Mrs. Barbour had been undeceived by my
+message. She had suspected a "quarrel" on the last day at La Palèze,
+and though she had not been a witness to any further manifestations
+of it, did not believe, perhaps because she did not wish to believe,
+that it had even been made up. She had never approved her daughter's
+choice in her heart--had thought it but a poor fulfilment of so many
+fond imaginings. She had the relish for change often to be found in
+easy-going, hospitable natures. She was not callous nor indifferent
+to the girl's probable suffering, but she had lived through a good
+deal herself and had the robust scepticism of middle age in affairs of
+the heart. Beyond inevitable storms and fevers, beyond a few tearful
+days and sleepless nights, what rosy vistas might not be opening!
+With Ingram out of the way, she became seized again of all her old
+air-castles. It is a strange fact that the dark homeward drive, which
+was one long torture for the daughter, should have been invested for
+the being who loved her best with the subdued cheerfulness of an
+executor returning from a funeral.
+
+A year ago she would have been profuse of tenderness and sympathy; but
+during that year her child's heart had grown away from her, exhausted
+by a passion it was too immature to bear, and shrank too perceptibly
+from the ministrations of any other love. For the present she judged an
+elaborate heedlessness to be at once the easiest and the safest course.
+
+The promise of better days, of a clearer horizon, persisted in
+the clean, stately house that welcomed the wanderers home, in its
+high-ceiled rooms, so strangely wide and light after the dark, cramped
+little cottage in which she had been living under protest, and in the
+open kindly English faces of Druce and Kendal, who had not so much
+grown gray as they had toughened and flattened in faithful service. Her
+lodgers would not be back for a couple of weeks, and she could roam
+from room to room and indulge her sense of proprietorship undisturbed,
+finding everything brighter, fresher, better for her absence. One would
+have said that Number Eleven, too, had taken a trip to the seaside for
+change of air. She unpacked her trunk, found her knitting, and was
+humming a little brisk air when she returned to the sitting-room.
+
+What she saw struck the song from her lips and the happiness from her
+heart. Fenella sat forward in an armchair over the cold, empty grate.
+Her poor face seemed tense, strangely unyouthful and set like a stone.
+She returned her mother's startled gaze with stricken, inexpressive
+eyes. Mrs. Barbour was on her knees at her side in a moment.
+
+"Nelly, darling! Are you ill, child?"
+
+The girl shook her head slowly, and looked away again at the
+black-leaded grate.
+
+"Have you been sitting here ever since we came in? Oh, my pet! And I
+roaming over the house and never thinking." She drew the gloves off her
+daughter's limp hands. "Dear! your poor hands are like ice. Shall I
+have a fire lit while tea's making ready?"
+
+Nelly shivered. "I'm chilled," she said, "and--and a little dizzy.
+It's the crossing, perhaps. And the house does seem cold and strange,
+doesn't it, mummy, after our little _chalêt_?"
+
+Mrs. Barbour rang for tea and ordered a fire to be lit. Her fingers
+trembled as she cut thin bread and butter.
+
+"It's her eyes," she kept saying to herself, in that frightened
+soliloquy we use to temper a vague dread. "It's her eyes that frighten
+me. If I could only get them to look natural, I shouldn't mind so
+greatly. She knows something I don't. What did that devil say to her
+before he left?"
+
+She wheeled the sofa before the fire--that was an inspiriting thing in
+itself on this rainy September evening--tucked a shawl over the child's
+shoulders and put furred slippers on the numbed, slender feet. Nelly
+sipped her tea, nibbled her toast with the docility of the broken in
+spirit. Later she pretended to read, but, happily ignorant how much of
+real sorrow may be entombed in the printed page, found no comfort there
+in time of present trouble. She was one of those for whom reading is a
+last resource, literature the thinnest of veils that can be interposed
+between them and the withering breath of reality. The book is yet to
+write that will not be laid down at a postman's knock or an infant's
+cry.
+
+It was at a postman's knock now that the novel whose pages she had
+been listlessly turning slipped from her lap and fell, face downward,
+on the hearth-rug. She could not rise, so great was her agitation,
+and the fulness of time seemed to gather in every second that
+_tick-tocked_ from the clock in the corner before her mother was
+in the room again. She was holding a letter before her spectacles, a
+letter with a deep black border, at whose superscription her brows were
+knitted. Back from failing limbs and reeling brain the blood flowed to
+Fenella's heart. But she did not faint. There is always enough life
+left us to learn the extent of our sorrow.
+
+"The letter's for you, dear!"
+
+"Read it, mummy," she said, simply. "I can't."
+
+Mrs. Barbour ripped open the envelope. As she glanced over the
+unfamiliar writing, her faced glowed with pleased excitement.
+
+"What is it? Oh! _what_ is it?" the puzzled and tortured girl
+asked her, seeing her lips move.
+
+Mrs. Barbour looked up. "Darling, what's the matter? It's good news. I
+mean--God forgive me!--not very bad. Only your Aunt Hortense dead. You
+never knew her."
+
+Fenella, as she took her suspense back into her breast, knew its name
+was Hope. Her eyes filled as from some inward sweat of anguish--some
+wound felt only when the sword is withdrawn.
+
+"Why do they write to me?"
+
+"It's from your cousin Leslie. Listen! Shall I read to you?" She did
+not wait for an answer, but read on breathlessly:
+
+    "DEAR COUSIN FENELLA,
+
+    "Do you remember--have you ever been told, of the girl who came to
+    see you fifteen years ago, and whom you would not kiss? Fifteen
+    years ago! and now she is bringing herself to your notice again. Do
+    you feel it an insult after so long? You should not, dear cousin.
+    For there are things that are so hard to write, but that sound so
+    natural when they are spoken. And even though you resent it, be
+    patient for the sake of the sad reason that occasions her writing
+    now. Poor mother was buried on Friday. One can remain loyal and
+    still admit that she was a woman hard to understand--impossible to
+    divert from a prejudice once conceived. Even now, although I have
+    thought of you unnumbered times, sought news of you, even kissed
+    the picture we have of you as a child, that seemed to me to hold
+    the promise of a sweet friendship to come in its baby face, I could
+    not write to you as I am doing did I think that my impulse still
+    crossed the will of the dead. You will not understand this until
+    you have seen one you love die by inches under your eyes, while you
+    stood by, powerless to save, and all but powerless to soothe. But
+    toward the end of her illness mother spoke of you. Her heart was
+    changed, and in what I am doing now I am carrying out the wishes
+    of the dead no less than gratifying what has always been a secret
+    desire."
+
+Mrs. Barbour paused for breath. "Doesn't she write beautifully, dear?"
+
+"I think it's gush," said Fenella. "Is there much more?"
+
+"Oh! fie, dear. Listen!"
+
+    "Dear Cousin, we are to come to town for the autumn. May I call
+    upon you--see you often--make amends for all the wasted years that
+    might have made us friends? You are our kin, and, in trouble, blood
+    calls to blood. We will return to Freres Lulford for Christmas, and
+    we want you to spend it with us, among your own people. It will
+    be a sad and quiet one for all, but by then I trust you will have
+    grown so near to us that we need not grudge you a share in our
+    grief. Write me when you get this. The earlier your answer reaches
+    me the easier I shall forgive myself for what, by one cold word,
+    you can turn to the deepest humiliation I have ever suffered. Think
+    me impulsive, think me indiscreet, think me even impertinent; but,
+    believe me, oh! so ready to write myself
+
+                                                   "Your loving cousin,
+                                                      "LESLIE BARBOUR."
+
+Mrs. Barbour wiped her spectacles. They were so dim that she did not
+notice her daughter's vacant gaze.
+
+"Mother, are people often taken ill so suddenly?"
+
+"My dear, your cousin says it was a long illness."
+
+Fenella gave the low moan of the misunderstood. "Mother! I don't
+mean--that. I mean Paul."
+
+The woman could not check a movement of almost passionate impatience.
+
+"Mr. Ingram? I don't believe he's ill at all. Men who write are always
+up or down. They're worse than women. It's the unhealthy life they
+lead."
+
+"I wonder--I wonder!" said Nelly under her breath. She was realizing,
+with a sick dismay, that this was the last evening delivery and that
+to-morrow would be Sunday, a day during which, for those at least who
+live in London and wait upon the post for comfort, the operations of
+Providence are entirely suspended. Two nights and a day to be lived
+through--somehow!
+
+Her mother took out the letter again, and fingered it caressingly.
+
+"It's what I've been longing for all my life," she said. "When are you
+going to answer it, dear?"
+
+"To-morrow, mummy, to-morrow," wailed poor Fenella, and fled from the
+room.
+
+She climbed the stairs weakly, feeling the empty house's atmosphere
+no longer chill, but stifling and oppressive. By the time she had
+reached her room the impulse to fling herself upon her knees, to bury
+her face in the coverlet and weep and weep, had passed. Instead she
+lit both candles of her dressing-table and, sitting down, gazed long
+and earnestly at her reflection in the tilted mirror. To study herself
+thus was rather a habit of hers. The woman who has beauty and does not
+know it is a graceful conception, but lacks reality. All the world is
+a conspiracy, pleasant or otherwise, to convince her. Fenella was not
+vain, but, with all encountered comeliness compared to it, her body had
+not ceased to be a rapture to a curiously impersonal love of beauty,
+innate in her as in all sorts of people, but which, in her case, by a
+bounteous accident of nature, could be fed most delicately upon its
+own outward substance. Nor was she ignorant that, in the quarter to
+which she had devoted it, she was, to use the world's chosen language,
+and in a sense far beyond its choice meaning, "throwing her good looks
+away." She knew it--she gloried in it. No whisper that reached her
+from jealous or puzzled friends could add to her own conviction of
+it--no secret recess of her being but responded and thrilled to the
+call of self-sacrifice. At a certain height of passion woman becomes
+strangely sufficient to herself--is priestess and host in one, with an
+ecstasy in the immolation that men can only guess at. For all the lack
+of curiosity as to her lover's past life which was so unaccountable a
+thing to her mother, the girl guessed that it had been hard and sad,
+so sad and hard that the full strangeness of the destiny that brought
+him to lips and arms like hers could only be dimly comprehended by him.
+His blindness forced self-valuation upon her. She flung her beauty, the
+freshness of her youth, the tribute of other men's burning eyes and
+stammering tongues, into the scale against it. She asked only love. Let
+him but love, she would teach him appreciation in time. She had her own
+white conscience in such matters, too, even though the obtuseness of
+her lover's senses tempted her to lengths that innocence does not often
+venture. It was not three weeks ago since, sitting upon the dunes, at
+the end of an afternoon during which the grizzled head had been her
+plaything, she had asked Paul abruptly whether he did not in his heart
+sometimes think her a shameless woman. And the undisguised astonishment
+of the gray eyes at her question had been at once a reproach and
+the sweetest, completest assurance that it was possible to have.
+And then and there, drawing from his arms, and while the loose sand
+trickled through her fingers, she had made the poor little apologia
+of her love, haltingly and timidly, and told him that should it ever
+happen--inconceivable surely on this day of sunshine and sweet airs as
+that sky and sea should change places--that he should go one way in
+life, she another, she had such a store of shameful memories as would
+press her to the earth all the rest of her days.
+
+Yet it was this possibility, scarce to be imagined a fortnight ago,
+which she was facing to-night; now, as she combed and plaited her black
+hair, so fine and loose that the comb ran through its length at a
+single stroke; now as, unfastening the corset that had chafed and rayed
+the tender flesh at her waist, she put on her long white robe and stood
+before the mirror, a trembling penitent, about to make amends through a
+whole racked night for the follies of her undisciplined heart. Buoyant
+and hopeful by nature, and really knowing nothing yet for certain, she
+was aghast at the urgency with which defeat claimed acceptance, and
+at the weakness and intermittence that her imagination, pressed into
+loyalty's service, showed in working toward her lover's justification.
+She felt herself sentenced, a culprit, a prey to the illogical anger
+of some power which she had failed to propitiate only because she had
+not known of its existence. The chill of abandonment was already at
+her heart. As for the letter which she had just heard read to her, she
+hardly gave it a thought, although a wish of her own heart, unavowed,
+but very intimate, was realized in it. To-night any comfort save the
+one for which her whole being ached was a traitor--an accomplice in the
+conspiracy of silence, of shrugged shoulders, of amused wonder that
+had surrounded her poor little love-story from the first. No one had
+meddled, she remembered; no one had interfered or seemed anxious. With
+smarting eyes as she laid her head on her pillow she paid her tribute
+to the wisdom of the world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The morrow with its suspended bustle--its clanging church bells and the
+awkward voices of milkwomen and paper-boys ringing upon the silence of
+the streets and squares, was a torture not to be borne. As soon as her
+mother had gone to church she dressed herself and left the house. The
+morning was fine but close. In the park the moisture of a whole week's
+rain, sucked out of the stale earth by the sun, surcharged the air
+almost to the level of the tree-tops with a palm-house atmosphere that
+weighed alike upon flesh and spirit. Although it was September, the
+parks as she crossed them were full of smartly dressed people--mothers
+and young daughters--sturdy children with dawdling lawn-clad
+nurses--ivory-faced old ladies in ample creased robes of silk--an
+occasional earnest young man, professionally silk-hatted, striding
+along with a chattering girl at his side, who bravely but jerkily
+maintained the pace of his long legs. They all seemed to be coming in
+opposite directions. She was on one of those unhappy errands when we
+feel we are making head alone against a contrary current of joyous
+contentment.
+
+The bell from the great Parliament tower was tolling twelve as she
+passed into Dean's Yard. The old gravelly square was deserted, except
+for a statuesque policeman and one little blue-coated messenger boy,
+with his round cap cocked over his ear, who from pure lightness of
+heart was waking its staid echoes with a shrill medley of popular airs.
+She had set out with no precise intention, drawn as by a magnet to the
+spot where the treasure of her heart was kept from her, but, though
+she did not reason, with every step her insensate impulse hardened.
+She would test the tottering fabric of her happiness now, though, at a
+touch, it should topple into ruins about her head.
+
+Cowley Street was empty, and pigeons were feeding in the roadway. She
+was leaning against the railings--fighting, reasoning with a heart
+that the mere sight of his windows had driven into tumult, when the
+stillness was invaded by the blast of a motor-horn. The doves took
+flight above the sunlit roofs. A big touring car, coming from the
+river, swept into the street, and drew up, with a creaking of its
+brakes, outside the door that she was praying for strength to approach.
+A woman alighted, glanced at the number upon the red door, and plied
+the knocker briskly. Her hat was veiled and a light dust-cloak covered
+her dress, but one moment's application of that intuitive knowledge
+which women possess told the girl that she was probably handsome
+and undeniably rich. The whirr and clutter of the cylinders ceased
+unaccountably just as the door was opened. Cowley Street on Sunday is
+more than still. She heard his name clearly, the very accent in which
+it was uttered somehow confirming her first impression; then the door
+closed. With a single jaunty glance at the remaining feminine interest,
+the green-coated chauffeur swung himself out of his seat and busied
+himself with some recalcitrant machinery or other under the bonnet of
+the car.
+
+Have you ever, on a railway journey, or in a packed public meeting,
+from which there was no escape without unwelcome comment, fought
+against deadly faintness? How the landscape crawled past the spinning,
+flashing, wheels! How the sermon, the address pelted on, a meaningless
+torrent of vocables, against the brain that was tense and taut for one
+thing only--that thing deliverance! In such a mood Fenella hurried
+through the streets and parks toward her home. She had forgotten her
+purse at setting out, and the cheapest, slowest amelioration of her
+journey was denied her. Another woman! Another woman! No defeat could
+have been more complete. Everything had been imaginable but this.
+Against every aspect that the annihilation of her suspense could have
+shown her she would have done battle--save only this. Women are taught
+by their whole life's training to seek concrete motives for action
+and, when found, to respect them. To principle they concede little,
+and they expect as little from it. If they fight selfishly, at least
+they fight bravely, naked and unambushed--warrior, weapon and reward in
+one. Auguring nothing from past treacheries, so the treachery be not
+to them, betrayal always finds them unprepared, as, once shattered,
+nothing really rebuilds their faith. Could it be otherwise? What value
+to them in a love or a devotion whose incentive lies outside of them
+and beyond them?
+
+She reached home at last. Her mother had been watching for her from the
+window and ran to open the door. She had a letter in her hand. Where
+had the girl been? How ill she looked! There was news for her, brought
+by a boy messenger half an hour ago. The poor child could only shake
+her head and, taking her letter, seek refuge once more in her own room.
+During her absence her trunk had been unpacked; all the silver vanities
+were ranged, with snowy doylies beneath them, on the woman's altar of
+her dressing-table. The bed on which she had tossed and moaned all
+night was spread white and cool and smooth. A little breeze was rising,
+and fluttered the curtains at the open windows.
+
+After what she had seen no letter could matter much; but she read it
+through dutifully, with a little sigh as each page fluttered from
+her hands to the floor. It was long and kind and tender; the letter
+of a man who would select his language at the very judgment seat of
+God; a fair copy, without blot or erasure, product of a night no less
+sleepless than her own. If the balance lay all at one side of the
+account, at least he had ruled the ledger straight. The old arguments
+were reiterated, the old impossibilities pressed home. The dilemma,
+evaded once before, had confronted Ingram again, harder, crueller for
+the delay, as is the manner of evaded dilemmas. He had had to choose
+again between wounding her pride or wounding her heart--to death this
+time--and with the anxiety such a man will always have to preserve a
+woman's good opinion at all costs, which is half fine feeling and half
+vanity, he had chosen the second. Wisely? Who shall say? At least his
+end was gained. He was loved at the last. She pressed the sheet which
+bore his signature madly, unrestrainedly against her mouth, blurring
+the ink with her moist lips. She would have kissed his hand so--holding
+the knife at her throat.
+
+And with the kiss her childhood ended. Then and there the thorn-plaited
+crown of her womanhood was proffered her. She put it on bravely and
+unflinchingly. She did not despair of life nor of life's end. Flowers,
+laurels, she felt might crown her yet, but under blossom or bay leaf
+she would always know where to look for the old scars. And, finding
+them, she would bless them for his sake.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later Mrs. Barbour, trembling a little at her own temerity,
+knocked at the door, and, getting no answer, opened it. Nelly was
+sitting on the bed, dry-eyed, sucking her thumb. The pages of her
+lover's last letter were littered over the quilt and on the floor.
+
+The mother asked no question. She closed the sash softly, drew
+down the blind, and, going to her daughter without a word, held her
+close--held her for two long hours, while the Sabbath baked meats
+went to grease and the gong roared unheeded below; held her through
+a tempest so deep at life's sources that she trembled and prayed as
+the frail body shook against her breast. But the green tree bears the
+hurricane because it is green. The storm was passing away in sobs that
+grew fainter and fainter, the stained cheek was beginning to move
+restlessly upon her drenched shoulder, when she spoke:
+
+"Was it bad news?--from him?" she asked, and compressed her lips.
+
+"Mother," said the girl, with a fresh outburst of tears that was only
+the leaves shaking off the rain, "don't blame him! It's not quite his
+fault. He's so unhappy. We shall never see Paul again. And oh, mummy,
+I've been a bad, undutiful, careless child to you--but I'll be better
+now."
+
+"You've been my dearest child, always," Mrs. Barbour answered. "It will
+be the old times over again for both of us. I ask nothing more."
+
+Fenella was calm enough now to smile wanly at her mother's words. But
+even she could not guess how unlike any old times the new ones were to
+be.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                PART II
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                        FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE
+
+
+Four years ago--no very long time, even to those who must count it
+by the ruins and ghosts it has made--the light-hearted wayfarer amid
+financial pitfalls--_vacuus coram latrone viator_--not more a snob
+than an antiquary with a wistful regard for survivals need confess
+himself, spared a glance, as he passed along Throgmorton Avenue, for
+a big brass plate on the door of the corner building which overlooks
+the crouched statue and smoky fig-trees of the "Draper's Garden." For
+him the legend it bore called up a vision, unique amid the alien and
+masqueradingly Semitic names with which the dreary canyon is plastered,
+of other and very different days, fiercer perhaps but at least less
+meanly cruel; of hard knocks given and taken in a selfless quarrel;
+of blows upon helmet and corselet, thrusts that the buff coat haply
+turned; of a fight that raged one whole September afternoon through the
+streets of the "ever faithful city."[2]
+
+                    "BRYAN LUMSDEN, CALVERT & CO.,
+                       Stock and Share Brokers."
+
+[Footnote 2: Worcester]
+
+A stranger to the ephemeral record of London society--if such a one
+can be imagined in this day of "open letters" and the ubiquitous
+lens--who met the genial head of the firm upon the lawn at Cowes, or
+among his yearlings at Stanmore, at the pigeon butts of Pau and Cannes,
+or in the thrice-guarded sanctuary of the Turf Club writing-room, or
+who, as is likelier far, merely passed him in Austin Friars, silk
+hat cocked rakishly, one hand holding the lapel of his coat and the
+other laid lightly and characteristically upon the shoulder of some
+olive-skinned lord of the market, would probably have carried away
+a totally false impression of the man and of his history. Official
+text-books--the one, for instance, in which poor Fenella discovered a
+romance so enthralling, would not greatly have helped him. He would
+have learned from them that Sir Bryan Lumsden was twelfth baronet of
+either a very old or a very short-lived dynasty; that he was the son of
+Denzil Lumsden, of Coffers Castle, Kincardineshire; that he had served
+his country in the Scots Guards, been an aide-de-camp during the Tirah
+Campaign (medal and clasps), and had left the service at twenty-five.
+No less than three residences housed all this greatness: the castle
+aforesaid, "The Chase," Stanmore, and 369 Mount Street. "Clubs: the
+Turf, Marlboro, and Royal Yacht. Unmarried." And from the silence
+concerning the sphere in which three parts of his life were spent, and
+upon whose harvest, presumably, these glories were supported, he would
+have conjectured that here was a case common enough in latter-day life:
+the scion of an old house, bought in to finance by family money and
+connection, gradually acquiring sufficient zest for the game to justify
+a predominant interest, and, with position assured, returning blithely
+to the life of his younger days, while, under the griffin wings that
+hatch so many a clutch of golden eggs, Calvert, imaginable as a rather
+vulgar but discreet person, buttoning a black coat high on his chest
+and redressing the senior partner's ebullience by Apollinaris and
+bulb-culture at Sutton, watched the processes that, by a law of growth
+as simple as that which sows the pollen on the wind, make the rich man
+daily and hourly richer.
+
+They would have been quite wrong. No titled food-adulterer or gutter
+journalist--no drab figure in all the broadclothed gallery with which
+Dr. Smiles seeks to fire the imagination of youth--was more literally
+the architect of his own fortunes. Twelve years ago, when he was an
+attaché at Vienna, with a long night of ruinous play behind him and a
+scented but heartless letter under his elbow, Bryan Lumsden had spun
+a coin to decide whether he should continue the battle elsewhere and
+under less tangled conditions or pass to the completer simplification
+which was all his pagan soul conceived of death. He had tossed the
+double thaler into the air simply, with no consciousness of pose, and
+since it fell for life, had played the game out that way. Returning to
+London, he had sent in his papers, paid his debts with what was left
+of an attenuated property, and asked for "desk-room" in the office of
+the broker through whom the final transactions were conducted--a dark,
+secretive man, little susceptible to the appeal of the incongruous or
+to the glamour of a barren title.
+
+At the end of a year, upon the quarter per cent. margin allowed to
+those outside the house for business they introduce, he was earning
+an income in excess of many sworn members of repute, who struggle on
+from settlement to settlement with the hammer suspended over their
+heads like a sword of Damocles. In three years he was a member of the
+house and a partner. Business flowed to him. His gay, casual manners,
+his cheery voice, melted the senile heart of Mammon. The baffling blue
+eye, behind which a purpose quick and strong as steel was kept bright,
+pierced its pompous parade from the outset, and, holding his adversary
+at a deflated value, he was never tempted to take himself any the more
+seriously for his success. To the last the moves for which the market
+watched would be made between a chat with his trainer and a chaffing
+and recondite conversation over the telephone with the Tower mess.
+History is always repeating itself in unlooked for fashions. A hundred
+and sixty years ago the great Marshal Saxe, forming his squadrons for
+the charge that was to give Lauffeld to the French, ordered aside their
+black-avised brigadier and picked on a subaltern, careless and rosy,
+whom he espied laughing in his saddle, to lead the human avalanche. And
+in the meaner struggle that seems to have displaced war indefinitely,
+it will still happen that a light heart with a constitutional
+cheerfulness in taking risks finds all manner of blind forces following
+headlong at its heels.
+
+His great chance came when he was just over thirty. For two hours of
+a sunny afternoon, and to the clouding of a fair brow at Ranelagh, a
+gaunt, hungry-eyed Western American, referred to him in despair by a
+friend whose time the stranger had daily and pertinaciously returned
+to waste, sat in his private office. The man's story was a fantastic
+one. Of a tunnel which he had been excavating under subvention, for
+years, and timbering furlong by furlong, sometimes more, sometimes
+less, as the rusty ore with which the mountain teemed assayed well or
+ill; of a suspicion, dawning on him little by little as he proceeded,
+that a wild miner's tale of the district--the legend of the lost lode
+of Troublesome Gulch--might not, after all, be a myth; the sudden
+discovery of free gold in the rarest and most precious of ores,
+"running up through the rock, sir, like a fern"; the theft of the
+samples that would have justified him; the sudden withdrawal of his
+subvention, and the decision of the railroad to build its connecting
+line at a lower level and at an easier gradient; the offers that had
+been made him for his property, in all of which his fevered mind saw
+only a threat and evidence of conspiracy. The man was no smooth-tongued
+exploiter: he spoke roughly, uncouthly, chewing to rags the first dry
+cigar he had ever smoked, in an evident sweat of fear lest somehow or
+other his secret should be torn from him--straining to be back and on
+guard again. His eyes blazed as he talked and his hand shook. He had
+been nursing his dreams on aerated bread and coffee.
+
+Lumsden kept his visitor by him--wired to Ranelagh--telephoned to
+various quarters. That night in a private room at the Carlton the
+company was (unofficially) formed. Within a week from their issue
+"Gulches" were the sensation of the market. They started well at
+parity, dropped to fifteen shillings and twelve and a half on an
+attack of nerves and a truculent attitude on the part of the railroad;
+recovered, rose to thirty, soared to forty, to four, to six pounds.
+Fresh shares were issued; the public, almost kept out of the first
+issue, responded greedily, and the opportunity was seized to unload
+more of the old debentures than certain cool heads approved. It might
+be another Camp Bird; it might be the most colossal swindle since
+Kaffir days; in either case, its proportions inspired respect. There
+was a shuffle on the financial checker-board. West Hampstead moved
+to Mayfair, Porchester Gate to Park Lane, and was, so to speak,
+_crowned_ there, with power to move either way for the future,
+in a bull or bear direction, capturing meaner uncrowned pieces _en
+route_. Stanwood went back to Sleepy Cat Mountain with the light of
+victory in his eye.
+
+Before the snow had melted round the feet of the burros which were
+bringing down his six-dollar quartz to the smelter he was a ruined man.
+It was everybody's fault and nobody's fault. The necessary delays had
+not been discounted; holders were pressed in other directions; finally
+a discovery that Lumsden, to fill an order for a thousand shares, was
+buying outside and privately at three-fifteen, stampeded the market.
+The collapse was complete enough to become a joke. Clerks asked one
+another: "Will you take it in half-crowns or in Gulch debentures?"
+
+In the summer Lumsden went out to the States. He found Stanwood, a
+baffled but not a beaten man, and his son, a strong silent lad with
+steady eyes, "batching" in a log shanty with an earthen roof. Tin
+kettles and saucepans were hung on pegs all around the outside walls.
+Behind the hut, among whortle bushes, an ice-cold spring bubbled out
+of the ground, and all manner of wild mountain flowers--rabbit-ears,
+puccoons, and thimble-berries--grew to the threshold. They were seven
+thousand feet above sea-level; all around was space and silence--an air
+like sparkling wine: his feet, as he ascended the track, crushed sweet
+harsh odors out of the barren earth.
+
+In long but not aimless rambles over the boulder-strewn slopes; in elk
+hunts up in the timber reserve; in naked male talk by the cedar fire
+under the star-bewildered dome of night, the two men grew to learn, to
+esteem, and to trust one another. There was cheering news, even before
+Lumsden returned East, for the worn woman who was keeping an Omaha
+boarding-house for brawling Swedish clerks. He travelled slowly, by way
+of Denver, New York, Washington, and Paris, seeing a good many people
+in business hours, and, it must be admitted, amusing himself pretty
+strenuously out of them. He was back in London by October, and the rest
+is financial history. People said: "Oh! but what about the original
+shareholders?" Yet it was amazing how few ever came forward. Lumsden
+and Lumsden's friends seemed to have gobbled them all up.
+
+There is only one thing more which, in this place, it becomes necessary
+to record of Bryan Lumsden. Once a month or so, sometimes oftener,
+sometimes less, at the busiest hour of the afternoon, a big closed
+motor-car made its way, with many grunts and turns, to the big corner
+building in Throgmorton Avenue. Sir Bryan would issue from the swing
+doors, throwing instructions over his shoulder as he passed through
+the office, sometimes would even dictate a letter to the clerk at his
+elbow, with one foot on the step of the coupé. After a single word to
+the chauffeur, which the man acknowledged by touching his peaked cap,
+he would fling himself back against the cushions of the limousine and
+busy himself with a pile of papers which he had brought under his arm.
+Occasionally, at some stoppage or temporary eclipse of light, he would
+look up from them. It was noticeable then that his face had lost its
+pleasant quality, was even hard and cruel.
+
+The car rolled on, slowly and softly, through the congested city
+streets, noisily insistent amid heavy van traffic in Clerkenwell,
+quickened its speed as it turned into Bloomsbury's drab squares.
+Presently Regents Park flashed green or ghostly gray outside the
+windows; long brown garden walls and shabby stucco of St. John's Wood
+reeled past; the car breasted the hill to Frognal, along a steep avenue
+of widely spaced, fantastic red-brick houses, set amid shrubs and old
+timber, and with an occasional glimpse, in lichened roof or clustered
+chimneys, of an older suburb.
+
+It stopped outside a low wide house which overlooked the heath and
+was separated from the road by a clipped hedge. Generally, warned by
+the tumult of the car's approach, the door would fly open before he
+could reach it from the garden gate; if not, he pulled the wrought
+iron bell-handle. If the summons remained unanswered beyond a few
+seconds, he felt impatiently in his pocket for a key and admitted
+himself. Inside, he looked round the low, wide hall, with the hard air
+of proprietorship which a man keeps for the place that is his house
+but not his home. He summoned the laggard servants, spoke sharply to
+them (in French), pushed open the door of the drawing-room, and waited,
+biting his moustache restlessly, and looking out of the window over the
+wide heath. A novel, face downward, or a wisp of embroidery generally
+decorated the cushions of the window seat.
+
+Presently the door would open behind his back, and a soft rustle of
+silk and chink of jewelled ornaments cease of a sudden as a woman stood
+at gaze, watching the broad back or clear profile, silhouetted against
+the diamond panes of the bow window. With the same undisguised air of
+ownership, unutterably hideous now when a human creature endured it,
+Lumsden turned and looked--looked at a slave whom his money had bought
+and of whom he had tired.
+
+Either one of two things might happen then: She might be peevish,
+perverse, and bitter, answering his perfunctory questions as shortly,
+with many shrugs of her shoulders and deprecatory motions of her bare
+arms; striving with all the advantage her native tongue, the language
+of cruel inflection and bitter meanings, could give her, to plant her
+own chagrins, like poisoned arrows, in his breast. Or else, abandoning
+herself upon his shoulder in an attitude for which everything about
+her--her dress, the very fashion of her hair--seemed calculated, she
+would force him to a seat, fling her arms around his neck, recall old
+tendernesses, never forgetting to mingle her kisses with complaints
+of her servants--so insolent; her tradesmen--so pressing; the view
+over the heath--so _triste_ in winter. Her eyes would be dilated,
+their pupils at a point. Looking down, Lumsden could see little black
+dots all over the large white arms. He bore kisses and reproaches with
+exactly the same stoicism, still waiting, still keeping his eyes upon
+the door.
+
+Suddenly their expression changed. There would be a shrill chatter of
+women in the hall--every one in this house seemed to speak and scold in
+French--cries of "_Prenez garde! M. Cyrille!_" "_Une marche de
+plus!_" "_Voilà!_"--a child's voice asking for "papa! papa!"
+Led by a French bonne, though he appeared full five years old, and
+struggling in her grasp, a little boy would enter the room with eager
+precipitancy. He walked sturdily but somehow clumsily too, holding his
+free arm out before him and tossing the fair curls from his forehead
+with a curious baffled gesture. Reaching Lumsden's knee or outstretched
+hand, he would give a shrill, glad cry, break once for all from the
+woman who had guided him, and next moment be clasped and gathered into
+his father's long powerful arms.
+
+Fate has a fine unseemliness, now and then, in her dispensations. It
+was in a house leased for the service of shame, among brazen foreign
+women whose hard black eyes belied the respect of their voices, that
+Lumsden was forced from time to time to plumb the depth of tenderness
+that lurked in his own heart. He loved his little son as he loved
+nothing else in the world. And the boy was stone blind from birth.
+
+
+
+
+                                  II
+
+                             TWO TELEGRAMS
+
+
+Sir Bryan sat in his study at Mount Street one dark Saturday afternoon
+late in December, sucking happily upon a calcined briar, but with a
+watchful eye on the clock, for it was nearly time he began to dress.
+He was by now a man of thirty-seven or thirty-eight, with a beautiful
+but rather battered face, strikingly like certain portraits of Marshal
+Blucher. He had heavy shoulders, straight legs, and lean flanks. His
+enemies and men who boxed with him said his arms were disproportionate
+even to his height. His hair was fair and longer than most men wear
+it to-day: it was thinning over his forehead, and his wavy moustache
+was streaked with gray. There are people, like buildings, who, for
+all their size and show, we suspect of being hurriedly and cheaply
+put together. The paucity or poverty of material shows somewhere: in
+a mouth that doesn't quite shut, in ears that protrude--hair badly
+planted on the scalp. No better description of Lumsden could be
+ventured than that he seemed to have been built slowly and with a
+good deal of thought. He was expensive in grain, like the pipe he was
+smoking or the tie he was wearing.
+
+He had been golfing all the afternoon, and was dressed, with happy
+slouchiness, in a brown flannel suit and a limp shirt-collar. His soft
+white waistcoat was a little soiled and lacked a button. The room he
+sat in was clear and light, but simply furnished, a refuge in fact from
+other splendors. _Estampes galantes_ of Fragonard and the younger
+Morean decorated its walls sparsely. There was only one photograph, of
+a woman, which stood by itself in a narrow gilt frame on a side table.
+It was a large modern chiaroscuro affair. One noted frail emergent
+shoulders, a head turned aside, delicate lines of neck and chin, and a
+cloud of hair.
+
+A dark, discreet man-servant knocked and showed his face in the doorway.
+
+"Gentleman to see you, sir."
+
+"Who is it, Becket?"
+
+"Mr. Dollfus, sir."
+
+"Oh! show him up!" But with the precipitancy of his race Mr. Dollfus
+had shown himself up, and entered hard upon the man's heels.
+
+The baronet hailed him after his cheery wont.
+
+"Hello, Dolly! Another five minutes and I'd have been shaving. Sit down
+and make yourself a whiskey and soda. Cigars are over there. How are
+the girls kicking?"
+
+"They're kicking too much," said Mr. Dollfus; "on the stage and off
+too."
+
+"Rotten notices the _Motor Girl_ got," said Lumsden, reaching for
+a crumpled paper.
+
+"That's all right," answered Dollfus with easy confidence. "We'll pull
+it rount. Got a new College Song from America. Came too late to put in.
+With a chorus, my boy, a chorus! 'Cher want to hear it?"
+
+"Go ahead!"
+
+    "Back oar--back roar--back waller--back nigger and bantabaloo."
+
+"Sounds useful."
+
+"Eh! ah! Cantcher hear it on the organs? And--I say, Lumpsden?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Remember a little girl we saw at La Palèze in the summer?"
+
+Lumsden's face altered ever so little.
+
+"Can't say I do very clearly. We saw so many."
+
+"Went rount wit' a kind of fisherman. Artist feller. Eh? ah? Danced,
+too. Remember now?"
+
+"Oh yes! I do, now. You were professional on the subject of her legs."
+
+"That's the one. Well, she's come to me, my boy."
+
+"Come to you? What the deuce for?"
+
+"What do they all come for?" the Jew asked with sub-acidity. "Money. A
+lead. A 'shance.'"
+
+"And what did you say, Dolly? Took her on your knee--played uncle--told
+her that if she was good to her mother you might give her a place in
+the back row some day if you thought of it."
+
+Dollfus looked at him keenly for a moment. He had a theory that Lumsden
+remembered the girl better than he pretended; that he had, in fact,
+spoken to her at La Palèze and been rebuffed.
+
+"Yer on the wrong track, Lumpsden," he said; "she's quite respectable.
+Madame de Rudder brought her--voman that useter teach the princesses.
+She's vell connected, too."
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+"Fenella Barbour."
+
+Sir Bryan started a little at the name, and his sudden movement did not
+escape the Dominion manager.
+
+"I say, Lumpsden," he went on casually; "aintcher a relation of the
+Lady Lulford that died this year?"
+
+"A little. Why do you ask?"
+
+"That's who she is, my boy. They were talking about all being together
+at Christmas."
+
+"Who were talking?"
+
+"Voman she called her cousin Leslie, that came wit' 'em too. At their
+country house. The name's gone outer my head."
+
+Sir Bryan yawned, stretched himself, and gave a meaning look at the
+clock.
+
+"Sorry I can't keep you any longer, Dolly. I'm dining out. What is it
+exactly you want?"
+
+"Vell, I believe the girl's a find, Lumpsden. And natcherally I can't
+do anything at the Dominion--wit'out--wit'out----You understand?"
+
+"I understand. You've seen her dance, I suppose? Is it any good? You
+know how much of this humbug there's been lately. Is hers something
+quite special?"
+
+"Quite," said Mr. Dollfus, briefly. He seemed to weigh his opinion once
+more. "Oh quite!" he said again.
+
+"You see a furore, in fact?"
+
+"Maybe a riot," said Joe.
+
+The financial support smiled. "You've made it such a family matter,
+Joe, that you won't mind my telling you I don't particularly want riots
+about relations of mine."
+
+The manager shrugged his shoulders, but did not revise his opinion.
+Lumsden held out his hand.
+
+"I'll telephone you to-morrow, and fix a night after Christmas when we
+can talk this over. Meantime, of course, you'll be discreet. Ta-ta,
+Dolly. I like your song."
+
+An hour later he re-entered the room and flung a fur coat and crush hat
+on a lounge. He was dressed for dinner, was polishing his nails and
+appeared thoughtful. Sitting down before a big knee-hole desk, that was
+tucked away in a corner underneath a telephone, he switched on a light,
+drew a letter-pad toward him and wrote:
+
+    "DEAR LESLIE:
+
+    "May I usurp your sex's privilege and change my mind about
+    coming to Freres Lulford for Christmas. I was going to Ponty's,
+    as you know, but somehow, this year, don't feel keyed up to the
+    light-hearted crowd they get together at Capelant. I want somewhere
+    to hide my unrevered head until the Spirit of Christmas is gone out
+    of the land, and I should like a look at Saleratus. The alternative
+    is to go to Scotland and turn myself into a sort of Dana Gibson
+    picture of the sorrows of the rich. You know the sort of thing:
+    'Where Get-there Lumsden really got to.'
+
+    "To tell you the truth, dear Leslie, I should never have refused
+    your invitation if you hadn't frightened me with our mysterious
+    newly discovered relative. Even, now, when I've decided to take the
+    risk, I'll feel nervous. You say 'brilliant.' Suppose it turns out
+    to be some dreadful little artist or writer person who'll want to
+    paint me, or use me as 'a type.'..."
+
+When he had got so far he re-read the letter, tore it up, and wrote
+out two telegrams. One was addressed to Lady Pontardawe, Capelant,
+Flintshire, and its contents are no affair of ours. The other said--
+
+    "Changed my mind. Motoring down, if fine, Wednesday."
+
+His tickled sense of expectancy supported him through a dull
+dinner--possessed him, in fact, to the extent of making him rather
+a _distrait_ companion. Once he laughed out unaccountably.
+Expectation was as rare with him as regret. He probably regarded
+them as equivalent weaknesses, but there was no doubt which was the
+pleasanter to indulge. Not quite a satyr, he was still less a saint.
+Men who knew him well, contented themselves by saying that Bryan
+"stayed it well," and the secret of his power to last was probably
+that, for him, the life that began when he was called in the morning
+ended when he switched the light off from above his pillow. He was not
+an imaginative man, but if he had been, his morning bath might justly
+have been conceived by him as a wide cool river, reflecting a gray
+morning sky, that flowed between him and all follies and fevers of the
+night. He took no heed what phantoms waved to him from the other shore,
+nor what urgency and significance might be in their gestures.
+
+He got back before twelve, changed his coat for a wadded Indian silk
+smoking-jacket, and finished a long black cigar before he turned in. He
+felt tranquil, and, for reasons possibly connected with his telegram
+to Wales, even virtuous. Lulford, with its cloister terrace, its gray
+walled fruit-gardens beneath the "Prior's oriel," and its lilied
+carp-wood, girt with bastion and towers of clipped yew, had always
+been a favorite house with him, far beyond the wind-tortured barrack
+in Scotland that was the cradle of his own grim race, and which all
+his money could not make bloom afresh. The glamour of his youth still
+invested it. He had spent many a long holiday there, the while his
+mother, widowed but no ways desolate, was seeking her own distractions
+at Wiesbaden or Lausanne, and to the end of his school days (not
+particularly pleasant ones, for he had been in an unfashionable house
+and perpetually short of pocket-money) whatever sentiment of eclogue or
+pastoral survived the drudgery of construe, always had for its stage
+and background the remembered pleasantness of Lulford. Wonderful, not
+how little had survived, but how much!
+
+And to-night something else haunted it, something that was real,
+that rather appealed to imagination than was evoked by it. Youth,
+flushed, timorously daring, beckoned and eluded him down those alleys
+and groves. (Eternal illusion, making your own summer wherever your
+feet choose to pass!) He was of the age when a man is looking for the
+heralds of middle life, and his _empressement_ struck him as one
+rather ominous sign. The growing simplification of life was another.
+The match-makers were giving Bryan up at last. He remembered a time
+when it would not have been so easy to sneak away for two weeks in the
+hunting season.
+
+Dollfus had, after all, not been so far astray in his surmise. There
+had been an encounter at La Palèze--one of those secrets which the most
+transparent of women never seem to feel the need of telling. She had
+not appeared frightened nor very much surprised--had let him walk by
+her side across the dunes and through the pine woods, even chatted a
+little, lightly. But then neither had she made any attempt to keep the
+appointment he had so subtly forced upon her for the morrow. He had
+never seen her alone again.
+
+Ill at ease among abstractions, his mind turned with relief to the case
+in point. Condensed slightly, his reflections ran something after this
+fashion:
+
+"I wonder what Leslie's game is. Of course she's stark mad, but it's
+funny the others making a mystery about it too. Are they just giving a
+hard-worked little relation a holiday, or do they mean to take her up
+and bring her out next year. If they do, I'll wager she marries a title
+or is ruined inside the year. I know what I'm talking about. All my
+sweethearts do well. Things ain't like what they used to be. There's a
+sight too much young blood about, and the cubs will be in everywhere. A
+girl that can play 'em can land 'em. Good lord! Look at Bewdley! look
+at the Colfax good boy! With the Nampore rubies round her blasted neck!
+This one's clever, but I don't think she's that kind. But if she isn't,
+what the devil was she doing at Palèze? Funny, Dollfus coming to me!
+And I believe I'd rather see her on the stage after all, as long as
+it's decent. What did he mean by 'a riot'?"
+
+He got up, yawned, and threw his cigar butt into the fire. As he did
+so his reflection confronted him, a little flattered by the red-shaded
+globe. He pushed his face closer.
+
+"Not much youth there, old man!" he said, referring to the eyes; "but
+how many of the young 'uns will be where you are in fifteen years'
+time? Money! Money! Gad! I can't spend it if I try."
+
+He frowned at the fire and turned impatiently away. "I'm a fool," he
+said. "None of 'em live up to their faces. Besides, you can never
+corner that market. A lot is not knowing when to pull out, and idleness
+and over-feeding, and seeing too many new faces. Heigho! I wonder what
+Stanwood will be doing in the spring."
+
+He yawned again, and, an hour later, was fast asleep.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+                           IN THE FIRELIGHT
+
+
+Snow had been drifting again, softly, thickly, and persistently,
+since dawn. The angles of the window sills were filled with it, every
+square and diamond in the leaded gallery windows was rimmed with the
+crystalline fur. The coats of the deer in the home park glowed a rich
+rusty red against its intense and sparkling purity; half of every trunk
+and branch at the edge of the wood was erased by it like a crayon
+drawing by the india rubber of some impatient drawing-room master.
+Fenella had spent the short winter afternoon roaming through galleries
+and chambers of state, or watching the flakes that tumbled giddily from
+the shrouded sky turn blue and green and red as they passed the painted
+blazons in the great oriel window--coats fessed and barrelled and
+ermined, of Alfords, and Corbets, and Danseys, and Maddocks, whose hale
+and temperate blood ran in her own veins.
+
+She was alone for the first time in the home of her forefathers. Her
+uncle was away in the old capital of Powysland on some political
+business or another; her cousins had driven down to the church an
+hour ago, in a governess-cart heaped with ropes and garlands of holly
+and fir. There were wreaths and crosses, too, for the woman who was
+spending her first Christmas beneath the frozen earth, and Fenella
+had shrunk from sharing the pious duty in which her heart could have
+so little part. She was glad to be alone, and to muse undisturbed
+in the ghostly protracted twilight. After the tempest of her grief
+something of weakness and passivity lingered still; her heart felt the
+languor of convalescence. Her movements were slower, her poises more
+consciously graceful; with the restlessness of childhood the last of
+its angles had gone. So imperative is nature, that she can make even a
+broken heart subsidiary to her purpose. She had prayed to die, and was
+three pounds heavier.
+
+When the twilight glimmer in the long gallery was too ghostly to be
+borne she descended to the dining-hall. Under its hooded fireplace
+the roaring grate was heaped with blocks of ligneous coal almost as
+large as boulders. Freres Lulford is in that borderland 'twixt the old
+England and the new where, for a ten-mile walk, one may make choice
+between coal-shafts and rolling mills, or ancient timbered hamlets and
+the "forest fleece" of Wenlock Edge. She called Perseus, the house-dog,
+to her, an eerie, feathery creature with a mouth like a shark, and,
+holding his head in her lap with one hand, rested her round cheek,
+dusky red from the fire into which she gazed, upon the other. The
+flames, as they rose and fell, tossed a distorted shadow of her head
+and shoulders, now low along the faded Persian carpets that covered the
+polished oak boards, now high up on the diapered wall, across helmet
+and cuirass, fringed silken banner, or antlered head, until, reaching
+the straddled legs or flowered petticoat of some high-hung ancestor,
+it sank again to the carpeted floor. She was dressed in a high-waisted
+frock of some soft white material, with short sleeves that left most of
+her arms bare, and with a high net collar kept pointed to the ears with
+little whalebones, after a senseless momentary fashion that forced her
+to carry her chin in the air. It was a very pretty chin, however; and
+wherefore does fashion change at all if not to call attention, through
+successive exaggerations, to the varied prettinesses of woman.
+
+Was she beginning to taste content again? Was she even resigned?
+She could not tell. A broken heart is such a relative term, one
+so justly discredited by those who have not the patience or the
+knowledge to follow its deadly sequelae that, except as the loosest
+of illustration, it is grown to be a useless one as well. But without
+flattering her own constancy in the least, Fenella could well perceive
+that, but for a providence so despised at the time, it might have
+gone very hard with her. Never, she owned it humbly and thankfully,
+could power to endure so timely have followed the blow, ministering
+angels the draining of the chalice. The worth or tenacity of a love
+that death or something else violently disrupts is not to be measured
+in an instant. At first, while the soul is nothing save a shocked
+protesting mass of severed nerve and impulse, all comfort is welcome,
+no matter whence it comes. It is not until the pain has abated that a
+perverse relish for it becomes possible, and that its ameliorations
+can seem a treachery done to love. So she had judged her own once,
+with the indignation of youth for wise restraining laws that will
+let no passion, by taking thought, grow beyond a certain stature.
+She was wiser now as well as humbler--could bless the diversion even
+for the poor perished love's sake. It had saved her from the meaner
+vexations that, for the woman, follow the breaking of an engagement,
+the unwelcome sympathy and the meaning glance, the loneliness of the
+long empty hours, and the perpetual challenge to memory of familiar
+scenes and faces. New skies, as the poet sings, may not change the
+heart, but this much is certain--nowhere is disappointment borne so
+hardly as among those who have been witness to the illusion. She went
+from her lover's arms discredited, soiled even, but, at least, to those
+who were ignorant of her history, and could not compare her with the
+Fenella of old. Meantime, her sorrow lurked somewhere, to wake, she
+felt instinctively, the day another man should ask her for love.
+
+Her cousins were kind and natural, so natural that, after three months,
+she seemed to have known them all her life. Leslie Barbour was tall,
+thin and melancholy, mildly mad, and with the good looks that were
+the only unentailed heritage in the Barbour family marred in her case
+by ill-health and emaciation. She spoke little, and regarded her
+new-found cousin with a purblind stare that it took Fenella a long time
+to get used to, but which she was content now to accept as a tribute of
+adoring affection. She loved white, waxy flowers with heavy odors, and
+was psychically inquisitive.
+
+Nelly was rather afraid of her uncle, a _bruyant_ peer with a
+past of which the late Lady Lulford had been a very small part. He had
+a fine head and heavy, fleshy face, opulently bearded, that Holbein
+would have loved to paint, the face of one of the terrible new lords
+of the English Renaissance who hung the abbots and gobbled up the
+abbeys. In the country he affected knickerbockers and velvet coats,
+and was sophisticated rather than intellectual, with a sophistication
+that he had placed a whole life long at the service of his pleasures.
+His pursuits being apt to clash with his eldest son's, Basil was at
+present in Damaraland shooting big game; but Jack Barbour, the younger
+son, a cheery and casual young lancer, fell unreservedly in love with
+his pretty cousin, with a fine quality of hopeless adoration in his
+homage (he has since married money and freckles) that the girl was
+used to by now, and could deal with competently. The two became great
+chums. Jack liked to have his well-turned-out little kinswoman for
+brisk walks across the Park, or for a saunter down Bond Street at the
+hours of resort. He did not mind how many of his comrades-in-arms
+caught him in company that did him so much credit. "Where did you find
+the pretty lady you were with in Burlington Street, Suds?" "Don't be
+an ass, Bogey," Suds would make reply. "She's a little cousin of ours.
+I'll introduce you in the spring when we start goin' round again."
+Fenella, wearing her own sad colors in her heart, looked forward to the
+promised gaieties almost with dismay. Life had become such a serious
+thing. She worked hard at her dancing, teaching, and learning while
+she taught, and making strides that carried her rapidly beyond Mme. de
+Rudder's power to appreciate justly. On the morning of her interview
+with Joe Dollfus she thought it well to take her eccentric cousin into
+her confidence. The look of hopeless adoration only intensified in the
+vacant, troubled face. Leslie put out her hand and touched the girl's
+black hair timidly.
+
+"Blame you, child?" she repeated. "Does one blame the butterfly for
+seeking the sun? Will you forget me, darling, in your success--for I
+see success written on your brow? Will you be only one other sad memory
+in my breast--one pearl white head the more along the long rosary of
+my regrets?" She sighed luxuriously. "I shall recall you best," she
+decided after a moment's consideration, "when I see a creamy-white
+rose, half-blown."
+
+Fenella wriggled uneasily. She did not want to be any one else's
+regret. Brows and breasts, moreover, had a mortuary flavor. Foreheads
+and chests were much cheerfuller everyday matters. They were at lunch,
+and she caught her cousin's hand under the table-cloth.
+
+"Don't be gloomy, Les," she pleaded; "you make me feel all
+_squiggly_ when you talk that way. Of course I sha'n't forget you.
+I want you to come with me and madame this afternoon."
+
+We know now what Mr. Dollfus thought; but his outward recognition of
+his opportunity had been temperate, and the three women discussed his
+attitude rather ruefully over their tea. Leslie looked at the girl's
+flushed, chagrined face a long while in silence.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Cousin Nelly," she said at last. "It's going to be
+all right. That man is wild to have you."
+
+Fenella turned on her breathlessly. "Oh, Les! do you mean it? How can
+you know?"
+
+Leslie narrowed her pale eyes and shook her head slowly.
+
+"Never mind how I know," she said cryptically. "These things aren't
+withheld from me. They wouldn't be from _you_ if you could empty
+your mind of _self_ for even a moment."
+
+No reinforcement to hope is really insignificant. Nelly had glowed
+at the eerie assurance. She was recalling it now, and smiling over
+poor Les's unearthly manner, when the hairy head under her hand moved
+convulsively. Perseus uttered a wild, strangling bark. A man was
+standing on the opposite side of the fireplace, looking at the pretty
+group of girl and animal--the dog asleep, the girl dreaming.
+
+"Hello!" he said cheerfully.
+
+
+
+
+                                  IV
+
+                         AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS
+
+
+He was a big man, and in his long hairy coat he looked a giant. After
+the first glance the girl's first wild fear vanished. Burglars and
+murderers don't wear fur coats in business hours, nor hold goggles in
+their hand. Perseus, too, having given the alarm, had gone over to the
+stranger, and was sniffing at him in a way that suggested recognition.
+The unknown slapped his lean flank.
+
+"Hello, Perse! You don't get any fatter, old man."
+
+As he unwound a great woollen scarf from his neck, a fair, pleasant
+face, rather damp and weather beaten, emerged. She recognized her
+chatty friend of La Palèze immediately.
+
+"I'm sorry if I startled you," he said, "but they told me Miss Barbour
+was in the hall, so I walked in. Were they pleasant dreams?"
+
+Even in the red firelight the color on the girl's cheeks deepened
+perceptibly. "How can I slip past him?" she said to herself and then
+aloud: "If you don't mind waiting, I'll go and see whether my cousins
+are back. My uncle is at Shrewsbury."
+
+"Please don't move," the man answered. "I asked. They're all out still.
+But perhaps I'd better introduce myself. I'm Bryan Lumsden. I think I'm
+expected."
+
+"Sir Bryan Lumsden," she repeated. "Oh! we thought you'd come this
+morning. Leslie waited luncheon."
+
+"I burst a tire at Welshpool," Bryan explained. "Often do in snow, you
+know."
+
+"Shall I ring for tea?"
+
+"Yes, please. And meantime, let's talk." He took off his coat and flung
+it over a high-railed chair. "Shall we?"
+
+She sat back, further into the shadow as she hoped, but the vicious
+flame chose that moment to spurt out--a spurt of peculiar brilliance.
+
+"Now, what can we talk about?" he asked pleasantly, when the footman
+had gone, carrying the great coat with him.
+
+"The weather?" poor Fenella suggested, with a hollow laugh.
+
+"Or foreign travel, eh? That's even more interesting."
+
+Nelly abandoned her treacherous ambush.
+
+"I couldn't help it," she protested, rubbing the arms of her chair
+nervously with open palms. "You _would_ talk to me. And it's--it's
+so hard to be rude."
+
+"----in return, eh?"
+
+"Yes. You know you shouldn't have done it."
+
+"You had your revenge next day, remember!" he said, and stopped
+abruptly, as another absurdly big footman, who should have been
+breaking the glebe in Canada, entered with the tea-tray.
+
+"Shall I turn on the light, miss?" the man asked, disposing various
+silver-covered dishes on the wide hearth.
+
+"No!--oh yes--if you please, Philip. Why do you say 'revenge'?" she
+asked, when they were alone again. "I'm not a revengeful person."
+
+"We shall see," he said, taking a cup from her hands. "Power's a great
+temptation."
+
+Under his steady gaze, which never left her face, except to scan
+her figure, the ministry of the tea-table was a sad ordeal. In the
+intervals of discharging her duties she called the hound to her and
+fondled him anew. That hid one arm, anyway.
+
+"I waited for you a whole morning."
+
+"Oh! I don't believe that!" Said without any coquetry.
+
+"It's the simple fact. And I've heard about you since."
+
+"From Leslie? Of course you would."
+
+"No; she only said, unaccountably: 'A cousin,' leaving me to guess
+whether it was he, she, or it. I'm thinking of Joe Dollfus."
+
+Suddenly he held his hand up. He had fine senses. "I can hear wheels in
+the snow. You haven't told me your name."
+
+"Fenella."
+
+"Well, Cousin Fenella! Are we going to be friends?"
+
+"Why not?" faintly.
+
+"I shall be discreet, you know, about--_things_ at La Palèze."
+
+The girl's eyes brimmed. Instead of this face, blonde, confident, and
+animal, another one--lean, spiritualized, with far-seeking, visionary
+eyes, swam through her tears. "Paul! Paul!" Like any poor maid, beset,
+at bay in a robber-haunted forest, her heart called to her true love.
+
+"In return, will you keep a secret for me?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Don't mention Welshpool. I'm supposed to have come straight from
+London."
+
+"Why should I say anything at all?"
+
+"Oh! one never knows. Give me your hand on it."
+
+What could she do? He was in no hurry to release her, and had hardly
+dropped it when, chilled and dazed but boisterously light-hearted after
+their mournful errand, her cousins entered the hall.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+                               CICISPEO
+
+
+The next morning was stirless but bracing. Snow covered the park in
+soft mounds and waves, with a little black pit round the roots of
+each tree, as though some hibernating animal were breathing beneath.
+The laden branches balanced their fairy load daintily, against a sky,
+low, buff-colored and heavy with the promise of a further fall toward
+afternoon. The atmosphere was so still that the shouts of children
+snowballing in the village half a mile beyond the lodge gates, the
+rattling of antlers round the feeding-trough, reached the terrace,
+swept and sand-strewn already, where Fenella walked before breakfast,
+her arms folded under a warm golfing cape that she had found hanging
+in the hall. In the morning light, austere, temperate and shadowless,
+a good many of the misgivings that had robbed her of sleep were
+re-examined and found ludicrously unworthy of the sacrifice. There was
+no mistake about it. She had had her hour of unreasoning panic--had
+even meditated excuses that should cover a precipitate homeward flight.
+But that mood was over now. Women have their own code of bravery in the
+only warfare they know--their own perception of the ignominy of flight.
+If they act oftener upon their fears than upon the braver impulse, it
+is only because, in this warfare, it is their adversary himself who has
+set the rules and poisoned the weapons, decreeing that the slightest
+wound as well as the mortal shall be held matter for shame.
+
+"I've heard of you--from Dollfus." What did that mean? What could
+be said of her yet? Of course, afterward, she was prepared for far
+worse. She was going on the stage with her eyes remarkably wide open.
+But that women--girls like herself, living at home, protected and
+obscure--should be made subject of men's conversation, she felt was an
+injustice--a treacherous thrust before the battle was joined. What was
+its motive? To rob her of self-respect before her character could be
+assailed? To cheapen, degrade her in her own eyes at the outset?
+
+All at once a light dawned upon her--a light that beamed softly through
+her eyes, that wreathed her lips with the faintest, saddest little
+smile that ever was near neighbor to tears.
+
+"It's all your fault, darling," she murmured. "It's all through you.
+You've been and lost me my character, Paul. Oh, my dear, my dear! What
+a joke! If the beasts only knew you?"
+
+A foot grated upon the sand behind her. She turned and saw Sir Bryan,
+very fresh and smart and youthful in his tweeds and breeches.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Barbour. I'm sent to call you into breakfast."
+
+"I never heard the gong."
+
+"You don't hear it from this side." He came nearer and drew in great
+breaths of the cold, pure air. "Feeding's a bore, isn't it, a morning
+like this? I like houses where everything's kept hot and you eat any
+time; don't you?"
+
+"I don't know. I haven't visited very much."
+
+She tried to meet his new impersonal tone with perfunctory brightness;
+but Bryan knew how a woman looks who hasn't slept.
+
+"You look tired," he said. "I'm afraid I worried you a bit last night."
+
+"I did think you a little--a little----"
+
+"Disrespectful, eh?" Lumsden hazarded. He had that useful sort of tact
+in conversation which consists in supplying the word that suits one's
+own purpose best.
+
+"We were such strangers, you see," urged Fenella, with gentle reproof.
+"That time in France shouldn't have counted at all."
+
+"If it did, the score was on your side," the baronet said quickly. "But
+I'm content so long as you don't mark it against me."
+
+"Then you hinted people were talking about me," Nelly went on,
+reddening, but gaining confidence. "It was that worried me. It was so
+vague."
+
+"We were interrupted just then," Lumsden reminded her. "A word or two
+would have explained, but you wouldn't let me get near you the whole
+evening."
+
+"Why should I? When women are talked about it's never _well_."
+
+"Oh, isn't it?" said Lumsden. "I'm not a philanthropist, but I assure
+you I've done my part bravely in holding lots of shaky reputations
+together."
+
+She raised her head now, and looked him quite proudly in the eyes.
+
+"Thank you. I'm not conscious mine's in bad repair."
+
+It was a different voice and another woman. Lumsden leaned over the
+parapet and gathered a handful of snow.
+
+"Snow's packing," he said. "We'll have sleighing after lunch. Ever been
+on a bob-sleigh?"
+
+"No," said Fenella. Maidenly dignity relented a little. It sounded
+"fun."
+
+Sir Bryan gave a boyish laugh.
+
+"You've missed half your life," said he, making use of one of a
+collection of phrases he had brought from over the Atlantic. "Look
+here!" He touched her ever so lightly on the shoulder and pointed
+across the park. "From the Belvedere down to the 'ha-ha' there's two
+hundred and fifty yards if you know how. We laid it out years ago, and
+marked it with stones. It's known all round. Lots of people, probably,
+will turn up here this afternoon. You'll let me take you down,
+won't you, Miss Barbour? I say; do I have to go on calling you 'Miss
+Barbour'?"
+
+"Yes," demurely; "I think it's best."
+
+"For how long?"
+
+She faced him with her hand upon the sash of the long French window. If
+it was "just flirting," Fenella was "all there."
+
+"Until you've told me truthfully what Mr. Dollfus said."
+
+"I'll do it while we're sleighing. It won't take ten minutes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The conversation, however, lasted more than ten minutes, and it was one
+Fenella was never to forget. As Bryan had prophesied, the news that the
+slide was being banked and made spread rapidly, and a host of people
+turned up in the afternoon, in country carts with sledges trailing
+and bumping behind, or in motor-cars, with an occasional pair of skis
+sticking up in the air. The run had been laid out years ago under
+Lumsden's own direction, when "crooked run" tobogganing was a newly
+discovered rapture. More than one future hero of the Kloster or Cresta
+had taken his first powdery tumble, amid ecstatic laughter from friends
+and relations, on the snowy slopes of Freres Lulford, and even now,
+after the sophistication had set in that so quickly reduces any English
+pastime to a science, with its canting vocabulary and inner circle of
+the expert, whenever snow fell thickly enough to stop shooting and
+hunting, two or three days' sleighing in Lulford Park was thought
+rather "sport" by a society watchfully anxious never to be thrown upon
+its intellectual resources by any trick of wind or weather.
+
+Game-keepers and gardeners had been at work all the morning, and
+after lunch people began to arrive. Fenella had met a good many of
+them before--Lord Warrener, with his fiery whiskered cheeks and grave
+little Philadelphia wife; Bill Arkcoll, whose gray face, seamed with
+a million tiny wrinkles, was twisted into a permanent grin round a
+black-rimmed eyeglass, which he had, moreover, a disconcerting habit
+in the evening of letting fall with a sudden crash on his shirt front;
+"Snip" Hannaford, the gentleman jockey, who had sacrificed his chest to
+the sport of kings; finally Lady Wills-Pechell, alone condescendingly
+literary on the strength of half a dozen pottering little garden books:
+"Among my Syringas," "The Chatelaine's Year," "Shadow and Sun on
+Spurlock Edge." Lady Warrener was of the latest type of trans-Atlantic
+heiress, devoted to the peerage from the nursery, and "very carefully
+brought up" by an ambitious and circumspect mother. Her opinions
+were predigested and all her life nothing really unforeseen had ever
+happened her, except twins. She adored her husband and babies, thought
+Bryan's occasional Americanisms vulgar, and her favorite comment was,
+"_Oh, fahncy!_"
+
+As a class they had for some time ceased to force comparisons upon
+Fenella; but this afternoon their low, clear voices, frank, unimpressed
+greetings, absence of anxiety, and general air of being all afloat
+together upon a stream that might be trusted never to carry them too
+far out of one another's reach struck pleasantly upon her senses. A
+great coke stove had been lighted in the Belvedere and the curved stone
+benches covered with carriage-rugs and cushions. The trampled snow
+outside was littered with an assortment of bob-sleighs, "Cheshires"
+and frail steel clipper-sleds. The run started practically at the
+door, with a nearly sheer fall of twenty feet; ran out a hundred yards
+into the straight, turned--at first gently, then more sharply--on a
+heaped embankment around the shoulder of the hill, and finished close
+to the old carp pond, whose black ramparts and pointed turrets of
+yew were roofed and spired to-day with a white thatch of snow. From
+the gardens a sort of rough stairway, made of faggots and bundles of
+brush-wood, had been made to the top of the hill. A few belated guests
+were straggling up it, pulling up their sleds to one side through the
+snow. Round the stove the vocabulary of the sport was being briskly
+interchanged.
+
+"_Sprawl_ on Battledore, and use your right foot, not your left."
+"Never got beyond the duffer's handicap myself." "You'll 'yaw' all
+over, Arkcoll, if you use rakes on the straight." "Hands are best."
+"No, they're not: 'gouties,' when they get a bit worn, are just as
+good." "He was killed because he held on, Warrener. Let go and bunch
+yourself, and you can't be more than bruised even there." "Who's going
+to start?" "That thing's no good on a snow-run, Barbour."
+
+Jack Barbour was standing on the edge of the descent, a light steel
+frame with a cushion held against his chest. He put it down and glanced
+at his pretty cousin.
+
+"Shall we show 'em how?"
+
+Fenella caught her breath, but nodded.
+
+"Oh, Jack, take care of her!" reproachfully, from his sister, while
+Warrener, in the background, already a little _épris_, expressed
+an opinion that it was "damned dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous? Down that thing?" cried Barbour scornfully, pushing the
+nose of what is technically known as a "tin-bottom" over the slope.
+
+"What am I to do?" asked Nelly.
+
+"Just sit still and hang on to my knees. Now, are you ready?"
+
+Fenella bit her lip and suppressed a vulgar inclination to scream.
+The toboggan seemed to fall headlong--to rebound--to shoot out with
+the evident intention of either burying itself in the embankment or
+of leaping it altogether. When its nose was not more than ten yards
+away she felt the speed suddenly slacken, the toboggan slewed round
+with a twist that nearly overset it, and, steadying, slipped swiftly
+and cleanly round a wide curve. Almost before the rapture of the
+unaccustomed motion had been realized, it came to a stop, for want of
+snow, in the shadow of the prior's garden.
+
+"How do you like it?" asked cousin Jack, brushing the snow off his
+sleeve.
+
+"Oh, Jack!"--Fenella pressed her mittened hands together--"it's--it's
+_glorious_!"
+
+Barbour smiled at her glowing face. "Pooh! You should see the real
+thing. Ask Lumsden. He did the Kloster in five-fifteen once."
+
+"Is he very good at it?"
+
+"He's good at everything he takes up," said Jack, unreservedly. "How do
+you like him, Flash? I forgot to ask."
+
+Jack Barbour had heard of this old school nickname from a brother
+officer who had had a sister at Sharland College and seldom called her
+by any other.
+
+"M--m--pretty well. Is he really a cousin of--of--ours?"
+
+"Not really, I think. It's a kind of old joke."
+
+"Why is he so much at home here, then, Jack?"
+
+Barbour had evidently found the situation ready made, and had never
+thought of questioning it.
+
+"I think he and the governor were racing partners once. There are
+some of his horses here now: I don't mean hunters. Saleratus is his,
+the big bay. We all hope he's going to win some races next year. Snip
+Hannaford's going to ride him."
+
+"Is he married, Jack?"
+
+Barbour laughed sarcastically. "Bryan married! No fear! He knows too
+much."
+
+"_Jack!_"
+
+"Oh! I'm sorry, coz. It wasn't a very pretty speech to a lady. I mean
+he's a bit spoilt. Shall we go up?"
+
+"No; let us sit here awhile. It's so warm. Why is he spoilt?"
+
+"'Cos he's awful rich."
+
+"Heaps of people are rich."
+
+"Well, then, he's got a good deal to do with theatres, and knows that
+kind of people. The Dominion really belongs to him. Why, your teeth are
+chattering, Flash. Are you cold?"
+
+"No. It's nothing. I thought Mr. Dollfus was the manager of the
+Dominion."
+
+"He is in a way. I don't quite understand these things, but I suppose
+Bryan puts up the money."
+
+"I see," said Fenella, with the accent of full comprehension. "Jack,"
+she said, after a moment, "do you think it's quite right to have a man
+like that meeting--proper women?"
+
+Barbour jerked his head. He was a rather nice lad, singularly
+susceptible to the influence of the moment.
+
+"I suppose it isn't, when one thinks of it. We've thrashed this out
+before, haven't we, Flash? Same law for both, eh?"
+
+"I think men, and women too, ought to choose what kind of people
+they're going to know, and be made _stick_ to that sort. I
+don't like _mixings_. Come, let's go up. Here come some others.
+Oh, Jack! aren't you glad you're young? I _hate_ men after
+twenty-five."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sport was over, together with the short-lived day, before she stood
+in the same place with the older man. Servants carrying tea-baskets
+and kettles had made their way up the slope. Lanterns twinkled in the
+pergola, and gay chat floated down to them. She had kept out of his way
+all the afternoon without difficulty. It was not until she had made the
+tantalizingly short descent with one man after another, and finally,
+amid much vain dissuasion and subsequent applause, headforemost by
+herself on Jack's steel clipper, that he came to her side and asked
+her, without a trace of the manner she resented, to take the last run
+with him. It was growing dark, and meaning glances were not wanting,
+but she had consented without any hesitation. She felt the glances, but
+she felt also a strange elation and a consciousness of strength that
+made her a very different creature to the nervous tongue-tied little
+girl of the night before. She did not quite know why, but, as she
+stood, a little breathless from her upward climb, with the first flakes
+of the new fall melting on her glowing cheek, life, even shadowed life
+such as was hers, seemed something intensely interesting, and something
+that, given courage, might be mastered as easily as the sport she was
+essaying now. He was the first to speak when they reached the sheltered
+gloom below.
+
+"Don't you think our explanation's about due?"
+
+He saw her smile. "I'm not a bit anxious for it now, Sir Bryan."
+
+"I can believe that. You've even seemed to me to be keeping out of its
+way, or out of mine, which comes to the same thing, all the afternoon."
+
+"It's not really worth worrying over. When you've given it there won't
+be much gained."
+
+"You mean calling you--your name. It was your own idea to wait, you
+know."
+
+"You can call me it now without any conditions. Jack has told me we're
+kind of cousins."
+
+"Is that all he's told you?"
+
+"A little more."
+
+"Oh! Enough to make you hesitate about a certain step you had thought
+of taking?"
+
+"Enough to make me think I'd better take it in some other place."
+
+"Don't take it anywhere else"--earnestly.
+
+She was startled at his intensity, and looked uneasily up the hill.
+
+"Cousin Fenella, does history bore you?"
+
+"It must be a very short lesson, please."
+
+"A few minutes is enough. Years ago, then, cousin, in certain parts of
+Italy, when a bride was starting her new life, besides the usual stuff
+about pin-money, settlements, etcetera, the marriage contract contained
+another clause that seems to our insular minds intensely shocking.
+You'd never guess what it provided for."
+
+"If it's shocking, I'd best not try."
+
+His mouth twitched. "Baldly, then, one friend--neither more nor less.
+A third partner in the terrestrial paradise. Seems rather a scandalous
+person, doesn't he?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+Lumsden lit a cigar. "And yet"--_puff! puff!_--"the more one
+thinks of him the more reasonable he becomes. Men were so busy in those
+days, cousin. Fighting, don't you know--treaty making--in prison for
+indefinite periods. Don't you see with how much easier mind the soldier
+or diplomatic or captive husband must have laid his head on his lonely
+pillow for knowing there was a stout arm, ready blade, keen wit at
+home, authorized to keep marauders off. Do you wonder why I'm telling
+you all this?"
+
+"To frighten me, perhaps."
+
+"Pshaw! I know better than that. Come! put prejudice aside. Remember,
+too, that his name was probably the worst thing about him. Some poor
+relative, unrewarded soldier, I always imagine him--generally a cousin,
+by the way. Still wondering?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Cousin Fenella, listen to me! Under ordinary conditions, for a girl
+like yourself to dance on the stage would be to risk more unhappiness
+and humiliation and treachery than you'd believe if I told you. There's
+one place in which a word from me can secure you your peace of mind.
+That's the Dominion. Don't turn away from luck."
+
+"You mean that I--that you----"
+
+"That the mere hint, in quarters where it's most wanted, that you're
+a _protégée_ of mine will rid you once for all of unwelcome
+attentions."
+
+Fenella considered. "In fact, in order to keep my peace of mind, I must
+lose my reputation."
+
+"Do you care very much what the world says? Do you have to--still?"
+
+The last word was pitched so low that she hardly caught it. But,
+whisper as it was, it decided her.
+
+"No. I don't care. Not--_that_." She snapped her fingers.
+
+"That's right," said the sporting baronet encouragingly. "It's a
+bargain then? Dominion or nothing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm writing Joe to-night. Shall I tell him we go into training after
+Christmas?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He put his hands in his pockets and puffed his cigar to a glow.
+
+"Quite ready to fight the world, ain't you, cousin?"
+
+"The _world_."
+
+"----but not me, eh? Oh! I keep my word. I'm Cicispeo."
+
+"_Who?_"
+
+"The man who's history I've just been telling you."
+
+"Why are you taking all this trouble then?"
+
+"Good! I like a 'facer' sometimes. Well, it's because I admire pluck.
+Because I saw you swim a mile out at Palèze. Oh! I often watched you.
+Because you took a header down that slide just now. What'll you be at
+next. Shall we go back to the house or will you go up with me and face
+the Wills-Pechell eye? It's celebrated, I warn you--got enough pluck
+left for that?"
+
+And as she climbed the brushwood path--her hand in this new
+friend's--Fenella, all her elation gone, was wondering how much share
+after all her will had had in the choice just made, and whether this
+dazzling dream-vista of success and applause, out of which, as earnest
+of her right to all it promised, a rush of warm-scented air seemed to
+meet her through the snow-filled dusk, were not really a decree of
+fate, hostile and inexorable to her heart's desire as death would have
+seemed three months ago--peace, salty suffocation on the dark, lonely,
+foreign beach, clasped in her lover's arms.
+
+And Lumsden, quite possibly, was measuring the moral distance between
+the cad who shoots a pheasant on the ground and the sportsman who
+flushes it and gives it a fly for its life. Or for better sport--which
+is it?--and to take a surer aim.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VI
+
+                       THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
+
+
+Among the minor penalties with which fate, presumably solicitous
+for a true balance, hampers excellence in this world, not alone the
+acquired excellence, which, being achieved in its teeth, explicably
+earns its maleficence, but even the natural advantages which were
+its own unsolicited gift, one, we think, has escaped the attention
+it deserves. We refer to a certain isolation and lack of touch with
+their immediate _entourage_ which those who are marked for the
+world's prizes never quite succeed in overcoming, however modestly
+they wear or anticipate their honors. They are interesting, and for a
+correct view a certain distance, respectful, (though not necessarily
+so to them), is judged advisable. Society opens its ranks to receive
+them, but never quite closes on them again. None who have studied the
+lives of the giants but will have noticed how rarely a friendship
+disinterestedly worthy of them came their way, and is not the fatality
+of beauty, encountering the spoiler where the friend was imagined, a
+proverb? Fenella had not lived her new life a month before she was
+aware of a subtle atmosphere which was not treachery and which could
+not, without begging the question, have been called disrespect, but
+which partook a little of both. One does not feel a thing less keenly
+for being unable to exactly define it. Instincts are given women to be
+acted on, not to be explored. Its manifestations as yet had been only
+vaguely disquieting. Among the men it was apparent rather as a half
+jocular reservation of judgment--a determination, in view of possible
+developments, not to be committed to any one view of her character
+now, and, above all, never to be in the position of having more knowing
+brothers administer a rebuke to worldly wisdom. And among the women it
+took the shape of a coldness in meeting her advances which contrasted
+puzzlingly with the outspoken admiration that invited them. Poor,
+warm-hearted, ignorant Fenella! experiencing for the first time the
+full benefits of the benefit of the doubt.
+
+It might be inevitable, or it might not, that, as day followed day
+of a visit so rapidly losing its charm, the broad-shouldered figure
+of the sporting baronet should begin to stand out more and more
+sympathetically against this background of veiled disrespect and
+thwarting reserve. It is true that the openness of his first advances
+had been the thing nearest approaching insult that she could remember,
+but, such as it was, it was forgiven now and, womanlike, the fault,
+frankly owned, brought him nearer. More womanlike still, perhaps,
+she liked him the better because he had been a witness to the old
+lost love of the summer. He at least saw her in no half light. She
+did not care greatly if he believed the worst--took a perverse joy,
+indeed, in believing it was possible he did. She was on her way now
+to a life where such things were no handicap, to which, indeed, she
+half suspected they were sometimes the initiation. She was content the
+knowledge of her own integrity should remain--a secret satisfaction to
+herself--content to feel it as a dancer of the fervid south, beneath
+her languorous draperies, may feel the chill of the dagger that she
+carries thrust through her garter.
+
+He was kind and helpful too, not with the troublesome insistence of
+a man anxious to make amends for a former mistake, but as though,
+the ground having been cleared once for all of false conceptions,
+misunderstanding was no longer likely between them. Mourning and
+seclusion, she discovered, were comparative terms among country
+neighbors, and amid the men with whom the house intermittently abounded
+he showed both a finer creature and a finer gentleman. Once, in the
+billiard-room, when Warrener the full-blooded hinted that her cheeks
+lacked roses, and made as if to pour out whiskey for her, Lumsden took
+the decanter from his hand without a word, and put it back on the
+wooden ledge that ran round the room. She had come on a message to him
+from Leslie.
+
+"I'd send one of the maids, Flash, when it's as late as this," he said,
+simply, as soon as they were in the corridor.
+
+He had adopted Jack's favorite nickname for her when they were alone
+once and for all, but it was noticeable he never used it in the hearing
+of a third person. The thing had no importance, but it is a type of the
+assumptions she was finding it so difficult to resist.
+
+It was he who, after all, taught her to ride. Jack Barbour, to do him
+justice, was prepared to redeem an old promise so soon as, to use his
+own words, "the bone was gone out of the ground," but frost followed
+the snow and held for days after tobogganing had been voted flat, stale
+and unprofitable. It wasn't Bryan's way to wait. He had more tan and
+straw laid down over the path, bordered with evergreens, that led from
+the stable-yard to poor Lady Lulford's steam laundry, and along which
+the horses were exercised every day. Fenella's heart fluttered and
+there was no lack in her cheeks of the roses whose absence Warrener
+deplored as, dressed in a borrowed habit of Leslie's that pinched her
+unconfined waist sorely, and with her hair in a pigtail again, she
+put her foot in her master's looped hand. Maids and stable-boys were
+peeping round the outbuildings.
+
+He flicked the gray mare with his whip, and for more than an hour,
+letting the rope he held run out to its full length, pulled the animal
+backward and forward in a kind of "eight" figure. He threw away his
+cigar, and his voice rang out crisp and decisive as on a barrack square.
+
+"Straight between his ears! Now look down. Can you see the feet? That's
+right! Now, then, press down in the stirrup as her fore-leg goes out,
+then lift. _Hup! hup!_ Oh, fine! Coz! you're a fraud. You've
+learnt before."
+
+"Have I really done so very well?" she asked, when the lesson was over
+and they were on their way to the stables. She looked up in his face;
+her own tingling with pleasure at his appreciation.
+
+"I've never seen 'em trot so well the first time." He looked her over
+critically. "I suppose it's all balance. When we're back in town, I'll
+mount you and show you lots of things. We'll have a turn in Richmond
+Park."
+
+She caught her breath at the last two words, as at a positive physical
+pang. This must be the future, she supposed. Stray ends of pleasure,
+caught at and let go, an uneasy sense of something missing that could
+have woven them all into happiness, and now and then, when the nerve
+was touched, just such a spasm of pain as made her wince now. Lumsden
+did not notice her. He was looking at a large bay horse with a bandaged
+ankle that a stableman was leading across the paved yard.
+
+"How's his hock this morning, Collett?"
+
+Collett touched his cap twice. "Walks a bit lame still, I fancy, Sir
+Bryan."
+
+"What does Brodribb say about him?"
+
+"Well, ye know what Mr. Brodribb be, Sir Bryan. 'E wunt 'ave the harse
+slung. 'Get the condition right fust,' 'e says."
+
+"Lift up his cloths."
+
+Lumsden rubbed his hand over the lean-barrelled flank and regarded the
+animal gloomily.
+
+"Bit hide-bound still. Still cooking his food, Collett?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Bryan."
+
+"Feed him on corn a day or two, and let him have the boiled water warm.
+I'll come down this afternoon and have another look at him. Well,
+Flash, what do you think of him? Pretty horse, isn't he?"
+
+"He's rather--_thin_, isn't he, Sir Bryan?"
+
+"Thin?" Bryan looked down banteringly at his little cockney friend in
+her borrowed riding-habit. "That's a race-horse. That's Saleratus."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On New Year's Eve the Lulford party dined at Chubley, Lady
+Wills-Pechell's new but much photographed and be-paragraphed castle
+high up on Spurlock Edge. Despite the roaring log fire, there was quite
+a baronial rawness in the air of the dining-room, and most of the women
+came to dinner with lace shawls or spangled Egyptian scarves over their
+bare shoulders. Toward the end of dinner Lady Wills-Pechell leaned from
+her chair for a whispered conversation with her right-hand neighbor.
+
+"Miss Barbour," she said. "Oh! I beg your pardon, Leslie; I meant your
+cousin."
+
+Fenella, who was genuinely absorbed in the technicalities of Snip
+Hannaford, turned to meet her hostess's unconvincing smile.
+
+"Miss Barbour, a little bird has been very busy lately twittering that
+you dance. Aren't we to be shown anything before you go back to town?"
+
+"There are too many little birds in S--shire," Bill Arkcoll remarked in
+a penetrating undertone. "Pity the cold hasn't killed some of them."
+
+Fenella reddened and turned pale by turns.
+
+"Oh, I can't!" she said quickly. She flashed a quick appeal across the
+table for her cousin's sympathy, but Leslie kept her eyes on her plate.
+Leslie's manner had been strange lately.
+
+"Oh, but you _must_--you really must! Talents oughtn't to be hid.
+Ought they, Lord Lulford?"
+
+The bearded widower, who had been engaged in demolishing the private
+reputation of a Liberal leader, turned from the horrified face of the
+great lady he had taken in to dinner.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"We're asking your niece to dance here some night before she goes
+back. She thinks it wouldn't be quite--quite, you know----"
+
+Lulford tugged at his thick beard. "I don't know why you shouldn't,
+Fenella. We're almost a family party."
+
+"Don't worry the child," Lady Warrener put in, noticing her distress.
+She had forgotten much that was American, but not the tradition that
+kindness and consideration are budding womanhood's due.
+
+"Be a sport, Flash," said Jack Barbour, cheerily but unhelpfully.
+
+"We'll persuade her when we've got her in the drawing-room," said Lady
+Warrener.
+
+"I think," said the chatelaine, "that there's more chance of her being
+persuaded here. Won't _you_ try, Sir Bryan?" in her sweetest tone.
+
+"It may be a serious matter," said Lumsden, without looking at any one
+in particular. "Perhaps Miss Barbour's in training."
+
+"Yes," said the lady of the Syringas. "But who's the trainer? That's
+what we all want to know."
+
+"I've--I've got no clothes."
+
+A smothered laugh, not only from the men.
+
+"My dear child, we've got boxes and boxes of them upstairs--five
+generations."
+
+There was a crash on a shirt-front, at which every one jumped but
+Arkcoll. He would have very much liked to see the box belonging to,
+say, generation three.
+
+"And I've no music. Oh!" moving impatiently, "it's absurd."
+
+Lady Warrener thought she detected a suppressed ambition in the
+restless movement.
+
+"If you really don't mind, I've got volumes of old dance music over
+at Captoft. I was going to ask Jack to motor you and Leslie over
+to-morrow. Couldn't you rummage then?"
+
+Fenella, hard pressed, looked over to Lumsden, as nearly every one had
+intended she should look. There was the strangest, quizzical expression
+on his face. It seemed to say:
+
+"Now then! Who said they weren't afraid? First fence, and we're funking
+already."
+
+"I'll dance," she said abruptly, amid general applause, headed rather
+shrilly from the top of the table; "but please don't trouble about
+dresses, Lady Pechell. I'll write to mother to send me my own."
+
+Lumsden came to her side soon after the men entered the drawing-room
+with such undisguised intention that Lady Warrener, who had been trying
+to interest her in the dawning intelligence of the miraculous twins,
+drew away, puzzled and a little shaken in her advocacy.
+
+"Bravo!" Bryan said encouragingly; but the girl did not respond, and he
+thought he saw a tear roll down one bare arm. Nelly's tears were still
+larger than ordinary.
+
+"You looked across the table to me just now," he said. "I hope you saw
+nothing in my face except a wish you should do the best for your own
+interests."
+
+"It's settled now," said Fenella coldly, after a gulp which she
+hoped he didn't notice. "Lady Warrener had the _Chaconne_ from
+_Iphigénie_ and I can do my _Rosetta_ dance to any six-four
+time. I'll write for the dresses as soon as we get back to Lulford."
+
+Saying which, she got up, grown stately somehow for all her girlish
+short frock, and crossed the room to where the joyful mother of twins
+was sitting silently, an expression of diffused and impartial sweetness
+on her face. She touched her elbow.
+
+"Lady Warrener, won't you go on and tell me some more about your
+babies? I was really interested?"
+
+The woman looked up, noted the mute appeal in voice and eyes, and,
+drawing the girl down next her on the couch, took her hand and held it
+as she chatted.
+
+"Where had I got to? Oh, yes--Bunter said: 'Mother, there's something
+tickling my red lane.' 'Your red lane, Bunter?' 'Oh, mother,' said
+Patch, 'he's such a baby. He means his _froat_.' Now wasn't that
+_sweet_. Miss Barbour? _Fahncy!_ And only three years old,
+both of them. I'm so proud, I simply _bore_ all my friends.
+But you love children, don't you, Miss Barbour? How can any one
+_not_?"
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                           A DRESS REHEARSAL
+
+
+Her own interests? Not many days had passed before she had a chance
+to value them anew. The evening of the dance came and went. She was
+a little surprised at the size of the gathering it called together.
+There must have been eighty people in the hall, neighbors mostly,
+jovial, temperately enthusiastic, in after-dinner mood, and with the
+additional prospect of a first meet to hounds next day after the long
+frost. She noticed, however, that Bryan seemed to be introducing a good
+many strangers. She had danced amid a buzz of whispers, exclamations,
+and frequently a loud "Bravo!" taken up and echoed wherever a white
+shirt-front glimmered in the darkened hall. None of them knew how
+well it was done, but every one could appreciate a graceful child in
+a white satin Watteau dress with a great pointed frill, black sausage
+curls falling upon her shoulders under a quaint glazed hat, whose
+bones seemed to be of whalebone, whose feet never were still, and
+whose face, through all her changing gestures of appeal, hesitancy,
+curiosity, disdain, cunning, and weariness never altered from the grave
+set expression with which she faced the first round of applause. Or an
+odalisque, in a long striped tunic of the thinnest, softest silk and
+baggy Turkish trousers that sagged in great wide folds over her bare
+slippered feet, who swayed in time to sleepy _traumerei_ music
+almost like a top--rousing every now and then with a braying jar of
+the little cymbals that were fastened on her hands, to straighten and
+poise and twirl herself anew--sinking on the floor with the last faint
+chords, a soft limp heap of silk and dishevelled black hair.
+
+Already, as she sat by her bedroom fire in night-dress and wrapper,
+her hair plaited on each side of her head, and cuddling her knee, she
+was paying for her brief hour of triumph. She had the indefinable
+feeling of having "gone too far" that makes one dread the coming day
+like the face of an enemy. She thought people had looked strangely at
+her when she returned dressed, collected, and a little paler, to the
+hall. It was not because here and there she had caught a false note
+in the tempest of congratulation that overwhelmed her. It seemed set
+altogether in a key that was strange and new; she could judge, for,
+after all, it was not the first time she had danced in public. Even the
+impulse which had made her at the end of her second dance run forward
+and kiss Lady Warrener (at the piano) seemed to be misunderstood. The
+gentle peeress, so kind before, had shrunk from her palpably. And yet
+it was so natural; for she had never danced to music played like that
+before. How she longed for her public, her real public, obtuse and
+leather-lunged if you will, but whom a smile can conquer and whose
+loyalty, once gained, is gained forever!
+
+Then she had her own private motives for misgiving. Her cousin's manner
+had been strange for days. Leslie avoided her plainly, but followed
+her with her eyes. When forced to speak she seemed, not harsh, but
+confused, shocked, and anxious for escape. Jack had gone back to his
+regiment in Ireland the day after the dinner, grumbling, and feeling
+the iron of disinheritance in his soul as only the younger son of a
+great house can. He would have told her everything. But she must have
+an explanation from Leslie to-morrow. On no other prospect could she
+face the night.
+
+The fire was burning low. The little Sheraton clock on the mantelpiece
+shrilled _two_. She threw off her slippers and wrapper, opened the
+window, and, drawing a screen across the sinking fire, crept between
+the smooth linen sheets. But, once in bed, her excitement returned on
+her. Three o'clock--four o'clock--struck, and she was awake, the pulse
+of the music still in her relaxed body, listening to the fire shifting
+in the grate, watching the red dusk turn slowly to black.
+
+Suddenly she heard the handle of the door move, very gently and very
+steadily. The bed-curtains hid it from view; but she remembered that
+she had forgotten to lock it, and when it closed again as gently she
+knew that some one was in the room. But there was something else she
+had not forgotten. She felt under her pillow and closed her hand
+upon it. The very day she saw him last her lover had given her a
+little steel repeating pistol. She remembered his words: "I've never
+had occasion to use it, Nelly, but I should be giving you a false
+impression of the world, as I know it, if I didn't tell you there's ten
+times as much chance you'll have to defend your honor some day as there
+is I'll ever have to defend my property."
+
+She lay still, her heart beating to suffocation, but she did not quite
+close her eyes, and the next moment a fear that was never to be named
+went out of her heart. It was only her cousin Leslie. She recognized
+her plainly--long and emaciated, with tawny, lifeless hair about her
+shoulders. She was carrying a night-light in a cone-shaped glass.
+
+Now that fear was gone she had time to be puzzled. Up to a week ago
+a visit from her cousin at the hour of "combing and confidences"
+had been a regular affair, but one of the changes noticeable in her
+attitude had been the abandonment of the nightly habit. It was a great
+opportunity for the clear understanding on which she meant to insist,
+but it was very late, she was tired, and, as often happens, felt a
+sudden disinclination to put her resolution to the test. She decided to
+simulate sleep. She breathed a little heavier and closed her eyes.
+
+Leslie set down her lamp--she heard it distinctly on the little
+marble-topped table beside the bed--and bent over her. She felt her
+cousin's breath on her cheek. The thin, weak hand began to stroke her
+forehead and hair. Nelly was proof against a good many things, but not
+against tickling. She laughed and opened her eyes.
+
+Next moment, with a leap as lithe as a panther's, she had jumped out
+of bed and, gripping her cousin's wrists, bore her backward on to the
+floor. She was strong as well as active, and upon the thick carpet the
+struggle was as brief as it was noiseless. Something fell from the
+older woman's hand. She tossed it back on the bed and, switching on the
+electric current, flooded the room with light. Leslie picked herself
+up, crawled to the wall and crouched there, her knees drawn up to her
+chin, looking at her cousin through her tawny mane, with eyes wide and
+distraught in her white, quivering face.
+
+Fenella gave one look at the little stiletto on the bed, and covered
+her face with her hands in a reaction of terror.
+
+"Oh, Leslie! Wicked--wicked woman! What had I done to you? Oh, what a
+horror! And under your own roof! Oh, you must be mad!"
+
+"Go on!" said Leslie, thickly. "Ring the bell--wake the house! Have me
+put in a mad-house. Father wouldn't care, nor any one else. He's cursed
+me and called me a wet blanket heaps of times before people. I'm in
+every one's way now mother's gone."
+
+Fenella still looked at her incredulously. She was expecting every
+moment to wake from her nightmare. A thing like this couldn't be
+real--couldn't be life! Suddenly the wretched woman flung herself at
+her feet, weeping and kissing them.
+
+"Oh! my darling, don't look at me like that, as though I were some
+poisonous reptile. Oh, my God! what have I done? Do you think I really
+meant to harm you? Do you think I'm jealous? But if I am, it's only for
+your own good name. It's their fault. Of course you're nothing to them;
+they didn't know you when you were a little baby girl. I only wanted
+to be sure. And then something said to me that if--that if--Why do you
+shrink that way? Do you loathe to have me touch you?"
+
+Fenella bent forward and laid her hand across the hysterical woman's
+mouth.
+
+"Leslie, be quiet this instant, or I won't answer for what I'll do. And
+throw this over you or you'll get a chill. Now, are you quieter? I'm
+not going to make a fuss, or even tell a living soul what's happened
+to-night. But it's on a condition."
+
+"I know what you mean."
+
+"Yes. You must tell me what's being said about me?"
+
+"They say that he--that you----"
+
+"Yes. Go on!"
+
+"That you were Bryan Lumsden's mistress in France, and that he's
+spending money on bringing you out and paying for your dresses and
+lessons, and that he----" She hesitated.
+
+"What? Is there more?"
+
+"Yes. That--oh! that he wasn't the first. That when he--found you, you
+were posing as a model to some French artist."
+
+"What a picturesque past I've got! And have you believed it all?"
+
+Leslie made a despondent and penitent gesture.
+
+"Not now I've seen you. Not now I've told you to your face. But you
+can't live in a house like Lulford all your life and not hear--things.
+Well, are you going to loathe me forever?"
+
+Fenella seemed thoughtful. "I don't loathe you," she said, "not more
+than any one else. Go back to bed now. I'm tired after last night."
+
+"You won't refer to this to-morrow, will you? I shall be hunting all
+day, but you won't throw it in my face when we meet at night."
+
+"No. Here, take this thing back to where you got it. No, I'm not
+afraid to let you have it. Yes, I'll kiss you good-night. Oh, Leslie,
+_go_!" She stamped her bare foot desperately.
+
+As soon as her cousin was out of the room she locked the door and began
+to pack her trunks, turning keys and opening drawers as stealthily as a
+thief in the night. Her teeth chattered and her heart was filled with
+the wild panic instinct of flight. She only cried once, as she folded
+the clothes in which she had danced. "They said--his money!" How well
+she remembered the day they had been made, the whirring and bumping of
+the machine, her mother's perplexed face over the paper patterns, the
+very smell of Paul's pipe. "Theatricals," she had told him, and he had
+not asked a single question. The poor wounded heart ached for home.
+When her trunks were packed she lay down and watched for the dawn.
+
+The house was astir early. There was shouting from room to room,
+running hither and thither of ladies' maids and gentlemen's gentlemen,
+brushing of habits and knocking out of wooden boot-trees. She
+breakfasted in her room, and sent down word that she was getting up
+late--that she was over-tired. She had to endure cheerful proposals
+to come in and pull her out, cries of "Tally-ho!" and "Gone to
+earth!"--even try to answer them in kind. When they had all ridden
+away, she got up and dressed herself to her hat and coat and furs, her
+hands numb and clumsy from haste and agitation. There was a Bradshaw
+in the library, through whose mazes she ran with a finger in which she
+could feel the very beat of her disordered pulse, but she could make
+little or nothing of it. The house seemed to be empty of men-servants,
+but in the stable yard she ran across one of the helpers. He eyed her
+strangely and rasped a stubbly chin with a broken finger nail at her
+question.
+
+"Lunnon train? Noa, miss, baint no Lunnon train through Lulford 'fore
+two-twenty, an' that doant stop fur to take up nor fur to set down,
+'cept ye tellygraff down the line. There's a slow to Wolv'r'ampton
+at three-thritty, but ye'll have to wait forty minutes f'r yewr
+connexshuns. Two trunks, ye say, miss? Now, let me think----"
+
+Fenella slid ten shillings in silver into a hand that seemed to be in
+the way.
+
+"Thank'ee kindly, miss. 'Tis a bad marnen, miss, ye see: bein' a
+huntin' marnen all oor men be haff th' place. Come twelve o'clock, I'm
+taken 'nother harse to Wrogwarden Wood m'self, but if ye don't mind the
+bit of a walk to stash'n, I can harness Marvine to th' bailiff's cart,
+and tak' yewr trunks to stashun now in a casulty way like, and bid 'em
+wait till ye come. Thank'ee, miss."
+
+After a wretched pretence of eating a cold lunch, served in the
+solitude of the morning-room by maid-servants who whispered together
+outside and even peeped through the crack of the door, Fenella took her
+muff and dressing-case and set off to walk to the station. Snow lay
+still in recesses and hollows of the trees beneath the drive, and there
+were dirty lumps and patches on the slope of the hill where the slide
+had been made. She breathed freer when a corner of the drive hid the
+gray walls and turrets of the old priory, and more freely still when
+she had passed the round white lodge with its one smoking chimney and
+was out on the public road. Often, upon her summer holidays, passing
+such a lodge with its escutcheoned pillars and long dove-haunted avenue
+curving away into a dim and baffling perspective, she had wondered what
+sort of life was led beyond its swinging gates. Her lip curled at the
+thought that now she knew.
+
+The road she was walking along was sheltered and lonely, but sunken
+between high banks. The thawing uplands on either side had drained into
+it, and she was forced to pick her way very carefully, her heavy skirts
+held up with one hand and the baize-covered dressing-case, which seemed
+to grow heavier and which she hated more each moment (it had been one
+of mummy's ridiculous ideas), knocking against her knees on the other
+side. She had only gone some few hundred yards when, beyond a turn
+in the narrow road, she heard the splash of a hard-ridden horse, and
+clambered up the clayey bank to be out of its way. At sight of her the
+rider pulled up so hard as almost to bring his steed upon its haunches.
+She had not time to pull her veil down.
+
+"You of all the world!" exclaimed Lumsden. "What's up, Flash? Playing
+lady bountiful on the sly?"
+
+"I'm going home."
+
+Bryan whistled softly. He was wearing a black coat with wide skirts,
+a low-crowned silk hat and the palest of pale blue stocks. His white
+breeches and boots were covered with mud and his horse's miry flanks
+heaved like a bellows.
+
+"Going home?" he repeated, in open-mouthed surprise. "What on earth has
+happened?"
+
+"Please let me go on! I've had bad news from home this morning, that's
+all."
+
+"That's a fib, Flash. You've been awake again all night. The second
+time. Oh, fie!"
+
+No remark from Fenella.
+
+"Any one been rude to you?"
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"You won't tell me, eh?"
+
+"Sir Bryan, I can't. I've promised----Oh, you've _no right_!"
+
+Lumsden swung himself out of the saddle.
+
+"At any rate, you're not going to walk any further in those thin shoes
+and sit four hours in a train with wet feet. Come! up you get. The lane
+gets worse the farther you go."
+
+With sudden docility she put her dressing-case down on the wet grass.
+
+"That's right! Put your foot here. Steady--Greaser! Don't be afraid.
+He's quite blown; going's far too heavy to-day. Now take the bag in
+your lap. What's in it, Flash? Diamonds?"
+
+He looked at her quizzically as he laid the reins over his shoulder.
+
+"For two two's I'd come up with you to London. Oh, don't look so
+frightened. It's only an impulse. I've been fighting impulses every
+day for the last fortnight. I don't want to worry you," he went on, as
+the horse began to pick his way downhill with stiff, tired legs; "but
+you'll have to give some reason for all this. Did you leave any message
+behind?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Then we'll have to fake a telegram. You simply can't leave like this,
+and that's all there is about it. Hullo! who's this?"
+
+A small boy in corduroys and with a red badge on his arm was drifting
+up the lane toward them, examining the hedge-rows first on one side,
+then on another, in search of diversion. At Lumsden's call he started
+and adopted a more official gait.
+
+"Come here, boy! Can you take a telegram?"
+
+"Ahve got one," said the leaden-footed herald unfastening his satchel.
+"Miss Fen--Fen----"
+
+Bryan snatched it from his hand.
+
+"Open it, please," said Fenella in the ghost of a voice.
+
+"By George!" said the baronet, looking up, "this is Providence. This
+lets us all out."
+
+"Read it, please."
+
+"_Lady Anne very ill. Asks for you. Think you had better come.
+Wire._"
+
+"I don't think that's good news at all."
+
+"Well, it suits us, doesn't it?" with a quick look at the troubled,
+indignant face. "You mustn't feel things too much, you know. Fancy Anne
+Caslon dying in her bed at last! 'Tattering Annie' they used to call
+her in the West Meath. Fate! fate! there's nothing else. Here, boy,"
+he said, putting his hand in his breeches pocket, "take this, and cut
+away to the station and tell 'em to stop the two-twenty. Shocked at me,
+ain't you?" he said, as the boy trotted off after a backward gape at
+the strange couple.
+
+"I think it's horrid to talk about fate as if it was meant to do our
+little odd lying jobs for us. I'm very much upset at the news."
+
+"No, but isn't it true--I mean my meeting you this way? Confess, now.
+You were on your way back to town wounded and indignant, with a firm
+resolve never to see any one you'd met at Lulford again, weren't you?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"But you're not now?"
+
+"I don't know. I must have time to think."
+
+He seemed quite satisfied with the answer, being used possibly to
+oblique affirmations from women.
+
+A culvert and signal-box appeared suddenly above the hedge to their
+right.
+
+"You'd better get down here. There's a foot-path at the side of the
+main road." He flushed deeply as he held her in his arms. Another
+checked impulse, no doubt.
+
+In the waiting-room they sat, one on each side of a sullen fire in a
+black stove. He smoked a cigar, and steam rose from the drenched skirts
+of his coat.
+
+"I'm going to Biarritz almost immediately," he said; "but Dollfus knows
+what to do. Call on him as soon as you possibly can. I don't see myself
+there's much more training wanted, but you must be fitted in somewhere,
+and that takes time."
+
+He might have added that it takes money too--some one's money--but
+it was not the moment to enlarge on this. Fenella listened to his
+advice respectfully and gave him her address when he asked for it.
+She liked him no better, but, at the point they had reached, she felt
+it necessary, for her own satisfaction, that she should take the
+least complicated view of his helpfulness that was possible. To take
+a great deal and to give a little is a prerogative that the nicest
+of women think it no shame to use. She bought her own ticket, but
+let him order foot-warmers and even literature--_The Tattler_,
+_Photo Bits_, and a novel by Charles Garvice, to be brought her at
+Wolverhampton. He was back at her side as the train, chafing fussily
+at the check to its course, began to move out of the little country
+station.
+
+"Don't worry over whatever's happened you down there," he said at the
+last, jerking back his head at the hospitable mansion she had just
+left. "They're a dull crowd. We'll meet a very different lot later on.
+Good-bye! Keep fit and don't grizzle. I'll wire your mother that you're
+on your way."
+
+He stood gazing after the tail of the train as the gray distance sucked
+it in to a point.
+
+"You were a pretty wench, Bill," he heard a voice say behind him in the
+porters' room. The homely comment jarred him, but it also readjusted
+a view that had been inclining dangerously toward the romantic. Is
+there, I often wonder, some inbred memory of old disaster that makes
+Englishmen afraid of romance? Bryan, as he plodded homeward on his
+stiff hunter, almost laughed to remember that he had suddenly sickened
+of the chase, sickened of everything, and ridden back eight muddy miles
+on a beaten horse to see this girl, and--who knows?--perhaps to ask her
+to be his wife--if she had insisted upon it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shawled and pillowed at Wolverhampton by the guard's care, and quite
+tired out, Fenella slept, as warm as a dormouse under the snow, nearly
+all the way to Euston. A new ring from the clanging permanent way, more
+metallic, more menacing, as the train, sighting its goal afar off, made
+up its schedule time, roused her from a dream--ah! how deadly sweet of
+sun-steeped dunes, of outspread skies and seas, her poor little "land
+of lost content." The carriage pitched and rocked, lights twinkled
+together behind the bare trees, suburban pavements, and broadways
+blazing in blue-white light flashed past the windows. She put out her
+head against the cold, gritty rush of wind, and looked toward a red
+glare in the sky. Somewhere in that man-made wilderness of stone and
+brick, from whose smouldering discontents reddened smoke seemed to be
+ascending to heaven, he lived and moved and had his being who but now,
+in the lilied meadows of her dream, had held her against his breast and
+kissed away the desolate ache at her heart. Back to him, and he could
+not hinder--straight, straight as a homing-bird she was flying. With
+every moment that passed the distance that sundered them was being
+annihilated. Intense unreasoning joys! triumph almost lyrical of spirit
+over matter! God's crowning mercy in affliction!--manna from Heaven,
+and portion of the outcast!
+
+
+
+
+                                 VIII
+
+                        LADY ANNE'S DEPOSITION
+
+
+We wonder if it has ever happened to any of our readers--being a common
+human experience, it probably has--on the very morrow of some change
+which they had assayed, light-heartedly, experimentally, and with all
+provision made for honorable retreat in case of failure, to find the
+retreat, as it were, cut off, the old life put out of their reach once
+and for all, and success in the new becomes the condition not of a
+pleasanter manner of existence, but of very existence itself.
+
+We know that Fenella's independence of the career she had chosen was
+never as complete as appearances seemed to warrant. Even if it had
+been so, hers was not the temperament to discover comfort in any such
+ignoble security. She had the bright confidence of her youth. Eager
+for the contest, she was not afraid of any of the rules. And if the
+comfortable thought that, after all, the worst that could happen
+her would be a return to domestic conditions with her one ambition
+quenched, visited her at all in despondent moods, it was rather
+owing to Madame de Rudder's insistence upon the fact, as the great
+strategic advantage in a campaign which about this time that lady
+began to conduct with Mr. Joseph Dollfus--a campaign carried on so
+pertinaciously and with such utter disregard for the Dominion manager's
+feelings, that he often wondered whether any inkling of the secret
+clause, the Lumsden clause, of the treaty could have reached her. If it
+hadn't, her bluff was a masterpiece.
+
+"I'm afraid Joe Dollfus was rather rude to you to-day, dear," Fenella
+said to her old mistress one afternoon over the teacups. Madame's
+irruption into the affair upon the strength of an old "understanding"
+which her pupil could neither remember nor would deny, had, in fact, at
+last proved too much for Mr. Dollfus's manners.
+
+"Pooh!" said madame, airily. "I'm not hurt. I don't care what the
+little bounder says. It's rather a good sign, in fact, that he
+_should_ lose his temper. That type always does when they see
+you've the whip hand."
+
+"How have we the whip hand?" Fenella never questioned the implied
+association of interest.
+
+"My dear, because we're not dependent on Joe's say-so for a living.
+We're not a bankrupt solicitor's daughter with a mother and young
+sisters to support. We're not poor."
+
+This was about the time that doubts were beginning to assail Fenella.
+
+"Oh, but I am _really_," she persisted, rather ruefully.
+
+"Well, you're not to all appearance, and it's appearances that count.
+Look at where you live! look at your relations! Oh, I've rubbed that
+all in; trust me."
+
+Fenella sighed. A home in which strangers gave orders; relations under
+whose roof she would never be tempted again--for that chapter in her
+life was closed definitely. She had answered one incoherent, penitent
+letter, and sent back two more unopened.
+
+"My dear Nellikins," said the kind-hearted dame, "have some more tea
+and don't look so worried. I know we're rather a sham, but try to
+_feel_ the part. Be a winner!" She patted the slim hand held out
+for the teacup. "You do _look_ one so, my dear. Once you admit,"
+she went on, in a voice slightly veiled by buttered toast, "once you
+admit, even to yourself, that you're not doing a thing for fun and
+because you like it, the game's up. Because it's this sort of people
+who are coming to the front everywhere now--in books, and pictures, and
+music, and the stage--and everything."
+
+"I've always heard that dabblers never did anything!"
+
+"My dear, who said 'dabblers'? And besides"--impatiently--"a lot
+of that musty, fusty old wisdom wants tearing up and writing
+over again. How can any one who has to worry do the work that
+_pays_. Clever! Oh, yes, they may be very clever, but all they
+succeed in doing with their cleverness is in making the people
+who matter--the rich, important people--uncomfortable. And they
+_will--not--be--made--uncomfortable_, my dear. Besides, they never
+last long. Worry kills them off like the cold kills the flies."
+
+Fenella did not pursue the subject. She felt all the vulgarity
+of her old mistress, but she felt also an unaccountable sense of
+protection in her company. Brazen, alert, competent, grasping, utterly
+disillusioned, mature; with good looks that seem to have settled down
+for fifteen years' hard service; smartly dressed, opaque of eye,
+unrestrained of laugh and anecdote with condescending patrons; living
+in discreet little houses, in discreet little streets off fashionable
+thoroughfares, with open-work lace blinds at their windows--Berthe,
+Clarice, Suzanne, Estelle, as the case may be--latterly even, Elizabeth
+and Kate: polishing nails, crimping hair, ironing out wrinkles,
+reducing flesh, kneading and anointing the pampered body; teaching
+dancing, selling fans and lace; "advising" decoration, dabbling in
+magic, undertaking "confidential" commissions; with a range of service
+that touches impropriety at one extreme and heroism at the other, and
+often with a past of their own behind them in which the finer feelings
+have perished, but not a good heart, the De Rudders of the world play
+their part in the parasitical life of the rich bravely enough--play
+it often, too, with a secret hatred and contempt for the class whose
+follies they fatten on that would be a revelation to the mere reformer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The trouble began with an interview that poor Lady Anne was "accorded"
+early in November. The place, a sober "Adams" parlor, distempered
+in green, furnished in the old oak of commerce, and hung with Romney
+engravings in black carved wood frames. Between the two gaunt windows a
+writing-desk, littered with memorandum blocks, supports a large silver
+inkstand bearing the legend: "To JAS. PEMMER-LLOYD, Esq., M.
+R. C. S., from a grateful patient." To right, a low couch covered with
+a white linen cloth and with some mysterious mechanism or other at its
+head. At its foot, a glass table on rubber wheels, its two tiers loaded
+with multiform electro-plated apparatus. Carpet obtrusively thick.
+
+"But are you quite sure?" she was saying.
+
+Her companion, a dark, keen-faced man of few words, seems to consider
+awhile. Conversation in Harley and Weymouth Streets is expensive: even
+so, it was felt that Pemmer-Lloyd gave short weight.
+
+"Personally," he answered, "I have no doubt whatever. Of course, if
+you wish, I can arrange a consultation or meet your own doctor. It was
+quite irregular you're not bringing him."
+
+"Never ride again! Never--ride--again!" Poor Lady Anne kept repeating
+the dreadful sentence over and over to herself.
+
+"Doctor!" she said aloud. "I have no doctor. Never been ill in my life.
+And what's the use of paying more money to a lot of men who'll only dot
+your i's and cross your t's for you? You're the top of the tree, ain't
+you?"
+
+Pemmer-Lloyd, who was writing at his desk, did not deny the soft
+impeachment.
+
+"I've written two names," he said, "on the back of your prescription.
+The apparatus can be obtained at either. The massage should be done in
+the evening--at your own house, if possible. You will find it a little
+exhausting at first. Thank you."
+
+Lady Anne laid down two golden coins and a florin near the grateful
+patient's inkstand, stuffed the prescription into the pocket of her
+tweed coat, and stumped out to her cab.
+
+"Druce," she said, when the door was opened for her at Suffolk Square,
+"I shall want you and Twyford to come up and help me pack after lunch.
+I am going to Market Harborough to-morrow."
+
+She returned unexpectedly after the Christmas holidays, walking a
+thought more lamely than before, and with a new absorbed gentleness
+in her manner. She kept her room for three days, writing busily. Many
+callers, some of them strangers to the servants who admitted them,
+drove up in cabs and carriages. For the first time since she had taken
+the rooms her brother, Lord Windybank, spent two nights in the house.
+Fenella's empty bed was made up for him. On the evening of the second
+day, after dinner, the two maid-servants were called up to Lady Anne's
+sitting-room. The earl, a little horsey-legged man, with the face,
+hair, chin, and voice of his sister, was standing on the hearth-rug.
+His eyes were inflamed, and he blew his nose violently from time to
+time on an Indian silk handkerchief, an assortment of which he seemed
+to keep in the various pockets of his frieze suit. Old Mr. Attneave,
+the solicitor, stood by the writing-desk, wrapped in the grave
+professional manner that covers all human contingencies. The girls
+curtsied, signed a document, laboriously, in a space indicated by the
+lawyer's chalky finger, curtsied again, and turned to leave the room.
+Lady Anne called them back, handed each of them a couple of bank-notes
+from a little pile beneath an enamelled paper-weight, and kissed the
+dazed hand-maidens on the cheek.
+
+"Be good women," she said, gravely. "Do your duty by your mistress. If
+I have given cause of offence to either of you, or made your work hard
+and ungrateful, by word or deed, remember I asked your pardon for it.
+And now bid your mistress come and see me as soon as is convenient."
+
+Mrs. Barbour entered the room five minutes later with a white, scared
+face.
+
+"Mrs. Barbour, this is Lord Windybank, my brother. Mr. Attneave I
+think you have met before. Stop snivelling, Windy;--please do. Won't
+you sit down? I'm going away to-morrow, Mrs. Barbour, for a short
+stay in another neighborhood, and whether I shall come back is rather
+doubtful. No, it isn't nonsense, Windy; I caught the red-headed one's
+eye when he didn't know I was looking. The other was too old to let
+anything out. Mrs. Barbour, I want to see your little girl before I go
+away."
+
+"I'll telegraph for her at once, m'lady."
+
+Lady Anne pursed her lip. "Telegraph for her in the morning," she said.
+"It's late, and I don't want the child to come up at night. Besides, it
+will spoil her rest."
+
+"Are you ill, m'lady?" Mrs. Barbour asked, much mystified. There seemed
+to be so little change in the long white fretful face.
+
+"Oh, dear, yes; quite seriously, ceremoniously ill, I assure you.
+Please don't look at me that way. You can't see anything. I don't
+believe any of them can, though they pretend to. And now about Fenella.
+Mr. Attneave, will you please explain?"
+
+As the lawyer, in dry calculated sentences, explained the details and
+conditions of the little legacy, Mrs. Barbour broke down and wept
+after the fashion of her class, with great whoops, and holding her
+housekeeping apron to her eyes. All her little world seemed to be
+crumbling. She was not, by nature, an impressionable woman, but had it
+been her lot, as it is the lot of so many of her kind, to hear, month
+by month, new footsteps echo on her stairs; to see, month by month,
+strange faces people her rooms, the dignity of proprietorship, the
+sense of being mistress of a home, which had done so much to soften
+and sweeten her, must have missed her altogether, and the wear and
+tear upon her perceptions vulgarized her heart far quicker than feet
+or hands shabbied her house. During fifteen years, as far as Lady Anne
+was concerned, without the slightest temptation to anything that could
+be construed as a "liberty," or a single soul-searching as regards her
+own equivocal social status, the service of love had, little by little,
+been substituting itself for the service of gain. Custom and habit are
+strong with all who have attained middle life, but with women, after a
+certain age is reached, they are tyrants. Nor was it in its monetary
+aspect chiefly, though that might well have given her pause, that the
+sense of bereavement reached her. Simple words are most convincing. She
+was wondering how, "if anything should happen," poor Lady Anne in the
+nursing home, to which she was evidently bound, she could ever find the
+heart to wait upon strangers in her rooms.
+
+"----five hundred pounds, until the age of twenty-one, unless upon an
+occasion of urgent necessity, the nature of which shall be determined
+by said trustees, appointed on the one part by the said Honorable Mrs.
+Nigel Kedo Barbour----"
+
+"Boo-hoo!" wept the honorable lady.
+
+The invalid patted her upon the shoulder. "My dear, good friend, do
+control yourself!"
+
+"Oh, I can't, I can't! Oh! I never shall stop in this house. It won't
+be the same to me."
+
+The broken phrases struggled through her tears like bubbles through
+water. The lawyer had to stop.
+
+"I suppose," Lady Anne said, after the faithful Druce had led her
+weeping mistress away, "that class doesn't really know what their ideas
+are until they've put them into words. They say a lot over, and then
+pick out the ones they want to keep. Oh, I shall be glad when it's over
+one way or another, Windy. I think I know now how poor Uncle Eustace
+must have felt the day before Major Hartnett shot him. There's not much
+difference between a duel and an operation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus it was to a house cold and dark with the shadow of change and
+worse that Fenella came home. Mercifully she was spared questioning on
+her own pale cheeks and dull eyes. Mrs. Barbour was in no mood to be
+entertained with a description of her doings among the fine folk. Lady
+Anne was dozing when she arrived, and might not be disturbed. The poor
+lady was already invested with something of her perilous state. A nurse
+in a blue linen dress and goffered cap, whose lightest word was law,
+moved softly up and down stairs in felt ward slippers, carrying various
+mysterious burdens. She called Fenella at about midnight. The girl had
+taken off her outer garments and put on a fleecy dressing-gown.
+
+"You must be very quiet," Nurse Adelaide said, "and not stay more than
+half an hour. I want her to settle for the night while she is out of
+pain."
+
+Inside a fire burnt cheerily, and a kettle sung its happy and heartless
+song. A tilted lamp plunged half the room into shadow and the air was
+sickly with the smell of some anodyne.
+
+"Is that Nelly?" said a voice from the shadow.
+
+The girl bent over the bed and put her lips to the high bony forehead.
+
+"You mustn't cry so, child. You always had such fat tears, Nelly.
+There's one running in my eye now. Are you dressed?"
+
+"Only ha-half."
+
+"Get under the quilt, then. Be careful, child. I'm 'this side up;
+fragile; with care.'"
+
+"Dear Lady Anne, is it true what they say? Are you very ill?"
+
+"My dear, I have about one chance in a thousand of ever walking the
+streets again. It's all my own fault. I had an awful spill, child; none
+of them know how bad it was. But what could I do? There was the gate
+with some patent latch or other and I didn't dare get down. I'd never
+have got up again. Pepper knew it was no use. He tried to roll his dear
+old eyes back to tell me, bless his heart. And the off-hoof was just a
+little lazy. Ugh! I'm very wicked, I suppose. Often, after lying awake
+all night, I've had to bite my lip not to scream when some clumsy lout
+put me up wrong. Once I was up, I didn't mind. But it was worth it.
+Oh, Lord! it was worth it. One only has one life. I'd do it again. I'd
+have been a poor creature, Nelly, without horses and dogs. They've
+always understood me better than people. If there's a God for them,
+He's good enough for me, and if there isn't I don't want one either.
+Windy was shocked because I wanted to call a vet in consultation....
+What did I want to tell you, child? Oh! I've been hearing tales about
+you in the last week. Of course they're all lies. What's become of your
+pirate friend?--don't pretend you don't know who I mean--Paul Ingram.
+Wasn't that the creature's name. All over, is it? So much the better.
+He was no good, Nelly. I saw that the night we talked together. A man
+can't play beggar-my-neighbor with the world and win, and that's what
+he wanted. Bryan's better, but I'm afraid he's spoilt another way. But
+don't let a lot of old-woman talk frighten you away from him. There's a
+lot of nonsense talked about girls' 'characters.' Every poor girl has
+to take risks, and every poor girl's mother knows it. There's only two
+rules. Never do what would lose you your own self-respect, and never
+love a poor man for his handsome face. You won't, will you, child? You
+know, when a person's dying they're allowed to make a deposition; so
+here's mine: There's nothing matters on this earth but just--money.
+You think every one knows that? Oh! they don't. It wouldn't do if they
+did. So all sorts of other things--art and high ideals, and, yes--even
+religion, are given 'em to amuse themselves with until it's too late.
+Then, of course, they have to pretend they're satisfied. But give 'em
+their chance over again; you'd see. And for a girl with a face like
+yours it ought to be so easy. Oh, Nelly, what does your love matter if
+_his_ buys you health and beauty fifteen years longer, and angel
+children, and a house with lovely gracious rooms, and cool green lawns
+in summer, and the winter in the sun, and motor-cars and horses, while
+poorer women are scrambling and pushing and taking their turns for
+'buses and trams in the rain, and a strong arm to help you whenever
+you need it, and honor and peace in your gray hairs. My own life hasn't
+been much, but think what it would have been for little ugly Anne
+Caslon if great-grandfather hadn't dipped his fingers in the Irish
+Exchequer. And yet--what am I saying?--if Nigel Barbour would have held
+up his finger, Nelly, I'd have gone with him and cooked his meals and
+washed his clothes in a garret----"
+
+The nurse tapped Fenella on the shoulder.
+
+"I think you'd best go now. She's been talking some time. I want to
+settle her for the night."
+
+She shook a bottle as she spoke and poured out a cloudy mixture into a
+glass.
+
+"Good-night, my pet! Do you remember when I taught you to read--'Ned
+had a gad--' and you wanted to know what a 'gad' was, and I forgot to
+find out. I'm afraid we shall never know now."
+
+"I'll see you in the morning," murmured Fenella, as she kissed her.
+Miss Rigby was on the landing outside, dishevelled, round-eyed, and in
+a wrapper, asking news of her dear friend in a tragic whisper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps it was because she cried herself to sleep that Nelly slept so
+late. The house was all topsy-turvy, and by the time they remembered
+to call her Lady Anne had been taken away. Her bedroom windows were
+wide open and Twyford was strewing tea-leaves on the carpet as Fenella
+passed the door. She had taken very little luggage--just a portmanteau
+full of linen and a dressing-case, and two days later she went a longer
+journey and took no luggage at all.
+
+
+
+
+                                  IX
+
+                         THE MAN AT THE WHEEL
+
+
+Just as we are used to hearing from time to time that the lives of
+certain great ones of the earth are insured for many thousands of
+pounds in quarters which their demise will unsettle but certainly not
+move to grief, so there are lives dismissed at their close with scant
+obituary notice, the shadow of whose eclipse reaches far beyond the
+covenanted few who wear mourning for their sakes.
+
+The house in Suffolk Square never really recovered the shock of poor
+Lady Anne's taking off. Her rooms, stripped of their household gods,
+repapered and repainted, stood empty for weeks before Mrs. Barbour
+could even be prevailed upon to notify their vacancy, and when she
+did move, the paying guests whom they attracted were not of a sort to
+efface the hard-riding lady's wholesome memory or to make her the less
+keenly regretted. London is changing daily, and in nothing so much as
+in the accommodation it offers the stranger within its gates. Cheap
+hotels, the diseased craving for a veneered luxury, rapid transit
+from outskirts to centre--all combine to render what was always a
+precarious living well-nigh a hopeless one. In vain do old-fashioned
+people, unable or unwilling to read the signs of the times, advertise
+the family atmosphere to a public anxious to escape from it--quiet
+and seclusion to a generation that droops unless it feels its spirits
+uplifted by the wind and whirl of life. Between the tragic end of
+the old dispensation and the final dispersion there was a squalid
+interlude which Fenella never could recall in after years without
+a sinking of the heart as at the memory of a ravaged sanctuary. A
+dreadful Anglo-Indian _ménage_, which washed the dirty linen of
+ten stations with doors and windows open; a grumbling _ayah_ whose
+gaudy rags clung to her, like wet cloths to a clay model, and whose
+depredations upon kitchen and larder on behalf of her screaming charges
+drove cook to revolt. A prim flaxen-tailed family who practised upon
+the piano all day by turns, and whose high-nosed parent did not think
+Miss Rigby "respectable." Was she, indeed, respectable? Mrs. Barbour
+had had her doubts from the first, and in spite of Lady Anne's breezy
+assurances, or perhaps on account of them, had long suspected a secret
+treaty of oblivion and protection between the two women. It had seemed,
+however, to include a tacit clause against direct communication, and
+with the new order the weaker woman appeared to see her way to break
+through this restriction upon her social aptitudes. She contracted a
+distressing habit of rapping at the doors of the first-floor rooms,
+to borrow, to return, to remonstrate, to apologize for remonstrating.
+Her friendship with little Mrs. Lovelace of Mian Meer, especially was,
+until its stormy close, over a disputed bargain at a "White Sale," of
+a suddenness and intensity calculated to revive a weakened faith in
+human affinities. Even the mother of the musical Miss Measons, after
+a glance at a skilfully disposed basket of calling-cards, called her
+"my dear" before she called her "that woman." In short, to express in
+one word a delayed and painful process, Jasmine Rigby deteriorated day
+by day, paid at long intervals, under pressure, and with cheques that
+were not her own, and finally, yielding no doubt to the instinct of
+flight from those whose good opinion we have forfeited, took a tearful
+and sentimental departure from the rooms which had been witness to
+fifteen futile years, and God alone knows what frenzied resolutions,
+what agonies of remorse and self-contempt as well. Financially, her
+loss was a serious matter, for she had rich and powerful connections,
+who might be trusted never to let her sink too deeply into debt nor
+beyond a certain standard of outward respectability: in other ways it
+would be idle to deny Mrs. Barbour felt it a relief. It afforded her
+an opportunity to reduce her establishment and to sell off some of the
+furniture. But the joy of turning our possessions into ready money and
+of ridding ourselves of old associates who have become encumbrances is
+a dearly bought one. It is likely that her health had been secretly
+unsatisfactory for years. It failed visibly from the day poor Druce,
+with the tears streaming down her honest wooden face, clasped her young
+mistress to her sparely covered chest in the hall and said "Good-bye."
+She had never been a good sleeper, but insomnia now became her nightly
+habit. Her cheeks grew flabby, her eyes dull; her comely face exchanged
+its pleasant pallor for a disquieting earthen tint.
+
+Fenella would have been less than human if, amid all these anxieties,
+regrets, and annoyances, Lumsden's letters had come to her otherwise
+than as cheerful heralds from a happier world, bright assurances of a
+better time in store. He wrote oftener than many friends, though not
+as often as most lovers. He was generous enough or wise enough not to
+depart from the note he had struck during their conversation upon the
+day of winter sports at Freres Lulford. She was still his "investment,"
+always "in training." And yet it was marvellous what a very wide field
+of inquiry, of advice and speculation, this position was held to
+justify. Her cheeks sometimes burned at Bryan's letters. Even when they
+were mere cheery chronicles of sport and pleasure, there was a little
+mocking undercurrent of sarcasm in them--sarcasm, as a rule, at the
+expense of society's hypocrisies--its standards of what might and what
+might not be permitted between two friends of opposite sexes, which she
+secretly resented--resented, that is to say, to the extent of never
+referring to it in her answers. Why should Bryan expect her to take the
+more cynical view, she wondered? Surely illusions were permissible to
+a girl of her age. What man who respected one, wished one well, would
+see her cheated of them? Clever letters are seldom written without
+ulterior motive. When heart speaks to heart it does so in language that
+admits of no double construction. It would save many a tangle were more
+sophisticated ones subjected to a merciless paraphrase.
+
+For the rest, the time had probably passed when, in any sense of the
+word, she could be said to be "afraid" of Lumsden. He stood before her
+imagination now in all his pleasant power, holding open the gates of
+the fairyland to which he had the golden key, encouraging, inviting
+her to enter. Once through the gates, she had no doubt of her ability
+to justify and to repay. That money can discharge any obligation was
+just one of the obscuring simplicities of her youth. Another was that
+a stigma attached to the acceptance of money or money's visible worth.
+Beyond a cab-fare, she would have shrunk from such a thing as from
+actual dishonor; yet that money, to the extent of many hundreds of
+pounds, was being risked upon her untested power to please gave her
+only a very vague sense of indebtedness. It is true that to Bryan's
+personal interest she referred, with a completeness that was a little
+unfair to Mr. Dollfus's really kind heart, the ameliorations in her
+hard task--the warm dressing-room, the polite seriousness with which
+her views were entertained by the leader of the orchestra, the chair
+in the wings at rehearsals. She even fancied that she could detect a
+conspiracy to keep the seamy side of theatrical life from her. Mr.
+Lavigne, the stage-manager, never swore in her presence, though from
+her dressing-room she often heard language whose very volume implied
+profanity reverberate like stage thunder through the dark empty
+auditorium.
+
+When general rehearsals began in March, among her new comrades upon the
+draughty, echoing boards, who stood blowsy or haggard in the perverse
+up-thrown light and exchanged the knowing, raffish jargon of their
+craft, there was abundant discussion as to her precise position, but
+no doubt at all. It is a pitiful thing to relate, but Bryan even got
+the credit of the clothes in which poor foolish Mrs. Barbour had sunk
+the profits of her enterprise. Fenella's dress had always possessed
+sophistication, and although by this time she was "economizing,"
+enough of elegance remained from the old life to wreck her character
+in the new. But where she was now such things were a common-place. The
+misconception even was of use to her in one way. It removed her from
+the envy of those who were struggling upward on the strength of mere
+talents. Seen from the wings, her dancing made little impression upon a
+race not prone to enthusiasm, and notoriously bad judges of their own
+craft. She was to have the lime-light, the big letters on the bills,
+the "fat"--that was enough. She was _hors concours_, a thing
+apart. The latest recruit might dream, and did dream, of having the
+same chance some day. A strange thing, that it should be not so much
+"luck" which failure resents as the crown upon hard work.
+
+By an unhappy coincidence, the first dress rehearsal was called
+upon the day when her spirits were at lowest ebb. The night before,
+her mother, unable to keep the secret locked up in her breast any
+longer, had exposed with tears and incoherent self-reproach, the whole
+disastrous domestic situation. It was all mismanagement, muddle,
+abused confidence, rights signed away for a tithe of their value,
+mortgages and life assurances effected in the interests of people whose
+one service seemed to have been to draw the strangling net a little
+tighter. Fenella closed the eyes of her mental vision firmly and wisely
+against the disastrous prospect. She let her mother have her cry out
+upon her shoulder.
+
+"No, dear; of course I'm not angry with you, or only a tiny bit for
+letting me be a foolish over-dressed little pig all these years.
+We'll give up this great big house before it's swallowed all that's
+left and move into a smaller one. They must give us something for
+the lease. And I've got Lady Anne's money coming to me in two years.
+We can raise something on that now. I'll speak to Mr. Dollfus about
+it. And Mr. Lavigne told me the _Dime Duchess_ comes on early
+in May; then I shall begin to draw salary, and all our troubles will
+be over. And, mummy, you _must_ give those disgusting people
+upstairs notice. Never mind what they owe. Turn them out! I'll live in
+a garret with you, dear, but I won't have our home turned into a common
+lodging-house."
+
+But, for all her brave words, her own spirits sank. Was she so sure
+of success, after all? To have so much depending upon it was only a
+reason the more for misgiving. Dancing seemed to be in the air. The
+flaming posters that met her eye on every side, of women in one stage
+or another of uncoveredness, filled her with nausea. Nothing depresses
+true genius so much as to feel that an inspiration with which they
+could deal worthily is given broadcast, under various mean forms of
+impulse or emulation, to those whose touch can only degrade. It is a
+failing so like unworthy envy that even to be forced to admit it to
+oneself is demoralizing.
+
+When she reached the theatre a drama that was no part of the _Dime
+Duchess_ was in progress. Miss Enid Carthew stood down centre. Her
+dress was Doucet and her hat Virot. Her sable coat was open at the
+throat and a diamond _collier_ streamed blue fire on her agitated
+bosom. Her arm, thrust through a muff whose tails swept the dusty
+stage, was akimbo on her slender hip. She had a pretty, dissipated,
+sour face and a quantity of fair hair.
+
+"Oh! I can't have it at all, Mr. Dollfus," she was saying, evidently
+not for the first time, biting her lips and tapping the stage with her
+foot. The manager, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his back
+to the footlights, straddled his legs in a truculent manner.
+
+"You can't haf it!" he repeated, derisively. "Well, can yer lump it?
+Ah! Think yer the only tin can in the alley, dontcher, eh? Think you're
+de manachment, ain't it? I tell you once for all: I bills who I like,
+unt I bills 'em as big's I like. Now then--ah! eh?"
+
+"You can tell all this to my solicitor," said Miss Carthew, loftily.
+
+The word seemed to goad Mr. Dollfus to frenzy. He took a stride
+forward and shook a brown, ringed finger within an inch or two of Miss
+Carthew's Grecian profile.
+
+"Now, don't gif me no contract talk. Pleace--_pleace_ don't. 'Cos
+I drew up de contract, and I know what's in um. You can't holt me on de
+contract--see? You can go on rehearsing or you can t'row yer part down,
+and that's all--now?"
+
+"I've a good mind to do it."
+
+"Vell, make yer goot mind up quick, pleace, 'cos this happens ter be my
+busy day."
+
+Before poor Fenella could retreat from the storm, the leading lady
+looked her up and down with an expression that was meant for contempt,
+but only succeeded in expressing dislike. The advantage of five years
+is not to be annihilated by a glance.
+
+"Another of Lumsden's kindergarten," she observed, with a short,
+disagreeable laugh, and, having launched this Parthian shaft, exit left.
+
+Mr. Dollfus turned upon the cause of the trouble rather irritably.
+
+"Vot! aintcher dressed yet, neither. Good Got! ve oughter be t'rough
+the first act. Run upstairs at once! And while we're waiting let's
+haf the finale ofer again. I ain't satisfied yet, Mr. Lavigne. Come,
+_kapell-meister_!"
+
+Somehow, and by an effort of her whole will, Fenella got through her
+two dances without actual disaster. For the first time in her life
+discouragement failed to react in bodily movement. Her limbs felt
+heavy--out of accord with the music, and, though this is a strange
+term for arms and legs, maliciously stupid. Once she stumbled and
+all but fell. Mr. Dollfus looked puzzled, and in the wings, where a
+brisk murmur of sympathy with the deposed favorite had been running,
+significant glances were exchanged.
+
+She was leaving the stage-door, glad to be in the cool, wet street,
+when a big man who was holding cheerful converse with an exquisite
+youth--all waist and relaxed keenness--raised his hat and made a little
+familiar sign with his head for her to wait. Next moment Lumsden
+had cut his conversation short, resisting an obvious appeal for
+introduction, and was holding out his hand.
+
+"Hello, Flash!"
+
+At another time she would have been glad to see him, but, with that
+dreadful sentence ringing in her ears, his touch seemed an abasement.
+She plucked her hand away.
+
+"I thought you were in Cannes."
+
+"Came back Tuesday. Had lunch?"
+
+"Yes, thank you."
+
+"Get in, then, and let me drive you home."
+
+There was a dark green motor-coupé standing by the curb. Fenella took a
+seat in it automatically. She noticed he had no difficulty in recalling
+her address.
+
+"I've been sitting in front watching you."
+
+"I wish I'd done better. I made a fool of myself to-day."
+
+"Oh, you were all right. Been over-working?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Dolly told me there was a breeze. Hope it didn't upset you."
+
+No answer.
+
+"Bless you! That sort of thing's an everyday affair with us. Oh, fie,
+Flash!"
+
+"Sir Bryan"--and a big sob.
+
+"Well, what is it? Having trouble with the boys?"
+
+"I know you'll be furious."
+
+"Never mind. Spit it out in mummy's hand."
+
+"Don't make me laugh. I--I want to give it up."
+
+"Pshaw!"
+
+"Oh, but I do."
+
+"What on earth for?"
+
+She clenched her hands. "Because I feel such a _humbug_ coming on
+this way. Those other girls have worked and worked and been acting when
+I was at school. And now I step in front of them because--oh! you know
+what they think."
+
+"I warned you of that before, you know."
+
+"Yes; but I didn't realize then."
+
+"And now, because a spiteful woman has said the obvious thing, you do.
+Oh, fie, Flash! This is weak-minded. I wish you knew her own history."
+
+The girl turned to him, and even laid a timid hand on his sleeve.
+
+"Sir Bryan, that's the mistake you make. You're always telling me--I
+mean in your letters--what a hypocrite this person or that is. But
+it doesn't make any difference to me. Of course, we understand one
+another, don't we?"
+
+"I think we've made a start," Lumsden replied, in all seriousness.
+
+"Yes, but those girls at the Dominion--some of them even younger than
+me. Think what I must seem to them. I can't go to them and say, 'Oh,
+believe me, it's not what you think.' And so the more they admire me,
+and the better I succeed, the greater scandal I shall be to them. And
+perhaps, some day----Oh! it seems such a responsibility, doesn't it?"
+
+"Such a big one, that I advise you to put it out of your head."
+
+"Oh, if I could!"
+
+"Well, don't do anything in a hurry. And, oh, by the way, Flash, I
+believe I met an old friend of yours last night. World's a small place."
+
+"A friend of mine? One of the people from Lulford?"
+
+"Oh, no. Further back. At La Palèze. By George! that seems ancient
+history."
+
+His kind, candid expression did not change, and yet not a detail of the
+girl's agitation was escaping him.
+
+"Where did you meet him? Tell me, quick!"
+
+"Don't look so scared. It was at a very nice house indeed, and he was
+looking uncommonly well."
+
+"Did you speak to him?"
+
+"No. He hadn't much to say. It was at the Rees house, and he's
+evidently _épris_."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Why, smitten with his pretty hostess--Mrs. Hepworth--the woman who
+calls herself Althea Rees, and writes rummy books. He stayed behind.
+I saw it arranged, like the fly, with my little eye. I finished the
+evening with Nick Templeton, who knows 'em well, and he says every
+one's expecting----Hello! here we are."
+
+He held her hand again at parting, and this time she didn't snatch
+it away. Once inside the door, she returned a languid negative to
+the suggestion of lunch, and went upstairs to change her clothes and
+think over what she had just heard. First she cried a little, though
+nothing like as much as she had expected from the apparent weight at
+her heart; then, opening her trunk, she took out a leather box and
+emptied all his letters on to the hearth. So often, during that last
+lonely week by the sea, when she was hungering for news of him in vain,
+had she taken them down to the dunes to read, that there was almost
+a teaspoonful of fine sand at the bottom of the case. She had even
+been reading them over, she remembered, the day Bryan spoke to her
+first. She sat down on the hearth-rug, struck a match, and, crumbling
+each letter scientifically in her hand, burned piecemeal about half
+her little hoard from the wrecked past. Then she lost patience and
+locked the rest away. She was chilly; there had been no warmth in this
+sudden eager flame. She stretched herself and looked once more at her
+reflection in the long mirror. Her tears had thickened her features and
+throat. Something strangely, suddenly mature--some new adaptibility to
+life's sterner purposes--was looking back at her. She had wept--oh, how
+she had wept!--before, and yet only yesterday with her tears it had
+been the aspect of childhood that returned upon her. You would have
+said then: "There is a little girl who has broken her doll"; not until
+to-day: "There is a woman who has broken her heart." Was it so, indeed?
+Had it survived the first, the crueller blow, to break now at a piece
+of intelligence that was only to be looked for? Had there been hope,
+insane and unavowed? And why could she not hate him, as was her right?
+Why was it that only a brooding, yearning pity for him survived this
+final evidence of his faithlessness? Oh! it was because life was so
+hard on him--always would be so hard on him. Into whatever toils he had
+fallen, she could forgive him, because she knew he had not been seeking
+his own happiness when he fell. Just as she had never once conjectured
+concerning the old loves, so now she hazarded no guess as to the
+history of the new; but her woman's instinct, her appreciation of the
+nature by whose complexities her clear, sane common-sense had refused
+to be baffled, served her truly. It was still his compassion that sold
+him into new bondage--still his fatal fellowship with all that was
+weak, maimed or forsaken that, like a millstone round his neck, sunk
+him out of her sight. Hate him? Oh, what an uprush of smothered waters!
+What a tingling, as love like blood flowed back into her numbed heart,
+rebuked the suggestion! She reached out her arms to the mirror, and
+from its frozen depths, like an embodiment of all he had renounced in
+life--happiness, love, laughter, and ease of heart--the woman whom he
+had held shyly and awkwardly against his distracted heart, and whom
+to-morrow a thousand base eyes would covet, reached out her arms, too,
+in a mocking response.
+
+"Oh, darling! why couldn't you trust me a little longer? Just because I
+couldn't _say_ things, didn't I feel them? I was what you wanted
+most. Just because I _was_ so different. Why weren't you a little
+patient with me, Paul?"
+
+And now for her work. There was another rehearsal next week, but she
+couldn't wait. She would telephone Joe; have one called for Friday.
+They should see something then. She had a bit up her sleeve.
+
+She was leaving her bedroom, humming over the first bars of her
+_Chaconne_, when she cannoned into the little maid who had
+replaced the irreproachable Druce. The sleeves of the girl's print
+dress were rolled up to her elbows, her cap awry.
+
+"Frances, it's five o'clock. Why aren't you dressed?"
+
+"Oh, miss! It's the missus."
+
+"Your mistress? What's the matter with her?"
+
+"Oh, miss, I dunno. She's a setting in the big armchair. It ain't
+sleep. Me nor cook can't rouse 'er, try 'ow we may. She's a moanin',
+too. I think it must be some kind of a stroke."
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                        MONSIEUR DE VALBONNETTE
+
+
+One of Paul's peculiarities, which I think I have indicated before, was
+a remissness in paying out the small coin of friendship. His visits
+were apparently governed by caprice, and as unaccountable as the fall
+of the red or black in roulette. Not to have seen him for the last
+month gave no warrant to expect him within the next. On the other
+hand, to have been honored with a visit last night was some reason for
+expecting a return on the morrow.
+
+I had not seen him for two months when I ran across him in the foyer
+of the Elite Theatre. It was the first night of Durnham's _Miss
+Muffet_. (You will remember Brasier as "the Spider.") Things
+apparently were inextricably tangled up for all the smart sinners,
+and I was rather dreading the fourth act. I was surprised to see him
+there, though I knew he had got into journalism. In the twilight of our
+under-world one may know a man a long time before one knows what he is
+doing--perhaps only discover it then because he is found nibbling at
+the same loaf as oneself. I had never seen Ingram before in evening
+dress; he looked very gaunt and foreign and distinguished. One mentally
+added a red ribbon and the enamelled cross of the Légion d'Honneur.
+
+"Hullo, Ingram! you a first-nighter?"
+
+"I'm doing it for the _Parthenon_!"
+
+"Oh! of course." Rumor had not lied, then. I had a horrible feeling
+that my comment sounded "knowing," and a suspicion that Ingram flushed
+at my tone. I made haste to change it.
+
+"Lucky devil! You've got nearly a week to do Brasier's genius justice
+in. What d'you think of it all?"
+
+"Pah! London bouquet. Sin and sachet powder."
+
+"You won't say that in the _Parthenon_?"
+
+"No." I noticed then how tired he looked. The bell began to ring.
+
+"Look here, old man! You're quite impossible, but I want a chat. Where
+can you come on to afterward? Pimlico's so far away. What do you say to
+the _Concentric_?" (I belong perforce to an "all-night" club.)
+
+Ingram demurred. "No, thanks. I don't much care for the frescoes at
+the _Concentric_. I've got rooms--a room, I should say--nearly as
+close. It's not a bad little crib. Come round there as soon as you've
+fired in your stuff." And I pencilled the address on my shirt-cuff.
+
+Paul's room was at the top of a narrow, old-world house in Beak Street,
+almost looking into Golden Square. A creeper wandered over the front,
+and there were little painted iron balconies at each window. The first
+floor was taken up by a bowed, weather-stained shop front, and behind
+its narrow panes, on a rusty wire blind, appeared the following legend
+in gilt lettering:
+
+                            "J. FOUDRINIER
+                   Table Liner and Leather Gilder."
+
+The narrow staircase up which we climbed--for he let me in himself--was
+fragrant with the smell that is said to make radicals.
+
+"What d'you think of it, Prentice?"
+
+"Fine! Atmosphere here, my boy."
+
+"It might be worse," said Paul, apparently misunderstanding my remark.
+"Imagine fried fish!"
+
+I looked round me as he fought with a stubborn fire. The room was poor
+and low; its furnishings mere flotsam of the Middle Victorian era. The
+bureau and tallboy that I used to admire so much at Westminster were
+gone. My heart sank a little. Paul wasn't getting on.
+
+"Come over here a minute, Prentice," he said, getting up and taking the
+lamp. "Look!"
+
+Upon the old-fashioned shutter which folded back in the window recess I
+made out a long name, clumsily cut and half obliterated by paint.
+
+"What do you make of it?"
+
+"It's not very distinct. There's a C and a V."
+
+"I'll read it for you. It's '_C. Gaillard de Valbonette_.' That
+thing at the top is meant for a coronet. Some French _émigré_
+had this room a hundred years ago, and amused himself by cutting his
+name. All this quarter swarmed with them at one time--Golden Square,
+Broad Street, King Street. Can't you imagine him at work here for a
+whole Sunday morning, with a nice pea-soup fog out in the square, and
+speculating about his wife or sweetheart in the Conciergerie. He's
+great company at times, is M. de Valbonette."
+
+"I think you live too much alone, Ingram," I said.
+
+He put down the lamp. "I wonder do I?" he said, twisting his beard.
+"But it's Satan reproving sin."
+
+"Let's club lonelinesses, then," I answered impulsively. "I know what
+I'll have to put up with by now. Remember the old warning, '_Vae
+Soli!_' If nothing else in the classics were true, that is."
+
+"No," he said, roughly, "it's the wrong time. How can I afford a friend
+when I'm throwing out ballast all around. And besides"--he seemed to
+struggle with an invincible repugnance to speak--"Prentice, I'm living
+on money a woman--gives me."
+
+"Oh!" Shocked as I was, I tried to keep my voice flat and toneless.
+Even as it escaped me, the exclamation was rather a request for further
+enlightenment.
+
+"You won't repeat your invitation now?"
+
+I got to my feet. "Yes, I will. You can come to-morrow--to-night, if
+you like. You're too good to lose, Ingram. I'm poor; but there's enough
+for two men like ourselves to struggle along on, even now. I can get
+you work of a sort almost at once; it'll be hack work, but you won't
+feel equal to anything better for awhile. Later on, when you're more
+yourself----"
+
+Ingram shivered, and then, putting his hands on my shoulders,
+considered me a long while gravely and tenderly. I could have cursed to
+think of the charm of the man, wasted in loneliness and silence, and
+put to such base uses at last.
+
+"My! but you're _white_, Prentice, you're _white_," he said.
+"Sit down"--in a lighter voice. "It's not as bad as it sounds. A man
+doesn't fall into a pit like that so suddenly. No; at first it was
+advances--advances; nothing more."
+
+"On your book?" catching at a straw.
+
+"Yes--on my book."
+
+"From publishers?"
+
+"I thought so at first. When I asked the question outright, it was too
+late. I was in debt already."
+
+"But, my dear Ingram," I said, immensely relieved; "if Mrs. Hepworth--I
+suppose you mean Mrs. Hepworth----?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, if she liked to back her own opinion, I don't see where dishonor
+comes in at all. She's helped other people. And even if, when it's
+published, it turns out badly----"
+
+"Prentice, it never will be published through her."
+
+"Get it back then. We'll try somewhere else."
+
+"I'm afraid I'd have some trouble even to get it back now."
+
+The mystification was getting too much for me. I shrugged my shoulders
+helplessly.
+
+"I'm sorry to seem mysterious," said Paul, "but I really am telling
+you all I know myself. I even hoped you'd be able to throw some light
+on it. Because you know as well as I do how it started. She was
+enthusiastic, wasn't she? Would see no fault. She advised me to cut a
+good deal, it's true; but it wasn't for reasons I could object to.
+Anyway I didn't object. I was too proud and happy. For once in my life
+I tasted full appreciation, full understanding. Oh! I know what that
+look of yours means--that I've been taking a woman's gush for gospel.
+But, I can tell you, a thing rings true or false to me the first
+time. Do you know, Prentice, once we were motoring to some place near
+Aylesbury, and she went ten miles out of our way to see the church
+where Ffoulkes--the English parson, you know--was a curate once. I'd
+just picked on the place haphazard, and then described it later. You
+know my mania for exactness in trifles. Nothing would satisfy her but
+to get out of the car, have the church opened, and scout around the
+vicarage. Now, is that genuine or isn't it? I tell you, sir, she made
+the people of my own book live for me--used to invent comments for them
+upon things we heard, so much in character that I wondered how I could
+have forgotten them myself."
+
+"And then----?"
+
+"And then"--wearily--"the subject dropped. When I spoke about it, which
+wasn't often, her answers were as evasive as a woman's can be who, I
+think, can't lie. I'm not an insistent person, and she seemed to guess
+it. Money got short: she guessed that too--offered me advances on the
+publication. Ever so delicately, mind."
+
+"That was the very time for the _éclaircissement_."
+
+"I know, I know. Don't be too grim. For me it's almost impossible
+to throw any sort of kindness back in people's faces. It's been
+responsible for half the unhappiness of my life. Then she got me this
+thing on the _Parthenon_. Lord, how I hate it! and the people it
+brings me into contact with, and how they must hate me! Sleek young
+barristers, on the make--you know the sort--dine out every night and
+say, 'Dear lady.'"
+
+"Ingram! I say 'dear lady' sometimes."
+
+"Yes, yes--but not the way they do. A precious johnny-cake of an art
+critic who wears thumb-rings and doesn't wash behind his ears...."
+
+I hadn't been listening very attentively. A light was breaking in upon
+me.
+
+"You meet a good many priests at Mrs. Hepworth's, don't you?"
+
+Ingram raised his hands expressively. "My dear Prentice, at all
+hours--dinner, tea and lunch--bishops, deans, canons, monsignori. I
+don't know half their titles."
+
+"I gather you don't find them sympathetic."
+
+"Prentice, I just writhe."
+
+"Aren't they civil?"
+
+"Oh, intensely! It's their mental attitude that maddens me. So
+perpetually on guard, so impermeable to argument: bearing the
+condemnation of the massed intellect of Europe with a pitying smile,
+denying words their plain significance. What is it, Prentice? Is
+every one else really wrong? Does to be born at Guipuscoa instead of
+at Epworth make all the difference? Do these men know something that
+you and I don't? Sometimes in their company I almost feel I'm under
+mesmeric influence."
+
+"Perhaps you are. I've always suspected you of being mediumistic. But,
+tell me, don't you suspect anything from all this?"
+
+"Suspect--what?"
+
+"That your book is really being held up because these men won't give it
+an _imprimatur_."
+
+"Good Lord! I'm not one of their flock."
+
+"No, but Althea is."
+
+Paul flushed savagely, and muttered something I could not catch.
+
+"Don't be too hard on her, Ingram. Probably her position's harder than
+either of us can conceive."
+
+"Don't be afraid. There are about a hundred solid reasons why I
+couldn't be hard, even if I wanted to. Besides, I'm ceasing to care."
+
+"Got the hump, in fact."
+
+"Call it what you like. The book's become a scandal--a reproach. It's
+a relief not to see or hear of it. Once a certain point is reached a
+sense of humor comes to your rescue, and you cease to take a thing
+seriously. Something else is worrying me far more just now."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You'll only think me an old woman for my pains."
+
+"Never," I answered stoutly. "Your virility is in your way."
+
+"Do you believe in dreams?"
+
+"Not as a rule. But at two o'clock in the morning, alone with you in a
+Soho attic whose associations you've just pointed out, I'm not so sure."
+
+"I'm having the same one every night."
+
+"Oh! What is it? A woman, or merely a tartan cat with acetylene eyes?"
+
+"It's a woman."
+
+"Go and see her then. Nothing will exorcise it like that."
+
+"But it doesn't. Oh, Prentice! it's no use beating round the bush. You
+must know. I mean the woman we've just been talking about."
+
+I confess I had been rather thinking of the Continental Express at
+Charing Cross.
+
+"Go ahead old man," was all I said. "It will do you good to tell."
+
+"It's in a church--always. A sort of foreign building with colored
+marble columns, gloomy side chapels, silver lamps, dark paintings of
+well-nourished virgin martyrs----"
+
+"Wait a minute. Is it any place you've seen?"
+
+"No. I'm sure of that.... She's always kneeling before one of the side
+altars. I'm not clear why I'm in the church at all. I'm not meeting
+her. Her back is turned, and she doesn't seem to know I'm there. And
+yet, mind you, I feel--I'm as certain as a man can be that there's
+something or other she wants to tell me--wants me to know. Something
+she's struggling with, and I'm not to go until it's told."
+
+"At this point you wake?"
+
+"I used to until last night. Do I sound childish, yet?"
+
+"I'm immensely interested, Ingram. No one but a gross fool laughs at
+these things to-day."
+
+"Well, last night I lost patience, and began to look around and to take
+bearings. I noticed there was a way in between the chapels, so you
+could pass from one to the other. I could get in front of her, see her
+face if I wanted to. Of course I wanted to. I tell you, I was tired
+out with all this nightly waiting. But something or other I couldn't
+see--'a Voice,' if you like--said, 'No, you can't!' 'Why not?' I
+argued. The answer was foolish."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"'_It breaks the Law_'."
+
+I moved restlessly. "But I hope you didn't mind the Law."
+
+"No; I went in."
+
+"Well----?"
+
+He took a long breath. "Prentice, she's been dead for years and years."
+
+"Pshaw!"
+
+"Yes, dead, I tell you. There's nothing gruesome about it.
+Just--bleached--whiteness. But you can't mistake. You'd only have to
+lay your hand on her and she'd crumble away."
+
+There was not a sound for a few moments, until becoming conscious my
+expression must look strange, I grabbed the poker and began to make
+brisk play with it. I also decided not to tell Paul I recognized the
+church perfectly from his description.
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+"Think? Oh, nothing. It's some sub-conscious crazy notion that has
+never been definitely formed in your own brain, so waits until you're
+asleep to sprout. The same thing's happened to me. Once I was visiting
+some people. They were so far disagreeable that one had to be very
+careful what one said before them. And every night I spent in their
+house I used to dream I was crossing the lawn, and underfoot, wherever
+I walked, were ducklings, and frogs, and new-born kittens, and
+everything that's most unpleasant to tread upon. You probably won't
+have the dream again.... What's the matter?"
+
+"Look over there, Prentice! Do you see anything queer?"
+
+I followed his eyes in the direction of the window upon whose shutter
+he had shown me the half-obliterated carving. To evidence my entire
+honesty in this matter, I will premise that, having shifted the lamp
+from the centre of the table in order to find me a pipe, Paul had
+plunged all that half of the room in shadow, and also that the curtain,
+which he had drawn roughly aside to show me the _émigré's_ work,
+still hung in awkward, bulgy folds. This much having been freely
+allowed, I don't mind going on and declaring that I saw, apparently
+as plainly as I have seen anything in my life, a man sitting upon
+the narrow window-seat. Every detail was distinct. He was as small
+as a woman, apparently old, and dressed entirely in black, with a
+white collar or cravat. One leg hung down to the floor, the other
+was drawn up to his chin, and his face rested upon it. He had white
+hair, gathered up or cut short round his ears, and a black cap. His
+expression was unforgettable. Serene, disdainful anger best expresses
+it.
+
+I looked at him only a moment, for I don't believe in encouraging
+visions. In two strides I was across the room and shook the curtain
+loose.
+
+"There goes some of your ghost," I said. I put the lamp back on the
+table. Its white reflection vanished from the blurred and darkened
+pane. "And there goes the rest!"
+
+Paul didn't seem to listen. He was twisting his beard.
+
+"See his face, Prentice? Now, I wonder what I said that irritated him?"
+
+
+
+
+                                  XI
+
+                         "INEXTRICIBLE ERROR"
+
+
+It was quarter to seven when Ingram arrived at the house in Portland
+Place. Althea, already dressed for dinner, sat writing at her desk in
+the big white room. It was the same desk, battered and inkstained, at
+which years ago--a staid little maid with a big pigtail, terminating
+in a sort of heavy tassel of auburn hair--she had prepared her home
+lessons. At one corner the leather lining had begun to curl up.
+
+She scarcely looked round when he was announced, but thrust a bare
+white arm over the back of her chair.
+
+"You find me achieving a last chapter," said she. "Sit down somewhere
+and, in the name of our common art, respect a fellow-laborer's agony."
+
+"I suppose I'm unpardonably early."
+
+"Doubly privileged mortal, then, to find yourself welcome."
+
+"Do I abuse my privileges, Althea?"
+
+"Never in the world. You are as unobtrusive, my dear friend, as a gray
+sky."
+
+Paul, as he sat down by the fire, wondered why the phrase rang
+reminiscently. Who had compared his eyes once before to rain-clouds?
+Oh! he remembered. It was the little girl, in the summer-time, by the
+sea. He seldom thought of her now; when he did, it was without such a
+personal pang of loss as might have been expected. She had come--she
+had gone. The life before he had known her, the life after, like parted
+leaden waters in the wake of a ship, closed above her memory.
+
+For form's sake, and in order that his presence might not fret his
+hostess, he picked up a book at random and opened it on his knee; but
+his eyes, after a few minutes' aimless reading, left the printed page
+and rested on her. She was writing quickly. The fountain-pen poised,
+pounced, ran forward, and was checked anew. A little pucker on her
+forehead straightened out as each sentence was completed. The shaded
+electric lamp before her left the brows in a green shadow, but flooded
+neck and arms with naked light. She was dressed in black; a long limp
+scarf the color of a dead rose-leaf lay across her shoulders, trailed
+upon the carpet, moved with the motion of the restless bare arm. Her
+beautiful chestnut hair was drawn up from her neck and dressed high on
+her head in soft rolls and plaits. Looking at her, and remembering the
+furnace through which she had passed, Ingram marvelled once again that
+the searing flame should have left so little evident trace upon her.
+
+He had come prepared for explanation, reproaches, rupture even, but
+never in his life had he felt less ardor for battle, more doubt as to
+whether the cause were worthy the warfare. Hope deferred, neglect,
+dejection, had nearly done their work. He was beginning to doubt his
+own powers, inclining more each day to take the world's estimate of
+them as final. He had been writing a good deal lately, and to little
+purpose; it seemed unlikely that, years before, he had done better. No
+man endowed with the artist's temperament ever gained ease to himself
+by deliberately writing down to some imagined popular level. It is
+doubtful even whether the thing is to be done at all; probably every
+one that succeeds, even in the coarse acceptation of the term, succeeds
+by doing the best that is in him. The world may have no eye for genius,
+but it is quick to detect disrespect.
+
+It was early in March: he had known her now nearly six months. To say
+that they had become better friends in that time would be inexact; it
+is juster to say that, from the high level of her first acclaim, he
+had never known her to descend. She had seemed to divine that he was
+already sick of beginnings that led nowhere, and lacked patience for
+the circumspect steps that friendship in the first degree requires.
+From the outset she showed him a full measure. She had a multitude of
+friends--much devotion, even, at her command. Here and there, amid the
+exotic sentimentality that for some reason or other was the dominant
+note in her circle, a graver, truer note vibrated; and yet, before he
+had known her a month, Paul must have been obtuse indeed not to have
+noticed a special appeal in her voice and a special significance in the
+hand-clasp that was kept for him. And if he was not precisely grateful,
+he was, at any rate, tremendously impressed. He had learnt her history,
+and no adventitious aid that riches, popularity, fine clothing or
+jewels--and none of these was wanting--could have lent her would so
+overwhelmingly have presented her to his imagination as this. That she
+should have emerged from such an ordeal at all was wonderful, but that
+she should have come through it beautiful still, gentle and plaintively
+wise, lent an almost spectral charm to her beauty, and the same
+significance to her lightest comment on men or things that one strives
+to read into a rapped-out message wrung from the dubious silence of the
+grave. The strange unreality which none who knew Althea well escaped
+noticing, though all did not call it by the same name, reached him,
+oppressed as he was by the burden of the material world, almost like a
+native air. In her house he breathed freely, forgot his chagrins, was
+enveloped in a formless sympathy that, by anticipating the unwelcome
+thought, spared him even the humiliation of uttering it.
+
+Perhaps, without looking at him, she had guessed his thought now. At
+least there was a little conscious gaiety in her voice as she laid by
+her pen and packed the loose sheets square.
+
+"_Voilà!_" said she. To speak French always carries the register a
+key higher. She switched off the light, and moved to the seat opposite
+him with a soft rustle of skirts. One finger-tip was marked with ink.
+She put it furtively to her lips and streaked it, schoolgirl fashion,
+down her black dress.
+
+"Would you like to know who you are dining with?" she asked, taking
+a slip of paper from the mantelpiece. "We're very worldly indeed
+to-night. 'Marchesina d'Empoli, the Countess of Hatherley, Lady Claire
+Templeton, Mrs. Sidney Musgrave.' Here! see for yourself."
+
+As Paul glanced over the list, she put one slender foot on the curb of
+the fender and pulled her skirt a few inches above her ankle.
+
+"'Sir Bryan Lumsden?' Who's he?"
+
+"A stock-broking baronet, sir, of my acquaintance."
+
+"That's a lurid description."
+
+"He's very good to my 'Sparrow Parties.' Do you know him, that you pick
+him out?"
+
+"I've seen him once," said Ingram slowly, pulling at his beard. "His
+manners where women are concerned did not impress me."
+
+She tapped the rail with her foot. "You are very unmannerly. Mustn't I
+ask the world and the flesh sometimes?"
+
+"What about the devil?"
+
+She gave a tentative and rather frightened glance at his sardonic face.
+
+"I think _he_ comes the earliest."
+
+There was no mistaking her meaning. Paul put the slip back on the
+mantelpiece.
+
+"Don't you think," said he, speaking with equal intention, "that it's
+as well even the devil should be allowed to state a case at times?"
+
+"Perhaps--I don't know," Althea faltered in reply.
+
+"Excuse me if I bore you. I don't ask often. Is there any news of my
+luckless story?"
+
+"Some one is reading it."
+
+"Some publisher?"
+
+"Not exactly. I--I wanted an opinion from some one who--from some
+one----"
+
+"Some one quite impartial, you mean?"
+
+"Not quite that, either. From some one who is able to take a very
+special point of view."
+
+Ingram laughed grimly. "Why don't you get some of your worldly friends
+to teach you how to lie?"
+
+"_Sir!_"
+
+He regarded her from head to foot and back again. Her cheeks
+flamed--not altogether with anger. It was not unpleasant to be looked
+at hard by him.
+
+"Althea," he said at last, "suppose I told you I had come to-night to
+quarrel with you?"
+
+She turned with a strange, scared appeal in her eyes.
+
+"Oh! I should beg you not to. Don't ever quarrel with me, Paul--please."
+
+The artless speech was so unlike anything he had ever heard from
+her--her voice, as she uttered it, so uncomfortably reminiscent of
+another, whose vain pleading had only just ceased to vibrate in
+his heart, that Paul had what may be best described as a moment of
+sentimental vertigo.
+
+He laid his hand lightly upon hers. "Dear Mrs. Hepworth, do you dream I
+could be harsh with you?"
+
+She did not move her hand from under his, nor appear conscious that
+one chapter of their intimacy was irretrievably ended by the impulsive
+moment.
+
+"I only know I dread your anger. I suspect it can be awful."
+
+"You shall never be sure, then. But reproof at least you must bear.
+Althea, you have put me under an obligation that no man finds
+tolerable."
+
+Now she snatched her hand away. "Oh!" with a catch in her voice, "that
+is unworthy of you."
+
+"And you are keeping me from what is at least a chance to discharge it."
+
+"It is not I who keeps you from it."
+
+The blood rushed to Ingram's head. "Some occult tribunal, then--some
+inquisition against whose unwarrantable interference my whole soul
+protests."
+
+"Hush!" for he had raised his voice. "I think I hear a ring. People
+are beginning to arrive, and I must fly. Come down in about five
+minutes--it will look better--and wait after the rest are gone. I think
+you had best understand my position in this matter clearly. That much
+is due you."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII
+
+                             A CATASTROPHE
+
+
+Checked in mid-course, and with all his righteous indignation bottled
+up, Paul, I expect, hardly found the "worldly" dinner a diverting
+affair. He had reached the stage of mental development--a mid-way
+one, be it noted--where types interest more than persons, and none of
+those he met to-night aroused in him anything save a burning desire
+for their speedy effacement. Lumsden did not appear to remember him,
+which was hardly wonderful, considering the complete change of dress
+and environment. Besides which the baronet was a man very much occupied
+and in request throughout dinner. He was just back from the _Côte
+d'Azur_, and was primed with the true inwardness of the approaching
+Manby-Millett sensation. Lucy Millett was passing through Paris alone,
+and thought it civil to leave a card on the only Mrs. Manby at the
+_Superbe_ because she had sent her a wedding present. Mrs. Manby's
+reputation hadn't reached her, it seems, which was hardly wonderful,
+seeing Lucy was a daughter of the great Quaker sago-refining family,
+and rather out of things. She had left her own card and her husband's,
+and by a mistake of the clerk only the smaller card was handed to the
+gay lady on her return. Result: that Lucy found a _petit bleu_
+waiting when she got back from a round of the shops, which gave
+everything away. "Most impassioned," Lumsden understood, on good
+authority, and quite up to Manby form.
+
+"And if you put that in one of your books, Mrs. Hepworth, people would
+say there was too much--what d'you call it?--coincidence, wouldn't
+they, now?"
+
+It happened that Lady Robert Millett had been the first woman Ingram
+had interviewed for the _Parthenon_. He remembered the sandy
+haired girl-wife at Isleworth, with her high teeth, awkward kindness
+and innocent pride, who had given him tea and, "as a special favor,"
+shown him her white squirrels and blue-wattled Japanese fowl. Well--her
+happiness was destroyed. He did not join in the laughter when some one
+achieved a stammering, knock-kneed epigram in French; something about
+_sagou_ and _sagesse_.
+
+Captain Templeton had just won a seat for his party in a three-cornered
+contest. He detailed with considerable verve the intrigues necessary
+to induce a labor candidate to run and split the vote. The Liberal's
+wife had social ambitions. "I hope we shall meet in town, Captain
+Templeton," she had said after the poll. "We're Liberal; but
+_naturally_ most of our friends are on your side of the house."
+
+At the top of the table, with his noble old ivory-white face, silver
+hair, and limitless shirt-front, their host sat, a fine flower of
+democracy, and enjoyed his daughter's social success. His ponderous
+civilities failed to absorb the little Italian marchesina on his right
+(Gioconda, they say, of the _Fool's Errand_). Her heart was at the
+noisy end of the table; continually, at some new outburst, she would
+clap her tiny ringed hands autocratically for silence. "_What_ is
+this? _What_ is this? I have not heard well." Things had to be
+repeated, explained, for her benefit.
+
+Paul was nearest the door, and rose to open it as the women passed out.
+His hostess, who had barely addressed a word to him during dinner,
+bent forward as she passed and reminded him of his promise. Lumsden
+was the only man who seemed to notice the incident; and Ingram thought
+he caught the tail end of a look of intelligence as he returned to
+the table. But it was gone instantly, and presently the men drew to
+the side next the fire and began to talk tariffs. Tongue-tied amidst
+the women's chatter, their host easily dominated the conversation
+now. He spoke of Republican prospects at the Mid-West conventions,
+their intimate association with business prosperity, discussed the new
+influences at Washington with good-natured banter, predicted worse
+times before a "banner-year," hinted what was worth watching meantime.
+The men listened to him intently--even Lumsden--carelessly, sipping
+their coffee or rolling their liqueurs round and round in tiny gilt
+glasses. Every word was golden now. Art, literature, philosophy, all
+the visions that visit an idle mood, blew off like mists when the sun
+mounts the sky. Paul, watching him in silence, felt an involuntary
+respect, a pride despite himself, in their common nationality.
+
+"You're force," he was saying to himself, "blind Titanic force--that's
+what you are. And our business is with you and not with this trash
+that cumbers the ground and obscures the issue; these parasites, who
+imagine the things their own hearts covet were the incentive to men
+like yourself, who corrupt you because they fear you, and with grave,
+attentive faces are trying to make you believe now that there's great
+personal merit in what you've been doing. You've sucked up riches from
+a disorganized society that your energy took unawares, because you
+couldn't help it, and you spend it on yourselves because you don't know
+any better way. Well, we must show you one. The force that creates,
+the wisdom that could distribute--these two are groping for each other
+through a maze of laws, human and divine, that the world has outgrown.
+They must mingle, must come together, must interpenetrate, and if
+priests and judges hinder, then priests and judges must go. They were
+made for man, not man for them."
+
+"... so if you've bought warrants at sixty-three merely on the report
+of divisions inside the amalgamation, you haven't done badly, Lumsden.
+And now, Lord Hatherley, what do you say? Shall we join the ladies
+upstairs?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later Ingram was alone with his host and hostess. His presence,
+_ami de maison_ as he had become, did not restrain Mr. Rees from a
+palpable yawn.
+
+"You look tired, father," said Althea, putting her arm over his broad
+shoulder. "What are you going to do? Mr. Ingram and I have something to
+talk over."
+
+"I think I shall read Lew Wallace for half an hour, honey, and then go
+to bed. Have my hot milk sent to the study."
+
+"Let us go upstairs to my own room," said Althea, when he was gone. "I
+can always talk better there."
+
+Ingram followed her, and, as she preceded him gracefully, something
+forlorn and lonely in her face and figure struck him, over-receptive of
+such impressions as he was. He thought she drooped. Once she stumbled
+slightly.
+
+She often wrote till morning, and the fire was still burning brightly
+in her room. She took the strip of paper on which the names of her
+guests had been written and, reading it over again, crumpled it in her
+hand with a little gesture of disgust and weariness, and threw it into
+the glowing coals.
+
+"_Ugh!_" she said.
+
+"Why do you have them, then?" asked Paul, more reasonably than politely.
+
+"Oh!" impatiently, "you don't understand." She hesitated a moment.
+"Don't you ever find such people strangely interesting yourself?"
+
+"The least so of any class I've met," Paul replied, without hesitation.
+
+"I mean--sit down, please--because they are so _free_."
+
+"----of scruples?"
+
+"Yes, of scruples, if you will. Don't you see as long as one has work
+to do, or an ideal to follow, or conscience to consider, or a heart
+even, one's life must, in a sense be incomplete, fettered, bound. One
+must leave off in unexpected places--never go quite to the logical end,
+never run the whole gamut."
+
+"That's just as well, isn't it--for other people's sakes?"
+
+"Perhaps. You don't read Newman, I suppose?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"He speaks, in one of his poems, of 'A secret joy that Hell is near.'
+Now, he was a great saint, Mr. Ingram; no Augustine, but one of the
+predestined of God's love, who never in the whole course of their lives
+commit a vile act, say a vile word, nor probably entertain an ill
+thought. And yet, you see, he felt it."
+
+She had taken out her handkerchief, and was twisting it nervously into
+a rope.
+
+"'_A secret joy that Hell is near!_' That's what I feel at times.
+That's what I've been feeling all to-night, as I listened to those
+people. It's wicked, I know. It's even a refinement of wickedness."
+
+"I think it's nerves."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't. I won't submit to that kind of talk from you--but
+I'm not keeping you from bed to discuss my temperament. About your
+story: I'm so sorry I can't help you to publish it."
+
+"Owing, I gather, to its religious views?"
+
+"Why deny it? Yes."
+
+"As exemplified in the Rev. Mr. Ffoulkes, the Salvation Merchant?"
+
+"Oh! don't laugh. It's terribly serious. You have--I don't know where
+you learnt it--such a terrifying plausibility in your case against
+Providence. Nothing strikes at faith like a perverted mysticism."
+
+"Name one instance!"--a little bitterly. "I'm beginning to forget what
+I did say."
+
+"Well, you say that the most obvious result of punishment is to destroy
+the sense of guilt."
+
+"So it is."
+
+"Yes--perhaps. But----"
+
+"In short, one may bear witness for your God, but not against Him?"
+
+"I know I must sound illogical to you. It is so hard to explain."
+
+"Don't try, please."
+
+She was silent awhile, staring into the fire. "Mr. Ingram, you've
+heard, perhaps, that my life has not been a happy one.
+
+"A word here and there. _Que sais-je?_"
+
+"Exactly. What do you know? What can any one know of it? Imagination
+even couldn't do justice to the whole truth. I came out of it not
+desolate, alone; not only sick of body and soul, but even degraded.
+Yes, I mean it. A degraded wretch--that's how I saw myself. The poor
+street-walker seemed a clean and honorable thing beside me."
+
+"And so you became a Catholic. Is this the usual way into the fold?"
+
+"It is, for many. Yes," she went on, with a strange glow in her eyes,
+"for those who have endured great wickedness as for those who have
+committed it, God be thanked, there is one respirable medium left on
+earth. Call it what you will--a hospital of sick souls, a home for
+moral convalescents."
+
+"I call it nothing. I take your word for it. Does this account for the
+decrepitude of so much of your doctrine?"
+
+"Ah! don't be clever, Paul. Cleverness is a little thing. At least I
+should be loyal to that in which I have found peace, self-respect, a
+new life."
+
+"You misjudge me, Althea. I grudge you none of your comfort. God is
+true if He's true for you, and He's true, for you, if the thought of
+Him gives you peace."
+
+There really seemed nothing more to say, and he got to his feet.
+
+"Send along my manuscript," he said, "whenever it's convenient, and
+dismiss the matter from your mind. It makes no difference."
+
+"Why are you in such a hurry to go?" she asked fretfully, and put her
+hand to her head. She seemed to sway.
+
+"Are you ill?" Ingram asked, coming across and standing beside her.
+
+"My head went queer suddenly," she said. "It does that lately. It's
+fatigue, I think. Listen to me, Paul Ingram. I want to strike a bargain
+with you."
+
+"Well."
+
+"I want to buy 'Sad Company' myself."
+
+"In order to destroy it?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"And at what do you assess the damage, moral and material, to your
+creed that its suppression will avoid. Come, now! just for curiosity's
+sake."
+
+"Five hundred pounds--a thousand if----"
+
+He interrupted her brusquely. "You must have taken leave of your
+senses. Do you think I'm to be bought? Burn the thing yourself, if you
+like--burn it in the name of whatever god it offends--but don't impute
+dishonor ever again to a man, even to a man that doesn't believe in
+Him."
+
+She caught at his sleeve. "Oh, but you must have some money for
+it," she said, incoherently. "You must--you must! Don't rob me of a
+pleasure. You've travelled the world over, but you don't know what
+poverty in London means. Why, only to-night, as I looked down the
+table and saw your face so--so proud and fine, and thought how little
+stood between you and--there! I won't even name it. But don't be
+stubborn--for my sake. Because you must have money; you must have
+money, dear."
+
+At the last word he took her in his arms.
+
+"Let me go!" she whispered, pushing him away with all the poor force
+of her bare arms. "I didn't mean this. Oh! believe me. Upon my honor I
+didn't--nothing like this, Paul."
+
+Ingram only drew her closer. "Stop struggling," he said, with
+authority. "That's better. Now then--kiss me properly."
+
+
+
+
+                                 XIII
+
+                         NEW WINE--OLD BOTTLE
+
+
+When the Reverend Antony Vernon, on the very morrow of a controversy
+whose issue was hailed variously in various quarters--here as a
+triumph and as a scandal there--forsook his fellow's rooms in Wadham,
+his parish of St. Hedwige, and the Hernandes Ethical Lectureship, to
+take the old, old beaten track toward the City of the Seven Hills and
+intellectual disenfranchisement, beyond a languid wonder as to what
+might await him in the less indulgent fold his migration aroused little
+interest. Excommunication or a cardinal's hat? Either, it was felt,
+might be the crown of his new career. He took no disciples with him in
+his incontinent flight, and he left no spiritual orphans to bewail his
+loss. No vindication of the strange step was ever published by him, and
+it cannot be pretended that his reserve balked any very keen curiosity.
+After all, had not the question been worn threadbare--to rags--years
+ago? To the fervor of the 'forties a generation had succeeded too weary
+of dogmatic strife to account for its own actions, far less demand
+an account from others; satisfied, in short, since it saved time and
+trouble, to accept the plea of impulse in full extenuation. During the
+traditional nine days, it is true, his motives were guessed at idly in
+the Common Room. Intellectual despair, said one; another, a recoil from
+the abyss to which a will to believe with the minimum of revelation
+always leads; a third might hint at reasons more personal and intimate
+still. None knew; and, when a few weeks had passed, none cared. The
+Reverend Antony Vernon was absolved and forgotten.
+
+After his ordination in Rome, Archbishop Manning, who had been an
+old Oxford friend of his father, gave him a curacy in the northeast
+of London, in a district which had not then acquired its present
+sinister reputation, but was beginning to earn it. The mission itself
+was an old one, founded in the days of captivity and bishops _in
+partibus_; so much the fabric witnessed, a square box-like structure
+of hard yellow brick, with a stucco portico, and on each side four
+round-headed, narrow-paned windows of pinky-white glass, obscured by a
+wooden galley, and, on the side that faced the street, still bearing
+traces of some sort of wash which had once discreetly veiled the
+mysteries within. And yet, in its unpretending ugliness, the humble
+fane did not lack a certain charm denied to the great Gothic barn that
+has replaced it. It had been built upon the site of what had been a
+city merchant's suburban estate in the days of hoop and powder. Upon
+the side furthest from the street, two or three of the old garden trees
+had been spared, which of a sunny afternoon, according as the season
+lay, stained the clear panes a tremulous green and gold, or fretted
+them with an uneasy tracery of tangled branches. One guessed that,
+within the memory of man, before the city had spilled its desolating
+overflow around and beyond, gardens had bloomed--orchards borne fruit
+beneath these weather-stained walls, the odors of the hayfield stolen
+in at times and mingled its incense with that of the altar. For with
+cities it is as with the generations of men--new buildings upon which
+the old have gazed carry on, when they themselves have grown gray, the
+tradition of all that has been demolished and displaced around them.
+
+"I am sending you into great temptation, Vernon," Manning had said
+to him at parting. (He had opened his heart to his superior, and
+there were no secrets between the two men). "The mission is the most
+difficult in the whole archdiocese. Since the trams were built the
+East End is pouring its cramped population into it in thousands. The
+old respectable families are leaving, in absolute panic, as soon as
+they can sell or surrender their leases. There will be no better centre
+in three or four years' time for a great missionary effort; but until
+Swinton dies or retires nothing much can be done. You will have need
+of all your faith and of all your tact. Abroad you will encounter
+an animalism such as you cannot have conceived possible; at home, a
+creed almost without love, and to which only the darker side of the
+revelation seems to have been vouchsafed. Get to know your people
+quietly; watch your armor, and--pray! And, above all," he continued,
+laying a hand that was already ethereal upon the young don's shoulder,
+"above all, Vernon, never despair of the poor. Don't be appalled by
+anything you see or hear. The degradation is great, but it is my
+experience it seldom reaches down as far as the soul. A word will work
+conversion here--a week's illness make a saint. It is far, far easier
+to wash the filth off of them than it is to heal the ulcer of the rich,
+or purify the intellect of men like you and me. It is God's crowning
+mercy to his elect. 'Blessed are the poor!'"
+
+Vernon quickly discovered that the difficulties had not been
+over-rated. Father Swinton, the missionary rector, was a scion of an
+old Northumbrian family. His eccentricity, probably congenital and
+the result of long continued intermarriage, had been heightened by
+a solitary life until it reached a pitch that was almost monomania.
+Beneath the outward uniformity which Catholic discipline imposes he
+concealed a fanatical Jansenist heart. He was perhaps the last of a
+generation of priests who took a perverse pride in the insular and
+secluded character which three centuries of persecution had impressed
+upon the Roman communion in England. He boasted of never having made a
+convert, and resented the new expansiveness as a personal grievance. He
+never returned to his "chapel"--you would have earned his resentment
+by calling it a church--from a visit to more pretentious missions
+without experiencing a stealthy joy in his own square, painted pews,
+his railed gallery and bare altar, flanked only by two small plaster
+statues which a great lady, stubborn as himself, had imposed upon him
+as the price of peace. Two of his many aversions he made no attempt
+to conceal: he hated Irish curates, and he hated the beautiful modern
+devotion of the Sacred Heart.
+
+"God bless my soul, Vernon!" he cried, one evening, shortly after
+the arrival of the new curate, waddling into the dining-room after
+benediction. "Do you know what's just happened me? No? Well, sir, a
+woman came into my sanctuary just now--my very sanctuary, sir!--as I
+was covering the altar, and asked me to bless a piece of red flannel
+for her--a common piece of red household flannel, sir, cut into the
+shape of a heart. Called it her '_Badge_!' I said: 'Take your
+blasphemous piece of red flannel home, ma'am! It's too small for a
+chest-protector, so make a penwiper of it. God bless my soul! haven't
+you seven sacraments?'"
+
+Far from being shocked, the archbishop laughed at the story until the
+tears ran out of his watery blue eyes.
+
+"Dear old Swinton!" was all his comment; "last of the Gallicans!"
+Vernon was early struck by the gaiety and love of fun among his
+fellow-workers in the vineyard.
+
+As for the curates: he discovered he was the successor to a long line
+whose misplaced fervor and attempts to familiarize the channels of
+grace had brought them into collision with the heady old man.
+
+"_Four--times--a--year_, Mr. Vernon," his rector would assert,
+bringing the palm of his hand down on the table at each word. "Four
+times a year, sir, and no more, if I had my way. And the three
+months in between all too short to prepare for the reception of
+this tremendous"--at the word something that was almost ecstasy
+descended upon the foolish old face--"_tremendous_ Sacrament!
+Besides"--fretfully--"none of 'em knew how to eat like gentlemen."
+
+Perhaps on account of his superior table manners, perhaps for other
+reasons, Vernon's enthusiasm--the enthusiasm of the proselyte--was
+condoned. Often during his strenuous later life he looked back upon
+those three years of curacy as perhaps the happiest he had known. If
+he might not sow the seed broadcast, at least he could sow and tend
+it in his own heart. He loved to read his breviary of an afternoon,
+pacing up and down between two green matted grass lawns, under the
+creeper-covered wall of the meek little house of God. The sun,
+filtering through the tender leaves of the plane trees, made a dappled
+puzzle-pattern on the broad flagged walk at his feet, or, if the season
+was late, he crisped their shed vesture beneath his low buckled shoes.
+Often, as his lips moved in the prayer that he had now got by heart,
+his eyes, wandering from the familiar page, would map out by the line,
+and square the foundation of his settlement--his bustling citadel of
+the friends of God--so soon to arise in the great wilderness, blotting
+out this selfish little oasis of peace and stillness forever. This very
+walk the vault of a chancel should cover--vast, imposing, lined with
+glowing chapels that pictured in fresco and mosaic the hard-won battles
+of the Church militant--draped with embroidered banners of guild and
+confraternity. Here, at the ivied presbytery gable, where a mob of
+sparrows, heedless of impending change, were repairing their frail
+tenements of straw, the gymnasium should stand, with a dining-hall
+above, where from henceforth his daily meals should be taken in the
+company of the starving and the outcast; of the workless man, hovering
+with amazement upon the brink of crime; of the felon, still sore from
+the stringent hand of earthly justice; guests gathered at his Master's
+bidding from highway and byway, and set down with the broad robe of
+charity over their bowed shoulders. And once a week at night, when
+chairs and benches had been cleared away, the piano should tinkle and
+the fiddle tune, and lads and lasses, in whose perverse minds guilt and
+gaiety had become convertible terms, should learn the religion of joy,
+and dance the devil out of their souls.
+
+These were his dreams during three years. And yet, in his imagination,
+susceptible as a woman's to any influence of beauty and grace, and,
+like a woman's, sworn foe of all that is ugly and irrevocable in
+life, the quiet close was full of voices that reproached him for
+their outcasting. He used to pray against his weakness at night, when
+confessions were over and the church closed. Horse-cars jingled past
+the doors. The windows shook with raucous oaths; with cries of buyers
+and sellers in the market outside, from mouths furred with blasphemy
+and filthy talk; the naphtha flares threw strange, troubled shadows
+over the doomed pews and galleries.
+
+Father Swinton fell ill in the middle of the third year, and after
+lingering a few months, died rather suddenly. At his death it was
+discovered that his private charities had been unbounded, and had
+eaten up all his inheritance. He left nothing of his own behind, save
+a family genealogy, in which the connection between the Swintons
+of Dimpleshall and the Swintons of Blacklash is clearly traced--a
+connection which, it would appear, Mackenzie, in his "View of the
+County of Northumberland," has been at pains to dispute, and a bound
+manuscript, much thumbed, of meditations on the Passion. The projected
+work had hardly waited on his death; indeed, Vernon was called to his
+superior's agony from a consultation with his architect. No man's
+dream is ever realized; but within two years a good deal of his was
+an accomplished fact. Vernon was a wealthy man, and, when his own
+money was spent, a consummate beggar. The dining-room, the schools,
+the gymnasium, the dispensary, and the old folks' hostel took shape
+one by one, amid discouragement, covert sarcasm, and abundant prophecy
+of failure. The trees fell, the chapel was gutted and torn down as
+completely as ever by Gordon rioters; the presbytery, with its panelled
+chambers, went the same way; the sparrows took to a dusty wing and,
+as covenanted servants, let us hope found sanctuary elsewhere. Last
+of all, the chancel, gaunt and bare as yet, a mere shell and outline
+of all it should be, but imposing if only by virtue of its bulk, with
+traceried windows, flying buttresses, clerestory and triforium,
+towered over the wet slate roofs that smoked sullenly all day, like a
+slaked furnace, beneath its feet. At the centre of the cross, where
+the long chancel met the truncated apse and aisles, an octagonal lead
+lantern, lit by eight round lunettes, took the place of tower and
+spire. It was at this lantern that men stood to stare; toward it that
+the whips of passing van and 'bus drivers inevitably were pointed for
+many a long day. For there, set up too high for any to escape His
+appeal--a symbol of hope to the hopeless, a fable to the scoffer, a
+source of irritation to the Pharisee, lit up at night by two coronals
+of electric light that encircled the pierced feet and haloed the
+drooping head--the Man of Sorrows watched the sorrowing city, and
+plucked His vesture aside to show the wounded and flaming breast--the
+Sacred Heart, beneath.
+
+At fifty-eight Canon Vernon would have been a strange portent in the
+Common Room at Wadham. He had gained sanctity, but there is no denying
+he had lost polish. One cannot sit to table habitually with the outcast
+and not become either a little self-righteous or a little disreputable;
+and nothing could ever have made Antony Vernon self-righteous. He had
+a brown, seamed face, on which the lines of humor and pain crossed and
+intercrossed; the loose, mobile mouth of the great actor he might have
+been; piercing black eyes, an untidy thatch of dark hair whitening only
+at the temples, and thin, sensitive nostrils rimmed with snuff. Snuff
+also liberally besprinkled the breast of his shabby cassock. There
+had been, three hundred years back, an ancestor who wrote himself M.
+de Vernon, and, in reverting to the ancestral faith, Vernon seemed
+to have reverted a little to the ancestral type. He had no apparent
+austerities, was fond of a certain brand of white wine which grocers
+do not stock, and when his young men saw him in his private room,
+gave them, together with absolution, an Egyptian cigarette that was
+no part of their penance. His life is now matter for biography. In
+the district which is bounded roughly by Kingsland Road on the west
+and Hackney Road on the south, and which may be said to have London
+Fields--a rather tuberculous "lung"--for its centre and playground,
+it was even then matter for legend. Upon some of the legends his own
+comments were flippant, and we should probably err in attaching greater
+importance to them than he did himself. In speaking of his spiritual
+influence we are on safer ground. Very few--perhaps none quite--had
+ever withstood this. It was the old, old test. Power "went out" from
+him. Very unjustly, the worship of which he was the object did not
+extend to the hard-working curates with whom he surrounded himself. His
+delivery in the pulpit was bad, his writing all but illegible, and, as
+he never had time to prepare his sermons for the press, a good deal
+has perished that deserved to survive. We preserve a few fragments,
+however, as characteristic of his peculiar train of thought.
+
+    "_Of love_:
+
+    "There is no way to love God but through His creatures. It is
+    through admiration of the work that we must be brought to the
+    artist. But often the one condition upon which our love can stay
+    sinless is that it shall stay silent."
+
+    "_Of suffering_:
+
+    "There is a genius in suffering as in all else. The confessor may
+    labor with Christ, the martyr be crucified with Him; it is the
+    artist alone who can understand or share the agony of Olivet."
+
+    "_Of sacrifice_:
+
+    "The history of Cain and Abel is full of significance to us. It is
+    not of the things that renew themselves year by year that God would
+    have us make our offering. To be acceptable to Him the sacrifice
+    must be irreparable."
+
+Despite his gaiety, his personal pessimism was unbounded. He was taken
+to task for it once by a burly and breezy Jesuit.
+
+"After all, Vernon, God is Lord of life as well as of death."
+
+"True," replied Vernon, as though speaking to himself. "But with a
+perceptible bias toward death."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He maintained that while it was our duty to resist all temptations,
+there were some so overwhelming that our responsibility was ended when
+we asked God to keep them out of our way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He used to say that the crowning humiliation of the saints was to know
+their lives would be written by the devout.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once upon his return from examining a school taught by religious, he
+was observed to be preoccupied, and was asked the reason.
+
+"I was thinking," he said, "that few indeed are to be trusted with the
+credulity of childhood."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of a noted atheist who was very charitable, he remarked: "G---- gives
+alms for the hatred of God."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After leaving Oxford his remarks seldom strayed beyond the sphere of
+his new duties. When they did, they were apt to be rarely illuminating.
+He said of France, for instance: "Four words give us her genius and her
+history--'Often conquered, never ashamed.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He used to declare that, in striking a balance between a man's
+happiness and unhappiness, time was not to be taken into account at
+all, because men live all their lives every day of their lives.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Religion, he observed, had an advantage that had not escaped the
+worldly mind. There is no other ideal which a man can live for and live
+on at the same time.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+
+                     SOME THEORIES--AND A WAY OUT
+
+
+He was sitting in his study late one windy March Saturday when Mrs.
+Hepworth was announced. He had been in his confessional all the
+evening. A half-finished letter lay on his blotting-pad, but he had
+turned away from it and was warming his stockinged feet at the fire.
+She was heavily veiled, but he divined a crisis at a glance.
+
+"Are you very busy?" she asked, in a smothered voice.
+
+"Very idle," he answered gaily. "The appearances of industry are
+deceitful. I was really--don't tell--toasting my toes. Are you in any
+trouble?" he asked in a graver tone, taking her hand in both his.
+
+She nodded, but did not speak. He drew an arm-chair to the fire, and
+poked a great lump of coal into a blaze.
+
+"There, there!" said he. "Sit down and have the cry out. I have a
+letter to finish and another to write. By the time they are both done
+you will be calmer."
+
+He went on with his writing; re-read, sealed, and stamped the two
+letters, rang the bell, and, when it was answered by one of the mission
+lads, carried them to the door himself. When he turned to her again the
+worst was over. She was drying her eyes. He leaned forward and patted
+her hand.
+
+"What a big baby we are!"
+
+She returned him a spasmodic smile. She was conscious of a tear-stained
+face--possibly a red nose. But then, he was a priest. That made a
+difference.
+
+"And now, what is the trouble? Has invention given out? No? Come, come
+then, everything else is bearable, isn't it? If I were an imaginative
+writer, that fear would never leave me, and would end by paralyzing my
+pen. I should have stage-fright every time I sat down opposite a sheet
+of paper. It has always been less of a marvel to me that a novel should
+be finished well than that it should be finished at all."
+
+Althea hardly listened. She was wondering how she should express
+the things of this world in terms that a man of the other should
+understand; a necessity--let the prurient believe it or not--that makes
+confession a dry business for all parties.
+
+"Father Vernon, has it ever occurred to you that I am a woman as well
+as a writer?"
+
+"My dear, a very charming one."
+
+"At least an honest one. Three years ago, you will remember, I came to
+you on quite an impersonal matter. You divined an inward trouble--saw
+that I had missed the peace which passes understanding, and offered
+me--how delicately, I shall never forget--your aid to attain it. I
+refused it. You never would guess what the refusal cost me."
+
+"My dear----"
+
+"Yes, yes; let me go on. I must have seemed churlish. But if principles
+are to be anything beyond mere idle words, they must be held to; and
+one of mine is that for a woman to invite sympathy is only a degree
+less shameful than for her to beg for love. The way of the devout woman
+with her director is hateful to me. This unseemly self-revelation from
+week to week is treachery--treachery to her own heart and to those whom
+she takes into it. Am I very heretical?"
+
+"Oh, my child! How it would lighten my task were there more who thought
+like you."
+
+"Before I left, you bade me, if ever I was in great trouble, to come to
+you again. And now----"
+
+"Now the time has come?"
+
+"Yes." She rubbed her hands nervously one over the other. "I am in
+great straits."
+
+"Is the way growing dark or only hard?"
+
+"Oh, _hard--hard_!" she moaned, rocking a little backward and
+forward.
+
+She looked up in his face and saw her trouble was guessed. When the
+will to help and the powerlessness meet upon a face that regards us
+tenderly we read our fate written there in letters of fire.
+
+"Yes," she went on, as though he had spoken. "I am a Catholic: I am a
+divorced woman whose husband lives, and I am in love--in love with all
+my heart, and soul, and strength."
+
+"The man? Is he free?" Vernon asked, perhaps for something to say.
+
+"Yes. I thank God, whose captive I am, that he at least is free."
+
+"He understands your peculiar position?"
+
+"He understands nothing."
+
+"My dear child, you should let him know. In justice to him."
+
+His words irritated Althea vaguely, as a little professional mannerism
+might irritate us in the surgeon fighting for our lives.
+
+"Oh, have patience! I am going to tell you everything. It is the man
+whose book I sent you to read. Mr. Prentice, a friend of mine, a
+journalist, brought him to me last summer. He was quite unknown in
+London and was finding a difficulty in even getting it considered. He
+is not quite a stranger to us; at least, we know who he is. My father
+is a friend of some of the rich branch of his family in Connecticut. My
+publishers made difficulties, of course, but the thing was in a fair
+way of being settled--"
+
+"But surely, my child, his opinions shocked you?"
+
+"Not at all, Father!" Noticing his surprise: "You must take my word for
+that. It is so hard when one is leading two lives--the artist's and the
+other. There seems no contact between them--no common ground. I have
+had no temptation myself to such things, and so the question had never
+arisen for me personally. No, I was conscious of nothing but the joy,
+the privilege of helping a fellow-worker toward his reward."
+
+"When did you first find it a matter of conscience?"
+
+"Once when I went to confession to Father Mephan at the Priory. I
+mentioned it almost casually. To my surprise, he took the matter most
+seriously--said I was incurring a tremendous responsibility, and that
+if one soul was led by it to love God less, the sin would be at my
+door. I had to get the manuscript back from the publishers. Oh! it was
+weary work."
+
+"Mephan pronounced against the book, of course."
+
+"Yes. I told him that to my knowledge the writer was a good man--in
+his way almost saintly. I knew him well enough by then to say that.
+But he said it didn't matter--that Antichrist had his own prophets and
+confessors, and even martyrs. Is that so?"
+
+"I fear it is."
+
+"He said something else stranger still. He said the virtue that was
+outside the Church was a greater danger than the wickedness. Do you
+believe that?"
+
+"No, I don't. I think virtue, of any sort, is quite secure from
+popularity. But go on. You have told me nothing of the man himself."
+
+"He continued to visit us. He was lonely and embittered at first, but
+it wore off. He is very handsome. I was proud to be able to show such
+a fellow-countryman after some that have been at our house. The men
+liked him, and I know the women envied him to me. Oh! a woman can see.
+I got him to tell me some of his life. It's wonderful! He seems to have
+deliberately sought out pain and labor as though some inward need of
+his soul impelled him to it. He does not know God, but he has never
+lost the spiritual vision. His heart is as clean as a child's and as
+simple. He has his faults. He hates the rich; but there is not a trace
+of envy in his hatred. He is not even like Mill--led to the love of
+the many by the hatred of the few. It is simply the holy hunger and
+thirst after justice."
+
+"My dear, you are painting a very good man. Did you never try to
+influence him toward the truth?"
+
+"Father Vernon, do you believe in my sincerity or not?"
+
+"I do, indeed."
+
+"Then, believe me when I tell you it's not possible. Perhaps in years
+and years to come; but his heart will have to be broken first. No, his
+virtue is the virtue of Marcus Aurelius--of Julian. He has all the
+sadness of the old, stoical, pagan world. Will you think me exaggerated
+if I tell you how he affects me?"
+
+"I think not."
+
+"Well, I feel as though some great angel, neither of light nor
+darkness, neither fallen nor confirmed, to whom the test for or against
+God has never been offered, has folded his wings and dropped gently at
+my feet. I have but one fear--that he will spread them as quietly and
+take flight."
+
+Two red spots glowed on her cheeks as she spoke. Vernon, considering
+her, suddenly realized how ill she was looking. There was even on her
+face an expression that, as a priest, it was part of his office to
+watch for.
+
+"When did this thing happen--the thing that makes you so unhappy?"
+
+"Last Thursday. He had dined with us. I had been feeling ill all day.
+Since the summer I have been frightened two or three times--it is my
+head I think--but I have put off getting any advice. He could not
+have asked for an explanation at a worse time; but I had no right to
+withhold it. I tried to explain, even offered him money, and then----"
+
+"Yes, and then?"
+
+"Oh, Father Vernon, he grew so big! He seemed to tower. Everything else
+was small. Yes--let me tell the truth--religion, priests, even God--we
+all seemed to be a little band of intriguers trying to pull him down.
+He told me to burn his book, turned on his heel. I knew he wouldn't
+come back, and so--and so--I'm only a woman: I babbled something or
+other that was in my heart, and he took me--in his--arms."
+
+She leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees, and looked into the
+fire. The action was deliberate. One never would have guessed what a
+storm was rending her breast.
+
+"He kissed me only once," she went on. "He was very gentle. Then
+we sat down, and I found out that, all the time while I had been
+condescending, advising, putting him at his ease, I was nothing to him
+but just a little, lonely, spoilt girl."
+
+"Have you seen him since?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor written?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He has called, of course?"
+
+"Yes. I have not been at home to him."
+
+"Then--the thing is over."
+
+"Read this!" She drew a letter from the bosom of her dress and handed
+it to him. She watched him narrowly as he read it, but his expression
+of grave concern did not alter.
+
+"Are you alone in town?" he asked, when he had read it through.
+
+"My father and most of the servants are at Hindhead. I should have gone
+with them on Saturday, but I waited because----Oh! I just waited----"
+
+"Do you want this back?" said Vernon, still holding the letter between
+his fingers.
+
+"Burn it, please. No, wait a minute! Tear me off the signature first. I
+want that."
+
+She pressed the little shred of paper against her lips.
+
+"Oh! I love him _so_, I love him _so_," she moaned.
+
+Vernon crumpled the sheets of paper one by one and threw them all into
+the fire together. The flames caught them at once. The writing glowed
+red, then white. The draught from the chimney rustled the ashes to and
+fro in the grate.
+
+"Well," she asked, almost roughly, "what am I to do?"
+
+"There is but one thing--your duty. I cannot soften it."
+
+"_Duty!_" she repeated, in a terrible voice. For a moment Vernon
+thought a nerve-crisis was at hand; but she fought it down. The wit
+that was almost the woman's second nature came uppermost.
+
+"It's a pretty trap, isn't it? There ought to have been a notice-board
+on my narrow way, Father Vernon: 'Beware man-traps and canons.' God's
+ways are a little _impish_ at times, don't you think so? Can I see
+him?"
+
+"I think not, dear child. It will only make it harder for you both."
+
+"Pah! You say that, but you really don't trust me. You're only a man,
+after all. Can I write the letter here? It won't be very long."
+
+Without a word he wheeled his writing-chair round for her, and pulled
+out unheaded note-paper and plain envelopes. She wrote a letter of
+six or eight pages quietly, without hesitating, except just at the
+end, when Vernon noticed her lips were pursed and her eyes swimming in
+tears. The second letter was a much shorter affair, and she enclosed in
+it the slip of paper which she had saved from the burnt letter. It lay
+on the top, and he noticed the address was that of a bank.
+
+"I will leave these with you to post," she said; "then you will feel
+quite safe. I shall go down to Hindhead to-morrow and stay a good
+while, I think. I like watching the spring come. Good-bye; and remember
+it is by what you _didn't_ say to-night that I measure your
+sympathy. I don't think I could have stood platitudes."
+
+"My child, I preach to those who are bearing their cross, not to those
+whom God has nailed to it. Before them I dare only kneel and pray."
+
+"Oh, I felt it! I felt it! Something seemed to come out of you and
+break my will suddenly. Besides"--she hesitated--"besides, there's
+always something a woman keeps back, they say. I think, perhaps, he is
+saved from great unhappiness by what you have made me do to-night. I
+can't say more, even to you."
+
+"My dear, love is never sent idly, never in vain. It is from our
+ignorant misuse, our blind misapprehension of its meaning, that the
+pity and the waste come about. Many a precious purpose is brought to
+nothing by the world's superstition of the happy ending. In love, as
+in life, those who seek selfishly forever seek vainly; even as they
+grasp it, the radiant vision turns a corpse within their arms. It is
+they who humbly and submissively--no matter how hard the law, how
+intolerable the accident--follow the inscrutable finger beckoning them
+from pleasant ways, to stumble upon the road that is narrow and steep
+and dark, who have their heart's desire given them in the end.... Yes!
+Who is it?"
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Please, farver, it's Mrs. Murnane come about Jimmy's charackter for
+the 'am-and-beef shop."
+
+"Say I'm coming.... Would you like to spend a few minutes with me in
+the church before you go? We have the Forty Hours' devotion this week.
+I can let you out by the side door into the street. I suppose you have
+your car?"
+
+She passed before him down the staircase and along a white-washed
+corridor, whose bluntly pointed windows and doorways were wreathed by
+texts in Gothic lettering. Mrs. Murnane, a woman with a commanding
+eye and great digestive capacity, was sitting on a long bench in the
+hall; the ham-and-beef aspirant, a knock-kneed lad who seemed to grow
+more uncertain and wavering of outline as he receded from his enormous
+boots to his cropped white head, sat by her side with an air of being
+in custody. Behind the bench successive sessions of unwashed heads had
+besmeared the wall with a grimy average of height.
+
+The church was dark, and silent too; not with the mere absence of
+sound, but with a positive and penetrative stillness that seemed to
+radiate from one white disk, rimmed and rayed with gold, and enthroned,
+amid a phalanx of tapers and sweet waxen flowers, in one of the side
+chapels. A lad in a scarlet cassock and laced cotta was extinguishing
+a guttering candle, almost beyond his reach. As he rose on tiptoe
+the long pole trembled in his hands like a fishing-rod. Within the
+rails two men, their heads sunk beneath their shoulders, and without
+the rails two nuns, in broad white _cornichons_ and turned-back
+sleeves of serge, watched the host motionlessly. On a votive-wheel near
+by many tapers, some white, some red, were blazing and dripping. The
+smell of incense was everywhere.
+
+She knelt upon a rush-seated _prie-dieu_ in the same posture of
+absorbed devotion as the others, but her thoughts strayed, like a
+child's brought to church by an elder sister. She tried to count the
+tapers--how many red? how many white?--wondered what the nuns' faces
+were like behind the flapped white caps. The scene took shape in her
+head in little biting phrases, just as another kind of artist would
+have seen it in tone and composition. She was rather restless, wanted
+to be gone, and even said to herself that this last move of Father
+Vernon's was in doubtful taste. After going through so much----!
+
+But the silence, the stillness, the enervating loaded atmosphere gained
+her little by little. She had an access of devotion: tapers, flowers,
+prostrate fellow-worshippers were all part of some intimate rite of
+which there were two protagonists--that white sphere toward which, from
+time to time, she stole an awed glance, and she--a white host herself,
+with tired, folded pinions, submissive, only waiting for fire from
+heaven to complete the sacrifice....
+
+... Oh, God--the pain! the pain in her head! She wanted to scream, to
+faint, but her horror, the refined woman's horror of any "scene," kept
+her dumb and almost still. She prayed, wildly and incoherently--pressed
+her gloved fingers into her temples; her forehead was damp with
+perspiration....
+
+It was going now. Yes. In wave after wave, each less poignant than the
+one before, the pain left her. She lifted her head, wet her lips--wiped
+her forehead with the handkerchief still damp from her tears. Her eyes
+were tired and dim; the altar swam mistily. She looked across to Father
+Vernon, and he, noting her restlessness at last, rose and, with a low
+genuflection on both knees, beckoned her, and passed before her from
+the church.
+
+In the open air she revived, and even began to doubt the reality of
+what she had just undergone. There is a dream-like quality about
+intense pain that makes it hard to estimate it truly afterward. The
+car was waiting, in a dark slum that had once been a walled country
+lane smelling of mould and verdure. Even now the warm restlessness of
+spring could be felt in its fetid air. The chauffeur sat sideways upon
+his seat, reading some strange by-product of literature in a green
+cover. A dozen or so of ragged children, shock-headed and sore of face,
+clustered round the headlights like so many poor scorched flies. She
+shared the coppers in her purse between them.
+
+"Write me from Hindhead," Vernon said, at the door of the car; "and
+come to see me again when you get back. Be sure, my dear, God has some
+great mercy for you after this. And if I were you, I should see some
+one about the headaches. Nerves? Oh, yes! but it never does harm to
+have good advice. Good-bye, good-bye! God bless you, my dear. Now then,
+babies, why aren't the lot of you in bed?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The car rolled, smoothly and swiftly, southward and westward. Through
+brawling, chaffering Saturday night markets; through the old "Square
+Mile," deserted now, its mysterious lanes coiling away to left and
+right in tortuous perspective; across the Circus, in whose midst the
+bronze archer poises himself, choosing his prey and aiming his unseen
+arrow day and night at the spinning wheel of pleasure; round the sweep
+of the Quadrant--and home. Two and two, two and two; the men leaning
+over the women, the women leaning toward the men. Nature, after all,
+was slightly vulgar. To be placed--by circumstances--out of reach of
+its allurement had compensations--lent dignity to the point of view. It
+was almost enough to make one turn to virtue to have to share vice with
+so many....
+
+There she went again! Phrases, phrases! Well, it was just as well,
+since, after all, there wasn't much else left for her now. How tired
+she was of it all! And what was the great mercy that Father Vernon had
+predicted so confidently?... Home, at last.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Three hours, probably more," the doctor said. It was Pemmer-Lloyd, the
+great cancer specialist from Weymouth Street, just round the corner.
+He was in golfing tweeds, and felt justly aggrieved that, with so many
+general practitioners in the neighborhood, he should have been called
+away from breakfast, for this. The nine forty-five to Amersham was out
+of the question now.
+
+One window-blind had been drawn up, crookedly and hurriedly, and
+through the rhomboidal opening a sinister light fell upon the disorder
+of the room. Two frightened maids and a housekeeper stood at the foot
+of the bed, watching the doctor, with inane hope upon their faces. One
+of the maids was crying, but looking about her curiously at the same
+time.
+
+"Done? No! of course nothing can be done. Am I not telling you she has
+been dead over three hours. Had any doctor been attending her lately?"
+
+"Not to our knowledge, sir."
+
+"There may have to be an inquest, then. In that case you must see that
+nothing is touched. Have the family been advised?"
+
+"No, doctor. I thought first----"
+
+"Wire and 'phone them immediately! _immediately!_ and the police
+as well. Here is my card for the inspector. I shall have to stay at
+home all day now. In a case like this, you should always call a general
+practitioner."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They say she must have been reading a great part of the night. Two
+books were on the table near her bed--"Madame Bovary," and "The
+Imitation of Christ." Flaubert and à Kempis! Poor Althea! It was almost
+your life's epitome.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XV
+
+                              A LAST WISH
+
+
+Many will remember the profound impression that Althea's death created.
+It extended far beyond the circles that her novels had reached. There
+was something about that last mysterious journey through London--the
+sudden, unheralded end, at some conjectural hour, when the great
+heart of the city was beating its faintest, that struck the popular
+imagination, always ready to be harrowed, and secretly grateful, I
+believe, for evidence that fate works with an even grimness under all
+the inequalities of rank or fortune. I attended the funeral, combining
+for the last time my professional duties with the privileges of an old
+but lately neglected friend, and saw her committed to the awakening
+earth. She was buried with all the pomp and circumstance that the
+church of her adoption gives its children as a last assurance of its
+own unshaken power, but through all the chants and absolutions the
+chill human ache of an irreparable loss persisted, as, through the
+perfume of incense and flowers, the raw smell of the polished elm
+coffin pierced to the sense. The church was crowded with her friends;
+wreaths and crosses, lyres with snapped strings, broken columns of rare
+exotic flowers, all symbols of untimely end, were banked round the
+catafalque, but the coffin itself was stark and bare, covered thinly
+by a pall of purple silk wrought at its hem with passion flowers. The
+girls in some refuge or another, poor soiled doves whose unwearied
+friend she had been, had sat up, it was said, night and day in order to
+complete it.
+
+About the time that references to Mrs. Hepworth's career were ceasing
+to appear even in the minor papers, rumors of a theatrical hoax
+began to circulate through London. The new dancer, whom the zealous
+friendship of a certain well-known sporting baronet had forced upon
+an unwilling management, would not, after all, appear in the new play
+that was to replace the _Motor Girl_ at the Dominion some time in
+May. "_Would not appear!_" Imagine what an eye trained to cheat
+the censor of his spoil could make of that; with what significance a
+tongue, thrust into a leathery cheek not quite innocent of biscuit and
+cheese, at the Bedford Street Bodega, could invest those three little
+words.
+
+"_Will not appear_, my boy. Catch on? Why won't she? That's the
+joke, my boy. Because she's got to stop at home and _nurse her
+mother_."
+
+Imagine it! just once, and then let us pass on into sweeter air. Even
+if it must be the air of a sick-room. For many weeks Fenella hardly
+breathed any other. During that first breathless rally which hardly
+gave thought to the final issue, and during which a spoonful of broth
+swallowed, an hour's quiet rest or a fall in temperature were triumphs
+repaying the sleepless night, dull eye, and hollow cheek a hundredfold,
+career, character, seemed very empty, shadowy words. Even if one of
+the vile journals in pink and blue and yellow covers addressed in a
+handwriting needlessly disguised, which, be sure of it, the postman
+did not fail to deliver at Number Eleven, had reached her, had not--as
+all were, in fact, been torn from its wrapper by honest Frances' grimy
+hand to light parlor or kitchen fire--I doubt very much whether the
+marked paragraph would have had power to inflict one pang upon her
+self-respect, or bring one drop of blood to her cheek.
+
+How much she loved her mother, how far the wholesome, homely
+_fact_ of her had been the basis of all happiness in life, Nelly
+had not guessed until now, when the thought must be faced of its
+speedy change to a mere memory. A reproachful memory, alas! She looked
+back on her girlhood--her school-days, and saw herself heedless and
+heartless. How niggardly of love she had been, how chary in response!
+She even accused herself of a little snobbishness in her mother's
+regard--unjustly, since it was from the innate expansiveness of the
+older woman and not from the accident of station or manner that her
+own finer nature had shrunk. But, in circumstances like these, to be
+conscious of a finer nature does not administer much comfort.
+
+Mrs. Barbour rallied a little from the first stroke, but never rose
+from her bed, and never spoke intelligibly again. Sometimes, by bending
+close to her lips and straining every sense, Fenella fancied she could
+construe the formless gabble into words, but into the words even her
+affection could read no meaning. During the day, indeed, her presence
+seemed to agitate the invalid to such an extent that the nurse had to
+be roused and the desperate effort to speak cut short by some opiate
+or injection. Once, driven almost mad at sight of her mother's mental
+suffering, Fenella took a sheet of stiff white cardboard, propped the
+sick woman upon a pillow, and put a pencil into the palsied hand.
+Slowly, with infinite pains on the one hand and infinite patience on
+the other, five dreadful letters took shape upon the writing-pad; five
+letters such as a dying man might scrawl with a finger dipped into his
+heart's blood:
+
+                           "D--A--N--C--E."
+
+A light broke upon the girl. "You want me to go on rehearsing? Is that
+it, mother?"
+
+Oh! what joy in the poor fading eyes at being at last understood. The
+trembling head nodded again and again, and fell back on the pillow
+exhausted.
+
+"I will then, dear!" Fenella whispered in her mother's ear. "I'll go
+and put my things on at once."
+
+She came back, dressed as for the street, and kissed her mother
+good-bye. Ten minutes afterward, in response to a stealthy knock at
+the door, the little Scotch nurse whispered that the patient was fast
+asleep.
+
+From now until the day on which the slowly curdling brain ceased to
+receive any impression at all the little loving conspiracy of lies
+went on. Every morning, at the usual hour of her departure for the
+theatre, Fenella, in hat and long coat, kissed her mother's cheek and
+forehead, and asked her how the night had passed--that night whose
+every hour she often had watched. At seven o'clock, dressed again, she
+came back, having first laid her cheek to the marble mantelpiece in
+the drawing-room, that it might be convincingly cold. (The best women
+have these depths in deception, this recognition of the importance of
+trifles.) She would sit down upon the bed and regale her duped parent
+with a long and elaborate history of the day's doings--what Mr. Dollfus
+had said, what Mr. Lavigne had said--how tiresome the chorus were,
+how jealous the leading lady--how set, above all, were all signs and
+portents toward ultimate triumph. Her achievement in this new field
+stirred even little Frances, now become a person of vast importance and
+responsibility, to involuntary admiration.
+
+"Miss! You can't 'alf tell 'em!" that little helpmeet would say,
+harkening her.
+
+Whenever a protracted illness has ended in death it is a commonplace of
+comfort with well-meaning but shallow folk to say, "You must all feel
+it a _merciful release_." Apart from its sincerity, the phrase is
+founded upon a misconception of human feeling. No dead are missed so
+much as the dead who have been long a-dying. The presence of a perilous
+illness brings many an evil into a house; it at least casts one out.
+_Ennui_ never reigns in the house that has the straw in front of
+its railings. A great drama is going on, and there never is a moment
+when one may not steal upstairs on tiptoe to measure its progress.
+Hence, apart altogether from sorrow, a strange emptiness in life when
+all is over, a bitter superadded regret for the close, shadowed room,
+haunted by broken murmurs, that was once the core of a whole polity of
+existence.
+
+In her sad absorption Fenella forgot Sir Bryan all but completely. He
+wrote to her often. His letters, headed in black or blue, or embossed
+whitely in thick square letters--"The Turf Club"; "369 Mount Street,
+Tel. 9087 Mayfair"; "Coffers Castle. Parcels: Balafond Stn. N. B.
+R."--lay strewn about her dressing-table or stuck carelessly behind
+looking-glasses, for all the world, represented now by Nurse Ursula or
+Frances, to read if they would. (We will not suspect Nurse Ursula of
+such a thing for a moment, and on any that have been placed in my hands
+there is no such grimy finger-print as I am sure Frances would have
+left.) She answered rarely, and then only in little set missives, mere
+bulletins of her mother's health. She begged his pardon for leaving so
+many of his letters _unansered_. She was quite well, thank him,
+had had a quiet night, and felt quite _enegetic_. The doctor had
+been and said mother's _strenth_ was well maintained. She thanked
+him for the lovely grapes from Stanmore. She hoped that "Mud-Major"
+would win in the big race at Liverpool, and she remained sincerely
+his--Fenella Powys Barbour. She had decided on the full signature in
+letters to Lumsden. It sounded stately, and enforced respect. She would
+have been vastly surprised seeing the sort of respect with which the
+misspelt little notes were treated.
+
+It is only part of the general injustice of life that while the man
+who was doing his clumsy best to lighten her sorrow hardly stayed in
+her mind a moment after she had cast his letters aside or scribbled an
+answer to them, the false lover, who had kissed her in her own home,
+loved and ridden away, haunted every hushed empty corner of it. Her
+very unhappiness brought him back to her, as a new illness weakens the
+smart of an old wound. She had an impulse once, which the lonely and
+deserted will understand, to set her thoughts on paper in the form of a
+letter to him.
+
+    "MY DARLING LOST LOVE" (she began),
+
+    "What years and years it [_sic_] seems to have past since I
+    saw your dear face----"
+
+Then she stopped, and tore the sheet into little pieces. Anything
+approaching literary composition suddenly became hateful. The thought
+had occurred to her: How well the other woman could do this! The other
+woman--in her grave nearly a month.
+
+One morning, while she lingered outside her mother's door, after
+perpetrating the customary deception, Frances, the begrimed, brought
+her Lumsden's card in a corner of her apron. He was in the small
+drawing-room, straight and fair and good to look upon, standing amid a
+dusty huddle of chairs that had not been restored to their places since
+the doctors consulted there a week ago.
+
+"I came to see if you were killing yourself," he said, when they had
+shaken hands and he had asked after her mother.
+
+"Oh! I'm as strong as a horse."
+
+"That remark rather loses its force with me, because I know something
+about them. When did you take your feed--'horse'?"
+
+"Sir Bryan! I eat with nurse."
+
+"Oh! I know the sort of meals. You're dressed. Have you been out?"
+
+"N--no."
+
+"Just going then?"
+
+Fenella blushed, but did not reveal the pious fraud.
+
+"I've got the big car outside," said Lumsden. "Care to come for a run
+till tea?"
+
+The suggestion had its attractions.
+
+"I must run upstairs first. You don't mind waiting a minute?"
+
+Nurse not only gave permission, but a little straight hygienic talk
+she had been saving up, too professional to be repeated here. Fenella
+took her seat almost with a feeling of duty done. Bryan ordered the
+chauffeur into the back and took the wheel himself.
+
+"Tuck this round you. Now, where shall we go that's within reach?
+Richmond?"
+
+"Oh no!" hastily--"not Richmond. Let's go to Hampstead."
+
+"No; I don't care for Hampstead," with a sudden shadow of distaste. Two
+pasts met in their glance--her woman's fault of loving too well--and
+his.
+
+After a while the mere physical act of breathing fully and deeply
+again, the rush of the spring air, pleasantly cold, past her pallid
+cheeks, did their work, and unsealed the springs of joy in her own
+young breast--a facile joy, born of health and perfect balance, for
+which she had often blamed herself since the summer, ignorant of how
+between it, as between every function of her body, and the ascetic
+ideal which a heart, untimely chastened, sought to impose, there was
+war declared, in which she was a mere battle-ground for contending
+forces. It had rained hard in the forenoon. Now, level with their eyes,
+a belated sun flooded the suburbs with temperate gold, spilled its
+overflow on wet slate roofs, set bright jewels in the upper windows of
+gray stucco houses, and wove a filagree pattern, beaded with tender
+green buds in railed gardens and bristling walled shrubberies. Nothing
+was beneath its glorifying magic. Between the flashing tram-rails
+the very bed of the wide road seemed flooded with alluvial dust. A
+wonderful sky country, all mountain and islet-strewn tarn--such a
+landscape as may lie at the gate of dream-cities in the Alps--closed
+the prospect into which they were rushing. The wheels hummed, the six
+cylinders purred happily. She began to sing to herself, stretching her
+neck and pouting her lips, a foolish little song she had caught from
+one of the Dominion girls:
+
+    "I like your old French bonnet
+    With the ribbons on it,
+    And I like your cha-a-a-arming ways.
+    If you'll come to Parry
+    Then we two will marry
+    And our wedding march shall be the Marseillaise."
+
+"Feeling happier, Flash?"
+
+She had forgotten him. Now, as she turned, self-reproachful, at the
+sound of his voice, the unreasonable little fit of happiness took
+wing. Yet she could not but admire him. How cleverly and coolly he
+drove! What chances he took! They were passing every one. Once, at
+some congestion in the traffic, a policeman touched his helmet and let
+him through. He seemed to feel this was a man not used to wait his
+turn. Paul had once said to her that most men failed in life because
+its detail was too much for them to tackle; at least, this was what
+she made out of a rather more ornate speech. Bryan didn't seem to find
+any difficulty. She remembered Jack Barbour's comprehensive phrase,
+"Bryan's first-class in anything he takes up." Was it because she was
+ambitious, aspiring, herself that she resisted this power, instead of
+succumbing to it, as ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have
+done, and being content to shine with a reflected glory? She had had
+her own little dream of success--the packed theatre, the thunders of
+applause, her name flashing and winking in letters of fire--part of
+the madness of a great city by night--paragraphs, interviews. All very
+mean and personal, no doubt, yet with an element in them that somehow
+dignified the ambition. For to be the favorite of the public was what
+she wanted--nothing else would do--the great good-hearted public, that
+rings its hard-earned shilling or half-crown upon the ledge of the
+ticket-office, shopman and clerk with honest wife and sweetheart at his
+side, equally ready to laugh or cheer or cry, who dip a mutual finger
+into a box of chocolates and believe that even a dancer can be an
+honest girl.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVI
+
+                                AZRAEL
+
+
+They stopped at a little place in a fold of the Chiltern Hills, a
+mere roadside inn which the neighborhood of a fashionable golf-course
+had galvanized into new and rather graceful life. The stone front was
+covered in ivy, two wings of red brick terminated in sunny bay windows,
+there was a bowling-green at the back, and an academician had repainted
+the sign. A few men in tweeds and flannels whom Lumsden appeared to
+know were strolling about the place, but abstained tactfully from more
+than a passing greeting. While tea was getting ready the baronet lit
+a cigar, and the girl gathered a bunch of primroses in the garden and
+pinned them at her waist. Now that she had taken off the heavy coat
+he had insisted on her wearing, he noticed for the first time the
+shabbiness of her black house-frock. A white thread, dropped from some
+needlework, clung to one sleeve.
+
+Lumsden was a man for whom some kind of a love affair had always been a
+necessity. Even before he left Eton he had had friends among women of
+the world. His bluff, slangy manners covered a good deal of intensity
+of a rather un-English sort. Men of Scotch race have a subtlety
+denied to the obtuser Southron. They are both more steadfast and more
+perfidious. His early manhood had been shaken by one great passion,
+which had ended unhappily and which it is no part of our business to
+disinter. A long series of inconclusive sentimental experiments had
+followed it; inconclusive, because he had the grace or the vanity to
+think that, had it been constancy he was seeking, he might often enough
+have found it. The devotion, indeed, which one might strike up against
+in unexpected quarters was, in his opinion, a serious drawback to
+the game. He was a generous lover. The idol of the moment was always
+bravely apparelled, always had plenty of tinsel on it, and if a sense
+of its inadequacy oppressed him, he got rid of the feeling by putting
+on a little more. All he had asked latterly was that it should simper
+prettily and do him credit. He was deceived, of course, from time to
+time, but never before his own waning attention had given betrayal at
+once its justification and its clue. Thus it fell out that, although
+his favored pastime had cost him a great deal of money, it had never
+cost him what such a man would consider his self-respect. It will save
+time to admit that his intentions toward his young cousin (she was not
+really his cousin, we know, but he liked to speak of her, even think of
+her so) had not been honorable. That she was kin and of the same caste
+as himself had no weight with a man accustomed to divide women into two
+classes--those he would not marry under any circumstances and those
+whom he would only marry if there were no help for it. Fenella, to do
+him justice (and, in a way, to do her justice too), had belonged to the
+second class from the beginning, but her emergence from it now into a
+category all by itself was not due to any recognition on his part of
+her integrity--why should he recognize what he had not tempted?--but
+simply and solely to the fact that the illness of that poor lady, her
+mother, had upset all his early calculations. He had his own code of
+conduct, and one of them was that you can not call at a girl's home,
+inquire after the maternal health, send the invalid fruit and game, and
+then--well, without an entire change in perspective as regards her. Of
+late, indeed, she had lain in his imagination to a quite distressing
+extent. The impulse that had made him give up a day's hunting and come
+spurring to her side over ten miles of muddy ground had not failed
+to repeat itself again and again. His thoughts turned toward her
+incessantly. At every man's tale of fraud and wrong her image stirred
+uneasily in his imagination, and the ideal, rather deferred than quite
+disowned, to which his whole life had done violence, joined with his
+passion in pleading for a reparation that was at once so easy and so
+pleasant. Women are generally avenged competently by some woman. The
+eclipse of the individual in the species never lasts. She emerges,
+armed with all the old illusions, and often at the very moment when a
+man is weakest to do battle with her.
+
+Smoking silently, he looked at her now, busied with the pretty feminine
+duties of milk-jug and sugar-tongs, marked the perceptible changes of
+face and figure since their first encounter. His experience projected,
+as it were, her maturity, even her gray hairs upon her--owned that she
+would always be charming, always a sweet woman.
+
+"Dreaming, Flash?"
+
+She had only been respecting his own silent mood, but did not deny her
+abstraction.
+
+"I was thinking of the Dominion. When's the first night?"
+
+"In about three weeks. It'll be _Hamlet_ without the prince for
+some of us, eh, coz?"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"You must only look upon it as put off for awhile," he said
+reassuringly. "You'll get another chance."
+
+She shook her head. "I don't feel I shall. Don't you ever feel there's
+just one time for the one thing?"
+
+"Even if I didn't, Shakespeare has. But you're over-young, Flash, to be
+thinking of fortune at the ebb."
+
+He looked down at her hand. There were no rings on it. He had a
+suspicion that was confirmed when she snatched it off the table and put
+it in her lap.
+
+"Don't think me impertinent, but will it make much difference, I mean
+financial difference, to you if your mother dies?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm afraid so. But I have a little money coming to me
+when I'm twenty-one. Not a lot."
+
+"How old are you now?"
+
+"Nearly nineteen."
+
+"Two years! What are you going to do meanwhile?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, or maybe shivered. Life _was_ gray
+with the dream out of it.
+
+"Work, I suppose--at something. I can always teach dancing again."
+
+"Flash, I'm ungodly rich. Won't you let me----"
+
+"_Bryan!_"
+
+It was the first time she had ever called him familiarly by his name,
+but her face was so shocked and white, her voice so like a real cry of
+pain, that he did not notice it. He flushed, and churned the gravel
+with his heel.
+
+"What have I said? Do you know, young woman, I don't find the
+expression on your face very flattering."
+
+"Bryan! If I thought you meant what you've just said, you--I--we----"
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Never, _never_ could meet again."
+
+Lumsden swallowed his humiliation, but it didn't go down very far.
+
+"I beg your pardon. Will that do? There was some excuse for me, you
+know. You let me help you once before."
+
+"Not with money."
+
+He wasn't in a mood to be very delicate. "Wasn't it?" he said with a
+short laugh. "Never mind, then."
+
+"Why do you laugh that funny way?" said Fenella, with unexpected
+spirit. "You must tell me now. Did you have to pay Dollfus to take me?"
+
+"Dear _ingénue_! Do you mean to say you've never suspected it? You
+don't think Dollfus is in business for hygienic reasons, do you?"
+
+"Much money?" she persisted.
+
+"Oh, ask Joe," said Lumsden, rather wearily. "He's on the telephone."
+
+Fenella beat her palms against the side of the chair. "I've been a
+fool," she went on, in a fierce soliloquy, "a little, credulous
+donkey. No wonder that girl thought me a fraud! And yet--I believed you
+all believed in me. Do you think I'd ever have let you--unless I felt
+sure? Oh! you must know it."
+
+"My dear child, be content. You carry conviction. I acquit you from
+this moment of everything unmaidenly, generosity included."
+
+"Generosity!"
+
+"Yes. It sometimes requires as much to take as to give. But you're like
+all women."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"When they're not insulted at being offered money they're insulted it
+isn't more."
+
+"How dare you call me 'women'?"
+
+"Does it hurt your dignity?"
+
+"Never mind what it hurts. You've no right to speak that way, to class
+me with--with others. Oh, yes, you have, though. I'd forgotten."
+
+"Flash, let me tell you one thing: No matter how young or charming or
+virtuous you may be, to keep harping on what you know hurts a man's
+feelings is to be a shrew."
+
+"Your 'feelings'!" The vexation went out of her face. She leaned
+her chin on her hand and gave him a look so piercing, so direct and
+unexpected, that it went through all his worldly armor.
+
+"Well?" he asked, grimly, through his teeth. She never guessed the
+restraint he was putting on himself. "Haven't I a right to any?"
+
+She looked away without answering.
+
+He got up abruptly. "Let's go home," he said. "We've had enough
+heart-to-heart talk for one afternoon."
+
+They rode back into the London lights in a silence which the gentleman
+in the peaked cap who drove them probably misconstrued as perfect
+accord. "They don't talk much, not w'en they're 'olding 'ands," he said
+that night in his favored house of call. But he only held her hand
+once, to say good-bye at the door.
+
+"Have I been a prig?" asked Fenella, contritely.
+
+He seemed to be turning the matter over, but was really thinking how
+prettily penitence became her.
+
+"Have I offended you?"
+
+"I'll tell you whether you have some other time."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Apparently not beyond forgiveness, for he came again two days later
+and took her for an hour's drive--and then the next day. Good or bad,
+the habit formed itself. Two or three times she allowed herself to be
+persuaded further, and let him take her to dinner. At such an hour the
+big restaurants would not be very full; but it seemed Bryan could not
+go anywhere without meeting a man he knew, and who, while speaking,
+divided his attention pretty evenly between the baronet, half-turned
+in his chair, holding the lapel of his friend's coat, and the pretty
+stranger to whom he was not introduced. He was very kind and cousinly;
+had theories as to what people should eat (he never asked her to drink)
+when low-spirited and anxious, kept clear of the personal note, and
+always saw she got back in time. Thus, little by little, the hint she
+had received of a dangerous hardness in his nature was effaced. In
+time of trouble the heart receives more impressions than the head,
+and it is wonderful into what bulk tearful eyes can magnify a little
+kindness. Fenella was to blame herself subsequently for her conduct
+during the last days of her mother's life; but I think, perhaps too
+indulgently, that it was only the instinct to grasp at enjoyment while
+enjoyment was possible. The very pang of self-reproach with which she
+took up her nightly task might have convinced her of this. Old habits
+are not effaced in an instant. From babyhood she had known no surer
+way to make her mother happy than by seizing all opportunities for
+pleasure that came her way. Outsiders who suspect love because it falls
+from some arbitrary standard they choose to set up have no idea how
+often apparent heartlessness is justified by some such little secret
+covenant between the loving and the loved. And then, though the period
+of suspense was short, it passed so heavily. The days seemed counted
+out with pitiful slowness by a power that knew how few they were.
+Time, like distance, deceives when one is seeking the way. She was so
+fearfully alone! Her vision sometimes ached at the obscurity of her own
+destiny. In that still room uncertainties seemed to multiply, thicken
+and coil, like smoke in a tunnel. She envied every one in turn--Nurse
+Ursula, with her brisk professional manner and endless prospect of
+clearly defined duty--cases to come running into perspective like beds
+in a long ward; slatternly, pretty little Frances, with her brisk
+love-passages in the area; the woman upon the bed, nearer with every
+breath to a change that raises no problems but solves them all. She
+often whispered in her mother's ear, "Mother, mother; take me with you.
+Don't go without Nelly."
+
+Foolish extravagances of an undisciplined heart. Even for death, Nelly,
+we have to wait until the time for enjoying it is past.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early one morning, following a night in which her mother had seemed
+much easier, and in the very first hour of her untimely sleep, the
+nurse shook her by the shoulder. In the one look that the two women
+exchanged her news was told. Fenella huddled on her clothes and
+followed to the sick-room. Her mother was breathing strangely. Every
+inspiration was like the hiccough that follows a fit of weeping in
+a child. Her brows were knitted--she seemed puzzled and absorbed.
+Occasionally she tried to lift a hand stiffly and clumsily toward
+her head. By noon all was over. The doctor called twice, and, for
+the first time in many days, failed to write a new prescription. The
+lawyer was telephoned for. About three o'clock in the afternoon two
+decent pew-opening bodies were admitted without question, stole
+upstairs, and, having performed their office, stole as quietly away.
+The charwoman stayed for tea, and uncovered a rich vein of reminiscence
+suitable for the occasion. The blinds were drawn down, the windows
+opened. Outside, in the square, was heard the champing of bits, the
+rattle of the harness, that poor Mrs. Barbour had loved to listen to of
+an afternoon in spring or autumn.
+
+Toward evening, when they were all done with the dead woman, Fenella
+went softly upstairs. Nurse Ursula, upon whose breast, for want of a
+nearer, the orphaned girl's first passion of grief had spent itself,
+but whose attentions harassed her now, would have accompanied her, but
+she would have no one. She approached the door full of awe as well as
+sorrow. Within it seemed some dark angel, with brimming chalice, had
+been waiting till she was calm enough to drink. There was something
+sacramental in this first visit to her dead; her passion composed
+itself for the encounter. Through the lowered blinds the afternoon
+sun filled the room with a warm amber light. The windows were opened
+slightly at the bottom, and the fresh spring wind puffed and sucked at
+the light casement curtains. She laid her head down upon the pillow
+and put her lips to the chill, sunken temples, upon which she felt
+the hair still damp from the sweat of the death-struggle. As there
+are depths in the sea which the hardiest diver cannot support save
+with constraint of breathing, so there are depths of sorrowful reverie
+wherein the soul abdicates for a time its faculties of memory and
+comparison. Fenella did not cry nor remember nor rebel. The briny
+flood rose quietly--encompassed her utterly--covered her insensibly at
+the temperature of her own forsaken heart. Sorrow so deep has many of
+sleep's attributes. She had been vaguely conscious for some time of a
+knocking at the door before she raised her head. It was turned quite
+dark; the charwoman, with a candle lighting up her frightened face,
+stood in the open door.
+
+"Mrs. Chirk! How dare you disturb me."
+
+"Oh, miss, I'm sorry; but I knocked and knocked. Nurse is upstairs and
+Frances is out, and there's two gentlemen below says they must see you.
+I 'aven't told them nothink, miss, not knowin' as you'd 'ave me."
+
+Some more of the dreary business of death, she concluded. She went
+to her own room, bathed her eyes, dressed her hair hurriedly, and
+came downstairs. She started as she opened the dining-room door. Her
+visitors were Lumsden and the Dominion manager.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVII
+
+                          A DREAM COMES TRUE
+
+
+The two men were in evening dress, standing a good way apart. Both
+seemed ill at ease, and each showed it in a different fashion. Bryan
+was pulling at his fair moustache, and Mr. Dollfus, his watch in
+his hand, full of suppressed excitement, had evidently just checked
+himself in a nervous pacing of the carpet. Before she could give her
+indignation words, Bryan came quickly across the room, and kept her
+silent with a gesture.
+
+"Miss Barbour, just a word before you say anything, and before Dollfus
+tells you our errand. I've brought him here to-night because I don't
+want either you or him to reproach me afterward that I came between
+you and even a hundred-to-one chance; but I want you to know before
+he begins that the whole thing's against my judgment, and against
+my inclination, too. Now then, Joe, fire away, and remember time's
+valuable."
+
+The Jew only seemed to have been waiting to burst forth.
+
+"Mith Barbour," he exclaimed, with a nervous movement of his hands, and
+lisping worse than ever, "I wantcher to thave me."
+
+"To save you?"
+
+"Yeth. Oh, don't look at me that way. I'm thpeakin' sense. Dontcher
+know what's happenin' to-night?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"What!" he almost screamed; "you meanter thay you've forgotten. It's
+the first night of the _Dime Duchess_. They're playin' the second
+act now, and, by Gott, the piece is damned already!"
+
+He wiped his dripping forehead with a big scented handkerchief, and
+began to pace the floor again, flinging out his arms exuberantly.
+
+"It's a conthpiracy from beginning to end," he cried, shrilly--"a
+conthpiracy! I tell yer, Lumpsden, I bin in front, and I know a lot of
+the faces. Fifty or sixty of Costello's people if there's vun. I'll
+haf the law on him. But cher can't turn out sixty people, eh! They've
+stopped Ormiston's encore twice; Mith Carthew's so frightened she can't
+sing a note. Three months' work and thousants of pounds gone to h--ll
+in a night, by Gott!"
+
+"Stop swearing and raving, Joe, and tell the girl what you want."
+
+Dollfus sobered himself with a great effort and wiped his mouth.
+
+"Scuthe my langwitch, please, Miss Barbour," he said in a lower tone.
+"I'm excited; I ain't meself. I wantcher ter come and dance."
+
+Fenella stared at him. "To _dance_! to-night?"
+
+Bryan, who had kept his back to them, turned his head now.
+
+"That's right, Flash," he said over his shoulder, "my advice to you is
+'don't you do it.' Joe's crazy, but he ain't exaggerating much. They're
+pretty wild over something in front."
+
+Dollfus shook his head despairingly from side to side.
+
+"There you go Lumpsden, there you go agen. You're all wrong. I've bin
+tellin' him that all the vay in the cab. He don't know the public like
+I do. They're jutht in the mood now when somethin' new and somethin'
+good'll carry 'em off their feet. Mith Barbour, I haf ter go back
+anyhow. It'th for you ter decide. Will you come or wontcher?"
+
+"Bryan," she said. "Doesn't he know?" pointing to the ceiling with her
+head.
+
+"Bout cher mother!" said Dollfus, who was watching her narrowly.
+"Courthe I know the poor lady'th ill. But I'll take yer down and I'll
+bring yer back. Think? Three quarters of an hour! You'll never be
+mithed."
+
+"Mr. Dollfus, mamma died this morning."
+
+The Dominion manager took up his hat without a word and walked on
+tiptoe to the door. Bryan followed and, if looks could have killed, Mr.
+Dollfus's troubles would have been over then and there. In the hall the
+little man turned.
+
+"Mith Barbour, pleathe, _pleathe_ belief me. Not for a thousant
+pounds, not for ten thousant, I vouldn't er had this happen. I couldn't
+know, could I--ah? I gotter heart--eh? You von't t'ink the vorse of me?"
+
+"Oh, come on!" said the baronet, taking hold of his sleeve. "Haven't
+you done enough mischief already?"
+
+"_Stop!_" cried Fenella, so loudly that both men obeyed. She
+stood rigid for a moment, pressing her hands over her eyes. Across her
+brain in letters like fire the last message from the beloved dead was
+throbbing and glowing. "_Dance! Dance!_"
+
+"I'll come, Joe!" she cried. "Just two minutes to put on my cloak,
+that's all. Don't stop me, Bryan! I know what I'm doing. Let me pass!
+Oh, I've had enough of its being made smooth and easy for me. I'm one
+of the crowd to-night, and I'm going to help 'em pull the fat out of
+the fire. I can do it, too. I never was afraid, and I've got a bit up
+my sleeve you haven't seen."
+
+She was gone and back in a moment, cloaked and with a little box under
+her arm.
+
+"My make-up box," she said, tapping it. "I just thought of it in time.
+Have you got the car outside? How long'll it take? Mrs. Chirk!" she
+called down the kitchen stairs. "Tell nurse I've been called away on
+business and not to sit up."
+
+"You're a herrowen, a herrowen," said Joe, dabbing at his eyes this
+time, as they took their seats in the cab.
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not, Joe. No more than any of the other girls. Do you
+think I'm the only woman that's got to grin to-night when she'd rather
+cry? I never was stage-struck, like other girls. I always knew it was
+'work! work!' once you were over the floats. Don't look so glum, Bryan.
+That's 'cos he only knows half our business, isn't it, Joe? He's only
+a dabbler. It's bread and butter and a bed to lie on, and perhaps
+medicine for somebody's mother, isn't it, Joe? Some of those girls told
+me they'd been eighteen months out and three months rehearsing! Think
+of it! Oh, why doesn't he get through the traffic?"
+
+The front of the Dominion flashed past, festooned with boards
+announcing that stalls and dress circle and amphitheatre were full. The
+vestibule round the box office was crowded with men in dress clothes.
+
+"They're just t'rough the second act," said Dollfus. "Now you know what
+you've gotter do." And he repeated his instructions. At the stage door
+he took her hand and pulled her after him, past the wicket and down the
+whitewashed corridor, full of girls in spangled finery, who gazed at
+her in amazement and drew aside to let them pass. Near the wings the
+manager was pounced on by various subalterns, but he waved them aside
+furiously.
+
+"Go 'way! ask some vun else! Do somethin'! Getter hustle on! What
+is it, Mr. Lavigne? Oh! the band parts for the cymbal dance. Take
+'em rount to Steiner. I ain't the orchestra! Run up to your old
+dressin'-room," he said, and let go of her hand; "I'll send up your
+own dresser. Mr. Lavigne--have the old cue put back. You know. What's
+it--'muffins'?"
+
+Jack Ormiston was just finishing his third song as she came down
+dressed, made up in vivid white and carmine, and with the little silver
+cymbals on her hands. He tumbled off, breathless, perspiring through
+his grease paint, and stood for a moment, his knees trembling, trying
+to catch some encouragement amid the babel of cheers, counter--cheers,
+whistles, cat-calls, and cries of "Order!" that followed him through.
+And she had to face _that_ presently--unknown, untested, her name
+not even on the programme.
+
+"Do you think you can do it, Flash?" Bryan asks, nervously, chewing
+his moustache. In defiance of the "well-known Dominion rule" he has
+followed her behind.
+
+"Wait and see!" she says, without looking at him, and next moment has
+taken her cue and is on the stage.
+
+In front the vast concavity of the auditorium sweeps away from her
+feet, outward and upward. It is dark, confused and populous, full of
+faces, like pebbles, she fancies, dragged seaward by a retreating
+wave--flecked white with shirt fronts and fluttering programmes--a
+hungry monster, ready to engulf her at a tremor or hint of fear. Its
+hot breath mingles with the cold down-draught of the stage like the
+flush and chill of an ague. Beyond the blurred footlights her eyes,
+misty with emotion, watch the leader of the orchestra lifting the
+first languid bars of the score. His head is turned toward her. In a
+moment he will give her her signal. Yet, though not a single stroke
+of his baton but is counted by her, as she waits, poised and tense,
+for the note upon which, with a clash of cymbals and a tremor of her
+whole body, the dance must begin, her thoughts, strangely detached and
+visionary, stray far away from the present moment with its personal
+crisis of success or failure, to brood, with a perverse preference,
+over the two great sorrows of her life--the lover who forsook her at
+the cross-roads of his own ambition because she had not wealth or wit
+to hold him--the mother, deserted now in her turn, whose waxen fingers,
+stitch by stitch, had sewn the very dress she is wearing, and who lies
+at home unwatched or watched only by strangers on the first night
+of her pitiful state. Life! life! this is life. Something beautiful
+yet horrible, too. Something that in its demand for service--for
+distraction--takes as little heed of the woman's breaking heart as it
+took of the man's thwarted ambition.
+
+"_B-r-r-r!_" The note is reached. As she clashes her cymbals
+together all visions take flight. The music rises like a flood, pours
+over the footlights, enters into her and possesses her utterly. She
+has sold herself to it, and, true to the bargain, her bangled feet
+beat--beat out the rhythm upon the boards as they once, upon the sand,
+had beaten out a tune that one man and the eternal sea sang together.
+Not a movement of her body above the waist but is poised upon them,
+governed by their shifts and changes, and nothing is stranger than,
+having watched them awhile at their work, quick and calculated as
+the shuttle of a machine into which a brain of steel has been built,
+to look upward to where arms and breast and head thrown back are all
+partners in some dream of an unattained desire, that hovers just out
+of reach of the inviting arms, swoops wilfully for a moment to touch
+the pursed lips, and, just as it is clasped convulsively to the heaving
+breast, escapes, to leave her gazing after it with set, expressionless
+face and limbs, suddenly grown rigid again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_B-r-r-r!_" The cymbals bray their harsh discord anew. The music
+begins, more faintly at first; slowly, slowly it woos the coy vision
+back to her arms. Her face softens. Out of despair intenser desire is
+born. Nearer and nearer still. But a new note of warning has crept
+into the score. A muffled drum-tap, hardly heard at first, grows
+louder--falls faster. And her face changes with it. To bewilderment,
+horror succeeds rapidly. Either this is not the dream that fled her
+arms before, or else some new significance in what she sees terrifies
+her, now when it is too late. Straight and level as a blow it reaches
+her. She covers her eyes, tries to strike it down, holds it from her
+with outstretched hands, folds her arms across her breast to deny it
+entrance. The music tears through crescendo to climax, and all the
+time she is dancing as well as acting--dancing with all her strength
+and skill. She cannot feel the tension of the audience, does not know
+what a tribute is in its breathless attention. She only knows that
+her dance is nearing its end and that they are silent. Why does no one
+cheer or clap their hands? Is it possible that, amid those hundreds,
+not one knows how well the thing is being done? Furore or failure:
+this had been prophesied of her, and she had given no thought to the
+alternative. It is to be failure then. All her work is to go for
+nothing--her dishonor, the violence done her own feelings to-night--for
+nothing. With success she might even have forgiven herself. A great
+terror seizes her of the pitiless many-headed monster whom she has
+wooed in vain and whose churlish silence has power to change all she
+had thought inspiration into the dross of a crazy, heady folly. It is
+beginning to murmur--to move restlessly. As she holds her arms out to
+it in a sort of last abject appeal, the murmuring grows louder. It is
+the wave, the wave again, of her first fancy, that has hung suspended
+while she danced, and that now, gathering volume, rears its head to
+finally overwhelm her with shame and confusion. She was mad to have
+ventured! Nothing living can face it! She stifles a scream, dances out
+the last furious finale of the orchestra, and falls prostrate, her arms
+stretched out before her, the silver cymbals held upward.
+
+Everything turns dark and thunderous. She feels the chorus sweep past
+her with a glitter of gold legs and a stiff rustle of skirts; fancies
+that the orchestra is playing again, but that something louder and
+stormier is drowning it; gets shakily to her feet, takes one frightened
+glance at the tumult before her, and, with a half curtsey, totters
+through the wings. Mr. Dollfus rushes to meet her; he is shaking her
+hands again and again, some one else is holding her round the waist and
+whispering in her ear.
+
+"Pull yourself together, Flash! It's all right. You must go on--once,
+anyhow. Damn it, Joe, give the girl a few moments. Can't you see it's
+got over her?"
+
+"Did I--do--all right?" says Fenella, between gasps.
+
+"All right?" Dollfus repeats, excitedly. "Cantcher hear 'em? Listen to
+the noise! Wotcher think they mean? Come--surely to gootness, you're
+ready now?"
+
+She is calmer, and draws herself out of the baronet's arms.
+
+"Go on, kid," he says, as he lets her go. "Go on, and taste popularity.
+Take a good long drink of it, Flash."
+
+As she came through the wings the dropping fire of applause exploded
+into a roar again. It was nearly three minutes--I mean three real
+minutes--before she was done kissing her hands to us all, and the play
+was allowed to proceed to its triumphant finale. I happen to know,
+because I was in front, and a good deal of what you have been reading
+is my own impression, on record in the columns of the _Panoply_,
+of the night Fenella Barbour came into her kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII
+
+                            ICE TO THE MOON
+
+
+And yet an hour later, when the theatre was empty, the cheering and
+the speeches done, and the linotypes were pecking various people's
+impressions of a wonderful night into place, she was crying as though
+her heart would break. She was sitting in Lumsden's study in a big
+chintz-covered arm-chair. She had taken off her hat but not her
+cloak, and her hair fell in some disorder over tear-stained cheeks.
+The baronet sat on the edge of a table opposite her, his long shapely
+black legs stretched out before him. He had changed his coat for a silk
+dressing-jacket and was smoking a cigarette. In spite of his air of
+being at home, something in his face, harassed and unquiet, checked the
+inference that he was also at his ease. His thin hair was ruffled and
+his eyes were a little bloodshot. Quite frequently he reached across to
+a tray on which a syphon, a cut-glass bottle, and a long thin tumbler
+kept cheerful company.
+
+"Don't you think you've cried about enough, Flash?" he suggested,
+presently.
+
+She pressed a handkerchief, already wet through, against her eyes, but
+made no attempt to check the flow. There was something disquieting in
+this steady drain upon her emotions. It seemed to tell of a mortal
+wound to affection or self-respect.
+
+"I t-told you I should. You should have let me go home."
+
+"My dear child, it's natural you should cry after what you've been
+through. But there's a point where every one ought to stop. You'll make
+yourself ill."
+
+"I shall never forgive myself--_never, never_!"
+
+This was a point of view that the baronet had evidently tried to combat
+already, and unsuccessfully. He sighed, and took another drink.
+
+"I'm bad--wicked--heartless and disgraced." She jumped up and began to
+button her coat.
+
+"I must go--at once!" she cried. "Where did you put my hat?"
+
+"_Flash!_"
+
+She was so near him that without rising he could put out his hand and
+catch her arm. She looked at his face and sat down, weakly and as if
+fascinated. He held her so for a few moments, and then turned his eyes
+away.
+
+"Don't be a little muff!" he said.
+
+His words seemed to relieve a tension. She giggled hysterically.
+
+"You're up here to-night," he went on deliberately, "because I made you
+come up, and because I wasn't going to have you go home, after eating
+nothing all day, to a house where every one's in bed, and cry yourself
+to sleep or lie awake starving and self-reproachful. You won't be so
+hard on yourself after eating and drinking something. Hello!"
+
+There was a stir and tinkle of glass and china from the inner room.
+Bryan threw the door open.
+
+"Bring it in here, Becket," he said.
+
+Two servants entered, carrying a tray. Quickly as a conjuror the elder
+of the two cleared the low table, spread a fringed linen cloth and laid
+out supper. There was soup in brown silver-covered bowls, and something
+in a tureen with a white tongue of flame licking the bottom, and an
+epergne of fruit topped with a big pine and a phalanx of thin glasses.
+The footman put a pail on the ground full of cracked ice, out of which
+three long bottle-necks were sticking. He began to cut the cork of one
+of them loose.
+
+"Anybody call while I was out, Becket?"
+
+"Madame called about nine, Sir Bryan."
+
+"Again?" he said, in a surprised voice.
+
+"Yes, Sir Bryan."
+
+"Did she leave any message?"
+
+"She said you would probably hear from her to-night, Sir Bryan."
+
+Lumsden looked at the clock and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"You needn't wait up, Becket," he said. "I'll telephone to the garage."
+
+The outer door closed softly upon the two men. Neither of them had
+looked at her once.
+
+"Now then," said Lumsden, expanding hospitably. "Sit where you are and
+I'll wait on you." He put a napkin over her knees, tilted the scalding
+bouillon into her soup-plate, and filled two glasses with the spumy
+wine. He emptied one himself and refilled it immediately.
+
+"Aren't _you_ going to eat anything?" asked Fenella.
+
+"Oh! I've had dinner. Besides, I'm a bit off my oats, Flash. Been
+worried lately." He gazed at the fire awhile, chewing one end of his
+moustache, but didn't enlarge upon the reason of his disquiet.
+
+"Is that all you can eat?" he asked presently, seeing she put aside her
+plate. "You must have some Hide-and-Seek, then. You should have taken
+some first. It'll give you an appetite; and it'll give you a color
+besides. That's another of my worries. You're too pale, child. Have you
+always been so?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Oh! it's all right, then. Of course it's a divine color; but one
+doesn't want an artistic effect at the expense of health. Well, Flash,
+here's a toast: 'The New Life,' Miss Fenella Powys Barbour." He bowed
+profoundly and emptied his glass.
+
+Fenella just sipped her own wine. A suspicion that had crossed her mind
+even in her own house, and again when Lumsden held her in the wings,
+but which, in her excitement, she had forgotten, returned upon her.
+Every time he filled and drained his glass fear clutched at her heart.
+
+"What a rummy little face you made then, Flash. You won't do that when
+you're ten years older. No, no! Thank God for the juice of the grape.
+It's killed more men than bullets, but it's better to be full of it
+than full of bullets. 'Ah! eh!' as Joe would say. Don't jump!--'tother
+cork's just going."
+
+"Bryan, don't drink any more. It--it isn't fair to me."
+
+"Oh, oh! So that's the secret? That's why we're such a tongue-tied
+little lady: that's why we've lost our appetite? My dear kiddie, you
+surely don't think a bottle more or less makes any difference to an old
+war-horse like myself. But I love you for hating it. It's a low taste
+for a girl. I get fits of loathing myself; sometimes even the smell
+suggests dyed hair. There, then!" He thrust the open bottle back into
+the melting ice. "Now, turn to vinegar!... But I'll tell you a secret,
+Flash. Half the work of the world is done by men who aren't quite sober
+after nine o'clock. Just cosy, y' know. And the best paid half, too. I
+could give you names that would surprise you. It's a rummy world."
+
+He meditated awhile on the strangeness of the world against which he
+had so little cause of complaint, shook his head, and, probably from
+force of habit, mixed himself a whiskey and soda.
+
+"What was I saying when we were interrupted? Oh, yes; I remember.
+I'll tell you while I'm cutting up one of these little brown birds.
+Why--just this, Flash. You're unhappy because you're confusing reasons
+with motives. One can have all sorts of reasons, good and bad mixed,
+but it's the motive that counts. Take yourself to-night. Why did you
+come and dance? Well, Joe in tears is an affecting sight: that's one.
+Then you don't like to see work and worry wasted: that's another. And I
+think you're a helpful little baby. That makes three good 'uns. Suppose
+in with all these there was a bit of vanity mixed, a little half-formed
+wish to show 'em a trick or two and a very pretty shape...."
+
+He stopped suddenly and threw down the knife and fork he had been
+plying. "I say, Flash, don't you think you and I ought to know where we
+stand?"
+
+"Where we stand?" Her mouth went suddenly dry.
+
+"Yes"--nervously but stubbornly--"where you and I stand. It's the
+proper time for it. There's a new life beginning for you to-night,
+Flash. I don't want to exaggerate it; I've seen too many of these
+things end in smoke, and the time's gone by for any Lola Montes. The
+world wants things just as bad, but it wants to pay less for 'em. But
+you're good for three or four years, and that looks a long way ahead
+to me. Flash, what do you think of me? I mean, personally. Bryan
+Lumsden--the human animal?"
+
+"How can I tell? I don't know you well enough."
+
+"That's the sort of answer that tries to gain time and only loses it.
+I'm playing _bona fide_, Flash: don't you play Punchinello. You're
+woman enough to know the most important thing about me."
+
+"Important for you, perhaps."
+
+"Yes, my clever girl, and for you, too. You can't play the lone hand
+forever. All life's a conspiracy against it. When fate throws two
+people like you and me together, it doesn't let them go under an
+explanation, at least. Let's have ours."
+
+She covered her eyes. "Not to-night, Bryan; not to-night. Think what
+I've been through."
+
+"Yes, to-night, coz. Don't look scared. You ain't going to hear
+anything you shouldn't. I'll begin at the beginning.... Nine or ten
+months ago, you know, I was at La Palèze. I'd been asked to put money
+in, and I went for a look. God knows why I stayed on. We didn't have
+much to do in the evenings except talk scandal, and I admit there was a
+good deal talked about a French artist and his pretty model, who were
+staying together in the town. You've heard, perhaps, how common that
+arrangement is all along the coast. But this time they said the model
+was English, and even before I saw you I felt sorry for you. It's
+a kind of national pride, I suppose. We ain't angels ourselves, but
+we don't like to think of our own women that way, abroad. My bedroom
+window looked right out along the beach, and when I was dressing for
+dinner I used often to see you coming back along the sands. Do you
+remember it?"
+
+Fenella was leaning forward now, intense interest on her face, her lips
+parted, and her eyes half closed.
+
+"I know--I know," she broke in. "We used to go to Sables and have tea
+in a little windy, boardy place that he said reminded him of America.
+It was about half-past seven or seven when we used to come back, wasn't
+it? And the hotel windows seemed to be all on fire, and the village all
+low and gray and sad, and, however quick we walked, the streak from the
+sun over the water kept up and dazzled us. And I used to stop and grub
+for shells and funny things, and when I looked up he'd be miles ahead,
+and I had to run--run--oh! I'm sorry for interrupting." She looked at
+Lumsden and all the glow died out. "Go on, Bryan."
+
+His mouth twitched and his face grew dark.
+
+"Well, I spoke to you at last. I hope you remember that as vividly.
+It didn't seem a great sin against propriety under the circumstances.
+You'd gone before I found out who you were. If I had known, it might
+have made a difference. Because I knew your father, Flash. I used to
+spend my holidays at Lulford, often. Coffers was always let to some
+rich cockney or other, and we used to live on the rent in Pimlico. He
+taught me how to throw a fly. Then he dropped out. I heard he married
+some one--who didn't--you know----"
+
+"He married a farmer's daughter for love," said Fenella, proudly, but
+inexactly.
+
+"It doesn't matter. When I got back from New York just before
+Christmas, Joe came to see me, full of news. He told me you had gone to
+him asking for an engagement and that you were to spend Christmas at
+Lulford. He wanted money. I wouldn't promise till I'd seen you. You
+know what happened then, don't you, Flash?"
+
+"I know some of it."
+
+"I'll tell you the rest. When I came into the library, I won't say I
+lost my heart. I'm not a man to be bowled over by the first piece of
+plaintive prettiness with a white neck and a turned-down collar that
+comes his way. I've seen pretty nearly every pose, and that's the one I
+mistrust most. Besides, I already had La Palèze against you."
+
+"It wasn't such a secret as you think. Other people had it against me
+too."
+
+"Yes. But with the unimportant difference that I got the credit of the
+walks to Sables in the sunset and all the rest of the idyll."
+
+"Which you never took the trouble to deny."
+
+"Frankly, I never did, coz."
+
+"Why not, please?"
+
+"Ah! there you touch a kink in my nature that I can't explain."
+
+"You saw that we were left alone. You must have noticed the women cut
+me. Do you know that my own cousin spied on me at night and accused me
+of wearing clothes and jewelry you'd bought for me?"
+
+"Flash--don't scold! I didn't know all this; and if I had, it wouldn't
+have upset me. It seemed more my business than any one else's what had
+happened to you before."
+
+"_You! you!_ Why is my reputation your affair?"
+
+Instead of answering, he knelt down on the bearskin hearth-rug, and
+leaned forward until their eyes were on a level.
+
+"Look at me, Flash--straight! That's a good girl. Now, tell me this.
+I've met Ingram once. If I were to know everything as, say, for
+argument's sake, God knows it, is there any reason I shouldn't like to
+meet him again?"
+
+"_You'll--never--know._"
+
+Of all the answers she could have made him, it was probably the one
+for which he was least prepared. He jumped to his feet and stood,
+baffled, pulling at his moustache and looking down on the floor. Then
+he threw up his head.
+
+"So be it," he said. "I'll take that risk with the others. Flash, will
+you have me?"
+
+She curled her lip.
+
+"Oh! quite respectably. A man with his shirt outside his coat shall say
+those few words first that mean so much."
+
+"No, Bryan. I won't."
+
+"Don't be a little donkey, Flash. You don't realize what you're
+throwing away. You don't know what a man like me is prepared to do,
+once he's hard hit. Don't believe all the tales you hear. My heart's
+been burgled, but it's never been raided before. You _are_ the
+first, in a way. I'll be gentle--I'll be respectful--I'll be as like
+the men in the novels girls read as I can. I know my faults. Haven't
+I been holding myself in all the time? It's not as if I wanted you to
+give up anything. You can live your own life, till you've tired of
+it. I ain't"--he laughed shortly--"jealous of the public. And as for
+the man you won't tell me about, you see I'm putting him out of the
+question. He's gone, anyhow. And oh, Flash! I'll make your life a fairy
+tale come true. Think of the dresses you'll have. I'll never be tired
+of seeing you in new ones. And the travelling! We'll go all over the
+earth. If you've got those new ideas, I'll settle money on you in a
+lump. Then you won't feel bad asking me for it. I'll leave everything
+to your own generosity. Could I say fairer? Could I offer more? Oh,
+why don't you say something? How can you sit there and listen to me,
+talking like some rotten old drysalting coronation knight?"
+
+He knelt down on the hearth-rug again, unlocked her fingers, and took
+them into his own--gently and with a sort of frightened respect for
+the repulsion in her averted face. His own was flushed and ignobly
+eager. His agitated breath, tainted with liquor and tobacco, seemed
+to penetrate her fine dry hair to the scalp. Within, I suppose, was
+ferment and chaos--blind, confident passion waiting impatiently on a
+tenderness, felt indeed, but which seemed to perish on his lips in one
+bald unconvincing speech after another, whose unworthiness he felt as
+he uttered them. Somewhere inside the animal tegument that his life had
+thickened and indurated he was groping for his starved, mislaid soul.
+
+"Flash, why don't you speak? Haven't I eaten enough dirt yet? What
+pleasure can there be in watching a human being grovel? Why don't you
+say 'Yes'?"
+
+"No--no--_no_!" she cried, passionately, stamping her foot.
+"Bryan, don't touch me! I won't have you touch me! I've got a temper.
+Oh, can't you see I'm not the sort of woman that gives herself twice."
+
+She thrust him away and jumped up, pushing the arm-chair back on its
+smooth casters. He rose, too, and picked a hair or two carefully from
+his broad-clothed knees.
+
+"I see," he said, gloomily and comprehensively. "It's a lesson not to
+judge by faces. Yours has given me the sell of my life--but it's what
+I've always maintained. The first man--the first man, however great a
+hound he may be. You never catch him up."
+
+"Think what you like of me," she cried indignantly, "but don't dare
+suppose evil of him. You can't even imagine him. He's as far above me
+and you, Bryan, as the stars are above the ground. You've met him, you
+say. How could you look in his eyes and not be ashamed of all your
+horrid, wicked knowledge? Oh!" she went on in a softer voice, "I don't
+despise you, Bryan--truth and honor, I don't. I like you as a friend.
+I've heard things about you; but I feel that if I was a man and had
+your chances I mightn't be much better. That's honest, isn't it? You
+and I are much about the same. We're fond of the world and pleasure
+and all the good things money buys. What you offer dazzles me in a
+way--'specially the clothes. Perhaps if I hadn't known him first--but
+oh, Bryan, I _can't_--I can't come down after that! You don't know
+how hard I fought for him. I found him at his work and I tempted him
+away. I made myself pretty for him. I made all the advances. I'm full
+of tricks, really. There's things even I couldn't tell. But they don't
+mean the same to him, Bryan, as they would to us clay people. I don't
+know what they do mean. I thought I might have in time. Because he was
+always kind. He saw through me, I think, but my feelings never got
+hurt. I think I was just a little bird that had come to drink out of
+his hand, and he wouldn't frighten it away."
+
+"It's a pity Mrs. Hepworth isn't alive," sneered Lumsden. "You and she
+might compare notes."
+
+"Is she dead?" said Fenella, in a still lower voice. "Poor thing;
+that's it, then. She was ill and suffering and told him. He couldn't
+resist those sorts of things--Paul couldn't."
+
+"He must have been an amusing companion."
+
+"Not amusing, Bryan, but, oh! something so much deeper. Don't think I
+loved a muff. My darling is as strong and brave as he's good. I felt so
+_safe_ with him. You don't know the terror a girl can feel of a
+man she isn't sure of. It's like a nightmare where you can't run away.
+I'd have gone tramping with Paul. I'd have slept under a hedge if he'd
+had me in his arms. Now, don't you see how impossible it is? I'm tired,
+Bryan, I _must_ go home. Will you 'phone for a cab?"
+
+The dogged silence in which he listened to her, sitting on the edge of
+the table, his hands thrust into his pockets and his head hanging down,
+should have warned her. Now, when he lifted it and showed his face, she
+measured the full extent of her folly in trusting herself to him. He
+walked deliberately across the room and locked the outer door. With an
+open laugh at her terrified face, he slipped the key into his pocket
+and stood before her, his hands clutching the lapels of his smoking
+jacket.
+
+"Now then," he said, and took a deep breath. "You've had your
+advantage and you've used it as a woman always does--mercilessly and
+foolishly. It's my turn now."
+
+She faced him bravely. "I know what you mean," she said without
+flinching, and without raising her voice. "Don't go mad, Bryan! If you
+destroy me, you destroy yourself."
+
+"I'll take the risk," he answered. "I see you looking at the windows.
+You're quite right. They ain't locked. You can throw one open now and
+squeal. I shan't stop you. There's a bobby on point just round the
+square. Tell _him_ your story. But, before you do, just look at
+the clock, and think how you'll come out of the show-up yourself. Time
+passes quickly in the kind of chat we've been having. I think, under
+the circumstances, there's discredit enough for us both. You won't?
+That's sensible. Now listen to me."
+
+He stopped for a moment as though his mouth were dry, filled a glass
+from the syphon and gulped it down. She watched his face with a sort
+of disgusted fascination--the bloodshot, frowning eyes, the dilated
+nostrils, and the twitching mouth.
+
+"You say you've the same flesh and blood as myself, Flash. Perhaps you
+can imagine, then, how it feels when you've chucked your heart at the
+feet of the only woman in the world, and she's danced on it and kicked
+it back to you. Pretty bad, I assure you. There's nothing like a little
+real life to chase away the dreams you've been filling your head with."
+
+She would have fainted if he had kept his eyes upon her; but he turned
+aside to drink again, and when he looked up it was into the muzzle of a
+little steel revolver. He didn't flinch or start--only kept quite still
+and whistled softly under his breath.
+
+"I'll shoot!" she said. "I swear I'll shoot, Bryan, if you don't unlock
+the door and let me out. It's his present. He told me I'd want it. It
+was under my pillow all the time at Lulford. I've had it in my coat
+pocket every time I went out with you. Will you let me go?"
+
+"No," he said. "Less than ever now."
+
+Her hand wavered--steadied--tightened convulsively. Next moment he
+had gripped her wrist. With a little cry of pain she let the revolver
+go. It fell on the thick carpet almost as noiselessly as on grass. He
+picked it up and examined it before he put it in his hip-pocket.
+
+"By gad!" he exclaimed half under his breath. "She really pulled the
+trigger. Why didn't he tell you to push the safety catch up first?"
+
+She had fallen back in the arm-chair, quite beaten and crying.
+
+"Have mercy on me, Bryan!"
+
+"Oh, yes! I'll have mercy. I'm going into the library to collect my own
+thoughts. I'll leave you here for a quarter of an hour. You can do a
+lot of thinking in that time. All I've offered you stands. If you make
+up your mind quicker than you expected, just knock at the door or call
+me."
+
+He opened the door of the inner room, looked at her for a few moments,
+checked a sudden movement either of ruth or passion, and closed it
+behind him. She heard him drag a chair along the floor and sit down.
+
+Left alone, she looked quickly round her for a means of escape. The
+windows were not bolted. She opened one, trembling at the slight noise
+it made, and looked out. The street was twenty feet below her. Empty
+asphalt stretched left and right, scalloped by the street lamps into
+white semi-circles of incandescent light, whose dim edges touched one
+another. There was a triangular open space across the road to her left.
+Some hotel or club opened upon it. As she watched, one of the glass
+leaves of the door swung open, and two men in evening dress came out.
+They parted at the bottom of the steps with some light talk that ended
+in a coarse unrestrained laugh. One took a cab, the other went swinging
+along and still shaking with laughter, in the opposite direction. Call
+for help!--tell her story!--to a world like this!
+
+She closed the window and looked round her with that despairing glance
+that leaves no corner unscanned. Suddenly her eyes were arrested in
+their search. At the farthest end of the room, just beyond the light
+of a shaded reading lamp, they caught the familiar ebony and silver of
+a telephone apparatus. The nurse was not to leave them till to-morrow,
+and she was sleeping in Miss Rigby's old room. They had decided to
+give up their telephone, but there was a month or so of the old lease
+still to run. She tiptoed across the room, lifted the receiver from its
+bracket and put it to her ear. Silence for a long, long while. Then the
+metallic sound of feet approaching along a zinc-covered floor.
+
+"Number please?"
+
+She tried to keep her voice low and steady.
+
+"3087 Paddington."
+
+"I can't hear you."
+
+She ventured to speak a little louder, glancing over her shoulder as
+she did so, and the man repeated the number. After what seemed an
+eternity she heard a piping, sleepy little voice with a Scotch accent.
+Thank God! It was nurse.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+She had not answered when the receiver buzzed in her ear, nearly
+deafening her. Another voice, louder, more urgent, broke in.
+
+"Are you Mayfair? Is this Sir Bryan Lumsden's?"
+
+"Oh! please go away," pleaded poor Fenella, "you're interrupting a
+call."
+
+"I _won't_ go away. We're Hampstead. Is this Lumsden's? It's
+urgent. It's life or death. Tell him----"
+
+She listened for a moment, then dropped the receiver with a scream.
+Bryan burst into the room, haggard, his tie hanging loose.
+
+"What's the matter? Are you hurt?"
+
+"Oh, Bryan! There's some one on the telephone for you. They say your
+son----I don't understand. It's something awful."
+
+Lumsden caught the oscillating receiver and clapped it to his ear. This
+is what she heard:
+
+"_What!_ Both? _My God!_ The boy's alive? Have you got----?
+What does he say? Yes! At once! _At--once!_"
+
+He turned so quickly that Fenella, who was standing by his shoulder,
+was nearly thrown over. She had to catch his arm to keep her balance.
+
+"Is it bad news?"
+
+"Yes, yes! Oh the devil!--the devil!"
+
+"You'll want the car, won't you?"
+
+"Yes. Do you know how to call it? Put the peg in the hole marked
+'Garage!' Say: '_At once_--dressed or not.' I can drive."
+
+He tried the outer door, cursed at finding it locked, then remembering,
+took the key from his pocket and flung it open. He shouted. It seemed
+scarcely a minute before the passage was full of servants, half
+dressed, the women with their hair loose, and the men fastening their
+braces--hardly two before the car was at the door, filling the quiet
+street with the throb of its great pulse.
+
+"Call a cab and get home quick," he said, as he twisted a white muffler
+round his throat. "You'll find the number of a cab-rank in that red
+book. Have you got money for your fare?"
+
+"Can't I go with you, Bryan? Can't I help?"
+
+Even in his distress he had time for a moment of surprised admiration.
+
+"Oh, Flash!" he groaned, "there's no one like you. Come on, then, and
+be in at the finish!"
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIX
+
+                               THE WAGES
+
+
+The chauffeur was fastening his leather gaiters as they came out.
+
+"Frognal!" was all Bryan said. "And drive like h--ll!"
+
+The lad touched his cap. As they took their seats, the car seemed to
+bounce and then leap forward. The streets and squares were empty,
+except for an occasional limping shadow on the pavement that stopped
+short at their approach and turned to watch them past. From time to
+time the chauffeur's shoulder dipped to one side, and the piercing wail
+of a "Gabriel" horn went before them like an admonition of judgment
+at hand. She knew then that they were nearing a corner, and that she
+must hold her companion's arm, for the suddenly diverted impetus seemed
+to heel the car over on two wheels and she could not keep her seat on
+the inflated cushions except by clinging to him. But he never spoke to
+her, or seemed to notice the clutch upon his sleeve. The muscles of his
+forearm were always moving spasmodically, as if the anguish of waiting
+found relief in some restless, regular motion of the hands. She knew he
+had a trick of twisting his signet-ring round and round. The carriage
+lamp was behind his head, and she only saw his face in silhouette. In
+the dark lanes around Hampstead the car seemed to be plunging giddily
+into a tunnel of light made by its own lamps.
+
+It stopped, almost as suddenly as it had started, outside a thick
+hedge of evergreens. Over an unpainted oak gate an electric light was
+burning inside a tiny drop-lantern of frosted glass. Beneath it three
+or four men were standing together; one of whom wore a flat braided
+cap with a peak. Lumsden jumped out almost before the car had pulled
+up, and, with a hasty word to the man in blue, disappeared. He had not
+asked her to come in with him, and she was shy of renewing her offer of
+service. She sat still in the corner where he had left her, and began
+to look about her and take her bearings. The hedge was so high and the
+house so far back that she could only see two of its gable windows. A
+light, turned very low, showed in one of these. Across the road, on
+the other side from the house, was a pebbled path with a fringe of
+coarse grass at its further edge. In front of her a few lamps marked
+out a curved perspective of road. Beneath it and beyond, the heath
+lay in confused patches of various intensities of blackness. The sky
+was paling over in the direction of Highgate, and a bird in a tree
+overhead, roused probably by the glare of the lamps, was beginning to
+pipe drowsily and tentatively.
+
+A "_honk! honk!_" like the croak of some old marsh-haunting
+reptilian bird, began to sound behind her from the direction in which
+they had come. It grew louder. A motor-cab slowed up behind them, and
+two men, one of whom carried a large bag, passed quickly into the
+house. The two chauffeurs, avoiding the whispering group at the gate,
+walked up and down together on the edge of the heath, smoking the
+cigarette of freemasonry and stamping their feet, for the morning was
+turning cold. A French maid-servant brought out a big cat-skin rug.
+"For mademoiselle," she said. Her beady eyes scanned the girl curiously
+as she tucked it round her.
+
+It was broad daylight when Fenella woke, and the heath was a dull
+sodden green under the window. Lumsden was shaking her by her shoulder.
+She woke suddenly and completely, as we do from a sleep of which we are
+half ashamed.
+
+"Why didn't you call me before?"
+
+"You were better asleep. You couldn't have done anything."
+
+"Is--is the boy better?"
+
+He shook his head, and put his hand to his throat as though his collar
+irked him.
+
+"Not--dead? Oh, Bryan!"
+
+"_S--s-h!_ Just going. Come in now. I want you to see him first."
+
+The house was quite new, full of quaint projecting windows planned to
+trap the sun, with a tiled roof that dipped and rose in unexpected
+places. A house of nooks and corners--built for light and air, and the
+new religion of open window and running water over porcelain baths, in
+which one feels death to be almost as incongruous as dust. Half the
+hall door was of glass, in bubbly panes like the bottom of a bottle.
+He held it open for her, and, bidding her follow, crossed the tiled
+hall parlor to a white-railed and velvet-carpeted staircase. A red-eyed
+maid-servant, carrying an enamelled pail and with a mass of soiled
+linen over one arm, stood aside to let them pass. At the head of the
+staircase was a square landing, lit by an octagonal turret skylight. A
+great many doors opened off it. Bryan turned the handle of one.
+
+"In here!" he said.
+
+The room was large and gaily papered. In the centre was a brass-railed
+cot. Its brass-railed sides had been lifted off and stood, behind it,
+against the wall. All around the little bed, upon tables and even
+chairs, were strange utensils, meaningless to the girl, some in glass,
+others in shining white metal with tubes that coiled and trailed, and
+linen, linen, everywhere that sheet or towel could be hung. The room
+was as full of strange scents as of strange shapes, but that of rubber
+overpowered all the rest, and was to be, for all time, the smell that
+could most vividly recall the scene to the girl's memory. The blinds
+were up, but no one had remembered to switch off the lights. Into one
+corner of the room a pile of toys had been hastily swept; prominent
+among them a great elephant brandished four lumpy wheeled legs in the
+air.
+
+Upon the bed a little lad of five or six was lying, covered with
+clothes to his waist. Even now, with his poor little face lead-color,
+and all the spun silk of his hair damped down on his forehead, he was
+beautiful: with the hue of health on his cheek the face must have been
+that of an angel. His fringed eyelids were closed, and had dark shadows
+under them; his pinched nose was pitifully like Lumsden's. He seemed
+to be very tired, and very glad that all these clever people had given
+up exercising their skill upon him. For no one was doing anything now.
+One man, in shirt sleeves, held his limp wrist in a great hairy paw,
+and kept his eyes upon his watch; the other stood at his colleague's
+shoulder with his hands behind his back, intent upon the shrunken
+little face.
+
+Lumsden cleared a chair, and, pulling it forward, bade the girl, with a
+gesture, sit down.
+
+"Any change, Webber?" he asked.
+
+"It may be a few minutes yet. _Hush!_"
+
+He got up and put his ear to the boy's mouth. A faint snore was
+audible. He looked up at his partner.
+
+"'Cheyne-Strokes' breathing beginning, Girling."
+
+"Is he suffering?" Bryan asked. He seemed to have lost interest in the
+technicalities of the question. "That's all I want to know."
+
+"No, no," said the younger man. "Please believe us, Sir Bryan. He won't
+have suffered from first to last."
+
+"Why's it such a long business?"
+
+"Oh! seven hours is nothing unusual. The power of resistance in
+children his age is generally much greater. Twelve to fourteen is quite
+common. I still believe, Webber, there was subcutaneous administration
+as well."
+
+"Perhaps. I could find no puncture, but his reaction to the ether
+certainly looked like it."
+
+As Webber spoke he dropped the wrist, pocketed his watch, and made a
+sign to Lumsden.
+
+"Can I take him up?" said the baronet.
+
+"Yes. It doesn't matter now."
+
+Bryan lifted the inert little body out of bed, held it to his breast,
+and put his face down on the wet curls.
+
+"_Squirrel! Squirrel!_" he whispered once or twice, and held him
+closer.
+
+"I can't hear anything now," he said at the end of a few minutes.
+
+"Let me look at his eyes," said Webber.
+
+Bryan gave a great wild laugh. "His eyes! Good God, man! what do you
+think you'll see there? Eyes? He never had any. He was born blind."
+
+He laid the body tenderly down on the bed, put one hand across his face
+for a moment, and touched the weeping girl on the shoulder.
+
+"Come down, Flash. I must send you home now. Don't cry so, girl! It's
+not fair. This is _my_ funeral."
+
+On the way to the head of the staircase they passed another door. He
+laid his hand upon the brass knob.
+
+"I promised I'd show you real life. There's more inside here. Do you
+want to see it?"
+
+"No! no!" The girl shrank away, and pulled her skirts from the panel.
+
+"All right, then. Don't be afraid. I haven't been in myself yet. I'm
+not going to. The fiend! oh! the fiend, Flash! A little child like
+that--a little boy born blind! He never saw the sun. Look out of this
+window over the heath and think of it. For all he ever saw he might
+have lived and died at the bottom of a well. I used to describe things
+for him though. He was stupid with some people, but he knew my voice.
+Gad, how he knew it! You'd see the poor little devil's eyes straining,
+straining, and he'd struggle and kick and push things out of the way
+till he found me. Oh! the incarnate fiend!"
+
+"Bryan! She's dead, remember."
+
+"Dead! What do I care? If she wasn't I'd have killed her myself.
+And she knew it. She was the one I cared for least. A cold, vicious,
+bargaining jade. I tried to get the boy away, but she was too d--d
+clever. So many hundreds a year more, that's all he meant to her.
+Do you remember my asking you once if you were fond of kids? I
+was thinking of him when I asked you that. Some day, perhaps--I
+thought----'Cos some good women are the devil over things like that,
+Flash; and if I'd had a dozen born right they shouldn't have come in
+front of him--This is nice talk to a girl!"
+
+"I don't mind, Bryan. I don't seem to mind a bit now. I think I've
+missed my proper delicacy, somehow."
+
+He stared at her. "You haven't missed your health, at any rate. You
+must be a robust little animal for all your color. This time yesterday,
+Flash, think of it! If it was put in a book, who'd believe it? I wonder
+if everything that ever can happen a man and a girl has happened us, or
+if there's more coming to-morrow."
+
+They had been talking in the dining-room. He went over to the sideboard
+for a drink and stopped suddenly. A half-crown was lying on the top of
+the buffet. He brought it over to the light, lying flat in the palm of
+his hand.
+
+"This is a rummy coincidence, Flash," he said, without taking his
+eyes off it. "D'you know, years and years ago in Vienna, where I
+was a thing that danced and trailed the conquering sabre past the
+_Töchterschulen_ in the _Hohenmark_ on court days, I spun a
+coin this very size to decide a rather important matter for me. 'Tails
+I go on; heads I go out.' I wasn't bluffing. I was pretty hard hit, or
+thought I was. But I was young, too, and I'll never forget my feelings
+when I looked down and saw the double eagle--I'd shut my eyes while it
+spun, and I remember feeling behind in my hip pocket----Hello! Where
+did this come from?"
+
+He was holding Ingram's strange present in his hand.
+
+"Of course. Another property. 'Act ii., scene 2: The lair of the wicked
+baronet.' Do you want it back? No, I won't, though," snatching it back
+as she reached for it. "Guns are for people who know how to let them
+off."
+
+He made a movement as though to put it back, then checked himself, and
+balancing it in his hand looked from it to the coin and back again. The
+half-crown lay now, head upward, upon the table.
+
+Suddenly Fenella caught his arm. "Bryan! not that--not that!"
+
+He seemed to rouse himself. "Not that?"--angrily. "Why not? What d'you
+mean? How can you know what I was thinking of?"
+
+His hand had closed upon the weapon. She loosened his fingers one by
+one to find her own hand held fast.
+
+"Bryan, perhaps I've been too hard on you to-night.
+Suppose--suppose----Don't look at me that way or I'll stop. I don't
+promise anything. I must have time. It won't be easy for either of us."
+
+He bent his head and put his lips to the hand that had been held out to
+slay him and to save him in one night.
+
+"As you will, Flash. God bless you whatever you do with me."
+
+"And now, dear, let me go," she said gently. "Remember, I have my own
+dead to watch."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               PART III
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                          THE BATHS OF APOLLO
+
+
+On a foggy November morning of the year whose events have been
+chronicled a man came out of a house in Westminster and stood for a
+moment on the worn steps, supporting himself against one of the pillars
+of the porch, to blink sorely at the raw day. The house he was leaving
+was one of a few old buildings that still exist on the long, crooked
+street whose northern frontage follows the ancient precincts of royal
+abbey and palace. From its size, the graceful detail of its doorway,
+the white and black squares unevenly paving its hall and the depth of
+brickwork which the long recessed windows revealed, one judged at once
+that this had been, in days gone by, the town mansion of a great legal
+or political family, forced by its very functions to dwell at the gates
+of the legislature. But whatever it had been in olden times, to-day
+the great house was inexpressibly sordid and degraded. The cupids
+and garlands of its doorway, blunted by two centuries of whistling
+house-painters, had well-nigh disappeared once for all beneath a last
+coat of coarse red-brown paint. With the same dismal tint--the old
+penitential hue of the galleys--were daubed window-sashes and sills,
+the panelling of the wide hall, the carved brackets that supported the
+crumbling edges of its tiled roof. Within, one conjectured rightly
+bare lime-washed walls--disinfection, not decoration--sodden boards
+worn away round the knots. Even in the foggy half-light, so merciful
+to all that has beauty of outline still to show, its crude defacement
+did not escape. One felt that the pickaxe and sledge-hammer of the
+house-breaker, busy in a neighboring hoarded space, spared it too long.
+
+A thick, dun mist had been creeping up-river since dawn from the Kent
+and Essex levels, gathering up on its way the filthy smoke of glue
+factories and chemical works, and holding it suspended over the spires
+and domes of the Imperial city. The close alleys and wynds that, like
+a fungus growth upon polluted soil, cover the area once sacred to
+the brothels and dog-kennels of the Plantagenet Court, seemed not so
+much to be endued with smoke and grime as actually to be built up out
+of compacted slabs of the sooty atmosphere. The sun was still in the
+east--a red wafer stuck on a sealed sky.
+
+For a few minutes the man stood still, as if either too tired to make
+up his mind which way he should take, or as if, really paralyzed for
+the moment by the equilibrium of the forces that acted on his will, he
+was at the point where, vertigo having seized upon the mind and, as
+it were, disorientated it, direction loses its meaning. It is almost
+certain that had any passer-by--a policeman, a man bearing a burden,
+even a child--jostled the man, he would have gone on in the direction
+to which the collision turned him.
+
+He wore a jacket and trousers of what had once been blue serge, faded
+by exposure, by dust, by rain that soaked in the dust, and sun that
+dried the rain in turn, to that color which is obtained by mixing all
+the primaries upon a palette. A streak of the coat's original color
+showed still under the upturned collar, and had the effect of a facing
+upon a soldier's tunic. Coat and trousers were miserably frayed at the
+edges, but neatly mended in more than one place. Probably from being
+worn night and day upon an almost naked body, the stiff straight lines
+natural to modern clothing had disappeared, and they had acquired, in
+their place, an actual mould of the limbs. His shoes, spattered with
+mud and grease, seemed once to have been brown. They were broken,
+and the heels had been trodden down so far that the soles curled up
+in front like an eastern slipper. The man was quite clean, his hair
+and beard even trimly kept. His face was refined. Whatever physical
+suffering he was undergoing or had undergone, it was evident he had not
+yet reached the depth at which the soul contracts and shrivels once
+for all, and, dropping into some inmost recess where only death shall
+find it again, leaves the animal epidermis to bear the outrage of life.
+Under one eye the discoloration of an old bruise showed faintly.
+
+As he looked about him--first above his head, then mechanically to
+left and right--what was almost a look of relief and peace came over
+the tortured face. In this narrow drab margin twixt night and night--a
+day only by the calendar and by the duties it imposed--it is possible
+he felt something akin. Something of the mechanical precision of life
+that was such a reproach to his own confusion would have to be relaxed.
+It would be a day of late trains, of crawling, interlocked traffic, of
+sudden warnings from the darkness, with the ever-present possibility
+of some levelling disaster to lend a zest to the empty hours. Excluded
+from human communion on the side of its pleasures, the outcast yearns
+toward it all the more upon the side of its pain and mischance. What is
+the savagery of revolution but a very exaltation of perverted sympathy?
+"Weep with me, my brother," says the red of hand, "weep with me at
+least, since I might not rejoice with you."
+
+He had been the last to leave the common lodging-house which had given
+him a night's shelter, and, as he lingered, the deputy, a big, fleshy
+man in shirt-sleeves, came down the passage behind him, whistling and
+sweeping before him the caked mud which forty pairs of broken shoes
+had brought in during the night. At the sound of his broom against
+the wainscot, the man turned sharply, with a sudden energy that was
+like the release of a coiled spring, and, thrusting his hands into
+his pockets, strode off to the left quickly and aimlessly as a caged
+wolf. Where Great Smith Street runs into Victoria Street he turned to
+his left again, and followed the main thoroughfare southward. Through
+the happy accident of its deflection midway, at the point where the
+colossal doorway of the Windsor Hotel confronts the Army and Navy
+Stores, Victoria Street possesses, as all visitors to London with the
+architectural sense must have noticed, a dignity and effectiveness
+unique in the city of costly ineptitude. Approached from the river
+at sunset or sunrise, or in any light low enough and dim enough to
+hide the sorry detail of its lofty houses, the effect approaches the
+monumental. The wanderer's eyes had been fixed on the ground; but,
+possibly arriving at some spot where in former days he had been used
+to watch for it, he raised his head and stood, unsteadily, for a few
+seconds, intent upon the beauty with which the world is as prodigal as
+it is niggardly of its substance. The sky was an orange dun, deepening
+and lightening almost momentarily, as though some pigment with which
+the day was to be dyed later were being prepared overhead. The long
+Italianesque façade of the stores was all one blue shadow, but over
+its roof, through some atmospheric freak, the campanile of the new
+cathedral emerged, pale pink and cream, and in the upper windows of the
+great hotel, whose pillars and helmed mask closed the prospect on the
+right, a few wavering squares as of strawberry tinsel foil reflected
+the foggy sun. As he watched, leaning against the railing, one might
+have noticed his lips move. He took his clenched fists from his
+pockets, and opened them slowly with a strange gesture of surrender. It
+was as though some inward resolution, evidenced by the hasty walk, the
+lowered eye, the clenched hands, yielded at its first contact with the
+influence he was attempting to forswear.
+
+A man who had been walking hastily from the opposite direction, with a
+long roll of blue prints under his arm, stopped short, pulled off his
+glove, and, diving into his trouser pocket, pulled out a copper and
+pressed it against one of the open palms. The dreamer started, closed
+his hand upon the penny convulsively, and, without a word of thanks,
+gazed after the bustling figure. He opened his fingers slowly and
+looked at the coin, with the same fear and repugnance that a sick man
+might show who, having put his hand to his mouth, finds blood upon it.
+Then, still holding it in his hand, he quickened his walk, until it was
+almost a run.
+
+In a baker's shop near the terminus he spent half the money on a
+stale roll, and ate it, standing in the doorway of the Underground
+Station, and using his free hand to cover his mouth, as though he
+felt his voracity was indecent. A wretched little waif--a girl child,
+bareheaded, in a long dress like a woman's, and with her hair done up
+in a wisp--seeing him eating, approached, held out a hand scaled with
+dirt like a fish's skin, and begged of those rags with the same blind
+confidence with which the child in heart asks relief of a beggared
+providence. He gave her the halfpenny, and as much of the bread as he
+had not eaten; then, crossing the road, he shouldered his way into the
+station yard.
+
+The Continental Night Mail, more than half an hour late on account of
+the fog, was just in. A long line of motor-cabs, with an occasional
+four-wheeler, stood along the curb. Porters in charge of portmanteaux
+and trunks were shouting and gesticulating; the air was full of grunts,
+whistles, and the sudden clatter of horses' feet catching hold on the
+pavement. The man paid no attention to the motor-cabs, but, slipping
+behind a four-wheeler loaded with luggage and a bicycle, followed it
+from the yard and into the street.
+
+The cab rolled along through Pimlico and in the direction of the river.
+Almost immediately the station was left the fog shut down and hid
+the houses on either side. The driver, an old street pilot of thirty
+years, kept on at a steady amble; the man behind, quite ignorant of his
+destination, settled down to a steady loping run, which apparently he
+was prepared to keep to between the wheels as long as the horse kept to
+it between the shafts.
+
+At a cross-traffic break he looked up, and saw he was not alone. A
+short, thick-set stranger, with a bullet head and strangling, wheezy
+breath, had joined him _en route_. That competition which is said
+to be the soul of trade was not to be lacking.
+
+"Ullo!" said the stertorous one, as soon as he felt himself observed.
+"W'ere did _you_ come from?"
+
+Finding he was not rebuked, he thought it safe to essay a little
+further.
+
+"You be awf and find a ---- keb for yourself. D'jeer? Follered this
+from the stishun, I did."
+
+His bearded brother in misfortune gave him such a look that he judged
+it wise to defer settling the difference. The cab started again,
+turned, and twisted in the maze of stucco streets, always followed by
+the two men; stopped finally in a crescent that even in daylight was
+secluded, but in a fog might be said to be mislaid. Bullet head, being
+outside the wheel, used his tactical advantage to lay one authoritative
+hand on the leather trunk and the other on the bicycle.
+
+"It's aw ri', guv'nor," he called, reassuringly through the window
+to their proprietor. Even as he spoke, he was himself deposited upon
+the pavement in an efficient manner of which the tall comrade's face
+had given no hint. Followed, not so much a volley of oaths, as a kind
+of set-piece, a transparency of language, which hung suspended in
+the shocked air of Pimlico long enough for a window or two to open,
+presumably in protest. Appealed to by his fare, a literary gentleman
+of peaceful habit, upon the score of age and experience, the driver
+refused to be drawn into the conflict.
+
+"Settle it between yerselves," he said complacently, sucking on a voice
+lozenge and pocketing his legal fare. "Door to door, my trade is, and
+don't ferget it." A woman meantime had opened the hall door, and was
+scolding every one, impartially, in the dialect of Fifeshire.
+
+Nothing goads to madness like foiled knavery. The tall man, having
+already shouldered the trunk, the short one laid a violent and
+ill-advised hand upon it from behind. Next moment it was set upon the
+ground and with a vigorous movement of the shoulders that gave his
+words authority, the dreamer spoke for the first time, in a voice whose
+accent and whose idiom alike were familiar.
+
+"See here, now! You have one minute to hit the grit. If you're not gone
+then, I'll lay that mouth of yours against the sidewalk and give it the
+dry cleaning it needs. Now that goes--all the way!"
+
+"My God!" I cried, "it's Ingram!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He turned to run, but I clung to him. He was a powerful man, much
+stronger, even exhausted as he was, than I have been at any time, but
+I am proud to think my grip upon him never once gave way. At last he
+desisted, perhaps because he heard tears in my voice, and disengaged my
+fingers gently.
+
+"Ingram! Oh! in God's name what does it mean? I thought you'd gone
+back--thought you were thousands of miles away."
+
+He laughed. "Can't you see what it is, Prentice? It's the last note in
+journalism. A delegate to the depths. Talks with the underworld. I'm
+doing it pretty thoroughly, don't you think?"
+
+Well, I stood there and pleaded with him. His competitor carried in the
+baggage meekly, under Mrs. Mac's petrifying eye, was paid, and went his
+way--the mystified Jehu cracked his whip and rumbled off into the fog
+before I had exhausted half the arguments and expedients with which my
+brain swarmed. I wanted him to take money, to come in and be fed and
+clothed, to go back to America (assisted passage). He shook his head
+at everything, and at the last suggestion set his bearded jaw hard. I
+thought his objection very fanciful.
+
+"I won't go back," he said, "to see a democracy that has had its chance
+and missed it, done to death with a golden bandage over its eyes. It's
+less hard to stop here among the poor devils that have never known what
+economic independence meant."
+
+He found reasons equally good or equally bad for resisting my offers
+toward rehabilitation in England.
+
+"It's no use, Prentice," he said, again and again. "Believe me, between
+the very last rung of the social ladder and the depths in which I'm
+swimming round and round, and waiting for the final suffocation,
+there's a sheer fall that no power on earth can ever bridge again. From
+where I am I can speak still, hear still, even feel. I look up and see
+living men on the slope above me. Some are slipping down, some, who
+have stood once on the verge and looked over, are crawling up again,
+weak and half dead from terror. But I and those with me are past help.
+You don't know the gulf that separates having a little money, even your
+last pound, from having none at all. That's an experience as final and
+irremediable as death. None can imagine it unless they have known it,
+and none that have known it ever come back to tell."
+
+Before such remorseless logic I weakened, little by little. I told
+him he was ungenerous--that friendship involved debts of honor he had
+never been willing to pay; finally I went into the house to make him up
+a parcel of warm underclothing. I remember blubbering like a whipped
+lower-form urchin as I ransacked drawers and trunks, and how the string
+kept snapping as I tried to tie up the great untidy brown-paper parcel.
+When I came downstairs the street was empty.
+
+
+
+
+                                  II
+
+                         LIGHTNING IN THE FOG
+
+
+He ran, he has told me since, like a man with a hue-and-cry in his
+ears, turning left or right at random. At last his breath failed; he
+remembered his rags, and noticed people looking suspiciously after him.
+He came out onto the river somewhere near the Tate Gallery, by a yard
+full of spray-battered old ship figureheads, and crossed the big new
+bridge to the Albert Embankment. At a river sluice below an iron yard
+men were unloading bundles of Belgian tees and angles from a barge.
+The river was falling fast, and he got an hour's job helping them to
+unload the cargo. It was on such casual labor, I suppose, that for
+months he had supported life. He was paid sixpence for his hour's work,
+and, seeing his strength and famished willingness, the lighter-men
+overloaded him and raised a weal on his shoulder. He was still nearly
+starving, but did not dare spend the money till later. By two o'clock
+in the afternoon the fog was general and very thick. He was standing
+in the centre of the little foot-bridge that runs under the viaduct
+from Charing Cross Station. Above his head trains rumbled softly and
+circumspectly. There were Pullman cars filled with sun-worshippers on
+their way from the winter-smitten city to France and Italy--to ivory
+villa and amethyst bay, maybe to the white sun-steeped cities upon
+whose ramparts he had once stood sentry. The fog-signals went off in
+his ears like cannon. On the Middlesex shore of the river was a dim
+bustle, muffled tang of gongs, constant flitting of blurred lights; but
+under the Surrey shore, lonely as a quicksand on the Breton coast, a
+strip of mud left by the falling tide shone, a coppery red, beneath
+the bulk of the big Lambeth brewery. Below his feet a squadron of
+empty lorries lay moored together, four--four--and three, like a hand
+of cards dealt face downward by a fortune-teller. All around him was
+mewing, as from a dozen litters of kittens; the fog became thick with
+the fluttering winged forms of sea birds. No one had passed him for a
+long time. He stretched out his arms and spoke aloud--
+
+"Soul! what things are these that hem us in--that compass us about this
+November noontide, as we roam, stifled and uncertain, through Babylon's
+foggy streets? These towers, soaring into the infinite; these palaces,
+whose limits we conjecture from the dimmed overflow of light within;
+these chariots, rolling one instant soundless from obscurity, next
+instant engulfed by it? What things are they? Even such as to-day thou
+beholdest them: shadows, phantoms, vapor, and cloud. To-morrow the wind
+shall smite them, and their places know them no more; daylight seek
+them, and find them gone. Oh! paradox immeasurable, that where the sun
+had lied to thy senses fog should truly bespeak them!"
+
+Solitary as he seemed, he had been observed for some time. A bulky
+figure, in heavy overcoat and helmet, stepped from behind a girder and
+touched him on the shoulder.
+
+"Don't you think you'd best get to one side or the other? It's bad
+loitering weather."
+
+Ingram started at the touch, then looked over his shoulder and laughed.
+
+"I see," he said. "But there's no fear of that," and he looked at the
+river again. "You'd have come in after me, I suppose--boots, overcoat,
+and all."
+
+"I'm not saying what I'd have done," the constable answered stolidly.
+"My dooty, I hope. But it's not the day I should choose to win the
+Albert Medal on."
+
+He looked at the suspect closer, and seeing a man probably as strong as
+himself, his voice and manner changed. There was a new freemasonry in
+it when he spoke again, and a strange curiosity, shame-faced but eager.
+
+"Man to man, mate; is it very bad?"
+
+Ingram turned on his heels like the soldier he had been.
+
+"Man to man--no. I've earned sixpence this morning; that's supper and
+bed. My nakedness is only an offence to the providence I've ceased to
+believe in, and I've the æsthetic sense which makes a thing like that,"
+and he pointed to the patch of rosy mud, "a living joy. What man who
+works for bread will have more to say in two hundred years? Do you know
+there are great artists who'd go a day without food to paint truly what
+we've got under our feet. Not many English ones, though. I'll do them
+that justice."
+
+"I think I know wot you mean," said S. 11. "I'm fond of pitchers
+myself. I suppose you know there's one of our force gets 'is pitcher
+into the 'cademy reg'lar every year. But hunger's one thing and
+starvation's another."
+
+"It's not starvation, man; it's the fear of it that's putting out the
+sun and stars for three quarters of the world. 'Do _my_ work or
+starve! do _my_ work or starve!' that's what every factory hooter
+and works bell and alarm clock is ding-donging from morning till night.
+We're all too frightened to do ourselves justice. We sit down to our
+desk, or stand to our bench or easel with a full belly and an icy cold
+heart. So the great book never gets written, and the great picture
+never gets painted, and the great wrong never gets righted, and the
+soul we have no use for is passing into piston-rods and flywheels
+that eat up human flesh and blood as the beasts of the field chew
+grass. No thank you, constable. Didn't I tell you I'd got sixpence.
+Keep it for the next woman you have to move on. _That's_ the
+shame--_that's_ the unpardonable sin."
+
+There had been no present thought of self-destruction in his mind,
+but, in spite of himself, the policeman's suspicion stirred a dormant
+idea that was now a comfort to him, now a terror, just so far as it
+lay vague or assumed definite shape. He climbed the ascent into the
+Strand, glad to be in the crowd again, and to feel himself jostled
+and elbowed by its hurrying life. Amid all the human tide that, after
+having turned the wheels of commerce all day, was now setting homeward,
+there was probably no one who walked straighter or brisker than he.
+
+His long steps soon carried him into a distant quarter of the city;
+but as night fell he turned them toward Westminster again--back to the
+house where he had slept last night and perhaps many a night before.
+It was no better than others that lay to his hand, but at least its
+horrors were familiar. He shrank from new initiations. Besides, it was
+not seven o'clock, and eight was the earliest hour at which such places
+opened. How to kill an hour?--absorbing occupation for a mind like this.
+
+He decided to follow the Embankment again. There, if his feverish
+walk outpaced the clock, he might loiter--lean upon the parapet, sit
+down upon one of the seats. He would buy some liver in Lambeth and
+cook it before the lodging-house fire. He was faint when he reached
+Blackfriars, and not from hunger alone. Dimly he divined a crisis.
+The last of a little store of illusions with which he concealed from
+himself how personal and irremediable was his misery had been expended
+during that wild talk with the man in blue upon the bridge. Something,
+if life was to continue, must supply its place.
+
+The work upon the widening of the bridge was still in progress.
+Opposite De Keyser's Hotel a big wooden hoarding covered the pavement,
+making a little niche with the low granite wall of the Embankment.
+It was too early in the evening for the recess to be occupied or to
+be explored by the bull's-eye lantern of law and order. He crept
+within it under cover of the fog, and, resting his arms upon the wet
+granite wall, relit a half-smoked cigarette. All day long, throughout
+his defiant speech, his indignant bearing, his wretched assumption
+of energy, he had felt himself under an observation as unfriendly
+as it was thorough. Some other self, cold, critical, sneering, was
+watching his struggles with amused contempt. He had felt its presence
+before, but never so utterly detached, so hostile or so impatient. That
+_alter se_ which education creates and easy living nourishes, and
+which, deplore him as we may, is a personality to be reckoned with at
+every crisis and in every action of our lives, is never long content to
+outlive such an experience as his. It is only a question of time before
+the rational in man wearies of prison and poor entertainment.
+
+"_Let us go hence!_"
+
+Ingram smoked his cigarette until it burnt his lips, leaned over the
+parapet, and, as he dropped the glowing end into the river, measured
+the distance to the water that was "_clop-clopping_" soupily
+against the foot of the Embankment. His isolation in the heart of
+London was strangely complete, for such foot-passengers as passed,
+passed wide of him by a railed plank walk built outside of the great
+wooden hoarding that concealed him from view. The wide roadway,
+moreover, full of vague sound and motion--blast of motor-horns, rumble
+of trams, quick come and go of blurred lamps, accentuated his solitude.
+He waited until a heavy tread that was going westward had died away
+into the fog. Then he drew up his legs, first one, then the other, upon
+the parapet beside his hands.
+
+"_Oh Gawd! oh Gawd!_" a voice groaned behind him. He checked his
+sinister movement and listened intently. Some one--some fellow-creature
+in torment--was cursing and sobbing on the pavement he had just left.
+He got down and groped for it. A man, huddled together, and with one
+leg jerking convulsively, was lying with his head against the boards.
+
+Ingram put his arms round him and lifted him gently.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+                              VALEDICTORY
+
+
+Mrs. McNaughten has assured me that I stood for nearly five minutes,
+the brown paper parcel under my arm, staring blankly, first in
+one direction, then in another, and licking my lips. I am glad of
+her evidence that a mood so abject and personal lasted no longer.
+Because--alas!--what held me in a trance that temporarily lost count of
+time was not that this intolerable thing had befallen Paul Ingram, dear
+Paul, with whom I had sat, so many a night and on into the small hours,
+holding converse, high and austere, on man's destiny through life and
+beyond--no, it was that, having befallen him, it might befall any one,
+and, befalling any one--let me give the full measure of my craven
+heart--it might befall me. For one paralyzing instant that veil which
+mercifully cloaks the extreme chances of fate had been plucked aside.
+I had looked full into its malignant eyes, and, like the man in the
+Greek fable, what I had seen had been enough to turn flesh to stone. In
+that moment the shadowy safeguards which men erect between themselves
+and the grim possibilities of destiny--knowledge of the world,
+self-consciousness, confidence in untested friendships--stood revealed,
+the shams they are. The security born of years--anxious, toilsome years
+it is true, but during none of which, for a single day or night, bread,
+clothing, or sheltered sleep had failed me--shook and fluttered darkly
+like the eternal hills in an earthquake. I literally lost hold on life.
+
+Thank God, the mood was over soon. I had time to be pitiful, to be
+even angry, with an illogical but humanizing wrath that fate, taking
+hourly toll of the world, had not spared one dear to me. I blamed
+myself bitterly for leaving him alone those few minutes. I had wearied
+of well-doing too soon. He must have yielded at last. Seated by the
+familiar fireside, fed and comforted, with the pipe in his mouth that
+still bore the scar of his long wolfish teeth upon its stem, a better
+mood must have awakened. I say a better mood, because, at certain
+depths, misfortune calls almost for the same treatment as crime,
+and the kindness that seeks to save must be disciplining as well as
+compassionate.
+
+I dined at the _À-peu-près_ after my work was done, hoping against
+hope there would be news of him there--some indication that might
+put me on his track again. Smeaton was in the chair to-night--old
+Smeaton, best and bravest knight that ever set quill in rest--with his
+little restless pink face, snapping black eyes, tumbled white hair,
+and bulging and disordered waistcoat. I was greeted uproariously.
+For nearly a month I had been away in the south of France, press
+correspondent at a murder trial which had stirred all thinking Europe
+by the depths it revealed of cynical depravity on the one side, and
+of morbid, reiterated condonation on the other. It was by far the
+biggest thing I had been given to do yet, and I hoped I had done it
+well; but it was too much to hope that, in a subject coming home so
+nearly to the average sensual male, the psychological conclusions I had
+drawn should pass unchallenged. I sat for over an hour, besieged by
+questions, pelted with authorities, shouted down, derided unexpectedly
+and as unexpectedly championed. Even madame's indulgence was not proof
+against such pandemonium. She pushed open the lace-curtained door, put
+her hands to her pretty brown ears, and shook a reproving finger at her
+unruly family.
+
+"_Quel tapage! Mon Dieu, quel br-r-ruit!_"
+
+"_Oui!_" cries Smeaton, pointing at her excitedly with the
+nut-crackers. "_Et vous en êtes la cause!_"
+
+"Do you remember your Yankee friend's dictum on the little point
+of manners we've been discussing?" Mackworth asked me when order
+was restored. He was a dark, depressed man, perhaps the richest who
+dined at the _À-peu-près_ regularly, and had written the most
+talked-about novel of the year before last.
+
+"By the way," interrupted Smeaton, whose manners are bad, "who's seen
+Ingram lately?"
+
+"I saw him--to-day," I answered, balancing the spoon on my coffee-cup.
+
+"What's he doing? I thought he'd gone back to the States."
+
+"He followed a growler I took from Victoria and wanted to carry in my
+trunk. Would have had to fight another man, too, for the sixpence."
+
+Madame could not have desired a more complete cessation of turmoil than
+followed these words of mine. In more than one pair of eyes I saw the
+panic that would be my own lasting shame rise suddenly, and as suddenly
+be checked. I wonder how they got it under.
+
+"Was he very bad?" asks Smeaton, in a low voice. "Down--right down?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"_Poor--devil!_ Did he know you, Prentice?"
+
+"Not at first. It was too foggy to recognize the house."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Grabbed him as he turned to run, and held him. He wouldn't come in,
+but let me go to fetch him some clothes. When I came out, he'd bolted."
+
+"Bravo!" said Smeaton, and clapped his pudgy little hands.
+
+"Why do you say that?" I asked, voicing a surprise I think we all
+shared.
+
+"Because it confirms a judgment of my own upon Ingram. He was the
+logical animal _par excellence_, and to take money or substance
+one hasn't been allowed to earn, if it's only a penny to buy a loaf or
+a rag to cover nakedness, is to sell logic as Esau sold his birthright.
+If there were more like Ingram, the tangle of this filthy old
+kaleidoscope we call life might straighten out. He'll die, of course,
+but at least he'll die with a man's soul in him."
+
+"Listen to Satan rebuking sin!" said Waldron of the _Hemisphere_.
+
+Smeaton brought his fist down on the table. "Yes," he thundered. "I
+know what you mean. Yes, I've given charity. I've cast bread on the
+waters--to drowning men that were begging for a rope. I've helped
+lame dogs--over stiles that led to nowhere. And every time I've done
+it, Waldron, I've been ashamed of myself. For I know I'm helping to
+protract an agony and perpetuating a state of things that ought to
+have been done with twenty years ago. Literature isn't paying its way
+to-day: that's the cold fact we must face. And a thing that isn't
+paying its way is a sham, no matter if it's as brilliant as the last
+ten years of the old French monarchy. It's falling more and more into
+the hands of men and women who either eke out a little private means
+by scribbling, or else eke out their hire by borrowing. Journalism's
+not so rotten; but, by the Lord Harry, after a morning in Fleet Street
+I sometimes think half of us are living by taking in one another's
+washing."
+
+"You're taking rather a black view," said Waldron.
+
+"Am I? Well, compare the present day with long ago--with Grub
+Street--with what Macaulay calls the darkest period of English letters.
+Read Johnson's early life--Savage--all the historical instances. Look
+at the sums those beggars got! Twenty-five pounds benefit from a play
+that ran fourteen nights: fifty pounds for an ode to Royalty once a
+year: ten pounds for translating a volume of Portuguese travels. Why,
+to many a man whose name is a household word to-day these things read
+like a fairy tale. They used to call on publishers with 'projects' and
+have luncheon served them while he read 'em over."
+
+"What about the novel?" says Waldron, with a half-look at Mackworth.
+
+"In its death throes. Fifty years hence the English novel--considered
+as literature, mind you--will be as dead as the epic poem. I stick to
+what I've said. When a thing ceases to pay its way, it's a sign the
+stage of national development that called for it is over."
+
+"What's going to take its place?"
+
+"Look around you. Something's begun to take its place already:
+articles, books--by people who've _done_ things, not dreamed
+them--written in the English any one can write who tries. 'Three
+months' lion slaughter in Central Africa'; 'One degree nearer that
+pole'; 'How I made my millions.' Especially the last. People never
+weary of that. They don't see that the game must be up, or the secrets
+wouldn't be being given away."
+
+"Come!"--noticing a silence of dissent round the table. "Take a
+concrete instance. Mackworth, there's only one opinion about 'When the
+Sky Fell.'"
+
+"You're very good."
+
+"Simple justice, my boy. Now, take us behind the scenes a little. How
+long did it take you to write it?"
+
+"Nine or ten months."
+
+"Say nine. Working hard?"
+
+"All day and every day."
+
+"How long before you found a publisher?"
+
+"Finished in June, and it came out in the autumn season."
+
+"That's a year. Were you paid on publication?"
+
+"No: six months afterward."
+
+"Eighteen months. I don't like to ask you any more."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind telling. I've cleared a hundred and twenty pounds."
+
+"For eighteen months' work and worry."
+
+"It's great fun. I've nearly done another."
+
+"Yes, but assuming, for the sake of argument----"
+
+"----that I had to live on it, eh? Well, I'm afraid there'd have been a
+third after Prentice's cab this morning."
+
+"I think that settles it," said Smeaton, looking round. "No. The
+novel's had its day. And what a day it's been! Let us think of that.
+Fielding to Henry James! It's like the creation of another world. Come!
+I'll give you a toast we can all drink in silence--'Speedy deliverance
+to Paul Ingram!' And now let's talk of something more cheerful. Who's
+been to see Fenella Barbour's Cuckoo dance at the Stadium?"
+
+"I suppose that's really the stage of national development we've
+reached," hazarded Mackworth.
+
+"If it is, there's something to be said for it," said Smeaton, stoutly.
+
+"She's paying _her_ way, anyhow," said some one. "Two hundred and
+fifty a week ought to keep the wolf from the door."
+
+"Oh, the wolf at the stage door is a domesticated animal. No one wants
+to frighten him away."
+
+I wasn't interested in what followed, and dropped out. Now and then a
+word or two struck me: "A clog-dancer with sophistications." "Anyway,
+you'll see a jolly pretty girl!" "No, not Jewish, Mackworth--Phœnician.
+Mother was Cornish, and she's a throw-back more than two thousand years
+straight to Carthage." "As much again for the posters. Briggses paid
+her four hundred for the 'Crême de Pêche.'"
+
+And I smoked on, thinking of Ingram's rags. As our party broke up,
+I thought Smeaton made me a sign to stop on. When we were alone, he
+smoked silently for a while, and then--
+
+"This is a more than usually filthy tragedy, Prentice."
+
+"About Ingram? Yes, it's pretty bad."
+
+"Wasn't there some book he was going to set the Thames alight with? Has
+it been published?"
+
+"No. It had some funny adventures; but not that one."
+
+"You read it. Was it really good? Between ourselves, you know."
+
+"Oh, I answer for it."
+
+"Don't be in a hurry. It's not late. You knew Ingram better than most
+of us. Now, wasn't there something between him and the little girl
+we've been talking of? Perhaps you guessed I didn't mention her by
+accident. Didn't they come here together more than a year ago?"
+
+I told him what I knew, including the boat-train incident.
+
+"Isn't that Ingram all over?" he exclaimed. "If his eye or his friend
+or his ladylove offended him, one felt the axe would be out in a
+minute. You know what they're saying about her now?"
+
+"About dancing the night her mother died? Why shouldn't she? If she'd
+been a shop-girl or a typist, no one would have thrown stones at her
+for going on with her work. They'd have thought the more of her for it."
+
+"No, no, my dear boy. I mean the Darcher case--woman at Hampstead who
+poisoned herself and the little boy, you know. There was a mysterious
+lady came down in the car with Lumsden. Her name was kept out, but they
+say----"
+
+"That it was she. Oh! impossible, Smeaton! How could it be?"
+
+"Because she left the theatre with him, and happened to be in his house
+when the message came through. Two o'clock in the morning! I had it
+from a quarter that isn't usually wrong."
+
+"And you believe it?"
+
+Smeaton shrugged his shoulders. "My dear boy, I've given up guessing.
+Anybody that wants it can have the benefit of the doubt, now." _Puff!
+puff!_ "I often think of poor Newstead, last time I saw him, at
+Guy's. They thought he was going to get well, and he was sitting up on
+the pillows reading one of those blasted Sunday papers that you write
+for. 'Well Newstead,' said I, as I was going, 'what am I to tell the
+boys?' 'Tell them,' he says, laying his poor claw of a hand on the
+paper, 'tell them I'm driven to my grave at last by the beauty and the
+horror of life!'" _Puff! puff!_ "Why don't you go and see her?
+You can get there easy enough. She's interviewed once a week on an
+average."
+
+"What good would it do?"
+
+Smeaton rapped for his _addition_. "I dunno. I think if I were a
+friend of Ingram's I'd take a certain amount of malicious pleasure in
+letting her know what you saw to-day."
+
+
+
+
+                                  IV
+
+                         SOMETHING LIKE CLOVES
+
+
+As a matter of fact, I found no difficulty at all. Little Winstanley
+was pleased with my murder specials, and fixed up an interview over the
+'phone in no time.
+
+"You're getting rather heavy metal for this, Prentice," he said,
+puffing out his cheeks and regarding me with the benevolence a man
+keeps for the work of his own hands; "but toddle along and see what you
+make of her." One of Winstanley's illusions is that he has "formed" me.
+
+Fenella had a very pretty little doll's house in the tiny square that
+is tucked away near Knightsbridge Barracks, whose gardens back upon the
+Park. The brickwork was very neatly pointed, and the window boxes were
+full of chrysanthemums, and a red door with brass appointments flew
+open to my rather timid ring with a disconcerting suddenness. But I was
+not prepossessed with the stunted little maid who opened it. Neither
+in manner nor appearance was she "up to" the house. There was a latent
+hostility, too, in the way she scanned me.
+
+"Noospapers?" she queried over her shoulder, as she closed the door.
+
+I admitted it.
+
+"Come in 'ere and wait."
+
+I was precipitated rather than ushered into a fireless dining-room,
+a little cold and uncheery for all its graceful furnishings of dark
+scrolled wood and striped mulberry velvet cushions. There was a hanging
+lamp over the oval table, of liver-colored bronze; mistletoe leaves
+stuck over with little electric berries, which budded into light as
+the girl left the room. The sideboard was covered with silver toys. I
+remember a jointed crab and lobster, and a ship on wheels with all its
+sails set, and a coach and six, whose driver, his calves in the air,
+waved a long whiplash over six curled, trampling stallions. I know
+there are more striking contrasts in the world if one goes seeking
+them, but for me the injustice of life always stands pictured now by a
+shelf full of useless beaten silver toys on the one hand, and on the
+other by a coat buttoned across a naked throat.
+
+I wonder would I have known my pale little girl with the frightened
+eyes, whose heart I had been so strangely commissioned to break,
+eighteen months ago? Then I had only been able to guess at the probable
+grace of the body which a rough travelling coat so thoroughly covered,
+and though, even in the strained, anxious face and disordered hair,
+beauty had been apparent, it had been beauty seen through a mist of
+tears, its harmonies disordered by the tortured questioning soul.
+
+Since that time I suppose her figure had attained its full graciousness
+of line and had reached the limit of development which modern standards
+of bodily beauty, forced to take a fashion into consideration, would
+consider compatible with elegance for a woman of her height. She was
+still in half-mourning, and wore a trained dress of some soft gray
+material embroidered in black on the breast and sleeves. I am a child
+in such matters, but imagine her dressmaker, or the builder of garments
+more intimate still, must have been something of an artist, for,
+seen thus, there was absolutely nothing to recall the boyish _sans
+gêne_ of figure and manner which was her great asset--her trump card
+upon the stage, and which, from the moment she kissed her hands across
+the footlights, never failed to bring rapturous applause about her
+ears. Her dark hair, "fine as the finest silk" (after all, there is no
+bettering the robust descriptiveness of fairy-tale), was dressed rather
+fashionably than prettily--wide across her forehead in front, and
+rather far beyond her head at the back. I thought she wore too many
+rings, and diamonds glittered in the soft shadow of her throat.
+
+She did not recognize me, but gave me her hand to shake without
+condescension, which was all in her favor. I will make a further
+confession: At the first frank, interested glance of her eyes I
+consigned old Smeaton and his hateful friend who didn't often make
+mistakes to the eternal fellowship of Ananias. The impossibility simply
+began and ended with those eyes. It was not the glamour of a lovely
+face and a gracious welcome, for, as I took her hand, I remember
+feeling indignant that so little shadow of the wrong my friend had done
+her crossed the bright well-being of her life. It was too evident that
+she forgave and forgot with equal completeness. Poor, logical-minded
+Paul, carrying about with him night and day the image of this lost
+mistress. Did I blame him that food and raiment were hateful to him?
+
+"Why," she said, "poor man! you're shivering. This room is a bit cold,
+isn't it? I'm afraid Frances doesn't like the press. I've noticed she
+always shows them into whichever room hasn't a fire in it. She's rather
+a tyrant, Frances is. But it's nice isn't it, to have some one left who
+cares enough for you to bully you. Druce, the housekeeper, was my nurse
+once. Come across to the drawing-room. It's much prettier, and there's
+a fire in it. Twenty minutes now"--lifting a warning finger--"not an
+instant longer."
+
+I followed her across the ridiculous little hall into a drawing-room
+whose size surprised me. It was low but very long, and the bottom was
+filled in by a curved window of leaded glass looking out over the
+sodden Park, where a belated rider or two still walked a steaming
+horse and probably dreamed of a hot bath and dinner. The room, with
+its lacquered "dancing dado," and walls hung with Chinese silk, has
+been often paragraphed. It smelt of sandalwood and roses, and had a
+fire of old whale-ship logs burning in a steel casket upon the hearth,
+with little spurts of flame, all manner of unexpected tints--violet
+and bottle-green and strawberry red. How fond she was of color and
+glitter! A frightful old bull-terrier--reared, I should say, from his
+appearance, in the bosom of some knacker's family, and whose head
+something, prosperity perhaps, had turned violently on one side--got
+up from the hearth-rug and came limping and sniffing across the room.
+Fenella got down on her knees and put her soft cheek to the repulsive
+pink nose.
+
+"Did _he_ want to be interviewed then? And so he shall. Do you
+know"--looking up at me--"you're the first one that's seen _him_?
+I generally show two small ones like pen-wipers; but they're away at a
+show." She turned to the dog again. "Is he vezzy old then, and vezzy
+blind, and vezzy much chewed and bitten, poor old man! and is the
+world just one big, dark smell to him? Well if 'oo _will_ chew
+my whiskers, dear, of _tourse_ 'oo'll sneeze!" She jumped up as
+though some thought suddenly checked her playful mood. "Put _him_
+down, please!" she said, pointing in a business-like manner to my open
+note-book. "Name? Roquelaure--Rock for short. Eighteen years old--two
+years less than me. Fancy _that_--younger than me! No tricks--only
+habits. We were puppies together--at least, I mean--Yes, yes. Put it
+down that way. It sounds rather _dear_, I think. Sit down, please.
+Now, what else do you want to hear about? My dancing? Oh! I've always
+danced. Used to do it instead of flying into a rage."
+
+"Wait one minute, please," I said. "'The usefulness of dancing as an
+outlet for the emotion is probably a discovery as old as the world
+itself.' Um--um----When did you begin to take regular lessons, and how
+far----?"
+
+I looked up. She had recognized me. Forgetfulness? Oh! I was as bad as
+the others.
+
+"Wait a moment!" She rose, and left the room as quickly as her tight
+silk underskirt would let her. She was back again in a minute, holding
+my card in her hand.
+
+"Are you _his_ Mr. Prentice?"
+
+I bowed my head, and laid note-book and pencil aside. What a fool I had
+been to come!
+
+"Where is he? Do you see him? Oh, _how_ I've tried and tried to
+remember your name!"
+
+"I don't know where he is."
+
+"But you've seen him? I know you have. Answer, please. Why do you look
+so queer?"
+
+"I saw him last week."
+
+"Was he well? Was he happy?"
+
+"He was--starving, I think."
+
+"_O-oh!_" I had seen tragedy in the girl's face, now I saw it in
+the woman's. I told her as much as I dared. I hope I was merciful.
+
+"Why didn't you hold him?" she cried, at one point of the story. "Oh,
+my God! Why did you let him go? Don't you know the sort of man he is?"
+
+"I thought I was doing my best. I had only gone to get him some warm
+clothes. It was such a raw, foggy morning. That seemed the first thing."
+
+"Some warm clothes!" she repeated, under her breath, looking round
+at the silk and silver and roses. Then she broke down, and cried and
+cried. Poor soul! I had to stop her at last. I was afraid she'd be ill.
+
+She was very docile, dried her eyes, and begged my pardon for what
+she'd just said.
+
+"You're his friend, aren't you?" she pleaded, "his real, true friend?
+You won't give him up?"
+
+"What can I do? I'd even bear it for him if I could."
+
+"No you couldn't," she said, tightening her lips and shaking her head
+decisively. "Nobody can bear anything for him. Do you think I didn't
+try?"
+
+She rolled her handkerchief up into a ball, and tucked it away, with a
+resolute little gesture.
+
+"I'm not going to despair," she said bravely, with a kind of gulp and
+a tremor of her throat that set the diamonds streaming blue fire. "I
+think things will come all right. I've had a kind of a--kind of sign.
+Shall I tell you?"--timidly.
+
+I'm foolishly impulsive, and I kissed her hand. After all, the dog does
+it.
+
+"Listen, then! Thursday week"--I started, but she didn't notice
+it--"Thursday week I was feeling simply _awful_ all day. I can't
+explain it. Imagine some one you love is being tried for something
+that means death--or more awful still, if it goes against him. It got
+worse and worse. I've never missed a night I was billed for, but I
+shouldn't have been able to go on as I was. Still, I went down to the
+theatre--just on chance, you know. It was half-past seven or quarter
+to eight. I had an hour, but I dressed early to be safe. Suddenly
+something seemed to say inside of me, 'Now! now! down on your knees,
+quick. This is the dangerous time.' My dresser had gone out. I locked
+the door, and fell on my knees in a kind of faint. I prayed, and prayed
+as well as I could. I don't remember much what. I think I asked God, if
+Paul was never, never to be happy again, to take him the best way to
+some place where nothing could hurt him any more, and where he would
+see me and know what I was feeling for him. And then, Mr. Prentice--and
+then----Oh! it was wonderful. Something all warm and comfortable,
+like--oh! like _cloves_--why do you laugh? I'm trying to tell you
+the best way I can--seemed to come round my heart. I got up from my
+knees. It was eight-fifteen, and my dresser was banging on the door and
+asking if I was ill. I opened it and hugged her. She must have thought
+me crazy. All the sadness was gone--every bit. I knew they'd done
+trying him, and he--and he----" She struggled with her emotion, and,
+then, covering her face with her hands, rocked backward and forward,
+moaning and sobbing--"he's Not Guilty. No! my love's Not Guilty."
+
+There was a knock at the door. She turned her head quickly into the
+shadow.
+
+"Come in!"
+
+"It's Sir Bryan, madam."
+
+"Tell him to wait in the dining-room.... Now, Mr. Prentice, we must
+try again. What are the best papers to advertise in? Papers that--that
+quite poor people read most?"
+
+I gave two or three an unsolicited testimonial.
+
+"Write your address--your private address--on this card. I'll put
+an advert."--she said it this way--"in three for a year. Just your
+initial. The moment you hear, telegraph--no, telephone me! I'll say
+you're to be always given my address. I don't go to New York for nearly
+a year. Good-bye. I'll send you something for your paper to-night."
+
+I did not see the sporting baronet, but I smelt his cigar in the hall,
+and I saw his damned motor-car outside the door. And as I walked out of
+the little square, I wondered whether perhaps it wouldn't be to every
+one's advantage, and his own, if Paul Ingram should never be heard of
+on this earth again.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+                         A VERY VULGAR CHAPTER
+
+
+    "Ingram, Paul. Will Paul Ingram communicate at once with 'P.,' 15,
+    Darlaston Crescent? The matter is urgent, and concerns the future
+    happiness of another."
+
+Some day, when Paul Ingram is already a legend, the dipper into musty
+records who stumbles upon this heartrending appeal in issue after
+issue will imagine he has made a rare find. Always supposing another
+eventuality, which I sometimes seem to foresee, has not supervened, and
+that a reformed society, for security's sake, and as an earnest of its
+reformation, does not make a bonfire once for all of the records of its
+past depravity and madness.
+
+Nothing, to me, affords fruit for such sad thought as to see unworldly
+folk taking advantage of the machinery of a world that is organized
+to crush them and their like out of existence. That Oxford graduate
+who seeks "congenial employment as amanuensis or secretary," the
+gentlewoman "thrown suddenly upon her own resources through financial
+loss" who is anxious for a post as nursery governess, as companion, as
+anything that will allay the fright and loneliness at her heart--("fond
+of children," she adds. Poor soul, one sees her casting a wistful
+glance into passing perambulators.) Do not the very compositors, I
+wonder, laugh as they set up such type? I was sorry indeed for that
+"other" whose happiness depended upon Ingram's resurrection.
+
+Meantime I had given my word, and I was not idle. Every good
+journalist is a bit of a detective at heart, and I discovered a
+mournful zest in following Paul's calvary, step by step, from one
+lodging to another. Everywhere I found help and sympathy, and conceived
+a new regard for the maligned race of landladies. (Mrs. McNaughten, of
+course, is _hors concours_.)
+
+"Ah! poor gentleman," said one grimy soul. "Well I remember the
+night he come. I knocked at the door to arst 'im if 'e wouldn't take
+somethin' 'eartenin' with 'is tea--a bloater, or a rasher--and there
+'e wos, settin' with 'is 'ead down on the table. Money? Oh, a trifle
+of rent, sir. Wanted to leave 'is trunk be'ind; but there, live and
+let live's my motter. It went to my 'eart to 'ave 'im go--wanted care,
+'e did--but you see, sir, me bein' only a workin' woman, and 'avin' a
+'usband at 'ome with bronickal trouble----Thank you kindly, sir, sence
+you orfer it. You won't think no worst of me for takin' it, will you?"
+
+At the very next stopping place--I had almost said stumbling place--the
+trunk came to hand. Strangely enough, he owed nothing here. I suppose
+at a certain point in misfortune a man flings his possessions from him
+as a swimmer flings his clothes.
+
+"Took 'is things away in a bundle, wot there wos," said the mistress of
+this house, who was nursing and rocking a child as she spoke. "I ain't
+techt nothink," with a slight shiver. "If so be you're a friend of the
+party, you'd prabst better open it. The keys is upstairs. No: nothin'
+owin,' but I wasn't sorry w'en 'e went. Too strange in 'is manner. It
+goes agenst a 'ouse w'en things--you know wot I mean--'appens in it."
+
+To Mrs. Purvis's secret disappointment, I believe, there was nothing
+in the trunk but a mass of torn paper and a queer brown-paper parcel
+that I seemed to recognize. It was addressed to the house near Golden
+Square, and the label was headed with the name of some legal firm in
+the West End. It was the manuscript of "Sad Company."
+
+For a long while after Mrs. Purvis had left me to attend to the
+shrill wants of some of her elder children, I sat with it in my lap,
+looking out of the rain-spotted window upon the mouldering back gardens
+beneath, where string after string of intimate household linen dried or
+stiffened in the sooty air. I thought of the tender, mournful wisdom,
+the sad insight into life which that despised bundle contained, bought
+with the blood and sweat, and tears maybe, of thirty years: jotted
+down--for I knew its history--in cattle camps, by Algerian bivouac
+fires, in hotel lobbies of roaring Western cities. And I thought of the
+little luxurious house beside the Park, filled with all that ministers
+to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. A pretty face and figure,
+an aptitude for bodily movement, a few shallow tricks of manner, had
+earned that in a year for a woman whom I had already occasion to know
+couldn't spell. Well, the world knows what it wants. The world had
+chosen. Was there to be no appeal? Is failure here failure forever? Or
+is there, beyond this world, with its stark denials of justice, another
+where such things count still, and where the reward so insolently and
+capriciously withheld shall be bestowed, the hungerer after justice,
+even artistic justice, have his fill? Sad questions that no religion
+cares to answer.
+
+And here my search ended. He had left no address: no letters had
+followed him. I took the manuscript away with me and locked it into a
+drawer. I was not sure yet what I would do with it. Show the world what
+manner of man it had despised, perhaps. Or perhaps tie a stone around
+it and sink it in mid-channel. I must think which Paul would have
+chosen.
+
+Nearly six months afterward in late summer, I was sitting at my desk
+and beginning to think of turning in, when Mrs. McNaughten rapped at
+the door. A "vairy rough body" was asking for me. Should she show him
+up or bid him state the natur-re of his business?
+
+"Doesn't he say what he wants?"
+
+"He'll say nothing but that he wants Mister-r-r P. He says ye'll
+understand fine. _Mister 'P.'_ I think the body's daft."
+
+The advertisement. My heart jumped. "Show him up, please. At once!"
+
+A short thick-set man in soiled working clothes and with a colored
+handkerchief round his neck came in, tossed a cap on the table with a
+gesture full of natural grace, stretched his neck two or three times,
+as if to intimate that he was ready for any manner of reception, and
+began to beat a limy dust with the back of his hand out of as much of
+his corduroys as was within easy reach.
+
+"Nime of Palamount," he said, oracularly and rather hoarsely.
+"Builder's mite, my tride is."
+
+I indicated a chair. "And what can I do for you, Mr. Palamount? I am
+not contemplating any repairs or additions to my quarters at present."
+
+All this time the man had kept one hand in his pocket. He drew it out,
+holding a newspaper, folded very small and very tight.
+
+"In conneckshun wiv two advertysements," said he. "Fifteen Darlaston
+Crescent is the address wot's on one. 'Ere y'are. Marked in blue it is.
+Initial of 'P.'"
+
+He unfolded the journal and handed it to me. It was the paragraph which
+heads this chapter, and which, having been paid for a year in advance,
+would reiterate its useless appeal for another six months to come
+unless----Somehow Mr. Palamount did not impress me as a bearer of glad
+tidings.
+
+"Well," I asked, without much hope. "What news can you give?"
+
+"'Old 'ard," said my visitor, who was feeling through various pockets,
+as if in search of fresh documents.
+
+"You needn't bother," I said, irritably. "I know it's in more than one."
+
+The horny-handed one smiled, a powdery and superior smile, as of
+foresight justified.
+
+"Ah!" said he. "That's wot I thought you'd be in the dark abaht. Two
+parties there is. Complickitions--that's wot I calls it. 'Ere y'are.
+Sund'y _'Erald_. Twenty-first July. 'Work'ahse Marster, depitties
+_and_ uvvers.'"
+
+I snatched the paper from his hand and devoured the salient paragraph.
+It was a very superior article; far more calculated to strike a
+reader's imagination than the feeble little effort we had concocted
+between us. I read it aloud.
+
+"£200 Reward. To workhouse masters, lodging-house deputies and
+others....
+
+"The above reward will be paid for information that shall lead to the
+discovery or certify the death of PAUL INGRAM, native of
+Lilburn, Massachusetts, U. S. A. He was discharged from the French
+Foreign Legion in March 19--. Was subsequently correspondent in Morocco
+for the Federated Press, and is known to have been living in London in
+very reduced circumstances as recently as last September.
+
+"Communications are to be made to the American Consulate, St. Helens
+Place, Bishopsgate, or to Messrs. Pollexfen, Allport and Pollexfen,
+Solicitors, 52a, Bedford Row, W. C."
+
+A description of my hapless friend followed, remarkable, or perhaps not
+remarkable, for conveying the very haziest notion of his appearance.
+
+Mr. Palamount was regarding my amazed face meanwhile with excited
+relish, somewhat tempered by his surroundings which were ill adapted to
+its natural relief by expectoration.
+
+"Wotcher mike of it?"
+
+I stared helplessly. "It's--money, I suppose."
+
+The builder of houses was now approaching his supreme effect. He half
+rose from his chair, made an ineffectual attempt to rid his voice of
+cobwebs, and pointed an accusing finger, about the shape and size of a
+banana, at the two papers in my lap. At last he spoke.
+
+"'Ue and cry: that's wot that is."
+
+"What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Wot I ses. 'Ue and cry. There's lot of blokes, mind you as won't tike
+blood-money as'll give evidence of w'ereabahts if they thinks it's
+all stright. Money? yus--I _don't_ fink. Certify 'is deaf? It'll
+be certified all right if 'e puts 'is nose inter that loryer's orfice
+or if any bloomin' copper's nark as knows 'im gets 'is eyes on that
+parrygraft. Tike it aht, guv'nor. Git 'im aw'y somew're w'ere there
+ain't no extry-edition treaties. Shive 'is beard, too, 'e'd better,
+less 'e growed it since."
+
+To say that I was dazed by Mr. Palamount's mental processes is to state
+bare truth.
+
+"You think he's done something, then, and is in hiding?"
+
+"Yus. Cut a bloke in hot blood, I fink."
+
+"And that my advertisement will help put the police on his track?"
+
+"Yus," said Mr. Palamount succinctly and without any implied respect
+for my superior lucidity. "Watch the 'ahse, they will, and pinch 'im
+w'en 'e calls."
+
+"But--my dear obfuscated friend----"
+
+"'Ere, guv'nor; no langwidge please."
+
+"Well, my dear friend, Paul Ingram's an old friend of mine. He's a
+highly respectable citizen. It's true he's got no money, but you and I
+know that isn't a crime. One advertisement is put in by his friends who
+want to help him, and as for the other--it's too late to-night, but I
+shall find out all about it first thing to-morrow."
+
+My new friend made a repressive gesture. "'Ere guv'nor--none o' that.
+I seen it fust. If it's all right, them two 'undred quids is prop'ly
+mine."
+
+"Well, do you know where he is?"
+
+"I know w'ere 'e wos a week ago. To fink," catching up his cap and
+dashing it to the ground, "to fink as I showed 'im that one o' yours
+four munfs ago."
+
+"You'd better tell me all you know," I said, losing patience. "Will you
+have some beer first?" The cobwebs were getting on my nerves.
+
+"Beer!" echoed my visitor. He had, indeed, a generally unslaked
+appearance that rendered the question an impertinence. "Beer!" he said
+again, giving the word this time its full diapason or organ sound. The
+rest was vigorous action.
+
+Unfortunately he had not an equal talent for connected narrative, and I
+was too anxious about Paul to welcome the light upon dark places which
+his discursiveness incidentally threw. One day, late in the previous
+autumn, I made out, his own trade being slack, he was working on the
+tramway extension to one of the northern suburbs. About midday the fog
+came on so thickly that the road-making gang were laid off for the
+day, and wended their way home after the riotously sociable manner of
+their class, with frequent calls at favored houses of refreshment. When
+evening fell, he was drinking in a bar the other side of Blackfriars
+with a neighbor and fellow-workman, whose patronymic of Barker had
+been long abandoned in familiar discourse for the more recondite one
+of "Flying Fox." ("Put two tanners on the 'orse 'e did, at odds on,
+an' won fruppence.") The backer of certainties had only been taken on
+that morning by the foreman after a week's waiting, and was probably
+in ill-humor at his enforced leisure. Either for this reason or some
+other a dispute arose in the bar of the George and Cushion, which was
+ended by Mr. Barker's shouldering his way out, with the expressed
+intention of pursuing his homeward way unaccompanied by any "bleedin'
+skrim-shanker." Mr. Palamount was eager to detail the misunderstanding
+that had led to this cruel charge, but I checked him, and from this
+point the story took quite a leap forward.
+
+"Parsin' Thomases 'Orsepittel, I see'd a crahd rahnd the cas'alty door,
+an' arst 'oo was 'urt. 'Bloke on the Embankmint,' they ses, 'knocked
+over by a motor-keb near Blackfriars: come aht of the fog like a
+cannon-ball,' they ses. I arst the nime, 'cos I was feelin' anxious
+'baht Foxie; not drunk 'e wasn't, but I give you my word 'e'd 'ad
+some, and 'e wasn't a man as could 'old the booze. 'That's 'im, they
+ses--'that's the party. Ginger-'aired wiv freckles; arnswers to nime
+of Barker.' 'I'm a pal,' I ses, ''oo's in wiv 'im?' 'Man that fahnd
+'im,' they ses--'eddigicated bloke: give 'im fust ide, and 'eld 'is
+'ead in 'is lap in the tramcar.'
+
+"They let me in w'en they 'eard I was a friend of the party wot was
+'urt. Big room wiv benches: young tawfs in long w'ite coats--sawboneses
+I calls 'em--nurses too (my word, not 'alf givin' 'em the tale): blue
+jars, an' a smell wot mikes yer fice crack. 'Wotcher want?' the mitron
+ses to me. 'I fink I can identify the party, sister,' I ses, 'I'm a
+nighbor.' 'Wite 'ere,' she ses. 'They'll be bringin' 'im through in a
+minute.' So I sets dahn. A tall furrin' lookin' bloke was a settin' on
+a bench nigh me, wiv a beard. Werry thin an' fierce 'e wos and eyes a
+blazin' like coals. 'Crool business over there,' I ses, pointin' to the
+screen. 'Wife near 'er time, four nippers, an' only took on yesterday.
+Fust job since the spring.' 'I know abaht it,' 'e ses. I was a-goin'
+to arst 'im ow 'e knew, w'en the row begins from be'ind the screen.
+Just told 'im they 'ad as 'e was a free munfs' kise. 'I carn't do wiv
+it. I carn't do wiv it,' 'e was 'ollerin' over and over ag'in as they
+carries 'im through. 'My wife's near 'er time, and there ain't five
+shillin's in the 'ouse.' Tryin' to git up 'e was, and arstin' Gawd to
+strike 'im dead. ''Oo knows this man?' ses one of the doctors as was
+'olding 'is arms. I was a-goin' to speak w'en the tall bloke jumps up
+and goin' over to the stretcher, bends dahn and w'ispers somethin'
+quick. Foxie stops strugglin' an' looks rahnd at 'im. ''Ow will yer?'
+'e ses, and looks rahnd at 'im. 'Never you mind' ses the man. 'I didn't
+promust without knowin' 'ow. You wite,' 'e ses, 'and there'll be good
+news termorrer.' I fink Foxie was stunned like and let 'em carry 'im
+aw'y quiet. I was a wonderin' too w'ile they filled up 'is card for 'is
+missus, 'cos I never see destitootion so pline as on 'im.
+
+"W'en we was ahtside: 'Nah then,' he ses, and 'e couldn't 'ave spoke
+brisker not if 'ed bin one of the doctors. 'Somethin's got to be
+done.' 'Yus,' I ses, lookin' at 'im 'ard. '_Done_' I ses, like
+that. 'Tike me to 'is 'ome fust of all,' 'e ses. 'You know the w'y.'
+I'd mide up me mind be now as 'e was balmy, and I was a bit ashimed
+of 'im on the tram. But 'e pide 'is own fare and 'eld 'is jor. On'y
+w'en we wos gittin' near Camberwell: 'Wot sort of woman is this Mrs.
+Barker?' 'e arst me. 'I don't know much of 'er,' I told 'im. 'Keeps
+'erself to 'erself she does. But sence she's bin doin' laundery work,
+my missus looks in and gives the kids their meals and a bit of a
+wash. Gimekeeper's daughter, she wos, in the country.' 'E looks dahn
+on to the Walworth Road w'ere some gels was a-dancin' to a organ.
+'Gimekeeper's daughter!' 'e ses. 'In the country! My Gawd! 'Ow many
+kids?' 'Four,' I ses. 'Eldest is a van-boy earnin' five bob a week.
+T'other three's little gels. Don't see 'em in the street much. Mother
+keeps 'em indoors. Un'ealthy, I calls it.'
+
+"Mrs. Barker must 'ave been listenin' for 'er man, 'cos she comes
+aht 'fore we'd got to the landin'. Tall, dark, 'an'some woman, wiv a
+diffrunt voice to most of the wimmin' dahn our w'y. Not so 'igh. 'Oh,
+Jim,' she ses. 'Wot mikes you so lite. 'Ave you forgot--?' and then
+stops short, seein' us two. 'You tell 'er,' I ses, keeping aht o' sight
+and nudgin' 'im. 'That's wot I come for,' 'e ses, and goes in and shets
+the door in me fice. I listened, expectin' to 'ear screaming, but there
+wos only talkin'--fust 'im very low, then 'er, and then more talkin',
+like prayin'. 'You can come in now,' 'e ses, throwin' open the door.
+She was settin' by the fire, cryin' to 'erself and young Ern, in 'is
+blue coat and brass buttons, blubbering into 'is coker, and two plites
+under the 'arth, one on top of the other, and grivy bubbling between
+the edges. The little gels wos in bed. On'y one room they 'ad.
+
+"'Wot was Barker's job,' 'e asks. 'Road-making gang.' 'My old job,' 'e
+ses wiv a larf. 'Yus, I don't fink,' I ses, with a sidewise look at
+'im. 'That'd be a better tale, matey, if there was a little more meat
+on your ribs.' 'I've mide roads,' 'e ses, 'under a sun as'd melt you
+like a taller candle.' 'Wot kinder roads?' 'Millitery roads.' 'Oh,' I
+ses. 'You bin a soljer?' 'Yus,' 'e ses, 'the only real sort as is left.
+I never enlisted at eighteen to 'ave my 'ealth built up wiv 'ealthy
+food an' Swedish gymnastics, so be the time I was twenty I c'd go to
+Injer and sit in a verander durin' the 'eat of the d'y, flappin' the
+flies awf me fice w'ile a brown bag o 'bones shined me buttons and kep'
+me rifle clean. I never bin a luxury seven years and a problem all the
+rest of me life. Gimme that poker!'
+
+"Young Ern giv it 'im, staring like 'is eyes would drop aht. 'E took it
+up be the two ends and bent it double, then 'anded it to me. 'Staighten
+it out,' 'e ses, wipin' 'is forehead. 'It's a knack,' I ses. 'E took it
+agen' and laid it out true, wiv a kind of a 'eave of 'is chest an' a
+groan. Next thing 'e did wos to put 'is 'ands over 'is fice and tumble
+in a 'eap on the floor.
+
+"Wot a ter-do there was! Missis Barker bithing 'is 'ead wiv cold
+water, old Mrs. Conder from the nex' room tryin' to pour gin down 'is
+teef--'See wot it is,' she ses, 'to never be wivout a bottle'--young
+Ern 'ollering out to loosen 'is neck w'en there wasn't nothin' to
+loosen. 'Oh! is 'e dying?' ses Mrs. Barker to me. 'Dyin'!' I ses; 'not
+'im. Acceleration is wot's the matter with 'im and nothing else.' "
+
+Here my curiosity got the better of my anxiety. "What do you mean by
+acceleration?"
+
+He shifted uneasily in his chair. "Well, guv'nor, it's a word us
+people has got. 'Aven't you read in the pipers w'ere it ses, 'Vital
+Statistics. In London ten persons was found dead of starvition during
+the past year?' That's ten w'ere the coroner couldn't think o' nothin'
+else. All the others is only 'acceleration.' Pneumonia accelerated be
+insufficient nourishment, brownchitis accelerated, 'ousemaid's knee,
+tennis elber--wotcher like, so long as it's on'y accelerated. Looks
+better and keeps the charitable people comfortabler in their minds.
+'Acceleration,' I ses to 'er; 'and that's the meddicine 'e wants,'
+pointing to the plites under the fire. 'And, 'e wants it sharp.'
+
+"'E come to 'isself presently, and seemed quite ashimed. Sed it wos
+'is own fault, and that that poker trick didn't oughter be done on
+less than a 'ole roll once a d'y. We give 'im the tommy, and at first
+'e tried to eat slow. But it wasn't no use. 'E just seemed to in'ale
+them beef and taters an' a 'ousehold loaf and four cups o' coker.
+Mrs. Barker ackcherally larfed as she cut the slices. Women is funny,
+guv'nor. She seemed to fergit 'er own trouble. Wouldn't 'ear of 'im
+goin' away that night, but mide 'im up a bed in the passidge.
+
+"Before I come aw'y it was arranged wot we was to do. I was to call for
+'im in the morning and bring a suit of corduroys. We wos to go dahn
+togevver and apply for Foxie's job fer 'im.
+
+"There wasn't no trouble over that. I got dahn early and give my mites
+the tile, and though the foreman wagged 'is mahth a bit, 'e saw there
+was trouble comin' unless 'e give in. 'E went a bit slow the fust d'y
+or so; but arter that there wasn't a better 'and, and in three weeks'
+time the foreman give 'im charge of a gang on a job up Finchley w'y."
+
+"And you became great friends, I suppose."
+
+"Well, guv'nor, I won't s'y that. 'E wasn't a bloke you could tike
+lib'ties wiv. Not enough wot I calls give an' tike abaht 'im. One 'er
+two tried calling 'im 'the lodger' and was sorry. But we went 'ome
+togevver and dahn to 'orsepittle of a Sund'y, and after Mrs. Barker
+gone to Queen Charlotte my missus useter look in reglar. But I give
+you my word there wasn't much as she could do. 'Owever early she come
+round, there was the floor swep' an' the kids dressed and barfed--great
+on barfs, 'e was: fussy I calls it--and 'avin' their breakfast and 'im
+sluicin' 'isself in the passidge. Wonderful 'ow 'e could cook too.
+Useter mike soup outer milk and vegitables. Never seed sich a thing,
+nor my missus neither."
+
+"When did he tell you his name?"
+
+"I'm a-comin' to that. Fust night I arst 'im and 'e said 's nime was
+'Bruvverhood.' Well, it might be; 'cos I worked for a firm 'o that nime
+at Deptford--engineers they was. But one night soon after Barker's
+missus gone aw'y, I got a letter from 'im askin' me to call. Funny,
+I thought it, 'cos we'd come home togevver that evening. 'Owever, I
+cleaned up and went rahnd. There 'e was in what 'e called the buzzum
+of 'is fam'ly. Pretty sight it was. Young Ern was gone to the cawfy
+concert at Syviour's Schools. There was 'im smokin' 'is pipe an'
+little Effel wiv 'er curls brushed out recitin' a pome 'baht the night
+afore Christmas, and anuvver little gel on 'is knee, and Gertie on the
+floor pl'yin' wiv piper chickens wot 'e'd cut out. Schools was shut on
+accahnt o' scarlet fever, and 'e'd bin teachin' them their lessons.
+
+"'E jumped up and called in Mrs. Conder to put the kids to bed.
+''Ammertoe,' 'e ses, w'en we was in the street--that's my nime with
+my mites--''Ammertoe, I got to trust some one, and it's goin' ter be
+you.' 'E pulls a bit o' piper out of 'is wescutt pocket. 'This 'ere's
+a cheque,' 'e ses, 'an' I want you to go down termorrer and cash it
+at the bank.' Well, remembering 'ow I'd met 'im, you c'ud a knocked
+me over wiv a canary's wing fevver. 'You ain't done bad, matey,' I
+ses, 'out of two munfs' navvyin',' 'No, I 'aven't bin long putting a
+nest-egg by,' 'e ses, quietly. 'That's a fact,' I ses, very serious.
+'What's your gime?' 'E 'anded me the bit o' piper and I read the nime
+at the bottom. 'Ullo,' I ses, 'you're the bloke they're advertisn'
+for--spoilin' some one's 'appiness--in the _Sund'y 'Erald_.'
+'Yus,' 'e ses.' 'And that's wot I'm trustin' you with. Not the
+money--that's nothin'.' 'But wot abaht it?' I ses. 'Will they give
+it me?' 'They may arst questions,' 'e ses. 'But you ain't to know
+too much. Say you've give consideration, and a workin' man ain't to
+be kep' out of 'is due. There's no one can give that talk better'n
+you, 'Ammertoe', 'e ses, smilin'. 'And besides, I'll p'y you for your
+trouble.' ''Ere, guv'nor,' I ses, 'old lard! You're a eddigicated
+bloke, but don't think a artesian ain't got feelin's. You 'ave pide
+me,' I ses. 'I'm pide by wot I jest see up in Barker's 'ome.'
+
+"There wasn't no real trouble at the bank. 'E'd give me annuvver letter
+to put into the envelope 'e'd sent me, signed wiv the same name as was
+on the cheque. The cashier looked pretty 'ard at me, and two or three
+clurks puts their 'eads togevver. 'Don't 'urry,' I ses. 'I'm pide be
+the year, and it don't matter w'ere I spend me time.' Cahnted the five
+quids free times, they did, to be sure two wasn't stuck togevver.
+Non-prejoocers, that's wot I calls them.
+
+"This 'appened so often that the clurks got to know me. One night, jest
+before Foxie comes 'ome, I couldn't 'elp openin' my mahth a bit, jest
+to 'im. 'Wotcher goin' to do wiv all the money I drawed to-d'y? Give
+Barker a surprise be gettin' their stuff out o' pawn? Rare lot's bin
+up the spaht,' I ses. 'No,' 'e ses. 'It ain't wuth while now.' 'W'y
+not?' 'Cos they ain't 'ere for long. I'm a goin' to emmygrite them,
+'Ammertoe.' I was 'avin a drink at the time, an' I nearly choked.
+'Yus,' 'e goes on, afore I could speak, lookin' at the ceilin',
+'they're a goin' to God's promust land. Them kids is a goin' to grow up
+somew'eres they don't 'ave to be shut in a room for fear of wot they
+may see and 'ear. It's full of tigers and wolves, that street is,' 'e
+ses, pointin' aht the winder, w'ere Bill Shannon was a tryin' to git
+'is missus 'ome wiv all her clothes on. 'They're a goin' to be woke
+up on the trine some mornin' to see the blessed sun come up under the
+prairie as big and red as the dome of Paul's. It ain't spoiled sence I
+seed it fust, nigh on to twenty-five years ago. I've fallen from there
+to 'ell,' 'e ses, 'and there ain't no return ticket the w'y I come. But
+if I can't go back meself, I can show uvvers the w'y to escape.'
+
+"'And ain't you a-goin' now'eres?' I ses, noticin' for the fust time
+'ow w'ite and ill 'e was lookin'. 'Oh, yus,' 'e ses. 'I got my journey
+to go too.' 'Crost the sea?' I arst 'im. 'Just a short w'y,' 'e ses.
+'Crost the sea to a big white furrin town I knows of, w'ere there's a
+tramcar w'itin', as'll tike me 'alf-w'y. Full of women in wi'te caps
+it'll be, goin' 'ome from marketin' wiv baskets in their laps, and
+maybe there'll be some like meself as found there wasn't no sale for
+the wares wot they carried in. And w'ere it stops there's a road up a
+'ill that turns through a field w'ere they're stackin' 'ay this minnit,
+wiv steep clay banks on bofe sides, and a old farm w'ere ducks is a
+swimmin' in a pond and pigeons a slippin' and slidin' dahn the roof.
+And w'en I've reached that,' 'e ses, 'I'll rest a bit and look down
+on a gray village and miles and miles of sand, wiv the sea a-crawlin'
+and a-crinklin' beyond; 'cos I'll know,' 'e ses, 'as I've reached my
+journey's end at last. Think of it,' 'e ses, grippin' my shoulder 'ard.
+'Think of it,' 'e ses, 'man! Clean, soft, dry sand, warm from a 'ole
+day's sun, and the grass a-wavin' and the sea w'isperin' and the gulls
+mewin'. There's worse ends to a journey than that, and you and me's
+seen 'em.' I looks at 'im very 'ard indeed. 'If you tike my advice,' I
+ses, 'before you goes on any of them journeys you'll 'ave a rest and
+some one to look arter you.' 'I shall 'ave some one,' 'e ses. 'She'll
+be a w'itin' for me in that town I telled you of. She'll tike my 'and
+and won't never let go until----Tell me, 'Ammertoe,' 'e ses, breakin'
+off sudden, 'wotcher think of me? Man to man. Think I'm a good man,
+dontcher?' 'Yus,' I ses. 'Bit balmy all the sime.' 'I ain't balmy,'
+'e ses, 'and I ain't good. I'm a very crooil man, 'Ammertoe, and the
+reason is I'm too sine; too clear in me ed. W'en a man's too clear in
+'is mind, it's death and ruin for 'em as 'as to do wiv 'im.... And nah,
+drink yer beer up. We're talkin' nonsense, and I must git back to my
+bybies."
+
+"Did you never talk to him again about this plan of his?" It was
+curious how our voices had dropped. We had both risen, and were
+standing opposite one another with a curious effect of being on
+different sides of an open grave.
+
+"Never, guv'nor. Flyin' Fox come 'ome nex' day, and wot with explainin'
+everything to 'im, and wot with n'ighbors droppin' in, some s'yin',
+'It's the best thing could 'a 'appened,' and uvvers, 'mark my words,
+you'll rue the d'y.' There wasn't no chanst again not for private talk.
+Foxie was dized in 'is manner. Mrs. Barker and the kids they 'ad it
+all cut an' dried. It was too lite for 'im like to 'ave any s'y in the
+matter. 'Let 'im alone,' Mr. Bruvver'ood says--still called 'im that
+afore stringers, I did--'let 'im alone. 'E'll come to 'isself on the
+steamer. With wot you got and wot a woman can earn cookin' and cleanin'
+w'ere you're goin', 'e can 'ave the fust year to git well and strong.
+It'll be a convalescent 'ome to 'm, Canada will.'
+
+"I took a mornin' off to see 'em start. Wonderful sight it was! Near
+four 'undred on the one trine, singin' 'Old Lang Syne' and 'Gawd Sive
+the King,' and shykin' 'ands all rahnd, and the people left be'ind
+s'yin': 'Leave us in your will.' The nippers was very smart, all in
+new warm togs, and little Gladys wiv a Teddy bear wot my missus giv'
+'er. Thought 'e was coming with 'em up to the end they did. Didn't
+dare to tell'm no different. And at the end, as the guard was a-wavin'
+'is flag, Mrs. Barker broke dahn and frows 'er arms round 'is neck and
+kisses 'im like 'e was another woman or praps more, cryin' like 'er
+'eart would break. 'Good job for you, Foxie,' my missus ses,'as you're
+leavin' the lodger behind.' We all larft at that, and then the w'istle
+blew and the trine went awf wiv 'ankerchiffs at all the winders. 'E
+stood a long time lookin' after it. W'en it was gone,' e turns to me.
+'Let's 'ave one more drink,' 'e ses. 'Wot ho,' I ses. 'But ain't you
+comin' to work? 'Cos we was on a job togevver. 'Not to-d'y,' 'e ses.
+'Tell the foreman I ain't up to the mark.' So we 'ad one drink and I
+goes off, ignorant as a blessed byby wot was in 'is 'ead. And w'en I
+got home in the evenin'----"
+
+"Well----?"
+
+"Gawn, guv'nor. Took all 'is fings--not as there was much--and left no
+address. And I ain't set eyes on 'im from that day to this."
+
+"Can you suggest anything?"
+
+"Yus, I can. That's w'y I come here. I fink 'e's done something 'fore
+you knowed 'im or I knowed 'im, and is a-goin' to give 'isself up. You
+don't? Well, no matter. Wotever it is, I don't fink 'e'll likely tike
+any steps before 'e 'ears a word from the parties as is in Canada to
+know 'ow they gets on at fust. They 'ave 'is address, I'm sure o' that.
+Wotcher think? Don't that 'elp us a bit?"
+
+"Can you give me theirs?"
+
+Mr. Palamount had come well provided with documentary evidence. He drew
+a soiled and crumpled piece of print from another waistcoat pocket. It
+was only the name of the Canadian Pacific agent in Alberta. The straw
+was a very slender one.
+
+"I'll cable them to-morrow, prepaid. And I'll see the lawyers first
+thing in the morning. Don't be afraid," for I thought I detected a
+slight look of anxiety on Mr. Palamount's battered face. "I'm after
+something better even than two hundred pounds."
+
+
+
+
+                                  VI
+
+                             GENEALOGICAL
+
+
+The first thing I did the next morning, after a sleepless night
+besieged by possibilities, was to send a prepaid cable to Alberta;
+rather for the relief of my own feelings than because my promptitude
+could effect any possible good. Indeed, as the telegraph clerk was
+at pains to inform me, eight o'clock in England is three o'clock
+in western Canada, and the very earliest of alarm clocks had not
+yet delivered its nerve-racking message there. Also I was pacing up
+and down the passage outside Pollexfen and Allport's offices fully
+three quarters of an hour before their managing clerk ascended the
+linoleum-covered stairs, rattling his keys and warbling a morning
+carol, to open them for the day.
+
+Mr. Pollexfen, the senior partner, was a spruce, well-preserved man,
+with white hair and moustache, but as little of parchment in his manner
+as in his florid, supple skin. He swung round in his chair and listened
+to my story attentively, with the tips of his fingers joined, and
+clicking his well-groomed nails as I talked.
+
+"Well! well! well!" said he, with a commentary sigh, when I had ended.
+"It's a strange case: the strangest, I verily believe, that I've had to
+deal with in the whole course of my practice."
+
+He pulled a drawer open and tossed something to me across the table.
+
+"Do you know anything of this?"
+
+"This" was a little book sumptuously bound in blue roan, and bearing
+upon its cover, embossed and gilt, a coat-of-arms, and the following
+legend in old English lettering.
+
+"Pedigree of the Ingram or Ingraham family of Lilburn, Mass."
+
+It was the very pamphlet over which, more than two years ago now, Paul
+had joined me in rather shamefaced laughter.
+
+"Oh, yes," I replied. "I saw it at his rooms. Look! there's his name at
+the bottom."
+
+"It seems so strange to us," the lawyer mused. "So contrary to all
+preconceived notions of America. Here, in peer-governed, class-beridden
+England, we take these things so much more as a matter of course.
+Myself, as an instance. I believe we are a highly respectable landed
+family, somewhere in the Eastern Counties, but I'd be bothered to say
+what my great-grandmother's maiden name was, and, I assure you, except
+for some tangible reason, I would regard time spent in finding out as
+time sadly wasted. The very crest on my spoons and carriage is a matter
+of tradition. It's never occurred to me to regard it with any degree
+of complacency. But, indeed, I must own to a rather complete ignorance
+of America, though we manage a good deal of business for clients over
+there. My ignorance extended, until lately, to the very name of the
+city where all this money was made. Oshkosh? You're a journalist, I
+see. Can you truthfully say the name stirs any latent geographical
+idea."
+
+"Yes. I've heard Ingram mention it. It's a big grain-shipping place on
+the Lakes."
+
+"Grain?--grain? Yes. That's how the dollars were made, I remember.
+Three quarters of a million of them. Over sixty thousand pounds. We had
+no idea of it. The plainest, driest little man. Stayed at one of those
+cheap Bloomsbury hotels, and lunched on an apple and a wheat biscuit."
+
+"Do you mean to say all this money is left to my friend
+unconditionally?"
+
+"Absolutely, sir. Lester Ingraham--he'd even gone back to the old
+spelling--seems to have spent the evening of his days in compiling the
+little book you hold in your hand. That's how he came to be sent to
+us by our New York correspondents. They are big people, and seemed to
+think him very small fry indeed. It had become an absolute obsession
+with him. Used to bore Allport to death talking of the senior and the
+junior branches, and sometimes it was all I could do to keep a straight
+face. His dream had been to buy the old homestead and die there, and he
+told me the discovery it had been pulled down robbed him of ten years'
+life. Then the idea occurred to him, since it had vanished and he had
+no near relatives, to leave his money to the last Ingram born within
+the old walls, the walls which, as he told me impressively, had had an
+Indian arrow-head sticking in them for two hundred and fifty years. He
+had seen that in the museum. Well, well--who says romance is dead?"
+
+"Sixty thousand pounds!" All the time Mr. Pollexfen was speaking I kept
+writing the sum on the Ingram pedigree with my finger nail, calculating
+interest at, say, four per cent, and thinking of Paul as I had last
+seen him.
+
+"I've told you everything, Mr. Pollexfen. What do you think of our
+chance of finding him again within the year that is stipulated?"
+
+The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "Very slight indeed, I fear, even
+if the advertisement reaches his eye. You say he had over two hundred
+pounds in a bank at his disposal, and chose to run after cabs. Now, to
+me, that looks very like hallucination. No. If I was the reversionary
+legatee, I'd feel pretty comfortable."
+
+I said I had told him everything, but, as a matter of fact, I had not
+told him what I had every reason to believe I knew, and that is, the
+source whence the money came which Ingram had been loath to touch. I
+wonder, if I had, whether he would have changed his estimate of my poor
+quixotic friend. Codes of honor must seem shadowy things to a man who
+has been instructing counsel for thirty years.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                           THE WAITING-ROOM
+
+
+And, after all, it happened so simply in the end. A brief note, lying
+on my table, when I got back, with an address at the top that was
+strange to me, asking me to call "when convenient, for a chat." Imagine
+if I found it convenient. Is there in all the world a cleaner, purer
+joy than to be the bearer of such tidings as mine?
+
+The house proved to be one of some shabby mouldering little stucco
+"gardens" near Chalk Farm. It suggested seediness rather than great
+poverty, and, with my abominable journalist's _flair_ for the
+dramatic, I was almost sorry the contrast was not to be a more
+startling one. Perhaps I hardly realized how much misery a decorous
+exterior can conceal in modern London, until an old woman, bent, deaf
+and short-sighted almost to blindness, opened the door. The hall was
+more than bare; it was naked. Not a picture on the walls, not a strip
+of oilcloth on the boards. On the bottom stair a cheap glass lamp
+without a shade had been set down and filled the passage with wavering,
+smoky shadows. The air was penetrated with the raw smell of paraffin,
+the "_triple bouquet_" of poverty.
+
+If the nakedness had repelled in the hall, its persistence in the room
+to which I was let find my way was shocking. No curtains nor blinds
+at the window; a low truckle bed, rather felt than seen in the shadow
+at one side; upon the uncarpeted floor a great, crooked parallelogram
+of moonlight. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I made
+out further a chair by the bedside, with a flat candlestick and a
+paper-covered book turned face downward, and a big china wash-basin
+close to the bedside. I don't know what made me look more curiously
+at this than at anything else, and shudder when I saw how dark its
+contents were. Next moment I had felt for his hand and grasped it in
+mine, Thank God! it was not cold and heavy as I had half dreaded.
+Life--feverish, parched, burning life, it is true, but still life, was
+in its contact.
+
+He must have been sleeping, and it is eloquent of his utter abandonment
+that, before I uttered a word, he guessed who had awakened him.
+
+"Clear away that candle and sit down," he said, in a drowsy, muffled
+voice. "No! don't light it please."
+
+I sat down obediently, and looked around me again. Gradually, as I
+gazed, the full significance of the stripped room came home to me. It
+was the bareness of the station waiting-room--the room in which one
+chafes and frets, watching the hand crawl over the clock-face, with an
+ear strained to catch the faint whistle of the train that is to bear us
+away to where we would or should be. That was it. He had come here to
+wait. The poor faint voice spoke again.
+
+"I'd been lying here a long time," it said, "watching the moon, and
+it must have sent me to sleep. Don't ride rough, old man," feeling
+clumsily for the hand that was at my eyes. "It's easier for me than
+it would be for almost any one else. I often wonder what it was gave
+me such a conviction of the utter unreality of the world. I think it
+was the years I spent, month after month, alone on the great wastes.
+I used to come into the cities and see the people swarming under the
+arc-lights round the hotels and theatres, and think that's what they'd
+been doing all the while, night after night. One can't take a world
+seriously that can mean two such different things to different men.
+Hold that basin a minute, will you, Prentice? I've got to cough. I
+can't put it off any longer. Thanks! Yes, it was that last winter in
+London that broke the bowl and loosed the golden cord. I thought
+I'd been through a lot and knew all life could do; but, by God! I
+never imagined anything like that. Stop snivelling, man. I tell you
+there's no pain at all now. Just something like a big yawn that gets
+worse while I speak. And I had a lot to say. Do you know, what you
+said rankled a bit: I mean about my not understanding the ethics of
+friendship. Why, old man, I've often said to myself that there'd have
+to be a God if only to thank Him for a friend like you. Now I'm going
+to discharge the debt. Where shall I begin?"
+
+I told him what I knew already. I forget exactly what words I used.
+Poor broken ones, no doubt. I told him he was a hero, a saint: that
+just to have lived a life like his to the end was to have won the bays
+and gained the victory. He stopped me halfway.
+
+"Nonsense, you sentimental old penny-a-liner! Any one would have done
+the same. You'd have done it yourself, and you'd have done it far
+better, because you'd have loved while you worked. That's where I break
+down. Try to see me as I am, Prentice. I like to have you sorry for me;
+but don't let illusion mingle with the regret. I hated them! yes, yes,
+I did. Hated them as a man like me hates anything warm and human that
+encumbers him and tangles his feet upon his own ruinous tragic course.
+Even while those angels sat on my knee and ate their bread and jam and
+asked for more fairy stories I was straining for escape--thinking out
+ways by which I could rid myself of them, once and for all. You know
+the way I took. I had to sell my honor for it--handle money that you'd
+have died before you touched. For I'd given my word to them, fool that
+I was. I'd eaten their bread, and there's only the one law among white
+men. Fumble round, Prentice--there's a tumbler full of water somewhere
+near your feet."
+
+He drank and went on, at first in a calmer voice:
+
+"It began by my going to the theatre where she was dancing. I'd gone
+to the door again and again, taken my place in the queue and come
+away at the last moment. And one night I went on and sat up in the
+gallery, jammed tight, waiting for her. People were talking. I won't
+say what I heard. It may be true. They didn't know that what they were
+heaping up was only more damnation for the shabby, shame-faced brute
+that sat among them, biting his tongue, and keeping his fists deep in
+his pockets for fear he should curse them suddenly and strike them over
+their unclean mouths. And then--she came on the stage, Prentice, and
+kissed her hands, and the whole house got up and roared and cheered.
+But I hung my head. I didn't dare look at her for a long, long time.
+At last, when I knew the dance was over, I found the courage. She was
+curtseying and smiling up at us, and it happened my first glance went
+straight into her eyes."
+
+He gripped my wrist.
+
+"There's the shadow there, Prentice, what I told you of the night we
+walked home: the look I was afraid of when I sent you to meet her. None
+of you see it, because you didn't know her before. God! how it shocked
+me. I couldn't stand it. I jumped up and climbed out. Some of the men
+hit out at me. There's some sort of a chapel on the other side of the
+Circus. The door was open, and there were about twenty people listening
+to a man gabbling in a language that's like nothing in heaven or earth.
+I knelt down on a bench at the bottom of the church and prayed, the
+first time since I swore off--oh! twenty years ago. 'Don't let it touch
+her!' I kept on saying. 'It's up to my neck, it's over my mouth and
+down my loathing throat, but don't let it touch the hem of her dress! I
+give in, God! You have me beaten, eternal Father, all in, down and out.
+But oh, Jehovah, Jahveh! Shining One! don't hurt a slip of a girl.' A
+man touched me on the shoulder. Said I'd better go out and come back on
+an evidence night.
+
+"So you see, Prentice, for all my cleverness, I've had to come to it
+at last. I've had to whine for mercy to the God that made the tiger
+and the cancer microbe. I am only an old Puritan, after all. One
+lifetime's too short to get two centuries and a half of Massachusetts
+out of your blood. The only time a real codfish Yankee's out of
+mischief is when he's making the dollars. A hundred years ago I should
+have been a great preacher of the word, Prentice. One of the sort
+that the sight of a man rejoicing in his strength or a woman in her
+beauty goads to cruel madness. And wherever I'd have gone I'd have left
+bowed heads and chilled hearts and minds half-crazed with the fear of
+judgment to come. What joy I'd have taken in it! I'd have been so busy
+seeing death got its due, it never would have occurred to me life had
+any rights. But it's a hundred years too late for that. The world's
+grown wiser. It never will let that sort of deviltry get the upper hand
+again. They saw it in my work, Prentice. That's why they've kept me
+bottled up and let me kill myself inch by inch with my own poison. But
+if a man can't do ill broadcast, there's always a quiet place where
+mischief can be done. You can always take your revenge for the world's
+common sense on some trustful soul that's laid itself bare in your
+hands...."
+
+Then I think he ceased to talk coherently.
+
+"----and so I said to myself: I'll go down to the sea, where I had my
+darling all my own, pure and loving, before the stain of the world
+reached her or evil tongues made busy with her name. She's there
+still, I know. She's haunting those lonely sands, crying and wringing
+her hands and kissing the old letters because I won't write her any
+new. But she must forgive me when I ask her pardon and show her my
+punishment, and when it's all told, we'll sit hand in hand and knee to
+knee and watch the sun foundering out at sea and when the last little
+red streak has gone----"
+
+He broke off suddenly, and sat up in bed.
+
+"Where are my clothes? Haven't they sent them yet? I _can't_--I
+can't be found like this, you know! It's a wretched little piece of
+vanity, but I can't. And now I'm getting so weak, I can't go into town
+again. Perhaps I didn't tell them where to--send--the right number."...
+
+His voice died away in his throat, and he lay back, quite exhausted.
+
+It was nearly two hours afterward before I left the house for the last
+time. A doctor had seen him, and a nurse was settling in an arm-chair
+to watch him for the night. We'd done what we could to that awful room.
+That wasn't much, but the train was nearly due now, so it didn't really
+matter. There was a lot of work before me on the morrow.
+
+And it wasn't until I was halfway home that I remembered the sixty
+thousand pounds!
+
+
+
+
+                                 VIII
+
+                        'TWIXT SHINE AND SHADE
+
+
+To be young, to be beautiful, to be free; to radiate a charm which it
+is felt not ungracious alone but ridiculous to pretend to withstand,
+and to be paid for its exercise in the tangible form that renders
+all else possible; to wake one morning and discover that pleasure,
+change of scene, and gracious surroundings have become the anxious
+concern of good genii whose motives are too evident to make any demands
+upon gratitude: to find each day a fairy vista wherein, by a happy
+perversion of the gray old rule, fulfilment waits upon desire: in one
+word, to be "the vogue." Has life ever offered more than this? and is
+it not a mere question of time how long any memory of old defeat, any
+regret for a lost Eden, can resist an assault by happiness made from so
+many quarters?
+
+I think, if the whole truth could be known, Fenella's state of mind
+during her two years of furore would be a curious psychological
+study. I have just been looking through a pile of _Sceptres_ and
+_Prattlers_, the issue of those enchanted years. It is hardly
+an exaggeration to say her photograph appeared in one or the other
+every week.--Fenella at Ascot--"The Secret of Success. One favorite
+whispers it to another."--"Look pleasant, please! A recent snapshot
+of Lord Lulford's popular niece." (I forget who invented this phrase.
+It was rather done to death.) Here are more: "Commons idol among the
+'backwoodsmen' at the Burbery point-to-point. Names from left to
+right: Miss Barbour, Sir Bryan Lumsden, et cetera, et cetera." "Will
+'No. 8' go up to-night? After a strenuous day with the North Herts,
+Miss Barbour has to hustle to catch the London train." I say, take
+out all the palpable poses, all the profitable winsomeness of poster
+or postcard--there must be one or two where she was taken off her
+guard--and then try to trace the shadow poor Paul fancied he saw. I
+can only say I have failed. Complete absorption in the business of the
+moment--that is all I ever found.
+
+Of course I know that people in the world do not wear their hearts upon
+their sleeves, and that there are all sorts of dodges whereby if not
+happiness, at any rate the peace of mind necessary for due enjoyment
+of life, can be secured. The sad thought can be kept moving on a day
+ahead, an hour ahead; always in sight, as it were, but always out of
+one's mental reach. Even so, the question remains whether such a shifty
+process can be continued indefinitely, and if a day does not come when
+the harassed ghost, weary, like poor Joe, of incessant moving on, takes
+wing, once and for all, for the land of oblivion.
+
+I was years making up my mind about Fenella. I sometimes fancied the
+dear lady knew it, and that that was the reason my brooding glances
+were never surprised. It would have been so easy to look up and catch
+them. "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Prentice." And then--remember
+I'm a journalist, and used to seeing truth sold at the price--"I was
+wondering whether I wasn't only just in time, after all."
+
+She did catch me at last. It was on that night, I fancy, that I passed
+once and for all from the sober status of "my husband's great friend"
+to the more vertiginous one of "my own." Paul was out at some committee
+meeting or another--he leaves her a good deal alone--and would not be
+in till late. I had been sitting silent a long while, watching the busy
+slender fingers and the sweet puckered brow. Knitting is rather a rite
+with Fenella, but I pity the naked she clothes if they had to wait on
+the work of her own hands. She had dropped a stitch. "One--two--three,"
+she was counting under her breath--"_one_ and _two_ and
+_three_!" and then----Oh, I protest, madam! it was an unfair
+advantage that you took. I forget what answer I stammered out. She
+stuck her needles into the wool, glanced at the clock and told me
+everything.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long electric launch, whose stern was covered by a white awning lined
+with green, skimmed its way through the lines of moored yachts, and
+across the blue Solent, its prow held high like the breast of a diving
+sea-bird. Over the bows, from which two sheets of water spurted away,
+clear and convex as blown glass, a seaman sat, dressed in ducks, and
+holding a long boat-hook in his hand. Round the ribbon of his glazed
+hat, in letters of gold, the legend ran--
+
+                       S.Y. _Castadiva_, R.Y.C.
+
+Amidships a tall, broad-shouldered man in blue serge, very sunburnt,
+and wearing a peaked cap, sat, or rather sprawled, in conversation,
+probably technical, with the driver of the dynamo, whose head and
+shoulders only appeared above the half-deck. Under the awning a girl
+was sitting alone. Her furled parasol made a vivid splash of scarlet
+against her snowy dress.
+
+Near the jetty of the yacht club the engine ceased to flutter, and the
+sailor, putting out his boat-hook, drew the launch to shore. The man in
+blue jumped out and, extending a long arm, helped the girl to land.
+
+"Moor her where you can to-night, Mr. Weeks," he said to the head and
+shoulders. "I'll see the commodore to-morrow and find out why we're not
+given our usual berth."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+"And, Weeks, have the launch sent back at three sharp, with the baggage
+on board. Becket needn't come. I'm going to Beverbrook immediately
+after lunch, and shall sleep there. Good-day, Weeks."
+
+"Good day, Sir Bryan."
+
+Meantime, the girl, unfurling her parasol and balancing it daintily
+on her shoulder, walked toward the land, looking about her with a
+bright interest at the blue bay, the white sails of the yachts, and the
+smartly dressed crowd loitering outside the yacht club enclosure. She
+wore a white linen princesse robe, its costly simplicity adorned only
+by a wide band of embroidery that ran from throat to hem, and a big
+gray straw hat trimmed with a wreath of what roses would look like if
+nature had had the good taste to make them the color of pansies--the
+roses that bloom in the Rue de la Paix.
+
+Slowly as she walked, she had reached the hedge of the enclosure
+before her companion overtook her. Inside the lawn was not crowded.
+The big regatta had taken place the day before, and it was lunch
+hour. Such groups as were strolling up and down or sitting in little
+encampments of canopied arm-chairs stopped flirting or talking to
+stare and whisper. On some of the women's faces appeared the dubious
+admiration that is kept for social audacity in their sex. The girl
+seemed unconscious of the effect she was creating and looked about her
+indifferently. Espying some friends in a far corner, she signalled
+vigorously with her open parasol.
+
+"Bryan, there's Lady Carphilly and Mrs. Rolf d'Oyley. I must go and
+talk to them. Will you come too, or wait?"
+
+"I'll wait," the man answered shortly. "I've sent in for my letters and
+I'll open them here. We ought to have lunch soon. Don't be long, Flash."
+
+A club waiter who had been standing in the offing with a pile of
+letters on a salver and an initialled leather dispatch case, approached
+and disposed them on a table near the chair into which the baronet
+had flung himself. Lumsden bestowed a casual glance upon the pile and
+looked toward the man's free hand.
+
+"What have you got there?"
+
+"A telegram for Miss Barbour, Sir Bryan."
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+The man handed it over without demur. Bryan ripped it open and read the
+message through. He looked thoughtful.
+
+"How long has this been here?"
+
+"Two days, Sir Bryan."
+
+"Didn't they try to get it through by wireless?"
+
+"I can't say, Sir Bryan. I'll ask if you wish."
+
+"No: it doesn't matter. Bring me a 'John Henry'."
+
+He slipped the opened telegram into his coat pocket and, lighting a
+cigar, proceeded to read his mail through, systematically, but with a
+pre-occupied brow.
+
+The past twelve months had dealt hardly with Bryan. There is probably
+in the life of most of us some day, or preferably some night, when fate
+chooses to pay us the arrears of years, in which the hours as they pass
+over our heads grizzle them, and our tears, if tears we can shed, are
+a corrosive acid that bite their record upon our cheeks for all time.
+No one honestly mistook Lumsden for a young man after his little son's
+death.
+
+It may have been something in one of the letters he had just read--may
+be, who knows, something even in the telegram, that made him, after he
+had swept his correspondence, with various pencil scribblings on the
+margins, into the dispatch case, recall that night with rather more
+deliberation than he usually permitted himself, and stare gloomily at
+the group into which, with much embracing and chatter, pitched in a key
+of congratulatory envy, Fenella had been drawn.
+
+How she had changed! How she had changed since then! To-day, as for
+many a day past, it was in nothing more precise than this loose mental
+phrase that his ill-defined dissatisfaction could find vent. Beyond
+it he seemed unable to go, and was even forced to admit a certain
+flimsiness in a charge out of which no better indictment could be
+framed. Because, whatever strain upon his finer perceptions had made
+the year of probation the torture it had undoubtedly been, he could
+not deny that she had remained true as steel to the bargain made
+with him in the house of death--a bargain so vague that scarcely any
+pretext would have been too tawdry to discharge her from it had she
+wished. She had sacrificed her good repute to him forthwith; had even
+seemed eager for circumstances that, as far as the world was concerned,
+should put the sacrifice past doubt, and if, of late, it had been
+coming back to her, as most women's is conveyed from them, in whispers,
+the rehabilitation was not of her own devising, but rather part of
+the observed tendency of murder and other violations of established
+usage to "out." Strangely enough, her fame fared better at women's
+hands than at men's, and worse among those who were convinced of her
+technical integrity (the phrase was even invented for her) than with
+those who inclined to give the ominous face of appearances its full
+value. I don't know why this should have been so. Perhaps vice has
+its own hypocrisies and canting code of law, and her resistance to
+the spirit after the letter had been so admirably fulfilled was held
+an outrage. At least she gave him no anxiety, although he knew that
+temptation had reached her, once from a quarter so exalted that it is
+not usually taken into account--even suspected one wooing as honorable
+as perfunctory, and although all his money and all his good will could
+not make him as young as the hot blood that besieged her. Her house
+was always open to him, at hours which his own forbearance was trusted
+to keep within the limits set by decorum; she kept whisky and cigars
+for him in her sideboard, with even the little sprig of vanilla in
+the cigar cabinet that she must have seen and taken note of in his
+own rooms. She never denied him her company nor discovered affinities
+among his friends; she even seemed to have a tender conscience in this
+regard, and looked round anxiously for him whenever the ripple of
+her little triumphs carried her temporarily out of hail. Whence then
+his secret dissatisfaction? Oh, this termless war of attainment with
+desire, old in human story as the history of David's unruly sons!
+Was Bryan the first to set a snare and grudge the fair plumage he had
+coveted for the marks of his own springe upon it?
+
+She was a great success, socially. She entered the smart world, it
+is true, under his auspices, and because he was sulky if she was not
+asked to the same houses, and because it was important to a good many
+people that Bryan Lumsden, to say nothing of Calvert & Co., should be
+kept in good humor. But, once in, her own talents were quite competent
+to keep her in the place he had made for her. She had even reached a
+point now where her successes were her own, and no longer were held to
+throw reflected lustre upon her sponsor. She fitted quickly and easily
+into what, after all, was her own class. In a year she rode hard and
+straight and had developed a heady but hitherto successful system of
+tactics at bridge. Bryan no longer got the credit of her clothes, but
+it was generally understood she was frightfully in debt and would marry
+him when her creditors delivered their ultimatum. She had an infantile
+wit and a faculty for what the French term _choses inouïes_. One
+of her riddles became proverbial.
+
+"What did the fishes say to Noah when he asked them into the ark?" "No
+tanks."
+
+I subjoin a few more specimens, not with any hope that their charm will
+subsist in print, but just to show with what things, on pretty lips,
+the weary old world is prepared to be amused.
+
+Once she was trying to collect money for some charity and no one had
+change. This happens sometimes even in smart society. "Oh, dear,"
+sighed Fenella, "everybody has the hand-to-mouth disease."
+
+She was slightly angered at a restraining clause in one of her
+contracts, discovered when too late.
+
+"You're a bad man," she told the flustered manager, "and you deserve to
+come to a nasty sticky end."
+
+To Rock, of ill odor in the Park, after his senile advances had been
+rebuffed by a snobby little Pekinese: "Don't whine, _dee-ar_!
+I don't believe that kind of dog knows whether it's a dog or a
+poll-parrot or an insect."
+
+"Bryan's caught cold, I think," she said one morning. "He keeps calling
+for 'Letitia'."
+
+If these are fair samples of the parts she put at the disposal of her
+new friends, her reputation is not the surprise it might be to a man
+who knows that the dear lady to this day conducts her conversation upon
+an economical little vocabulary of about three hundred words.
+
+Maybe the conscience we have spoken of had been pricking her, for when
+Lumsden raised his head from his reverie the world had gone red, and he
+was looking at the sun through her parasol.
+
+"You look glum, old man," said Fenella. "What's the matter? Do you want
+your lunch?"
+
+Lumsden got up and stretched. He had been pulling at his moustache,
+and one hair--a white one--was on the shoulder of his blue reefer. She
+picked it off, held it up to the light, looked unfathomably at him and
+blew it daintily into the air.
+
+"Perhaps we'd best have lunch now," she said. "I want to get to
+Beverbrook soon and see what arrangements they've made. Do you remember
+Edmaston, Bryan, where they put that dreadful polish down--Takko or
+Stikko or something--and when my foot stuck I buzzed and every one
+laughed?"
+
+"Don't you feel nervous, Flash?"
+
+"Just a teeny. When do _They_ come?"
+
+"Oh, to dinner; but you won't be introduced till you've danced. And
+remember, Flash, you must only speak when you're spoken to by Them.
+Just answer questions."
+
+"I'll try not to disgrace you," she said airily, and led the way to the
+pavilion.
+
+
+
+
+                                  IX
+
+                          BEATEN AT THE POST
+
+
+She was very gay and flippant during lunch, and while crossing the
+bay, and in the motor on the way to the great ducal house, where she
+was going, if not to sing for her supper, at least to dance for her
+dinner. She was very serious and a little dictatorial on the stage,
+but immediately after tea took the owner of the Chaste Goddess and so
+much else by the arm, and proceeded to drag him on a prolonged tour of
+inspection, through the stables, round the noble Italian gardens--at
+whose lichened fawns and satyrs she made faces, expressive of the
+utmost scorn and defiance, but which only succeeded in being charming,
+and the English garden--where the leaden shepherdesses were pronounced
+"ducks"; into the aviary to drive four macaws to frenzy with a long
+straw, and back by orchid houses and hothouses to the terrace again.
+She picked a good many flowers and ate a quantity of fruit.
+
+It was while she was picking grapes in the vine house that Lumsden took
+heart and disburthened himself of a little of his recent chagrin.
+
+"Flash! I'm going to scold you!"
+
+"Oh, Bryan! what for? For culling all these grapes? I like 'cull,'
+it sounds less greedy than 'pick.' I cull, thou culleth--no,
+_cullest_--she culls."
+
+"Flash! out of all the world what made you pick on those two Jezebels
+to speak to on the lawn?"
+
+"What's the matter with them besides 'jezziness'?"
+
+"You know well enough. They're not nice women."
+
+"Really nice women don't have much to say to me? Have you noticed it,
+skipper?"
+
+"They would if----Oh! stop eating all those grapes. You'll make
+yourself sick."
+
+"If what, please?"
+
+"If you'd only do the straight thing?"
+
+"What do you mean? Go into a refuge?"
+
+"A _refuge_! What abominable twaddle you can talk when you like."
+
+She laid a sticky finger over his mouth. "Tut-tut-tut! Come outside if
+you're going to scold. It's too fuzzy in here. You'll get a rush of
+brains to the head."
+
+Outside, the garden was deserted. The centre of interest seemed to have
+shifted to the upper terrace. A large horny beetle was pursuing his
+homeward or outward way over the pounded shell of the walk. Fenella
+assisted him with the point of her parasol, and did not relax her good
+offices until he was in dazed safety upon the border. Then she looked
+up.
+
+"Flash! why don't you marry me and have done with it?"
+
+She punched six holes in the path before replying.
+
+"What do you want to 'have done with?' Why can't we go on as we are a
+little longer?"
+
+"Because it's--unnatural. There are other reasons, but that's enough."
+
+"It isn't, if you don't let it worry you--Oh! what am I saying? Bryan,
+do you think we'd care as much for one another if--if I did as you say."
+
+"Of course we should--more every day."
+
+"Why didn't you keep getting fonder and fonder of those others, then?"
+
+"I think that question most unseemly. You don't seem to realize I'm
+asking you to be my wife."
+
+"M-m! It is hard to."
+
+"Oh, don't be clever. Every one's clever. What are you waiting for?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Shall I tell you?"
+
+"If you think you know, dear."
+
+"You're waiting until there's not one little bit left of the girl I
+fell in love with, the girl who tried to hide her bare arms under
+Perse's ruffle in the hall at Lulford, and who cried by the cot where
+my poor little urchin was dying. You've never forgiven me that cursed
+night in Mount Street."
+
+"Dear! I've never mentioned it from that day to this."
+
+"Well, it's behind everything you say. It's behind your eyes when they
+look at me. Can't you understand I wasn't myself."
+
+"You were a little--eh? Weren't you, dear? Not much; just a gentlemanly
+glow."
+
+"And it's your way of taking revenge for it. And a d----d cruel woman's
+way it is."
+
+She laid her hand on his arm. "Bryan, don't worry me now. I've got a
+lot to go through to-night. It's harder than anybody thinks. There's
+some sense in what you say. But we can talk about it some other
+time.... Oh! look up there! What's happening?"
+
+A big browny-red closed motor-car rolled along the upper terrace and
+stopped at the great doorway. In a moment servants--visitors seemed
+to run together, to range themselves in two lines, one on each side
+of the wide curved steps. Framed in the dark gothic arch, the Lord of
+Beverbrook appeared, noble, white of hair and moustache, with a serene
+and lofty humility in his bent head that was strangely impressive. The
+rest is Apotheosis. Before it we veil our dazzled eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had not gone to bed at two o'clock the next morning. He sat,
+completely dressed, smoking and looking out his bedroom window over the
+silvering terraces and park. The great gay house was abed: the night
+very still. Only to his left, above the low quadrangle of some stables
+or outhouses, could be seen a dim shaft of light. A murmur of voices,
+the sound of water running and splashing about a hose-pipe, seemed to
+come from that direction.
+
+His thoughts were busy, but not directly with the girl whose interests
+and his own were by now tacitly associated. The night had been a
+new triumph for her--in a way the crown upon all the rest--but such
+triumphs by now were discounted in advance, felt almost to be in the
+order of nature. No. It was the telegram he was thinking of, the
+telegram that he had intercepted on the lawn at Cowes. He had not so
+much forgotten it till now as mentally pigeon-holed it for future
+consideration. This habit, acquired in business, he unconsciously
+followed in all the concerns of life.
+
+Who was making himself this beggar's advocate in London. Who was
+"Prentice." Curse him! whoever he was. Few though the words had been,
+they contained a hint of some previous understanding or rendezvous.
+Who were the conspirators that wanted to drag a girl away from the
+light and laughter that was her due, (influences so desirable from
+every point of view) into the chill shadow of a hospital death-bed. He
+had long ceased to be jealous of Ingram, as of a man whom the world
+that was his friend had taken in hand and beaten handsomely, but there
+is no hatred so merciless and lawless as that with which contempt is
+mingled. The suppression of the telegram never struck him as dishonor,
+although he was not a cruel or a treacherous man. He counted it a
+fair counter-stroke to what he esteemed a blow in the dark, a stab
+from behind. Letter by letter and word for word the hateful thing was
+printed on his brain, but who does not know the instinct of return
+to a message in which substance and significance are so inversely
+proportioned? To have read nine times is no reason for not reading a
+tenth. The screed has not changed, but the mood may have; and, with the
+new mood, who knows what fresh meaning may not leap at us.
+
+He got up, opened the wardrobe, and felt in the pockets of his blue
+coat. It was not in either of them. He considered awhile. Had he
+packed it, with the letters, into his dispatch case? If so, it had
+gone aboard to his secretary, which didn't matter much. But--no. He
+distinctly remembered feeling it in his pocket during the crossing to
+the mainland. Plainly gone, then. But where?
+
+He took the coat off the rack and looked at it as though he would
+read its history since dinner. His own man was not with him, but he
+had stopped at Beverbrook before and knew the valeting was a little
+overdone. R---- was so natty himself. He had flung it on the bed when
+he dressed. Whoever did the room had taken it to be brushed or pressed,
+and the telegram had fallen out of the pocket. How could he be sure?
+Oh! he knew. There had been a tiny smear of white paint under the left
+cuff. If the coat had been taken away----He took it to the light. The
+white smudge was gone.
+
+He was not pleased at the accident, but decided to dismiss the matter
+for the night. The faculty to do so, and to fall asleep on some
+pleasant thought, was part of his life's sound régime. He began to
+think of her again. How prettily she had carried off her success. He
+recalled the little bob-curtsey in the Presence, so in character after
+the hoydenish dance--the gleam of sub-audacity that accompanied it,
+which every charming woman knows she can permit herself in company,
+however august, where her charm is likely to be felt. But who would
+have done it so gracefully? He had stood aloof (it seemed more decent
+to), but he remembered how long she had been kept in the circle, and
+how every one had laughed from time to time. Her competence, her
+amazing competence--that was what he was never done marvelling at.
+Nothing seemed to scare her, nothing to dazzle her. What a genius there
+can be in school nicknames! And then, that chin and jaw of turned
+ivory, and the hair, dark and fragrant as a West India night, and the
+diamond twinkling in the little fleshy ear.
+
+Suddenly he stood quite still, with his hair-brushes in his hand,
+listening intently. Some one was scratching stealthily on the upper
+panel of his bedroom door. Remember the hour--the stillness--the man's
+old experience, and of what his imagination was full. His heart seemed
+to miss two or three beats, and to resume its function thickly and
+heavily in his throat. The last traces of anger and dissatisfaction
+died away. Women had called Bryan Lumsden's face beautiful before. They
+might have called it so now again.
+
+He walked to the door and opened it softly. It was she; but dressed,
+with her hat and veil, and with the telegram in her hand.
+
+"Bryan!--Bryan!" she said under her breath, and then stopped. Her
+agitation was so great that she could not go on. He drew her gently
+into his room and closed the door.
+
+"You must be careful, Flash," he said gravely. "This isn't an ordinary
+visit like Lulford, you know. It won't do to have any scandal here."
+
+"Bryan, can I speak to you a minute?"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"You know what you asked me this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I will, I will, I _will_; any time you like."
+
+He looked at the telegram and his face hardened.
+
+"If----?"
+
+"Yes. If you get me to London to-night."
+
+"Flash! it's absurd. Think of the hour! Can't you wait till morning?"
+
+"No. I shall go mad."
+
+"But even if the station is open, it will take hours to get a special."
+
+"You have your car."
+
+"Yes; but every one's in bed, and the garage probably locked up. Be
+reasonable."
+
+"Oh, no they're not," she said eagerly. "I can hear them from my
+window. They have lamps and they're washing the cars with a hose."
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+She handed him the telegram quite simply. "I found this on my table.
+It's been opened. I don't understand----"
+
+He read it through again and folded it quite small and evenly.
+
+"Where's your room? You can't wait here."
+
+"At the other end of the corridor--Oh, Bryan! God bless you!"
+
+"_S-sh!_ How will I know it? It won't do to make a mistake."
+
+"Can't I hang a stocking over the knob?"
+
+He looked at her askance a moment, then put on his jacket and walked
+away into the darkness. After what must have seemed more, and was
+probably less, than half an hour, he tapped softly at her door. He was
+wearing the big coat she knew so well. He had wrapped her in it more
+than once.
+
+"I've arranged it," he said, in a low voice, strangely gentle. "Follow
+me, and walk quietly."
+
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                           A YEAR AND A DAY
+
+
+We got Paul out of that dreadful lodging and into a private ward at
+St. Faith's. I'll never forget the way Smeaton helped. We had the very
+best advice, but all the doctors shook their heads over him. Some old
+adhesion of the lung, they said, that, under normal conditions, he
+might have lived till eighty and never suspected, but which privation,
+or a chill, or a blow, or perhaps all three, had fretted to malignity.
+There'd have to be an operation. It wasn't what is called a desperate
+one, was well within the competence of modern surgery in an ordinary
+case, but everything was against poor Ingram. Webber, who was watching
+the general condition, took no responsibility for the operation, and
+Tuckey, who was to do the cutting, took no responsibility for the
+result. As a division of responsibility, it was the neatest piece of
+work, I think, I have ever seen.
+
+"It's not really strength he lacks," said Webber, after his last visit
+before the critical morning. "It's the _vivida vis_, the desire
+of life, that isn't there. Two grains of hope would be worth all the
+oxygen and beef-juice and brandy we could pump into him in a month."
+
+I didn't confide to Webber that I'd already told Paul sixty thousand
+pounds was waiting till he was well enough to claim it, without seeing
+one shade of pleasurable emotion come into the tired, drooping eyes.
+As for Fenella, her name was never mentioned between us. I don't think
+he had any idea how much he had told me in that dark room at Chalk
+Farm, and I did not remind him. I had reason, soon enough, to bless
+my forbearance, for day followed day, and no answer to my telegram
+reached me. At Park Row I had found a sullen reluctance to give any
+information at all. She was travelling--she was on the sea--had left no
+instructions for forwarding. But a journalist is not to be thrown off
+the scent by a sulky and probably venal little slavey. Two telephone
+calls put me into possession of Lumsden's probable movements, and I
+knew I had not gone very far astray in sending the telegram to his care
+at Cowes. I never doubted for an instant that it had reached her hands.
+No; she had sought advice where advice, perhaps, was already backed by
+natural authority, and had decided that, under the circumstances----You
+see what I mean? It is true she might have written or wired asking for
+news. But trying to repair life's errors is a thankless task. Through
+the breach we are patching up the whole salt, dark ocean of destiny
+comes pouring and thundering about our stunned ears.
+
+I slept little on the night before Paul's operation, and was up and
+moving restlessly about my rooms before the sun had risen. Who is it
+says, "Help cometh with the morning?" The Bible, probably. Anyway, I
+know I was heartened by seeing the rosy glow on the curtained windows
+opposite. It is a strange thing that I, who was to have no share in
+the day's great business, was probably up the first. Paul, I hope, was
+asleep, and I am sure Tuckey and Webber were. How far easier is work
+than waiting! The one has its seasons--a life may be wasted in the
+other.
+
+I was looking out my sitting-room window, thinking this and many a
+deep solemn thought besides, when a big car, covered so thickly with
+mud and dust that its color could not be distinguished, and with the
+unmistakable appearance of having been driven far and furiously,
+swung--one might almost say dropped--into the crescent. I knew it was
+she. Oh, how I loathed myself for my doubt! I had the door open before
+she could put her foot on the steps.
+
+She flashed into my face one mute, awful question in which I could tell
+the anguish of hours was concentrated, and I gave her the mute reply
+which says, "Not yet."
+
+"Oh, thank God! thank God!" she said, and clasped her hands across her
+breast. The man in the car, stooped above the steering-wheel, did not
+move once nor look round.
+
+"Can I see him now? Will he know me?"
+
+"You won't be let see him till nine. The operation is at eleven, and
+there's hope. He was conscious last night but very weak. I can tell you
+no more."
+
+If I sound harsh or cold, lay it to the charge of the man at the wheel.
+
+I went on. "Shall I arrange for you to see him at nine?"
+
+"Is it far?"
+
+"Just across the river."
+
+"I'll call back at quarter to nine, and you must take me."
+
+She climbed into the car without looking at me again, and next moment
+was gone. Across the road I counted six blinds drawn to one side.
+
+Lumsden never asked whether the man he had brought her a hundred and
+thirty miles to see was dead or alive. His face was set like a stone.
+In the main road he turned it to her, a mere dusty mask.
+
+"Where do you want to go now?"
+
+"Go to my house. I'll get you a drink and some breakfast. You must be
+half dead."
+
+He headed the car for Knightsbridge without a word, and while Frances,
+sleep struggling with surprise in her bemused brain, was fulfilling
+her humble rôle in the romance by poaching two eggs over the electric
+stove, they sat in the dining-room on opposite sides of the table. She
+had filled a long, thin glass with the beverage his heart loved, but
+he only sipped it, which was not like Bryan, and turned the tumbler
+thoughtfully round and round. He avoided her eyes. He had seemed to
+avoid them all the way up.
+
+"Will you come with me to--to the hospital?" she asked, when the
+silence had begun to weigh upon her.
+
+"No. I don't want to see him."
+
+"Bryan, since we're to be married, I think I'd best tell you what I
+wouldn't tell that night at Mount Street. Do you remember?"
+
+"Yes. Well?"
+
+"Dear, there's no reason, when you see him, you should feel anything
+but just a great, deep pity for all his unhappiness. I don't know why I
+didn't tell you this before. I think it was your doubting him drove me
+mad. And you're quite right in saying I've changed myself on purpose.
+It was because, after I learned the world a bit, I saw what a fraud I
+really was. All those little girl's ways you liked so much--they're
+very pretty, I dare say, but they're shams for me, anywhere off the
+stage. I had no right to them. I'm only what the world calls a 'good
+girl'--I'm only a girl at all, because he was merciful and--spared me.
+He must have been a very good man."
+
+"Or a very cold one? Which?"
+
+"Well. I'm not going to try to answer that, Bryan. It's what you call
+yourself an 'unseemly question'."
+
+"You're a strange creature."
+
+"Oh no, I'm not, Bryan. Not a bit different really to heaps and heaps
+of other women. I used to think I was once, at Sharland, because I
+didn't seem to have the other girls' ways or their curiosity. But I
+know better now. Do you remember Lord--the old lawyer beast that we
+went to the White City with? He took me on the launches, and when we
+were alone, he leaned over and told me--oh, something I can't even tell
+you, Bryan--now. He said it in French first and then, in case I didn't
+know what it was in French, he translated it into English. Those are
+the things that make us _loathe_ you, Bryan--deep, deep, deep,
+down in the little bit of us you never reach. But I only giggled, as
+any other girl would have done, any other girl who felt the same as
+me. And now he'll always remember me as--the woman who laughed."
+
+"You're all a mystery."
+
+"Not half as much as is pretended, Bryan. The mystery comes about
+because we don't tell the truth. Married women don't tell it, even,
+to one another, and it's thought shocking to tell a girl things that
+the first man she meets will tell her if she lets him. I hear more
+than most, 'cos I'm not one thing nor the other, and every one thinks
+I'll tell them things back, and then they'll find out what's puzzling
+them about us two. And we never tell you. How dare we? We find a set
+of rules ready made for us--by you. You take the men we really want
+from us because you're stronger than they are, or richer, or even
+braver than they are, and since it's the way you settle things among
+yourselves, and since you're satisfied with what you get by it, we
+pretend we're satisfied too. But it's one thing to conquer them, Bryan,
+and it's another thing to conquer us. I'll tell you a little woman's
+secret: No nice girl ever gives herself up quite to a man unless
+there's a little of _her mother_ in him. There was an awful lot in
+Paul. I found it out."
+
+"A bit of an old woman, in fact?"
+
+"Oh! I see I can't teach you. It doesn't matter. So you see, dear," in
+a different voice and raising her head, "there's not much left for you.
+But what there is I'd rather you had than any one else. I _like_
+you, Bryan--I like you _so_."
+
+"And you think I ought to be satisfied with that?"
+
+"Well, you know what you said a year ago."
+
+"Yes--a year ago, but not now. Yesterday perhaps, but not this morning.
+It's the old Scots law limit--a year and a day. Often the wisdom that
+doesn't come in the year comes in a night. You're too deadly wise,
+Flash; too utterly disillusioned. I never could stand it. There'd be
+nothing to teach you; nothing to break down. You believe you've taken
+my measure, and every time I tried to lift our lives out of the mud,
+I'd feel you were laughing at me--down in that little bit you've just
+told me of. It may be as you say, all a make-believe, but, by G--d! it
+doesn't do to have both know it. What do you want most, really? Your
+liberty?"
+
+She did not answer or raise her head.
+
+"Well, you can have it." He got up and took his cap off the table.
+"Good-bye."
+
+She didn't speak until he had his hand on the handle of the door. And
+then--
+
+"Bryan, I've never let you kiss me. You can now if you like."
+
+He spun round on his heel, as though some one had given him a blow
+between the shoulders. For a moment she thought he was going to strike
+her, or humble her pride to death. A foul name seemed to be actually
+forming itself on his lips. But he came across the room, and took her
+in his arms, and held her a long while.
+
+"Take care, please," she said, breathlessly, "you're hurting me--a
+little."
+
+Then he let her go.
+
+"Oh, Flash!" he said hoarsely. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?
+Doesn't that tell you something?"
+
+She was looking in the mirror at a little red mark where he had pressed
+the earring into her neck.
+
+"Good-bye," he said again, and she heard the hall door slam. And then
+the throb of the motor began to rattle the windows in their frames.
+
+She fell upon her knees and buried her face in her hands.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XI
+
+                          TWO GRAINS OF HOPE
+
+
+If that early morning call at half-past five had been my only meeting
+with Fenella, I don't think I should have known her when she came back
+at nine. All the weariness had gone out of her face. Under her light
+cloak she was freshly and beautifully dressed. Her eyes seemed to brim
+with a sort of wistful happiness. I hated the task; but knowing what
+she was about to see, I _had_ to try and prepare her. But I soon
+saw I was having my trouble for nothing. I think she hardly heard me.
+Her heart, it was plain, was full of that brave, sane hope that, even
+when it is brought to nothing, I think bears sorrow best. Webber had
+just paid his morning visit, but she did not wait for his report. I
+fancy from the look he gave me that he took in the situation at a
+glance. I smiled back at him a little nervously. He had prescribed two
+grains of hope, and I was conscious of bringing an overdose.
+
+In the private ward my impulsive companion took no notice of doctors
+or nurses, but went straight over to the bed on whose snowy pillow the
+poor wasted face lay like a gray shadow. She gave a little moan at the
+first sight of it: that was all. His eyes were closed. She knelt down,
+and passing her arm ever so gently underneath his neck, threw back her
+cloak, and laid the shadowy face upon the warmth, and the fragrance,
+and the softness beneath.
+
+"Paul," she said at his ear, low, but so distinctly that we all heard.
+"Don't you know me, dear? It's Nelly, come back to take care of you,
+and look after you and love you all the rest of your life. You're
+going to get well, aren't you, dear, for her sake? 'Cos you mustn't
+break her heart a second time, you know. And, dear, she doesn't want
+you to talk; but won't you just open your poor tired eyes once, a teeny
+second, to show you know whose arm is round you? Because she's been
+waiting, waiting--oh, such a weary time! just waiting, dear, till you
+sent for her."
+
+There was silence for a few seconds, broken only by the unrestrained
+sobbing of the little day nurse at the foot of the bed.
+
+Then Ingram opened his eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I don't know whether he's going to die or get well," I said, some
+hours later. I was trying to swallow _chateaubriand_ and
+champagne and unmanly emotion all at the same time, which doesn't help
+lucidity. But I'd been supporting an anxious day on a tin and a half
+of cigarettes, and the champagne was old Smeaton's fault, so perhaps
+I shall be forgiven. "I don't know whether he's going to get well or
+die. I can't feel it matters much, to-night. You'd know what I meant
+if you'd seen his face. Oh! it was wonderful. I think I know now how a
+man looks when he wakes in heaven and knows he very nearly missed it.
+And the Barbour woman, crooning and cooing over him, and the nurses
+snivelling, and all those doctors trying to pull the poor devil back to
+life! Yes, you can laugh if you like, Smeaton. But I say it's a damned
+fine old world, and I'm glad to have a place where I can sit and watch
+it--even if it is only a second-floor front and back in Pimlico."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+             THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
+
+    [Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75372 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75372 ***</div>
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>FENELLA</h1>
+
+<p><i>A NOVEL</i></p>
+
+<p class="ph1">BY HENRY LONGAN STUART</p>
+
+<p><i>Author of "Weeping Cross"</i></p>
+
+<p>"NAY, MY MOTHER CRIED: BUT THEN THERE WAS<br>
+A STAR DID DANCE AND BENEATH IT<br>
+I WAS BORN"</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Garden City</span><br>
+<span class="smcap">New York</span><br>
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &amp; COMPANY<br>
+1911</p>
+
+<p>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION<br>
+INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN</p>
+
+<p>COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &amp; COMPANY</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table>
+<tr><td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td><td class="tdl"><a href="#PART_I">PART I</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#I">Morgengabe</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#II">Shadows Before</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#III">An Eclipse</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IV">To Introduce Paul Ingram</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#V">"Sad Company"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VI">A Child Speaks the Truth</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VII">Mostly Lady Anne</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIII">The Second Floor</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IX">Sharland College</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">X.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#X">"The Way of a Maid"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XI">An Interlude</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XII">Richmond Park</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIII">Find Soul—Find Sorrow</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIV">Athea Rees</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XV">History of a Conversion</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVI">Hoa-haka-nana-ia</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVII">The Continental Express</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVIII">Amende Honorable</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td> <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td><td class="tdl"><a href="#PART_II">PART II</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#Ia">Financial Intelligence</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IIa">Two Telegrams</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IIIa">In the Firelight</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IVa">An Affair of Outposts</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#Va">Cicispeo</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIa">The Benefit of the Doubt</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIIa">A Dress Rehearsal</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIIIa">Lady Anne's Deposition</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IXa">The Man at the Wheel</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">X.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#Xa">Monsieur de Valbonette</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIa">"<i>Inextricabile Error</i>"</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIIa">A Catastrophe</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIIIa">New Wine—Old Bottle</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIVa">Some Theories and a Way Out</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVa">A Last Wish</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVIa">Azrael</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVIIa">A Dream Comes True</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVIIIa">Ice to the Moon</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XIX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIXa">The Wages</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td> <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td><td class="tdl"><a href="#PART_III">PART III</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#Ib">The Baths of Apollo</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IIb">Lightning in the Fog</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IIIb">Valedictory</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IVb">Something Like Cloves</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#Vb">A Very Vulgar Chapter</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIb">Genealogical</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIIb">The Waiting-Room</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIIIb">'Twixt Shine and Shade</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">IX.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#IXb">Beaten at the Post</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">X.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#Xb">A Year and a Day</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">XI.</td> <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIb">Two Grains of Hope</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_I">PART I</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">MORGENGABE</p>
+
+
+<p>Like the sudden, restless motion of a sleeper, a wave, marking the
+tide's height, broke out of the slumberous heart of the sea, and
+laid its crest low along the beach. Fenella, who had been swimming
+to shore, rose in the foam, like that other woman in the morning of
+the world, and began to walk slowly, wringing the salt water from her
+hair, toward the bleached bathing hut that stood, by itself, under a
+shoulder of the dunes. The backwash of the wave swirled past her bare
+ankles as she walked. Beyond the strip of beach that it had covered
+with weed and spume, the sand was hot and loose as ashes to the soles
+of her feet. The noontide sun seemed to rob the earth at once of
+motion, of sound, of color. It grizzled the long sharp grass with
+which the sand hills were sparsely covered, quenched the red roofs of
+the little cream-walled fishing village, and turned the watered lawn,
+which lay at the foot of the flaunting summer hotel quarter of a mile
+inland, to a level smudge of dark green. All sound was stilled—all
+movement in suspense—all beauty, even, deferred. At such an hour, the
+supreme of the sun's possession of the earth, none can stand, alone
+and without shelter in its untempered light, and not realize that he
+is intercepting an elemental force as relentless as it is impersonal.
+Upon these barren, ragged edges of the earth, where the land casts
+its detritus upon the sea, and the sea casts it back, transformed,
+upon the land, it is felt to be what it truly is—a power that blights
+as well as fosters—death no less than life. All that has its roots
+firmly fastened in the soil—that has a purpose unfulfilled—fruit to
+bear—pollen to sow, feels the impulse—spreads, aspires, swells, and
+scatters. All that is weak or ephemeral—whose purposes are frustrated
+or whose uses past, turns from that light and fervor—withers—bows its
+head—wilts at the fiery challenge. To it the sun is a torch—the earth
+an oven—noontide the crisis of its agony.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At the door of the gray bathing-hut the girl turned, and, bracing
+herself, with her arms against her wet sides, to which her dark tight
+bathing-dress clung sleek and shapely as its pelt to a seal, stood
+for a moment looking out to sea. Her bosom rose and fell quickly, but
+without any distress; her heart beat high with the sense, so rare to
+women until of late, of physical powers put to the test. A mile out,
+the fishing-boat to which she had swum—whose very bulwarks she had
+touched—seemed to hang like some torpid bat—its claws hooked onto
+the line where sea and sky met. She caught her breath at sight of the
+distance she had ventured: nothing in her life, she felt, had been
+pleasanter than this—to stand with the sun on her shoulders, the warm
+sand over her toes, and to measure with a glance the cold, treacherous
+and trackless space which, stroke by stroke, she had overcome.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, and as though she remembered, she turned and looked inland.
+High up on the dunes to her left a little black shadow spotted the
+gray, reed-streaked expanse. Fenella waved one brown arm toward it, and
+throwing back the wet hair from her forehead, peered anxiously under
+her hand for some signal in reply. Apparently it came, for her face
+changed. Something that had been almost austerity went out of it and
+was replaced by a look so full of tender concern that the long-lashed
+eyes and sensitive mouth seemed to brim over with it. A moment later,
+and amid a charming confusion which draped the pegs and benches of
+the hut, she was humming a waltz tune softly as she dressed. The
+happy, interrupted melody filled the hot silence like the song of a
+honey-seeking bee.</p>
+
+<p>The blot upon the dunes was cast by a white sketching umbrella, lined
+with green, whose long handle, spiked and jointed, was driven deep into
+the loose soil. Near it, but somewhat away from the shadow, which the
+southward roll of the earth was carrying farther and farther from his
+shoulders, a man was sitting. He sat, with knees drawn up and with his
+hands clasped across them, staring out upon the colorless ocean, over
+which a slight haze was beginning to drift. A gaunt, large-framed man,
+but with a physical economy in which fat had no place. The skin upon
+the strong hands and lean neck was brown and loose, as though years of
+exposure to a sun, fiercer and more persistent than that to which he
+heedlessly bared his head now, had tanned it for all time. His hair,
+thick, crisp, and grizzling at the temples, was cropped close over a
+shapely head. A short beard, clipped to a point, left the shape of the
+chin an open question, but his moustache was brushed away, gallantly
+enough, from the upper lip, and showed all the lines of a repressed and
+unhappy mouth. The prisoner, his dungeon once accepted, sets himself to
+carve the record of his chagrins upon its walls; no less surely will
+a soul, misunderstood and checked in its purposes, grave the tale of
+its disappointments upon the prison-house of the flesh. On the face
+that confronted the ocean now, infinite sadness, infinite distaste were
+written plain.</p>
+
+<p>He was oddly dressed, after a <i>bizarre</i> fashion which complexity,
+eager, we must suppose, for such simplifications as are within its
+reach, occasionally affects. A coarse canvas smock, open at the throat,
+such as fishermen wear, and dyed the color of their sails; corduroy
+trousers of brown velvet, coarse gray knitted socks, that fell in
+careless folds round his ankles and over the low iron-shod shoes. Under
+all this uncouth parade one divined rather than saw fine linen.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly that view of the ocean in which was so little present help
+was blotted out. From behind him two hands, cool and a little clammy
+from prolonged immersion in salt water, were covering his eyes. Yet for
+a while he did not move; possibly he felt the eclipse a grateful one.
+It was not until the girl who had stolen upon him so silently shook him
+gently and whispered in his ear that he took the hands from his eyes,
+and, still without turning, laid them against his lips.</p>
+
+<p>He might well have turned. For Fenella, one would think, would be
+always worth another look. She was quite beautiful, with the precision
+of color and texture that makes beauty for the artist, and sometimes,
+be it said, obscures it for the general. She was pale, but not from
+any retrenchment of the vital flame which burned, clear and ardent, in
+her gaze—glowed in the red of her moist and tremulous mouth. Her eyes
+were set full and a little far apart, and fringed with lashes that were
+of an almost even length and thickness on the upper and lower lids.
+Her face, broad at the temples and cheek bones, sloped to her chin
+with a slight concavity of the cheeks, in which a sort of impalpable
+dusk, that was not shadow, for no light killed it—nor bloom, for her
+tint was colorless as a lily, and which was probably caused by the
+minute and separately invisible down of the skin, seemed immanent. Her
+hair, fine, abundant, and nearer black than brown, grew low and made
+all manner of pretty encroachments upon the fair face. There was a
+peak of it in the centre of her forehead, and two little tufts waved
+near the temples which no mode of hairdressing had ever managed to
+successfully include. Her neck was slight and childish—her breasts
+scarcely formed, but her hips were already arched, of the true heroic
+mould of woman, and the young torso soared from them with the grace and
+strength of a dryad. Beyond all, face and figure possessed the precious
+and indefinable quality of romance. Fenella upon the Barrière du Trône
+in the livid light of a February morning—long, damp curls in which a
+little powder lingers drooping upon her slender shoulders: Fenella in
+<i>côte-hardie</i> and wimple, gazing over moat and bittern-haunted
+moorland from an embrasured château window of Touraine: Fenella
+in robe of fine-fringed linen, her black hair crisped into spiral
+ringlets, couched between the hooves of some winged monster of Babylon
+or Tharshish, with the flame of banquet or sacrifice red upon her
+colorless cheek. All these were imaginable.</p>
+
+<p>She sank gracefully upon her knees in the yielding sand, and, putting
+her hand across the man's shoulder, laid her cheek to his. The
+spontaneity of the action and its tacit acceptance by her lover—for
+he neither moved nor checked his reverie on its account—were eloquent
+of self-surrender, and a witness also to the truth of the observation
+that, in affairs of the heart, there is one who proffers love and one
+who endures it. But she was over-young and over-fair to know the chill
+of the unrequited kiss already.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you still worrying, Paul?" she asked after a while, "still vexed
+and disturbed? You needn't answer. Your forehead was all gathers and
+tucks just now when I came behind you: I could feel every wrinkle. Tell
+me, this minute," with playful peremptoriness; "was he anxious about
+his young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little," her lover answered. "It's natural, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, dear, I swim so strongly," she pleaded. "There's no current when
+the tide's at flood. And, oh! Paul, it was such <i>fun</i>. I swam
+out to that fishing-boat you can <i>just—barely—see</i>. Look!"
+and she turned the listless head with her hand; "it's over there. I
+can tell you the exact number: <i>B759 Boulogne</i>. That shows I'm
+not fibbing, doesn't it, Mister Ingram. I hung onto the side and
+called out, '<i>Woilà!</i>' Have you ever noticed you can't say 'V'
+when your mouth's full of saltiness? And the man was so scared. He
+crossed himself twice, poor old soul, and his pipe nearly fell into
+the sea. Can't you imagine what he'll say when he gets home '<i>Cette
+Anglaise!—quelle effrontée!—quelle conduite!</i>' Now, who says I
+can't speak French?—Oh! Paul; why aren't you a swimmer?"</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't quite such fun watching you," said Ingram; "the sea's such a
+big thing. Why, your head looked no bigger than a pin's out on all that
+water. Things happen so easily, too."</p>
+
+<p>The girl felt him shiver, and tightened her hold on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"And you've such an imagination to plague you; haven't you, Paul? Oh
+dear! Well—here's the pin sticking into you again: here's the head
+back, safe and sound, light and empty as ever. Isn't it hard luck for
+you?" And she laid it on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you rather I didn't swim out so far again, Paul?" she asked
+presently, in a softened voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I break your spirit?" the man argued, more reasonably,
+perhaps, than he intended.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but it isn't worth it if it worries you," his sweetheart said
+earnestly. "Nothing's worth that, when you have so much to bear
+besides. I've had my foolish way and now I promise you I'll paddle with
+you, dear old muff, in two feet of water all the rest of the holidays."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram turned to her now. "Nelly, I don't want to disappoint you,
+but—but, there won't be any 'rest of the holidays' for us this summer."</p>
+
+<p>She looked into his face; her own alarmed and pleading.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going, Paul? Oh, you promised to stay on until we all went
+back together."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know," he answered, with an impatience that was none the
+less real because it was the expression of his reluctance to give pain.
+Silken bonds strain at times.</p>
+
+<p>"Something has happened then, since last night? What is it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a letter this morning. It had been waiting at the
+'<i>Arrêt</i>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"A letter at last! Oh! Paul—Why didn't you tell me? Is it good news?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only a straw; but then, I'm a drowning man."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me! Tell me!" the girl insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"It's from Prentice; the man you saw in Soho the night before we came
+away. He's taken my MSS. to Althea Rees."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the woman who writes those queer books where every one talks
+alike."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it matter? The talk's all good. Anyhow, she's 'struck.'
+Some one's actually struck at last. She's going to try and make her
+own publishers do something. But she says she must see me first, and
+Prentice thinks she's only passing through London."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella's face clouded and was so far from expressing enthusiasm that
+her lover looked at her rather ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't seem very glad, Nelly."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly kept her eyes averted. She had already taken her head from his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't care to publish anything," she declared slowly. "Not—that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>As though he had been waiting for her words, Paul Ingram sprang to
+his feet. All his impatience and dissatisfaction seemed to boil over.
+He began to pace the dunes like a caged animal, kicking the sand from
+his feet and tugging fiercely at the grizzling beard that was a daily
+reproach to his lack of achievement.</p>
+
+<p>"That way! that way!" he repeated. "But isn't even 'that way' better
+than no way at all? I tell you, Nelly, I'm discouraged, aghast, at
+this conspiracy to keep a man bottled up and away from the people
+for whom his message is intended. I haven't written like all these
+clever—clever people; after a morning's motoring, and an afternoon
+'over the stubble,' isn't that the expression?—three hours every
+day, while the man is laying out the broadcloth and fine linen for a
+dinner at eight. What I did was done with as much sweat and strain as
+that shrimper uses down there, who's getting ready to push his net
+through the sand as soon as the tide turns. And when the work is done,
+between me and my public a soulless, brainless agency uprears itself
+that weighs the result by exactly the same standards as it would weigh
+a tooth-paste or a patent collar stud or a parlor game—as a 'quick
+seller.'"</p>
+
+<p>He would have said more, but Fenella was at his side, trying to reach
+his lips with the only comfort the poor child had.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Paul," she cried; "be patient just a little longer. Publish how
+you can! I wasn't blaming you, dear. I only meant that—that working as
+you do, it was only a question of time and you'd succeed without any
+one's help. I don't feel uneasy or impatient about you."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram sat down again, a little ashamed of his outburst, but his face
+was still bitter.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," said he. "And it's precisely your limitless, superhuman
+patience that's doing more than anything else to kill me by inches. It
+would be a relief if you'd lose it sometimes, curse me—reproach me for
+the failure I am. After all, how do you know all these duffers aren't
+right? They're wonderfully unanimous."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella sat silent for a few minutes, not resenting his words, but
+racking her brain for some comforting parallel that would ring true and
+not be repulsed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember, Paul," she said at last, "the story we read together
+at Christmas about Holman Hunt? How he got so sick of the unsold
+pictures hanging in his studio that he turned them all with their
+faces to the wall? And yet one of those pictures was the 'Light of the
+World.'"</p>
+
+<p>But Ingram, even if he had an equal reverence for the work in question,
+which I should doubt, was not an easy man to console. He brushed the
+poor little crumb of comfort impatiently aside.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no comparison at all," he declared. "A picture painted is a
+picture painted. A glance can take it in, and a glance recover for
+the artist all the inspiration and joy in his work that filled him
+when he painted it. But what inspiration is there in a bundle of
+dog-eared manuscript, that comes back to you with the persistence
+of a cur you've saved from drowning? Besides, every artist worth the
+name has his following, however small, who help him—flatter him
+perhaps—anyhow, keep him sane. There's no unwritten law against
+showing a canvas. But the unpublished author—the un-acted play
+writer—is shunned like a man with the plague. Oh! don't I know it?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella gave a weary little sigh. Amid all this glorified space,
+just to be alive seemed to her simple soul a thing to be deeply and
+reverently thankful for. Her own blood was racing and tingling in her
+veins, with the reaction from her long swim. She wanted to run, to
+sing; above all, she wanted to dance. As for books, her own idea of a
+book was a very concrete one, indeed. She knew that whole rooms were
+filled with them, bookstalls littered by them, libraries building
+everywhere to catch the overflow. She was familiar, for reasons that
+will appear in their course, with the reading-room at the British
+Museum. She had confronted that overwhelming fact. And yet, one book
+could mean so much to this man that, for its sake, the holiday she had
+so joyously planned had gone to pieces. The truth must be told. She had
+to draw a rather big draft upon her love and loyalty.</p>
+
+<p>"When are you going?" she asked, in a little flat voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have caught the mid-day boat from Boulogne," the man
+answered, with a briskness that sounded ungratefully in her ears. "But
+it's too late for that to-day. There's another at six or seven. They
+stop the Paris train for you here if you signal."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go till to-morrow, Paul," she urged patiently. "There's the
+eclipse to-night, you know, and you promised we should watch it
+together. Then we can talk things over quietly. I want—oh, I want
+<i>so</i> to help you! I have a sort of foolish plan in my own
+head, but I'm afraid you'll laugh at it.... And there's poor mummy,
+struggling over the sand with our luncheon. Run and help her, dear."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">SHADOWS BEFORE</p>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour was a comely, wholesome-looking body upon the descending
+slope of fifty. Her face, like her daughter's, was of the <i>teint
+mât</i>, and her homely English figure had what a flippant mind has
+described as a "middle-aged spread" in its proportions. Her large
+oval brooch, a cunning device in hair, proclaimed to these skilled in
+rebus that without a cross there was no prospect of a crown, and a
+black bonnet of low church tendencies, trimmed with little jet-tipped
+tentacles that quivered and danced when she moved her head, honorably
+crowned her abundant silver locks. She had declined Ingram's proffered
+aid with a tenacity often to be noticed in those who have given hard
+service all their lives, and as she drooped with weary finality
+upon the sand, various parcels, string-bags, and small baskets were
+distributed to right and left.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear," she gasped breathlessly; "those dreadful, dreadful dunes."</p>
+
+<p>"Have they tired you very much, mummy?" the girl asked concernedly, as
+she unfastened the lavender bonnet-strings.</p>
+
+<p>"The sand is so loose to-day with the great 'eat—<i>heat</i>." Mrs.
+Barbour added the corrected version with almost lightning rapidity. One
+of her peculiarities, which it is sufficient to have indicated once,
+was a constant snatch at evasive aspirates. They can scarcely be said
+to have really dropped; she caught them before they fell.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Nelly," the good lady went on, while Ingram unravelled the
+mysteries of the string-bag, and gathered driftwood for the fire.
+"Here we are in France, where you've always wanted to be; but, another
+year, if I'm consulted, Bognor or Westgate for me, my dear. Two hours'
+comfortable travelling"—Mrs. Barbour ticked off the advantages of home
+travel on her fingers one by one, and unconsciously quoted some railway
+placard she had seen—"no Channel crossing, no customs, and the sea at
+your door. And even when you've come all this way, no amusement, unless
+you call a horrid Casino amusing, where grown men, and women who ought
+to be sent home to finish dressing, make donkeys of themselves over
+little lead horses."</p>
+
+<p>"There's very good music there in the afternoon," Paul hazarded, who
+was shaving a stick into kindling after the fashion of the Western
+plains.</p>
+
+<p>"Music—yes; but nothing really tuneful. Do you remember the Elite
+Pierrots at Westgate, Nelly, last year, with the blue masks. That
+dark-haired one, my dear, who used to sigh for the silvery moon and
+cough so terribly in the intervals. Don't tell me he wasn't some one
+in disguise. No! I hold to what I've said. The French don't understand
+amusement."</p>
+
+<p>The fire was lit, the kettle boiled, and luncheon eaten amid such
+conversation as a garrulous old woman and two very preoccupied people
+could contrive. Nelly was particularly silent, and had lost, besides,
+what her mother was pleased to term her "sand appetite." The talk
+ranged hither and thither listlessly. Paul's inability to swim, so
+strange in a man who had girdled the earth, was discussed in all its
+bearings till it could be borne no longer; the lurid history of Simone,
+Mrs. Barbour's strapping, smiling bonne, unmarried and unmoral, was
+matter for another half-hour. Followed various excursions into the
+obvious, and a list of "discoveries" made that morning. Mrs. Barbour
+collected facts like shells, and made some very pretty castles with
+them, too, at times.</p>
+
+<p>"... and Nelly, I believe I know who the two gentlemen are that you had
+your adventure with yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram raised his head at the two odious words very much as a horse
+would do if you were to explode two fog signals under his nose in
+succession; quickly enough, indeed, to intercept a warning and
+reproachful glance that the girl sent her mother. Mrs. Barbour clapped
+both hands playfully over her mouth. "Oh! now I <i>have</i> done it!"
+she exclaimed. Her eyes snapped with, perhaps, a shade more of malice
+than a kind-hearted old lady's should ever hold. Without being a
+scheming or a worldly woman, she resented a little, in her heart, the
+monopoly which this man had established over her child; a man so alien
+to her in thought, so sparing of speech, so remote from her ideal,
+which, diffuse enough in all truth, would perhaps have found it nearest
+realization just now in some florid, high-spirited lad, who would have
+brought her his socks to darn and his troubles to soothe of an evening,
+been "company," in a word, to the talkative, commonplace old woman. As
+far as she was concerned, Ingram swallowed his disappointments, and she
+rather suspected him of darning his own socks.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella considered her mother for some time, though not as a resource
+to evade her lover's eye.</p>
+
+<p>"What a rummy way you have of putting things, mother!" she said at
+last. "My 'adventure' with 'two gentlemen'!"</p>
+
+<p>Paul's face was blank, like the page of a diary awaiting confidences.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling herself at bay, Mrs. Barbour grew flustered and tearful.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well!" she exclaimed, waving her hands helplessly in the air.
+"I'm sure I'm sorry, Nelly, since you choose to make such a mystery of
+it. But what there is in it to make you both look as grave as judges,
+I can't see. I'm sure that, as your mother, I'd be the first to be
+offended if there was anything disrespectful."</p>
+
+<p>An awkward silence followed her words, which Ingram was the first to
+break.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, perhaps, you'd best tell now, Nelly," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The girl blushed and covered her eyes for a moment with her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It's so—so <i>foolish</i>," she said, clenching them with an impatient
+movement. "Oh, well, if I must, I must.... It was yesterday morning
+while you were both at breakfast. I ran down, you know, to catch the
+tide. After I had come out—oh, well, there wasn't a soul in sight—I
+thought they would all be at breakfast at the <i>Grande Falaise</i>;
+I was chilly, too, and there was a kind of tune in the sea. So, after
+I'd taken off my wet bathing-suit, I threw on my kimono and began to
+practise the last dance Madame de Rudder has been teaching me—you
+know the one, mother, where she won't let me use my feet as much as I
+want—out on the sand where it was hard. And then, like a little fool
+I am, I forgot everything, until I heard some one clapping hands and
+saying, 'Bravo!'—and I looked up—and there were two men on the dunes,
+smoking cigars—I suppose they were coming from the golf links to the
+hotel, and I don't know how long they'd been watching me, and—and,"
+with sudden passion, "I just <i>hate</i> you, Paul, for dragging it out
+of me when I didn't want to tell."</p>
+
+<p>And Fenella, already overwrought, hid her head in her mother's
+capacious lap and had her cry out.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour stroked the dark head gently, but like the wise old mother
+bird she was, made no attempt to check the burst of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a dancing girl she is," she murmured complacently, "and she
+does hate to have it talked about so. Do you know, Mr. Ingram, I only
+discovered it myself by accident, after it had been going on months and
+months. Do you remember, dearie, that awful day, the first time I was
+up after influenza, that Druce got the spot on her nose that the doctor
+said was erysipelas, and Twyford scalded her arm and hand making a
+poultice? It's the only time, I do believe, Nelly, I've ever spoken to
+you crossly."</p>
+
+<p>A muffled voice, "You were <i>horrid</i>, mummy."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there, I really was, Mr. Ingram. I pushed the child out of the
+way and said, 'If you can't help, don't hinder. Run upstairs and play
+with the other ornaments!' I didn't think any more about it, with all
+that trouble on my hands, till about half an hour afterward, when down
+comes Miss Rigby with her face white—you know what a coward she is,
+Nelly—and in her dressing-gown, at nearly twelve! 'Do come up, Mrs.
+Barbour,' she says, 'I believe Rock has gone mad in the box-room and
+is dashing himself against the wall.' Oh dear! I ran upstairs with the
+poker, and what do you think it was, Mr. Ingram. My own crazy child,
+dancing and waving her arms about. Such a picture of fun as she looked!"</p>
+
+<p>A hand was laid suddenly on her mouth, and a face, very flushed and
+penitent in its tumbled dark hair, emerged from between the parental
+knees.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a silly"—<i>sniff</i>—"fool"—<i>sniff</i>—said Fenella. "Paul,
+gimme my hank."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram passed the handkerchief across the smouldering blaze. The girl
+looked at him as she blew her nose. He seemed absorbed, not angry, but
+<i>queer</i>, she thought. She had never seen his face look so wan and
+tired. He seemed to avoid her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you well, Paul?" she asked at last.</p>
+
+<p>Ingram seemed to shiver and then rouse himself. "I'm all right," he
+said; "but I think I'll go back to the chalêt. I've got letters to
+write. Isn't the sun grown pale? And I guess I've either caught cold or
+some one's walking backward and forward over my grave."</p>
+
+<p>They went home together, for the women would not be left behind,
+taking the longer way in order to avoid the sand-hills. Along the
+loose, tiring beach—dried sea waifs crackling underfoot, by the
+<i>douane</i> with its toy battery and lounging sentry; up a narrow
+path that was half by-street and half flight of steps, near whose
+summit a Christ flung his saving arms wide over a yellow <i>affiche</i>
+of the <i>Courses</i> at Wimereux, and into a straggling village
+of low-browed houses, cream, pink, light-blue, and strong as
+castles, through whose doorways leather-faced crones and tow-headed
+children swarmed and tumbled. They were nearing the inn of the
+<i>Toison d'Or</i>, where the new road to the hotel turns out of
+the village, slowly, for Mrs. Barbour climbed with difficulty and
+rejected assistance, when two men in tweed jackets, flat-capped and
+flannel-trousered, swung round the corner. At their backs two shaggy
+town urchins straggled along, each with an arsenal of clubs and cleeks
+peeping over his shoulder. The two men raised their caps and bowed
+slightly, but certainly not in response to any recognition that any of
+the party accorded them. Fenella blushed and hung her head.</p>
+
+<p>Paul turned sharply on his heel. "Are those the cads who stared at
+you?" he asked, in a voice which he took no pains to render inaudible.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly caught his arm before she answered. "Hush, dear! Yes. You're not
+to be foolish," she added.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother, glad of a respite, stopped and looked after them, too. She
+held it a legitimate source of pride that she had always had an eye for
+a fine man.</p>
+
+<p>"Those <i>are</i> the two, then," she said triumphantly, with an air
+of sagacity justified. "Then, my dear, I can tell you who they are.
+The short, dark one is Mr. Dreyfus—no, Dollfus—who manages the
+'Dominion' in London, and the big, handsome one with the loose hair
+under his cap at the back is Sir Bryan Lumsden, the millionaire, and a
+<i>frightful</i> reputation, my dear. Mrs. Lesueur told me all about
+him this morning when she came in to borrow Simone for ironing."</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the two men whom they had passed turned likewise, but only
+to whistle up their caddies, who, with an avidity for the "<i>p'tit
+sou</i>" which would seem to be sucked in with the maternal milk in
+French Flanders, were holding out claw-like hands to the family party
+and more especially to Ingram, who had already acquired an unfortunate
+reputation in this respect.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you make of it, Dolly?" the big man asked. "Husband?"</p>
+
+<p>The Jew shook his head decisively. "No, no, my boy! She's not a marrit
+woman. Relations, more likely. Eh?—ah?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or lovers, likelier still. It's highly respectable, anyway. They've
+got the old lady to come along. That looks as if he were French."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to meet the liddle girl, alone," said Dollfus, fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"Some dark night?—eh, Dolly!" remarked Sir Bryan, beginning to whip
+the Dominion director's stout calves and thighs with the handle of the
+putter he was carrying. "You're such a devil—such a devil, Dolly."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dollfus raised a corrective hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mithtake my meaning, Lumpsden," he said, getting out of the
+sportive baronet's long reach as quickly as was consistent with
+dignity. "I only wanter tell her she's got a forchune in her feet and
+legth if she'd go in training. I oughter know something about legth,
+oughtn't I, old fellow. Becoth it's my bizzyness, ain't it, Lumpsden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell the lunatic in the red shirt instead," the baronet suggested,
+derisively. "She's bored, anyway. See her bat her eyelid when we bowed?
+Oh yes, she did, Dolly. Just one little flicker—but I caught it.
+Hullo! there's Grogan and old Moon at the tenth hole."</p>
+
+<p>And, this being a world where the incredible is always happening, it is
+possible that Bryan Lumsden didn't think of Fenella again that day.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">AN ECLIPSE</p>
+
+
+<p>Ingram took her down to the beach again that night, as he had promised,
+through a sparse, pungent pine wood that by day and night seemed to
+keep something of the peace of the primeval world in its coniferous
+shade, and across a trackless little wilderness of sand-hills, scooped
+and tortured by the earthquake storms of winter into strange, unnatural
+contours, over which the moon to-night spread a carpet so white, so
+deceptively level, that often they could only be guessed by the abrupt
+rise or fall of the ground beneath one's feet. Rabbits popped in and
+out of the earth, the sharp reeds that bind the sand barriers together
+bit spitefully at the girl's tender ankles, and withered branches,
+catching in her silk skirt, snapped dryly as her lover helped her
+through the hedges with which the dunes are ribbed.</p>
+
+<p>Although the night was cool, she was wearing the thin dress she had put
+on for dinner. Over his shoulder Ingram had slung a soldier's cloak of
+blue-gray cloth, long and wide, that was to cover them in to-night as
+it had often covered them before. Fenella was already familiar with
+its every fold—knew exactly when the rough backing of the clasp would
+chafe her delicate cheek, could recall at any moment the peculiar
+fragrance of cigar smoke with which the heavy frieze was impregnated,
+and some other smell, stranger still, sweet, foreign and spicy, that
+she could not define, but which, evanescent as it was—the very ghost
+of an odor—clung obstinately to her skin and dress, and which she
+loved to lie awake at night and feel exhaled from her thick hair like
+some secret earnest of joy upon the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>She slid her hand into the man's as they descended the slippery,
+needle-carpeted path, and turned up a face to him in the darkness of
+the wood that was contrite and humble as a reproved child's. She had
+been a bad child, in fact; had failed in sympathy—had told him in her
+passion that she hated him. Hated—him! When they had found the fire,
+still smouldering, and had blown it into a blaze, she crept silently
+within his arms, under the folds of the cloak, and, laying her head
+upon his breast, watched the flames, creeping like fern-fronds through
+the gnarled roots and sodden bleached faggots that Paul had heaped upon
+it. She began to suck her thumb too: always with Fenella the sign of a
+chastened spirit. The moon, serenely unconscious of the earth shadow
+that was creeping upon her, made a path of crinkled glory across the
+waters, straight toward them, and, like foam at the foot of a silver
+cascade, the phosphorescent surf tumbled, soft and luminous, along the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you warm enough?" Ingram asked presently, feeling a tremor,
+perhaps, in the yielding figure that rested in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella nodded her head, but she might more truly have told him that
+she was cold and sick. For her the night was full of voices that
+threatened her happiness. The ripple of the cold wind along dry grass
+at her back, the soft thud and effervescence of the surf against
+the sand, were all so many whispers telling her that her lover was
+going—going to some other woman who could help him, and away from
+the weak arms that only clung and hindered. She had no confidence in
+herself—no belief in her own power to hold him a moment, once his
+will should feel an alien attraction. The very profuseness of the
+poor child's passion, its abandonment of one uninvaded reserve after
+another, had been proof of this inward unrest. Let no mistake be made.
+Fenella was a good girl, who could by no possibility become other than
+a good woman: nevertheless it is as true as it is, perhaps, disquieting
+that she might have remained at the same time happier and more maidenly
+in contact with an affection less worthy and less spiritual than that
+which she had encountered. For, so long as the attraction of sex for
+sex, beneath all modern refinements and sophistications, remains
+endowed with anything of the purpose for which nature instituted it—so
+long as its repulsions are a definite distance, to be annihilated
+toward a definite end, so long, if one party to the vital bargain hangs
+unduly back, must the other press unduly forward.</p>
+
+<p>She was silent so long that Ingram put out his hand, and, touching her
+cheek, found it wet.</p>
+
+<p>"You're crying!" he exclaimed sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm n-not," Fenella protested unevenly, and even as she spoke the
+great drops splashed down on his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Nelly, look up! Do you love me as much as you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my heart!—my heart!" she sobbed, covering his mouth with kisses,
+salt as the sea. And while she kissed him he was making a mental note
+that women were unduly robust on the emotional side.</p>
+
+<p>"If you do," said he, "you'll stop crying—at once."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke so sternly that the girl clenched her hands and struggled and
+fought with her sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"That's better," he said, when, by dint of swallowing her tears, she
+was, outwardly at least, a little calmer. "I'm sorry if I spoke harshly
+just now," he went on; "but everybody has a last straw. A woman crying
+seems to be mine. It—it strains my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think <i>I</i> like it any better?" his sweetheart asked,
+desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he hazarded, with a shyness that was almost grotesque,
+"it's because I'm going to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, dear, yes," the girl told him, eagerly seeking relief in
+words since tears were forbidden her. "Oh, Paul! how I shall miss
+you! You don't know what it's meant to me to have you living in the
+same house—to even know you were sleeping near me. Darling, do you
+know I've sometimes wished you <i>snored</i> so I might hear you at
+night. Don't stop me, love!" she went on, buttoning and unbuttoning
+his coat with nervous fingers. "Let me confess my full shamelessness.
+I've even helped Simone do your room sometimes in the morning. You're
+not shocked—are you? Oh! you <i>are</i>," she cried piteously, drawing
+away from his arm. "You think me unmaidenly. But I can't <i>help</i>
+it, love; I can't <i>help</i> it. Don't you see? You are you. It's
+different to all the rest of the world."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram's chest rose and fell unevenly beneath her cheek. She could not
+but perceive his distress.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Nelly," he said huskily. "Don't cry again; but—but perhaps
+it's a good thing for you I am going away for a while. Things are so
+unsettled, and it may help you—get you used, supposing the worst
+happens, to the <i>idea</i>. There's so much in custom—in habit."</p>
+
+<p>"Paul!" she cried once, and grew rigid in his arms. It was a death-cry,
+and he flinched. Who has struck at life and not drawn the blade away
+quicker because the first blow went home.</p>
+
+<p>"Nelly, I'm not young."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care if you were sixty—seventy." Fenella was not crying now,
+but fighting for her love like the brave little girl she was.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a man without home, or country, or friends."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a baby. I'll go with you wherever you like. We'll make them
+for ourselves, together."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'm deadly poor."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll lend you money, Paul. How much do you want? I've seventy pounds
+in the Post-Office."</p>
+
+<p>I think if I had been Ingram and had only one more kiss to give, I
+would have given it her for this; but I am trying to tell the truth;
+and the truth is that these futile interruptions to his hateful task
+harassed and angered him. It is so much easier to confess to sin than
+to failure.</p>
+
+<p>"Nelly! don't interrupt me! Let me say what I have to. I'm telling
+you that at thirty-seven, an age when most men have home and wife and
+children and see their way clear to the end, I haven't taken the first
+step upon a road that is haunted by tragedy and littered with the bones
+of those who have fallen by the way."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wait for you," said poor Fenella, but no longer with the same
+energy. What a gorgon head has common-sense to turn hearts of flesh to
+stone!</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you'll wait for me! Spend your youth waiting for me; your middle
+age—waiting. We'll save every cent; spend hours figuring out on just
+how much or how little life for two can be supported. Hundreds of
+people are doing that to-day who, thirty years ago, would have been
+setting out, full of hope and confidence, to make money. That's a
+by-product of industrial development. And, if we're lucky, just about
+the time your own daughters should be telling you their love affairs,
+you'll come to me and we'll crawl away together to some cottage in
+Cornwall, where I'll cultivate vegetables a little, rheumatically, and
+at night you'll sit opposite me by the kitchen fire—we'll call it our
+'ingle-nook'—and listen to an old man babbling of his wrongs between
+spoonfuls of bread and milk, with enlightening criticisms upon the
+fools who succeeded where he was too clever not to fail.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll think it strange, I suppose," he went on, no more interrupted
+now by her sobs than by the sough of the sea; "strange that I should
+wait until now, just when I've heard I'm to have the chance I've
+been whining for, to realize what a phantom I've committed myself to
+following. But it's not as strange as it looks. As long as there's
+some petty practical obstacle in the way, mercifully or unmercifully
+everything else is obscured by it. It's like a hill, hiding the desert
+you'll have to cross when you've climbed to the top. Oh, Nelly! look
+at the moon!"</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, as the man talked and the woman paid in tears and
+heartscald for the reckless passion of her first love, the portent
+they had come out to watch was passing over their heads. At first it
+was but a spot—a little nibble at the silver rim of the great dead,
+shining orb; then a stain, that grew and spread, as though the moon
+were soaking up the blackness of the sky; last it took shape and form
+of the world's circumference, and for once man might watch his earth
+as, maybe, from some happier but still speculative planet his earth
+is watched, and idly conjecture at what precise spot upon that smooth
+segmental shadow any mountain or plain, roaring city or dark tumbling
+ocean that he has mapped and named, might lie. Two thousand years
+ago—a day as men have learned to count time—this man and woman, who
+had come out to watch the moon's eclipse for mere diversion, for an
+effect of light and shade, and who, in the multiplied perplexities of
+their own artificial life had even forgotten to watch it at all, would
+have been lying, prone upon their faces, wailing—praying until the
+ominous shadow had passed, while in the fire before them some victim
+of flock and herd smoked propitiation to the threatening heavens. And
+out of all the straining and striving toward knowledge of those two
+thousand years—out of all the Promethean struggle wherein learning,
+hot to unlearn, can but lop off one visionary beak or claw to find
+itself clutched more cruelly in another, not enough wisdom reached them
+now to comfort one simple, trustful heart, or to teach an intellect
+that had roamed the earth to its own undoing, the primal art of
+all—how to rear a roof and feed a hearth for the loving creature that
+clung at his breast.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>No! Nelly wouldn't look at the moon. She left his arms and sat apart,
+bolt upright; her lithe body quivering with resolution.</p>
+
+<p>"Paul Ingram," she said incisively, "I've listened patiently to you and
+you'll have to listen to me. You've been prophesying woe and misery,
+and now it's my turn. Shall <i>I</i> tell <i>you</i> what's really
+going to happen?"</p>
+
+<p>Hope is like measles. No one is too young or too foolish to catch it
+from. In spite of himself the man's face brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's going to happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as we get home I'm going to have Mme. de Rudder to tea, just
+our two selves, nice and comfy, and when she's lapped up her cream and
+I've stroked her down a little, I'm going to say, 'Now, Madame! For the
+last two years you've been buttering me up, to my face and behind my
+back, and showing me round, and if you've meant half you said' (and I
+think she does, Paul, though she's such an old pussy), 'there ought to
+be a living for me somewhere.' And then—oh, Paul!—I'll work and I'll
+work and I'll w-o-r-k-work. I'm not sure whether I'll see you"—with
+an adorable look askance—"perhaps once a week, if you're good. And,
+at the end of the year, I'll bring you a nice, newly signed contract
+at—oh! well, <i>pounds</i> a week, 'cos I've got a <i>head</i>, which
+you'll never have, poor dear. And then—don't stop me please—we'll get
+married, and have a little flat of our own or turn ma's lodgers out,
+and you'll write your mis-e-ra-ble, <i>mis-e-ra-ble</i> books all day,"
+she took his head in her hands and shook it gently from side to side;
+"and at night you'll call for me and I'll go home with you, sir, in my
+own dear little taxicab, all warm and cosy from dancing—and, dear, you
+shall never have another money trouble or even hear the word mentioned
+as long as you live. Now, what does he think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked closely at her lover's face and suddenly shrank away, with a
+little cry, at what she saw there.</p>
+
+<p>"Think of it?" Paul repeated, his nostrils quivering. "I'll soon
+tell you what I think of it. That if I didn't know your words were a
+mere childish fancy—if I really thought you were going to dance on
+the stage in London or Paris or New York or any city I've been in, I
+believe, Nelly"—he paused a moment—"yes, I believe I could bear to
+take you up in my arms, now, as you are, and carry you down to that sea
+and hold you under until you were dead."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella moaned and covered her face with her hands. Then she jumped up.
+Paul caught at her silken skirt, a momentary cold fear at his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Nelly, stop! I know I shouldn't have said that."</p>
+
+<p>She disengaged herself with a swift turn. "Let me go!" she cried
+angrily. "I'm not the sort of person that commits suicide. You can
+drown me afterward if you like. I'm going to dance first."</p>
+
+<p>"To dance?" Ingram repeated, thunderstruck. "Out here? Sit down at
+once! Sit down," he pleaded in a changed voice. "Be a good child."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a child," she cried rebelliously; "that's the mistake you're
+making. And I won't be forever checked and scolded by you, Paul. I will
+have some comfort. Oh, I knew you'd laugh and storm. I'm only a silly
+little thing that dances and that you pet when she's good"; her eyes
+flamed at him. "But it means as much to me as your books and long words
+do to you."</p>
+
+<p>She stopped, not because she was ashamed, but because her mouth was
+inconveniently full of the pins which she was pulling from a rather
+elaborate "<i>chevelure</i>." She shook her head with the usual
+transforming result, kicked off her shoes, and, bending down, began to
+unfasten her long silk stockings under her skirt. Paul turned away his
+head, and perhaps it was as well she did not see the disgust in the
+averted face.</p>
+
+<p>"Sing something," she commanded, throwing the long silk stockings on
+the sand and stretching her bare toes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know anything," doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, you do! Sing the Algerian recruit song."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too sad for you in your present mood of exaltation."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella did not seem to resent the withering tone. She had drawn a
+little away from the fire and was looking upward, her hands clasped
+behind her neck and under her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Just to get a note," she said, dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>Without quite knowing why, and in the teeth of his own shy distaste,
+Ingram began to sing. He had a fine baritone voice, to be exact where
+exactness is not called for, full of strength and feeling, that was
+none the less tuneful because it had only been trained to the tramp
+of gaitered feet along the blinding white <i>chaussées</i> of French
+Africa. The song rose and fell, haunting and melodious—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"<i>Me voilà engagé</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i>Pour l'amour d'une blond—e</i>...."</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The fire was between them, throwing all the beach into shadow, and,
+sung thus, squatted upon the sand, and his feet to the dying embers,
+with the old song so many memories crowded upon the man's own brain—so
+many visions peopled the lurid shadows around him—that he had arrived
+nearly at its end before he thought of regarding the swaying, tossing
+figure beyond with any degree of attention. But, when he did, the
+last words died away in his throat. This is not the place to describe
+Fenella Barbour's dancing. Many pens have done it justice. It has been
+described and overdescribed—ignorantly arraigned and disingenuously
+defended. Tyros of the press, anxious to win their spurs, and with a
+store of purple phrases to squander, have attempted, through a maze of
+adjectives and synonyms, to convey or reawaken its charm. She burst on
+the world in a time when such things were already grown a weariness to
+the plain man; yet never, I believe, was any success due more to the
+frank and spontaneous tribute of the people who sit in cheap seats to a
+wonderful thing wonderfully done, and less to the kid-gloved applause
+of stalled and jaded eclecticism in search of new sensation. And the
+key to it all, I believe—though mine is only one opinion among
+many—was to be sought in the mechanical precision with which, through
+all the changes and postures of arms and body above the hips, unstable
+and sensuous as vapor, the feet below the swirling skirts beat—beat
+out the measure of the dance unerringly and incisively as the
+percussion of a drummer's sticks upon the sheepskin. It was this that,
+for the man in the street at least, lifted her art out of trickery
+and imposture and veiled indelicacy into some region where his own
+criticism felt itself at home. "A clog-dancer with sophistications,"
+she has been called; but at least it was upon honest toes and heels
+that Fenella danced into popular favor.</p>
+
+<p>And all this the man by the fire watched with a sinking heart. Not
+altogether unmoved. He could not, being flesh and blood, remember that
+the girl dancing before him had just left his arms, and at the close
+of her transport would fling herself, breathless and glowing, into
+them again, eager for his approval, and spending upon his lips the
+aftermath of her excitement, without many a desire and emotion of his
+youth awaking and clamoring for its deferred due. But his desires had
+grizzled with his beard: he had analyzed the emotions and discarded
+them. Where the passions are concerned intellect is never impartial. It
+must be either oil or water—foster or extinguish. And he had chosen
+once for all the harder way. He was full of shyness, constraint, and
+the panic instinct of flight: shocked yet arrested, like some hermit
+of the Libyan desert watching the phantoms of his old life at Rome or
+Alexandria beckon him from his cave. Not only was the old dispensation
+void. He could imagine no ground upon which it could be renewed. His
+authority had been one of those gentle tyrannies of heart over heart,
+that are valid only so long as they are unquestioned. Having claimed
+her liberty, though it was but for an hour—resumed the possession of
+herself though it was only to dazzle his eyes—Fenella became to him
+from that moment a new woman, to be wooed and won afresh; and, being
+a wistful far more than a lustful man, in the very measure that the
+delayed revelation of her beauty penetrated his senses, he shrank
+further and further from its recapture.</p>
+
+<p>It must have been a strange sight, had any been there to see it. The
+dying fire; the shadowed moon; the man with his head bent above his
+knees; and the barefooted girl, with fluttering skirts and dishevelled
+hair, singing and dancing on the sand before his averted face.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">TO INTRODUCE PAUL INGRAM</p>
+
+
+<p>Exactly why it should be I who sit down to write of the loves and
+errors of Paul Ingram, his descent into hell and resurrection
+therefrom, is a thing that is not quite clear to me now, but which
+will not become clearer the more I try to justify it. It is certainly
+not because I was at one crisis of his life the instrument to save
+him, since I know how very careless Fate can be in the choice of her
+instruments. I am not his oldest friend, nor should I care to say—his
+dearest. We have done a good deal of work together—shared a good
+deal of opprobrium. I still bear upon my forehead the mark made by
+a stone that was meant for a better man, on the wild night when the
+Home Defence League roughs broke up our meeting at Silvertown. Yet,
+and notwithstanding, I am by no means sure, should the inevitable
+happen in my own lifetime, whether, of all the disciples who pass from
+the oration at the graveside to the whispers over the funeral baked
+meats, mine will be the pen chosen to write the life—mine the fingers
+authorized to untie the letters—of Paul Ingram, novelist, dreamer, and
+reformer.</p>
+
+<p>A good deal of what I have written I was witness to myself; a good
+deal more I learnt from Ingram during what, with so many cleaner and
+pleasanter ways of leaving the world, we all hope will be his last
+illness of the kind; and a not considerable part has been told me by
+his wife, for whom it is notorious that I entertain an affection as
+hopeless as it is happily engrossing. Even so, when all is admitted,
+each part assigned to its proper source of inspiration, I am aware a
+good deal will remain unaccounted for. This I have no alternative but
+to leave to the sagacity of my readers. Even to their discretion—a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with myself, only that I may get myself the sooner out of the
+way. My earlier years I have regarded from different points of view at
+different periods of my life. It is only comparatively lately that I
+have attained the true point of view and come to see that all the early
+portion should be regarded as a joke. For what legend can ask to be
+taken seriously whose sole remaining evidence is a small white towel,
+of the sort technically known, I believe, as "huckaback," lying folded
+now in a drawer of the desk at which I am writing. Two simple motions
+of the extensor and flexor muscles of one arm, and the proof of former
+greatness might lie beneath my eyes. But I will not make them. I know
+too well what would happen next. My fingers would not rest until the
+smooth bleached folds were shaken loose, nor my eyes until, written in
+indelible ink that successive launderings have only made blacker, the
+following legend appeared before them:</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph3">"<span class="smcap">J. B. Prentice.</span><br>
+Between-Maid—No. 8."</p>
+
+
+<p>You see, when a man has fallen, suddenly, from a great height, he is
+not expected to record his impressions as the third, the second, the
+first floor windows flashed successively past his startled eyes. He
+wakes up, if he wakes at all, in a nice, cosy atmosphere of iodoform,
+neatly and securely packed in antiseptic dressing, with a fluffy,
+frilly angel at his side, who has been waiting for those tired, tired
+eyes to open, and who puts her finger to her lips, the moment they do,
+for fear her voice shan't reach the muffled ears, and says—you know
+what she says—</p>
+
+<p>"Lie still! You're not to talk nor to agitate yourself."</p>
+
+<p>So I don't propose to agitate myself, and though I've only just begun
+to talk, it shall be of something better worth while. Farewell, then,
+for the last time, great showy mansion among the Chislehurst hills,
+with your orchard and shrubberies, flower gardens and pergolas, your
+pineries and fineries, your two great cedars, inlaid in the pale enamel
+of the sky, and shaven lawns, across which and toward the pink-striped
+marquee a butler hurries with an armful of white napery and flashing
+silver. And to you, dear little fellow-worker—Polly or Molly or Betsy,
+as the case may be—who once wiped your honest, grimy phiz on No. 8, a
+quite especial grip of the hand, wherever you be to-day. Your reproach
+long since kissed away, I hope; suckling some good fellow's children;
+cooking some good fellow's meals. Life is so hard on the between-maid.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>When I awoke it was in a Pimlico bed-sitting-room, writing literally
+for dear life, and for life that is growing dearer each year. I have
+a fatal facility for descriptive writing, and my speciality is the
+psychology of crowds. As old Winstanley of the <i>Panoply</i> would say
+when assigning me to anything I was to write up from the non-technical
+point of view, Aeroplane Meet, Palace Cup-tie, Royal Progress or what
+not: "Off with you, my boy! Column and a half, and a little more
+'tripe' than last time. Turn 'em all loose, 'the hoarse cheer,' 'the
+lump in the throat,' and the 'mist over the eyes.' Don't be afraid!
+People have time for a little sentiment on Sundays."</p>
+
+<p>I think they have. And I think I'm a witness to the price they are
+prepared to pay for it. Once a year, too, I write a novel whose
+circulation, for some occult reason, always stops short at eighteen
+hundred. Often when I'm reporting a football match, or anything like
+that, I try to count eighteen hundred, roughly, and imagine how my
+people would look all bunched together. A good many readers, but—what
+a gate!</p>
+
+<p>Of all the pranks America has played upon us, I count not the least its
+having sent us an Ingram as a recruit to the cause of reform. The name
+is familiar over there, but it is quoted, I fancy, rather as a peg upon
+which would-be subverters of established anarchy hang their arguments
+than as authority for democratic ideals. Colonel Ingram, of Omaha,
+president of the Mid-West Chilling and Transportation Syndicate, is
+of the family; so is the Hon. Randolph Ingram, the great "Corporation
+Judge" of the Supreme Court. Jared Ingram, of Milburn, author of that
+contribution to Christian Unity, "A Rod for the Back of Dumb Devills,"
+was one ancestor, and Elmer Ingram, the soldier-lawyer who helped to
+bait Arnold to his treason and damnation, was another. These names are
+not the fruit of any research on my part: I cull them from a little
+book which I saw at Ingram's rooms quite early in our acquaintance, and
+which, with a smile at my curiosity, he was good enough to lend me. It
+was one of those boastful little pamphlets "for private circulation,"
+which are multiplying across the Atlantic, as a caste which has secured
+an undue share of material welfare becomes conscious of its origins
+and uneasy amid the obliterations of the democratic spirit. Of those
+we love, however, even the generations are dear to us, and I insist
+on recalling, with vicarious pride, that "Hump. Ingraham and Damaris
+his wyffe," who landed at South Bay from the brig <i>Steadfast</i>
+in Worcester year, and rode off, saddle and pillion, through forest
+paths to the clearing where their home was to be raised, were of
+good and gentle English stock, from Ministerley in Derbyshire. Sweet
+little Damaris (one almost loves her for her name) wilted and died
+within the year, but the task of increasing and multiplying, and
+getting hold of the land, was taken up by a sterner and, let us hope,
+stronger, Deborah, eight months later, and thence the seed has spread,
+through a riot of Bestgifts, Resolveds, Susannahs and Hepzibahs, broad
+of breast and hip, strong of limb, stout and undismayed of heart.
+Westward—always westward. Across Ohio and Indiana, striking its roots
+north and south in farm and factory, store and workshop; halting here
+for twenty, there for thirty, years, but always, as a new generation
+grows to manhood, up and away again. Over the plains in crawling
+wagons, too impatient to await the harnessing of the iron horse—the
+riveting of the strangling fetters of steel: through the lawless and
+auriferous canyons of Colorado and Nevada: blown along on the mad wind
+of the 'forties and 'fifties, until, amid the grapes and roses of the
+Pacific slope and upon the pearly Californian beach, a wind, warm and
+wasted and very old from across the great still ocean, whispered them,
+"Thus far!"</p>
+
+<p>Paul was the last Ingram that will ever be born in the old homestead.
+His father he never saw; his sister died as a girl, and his mother,
+struck down by some obscure woman's disease, moved, within his memory,
+only from her bed to her chair, and from her chair to her bed again.
+He says he was a lazy, loafing, dreamy boy, with very little interest
+in anything beyond his meals; but the beautiful words in which he has
+enshrined that early home for us are proof how busily his brain must
+have been employed in those seemingly idle hours, and how keenly the
+spiritual significance of all that he saw came home to him from the
+first. Probably in the mere work of the house there was not enough
+to occupy strong, bony hands, such as his. Successive mortgages had
+nibbled the property away piecemeal, sparing only the house and yard;
+and even for that the last mortgage was running a race with death. He
+went to free school, but seems to have had few companions of his age.
+The village was depopulated; the house-doors opened only on old faces.
+He used sometimes to sit alone through a whole summer afternoon, he has
+told me, swinging on the garden gate and whittling wood. From the fence
+an old beaten track led away, through a marsh where a few ducks quacked
+and waddled still, up the shoulder of a little hill, and away around
+one of those woods of second growth that have sprung up all over the
+old pilgrim clearings—right into the heart of the setting sun. Often,
+he assures me, on looking up quickly from his whittling, he has seen an
+arm and hand beckoning him westward, from the edge of the trees. Set
+aside the stubborn mysticism that could conceive such a vision, and
+can still maintain its actuality—is not the picture a sufficiently
+haunting one? Within, the mother, waiting for death; outside, the lad,
+straining to be gone. And the old wattled kitchen chimney, smoking
+thinly, and the red glory through the sapling wood, and the drowsy
+quack of the ducks!</p>
+
+<p>After Mrs. Ingram's death the mortgage foreclosed upon the farm and
+its contents with the precision and completeness of a highly organized
+machine. It is proof how forced a growth the modern cult of the family
+in America is, that it never seems to have occurred to son or mother
+to appeal to any of the prosperous breed whom the old house had sent
+forth. The land had long been earmarked for the great weighing-scale
+factory that has since galvanized Milburn into strenuous life, and
+made it a sort of industrial model, which commissions and deputations
+from Europe are taken to see, presumably, says Ingram, as a warning
+to what devilish lengths efficiency can be carried. The old homestead
+was torn down to make a site for the boiler-house. Nothing is left of
+it now except one rafter, in the lavishly endowed Museum, with what is
+presumably an Indian arrow-head still embedded in the wood.</p>
+
+<p>I am bound to add that my indignation upon the subject never roused
+Paul to a corresponding heat. To his mind, already set upon first
+causes, no doubt it seemed very natural, a mere incident in the
+exploitation that dubs itself progress. He ate his last meal in the
+despoiled kitchen, warmed his coffee over a few sticks on the hearth
+that had burned away ten forests, and set off, by the path up the
+hill and round the corner of the wood, to wherever the arm might be
+beckoning him.</p>
+
+<p>The lad was only fourteen when he left home, but tall and strong for
+his years. He tramped to Philadelphia, "jumped" the freight by night
+as it pulled out of the clattering, flaring yard, was shunted into
+a siding at Scranton, forgotten, and found there three days later
+starving and all but mad. From Scranton he beat his way to St. Louis;
+washed dishes and set up pins in a skittle alley; tired soon of the
+smoke and blood-warm water of the old French city; fed cattle in the
+stockyards of Kansas, wrestled a drunken brakeman for his life on the
+roof of the rocking, bumping cars halfway down the Missouri canyon, and
+wrestled him so well that the man begged a job for him at the journey's
+end. He was jacking wagons in the Union Pacific workshops at Rawlins
+when the White River expedition came through, and joined the force as
+teamster at a dollar a day. He smelt powder for the first time, lay
+trapped for ten days in the stinking <i>corral</i> at Snake River, when
+the water failed and the relief went wide, and "Bummer Jim" and "Flies
+Above," having thoughtfully strewn the carcasses of three hundred
+slaughtered horses to windward, serenaded the poisoned pale-faces
+nightly with copious obscenity, the burden of which was "come and be
+killed." After the relief and disbandment of the force, he stayed on
+in the Rockies and grew to manhood amid the silent aromatic barrenness
+of its <i>mesas</i> and <i>arroyos</i>. Settlers were dribbling into
+the old Indian reservation. He was in turn horse-jingler, range-rider,
+prospector, stage-driver; built fences, freighted logs, dug ditches;
+spotted the banks of Bear Creek and Milk Creek, with his campfires
+and tomato tins, and was happy, until something, indefinable as the
+scent that steals down wind to the hunted stag, told him that the
+civilization from which he had fled was hard upon his heels again. He
+left Colorado the year before the railroad came through, and turned his
+face east again.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I know I am telling the story of Ingram's early life very baldly and
+badly. You see, there is so little romance in it; just the instinctive
+repulsion that one so often notices in the history of the world's
+reformers toward the thing they are to do battle with in the end. As
+Paul used to tell it himself, leaning forward over the fire in my
+stuffy little sitting-room, his strong, lean hands clasped round the
+bowl of his pipe and the smoke drifting lazily about his moustache and
+beard, it was only from an occasional gleam of the deep-set eye or
+quiver of the thin nostril, as he talked, that one could gather how
+deeply every lesson of force and fraud had sunk into his soul, to bear
+its fruit later in unalterable resolve. I never saw him really moved
+from his stoicism but once. We had been walking home together from
+dinner through the West End streets and had been unwilling witnesses of
+a sordid detail of their policing. A woman, crying and screaming, was
+being led away, not roughly, I think, but very determinedly, by two men
+in blue. Her hair had come loose, and one great curl hung to her waist.
+Her fur stole had tumbled in the roadway, and some careless Samaritan
+had thrown it over her shoulders, besmearing the velvet coat with mud.
+We were very silent during the rest of the walk, and when we got to my
+rooms Ingram unbosomed himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was when he was working his way back east in the shiftless and
+circuitous fashion that had become habitual to him. He got off the
+train at a small city, the seat of a state university. He wouldn't
+tell me the name, but I imagine it was somewhere in the Southwest. It
+was eight o'clock on a fall morning, the hour at which the stores are
+opening and the saloons being swept out. As he left the depot, his
+grip in his hand, on a hunt for breakfast and work, he became aware
+of some unusual excitement. Men were leaving their houses, collarless
+and in shirt-sleeves—calling to one another and running down the
+street. At the end, where it joined the main business avenue, a crowd
+had gathered—old men, young men, even children, and a few women.
+"And what do you think they were watching? Well, sir, there in God's
+blessed morning light, three women in silk dresses, with satin shoes,
+and bare heads and shoulders, were sweeping the filthy street with
+brooms and shovels and pitching the mud into a zinc handcart. Think
+of it, Prentice! Every one of them somebody's daughter—some mother's
+little girl. They were all good-lookers; but one, who might be my own
+child to-night, had a face like an angel—fallen if you like—with a
+slender neck such as the artist men we've been talking to to-night
+rave about, that's got those cute little blue shadows where it joins
+the shoulders. She was the one that had the spade. A man in the crowd
+told me what it all meant. They were sporting girls from a joint that
+had been pulled three times in the last month. The magistrates had
+got tired, and, instead of fining them, had worked in a state law two
+hundred years old that treats such women as tramps and vagrants and
+sets 'em to scavenging. 'And I guess,' my man adds, 'that's where they
+b'long all right.' He was a patriarchal old billy-goat, Prentice, with
+a nice long Pharisee beard, and, I'll bet, a sin for every hair. While
+he was pitching me his simple lay, my little girl looks up, and, either
+seeing I was a stranger or because mine was the only face there wasn't
+contempt in—or worse—gave a sort of heart-breaking smile; and just as
+I was trying not to see it, a lad behind me, with his hat over his eyes
+and a cigar sticking out of his cheek, calls out:</p>
+
+<p>"'Get on to Mamie, fellows, with the mud-scoop!'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Prentice," (Paul breathes hard) "I hit him, clean and sweet, on
+the cheekbone, just under his damned leering swine's eye. It was very
+irregular: I suppose I should have given him a chance, but, by God! I
+couldn't wait. I've had to fight all my life, in warm blood and cold
+blood, but I've never hit a man as hard as that before or since. He
+went down like a skittle, and I thought I'd killed him; but the boy
+was full of gall and devil, and knew a lot besides. He fought me five
+minutes good before they carried him into a drug store. And how those
+canting woman-drivers came round! They wanted me to drink, wanted to
+carry my grip—asked me to name the job. But I went and sat in their
+depot, without breakfast and with a face like a boil, for four hours
+until the next train pulled out. I shook their mud off my feet pretty
+smart. I'd have thrown away the shoes if I'd had another pair. But I
+couldn't shake off what I'd seen.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Prentice," he went on, stubbornly, as I, with my cockney
+worldly wisdom, tried to argue him out of what I thought an unhealthy
+view of a vexed question; "No, sir: you can split men up into sheep
+and goats, bad cases and hard cases; but women stand or fall together.
+Everything you do to one you do to the rest. On every woman's
+face—good or bad, white or black—I've seen since, down to that woman
+to-night, I've seen the shadow of the same wrong."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He was twenty-five years old when the desire of seeing Europe took
+hold on him. He had no money, and, though he was strong and handy,
+there was nothing he could do that any other strong man could not do
+as well. He had his health, however, and staked that. Wages were high
+in one department of the smelter at Leadville, for reasons that forced
+themselves on the bluntest intelligence after a few months. He worked
+there for a year, laying money by and fighting with the nausea that
+grew upon him week by week. At the end of the twelve months, reeling,
+half-blind, and with his teeth loose in their gums, but with more money
+in his pockets than he had ever owned before, he turned his face to
+the healing desert. An old miner turned ranchman found him at sunset
+lying under a rock, his face pressed to the earth, and quivering, like
+a landed trout, in the full grip of the deadly lead-sickness. He laid
+him across his pony, took him to his mud-roofed hovel close by, kept
+him for six months in his own blankets, gave him all the milk of his
+one cow, drove him to the railroad as soon as he was able to travel,
+and—bade him God-speed with a torrent of invective that struck even
+Leadville dumb. Ingram had committed the capital error of offering
+him pay for his hospitality, an error over which I believe he broods
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>By the time he was fit to work again his savings were gone. He was
+twenty-six, and Europe as far off as ever. This time, having damaged
+his health, he staked his reason, and for two years herded sheep
+on the Wyoming plains. Herding sheep seems at first cry a simple,
+pastoral task, with Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Biblical Associations.
+I must take Paul's word for it, then, that some special danger either
+to body or soul attends it, and that few men retire from it with a
+competence except to go into a madhouse or found a new religion. In
+either case, he says, they will have seen "Hell on the plains." The day
+before Ingram left for the sheep country he bought for a few dollars
+the entire stock of a misguided Englishman who was trying to sell
+second-hand books in Cheyenne City, loaded them into his grub-wagon
+and read them, slowly, one by one, in the exact order or disorder in
+which they were packed, and with a cold fear at his heart as the second
+year drew to a close, that his shepherding would outlast them. It
+seems absurd, but, as far as I can gather, this has been Ingram's sole
+literary education.</p>
+
+<p>Either the wages of loneliness, or, I fancy, something else of which
+he has not told me, must have given Paul his heart's desire, for, two
+years afterward, at the recruiting office in the Rue St. Dominique,
+which has been many a good man's alternative to Seine water or the cold
+muzzle-end, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever his reasons for this step (and I never was told them), I think
+the five years that Paul spent under the iron discipline of the Legion
+cured what, with all due allowance made for the strange ways by which
+men find themselves, was becoming an incurable unrest. Among the sad
+middle-aged soldiers who were his comrades, many of whom had come a
+longer and a stranger way than he, to find a hard bed and a bloody
+grave at the end, something, I believe, which he had roamed the world
+a-seeking and which had evaded him till now, was found at last. Out of
+that uneasy human cauldron, into which the deserter casts his broken
+oath, and the <i>roué</i> his disillusionment, and the unloved his
+loneliness, and the branded their shame, and to which, as long as it
+or its like shall endure, from time to time the artist will turn for
+inspiration, the brave man for opportunity, the coward, perhaps, for
+the stimulus which his own quailing heart denies him, and the saint for
+relief of temptation, and the hungry for bread, a vision, I believe,
+did arise for this lonely, unlettered American which the others missed,
+a knowledge was gained that all the schools and universities of the
+world could not have taught him: the vision and the knowledge of the
+human heart.</p>
+
+<p>He was thirty-four years old when he left the Legion—a little gaunt
+and worn. He had given the world twenty years' hard service, and had a
+worsted stripe on one arm for his earnings.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">"SAD COMPANY"</p>
+
+
+<p>I first met Ingram by chance at the old <i>Café à peu près</i> in
+Greek Street. The <i>À peu près</i> of those days was far from being
+the institution which, in the capable hands of Philippe, the sulky
+waiter, who took to himself Madame's moustached daughter plus Madame's
+economies, it has since become—an over-lighted, <i>bruyant</i>
+restaurant of two stories and a basement, wherein an eighteen-penny
+meal of six exiguous courses, served at inhospitable speed to hurried
+suburban playgoers, is raised to the dignity of a <i>diner français</i>
+by various red and yellow compounds which masquerade under the names of
+the old French provinces of the <i>midi</i>. Then it was nothing but
+a secluded back room, panelled and painted green, with an oval table
+in the centre, round which the little circle of which I was, if not
+an ornament, at least an accredited unit—free lances of the press,
+war correspondents stranded during lengthening periods of peace and
+ill-will among nations, obscure authors and unbought painters—met
+nightly to dine and to nurse our chilled ambitions, under Madame's
+supplemental smile and in the warmth of a roaring fire which, during
+nine months of the year, was burning under the heavy Jacobean mantel.</p>
+
+<p>Strangers were not exactly resented at the <i>À peu près</i>, but by an
+elaborate unconsciousness of their presence, to which the Oxford manner
+of one or two of us was a great assistance, we contrived for a long
+time to keep the circle restricted. Thus it happened that the bronzed
+and bearded man who spoke French so volubly at coming and going, and
+who seemed so little discountenanced by our exclusive attitude—glad,
+indeed, to be let alone—had been an irregular visitor for some weeks
+before we entered upon any conversation. One night the talk had
+turned, as it often did, upon the strong British preference for death
+as a preliminary to appreciation in matters literary or artistic, and
+little Capel, burrowing, as the subject drooped, into the obvious for a
+suitable remark, repeated that well-known legend—Milton's ten pounds
+for "Paradise Lost." The big man at my shoulder laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy," said he, "any one getting as much as that for a poem to-day."</p>
+
+<p>I turned, before the guard had descended on his eyes, and saw in them
+an expression that I, of all men, should recognize at the first glance:
+the sickness of the literary hope deferred.</p>
+
+<p>We had become sufficiently intimate for me to receive a call from him,
+at my rooms, during an attack of the gout, which is an inheritance from
+Chislehurst, before he mentioned his book. I grieve to-day, remembering
+how often he was on the point of doing so, and waited in vain for
+the word from me that would have made the task less irksome than, I
+am sure, it was at last. By what I know now isn't a coincidence, his
+final appearance in Pimlico with the dreadful brown-paper parcel under
+his arm followed upon a period of three or four months during which
+he had practically disappeared from my consciousness. He looked worn,
+I thought, and had a new trouble in his eyes. He told me his story
+shamefacedly, and stammering like a schoolboy.</p>
+
+<p>He had written a book, a novel, and could not get it published. None
+of the houses to which he had offered it advanced any reason for
+rejection, and in the one or two cases where he had pressed for one,
+seemed to think his insistence a solecism. He understood I not only
+wrote but published. Would it be troubling me unduly.... If I wasn't
+too busy....</p>
+
+<p>Well, it <i>was</i> a great worry. I was busy just then too, after
+my futile fashion; but somehow it didn't seem the thing to have that
+man stammering and blushing before a wretched little ink-slinger
+like myself, and I tendered the vague service that is known as one's
+"best." But I was unaffectedly sorry the thing had happened. It is such
+happenings that, in literary circles, write <span class="allsmcap">FINIS</span> to many a
+promising friendship. Ten men will lend you a pound for one that will
+lend you his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>It was six o'clock the next morning when my lamp suddenly flared
+and went out. I stretched myself—realized that the fire was out as
+well, that I was cold and stiff, that dawn was coming up over the
+roofs of the stuccoed terrace opposite, and that the reason I had
+forgotten light and fire and the march of time lay in a disreputable,
+dog-eared typed manuscript that I had begun in weariness, gone on with
+in half-resentful surprise, and finished in a complete oblivion of
+everything save the swift rush of joys and fears, sorrows and mistakes
+to a doom that never befell. I remember a funny swelled feeling, as
+though I had been crying internally.</p>
+
+<p>It is late in the day to attempt a criticism or even an appreciation
+of "Sad Company." Even as it stands to-day, in the close stereotype
+of the popular reprint, it is flawed and marred to my mind with many
+a <i>naïveté</i> and rawness, with here and there one of those lapses
+into the banal that are an evil legacy to American literature from
+the days of Poe and Hawthorne. Imagine what it must have been before,
+fearfully and reverently, for I knew I was handling a masterpiece, I
+helped brush off a little of the clay that still clung to it from the
+pit in which it had been cast.</p>
+
+<p>What I did, then and there, was to sit down, chilled and numbed as
+I was, in the raw morning light, and write to Ingram bidding him,
+on pain of perpetual displeasure, repair to me that evening, to be
+severely rebuked for his presumption in having, without previous
+apprenticeship or servitude, taken his livery and chair with the
+pastmasters and wardens of his craft. This letter I carried downstairs
+through the sleeping house, tremulous with the good consciences of my
+fellow-lodgers, and slipped it in the pillar box at the corner of the
+crescent. I remember I even chuckled as I posted it, to the evident
+surprise of the stolid policeman who had wished me good morning. You
+see, I thought I was making literary history.</p>
+
+<p>I am sorry to say that my enthusiasm didn't communicate itself to
+Paul. Six mute and incurious publishers were sitting too heavily on
+his self-esteem for that. He even took their part, with a perversity I
+have noticed before in the misunderstood of the earth. I have a theory
+that books like his are posthumous children, and that the state of mind
+which created them dies in giving them birth. What enraged him—what
+baffled him, because it was contrary to every lesson his strenuous
+life had taught him—was, that so much effort could be all in vain.
+I imagine he wrote the book with difficulty and without conscious
+exaltation of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had put as much pains," I remembered his saying, "into any other
+thing I've set my hand to, I should be either a famous man, or a very
+rich one, to-day, Prentice."</p>
+
+<p>And then, returning to the old grievance, that I could see had become a
+prepossession—</p>
+
+<p>"And yet—six men can't be all wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they can," I exclaimed indignantly, "and sixty."</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders wearily. "What can a man do, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"One thing you can do," I answered severely, "is to sit down opposite
+me for a few hours a week and alter some of your modes of expression.
+I've made a list of some: Listen here!</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Brightly shone the snow on the roof of the Rio Negro County
+Farmers' Institute.</i>' You mustn't say that."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked Paul, simply; "it's the name."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't know why, I can't tell you. You must take it from me that
+such a thing, in England, will almost secure rejection of itself. Then
+again: we don't talk of a man's 'white linen shirt <i>bosom</i>.' The
+word is <i>de mode</i> for a woman, but used for a man, it's offensive.
+And to say that Celia '<i>cached the mail-bags in a wash-out</i>,'
+conveys no meaning at all to us."</p>
+
+<p>Paul laughed out, and suddenly looked ten years younger.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," he said, "and '<i>fais feu</i>!' Don't spare me!"</p>
+
+<p>But the revision was a thankless task. Only a determination on my part
+that such a book shouldn't be lost supported me through it at all.
+Paul came to work irregularly, and in a mood that oscillated between a
+careless acceptance of every suggestion I made and a peremptory refusal
+to consider any alteration at all. But it was done at last, and I admit
+I waited hopefully for news from Carroll and Hugus.</p>
+
+<p>After three weeks, in fact, I got a postcard asking me to call.
+Bonnyman was sitting in his sanctum, looking as young and as wise as on
+the day he came down from Balliol, and with his habitual air of finding
+the publishing trade a great lark.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the industrious Prentice?" he cried, as soon as he saw me.
+"What's he been doing with himself these many moons?"</p>
+
+<p>I shook hands and sat down. I profess I have never felt so jumpy when
+work of my own has been in question.</p>
+
+<p>Bonnyman put his finger to his forehead. "What did I want to see you
+about, Prentice?... Oh, yes!" He touched an electric button on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Byrne!" said he to the clerk who answered it, "bring me down 'Sad
+Company.' I sent it up to the packing-room the day before yesterday. It
+ought to be ready."</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank into my boots. "Aren't you going to publish it?" I
+faltered.</p>
+
+<p>Bonnyman shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No go, my boy! No go at all. You've brought it to the wrong shop."</p>
+
+<p>"It kept me awake a whole night," I flashed out angrily.</p>
+
+<p>Bonnyman smiled and yawned. "Kept me awake too, because I'd slept in
+the afternoon trying to read it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! come now, Bonnyman," I protested. "You know better than that. Take
+the one scene alone," I went on eagerly, "where Holt is sitting with
+his dead wife, and the step-daughter comes to the door and he won't
+open because——"</p>
+
+<p>But Bonnyman went on shaking his head with the impenetrable
+self-confidence any man acquires in time who exercises an habitual
+right of veto.</p>
+
+<p>"Hugo and water!" he said. "Who can't write it? No, Prentice. To tell
+you the honest truth we're cutting out a lot of this problem stuff
+lately. What we're specializing in at present is the 'light touch.' The
+'light touch,'" he repeated, illustrating what the world is hungering
+for, delicately, with an ivory paper cutter on his blotting-pad.</p>
+
+<p>"'Polly Prattlings!'" I sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"And d—d good stuff, too. Bring me some one like that, Prentice, and
+we'll talk.—Don't get angry, old man! Who is your little friend?
+American, ain't he?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't he get a Rhodes scholarship and learn how to write English?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's thirty-five," I said; "he's been all round the world and done
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>Bonnyman pulled a long face that sufficiently disposed of Ingram's
+future. The brown-paper parcel was brought in and I slunk away with it
+under my arm, like a man repulsed from a pawnshop.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't see Ingram for a long time, and was secretly glad of it. For I
+had no good news to give him. Other publishers were equally emphatic,
+with unimportant variations of delay and discourtesy. I don't say
+I lost faith in the book, but I did begin to doubt whether, in the
+present state of things, great work was worth while. It was too much
+like giving grand opera on a raft in mid-Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when I'd practically exhausted the firms I knew, and was
+beginning to wonder whether we wouldn't have to come down to a
+publication "by special arrangement," or a setting up in linotype by
+one of the smaller provincial weeklies, an idea flashed into my head.
+I knew one great writer, a woman, American, too; fashionable, rich,
+but with a passionate reverence for all that was worthiest in letters.
+She had succeeded by means of a brilliance and impetuosity of style
+that had literally stormed the defences of dullness. In her books I
+had noticed an underlying mysticism that I thought might find Paul's
+work akin. It was a ticklish undertaking, and I hadn't done screwing up
+my courage to it when Ingram suddenly reappeared. His long arm pushed
+open the paper curtained door of the sanctum where we dined, one raw
+night in June. By his side was absolutely the most beautiful girl I had
+ever seen. She wore a long purple coat, cut very smartly, and a big
+ribboned hat, and was swaying a little from side to side as though the
+lapsed rhythm of some tune she had just heard was still in her feet.
+She glanced round shyly but brightly and bowed with a pretty blush to
+Caulfield. We all gaped, and old Smeaton's pipe suddenly smelt very
+foul.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move!" said Ingram, as I made room for them at my side. "I
+haven't come for dinner. Just to ask if you've had any news, before I
+go away."</p>
+
+<p>"No news at present," I confessed. "But I hope to have some soon."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled a little grimly, and felt in his long rubber coat for a
+pocketbook.</p>
+
+<p>"If anything turns up in the next month or so, write me here," he said,
+and handed me a card with an address scrawled across its face. "I'm
+going to France for a few weeks. Come, Nelly!" and was gone with his
+companion as abruptly as he had come.</p>
+
+<p>"'Beauty like hers is genius,'" Capel quoted, breaking the silence with
+an air of saying something apposite, for once.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's the pretty lady, Caulfield?" asked old Smeaton. "She bowed to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"She's a little person I've met at dances, and things," said Caulfield.
+"Goes round with the De Rudder woman. Does <i>gavottes</i> and
+<i>pavanes</i> and <i>corantos</i> and all that sort of thing. Pretty
+name, too,—'Fenella Barbour.'"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A CHILD SPEAKS THE TRUTH</p>
+
+
+<p>Fenella Barbour is the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of
+England, who remained unbeneficed to the end of his life. Younger son
+of a noble family, Scotch in origin but long settled in the Midlands,
+handsome, intellectual, and much yearned upon, the Honorable Nigel
+let opportunities for advantageous matrimony pass him one by one, to
+marry, comparatively late in his life and outside of his own class, a
+young parishioner with whose name the gossip of a small Cornish country
+town had spitefully and quite unjustifiably coupled his. To the day of
+her death Minnie Trevail never quite got over the surprise with which
+she received her pastor's offer of an honorable share in board and
+bed, and, whether it was gratitude or an uneasy sense that principles
+which do not often make for a man's happiness had played her hand for
+her, the fact remains, that to the end of his brief married life the
+Reverend Nigel Barbour continued to be a sort of married bachelor, free
+to come or go unquestioned, with a fine gift for silence and without
+obvious enthusiasms, unless it were for the girl baby who would sit for
+hours by his study fire, as he wrote his sermons, scolding her doll in
+whispers, and to whose round cheek and fine dark curls his eyes strayed
+oftener and oftener during the last year of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly circumstanced, other women by study, by observation, by an
+endless self-correction, have lifted themselves in time to something
+like a mental level with the men who have perversely chosen them. Not
+necessarily from a sense of her own limitations, Mrs. Barbour never
+tried. It is possible that she never, deliberately measuring the
+sacrifice which the man had made for her good name, determined the
+first sacrifice should be the last, but at least the unformed idea
+governed all her conduct. She kept the ideals, the accents—inside the
+house even the dress—of her class. For the spiritual companionship
+which she could never give she substituted the silent and tireless
+service of Martha. When her baby was born, she would have had the pain
+and peril tenfold; pain and peril so dimly comprehended by the man who
+smoothed her moist hair with an awkward hand, blinked his scholarly
+eyes at this crude and rather unseemly mystery, and, once assured the
+danger was past, went back to his weaving of words with a relief that
+even his kindness failed to conceal.</p>
+
+<p>Nigel Barbour was one of the killed in the terrible Clee Level
+accident. He was returning from a New Year family gathering, the first
+he had attended since his marriage, and it is typical of their married
+relations that his wife never even "wondered" why she wasn't asked
+too. If reconciliation which should include her was on its way, his
+death disposed of the idea. Denied recognition during his lifetime his
+widow refrained, with what all her friends considered great lack of
+spirit, from attempting to win it after his death. He was uninsured,
+and, of the slender inheritance that devolved upon her, a great part
+consisted of house property at the "unfashionable" but expensive side
+of the Park. One of the houses, a great stuccoed mansion in a secluded
+square, happening to be empty at the time of her tragic bereavement,
+she assumed the tenancy, furnished it, and, reserving for herself only
+the basement and top floor, advertised discreetly but judiciously for
+lodgers.</p>
+
+<p>Although the business is one that seldom shows a profit, and although
+in order to furnish the one house adequately she had been compelled
+to mortgage the freehold of the other, yet, if happiness be revenue,
+it is hard to see how she could have made a better investment. For
+the first time in her life she tasted liberty. She had her great
+house, her establishment, the direction of her three maids, and
+the intense respect of family butchers, family bakers, and family
+candlestick-makers in staid contiguous streets. On spring or autumn
+afternoons the champing and clashing of bits and hoofs outside her
+door, the murmurs of joyous life that floated along the hall and up
+the wide stairs, sounded no less sweetly in her ears because it was
+Miss Rigby or Lady Anne Caslon and not the Honorable Mrs. Barbour who
+was at home to all the fine company. The "Honorable Mrs. Barbour!"
+Often, in passing through the big bedrooms of the second floor, with
+clean pillowcases or window blinds over her arm, she would stop and
+look at her homely reflection in the long cheval glasses, with a little
+inward smile at the incongruity. And yet in her heart, so sensitive
+to the duties, so blind to the rights, of her equivocal position, the
+obligations which the barren title involved were tacitly acknowledged.
+If it conferred no privileges, it at least restrained her judgment upon
+the caste, a corner of whose ermine rested, however grudgingly, upon
+her own shoulder. She grew indisposed to gossip. Such of her relatives
+and friends as called upon her while upon "day-trips" to London
+found themselves cut short in their pursuit of one special branch of
+knowledge. They went home to Cornwall declaring that Minnie had grown
+"stuck-up."</p>
+
+<p>But the rights which she abdicated so whole-heartedly for herself she
+claimed with an added fierceness for Fenella. The child was a miracle
+from the first. Even while it lay, a few pounds of pink flesh, in a
+corner of one arm and drained her breast, she was worshipping it,
+humbly and afar off. It is difficult to find words that adequately
+convey her state of mind toward her daughter without entrenching on
+a parallel that is sacred and therefore forbidden; but this much is
+certain: had the legal quibble which can prove a child to be no blood
+relation to its mother been propounded to Mrs. Barbour, it would have
+found in her a tearful and reluctant but convinced witness to its
+truth. For two successive nights before her baby's birth the same dream
+had visited her. The great house of her brother-in-law, which she had
+never seen, which her husband had never even thought of describing for
+her, had appeared to her, wrapped in flame. Pushing her way through
+the crowd that surrounded it and was watching it burn, after the
+inconsequent manner of dream people, with quiet satisfaction, she had
+run up tottering staircases and along choking passages, had reached a
+splendid room of state upon whose canopied bed a little naked infant
+lay, and, clasping it to her breast, had carried it out, smiling and
+unharmed. Fenella was no more truly her child than she was the child of
+the dream.</p>
+
+<p>The little girl was four and still wore a black hair ribbon and a black
+sash over her pinafore, when one afternoon in October a big shallow
+barouche drove up to the door of No. 11 Suffolk Square. The springs
+were very high, the harness was very brightly plated, the chestnut
+horses, their heads held in by a torturing bearing rein, very shiny
+and soapy. A faded, artificial woman, with a tall osprey in her black
+bonnet, lolled back against the buff cloth cushions and regarded the
+world through a tortoise-shell lorgnette. A girl, quite young, with
+fair hair cut in a straight fringe across her forehead, sat up demurely
+at her side.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella was taking tea in great state and composure on the window-seat
+of her nursery under the slates when the carriage drove up. A mug,
+on which Puss-in-Boots brushed back his bristling whiskers with
+one spirited paw, stood at her elbow, filled with a faintly tinted
+decoction of warm milk and sugar. A bun, delicately nibbled all
+round its lustrous circumference, was in her right hand, and a large
+over-dressed doll, with a vacant blue-eyed face, rested insecurely in
+the hollow of her left arm. From this household treasure her attention
+was just beginning to stray. James, the coachman, had pulled across
+the roadway, and was driving his fretful over-heated charges up and
+down along the railings of the Square. Fenella pressed her forehead
+against the cold window-pane.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee-gees; gee-gees!" she soliloquized.</p>
+
+<p>To her enter, without cue or warning, Druce the parlor-maid—also a
+little the nursemaid—in great excitement, and breathless after a
+non-stop run from the bottom of the house. The bun was snatched from
+the chubby fingers, Marianne saved, timely, from a headlong course to
+the floor, the Marquis of Carabas pushed unconstitutionally on one
+side, and the napkin whisked off, all in four brisk movements.</p>
+
+<p>"Company for my little lady!" the excited girl exclaimed. "She is to
+have her pretty hair curled, and her best frock put on, and to go
+downstairs to see mamma's fine friends."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly took the outrage with the docility that was one of her charms.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee-gees, Drucie," she said, pointing over her shoulder as she was
+borne away. "Gee-gees in the Thquare."</p>
+
+<p>The warm-hearted maid gave her a tight and quite unauthorized hug.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee-gees, indeed! Well, they may <i>trot! trot! trot!</i> until their
+feet drop off, before they find anything finer than we're going to show
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The carriage folk were in the front part of the big tastelessly
+furnished drawing-room, which ran the whole depth of the house,
+and which happened to be unlet at the time. A fire, just lit, was
+crackling and smoking sullenly. The elder lady sat, with a transient
+air, as much on the edge of a little gilt chair as is compatible
+with a seat at all. I am not quite certain whether vinegar can be
+frozen at certain temperatures or not. If so, her smile recalled the
+experiment. The young girl sat back in a velvet rocking chair, her
+slender black-stockinged legs reaching the ground from time to time as
+it oscillated. She had a little pale round face; her lank, whitey-gold
+hair was cut as straight at her waist as it was at her forehead.
+She had taken off her gloves, and the bony over-manicured fingers
+were interlocked in her lap with a sort of feeble repression. Near a
+table, covered with tea-things, but from which no hospitality had been
+dispensed, Mrs. Barbour was sitting, no less upright than her visitor.
+She was flushed and there was the fullness of suppressed tears round
+her eyelids, but there was as little sign of defeat in her face and
+attitude as in the other woman's unpleasant smile. The fine lady raised
+her lorgnette as the child was carried in. She turned languidly to her
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Your poor uncle's face. Oh, the very image!" she exclaimed, with an
+emphasis that extinguished any lingering idea poor Mrs. Barbour may
+have kept of a share in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>Set upon the ground, the child beauty gravitated instantly to mother's
+skirts, and from this coign of vantage surveyed her visitors. Mrs.
+Barbour put the curls back from her forehead and stooped to her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Nelly," said she, "this is your aunt, Lady Lulford, your Aunty
+Hortense, come to see poor father's little girl. Won't you go and give
+her a kiss?"</p>
+
+<p>The grasp tightened upon her skirt.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shame!" the mother murmured, with a reproach in her voice that the
+glistening eyes belied. "Is this my kind little Nelly? Come over, then,
+with mother."</p>
+
+<p>With a sidelong glance at the tea-table, Fenella was led, obliquely,
+across the thick new pile carpet, and received a kiss upon her forehead
+that was not much warmer than the window against which it had just been
+pressed.</p>
+
+<p>"And now your cousin. Cousin——"</p>
+
+<p>"Leslie," said Lady Lulford, covering a slight yawn with her golden
+card-case, and glancing out of the window toward her horses.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face seemed to yearn and melt as the reluctant little feet
+were guided to her. She pursed her pale lips and held out her thin
+arms. Fenella was to remember it years afterwards with a spasm of pity
+and indignation. But she was only a baby now, and struggled in the weak
+embrace. Once back at her mother's side, a violent reaction of shyness
+set in, and she buried her face in the maternal lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Impressionable, too; like poor Nigel," the peeress remarked to her
+daughter in the same icy voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," the mother coaxed, "hasn't Nelly a word to say? Her
+aunty"—Lady Lulford winched—"her aunty and cousin will think they've
+got a little dumb girl for a niece."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella raised her face. "I weally——" she began, and, not finding
+encouragement to proceed, down went the black head again.</p>
+
+<p>Mother lifts it gently.</p>
+
+<p>"——was——" Nelly's finger went to her mouth. Her glance wavered,
+wandered tortuously along the floor, and finally and suddenly focussed
+the tea equipage.</p>
+
+<p>"——in the middle of my tea." Louder and with sudden confidence as the
+full nature of the outrage was realized, "Weally was in the middle of
+my tea."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lulford smiled abstractedly. Leslie's lips moved. The mother drew
+her little girl closer.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have your tea presently, dear," she said, "but I want you to
+listen to me first. Now, tell me," she seemed to steady her voice, "how
+would you like to go into the country with your aunt and Cousin Leslie?"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly's eyes grew big and round. "And mother?" added she, joining the
+palms of her hands, baby-wise, with stiff outspread fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear. Mother must stay in London, because she has so much to do."</p>
+
+<p>There was an agitation of the black curls, and from under them a most
+decided negative evolved itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but my precious," the mother pleaded, as that other mother may
+have pleaded before the judgment seat of the great wise king; "just
+for a while; to see the green trees, and the moo-cows, and the bunnies,
+and, and——"</p>
+
+<p>"The deer," said Lady Lulford, raising the conversation to a higher
+and, shall we say, ancestral level.</p>
+
+<p>"Great—big—stags, baby," the cousin broke in, with her eager,
+unsteady voice, "great big stags with horns like this," and she made a
+pair with fingers that were almost as fleshless.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella refused to weigh the catalogue of attractions a moment. The
+head shook faster and faster till the dark curls whipped first one
+cheek and then another.</p>
+
+<p>"Not for a little while? Not for a few weeks?" Mrs. Barbour urged,
+almost roughly.</p>
+
+<p>At this persistence in a quarter where it was so little to be looked
+for, two fat tears distilled themselves in Fenella's eyes and rolled
+down her cheeks. She opened her mouth, and I regret to say her face
+lost, temporarily, its attractive power. Mrs. Barbour snatched her up
+and sprang to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"She sha'n't be teased," she cried passionately, clasping the child to
+her breast. Then, turning quickly first to Lady Lulford and afterward
+to her daughter, "Don't you see she's too young now? She's only a baby,
+really. Perhaps later——"</p>
+
+<p>The Viscountess turned upon her own offspring the cold ceremonial eye
+that on company nights lifted the ladies at Freres Lulford to their
+feet and up into the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"We must really go now, Leslie," she said, with a little explanatory
+wave of the card-case. "So many calls, you know. Well, Mrs. Barbour,"
+turning to her hostess with an evident effort, "I suppose we mustn't
+expect you to decide such a matter in a hurry. For the present I think
+I may say our offer, Myles's and mine, stands open. I still think it is
+what poor Nigel would most have wished. And even if you should decide
+not to accept it now, remember, if at any time—at any time——" and in
+this golden air of good intentions Lady Lulford's visit ended.</p>
+
+<p>"That is an ordeal well over, Leslie," she said, a few moments later,
+leaning back and closing her eyes slightly, as the carriage door
+slammed and the tall footman with a crook from the waist still in his
+long straight back, swung himself to his perch.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," said Leslie, nervously, pulling at her gloves, "we could
+hardly—could hardly——"</p>
+
+<p>"Could hardly <i>what</i>, my dear? You are so disjointed at times."</p>
+
+<p>"——expect her to give up <i>such a pet</i>," the girl said
+impulsively, with a gush of feeling that seemed to leave her colder and
+weaker than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother lifted the frozen gloved hand that seemed to blight like
+frost, and gave a little tinkling laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, when you are my age you will not rate so highly what is
+a mere animal passion. <i>True</i> love would consider the child's
+material interests first. I still hope," with a little hostile back
+glance as the barouche rolled out of Suffolk Square, "that Nigel's
+daughter may not have to grow up in the basement of a lodging-house."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>basement</i>? Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, foolish girl, you surely don't think the room we were in
+to-day (atrocious taste!) is used by them. No, my dear! They live at
+the bottom of the area, eat and gossip with the servants; sometimes, I
+have no doubt, the policeman drops in to tea. The <i>Honorable</i> Mrs.
+Barbour!" And Lady Lulford gave her unpleasant laugh again.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma!" cried Leslie, really shocked now, "you don't suppose she uses
+<i>that</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, my dear? She's either very foolish or has more delicacy
+than I give her credit for if she doesn't. Why, she could have her
+house full of rich vulgar Americans all the year round. Are we at Lady
+Dunsmuir's already? Thank heavens, Leslie, we're not calling on the
+servants' hall this time."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Meanwhile, at the house they had left, an aggrieved small person sat
+on a cushion and comforted the ache at her heart very much after the
+fashion of older and presumably wiser people, with mother's rejected
+dainties. Stretched on a wolf-skin rug, in an attitude that had been
+a common one with her in days when, the Cornish sun dappling her back
+and making illuminating splashes on the novelettes that were her mental
+food, she had dreamed away whole summer afternoons thus in her father's
+orchard, the farmer's daughter watched the busy, sticky mouth at work,
+her face wholly given up to the animal affection that Lady Lulford was
+at that very moment reprehending.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you want to kiss your Aunty Hortense?" she asked presently.</p>
+
+<p>No answer, but much sucking, as the sugary bottom of the cup was
+reached. The mother loosened the little fingers and put it aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Nelly," she urged; "answer mother!" Who has not coveted a
+child's thought at times?</p>
+
+<p>This one seemed to consider.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Be-tos</i>," she said at last, cryptically, like some little
+Chinese oracle.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Be-tos</i>, of what? That's not any answer. And, oh, law! child,
+how backward you do speak for a great girl of four!"</p>
+
+<p>Hard pressed, Nelly struggled to her feet. She clenched her little
+hands, puckered her forehead. The mother held her breath as she waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Be-tos——Oh! be-tos she didn't <i>smell</i> nice!"</p>
+
+<p>And, as the woman rolled back, shaking unrestrainedly with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"——like you do, mummy; like you do, mummy," the child cried, flinging
+her arms round her mother's neck and burying her flushed face in the
+soft shoulder.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">MOSTLY LADY ANNE</p>
+
+
+<p>So the baby hands threw their dice, and as the dice fell the game was
+played out. Life unfolded itself amid the fog or rain or thwarted
+sunlight of the staid Tyburnian square, which should have had for
+tutelary deity some sleepy god, yawning and stretching himself in the
+centre of its smoky grass plot. Before the opening consciousness, like
+figures in an enchanted frieze, such phenomena passed as are likely
+to haunt area railings: The muffin man, tinkling his bell down murky
+streets and terraces at the uplifting hour of tea-time; the policeman
+with his bull's-eye lantern, waking the rails to a good-night dance
+along blank stuccoed walls and shuttered windows; broad hipped Welsh
+milkwomen in plaid shawls, with shining pails clanking from their
+wooden yokes; the old blind Dalmatian dog that panted at the corner of
+the mews and drummed the hot pavement with his tail. Once a year for
+one blissful month the town baby became a sand baby, building castles,
+scooping moats with her wooden spade for the tide to crumble (oh,
+Nelly! there's a tide that knows all our castles are sand); racing with
+bare-legged chance companions along the purring lips of the treacherous
+sea. Child of suppressed love and of absolute surrender, she grew up
+straight, strong and ardent; fair of face, light of foot, and with
+a pitiful, generous heart that could not wait its time to love, but
+before the dimpled hands could reach or turn the stiff handle of the
+hall door, had made to itself friends of the world's wretchedness.
+The old Garibaldian accordion player, with the twisted leg, learned
+to look for the little <i>signorina</i>, beautiful as the sun of
+Naples, which he dreamed of at night in his cellar at Saffron Hill;
+the ancient mariner with snow-white hair and beard (a terrible case!
+says the Charity Organization Society) kept a bow of quite especial
+condescension for Missie's penny at Number Eleven; while it was fine
+to see with what a sweep of his great red hand to his battered hat old
+Paddy Crimmin, the drunken Delhi hero, would straighten his racked body
+of a cold Sunday morning as the little creature, her dark face aglow
+with newly discovered color against the white road and snow-burdened
+trees, stopped at his crossing to grope with mittened fingers for the
+penny, nestling in her pocket next a sixpence which I am sure she
+begrudged the cold impersonal offertory plate later on.</p>
+
+<p>She possessed her mother's life as a single flame possesses a dark
+room, creating its light, its color, and its motion. The slave does not
+always make the tyrant, and to the homely woman who tended her, kissed
+her limbs fragrant from the bath, twisted her curls round fingers that
+thrilled with love and worship—who coaxed her from forbidden ways
+with toys and sweets, and whose voice was never once pitched in even
+the gentlest accent of authority, Fenella gave her heart in return.
+All the fairies, it seemed, were at her christening, even to the fairy
+Gratitude, who, I hear, is not often asked out nowadays.</p>
+
+<p>For her child's sake, and spurred on by love, Mrs. Barbour toiled and
+schemed incessantly. Far less mercenary of soul than the aristocratic
+patrons who haggled over extras, inspected cold joints with a
+questioning eye and wanted their rooms "kept over" while they disported
+themselves at Homburg or Cannes—naturally credulous in fact, and
+inclined to believe the best of every one, the woman effected an actual
+change in her nature and under all her suave manner became distrustful,
+peremptory, and mercenary. The terms she wrung from the butcher, baker,
+and grocer before mentioned, with the bait of prompt payment in one
+hand and the threat of the big stores at Brompton and Bayswater in
+the other, were, perhaps, as unprecedented as those easy-going family
+purveyors one and all declared them to be. In bed at night while she
+should have been sleeping, in church on Sunday when she should have
+been harkening the sermon, her brain was busy with an endless double
+entry sum of receipts and outgoings, the profit of which she wrote
+off, variously, but always under the one heading, something after
+this fashion: "Fenella Account. To an amber satin eiderdown quilt,
+same as I saw at Hampton's on Friday; to plum-colored silk stockings
+such as the lady at the end of No. 6 just now is making no attempt
+to conceal; item, to a black fox stole and toque—the silver pointed
+ones are cheaper, but they say the hairs come out; item, to a silver
+manicure set like Miss Rigby's." And the poor woman, absorbed in her
+fond calculations, would scribble an imaginary total with one wrinkled,
+black-gloved finger across the gilt cross of her Book of Common
+Prayer, to the scandal of her left-hand pew-neighbor, and the no small
+mystification of Fenella on her right, wondering what mummy was "up to
+now."</p>
+
+<p>She kept the girl from school until she was twelve years old, making
+shift with whatever deposit of a church school education stayed in her
+own head, eked out with the ministrations of various depressing and
+untrained governesses, and last but not least with lessons from Lady
+Anne Caslon, whose only fault was that they were necessarily irregular.
+Lady Anne was the first of two permanent lodgers who, about Fenella's
+sixth year, made their home at Number Eleven, and, for a number of
+years, almost lifted Mrs. Barbour's precarious venture to the dignified
+level of a settled income. The rooms had only just been given up, by
+"parties" with whom money seemed to be no object, amid indignant tears
+on the one side and a glow of respectable resolve on the other; but
+Mrs. Barbour had not yet signified the vacancy through the columns of
+the <i>Morning Post</i>, while we need hardly add that no window-card
+ever shocked the susceptibilities of Suffolk Square. I suspect myself
+that the Lulford connection were anxious to confine the collateral
+skeleton within limits that could be controlled by them, and kept a
+furtively watchful eye on the room-letting branch of the family.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Anne appeared on a blustering March morning: a short, middle-aged
+woman, none the less active because she limped from an old hunting
+accident, with a long, white, bony face—the face of some great mystic
+abbess of old days—a distinct prognathous of the lower jaw, and a
+high, narrow forehead, from which her colorless fair hair was tightly
+drawn and twisted into an absurd little knob at the nape of the neck.
+On every feature, movement, and accent was stamped the indefinable
+<i>cachet</i> of the governing caste. She was wearing a frieze coat
+and skirt, a man's collar and tie, and a green Alpine hat, carried an
+ash stick, and was pulling against, rather than leading, a hideous
+and powerful white bull-terrier, bristlingly intent upon the feline
+possibilities of successive areas.</p>
+
+<p>She stumped through the vacant floors on her low-heeled shoes, rapped
+the wainscot as though she rather suspected secret passages, gave a
+derogatory poke of her ashplant to the feather mattresses, turned on
+both taps in the bathroom, and concluded her tour with a sudden descent
+upon the kitchen, where three maids, busy upon a noontide lunch, rose
+and curtsied awkwardly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take 'em," she said abruptly, turning suddenly in the hall upon
+the aggrieved proprietress. "The rooms will have to be repapered of
+course—and a hard mattress, and I have my own pictures; oh! and you'll
+turn those tufty, musty armchair things with ball fringes into some
+other room, won't you?—like a good soul. Any children? I thought I
+heard——Down, Rock! <i>Down</i>, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>The bull-terrier, tied to the hall-stand, had lain, whining unhappily,
+sweating, and wrinkling his pink muzzle, while his mistress roamed
+up and down stairs. Now he was standing, tense and rigid, growling
+ominously, at a tiny hand that pushed a biscuit hospitably against his
+clenched, bared teeth. Lady Anne struck the threatening head aside and
+lifted the child in her strong arms.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is your little girl? This is Fenella?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, m' lady," said Mrs. Barbour, hasty and apologetic in manner for
+all her secret resentment. "But she's a good, quiet little thing, and
+I'll see she gives no trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Anne did not answer. She had pushed back those rebellious curls
+and was brooding the flower-like face.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear heart!" was all she said aloud, and the rest was murmured under
+her breath.</p>
+
+<p>She set the child on the floor and held out the little nerveless hand,
+still clenched on the biscuit, toward the bull-terrier.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be careful with strange dogs, baby, particularly this breed.
+They aren't like any other sort of dog. Take it, Rock!"</p>
+
+<p>Rock crunched the biscuit wastefully between his powerful jaws.</p>
+
+<p>"No crumbs, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>He sniffed up about a third of the biscuit, which he had let fall on
+the tiled floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Say 'Thank you.'"</p>
+
+<p>The animal gave the small fist that was tendered him three enormous
+licks, and glanced at his mistress out of his savage pink eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right! Mustn't ever bite this one, Rock! She isn't a cat, and
+never going to be one either, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope the child will be no obstacle, m' lady," put in Mrs. Barbour,
+stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Obstacle!" Lady Anne repeated. "God bless me, no. Why should she be?
+You must have your baby, I suppose, same as I have my dog. What's her
+name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fenella, m' lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. You be good to Rock—I'll be good to Fenella. I'll send a
+postcard when I've arranged things," she said. "Come on, Rock!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"Why was the lady c'yin', mummy?" asked Fenella, whose accent still
+left much to be desired.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour could not enlighten her. She was wondering herself why the
+woman had first called her child Fenella and then asked her name. A
+conversation in the corner of the dining-room at the Palmyra Club half
+an hour later might have carried her mystification a little further.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I'll do a <i>matinée</i> with you this afternoon,
+Brenda," Lady Anne was saying to her dearest friend. "Seeing Nigel's
+baby has rather upset me. I think I'll go to my room and howl for a
+bit."</p>
+
+<p>"What's <i>she</i> like, Nanno?" asked the dearest, narrowing her eyes
+through the smoke of her cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice, comfy, child-bearing sort of person. She has no airs. That was a
+lie of the Lulford woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," said Brenda Newcombe slowly, as if the opinion were the
+fruit of some thought and a little disillusion, "that's the sort most
+men like Nigel like in their hearts."</p>
+
+<p>"Men like Nigel——!"</p>
+
+<p>"Philosophers—I mean. Over-educated, ultra-refined. They divorce their
+intellect and their instincts so thoroughly that the result is——"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Anne raised her shapely white hand deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you're going to say quite well, Brenda. You needn't finish
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"To give one instance," went on the irrepressible Brenda; "did you
+never hear that Don Hinchey's wife has to wear print dresses and, oh!
+everything very plain when they're alone in Northumberland."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! Brenda; <i>quel conte!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Nanno, it's gospel. She told Lady Carphilly, and Lady Carphilly told
+me. She wore them once to a fancy dress, and looked so well that now
+when Donny's bored he makes her put them on. She hates it, but he says
+it's the only way she can keep his love."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Lady Anne moved in as soon as the alterations that her austere soul
+demanded had been made; the walls hung with a paper that Mrs. Barbour
+compared scornfully but exactly to a dry mustard plaster, and various
+ebullient studies of still life removed to make way for old-wood
+engraved portraits and Alken sporting prints. She began the morning,
+violently, with a cold bath at seven; breakfasted—continentally—on
+dry bread and coffee at eight, and wrote nearly all the morning at
+a roll-topped Sheraton desk, whose drawers slid in and out on brass
+rails as smoothly as the oiled pistons of a machine. It was at this
+desk that Fenella stammered through her letters. Seated upon the
+highest chair the room afforded, made higher still by an Italian gilt
+leather cushion, the little girl spelled out the adventures of Tom
+and Dick, Nat and Ned, and other monosyllabic heroes of childhood.
+Nelly's attention wandered very easily. Her voice would die away to
+a murmur—her head fall lower and lower until the dark curls quite
+covered the heavy type and wood cuts, along which a very neatly pointed
+cedar pencil, held in a firm white hand, moved with such exasperating
+deliberation. Then she would begin to suck her thumb, and, finding
+no encouragement to relaxation of effort in the lowered lids and
+compressed mouth above her shoulder, would let her eyes wander round
+the room. Under the high white mantelpiece the fire burned cheerily,
+with little bubbles of gas and spurts of flame: above it, a silver
+clock set in a horseshoe ticked so quickly that the slow passage of the
+hands across its face was one mystery the more for the child brain to
+puzzle out. The room smelt like a man's, of morocco leather and boot
+cream, and the vague but piercing scent of naked steel in between.
+Under a curtain to the right of the fireplace, which did not quite
+reach the stained floor, Lady Anne's long boots, on high wooden trees,
+stood, an orderly row of eight polished toes, like booted eavesdroppers
+behind an arras. Over the "Melton Hunt Breakfast," between crossed
+hunting crops, a fox's mask still wore the grin with which it was
+twitching one December afternoon years and years ago when the mangled
+pelt smoked upon the raw Leinster air and little, ugly, hard-riding
+Lady Anne, in long bottle-green habit and flaxen pig-tail, was held up
+amid the yelping red muzzled pack and blooded to the hunt; while—most
+interesting and distracting of all—close to the fire, with his nose
+between his paws, deliciously unemployed, lay Roquelaure, blinking
+friendly eyes which seemed to say, in the secret language that children
+and animals share for a few short years—</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I say, baby, ain't lessons over yet?"</p>
+
+<p>Three times a week, when her correspondence was done, and a wire
+basket full of square, rough envelopes with scarlet seals awaited the
+afternoon post, Lady Anne would go riding in the Park. She stumped
+through the hall in a short habit and wide-brimmed billycock hat, under
+whose elastic band the uses of the yellow-white knot of hair became
+suddenly obvious, looking more than ever like an abbess: a hunting, not
+a praying, abbess this time. Outside a stable lad from the mews held
+a tall, nervous horse by the head. Lady Anne would hold the child up
+to pat the hairy, quivering nose, bid her have no fear of the sliding
+eyes; would run her fingers down the horse's flanks and legs, maybe
+pick up and inspect a hoof cunningly; at last, jumping into her saddle
+out of the groom's hand, would straighten the sidling beast with one
+blow of her riding crop on his buttock, and be off, her right knee
+almost in line with the maned neck, and holding in the caitiff head
+with hands that were a proverb in the shires. Fenella always watched
+her out of sight, her eyes shining—the palms of her hands pressed hard
+together.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE SECOND FLOOR</p>
+
+
+<p>By this time Miss Rigby might possibly have arisen and be watching the
+horse and its rider through her curtains. Emilie Rigby was the second
+of the permanent paying guests. She was tall, languid, graceful and
+disorderly, of uncertain age, but with a growing opacity of skin and
+with darkening shadows under her short-sighted eyes to tell of the
+ebbing life forces within: much younger in the afternoon than in the
+morning, and recovering her youth hour by hour as the day aged. In
+her rooms on the second floor she led the spoiled, sensuous life of
+an odalisque or a Persian cat. She breakfasted in bed, lunched in a
+wrapper and with her hair coiled carelessly upon her neck, had a hot
+bath, with elaborations, at three, and left the house an hour later,
+in a cab whose destinations, despite all efforts of Druce and Kendal,
+remain conjectural to this day. She dined from home almost nightly, but
+had few correspondents, and her visitors gave Mrs. Barbour no anxiety.
+She had a telephone installed in her room, whose sharp summons soon
+became one of the habitual sounds of the dark, still house. The baffled
+Druce, carrying up an unascetic luncheon at one, frequently found the
+door locked in her face and was forced to wait until a conversation,
+punctuated with bursts of laughter and far too disjointed to be worth
+listening to through the keyhole, wore itself away. Lady Anne answered
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Respectable?" she exclaimed abruptly, in response to a guarded query.
+"Of course Jasmine Rigby's respectable. We dined at the same house last
+month. Only, if I were you——" she hesitated, unwilling to spoil
+the perfect relief in her landlady's face, "if I were you, I wouldn't
+have Nelly in and out there too much, once she begins to grow up. Her
+clothes alone are enough to unsettle the girl."</p>
+
+<p>But it is hard, with four servants and three households to control, to
+keep an efficient eye upon inquiring youth, whose fingers are already
+beginning to pluck restlessly at the many hued skirt of life; and the
+hardship becomes greater when you are filled with pity for a loneliness
+that is part of your own contriving. As long as Fenella was a very
+little girl, beyond coaxing her in now and then to pet as one would
+pet a pretty kitten, Miss Rigby took scant notice of the child. But as
+she grew in years and stature, and a beauty that was becoming more of
+the earth and less of the angels was confirmed in her, I am afraid the
+scented, sophisticated atmosphere of the second floor began to exercise
+its delayed but inevitable charm. One of those foolish intimacies began
+which almost every pretty young girl can remember, often with shame
+and impatience. There was a year when the woman, nearly forty, and
+the girl, not yet fourteen, were "Jasmine" and "Nelly" to each other;
+when little cocked-hat notes (oh, how deftly folded!) were apt to lurk
+under the doily mats on Fenella's dressing-table, to be answered by
+ignorant, misspelt letters from the blindly adoring child. The jaded
+woman of fashion and pleasure (no; I don't know what place she filled
+in her world, nor is speculation worth while) took an early opportunity
+of showing the little parson's daughter the beauty of her arms and
+shoulders—talked unreservedly before her, dressed her up in her
+gowns and <i>lingerie</i>, let her lie upon the bed and prattle while
+she herself sat before the mirror, waging her unwearied warfare with
+time—refreshed herself with the girl's homage, laughed away as much as
+she dared of her innocence, and finally, in a last spasm of confidence,
+unlocked a drawer, hesitated, and put into the girl's hands a bundle of
+letters, bidding her, with a flushed cheek and the ghost of a giggle,
+to read them over and to let her know how their literary beauties
+affected her. "When you've read them," said she, "maybe I'll tell you
+who they came from."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella left the room puzzled, a little frightened, but with no
+instinct to tell her that possibly she was holding her damnation in her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>What happened next? One of those happy accidents, perhaps, that good
+angels know how to arrange. The packet was returned, unopened, next
+morning, by Lady Anne, in the course of an interview which left her
+fellow-lodger considerable repairs to effect before she faced the world
+anew. An hour later the good genius, habited for her ride, knocked
+timidly at the door of Mrs. Barbour's sanctum in the hitherto unvisited
+nether regions.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour rose to her feet when she saw who her caller was, but Lady
+Anne signed for her to remain seated. She seemed nervous and awkward,
+and put her hands to her side. They say her horse kicked her there the
+day she broke her ankle; oh! only a touch; no notice was taken of it at
+the time.</p>
+
+<p>"I've come to speak about our little girl," she said, sitting down and
+crossing her booted legs.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour bridled a little; but youthful habits are strong. She
+resumed her deferential manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust she has been giving no trouble, m'lady."</p>
+
+<p>"She has perhaps exposed a meddling old woman to the worst snub of her
+life. I'm going to be crude, Mrs. Barbour. What on earth are you going
+to make of that child?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour plaited the table cover, but seemed to have no answer
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>"She's growing lovelier every day" (the foolish mother's eyes
+glistened); "she dresses like a little fashion plate; she has more
+silver stuff and finery in her room than any of us girls had at Castle
+Cullen; she hasn't a friend in the world nor an idea in her head; and
+we've an instance," with a glance up at the ceiling, "near enough at
+hand, where beauty with nothing else can bring a woman."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour's eyes began to fill. Not a single harsh truth but voiced
+a reproach that had been nibbling her own heart for years.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you send her to school? Do you know that if you were a poor
+woman you could be fined or sent to prison?"</p>
+
+<p>"Schools are so dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff! They're cheaper and better than they ever were. There's
+nothing young folk can't do now. You can go from a boarding school
+to the 'varsity on a string. Let's send her to school, Mrs. B.," she
+persisted. "You've no time to look after her, and neither have I."</p>
+
+<p>"Not boarding school," the mother pleaded. "I couldn't be parted from
+her now."</p>
+
+<p>"Who said anything about boarding schools? There are plenty of day
+schools. None of them are perfect, I know. But it can't be put off. All
+the danger isn't out of doors. Let her go and get a little honest mud
+on the bottom of her skirts, and come home every evening to have it
+brushed off."</p>
+
+<p>The poor woman struggled with her trouble. "It isn't that," she said
+brokenly, "but—but, I can't explain it. There are things that don't
+brush off—ever. She is so ignorant of what the world thinks of—of
+people like me. They'll teach her it all at school; they'll teach her
+to despise her m-m-mother...."</p>
+
+<p>She broke down and, burying her face in her hands, wept the
+unrestrained tears of her class.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" she moaned. "I knew it must come. She's so
+pretty—so pretty; such a little aristocrat. I'm only her mother by
+accident, really. And she'll make fine friends and be asked out, and
+wonder why she can't ask 'em back, and I'll have to tell her: 'Nelly,
+dear, it's because your mother is only a poor woman that father married
+to save her name, that lets lodgings to her betters for a living, and
+wouldn't let you go to your own people when they asked for you; and
+you can never have a friend of your own class as long as you live with
+her.'"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Anne kept her arm across the broad, bowed shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's try it," she said cheerily. "I'll answer for Nelly, and I think
+I can answer for the others. You have no conception how the world is
+changing. I have the very school in my eye, too. I know the principal.
+Sunlight and science, and knowledge that's innocent because it's
+thorough, and open windows upon life that blow away all the whispers in
+the corners, and a proper reverence for the body that, after all, is
+all we're sure of. As for the money—well, I'm a meddlesome old body,
+and you can heap coals of fire on my head by letting me be responsible.
+I don't blame you for spending money on her clothes: besides—Sharland
+College is dressy."</p>
+
+<p>She wrote to her friend that night:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Louisa</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sending you a little girl who is the daughter of a dear, dead
+chum of mine. She's extravagantly pretty, very dull, quite poor—is
+being brought up as though she were an heiress and has a heart that
+I believe will prove a greater danger to her than her face or her
+poverty. For God's sake, Louisa, find out if she has any special
+talent that will help her to a living, and ground her and grind
+her until she's taken hold. I'm fond of the child, and shouldn't
+die happy if I thought there was any risk of her joining the one
+profession for which previous experience isn't essential.</p>
+
+<p>"The old pain in the side has come back; the Swedish massage did it
+no permanent good. But I can still ride, so I don't squeal."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">SHARLAND COLLEGE</p>
+
+
+<p>Fenella was nearly fourteen when she went to school. After Mrs. Barbour
+had seen her into the green horse-omnibus which at that date still
+rolled sedately westward along the Park paling the poor woman went
+home and, regarding with a stricken eye the untidy relics of a hurried
+breakfast, sat down and had a good cry. She would see her daughter
+again in a few hours, but her instinct told her that the parting was
+not one to be measured by time or distance.</p>
+
+<p>At school Fenella achieved an instant success. At her lessons she
+remained a sad dunce, but Sharland College had the modern conception
+of bodily beauty as a supreme merit, and for its sake and also a
+little for the amiability that accompanied it, Nelly's shortcomings in
+algebra and geometry were forgiven and so mitigated by the assistance
+of plainer and cleverer girls anxious for her friendship as to be
+scarcely noticeable. She had become a fashion in the school before the
+end of her second term, and a host of extravagant, flattering nicknames
+attested this heady popularity. She was "Astarte" and "Principessa"
+in the higher forms; "Flash" in the gymnasium and swimming bath—a
+tribute to her bodily agility; "Zenobia" for one winter term, shortened
+into "Nobs" during a frenzied hockey rally and forthwith abandoned;
+"Greuzy" in artistic circles; while, oftenest of all and most eloquent
+of all—for it voiced the sense of a common possession—she was "Our
+Nelly." I do not know whether it is to her credit or discredit that
+the intimacy with Miss Rigby came to a sudden and unforced end in her
+first term. Poor Jasmine was forgotten or remembered only as a rather
+unhealthy dream. Fenella began even to refer to her flippantly as her
+"past"; "Ma, has my 'past' got up yet?" she would ask at midday on
+half-holidays when she came home to change for hockey or tennis and
+wanted to use the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>It was upon wintry half-holidays that poor Mrs. Barbour felt her
+desolation most keenly. It did not seem to matter so much when she
+knew Nelly was working at school. There was a hungry and noisy return
+at half-past four to be looked forward to, and a whole golden evening
+during which she might knit and watch the dark head bent above the
+irksome home task. And in the summer she would not have had the child
+otherwise employed than in winning roses on lawn or river for the
+colorless cheeks that she was uneducated enough to think indicated a
+latent delicacy. But on rainy autumn afternoons, so brief and dark,
+with the fire burning cosily in the shabby parlor and only a prospect
+of forty feet of smoky grass, a leprous plaster cupid and the black
+wall of the mews to entertain herself with, it seemed unjust, even
+vaguely ominous to her peace, that her nestling preferred to beat her
+new-fledged wings out in the dark and cold. She never complained,
+but tried for a while to tempt her child to stay at home with her
+"favorite" books, her "favorite" armchair, a box of chocolates—poor
+ineffectual wiles that the short-sighted eyes of youth, set upon the
+quest of high-spiced pleasure abroad, passed over without seeing. There
+would be a hasty gobbled luncheon, taken standing, like the last meal
+in Egypt; a frenzied search behind old magazines that were never read
+and old music that was never played, for shoes and shin-guards—"Must
+have my new shin-guards to-day, mummy. Kilburn hack simply rotten—" a
+kiss, for the chocolates, given on the wing, and Fenella in red tam o'
+shanter and belted jacket of scarlet pilot cloth was off—through the
+area and up the steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Expect me when you see me, mummy. I may chew with one of the girls."</p>
+
+<p>She was not a religious woman, but she used to pray about this time,
+miserably and humbly, for her child's heart to be left to her. And, in
+the morning, between two mouthfuls of porridge, it was just possible
+that Fenella might look at her sharply, and say—</p>
+
+<p>"What've you been doing to yourself, mummy? You look like a boiled owl
+this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Who else was to notice that an old woman's eyes were red?</p>
+
+<p>But there were times, also, which the mother came to look for, as
+sex stole inexorably upon the slangy, boyish woman-child, when the
+princess wearied of her kingdom, the tireless wings began to droop,
+and the fledgling crept under the old sheltering wing for comfort.
+She would come down after lunch, dressed in her house frock, sit
+down unexpectedly on her mother's knee, grip the broad shoulders,
+and held thus at arms' length, gaze at her for minutes together as
+though with some new knowledge in the steadfast eyes. She would cover
+her with tender names of disrespect—with cooing infractions of the
+fifth commandment. "Dear old fathead!" "Dear old stoopid!" "Silly old
+motherbird!" But she was strangely averse to the caresses with which
+her mother, always expansive, would have repaid the endearing insults.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't kiss me, donkey," she would cry, breaking away. "Can't you see
+this is one of my touch-me-notish days? Hook me up the back and send
+Drucie out for some chocolates. I'm going to stop with you all the
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearie," said the mother, timidly, one day, "won't the girls miss you
+and come looking for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella knit her brows, but did not look up from her book.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they know where you live, don't they, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"No—yes. Oh! I don't know. Mother, can't you see I'm reading?"</p>
+
+<p>Next Saturday Fenella was "playing away." The mother, still pursuing a
+train of thought that had not really been interrupted during the week,
+was wondering whether it would not be possible, by sending Miss Rigby
+away (she had never cared for the woman), and by moving Lady Anne up
+one story, to take the whole of the first floor for herself and her
+child. The girl <i>must</i> have somewhere to bring her friends. She
+stuck her needles into her wool and sought pencil and paper. But the
+figures that foot it merrily enough when it is a matter of addition,
+limp wearily and stubbornly when subtraction is in question. She caught
+her breath at the result of her calculations. And yet—the situation
+was intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of her reverie a gate creaked and slammed. There
+was a clatter of feet on the steps—a rattle of sticks along the
+railings—Babel let loose in the area, and, before the woman could give
+a shape to the panic at her heart, into the big, shabby room, like an
+ill-trained chorus at a theatre, tumbled a rout of girls—short and
+tall—dark and fair—all dressed alike in red jackets and caps.</p>
+
+<p>They were of all ages from twelve to sixteen. Some had the promise of
+beauty in a few years to come—some were only comely with the freshness
+of youth and health, but from one and all, in spite of strident voice,
+awkwardness of gesture, and self-consciousness of regard, there
+radiated that evanescent and mournful charm which is possessed by any
+bevy of girl comrades that touches childhood at its one extreme and
+womanhood at the other. With a comprehensive sweep of her arm Fenella
+introduced her rabble court.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma—these are the girls! Girls—this is ma! Hurry up and get
+us something to eat. We've been playing at Blackheath, and they
+only gave us one biscuit each with tea. And, look here, girls,"
+turning from her mother's dazed face upon the brawling team, "if
+you make a row and upset our lodgers, you'll" (impressively)
+"<i>never—come—here—again</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella's popularity not only survived this shameful exposure, but
+followed her into the Christmas holidays. The most delightful of all
+missives began to lie, three and four at a time, on the breakfast
+table by her plate, "begging the pleasure." Mrs. Barbour, who did a
+considerable amount of good by stealth, had arrested a thirsty genius
+on a downward course from the Bond Street ateliers to Marylebone
+Workhouse, and, with this strange being, who wore a palpable
+transformation, smelt of brandy, and called her "Modder-moselle," Nelly
+spent many a fruitful morning, pinning, fitting, and cutting, while
+the machine whirred and bumped on a table near by. She tasted for the
+first time the delights of the waxed floor, the heavy golden air,
+the cadenced wind—all the witchery of dance-land. Sleek "freshers"
+with lacquered heads, "down for the short—" pink, alert subalterns
+on Christmas furlough from Chatham and Aldershot, with funny cropped
+moustaches like a toothbrush—delightful middies in uniform, with
+cracking voices, wrote her name stiffly and illegibly on their
+programmes or, if they were very smart, on an immaculate shirt cuff.
+She danced with the verve of one exercising a fine natural gift, but
+hated "sitting out," and acquired a distracting habit of wandering on
+her partner's arm, along corridors and up stairs, through palms and
+around screens, in search of friends similarly coupled. She called this
+the "visiting figure," but, oh! the despair of inflammable youth, its
+head full of incoherent adoration, to which darkness and solitude would
+have given such burning words. This little unchaperoned girl, with her
+perilously attractive beauty, discovered endless address and resource
+in keeping male fervor at a distance. The following conversation is on
+record, heard from palm-filled obscurity:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Bobby! I'm sitting with you in the dark, 'cos you said the
+light hurt your bad eye; but if you <i>paw</i> you'll have two bad eyes
+to look after 'stead of one."</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of her third year at Sharland College Lady Anne received
+a letter from Miss Garrett, of which the following was part:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"... About Fenella Barbour. No. I haven't forgotten the promise
+I made you to let you know if the girl showed marked ability in
+any one direction. Strangely enough, Madame de Rudder, of Hanover
+Street, our dancing and calisthenic mistress, called upon me about
+her only yesterday. She tells me the child shows a talent for
+bodily movement (she calls it 'genius': poor abused word!) such as
+she never marked in a girl before. She is revising some old dances,
+<i>Pavanes</i> and <i>Corantos</i>, for private house parties, and
+wants Fenella to join a quartette she is making up. Remembering
+what you told me, I mentioned (guardedly) the expense of dresses,
+etc., but she would not hear of the girl's incurring any outlay.
+Not only this. She says that if Fenella could come, even two days
+a week, as assistant at Hanover Street, she could have her tuition
+free and, in time, be employed regularly, at very good pay: much
+better than we can afford our own under-mistresses, who are all
+graduates, as you know.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me, dear Anne, that a <i>métier</i> offers here: not
+a very exalted one, it is true, but in the only line for which the
+girl has shown any talent at all. Will you, if you think fit, speak
+to the mother before I do anything further and ascertain her views.
+I have met Mrs. Barbour. She is a puzzling and, I should say,
+rather foolish woman, who evidently married far above her class.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea, if followed out, will of course abridge Fenella's school
+career, or even terminate it; but, to tell you the truth, dear
+Anne, although I am fond of the child, I am only half sorry for
+this. Don't misunderstand me. The girl is as good as gold, and I
+know (who should judge better) has a soul like crystal. But her
+influence among us has been an unsettling one.</p>
+
+<p>"... I picked out the much beloved 'Collywobble' in the
+Country-house Supplement from among the Sea grave, with dear Lady
+Anne 'up.' What a pretty beast it is!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Fenella was seventeen when she left school. She thought life a great
+joke, she had not said a prayer for two years, and the saddest sight
+she had seen was a fallen sparrow (counted, but number unrecorded) on
+the path in Holland Walk.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="X">X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE WAY OF A MAID</p>
+
+
+<p>Planche's "History of British Costume," 2 vols. 2500<i>b</i>, in the
+Library of the British Museum, is a helpful work of reference. It is
+replete with information, and the wood-cuts are spirited. Its size and
+cumbersomeness, however, are disadvantages. It is emphatically a book
+you would not care to read in bed. Add to this, that it is forming
+the summit of an unsteady pile of books with which your arms are
+filled—that you are handicapped further with a big black fur muff,
+and that your nerves are already on edge with the strangeness of the
+place....</p>
+
+<p><i>Crash!!!...</i></p>
+
+<p>One heavy morocco-bound volume lay, open and face downward, on the
+floor; the other was following it fast, ringleader in a tragic glissade
+over the smooth black fur. Fenella bit her lip and did not quite
+suppress a word whose most obvious rhyme is "lamb." In a terror-struck
+flash she saw all the results of her carelessness: attendants bearing
+down upon her—expostulation—disgrace and final ejectment beyond those
+heavy swing doors that she never, never should have passed. She was
+really very frightened.</p>
+
+<p>A man who had been ransacking the shelves by her side, with a long arm
+that reached easily from top to bottom of the bookcase, turned quickly
+at the smothered exclamation. With a swift movement of one hand, he
+stayed the avalanche, and with the other picked up the fallen volume
+from the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! thank you—thank you!" said Fenella, almost hysterically. She
+was looking up—a good way up—into the kindest, grayest eyes she had
+ever seen.... Eyes!—eyes! the little, unprotected girl encountered
+them everywhere. In train or 'bus, in the street, in the untempered
+light of the lately constructed tube railway. Hard eyes; preoccupied
+eyes, full of some sick trouble of their own which passed her over,
+unseeing; bitter, arrogant eyes that seemed to find her beauty and her
+pretty clothes an offence; eyes vicious and bold, the worst of all,
+that would not leave her, that stung her cheeks, as though the heat of
+the evil passions behind them were being focussed upon her through a
+lens, and beneath whose level, insulting conjecture her flesh crept and
+her hands clenched themselves in an agony of shame and helpless anger.
+But these eyes were different to all the others. She could look at them
+as steadily as at a cloudy sky: they seemed full of some tender wisdom.
+And of humor too. Already their twinkle mitigated what she felt to be a
+tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger took the books from her one by one and bestowed them
+compactly in the hollow of his own arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got a seat?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Fenella, in an agitated whisper. "Can I go anywhere I like?
+Are they all free?"</p>
+
+<p>The man's smile broadened and showed his fine long teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try and find you a free one," he said. "Come on with me." His
+accent was strange; not quite English, yet not foreign.</p>
+
+<p>She followed her protector on tip toe, averting her eyes from the
+indignant glances that she was sure were being levelled at her. One
+lean old monk <i>was</i> scowling, but he was really thinking of
+something else. Then there was a dreadful fat negro, like Othello
+turned scholar, who rolled his eyes. Fenella could not help peeping at
+the leaves he was turning over, to confirm an unscientific conviction
+of her own, that the black <i>did</i> really come off sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>Her guide stopped at an empty place, arranged her books neatly upon
+the flat leather-covered desk, pulled out a cane-seated chair on
+casters, and, bowing slightly, sat down in the next place and began to
+read one of a number of manuscript leaves with which it was strewn. She
+divested herself of gloves and furs, and commenced turning the pages
+of one of her books gingerly. Occasionally, she put her finger to her
+mouth, and then, remembering where she was, stopped with a shudder, as
+at danger escaped.</p>
+
+<p>The man who had helped her was writing busily on a thick paper pad.
+When he had reached the bottom of each page, he blotted it, numbered
+it in the top right-hand corner, and added it carelessly to an untidy
+pile at his left hand. Sometimes, before tearing it off, he read it
+over, apparently without enthusiasm, erased words, and sometimes whole
+sentences, with impatient curly "twiddles" of his quill pen, wrote
+words in between the lines and added various cabalistic signs and
+letters in the margin. He was very much occupied, and Fenella, whom
+no book had ever absorbed, saw that she might watch him covertly and
+safely.</p>
+
+<p>So this was the way books were written! She wondered who he was. Not
+Bernard Shaw—his hair was too short. Nor Rider Haggard—his face was
+too narrow. She could not think of any other writer with a beard. She
+considered him good-looking—in a strange way. She never would have, I
+will not say looked, but wanted to look after him in the street, still
+in a way she could not define, it was nice to be sitting next him. She
+liked his leanness and dryness. She hated fat men whose sleek hair
+seemed to be soaking up superabundant moisture from their bodies. Then,
+his beard was trimmed so closely to his cheek it was hard to say where
+it began, and his moustache was brushed out of the way once and for
+all. He didn't keep "twiddling" <i>it</i>. Yes; it would be quite safe
+to sit opposite while he ate soup.</p>
+
+<p>There was a man quite like him on the very page before her.... Ah!
+Yes. That was what he wanted. A big ruff showing the hairy throat,
+and a little cloak, swung from his shoulders, and big puffy—whatever
+they called them—nearly to his knees, and a long rapier sticking up
+in the air—how awkward on staircases though—but not a silly little
+<i>toque</i> like that, stuck on one side, and not—oh, not earrings
+in his ears. Who was it? "Duc de Guise." What a pity she had forgotten
+(forgotten!) all her French. Yes; that was what was the matter with
+him, she decided. His good looks were simply out of fashion. She looked
+backward and forward from the book to his face, from his face to the
+book, two or three times. Suddenly she became aware he was looking
+straight at her.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oh! help!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything I can do?" asked the stranger helpfully, in a low voice that
+was far less obtrusive than any whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"C-could you translate this little bit for me, please? I'm no good at
+French," Fenella stammered, pushing her book toward him.</p>
+
+<p>"Which little bit?"</p>
+
+<p>She indicated a paragraph at random and as far from the picture as
+possible. She caught her breath at her audacity. "Forward minx, I
+am." She hoped he wouldn't hang over her shoulder to translate, like
+handsome Mr. Curzon, the drawing master at Sharland, heedless, or
+perhaps not heedless, of the burning cheek so near his own, and the
+suppressed titters of "the girls."</p>
+
+<p>M. de Guise drew the open book toward him, and, tearing off a slip
+of paper, began to write on it in a cranky but rapid hand, with an
+occasional glance at the foreign text.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are. I hope you will be able to read my writing."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much indeed," said Fenella, demurely.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else you want? Paper?"</p>
+
+<p>She had dived into her muff and was splitting open various envelopes
+with her forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wouldn't mind. But I'm giving you so much trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"No trouble at all. Here are three sheets. You have a pencil?"</p>
+
+<p>"M—m."</p>
+
+<p>"If it's one you stole from the catalogue desk I wouldn't suck it.
+Those aren't the sort you suck. See! you've made a blue smudge on your
+lips."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella dived into her muff again, and, drawing out what I believe is
+termed a vanity bag, examined her lips on the little mirror. She rubbed
+them hard.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it gone now, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite." How red the child's lips were. He glanced right and left
+and put his fingers to his own. A few fretful knowledge seekers were
+looking toward the chatter. Their glances were hostile.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>A la besogne!</i>" said he, beneath his breath, and turned to his
+work again.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella shook her shoulders and settled herself in the most industrious
+attitude she could think of. At the end of an hour she had drawn three
+figures and could think of no further excuse for remaining. Most of
+the wisdom of the world was around her and above her, but she felt no
+temptation to disturb it. The man at her side had apparently forgotten
+her existence. She put her books away, one by one, trying to prevent
+her shoes squeaking, but making a great bustle, really, yet he did not
+look round. When she came back at last to get her furs and gloves, he
+was gone. She left the room with a little sinking of the heart, but not
+more than one feels when, say, an interesting fellow-traveller whom we
+hoped was coming on all the way to London, gets out at Rugby. It is
+true that in her preoccupation she forgot to claim her umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>When she reached Oxford Street she was reminded by passing an Express
+Dairy that it was past five and that she would reach home late for
+tea. Tea, as a rite, retained all its old significance for Fenella.
+Some of her old school-fellows had studios or flats within easy reach,
+and, perhaps, six months ago she would have made for one of them. But,
+already, she thought she noticed a difference. The girls were growing
+up—acquiring individuality, and her own path was diverging more and
+more. They liked her to come in to tea, but preferably on a day when no
+men were expected. She was already learning the hard truth that life
+must be played with the lone hand. A good many of her triumphs lay
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to the dairy, and going upstairs as far as she could, took a
+seat in the smoking-room and ordered weak tea and a teacake. She liked
+muffins and crumpets and teacakes with "heaps and heaps" of butter.
+The tea-room, being near the Museum, was full of its <i>habitués</i>.
+She saw three or four she had noticed there, playing chess or talking
+together in high mincing tones interspersed with cackling laughter.
+She did not recognize the accent of the "illuminated." Some had lined,
+seamed faces, with long hair, and would have looked better with a
+clerical collar. Those that looked strong looked rough. How different
+to her "courtier." She began to think of him anew, to calculate her
+chances of ever running across him again. One thing was certain, she
+would never, never go back to that terrible place again.</p>
+
+<p>The teacake was long in coming, and as she looked up impatiently she
+saw him standing in the middle of the room. She recognized him at once
+by the rather rakish felt hat that had lain on his desk. He had a long
+blue overcoat with a belt and a funny yellow silk handkerchief round
+his neck. She wanted him very much to look round, but surmised he had
+a favorite waitress and was looking for her. Perhaps the naïve wish
+reached him. He turned, and, smiling, came toward her, as straight as a
+partner about to claim his dance.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! Got tired? I missed you when I came back."</p>
+
+<p>"I only came to draw three pictures."</p>
+
+<p>He hung his coat up and sat opposite her in a matter-of-fact way that
+robbed the action of significance. Still, the lady who had brought the
+teacake waited for his order with a sub-surface smile. She had seen so
+many "Museum goings-on."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not often here, are you?... Yes, tea, please. No—nothing with
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella leaned forward confidently. "It's my very first visit. Don't
+tell, will you? I <i>fudged</i> a ticket."</p>
+
+<p>"'Fudged'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Came with another girl's—Phyllis Harmans. Do you know her?"</p>
+
+<p>The gray eyes twinkled. "No. You're the only lady I ever speak to in
+the Museum."</p>
+
+<p>"Would I get into any trouble if I was found out?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'd all get into trouble if we were found out. The best way is not to
+attract attention. Don't drop your books again."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it hard to get a ticket?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's criminally easy. But I shouldn't advise you to. It's a place
+for old fogies like me. You look pale. Do you get plenty of outdoor
+exercise?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella rubbed her cheek. "That's not paleness. You're fussy, like
+mummy. I'm a healthy brute. And I shouldn't call you an old fogy.
+You're—brown. Have you travelled much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!—round the world and back again."</p>
+
+<p>"Coming back's nice, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only when it's coming home."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't your home here? I <i>thought</i> you spoke—funny. Haven't you
+any one who looks after you? A mother—or a sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"No mother, no sister, no wife." The stranger spoke incisively. "No
+sweetheart, even," he added, after an appreciable pause.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella blushed. Of course she hadn't meant to ask that; still, it
+was interesting to know. The child had a strange pertinacity in
+constructing correct views of new acquaintances that deceived a good
+many people.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden squall lashed the windows with rain. She looked round in
+affright.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!—help!" she said again, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've forgotten my 'brolly'."</p>
+
+<p>"Your <i>what</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"My brolly: my 'mush'; ma's best gold-handled umbrella."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll lend you mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it isn't that. I get the 'bus at the door, and only have a step to
+walk at the other end. But how'm I to get it back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you coming again soon?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. You would never have guessed the stranger felt
+disappointed. He felt in his pocket and pushed a card across the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Write an address on that," he said, "and leave me your check. I'll
+have it sent to-night by a messenger boy."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella considered a moment. The card lay face downward, and it was a
+great temptation. But her good breeding triumphed. Without turning it
+over she wrote her name and address, very slowly, in print letters.
+Meantime she soliloquized thus:</p>
+
+<p>"I hate rain. It's harder on women. Your petties get wet and slop
+round your ankles. I wish I could always dress as a boy. It's so
+picture-squeak—picturesque I mean. I do sometimes. Dances, you know:
+in a quartette, gavottes and things. I'm a boy, 'cos you can't teach
+men.... There you are. I hope you can read it.... I had a ripping dress
+at the 'Bechway' in the spring. Blue and silver, and powdered hair, and
+a little diamondy sword."</p>
+
+<p>"Which you could use upon occasion with great spirit, I'll wager,
+Monsieur le Marquis."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rather!" rejoined Fenella. (How nicely he speaks French.) "I'm
+good at fencing. I was captain of the 'gym' at our school."</p>
+
+<p>The man just glanced at the card and put it into his pocket
+absent-mindedly. He was wondering what kind the school might be that
+had taught this distractingly friendly child to dance and fence, but
+not to read French and, above all, not to be careful—with that face
+and figure—how she spoke to strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, something in this last speech had reminded the girl of the
+first fine rapture of Ruritania, years ago.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a novelist, aren't you?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Of sorts," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I was intellectual"—wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You're better. You're cute."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Cute—cute—!</i> What does that mean? Clever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, a kind of clever prettiness."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean smart!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, smart. Let us be English at all costs."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how you can think <i>me</i> smart," she said, with a
+rueful inflection in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Talking to a strange man as I've done."</p>
+
+<p>At sight of the troubled young face, something that was not exactly
+suspicion, but which had guarded his manner till now, disappeared. He
+laughed quite freely, and it was wonderful how the sudden gaiety made
+him look at once younger and more foreign. He put his hand across and
+just touched the girl's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear child," said he, "talk to as many strange men as you like. The
+stranger the better. It's ordinary ones you must be careful about."</p>
+
+<p>"Ordinary ones——?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Beware the Least Common Multiple. Therein lies danger to you. I
+prophesy it."</p>
+
+<p>"I must go," said Nelly, rising as she spoke. "It isn't getting any
+drier."</p>
+
+<p>He put his coat on and followed her to the door. She noticed he left
+threepence for the waitress. How extravagant, after just a cup of tea!
+He kept beside her across the street, holding his umbrella over her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to read your book when it comes out," she said, as her
+omnibus hove in sight. "Why do you laugh?"</p>
+
+<p>He was laughing because he knew the book. "How are you to ask for it
+without knowing the talented author's name?"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated. "Well," she said, almost reluctantly, "what <i>is</i>
+his name?"</p>
+
+<p>He noticed the effort and his manner stiffened. "It's one I needn't be
+ashamed to tell you, and you needn't be ashamed to hear. My name is
+Paul Ingram. Here's your 'bus. Good-bye. I don't ask you yours."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella turned on the step and laughed at him over her muff.</p>
+
+<p>"Goosey! You've got it in your waistcoat pocket."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">AN INTERLUDE</p>
+
+
+<p>All this happened on a Saturday, and Paul had a full day to think it
+over. He went back to his work on Monday, and, for reasons he did
+not stop to define, not only chose the same place, but even had the
+weakness to try to keep the desk next it free by depositing his hat and
+gloves there. It would be hard to say what he expected. He had looked
+at the address more carefully when he was sending back the umbrella,
+and it confirmed the impression he had already received from the girl's
+clothes and casual, assured manner. She was some daughter of a good
+family, he felt sure, guarded and checked, and so the more inclined to
+kick over the traces when away from watchful home eyes. Had he been an
+Englishman the very perfection of her turnout might have still further
+puzzled him, and he might have been inclined to speculate as to how so
+young a girl came by all the rings she wore; far too many, though they
+were only pretty baubles. But Ingram came from a country where beauty
+does not wait on marriage for its adornment. He was even ignorant that
+a set has arisen there, the most artificial and utterly contemptible,
+surely, in the world, which has sacrificed the healthy freedom that was
+its birthright, to ape the social hypocrisies and superstitions that
+Europe is outgrowing.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, she had made him feel very old, and for the moment out of
+conceit with his self-imposed tasks, just as some wild, free creature
+of fur or feather encountered on a holiday walk in the country might
+distaste any one of us with his own humdrum workaday life. And he had
+the same further impulse that the wayfarer may have had to arrest the
+busy, aimless errand, close his hand on the furry flank—prison the
+fluttering wings, and, having made the creature share his captivity a
+moment, to open his fingers and let the throbbing quarry go free. A
+desire so innocent—so purely intellectual, that it scarcely deserves
+the hard name of the lust of the eye, and has nothing whatever in
+common with the lusts of the flesh.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered also, to account for his unusual and dangerous
+mood, that just about this time he had put his manuscript into my
+hands. No period is so demoralizing mentally as one during which we
+have relaxed our own efforts, and are indulging in the vague hope of
+some good to come to us through other people's.</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday—Wednesday passed. Paul ceased to look for the girl. Why should
+he? Hadn't she said she was not coming back. And what a fool he was
+even to desire it. She was a pretty memory; he, a writer, should know
+the value of such impressions, the pity of disturbing them. Suppose he
+met her again, was it likely the glamour of the first encounter would
+survive? Apart from the <i>bizarrerie</i> of her quaint, childish
+confidences, she had said really nothing that was worth remembering.
+On a second meeting he would be sure to find her trivial and vulgar.
+Even the pretty manner was probably a trick she had tried elsewhere,
+and found "fetching." Toward the end of the week he happened to be
+reading, in the course of his work, the diary of a man some of whose
+blood, according to family tradition, ran in his own veins: the daily
+journal of Cotton Mather. Skimming through the record of that dark,
+tortured soul, he lit upon the curious passage wherein the middle-aged
+widower, with the naïve self-revelation that sweetens his persecuting
+memory, deplores the inroads which a handsome young pupil to whom he
+is teaching Latin is making in his self-respect. "The Lord," groans
+Mather, piously, "deliver me from this ingenious child!" Paul gave such
+a sudden laugh that his neighbors looked at him in wonder. "Bravo,
+Cousin Cotton!" he said to himself. "I'm not proud of you, but I'll
+forgive you a lot for that." He felt immensely relieved. Who has not
+known such a foolish moment of light-heartedness, when something we
+have read or heard seems to set us right with ourselves? "<i>The Lord
+deliver me from this ingenious child!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>That night after dinner he lit a cigar and strolled westward. He
+found Number Eleven Suffolk Square easily enough. It was a big,
+double-fronted house of cream-colored stucco, with wide steps and
+a pillared porch. It happened just then that all three floors were
+lit up. This illumination gave the house a festive appearance and
+exaggerated its opulent aspect. Against the amber colored blinds the
+pattern of handsome lace curtains stood out in bold silhouette. The
+kitchen blinds had not been lowered and Paul noted three maid-servants,
+two of them in black dresses and caps with long white streamers. On the
+other side of the area, across another lighted window, red curtains
+were drawn. More servants, probably—butler, coachman, and footman. He
+thought of his own home in far Massachusetts; the "hired help" who came
+to table with them; his own chapped wrists; the dying mother, rolling
+out pastry on the low table to which they wheeled her chair. A feeling
+of fierce camaraderie with the toilers, the little ones of the earth,
+possessed him; a hatred for luxury and the parade of wealth. He took
+three or four turns before the house, and went away. Before he left the
+square, however, he kissed his hand toward Number Eleven. "Good-bye,
+Fenella," he said. "You're a kind-hearted baby, but I guess the folks
+in that house will know how to spoil it when the time comes."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">RICHMOND PARK</p>
+
+
+<p>Next morning, when he went to the reading-room, she was sitting
+in the old place. She still wore the long blue coat with all the
+buttons—the black fur, and the big plain French hat with a single
+parrot-green feather, but, seen a second time, custom tempered somewhat
+her formidable smartness. She had a big gauze veil, too, tied round
+her hat and falling in long ends over her shoulders. It subdued the
+hard childish brightness of her face, making it look both maturer and
+softer. She met his surprised look timidly, and, diving into her muff,
+held out a white card with a blue stripe down the centre. Her gesture
+was meekly disarming—hurriedly explanatory.</p>
+
+<p>"I've joined," she said, anxiously. "I'm a member."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram twirled the card between his fingers. It was early, the great
+room was half empty, and there was no need to whisper now.</p>
+
+<p>"And what special line of research are you thinking of pursuing?" he
+asked, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella made haste to disclaim any serious purpose. "But it's a useful
+place, isn't it?" she asked. "This morning I only looked in to thank
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"To thank me——?"</p>
+
+<p>"For sending my umbrella. I couldn't send a postcard; I didn't know
+your address."</p>
+
+<p>"It was no trouble." He was still turning the little card round and
+round. "And so you're running away at once?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella cast her eyes down. "I can't stay," she said. "I've got a dog
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>"A dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tied to the rails outside near the little house. They'd only keep him
+'cos I said I wouldn't be ten minutes. Do you like dogs? I'm taking him
+for a run."</p>
+
+<p>Paul experienced a sudden zest for adventure. "Suppose we take him for
+a run together? It's such a glorious fall morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>top-hole</i>!" said Nelly, joining her hands in the old baby
+fashion that had clung to her. "I mean, how nice! Where shall we
+ramble? The Gardens?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I hate the Gardens. Even the sparrows know they're a fraud.
+Let's go out to Richmond. We can walk across the Park, have lunch at
+Kingston, and be back in time for tea."</p>
+
+<p>Outside the Museum lodge, a horrible old bull-terrier, chained to the
+railings, was keeping up a growling soliloquy, with occasional snaps at
+imaginary flies, suggested possibly by the late autumn sunshine. He was
+very thick and scarred and carried his head to one side.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Rock," announced Fenella, as, with a bewildering smile at
+the liveried keeper, she began to drag the veteran to his feet and
+along the pavement. "He's an awful old dog; I don't know how old, but
+he was a puppy when I was a baby. Isn't it funny? Now he's all lumpy
+and stiff, and I'm still growing. Ma says it's because their hearts
+beat faster. Heckle—that's a medical boy I know—says he's the oldest
+bull-terrier he ever knew, and that what he's asking for when he growls
+is a dose of pussy's acid in a dog-biscuit. What's pussy's acid?<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+Rock is short for Roquelaure, but some of the girls say he smells, and
+call him Roquefort. He's not my dog: he's Lady Anne's. She's hunting
+somewhere, and I promised her I'd take him out regularly. Oh, I want
+to telephone from here. Will you hold him—please? He won't bite.
+No, don't shut the doors, I shall stifle.... <i>B-r-r-r!</i> One!
+<i>B-r-r-r!</i> Two. I <i>have</i> put the pennies in; didn't you hear
+them? 2309 Pad. Yes, I mean Paddington. You say Pad yourself. Hello!
+Are you there? Is this Miss Rigby? Oh, good morning, Jas. Jas, be an
+angel and tell mummy I shan't be home to lunch. I'm going to have it
+at Richmond, with a man. What d'you say? Oh, fie! Oh, tut!... Naughty
+puss! Six feet one, a long tawny, silky moustache, and cold, steel-blue
+eyes.... What?... I don't know ... I may. Good-bye, Jas. You're an
+angel."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>In the train Ingram took the seat opposite her, and, while she kept
+up an incessant chatter, watched her with a kind of ache at his
+heart for her beauty. It was more than prettiness: he saw that now.
+Those long heavy lashed eyes, whose full lids she had a trick of
+pulling—the plaintive, tremulous mouth, too red; the two little tufts
+at her temples which even the draught from the closed window blew
+across her cheekbone, so fine and dry was her hair; the delicate and
+rather salient nose that bespoke impulsiveness. Like all visionaries,
+crusaders and other impractical persons, he had at the same time an
+intense perception of bodily beauty and an intense jealousy for the
+coarse uses to which life puts it. To have retained one's ideals and
+to have lost one's illusions—is not this to be subject to all the
+tortures that sex can inflict?</p>
+
+<p>They left the station and walked through the defaced streets of the old
+Royal Borough, its noble Georgian houses half hidden by plate-glass
+shop fronts: they climbed the long ascent to the Park, and stood for
+a moment on the terrace to admire the river, an isle-set loop of
+silver, at the bottom of a steep glen filled with rusty verdure. Once
+inside the wide ciphered gates, they left the gravelled path and by
+a soft mouldy foot-track struck into the recesses of the old hunting
+pleasaunce. The air was mild and balmy; not a breeze stirred the crisp,
+sapless trees that stood waiting to surrender their ruined pomp of
+summer to the first wind that required it of them. Fenella gave her
+escort her muff and stole. She called Rock to her in a high, clear
+voice and, with shrill, chirping whistles, with cracks of her dog-whip,
+fluttering of her skirts, with endless enticements and provocations,
+lured that much-tried old pensioner on to efforts he had really
+outlived. Paul, as he watched her, ignorant no doubt of the exquisite
+old Mabinogion simile, thought that her motions resembled nothing so
+much as the swooping flight of the swallow before rain. Her limbs
+seemed to have the pliancy of whalebone.</p>
+
+<p>Rock wheezed and panted gallantly after his mistress, his paws drumming
+stiffly on the ground—his poor old scarred neck held more on one side
+than ever. But his heart was not in the chase. He was forever slinking
+back to heel. He looked up wistfully at this new, sober-paced friend.
+"Here are we," his dim old eyes, with their hardened cornea, seemed to
+be saying, "old fellows, both of us, who've taken sharp bites and hard
+knocks enough, and it's a bit late in the day to be asking us to show
+off our paces, isn't it? Can't we sneak away somewhere together? This
+girl will play the very devil with us both if we let her."</p>
+
+<p>"Rock! Rock! Rock!" the clear voice would ring out. "Come here, sir!
+Come here <i>thissminnit</i>! Lazy—<i>lazy</i> dog!"</p>
+
+<p>And with a despairing throe of his knotted tail, off poor Rock must
+pump again.</p>
+
+<p>When they had nearly crossed the Park, they sat down on a worn seat,
+hacked nearly away with amorous knife blades, close to a pond into
+which some long-legged wading birds were digging their bills. Around
+them and behind them the noble demesne outstretched itself, in long
+tree vistas and seemingly illimitable glades, with nothing to scale
+them to insignificance. Now and then a motor car rolled softly along
+the road to White Lodge, only accentuating their loneliness by its
+speed and detachment, or a ghostly little troop of fallow deer passed
+slowly and securely to some favored feeding ground. Rock sniffed the
+air at them, growled and wrinkled his nose. "We both remember a time
+we couldn't have stood this—don't we?" the decayed old sportsman was
+no doubt grumbling to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing the girl quiet at his side, Paul began to try and tell her
+something of his life, working back, as is the manner of men, from the
+things that are nearest their experience and yet are slipping from
+their memory, into the never forgotten far past.... The night marches
+across the silent desert, spellbound by the silver witchery of the
+moon, and through <i>mehallahs</i>, that are like a fruitful land
+smitten by an evil charm—its houses turned into boulders and brushwood
+made of its standing corn: the caravans one may meet with a grave
+bearded sheikh riding in front, and the bubbling dromedaries behind
+him, laden with great wicker "<i>D-raths</i>" full of squalling, naked
+children and silk-swathed women, who peep through the osiers and crook
+their fingers at the dusty legionaries tramping by in a cloud of their
+own dust: the sand pillars that march upon your flank, step and step,
+like jealous genii shepherding doomed strangers into their desert: the
+joy of the camp at the well, with the day's march done: the incredible
+lightness of the sweat-soaked body when the knapsack is lifted off.</p>
+
+<p>... Or that other camp—so far away it is hard to believe it all one
+life. Crackling cedar wood and the good smell of coffee on the sharp
+light mountain air, and the jinglers riding in the squealing cavvy
+with a pother of dust about their unshod feet, all rosy and glorious
+like a halo in the cherry-red morning sun: and the long lariats held
+wedgewise, and the scamper and scurry as the bronchos are trapped:
+and the peering through a fog of sweat and dust for your own brand
+on shoulder or buttock, and the whirling ropes, and the laughter and
+horseplay as the ponies are blanketed and bitted for the dawn-to-dusk
+round-up.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know whether Paul made a poor Othello, but I do know he had
+a very indifferent Desdemona. Fenella was forever interrupting the
+narrative on one frivolous pretext or another: to throw stick or stone
+for poor sleepy Rock to retrieve ("<i>Guffetchit-Rock! Guffetchit—lazy
+dog!</i>"); to gather a bunch of scarlet berries afar off, whose color
+had taken her eye and which were hardly redder than her lips; to run
+down for a minute to the pond to see what "those rummy birds" were
+digging for so industriously. She had all the <i>nil admirari</i> of
+the modern mind: its heedlessness of anything that lies outside its
+own experience; its sedulous curiosity for all that lies within. It
+was better when they got to Ingram's early life. She could imagine
+a country road along which burdocks and hemlock and other green
+fleshy things grow as high as young trees, and little gray frame
+houses tucked away behind silver birches. She was genuinely and even
+tenderly interested in the crippled mother, and at the story of the
+sister who died, blew her nose and said she had caught cold in the
+train. She clapped her hands at the quilting bees and candy-pulls and
+sleigh rides and sugar boiling camps and wished plaintively that she
+had been born a little American girl, to have had her share in so
+rapturous an adolescence. But even this part of the story was checked
+with immaterial, trivial questions such as on children's lips weary
+the maternal patience. "What happened the gray mare in the end that
+wouldn't pass the new letter-box? How many boys went to the sugar camp?
+And how many girls? Did they ever flirt?"</p>
+
+<p>They had luncheon in an upper room of an old inn at Kingston, that
+had a curved iron balcony looking down upon the market place. The
+panelling was hidden by paper of an iridescent red, covered with a
+sprawling pattern of tarnished leaves and flowers. To right and left
+of the fireplace two dark pictures of bottle-necked ladies with untidy
+hair, brought here from God knows what household dispersion, looked
+disdainfully out of the canvas in opposite directions. Some fair or
+market was going on in the square below; the misty afternoon air
+was full of the bleat of sheep, the lowing of cattle, raucous cries
+of costermongers, and the crack of saloon rifles. They were waited
+on by a depressed Teuton, upon whose broad white face Paul raised a
+wintry smile by addressing him in his own guttural tongue. Fenella,
+the palms of her long kid gloves twisted round her bangles, fared
+delicately. She gave most of her meat to Rock—eschewed watery sprouts
+and fluffily mashed potatoes—and "filled up," as she would and even
+did express it, upon plum tart with unlimited cream and sugar. She
+would not drink wine or coffee, but ate all the dessert and sent out
+for more cob-nuts. She had all sorts of pretty, restless, bad manners:
+crumbled bread while she chattered—scored the cloth with a pink nail
+while she listened—counted her plum stones three times and made it
+"never"—dabbled in her tumbler for lack of a finger bowl—and upon its
+rim made, with one wet finger-tip, the hum of innumerable blue bottles,
+at which poor Rock barked and snapped under her chair.</p>
+
+<p>It was late when they sat down to lunch, and they had dawdled besides.
+The sun was gone and twilight closing in as they recrossed the Park
+toward Richmond. She was so silent that Paul asked her, half peering
+into the veiled face, whether she had felt the afternoon dull. She said
+not; but her negative went no further than a little shake of the head.
+She had a trick of looking back every now and then and of measuring
+the way they had come, as if to insure a clear recollection of it, and
+she allowed Rock—who, rested, fed, and with his head pointed, though
+obliquely, for home, was in spirits that contrasted with his depressed
+morning mood—to roam at his will. They had just reached the avenue of
+trees that looks over Ham House when a furious barking made them turn
+their heads. The dog, bristling, and with sidelong leaps that left his
+nose in the one direction, was pointing at something in the long grass.
+Fenella cracked the whip she had been trailing along the path.</p>
+
+<p>"Rock! <i>Rock!</i> Come here, sir! Oh, Mr. Ingram, go quick and stop
+him!" She covered her eyes. "He's got some poor little rabbit or bird."</p>
+
+<p>Paul ran and collared the animal. A brown mottled bird with a wide
+yellow beak was fluttering away clumsily, with wings half spread.
+Fenella caught it from him as his hand was closing on it.</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to me! Oh, <i>darling</i>! are you hurt?" She looked on
+her gloves for blood. "Had he bitten it, Mr. Ingram?... There,
+<i>there</i>—you're quite safe now. I tink oor more f'itened dan hurt,
+dear! Is <i>he</i> one of the birds that fly away in the winter, Mr.
+Ingram? I'm going to take him home and put him in the conservatory till
+spring.... Ah! you <i>wicked—bad—cruel—fierce</i> dog! It's a good
+job I gave him so much meat, isn't it Mr. Ingram?—or you'd be gobbled
+up, dee-ar!... That's right; put him on the chain. Oh, yes he does, Mr.
+Ingram; he eats birds, at least he <i>scrunches</i> them," stroking the
+smooth brown back with her lips. "Can we get a cage in Richmond, do you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>Paul looked at his watch. "I think we'd better get a train in
+Richmond," he said. "We've been out quite a while, and you only said
+'luncheon' over the 'phone. Are you going to bring the bird along?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why—<i>of course I am</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, put him in your muff and let us hustle."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella quickened her pace resolutely, but every now and then would
+stop to be sure the creature was alive, breaking into a run afterward
+to overtake her escort.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," she said at last, penitently, as she saw him waiting for
+her. "I tell you what I'll do. I'll put my finger in every now and then
+and, if he pecks, I'll know he's alive. Why does he peck me when I
+saved him? Birds have no brain. Cookie had a canary once that flew into
+a fly-paper; it took ever so long to unstick his wings. I hope this
+isn't one of the sort that won't sing unless its eyes are put out."</p>
+
+<p>In the train the bird still absorbed her. They had a compartment to
+themselves, and Paul watched her curiously through his cigar smoke. He
+was wondering whether he had been bored or amused. A little of both he
+concluded. She was a good girl, but quite immature, and utterly—oh!
+utterly trivial. There was probably some babbling old mother at home
+whom she took after, for a warning and example. She was lovely, oh,
+yes—lovely enough to make the most careless heart ache—the rashest
+"gazer wipe his eye." But for a man like himself that was not an entire
+explanation. Wherein lay her charm? For charm there was; one, too, that
+survived the long day spent in her company. There was no use denying
+it; walks in Richmond Park, alone, would be sad affairs from now on.
+Alone, because, of course, this one must never be repeated. Butterflies
+are pretty things to watch, once in a way; but, since to clutch remains
+a human instinct, and since no man who thinks in his heart ever wants
+to see that sort of down upon his clumsy fingers, it would be better
+if—be better if——What were the clanging, ringing wheels saying now?
+Hark!</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"Be its beauty its sole duty:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Be its beauty its sole duty...."</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Ah! yes. That was what he has been trying to think of all day. And yet
+people could be found to called Browning "obscure."</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"Be its beauty its sole duty!"</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Ingram! Look! It's stopped pecking and is beginning to look
+round."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned across the carriage. He may have meant to do no more than
+touch the enfolding hands that lay so near his lips. But her own mouth
+was nearer still, and he kissed that.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII">XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">FIND SOUL—FIND SORROW</p>
+
+
+<p>In the middle of the night that followed his whole holiday Paul woke
+and cursed himself, at length and with conviction. Years ago, in the
+good old days when punishment was punishment, with no nonsense talked
+about reformatory intent, among the toiling groups that tilled the
+earth, made the road or lightered the harbored vessel, here and there
+a man was noticed who dragged his left leg a little as he walked. He
+was not crippled, nor deformed; he was likely, indeed, to be strong and
+formidable beyond his fellows; he did his day's work and earned his
+day's wage with the best. But the leg dragged—always would drag. And
+the reason passed in whispers: this was an old galley slave—a man who
+had worked at the <i>bagnio</i>. His leg, from force of habit, still
+paused for the effort that once dragged ball and chain behind it.</p>
+
+<p>I had not known Ingram long before I guessed that, at one period of
+his life or another, women had meant a great deal for him, but that
+they had never meant happiness. In what did the impression reside?
+I can't say. In a regard perhaps—an inflection of voice—an over
+quickness to catch sorrowful meanings—in what he did not say quite
+as much as in what he did. But I was as sure of it then when I knew
+nothing as now when I know everything. He could not always have loved
+in vain. Partings there had been, tearful, emotional, reluctant, but
+always partings. Letters reached him even now through changes and
+redirections, letters filled with bright, helpful gossip, of the new
+friends—the unimagined husband—the children that might so easily
+have been his; with only here and there between the lines, for his eye
+to see and no other, the tenderness that women keep for the man who
+could win their regard but not their persons. And if Ingram felt sure
+of anything, I knew he felt sure of this: that the chapter of his life
+from which they were a legacy was closed and dead—a great stone rolled
+to the door of its tomb, sealed and mortised, and guarded by a whole
+cohort of wise intentions. And now, in a week, he had fallen—fallen
+as precipitately as the greenest of "rash and inconsiderate youth."
+Relying on his experience and disillusionment, he had broken the
+covenant of the old, wise king, and, into some unsuspected vacuum of
+his heart, a pretty face, a plaintive regard, a few surface tricks
+of dress and manner had rushed and were not to be extricated without
+endless pain and trouble. Again and again, as he turned from side to
+side in the night watches, he went over the images of his fall, for so,
+in all seriousness, this strange man regarded it. He felt the thrill
+of the young throat stretched to meet him, caught the fragrance, so
+faint—so faint that he had not noticed it till then—of the orris
+root in which her clothes had lain folded; heard the little fluttering
+sigh as his fervor stopped her breath. It had been the first kiss of
+passion that had ever touched her lips; he knew because——oh! never
+mind how he knew. What, exactly, he wondered, and was not the first
+to wonder, did such a kiss signify to a good woman? Board and bed, he
+surmised dimly, at some future date; home and home circle, taxes and
+life insurance, doctor's bills, children clapping their hands round
+Christmas trees. And this from him! He laughed out in the darkness—so
+loud that the glass shade of the lamp by which he had read himself to
+sleep vibrated with the sound. From him, a mere embodied intelligence,
+driven by loneliness and mental suffering to self-expression, doomed
+now, while life should last, to breed and bear the calamitous offspring
+of the brain.</p>
+
+<p>He had given her his address because that much seemed called for in
+decency, but he did not expect a letter for a while. Yet when, after a
+few more feverish and wakeful hours and the immense solace of a cold
+tub, he passed into the sitting-room in his bath robe, a letter lay on
+the breakfast tray that he knew could be from no one else; a square
+pale mauve envelope, with an ingenious flap, addressed in a straggling
+schoolgirl hand.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Ingram</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you got home safe and had no <i>haresbreath</i> escapes
+from motors. I was nearly run over the other day, I only got on the
+pavement in the <i>knick</i> of time.</p>
+
+<p>"I have put the bird in the <i>conservatery</i> and given him a lot
+of seed, he throws it about with his <i>beek</i>, but hasn't eaten
+any. I haven't given him a name because I don't know yet if he is
+going to live. Ma was crazy, but I <i>smouthed</i> her down.</p>
+
+<p>"No one ever kissed me before, but some one did hold my hand once
+quite a long time. I couldn't <i>riggle</i> it away.</p>
+
+<p>"Rock is ill, he has eaten a <i>plumb</i> stone I think and will
+have (to) have some <i>caster</i> oil. If it was one of mine that
+makes it this year not never. How exciting!</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be at 14, Hanover Place to-morrow till 4.15. <i>P'raps</i>
+you would be near there if you are not writing.</p>
+
+<p>"I remain,</p>
+
+<p class="ph4">"Your loving friend,<br>
+"<span class="smcap">Fenella</span>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Paul read the strange letter over and over again, from its prim
+apostrophe to the shy little breath of sentiment at its close. The ink
+just there was a lighter color than the rest. It was evident that she
+had let the letter go dry while wondering how to sign herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho! ho!" he said aloud. "So Providence has given you a loving friend,
+has it? Now what's a man like yourself, Paul Ingram, to do with a
+loving friend and a conscience at one and the same time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Scrap the conscience!" said counsellor the first. "The girl's pretty
+and sweet."</p>
+
+<p>"Pull out before any more harm's done!" said another. "She's quite
+innocent."</p>
+
+<p>"Give time a chance," said the third—the one that outruns the hounds
+but never quite catches up with the hare. "You've got to hurt either
+her pride or her heart by making an end of it now, and there's always a
+chance her whim will wear out if you wait."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I'll do," said Ingram at last. "I'll tell her bit by bit
+what I am, and hint at what I'm likely to become. She'll see reason.
+There's often a lot of hard hog-sense at the bottom of these butterfly
+women."</p>
+
+<p>And, by way of starting well, he took her out to tea that afternoon,
+and was so genial and natural that the last shadow of self-reproach
+vanished from the poor child's heart. And before he left her he had
+promised to call for her at her home. He knew by now that she did not
+belong to his natural enemies, and the knowledge made it harder to
+"pull out" than ever.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I have spent a good deal of time upon this idyll, without, I am afraid,
+leaving a very just or a very pleasant impression of Paul Ingram upon
+the reader's mind. But there are many excuses to be made for him. In
+the first place, he was very poor—poorer than any of us guessed. He
+had that profuse careless way with money which is quite as often a
+consequence of never having had it as of having had it always. The
+commonest, and perhaps the safest, investment of a little money is
+to make present life bearable with it while it lasts. But the future
+is quite another matter. A great golfer told me once that for days
+after he had won a momentous handicap he was obsessed and haunted by
+the stealthy patter of the feet that had followed him from hole to
+hole. And I have no doubt that many a night, while the child sat upon
+his knee and retailed her day's gossip, sweet and unsubstantial as
+the sugary <i>étrennes</i> in a Paris confectioner's window, he was
+listening less to her than to the stealthy wolf-feet of poverty that
+he knew were creeping up behind him.</p>
+
+<p>And then he was, both constitutionally and through circumstances, an
+unhappy man. There are souls so designated and set apart for sorrow
+that it may be said of them, almost without paradox, that they are
+only at ease when bearing it. They grow to recognize in mischance the
+environment that suits them best. In such a mind an isolated reason
+for happiness cannot exist. It pines away for lack of company. Nothing
+convinces the heart of its sorrow so surely as a sudden discrepancy in
+its ill-luck—a belated and unassisted piece of good fortune. Fate has
+these freaks with those upon whose unhappiness she has determined. It
+is not so much her concern that they should have nothing as that they
+should always have a little less than might make them happy.</p>
+
+<p>I think he would have been a better lover for what, I if may be
+permitted a moment's plain speaking, I would call a little sane and
+healthy lust. But he was of the said race of literary lovers, the race
+of Swift, of Shelley, of Flaubert, who are as fatal to a woman's heart
+as they are harmless to her virtue.</p>
+
+<p>Last of all, I expect the girl, in her ignorance, was exacting, and
+had no notion how the smoothest curb can gall. I know for a fact that
+she insisted on his writing to her any evening on which he was not
+able to see her, and I can imagine no torture more refined for such
+a man than to have been forced to sit down, at the end of a long day
+of disappointment and mental drudgery, and answer some foolish, fond
+letter in language she could understand, and into which no trace of
+the <i>weltschmerz</i> should creep that was devouring his heart and
+killing hope and ambition by inches. Some of his letters which I have
+seen show that he took refuge in an irony and fantasy which make them
+something of literary curiosities. He addressed her by all sorts of
+strange names—"Crazy kid," "Dear Pierrette," "Maddest of March
+Hares." One letter is written in Quaker dialect.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sweet Friend</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"As arranged betwixt thee and me I called for thee yestereve at
+the house of thy worldly acquaintance, but hearkening timely the
+laughter of fools from an upper chamber, which is like to thorns
+crackling under a pot, refrained, and did not venture. I pray thee
+walk soberly, and so farewell."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Some, written, I fancy, in the illiterate and misspelt jargon of the
+cowboy of the plains, are, to me at least, unintelligible. At last it
+became easier to call than to write at any time, and he appeared an
+ardent lover for the very reasons that made him a laggard one.</p>
+
+<p>He put off the first call as long as he could, but a day came when it
+could be put off no longer. One foggy evening he found himself outside
+the railings at Number Eleven, and Fenella asked him if he was not
+coming in to show himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stay out late, you know, until you have," she said, with a
+little reproach in her voice. It was the first time she had spoken
+sadly to him.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour rose, a little flustered, as he came into the room, and
+thrust some family mending behind the cushion of her basket chair. Paul
+saw at once that she was of his own caste, and you never would have
+guessed how his heart went out to her. The heart was under disgrace
+just then, and a strict embargo laid upon its impulses.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so pleased to meet you at last," said Mrs. Barbour, when the
+first civilities were over, "and so interested to hear you are a
+literary man. My husband wrote a good deal during his life."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella was revolving, slowly, on the hearthrug before the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"Paul doesn't want to hear about books, mother," she said; "he's been
+reading stodge all day."</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Barbour was already searching the shabby book-shelves, packed
+tight with tattered exercise-books, coverless magazines, broken
+cardboard boxes, and a host of other things for which book-shelves were
+never intended.</p>
+
+<p>"My husband had a very fine library at one time," the widow went on, as
+she rummaged, "but most of the best books are upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>"With our lodgers," Fenella further explained. "We're very proud of
+our 'paying jests'; aren't we, mummy. We've had them for years—and
+years—and years." She let her voice die away, and stretched out her
+arms slowly, indicating, indeed, a considerable time vista. "What an
+actress!" thought Paul, watching her.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's one," said her mother at last, dusting a slim volume in a brown
+cloth binding. "Where <i>can</i> all your father's books have got to,
+Nelly?"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram took the book from her hand. Its pages had never been cut, and
+it exhaled the forlorn odor of the presentation copy. Its strange title
+attracted him—</p>
+
+<p>"Climatic Influences Upon the Reformation. A lecture delivered at Wells
+before the United Diocesan Congress, 18—. By the Honble. and Revd.
+Nigel Kedo Barbour, M. A."</p>
+
+<p>There was a boastful engraved book-plate inside the cover—all plumes
+and scrolls and quarterings.</p>
+
+<p>"Has my new hat come, mummy?" asked Fenella, suddenly, in the changed
+voice she kept for the serious affairs of life.</p>
+
+<p>"I bade Druce take it up to your room," answered mother. "Have you had
+tea yet, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Fenella, incisively. "Ring for some while I go upstairs,"
+and disappeared forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>Paul kept his eyes upon the mottled page, but knew he was undergoing a
+scrutiny at once legitimate and disquieting. Mrs. Barbour spoke at last:</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you don't think my little girl forward, Mr. Ingram."</p>
+
+<p>Paul raised his eyes, closing the book upon his forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>"I think her entirely charming."</p>
+
+<p>"I know she's impulsive," the mother went on. "Yes—she is. It makes me
+anxious."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't expect me to quarrel with her latest impulse," Ingram said,
+with one of his rare smiles.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour shook her head, secure in her own worldly wisdom and code
+of conduct.</p>
+
+<p>"But men make mistakes. Don't they? You know they do."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they do. I've made hundreds, but never the sort I think you
+mean."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," explained the clergyman's relict, "Fenella leads a strange
+life. Yes"—she repeated the phrase, as though she found it vaguely
+comforting—"a strange life. She's very bright and talented, and
+receives a great deal of attention; but for reasons that—well, for
+<i>reasons</i>, she can't see much of her friends here. I assure you,
+you are the first gentleman acquaintance she has ever asked in. You
+ought to feel very much flattered, Mr. Ingram."</p>
+
+<p>"To an extent that verges on embarrassment, Mrs. Barbour."</p>
+
+<p>"And then," the mother went on, in the heedless fashion that recalled
+her daughter, "she has a great number of fine relations who would be
+glad to show her attention if she'd make the first move. But Nelly
+won't be 'taken up'—that's what she calls it—<i>taken up</i>, by any
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" said Paul. "Let us be fellow-conspirators, Mrs. Barbour, and
+confine her bounty to the laborious and deserving class."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my!" exclaimed Mrs. Barbour, with sudden helplessness. "You do talk
+like my husband! It's quite uncanny."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella interrupted them, entering with noisy suddenness. The new hat,
+very large, very smart, was on her head. She looked quickly from one to
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>"What've you two been yapping about?" she asked. "Mother"—in an
+aggrieved voice—"this beastly hat is an inch too big all round. I told
+Clarice so, but you and she would talk me down. You never take my part
+with dressmakers and people. It'll have to be altered. Hats are getting
+smaller. Have you rung for tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"The maids are upstairs, dear. I'll go and get it myself."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she had left the room the girl seated herself on Ingram's
+knee and kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you and mummy talking about?" she said, rubbing her lips
+after the kiss. "The hat's a bit in the way isn't it? I hate things in
+the way, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not when I perceive them in time."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but we aren't going to have any, are we, Paul? No difficulties—no
+quarrels—nothing horrid."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram didn't answer her. Perhaps he was listening to those feet
+creeping, creeping up behind his shoulder.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>So the months passed. When it was too late, Ingram tried to tell
+her what he should have told her at first. But Nelly would admit
+nothing—listen to nothing. She turned all the clouds inside out and
+bade him confine his attention to the silver lining. Upon the subject
+of her dancing ambitions she entered an unaccountable and fatal
+reserve, but there was nothing else in her life she did not share with
+him. Through whatever fringe of whatever society she happened to be
+adorning at the moment she dragged her lover gallantly. Fenella led
+captive was Fenella less dangerous, and the old popularity revived
+at the news of her attachment. Men liked Ingram, and he was thought
+"distinguished," "unusual," even in circles that called him "Crabbed
+Age" and "The Satyr" behind his back. (Besides, when were satyrs ever
+unpopular?) A few mothers held up shuddering hands, but the daughters,
+being of the new generation, only seized the occasion to preach the
+new evangel, and, generally, to cleanse and sterilize the imagination
+of eld. Speculation, in fact, having spent itself, accepted the
+situation; and by the time the long-planned foreign holiday arrived,
+her mother thought her "improved," "more thoughtful, and more womanly."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV">XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">ALTHEA REES</p>
+
+
+<p>One airless July morning, a good many years ago, now, old Winstanley
+came bustling into the sporting editor's room, where I sat on a
+desk, swinging my legs and talking "bulldog" with Stedall. He had a
+typewritten slip of paper in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Probate and Admiralty for you this morning, my boy!" he said,
+addressing me. "Here's the cause list. There's two cases down.
+M—m—m! '<i>Vacuum Recovery Co. v. Owners of Dacia. Assessment for
+Salvage.</i>' That's a friendly case; it shouldn't take more than a
+couple of hours. Here's something spicier: '<i>Hepworth v. Hepworth: no
+parties named</i>.' It's a defended case. Special jury. Hepworth is old
+Lord Hallamshire's grandson, younger son of a younger son, but that's
+good enough for a 'Society Divorce,' lead and about a column and a
+half. If the turtle doves come on to-day, keep your eyes and ears open,
+Prentice! There's some dashed mystery about the case; secret marriage
+and that sort of thing. Mrs. Hep's a Yankee. There appears to have been
+a separation three years ago, and now the respondent wants the kid.
+Blackmail, no doubt."</p>
+
+<p>And off bustled Winstanley, fretting and bawling.</p>
+
+<p>If secret there were, no one seemed to have winded it but Winstanley.
+There were not more than the average knot of idlers in the public
+gallery. But the body of the court was filled with a bevy of
+smartly dressed women, and the five seniors who were briefed were
+all well-known leaders. The Salvage case was called first, but the
+Trinity Masters were not ready, and so the conjugal knot was attacked
+forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>Hart-Milner, the well-known silk and wit, opened with an appeal to the
+press. The case, said he, raised no point of any public importance, but
+its detail was of the most painful nature with which that court could
+be called upon to deal. How far such evidence as they were about to
+hear should ever be reported in the public sheets was, he thought, a
+vexed question. The entire position of the press in such matters might,
+at some future date, have to be revised, and he believed that the final
+decision would depend a great deal upon the restraint and decency
+with which the privilege had previously been handled. The position
+of the parties, moreover—at least of the party to whom his interest
+was confined—made a further and personal claim for indulgence upon a
+body whose association with literature was growing closer each year.
+The name which appeared upon the cause list—the name which he could
+well believe had grown to be to his client the intolerable symbol of
+all she sought relief from to-day—was, it is true, as obscure as it
+was besmirched. But it was far different with the petitioner's maiden
+name. That name, a name which, in accordance with a line of defence he
+left his friend on the other side to justify if he could, it seemed was
+to be imported into this sordid case, it would be only necessary to
+mention, in order at once to strike a responsive chord in the breasts
+of all who had the interest of literature at heart. (A pause, and "Oh!
+you are <i>strong</i>," from Nicholls, leading for respondent.) In her
+capacity of authoress, petitioner was well known to the reading public
+as "Althea Rees."</p>
+
+<p>My! what a buzz and hum and craning of necks! And how the people who
+were <i>in</i> congratulated themselves on being in, and of having
+refused to be frightened away by the possible technicalities of Vacuum
+Salvage, and how they determined that no luncheon interval should tempt
+them away from the precincts of the court.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, 'imported into the case,'" goes on Hart-Milner, when order
+had been restored, "because I believe I am divulging no secret when
+I say that the other side intend to plead condonation, and to take
+the unprecedented course of deducing it, not only from letters that
+passed between the parties subsequent to the alleged offences, but
+from passages in the published work of the petitioner bearing upon the
+position of the sexes—passages which, I make no doubt, my learned
+friend will know not only how to select, but——"</p>
+
+<p>Nicholls was on his feet. "M'lud! I protest most strongly against the
+line my learned friend is seeing fit to take. My learned friend can
+have no knowledge whatever of what is in my brief."</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Sir Frederick, I should let it alone at the present stage,"
+the president suggests pacifically. "If it's there, we'll come to it in
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, m'lud! Then I'll open my case. The petitioner—Althea Clara
+Hepworth, born Althea Clara Rees—only daughter of Mr. Lyman Rees,
+president of the Anglo-Occidental Bank, an American gentleman resident
+in London, and who has been for years a prominent figure ..." and so
+on, and so on, and so on.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I think I see the scene now. The dim court, packed with its restless,
+seated occupants; the long shafts of light from the Gothic window over
+the judge's seat, all alive with dust motes; the bearded president,
+with chin on hand; the intent, puzzled faces of the special jurymen;
+and Hart-Milner on his feet, relating, in a voice low but distinct,
+and vibrating with the multiplex humanity that made him the darling of
+Bar and Commons, the devilish tale of physical and spiritual brutality
+in which a man had sought revenge for the inferiority that daily
+self-comparison with a woman high-spirited, witty, and admired enforced
+upon his own base soul.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of the opening speech the petitioner went into the box.
+She was a pathetic figure; all the more so, I thought, because she was
+so beautifully gowned. I remember her dress well. It was of brown silk,
+with the wide velvet sleeves that no one thought hideous in eighteen
+hundred and—never mind. She had a flower hat covered with pale blue
+violets, and a bunch of the same flowers at her breast. She kept her
+veil down as much as possible, and answered in low monosyllables, or in
+little, faltering sentences that one could hardly catch, and that often
+had to be repeated for the benefit of the jury. The questions were
+frightful. Even Hart-Milner could not do much with them.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholls, with his long, mottled face, and jaw as of a dishonest
+horse-chaunter, jumped up to cross-examine—loathing his task, but all
+the more truculent for that.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at these letters, please!"</p>
+
+<p>A bundle of letters, on a woman's fanciful note-paper, sewn into a
+stiff paper cover, was taken across by the gowned usher.</p>
+
+<p>"They are yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Some are dated, some aren't. May we take it the undated ones were
+written within two or three months of those that are?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"During your husband's absence in Norway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Written two years after the court has been told that your happiness
+and peace of mind and health had been wrecked, your faith in human
+nature destroyed, and written to the man who was responsible for all
+these things?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Come! Let's read one or two."</p>
+
+<p>He read them one by one. Foolish, flippant, loving letters. The letters
+of a poor little girl-wife, hungering for love and kisses, and—yes,
+why not?—for cuddling (the very word was in one of them); and, in
+her longing, turning for it to the dishonored, tainted source whence
+alone she could ask it now. The poor soul broke down and cried as the
+merciless, rasping voice read on and on.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I ask you, and I ask the jury, is this condonation? And if it
+isn't, what is?"</p>
+
+<p>Althea threw her arms out with a little stiff, appealing gesture that
+she checked immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she sobbed, "what could I do? I was only a girl. I believed what
+he told me. He said all men were the same."</p>
+
+<p>The case had not concluded when the court rose. I sprinted back to the
+office. The compositor was waiting for me, but I pushed by him and
+opened the door of Winstanley's sanctum.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" said he, scarcely turning round; "you're late. What have you
+brought?"</p>
+
+<p>"Half a column."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it a dry case?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's one that shouldn't be reported at all."</p>
+
+<p>He spun round in his chair and regarded me savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"That means it's d——d good! What's your game, Prentice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Winstanley," I said nervously, "there <i>are</i> things,
+you know——"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know it at all. People who go into the courts are public
+property. If they don't like it, they can stay outside."</p>
+
+<p>"And besides——"</p>
+
+<p>"Besides what?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's my Mrs. Hepworth."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your</i> Mrs. Hepworth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Althea Rees, the authoress."</p>
+
+<p>He jumped up, and began to pace the floor savagely. "That's so like
+you. I suspect something; I send you down because you can gush, and,
+instead of sending your stuff out early and getting the scoop, you turn
+up late, with ten lines for the public and a lot of tripe about 'a
+woman's heart' for me."</p>
+
+<p>Well, like Fenella, I '<i>smouthed</i>' him down. He wasn't a bad
+little beast, when you knew him—Winstanley. It wasn't his fault if his
+veins were full of printer's ink. I told him the <i>Herald</i> and the
+<i>Courier</i> were doing the same as me. He sat grumbling.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn in your stuff, then, and come back here. I'll send down Chaffers
+to-morrow, and you can do old Astbury at the City Carlton. You don't
+deserve anything better."</p>
+
+<p>But Chaffers, and a good many other people, had their trouble for
+nothing. Next morning Nicholls arose in a packed court and announced
+that, after consultation, his client had decided to withdraw his
+defence, and would take a verdict by consent; each party to pay
+their own costs, and neither custody of nor access to the child of
+the marriage to be sought. Which decision Sir William Vieille, the
+president, commended in a little speech that left no doubt which way
+his direction would have gone. And I, hearing the result at midday,
+sent Althea the biggest bunch of pale violets I could find in St.
+Swithin's Lane. The price of violets in July, was, I admit, an
+eye-opener.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>You will have guessed it was not on principle alone that I took all
+this trouble and risk. I had interviewed Althea a year before on
+some shop-assistants' movement or other (she was a woman of varied
+activities); and something in the name upon the card I had sent in
+seemed to strike her. When the interview was over she asked me to wait,
+and, having left the room for a few moments, came back with her father.
+Mr. Rees was a big, old-time, orating and banqueting type of American
+citizen, with a clean-shaven, ivory-white face and thick silver hair.
+He carried a great expanse of starched shirt-front, wore a narrow
+black tie, and I rather fancied I detected Wellington boots under his
+broadcloth trousers. He had my card in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name is Hyacinth Prentice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be some relative of Hyacinth Prentice of Prentice and
+Morales?"</p>
+
+<p>I said I was his son.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me your hand, my boy!" said the old gentleman, impulsively. It
+was the last time I was to be called a boy; but I suppose I seemed
+young to him, and, indeed, a permanent immaturity of aspect is one of
+my disadvantages.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew your father well," goes on old Lyman Rees. "He was one of the
+first friends I made when I came to London in sixty—sixty——? Oh,
+very well, my dear," for Althea had laid her hand gently upon his
+mouth. "We lost sight of one another before the trouble. I wrote him,
+though. I said: 'Don't try to reconstruct! Don't show the bad trading!
+Buy off the debenture holders! Give them twice the value in ordinary
+shares if they insist, and raise another hundred thousand in debenture
+on the Chili property.' But your father was an ill man to advise. Ah,
+well; it's an old tale to-day. Althea, we mustn't lose sight of Hy
+Prentice's son. When we are dining by ourselves?"</p>
+
+<p>Althea gave a date that was significantly far ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm always at home on Sundays," she added, smiling a good-bye.
+"Come in whenever the English Sunday becomes unendurable, Mr. Prentice."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>My floral offering must have been only one of many she received, for
+all manner of fine friends rallied to her in her trouble; but, perhaps,
+coming from a poor devil of a working journalist, the tribute struck
+her imagination. A few days afterward I got a little note chiding me
+for never having taken advantage of the old invitation, and bidding me
+to dinner at the end of the week.</p>
+
+<p>I am not a sentimentalist, whatever Winstanley may pretend he believes,
+but I confess that in the course of a friendship which dated from this
+dinner Althea became a sort of a heroine with me. Poor woman! the veil
+had been so roughly snatched from all the tender privacies of her life
+that I think I had the same satisfaction in bringing her my sympathy
+and consideration as a knight-errant may have felt, covering with his
+own cloak the naked, shamefaced captive whom his sword had cut loose in
+the forest. In fact, we became so far friends that one night, more than
+six months after her decree had been confirmed, she bade me, in saying
+good-night, congratulate her on a very serious step she was taking
+on the morrow. I thought she was going to be married, and I admit my
+heart sank a little. But it was nothing of the sort, as she explained
+hastily. She was on the eve of reception into the Roman Catholic
+Church.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XV">XV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">HISTORY OF A CONVERSION</p>
+
+
+<p>She first came into contact with Catholicism—I mean close personal
+contact, for, during her residence upon the Continent, such things
+had passed her like a painted show—during a stay she made in late
+autumn with the Mawhoods (pronounce "<i>Maud</i>," please!) in Norfolk.
+Harberhall, Sir Cuthbert Mawhood's seat, famous for its tapestries and
+formal gardens, is one of the great houses of England. It was also,
+for nigh upon two hundred years, while the Howards were tacking and
+trimming, the only important stronghold of the prescribed faith in East
+Anglia. It has been beset for weeks together by spies and pursuivants;
+its gray flint Tudor walls are honeycombed with secret stairways,
+sliding panels and "conveyances." Father Fitzsimon or Hopwell, the
+seventeenth-century Abelard, lay concealed there for six months during
+the Oates mystification, and a strip of sea-beach almost under the
+park walls, called Paces to-day, is said to preserve in its name the
+tradition of his restless night walks. Set upon a steep hill that
+overlooks the fowl-haunted levels of the Wash, there is everything
+in the position and associations of Harberhall to arouse a romantic
+enthusiasm, and to turn that enthusiasm toward the great central fact
+which has lifted a commonplace county family to the heights of heroism
+and self-sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>The chapel of the Mawhoods is a modern Gothic building of the elder
+Pugin, whose windows are filled with stained glass from a French abbey
+demolished in the Revolution, and is connected with the hall only
+by a long wing of palm-houses and vineries. It is also the parish
+church of the village below the hill. During the last hundred years
+a small congregation of the faith has grown up there, dependents and
+old servants' children's children. The Mawhoods have married much
+abroad, and little trace remains of the Jansenism with which so many
+of the old Catholic families were once tainted. On a hunt morning,
+which also happened to be a feast of the Church, Sir Cuthbert and his
+two tall sons in pink approached the sacred altar among their servants
+and laborers. The Confiteor was recited by the surpliced server—the
+tabernacle unveiled. Above each head the chaplain, a tall, curly haired
+young doctor, himself a scion of an old West of England cavalier
+family, and predestined to the purple, bent reverently and murmured
+some formula that Althea could not catch. All returned to their places
+with downcast eyes and clasped hands, but with the easiness of long
+habit as well. Mass went on with many genuflections—many salutations
+from the altar steps, with tinkling of crystal vessels against the gold
+chalice rim, and one ecstatic minute in which the bowed congregation
+seemed to hold its breath, while a bell trilled sharply six times.
+During the mass the pupils of a convent school outside the village,
+directed by a community of French refugee nuns, many of them cousins
+and kinsfolk to the hall, sang English hymns in sweet quavering
+voices—vapid, unmetrical compositions of the veiled cloister, though
+not without a certain sentimental charm of their own:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"O Sacred Heart: behold thy children kneeling...."</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><i>or</i></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"Oh, turn to Jesus, Mother turn!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And call Him by His tenderest names...."</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This blessed <i>eau sucré</i> brought tears to Althea's eyes. Harkening
+it, she seemed somehow to recover her own hapless, "ill-adventured
+youth." The spell of the old, wise religion, so guileless and yet so
+subtle, which never seeks to explain the inexplicable, and which is as
+tender to those who have lost their happiness as it is merciless to
+those who are seeking it, fell over her. The end was never in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>I should like to have been near Althea while she was "under
+instruction." I don't mean on account of anything she would have said,
+for, like most original thinkers, she was capable of infinite docility;
+but just to have watched her face while the Catholic doctrine, say as
+to the relation between physical and moral evil, was explained for
+her benefit. For she was a child of revolt, if ever there was one;
+far more akin to Bruno than to Augustine, to Leopardi than to Newman.
+Innately sceptical, a scoffer in the grain, I suppose she discovered
+that beyond all negation a doubt persists, and decided to give God
+and the creed that speaks most confidently for Him the benefit of
+it. Even after her conversion she liked to play at heresy—to be
+<i>enfant terrible</i>—to have grave monsignori wag their fingers
+half reprovingly at her. Her religion remained intensely personal,
+and she was never impressed, as some worthy converts have been, by
+the spectacle of the Church as a "great going concern." Its dogma
+oppressed her: she was not strong enough physically or nervously to
+endure its elaborate ritual, and would often leave her seat in church,
+suffocating, in the very middle of high mass. What she liked best was
+to creep away at dusk, when the world is busied with shopping and tea,
+and, before some dimly lit side altar in Farm Street or Brompton, to
+set herself adrift upon an ocean of sentiment that, with a little more
+conviction and a little less self-consciousness, might almost have
+become ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>Her new interest was immediately made apparent in her books, for her
+characters henceforth began to talk theology in season and out of
+season. At an earlier stage of her career, I submit, this would have
+missed her her public. But her reputation was by now secure: her annual
+novel was eagerly awaited by the "passionate few" whose suffrage alone
+fine writing can win. Besides, it was noticeable her asceticism
+never strayed far from the purlieus and issues of Mayfair. One got up
+from her books feeling that one had been in very fine company indeed.
+She had that affinity to the highly placed which is less snobbery, I
+believe, than a kind of perverse idealism. And, beneath all the pomp
+and circumstance, sorrow always worked regardless of earthly shows, and
+kept the balance true.</p>
+
+<p>Such, as far as the world has any right to know her, was Althea Rees
+at the date I tried to make her Paul Ingram's earthly providence. I
+pleaded his cause, not perhaps as strongly as I might, because I wanted
+the man and his work to complete the impression for themselves. That
+they might do more—that in trying to work good I might be working
+mischief—was a thought that, I protest, never once occurred to me.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">HOA-HAKA-NANA-IA</p>
+
+
+<p>It doesn't much matter how early in the autumn we come back to London;
+upon our return we always find the season has stolen a march upon
+us. Paul arrived in town on a dark, rainy afternoon. The impatient,
+scowling skies were already beginning the ruin of the short-lived
+English summer. Beyond the railway terminus the streets, with their
+stream of jostling umbrellas, their straining horses and shiny-coated
+drivers, were both bewildering and disheartening. Victoria was full
+of belated holiday makers setting an anxious face seaward. And on all
+sides, from the railway announcements with which the walls of the
+vestibule were placarded, from the covers of the summer magazines that
+still heaped the book-stalls, from advertisements of soap and jam and
+pickles and liquors, girl faces simpered and ogled. Girls in punts,
+dabbling their hands in lilied water: sunburnt girls in orchards,
+carrying baskets filled with apples: languid girls in hammocks, with
+shapely ankles peeping discreetly from their frilled skirts: girls
+smiling from carriage windows, or standing with hounds in leash on
+windy moors—but always girls, always women. In some of these journals
+there might be food for thought or fruit of experience: here and
+there—though rarely—an author's name seemed earnest of this; but in
+every case, for the written word as for bottled mineral water or patent
+cereal, the lure was the same—some pretty, foolish face; something
+to excite and feed for a moment the idle desire of the eye. Paul, as
+he viewed these things biliously, wondered whether it were true after
+all, as his French captain had declared to him once with cursing and
+swearing, that the Anglo-Saxon was the most woman-ridden race in the
+world; and, alas! remembering how he himself had been employed during
+the last fortnight, a spasm of self-contempt contracted and hardened
+his heart. He felt degraded, commonplace, banal; caught in the toils
+of the delusion that has deposed woman from her proper place as man's
+helpmeet and propounds her, tricked and adorned and set on a pedestal,
+as his reward.</p>
+
+<p>He put his baggage in the cloak-room, and made first of all for my
+lodgings in Pimlico. This was particularly unfortunate, as Mrs.
+McNaughten, deceived by the morning's fair promise, had driven me forth
+betimes, bidding me, under pain of her displeasure, which is no light
+threat, not to return till night, the while my room should be swept and
+scoured, "before the murk days comes, and a body canna tell dir-rt frae
+darkness." Scribbling a message in the narrow hall, while his umbrella
+made a pool upon its shabby oilcloth and Dulcinea, with pail and broom,
+ascended laboriously to her attack upon matter in the wrong place, Paul
+had an opportunity for contemplating the rewards of literature, the
+sort that does get into print. It cannot have been inspiriting.</p>
+
+<p>His own rooms were in Cowley Street, Westminster. He approached them,
+through Broad Sanctuary, with the sense of expectancy that every
+one feels after even a short absence who nears the spot upon which
+the activities of his life converge. He had not left his French
+address—and so much can happen in a fortnight!</p>
+
+<p>There was only one letter and a packet: the harvest of two weeks! The
+package contained his bank pass-book. He glanced at it hastily and
+tossed it aside. The letter was from America, from the lawyers who
+managed a slender inheritance that had devolved upon him some years
+ago, as a tardy act of justice, years after the foreclosure upon his
+mother's farm. As he read it, the blood left his cheeks under their
+superficial sunburn. He pocketed it, and made a hasty calculation
+upon his fingers—counting months perhaps—or even weeks. He looked
+round his sitting-room with hunted eyes. They were particularly
+pleasant quarters, these rooms of Ingram's, in a charming old early
+Georgian house behind the Abbey. Their windows had deep seats and
+looked across the cloistral calm of Cowley Street to similar quaint
+windows, curtained with art fabrics and with a hint of pottery and
+brass beyond. Actresses of the serious sort, journalists, an artist
+or two, one junior Cabinet Minister, were his neighbors. He was proud
+and fond of the old-world parlor—of its panelled walls, the slight
+list of its floor, its grotesque fire-back and grate. It had been his
+home now for two years; even the dust and stillness that lay on it
+after a fortnight's absence seemed consecrated—seemed <i>his</i>. All
+the books and most of the furniture was his own. It is marvellous how
+much wandering and uprooting the instinct of a home-making race will
+survive. As, give a couple of beavers in an exhibition tank a few logs,
+and watch the poor beasts start building!</p>
+
+<p>He had a hasty lunch and went to the Museum. He read hard: he was too
+disturbed to write. In its untroubled atmosphere little by little his
+agitation left him. A pleasant sense of comradeship reached him from
+silent neighbors, many of whom had grown gray in the same thankless
+task. He felt he would always be able to breathe freely here. There was
+a respite after all, and projects would suggest themselves once his
+mind was at rest. Once it was at rest! For certain distractions must be
+put out of his way once and for all. He was sorry, truly sorry, for the
+girl who used to sit quietly beside him reading "Who's Who" or turning
+the leaves of some illustrated book—there, in the seat where the mad
+poet was mowing and scribbling this afternoon, but he was sorry for her
+only in the same impersonal sense that he was sorry for the woes with
+which the musty volume before him was filled:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"Old unhappy, far-off things</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And battles long ago."</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>After all, self-preservation was the first law, and one could not
+accept a real responsibility for anything that was as inevitable
+as this. He was quite cheerful when I met him for dinner at the
+<i>À-peu-près</i>, and even pleasantly ironic at the expense of a white
+shirt-front and black tie which I was weak enough to think an evening
+call upon a lady in Portland Place demanded.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Althea received us in her own sanctum upon the second floor: a long,
+beautiful Adams room with creamy white walls hung sparsely with
+Carpacciesque Italian drawings in red chalk, a few water-colors of the
+old English school, and one great painting of the mad Venetian master,
+all splash and impasto, which, seen close at hand, was like a lichen
+stain on an old red wall, but, at a little distance, teemed with form
+and color. A bookcase of dark carved wood ran breast-high round the
+walls. Along its deep shelf were ranged bronzes, old Nankin jars,
+fragmental majolica figures—with an occasional faded embroidery or red
+morocco missal clasped with hammered silver. The carpet was of thick,
+dead-leaf-colored pile, and a brass railed fender with a wide leather
+seat ran across the low marble mantelpiece. Althea's room always struck
+me, personally, as the last word in that austere taste which roams the
+world, seeking and rejecting, in its quest of the beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>She rose to meet us, and Paul had the impression of a woman, still
+young, in a loose pale satin gown, rather clumsy of figure but graceful
+of movement, with chestnut hair dressed low on her forehead, gray eyes
+under thick dark brows, a heavy jaw and just a hint of sensuality in
+the mouth. Her arms and hands were white and perfectly shaped; her ears
+finely modelled, and set as close to the head as though they had been
+carved from it in low relief.</p>
+
+<p>As long as I was there we only talked commonplace, and I left them
+early, pleading the editorial discipline. I thought I had done my
+part in bringing them together, and walked back to Pimlico "on
+eggshells." But no sooner was I gone, (so I have heard since,) than
+she recrossed the room and, seating herself upon the fender, gazed at
+Ingram in silence for a long while. Try to imagine what balm to the
+misunderstood, thwarted spirit that level, frankly admiring regard must
+have been.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me all about it!" she said at last, abruptly and impulsively.</p>
+
+<p>Paul smiled back into the intense gray eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"All about what?"</p>
+
+<p>"How you ever came to write such a story."</p>
+
+<p>She reached to the mantel-shelf, and, taking down a square silver
+cigarette-box, scrawled all over its top and sides with well-known
+women's names, handed it across to him. She lit one herself and
+arranged her satin draperies.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak as though I had 'arrived!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! success will come," she said confidently. "It's the beginnings
+that are most fascinating. I want to be taken behind the scenes. Come,
+wizard!" she pleaded "let me be inquisitorial and curious while I'm
+under your spell. To-morrow you'll be my rival. Who knows but that I
+may hate you then?"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram considered a moment, and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"There's not much to tell," he said slowly. "You may have heard or
+guessed that I'm a poor man's son. We have our decayed families in
+Massachusetts, though I suppose we haven't quite so far back to decay.
+I didn't learn much more at free school than to read and write and
+figure, but you know with what care and reverence the first steps are
+guarded in our country. Nothing so trivial and hopeless as the average
+English taste in letters could leave even our primaries. I may say 'our
+country,' 'our primaries,' may I not?"</p>
+
+<p>She flashed her sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Afterward I led a very lonely life for years. I don't mean
+comparative loneliness, or even such loneliness as a man may achieve
+for himself in any big city. I mean weeks, months, with never a human
+face. And during that time I think"—he laughed—"I think I read every
+book in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"No writing? No early efforts?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was twenty-eight before I tried. When I wrote my first essay I'd
+almost forgotten how to hold a pen. Please," he urged quickly, "you
+must try and believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am believing every word you say."</p>
+
+<p>"I was a soldier in the French army. Oh! no glory—just drudgery.
+Very good society though: I still believe my corporal was an Austrian
+bishop. We were on detachment in the desert, and of course English
+books weren't to be had. Besides, some of the lads from Alsace were
+eager to learn, and it seemed a chance before I forgot it myself. I
+had met all sorts of strange characters, and began to try and set them
+down as I remembered them. Then it was only a step to putting them in
+new situations and figuring out how they'd make good. And then—and
+then—it seemed to me I made a discovery."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, a little agitated, filled his lungs with smoke, and emptied
+them before he spoke again. Althea sat quite still.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, please," she said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"In all the stories I had read the character seemed to start,
+full-fledged, on the first page. All the action of the book develops
+it and shows it up. Now that might be literature, but it wasn't life.
+What was the reason? Not a mistake; because the best men do it. No. But
+I think unconsciously they are following the line of least resistance.
+They start the first chapter under a disadvantage: with the last one in
+their heads. And they even get praise for preserving the unities—the
+<i>unities</i>!—of <i>life</i>! What a lot of guessing it would save!
+I ended by believing there's no such thing as a consistent character
+at all. There's something we hang our convictions on as we hang
+clothes on pegs, but all the rest is just things happening—things
+happening—things happening. And in the intervals"—he laughed again,
+"as much character as you like to indulge in: as much as you feel you
+can stand yourself. Am I tiring you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Take my book. You've read it through?"</p>
+
+<p>"And through again."</p>
+
+<p>"What's Patty Holt? Only a ranch-woman who broils, and bakes, and
+washes, and irons, and has wandering loves. What's her husband? An
+Indian trader, who holds up trains and has views on the revision of
+Hamilton's masterpiece, the Constitution of the United States. Neither
+of them know either how good or how bad they are. Conviction for him
+would come with the rope round his neck, and for her when the Ashplant
+Vigilance Committee gave her twenty-four hours to bisect the state
+boundary line at right angles."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be compared with Madame Bovary, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Very unfairly, then. Emma Bovary is a romantic-minded woman set amid
+prosaic surroundings, and Holt's wife is a commonplace woman set in
+romantic ones. What's wanting to romance? Her lovers ride and kill.
+I suppose if they rode—what's the word—<i>destriers</i> instead of
+cow-ponies, and carried two-handed swords instead of thirty-thirties,
+they'd be legitimate subjects for the most full-blooded cap and sword
+romance. And there was—I mean there is—violent and horrid death
+at hand any time the Ute bucks lift a demijohn of fifty overproof
+Peach Bloom Rye going up to a mining camp. No, what weighs them
+both down is just the sordidness of the transplanted civilization
+around them, and when the crash comes all they have to turn to is the
+little meeting-house God of their youth, which the woman has outgrown
+unconsciously during her emotional experiences."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely——What about Mr. Ffoulkes? You don't think that he——?"</p>
+
+<p>Paul jumped to his feet and thrust his hands into his pockets with an
+impatient movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Everard Ffoulkes! The cowboy bishop! Isn't it funny how unerringly
+even good criticism puts his finger on the one true thing, and declares
+'That couldn't happen.' Why he's '<i>vécu</i>'—'<i>erlebt</i>,' every
+word and action of him. I've ridden with him, camped with him, bunked
+with him, and even prayed with him."</p>
+
+<p>Althea regarded him awhile, through the smoke haze, with eyes narrowed
+to slits.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ingram," she said, flinging her cigarette away, "I'm going to help
+you publish your book, but I'm going to hurt you first. Now—are you
+ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go right ahead."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to modify it. Oh! don't bristle and scold. I know I've
+touched a nerve. But on your own confession you've lived away from
+the world a long time, and you have no conception of"—she paused
+for a strong enough word—"the impregnable determination of our race
+that certain things shall not be—I won't say discussed, but even
+postulated. It's too strong for the strongest of us. The Inquisition
+and the Index are indulgent beside it. It's begun to hurt social
+progress; but even social progress has to mark time and wait its
+pleasure. Right in the midst of our civilization, Mr. Ingram, a great,
+rough-hewn granite god uprears his bulk. I always imagine him something
+like the Easter Island deity you have to pass on your right going into
+the Museum—no forehead, cavernous eye-sockets, vast nostrils and
+mouth—<span class="smcap">Hoa-haka-nana-ia</span>: the god of things as they must be
+supposed to be. And his thighs and stomach are simply larded with the
+smoke of intellectual sacrifice. There is a legend, you know, that no
+great literary work, once carried through, has failed to somehow or
+another reach the world. I fancy Hoa could throw some light on that
+tale. Shall we go on the balcony? It's rather warm in here."</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand to her forehead as he followed her down the room.
+Outside the rain had ceased, and the September night was clear and
+fresh. Across the nobly planned street, the broadest and most effective
+prospect in London, the windows of the great stuccoed mansions were
+dark and shuttered, with only here and there a pale glow in fanlight
+or upper window, but the many storied Langham Hotel, filled with
+trans-Atlantic birds of passage, closed the vista cheerily, and a broad
+flare of light round the corner showed where Regent Street and the
+shops and restaurants began.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know French well?" she asked, presently.</p>
+
+<p>"Only everyday French and a few curiosities I'm trying to forget."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pity. You could have turned your book into a French novel, and
+then translated it."</p>
+
+<p>Paul shook his head. "I wouldn't do that. It's here or nowhere. The
+very houses, the very self-satisfied faces, are a challenge."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it wonderful?" Althea mused, leaning on the rail and regarding
+the houses opposite. "And this is only one street. There are hundreds
+like it. House after house, wealth upon wealth, millions running to
+milliards till the brain reels. And in hardly one a single misgiving, a
+single suspicion that the same fate which measures can re-measure. Only
+pleasure, food, fine raiment, and the stealthy rapture of possession.
+But it can't go on forever." She shook her head. "No, here in the
+cradle of the race the racial revolution will come about. These sober,
+policed streets will be the theatre of the completest subversion the
+world has ever known. It's one of the charms of living in London, where
+things <i>will</i> happen. I have my visions. Westminster Cathedral
+full of little beds is one—I don't know why—and nurses and doctors
+with their sleeves rolled up.... What made you call your book 'Sad
+Company,' Mr. Ingram?" she asked, with a sudden inconsequence. "Did you
+know it was a quotation?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. I may have seen it somewhere and forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't this, was it?—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"'Go from me! I am one of those that fall.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What! has no cold wind swept your heart at all</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In my sad company?...'</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"—Let us go in. It's not as warm as I thought. I'll ring for coffee,
+and introduce you to my father. I've let him dip into your manuscript.
+You don't mind? He's one of the proprietors of the <i>Parthenon</i>,
+so be very pleasant and alert. He's been in Colorado, too, and thinks
+a lot of your scenery passages." She turned and, smiling, held up a
+finger impressively. "Mind! I say your <i>scenery</i>."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVII">XVII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE CONTINENTAL EXPRESS</p>
+
+
+<p>I heard nothing from Paul for days, and was beginning to think
+reproachfully of his conduct, when, on the morning of the third day, a
+note was brought by hand to the <i>Panoply</i> office. It was short and
+rather cryptic. He was evidently in some trouble, the exact nature of
+which he didn't disclose. He wanted me to come to him at once, and to
+keep the afternoon open.</p>
+
+<p>I hurried down after lunch. Mrs. Gribble's face as she opened his hall
+door expressed relief. Paul has always been rather yearned upon by his
+landladies.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I'm that glad you've come, Mr. Prentice," the good woman said, as
+she ushered me up the wide, shallow stair. "I don't think Mr. Ingram
+oughter be alone. He's bin talkin' to hisself dreadful all night. Me
+nor my 'usband couldn't get no sleep for harkening at 'im."</p>
+
+<p>I entered the room with that air of boisterous incredulity which men
+keep for a stricken brother.</p>
+
+<p>"On your back, Ingram? Nothing much wrong, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>Paul was lying on the bed, half clad and in his dressing-gown. His
+pipe was in his mouth, and through the drift of tobacco smoke, with
+which the dark, oddly shaped little room was filled, I thought his face
+looked drawn. He motioned me to a chair with a wet pipe stem.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down and help yourself to tobacco," he said, and smoked on in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Prentice!" he broke out all of a sudden, so abruptly that I let the
+match I was striking fall; "did you ever break a woman's heart?"</p>
+
+<p>I gaped at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not joking. I really am collecting evidence on the subject.
+I've been studying it hard now for two days and a night. There's
+not much help, is there," pointing out the open window, "in three
+chimney-pots and a demolition? If you hadn't come, I was prepared to
+take Mrs. Gribble's opinion. Come, Prentice—man to man—have you
+ever——?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I answered, rather shortly. "I've been too busy all my life."</p>
+
+<p>"But it can be done?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ingram, you know 'women' is not a subject I've specialized on."</p>
+
+<p>"But still, you keep your eyes open?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then; I can't say I think it often happens: nothing like as
+often as the other way round; and yet——"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet——I know. It may. And some people are doomed to knock their
+heads against exceptions all their lives."</p>
+
+<p>He twisted himself to one side with the weak and peevish movement of a
+man seeking relief on the rack.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the woman you're—er—writing about young, or only still young?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's very, very young," he answered, with a curious sort of
+smile—bitter and yet tender at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" I commented cheerfully. "That's tremendously in her favor."</p>
+
+<p>Paul smoked on. "I really didn't bring you here to talk generalities,
+Prentice," he said after a while. "Can you meet some people for me on
+the 3.45 Continental train at Charing Cross?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him my afternoon was at his disposal.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a sure good friend," he said simply, and I took the little
+phrase in full payment. Paul was seldom American in idiom but when he
+was touched or excited. "There's a mother and daughter—Mrs. and Miss
+Barbour. Let's see now; how will you spot them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did the daughter by any chance come with you to the <i>À-peu-près</i>,
+three weeks ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, Prentice; I had forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall know her again," I said, smiling a little behind my
+cigarette. Poor, unworldly Paul! "What am I to tell them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just figuring it out."</p>
+
+<p>"What is really the matter, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mental vertigo, from thinking too long in a circle, really."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I understand. A sort of moral fatigue."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a splendid name for it."</p>
+
+<p>"But will she—will they, be satisfied with that? Shall I be asked
+questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say I'm run down."</p>
+
+<p>"Run down and no visitors. Have I got it right?"</p>
+
+<p>"And that I'm writing. Don't forget that part. How's time?"</p>
+
+<p>I went to the window and looked at my watch. "Just time to do it
+comfortably."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, then, and thank you, Prentice, from my heart. You're doing
+me a big favor. Oh! by the way," calling me back from the door. "About
+Mrs. Hepworth."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's written, making an appointment for to-night. The book, you know.
+More mutilation. I can't go as I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well—I'll 'phone her."</p>
+
+<p>I paused with my finger on the doorknob. "I can say 'moral fatigue' to
+her, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram seemed to think a moment. I wondered whether I had sounded
+impertinent.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, slowly. "I think you can say it to her."</p>
+
+<p>I reached Charing Cross with nearly ten minutes in hand. The 3.45
+Continental, having probably thrown every local and slow train on the
+line half an hour out of its reckoning, was signalled "on time." A long
+line of porters was strung out along the curved platform. Motor-cars
+and carriages awaited the great ones of the earth, and a score of
+people paced the flagstones. Among them a couple of press men nodded
+absently to me. Punctually to time and quietly, as the expected always
+happens, the Folkestone express pushed its smoky old nose into the
+station. Porters shouted and jumped on the step, doors flew open, and
+the platform was covered in a trice with a jostling crowd of veiled
+women and ulstered men, the awkwardness of the long journey still
+in their cramped limbs. My trained eye searched the crowd rapidly
+but thoroughly for the girl I was to meet, and presently I saw her,
+beautiful, happily anxious, becomingly disordered from travel, and with
+perhaps a warmer pallor in her cheeks than when I had seen her last.
+She did not know me, of course, and it was the strangest, saddest thing
+in the world to feel myself scanned unconcernedly and passed over by
+the expectant eyes I had come to cloud, and maybe fill with tears. I
+reached her side and lifted my hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barbour, I think."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me with a slight stiffening of the figure.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Prentice. I am a friend of Paul Ingram's."</p>
+
+<p>"Of Paul's? Is he here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barbour, pray do not be alarmed or anxious. Ingram is not quite
+well enough to meet the train and has asked me——"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes filled with terror. "Where is he? At his rooms? Oh! we will go
+at once, mother!"</p>
+
+<p>I had never thought it would be easy; I saw now that it was not going
+to be as easy even as I had thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barbour," I said, venturing to lay a hand on her coat-sleeve.
+"Pray attend to me for one moment. Ingram is to see no one to-night.
+There is no need for alarm, but——"</p>
+
+<p>"——Mother, mother!"</p>
+
+<p>A stout, comely old lady was making her way toward us. By her side a
+gnarled and grizzled railway servant walked, soothing her agitation
+with a patiently reassuring manner that, had he been a doctor and not a
+porter, concerned with chests, in fact, instead of with trunks, might
+have won him riches and a title.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, marm, I understand you puffeckly. Two gladstings, you said—large
+tin trunk, and a 'at-box. No, marm, I aint a-leavin' you. I'm agoin'
+to git you a four-w'eeler. You stand 'ere until I comes back. Your two
+gladstings, your large tin trunk, and your 'at-box is all numbered the
+same, and will be put together on this 'ere counter. 'Ave your keys in
+your 'and in case they wants one opened. As soon as that there man 'as
+marked them with chork I shall come back and put 'em on my barrer; then
+I shall take 'em to your four-w'eeler. No marm; I'm your porter, and no
+one else sha'n't 'ire me. No marm; nor no one else sha'n't take your
+four-w'eeler."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, Paul is ill, and I'm not to see him. This is Mr. Prentice, a
+friend of his."</p>
+
+<p>"There," said Mrs. Barbour, jingling her keys sharply. "What did
+I say, Nelly. Those drains at Palèze. Is it something infectious,
+mister—mister——? Is there any temperature yet?"</p>
+
+<p>I caught at the "infection" and lied, as I had foreseen I would. People
+were jostling and bumping against us. The girl had to catch my arm once.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, <i>please</i> set your minds at rest," I said. "I am confident
+it is nothing but a little overwork and worry that will be all right
+to-morrow. But, in the meantime, Paul is, as no doubt you know, rather
+nervous and scrupulous. To-morrow we shall know for certain what it is.
+He is writing, and you may take my word for it, it will be good news.
+And now, madam, please let me pass your luggage through the customs,
+see you safely into a cab, and take a good report back before Paul
+settles for the night." I had not been asked to do this, but nothing
+fits so easily and naturally into one lie as another lie.</p>
+
+<p>The mother was tractable and not greatly concerned. I could see she was
+one of those ministering women upon whom sickness acts as a challenge,
+and who can look forward to a long spell of nursing, untroubled by
+misgivings as to the ultimate result. But the girl's white face and
+questioning eyes tortured me. I could feel the question in them even
+when my back was turned to her. I would not judge Paul hardly: would
+not judge him at all. I knew enough of life to know that a man may
+without a moment's warning find himself faced by some terrifying,
+insoluble problem, out of which there is no gentle, no easy, no
+honorable way. But his strange manner—his phrase, stranger still,
+about the "exceptions" it had been his lot to encounter, filled me with
+misgiving. I even wondered if mayhap I was the last man that should
+ever see perfect happiness in that perfect face.</p>
+
+<p>I had put them into their cab, and was leaving the terminus, when,
+passing before a telephone box, I remembered my other message. I
+rang through to Portland Place, and, for the first time since I
+had known her, heard Althea's level voice along the wire, not only
+without pleasurable emotion, but even with a sudden inexplicable
+distaste. I was surprised, too, at the concern in it when I had
+delivered my message. She pressed me for a true account, and, tired
+of mystification, I gave her Paul's own words. At her next sentence I
+nearly dropped the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lady—think! Oh! you <i>can't</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll risk it," Althea said, with a stubborn little laugh that I
+could fancy a flushed cheek accompanied. "I'm not conventional, as
+you know. Besides, you say the creature isn't in bed. Oh! you clever
+male duffers, with your insight and analysis, and not enough wit to
+know after months what a woman sees in the first five minutes—that a
+fellow-creature is perishing before your eyes of sheer intellectual
+starvation."</p>
+
+<p>What could I do? Ring off. Sigh and make a further mental note as to
+the insane quality in a woman's courage. For what Althea proposed was
+nothing more nor less than to call at Ingram's rooms the next day in
+her car, if fine, and discuss alterations and revisions with him in
+the course of a long motor ride. As for me, with that child's white
+face and panic-stricken eyes before me, and a pleasant sense of being
+responsible for more than I could control, it was only left to pray for
+foul weather. Which, believe me or not, I heartily did.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">AMENDE HONORABLE</p>
+
+
+<p>Meantime, with many jolts and halts, and to the accompaniment of a
+good deal of mercifully muffled blasphemy from the box, the cab drew
+out of the station yard and rolled heavily toward Suffolk Square. The
+blighting autumn rain drummed pitilessly on its roof and lashed the
+closed window-panes. So dark had the afternoon turned that Mrs. Barbour
+could only see her daughter's face as a white blur against the black
+velvet cushion, and was forced to guess at its expression. A good deal
+of new-born hope mingled with her own concern. I am a poor actor, and
+know now that after the first Mrs. Barbour had been undeceived by my
+message. She had suspected a "quarrel" on the last day at La Palèze,
+and though she had not been a witness to any further manifestations
+of it, did not believe, perhaps because she did not wish to believe,
+that it had even been made up. She had never approved her daughter's
+choice in her heart—had thought it but a poor fulfilment of so many
+fond imaginings. She had the relish for change often to be found in
+easy-going, hospitable natures. She was not callous nor indifferent
+to the girl's probable suffering, but she had lived through a good
+deal herself and had the robust scepticism of middle age in affairs of
+the heart. Beyond inevitable storms and fevers, beyond a few tearful
+days and sleepless nights, what rosy vistas might not be opening!
+With Ingram out of the way, she became seized again of all her old
+air-castles. It is a strange fact that the dark homeward drive, which
+was one long torture for the daughter, should have been invested for
+the being who loved her best with the subdued cheerfulness of an
+executor returning from a funeral.</p>
+
+<p>A year ago she would have been profuse of tenderness and sympathy; but
+during that year her child's heart had grown away from her, exhausted
+by a passion it was too immature to bear, and shrank too perceptibly
+from the ministrations of any other love. For the present she judged an
+elaborate heedlessness to be at once the easiest and the safest course.</p>
+
+<p>The promise of better days, of a clearer horizon, persisted in
+the clean, stately house that welcomed the wanderers home, in its
+high-ceiled rooms, so strangely wide and light after the dark, cramped
+little cottage in which she had been living under protest, and in the
+open kindly English faces of Druce and Kendal, who had not so much
+grown gray as they had toughened and flattened in faithful service. Her
+lodgers would not be back for a couple of weeks, and she could roam
+from room to room and indulge her sense of proprietorship undisturbed,
+finding everything brighter, fresher, better for her absence. One would
+have said that Number Eleven, too, had taken a trip to the seaside for
+change of air. She unpacked her trunk, found her knitting, and was
+humming a little brisk air when she returned to the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>What she saw struck the song from her lips and the happiness from her
+heart. Fenella sat forward in an armchair over the cold, empty grate.
+Her poor face seemed tense, strangely unyouthful and set like a stone.
+She returned her mother's startled gaze with stricken, inexpressive
+eyes. Mrs. Barbour was on her knees at her side in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Nelly, darling! Are you ill, child?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head slowly, and looked away again at the
+black-leaded grate.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been sitting here ever since we came in? Oh, my pet! And I
+roaming over the house and never thinking." She drew the gloves off her
+daughter's limp hands. "Dear! your poor hands are like ice. Shall I
+have a fire lit while tea's making ready?"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly shivered. "I'm chilled," she said, "and—and a little dizzy.
+It's the crossing, perhaps. And the house does seem cold and strange,
+doesn't it, mummy, after our little <i>chalêt</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour rang for tea and ordered a fire to be lit. Her fingers
+trembled as she cut thin bread and butter.</p>
+
+<p>"It's her eyes," she kept saying to herself, in that frightened
+soliloquy we use to temper a vague dread. "It's her eyes that frighten
+me. If I could only get them to look natural, I shouldn't mind so
+greatly. She knows something I don't. What did that devil say to her
+before he left?"</p>
+
+<p>She wheeled the sofa before the fire—that was an inspiriting thing in
+itself on this rainy September evening—tucked a shawl over the child's
+shoulders and put furred slippers on the numbed, slender feet. Nelly
+sipped her tea, nibbled her toast with the docility of the broken in
+spirit. Later she pretended to read, but, happily ignorant how much of
+real sorrow may be entombed in the printed page, found no comfort there
+in time of present trouble. She was one of those for whom reading is a
+last resource, literature the thinnest of veils that can be interposed
+between them and the withering breath of reality. The book is yet to
+write that will not be laid down at a postman's knock or an infant's
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>It was at a postman's knock now that the novel whose pages she had
+been listlessly turning slipped from her lap and fell, face downward,
+on the hearth-rug. She could not rise, so great was her agitation,
+and the fulness of time seemed to gather in every second that
+<i>tick-tocked</i> from the clock in the corner before her mother was
+in the room again. She was holding a letter before her spectacles, a
+letter with a deep black border, at whose superscription her brows were
+knitted. Back from failing limbs and reeling brain the blood flowed to
+Fenella's heart. But she did not faint. There is always enough life
+left us to learn the extent of our sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"The letter's for you, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Read it, mummy," she said, simply. "I can't."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour ripped open the envelope. As she glanced over the
+unfamiliar writing, her faced glowed with pleased excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Oh! <i>what</i> is it?" the puzzled and tortured girl
+asked her, seeing her lips move.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour looked up. "Darling, what's the matter? It's good news. I
+mean—God forgive me!—not very bad. Only your Aunt Hortense dead. You
+never knew her."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella, as she took her suspense back into her breast, knew its name
+was Hope. Her eyes filled as from some inward sweat of anguish—some
+wound felt only when the sword is withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do they write to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's from your cousin Leslie. Listen! Shall I read to you?" She did
+not wait for an answer, but read on breathlessly:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Cousin Fenella</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember—have you ever been told, of the girl who came to
+see you fifteen years ago, and whom you would not kiss? Fifteen
+years ago! and now she is bringing herself to your notice again. Do
+you feel it an insult after so long? You should not, dear cousin.
+For there are things that are so hard to write, but that sound so
+natural when they are spoken. And even though you resent it, be
+patient for the sake of the sad reason that occasions her writing
+now. Poor mother was buried on Friday. One can remain loyal and
+still admit that she was a woman hard to understand—impossible to
+divert from a prejudice once conceived. Even now, although I have
+thought of you unnumbered times, sought news of you, even kissed
+the picture we have of you as a child, that seemed to me to hold
+the promise of a sweet friendship to come in its baby face, I could
+not write to you as I am doing did I think that my impulse still
+crossed the will of the dead. You will not understand this until
+you have seen one you love die by inches under your eyes, while you
+stood by, powerless to save, and all but powerless to soothe. But
+toward the end of her illness mother spoke of you. Her heart was
+changed, and in what I am doing now I am carrying out the wishes
+of the dead no less than gratifying what has always been a secret
+desire."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour paused for breath. "Doesn't she write beautifully, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's gush," said Fenella. "Is there much more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! fie, dear. Listen!"</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"Dear Cousin, we are to come to town for the autumn. May I call
+upon you—see you often—make amends for all the wasted years that
+might have made us friends? You are our kin, and, in trouble, blood
+calls to blood. We will return to Freres Lulford for Christmas, and
+we want you to spend it with us, among your own people. It will
+be a sad and quiet one for all, but by then I trust you will have
+grown so near to us that we need not grudge you a share in our
+grief. Write me when you get this. The earlier your answer reaches
+me the easier I shall forgive myself for what, by one cold word,
+you can turn to the deepest humiliation I have ever suffered. Think
+me impulsive, think me indiscreet, think me even impertinent; but,
+believe me, oh! so ready to write myself</p>
+
+<p class="ph4">"Your loving cousin,<br>
+"<span class="smcap">Leslie Barbour</span>."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour wiped her spectacles. They were so dim that she did not
+notice her daughter's vacant gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, are people often taken ill so suddenly?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, your cousin says it was a long illness."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella gave the low moan of the misunderstood. "Mother! I don't
+mean—that. I mean Paul."</p>
+
+<p>The woman could not check a movement of almost passionate impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ingram? I don't believe he's ill at all. Men who write are always
+up or down. They're worse than women. It's the unhealthy life they
+lead."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder—I wonder!" said Nelly under her breath. She was realizing,
+with a sick dismay, that this was the last evening delivery and that
+to-morrow would be Sunday, a day during which, for those at least who
+live in London and wait upon the post for comfort, the operations of
+Providence are entirely suspended. Two nights and a day to be lived
+through—somehow!</p>
+
+<p>Her mother took out the letter again, and fingered it caressingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's what I've been longing for all my life," she said. "When are you
+going to answer it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, mummy, to-morrow," wailed poor Fenella, and fled from the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>She climbed the stairs weakly, feeling the empty house's atmosphere
+no longer chill, but stifling and oppressive. By the time she had
+reached her room the impulse to fling herself upon her knees, to bury
+her face in the coverlet and weep and weep, had passed. Instead she
+lit both candles of her dressing-table and, sitting down, gazed long
+and earnestly at her reflection in the tilted mirror. To study herself
+thus was rather a habit of hers. The woman who has beauty and does not
+know it is a graceful conception, but lacks reality. All the world is
+a conspiracy, pleasant or otherwise, to convince her. Fenella was not
+vain, but, with all encountered comeliness compared to it, her body had
+not ceased to be a rapture to a curiously impersonal love of beauty,
+innate in her as in all sorts of people, but which, in her case, by a
+bounteous accident of nature, could be fed most delicately upon its
+own outward substance. Nor was she ignorant that, in the quarter to
+which she had devoted it, she was, to use the world's chosen language,
+and in a sense far beyond its choice meaning, "throwing her good looks
+away." She knew it—she gloried in it. No whisper that reached her
+from jealous or puzzled friends could add to her own conviction of
+it—no secret recess of her being but responded and thrilled to the
+call of self-sacrifice. At a certain height of passion woman becomes
+strangely sufficient to herself—is priestess and host in one, with an
+ecstasy in the immolation that men can only guess at. For all the lack
+of curiosity as to her lover's past life which was so unaccountable a
+thing to her mother, the girl guessed that it had been hard and sad,
+so sad and hard that the full strangeness of the destiny that brought
+him to lips and arms like hers could only be dimly comprehended by him.
+His blindness forced self-valuation upon her. She flung her beauty, the
+freshness of her youth, the tribute of other men's burning eyes and
+stammering tongues, into the scale against it. She asked only love. Let
+him but love, she would teach him appreciation in time. She had her own
+white conscience in such matters, too, even though the obtuseness of
+her lover's senses tempted her to lengths that innocence does not often
+venture. It was not three weeks ago since, sitting upon the dunes, at
+the end of an afternoon during which the grizzled head had been her
+plaything, she had asked Paul abruptly whether he did not in his heart
+sometimes think her a shameless woman. And the undisguised astonishment
+of the gray eyes at her question had been at once a reproach and
+the sweetest, completest assurance that it was possible to have.
+And then and there, drawing from his arms, and while the loose sand
+trickled through her fingers, she had made the poor little apologia
+of her love, haltingly and timidly, and told him that should it ever
+happen—inconceivable surely on this day of sunshine and sweet airs as
+that sky and sea should change places—that he should go one way in
+life, she another, she had such a store of shameful memories as would
+press her to the earth all the rest of her days.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it was this possibility, scarce to be imagined a fortnight ago,
+which she was facing to-night; now, as she combed and plaited her black
+hair, so fine and loose that the comb ran through its length at a
+single stroke; now as, unfastening the corset that had chafed and rayed
+the tender flesh at her waist, she put on her long white robe and stood
+before the mirror, a trembling penitent, about to make amends through a
+whole racked night for the follies of her undisciplined heart. Buoyant
+and hopeful by nature, and really knowing nothing yet for certain, she
+was aghast at the urgency with which defeat claimed acceptance, and
+at the weakness and intermittence that her imagination, pressed into
+loyalty's service, showed in working toward her lover's justification.
+She felt herself sentenced, a culprit, a prey to the illogical anger
+of some power which she had failed to propitiate only because she had
+not known of its existence. The chill of abandonment was already at
+her heart. As for the letter which she had just heard read to her, she
+hardly gave it a thought, although a wish of her own heart, unavowed,
+but very intimate, was realized in it. To-night any comfort save the
+one for which her whole being ached was a traitor—an accomplice in the
+conspiracy of silence, of shrugged shoulders, of amused wonder that
+had surrounded her poor little love-story from the first. No one had
+meddled, she remembered; no one had interfered or seemed anxious. With
+smarting eyes as she laid her head on her pillow she paid her tribute
+to the wisdom of the world.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The morrow with its suspended bustle—its clanging church bells and the
+awkward voices of milkwomen and paper-boys ringing upon the silence of
+the streets and squares, was a torture not to be borne. As soon as her
+mother had gone to church she dressed herself and left the house. The
+morning was fine but close. In the park the moisture of a whole week's
+rain, sucked out of the stale earth by the sun, surcharged the air
+almost to the level of the tree-tops with a palm-house atmosphere that
+weighed alike upon flesh and spirit. Although it was September, the
+parks as she crossed them were full of smartly dressed people—mothers
+and young daughters—sturdy children with dawdling lawn-clad
+nurses—ivory-faced old ladies in ample creased robes of silk—an
+occasional earnest young man, professionally silk-hatted, striding
+along with a chattering girl at his side, who bravely but jerkily
+maintained the pace of his long legs. They all seemed to be coming in
+opposite directions. She was on one of those unhappy errands when we
+feel we are making head alone against a contrary current of joyous
+contentment.</p>
+
+<p>The bell from the great Parliament tower was tolling twelve as she
+passed into Dean's Yard. The old gravelly square was deserted, except
+for a statuesque policeman and one little blue-coated messenger boy,
+with his round cap cocked over his ear, who from pure lightness of
+heart was waking its staid echoes with a shrill medley of popular airs.
+She had set out with no precise intention, drawn as by a magnet to the
+spot where the treasure of her heart was kept from her, but, though
+she did not reason, with every step her insensate impulse hardened.
+She would test the tottering fabric of her happiness now, though, at a
+touch, it should topple into ruins about her head.</p>
+
+<p>Cowley Street was empty, and pigeons were feeding in the roadway. She
+was leaning against the railings—fighting, reasoning with a heart
+that the mere sight of his windows had driven into tumult, when the
+stillness was invaded by the blast of a motor-horn. The doves took
+flight above the sunlit roofs. A big touring car, coming from the
+river, swept into the street, and drew up, with a creaking of its
+brakes, outside the door that she was praying for strength to approach.
+A woman alighted, glanced at the number upon the red door, and plied
+the knocker briskly. Her hat was veiled and a light dust-cloak covered
+her dress, but one moment's application of that intuitive knowledge
+which women possess told the girl that she was probably handsome
+and undeniably rich. The whirr and clutter of the cylinders ceased
+unaccountably just as the door was opened. Cowley Street on Sunday is
+more than still. She heard his name clearly, the very accent in which
+it was uttered somehow confirming her first impression; then the door
+closed. With a single jaunty glance at the remaining feminine interest,
+the green-coated chauffeur swung himself out of his seat and busied
+himself with some recalcitrant machinery or other under the bonnet of
+the car.</p>
+
+<p>Have you ever, on a railway journey, or in a packed public meeting,
+from which there was no escape without unwelcome comment, fought
+against deadly faintness? How the landscape crawled past the spinning,
+flashing, wheels! How the sermon, the address pelted on, a meaningless
+torrent of vocables, against the brain that was tense and taut for one
+thing only—that thing deliverance! In such a mood Fenella hurried
+through the streets and parks toward her home. She had forgotten her
+purse at setting out, and the cheapest, slowest amelioration of her
+journey was denied her. Another woman! Another woman! No defeat could
+have been more complete. Everything had been imaginable but this.
+Against every aspect that the annihilation of her suspense could have
+shown her she would have done battle—save only this. Women are taught
+by their whole life's training to seek concrete motives for action
+and, when found, to respect them. To principle they concede little,
+and they expect as little from it. If they fight selfishly, at least
+they fight bravely, naked and unambushed—warrior, weapon and reward in
+one. Auguring nothing from past treacheries, so the treachery be not
+to them, betrayal always finds them unprepared, as, once shattered,
+nothing really rebuilds their faith. Could it be otherwise? What value
+to them in a love or a devotion whose incentive lies outside of them
+and beyond them?</p>
+
+<p>She reached home at last. Her mother had been watching for her from the
+window and ran to open the door. She had a letter in her hand. Where
+had the girl been? How ill she looked! There was news for her, brought
+by a boy messenger half an hour ago. The poor child could only shake
+her head and, taking her letter, seek refuge once more in her own room.
+During her absence her trunk had been unpacked; all the silver vanities
+were ranged, with snowy doylies beneath them, on the woman's altar of
+her dressing-table. The bed on which she had tossed and moaned all
+night was spread white and cool and smooth. A little breeze was rising,
+and fluttered the curtains at the open windows.</p>
+
+<p>After what she had seen no letter could matter much; but she read it
+through dutifully, with a little sigh as each page fluttered from
+her hands to the floor. It was long and kind and tender; the letter
+of a man who would select his language at the very judgment seat of
+God; a fair copy, without blot or erasure, product of a night no less
+sleepless than her own. If the balance lay all at one side of the
+account, at least he had ruled the ledger straight. The old arguments
+were reiterated, the old impossibilities pressed home. The dilemma,
+evaded once before, had confronted Ingram again, harder, crueller for
+the delay, as is the manner of evaded dilemmas. He had had to choose
+again between wounding her pride or wounding her heart—to death this
+time—and with the anxiety such a man will always have to preserve a
+woman's good opinion at all costs, which is half fine feeling and half
+vanity, he had chosen the second. Wisely? Who shall say? At least his
+end was gained. He was loved at the last. She pressed the sheet which
+bore his signature madly, unrestrainedly against her mouth, blurring
+the ink with her moist lips. She would have kissed his hand so—holding
+the knife at her throat.</p>
+
+<p>And with the kiss her childhood ended. Then and there the thorn-plaited
+crown of her womanhood was proffered her. She put it on bravely and
+unflinchingly. She did not despair of life nor of life's end. Flowers,
+laurels, she felt might crown her yet, but under blossom or bay leaf
+she would always know where to look for the old scars. And, finding
+them, she would bless them for his sake.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>An hour later Mrs. Barbour, trembling a little at her own temerity,
+knocked at the door, and, getting no answer, opened it. Nelly was
+sitting on the bed, dry-eyed, sucking her thumb. The pages of her
+lover's last letter were littered over the quilt and on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The mother asked no question. She closed the sash softly, drew
+down the blind, and, going to her daughter without a word, held her
+close—held her for two long hours, while the Sabbath baked meats
+went to grease and the gong roared unheeded below; held her through
+a tempest so deep at life's sources that she trembled and prayed as
+the frail body shook against her breast. But the green tree bears the
+hurricane because it is green. The storm was passing away in sobs that
+grew fainter and fainter, the stained cheek was beginning to move
+restlessly upon her drenched shoulder, when she spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Was it bad news?—from him?" she asked, and compressed her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," said the girl, with a fresh outburst of tears that was only
+the leaves shaking off the rain, "don't blame him! It's not quite his
+fault. He's so unhappy. We shall never see Paul again. And oh, mummy,
+I've been a bad, undutiful, careless child to you—but I'll be better
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"You've been my dearest child, always," Mrs. Barbour answered. "It will
+be the old times over again for both of us. I ask nothing more."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella was calm enough now to smile wanly at her mother's words. But
+even she could not guess how unlike any old times the new ones were to
+be.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_II">PART II</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Ia">I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE</p>
+
+
+<p>Four years ago—no very long time, even to those who must count it
+by the ruins and ghosts it has made—the light-hearted wayfarer amid
+financial pitfalls—<i>vacuus coram latrone viator</i>—not more a snob
+than an antiquary with a wistful regard for survivals need confess
+himself, spared a glance, as he passed along Throgmorton Avenue, for
+a big brass plate on the door of the corner building which overlooks
+the crouched statue and smoky fig-trees of the "Draper's Garden." For
+him the legend it bore called up a vision, unique amid the alien and
+masqueradingly Semitic names with which the dreary canyon is plastered,
+of other and very different days, fiercer perhaps but at least less
+meanly cruel; of hard knocks given and taken in a selfless quarrel;
+of blows upon helmet and corselet, thrusts that the buff coat haply
+turned; of a fight that raged one whole September afternoon through the
+streets of the "ever faithful city."<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p class="ph3">"<span class="smcap">Bryan Lumsden, Calvert &amp; Co.</span>,<br>
+Stock and Share Brokers."</p>
+
+
+<p>A stranger to the ephemeral record of London society—if such a one
+can be imagined in this day of "open letters" and the ubiquitous
+lens—who met the genial head of the firm upon the lawn at Cowes, or
+among his yearlings at Stanmore, at the pigeon butts of Pau and Cannes,
+or in the thrice-guarded sanctuary of the Turf Club writing-room, or
+who, as is likelier far, merely passed him in Austin Friars, silk
+hat cocked rakishly, one hand holding the lapel of his coat and the
+other laid lightly and characteristically upon the shoulder of some
+olive-skinned lord of the market, would probably have carried away
+a totally false impression of the man and of his history. Official
+text-books—the one, for instance, in which poor Fenella discovered a
+romance so enthralling, would not greatly have helped him. He would
+have learned from them that Sir Bryan Lumsden was twelfth baronet of
+either a very old or a very short-lived dynasty; that he was the son of
+Denzil Lumsden, of Coffers Castle, Kincardineshire; that he had served
+his country in the Scots Guards, been an aide-de-camp during the Tirah
+Campaign (medal and clasps), and had left the service at twenty-five.
+No less than three residences housed all this greatness: the castle
+aforesaid, "The Chase," Stanmore, and 369 Mount Street. "Clubs: the
+Turf, Marlboro, and Royal Yacht. Unmarried." And from the silence
+concerning the sphere in which three parts of his life were spent, and
+upon whose harvest, presumably, these glories were supported, he would
+have conjectured that here was a case common enough in latter-day life:
+the scion of an old house, bought in to finance by family money and
+connection, gradually acquiring sufficient zest for the game to justify
+a predominant interest, and, with position assured, returning blithely
+to the life of his younger days, while, under the griffin wings that
+hatch so many a clutch of golden eggs, Calvert, imaginable as a rather
+vulgar but discreet person, buttoning a black coat high on his chest
+and redressing the senior partner's ebullience by Apollinaris and
+bulb-culture at Sutton, watched the processes that, by a law of growth
+as simple as that which sows the pollen on the wind, make the rich man
+daily and hourly richer.</p>
+
+<p>They would have been quite wrong. No titled food-adulterer or gutter
+journalist—no drab figure in all the broadclothed gallery with which
+Dr. Smiles seeks to fire the imagination of youth—was more literally
+the architect of his own fortunes. Twelve years ago, when he was an
+attaché at Vienna, with a long night of ruinous play behind him and a
+scented but heartless letter under his elbow, Bryan Lumsden had spun
+a coin to decide whether he should continue the battle elsewhere and
+under less tangled conditions or pass to the completer simplification
+which was all his pagan soul conceived of death. He had tossed the
+double thaler into the air simply, with no consciousness of pose, and
+since it fell for life, had played the game out that way. Returning to
+London, he had sent in his papers, paid his debts with what was left
+of an attenuated property, and asked for "desk-room" in the office of
+the broker through whom the final transactions were conducted—a dark,
+secretive man, little susceptible to the appeal of the incongruous or
+to the glamour of a barren title.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a year, upon the quarter per cent. margin allowed to
+those outside the house for business they introduce, he was earning
+an income in excess of many sworn members of repute, who struggle on
+from settlement to settlement with the hammer suspended over their
+heads like a sword of Damocles. In three years he was a member of the
+house and a partner. Business flowed to him. His gay, casual manners,
+his cheery voice, melted the senile heart of Mammon. The baffling blue
+eye, behind which a purpose quick and strong as steel was kept bright,
+pierced its pompous parade from the outset, and, holding his adversary
+at a deflated value, he was never tempted to take himself any the more
+seriously for his success. To the last the moves for which the market
+watched would be made between a chat with his trainer and a chaffing
+and recondite conversation over the telephone with the Tower mess.
+History is always repeating itself in unlooked for fashions. A hundred
+and sixty years ago the great Marshal Saxe, forming his squadrons for
+the charge that was to give Lauffeld to the French, ordered aside their
+black-avised brigadier and picked on a subaltern, careless and rosy,
+whom he espied laughing in his saddle, to lead the human avalanche. And
+in the meaner struggle that seems to have displaced war indefinitely,
+it will still happen that a light heart with a constitutional
+cheerfulness in taking risks finds all manner of blind forces following
+headlong at its heels.</p>
+
+<p>His great chance came when he was just over thirty. For two hours of
+a sunny afternoon, and to the clouding of a fair brow at Ranelagh, a
+gaunt, hungry-eyed Western American, referred to him in despair by a
+friend whose time the stranger had daily and pertinaciously returned
+to waste, sat in his private office. The man's story was a fantastic
+one. Of a tunnel which he had been excavating under subvention, for
+years, and timbering furlong by furlong, sometimes more, sometimes
+less, as the rusty ore with which the mountain teemed assayed well or
+ill; of a suspicion, dawning on him little by little as he proceeded,
+that a wild miner's tale of the district—the legend of the lost lode
+of Troublesome Gulch—might not, after all, be a myth; the sudden
+discovery of free gold in the rarest and most precious of ores,
+"running up through the rock, sir, like a fern"; the theft of the
+samples that would have justified him; the sudden withdrawal of his
+subvention, and the decision of the railroad to build its connecting
+line at a lower level and at an easier gradient; the offers that had
+been made him for his property, in all of which his fevered mind saw
+only a threat and evidence of conspiracy. The man was no smooth-tongued
+exploiter: he spoke roughly, uncouthly, chewing to rags the first dry
+cigar he had ever smoked, in an evident sweat of fear lest somehow or
+other his secret should be torn from him—straining to be back and on
+guard again. His eyes blazed as he talked and his hand shook. He had
+been nursing his dreams on aerated bread and coffee.</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden kept his visitor by him—wired to Ranelagh—telephoned to
+various quarters. That night in a private room at the Carlton the
+company was (unofficially) formed. Within a week from their issue
+"Gulches" were the sensation of the market. They started well at
+parity, dropped to fifteen shillings and twelve and a half on an
+attack of nerves and a truculent attitude on the part of the railroad;
+recovered, rose to thirty, soared to forty, to four, to six pounds.
+Fresh shares were issued; the public, almost kept out of the first
+issue, responded greedily, and the opportunity was seized to unload
+more of the old debentures than certain cool heads approved. It might
+be another Camp Bird; it might be the most colossal swindle since
+Kaffir days; in either case, its proportions inspired respect. There
+was a shuffle on the financial checker-board. West Hampstead moved
+to Mayfair, Porchester Gate to Park Lane, and was, so to speak,
+<i>crowned</i> there, with power to move either way for the future,
+in a bull or bear direction, capturing meaner uncrowned pieces <i>en
+route</i>. Stanwood went back to Sleepy Cat Mountain with the light of
+victory in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>Before the snow had melted round the feet of the burros which were
+bringing down his six-dollar quartz to the smelter he was a ruined man.
+It was everybody's fault and nobody's fault. The necessary delays had
+not been discounted; holders were pressed in other directions; finally
+a discovery that Lumsden, to fill an order for a thousand shares, was
+buying outside and privately at three-fifteen, stampeded the market.
+The collapse was complete enough to become a joke. Clerks asked one
+another: "Will you take it in half-crowns or in Gulch debentures?"</p>
+
+<p>In the summer Lumsden went out to the States. He found Stanwood, a
+baffled but not a beaten man, and his son, a strong silent lad with
+steady eyes, "batching" in a log shanty with an earthen roof. Tin
+kettles and saucepans were hung on pegs all around the outside walls.
+Behind the hut, among whortle bushes, an ice-cold spring bubbled out
+of the ground, and all manner of wild mountain flowers—rabbit-ears,
+puccoons, and thimble-berries—grew to the threshold. They were seven
+thousand feet above sea-level; all around was space and silence—an air
+like sparkling wine: his feet, as he ascended the track, crushed sweet
+harsh odors out of the barren earth.</p>
+
+<p>In long but not aimless rambles over the boulder-strewn slopes; in elk
+hunts up in the timber reserve; in naked male talk by the cedar fire
+under the star-bewildered dome of night, the two men grew to learn, to
+esteem, and to trust one another. There was cheering news, even before
+Lumsden returned East, for the worn woman who was keeping an Omaha
+boarding-house for brawling Swedish clerks. He travelled slowly, by way
+of Denver, New York, Washington, and Paris, seeing a good many people
+in business hours, and, it must be admitted, amusing himself pretty
+strenuously out of them. He was back in London by October, and the rest
+is financial history. People said: "Oh! but what about the original
+shareholders?" Yet it was amazing how few ever came forward. Lumsden
+and Lumsden's friends seemed to have gobbled them all up.</p>
+
+<p>There is only one thing more which, in this place, it becomes necessary
+to record of Bryan Lumsden. Once a month or so, sometimes oftener,
+sometimes less, at the busiest hour of the afternoon, a big closed
+motor-car made its way, with many grunts and turns, to the big corner
+building in Throgmorton Avenue. Sir Bryan would issue from the swing
+doors, throwing instructions over his shoulder as he passed through
+the office, sometimes would even dictate a letter to the clerk at his
+elbow, with one foot on the step of the coupé. After a single word to
+the chauffeur, which the man acknowledged by touching his peaked cap,
+he would fling himself back against the cushions of the limousine and
+busy himself with a pile of papers which he had brought under his arm.
+Occasionally, at some stoppage or temporary eclipse of light, he would
+look up from them. It was noticeable then that his face had lost its
+pleasant quality, was even hard and cruel.</p>
+
+<p>The car rolled on, slowly and softly, through the congested city
+streets, noisily insistent amid heavy van traffic in Clerkenwell,
+quickened its speed as it turned into Bloomsbury's drab squares.
+Presently Regents Park flashed green or ghostly gray outside the
+windows; long brown garden walls and shabby stucco of St. John's Wood
+reeled past; the car breasted the hill to Frognal, along a steep avenue
+of widely spaced, fantastic red-brick houses, set amid shrubs and old
+timber, and with an occasional glimpse, in lichened roof or clustered
+chimneys, of an older suburb.</p>
+
+<p>It stopped outside a low wide house which overlooked the heath and
+was separated from the road by a clipped hedge. Generally, warned by
+the tumult of the car's approach, the door would fly open before he
+could reach it from the garden gate; if not, he pulled the wrought
+iron bell-handle. If the summons remained unanswered beyond a few
+seconds, he felt impatiently in his pocket for a key and admitted
+himself. Inside, he looked round the low, wide hall, with the hard air
+of proprietorship which a man keeps for the place that is his house
+but not his home. He summoned the laggard servants, spoke sharply to
+them (in French), pushed open the door of the drawing-room, and waited,
+biting his moustache restlessly, and looking out of the window over the
+wide heath. A novel, face downward, or a wisp of embroidery generally
+decorated the cushions of the window seat.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the door would open behind his back, and a soft rustle of
+silk and chink of jewelled ornaments cease of a sudden as a woman stood
+at gaze, watching the broad back or clear profile, silhouetted against
+the diamond panes of the bow window. With the same undisguised air of
+ownership, unutterably hideous now when a human creature endured it,
+Lumsden turned and looked—looked at a slave whom his money had bought
+and of whom he had tired.</p>
+
+<p>Either one of two things might happen then: She might be peevish,
+perverse, and bitter, answering his perfunctory questions as shortly,
+with many shrugs of her shoulders and deprecatory motions of her bare
+arms; striving with all the advantage her native tongue, the language
+of cruel inflection and bitter meanings, could give her, to plant her
+own chagrins, like poisoned arrows, in his breast. Or else, abandoning
+herself upon his shoulder in an attitude for which everything about
+her—her dress, the very fashion of her hair—seemed calculated, she
+would force him to a seat, fling her arms around his neck, recall old
+tendernesses, never forgetting to mingle her kisses with complaints
+of her servants—so insolent; her tradesmen—so pressing; the view
+over the heath—so <i>triste</i> in winter. Her eyes would be dilated,
+their pupils at a point. Looking down, Lumsden could see little black
+dots all over the large white arms. He bore kisses and reproaches with
+exactly the same stoicism, still waiting, still keeping his eyes upon
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly their expression changed. There would be a shrill chatter of
+women in the hall—every one in this house seemed to speak and scold in
+French—cries of "<i>Prenez garde! M. Cyrille!</i>" "<i>Une marche de
+plus!</i>" "<i>Voilà!</i>"—a child's voice asking for "papa! papa!"
+Led by a French bonne, though he appeared full five years old, and
+struggling in her grasp, a little boy would enter the room with eager
+precipitancy. He walked sturdily but somehow clumsily too, holding his
+free arm out before him and tossing the fair curls from his forehead
+with a curious baffled gesture. Reaching Lumsden's knee or outstretched
+hand, he would give a shrill, glad cry, break once for all from the
+woman who had guided him, and next moment be clasped and gathered into
+his father's long powerful arms.</p>
+
+<p>Fate has a fine unseemliness, now and then, in her dispensations. It
+was in a house leased for the service of shame, among brazen foreign
+women whose hard black eyes belied the respect of their voices, that
+Lumsden was forced from time to time to plumb the depth of tenderness
+that lurked in his own heart. He loved his little son as he loved
+nothing else in the world. And the boy was stone blind from birth.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IIa">II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">TWO TELEGRAMS</p>
+
+
+<p>Sir Bryan sat in his study at Mount Street one dark Saturday afternoon
+late in December, sucking happily upon a calcined briar, but with a
+watchful eye on the clock, for it was nearly time he began to dress.
+He was by now a man of thirty-seven or thirty-eight, with a beautiful
+but rather battered face, strikingly like certain portraits of Marshal
+Blucher. He had heavy shoulders, straight legs, and lean flanks. His
+enemies and men who boxed with him said his arms were disproportionate
+even to his height. His hair was fair and longer than most men wear
+it to-day: it was thinning over his forehead, and his wavy moustache
+was streaked with gray. There are people, like buildings, who, for
+all their size and show, we suspect of being hurriedly and cheaply
+put together. The paucity or poverty of material shows somewhere: in
+a mouth that doesn't quite shut, in ears that protrude—hair badly
+planted on the scalp. No better description of Lumsden could be
+ventured than that he seemed to have been built slowly and with a
+good deal of thought. He was expensive in grain, like the pipe he was
+smoking or the tie he was wearing.</p>
+
+<p>He had been golfing all the afternoon, and was dressed, with happy
+slouchiness, in a brown flannel suit and a limp shirt-collar. His soft
+white waistcoat was a little soiled and lacked a button. The room he
+sat in was clear and light, but simply furnished, a refuge in fact from
+other splendors. <i>Estampes galantes</i> of Fragonard and the younger
+Morean decorated its walls sparsely. There was only one photograph, of
+a woman, which stood by itself in a narrow gilt frame on a side table.
+It was a large modern chiaroscuro affair. One noted frail emergent
+shoulders, a head turned aside, delicate lines of neck and chin, and a
+cloud of hair.</p>
+
+<p>A dark, discreet man-servant knocked and showed his face in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentleman to see you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it, Becket?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dollfus, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! show him up!" But with the precipitancy of his race Mr. Dollfus
+had shown himself up, and entered hard upon the man's heels.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet hailed him after his cheery wont.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Dolly! Another five minutes and I'd have been shaving. Sit down
+and make yourself a whiskey and soda. Cigars are over there. How are
+the girls kicking?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're kicking too much," said Mr. Dollfus; "on the stage and off
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Rotten notices the <i>Motor Girl</i> got," said Lumsden, reaching for
+a crumpled paper.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," answered Dollfus with easy confidence. "We'll pull
+it rount. Got a new College Song from America. Came too late to put in.
+With a chorus, my boy, a chorus! 'Cher want to hear it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead!"</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"Back oar—back roar—back waller—back nigger and bantabaloo."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Sounds useful."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh! ah! Cantcher hear it on the organs? And—I say, Lumpsden?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Remember a little girl we saw at La Palèze in the summer?"</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden's face altered ever so little.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say I do very clearly. We saw so many."</p>
+
+<p>"Went rount wit' a kind of fisherman. Artist feller. Eh? ah? Danced,
+too. Remember now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! I do, now. You were professional on the subject of her legs."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the one. Well, she's come to me, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Come to you? What the deuce for?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do they all come for?" the Jew asked with sub-acidity. "Money. A
+lead. A 'shance.'"</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you say, Dolly? Took her on your knee—played uncle—told
+her that if she was good to her mother you might give her a place in
+the back row some day if you thought of it."</p>
+
+<p>Dollfus looked at him keenly for a moment. He had a theory that Lumsden
+remembered the girl better than he pretended; that he had, in fact,
+spoken to her at La Palèze and been rebuffed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yer on the wrong track, Lumpsden," he said; "she's quite respectable.
+Madame de Rudder brought her—voman that useter teach the princesses.
+She's vell connected, too."</p>
+
+<p>"What's her name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fenella Barbour."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bryan started a little at the name, and his sudden movement did not
+escape the Dominion manager.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Lumpsden," he went on casually; "aintcher a relation of the
+Lady Lulford that died this year?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little. Why do you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's who she is, my boy. They were talking about all being together
+at Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>"Who were talking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Voman she called her cousin Leslie, that came wit' 'em too. At their
+country house. The name's gone outer my head."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bryan yawned, stretched himself, and gave a meaning look at the
+clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry I can't keep you any longer, Dolly. I'm dining out. What is it
+exactly you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Vell, I believe the girl's a find, Lumpsden. And natcherally I can't
+do anything at the Dominion—wit'out—wit'out——You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand. You've seen her dance, I suppose? Is it any good? You
+know how much of this humbug there's been lately. Is hers something
+quite special?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," said Mr. Dollfus, briefly. He seemed to weigh his opinion once
+more. "Oh quite!" he said again.</p>
+
+<p>"You see a furore, in fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe a riot," said Joe.</p>
+
+<p>The financial support smiled. "You've made it such a family matter,
+Joe, that you won't mind my telling you I don't particularly want riots
+about relations of mine."</p>
+
+<p>The manager shrugged his shoulders, but did not revise his opinion.
+Lumsden held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll telephone you to-morrow, and fix a night after Christmas when we
+can talk this over. Meantime, of course, you'll be discreet. Ta-ta,
+Dolly. I like your song."</p>
+
+<p>An hour later he re-entered the room and flung a fur coat and crush hat
+on a lounge. He was dressed for dinner, was polishing his nails and
+appeared thoughtful. Sitting down before a big knee-hole desk, that was
+tucked away in a corner underneath a telephone, he switched on a light,
+drew a letter-pad toward him and wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Leslie</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"May I usurp your sex's privilege and change my mind about
+coming to Freres Lulford for Christmas. I was going to Ponty's,
+as you know, but somehow, this year, don't feel keyed up to the
+light-hearted crowd they get together at Capelant. I want somewhere
+to hide my unrevered head until the Spirit of Christmas is gone out
+of the land, and I should like a look at Saleratus. The alternative
+is to go to Scotland and turn myself into a sort of Dana Gibson
+picture of the sorrows of the rich. You know the sort of thing:
+'Where Get-there Lumsden really got to.'</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, dear Leslie, I should never have refused
+your invitation if you hadn't frightened me with our mysterious
+newly discovered relative. Even, now, when I've decided to take the
+risk, I'll feel nervous. You say 'brilliant.' Suppose it turns out
+to be some dreadful little artist or writer person who'll want to
+paint me, or use me as 'a type.'..."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When he had got so far he re-read the letter, tore it up, and wrote
+out two telegrams. One was addressed to Lady Pontardawe, Capelant,
+Flintshire, and its contents are no affair of ours. The other said—</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"Changed my mind. Motoring down, if fine, Wednesday."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>His tickled sense of expectancy supported him through a dull
+dinner—possessed him, in fact, to the extent of making him rather
+a <i>distrait</i> companion. Once he laughed out unaccountably.
+Expectation was as rare with him as regret. He probably regarded
+them as equivalent weaknesses, but there was no doubt which was the
+pleasanter to indulge. Not quite a satyr, he was still less a saint.
+Men who knew him well, contented themselves by saying that Bryan
+"stayed it well," and the secret of his power to last was probably
+that, for him, the life that began when he was called in the morning
+ended when he switched the light off from above his pillow. He was not
+an imaginative man, but if he had been, his morning bath might justly
+have been conceived by him as a wide cool river, reflecting a gray
+morning sky, that flowed between him and all follies and fevers of the
+night. He took no heed what phantoms waved to him from the other shore,
+nor what urgency and significance might be in their gestures.</p>
+
+<p>He got back before twelve, changed his coat for a wadded Indian silk
+smoking-jacket, and finished a long black cigar before he turned in. He
+felt tranquil, and, for reasons possibly connected with his telegram
+to Wales, even virtuous. Lulford, with its cloister terrace, its gray
+walled fruit-gardens beneath the "Prior's oriel," and its lilied
+carp-wood, girt with bastion and towers of clipped yew, had always
+been a favorite house with him, far beyond the wind-tortured barrack
+in Scotland that was the cradle of his own grim race, and which all
+his money could not make bloom afresh. The glamour of his youth still
+invested it. He had spent many a long holiday there, the while his
+mother, widowed but no ways desolate, was seeking her own distractions
+at Wiesbaden or Lausanne, and to the end of his school days (not
+particularly pleasant ones, for he had been in an unfashionable house
+and perpetually short of pocket-money) whatever sentiment of eclogue or
+pastoral survived the drudgery of construe, always had for its stage
+and background the remembered pleasantness of Lulford. Wonderful, not
+how little had survived, but how much!</p>
+
+<p>And to-night something else haunted it, something that was real,
+that rather appealed to imagination than was evoked by it. Youth,
+flushed, timorously daring, beckoned and eluded him down those alleys
+and groves. (Eternal illusion, making your own summer wherever your
+feet choose to pass!) He was of the age when a man is looking for the
+heralds of middle life, and his <i>empressement</i> struck him as one
+rather ominous sign. The growing simplification of life was another.
+The match-makers were giving Bryan up at last. He remembered a time
+when it would not have been so easy to sneak away for two weeks in the
+hunting season.</p>
+
+<p>Dollfus had, after all, not been so far astray in his surmise. There
+had been an encounter at La Palèze—one of those secrets which the most
+transparent of women never seem to feel the need of telling. She had
+not appeared frightened nor very much surprised—had let him walk by
+her side across the dunes and through the pine woods, even chatted a
+little, lightly. But then neither had she made any attempt to keep the
+appointment he had so subtly forced upon her for the morrow. He had
+never seen her alone again.</p>
+
+<p>Ill at ease among abstractions, his mind turned with relief to the case
+in point. Condensed slightly, his reflections ran something after this
+fashion:</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what Leslie's game is. Of course she's stark mad, but it's
+funny the others making a mystery about it too. Are they just giving a
+hard-worked little relation a holiday, or do they mean to take her up
+and bring her out next year. If they do, I'll wager she marries a title
+or is ruined inside the year. I know what I'm talking about. All my
+sweethearts do well. Things ain't like what they used to be. There's a
+sight too much young blood about, and the cubs will be in everywhere. A
+girl that can play 'em can land 'em. Good lord! Look at Bewdley! look
+at the Colfax good boy! With the Nampore rubies round her blasted neck!
+This one's clever, but I don't think she's that kind. But if she isn't,
+what the devil was she doing at Palèze? Funny, Dollfus coming to me!
+And I believe I'd rather see her on the stage after all, as long as
+it's decent. What did he mean by 'a riot'?"</p>
+
+<p>He got up, yawned, and threw his cigar butt into the fire. As he did
+so his reflection confronted him, a little flattered by the red-shaded
+globe. He pushed his face closer.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much youth there, old man!" he said, referring to the eyes; "but
+how many of the young 'uns will be where you are in fifteen years'
+time? Money! Money! Gad! I can't spend it if I try."</p>
+
+<p>He frowned at the fire and turned impatiently away. "I'm a fool," he
+said. "None of 'em live up to their faces. Besides, you can never
+corner that market. A lot is not knowing when to pull out, and idleness
+and over-feeding, and seeing too many new faces. Heigho! I wonder what
+Stanwood will be doing in the spring."</p>
+
+<p>He yawned again, and, an hour later, was fast asleep.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IIIa">III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">IN THE FIRELIGHT</p>
+
+
+<p>Snow had been drifting again, softly, thickly, and persistently,
+since dawn. The angles of the window sills were filled with it, every
+square and diamond in the leaded gallery windows was rimmed with the
+crystalline fur. The coats of the deer in the home park glowed a rich
+rusty red against its intense and sparkling purity; half of every trunk
+and branch at the edge of the wood was erased by it like a crayon
+drawing by the india rubber of some impatient drawing-room master.
+Fenella had spent the short winter afternoon roaming through galleries
+and chambers of state, or watching the flakes that tumbled giddily from
+the shrouded sky turn blue and green and red as they passed the painted
+blazons in the great oriel window—coats fessed and barrelled and
+ermined, of Alfords, and Corbets, and Danseys, and Maddocks, whose hale
+and temperate blood ran in her own veins.</p>
+
+<p>She was alone for the first time in the home of her forefathers. Her
+uncle was away in the old capital of Powysland on some political
+business or another; her cousins had driven down to the church an
+hour ago, in a governess-cart heaped with ropes and garlands of holly
+and fir. There were wreaths and crosses, too, for the woman who was
+spending her first Christmas beneath the frozen earth, and Fenella
+had shrunk from sharing the pious duty in which her heart could have
+so little part. She was glad to be alone, and to muse undisturbed
+in the ghostly protracted twilight. After the tempest of her grief
+something of weakness and passivity lingered still; her heart felt the
+languor of convalescence. Her movements were slower, her poises more
+consciously graceful; with the restlessness of childhood the last of
+its angles had gone. So imperative is nature, that she can make even a
+broken heart subsidiary to her purpose. She had prayed to die, and was
+three pounds heavier.</p>
+
+<p>When the twilight glimmer in the long gallery was too ghostly to be
+borne she descended to the dining-hall. Under its hooded fireplace
+the roaring grate was heaped with blocks of ligneous coal almost as
+large as boulders. Freres Lulford is in that borderland 'twixt the old
+England and the new where, for a ten-mile walk, one may make choice
+between coal-shafts and rolling mills, or ancient timbered hamlets and
+the "forest fleece" of Wenlock Edge. She called Perseus, the house-dog,
+to her, an eerie, feathery creature with a mouth like a shark, and,
+holding his head in her lap with one hand, rested her round cheek,
+dusky red from the fire into which she gazed, upon the other. The
+flames, as they rose and fell, tossed a distorted shadow of her head
+and shoulders, now low along the faded Persian carpets that covered the
+polished oak boards, now high up on the diapered wall, across helmet
+and cuirass, fringed silken banner, or antlered head, until, reaching
+the straddled legs or flowered petticoat of some high-hung ancestor,
+it sank again to the carpeted floor. She was dressed in a high-waisted
+frock of some soft white material, with short sleeves that left most of
+her arms bare, and with a high net collar kept pointed to the ears with
+little whalebones, after a senseless momentary fashion that forced her
+to carry her chin in the air. It was a very pretty chin, however; and
+wherefore does fashion change at all if not to call attention, through
+successive exaggerations, to the varied prettinesses of woman.</p>
+
+<p>Was she beginning to taste content again? Was she even resigned?
+She could not tell. A broken heart is such a relative term, one
+so justly discredited by those who have not the patience or the
+knowledge to follow its deadly sequelae that, except as the loosest
+of illustration, it is grown to be a useless one as well. But without
+flattering her own constancy in the least, Fenella could well perceive
+that, but for a providence so despised at the time, it might have
+gone very hard with her. Never, she owned it humbly and thankfully,
+could power to endure so timely have followed the blow, ministering
+angels the draining of the chalice. The worth or tenacity of a love
+that death or something else violently disrupts is not to be measured
+in an instant. At first, while the soul is nothing save a shocked
+protesting mass of severed nerve and impulse, all comfort is welcome,
+no matter whence it comes. It is not until the pain has abated that a
+perverse relish for it becomes possible, and that its ameliorations
+can seem a treachery done to love. So she had judged her own once,
+with the indignation of youth for wise restraining laws that will
+let no passion, by taking thought, grow beyond a certain stature.
+She was wiser now as well as humbler—could bless the diversion even
+for the poor perished love's sake. It had saved her from the meaner
+vexations that, for the woman, follow the breaking of an engagement,
+the unwelcome sympathy and the meaning glance, the loneliness of the
+long empty hours, and the perpetual challenge to memory of familiar
+scenes and faces. New skies, as the poet sings, may not change the
+heart, but this much is certain—nowhere is disappointment borne so
+hardly as among those who have been witness to the illusion. She went
+from her lover's arms discredited, soiled even, but, at least, to those
+who were ignorant of her history, and could not compare her with the
+Fenella of old. Meantime, her sorrow lurked somewhere, to wake, she
+felt instinctively, the day another man should ask her for love.</p>
+
+<p>Her cousins were kind and natural, so natural that, after three months,
+she seemed to have known them all her life. Leslie Barbour was tall,
+thin and melancholy, mildly mad, and with the good looks that were
+the only unentailed heritage in the Barbour family marred in her case
+by ill-health and emaciation. She spoke little, and regarded her
+new-found cousin with a purblind stare that it took Fenella a long time
+to get used to, but which she was content now to accept as a tribute of
+adoring affection. She loved white, waxy flowers with heavy odors, and
+was psychically inquisitive.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly was rather afraid of her uncle, a <i>bruyant</i> peer with a
+past of which the late Lady Lulford had been a very small part. He had
+a fine head and heavy, fleshy face, opulently bearded, that Holbein
+would have loved to paint, the face of one of the terrible new lords
+of the English Renaissance who hung the abbots and gobbled up the
+abbeys. In the country he affected knickerbockers and velvet coats,
+and was sophisticated rather than intellectual, with a sophistication
+that he had placed a whole life long at the service of his pleasures.
+His pursuits being apt to clash with his eldest son's, Basil was at
+present in Damaraland shooting big game; but Jack Barbour, the younger
+son, a cheery and casual young lancer, fell unreservedly in love with
+his pretty cousin, with a fine quality of hopeless adoration in his
+homage (he has since married money and freckles) that the girl was
+used to by now, and could deal with competently. The two became great
+chums. Jack liked to have his well-turned-out little kinswoman for
+brisk walks across the Park, or for a saunter down Bond Street at the
+hours of resort. He did not mind how many of his comrades-in-arms
+caught him in company that did him so much credit. "Where did you find
+the pretty lady you were with in Burlington Street, Suds?" "Don't be
+an ass, Bogey," Suds would make reply. "She's a little cousin of ours.
+I'll introduce you in the spring when we start goin' round again."
+Fenella, wearing her own sad colors in her heart, looked forward to the
+promised gaieties almost with dismay. Life had become such a serious
+thing. She worked hard at her dancing, teaching, and learning while
+she taught, and making strides that carried her rapidly beyond Mme. de
+Rudder's power to appreciate justly. On the morning of her interview
+with Joe Dollfus she thought it well to take her eccentric cousin into
+her confidence. The look of hopeless adoration only intensified in the
+vacant, troubled face. Leslie put out her hand and touched the girl's
+black hair timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Blame you, child?" she repeated. "Does one blame the butterfly for
+seeking the sun? Will you forget me, darling, in your success—for I
+see success written on your brow? Will you be only one other sad memory
+in my breast—one pearl white head the more along the long rosary of
+my regrets?" She sighed luxuriously. "I shall recall you best," she
+decided after a moment's consideration, "when I see a creamy-white
+rose, half-blown."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella wriggled uneasily. She did not want to be any one else's
+regret. Brows and breasts, moreover, had a mortuary flavor. Foreheads
+and chests were much cheerfuller everyday matters. They were at lunch,
+and she caught her cousin's hand under the table-cloth.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be gloomy, Les," she pleaded; "you make me feel all
+<i>squiggly</i> when you talk that way. Of course I sha'n't forget you.
+I want you to come with me and madame this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>We know now what Mr. Dollfus thought; but his outward recognition of
+his opportunity had been temperate, and the three women discussed his
+attitude rather ruefully over their tea. Leslie looked at the girl's
+flushed, chagrined face a long while in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid, Cousin Nelly," she said at last. "It's going to be
+all right. That man is wild to have you."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella turned on her breathlessly. "Oh, Les! do you mean it? How can
+you know?"</p>
+
+<p>Leslie narrowed her pale eyes and shook her head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind how I know," she said cryptically. "These things aren't
+withheld from me. They wouldn't be from <i>you</i> if you could empty
+your mind of <i>self</i> for even a moment."</p>
+
+<p>No reinforcement to hope is really insignificant. Nelly had glowed
+at the eerie assurance. She was recalling it now, and smiling over
+poor Les's unearthly manner, when the hairy head under her hand moved
+convulsively. Perseus uttered a wild, strangling bark. A man was
+standing on the opposite side of the fireplace, looking at the pretty
+group of girl and animal—the dog asleep, the girl dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" he said cheerfully.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IVa">IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS</p>
+
+
+<p>He was a big man, and in his long hairy coat he looked a giant. After
+the first glance the girl's first wild fear vanished. Burglars and
+murderers don't wear fur coats in business hours, nor hold goggles in
+their hand. Perseus, too, having given the alarm, had gone over to the
+stranger, and was sniffing at him in a way that suggested recognition.
+The unknown slapped his lean flank.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Perse! You don't get any fatter, old man."</p>
+
+<p>As he unwound a great woollen scarf from his neck, a fair, pleasant
+face, rather damp and weather beaten, emerged. She recognized her
+chatty friend of La Palèze immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry if I startled you," he said, "but they told me Miss Barbour
+was in the hall, so I walked in. Were they pleasant dreams?"</p>
+
+<p>Even in the red firelight the color on the girl's cheeks deepened
+perceptibly. "How can I slip past him?" she said to herself and then
+aloud: "If you don't mind waiting, I'll go and see whether my cousins
+are back. My uncle is at Shrewsbury."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't move," the man answered. "I asked. They're all out still.
+But perhaps I'd better introduce myself. I'm Bryan Lumsden. I think I'm
+expected."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Bryan Lumsden," she repeated. "Oh! we thought you'd come this
+morning. Leslie waited luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>"I burst a tire at Welshpool," Bryan explained. "Often do in snow, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I ring for tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please. And meantime, let's talk." He took off his coat and flung
+it over a high-railed chair. "Shall we?"</p>
+
+<p>She sat back, further into the shadow as she hoped, but the vicious
+flame chose that moment to spurt out—a spurt of peculiar brilliance.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what can we talk about?" he asked pleasantly, when the footman
+had gone, carrying the great coat with him.</p>
+
+<p>"The weather?" poor Fenella suggested, with a hollow laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Or foreign travel, eh? That's even more interesting."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly abandoned her treacherous ambush.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't help it," she protested, rubbing the arms of her chair
+nervously with open palms. "You <i>would</i> talk to me. And it's—it's
+so hard to be rude."</p>
+
+<p>"——in return, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You know you shouldn't have done it."</p>
+
+<p>"You had your revenge next day, remember!" he said, and stopped
+abruptly, as another absurdly big footman, who should have been
+breaking the glebe in Canada, entered with the tea-tray.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I turn on the light, miss?" the man asked, disposing various
+silver-covered dishes on the wide hearth.</p>
+
+<p>"No!—oh yes—if you please, Philip. Why do you say 'revenge'?" she
+asked, when they were alone again. "I'm not a revengeful person."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see," he said, taking a cup from her hands. "Power's a great
+temptation."</p>
+
+<p>Under his steady gaze, which never left her face, except to scan
+her figure, the ministry of the tea-table was a sad ordeal. In the
+intervals of discharging her duties she called the hound to her and
+fondled him anew. That hid one arm, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>"I waited for you a whole morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I don't believe that!" Said without any coquetry.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the simple fact. And I've heard about you since."</p>
+
+<p>"From Leslie? Of course you would."</p>
+
+<p>"No; she only said, unaccountably: 'A cousin,' leaving me to guess
+whether it was he, she, or it. I'm thinking of Joe Dollfus."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he held his hand up. He had fine senses. "I can hear wheels in
+the snow. You haven't told me your name."</p>
+
+<p>"Fenella."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Cousin Fenella! Are we going to be friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be discreet, you know, about—<i>things</i> at La Palèze."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's eyes brimmed. Instead of this face, blonde, confident, and
+animal, another one—lean, spiritualized, with far-seeking, visionary
+eyes, swam through her tears. "Paul! Paul!" Like any poor maid, beset,
+at bay in a robber-haunted forest, her heart called to her true love.</p>
+
+<p>"In return, will you keep a secret for me?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mention Welshpool. I'm supposed to have come straight from
+London."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I say anything at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! one never knows. Give me your hand on it."</p>
+
+<p>What could she do? He was in no hurry to release her, and had hardly
+dropped it when, chilled and dazed but boisterously light-hearted after
+their mournful errand, her cousins entered the hall.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Va">V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">CICISPEO</p>
+
+
+<p>The next morning was stirless but bracing. Snow covered the park in
+soft mounds and waves, with a little black pit round the roots of
+each tree, as though some hibernating animal were breathing beneath.
+The laden branches balanced their fairy load daintily, against a sky,
+low, buff-colored and heavy with the promise of a further fall toward
+afternoon. The atmosphere was so still that the shouts of children
+snowballing in the village half a mile beyond the lodge gates, the
+rattling of antlers round the feeding-trough, reached the terrace,
+swept and sand-strewn already, where Fenella walked before breakfast,
+her arms folded under a warm golfing cape that she had found hanging
+in the hall. In the morning light, austere, temperate and shadowless,
+a good many of the misgivings that had robbed her of sleep were
+re-examined and found ludicrously unworthy of the sacrifice. There was
+no mistake about it. She had had her hour of unreasoning panic—had
+even meditated excuses that should cover a precipitate homeward flight.
+But that mood was over now. Women have their own code of bravery in the
+only warfare they know—their own perception of the ignominy of flight.
+If they act oftener upon their fears than upon the braver impulse, it
+is only because, in this warfare, it is their adversary himself who has
+set the rules and poisoned the weapons, decreeing that the slightest
+wound as well as the mortal shall be held matter for shame.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard of you—from Dollfus." What did that mean? What could
+be said of her yet? Of course, afterward, she was prepared for far
+worse. She was going on the stage with her eyes remarkably wide open.
+But that women—girls like herself, living at home, protected and
+obscure—should be made subject of men's conversation, she felt was an
+injustice—a treacherous thrust before the battle was joined. What was
+its motive? To rob her of self-respect before her character could be
+assailed? To cheapen, degrade her in her own eyes at the outset?</p>
+
+<p>All at once a light dawned upon her—a light that beamed softly through
+her eyes, that wreathed her lips with the faintest, saddest little
+smile that ever was near neighbor to tears.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all your fault, darling," she murmured. "It's all through you.
+You've been and lost me my character, Paul. Oh, my dear, my dear! What
+a joke! If the beasts only knew you?"</p>
+
+<p>A foot grated upon the sand behind her. She turned and saw Sir Bryan,
+very fresh and smart and youthful in his tweeds and breeches.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Miss Barbour. I'm sent to call you into breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard the gong."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't hear it from this side." He came nearer and drew in great
+breaths of the cold, pure air. "Feeding's a bore, isn't it, a morning
+like this? I like houses where everything's kept hot and you eat any
+time; don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I haven't visited very much."</p>
+
+<p>She tried to meet his new impersonal tone with perfunctory brightness;
+but Bryan knew how a woman looks who hasn't slept.</p>
+
+<p>"You look tired," he said. "I'm afraid I worried you a bit last night."</p>
+
+<p>"I did think you a little—a little——"</p>
+
+<p>"Disrespectful, eh?" Lumsden hazarded. He had that useful sort of tact
+in conversation which consists in supplying the word that suits one's
+own purpose best.</p>
+
+<p>"We were such strangers, you see," urged Fenella, with gentle reproof.
+"That time in France shouldn't have counted at all."</p>
+
+<p>"If it did, the score was on your side," the baronet said quickly. "But
+I'm content so long as you don't mark it against me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you hinted people were talking about me," Nelly went on,
+reddening, but gaining confidence. "It was that worried me. It was so
+vague."</p>
+
+<p>"We were interrupted just then," Lumsden reminded her. "A word or two
+would have explained, but you wouldn't let me get near you the whole
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I? When women are talked about it's never <i>well</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, isn't it?" said Lumsden. "I'm not a philanthropist, but I assure
+you I've done my part bravely in holding lots of shaky reputations
+together."</p>
+
+<p>She raised her head now, and looked him quite proudly in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I'm not conscious mine's in bad repair."</p>
+
+<p>It was a different voice and another woman. Lumsden leaned over the
+parapet and gathered a handful of snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Snow's packing," he said. "We'll have sleighing after lunch. Ever been
+on a bob-sleigh?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Fenella. Maidenly dignity relented a little. It sounded
+"fun."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bryan gave a boyish laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"You've missed half your life," said he, making use of one of a
+collection of phrases he had brought from over the Atlantic. "Look
+here!" He touched her ever so lightly on the shoulder and pointed
+across the park. "From the Belvedere down to the 'ha-ha' there's two
+hundred and fifty yards if you know how. We laid it out years ago, and
+marked it with stones. It's known all round. Lots of people, probably,
+will turn up here this afternoon. You'll let me take you down,
+won't you, Miss Barbour? I say; do I have to go on calling you 'Miss
+Barbour'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," demurely; "I think it's best."</p>
+
+<p>"For how long?"</p>
+
+<p>She faced him with her hand upon the sash of the long French window. If
+it was "just flirting," Fenella was "all there."</p>
+
+<p>"Until you've told me truthfully what Mr. Dollfus said."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do it while we're sleighing. It won't take ten minutes."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The conversation, however, lasted more than ten minutes, and it was one
+Fenella was never to forget. As Bryan had prophesied, the news that the
+slide was being banked and made spread rapidly, and a host of people
+turned up in the afternoon, in country carts with sledges trailing
+and bumping behind, or in motor-cars, with an occasional pair of skis
+sticking up in the air. The run had been laid out years ago under
+Lumsden's own direction, when "crooked run" tobogganing was a newly
+discovered rapture. More than one future hero of the Kloster or Cresta
+had taken his first powdery tumble, amid ecstatic laughter from friends
+and relations, on the snowy slopes of Freres Lulford, and even now,
+after the sophistication had set in that so quickly reduces any English
+pastime to a science, with its canting vocabulary and inner circle of
+the expert, whenever snow fell thickly enough to stop shooting and
+hunting, two or three days' sleighing in Lulford Park was thought
+rather "sport" by a society watchfully anxious never to be thrown upon
+its intellectual resources by any trick of wind or weather.</p>
+
+<p>Game-keepers and gardeners had been at work all the morning, and
+after lunch people began to arrive. Fenella had met a good many of
+them before—Lord Warrener, with his fiery whiskered cheeks and grave
+little Philadelphia wife; Bill Arkcoll, whose gray face, seamed with
+a million tiny wrinkles, was twisted into a permanent grin round a
+black-rimmed eyeglass, which he had, moreover, a disconcerting habit
+in the evening of letting fall with a sudden crash on his shirt front;
+"Snip" Hannaford, the gentleman jockey, who had sacrificed his chest to
+the sport of kings; finally Lady Wills-Pechell, alone condescendingly
+literary on the strength of half a dozen pottering little garden books:
+"Among my Syringas," "The Chatelaine's Year," "Shadow and Sun on
+Spurlock Edge." Lady Warrener was of the latest type of trans-Atlantic
+heiress, devoted to the peerage from the nursery, and "very carefully
+brought up" by an ambitious and circumspect mother. Her opinions
+were predigested and all her life nothing really unforeseen had ever
+happened her, except twins. She adored her husband and babies, thought
+Bryan's occasional Americanisms vulgar, and her favorite comment was,
+"<i>Oh, fahncy!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>As a class they had for some time ceased to force comparisons upon
+Fenella; but this afternoon their low, clear voices, frank, unimpressed
+greetings, absence of anxiety, and general air of being all afloat
+together upon a stream that might be trusted never to carry them too
+far out of one another's reach struck pleasantly upon her senses. A
+great coke stove had been lighted in the Belvedere and the curved stone
+benches covered with carriage-rugs and cushions. The trampled snow
+outside was littered with an assortment of bob-sleighs, "Cheshires"
+and frail steel clipper-sleds. The run started practically at the
+door, with a nearly sheer fall of twenty feet; ran out a hundred yards
+into the straight, turned—at first gently, then more sharply—on a
+heaped embankment around the shoulder of the hill, and finished close
+to the old carp pond, whose black ramparts and pointed turrets of
+yew were roofed and spired to-day with a white thatch of snow. From
+the gardens a sort of rough stairway, made of faggots and bundles of
+brush-wood, had been made to the top of the hill. A few belated guests
+were straggling up it, pulling up their sleds to one side through the
+snow. Round the stove the vocabulary of the sport was being briskly
+interchanged.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sprawl</i> on Battledore, and use your right foot, not your left."
+"Never got beyond the duffer's handicap myself." "You'll 'yaw' all
+over, Arkcoll, if you use rakes on the straight." "Hands are best."
+"No, they're not: 'gouties,' when they get a bit worn, are just as
+good." "He was killed because he held on, Warrener. Let go and bunch
+yourself, and you can't be more than bruised even there." "Who's going
+to start?" "That thing's no good on a snow-run, Barbour."</p>
+
+<p>Jack Barbour was standing on the edge of the descent, a light steel
+frame with a cushion held against his chest. He put it down and glanced
+at his pretty cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we show 'em how?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella caught her breath, but nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack, take care of her!" reproachfully, from his sister, while
+Warrener, in the background, already a little <i>épris</i>, expressed
+an opinion that it was "damned dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>"Dangerous? Down that thing?" cried Barbour scornfully, pushing the
+nose of what is technically known as a "tin-bottom" over the slope.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to do?" asked Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just sit still and hang on to my knees. Now, are you ready?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella bit her lip and suppressed a vulgar inclination to scream.
+The toboggan seemed to fall headlong—to rebound—to shoot out with
+the evident intention of either burying itself in the embankment or
+of leaping it altogether. When its nose was not more than ten yards
+away she felt the speed suddenly slacken, the toboggan slewed round
+with a twist that nearly overset it, and, steadying, slipped swiftly
+and cleanly round a wide curve. Almost before the rapture of the
+unaccustomed motion had been realized, it came to a stop, for want of
+snow, in the shadow of the prior's garden.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you like it?" asked cousin Jack, brushing the snow off his
+sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jack!"—Fenella pressed her mittened hands together—"it's—it's
+<i>glorious</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Barbour smiled at her glowing face. "Pooh! You should see the real
+thing. Ask Lumsden. He did the Kloster in five-fifteen once."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he very good at it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's good at everything he takes up," said Jack, unreservedly. "How do
+you like him, Flash? I forgot to ask."</p>
+
+<p>Jack Barbour had heard of this old school nickname from a brother
+officer who had had a sister at Sharland College and seldom called her
+by any other.</p>
+
+<p>"M—m—pretty well. Is he really a cousin of—of—ours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not really, I think. It's a kind of old joke."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is he so much at home here, then, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>Barbour had evidently found the situation ready made, and had never
+thought of questioning it.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he and the governor were racing partners once. There are
+some of his horses here now: I don't mean hunters. Saleratus is his,
+the big bay. We all hope he's going to win some races next year. Snip
+Hannaford's going to ride him."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he married, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>Barbour laughed sarcastically. "Bryan married! No fear! He knows too
+much."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Jack!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I'm sorry, coz. It wasn't a very pretty speech to a lady. I mean
+he's a bit spoilt. Shall we go up?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; let us sit here awhile. It's so warm. Why is he spoilt?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Cos he's awful rich."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaps of people are rich."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, he's got a good deal to do with theatres, and knows that
+kind of people. The Dominion really belongs to him. Why, your teeth are
+chattering, Flash. Are you cold?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. It's nothing. I thought Mr. Dollfus was the manager of the
+Dominion."</p>
+
+<p>"He is in a way. I don't quite understand these things, but I suppose
+Bryan puts up the money."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Fenella, with the accent of full comprehension. "Jack,"
+she said, after a moment, "do you think it's quite right to have a man
+like that meeting—proper women?"</p>
+
+<p>Barbour jerked his head. He was a rather nice lad, singularly
+susceptible to the influence of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it isn't, when one thinks of it. We've thrashed this out
+before, haven't we, Flash? Same law for both, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think men, and women too, ought to choose what kind of people
+they're going to know, and be made <i>stick</i> to that sort. I
+don't like <i>mixings</i>. Come, let's go up. Here come some others.
+Oh, Jack! aren't you glad you're young? I <i>hate</i> men after
+twenty-five."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The sport was over, together with the short-lived day, before she stood
+in the same place with the older man. Servants carrying tea-baskets
+and kettles had made their way up the slope. Lanterns twinkled in the
+pergola, and gay chat floated down to them. She had kept out of his way
+all the afternoon without difficulty. It was not until she had made the
+tantalizingly short descent with one man after another, and finally,
+amid much vain dissuasion and subsequent applause, headforemost by
+herself on Jack's steel clipper, that he came to her side and asked
+her, without a trace of the manner she resented, to take the last run
+with him. It was growing dark, and meaning glances were not wanting,
+but she had consented without any hesitation. She felt the glances, but
+she felt also a strange elation and a consciousness of strength that
+made her a very different creature to the nervous tongue-tied little
+girl of the night before. She did not quite know why, but, as she
+stood, a little breathless from her upward climb, with the first flakes
+of the new fall melting on her glowing cheek, life, even shadowed life
+such as was hers, seemed something intensely interesting, and something
+that, given courage, might be mastered as easily as the sport she was
+essaying now. He was the first to speak when they reached the sheltered
+gloom below.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think our explanation's about due?"</p>
+
+<p>He saw her smile. "I'm not a bit anxious for it now, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>"I can believe that. You've even seemed to me to be keeping out of its
+way, or out of mine, which comes to the same thing, all the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not really worth worrying over. When you've given it there won't
+be much gained."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean calling you—your name. It was your own idea to wait, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"You can call me it now without any conditions. Jack has told me we're
+kind of cousins."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all he's told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little more."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Enough to make you hesitate about a certain step you had thought
+of taking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to make me think I'd better take it in some other place."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't take it anywhere else"—earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>She was startled at his intensity, and looked uneasily up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Fenella, does history bore you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a very short lesson, please."</p>
+
+<p>"A few minutes is enough. Years ago, then, cousin, in certain parts of
+Italy, when a bride was starting her new life, besides the usual stuff
+about pin-money, settlements, etcetera, the marriage contract contained
+another clause that seems to our insular minds intensely shocking.
+You'd never guess what it provided for."</p>
+
+<p>"If it's shocking, I'd best not try."</p>
+
+<p>His mouth twitched. "Baldly, then, one friend—neither more nor less.
+A third partner in the terrestrial paradise. Seems rather a scandalous
+person, doesn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden lit a cigar. "And yet"—<i>puff! puff!</i>—"the more one
+thinks of him the more reasonable he becomes. Men were so busy in those
+days, cousin. Fighting, don't you know—treaty making—in prison for
+indefinite periods. Don't you see with how much easier mind the soldier
+or diplomatic or captive husband must have laid his head on his lonely
+pillow for knowing there was a stout arm, ready blade, keen wit at
+home, authorized to keep marauders off. Do you wonder why I'm telling
+you all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"To frighten me, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! I know better than that. Come! put prejudice aside. Remember,
+too, that his name was probably the worst thing about him. Some poor
+relative, unrewarded soldier, I always imagine him—generally a cousin,
+by the way. Still wondering?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Fenella, listen to me! Under ordinary conditions, for a girl
+like yourself to dance on the stage would be to risk more unhappiness
+and humiliation and treachery than you'd believe if I told you. There's
+one place in which a word from me can secure you your peace of mind.
+That's the Dominion. Don't turn away from luck."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that I—that you——"</p>
+
+<p>"That the mere hint, in quarters where it's most wanted, that you're
+a <i>protégée</i> of mine will rid you once for all of unwelcome
+attentions."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella considered. "In fact, in order to keep my peace of mind, I must
+lose my reputation."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care very much what the world says? Do you have to—still?"</p>
+
+<p>The last word was pitched so low that she hardly caught it. But,
+whisper as it was, it decided her.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I don't care. Not—<i>that</i>." She snapped her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," said the sporting baronet encouragingly. "It's a
+bargain then? Dominion or nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm writing Joe to-night. Shall I tell him we go into training after
+Christmas?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>He put his hands in his pockets and puffed his cigar to a glow.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite ready to fight the world, ain't you, cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>world</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"——but not me, eh? Oh! I keep my word. I'm Cicispeo."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Who?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"The man who's history I've just been telling you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you taking all this trouble then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! I like a 'facer' sometimes. Well, it's because I admire pluck.
+Because I saw you swim a mile out at Palèze. Oh! I often watched you.
+Because you took a header down that slide just now. What'll you be at
+next. Shall we go back to the house or will you go up with me and face
+the Wills-Pechell eye? It's celebrated, I warn you—got enough pluck
+left for that?"</p>
+
+<p>And as she climbed the brushwood path—her hand in this new
+friend's—Fenella, all her elation gone, was wondering how much share
+after all her will had had in the choice just made, and whether this
+dazzling dream-vista of success and applause, out of which, as earnest
+of her right to all it promised, a rush of warm-scented air seemed to
+meet her through the snow-filled dusk, were not really a decree of
+fate, hostile and inexorable to her heart's desire as death would have
+seemed three months ago—peace, salty suffocation on the dark, lonely,
+foreign beach, clasped in her lover's arms.</p>
+
+<p>And Lumsden, quite possibly, was measuring the moral distance between
+the cad who shoots a pheasant on the ground and the sportsman who
+flushes it and gives it a fly for its life. Or for better sport—which
+is it?—and to take a surer aim.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIa">VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT</p>
+
+
+<p>Among the minor penalties with which fate, presumably solicitous
+for a true balance, hampers excellence in this world, not alone the
+acquired excellence, which, being achieved in its teeth, explicably
+earns its maleficence, but even the natural advantages which were
+its own unsolicited gift, one, we think, has escaped the attention
+it deserves. We refer to a certain isolation and lack of touch with
+their immediate <i>entourage</i> which those who are marked for the
+world's prizes never quite succeed in overcoming, however modestly
+they wear or anticipate their honors. They are interesting, and for a
+correct view a certain distance, respectful, (though not necessarily
+so to them), is judged advisable. Society opens its ranks to receive
+them, but never quite closes on them again. None who have studied the
+lives of the giants but will have noticed how rarely a friendship
+disinterestedly worthy of them came their way, and is not the fatality
+of beauty, encountering the spoiler where the friend was imagined, a
+proverb? Fenella had not lived her new life a month before she was
+aware of a subtle atmosphere which was not treachery and which could
+not, without begging the question, have been called disrespect, but
+which partook a little of both. One does not feel a thing less keenly
+for being unable to exactly define it. Instincts are given women to be
+acted on, not to be explored. Its manifestations as yet had been only
+vaguely disquieting. Among the men it was apparent rather as a half
+jocular reservation of judgment—a determination, in view of possible
+developments, not to be committed to any one view of her character
+now, and, above all, never to be in the position of having more knowing
+brothers administer a rebuke to worldly wisdom. And among the women it
+took the shape of a coldness in meeting her advances which contrasted
+puzzlingly with the outspoken admiration that invited them. Poor,
+warm-hearted, ignorant Fenella! experiencing for the first time the
+full benefits of the benefit of the doubt.</p>
+
+<p>It might be inevitable, or it might not, that, as day followed day
+of a visit so rapidly losing its charm, the broad-shouldered figure
+of the sporting baronet should begin to stand out more and more
+sympathetically against this background of veiled disrespect and
+thwarting reserve. It is true that the openness of his first advances
+had been the thing nearest approaching insult that she could remember,
+but, such as it was, it was forgiven now and, womanlike, the fault,
+frankly owned, brought him nearer. More womanlike still, perhaps,
+she liked him the better because he had been a witness to the old
+lost love of the summer. He at least saw her in no half light. She
+did not care greatly if he believed the worst—took a perverse joy,
+indeed, in believing it was possible he did. She was on her way now
+to a life where such things were no handicap, to which, indeed, she
+half suspected they were sometimes the initiation. She was content the
+knowledge of her own integrity should remain—a secret satisfaction to
+herself—content to feel it as a dancer of the fervid south, beneath
+her languorous draperies, may feel the chill of the dagger that she
+carries thrust through her garter.</p>
+
+<p>He was kind and helpful too, not with the troublesome insistence of
+a man anxious to make amends for a former mistake, but as though,
+the ground having been cleared once for all of false conceptions,
+misunderstanding was no longer likely between them. Mourning and
+seclusion, she discovered, were comparative terms among country
+neighbors, and amid the men with whom the house intermittently abounded
+he showed both a finer creature and a finer gentleman. Once, in the
+billiard-room, when Warrener the full-blooded hinted that her cheeks
+lacked roses, and made as if to pour out whiskey for her, Lumsden took
+the decanter from his hand without a word, and put it back on the
+wooden ledge that ran round the room. She had come on a message to him
+from Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd send one of the maids, Flash, when it's as late as this," he said,
+simply, as soon as they were in the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>He had adopted Jack's favorite nickname for her when they were alone
+once and for all, but it was noticeable he never used it in the hearing
+of a third person. The thing had no importance, but it is a type of the
+assumptions she was finding it so difficult to resist.</p>
+
+<p>It was he who, after all, taught her to ride. Jack Barbour, to do him
+justice, was prepared to redeem an old promise so soon as, to use his
+own words, "the bone was gone out of the ground," but frost followed
+the snow and held for days after tobogganing had been voted flat, stale
+and unprofitable. It wasn't Bryan's way to wait. He had more tan and
+straw laid down over the path, bordered with evergreens, that led from
+the stable-yard to poor Lady Lulford's steam laundry, and along which
+the horses were exercised every day. Fenella's heart fluttered and
+there was no lack in her cheeks of the roses whose absence Warrener
+deplored as, dressed in a borrowed habit of Leslie's that pinched her
+unconfined waist sorely, and with her hair in a pigtail again, she
+put her foot in her master's looped hand. Maids and stable-boys were
+peeping round the outbuildings.</p>
+
+<p>He flicked the gray mare with his whip, and for more than an hour,
+letting the rope he held run out to its full length, pulled the animal
+backward and forward in a kind of "eight" figure. He threw away his
+cigar, and his voice rang out crisp and decisive as on a barrack square.</p>
+
+<p>"Straight between his ears! Now look down. Can you see the feet? That's
+right! Now, then, press down in the stirrup as her fore-leg goes out,
+then lift. <i>Hup! hup!</i> Oh, fine! Coz! you're a fraud. You've
+learnt before."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I really done so very well?" she asked, when the lesson was over
+and they were on their way to the stables. She looked up in his face;
+her own tingling with pleasure at his appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>"I've never seen 'em trot so well the first time." He looked her over
+critically. "I suppose it's all balance. When we're back in town, I'll
+mount you and show you lots of things. We'll have a turn in Richmond
+Park."</p>
+
+<p>She caught her breath at the last two words, as at a positive physical
+pang. This must be the future, she supposed. Stray ends of pleasure,
+caught at and let go, an uneasy sense of something missing that could
+have woven them all into happiness, and now and then, when the nerve
+was touched, just such a spasm of pain as made her wince now. Lumsden
+did not notice her. He was looking at a large bay horse with a bandaged
+ankle that a stableman was leading across the paved yard.</p>
+
+<p>"How's his hock this morning, Collett?"</p>
+
+<p>Collett touched his cap twice. "Walks a bit lame still, I fancy, Sir
+Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>"What does Brodribb say about him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ye know what Mr. Brodribb be, Sir Bryan. 'E wunt 'ave the harse
+slung. 'Get the condition right fust,' 'e says."</p>
+
+<p>"Lift up his cloths."</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden rubbed his hand over the lean-barrelled flank and regarded the
+animal gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Bit hide-bound still. Still cooking his food, Collett?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>"Feed him on corn a day or two, and let him have the boiled water warm.
+I'll come down this afternoon and have another look at him. Well,
+Flash, what do you think of him? Pretty horse, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's rather—<i>thin</i>, isn't he, Sir Bryan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thin?" Bryan looked down banteringly at his little cockney friend in
+her borrowed riding-habit. "That's a race-horse. That's Saleratus."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>On New Year's Eve the Lulford party dined at Chubley, Lady
+Wills-Pechell's new but much photographed and be-paragraphed castle
+high up on Spurlock Edge. Despite the roaring log fire, there was quite
+a baronial rawness in the air of the dining-room, and most of the women
+came to dinner with lace shawls or spangled Egyptian scarves over their
+bare shoulders. Toward the end of dinner Lady Wills-Pechell leaned from
+her chair for a whispered conversation with her right-hand neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barbour," she said. "Oh! I beg your pardon, Leslie; I meant your
+cousin."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella, who was genuinely absorbed in the technicalities of Snip
+Hannaford, turned to meet her hostess's unconvincing smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barbour, a little bird has been very busy lately twittering that
+you dance. Aren't we to be shown anything before you go back to town?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are too many little birds in S—shire," Bill Arkcoll remarked in
+a penetrating undertone. "Pity the cold hasn't killed some of them."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella reddened and turned pale by turns.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can't!" she said quickly. She flashed a quick appeal across the
+table for her cousin's sympathy, but Leslie kept her eyes on her plate.
+Leslie's manner had been strange lately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you <i>must</i>—you really must! Talents oughtn't to be hid.
+Ought they, Lord Lulford?"</p>
+
+<p>The bearded widower, who had been engaged in demolishing the private
+reputation of a Liberal leader, turned from the horrified face of the
+great lady he had taken in to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're asking your niece to dance here some night before she goes
+back. She thinks it wouldn't be quite—quite, you know——"</p>
+
+<p>Lulford tugged at his thick beard. "I don't know why you shouldn't,
+Fenella. We're almost a family party."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry the child," Lady Warrener put in, noticing her distress.
+She had forgotten much that was American, but not the tradition that
+kindness and consideration are budding womanhood's due.</p>
+
+<p>"Be a sport, Flash," said Jack Barbour, cheerily but unhelpfully.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll persuade her when we've got her in the drawing-room," said Lady
+Warrener.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said the chatelaine, "that there's more chance of her being
+persuaded here. Won't <i>you</i> try, Sir Bryan?" in her sweetest tone.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be a serious matter," said Lumsden, without looking at any one
+in particular. "Perhaps Miss Barbour's in training."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the lady of the Syringas. "But who's the trainer? That's
+what we all want to know."</p>
+
+<p>"I've—I've got no clothes."</p>
+
+<p>A smothered laugh, not only from the men.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, we've got boxes and boxes of them upstairs—five
+generations."</p>
+
+<p>There was a crash on a shirt-front, at which every one jumped but
+Arkcoll. He would have very much liked to see the box belonging to,
+say, generation three.</p>
+
+<p>"And I've no music. Oh!" moving impatiently, "it's absurd."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Warrener thought she detected a suppressed ambition in the
+restless movement.</p>
+
+<p>"If you really don't mind, I've got volumes of old dance music over
+at Captoft. I was going to ask Jack to motor you and Leslie over
+to-morrow. Couldn't you rummage then?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella, hard pressed, looked over to Lumsden, as nearly every one had
+intended she should look. There was the strangest, quizzical expression
+on his face. It seemed to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Now then! Who said they weren't afraid? First fence, and we're funking
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll dance," she said abruptly, amid general applause, headed rather
+shrilly from the top of the table; "but please don't trouble about
+dresses, Lady Pechell. I'll write to mother to send me my own."</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden came to her side soon after the men entered the drawing-room
+with such undisguised intention that Lady Warrener, who had been trying
+to interest her in the dawning intelligence of the miraculous twins,
+drew away, puzzled and a little shaken in her advocacy.</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" Bryan said encouragingly; but the girl did not respond, and he
+thought he saw a tear roll down one bare arm. Nelly's tears were still
+larger than ordinary.</p>
+
+<p>"You looked across the table to me just now," he said. "I hope you saw
+nothing in my face except a wish you should do the best for your own
+interests."</p>
+
+<p>"It's settled now," said Fenella coldly, after a gulp which she
+hoped he didn't notice. "Lady Warrener had the <i>Chaconne</i> from
+<i>Iphigénie</i> and I can do my <i>Rosetta</i> dance to any six-four
+time. I'll write for the dresses as soon as we get back to Lulford."</p>
+
+<p>Saying which, she got up, grown stately somehow for all her girlish
+short frock, and crossed the room to where the joyful mother of twins
+was sitting silently, an expression of diffused and impartial sweetness
+on her face. She touched her elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Warrener, won't you go on and tell me some more about your
+babies? I was really interested?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman looked up, noted the mute appeal in voice and eyes, and,
+drawing the girl down next her on the couch, took her hand and held it
+as she chatted.</p>
+
+<p>"Where had I got to? Oh, yes—Bunter said: 'Mother, there's something
+tickling my red lane.' 'Your red lane, Bunter?' 'Oh, mother,' said
+Patch, 'he's such a baby. He means his <i>froat</i>.' Now wasn't that
+<i>sweet</i>. Miss Barbour? <i>Fahncy!</i> And only three years old,
+both of them. I'm so proud, I simply <i>bore</i> all my friends.
+But you love children, don't you, Miss Barbour? How can any one
+<i>not</i>?"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIIa">VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A DRESS REHEARSAL</p>
+
+
+<p>Her own interests? Not many days had passed before she had a chance
+to value them anew. The evening of the dance came and went. She was
+a little surprised at the size of the gathering it called together.
+There must have been eighty people in the hall, neighbors mostly,
+jovial, temperately enthusiastic, in after-dinner mood, and with the
+additional prospect of a first meet to hounds next day after the long
+frost. She noticed, however, that Bryan seemed to be introducing a good
+many strangers. She had danced amid a buzz of whispers, exclamations,
+and frequently a loud "Bravo!" taken up and echoed wherever a white
+shirt-front glimmered in the darkened hall. None of them knew how
+well it was done, but every one could appreciate a graceful child in
+a white satin Watteau dress with a great pointed frill, black sausage
+curls falling upon her shoulders under a quaint glazed hat, whose
+bones seemed to be of whalebone, whose feet never were still, and
+whose face, through all her changing gestures of appeal, hesitancy,
+curiosity, disdain, cunning, and weariness never altered from the grave
+set expression with which she faced the first round of applause. Or an
+odalisque, in a long striped tunic of the thinnest, softest silk and
+baggy Turkish trousers that sagged in great wide folds over her bare
+slippered feet, who swayed in time to sleepy <i>traumerei</i> music
+almost like a top—rousing every now and then with a braying jar of
+the little cymbals that were fastened on her hands, to straighten and
+poise and twirl herself anew—sinking on the floor with the last faint
+chords, a soft limp heap of silk and dishevelled black hair.</p>
+
+<p>Already, as she sat by her bedroom fire in night-dress and wrapper,
+her hair plaited on each side of her head, and cuddling her knee, she
+was paying for her brief hour of triumph. She had the indefinable
+feeling of having "gone too far" that makes one dread the coming day
+like the face of an enemy. She thought people had looked strangely at
+her when she returned dressed, collected, and a little paler, to the
+hall. It was not because here and there she had caught a false note
+in the tempest of congratulation that overwhelmed her. It seemed set
+altogether in a key that was strange and new; she could judge, for,
+after all, it was not the first time she had danced in public. Even the
+impulse which had made her at the end of her second dance run forward
+and kiss Lady Warrener (at the piano) seemed to be misunderstood. The
+gentle peeress, so kind before, had shrunk from her palpably. And yet
+it was so natural; for she had never danced to music played like that
+before. How she longed for her public, her real public, obtuse and
+leather-lunged if you will, but whom a smile can conquer and whose
+loyalty, once gained, is gained forever!</p>
+
+<p>Then she had her own private motives for misgiving. Her cousin's manner
+had been strange for days. Leslie avoided her plainly, but followed
+her with her eyes. When forced to speak she seemed, not harsh, but
+confused, shocked, and anxious for escape. Jack had gone back to his
+regiment in Ireland the day after the dinner, grumbling, and feeling
+the iron of disinheritance in his soul as only the younger son of a
+great house can. He would have told her everything. But she must have
+an explanation from Leslie to-morrow. On no other prospect could she
+face the night.</p>
+
+<p>The fire was burning low. The little Sheraton clock on the mantelpiece
+shrilled <i>two</i>. She threw off her slippers and wrapper, opened the
+window, and, drawing a screen across the sinking fire, crept between
+the smooth linen sheets. But, once in bed, her excitement returned on
+her. Three o'clock—four o'clock—struck, and she was awake, the pulse
+of the music still in her relaxed body, listening to the fire shifting
+in the grate, watching the red dusk turn slowly to black.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she heard the handle of the door move, very gently and very
+steadily. The bed-curtains hid it from view; but she remembered that
+she had forgotten to lock it, and when it closed again as gently she
+knew that some one was in the room. But there was something else she
+had not forgotten. She felt under her pillow and closed her hand
+upon it. The very day she saw him last her lover had given her a
+little steel repeating pistol. She remembered his words: "I've never
+had occasion to use it, Nelly, but I should be giving you a false
+impression of the world, as I know it, if I didn't tell you there's ten
+times as much chance you'll have to defend your honor some day as there
+is I'll ever have to defend my property."</p>
+
+<p>She lay still, her heart beating to suffocation, but she did not quite
+close her eyes, and the next moment a fear that was never to be named
+went out of her heart. It was only her cousin Leslie. She recognized
+her plainly—long and emaciated, with tawny, lifeless hair about her
+shoulders. She was carrying a night-light in a cone-shaped glass.</p>
+
+<p>Now that fear was gone she had time to be puzzled. Up to a week ago
+a visit from her cousin at the hour of "combing and confidences"
+had been a regular affair, but one of the changes noticeable in her
+attitude had been the abandonment of the nightly habit. It was a great
+opportunity for the clear understanding on which she meant to insist,
+but it was very late, she was tired, and, as often happens, felt a
+sudden disinclination to put her resolution to the test. She decided to
+simulate sleep. She breathed a little heavier and closed her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Leslie set down her lamp—she heard it distinctly on the little
+marble-topped table beside the bed—and bent over her. She felt her
+cousin's breath on her cheek. The thin, weak hand began to stroke her
+forehead and hair. Nelly was proof against a good many things, but not
+against tickling. She laughed and opened her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Next moment, with a leap as lithe as a panther's, she had jumped out
+of bed and, gripping her cousin's wrists, bore her backward on to the
+floor. She was strong as well as active, and upon the thick carpet the
+struggle was as brief as it was noiseless. Something fell from the
+older woman's hand. She tossed it back on the bed and, switching on the
+electric current, flooded the room with light. Leslie picked herself
+up, crawled to the wall and crouched there, her knees drawn up to her
+chin, looking at her cousin through her tawny mane, with eyes wide and
+distraught in her white, quivering face.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella gave one look at the little stiletto on the bed, and covered
+her face with her hands in a reaction of terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Leslie! Wicked—wicked woman! What had I done to you? Oh, what a
+horror! And under your own roof! Oh, you must be mad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" said Leslie, thickly. "Ring the bell—wake the house! Have me
+put in a mad-house. Father wouldn't care, nor any one else. He's cursed
+me and called me a wet blanket heaps of times before people. I'm in
+every one's way now mother's gone."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella still looked at her incredulously. She was expecting every
+moment to wake from her nightmare. A thing like this couldn't be
+real—couldn't be life! Suddenly the wretched woman flung herself at
+her feet, weeping and kissing them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! my darling, don't look at me like that, as though I were some
+poisonous reptile. Oh, my God! what have I done? Do you think I really
+meant to harm you? Do you think I'm jealous? But if I am, it's only for
+your own good name. It's their fault. Of course you're nothing to them;
+they didn't know you when you were a little baby girl. I only wanted
+to be sure. And then something said to me that if—that if—Why do you
+shrink that way? Do you loathe to have me touch you?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella bent forward and laid her hand across the hysterical woman's
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Leslie, be quiet this instant, or I won't answer for what I'll do. And
+throw this over you or you'll get a chill. Now, are you quieter? I'm
+not going to make a fuss, or even tell a living soul what's happened
+to-night. But it's on a condition."</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You must tell me what's being said about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"They say that he—that you——"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"That you were Bryan Lumsden's mistress in France, and that he's
+spending money on bringing you out and paying for your dresses and
+lessons, and that he——" She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"What? Is there more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That—oh! that he wasn't the first. That when he—found you, you
+were posing as a model to some French artist."</p>
+
+<p>"What a picturesque past I've got! And have you believed it all?"</p>
+
+<p>Leslie made a despondent and penitent gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Not now I've seen you. Not now I've told you to your face. But you
+can't live in a house like Lulford all your life and not hear—things.
+Well, are you going to loathe me forever?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella seemed thoughtful. "I don't loathe you," she said, "not more
+than any one else. Go back to bed now. I'm tired after last night."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't refer to this to-morrow, will you? I shall be hunting all
+day, but you won't throw it in my face when we meet at night."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Here, take this thing back to where you got it. No, I'm not
+afraid to let you have it. Yes, I'll kiss you good-night. Oh, Leslie,
+<i>go</i>!" She stamped her bare foot desperately.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as her cousin was out of the room she locked the door and began
+to pack her trunks, turning keys and opening drawers as stealthily as a
+thief in the night. Her teeth chattered and her heart was filled with
+the wild panic instinct of flight. She only cried once, as she folded
+the clothes in which she had danced. "They said—his money!" How well
+she remembered the day they had been made, the whirring and bumping of
+the machine, her mother's perplexed face over the paper patterns, the
+very smell of Paul's pipe. "Theatricals," she had told him, and he had
+not asked a single question. The poor wounded heart ached for home.
+When her trunks were packed she lay down and watched for the dawn.</p>
+
+<p>The house was astir early. There was shouting from room to room,
+running hither and thither of ladies' maids and gentlemen's gentlemen,
+brushing of habits and knocking out of wooden boot-trees. She
+breakfasted in her room, and sent down word that she was getting up
+late—that she was over-tired. She had to endure cheerful proposals
+to come in and pull her out, cries of "Tally-ho!" and "Gone to
+earth!"—even try to answer them in kind. When they had all ridden
+away, she got up and dressed herself to her hat and coat and furs, her
+hands numb and clumsy from haste and agitation. There was a Bradshaw
+in the library, through whose mazes she ran with a finger in which she
+could feel the very beat of her disordered pulse, but she could make
+little or nothing of it. The house seemed to be empty of men-servants,
+but in the stable yard she ran across one of the helpers. He eyed her
+strangely and rasped a stubbly chin with a broken finger nail at her
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Lunnon train? Noa, miss, baint no Lunnon train through Lulford 'fore
+two-twenty, an' that doant stop fur to take up nor fur to set down,
+'cept ye tellygraff down the line. There's a slow to Wolv'r'ampton
+at three-thritty, but ye'll have to wait forty minutes f'r yewr
+connexshuns. Two trunks, ye say, miss? Now, let me think——"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella slid ten shillings in silver into a hand that seemed to be in
+the way.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank'ee kindly, miss. 'Tis a bad marnen, miss, ye see: bein' a
+huntin' marnen all oor men be haff th' place. Come twelve o'clock, I'm
+taken 'nother harse to Wrogwarden Wood m'self, but if ye don't mind the
+bit of a walk to stash'n, I can harness Marvine to th' bailiff's cart,
+and tak' yewr trunks to stashun now in a casulty way like, and bid 'em
+wait till ye come. Thank'ee, miss."</p>
+
+<p>After a wretched pretence of eating a cold lunch, served in the
+solitude of the morning-room by maid-servants who whispered together
+outside and even peeped through the crack of the door, Fenella took her
+muff and dressing-case and set off to walk to the station. Snow lay
+still in recesses and hollows of the trees beneath the drive, and there
+were dirty lumps and patches on the slope of the hill where the slide
+had been made. She breathed freer when a corner of the drive hid the
+gray walls and turrets of the old priory, and more freely still when
+she had passed the round white lodge with its one smoking chimney and
+was out on the public road. Often, upon her summer holidays, passing
+such a lodge with its escutcheoned pillars and long dove-haunted avenue
+curving away into a dim and baffling perspective, she had wondered what
+sort of life was led beyond its swinging gates. Her lip curled at the
+thought that now she knew.</p>
+
+<p>The road she was walking along was sheltered and lonely, but sunken
+between high banks. The thawing uplands on either side had drained into
+it, and she was forced to pick her way very carefully, her heavy skirts
+held up with one hand and the baize-covered dressing-case, which seemed
+to grow heavier and which she hated more each moment (it had been one
+of mummy's ridiculous ideas), knocking against her knees on the other
+side. She had only gone some few hundred yards when, beyond a turn
+in the narrow road, she heard the splash of a hard-ridden horse, and
+clambered up the clayey bank to be out of its way. At sight of her the
+rider pulled up so hard as almost to bring his steed upon its haunches.
+She had not time to pull her veil down.</p>
+
+<p>"You of all the world!" exclaimed Lumsden. "What's up, Flash? Playing
+lady bountiful on the sly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going home."</p>
+
+<p>Bryan whistled softly. He was wearing a black coat with wide skirts,
+a low-crowned silk hat and the palest of pale blue stocks. His white
+breeches and boots were covered with mud and his horse's miry flanks
+heaved like a bellows.</p>
+
+<p>"Going home?" he repeated, in open-mouthed surprise. "What on earth has
+happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please let me go on! I've had bad news from home this morning, that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a fib, Flash. You've been awake again all night. The second
+time. Oh, fie!"</p>
+
+<p>No remark from Fenella.</p>
+
+<p>"Any one been rude to you?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't tell me, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Bryan, I can't. I've promised——Oh, you've <i>no right</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden swung himself out of the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, you're not going to walk any further in those thin shoes
+and sit four hours in a train with wet feet. Come! up you get. The lane
+gets worse the farther you go."</p>
+
+<p>With sudden docility she put her dressing-case down on the wet grass.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right! Put your foot here. Steady—Greaser! Don't be afraid.
+He's quite blown; going's far too heavy to-day. Now take the bag in
+your lap. What's in it, Flash? Diamonds?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her quizzically as he laid the reins over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"For two two's I'd come up with you to London. Oh, don't look so
+frightened. It's only an impulse. I've been fighting impulses every
+day for the last fortnight. I don't want to worry you," he went on, as
+the horse began to pick his way downhill with stiff, tired legs; "but
+you'll have to give some reason for all this. Did you leave any message
+behind?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll have to fake a telegram. You simply can't leave like this,
+and that's all there is about it. Hullo! who's this?"</p>
+
+<p>A small boy in corduroys and with a red badge on his arm was drifting
+up the lane toward them, examining the hedge-rows first on one side,
+then on another, in search of diversion. At Lumsden's call he started
+and adopted a more official gait.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, boy! Can you take a telegram?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ahve got one," said the leaden-footed herald unfastening his satchel.
+"Miss Fen—Fen——"</p>
+
+<p>Bryan snatched it from his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Open it, please," said Fenella in the ghost of a voice.</p>
+
+<p>"By George!" said the baronet, looking up, "this is Providence. This
+lets us all out."</p>
+
+<p>"Read it, please."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Lady Anne very ill. Asks for you. Think you had better come.
+Wire.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that's good news at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it suits us, doesn't it?" with a quick look at the troubled,
+indignant face. "You mustn't feel things too much, you know. Fancy Anne
+Caslon dying in her bed at last! 'Tattering Annie' they used to call
+her in the West Meath. Fate! fate! there's nothing else. Here, boy,"
+he said, putting his hand in his breeches pocket, "take this, and cut
+away to the station and tell 'em to stop the two-twenty. Shocked at me,
+ain't you?" he said, as the boy trotted off after a backward gape at
+the strange couple.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's horrid to talk about fate as if it was meant to do our
+little odd lying jobs for us. I'm very much upset at the news."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but isn't it true—I mean my meeting you this way? Confess, now.
+You were on your way back to town wounded and indignant, with a firm
+resolve never to see any one you'd met at Lulford again, weren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"But you're not now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I must have time to think."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed quite satisfied with the answer, being used possibly to
+oblique affirmations from women.</p>
+
+<p>A culvert and signal-box appeared suddenly above the hedge to their
+right.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better get down here. There's a foot-path at the side of the
+main road." He flushed deeply as he held her in his arms. Another
+checked impulse, no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>In the waiting-room they sat, one on each side of a sullen fire in a
+black stove. He smoked a cigar, and steam rose from the drenched skirts
+of his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to Biarritz almost immediately," he said; "but Dollfus knows
+what to do. Call on him as soon as you possibly can. I don't see myself
+there's much more training wanted, but you must be fitted in somewhere,
+and that takes time."</p>
+
+<p>He might have added that it takes money too—some one's money—but
+it was not the moment to enlarge on this. Fenella listened to his
+advice respectfully and gave him her address when he asked for it.
+She liked him no better, but, at the point they had reached, she felt
+it necessary, for her own satisfaction, that she should take the
+least complicated view of his helpfulness that was possible. To take
+a great deal and to give a little is a prerogative that the nicest
+of women think it no shame to use. She bought her own ticket, but
+let him order foot-warmers and even literature—<i>The Tattler</i>,
+<i>Photo Bits</i>, and a novel by Charles Garvice, to be brought her at
+Wolverhampton. He was back at her side as the train, chafing fussily
+at the check to its course, began to move out of the little country
+station.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry over whatever's happened you down there," he said at the
+last, jerking back his head at the hospitable mansion she had just
+left. "They're a dull crowd. We'll meet a very different lot later on.
+Good-bye! Keep fit and don't grizzle. I'll wire your mother that you're
+on your way."</p>
+
+<p>He stood gazing after the tail of the train as the gray distance sucked
+it in to a point.</p>
+
+<p>"You were a pretty wench, Bill," he heard a voice say behind him in the
+porters' room. The homely comment jarred him, but it also readjusted
+a view that had been inclining dangerously toward the romantic. Is
+there, I often wonder, some inbred memory of old disaster that makes
+Englishmen afraid of romance? Bryan, as he plodded homeward on his
+stiff hunter, almost laughed to remember that he had suddenly sickened
+of the chase, sickened of everything, and ridden back eight muddy miles
+on a beaten horse to see this girl, and—who knows?—perhaps to ask her
+to be his wife—if she had insisted upon it.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Shawled and pillowed at Wolverhampton by the guard's care, and quite
+tired out, Fenella slept, as warm as a dormouse under the snow, nearly
+all the way to Euston. A new ring from the clanging permanent way, more
+metallic, more menacing, as the train, sighting its goal afar off, made
+up its schedule time, roused her from a dream—ah! how deadly sweet of
+sun-steeped dunes, of outspread skies and seas, her poor little "land
+of lost content." The carriage pitched and rocked, lights twinkled
+together behind the bare trees, suburban pavements, and broadways
+blazing in blue-white light flashed past the windows. She put out her
+head against the cold, gritty rush of wind, and looked toward a red
+glare in the sky. Somewhere in that man-made wilderness of stone and
+brick, from whose smouldering discontents reddened smoke seemed to be
+ascending to heaven, he lived and moved and had his being who but now,
+in the lilied meadows of her dream, had held her against his breast and
+kissed away the desolate ache at her heart. Back to him, and he could
+not hinder—straight, straight as a homing-bird she was flying. With
+every moment that passed the distance that sundered them was being
+annihilated. Intense unreasoning joys! triumph almost lyrical of spirit
+over matter! God's crowning mercy in affliction!—manna from Heaven,
+and portion of the outcast!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIIIa">VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">LADY ANNE'S DEPOSITION</p>
+
+
+<p>We wonder if it has ever happened to any of our readers—being a common
+human experience, it probably has—on the very morrow of some change
+which they had assayed, light-heartedly, experimentally, and with all
+provision made for honorable retreat in case of failure, to find the
+retreat, as it were, cut off, the old life put out of their reach once
+and for all, and success in the new becomes the condition not of a
+pleasanter manner of existence, but of very existence itself.</p>
+
+<p>We know that Fenella's independence of the career she had chosen was
+never as complete as appearances seemed to warrant. Even if it had
+been so, hers was not the temperament to discover comfort in any such
+ignoble security. She had the bright confidence of her youth. Eager
+for the contest, she was not afraid of any of the rules. And if the
+comfortable thought that, after all, the worst that could happen
+her would be a return to domestic conditions with her one ambition
+quenched, visited her at all in despondent moods, it was rather
+owing to Madame de Rudder's insistence upon the fact, as the great
+strategic advantage in a campaign which about this time that lady
+began to conduct with Mr. Joseph Dollfus—a campaign carried on so
+pertinaciously and with such utter disregard for the Dominion manager's
+feelings, that he often wondered whether any inkling of the secret
+clause, the Lumsden clause, of the treaty could have reached her. If it
+hadn't, her bluff was a masterpiece.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid Joe Dollfus was rather rude to you to-day, dear," Fenella
+said to her old mistress one afternoon over the teacups. Madame's
+irruption into the affair upon the strength of an old "understanding"
+which her pupil could neither remember nor would deny, had, in fact, at
+last proved too much for Mr. Dollfus's manners.</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said madame, airily. "I'm not hurt. I don't care what the
+little bounder says. It's rather a good sign, in fact, that he
+<i>should</i> lose his temper. That type always does when they see
+you've the whip hand."</p>
+
+<p>"How have we the whip hand?" Fenella never questioned the implied
+association of interest.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, because we're not dependent on Joe's say-so for a living.
+We're not a bankrupt solicitor's daughter with a mother and young
+sisters to support. We're not poor."</p>
+
+<p>This was about the time that doubts were beginning to assail Fenella.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I am <i>really</i>," she persisted, rather ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you're not to all appearance, and it's appearances that count.
+Look at where you live! look at your relations! Oh, I've rubbed that
+all in; trust me."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella sighed. A home in which strangers gave orders; relations under
+whose roof she would never be tempted again—for that chapter in her
+life was closed definitely. She had answered one incoherent, penitent
+letter, and sent back two more unopened.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Nellikins," said the kind-hearted dame, "have some more tea
+and don't look so worried. I know we're rather a sham, but try to
+<i>feel</i> the part. Be a winner!" She patted the slim hand held out
+for the teacup. "You do <i>look</i> one so, my dear. Once you admit,"
+she went on, in a voice slightly veiled by buttered toast, "once you
+admit, even to yourself, that you're not doing a thing for fun and
+because you like it, the game's up. Because it's this sort of people
+who are coming to the front everywhere now—in books, and pictures, and
+music, and the stage—and everything."</p>
+
+<p>"I've always heard that dabblers never did anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, who said 'dabblers'? And besides"—impatiently—"a lot
+of that musty, fusty old wisdom wants tearing up and writing
+over again. How can any one who has to worry do the work that
+<i>pays</i>. Clever! Oh, yes, they may be very clever, but all they
+succeed in doing with their cleverness is in making the people
+who matter—the rich, important people—uncomfortable. And they
+<i>will—not—be—made—uncomfortable</i>, my dear. Besides, they never
+last long. Worry kills them off like the cold kills the flies."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella did not pursue the subject. She felt all the vulgarity
+of her old mistress, but she felt also an unaccountable sense of
+protection in her company. Brazen, alert, competent, grasping, utterly
+disillusioned, mature; with good looks that seem to have settled down
+for fifteen years' hard service; smartly dressed, opaque of eye,
+unrestrained of laugh and anecdote with condescending patrons; living
+in discreet little houses, in discreet little streets off fashionable
+thoroughfares, with open-work lace blinds at their windows—Berthe,
+Clarice, Suzanne, Estelle, as the case may be—latterly even, Elizabeth
+and Kate: polishing nails, crimping hair, ironing out wrinkles,
+reducing flesh, kneading and anointing the pampered body; teaching
+dancing, selling fans and lace; "advising" decoration, dabbling in
+magic, undertaking "confidential" commissions; with a range of service
+that touches impropriety at one extreme and heroism at the other, and
+often with a past of their own behind them in which the finer feelings
+have perished, but not a good heart, the De Rudders of the world play
+their part in the parasitical life of the rich bravely enough—play
+it often, too, with a secret hatred and contempt for the class whose
+follies they fatten on that would be a revelation to the mere reformer.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The trouble began with an interview that poor Lady Anne was "accorded"
+early in November. The place, a sober "Adams" parlor, distempered
+in green, furnished in the old oak of commerce, and hung with Romney
+engravings in black carved wood frames. Between the two gaunt windows a
+writing-desk, littered with memorandum blocks, supports a large silver
+inkstand bearing the legend: "To <span class="smcap">Jas. Pemmer-Lloyd</span>, Esq., M.
+R. C. S., from a grateful patient." To right, a low couch covered with
+a white linen cloth and with some mysterious mechanism or other at its
+head. At its foot, a glass table on rubber wheels, its two tiers loaded
+with multiform electro-plated apparatus. Carpet obtrusively thick.</p>
+
+<p>"But are you quite sure?" she was saying.</p>
+
+<p>Her companion, a dark, keen-faced man of few words, seems to consider
+awhile. Conversation in Harley and Weymouth Streets is expensive: even
+so, it was felt that Pemmer-Lloyd gave short weight.</p>
+
+<p>"Personally," he answered, "I have no doubt whatever. Of course, if
+you wish, I can arrange a consultation or meet your own doctor. It was
+quite irregular you're not bringing him."</p>
+
+<p>"Never ride again! Never—ride—again!" Poor Lady Anne kept repeating
+the dreadful sentence over and over to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor!" she said aloud. "I have no doctor. Never been ill in my life.
+And what's the use of paying more money to a lot of men who'll only dot
+your i's and cross your t's for you? You're the top of the tree, ain't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Pemmer-Lloyd, who was writing at his desk, did not deny the soft
+impeachment.</p>
+
+<p>"I've written two names," he said, "on the back of your prescription.
+The apparatus can be obtained at either. The massage should be done in
+the evening—at your own house, if possible. You will find it a little
+exhausting at first. Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Anne laid down two golden coins and a florin near the grateful
+patient's inkstand, stuffed the prescription into the pocket of her
+tweed coat, and stumped out to her cab.</p>
+
+<p>"Druce," she said, when the door was opened for her at Suffolk Square,
+"I shall want you and Twyford to come up and help me pack after lunch.
+I am going to Market Harborough to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>She returned unexpectedly after the Christmas holidays, walking a
+thought more lamely than before, and with a new absorbed gentleness
+in her manner. She kept her room for three days, writing busily. Many
+callers, some of them strangers to the servants who admitted them,
+drove up in cabs and carriages. For the first time since she had taken
+the rooms her brother, Lord Windybank, spent two nights in the house.
+Fenella's empty bed was made up for him. On the evening of the second
+day, after dinner, the two maid-servants were called up to Lady Anne's
+sitting-room. The earl, a little horsey-legged man, with the face,
+hair, chin, and voice of his sister, was standing on the hearth-rug.
+His eyes were inflamed, and he blew his nose violently from time to
+time on an Indian silk handkerchief, an assortment of which he seemed
+to keep in the various pockets of his frieze suit. Old Mr. Attneave,
+the solicitor, stood by the writing-desk, wrapped in the grave
+professional manner that covers all human contingencies. The girls
+curtsied, signed a document, laboriously, in a space indicated by the
+lawyer's chalky finger, curtsied again, and turned to leave the room.
+Lady Anne called them back, handed each of them a couple of bank-notes
+from a little pile beneath an enamelled paper-weight, and kissed the
+dazed hand-maidens on the cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Be good women," she said, gravely. "Do your duty by your mistress. If
+I have given cause of offence to either of you, or made your work hard
+and ungrateful, by word or deed, remember I asked your pardon for it.
+And now bid your mistress come and see me as soon as is convenient."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour entered the room five minutes later with a white, scared
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Barbour, this is Lord Windybank, my brother. Mr. Attneave I
+think you have met before. Stop snivelling, Windy;—please do. Won't
+you sit down? I'm going away to-morrow, Mrs. Barbour, for a short
+stay in another neighborhood, and whether I shall come back is rather
+doubtful. No, it isn't nonsense, Windy; I caught the red-headed one's
+eye when he didn't know I was looking. The other was too old to let
+anything out. Mrs. Barbour, I want to see your little girl before I go
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll telegraph for her at once, m'lady."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Anne pursed her lip. "Telegraph for her in the morning," she said.
+"It's late, and I don't want the child to come up at night. Besides, it
+will spoil her rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill, m'lady?" Mrs. Barbour asked, much mystified. There seemed
+to be so little change in the long white fretful face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, yes; quite seriously, ceremoniously ill, I assure you.
+Please don't look at me that way. You can't see anything. I don't
+believe any of them can, though they pretend to. And now about Fenella.
+Mr. Attneave, will you please explain?"</p>
+
+<p>As the lawyer, in dry calculated sentences, explained the details and
+conditions of the little legacy, Mrs. Barbour broke down and wept
+after the fashion of her class, with great whoops, and holding her
+housekeeping apron to her eyes. All her little world seemed to be
+crumbling. She was not, by nature, an impressionable woman, but had it
+been her lot, as it is the lot of so many of her kind, to hear, month
+by month, new footsteps echo on her stairs; to see, month by month,
+strange faces people her rooms, the dignity of proprietorship, the
+sense of being mistress of a home, which had done so much to soften
+and sweeten her, must have missed her altogether, and the wear and
+tear upon her perceptions vulgarized her heart far quicker than feet
+or hands shabbied her house. During fifteen years, as far as Lady Anne
+was concerned, without the slightest temptation to anything that could
+be construed as a "liberty," or a single soul-searching as regards her
+own equivocal social status, the service of love had, little by little,
+been substituting itself for the service of gain. Custom and habit are
+strong with all who have attained middle life, but with women, after a
+certain age is reached, they are tyrants. Nor was it in its monetary
+aspect chiefly, though that might well have given her pause, that the
+sense of bereavement reached her. Simple words are most convincing. She
+was wondering how, "if anything should happen," poor Lady Anne in the
+nursing home, to which she was evidently bound, she could ever find the
+heart to wait upon strangers in her rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"——five hundred pounds, until the age of twenty-one, unless upon an
+occasion of urgent necessity, the nature of which shall be determined
+by said trustees, appointed on the one part by the said Honorable Mrs.
+Nigel Kedo Barbour——"</p>
+
+<p>"Boo-hoo!" wept the honorable lady.</p>
+
+<p>The invalid patted her upon the shoulder. "My dear, good friend, do
+control yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I can't, I can't! Oh! I never shall stop in this house. It won't
+be the same to me."</p>
+
+<p>The broken phrases struggled through her tears like bubbles through
+water. The lawyer had to stop.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," Lady Anne said, after the faithful Druce had led her
+weeping mistress away, "that class doesn't really know what their ideas
+are until they've put them into words. They say a lot over, and then
+pick out the ones they want to keep. Oh, I shall be glad when it's over
+one way or another, Windy. I think I know now how poor Uncle Eustace
+must have felt the day before Major Hartnett shot him. There's not much
+difference between a duel and an operation."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Thus it was to a house cold and dark with the shadow of change and
+worse that Fenella came home. Mercifully she was spared questioning on
+her own pale cheeks and dull eyes. Mrs. Barbour was in no mood to be
+entertained with a description of her doings among the fine folk. Lady
+Anne was dozing when she arrived, and might not be disturbed. The poor
+lady was already invested with something of her perilous state. A nurse
+in a blue linen dress and goffered cap, whose lightest word was law,
+moved softly up and down stairs in felt ward slippers, carrying various
+mysterious burdens. She called Fenella at about midnight. The girl had
+taken off her outer garments and put on a fleecy dressing-gown.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be very quiet," Nurse Adelaide said, "and not stay more than
+half an hour. I want her to settle for the night while she is out of
+pain."</p>
+
+<p>Inside a fire burnt cheerily, and a kettle sung its happy and heartless
+song. A tilted lamp plunged half the room into shadow and the air was
+sickly with the smell of some anodyne.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that Nelly?" said a voice from the shadow.</p>
+
+<p>The girl bent over the bed and put her lips to the high bony forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't cry so, child. You always had such fat tears, Nelly.
+There's one running in my eye now. Are you dressed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only ha-half."</p>
+
+<p>"Get under the quilt, then. Be careful, child. I'm 'this side up;
+fragile; with care.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Lady Anne, is it true what they say? Are you very ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I have about one chance in a thousand of ever walking the
+streets again. It's all my own fault. I had an awful spill, child; none
+of them know how bad it was. But what could I do? There was the gate
+with some patent latch or other and I didn't dare get down. I'd never
+have got up again. Pepper knew it was no use. He tried to roll his dear
+old eyes back to tell me, bless his heart. And the off-hoof was just a
+little lazy. Ugh! I'm very wicked, I suppose. Often, after lying awake
+all night, I've had to bite my lip not to scream when some clumsy lout
+put me up wrong. Once I was up, I didn't mind. But it was worth it.
+Oh, Lord! it was worth it. One only has one life. I'd do it again. I'd
+have been a poor creature, Nelly, without horses and dogs. They've
+always understood me better than people. If there's a God for them,
+He's good enough for me, and if there isn't I don't want one either.
+Windy was shocked because I wanted to call a vet in consultation....
+What did I want to tell you, child? Oh! I've been hearing tales about
+you in the last week. Of course they're all lies. What's become of your
+pirate friend?—don't pretend you don't know who I mean—Paul Ingram.
+Wasn't that the creature's name. All over, is it? So much the better.
+He was no good, Nelly. I saw that the night we talked together. A man
+can't play beggar-my-neighbor with the world and win, and that's what
+he wanted. Bryan's better, but I'm afraid he's spoilt another way. But
+don't let a lot of old-woman talk frighten you away from him. There's a
+lot of nonsense talked about girls' 'characters.' Every poor girl has
+to take risks, and every poor girl's mother knows it. There's only two
+rules. Never do what would lose you your own self-respect, and never
+love a poor man for his handsome face. You won't, will you, child? You
+know, when a person's dying they're allowed to make a deposition; so
+here's mine: There's nothing matters on this earth but just—money.
+You think every one knows that? Oh! they don't. It wouldn't do if they
+did. So all sorts of other things—art and high ideals, and, yes—even
+religion, are given 'em to amuse themselves with until it's too late.
+Then, of course, they have to pretend they're satisfied. But give 'em
+their chance over again; you'd see. And for a girl with a face like
+yours it ought to be so easy. Oh, Nelly, what does your love matter if
+<i>his</i> buys you health and beauty fifteen years longer, and angel
+children, and a house with lovely gracious rooms, and cool green lawns
+in summer, and the winter in the sun, and motor-cars and horses, while
+poorer women are scrambling and pushing and taking their turns for
+'buses and trams in the rain, and a strong arm to help you whenever
+you need it, and honor and peace in your gray hairs. My own life hasn't
+been much, but think what it would have been for little ugly Anne
+Caslon if great-grandfather hadn't dipped his fingers in the Irish
+Exchequer. And yet—what am I saying?—if Nigel Barbour would have held
+up his finger, Nelly, I'd have gone with him and cooked his meals and
+washed his clothes in a garret——"</p>
+
+<p>The nurse tapped Fenella on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you'd best go now. She's been talking some time. I want to
+settle her for the night."</p>
+
+<p>She shook a bottle as she spoke and poured out a cloudy mixture into a
+glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, my pet! Do you remember when I taught you to read—'Ned
+had a gad—' and you wanted to know what a 'gad' was, and I forgot to
+find out. I'm afraid we shall never know now."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see you in the morning," murmured Fenella, as she kissed her.
+Miss Rigby was on the landing outside, dishevelled, round-eyed, and in
+a wrapper, asking news of her dear friend in a tragic whisper.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Perhaps it was because she cried herself to sleep that Nelly slept so
+late. The house was all topsy-turvy, and by the time they remembered
+to call her Lady Anne had been taken away. Her bedroom windows were
+wide open and Twyford was strewing tea-leaves on the carpet as Fenella
+passed the door. She had taken very little luggage—just a portmanteau
+full of linen and a dressing-case, and two days later she went a longer
+journey and took no luggage at all.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IXa">IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE MAN AT THE WHEEL</p>
+
+
+<p>Just as we are used to hearing from time to time that the lives of
+certain great ones of the earth are insured for many thousands of
+pounds in quarters which their demise will unsettle but certainly not
+move to grief, so there are lives dismissed at their close with scant
+obituary notice, the shadow of whose eclipse reaches far beyond the
+covenanted few who wear mourning for their sakes.</p>
+
+<p>The house in Suffolk Square never really recovered the shock of poor
+Lady Anne's taking off. Her rooms, stripped of their household gods,
+repapered and repainted, stood empty for weeks before Mrs. Barbour
+could even be prevailed upon to notify their vacancy, and when she
+did move, the paying guests whom they attracted were not of a sort to
+efface the hard-riding lady's wholesome memory or to make her the less
+keenly regretted. London is changing daily, and in nothing so much as
+in the accommodation it offers the stranger within its gates. Cheap
+hotels, the diseased craving for a veneered luxury, rapid transit
+from outskirts to centre—all combine to render what was always a
+precarious living well-nigh a hopeless one. In vain do old-fashioned
+people, unable or unwilling to read the signs of the times, advertise
+the family atmosphere to a public anxious to escape from it—quiet
+and seclusion to a generation that droops unless it feels its spirits
+uplifted by the wind and whirl of life. Between the tragic end of
+the old dispensation and the final dispersion there was a squalid
+interlude which Fenella never could recall in after years without
+a sinking of the heart as at the memory of a ravaged sanctuary. A
+dreadful Anglo-Indian <i>ménage</i>, which washed the dirty linen of
+ten stations with doors and windows open; a grumbling <i>ayah</i> whose
+gaudy rags clung to her, like wet cloths to a clay model, and whose
+depredations upon kitchen and larder on behalf of her screaming charges
+drove cook to revolt. A prim flaxen-tailed family who practised upon
+the piano all day by turns, and whose high-nosed parent did not think
+Miss Rigby "respectable." Was she, indeed, respectable? Mrs. Barbour
+had had her doubts from the first, and in spite of Lady Anne's breezy
+assurances, or perhaps on account of them, had long suspected a secret
+treaty of oblivion and protection between the two women. It had seemed,
+however, to include a tacit clause against direct communication, and
+with the new order the weaker woman appeared to see her way to break
+through this restriction upon her social aptitudes. She contracted a
+distressing habit of rapping at the doors of the first-floor rooms,
+to borrow, to return, to remonstrate, to apologize for remonstrating.
+Her friendship with little Mrs. Lovelace of Mian Meer, especially was,
+until its stormy close, over a disputed bargain at a "White Sale," of
+a suddenness and intensity calculated to revive a weakened faith in
+human affinities. Even the mother of the musical Miss Measons, after
+a glance at a skilfully disposed basket of calling-cards, called her
+"my dear" before she called her "that woman." In short, to express in
+one word a delayed and painful process, Jasmine Rigby deteriorated day
+by day, paid at long intervals, under pressure, and with cheques that
+were not her own, and finally, yielding no doubt to the instinct of
+flight from those whose good opinion we have forfeited, took a tearful
+and sentimental departure from the rooms which had been witness to
+fifteen futile years, and God alone knows what frenzied resolutions,
+what agonies of remorse and self-contempt as well. Financially, her
+loss was a serious matter, for she had rich and powerful connections,
+who might be trusted never to let her sink too deeply into debt nor
+beyond a certain standard of outward respectability: in other ways it
+would be idle to deny Mrs. Barbour felt it a relief. It afforded her
+an opportunity to reduce her establishment and to sell off some of the
+furniture. But the joy of turning our possessions into ready money and
+of ridding ourselves of old associates who have become encumbrances is
+a dearly bought one. It is likely that her health had been secretly
+unsatisfactory for years. It failed visibly from the day poor Druce,
+with the tears streaming down her honest wooden face, clasped her young
+mistress to her sparely covered chest in the hall and said "Good-bye."
+She had never been a good sleeper, but insomnia now became her nightly
+habit. Her cheeks grew flabby, her eyes dull; her comely face exchanged
+its pleasant pallor for a disquieting earthen tint.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella would have been less than human if, amid all these anxieties,
+regrets, and annoyances, Lumsden's letters had come to her otherwise
+than as cheerful heralds from a happier world, bright assurances of a
+better time in store. He wrote oftener than many friends, though not
+as often as most lovers. He was generous enough or wise enough not to
+depart from the note he had struck during their conversation upon the
+day of winter sports at Freres Lulford. She was still his "investment,"
+always "in training." And yet it was marvellous what a very wide field
+of inquiry, of advice and speculation, this position was held to
+justify. Her cheeks sometimes burned at Bryan's letters. Even when they
+were mere cheery chronicles of sport and pleasure, there was a little
+mocking undercurrent of sarcasm in them—sarcasm, as a rule, at the
+expense of society's hypocrisies—its standards of what might and what
+might not be permitted between two friends of opposite sexes, which she
+secretly resented—resented, that is to say, to the extent of never
+referring to it in her answers. Why should Bryan expect her to take the
+more cynical view, she wondered? Surely illusions were permissible to
+a girl of her age. What man who respected one, wished one well, would
+see her cheated of them? Clever letters are seldom written without
+ulterior motive. When heart speaks to heart it does so in language that
+admits of no double construction. It would save many a tangle were more
+sophisticated ones subjected to a merciless paraphrase.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, the time had probably passed when, in any sense of the
+word, she could be said to be "afraid" of Lumsden. He stood before her
+imagination now in all his pleasant power, holding open the gates of
+the fairyland to which he had the golden key, encouraging, inviting
+her to enter. Once through the gates, she had no doubt of her ability
+to justify and to repay. That money can discharge any obligation was
+just one of the obscuring simplicities of her youth. Another was that
+a stigma attached to the acceptance of money or money's visible worth.
+Beyond a cab-fare, she would have shrunk from such a thing as from
+actual dishonor; yet that money, to the extent of many hundreds of
+pounds, was being risked upon her untested power to please gave her
+only a very vague sense of indebtedness. It is true that to Bryan's
+personal interest she referred, with a completeness that was a little
+unfair to Mr. Dollfus's really kind heart, the ameliorations in her
+hard task—the warm dressing-room, the polite seriousness with which
+her views were entertained by the leader of the orchestra, the chair
+in the wings at rehearsals. She even fancied that she could detect a
+conspiracy to keep the seamy side of theatrical life from her. Mr.
+Lavigne, the stage-manager, never swore in her presence, though from
+her dressing-room she often heard language whose very volume implied
+profanity reverberate like stage thunder through the dark empty
+auditorium.</p>
+
+<p>When general rehearsals began in March, among her new comrades upon the
+draughty, echoing boards, who stood blowsy or haggard in the perverse
+up-thrown light and exchanged the knowing, raffish jargon of their
+craft, there was abundant discussion as to her precise position, but
+no doubt at all. It is a pitiful thing to relate, but Bryan even got
+the credit of the clothes in which poor foolish Mrs. Barbour had sunk
+the profits of her enterprise. Fenella's dress had always possessed
+sophistication, and although by this time she was "economizing,"
+enough of elegance remained from the old life to wreck her character
+in the new. But where she was now such things were a common-place. The
+misconception even was of use to her in one way. It removed her from
+the envy of those who were struggling upward on the strength of mere
+talents. Seen from the wings, her dancing made little impression upon a
+race not prone to enthusiasm, and notoriously bad judges of their own
+craft. She was to have the lime-light, the big letters on the bills,
+the "fat"—that was enough. She was <i>hors concours</i>, a thing
+apart. The latest recruit might dream, and did dream, of having the
+same chance some day. A strange thing, that it should be not so much
+"luck" which failure resents as the crown upon hard work.</p>
+
+<p>By an unhappy coincidence, the first dress rehearsal was called
+upon the day when her spirits were at lowest ebb. The night before,
+her mother, unable to keep the secret locked up in her breast any
+longer, had exposed with tears and incoherent self-reproach, the whole
+disastrous domestic situation. It was all mismanagement, muddle,
+abused confidence, rights signed away for a tithe of their value,
+mortgages and life assurances effected in the interests of people whose
+one service seemed to have been to draw the strangling net a little
+tighter. Fenella closed the eyes of her mental vision firmly and wisely
+against the disastrous prospect. She let her mother have her cry out
+upon her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear; of course I'm not angry with you, or only a tiny bit for
+letting me be a foolish over-dressed little pig all these years.
+We'll give up this great big house before it's swallowed all that's
+left and move into a smaller one. They must give us something for
+the lease. And I've got Lady Anne's money coming to me in two years.
+We can raise something on that now. I'll speak to Mr. Dollfus about
+it. And Mr. Lavigne told me the <i>Dime Duchess</i> comes on early
+in May; then I shall begin to draw salary, and all our troubles will
+be over. And, mummy, you <i>must</i> give those disgusting people
+upstairs notice. Never mind what they owe. Turn them out! I'll live in
+a garret with you, dear, but I won't have our home turned into a common
+lodging-house."</p>
+
+<p>But, for all her brave words, her own spirits sank. Was she so sure
+of success, after all? To have so much depending upon it was only a
+reason the more for misgiving. Dancing seemed to be in the air. The
+flaming posters that met her eye on every side, of women in one stage
+or another of uncoveredness, filled her with nausea. Nothing depresses
+true genius so much as to feel that an inspiration with which they
+could deal worthily is given broadcast, under various mean forms of
+impulse or emulation, to those whose touch can only degrade. It is a
+failing so like unworthy envy that even to be forced to admit it to
+oneself is demoralizing.</p>
+
+<p>When she reached the theatre a drama that was no part of the <i>Dime
+Duchess</i> was in progress. Miss Enid Carthew stood down centre. Her
+dress was Doucet and her hat Virot. Her sable coat was open at the
+throat and a diamond <i>collier</i> streamed blue fire on her agitated
+bosom. Her arm, thrust through a muff whose tails swept the dusty
+stage, was akimbo on her slender hip. She had a pretty, dissipated,
+sour face and a quantity of fair hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I can't have it at all, Mr. Dollfus," she was saying, evidently
+not for the first time, biting her lips and tapping the stage with her
+foot. The manager, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his back
+to the footlights, straddled his legs in a truculent manner.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't haf it!" he repeated, derisively. "Well, can yer lump it?
+Ah! Think yer the only tin can in the alley, dontcher, eh? Think you're
+de manachment, ain't it? I tell you once for all: I bills who I like,
+unt I bills 'em as big's I like. Now then—ah! eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can tell all this to my solicitor," said Miss Carthew, loftily.</p>
+
+<p>The word seemed to goad Mr. Dollfus to frenzy. He took a stride
+forward and shook a brown, ringed finger within an inch or two of Miss
+Carthew's Grecian profile.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't gif me no contract talk. Pleace—<i>pleace</i> don't. 'Cos
+I drew up de contract, and I know what's in um. You can't holt me on de
+contract—see? You can go on rehearsing or you can t'row yer part down,
+and that's all—now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've a good mind to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Vell, make yer goot mind up quick, pleace, 'cos this happens ter be my
+busy day."</p>
+
+<p>Before poor Fenella could retreat from the storm, the leading lady
+looked her up and down with an expression that was meant for contempt,
+but only succeeded in expressing dislike. The advantage of five years
+is not to be annihilated by a glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Another of Lumsden's kindergarten," she observed, with a short,
+disagreeable laugh, and, having launched this Parthian shaft, exit left.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Dollfus turned upon the cause of the trouble rather irritably.</p>
+
+<p>"Vot! aintcher dressed yet, neither. Good Got! ve oughter be t'rough
+the first act. Run upstairs at once! And while we're waiting let's
+haf the finale ofer again. I ain't satisfied yet, Mr. Lavigne. Come,
+<i>kapell-meister</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, and by an effort of her whole will, Fenella got through her
+two dances without actual disaster. For the first time in her life
+discouragement failed to react in bodily movement. Her limbs felt
+heavy—out of accord with the music, and, though this is a strange
+term for arms and legs, maliciously stupid. Once she stumbled and
+all but fell. Mr. Dollfus looked puzzled, and in the wings, where a
+brisk murmur of sympathy with the deposed favorite had been running,
+significant glances were exchanged.</p>
+
+<p>She was leaving the stage-door, glad to be in the cool, wet street,
+when a big man who was holding cheerful converse with an exquisite
+youth—all waist and relaxed keenness—raised his hat and made a little
+familiar sign with his head for her to wait. Next moment Lumsden
+had cut his conversation short, resisting an obvious appeal for
+introduction, and was holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Flash!"</p>
+
+<p>At another time she would have been glad to see him, but, with that
+dreadful sentence ringing in her ears, his touch seemed an abasement.
+She plucked her hand away.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were in Cannes."</p>
+
+<p>"Came back Tuesday. Had lunch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Get in, then, and let me drive you home."</p>
+
+<p>There was a dark green motor-coupé standing by the curb. Fenella took a
+seat in it automatically. She noticed he had no difficulty in recalling
+her address.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been sitting in front watching you."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I'd done better. I made a fool of myself to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you were all right. Been over-working?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Dolly told me there was a breeze. Hope it didn't upset you."</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless you! That sort of thing's an everyday affair with us. Oh, fie,
+Flash!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Bryan"—and a big sob.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what is it? Having trouble with the boys?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you'll be furious."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. Spit it out in mummy's hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make me laugh. I—I want to give it up."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I do."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth for?"</p>
+
+<p>She clenched her hands. "Because I feel such a <i>humbug</i> coming on
+this way. Those other girls have worked and worked and been acting when
+I was at school. And now I step in front of them because—oh! you know
+what they think."</p>
+
+<p>"I warned you of that before, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I didn't realize then."</p>
+
+<p>"And now, because a spiteful woman has said the obvious thing, you do.
+Oh, fie, Flash! This is weak-minded. I wish you knew her own history."</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned to him, and even laid a timid hand on his sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Bryan, that's the mistake you make. You're always telling me—I
+mean in your letters—what a hypocrite this person or that is. But
+it doesn't make any difference to me. Of course, we understand one
+another, don't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think we've made a start," Lumsden replied, in all seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but those girls at the Dominion—some of them even younger than
+me. Think what I must seem to them. I can't go to them and say, 'Oh,
+believe me, it's not what you think.' And so the more they admire me,
+and the better I succeed, the greater scandal I shall be to them. And
+perhaps, some day——Oh! it seems such a responsibility, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such a big one, that I advise you to put it out of your head."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if I could!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't do anything in a hurry. And, oh, by the way, Flash, I
+believe I met an old friend of yours last night. World's a small place."</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of mine? One of the people from Lulford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no. Further back. At La Palèze. By George! that seems ancient
+history."</p>
+
+<p>His kind, candid expression did not change, and yet not a detail of the
+girl's agitation was escaping him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you meet him? Tell me, quick!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look so scared. It was at a very nice house indeed, and he was
+looking uncommonly well."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you speak to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. He hadn't much to say. It was at the Rees house, and he's
+evidently <i>épris</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, smitten with his pretty hostess—Mrs. Hepworth—the woman who
+calls herself Althea Rees, and writes rummy books. He stayed behind.
+I saw it arranged, like the fly, with my little eye. I finished the
+evening with Nick Templeton, who knows 'em well, and he says every
+one's expecting——Hello! here we are."</p>
+
+<p>He held her hand again at parting, and this time she didn't snatch
+it away. Once inside the door, she returned a languid negative to
+the suggestion of lunch, and went upstairs to change her clothes and
+think over what she had just heard. First she cried a little, though
+nothing like as much as she had expected from the apparent weight at
+her heart; then, opening her trunk, she took out a leather box and
+emptied all his letters on to the hearth. So often, during that last
+lonely week by the sea, when she was hungering for news of him in vain,
+had she taken them down to the dunes to read, that there was almost
+a teaspoonful of fine sand at the bottom of the case. She had even
+been reading them over, she remembered, the day Bryan spoke to her
+first. She sat down on the hearth-rug, struck a match, and, crumbling
+each letter scientifically in her hand, burned piecemeal about half
+her little hoard from the wrecked past. Then she lost patience and
+locked the rest away. She was chilly; there had been no warmth in this
+sudden eager flame. She stretched herself and looked once more at her
+reflection in the long mirror. Her tears had thickened her features and
+throat. Something strangely, suddenly mature—some new adaptibility to
+life's sterner purposes—was looking back at her. She had wept—oh, how
+she had wept!—before, and yet only yesterday with her tears it had
+been the aspect of childhood that returned upon her. You would have
+said then: "There is a little girl who has broken her doll"; not until
+to-day: "There is a woman who has broken her heart." Was it so, indeed?
+Had it survived the first, the crueller blow, to break now at a piece
+of intelligence that was only to be looked for? Had there been hope,
+insane and unavowed? And why could she not hate him, as was her right?
+Why was it that only a brooding, yearning pity for him survived this
+final evidence of his faithlessness? Oh! it was because life was so
+hard on him—always would be so hard on him. Into whatever toils he had
+fallen, she could forgive him, because she knew he had not been seeking
+his own happiness when he fell. Just as she had never once conjectured
+concerning the old loves, so now she hazarded no guess as to the
+history of the new; but her woman's instinct, her appreciation of the
+nature by whose complexities her clear, sane common-sense had refused
+to be baffled, served her truly. It was still his compassion that sold
+him into new bondage—still his fatal fellowship with all that was
+weak, maimed or forsaken that, like a millstone round his neck, sunk
+him out of her sight. Hate him? Oh, what an uprush of smothered waters!
+What a tingling, as love like blood flowed back into her numbed heart,
+rebuked the suggestion! She reached out her arms to the mirror, and
+from its frozen depths, like an embodiment of all he had renounced in
+life—happiness, love, laughter, and ease of heart—the woman whom he
+had held shyly and awkwardly against his distracted heart, and whom
+to-morrow a thousand base eyes would covet, reached out her arms, too,
+in a mocking response.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, darling! why couldn't you trust me a little longer? Just because I
+couldn't <i>say</i> things, didn't I feel them? I was what you wanted
+most. Just because I <i>was</i> so different. Why weren't you a little
+patient with me, Paul?"</p>
+
+<p>And now for her work. There was another rehearsal next week, but she
+couldn't wait. She would telephone Joe; have one called for Friday.
+They should see something then. She had a bit up her sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>She was leaving her bedroom, humming over the first bars of her
+<i>Chaconne</i>, when she cannoned into the little maid who had
+replaced the irreproachable Druce. The sleeves of the girl's print
+dress were rolled up to her elbows, her cap awry.</p>
+
+<p>"Frances, it's five o'clock. Why aren't you dressed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, miss! It's the missus."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mistress? What's the matter with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, miss, I dunno. She's a setting in the big armchair. It ain't
+sleep. Me nor cook can't rouse 'er, try 'ow we may. She's a moanin',
+too. I think it must be some kind of a stroke."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Xa">X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">MONSIEUR DE VALBONNETTE</p>
+
+
+<p>One of Paul's peculiarities, which I think I have indicated before, was
+a remissness in paying out the small coin of friendship. His visits
+were apparently governed by caprice, and as unaccountable as the fall
+of the red or black in roulette. Not to have seen him for the last
+month gave no warrant to expect him within the next. On the other
+hand, to have been honored with a visit last night was some reason for
+expecting a return on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>I had not seen him for two months when I ran across him in the foyer
+of the Elite Theatre. It was the first night of Durnham's <i>Miss
+Muffet</i>. (You will remember Brasier as "the Spider.") Things
+apparently were inextricably tangled up for all the smart sinners,
+and I was rather dreading the fourth act. I was surprised to see him
+there, though I knew he had got into journalism. In the twilight of our
+under-world one may know a man a long time before one knows what he is
+doing—perhaps only discover it then because he is found nibbling at
+the same loaf as oneself. I had never seen Ingram before in evening
+dress; he looked very gaunt and foreign and distinguished. One mentally
+added a red ribbon and the enamelled cross of the Légion d'Honneur.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Ingram! you a first-nighter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm doing it for the <i>Parthenon</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! of course." Rumor had not lied, then. I had a horrible feeling
+that my comment sounded "knowing," and a suspicion that Ingram flushed
+at my tone. I made haste to change it.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky devil! You've got nearly a week to do Brasier's genius justice
+in. What d'you think of it all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pah! London bouquet. Sin and sachet powder."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't say that in the <i>Parthenon</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." I noticed then how tired he looked. The bell began to ring.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, old man! You're quite impossible, but I want a chat. Where
+can you come on to afterward? Pimlico's so far away. What do you say to
+the <i>Concentric</i>?" (I belong perforce to an "all-night" club.)</p>
+
+<p>Ingram demurred. "No, thanks. I don't much care for the frescoes at
+the <i>Concentric</i>. I've got rooms—a room, I should say—nearly as
+close. It's not a bad little crib. Come round there as soon as you've
+fired in your stuff." And I pencilled the address on my shirt-cuff.</p>
+
+<p>Paul's room was at the top of a narrow, old-world house in Beak Street,
+almost looking into Golden Square. A creeper wandered over the front,
+and there were little painted iron balconies at each window. The first
+floor was taken up by a bowed, weather-stained shop front, and behind
+its narrow panes, on a rusty wire blind, appeared the following legend
+in gilt lettering:</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">"<span class="smcap">J. Foudrinier</span><br>
+Table Liner and Leather Gilder."</p>
+
+<p>The narrow staircase up which we climbed—for he let me in himself—was
+fragrant with the smell that is said to make radicals.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'you think of it, Prentice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine! Atmosphere here, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"It might be worse," said Paul, apparently misunderstanding my remark.
+"Imagine fried fish!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked round me as he fought with a stubborn fire. The room was poor
+and low; its furnishings mere flotsam of the Middle Victorian era. The
+bureau and tallboy that I used to admire so much at Westminster were
+gone. My heart sank a little. Paul wasn't getting on.</p>
+
+<p>"Come over here a minute, Prentice," he said, getting up and taking the
+lamp. "Look!"</p>
+
+<p>Upon the old-fashioned shutter which folded back in the window recess I
+made out a long name, clumsily cut and half obliterated by paint.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you make of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not very distinct. There's a C and a V."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll read it for you. It's '<i>C. Gaillard de Valbonette</i>.' That
+thing at the top is meant for a coronet. Some French <i>émigré</i>
+had this room a hundred years ago, and amused himself by cutting his
+name. All this quarter swarmed with them at one time—Golden Square,
+Broad Street, King Street. Can't you imagine him at work here for a
+whole Sunday morning, with a nice pea-soup fog out in the square, and
+speculating about his wife or sweetheart in the Conciergerie. He's
+great company at times, is M. de Valbonette."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you live too much alone, Ingram," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He put down the lamp. "I wonder do I?" he said, twisting his beard.
+"But it's Satan reproving sin."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's club lonelinesses, then," I answered impulsively. "I know what
+I'll have to put up with by now. Remember the old warning, '<i>Vae
+Soli!</i>' If nothing else in the classics were true, that is."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, roughly, "it's the wrong time. How can I afford a friend
+when I'm throwing out ballast all around. And besides"—he seemed to
+struggle with an invincible repugnance to speak—"Prentice, I'm living
+on money a woman—gives me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Shocked as I was, I tried to keep my voice flat and toneless.
+Even as it escaped me, the exclamation was rather a request for further
+enlightenment.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't repeat your invitation now?"</p>
+
+<p>I got to my feet. "Yes, I will. You can come to-morrow—to-night, if
+you like. You're too good to lose, Ingram. I'm poor; but there's enough
+for two men like ourselves to struggle along on, even now. I can get
+you work of a sort almost at once; it'll be hack work, but you won't
+feel equal to anything better for awhile. Later on, when you're more
+yourself——"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram shivered, and then, putting his hands on my shoulders,
+considered me a long while gravely and tenderly. I could have cursed to
+think of the charm of the man, wasted in loneliness and silence, and
+put to such base uses at last.</p>
+
+<p>"My! but you're <i>white</i>, Prentice, you're <i>white</i>," he said.
+"Sit down"—in a lighter voice. "It's not as bad as it sounds. A man
+doesn't fall into a pit like that so suddenly. No; at first it was
+advances—advances; nothing more."</p>
+
+<p>"On your book?" catching at a straw.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes—on my book."</p>
+
+<p>"From publishers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so at first. When I asked the question outright, it was too
+late. I was in debt already."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Ingram," I said, immensely relieved; "if Mrs. Hepworth—I
+suppose you mean Mrs. Hepworth——?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if she liked to back her own opinion, I don't see where dishonor
+comes in at all. She's helped other people. And even if, when it's
+published, it turns out badly——"</p>
+
+<p>"Prentice, it never will be published through her."</p>
+
+<p>"Get it back then. We'll try somewhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I'd have some trouble even to get it back now."</p>
+
+<p>The mystification was getting too much for me. I shrugged my shoulders
+helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry to seem mysterious," said Paul, "but I really am telling
+you all I know myself. I even hoped you'd be able to throw some light
+on it. Because you know as well as I do how it started. She was
+enthusiastic, wasn't she? Would see no fault. She advised me to cut a
+good deal, it's true; but it wasn't for reasons I could object to.
+Anyway I didn't object. I was too proud and happy. For once in my life
+I tasted full appreciation, full understanding. Oh! I know what that
+look of yours means—that I've been taking a woman's gush for gospel.
+But, I can tell you, a thing rings true or false to me the first
+time. Do you know, Prentice, once we were motoring to some place near
+Aylesbury, and she went ten miles out of our way to see the church
+where Ffoulkes—the English parson, you know—was a curate once. I'd
+just picked on the place haphazard, and then described it later. You
+know my mania for exactness in trifles. Nothing would satisfy her but
+to get out of the car, have the church opened, and scout around the
+vicarage. Now, is that genuine or isn't it? I tell you, sir, she made
+the people of my own book live for me—used to invent comments for them
+upon things we heard, so much in character that I wondered how I could
+have forgotten them myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And then——?"</p>
+
+<p>"And then"—wearily—"the subject dropped. When I spoke about it, which
+wasn't often, her answers were as evasive as a woman's can be who, I
+think, can't lie. I'm not an insistent person, and she seemed to guess
+it. Money got short: she guessed that too—offered me advances on the
+publication. Ever so delicately, mind."</p>
+
+<p>"That was the very time for the <i>éclaircissement</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know. Don't be too grim. For me it's almost impossible
+to throw any sort of kindness back in people's faces. It's been
+responsible for half the unhappiness of my life. Then she got me this
+thing on the <i>Parthenon</i>. Lord, how I hate it! and the people it
+brings me into contact with, and how they must hate me! Sleek young
+barristers, on the make—you know the sort—dine out every night and
+say, 'Dear lady.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ingram! I say 'dear lady' sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes—but not the way they do. A precious johnny-cake of an art
+critic who wears thumb-rings and doesn't wash behind his ears...."</p>
+
+<p>I hadn't been listening very attentively. A light was breaking in upon
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"You meet a good many priests at Mrs. Hepworth's, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram raised his hands expressively. "My dear Prentice, at all
+hours—dinner, tea and lunch—bishops, deans, canons, monsignori. I
+don't know half their titles."</p>
+
+<p>"I gather you don't find them sympathetic."</p>
+
+<p>"Prentice, I just writhe."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't they civil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, intensely! It's their mental attitude that maddens me. So
+perpetually on guard, so impermeable to argument: bearing the
+condemnation of the massed intellect of Europe with a pitying smile,
+denying words their plain significance. What is it, Prentice? Is
+every one else really wrong? Does to be born at Guipuscoa instead of
+at Epworth make all the difference? Do these men know something that
+you and I don't? Sometimes in their company I almost feel I'm under
+mesmeric influence."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you are. I've always suspected you of being mediumistic. But,
+tell me, don't you suspect anything from all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suspect—what?"</p>
+
+<p>"That your book is really being held up because these men won't give it
+an <i>imprimatur</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! I'm not one of their flock."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but Althea is."</p>
+
+<p>Paul flushed savagely, and muttered something I could not catch.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be too hard on her, Ingram. Probably her position's harder than
+either of us can conceive."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid. There are about a hundred solid reasons why I
+couldn't be hard, even if I wanted to. Besides, I'm ceasing to care."</p>
+
+<p>"Got the hump, in fact."</p>
+
+<p>"Call it what you like. The book's become a scandal—a reproach. It's
+a relief not to see or hear of it. Once a certain point is reached a
+sense of humor comes to your rescue, and you cease to take a thing
+seriously. Something else is worrying me far more just now."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll only think me an old woman for my pains."</p>
+
+<p>"Never," I answered stoutly. "Your virility is in your way."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe in dreams?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not as a rule. But at two o'clock in the morning, alone with you in a
+Soho attic whose associations you've just pointed out, I'm not so sure."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm having the same one every night."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! What is it? A woman, or merely a tartan cat with acetylene eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Go and see her then. Nothing will exorcise it like that."</p>
+
+<p>"But it doesn't. Oh, Prentice! it's no use beating round the bush. You
+must know. I mean the woman we've just been talking about."</p>
+
+<p>I confess I had been rather thinking of the Continental Express at
+Charing Cross.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead old man," was all I said. "It will do you good to tell."</p>
+
+<p>"It's in a church—always. A sort of foreign building with colored
+marble columns, gloomy side chapels, silver lamps, dark paintings of
+well-nourished virgin martyrs——"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute. Is it any place you've seen?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I'm sure of that.... She's always kneeling before one of the side
+altars. I'm not clear why I'm in the church at all. I'm not meeting
+her. Her back is turned, and she doesn't seem to know I'm there. And
+yet, mind you, I feel—I'm as certain as a man can be that there's
+something or other she wants to tell me—wants me to know. Something
+she's struggling with, and I'm not to go until it's told."</p>
+
+<p>"At this point you wake?"</p>
+
+<p>"I used to until last night. Do I sound childish, yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm immensely interested, Ingram. No one but a gross fool laughs at
+these things to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, last night I lost patience, and began to look around and to take
+bearings. I noticed there was a way in between the chapels, so you
+could pass from one to the other. I could get in front of her, see her
+face if I wanted to. Of course I wanted to. I tell you, I was tired
+out with all this nightly waiting. But something or other I couldn't
+see—'a Voice,' if you like—said, 'No, you can't!' 'Why not?' I
+argued. The answer was foolish."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>It breaks the Law</i>'."</p>
+
+<p>I moved restlessly. "But I hope you didn't mind the Law."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I went in."</p>
+
+<p>"Well——?"</p>
+
+<p>He took a long breath. "Prentice, she's been dead for years and years."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dead, I tell you. There's nothing gruesome about it.
+Just—bleached—whiteness. But you can't mistake. You'd only have to
+lay your hand on her and she'd crumble away."</p>
+
+<p>There was not a sound for a few moments, until becoming conscious my
+expression must look strange, I grabbed the poker and began to make
+brisk play with it. I also decided not to tell Paul I recognized the
+church perfectly from his description.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Think? Oh, nothing. It's some sub-conscious crazy notion that has
+never been definitely formed in your own brain, so waits until you're
+asleep to sprout. The same thing's happened to me. Once I was visiting
+some people. They were so far disagreeable that one had to be very
+careful what one said before them. And every night I spent in their
+house I used to dream I was crossing the lawn, and underfoot, wherever
+I walked, were ducklings, and frogs, and new-born kittens, and
+everything that's most unpleasant to tread upon. You probably won't
+have the dream again.... What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look over there, Prentice! Do you see anything queer?"</p>
+
+<p>I followed his eyes in the direction of the window upon whose shutter
+he had shown me the half-obliterated carving. To evidence my entire
+honesty in this matter, I will premise that, having shifted the lamp
+from the centre of the table in order to find me a pipe, Paul had
+plunged all that half of the room in shadow, and also that the curtain,
+which he had drawn roughly aside to show me the <i>émigré's</i> work,
+still hung in awkward, bulgy folds. This much having been freely
+allowed, I don't mind going on and declaring that I saw, apparently
+as plainly as I have seen anything in my life, a man sitting upon
+the narrow window-seat. Every detail was distinct. He was as small
+as a woman, apparently old, and dressed entirely in black, with a
+white collar or cravat. One leg hung down to the floor, the other
+was drawn up to his chin, and his face rested upon it. He had white
+hair, gathered up or cut short round his ears, and a black cap. His
+expression was unforgettable. Serene, disdainful anger best expresses
+it.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him only a moment, for I don't believe in encouraging
+visions. In two strides I was across the room and shook the curtain
+loose.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes some of your ghost," I said. I put the lamp back on the
+table. Its white reflection vanished from the blurred and darkened
+pane. "And there goes the rest!"</p>
+
+<p>Paul didn't seem to listen. He was twisting his beard.</p>
+
+<p>"See his face, Prentice? Now, I wonder what I said that irritated him?"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIa">XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">"INEXTRICIBLE ERROR"</p>
+
+
+<p>It was quarter to seven when Ingram arrived at the house in Portland
+Place. Althea, already dressed for dinner, sat writing at her desk in
+the big white room. It was the same desk, battered and inkstained, at
+which years ago—a staid little maid with a big pigtail, terminating
+in a sort of heavy tassel of auburn hair—she had prepared her home
+lessons. At one corner the leather lining had begun to curl up.</p>
+
+<p>She scarcely looked round when he was announced, but thrust a bare
+white arm over the back of her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"You find me achieving a last chapter," said she. "Sit down somewhere
+and, in the name of our common art, respect a fellow-laborer's agony."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I'm unpardonably early."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubly privileged mortal, then, to find yourself welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I abuse my privileges, Althea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never in the world. You are as unobtrusive, my dear friend, as a gray
+sky."</p>
+
+<p>Paul, as he sat down by the fire, wondered why the phrase rang
+reminiscently. Who had compared his eyes once before to rain-clouds?
+Oh! he remembered. It was the little girl, in the summer-time, by the
+sea. He seldom thought of her now; when he did, it was without such a
+personal pang of loss as might have been expected. She had come—she
+had gone. The life before he had known her, the life after, like parted
+leaden waters in the wake of a ship, closed above her memory.</p>
+
+<p>For form's sake, and in order that his presence might not fret his
+hostess, he picked up a book at random and opened it on his knee; but
+his eyes, after a few minutes' aimless reading, left the printed page
+and rested on her. She was writing quickly. The fountain-pen poised,
+pounced, ran forward, and was checked anew. A little pucker on her
+forehead straightened out as each sentence was completed. The shaded
+electric lamp before her left the brows in a green shadow, but flooded
+neck and arms with naked light. She was dressed in black; a long limp
+scarf the color of a dead rose-leaf lay across her shoulders, trailed
+upon the carpet, moved with the motion of the restless bare arm. Her
+beautiful chestnut hair was drawn up from her neck and dressed high on
+her head in soft rolls and plaits. Looking at her, and remembering the
+furnace through which she had passed, Ingram marvelled once again that
+the searing flame should have left so little evident trace upon her.</p>
+
+<p>He had come prepared for explanation, reproaches, rupture even, but
+never in his life had he felt less ardor for battle, more doubt as to
+whether the cause were worthy the warfare. Hope deferred, neglect,
+dejection, had nearly done their work. He was beginning to doubt his
+own powers, inclining more each day to take the world's estimate of
+them as final. He had been writing a good deal lately, and to little
+purpose; it seemed unlikely that, years before, he had done better. No
+man endowed with the artist's temperament ever gained ease to himself
+by deliberately writing down to some imagined popular level. It is
+doubtful even whether the thing is to be done at all; probably every
+one that succeeds, even in the coarse acceptation of the term, succeeds
+by doing the best that is in him. The world may have no eye for genius,
+but it is quick to detect disrespect.</p>
+
+<p>It was early in March: he had known her now nearly six months. To say
+that they had become better friends in that time would be inexact; it
+is juster to say that, from the high level of her first acclaim, he
+had never known her to descend. She had seemed to divine that he was
+already sick of beginnings that led nowhere, and lacked patience for
+the circumspect steps that friendship in the first degree requires.
+From the outset she showed him a full measure. She had a multitude of
+friends—much devotion, even, at her command. Here and there, amid the
+exotic sentimentality that for some reason or other was the dominant
+note in her circle, a graver, truer note vibrated; and yet, before he
+had known her a month, Paul must have been obtuse indeed not to have
+noticed a special appeal in her voice and a special significance in the
+hand-clasp that was kept for him. And if he was not precisely grateful,
+he was, at any rate, tremendously impressed. He had learnt her history,
+and no adventitious aid that riches, popularity, fine clothing or
+jewels—and none of these was wanting—could have lent her would so
+overwhelmingly have presented her to his imagination as this. That she
+should have emerged from such an ordeal at all was wonderful, but that
+she should have come through it beautiful still, gentle and plaintively
+wise, lent an almost spectral charm to her beauty, and the same
+significance to her lightest comment on men or things that one strives
+to read into a rapped-out message wrung from the dubious silence of the
+grave. The strange unreality which none who knew Althea well escaped
+noticing, though all did not call it by the same name, reached him,
+oppressed as he was by the burden of the material world, almost like a
+native air. In her house he breathed freely, forgot his chagrins, was
+enveloped in a formless sympathy that, by anticipating the unwelcome
+thought, spared him even the humiliation of uttering it.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, without looking at him, she had guessed his thought now. At
+least there was a little conscious gaiety in her voice as she laid by
+her pen and packed the loose sheets square.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Voilà!</i>" said she. To speak French always carries the register a
+key higher. She switched off the light, and moved to the seat opposite
+him with a soft rustle of skirts. One finger-tip was marked with ink.
+She put it furtively to her lips and streaked it, schoolgirl fashion,
+down her black dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to know who you are dining with?" she asked, taking
+a slip of paper from the mantelpiece. "We're very worldly indeed
+to-night. 'Marchesina d'Empoli, the Countess of Hatherley, Lady Claire
+Templeton, Mrs. Sidney Musgrave.' Here! see for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>As Paul glanced over the list, she put one slender foot on the curb of
+the fender and pulled her skirt a few inches above her ankle.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sir Bryan Lumsden?' Who's he?"</p>
+
+<p>"A stock-broking baronet, sir, of my acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lurid description."</p>
+
+<p>"He's very good to my 'Sparrow Parties.' Do you know him, that you pick
+him out?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen him once," said Ingram slowly, pulling at his beard. "His
+manners where women are concerned did not impress me."</p>
+
+<p>She tapped the rail with her foot. "You are very unmannerly. Mustn't I
+ask the world and the flesh sometimes?"</p>
+
+<p>"What about the devil?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a tentative and rather frightened glance at his sardonic face.</p>
+
+<p>"I think <i>he</i> comes the earliest."</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking her meaning. Paul put the slip back on the
+mantelpiece.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think," said he, speaking with equal intention, "that it's
+as well even the devil should be allowed to state a case at times?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps—I don't know," Althea faltered in reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me if I bore you. I don't ask often. Is there any news of my
+luckless story?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one is reading it."</p>
+
+<p>"Some publisher?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. I—I wanted an opinion from some one who—from some
+one——"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one quite impartial, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite that, either. From some one who is able to take a very
+special point of view."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram laughed grimly. "Why don't you get some of your worldly friends
+to teach you how to lie?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sir!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her from head to foot and back again. Her cheeks
+flamed—not altogether with anger. It was not unpleasant to be looked
+at hard by him.</p>
+
+<p>"Althea," he said at last, "suppose I told you I had come to-night to
+quarrel with you?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned with a strange, scared appeal in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I should beg you not to. Don't ever quarrel with me, Paul—please."</p>
+
+<p>The artless speech was so unlike anything he had ever heard from
+her—her voice, as she uttered it, so uncomfortably reminiscent of
+another, whose vain pleading had only just ceased to vibrate in
+his heart, that Paul had what may be best described as a moment of
+sentimental vertigo.</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand lightly upon hers. "Dear Mrs. Hepworth, do you dream I
+could be harsh with you?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not move her hand from under his, nor appear conscious that
+one chapter of their intimacy was irretrievably ended by the impulsive
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I only know I dread your anger. I suspect it can be awful."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall never be sure, then. But reproof at least you must bear.
+Althea, you have put me under an obligation that no man finds
+tolerable."</p>
+
+<p>Now she snatched her hand away. "Oh!" with a catch in her voice, "that
+is unworthy of you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are keeping me from what is at least a chance to discharge it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not I who keeps you from it."</p>
+
+<p>The blood rushed to Ingram's head. "Some occult tribunal, then—some
+inquisition against whose unwarrantable interference my whole soul
+protests."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" for he had raised his voice. "I think I hear a ring. People
+are beginning to arrive, and I must fly. Come down in about five
+minutes—it will look better—and wait after the rest are gone. I think
+you had best understand my position in this matter clearly. That much
+is due you."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIIa">XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A CATASTROPHE</p>
+
+
+<p>Checked in mid-course, and with all his righteous indignation bottled
+up, Paul, I expect, hardly found the "worldly" dinner a diverting
+affair. He had reached the stage of mental development—a mid-way
+one, be it noted—where types interest more than persons, and none of
+those he met to-night aroused in him anything save a burning desire
+for their speedy effacement. Lumsden did not appear to remember him,
+which was hardly wonderful, considering the complete change of dress
+and environment. Besides which the baronet was a man very much occupied
+and in request throughout dinner. He was just back from the <i>Côte
+d'Azur</i>, and was primed with the true inwardness of the approaching
+Manby-Millett sensation. Lucy Millett was passing through Paris alone,
+and thought it civil to leave a card on the only Mrs. Manby at the
+<i>Superbe</i> because she had sent her a wedding present. Mrs. Manby's
+reputation hadn't reached her, it seems, which was hardly wonderful,
+seeing Lucy was a daughter of the great Quaker sago-refining family,
+and rather out of things. She had left her own card and her husband's,
+and by a mistake of the clerk only the smaller card was handed to the
+gay lady on her return. Result: that Lucy found a <i>petit bleu</i>
+waiting when she got back from a round of the shops, which gave
+everything away. "Most impassioned," Lumsden understood, on good
+authority, and quite up to Manby form.</p>
+
+<p>"And if you put that in one of your books, Mrs. Hepworth, people would
+say there was too much—what d'you call it?—coincidence, wouldn't
+they, now?"</p>
+
+<p>It happened that Lady Robert Millett had been the first woman Ingram
+had interviewed for the <i>Parthenon</i>. He remembered the sandy
+haired girl-wife at Isleworth, with her high teeth, awkward kindness
+and innocent pride, who had given him tea and, "as a special favor,"
+shown him her white squirrels and blue-wattled Japanese fowl. Well—her
+happiness was destroyed. He did not join in the laughter when some one
+achieved a stammering, knock-kneed epigram in French; something about
+<i>sagou</i> and <i>sagesse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Templeton had just won a seat for his party in a three-cornered
+contest. He detailed with considerable verve the intrigues necessary
+to induce a labor candidate to run and split the vote. The Liberal's
+wife had social ambitions. "I hope we shall meet in town, Captain
+Templeton," she had said after the poll. "We're Liberal; but
+<i>naturally</i> most of our friends are on your side of the house."</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the table, with his noble old ivory-white face, silver
+hair, and limitless shirt-front, their host sat, a fine flower of
+democracy, and enjoyed his daughter's social success. His ponderous
+civilities failed to absorb the little Italian marchesina on his right
+(Gioconda, they say, of the <i>Fool's Errand</i>). Her heart was at the
+noisy end of the table; continually, at some new outburst, she would
+clap her tiny ringed hands autocratically for silence. "<i>What</i> is
+this? <i>What</i> is this? I have not heard well." Things had to be
+repeated, explained, for her benefit.</p>
+
+<p>Paul was nearest the door, and rose to open it as the women passed out.
+His hostess, who had barely addressed a word to him during dinner,
+bent forward as she passed and reminded him of his promise. Lumsden
+was the only man who seemed to notice the incident; and Ingram thought
+he caught the tail end of a look of intelligence as he returned to
+the table. But it was gone instantly, and presently the men drew to
+the side next the fire and began to talk tariffs. Tongue-tied amidst
+the women's chatter, their host easily dominated the conversation
+now. He spoke of Republican prospects at the Mid-West conventions,
+their intimate association with business prosperity, discussed the new
+influences at Washington with good-natured banter, predicted worse
+times before a "banner-year," hinted what was worth watching meantime.
+The men listened to him intently—even Lumsden—carelessly, sipping
+their coffee or rolling their liqueurs round and round in tiny gilt
+glasses. Every word was golden now. Art, literature, philosophy, all
+the visions that visit an idle mood, blew off like mists when the sun
+mounts the sky. Paul, watching him in silence, felt an involuntary
+respect, a pride despite himself, in their common nationality.</p>
+
+<p>"You're force," he was saying to himself, "blind Titanic force—that's
+what you are. And our business is with you and not with this trash
+that cumbers the ground and obscures the issue; these parasites, who
+imagine the things their own hearts covet were the incentive to men
+like yourself, who corrupt you because they fear you, and with grave,
+attentive faces are trying to make you believe now that there's great
+personal merit in what you've been doing. You've sucked up riches from
+a disorganized society that your energy took unawares, because you
+couldn't help it, and you spend it on yourselves because you don't know
+any better way. Well, we must show you one. The force that creates,
+the wisdom that could distribute—these two are groping for each other
+through a maze of laws, human and divine, that the world has outgrown.
+They must mingle, must come together, must interpenetrate, and if
+priests and judges hinder, then priests and judges must go. They were
+made for man, not man for them."</p>
+
+<p>"... so if you've bought warrants at sixty-three merely on the report
+of divisions inside the amalgamation, you haven't done badly, Lumsden.
+And now, Lord Hatherley, what do you say? Shall we join the ladies
+upstairs?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>An hour later Ingram was alone with his host and hostess. His presence,
+<i>ami de maison</i> as he had become, did not restrain Mr. Rees from a
+palpable yawn.</p>
+
+<p>"You look tired, father," said Althea, putting her arm over his broad
+shoulder. "What are you going to do? Mr. Ingram and I have something to
+talk over."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall read Lew Wallace for half an hour, honey, and then go
+to bed. Have my hot milk sent to the study."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go upstairs to my own room," said Althea, when he was gone. "I
+can always talk better there."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram followed her, and, as she preceded him gracefully, something
+forlorn and lonely in her face and figure struck him, over-receptive of
+such impressions as he was. He thought she drooped. Once she stumbled
+slightly.</p>
+
+<p>She often wrote till morning, and the fire was still burning brightly
+in her room. She took the strip of paper on which the names of her
+guests had been written and, reading it over again, crumpled it in her
+hand with a little gesture of disgust and weariness, and threw it into
+the glowing coals.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ugh!</i>" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you have them, then?" asked Paul, more reasonably than politely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" impatiently, "you don't understand." She hesitated a moment.
+"Don't you ever find such people strangely interesting yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"The least so of any class I've met," Paul replied, without hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean—sit down, please—because they are so <i>free</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"——of scruples?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of scruples, if you will. Don't you see as long as one has work
+to do, or an ideal to follow, or conscience to consider, or a heart
+even, one's life must, in a sense be incomplete, fettered, bound. One
+must leave off in unexpected places—never go quite to the logical end,
+never run the whole gamut."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just as well, isn't it—for other people's sakes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. You don't read Newman, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never."</p>
+
+<p>"He speaks, in one of his poems, of 'A secret joy that Hell is near.'
+Now, he was a great saint, Mr. Ingram; no Augustine, but one of the
+predestined of God's love, who never in the whole course of their lives
+commit a vile act, say a vile word, nor probably entertain an ill
+thought. And yet, you see, he felt it."</p>
+
+<p>She had taken out her handkerchief, and was twisting it nervously into
+a rope.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>A secret joy that Hell is near!</i>' That's what I feel at times.
+That's what I've been feeling all to-night, as I listened to those
+people. It's wicked, I know. It's even a refinement of wickedness."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's nerves."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, you don't. I won't submit to that kind of talk from you—but
+I'm not keeping you from bed to discuss my temperament. About your
+story: I'm so sorry I can't help you to publish it."</p>
+
+<p>"Owing, I gather, to its religious views?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why deny it? Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"As exemplified in the Rev. Mr. Ffoulkes, the Salvation Merchant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! don't laugh. It's terribly serious. You have—I don't know where
+you learnt it—such a terrifying plausibility in your case against
+Providence. Nothing strikes at faith like a perverted mysticism."</p>
+
+<p>"Name one instance!"—a little bitterly. "I'm beginning to forget what
+I did say."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you say that the most obvious result of punishment is to destroy
+the sense of guilt."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes—perhaps. But——"</p>
+
+<p>"In short, one may bear witness for your God, but not against Him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I must sound illogical to you. It is so hard to explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't try, please."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent awhile, staring into the fire. "Mr. Ingram, you've
+heard, perhaps, that my life has not been a happy one.</p>
+
+<p>"A word here and there. <i>Que sais-je?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. What do you know? What can any one know of it? Imagination
+even couldn't do justice to the whole truth. I came out of it not
+desolate, alone; not only sick of body and soul, but even degraded.
+Yes, I mean it. A degraded wretch—that's how I saw myself. The poor
+street-walker seemed a clean and honorable thing beside me."</p>
+
+<p>"And so you became a Catholic. Is this the usual way into the fold?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is, for many. Yes," she went on, with a strange glow in her eyes,
+"for those who have endured great wickedness as for those who have
+committed it, God be thanked, there is one respirable medium left on
+earth. Call it what you will—a hospital of sick souls, a home for
+moral convalescents."</p>
+
+<p>"I call it nothing. I take your word for it. Does this account for the
+decrepitude of so much of your doctrine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! don't be clever, Paul. Cleverness is a little thing. At least I
+should be loyal to that in which I have found peace, self-respect, a
+new life."</p>
+
+<p>"You misjudge me, Althea. I grudge you none of your comfort. God is
+true if He's true for you, and He's true, for you, if the thought of
+Him gives you peace."</p>
+
+<p>There really seemed nothing more to say, and he got to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Send along my manuscript," he said, "whenever it's convenient, and
+dismiss the matter from your mind. It makes no difference."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you in such a hurry to go?" she asked fretfully, and put her
+hand to her head. She seemed to sway.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill?" Ingram asked, coming across and standing beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"My head went queer suddenly," she said. "It does that lately. It's
+fatigue, I think. Listen to me, Paul Ingram. I want to strike a bargain
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to buy 'Sad Company' myself."</p>
+
+<p>"In order to destroy it?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"And at what do you assess the damage, moral and material, to your
+creed that its suppression will avoid. Come, now! just for curiosity's
+sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Five hundred pounds—a thousand if——"</p>
+
+<p>He interrupted her brusquely. "You must have taken leave of your
+senses. Do you think I'm to be bought? Burn the thing yourself, if you
+like—burn it in the name of whatever god it offends—but don't impute
+dishonor ever again to a man, even to a man that doesn't believe in
+Him."</p>
+
+<p>She caught at his sleeve. "Oh, but you must have some money for
+it," she said, incoherently. "You must—you must! Don't rob me of a
+pleasure. You've travelled the world over, but you don't know what
+poverty in London means. Why, only to-night, as I looked down the
+table and saw your face so—so proud and fine, and thought how little
+stood between you and—there! I won't even name it. But don't be
+stubborn—for my sake. Because you must have money; you must have
+money, dear."</p>
+
+<p>At the last word he took her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go!" she whispered, pushing him away with all the poor force
+of her bare arms. "I didn't mean this. Oh! believe me. Upon my honor I
+didn't—nothing like this, Paul."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram only drew her closer. "Stop struggling," he said, with
+authority. "That's better. Now then—kiss me properly."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIIIa">XIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">NEW WINE—OLD BOTTLE</p>
+
+
+<p>When the Reverend Antony Vernon, on the very morrow of a controversy
+whose issue was hailed variously in various quarters—here as a
+triumph and as a scandal there—forsook his fellow's rooms in Wadham,
+his parish of St. Hedwige, and the Hernandes Ethical Lectureship, to
+take the old, old beaten track toward the City of the Seven Hills and
+intellectual disenfranchisement, beyond a languid wonder as to what
+might await him in the less indulgent fold his migration aroused little
+interest. Excommunication or a cardinal's hat? Either, it was felt,
+might be the crown of his new career. He took no disciples with him in
+his incontinent flight, and he left no spiritual orphans to bewail his
+loss. No vindication of the strange step was ever published by him, and
+it cannot be pretended that his reserve balked any very keen curiosity.
+After all, had not the question been worn threadbare—to rags—years
+ago? To the fervor of the 'forties a generation had succeeded too weary
+of dogmatic strife to account for its own actions, far less demand
+an account from others; satisfied, in short, since it saved time and
+trouble, to accept the plea of impulse in full extenuation. During the
+traditional nine days, it is true, his motives were guessed at idly in
+the Common Room. Intellectual despair, said one; another, a recoil from
+the abyss to which a will to believe with the minimum of revelation
+always leads; a third might hint at reasons more personal and intimate
+still. None knew; and, when a few weeks had passed, none cared. The
+Reverend Antony Vernon was absolved and forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>After his ordination in Rome, Archbishop Manning, who had been an
+old Oxford friend of his father, gave him a curacy in the northeast
+of London, in a district which had not then acquired its present
+sinister reputation, but was beginning to earn it. The mission itself
+was an old one, founded in the days of captivity and bishops <i>in
+partibus</i>; so much the fabric witnessed, a square box-like structure
+of hard yellow brick, with a stucco portico, and on each side four
+round-headed, narrow-paned windows of pinky-white glass, obscured by a
+wooden galley, and, on the side that faced the street, still bearing
+traces of some sort of wash which had once discreetly veiled the
+mysteries within. And yet, in its unpretending ugliness, the humble
+fane did not lack a certain charm denied to the great Gothic barn that
+has replaced it. It had been built upon the site of what had been a
+city merchant's suburban estate in the days of hoop and powder. Upon
+the side furthest from the street, two or three of the old garden trees
+had been spared, which of a sunny afternoon, according as the season
+lay, stained the clear panes a tremulous green and gold, or fretted
+them with an uneasy tracery of tangled branches. One guessed that,
+within the memory of man, before the city had spilled its desolating
+overflow around and beyond, gardens had bloomed—orchards borne fruit
+beneath these weather-stained walls, the odors of the hayfield stolen
+in at times and mingled its incense with that of the altar. For with
+cities it is as with the generations of men—new buildings upon which
+the old have gazed carry on, when they themselves have grown gray, the
+tradition of all that has been demolished and displaced around them.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sending you into great temptation, Vernon," Manning had said
+to him at parting. (He had opened his heart to his superior, and
+there were no secrets between the two men). "The mission is the most
+difficult in the whole archdiocese. Since the trams were built the
+East End is pouring its cramped population into it in thousands. The
+old respectable families are leaving, in absolute panic, as soon as
+they can sell or surrender their leases. There will be no better centre
+in three or four years' time for a great missionary effort; but until
+Swinton dies or retires nothing much can be done. You will have need
+of all your faith and of all your tact. Abroad you will encounter
+an animalism such as you cannot have conceived possible; at home, a
+creed almost without love, and to which only the darker side of the
+revelation seems to have been vouchsafed. Get to know your people
+quietly; watch your armor, and—pray! And, above all," he continued,
+laying a hand that was already ethereal upon the young don's shoulder,
+"above all, Vernon, never despair of the poor. Don't be appalled by
+anything you see or hear. The degradation is great, but it is my
+experience it seldom reaches down as far as the soul. A word will work
+conversion here—a week's illness make a saint. It is far, far easier
+to wash the filth off of them than it is to heal the ulcer of the rich,
+or purify the intellect of men like you and me. It is God's crowning
+mercy to his elect. 'Blessed are the poor!'"</p>
+
+<p>Vernon quickly discovered that the difficulties had not been
+over-rated. Father Swinton, the missionary rector, was a scion of an
+old Northumbrian family. His eccentricity, probably congenital and
+the result of long continued intermarriage, had been heightened by
+a solitary life until it reached a pitch that was almost monomania.
+Beneath the outward uniformity which Catholic discipline imposes he
+concealed a fanatical Jansenist heart. He was perhaps the last of a
+generation of priests who took a perverse pride in the insular and
+secluded character which three centuries of persecution had impressed
+upon the Roman communion in England. He boasted of never having made a
+convert, and resented the new expansiveness as a personal grievance. He
+never returned to his "chapel"—you would have earned his resentment
+by calling it a church—from a visit to more pretentious missions
+without experiencing a stealthy joy in his own square, painted pews,
+his railed gallery and bare altar, flanked only by two small plaster
+statues which a great lady, stubborn as himself, had imposed upon him
+as the price of peace. Two of his many aversions he made no attempt
+to conceal: he hated Irish curates, and he hated the beautiful modern
+devotion of the Sacred Heart.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless my soul, Vernon!" he cried, one evening, shortly after
+the arrival of the new curate, waddling into the dining-room after
+benediction. "Do you know what's just happened me? No? Well, sir, a
+woman came into my sanctuary just now—my very sanctuary, sir!—as I
+was covering the altar, and asked me to bless a piece of red flannel
+for her—a common piece of red household flannel, sir, cut into the
+shape of a heart. Called it her '<i>Badge</i>!' I said: 'Take your
+blasphemous piece of red flannel home, ma'am! It's too small for a
+chest-protector, so make a penwiper of it. God bless my soul! haven't
+you seven sacraments?'"</p>
+
+<p>Far from being shocked, the archbishop laughed at the story until the
+tears ran out of his watery blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old Swinton!" was all his comment; "last of the Gallicans!"
+Vernon was early struck by the gaiety and love of fun among his
+fellow-workers in the vineyard.</p>
+
+<p>As for the curates: he discovered he was the successor to a long line
+whose misplaced fervor and attempts to familiarize the channels of
+grace had brought them into collision with the heady old man.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Four—times—a—year</i>, Mr. Vernon," his rector would assert,
+bringing the palm of his hand down on the table at each word. "Four
+times a year, sir, and no more, if I had my way. And the three
+months in between all too short to prepare for the reception of
+this tremendous"—at the word something that was almost ecstasy
+descended upon the foolish old face—"<i>tremendous</i> Sacrament!
+Besides"—fretfully—"none of 'em knew how to eat like gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps on account of his superior table manners, perhaps for other
+reasons, Vernon's enthusiasm—the enthusiasm of the proselyte—was
+condoned. Often during his strenuous later life he looked back upon
+those three years of curacy as perhaps the happiest he had known. If
+he might not sow the seed broadcast, at least he could sow and tend
+it in his own heart. He loved to read his breviary of an afternoon,
+pacing up and down between two green matted grass lawns, under the
+creeper-covered wall of the meek little house of God. The sun,
+filtering through the tender leaves of the plane trees, made a dappled
+puzzle-pattern on the broad flagged walk at his feet, or, if the season
+was late, he crisped their shed vesture beneath his low buckled shoes.
+Often, as his lips moved in the prayer that he had now got by heart,
+his eyes, wandering from the familiar page, would map out by the line,
+and square the foundation of his settlement—his bustling citadel of
+the friends of God—so soon to arise in the great wilderness, blotting
+out this selfish little oasis of peace and stillness forever. This very
+walk the vault of a chancel should cover—vast, imposing, lined with
+glowing chapels that pictured in fresco and mosaic the hard-won battles
+of the Church militant—draped with embroidered banners of guild and
+confraternity. Here, at the ivied presbytery gable, where a mob of
+sparrows, heedless of impending change, were repairing their frail
+tenements of straw, the gymnasium should stand, with a dining-hall
+above, where from henceforth his daily meals should be taken in the
+company of the starving and the outcast; of the workless man, hovering
+with amazement upon the brink of crime; of the felon, still sore from
+the stringent hand of earthly justice; guests gathered at his Master's
+bidding from highway and byway, and set down with the broad robe of
+charity over their bowed shoulders. And once a week at night, when
+chairs and benches had been cleared away, the piano should tinkle and
+the fiddle tune, and lads and lasses, in whose perverse minds guilt and
+gaiety had become convertible terms, should learn the religion of joy,
+and dance the devil out of their souls.</p>
+
+<p>These were his dreams during three years. And yet, in his imagination,
+susceptible as a woman's to any influence of beauty and grace, and,
+like a woman's, sworn foe of all that is ugly and irrevocable in
+life, the quiet close was full of voices that reproached him for
+their outcasting. He used to pray against his weakness at night, when
+confessions were over and the church closed. Horse-cars jingled past
+the doors. The windows shook with raucous oaths; with cries of buyers
+and sellers in the market outside, from mouths furred with blasphemy
+and filthy talk; the naphtha flares threw strange, troubled shadows
+over the doomed pews and galleries.</p>
+
+<p>Father Swinton fell ill in the middle of the third year, and after
+lingering a few months, died rather suddenly. At his death it was
+discovered that his private charities had been unbounded, and had
+eaten up all his inheritance. He left nothing of his own behind, save
+a family genealogy, in which the connection between the Swintons
+of Dimpleshall and the Swintons of Blacklash is clearly traced—a
+connection which, it would appear, Mackenzie, in his "View of the
+County of Northumberland," has been at pains to dispute, and a bound
+manuscript, much thumbed, of meditations on the Passion. The projected
+work had hardly waited on his death; indeed, Vernon was called to his
+superior's agony from a consultation with his architect. No man's
+dream is ever realized; but within two years a good deal of his was
+an accomplished fact. Vernon was a wealthy man, and, when his own
+money was spent, a consummate beggar. The dining-room, the schools,
+the gymnasium, the dispensary, and the old folks' hostel took shape
+one by one, amid discouragement, covert sarcasm, and abundant prophecy
+of failure. The trees fell, the chapel was gutted and torn down as
+completely as ever by Gordon rioters; the presbytery, with its panelled
+chambers, went the same way; the sparrows took to a dusty wing and,
+as covenanted servants, let us hope found sanctuary elsewhere. Last
+of all, the chancel, gaunt and bare as yet, a mere shell and outline
+of all it should be, but imposing if only by virtue of its bulk, with
+traceried windows, flying buttresses, clerestory and triforium,
+towered over the wet slate roofs that smoked sullenly all day, like a
+slaked furnace, beneath its feet. At the centre of the cross, where
+the long chancel met the truncated apse and aisles, an octagonal lead
+lantern, lit by eight round lunettes, took the place of tower and
+spire. It was at this lantern that men stood to stare; toward it that
+the whips of passing van and 'bus drivers inevitably were pointed for
+many a long day. For there, set up too high for any to escape His
+appeal—a symbol of hope to the hopeless, a fable to the scoffer, a
+source of irritation to the Pharisee, lit up at night by two coronals
+of electric light that encircled the pierced feet and haloed the
+drooping head—the Man of Sorrows watched the sorrowing city, and
+plucked His vesture aside to show the wounded and flaming breast—the
+Sacred Heart, beneath.</p>
+
+<p>At fifty-eight Canon Vernon would have been a strange portent in the
+Common Room at Wadham. He had gained sanctity, but there is no denying
+he had lost polish. One cannot sit to table habitually with the outcast
+and not become either a little self-righteous or a little disreputable;
+and nothing could ever have made Antony Vernon self-righteous. He had
+a brown, seamed face, on which the lines of humor and pain crossed and
+intercrossed; the loose, mobile mouth of the great actor he might have
+been; piercing black eyes, an untidy thatch of dark hair whitening only
+at the temples, and thin, sensitive nostrils rimmed with snuff. Snuff
+also liberally besprinkled the breast of his shabby cassock. There
+had been, three hundred years back, an ancestor who wrote himself M.
+de Vernon, and, in reverting to the ancestral faith, Vernon seemed
+to have reverted a little to the ancestral type. He had no apparent
+austerities, was fond of a certain brand of white wine which grocers
+do not stock, and when his young men saw him in his private room,
+gave them, together with absolution, an Egyptian cigarette that was
+no part of their penance. His life is now matter for biography. In
+the district which is bounded roughly by Kingsland Road on the west
+and Hackney Road on the south, and which may be said to have London
+Fields—a rather tuberculous "lung"—for its centre and playground,
+it was even then matter for legend. Upon some of the legends his own
+comments were flippant, and we should probably err in attaching greater
+importance to them than he did himself. In speaking of his spiritual
+influence we are on safer ground. Very few—perhaps none quite—had
+ever withstood this. It was the old, old test. Power "went out" from
+him. Very unjustly, the worship of which he was the object did not
+extend to the hard-working curates with whom he surrounded himself. His
+delivery in the pulpit was bad, his writing all but illegible, and, as
+he never had time to prepare his sermons for the press, a good deal
+has perished that deserved to survive. We preserve a few fragments,
+however, as characteristic of his peculiar train of thought.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"<i>Of love</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"There is no way to love God but through His creatures. It is
+through admiration of the work that we must be brought to the
+artist. But often the one condition upon which our love can stay
+sinless is that it shall stay silent."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Of suffering</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"There is a genius in suffering as in all else. The confessor may
+labor with Christ, the martyr be crucified with Him; it is the
+artist alone who can understand or share the agony of Olivet."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Of sacrifice</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"The history of Cain and Abel is full of significance to us. It is
+not of the things that renew themselves year by year that God would
+have us make our offering. To be acceptable to Him the sacrifice
+must be irreparable."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Despite his gaiety, his personal pessimism was unbounded. He was taken
+to task for it once by a burly and breezy Jesuit.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, Vernon, God is Lord of life as well as of death."</p>
+
+<p>"True," replied Vernon, as though speaking to himself. "But with a
+perceptible bias toward death."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He maintained that while it was our duty to resist all temptations,
+there were some so overwhelming that our responsibility was ended when
+we asked God to keep them out of our way.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He used to say that the crowning humiliation of the saints was to know
+their lives would be written by the devout.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Once upon his return from examining a school taught by religious, he
+was observed to be preoccupied, and was asked the reason.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking," he said, "that few indeed are to be trusted with the
+credulity of childhood."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Of a noted atheist who was very charitable, he remarked: "G—— gives
+alms for the hatred of God."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>After leaving Oxford his remarks seldom strayed beyond the sphere of
+his new duties. When they did, they were apt to be rarely illuminating.
+He said of France, for instance: "Four words give us her genius and her
+history—'Often conquered, never ashamed.'"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He used to declare that, in striking a balance between a man's
+happiness and unhappiness, time was not to be taken into account at
+all, because men live all their lives every day of their lives.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Religion, he observed, had an advantage that had not escaped the
+worldly mind. There is no other ideal which a man can live for and live
+on at the same time.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIVa">XIV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">SOME THEORIES—AND A WAY OUT</p>
+
+
+<p>He was sitting in his study late one windy March Saturday when Mrs.
+Hepworth was announced. He had been in his confessional all the
+evening. A half-finished letter lay on his blotting-pad, but he had
+turned away from it and was warming his stockinged feet at the fire.
+She was heavily veiled, but he divined a crisis at a glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you very busy?" she asked, in a smothered voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Very idle," he answered gaily. "The appearances of industry are
+deceitful. I was really—don't tell—toasting my toes. Are you in any
+trouble?" he asked in a graver tone, taking her hand in both his.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, but did not speak. He drew an arm-chair to the fire, and
+poked a great lump of coal into a blaze.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there!" said he. "Sit down and have the cry out. I have a
+letter to finish and another to write. By the time they are both done
+you will be calmer."</p>
+
+<p>He went on with his writing; re-read, sealed, and stamped the two
+letters, rang the bell, and, when it was answered by one of the mission
+lads, carried them to the door himself. When he turned to her again the
+worst was over. She was drying her eyes. He leaned forward and patted
+her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What a big baby we are!"</p>
+
+<p>She returned him a spasmodic smile. She was conscious of a tear-stained
+face—possibly a red nose. But then, he was a priest. That made a
+difference.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, what is the trouble? Has invention given out? No? Come, come
+then, everything else is bearable, isn't it? If I were an imaginative
+writer, that fear would never leave me, and would end by paralyzing my
+pen. I should have stage-fright every time I sat down opposite a sheet
+of paper. It has always been less of a marvel to me that a novel should
+be finished well than that it should be finished at all."</p>
+
+<p>Althea hardly listened. She was wondering how she should express
+the things of this world in terms that a man of the other should
+understand; a necessity—let the prurient believe it or not—that makes
+confession a dry business for all parties.</p>
+
+<p>"Father Vernon, has it ever occurred to you that I am a woman as well
+as a writer?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, a very charming one."</p>
+
+<p>"At least an honest one. Three years ago, you will remember, I came to
+you on quite an impersonal matter. You divined an inward trouble—saw
+that I had missed the peace which passes understanding, and offered
+me—how delicately, I shall never forget—your aid to attain it. I
+refused it. You never would guess what the refusal cost me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear——"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; let me go on. I must have seemed churlish. But if principles
+are to be anything beyond mere idle words, they must be held to; and
+one of mine is that for a woman to invite sympathy is only a degree
+less shameful than for her to beg for love. The way of the devout woman
+with her director is hateful to me. This unseemly self-revelation from
+week to week is treachery—treachery to her own heart and to those whom
+she takes into it. Am I very heretical?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my child! How it would lighten my task were there more who thought
+like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Before I left, you bade me, if ever I was in great trouble, to come to
+you again. And now——"</p>
+
+<p>"Now the time has come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She rubbed her hands nervously one over the other. "I am in
+great straits."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the way growing dark or only hard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>hard—hard</i>!" she moaned, rocking a little backward and
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up in his face and saw her trouble was guessed. When the
+will to help and the powerlessness meet upon a face that regards us
+tenderly we read our fate written there in letters of fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she went on, as though he had spoken. "I am a Catholic: I am a
+divorced woman whose husband lives, and I am in love—in love with all
+my heart, and soul, and strength."</p>
+
+<p>"The man? Is he free?" Vernon asked, perhaps for something to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I thank God, whose captive I am, that he at least is free."</p>
+
+<p>"He understands your peculiar position?"</p>
+
+<p>"He understands nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, you should let him know. In justice to him."</p>
+
+<p>His words irritated Althea vaguely, as a little professional mannerism
+might irritate us in the surgeon fighting for our lives.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, have patience! I am going to tell you everything. It is the man
+whose book I sent you to read. Mr. Prentice, a friend of mine, a
+journalist, brought him to me last summer. He was quite unknown in
+London and was finding a difficulty in even getting it considered. He
+is not quite a stranger to us; at least, we know who he is. My father
+is a friend of some of the rich branch of his family in Connecticut. My
+publishers made difficulties, of course, but the thing was in a fair
+way of being settled—"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely, my child, his opinions shocked you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Father!" Noticing his surprise: "You must take my word for
+that. It is so hard when one is leading two lives—the artist's and the
+other. There seems no contact between them—no common ground. I have
+had no temptation myself to such things, and so the question had never
+arisen for me personally. No, I was conscious of nothing but the joy,
+the privilege of helping a fellow-worker toward his reward."</p>
+
+<p>"When did you first find it a matter of conscience?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once when I went to confession to Father Mephan at the Priory. I
+mentioned it almost casually. To my surprise, he took the matter most
+seriously—said I was incurring a tremendous responsibility, and that
+if one soul was led by it to love God less, the sin would be at my
+door. I had to get the manuscript back from the publishers. Oh! it was
+weary work."</p>
+
+<p>"Mephan pronounced against the book, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I told him that to my knowledge the writer was a good man—in
+his way almost saintly. I knew him well enough by then to say that.
+But he said it didn't matter—that Antichrist had his own prophets and
+confessors, and even martyrs. Is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear it is."</p>
+
+<p>"He said something else stranger still. He said the virtue that was
+outside the Church was a greater danger than the wickedness. Do you
+believe that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't. I think virtue, of any sort, is quite secure from
+popularity. But go on. You have told me nothing of the man himself."</p>
+
+<p>"He continued to visit us. He was lonely and embittered at first, but
+it wore off. He is very handsome. I was proud to be able to show such
+a fellow-countryman after some that have been at our house. The men
+liked him, and I know the women envied him to me. Oh! a woman can see.
+I got him to tell me some of his life. It's wonderful! He seems to have
+deliberately sought out pain and labor as though some inward need of
+his soul impelled him to it. He does not know God, but he has never
+lost the spiritual vision. His heart is as clean as a child's and as
+simple. He has his faults. He hates the rich; but there is not a trace
+of envy in his hatred. He is not even like Mill—led to the love of
+the many by the hatred of the few. It is simply the holy hunger and
+thirst after justice."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you are painting a very good man. Did you never try to
+influence him toward the truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Father Vernon, do you believe in my sincerity or not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, believe me when I tell you it's not possible. Perhaps in years
+and years to come; but his heart will have to be broken first. No, his
+virtue is the virtue of Marcus Aurelius—of Julian. He has all the
+sadness of the old, stoical, pagan world. Will you think me exaggerated
+if I tell you how he affects me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I feel as though some great angel, neither of light nor
+darkness, neither fallen nor confirmed, to whom the test for or against
+God has never been offered, has folded his wings and dropped gently at
+my feet. I have but one fear—that he will spread them as quietly and
+take flight."</p>
+
+<p>Two red spots glowed on her cheeks as she spoke. Vernon, considering
+her, suddenly realized how ill she was looking. There was even on her
+face an expression that, as a priest, it was part of his office to
+watch for.</p>
+
+<p>"When did this thing happen—the thing that makes you so unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Last Thursday. He had dined with us. I had been feeling ill all day.
+Since the summer I have been frightened two or three times—it is my
+head I think—but I have put off getting any advice. He could not
+have asked for an explanation at a worse time; but I had no right to
+withhold it. I tried to explain, even offered him money, and then——"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Father Vernon, he grew so big! He seemed to tower. Everything else
+was small. Yes—let me tell the truth—religion, priests, even God—we
+all seemed to be a little band of intriguers trying to pull him down.
+He told me to burn his book, turned on his heel. I knew he wouldn't
+come back, and so—and so—I'm only a woman: I babbled something or
+other that was in my heart, and he took me—in his—arms."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees, and looked into the
+fire. The action was deliberate. One never would have guessed what a
+storm was rending her breast.</p>
+
+<p>"He kissed me only once," she went on. "He was very gentle. Then
+we sat down, and I found out that, all the time while I had been
+condescending, advising, putting him at his ease, I was nothing to him
+but just a little, lonely, spoilt girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen him since?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor written?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"He has called, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I have not been at home to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then—the thing is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Read this!" She drew a letter from the bosom of her dress and handed
+it to him. She watched him narrowly as he read it, but his expression
+of grave concern did not alter.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you alone in town?" he asked, when he had read it through.</p>
+
+<p>"My father and most of the servants are at Hindhead. I should have gone
+with them on Saturday, but I waited because——Oh! I just waited——"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want this back?" said Vernon, still holding the letter between
+his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Burn it, please. No, wait a minute! Tear me off the signature first. I
+want that."</p>
+
+<p>She pressed the little shred of paper against her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I love him <i>so</i>, I love him <i>so</i>," she moaned.</p>
+
+<p>Vernon crumpled the sheets of paper one by one and threw them all into
+the fire together. The flames caught them at once. The writing glowed
+red, then white. The draught from the chimney rustled the ashes to and
+fro in the grate.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she asked, almost roughly, "what am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is but one thing—your duty. I cannot soften it."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Duty!</i>" she repeated, in a terrible voice. For a moment Vernon
+thought a nerve-crisis was at hand; but she fought it down. The wit
+that was almost the woman's second nature came uppermost.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pretty trap, isn't it? There ought to have been a notice-board
+on my narrow way, Father Vernon: 'Beware man-traps and canons.' God's
+ways are a little <i>impish</i> at times, don't you think so? Can I see
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not, dear child. It will only make it harder for you both."</p>
+
+<p>"Pah! You say that, but you really don't trust me. You're only a man,
+after all. Can I write the letter here? It won't be very long."</p>
+
+<p>Without a word he wheeled his writing-chair round for her, and pulled
+out unheaded note-paper and plain envelopes. She wrote a letter of
+six or eight pages quietly, without hesitating, except just at the
+end, when Vernon noticed her lips were pursed and her eyes swimming in
+tears. The second letter was a much shorter affair, and she enclosed in
+it the slip of paper which she had saved from the burnt letter. It lay
+on the top, and he noticed the address was that of a bank.</p>
+
+<p>"I will leave these with you to post," she said; "then you will feel
+quite safe. I shall go down to Hindhead to-morrow and stay a good
+while, I think. I like watching the spring come. Good-bye; and remember
+it is by what you <i>didn't</i> say to-night that I measure your
+sympathy. I don't think I could have stood platitudes."</p>
+
+<p>"My child, I preach to those who are bearing their cross, not to those
+whom God has nailed to it. Before them I dare only kneel and pray."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I felt it! I felt it! Something seemed to come out of you and
+break my will suddenly. Besides"—she hesitated—"besides, there's
+always something a woman keeps back, they say. I think, perhaps, he is
+saved from great unhappiness by what you have made me do to-night. I
+can't say more, even to you."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, love is never sent idly, never in vain. It is from our
+ignorant misuse, our blind misapprehension of its meaning, that the
+pity and the waste come about. Many a precious purpose is brought to
+nothing by the world's superstition of the happy ending. In love, as
+in life, those who seek selfishly forever seek vainly; even as they
+grasp it, the radiant vision turns a corpse within their arms. It is
+they who humbly and submissively—no matter how hard the law, how
+intolerable the accident—follow the inscrutable finger beckoning them
+from pleasant ways, to stumble upon the road that is narrow and steep
+and dark, who have their heart's desire given them in the end.... Yes!
+Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a knock at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, farver, it's Mrs. Murnane come about Jimmy's charackter for
+the 'am-and-beef shop."</p>
+
+<p>"Say I'm coming.... Would you like to spend a few minutes with me in
+the church before you go? We have the Forty Hours' devotion this week.
+I can let you out by the side door into the street. I suppose you have
+your car?"</p>
+
+<p>She passed before him down the staircase and along a white-washed
+corridor, whose bluntly pointed windows and doorways were wreathed by
+texts in Gothic lettering. Mrs. Murnane, a woman with a commanding
+eye and great digestive capacity, was sitting on a long bench in the
+hall; the ham-and-beef aspirant, a knock-kneed lad who seemed to grow
+more uncertain and wavering of outline as he receded from his enormous
+boots to his cropped white head, sat by her side with an air of being
+in custody. Behind the bench successive sessions of unwashed heads had
+besmeared the wall with a grimy average of height.</p>
+
+<p>The church was dark, and silent too; not with the mere absence of
+sound, but with a positive and penetrative stillness that seemed to
+radiate from one white disk, rimmed and rayed with gold, and enthroned,
+amid a phalanx of tapers and sweet waxen flowers, in one of the side
+chapels. A lad in a scarlet cassock and laced cotta was extinguishing
+a guttering candle, almost beyond his reach. As he rose on tiptoe
+the long pole trembled in his hands like a fishing-rod. Within the
+rails two men, their heads sunk beneath their shoulders, and without
+the rails two nuns, in broad white <i>cornichons</i> and turned-back
+sleeves of serge, watched the host motionlessly. On a votive-wheel near
+by many tapers, some white, some red, were blazing and dripping. The
+smell of incense was everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>She knelt upon a rush-seated <i>prie-dieu</i> in the same posture of
+absorbed devotion as the others, but her thoughts strayed, like a
+child's brought to church by an elder sister. She tried to count the
+tapers—how many red? how many white?—wondered what the nuns' faces
+were like behind the flapped white caps. The scene took shape in her
+head in little biting phrases, just as another kind of artist would
+have seen it in tone and composition. She was rather restless, wanted
+to be gone, and even said to herself that this last move of Father
+Vernon's was in doubtful taste. After going through so much——!</p>
+
+<p>But the silence, the stillness, the enervating loaded atmosphere gained
+her little by little. She had an access of devotion: tapers, flowers,
+prostrate fellow-worshippers were all part of some intimate rite of
+which there were two protagonists—that white sphere toward which, from
+time to time, she stole an awed glance, and she—a white host herself,
+with tired, folded pinions, submissive, only waiting for fire from
+heaven to complete the sacrifice....</p>
+
+<p>... Oh, God—the pain! the pain in her head! She wanted to scream, to
+faint, but her horror, the refined woman's horror of any "scene," kept
+her dumb and almost still. She prayed, wildly and incoherently—pressed
+her gloved fingers into her temples; her forehead was damp with
+perspiration....</p>
+
+<p>It was going now. Yes. In wave after wave, each less poignant than the
+one before, the pain left her. She lifted her head, wet her lips—wiped
+her forehead with the handkerchief still damp from her tears. Her eyes
+were tired and dim; the altar swam mistily. She looked across to Father
+Vernon, and he, noting her restlessness at last, rose and, with a low
+genuflection on both knees, beckoned her, and passed before her from
+the church.</p>
+
+<p>In the open air she revived, and even began to doubt the reality of
+what she had just undergone. There is a dream-like quality about
+intense pain that makes it hard to estimate it truly afterward. The
+car was waiting, in a dark slum that had once been a walled country
+lane smelling of mould and verdure. Even now the warm restlessness of
+spring could be felt in its fetid air. The chauffeur sat sideways upon
+his seat, reading some strange by-product of literature in a green
+cover. A dozen or so of ragged children, shock-headed and sore of face,
+clustered round the headlights like so many poor scorched flies. She
+shared the coppers in her purse between them.</p>
+
+<p>"Write me from Hindhead," Vernon said, at the door of the car; "and
+come to see me again when you get back. Be sure, my dear, God has some
+great mercy for you after this. And if I were you, I should see some
+one about the headaches. Nerves? Oh, yes! but it never does harm to
+have good advice. Good-bye, good-bye! God bless you, my dear. Now then,
+babies, why aren't the lot of you in bed?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The car rolled, smoothly and swiftly, southward and westward. Through
+brawling, chaffering Saturday night markets; through the old "Square
+Mile," deserted now, its mysterious lanes coiling away to left and
+right in tortuous perspective; across the Circus, in whose midst the
+bronze archer poises himself, choosing his prey and aiming his unseen
+arrow day and night at the spinning wheel of pleasure; round the sweep
+of the Quadrant—and home. Two and two, two and two; the men leaning
+over the women, the women leaning toward the men. Nature, after all,
+was slightly vulgar. To be placed—by circumstances—out of reach of
+its allurement had compensations—lent dignity to the point of view. It
+was almost enough to make one turn to virtue to have to share vice with
+so many....</p>
+
+<p>There she went again! Phrases, phrases! Well, it was just as well,
+since, after all, there wasn't much else left for her now. How tired
+she was of it all! And what was the great mercy that Father Vernon had
+predicted so confidently?... Home, at last.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"Three hours, probably more," the doctor said. It was Pemmer-Lloyd, the
+great cancer specialist from Weymouth Street, just round the corner.
+He was in golfing tweeds, and felt justly aggrieved that, with so many
+general practitioners in the neighborhood, he should have been called
+away from breakfast, for this. The nine forty-five to Amersham was out
+of the question now.</p>
+
+<p>One window-blind had been drawn up, crookedly and hurriedly, and
+through the rhomboidal opening a sinister light fell upon the disorder
+of the room. Two frightened maids and a housekeeper stood at the foot
+of the bed, watching the doctor, with inane hope upon their faces. One
+of the maids was crying, but looking about her curiously at the same
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"Done? No! of course nothing can be done. Am I not telling you she has
+been dead over three hours. Had any doctor been attending her lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not to our knowledge, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"There may have to be an inquest, then. In that case you must see that
+nothing is touched. Have the family been advised?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, doctor. I thought first——"</p>
+
+<p>"Wire and 'phone them immediately! <i>immediately!</i> and the police
+as well. Here is my card for the inspector. I shall have to stay at
+home all day now. In a case like this, you should always call a general
+practitioner."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They say she must have been reading a great part of the night. Two
+books were on the table near her bed—"Madame Bovary," and "The
+Imitation of Christ." Flaubert and à Kempis! Poor Althea! It was almost
+your life's epitome.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVa">XV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A LAST WISH</p>
+
+
+<p>Many will remember the profound impression that Althea's death created.
+It extended far beyond the circles that her novels had reached. There
+was something about that last mysterious journey through London—the
+sudden, unheralded end, at some conjectural hour, when the great
+heart of the city was beating its faintest, that struck the popular
+imagination, always ready to be harrowed, and secretly grateful, I
+believe, for evidence that fate works with an even grimness under all
+the inequalities of rank or fortune. I attended the funeral, combining
+for the last time my professional duties with the privileges of an old
+but lately neglected friend, and saw her committed to the awakening
+earth. She was buried with all the pomp and circumstance that the
+church of her adoption gives its children as a last assurance of its
+own unshaken power, but through all the chants and absolutions the
+chill human ache of an irreparable loss persisted, as, through the
+perfume of incense and flowers, the raw smell of the polished elm
+coffin pierced to the sense. The church was crowded with her friends;
+wreaths and crosses, lyres with snapped strings, broken columns of rare
+exotic flowers, all symbols of untimely end, were banked round the
+catafalque, but the coffin itself was stark and bare, covered thinly
+by a pall of purple silk wrought at its hem with passion flowers. The
+girls in some refuge or another, poor soiled doves whose unwearied
+friend she had been, had sat up, it was said, night and day in order to
+complete it.</p>
+
+<p>About the time that references to Mrs. Hepworth's career were ceasing
+to appear even in the minor papers, rumors of a theatrical hoax
+began to circulate through London. The new dancer, whom the zealous
+friendship of a certain well-known sporting baronet had forced upon
+an unwilling management, would not, after all, appear in the new play
+that was to replace the <i>Motor Girl</i> at the Dominion some time in
+May. "<i>Would not appear!</i>" Imagine what an eye trained to cheat
+the censor of his spoil could make of that; with what significance a
+tongue, thrust into a leathery cheek not quite innocent of biscuit and
+cheese, at the Bedford Street Bodega, could invest those three little
+words.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Will not appear</i>, my boy. Catch on? Why won't she? That's the
+joke, my boy. Because she's got to stop at home and <i>nurse her
+mother</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Imagine it! just once, and then let us pass on into sweeter air. Even
+if it must be the air of a sick-room. For many weeks Fenella hardly
+breathed any other. During that first breathless rally which hardly
+gave thought to the final issue, and during which a spoonful of broth
+swallowed, an hour's quiet rest or a fall in temperature were triumphs
+repaying the sleepless night, dull eye, and hollow cheek a hundredfold,
+career, character, seemed very empty, shadowy words. Even if one of
+the vile journals in pink and blue and yellow covers addressed in a
+handwriting needlessly disguised, which, be sure of it, the postman
+did not fail to deliver at Number Eleven, had reached her, had not—as
+all were, in fact, been torn from its wrapper by honest Frances' grimy
+hand to light parlor or kitchen fire—I doubt very much whether the
+marked paragraph would have had power to inflict one pang upon her
+self-respect, or bring one drop of blood to her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>How much she loved her mother, how far the wholesome, homely
+<i>fact</i> of her had been the basis of all happiness in life, Nelly
+had not guessed until now, when the thought must be faced of its
+speedy change to a mere memory. A reproachful memory, alas! She looked
+back on her girlhood—her school-days, and saw herself heedless and
+heartless. How niggardly of love she had been, how chary in response!
+She even accused herself of a little snobbishness in her mother's
+regard—unjustly, since it was from the innate expansiveness of the
+older woman and not from the accident of station or manner that her
+own finer nature had shrunk. But, in circumstances like these, to be
+conscious of a finer nature does not administer much comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barbour rallied a little from the first stroke, but never rose
+from her bed, and never spoke intelligibly again. Sometimes, by bending
+close to her lips and straining every sense, Fenella fancied she could
+construe the formless gabble into words, but into the words even her
+affection could read no meaning. During the day, indeed, her presence
+seemed to agitate the invalid to such an extent that the nurse had to
+be roused and the desperate effort to speak cut short by some opiate
+or injection. Once, driven almost mad at sight of her mother's mental
+suffering, Fenella took a sheet of stiff white cardboard, propped the
+sick woman upon a pillow, and put a pencil into the palsied hand.
+Slowly, with infinite pains on the one hand and infinite patience on
+the other, five dreadful letters took shape upon the writing-pad; five
+letters such as a dying man might scrawl with a finger dipped into his
+heart's blood:</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">"D—A—N—C—E."</p>
+
+<p>A light broke upon the girl. "You want me to go on rehearsing? Is that
+it, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>Oh! what joy in the poor fading eyes at being at last understood. The
+trembling head nodded again and again, and fell back on the pillow
+exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>"I will then, dear!" Fenella whispered in her mother's ear. "I'll go
+and put my things on at once."</p>
+
+<p>She came back, dressed as for the street, and kissed her mother
+good-bye. Ten minutes afterward, in response to a stealthy knock at
+the door, the little Scotch nurse whispered that the patient was fast
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>From now until the day on which the slowly curdling brain ceased to
+receive any impression at all the little loving conspiracy of lies
+went on. Every morning, at the usual hour of her departure for the
+theatre, Fenella, in hat and long coat, kissed her mother's cheek and
+forehead, and asked her how the night had passed—that night whose
+every hour she often had watched. At seven o'clock, dressed again, she
+came back, having first laid her cheek to the marble mantelpiece in
+the drawing-room, that it might be convincingly cold. (The best women
+have these depths in deception, this recognition of the importance of
+trifles.) She would sit down upon the bed and regale her duped parent
+with a long and elaborate history of the day's doings—what Mr. Dollfus
+had said, what Mr. Lavigne had said—how tiresome the chorus were,
+how jealous the leading lady—how set, above all, were all signs and
+portents toward ultimate triumph. Her achievement in this new field
+stirred even little Frances, now become a person of vast importance and
+responsibility, to involuntary admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss! You can't 'alf tell 'em!" that little helpmeet would say,
+harkening her.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever a protracted illness has ended in death it is a commonplace of
+comfort with well-meaning but shallow folk to say, "You must all feel
+it a <i>merciful release</i>." Apart from its sincerity, the phrase is
+founded upon a misconception of human feeling. No dead are missed so
+much as the dead who have been long a-dying. The presence of a perilous
+illness brings many an evil into a house; it at least casts one out.
+<i>Ennui</i> never reigns in the house that has the straw in front of
+its railings. A great drama is going on, and there never is a moment
+when one may not steal upstairs on tiptoe to measure its progress.
+Hence, apart altogether from sorrow, a strange emptiness in life when
+all is over, a bitter superadded regret for the close, shadowed room,
+haunted by broken murmurs, that was once the core of a whole polity of
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>In her sad absorption Fenella forgot Sir Bryan all but completely. He
+wrote to her often. His letters, headed in black or blue, or embossed
+whitely in thick square letters—"The Turf Club"; "369 Mount Street,
+Tel. 9087 Mayfair"; "Coffers Castle. Parcels: Balafond Stn. N. B.
+R."—lay strewn about her dressing-table or stuck carelessly behind
+looking-glasses, for all the world, represented now by Nurse Ursula or
+Frances, to read if they would. (We will not suspect Nurse Ursula of
+such a thing for a moment, and on any that have been placed in my hands
+there is no such grimy finger-print as I am sure Frances would have
+left.) She answered rarely, and then only in little set missives, mere
+bulletins of her mother's health. She begged his pardon for leaving so
+many of his letters <i>unansered</i>. She was quite well, thank him,
+had had a quiet night, and felt quite <i>enegetic</i>. The doctor had
+been and said mother's <i>strenth</i> was well maintained. She thanked
+him for the lovely grapes from Stanmore. She hoped that "Mud-Major"
+would win in the big race at Liverpool, and she remained sincerely
+his—Fenella Powys Barbour. She had decided on the full signature in
+letters to Lumsden. It sounded stately, and enforced respect. She would
+have been vastly surprised seeing the sort of respect with which the
+misspelt little notes were treated.</p>
+
+<p>It is only part of the general injustice of life that while the man
+who was doing his clumsy best to lighten her sorrow hardly stayed in
+her mind a moment after she had cast his letters aside or scribbled an
+answer to them, the false lover, who had kissed her in her own home,
+loved and ridden away, haunted every hushed empty corner of it. Her
+very unhappiness brought him back to her, as a new illness weakens the
+smart of an old wound. She had an impulse once, which the lonely and
+deserted will understand, to set her thoughts on paper in the form of a
+letter to him.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My darling lost love</span>" (she began),</p>
+
+<p>"What years and years it [<i>sic</i>] seems to have past since I
+saw your dear face——"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then she stopped, and tore the sheet into little pieces. Anything
+approaching literary composition suddenly became hateful. The thought
+had occurred to her: How well the other woman could do this! The other
+woman—in her grave nearly a month.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, while she lingered outside her mother's door, after
+perpetrating the customary deception, Frances, the begrimed, brought
+her Lumsden's card in a corner of her apron. He was in the small
+drawing-room, straight and fair and good to look upon, standing amid a
+dusty huddle of chairs that had not been restored to their places since
+the doctors consulted there a week ago.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to see if you were killing yourself," he said, when they had
+shaken hands and he had asked after her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I'm as strong as a horse."</p>
+
+<p>"That remark rather loses its force with me, because I know something
+about them. When did you take your feed—'horse'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Bryan! I eat with nurse."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I know the sort of meals. You're dressed. Have you been out?"</p>
+
+<p>"N—no."</p>
+
+<p>"Just going then?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella blushed, but did not reveal the pious fraud.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got the big car outside," said Lumsden. "Care to come for a run
+till tea?"</p>
+
+<p>The suggestion had its attractions.</p>
+
+<p>"I must run upstairs first. You don't mind waiting a minute?"</p>
+
+<p>Nurse not only gave permission, but a little straight hygienic talk
+she had been saving up, too professional to be repeated here. Fenella
+took her seat almost with a feeling of duty done. Bryan ordered the
+chauffeur into the back and took the wheel himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Tuck this round you. Now, where shall we go that's within reach?
+Richmond?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" hastily—"not Richmond. Let's go to Hampstead."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I don't care for Hampstead," with a sudden shadow of distaste. Two
+pasts met in their glance—her woman's fault of loving too well—and
+his.</p>
+
+<p>After a while the mere physical act of breathing fully and deeply
+again, the rush of the spring air, pleasantly cold, past her pallid
+cheeks, did their work, and unsealed the springs of joy in her own
+young breast—a facile joy, born of health and perfect balance, for
+which she had often blamed herself since the summer, ignorant of how
+between it, as between every function of her body, and the ascetic
+ideal which a heart, untimely chastened, sought to impose, there was
+war declared, in which she was a mere battle-ground for contending
+forces. It had rained hard in the forenoon. Now, level with their eyes,
+a belated sun flooded the suburbs with temperate gold, spilled its
+overflow on wet slate roofs, set bright jewels in the upper windows of
+gray stucco houses, and wove a filagree pattern, beaded with tender
+green buds in railed gardens and bristling walled shrubberies. Nothing
+was beneath its glorifying magic. Between the flashing tram-rails
+the very bed of the wide road seemed flooded with alluvial dust. A
+wonderful sky country, all mountain and islet-strewn tarn—such a
+landscape as may lie at the gate of dream-cities in the Alps—closed
+the prospect into which they were rushing. The wheels hummed, the six
+cylinders purred happily. She began to sing to herself, stretching her
+neck and pouting her lips, a foolish little song she had caught from
+one of the Dominion girls:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">"I like your old French bonnet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With the ribbons on it,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I like your cha-a-a-arming ways.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">If you'll come to Parry</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Then we two will marry</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And our wedding march shall be the Marseillaise."</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Feeling happier, Flash?"</p>
+
+<p>She had forgotten him. Now, as she turned, self-reproachful, at the
+sound of his voice, the unreasonable little fit of happiness took
+wing. Yet she could not but admire him. How cleverly and coolly he
+drove! What chances he took! They were passing every one. Once, at
+some congestion in the traffic, a policeman touched his helmet and let
+him through. He seemed to feel this was a man not used to wait his
+turn. Paul had once said to her that most men failed in life because
+its detail was too much for them to tackle; at least, this was what
+she made out of a rather more ornate speech. Bryan didn't seem to find
+any difficulty. She remembered Jack Barbour's comprehensive phrase,
+"Bryan's first-class in anything he takes up." Was it because she was
+ambitious, aspiring, herself that she resisted this power, instead of
+succumbing to it, as ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have
+done, and being content to shine with a reflected glory? She had had
+her own little dream of success—the packed theatre, the thunders of
+applause, her name flashing and winking in letters of fire—part of
+the madness of a great city by night—paragraphs, interviews. All very
+mean and personal, no doubt, yet with an element in them that somehow
+dignified the ambition. For to be the favorite of the public was what
+she wanted—nothing else would do—the great good-hearted public, that
+rings its hard-earned shilling or half-crown upon the ledge of the
+ticket-office, shopman and clerk with honest wife and sweetheart at his
+side, equally ready to laugh or cheer or cry, who dip a mutual finger
+into a box of chocolates and believe that even a dancer can be an
+honest girl.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIa">XVI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">AZRAEL</p>
+
+
+<p>They stopped at a little place in a fold of the Chiltern Hills, a
+mere roadside inn which the neighborhood of a fashionable golf-course
+had galvanized into new and rather graceful life. The stone front was
+covered in ivy, two wings of red brick terminated in sunny bay windows,
+there was a bowling-green at the back, and an academician had repainted
+the sign. A few men in tweeds and flannels whom Lumsden appeared to
+know were strolling about the place, but abstained tactfully from more
+than a passing greeting. While tea was getting ready the baronet lit
+a cigar, and the girl gathered a bunch of primroses in the garden and
+pinned them at her waist. Now that she had taken off the heavy coat
+he had insisted on her wearing, he noticed for the first time the
+shabbiness of her black house-frock. A white thread, dropped from some
+needlework, clung to one sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden was a man for whom some kind of a love affair had always been a
+necessity. Even before he left Eton he had had friends among women of
+the world. His bluff, slangy manners covered a good deal of intensity
+of a rather un-English sort. Men of Scotch race have a subtlety
+denied to the obtuser Southron. They are both more steadfast and more
+perfidious. His early manhood had been shaken by one great passion,
+which had ended unhappily and which it is no part of our business to
+disinter. A long series of inconclusive sentimental experiments had
+followed it; inconclusive, because he had the grace or the vanity to
+think that, had it been constancy he was seeking, he might often enough
+have found it. The devotion, indeed, which one might strike up against
+in unexpected quarters was, in his opinion, a serious drawback to
+the game. He was a generous lover. The idol of the moment was always
+bravely apparelled, always had plenty of tinsel on it, and if a sense
+of its inadequacy oppressed him, he got rid of the feeling by putting
+on a little more. All he had asked latterly was that it should simper
+prettily and do him credit. He was deceived, of course, from time to
+time, but never before his own waning attention had given betrayal at
+once its justification and its clue. Thus it fell out that, although
+his favored pastime had cost him a great deal of money, it had never
+cost him what such a man would consider his self-respect. It will save
+time to admit that his intentions toward his young cousin (she was not
+really his cousin, we know, but he liked to speak of her, even think of
+her so) had not been honorable. That she was kin and of the same caste
+as himself had no weight with a man accustomed to divide women into two
+classes—those he would not marry under any circumstances and those
+whom he would only marry if there were no help for it. Fenella, to do
+him justice (and, in a way, to do her justice too), had belonged to the
+second class from the beginning, but her emergence from it now into a
+category all by itself was not due to any recognition on his part of
+her integrity—why should he recognize what he had not tempted?—but
+simply and solely to the fact that the illness of that poor lady, her
+mother, had upset all his early calculations. He had his own code of
+conduct, and one of them was that you can not call at a girl's home,
+inquire after the maternal health, send the invalid fruit and game, and
+then—well, without an entire change in perspective as regards her. Of
+late, indeed, she had lain in his imagination to a quite distressing
+extent. The impulse that had made him give up a day's hunting and come
+spurring to her side over ten miles of muddy ground had not failed
+to repeat itself again and again. His thoughts turned toward her
+incessantly. At every man's tale of fraud and wrong her image stirred
+uneasily in his imagination, and the ideal, rather deferred than quite
+disowned, to which his whole life had done violence, joined with his
+passion in pleading for a reparation that was at once so easy and so
+pleasant. Women are generally avenged competently by some woman. The
+eclipse of the individual in the species never lasts. She emerges,
+armed with all the old illusions, and often at the very moment when a
+man is weakest to do battle with her.</p>
+
+<p>Smoking silently, he looked at her now, busied with the pretty feminine
+duties of milk-jug and sugar-tongs, marked the perceptible changes of
+face and figure since their first encounter. His experience projected,
+as it were, her maturity, even her gray hairs upon her—owned that she
+would always be charming, always a sweet woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Dreaming, Flash?"</p>
+
+<p>She had only been respecting his own silent mood, but did not deny her
+abstraction.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of the Dominion. When's the first night?"</p>
+
+<p>"In about three weeks. It'll be <i>Hamlet</i> without the prince for
+some of us, eh, coz?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You must only look upon it as put off for awhile," he said
+reassuringly. "You'll get another chance."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "I don't feel I shall. Don't you ever feel there's
+just one time for the one thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Even if I didn't, Shakespeare has. But you're over-young, Flash, to be
+thinking of fortune at the ebb."</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at her hand. There were no rings on it. He had a
+suspicion that was confirmed when she snatched it off the table and put
+it in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think me impertinent, but will it make much difference, I mean
+financial difference, to you if your mother dies?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I'm afraid so. But I have a little money coming to me
+when I'm twenty-one. Not a lot."</p>
+
+<p>"How old are you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly nineteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Two years! What are you going to do meanwhile?"</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders, or maybe shivered. Life <i>was</i> gray
+with the dream out of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Work, I suppose—at something. I can always teach dancing again."</p>
+
+<p>"Flash, I'm ungodly rich. Won't you let me——"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bryan!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time she had ever called him familiarly by his name,
+but her face was so shocked and white, her voice so like a real cry of
+pain, that he did not notice it. He flushed, and churned the gravel
+with his heel.</p>
+
+<p>"What have I said? Do you know, young woman, I don't find the
+expression on your face very flattering."</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan! If I thought you meant what you've just said, you—I—we——"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, <i>never</i> could meet again."</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden swallowed his humiliation, but it didn't go down very far.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon. Will that do? There was some excuse for me, you
+know. You let me help you once before."</p>
+
+<p>"Not with money."</p>
+
+<p>He wasn't in a mood to be very delicate. "Wasn't it?" he said with a
+short laugh. "Never mind, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you laugh that funny way?" said Fenella, with unexpected
+spirit. "You must tell me now. Did you have to pay Dollfus to take me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear <i>ingénue</i>! Do you mean to say you've never suspected it? You
+don't think Dollfus is in business for hygienic reasons, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Much money?" she persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ask Joe," said Lumsden, rather wearily. "He's on the telephone."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella beat her palms against the side of the chair. "I've been a
+fool," she went on, in a fierce soliloquy, "a little, credulous
+donkey. No wonder that girl thought me a fraud! And yet—I believed you
+all believed in me. Do you think I'd ever have let you—unless I felt
+sure? Oh! you must know it."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, be content. You carry conviction. I acquit you from
+this moment of everything unmaidenly, generosity included."</p>
+
+<p>"Generosity!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It sometimes requires as much to take as to give. But you're like
+all women."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"When they're not insulted at being offered money they're insulted it
+isn't more."</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you call me 'women'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it hurt your dignity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind what it hurts. You've no right to speak that way, to class
+me with—with others. Oh, yes, you have, though. I'd forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"Flash, let me tell you one thing: No matter how young or charming or
+virtuous you may be, to keep harping on what you know hurts a man's
+feelings is to be a shrew."</p>
+
+<p>"Your 'feelings'!" The vexation went out of her face. She leaned
+her chin on her hand and gave him a look so piercing, so direct and
+unexpected, that it went through all his worldly armor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he asked, grimly, through his teeth. She never guessed the
+restraint he was putting on himself. "Haven't I a right to any?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked away without answering.</p>
+
+<p>He got up abruptly. "Let's go home," he said. "We've had enough
+heart-to-heart talk for one afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>They rode back into the London lights in a silence which the gentleman
+in the peaked cap who drove them probably misconstrued as perfect
+accord. "They don't talk much, not w'en they're 'olding 'ands," he said
+that night in his favored house of call. But he only held her hand
+once, to say good-bye at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I been a prig?" asked Fenella, contritely.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to be turning the matter over, but was really thinking how
+prettily penitence became her.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I offended you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you whether you have some other time."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Apparently not beyond forgiveness, for he came again two days later
+and took her for an hour's drive—and then the next day. Good or bad,
+the habit formed itself. Two or three times she allowed herself to be
+persuaded further, and let him take her to dinner. At such an hour the
+big restaurants would not be very full; but it seemed Bryan could not
+go anywhere without meeting a man he knew, and who, while speaking,
+divided his attention pretty evenly between the baronet, half-turned
+in his chair, holding the lapel of his friend's coat, and the pretty
+stranger to whom he was not introduced. He was very kind and cousinly;
+had theories as to what people should eat (he never asked her to drink)
+when low-spirited and anxious, kept clear of the personal note, and
+always saw she got back in time. Thus, little by little, the hint she
+had received of a dangerous hardness in his nature was effaced. In
+time of trouble the heart receives more impressions than the head,
+and it is wonderful into what bulk tearful eyes can magnify a little
+kindness. Fenella was to blame herself subsequently for her conduct
+during the last days of her mother's life; but I think, perhaps too
+indulgently, that it was only the instinct to grasp at enjoyment while
+enjoyment was possible. The very pang of self-reproach with which she
+took up her nightly task might have convinced her of this. Old habits
+are not effaced in an instant. From babyhood she had known no surer
+way to make her mother happy than by seizing all opportunities for
+pleasure that came her way. Outsiders who suspect love because it falls
+from some arbitrary standard they choose to set up have no idea how
+often apparent heartlessness is justified by some such little secret
+covenant between the loving and the loved. And then, though the period
+of suspense was short, it passed so heavily. The days seemed counted
+out with pitiful slowness by a power that knew how few they were.
+Time, like distance, deceives when one is seeking the way. She was so
+fearfully alone! Her vision sometimes ached at the obscurity of her own
+destiny. In that still room uncertainties seemed to multiply, thicken
+and coil, like smoke in a tunnel. She envied every one in turn—Nurse
+Ursula, with her brisk professional manner and endless prospect of
+clearly defined duty—cases to come running into perspective like beds
+in a long ward; slatternly, pretty little Frances, with her brisk
+love-passages in the area; the woman upon the bed, nearer with every
+breath to a change that raises no problems but solves them all. She
+often whispered in her mother's ear, "Mother, mother; take me with you.
+Don't go without Nelly."</p>
+
+<p>Foolish extravagances of an undisciplined heart. Even for death, Nelly,
+we have to wait until the time for enjoying it is past.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Early one morning, following a night in which her mother had seemed
+much easier, and in the very first hour of her untimely sleep, the
+nurse shook her by the shoulder. In the one look that the two women
+exchanged her news was told. Fenella huddled on her clothes and
+followed to the sick-room. Her mother was breathing strangely. Every
+inspiration was like the hiccough that follows a fit of weeping in
+a child. Her brows were knitted—she seemed puzzled and absorbed.
+Occasionally she tried to lift a hand stiffly and clumsily toward
+her head. By noon all was over. The doctor called twice, and, for
+the first time in many days, failed to write a new prescription. The
+lawyer was telephoned for. About three o'clock in the afternoon two
+decent pew-opening bodies were admitted without question, stole
+upstairs, and, having performed their office, stole as quietly away.
+The charwoman stayed for tea, and uncovered a rich vein of reminiscence
+suitable for the occasion. The blinds were drawn down, the windows
+opened. Outside, in the square, was heard the champing of bits, the
+rattle of the harness, that poor Mrs. Barbour had loved to listen to of
+an afternoon in spring or autumn.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening, when they were all done with the dead woman, Fenella
+went softly upstairs. Nurse Ursula, upon whose breast, for want of a
+nearer, the orphaned girl's first passion of grief had spent itself,
+but whose attentions harassed her now, would have accompanied her, but
+she would have no one. She approached the door full of awe as well as
+sorrow. Within it seemed some dark angel, with brimming chalice, had
+been waiting till she was calm enough to drink. There was something
+sacramental in this first visit to her dead; her passion composed
+itself for the encounter. Through the lowered blinds the afternoon
+sun filled the room with a warm amber light. The windows were opened
+slightly at the bottom, and the fresh spring wind puffed and sucked at
+the light casement curtains. She laid her head down upon the pillow
+and put her lips to the chill, sunken temples, upon which she felt
+the hair still damp from the sweat of the death-struggle. As there
+are depths in the sea which the hardiest diver cannot support save
+with constraint of breathing, so there are depths of sorrowful reverie
+wherein the soul abdicates for a time its faculties of memory and
+comparison. Fenella did not cry nor remember nor rebel. The briny
+flood rose quietly—encompassed her utterly—covered her insensibly at
+the temperature of her own forsaken heart. Sorrow so deep has many of
+sleep's attributes. She had been vaguely conscious for some time of a
+knocking at the door before she raised her head. It was turned quite
+dark; the charwoman, with a candle lighting up her frightened face,
+stood in the open door.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Chirk! How dare you disturb me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, miss, I'm sorry; but I knocked and knocked. Nurse is upstairs and
+Frances is out, and there's two gentlemen below says they must see you.
+I 'aven't told them nothink, miss, not knowin' as you'd 'ave me."</p>
+
+<p>Some more of the dreary business of death, she concluded. She went
+to her own room, bathed her eyes, dressed her hair hurriedly, and
+came downstairs. She started as she opened the dining-room door. Her
+visitors were Lumsden and the Dominion manager.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIIa">XVII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A DREAM COMES TRUE</p>
+
+
+<p>The two men were in evening dress, standing a good way apart. Both
+seemed ill at ease, and each showed it in a different fashion. Bryan
+was pulling at his fair moustache, and Mr. Dollfus, his watch in
+his hand, full of suppressed excitement, had evidently just checked
+himself in a nervous pacing of the carpet. Before she could give her
+indignation words, Bryan came quickly across the room, and kept her
+silent with a gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Barbour, just a word before you say anything, and before Dollfus
+tells you our errand. I've brought him here to-night because I don't
+want either you or him to reproach me afterward that I came between
+you and even a hundred-to-one chance; but I want you to know before
+he begins that the whole thing's against my judgment, and against
+my inclination, too. Now then, Joe, fire away, and remember time's
+valuable."</p>
+
+<p>The Jew only seemed to have been waiting to burst forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Mith Barbour," he exclaimed, with a nervous movement of his hands, and
+lisping worse than ever, "I wantcher to thave me."</p>
+
+<p>"To save you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yeth. Oh, don't look at me that way. I'm thpeakin' sense. Dontcher
+know what's happenin' to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he almost screamed; "you meanter thay you've forgotten. It's
+the first night of the <i>Dime Duchess</i>. They're playin' the second
+act now, and, by Gott, the piece is damned already!"</p>
+
+<p>He wiped his dripping forehead with a big scented handkerchief, and
+began to pace the floor again, flinging out his arms exuberantly.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a conthpiracy from beginning to end," he cried, shrilly—"a
+conthpiracy! I tell yer, Lumpsden, I bin in front, and I know a lot of
+the faces. Fifty or sixty of Costello's people if there's vun. I'll
+haf the law on him. But cher can't turn out sixty people, eh! They've
+stopped Ormiston's encore twice; Mith Carthew's so frightened she can't
+sing a note. Three months' work and thousants of pounds gone to h—ll
+in a night, by Gott!"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop swearing and raving, Joe, and tell the girl what you want."</p>
+
+<p>Dollfus sobered himself with a great effort and wiped his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Scuthe my langwitch, please, Miss Barbour," he said in a lower tone.
+"I'm excited; I ain't meself. I wantcher ter come and dance."</p>
+
+<p>Fenella stared at him. "To <i>dance</i>! to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>Bryan, who had kept his back to them, turned his head now.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right, Flash," he said over his shoulder, "my advice to you is
+'don't you do it.' Joe's crazy, but he ain't exaggerating much. They're
+pretty wild over something in front."</p>
+
+<p>Dollfus shook his head despairingly from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>"There you go Lumpsden, there you go agen. You're all wrong. I've bin
+tellin' him that all the vay in the cab. He don't know the public like
+I do. They're jutht in the mood now when somethin' new and somethin'
+good'll carry 'em off their feet. Mith Barbour, I haf ter go back
+anyhow. It'th for you ter decide. Will you come or wontcher?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan," she said. "Doesn't he know?" pointing to the ceiling with her
+head.</p>
+
+<p>"Bout cher mother!" said Dollfus, who was watching her narrowly.
+"Courthe I know the poor lady'th ill. But I'll take yer down and I'll
+bring yer back. Think? Three quarters of an hour! You'll never be
+mithed."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dollfus, mamma died this morning."</p>
+
+<p>The Dominion manager took up his hat without a word and walked on
+tiptoe to the door. Bryan followed and, if looks could have killed, Mr.
+Dollfus's troubles would have been over then and there. In the hall the
+little man turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Mith Barbour, pleathe, <i>pleathe</i> belief me. Not for a thousant
+pounds, not for ten thousant, I vouldn't er had this happen. I couldn't
+know, could I—ah? I gotter heart—eh? You von't t'ink the vorse of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come on!" said the baronet, taking hold of his sleeve. "Haven't
+you done enough mischief already?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stop!</i>" cried Fenella, so loudly that both men obeyed. She
+stood rigid for a moment, pressing her hands over her eyes. Across her
+brain in letters like fire the last message from the beloved dead was
+throbbing and glowing. "<i>Dance! Dance!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come, Joe!" she cried. "Just two minutes to put on my cloak,
+that's all. Don't stop me, Bryan! I know what I'm doing. Let me pass!
+Oh, I've had enough of its being made smooth and easy for me. I'm one
+of the crowd to-night, and I'm going to help 'em pull the fat out of
+the fire. I can do it, too. I never was afraid, and I've got a bit up
+my sleeve you haven't seen."</p>
+
+<p>She was gone and back in a moment, cloaked and with a little box under
+her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"My make-up box," she said, tapping it. "I just thought of it in time.
+Have you got the car outside? How long'll it take? Mrs. Chirk!" she
+called down the kitchen stairs. "Tell nurse I've been called away on
+business and not to sit up."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a herrowen, a herrowen," said Joe, dabbing at his eyes this
+time, as they took their seats in the cab.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, I'm not, Joe. No more than any of the other girls. Do you
+think I'm the only woman that's got to grin to-night when she'd rather
+cry? I never was stage-struck, like other girls. I always knew it was
+'work! work!' once you were over the floats. Don't look so glum, Bryan.
+That's 'cos he only knows half our business, isn't it, Joe? He's only
+a dabbler. It's bread and butter and a bed to lie on, and perhaps
+medicine for somebody's mother, isn't it, Joe? Some of those girls told
+me they'd been eighteen months out and three months rehearsing! Think
+of it! Oh, why doesn't he get through the traffic?"</p>
+
+<p>The front of the Dominion flashed past, festooned with boards
+announcing that stalls and dress circle and amphitheatre were full. The
+vestibule round the box office was crowded with men in dress clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"They're just t'rough the second act," said Dollfus. "Now you know what
+you've gotter do." And he repeated his instructions. At the stage door
+he took her hand and pulled her after him, past the wicket and down the
+whitewashed corridor, full of girls in spangled finery, who gazed at
+her in amazement and drew aside to let them pass. Near the wings the
+manager was pounced on by various subalterns, but he waved them aside
+furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Go 'way! ask some vun else! Do somethin'! Getter hustle on! What
+is it, Mr. Lavigne? Oh! the band parts for the cymbal dance. Take
+'em rount to Steiner. I ain't the orchestra! Run up to your old
+dressin'-room," he said, and let go of her hand; "I'll send up your
+own dresser. Mr. Lavigne—have the old cue put back. You know. What's
+it—'muffins'?"</p>
+
+<p>Jack Ormiston was just finishing his third song as she came down
+dressed, made up in vivid white and carmine, and with the little silver
+cymbals on her hands. He tumbled off, breathless, perspiring through
+his grease paint, and stood for a moment, his knees trembling, trying
+to catch some encouragement amid the babel of cheers, counter—cheers,
+whistles, cat-calls, and cries of "Order!" that followed him through.
+And she had to face <i>that</i> presently—unknown, untested, her name
+not even on the programme.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you can do it, Flash?" Bryan asks, nervously, chewing
+his moustache. In defiance of the "well-known Dominion rule" he has
+followed her behind.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait and see!" she says, without looking at him, and next moment has
+taken her cue and is on the stage.</p>
+
+<p>In front the vast concavity of the auditorium sweeps away from her
+feet, outward and upward. It is dark, confused and populous, full of
+faces, like pebbles, she fancies, dragged seaward by a retreating
+wave—flecked white with shirt fronts and fluttering programmes—a
+hungry monster, ready to engulf her at a tremor or hint of fear. Its
+hot breath mingles with the cold down-draught of the stage like the
+flush and chill of an ague. Beyond the blurred footlights her eyes,
+misty with emotion, watch the leader of the orchestra lifting the
+first languid bars of the score. His head is turned toward her. In a
+moment he will give her her signal. Yet, though not a single stroke
+of his baton but is counted by her, as she waits, poised and tense,
+for the note upon which, with a clash of cymbals and a tremor of her
+whole body, the dance must begin, her thoughts, strangely detached and
+visionary, stray far away from the present moment with its personal
+crisis of success or failure, to brood, with a perverse preference,
+over the two great sorrows of her life—the lover who forsook her at
+the cross-roads of his own ambition because she had not wealth or wit
+to hold him—the mother, deserted now in her turn, whose waxen fingers,
+stitch by stitch, had sewn the very dress she is wearing, and who lies
+at home unwatched or watched only by strangers on the first night
+of her pitiful state. Life! life! this is life. Something beautiful
+yet horrible, too. Something that in its demand for service—for
+distraction—takes as little heed of the woman's breaking heart as it
+took of the man's thwarted ambition.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>B-r-r-r!</i>" The note is reached. As she clashes her cymbals
+together all visions take flight. The music rises like a flood, pours
+over the footlights, enters into her and possesses her utterly. She
+has sold herself to it, and, true to the bargain, her bangled feet
+beat—beat out the rhythm upon the boards as they once, upon the sand,
+had beaten out a tune that one man and the eternal sea sang together.
+Not a movement of her body above the waist but is poised upon them,
+governed by their shifts and changes, and nothing is stranger than,
+having watched them awhile at their work, quick and calculated as
+the shuttle of a machine into which a brain of steel has been built,
+to look upward to where arms and breast and head thrown back are all
+partners in some dream of an unattained desire, that hovers just out
+of reach of the inviting arms, swoops wilfully for a moment to touch
+the pursed lips, and, just as it is clasped convulsively to the heaving
+breast, escapes, to leave her gazing after it with set, expressionless
+face and limbs, suddenly grown rigid again.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"<i>B-r-r-r!</i>" The cymbals bray their harsh discord anew. The music
+begins, more faintly at first; slowly, slowly it woos the coy vision
+back to her arms. Her face softens. Out of despair intenser desire is
+born. Nearer and nearer still. But a new note of warning has crept
+into the score. A muffled drum-tap, hardly heard at first, grows
+louder—falls faster. And her face changes with it. To bewilderment,
+horror succeeds rapidly. Either this is not the dream that fled her
+arms before, or else some new significance in what she sees terrifies
+her, now when it is too late. Straight and level as a blow it reaches
+her. She covers her eyes, tries to strike it down, holds it from her
+with outstretched hands, folds her arms across her breast to deny it
+entrance. The music tears through crescendo to climax, and all the
+time she is dancing as well as acting—dancing with all her strength
+and skill. She cannot feel the tension of the audience, does not know
+what a tribute is in its breathless attention. She only knows that
+her dance is nearing its end and that they are silent. Why does no one
+cheer or clap their hands? Is it possible that, amid those hundreds,
+not one knows how well the thing is being done? Furore or failure:
+this had been prophesied of her, and she had given no thought to the
+alternative. It is to be failure then. All her work is to go for
+nothing—her dishonor, the violence done her own feelings to-night—for
+nothing. With success she might even have forgiven herself. A great
+terror seizes her of the pitiless many-headed monster whom she has
+wooed in vain and whose churlish silence has power to change all she
+had thought inspiration into the dross of a crazy, heady folly. It is
+beginning to murmur—to move restlessly. As she holds her arms out to
+it in a sort of last abject appeal, the murmuring grows louder. It is
+the wave, the wave again, of her first fancy, that has hung suspended
+while she danced, and that now, gathering volume, rears its head to
+finally overwhelm her with shame and confusion. She was mad to have
+ventured! Nothing living can face it! She stifles a scream, dances out
+the last furious finale of the orchestra, and falls prostrate, her arms
+stretched out before her, the silver cymbals held upward.</p>
+
+<p>Everything turns dark and thunderous. She feels the chorus sweep past
+her with a glitter of gold legs and a stiff rustle of skirts; fancies
+that the orchestra is playing again, but that something louder and
+stormier is drowning it; gets shakily to her feet, takes one frightened
+glance at the tumult before her, and, with a half curtsey, totters
+through the wings. Mr. Dollfus rushes to meet her; he is shaking her
+hands again and again, some one else is holding her round the waist and
+whispering in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Pull yourself together, Flash! It's all right. You must go on—once,
+anyhow. Damn it, Joe, give the girl a few moments. Can't you see it's
+got over her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I—do—all right?" says Fenella, between gasps.</p>
+
+<p>"All right?" Dollfus repeats, excitedly. "Cantcher hear 'em? Listen to
+the noise! Wotcher think they mean? Come—surely to gootness, you're
+ready now?"</p>
+
+<p>She is calmer, and draws herself out of the baronet's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, kid," he says, as he lets her go. "Go on, and taste popularity.
+Take a good long drink of it, Flash."</p>
+
+<p>As she came through the wings the dropping fire of applause exploded
+into a roar again. It was nearly three minutes—I mean three real
+minutes—before she was done kissing her hands to us all, and the play
+was allowed to proceed to its triumphant finale. I happen to know,
+because I was in front, and a good deal of what you have been reading
+is my own impression, on record in the columns of the <i>Panoply</i>,
+of the night Fenella Barbour came into her kingdom.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIIIa">XVIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">ICE TO THE MOON</p>
+
+
+<p>And yet an hour later, when the theatre was empty, the cheering and
+the speeches done, and the linotypes were pecking various people's
+impressions of a wonderful night into place, she was crying as though
+her heart would break. She was sitting in Lumsden's study in a big
+chintz-covered arm-chair. She had taken off her hat but not her
+cloak, and her hair fell in some disorder over tear-stained cheeks.
+The baronet sat on the edge of a table opposite her, his long shapely
+black legs stretched out before him. He had changed his coat for a silk
+dressing-jacket and was smoking a cigarette. In spite of his air of
+being at home, something in his face, harassed and unquiet, checked the
+inference that he was also at his ease. His thin hair was ruffled and
+his eyes were a little bloodshot. Quite frequently he reached across to
+a tray on which a syphon, a cut-glass bottle, and a long thin tumbler
+kept cheerful company.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you've cried about enough, Flash?" he suggested,
+presently.</p>
+
+<p>She pressed a handkerchief, already wet through, against her eyes, but
+made no attempt to check the flow. There was something disquieting in
+this steady drain upon her emotions. It seemed to tell of a mortal
+wound to affection or self-respect.</p>
+
+<p>"I t-told you I should. You should have let me go home."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child, it's natural you should cry after what you've been
+through. But there's a point where every one ought to stop. You'll make
+yourself ill."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never forgive myself—<i>never, never</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>This was a point of view that the baronet had evidently tried to combat
+already, and unsuccessfully. He sighed, and took another drink.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm bad—wicked—heartless and disgraced." She jumped up and began to
+button her coat.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go—at once!" she cried. "Where did you put my hat?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Flash!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She was so near him that without rising he could put out his hand and
+catch her arm. She looked at his face and sat down, weakly and as if
+fascinated. He held her so for a few moments, and then turned his eyes
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a little muff!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>His words seemed to relieve a tension. She giggled hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>"You're up here to-night," he went on deliberately, "because I made you
+come up, and because I wasn't going to have you go home, after eating
+nothing all day, to a house where every one's in bed, and cry yourself
+to sleep or lie awake starving and self-reproachful. You won't be so
+hard on yourself after eating and drinking something. Hello!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a stir and tinkle of glass and china from the inner room.
+Bryan threw the door open.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring it in here, Becket," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Two servants entered, carrying a tray. Quickly as a conjuror the elder
+of the two cleared the low table, spread a fringed linen cloth and laid
+out supper. There was soup in brown silver-covered bowls, and something
+in a tureen with a white tongue of flame licking the bottom, and an
+epergne of fruit topped with a big pine and a phalanx of thin glasses.
+The footman put a pail on the ground full of cracked ice, out of which
+three long bottle-necks were sticking. He began to cut the cork of one
+of them loose.</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody call while I was out, Becket?"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame called about nine, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>"Again?" he said, in a surprised voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she leave any message?"</p>
+
+<p>"She said you would probably hear from her to-night, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden looked at the clock and shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't wait up, Becket," he said. "I'll telephone to the garage."</p>
+
+<p>The outer door closed softly upon the two men. Neither of them had
+looked at her once.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then," said Lumsden, expanding hospitably. "Sit where you are and
+I'll wait on you." He put a napkin over her knees, tilted the scalding
+bouillon into her soup-plate, and filled two glasses with the spumy
+wine. He emptied one himself and refilled it immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't <i>you</i> going to eat anything?" asked Fenella.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I've had dinner. Besides, I'm a bit off my oats, Flash. Been
+worried lately." He gazed at the fire awhile, chewing one end of his
+moustache, but didn't enlarge upon the reason of his disquiet.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all you can eat?" he asked presently, seeing she put aside her
+plate. "You must have some Hide-and-Seek, then. You should have taken
+some first. It'll give you an appetite; and it'll give you a color
+besides. That's another of my worries. You're too pale, child. Have you
+always been so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it's all right, then. Of course it's a divine color; but one
+doesn't want an artistic effect at the expense of health. Well, Flash,
+here's a toast: 'The New Life,' Miss Fenella Powys Barbour." He bowed
+profoundly and emptied his glass.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella just sipped her own wine. A suspicion that had crossed her mind
+even in her own house, and again when Lumsden held her in the wings,
+but which, in her excitement, she had forgotten, returned upon her.
+Every time he filled and drained his glass fear clutched at her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"What a rummy little face you made then, Flash. You won't do that when
+you're ten years older. No, no! Thank God for the juice of the grape.
+It's killed more men than bullets, but it's better to be full of it
+than full of bullets. 'Ah! eh!' as Joe would say. Don't jump!—'tother
+cork's just going."</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan, don't drink any more. It—it isn't fair to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh! So that's the secret? That's why we're such a tongue-tied
+little lady: that's why we've lost our appetite? My dear kiddie, you
+surely don't think a bottle more or less makes any difference to an old
+war-horse like myself. But I love you for hating it. It's a low taste
+for a girl. I get fits of loathing myself; sometimes even the smell
+suggests dyed hair. There, then!" He thrust the open bottle back into
+the melting ice. "Now, turn to vinegar!... But I'll tell you a secret,
+Flash. Half the work of the world is done by men who aren't quite sober
+after nine o'clock. Just cosy, y' know. And the best paid half, too. I
+could give you names that would surprise you. It's a rummy world."</p>
+
+<p>He meditated awhile on the strangeness of the world against which he
+had so little cause of complaint, shook his head, and, probably from
+force of habit, mixed himself a whiskey and soda.</p>
+
+<p>"What was I saying when we were interrupted? Oh, yes; I remember.
+I'll tell you while I'm cutting up one of these little brown birds.
+Why—just this, Flash. You're unhappy because you're confusing reasons
+with motives. One can have all sorts of reasons, good and bad mixed,
+but it's the motive that counts. Take yourself to-night. Why did you
+come and dance? Well, Joe in tears is an affecting sight: that's one.
+Then you don't like to see work and worry wasted: that's another. And I
+think you're a helpful little baby. That makes three good 'uns. Suppose
+in with all these there was a bit of vanity mixed, a little half-formed
+wish to show 'em a trick or two and a very pretty shape...."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped suddenly and threw down the knife and fork he had been
+plying. "I say, Flash, don't you think you and I ought to know where we
+stand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where we stand?" Her mouth went suddenly dry.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"—nervously but stubbornly—"where you and I stand. It's the
+proper time for it. There's a new life beginning for you to-night,
+Flash. I don't want to exaggerate it; I've seen too many of these
+things end in smoke, and the time's gone by for any Lola Montes. The
+world wants things just as bad, but it wants to pay less for 'em. But
+you're good for three or four years, and that looks a long way ahead
+to me. Flash, what do you think of me? I mean, personally. Bryan
+Lumsden—the human animal?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I tell? I don't know you well enough."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the sort of answer that tries to gain time and only loses it.
+I'm playing <i>bona fide</i>, Flash: don't you play Punchinello. You're
+woman enough to know the most important thing about me."</p>
+
+<p>"Important for you, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my clever girl, and for you, too. You can't play the lone hand
+forever. All life's a conspiracy against it. When fate throws two
+people like you and me together, it doesn't let them go under an
+explanation, at least. Let's have ours."</p>
+
+<p>She covered her eyes. "Not to-night, Bryan; not to-night. Think what
+I've been through."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to-night, coz. Don't look scared. You ain't going to hear
+anything you shouldn't. I'll begin at the beginning.... Nine or ten
+months ago, you know, I was at La Palèze. I'd been asked to put money
+in, and I went for a look. God knows why I stayed on. We didn't have
+much to do in the evenings except talk scandal, and I admit there was a
+good deal talked about a French artist and his pretty model, who were
+staying together in the town. You've heard, perhaps, how common that
+arrangement is all along the coast. But this time they said the model
+was English, and even before I saw you I felt sorry for you. It's
+a kind of national pride, I suppose. We ain't angels ourselves, but
+we don't like to think of our own women that way, abroad. My bedroom
+window looked right out along the beach, and when I was dressing for
+dinner I used often to see you coming back along the sands. Do you
+remember it?"</p>
+
+<p>Fenella was leaning forward now, intense interest on her face, her lips
+parted, and her eyes half closed.</p>
+
+<p>"I know—I know," she broke in. "We used to go to Sables and have tea
+in a little windy, boardy place that he said reminded him of America.
+It was about half-past seven or seven when we used to come back, wasn't
+it? And the hotel windows seemed to be all on fire, and the village all
+low and gray and sad, and, however quick we walked, the streak from the
+sun over the water kept up and dazzled us. And I used to stop and grub
+for shells and funny things, and when I looked up he'd be miles ahead,
+and I had to run—run—oh! I'm sorry for interrupting." She looked at
+Lumsden and all the glow died out. "Go on, Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>His mouth twitched and his face grew dark.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I spoke to you at last. I hope you remember that as vividly.
+It didn't seem a great sin against propriety under the circumstances.
+You'd gone before I found out who you were. If I had known, it might
+have made a difference. Because I knew your father, Flash. I used to
+spend my holidays at Lulford, often. Coffers was always let to some
+rich cockney or other, and we used to live on the rent in Pimlico. He
+taught me how to throw a fly. Then he dropped out. I heard he married
+some one—who didn't—you know——"</p>
+
+<p>"He married a farmer's daughter for love," said Fenella, proudly, but
+inexactly.</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter. When I got back from New York just before
+Christmas, Joe came to see me, full of news. He told me you had gone to
+him asking for an engagement and that you were to spend Christmas at
+Lulford. He wanted money. I wouldn't promise till I'd seen you. You
+know what happened then, don't you, Flash?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know some of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you the rest. When I came into the library, I won't say I
+lost my heart. I'm not a man to be bowled over by the first piece of
+plaintive prettiness with a white neck and a turned-down collar that
+comes his way. I've seen pretty nearly every pose, and that's the one I
+mistrust most. Besides, I already had La Palèze against you."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't such a secret as you think. Other people had it against me
+too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But with the unimportant difference that I got the credit of the
+walks to Sables in the sunset and all the rest of the idyll."</p>
+
+<p>"Which you never took the trouble to deny."</p>
+
+<p>"Frankly, I never did, coz."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there you touch a kink in my nature that I can't explain."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw that we were left alone. You must have noticed the women cut
+me. Do you know that my own cousin spied on me at night and accused me
+of wearing clothes and jewelry you'd bought for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Flash—don't scold! I didn't know all this; and if I had, it wouldn't
+have upset me. It seemed more my business than any one else's what had
+happened to you before."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You! you!</i> Why is my reputation your affair?"</p>
+
+<p>Instead of answering, he knelt down on the bearskin hearth-rug, and
+leaned forward until their eyes were on a level.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me, Flash—straight! That's a good girl. Now, tell me this.
+I've met Ingram once. If I were to know everything as, say, for
+argument's sake, God knows it, is there any reason I shouldn't like to
+meet him again?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You'll—never—know.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Of all the answers she could have made him, it was probably the one
+for which he was least prepared. He jumped to his feet and stood,
+baffled, pulling at his moustache and looking down on the floor. Then
+he threw up his head.</p>
+
+<p>"So be it," he said. "I'll take that risk with the others. Flash, will
+you have me?"</p>
+
+<p>She curled her lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! quite respectably. A man with his shirt outside his coat shall say
+those few words first that mean so much."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Bryan. I won't."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a little donkey, Flash. You don't realize what you're
+throwing away. You don't know what a man like me is prepared to do,
+once he's hard hit. Don't believe all the tales you hear. My heart's
+been burgled, but it's never been raided before. You <i>are</i> the
+first, in a way. I'll be gentle—I'll be respectful—I'll be as like
+the men in the novels girls read as I can. I know my faults. Haven't
+I been holding myself in all the time? It's not as if I wanted you to
+give up anything. You can live your own life, till you've tired of
+it. I ain't"—he laughed shortly—"jealous of the public. And as for
+the man you won't tell me about, you see I'm putting him out of the
+question. He's gone, anyhow. And oh, Flash! I'll make your life a fairy
+tale come true. Think of the dresses you'll have. I'll never be tired
+of seeing you in new ones. And the travelling! We'll go all over the
+earth. If you've got those new ideas, I'll settle money on you in a
+lump. Then you won't feel bad asking me for it. I'll leave everything
+to your own generosity. Could I say fairer? Could I offer more? Oh,
+why don't you say something? How can you sit there and listen to me,
+talking like some rotten old drysalting coronation knight?"</p>
+
+<p>He knelt down on the hearth-rug again, unlocked her fingers, and took
+them into his own—gently and with a sort of frightened respect for
+the repulsion in her averted face. His own was flushed and ignobly
+eager. His agitated breath, tainted with liquor and tobacco, seemed
+to penetrate her fine dry hair to the scalp. Within, I suppose, was
+ferment and chaos—blind, confident passion waiting impatiently on a
+tenderness, felt indeed, but which seemed to perish on his lips in one
+bald unconvincing speech after another, whose unworthiness he felt as
+he uttered them. Somewhere inside the animal tegument that his life had
+thickened and indurated he was groping for his starved, mislaid soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Flash, why don't you speak? Haven't I eaten enough dirt yet? What
+pleasure can there be in watching a human being grovel? Why don't you
+say 'Yes'?"</p>
+
+<p>"No—no—<i>no</i>!" she cried, passionately, stamping her foot.
+"Bryan, don't touch me! I won't have you touch me! I've got a temper.
+Oh, can't you see I'm not the sort of woman that gives herself twice."</p>
+
+<p>She thrust him away and jumped up, pushing the arm-chair back on its
+smooth casters. He rose, too, and picked a hair or two carefully from
+his broad-clothed knees.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," he said, gloomily and comprehensively. "It's a lesson not to
+judge by faces. Yours has given me the sell of my life—but it's what
+I've always maintained. The first man—the first man, however great a
+hound he may be. You never catch him up."</p>
+
+<p>"Think what you like of me," she cried indignantly, "but don't dare
+suppose evil of him. You can't even imagine him. He's as far above me
+and you, Bryan, as the stars are above the ground. You've met him, you
+say. How could you look in his eyes and not be ashamed of all your
+horrid, wicked knowledge? Oh!" she went on in a softer voice, "I don't
+despise you, Bryan—truth and honor, I don't. I like you as a friend.
+I've heard things about you; but I feel that if I was a man and had
+your chances I mightn't be much better. That's honest, isn't it? You
+and I are much about the same. We're fond of the world and pleasure
+and all the good things money buys. What you offer dazzles me in a
+way—'specially the clothes. Perhaps if I hadn't known him first—but
+oh, Bryan, I <i>can't</i>—I can't come down after that! You don't know
+how hard I fought for him. I found him at his work and I tempted him
+away. I made myself pretty for him. I made all the advances. I'm full
+of tricks, really. There's things even I couldn't tell. But they don't
+mean the same to him, Bryan, as they would to us clay people. I don't
+know what they do mean. I thought I might have in time. Because he was
+always kind. He saw through me, I think, but my feelings never got
+hurt. I think I was just a little bird that had come to drink out of
+his hand, and he wouldn't frighten it away."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pity Mrs. Hepworth isn't alive," sneered Lumsden. "You and she
+might compare notes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she dead?" said Fenella, in a still lower voice. "Poor thing;
+that's it, then. She was ill and suffering and told him. He couldn't
+resist those sorts of things—Paul couldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have been an amusing companion."</p>
+
+<p>"Not amusing, Bryan, but, oh! something so much deeper. Don't think I
+loved a muff. My darling is as strong and brave as he's good. I felt so
+<i>safe</i> with him. You don't know the terror a girl can feel of a
+man she isn't sure of. It's like a nightmare where you can't run away.
+I'd have gone tramping with Paul. I'd have slept under a hedge if he'd
+had me in his arms. Now, don't you see how impossible it is? I'm tired,
+Bryan, I <i>must</i> go home. Will you 'phone for a cab?"</p>
+
+<p>The dogged silence in which he listened to her, sitting on the edge of
+the table, his hands thrust into his pockets and his head hanging down,
+should have warned her. Now, when he lifted it and showed his face, she
+measured the full extent of her folly in trusting herself to him. He
+walked deliberately across the room and locked the outer door. With an
+open laugh at her terrified face, he slipped the key into his pocket
+and stood before her, his hands clutching the lapels of his smoking
+jacket.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then," he said, and took a deep breath. "You've had your
+advantage and you've used it as a woman always does—mercilessly and
+foolishly. It's my turn now."</p>
+
+<p>She faced him bravely. "I know what you mean," she said without
+flinching, and without raising her voice. "Don't go mad, Bryan! If you
+destroy me, you destroy yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take the risk," he answered. "I see you looking at the windows.
+You're quite right. They ain't locked. You can throw one open now and
+squeal. I shan't stop you. There's a bobby on point just round the
+square. Tell <i>him</i> your story. But, before you do, just look at
+the clock, and think how you'll come out of the show-up yourself. Time
+passes quickly in the kind of chat we've been having. I think, under
+the circumstances, there's discredit enough for us both. You won't?
+That's sensible. Now listen to me."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped for a moment as though his mouth were dry, filled a glass
+from the syphon and gulped it down. She watched his face with a sort
+of disgusted fascination—the bloodshot, frowning eyes, the dilated
+nostrils, and the twitching mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you've the same flesh and blood as myself, Flash. Perhaps you
+can imagine, then, how it feels when you've chucked your heart at the
+feet of the only woman in the world, and she's danced on it and kicked
+it back to you. Pretty bad, I assure you. There's nothing like a little
+real life to chase away the dreams you've been filling your head with."</p>
+
+<p>She would have fainted if he had kept his eyes upon her; but he turned
+aside to drink again, and when he looked up it was into the muzzle of a
+little steel revolver. He didn't flinch or start—only kept quite still
+and whistled softly under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll shoot!" she said. "I swear I'll shoot, Bryan, if you don't unlock
+the door and let me out. It's his present. He told me I'd want it. It
+was under my pillow all the time at Lulford. I've had it in my coat
+pocket every time I went out with you. Will you let me go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said. "Less than ever now."</p>
+
+<p>Her hand wavered—steadied—tightened convulsively. Next moment he
+had gripped her wrist. With a little cry of pain she let the revolver
+go. It fell on the thick carpet almost as noiselessly as on grass. He
+picked it up and examined it before he put it in his hip-pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"By gad!" he exclaimed half under his breath. "She really pulled the
+trigger. Why didn't he tell you to push the safety catch up first?"</p>
+
+<p>She had fallen back in the arm-chair, quite beaten and crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Have mercy on me, Bryan!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! I'll have mercy. I'm going into the library to collect my own
+thoughts. I'll leave you here for a quarter of an hour. You can do a
+lot of thinking in that time. All I've offered you stands. If you make
+up your mind quicker than you expected, just knock at the door or call
+me."</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door of the inner room, looked at her for a few moments,
+checked a sudden movement either of ruth or passion, and closed it
+behind him. She heard him drag a chair along the floor and sit down.</p>
+
+<p>Left alone, she looked quickly round her for a means of escape. The
+windows were not bolted. She opened one, trembling at the slight noise
+it made, and looked out. The street was twenty feet below her. Empty
+asphalt stretched left and right, scalloped by the street lamps into
+white semi-circles of incandescent light, whose dim edges touched one
+another. There was a triangular open space across the road to her left.
+Some hotel or club opened upon it. As she watched, one of the glass
+leaves of the door swung open, and two men in evening dress came out.
+They parted at the bottom of the steps with some light talk that ended
+in a coarse unrestrained laugh. One took a cab, the other went swinging
+along and still shaking with laughter, in the opposite direction. Call
+for help!—tell her story!—to a world like this!</p>
+
+<p>She closed the window and looked round her with that despairing glance
+that leaves no corner unscanned. Suddenly her eyes were arrested in
+their search. At the farthest end of the room, just beyond the light
+of a shaded reading lamp, they caught the familiar ebony and silver of
+a telephone apparatus. The nurse was not to leave them till to-morrow,
+and she was sleeping in Miss Rigby's old room. They had decided to
+give up their telephone, but there was a month or so of the old lease
+still to run. She tiptoed across the room, lifted the receiver from its
+bracket and put it to her ear. Silence for a long, long while. Then the
+metallic sound of feet approaching along a zinc-covered floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Number please?"</p>
+
+<p>She tried to keep her voice low and steady.</p>
+
+<p>"3087 Paddington."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't hear you."</p>
+
+<p>She ventured to speak a little louder, glancing over her shoulder as
+she did so, and the man repeated the number. After what seemed an
+eternity she heard a piping, sleepy little voice with a Scotch accent.
+Thank God! It was nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>She had not answered when the receiver buzzed in her ear, nearly
+deafening her. Another voice, louder, more urgent, broke in.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Mayfair? Is this Sir Bryan Lumsden's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! please go away," pleaded poor Fenella, "you're interrupting a
+call."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>won't</i> go away. We're Hampstead. Is this Lumsden's? It's
+urgent. It's life or death. Tell him——"</p>
+
+<p>She listened for a moment, then dropped the receiver with a scream.
+Bryan burst into the room, haggard, his tie hanging loose.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter? Are you hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Bryan! There's some one on the telephone for you. They say your
+son——I don't understand. It's something awful."</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden caught the oscillating receiver and clapped it to his ear. This
+is what she heard:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What!</i> Both? <i>My God!</i> The boy's alive? Have you got——?
+What does he say? Yes! At once! <i>At—once!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He turned so quickly that Fenella, who was standing by his shoulder,
+was nearly thrown over. She had to catch his arm to keep her balance.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it bad news?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! Oh the devil!—the devil!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll want the car, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Do you know how to call it? Put the peg in the hole marked
+'Garage!' Say: '<i>At once</i>—dressed or not.' I can drive."</p>
+
+<p>He tried the outer door, cursed at finding it locked, then remembering,
+took the key from his pocket and flung it open. He shouted. It seemed
+scarcely a minute before the passage was full of servants, half
+dressed, the women with their hair loose, and the men fastening their
+braces—hardly two before the car was at the door, filling the quiet
+street with the throb of its great pulse.</p>
+
+<p>"Call a cab and get home quick," he said, as he twisted a white muffler
+round his throat. "You'll find the number of a cab-rank in that red
+book. Have you got money for your fare?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I go with you, Bryan? Can't I help?"</p>
+
+<p>Even in his distress he had time for a moment of surprised admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Flash!" he groaned, "there's no one like you. Come on, then, and
+be in at the finish!"</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIXa">XIX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE WAGES</p>
+
+
+<p>The chauffeur was fastening his leather gaiters as they came out.</p>
+
+<p>"Frognal!" was all Bryan said. "And drive like h—ll!"</p>
+
+<p>The lad touched his cap. As they took their seats, the car seemed to
+bounce and then leap forward. The streets and squares were empty,
+except for an occasional limping shadow on the pavement that stopped
+short at their approach and turned to watch them past. From time to
+time the chauffeur's shoulder dipped to one side, and the piercing wail
+of a "Gabriel" horn went before them like an admonition of judgment
+at hand. She knew then that they were nearing a corner, and that she
+must hold her companion's arm, for the suddenly diverted impetus seemed
+to heel the car over on two wheels and she could not keep her seat on
+the inflated cushions except by clinging to him. But he never spoke to
+her, or seemed to notice the clutch upon his sleeve. The muscles of his
+forearm were always moving spasmodically, as if the anguish of waiting
+found relief in some restless, regular motion of the hands. She knew he
+had a trick of twisting his signet-ring round and round. The carriage
+lamp was behind his head, and she only saw his face in silhouette. In
+the dark lanes around Hampstead the car seemed to be plunging giddily
+into a tunnel of light made by its own lamps.</p>
+
+<p>It stopped, almost as suddenly as it had started, outside a thick
+hedge of evergreens. Over an unpainted oak gate an electric light was
+burning inside a tiny drop-lantern of frosted glass. Beneath it three
+or four men were standing together; one of whom wore a flat braided
+cap with a peak. Lumsden jumped out almost before the car had pulled
+up, and, with a hasty word to the man in blue, disappeared. He had not
+asked her to come in with him, and she was shy of renewing her offer of
+service. She sat still in the corner where he had left her, and began
+to look about her and take her bearings. The hedge was so high and the
+house so far back that she could only see two of its gable windows. A
+light, turned very low, showed in one of these. Across the road, on
+the other side from the house, was a pebbled path with a fringe of
+coarse grass at its further edge. In front of her a few lamps marked
+out a curved perspective of road. Beneath it and beyond, the heath
+lay in confused patches of various intensities of blackness. The sky
+was paling over in the direction of Highgate, and a bird in a tree
+overhead, roused probably by the glare of the lamps, was beginning to
+pipe drowsily and tentatively.</p>
+
+<p>A "<i>honk! honk!</i>" like the croak of some old marsh-haunting
+reptilian bird, began to sound behind her from the direction in which
+they had come. It grew louder. A motor-cab slowed up behind them, and
+two men, one of whom carried a large bag, passed quickly into the
+house. The two chauffeurs, avoiding the whispering group at the gate,
+walked up and down together on the edge of the heath, smoking the
+cigarette of freemasonry and stamping their feet, for the morning was
+turning cold. A French maid-servant brought out a big cat-skin rug.
+"For mademoiselle," she said. Her beady eyes scanned the girl curiously
+as she tucked it round her.</p>
+
+<p>It was broad daylight when Fenella woke, and the heath was a dull
+sodden green under the window. Lumsden was shaking her by her shoulder.
+She woke suddenly and completely, as we do from a sleep of which we are
+half ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you call me before?"</p>
+
+<p>"You were better asleep. You couldn't have done anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Is—is the boy better?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, and put his hand to his throat as though his collar
+irked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not—dead? Oh, Bryan!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>S—s-h!</i> Just going. Come in now. I want you to see him first."</p>
+
+<p>The house was quite new, full of quaint projecting windows planned to
+trap the sun, with a tiled roof that dipped and rose in unexpected
+places. A house of nooks and corners—built for light and air, and the
+new religion of open window and running water over porcelain baths, in
+which one feels death to be almost as incongruous as dust. Half the
+hall door was of glass, in bubbly panes like the bottom of a bottle.
+He held it open for her, and, bidding her follow, crossed the tiled
+hall parlor to a white-railed and velvet-carpeted staircase. A red-eyed
+maid-servant, carrying an enamelled pail and with a mass of soiled
+linen over one arm, stood aside to let them pass. At the head of the
+staircase was a square landing, lit by an octagonal turret skylight. A
+great many doors opened off it. Bryan turned the handle of one.</p>
+
+<p>"In here!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The room was large and gaily papered. In the centre was a brass-railed
+cot. Its brass-railed sides had been lifted off and stood, behind it,
+against the wall. All around the little bed, upon tables and even
+chairs, were strange utensils, meaningless to the girl, some in glass,
+others in shining white metal with tubes that coiled and trailed, and
+linen, linen, everywhere that sheet or towel could be hung. The room
+was as full of strange scents as of strange shapes, but that of rubber
+overpowered all the rest, and was to be, for all time, the smell that
+could most vividly recall the scene to the girl's memory. The blinds
+were up, but no one had remembered to switch off the lights. Into one
+corner of the room a pile of toys had been hastily swept; prominent
+among them a great elephant brandished four lumpy wheeled legs in the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the bed a little lad of five or six was lying, covered with
+clothes to his waist. Even now, with his poor little face lead-color,
+and all the spun silk of his hair damped down on his forehead, he was
+beautiful: with the hue of health on his cheek the face must have been
+that of an angel. His fringed eyelids were closed, and had dark shadows
+under them; his pinched nose was pitifully like Lumsden's. He seemed
+to be very tired, and very glad that all these clever people had given
+up exercising their skill upon him. For no one was doing anything now.
+One man, in shirt sleeves, held his limp wrist in a great hairy paw,
+and kept his eyes upon his watch; the other stood at his colleague's
+shoulder with his hands behind his back, intent upon the shrunken
+little face.</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden cleared a chair, and, pulling it forward, bade the girl, with a
+gesture, sit down.</p>
+
+<p>"Any change, Webber?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be a few minutes yet. <i>Hush!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>He got up and put his ear to the boy's mouth. A faint snore was
+audible. He looked up at his partner.</p>
+
+<p>"'Cheyne-Strokes' breathing beginning, Girling."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he suffering?" Bryan asked. He seemed to have lost interest in the
+technicalities of the question. "That's all I want to know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," said the younger man. "Please believe us, Sir Bryan. He won't
+have suffered from first to last."</p>
+
+<p>"Why's it such a long business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! seven hours is nothing unusual. The power of resistance in
+children his age is generally much greater. Twelve to fourteen is quite
+common. I still believe, Webber, there was subcutaneous administration
+as well."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. I could find no puncture, but his reaction to the ether
+certainly looked like it."</p>
+
+<p>As Webber spoke he dropped the wrist, pocketed his watch, and made a
+sign to Lumsden.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I take him up?" said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It doesn't matter now."</p>
+
+<p>Bryan lifted the inert little body out of bed, held it to his breast,
+and put his face down on the wet curls.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Squirrel! Squirrel!</i>" he whispered once or twice, and held him
+closer.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't hear anything now," he said at the end of a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me look at his eyes," said Webber.</p>
+
+<p>Bryan gave a great wild laugh. "His eyes! Good God, man! what do you
+think you'll see there? Eyes? He never had any. He was born blind."</p>
+
+<p>He laid the body tenderly down on the bed, put one hand across his face
+for a moment, and touched the weeping girl on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Come down, Flash. I must send you home now. Don't cry so, girl! It's
+not fair. This is <i>my</i> funeral."</p>
+
+<p>On the way to the head of the staircase they passed another door. He
+laid his hand upon the brass knob.</p>
+
+<p>"I promised I'd show you real life. There's more inside here. Do you
+want to see it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! no!" The girl shrank away, and pulled her skirts from the panel.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, then. Don't be afraid. I haven't been in myself yet. I'm
+not going to. The fiend! oh! the fiend, Flash! A little child like
+that—a little boy born blind! He never saw the sun. Look out of this
+window over the heath and think of it. For all he ever saw he might
+have lived and died at the bottom of a well. I used to describe things
+for him though. He was stupid with some people, but he knew my voice.
+Gad, how he knew it! You'd see the poor little devil's eyes straining,
+straining, and he'd struggle and kick and push things out of the way
+till he found me. Oh! the incarnate fiend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan! She's dead, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead! What do I care? If she wasn't I'd have killed her myself.
+And she knew it. She was the one I cared for least. A cold, vicious,
+bargaining jade. I tried to get the boy away, but she was too d—d
+clever. So many hundreds a year more, that's all he meant to her.
+Do you remember my asking you once if you were fond of kids? I
+was thinking of him when I asked you that. Some day, perhaps—I
+thought——'Cos some good women are the devil over things like that,
+Flash; and if I'd had a dozen born right they shouldn't have come in
+front of him—This is nice talk to a girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind, Bryan. I don't seem to mind a bit now. I think I've
+missed my proper delicacy, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>He stared at her. "You haven't missed your health, at any rate. You
+must be a robust little animal for all your color. This time yesterday,
+Flash, think of it! If it was put in a book, who'd believe it? I wonder
+if everything that ever can happen a man and a girl has happened us, or
+if there's more coming to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>They had been talking in the dining-room. He went over to the sideboard
+for a drink and stopped suddenly. A half-crown was lying on the top of
+the buffet. He brought it over to the light, lying flat in the palm of
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a rummy coincidence, Flash," he said, without taking his
+eyes off it. "D'you know, years and years ago in Vienna, where I
+was a thing that danced and trailed the conquering sabre past the
+<i>Töchterschulen</i> in the <i>Hohenmark</i> on court days, I spun a
+coin this very size to decide a rather important matter for me. 'Tails
+I go on; heads I go out.' I wasn't bluffing. I was pretty hard hit, or
+thought I was. But I was young, too, and I'll never forget my feelings
+when I looked down and saw the double eagle—I'd shut my eyes while it
+spun, and I remember feeling behind in my hip pocket——Hello! Where
+did this come from?"</p>
+
+<p>He was holding Ingram's strange present in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. Another property. 'Act ii., scene 2: The lair of the wicked
+baronet.' Do you want it back? No, I won't, though," snatching it back
+as she reached for it. "Guns are for people who know how to let them
+off."</p>
+
+<p>He made a movement as though to put it back, then checked himself, and
+balancing it in his hand looked from it to the coin and back again. The
+half-crown lay now, head upward, upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Fenella caught his arm. "Bryan! not that—not that!"</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to rouse himself. "Not that?"—angrily. "Why not? What d'you
+mean? How can you know what I was thinking of?"</p>
+
+<p>His hand had closed upon the weapon. She loosened his fingers one by
+one to find her own hand held fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan, perhaps I've been too hard on you to-night.
+Suppose—suppose——Don't look at me that way or I'll stop. I don't
+promise anything. I must have time. It won't be easy for either of us."</p>
+
+<p>He bent his head and put his lips to the hand that had been held out to
+slay him and to save him in one night.</p>
+
+<p>"As you will, Flash. God bless you whatever you do with me."</p>
+
+<p>"And now, dear, let me go," she said gently. "Remember, I have my own
+dead to watch."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_III">PART III</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Ib">I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE BATHS OF APOLLO</p>
+
+
+<p>On a foggy November morning of the year whose events have been
+chronicled a man came out of a house in Westminster and stood for a
+moment on the worn steps, supporting himself against one of the pillars
+of the porch, to blink sorely at the raw day. The house he was leaving
+was one of a few old buildings that still exist on the long, crooked
+street whose northern frontage follows the ancient precincts of royal
+abbey and palace. From its size, the graceful detail of its doorway,
+the white and black squares unevenly paving its hall and the depth of
+brickwork which the long recessed windows revealed, one judged at once
+that this had been, in days gone by, the town mansion of a great legal
+or political family, forced by its very functions to dwell at the gates
+of the legislature. But whatever it had been in olden times, to-day
+the great house was inexpressibly sordid and degraded. The cupids
+and garlands of its doorway, blunted by two centuries of whistling
+house-painters, had well-nigh disappeared once for all beneath a last
+coat of coarse red-brown paint. With the same dismal tint—the old
+penitential hue of the galleys—were daubed window-sashes and sills,
+the panelling of the wide hall, the carved brackets that supported the
+crumbling edges of its tiled roof. Within, one conjectured rightly
+bare lime-washed walls—disinfection, not decoration—sodden boards
+worn away round the knots. Even in the foggy half-light, so merciful
+to all that has beauty of outline still to show, its crude defacement
+did not escape. One felt that the pickaxe and sledge-hammer of the
+house-breaker, busy in a neighboring hoarded space, spared it too long.</p>
+
+<p>A thick, dun mist had been creeping up-river since dawn from the Kent
+and Essex levels, gathering up on its way the filthy smoke of glue
+factories and chemical works, and holding it suspended over the spires
+and domes of the Imperial city. The close alleys and wynds that, like
+a fungus growth upon polluted soil, cover the area once sacred to
+the brothels and dog-kennels of the Plantagenet Court, seemed not so
+much to be endued with smoke and grime as actually to be built up out
+of compacted slabs of the sooty atmosphere. The sun was still in the
+east—a red wafer stuck on a sealed sky.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes the man stood still, as if either too tired to make
+up his mind which way he should take, or as if, really paralyzed for
+the moment by the equilibrium of the forces that acted on his will, he
+was at the point where, vertigo having seized upon the mind and, as
+it were, disorientated it, direction loses its meaning. It is almost
+certain that had any passer-by—a policeman, a man bearing a burden,
+even a child—jostled the man, he would have gone on in the direction
+to which the collision turned him.</p>
+
+<p>He wore a jacket and trousers of what had once been blue serge, faded
+by exposure, by dust, by rain that soaked in the dust, and sun that
+dried the rain in turn, to that color which is obtained by mixing all
+the primaries upon a palette. A streak of the coat's original color
+showed still under the upturned collar, and had the effect of a facing
+upon a soldier's tunic. Coat and trousers were miserably frayed at the
+edges, but neatly mended in more than one place. Probably from being
+worn night and day upon an almost naked body, the stiff straight lines
+natural to modern clothing had disappeared, and they had acquired, in
+their place, an actual mould of the limbs. His shoes, spattered with
+mud and grease, seemed once to have been brown. They were broken,
+and the heels had been trodden down so far that the soles curled up
+in front like an eastern slipper. The man was quite clean, his hair
+and beard even trimly kept. His face was refined. Whatever physical
+suffering he was undergoing or had undergone, it was evident he had not
+yet reached the depth at which the soul contracts and shrivels once
+for all, and, dropping into some inmost recess where only death shall
+find it again, leaves the animal epidermis to bear the outrage of life.
+Under one eye the discoloration of an old bruise showed faintly.</p>
+
+<p>As he looked about him—first above his head, then mechanically to
+left and right—what was almost a look of relief and peace came over
+the tortured face. In this narrow drab margin twixt night and night—a
+day only by the calendar and by the duties it imposed—it is possible
+he felt something akin. Something of the mechanical precision of life
+that was such a reproach to his own confusion would have to be relaxed.
+It would be a day of late trains, of crawling, interlocked traffic, of
+sudden warnings from the darkness, with the ever-present possibility
+of some levelling disaster to lend a zest to the empty hours. Excluded
+from human communion on the side of its pleasures, the outcast yearns
+toward it all the more upon the side of its pain and mischance. What is
+the savagery of revolution but a very exaltation of perverted sympathy?
+"Weep with me, my brother," says the red of hand, "weep with me at
+least, since I might not rejoice with you."</p>
+
+<p>He had been the last to leave the common lodging-house which had given
+him a night's shelter, and, as he lingered, the deputy, a big, fleshy
+man in shirt-sleeves, came down the passage behind him, whistling and
+sweeping before him the caked mud which forty pairs of broken shoes
+had brought in during the night. At the sound of his broom against
+the wainscot, the man turned sharply, with a sudden energy that was
+like the release of a coiled spring, and, thrusting his hands into
+his pockets, strode off to the left quickly and aimlessly as a caged
+wolf. Where Great Smith Street runs into Victoria Street he turned to
+his left again, and followed the main thoroughfare southward. Through
+the happy accident of its deflection midway, at the point where the
+colossal doorway of the Windsor Hotel confronts the Army and Navy
+Stores, Victoria Street possesses, as all visitors to London with the
+architectural sense must have noticed, a dignity and effectiveness
+unique in the city of costly ineptitude. Approached from the river
+at sunset or sunrise, or in any light low enough and dim enough to
+hide the sorry detail of its lofty houses, the effect approaches the
+monumental. The wanderer's eyes had been fixed on the ground; but,
+possibly arriving at some spot where in former days he had been used
+to watch for it, he raised his head and stood, unsteadily, for a few
+seconds, intent upon the beauty with which the world is as prodigal as
+it is niggardly of its substance. The sky was an orange dun, deepening
+and lightening almost momentarily, as though some pigment with which
+the day was to be dyed later were being prepared overhead. The long
+Italianesque façade of the stores was all one blue shadow, but over
+its roof, through some atmospheric freak, the campanile of the new
+cathedral emerged, pale pink and cream, and in the upper windows of the
+great hotel, whose pillars and helmed mask closed the prospect on the
+right, a few wavering squares as of strawberry tinsel foil reflected
+the foggy sun. As he watched, leaning against the railing, one might
+have noticed his lips move. He took his clenched fists from his
+pockets, and opened them slowly with a strange gesture of surrender. It
+was as though some inward resolution, evidenced by the hasty walk, the
+lowered eye, the clenched hands, yielded at its first contact with the
+influence he was attempting to forswear.</p>
+
+<p>A man who had been walking hastily from the opposite direction, with a
+long roll of blue prints under his arm, stopped short, pulled off his
+glove, and, diving into his trouser pocket, pulled out a copper and
+pressed it against one of the open palms. The dreamer started, closed
+his hand upon the penny convulsively, and, without a word of thanks,
+gazed after the bustling figure. He opened his fingers slowly and
+looked at the coin, with the same fear and repugnance that a sick man
+might show who, having put his hand to his mouth, finds blood upon it.
+Then, still holding it in his hand, he quickened his walk, until it was
+almost a run.</p>
+
+<p>In a baker's shop near the terminus he spent half the money on a
+stale roll, and ate it, standing in the doorway of the Underground
+Station, and using his free hand to cover his mouth, as though he
+felt his voracity was indecent. A wretched little waif—a girl child,
+bareheaded, in a long dress like a woman's, and with her hair done up
+in a wisp—seeing him eating, approached, held out a hand scaled with
+dirt like a fish's skin, and begged of those rags with the same blind
+confidence with which the child in heart asks relief of a beggared
+providence. He gave her the halfpenny, and as much of the bread as he
+had not eaten; then, crossing the road, he shouldered his way into the
+station yard.</p>
+
+<p>The Continental Night Mail, more than half an hour late on account of
+the fog, was just in. A long line of motor-cabs, with an occasional
+four-wheeler, stood along the curb. Porters in charge of portmanteaux
+and trunks were shouting and gesticulating; the air was full of grunts,
+whistles, and the sudden clatter of horses' feet catching hold on the
+pavement. The man paid no attention to the motor-cabs, but, slipping
+behind a four-wheeler loaded with luggage and a bicycle, followed it
+from the yard and into the street.</p>
+
+<p>The cab rolled along through Pimlico and in the direction of the river.
+Almost immediately the station was left the fog shut down and hid
+the houses on either side. The driver, an old street pilot of thirty
+years, kept on at a steady amble; the man behind, quite ignorant of his
+destination, settled down to a steady loping run, which apparently he
+was prepared to keep to between the wheels as long as the horse kept to
+it between the shafts.</p>
+
+<p>At a cross-traffic break he looked up, and saw he was not alone. A
+short, thick-set stranger, with a bullet head and strangling, wheezy
+breath, had joined him <i>en route</i>. That competition which is said
+to be the soul of trade was not to be lacking.</p>
+
+<p>"Ullo!" said the stertorous one, as soon as he felt himself observed.
+"W'ere did <i>you</i> come from?"</p>
+
+<p>Finding he was not rebuked, he thought it safe to essay a little
+further.</p>
+
+<p>"You be awf and find a —— keb for yourself. D'jeer? Follered this
+from the stishun, I did."</p>
+
+<p>His bearded brother in misfortune gave him such a look that he judged
+it wise to defer settling the difference. The cab started again,
+turned, and twisted in the maze of stucco streets, always followed by
+the two men; stopped finally in a crescent that even in daylight was
+secluded, but in a fog might be said to be mislaid. Bullet head, being
+outside the wheel, used his tactical advantage to lay one authoritative
+hand on the leather trunk and the other on the bicycle.</p>
+
+<p>"It's aw ri', guv'nor," he called, reassuringly through the window
+to their proprietor. Even as he spoke, he was himself deposited upon
+the pavement in an efficient manner of which the tall comrade's face
+had given no hint. Followed, not so much a volley of oaths, as a kind
+of set-piece, a transparency of language, which hung suspended in
+the shocked air of Pimlico long enough for a window or two to open,
+presumably in protest. Appealed to by his fare, a literary gentleman
+of peaceful habit, upon the score of age and experience, the driver
+refused to be drawn into the conflict.</p>
+
+<p>"Settle it between yerselves," he said complacently, sucking on a voice
+lozenge and pocketing his legal fare. "Door to door, my trade is, and
+don't ferget it." A woman meantime had opened the hall door, and was
+scolding every one, impartially, in the dialect of Fifeshire.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing goads to madness like foiled knavery. The tall man, having
+already shouldered the trunk, the short one laid a violent and
+ill-advised hand upon it from behind. Next moment it was set upon the
+ground and with a vigorous movement of the shoulders that gave his
+words authority, the dreamer spoke for the first time, in a voice whose
+accent and whose idiom alike were familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, now! You have one minute to hit the grit. If you're not gone
+then, I'll lay that mouth of yours against the sidewalk and give it the
+dry cleaning it needs. Now that goes—all the way!"</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" I cried, "it's Ingram!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He turned to run, but I clung to him. He was a powerful man, much
+stronger, even exhausted as he was, than I have been at any time, but
+I am proud to think my grip upon him never once gave way. At last he
+desisted, perhaps because he heard tears in my voice, and disengaged my
+fingers gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Ingram! Oh! in God's name what does it mean? I thought you'd gone
+back—thought you were thousands of miles away."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Can't you see what it is, Prentice? It's the last note in
+journalism. A delegate to the depths. Talks with the underworld. I'm
+doing it pretty thoroughly, don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>Well, I stood there and pleaded with him. His competitor carried in the
+baggage meekly, under Mrs. Mac's petrifying eye, was paid, and went his
+way—the mystified Jehu cracked his whip and rumbled off into the fog
+before I had exhausted half the arguments and expedients with which my
+brain swarmed. I wanted him to take money, to come in and be fed and
+clothed, to go back to America (assisted passage). He shook his head
+at everything, and at the last suggestion set his bearded jaw hard. I
+thought his objection very fanciful.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't go back," he said, "to see a democracy that has had its chance
+and missed it, done to death with a golden bandage over its eyes. It's
+less hard to stop here among the poor devils that have never known what
+economic independence meant."</p>
+
+<p>He found reasons equally good or equally bad for resisting my offers
+toward rehabilitation in England.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use, Prentice," he said, again and again. "Believe me, between
+the very last rung of the social ladder and the depths in which I'm
+swimming round and round, and waiting for the final suffocation,
+there's a sheer fall that no power on earth can ever bridge again. From
+where I am I can speak still, hear still, even feel. I look up and see
+living men on the slope above me. Some are slipping down, some, who
+have stood once on the verge and looked over, are crawling up again,
+weak and half dead from terror. But I and those with me are past help.
+You don't know the gulf that separates having a little money, even your
+last pound, from having none at all. That's an experience as final and
+irremediable as death. None can imagine it unless they have known it,
+and none that have known it ever come back to tell."</p>
+
+<p>Before such remorseless logic I weakened, little by little. I told
+him he was ungenerous—that friendship involved debts of honor he had
+never been willing to pay; finally I went into the house to make him up
+a parcel of warm underclothing. I remember blubbering like a whipped
+lower-form urchin as I ransacked drawers and trunks, and how the string
+kept snapping as I tried to tie up the great untidy brown-paper parcel.
+When I came downstairs the street was empty.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IIb">II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">LIGHTNING IN THE FOG</p>
+
+
+<p>He ran, he has told me since, like a man with a hue-and-cry in his
+ears, turning left or right at random. At last his breath failed; he
+remembered his rags, and noticed people looking suspiciously after him.
+He came out onto the river somewhere near the Tate Gallery, by a yard
+full of spray-battered old ship figureheads, and crossed the big new
+bridge to the Albert Embankment. At a river sluice below an iron yard
+men were unloading bundles of Belgian tees and angles from a barge.
+The river was falling fast, and he got an hour's job helping them to
+unload the cargo. It was on such casual labor, I suppose, that for
+months he had supported life. He was paid sixpence for his hour's work,
+and, seeing his strength and famished willingness, the lighter-men
+overloaded him and raised a weal on his shoulder. He was still nearly
+starving, but did not dare spend the money till later. By two o'clock
+in the afternoon the fog was general and very thick. He was standing
+in the centre of the little foot-bridge that runs under the viaduct
+from Charing Cross Station. Above his head trains rumbled softly and
+circumspectly. There were Pullman cars filled with sun-worshippers on
+their way from the winter-smitten city to France and Italy—to ivory
+villa and amethyst bay, maybe to the white sun-steeped cities upon
+whose ramparts he had once stood sentry. The fog-signals went off in
+his ears like cannon. On the Middlesex shore of the river was a dim
+bustle, muffled tang of gongs, constant flitting of blurred lights; but
+under the Surrey shore, lonely as a quicksand on the Breton coast, a
+strip of mud left by the falling tide shone, a coppery red, beneath
+the bulk of the big Lambeth brewery. Below his feet a squadron of
+empty lorries lay moored together, four—four—and three, like a hand
+of cards dealt face downward by a fortune-teller. All around him was
+mewing, as from a dozen litters of kittens; the fog became thick with
+the fluttering winged forms of sea birds. No one had passed him for a
+long time. He stretched out his arms and spoke aloud—</p>
+
+<p>"Soul! what things are these that hem us in—that compass us about this
+November noontide, as we roam, stifled and uncertain, through Babylon's
+foggy streets? These towers, soaring into the infinite; these palaces,
+whose limits we conjecture from the dimmed overflow of light within;
+these chariots, rolling one instant soundless from obscurity, next
+instant engulfed by it? What things are they? Even such as to-day thou
+beholdest them: shadows, phantoms, vapor, and cloud. To-morrow the wind
+shall smite them, and their places know them no more; daylight seek
+them, and find them gone. Oh! paradox immeasurable, that where the sun
+had lied to thy senses fog should truly bespeak them!"</p>
+
+<p>Solitary as he seemed, he had been observed for some time. A bulky
+figure, in heavy overcoat and helmet, stepped from behind a girder and
+touched him on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you'd best get to one side or the other? It's bad
+loitering weather."</p>
+
+<p>Ingram started at the touch, then looked over his shoulder and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," he said. "But there's no fear of that," and he looked at the
+river again. "You'd have come in after me, I suppose—boots, overcoat,
+and all."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not saying what I'd have done," the constable answered stolidly.
+"My dooty, I hope. But it's not the day I should choose to win the
+Albert Medal on."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the suspect closer, and seeing a man probably as strong as
+himself, his voice and manner changed. There was a new freemasonry in
+it when he spoke again, and a strange curiosity, shame-faced but eager.</p>
+
+<p>"Man to man, mate; is it very bad?"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram turned on his heels like the soldier he had been.</p>
+
+<p>"Man to man—no. I've earned sixpence this morning; that's supper and
+bed. My nakedness is only an offence to the providence I've ceased to
+believe in, and I've the æsthetic sense which makes a thing like that,"
+and he pointed to the patch of rosy mud, "a living joy. What man who
+works for bread will have more to say in two hundred years? Do you know
+there are great artists who'd go a day without food to paint truly what
+we've got under our feet. Not many English ones, though. I'll do them
+that justice."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I know wot you mean," said S. 11. "I'm fond of pitchers
+myself. I suppose you know there's one of our force gets 'is pitcher
+into the 'cademy reg'lar every year. But hunger's one thing and
+starvation's another."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not starvation, man; it's the fear of it that's putting out the
+sun and stars for three quarters of the world. 'Do <i>my</i> work or
+starve! do <i>my</i> work or starve!' that's what every factory hooter
+and works bell and alarm clock is ding-donging from morning till night.
+We're all too frightened to do ourselves justice. We sit down to our
+desk, or stand to our bench or easel with a full belly and an icy cold
+heart. So the great book never gets written, and the great picture
+never gets painted, and the great wrong never gets righted, and the
+soul we have no use for is passing into piston-rods and flywheels
+that eat up human flesh and blood as the beasts of the field chew
+grass. No thank you, constable. Didn't I tell you I'd got sixpence.
+Keep it for the next woman you have to move on. <i>That's</i> the
+shame—<i>that's</i> the unpardonable sin."</p>
+
+<p>There had been no present thought of self-destruction in his mind,
+but, in spite of himself, the policeman's suspicion stirred a dormant
+idea that was now a comfort to him, now a terror, just so far as it
+lay vague or assumed definite shape. He climbed the ascent into the
+Strand, glad to be in the crowd again, and to feel himself jostled
+and elbowed by its hurrying life. Amid all the human tide that, after
+having turned the wheels of commerce all day, was now setting homeward,
+there was probably no one who walked straighter or brisker than he.</p>
+
+<p>His long steps soon carried him into a distant quarter of the city;
+but as night fell he turned them toward Westminster again—back to the
+house where he had slept last night and perhaps many a night before.
+It was no better than others that lay to his hand, but at least its
+horrors were familiar. He shrank from new initiations. Besides, it was
+not seven o'clock, and eight was the earliest hour at which such places
+opened. How to kill an hour?—absorbing occupation for a mind like this.</p>
+
+<p>He decided to follow the Embankment again. There, if his feverish
+walk outpaced the clock, he might loiter—lean upon the parapet, sit
+down upon one of the seats. He would buy some liver in Lambeth and
+cook it before the lodging-house fire. He was faint when he reached
+Blackfriars, and not from hunger alone. Dimly he divined a crisis.
+The last of a little store of illusions with which he concealed from
+himself how personal and irremediable was his misery had been expended
+during that wild talk with the man in blue upon the bridge. Something,
+if life was to continue, must supply its place.</p>
+
+<p>The work upon the widening of the bridge was still in progress.
+Opposite De Keyser's Hotel a big wooden hoarding covered the pavement,
+making a little niche with the low granite wall of the Embankment.
+It was too early in the evening for the recess to be occupied or to
+be explored by the bull's-eye lantern of law and order. He crept
+within it under cover of the fog, and, resting his arms upon the wet
+granite wall, relit a half-smoked cigarette. All day long, throughout
+his defiant speech, his indignant bearing, his wretched assumption
+of energy, he had felt himself under an observation as unfriendly
+as it was thorough. Some other self, cold, critical, sneering, was
+watching his struggles with amused contempt. He had felt its presence
+before, but never so utterly detached, so hostile or so impatient. That
+<i>alter se</i> which education creates and easy living nourishes, and
+which, deplore him as we may, is a personality to be reckoned with at
+every crisis and in every action of our lives, is never long content to
+outlive such an experience as his. It is only a question of time before
+the rational in man wearies of prison and poor entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Let us go hence!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Ingram smoked his cigarette until it burnt his lips, leaned over the
+parapet, and, as he dropped the glowing end into the river, measured
+the distance to the water that was "<i>clop-clopping</i>" soupily
+against the foot of the Embankment. His isolation in the heart of
+London was strangely complete, for such foot-passengers as passed,
+passed wide of him by a railed plank walk built outside of the great
+wooden hoarding that concealed him from view. The wide roadway,
+moreover, full of vague sound and motion—blast of motor-horns, rumble
+of trams, quick come and go of blurred lamps, accentuated his solitude.
+He waited until a heavy tread that was going westward had died away
+into the fog. Then he drew up his legs, first one, then the other, upon
+the parapet beside his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oh Gawd! oh Gawd!</i>" a voice groaned behind him. He checked his
+sinister movement and listened intently. Some one—some fellow-creature
+in torment—was cursing and sobbing on the pavement he had just left.
+He got down and groped for it. A man, huddled together, and with one
+leg jerking convulsively, was lying with his head against the boards.</p>
+
+<p>Ingram put his arms round him and lifted him gently.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IIIb">III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">VALEDICTORY</p>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. McNaughten has assured me that I stood for nearly five minutes,
+the brown paper parcel under my arm, staring blankly, first in
+one direction, then in another, and licking my lips. I am glad of
+her evidence that a mood so abject and personal lasted no longer.
+Because—alas!—what held me in a trance that temporarily lost count of
+time was not that this intolerable thing had befallen Paul Ingram, dear
+Paul, with whom I had sat, so many a night and on into the small hours,
+holding converse, high and austere, on man's destiny through life and
+beyond—no, it was that, having befallen him, it might befall any one,
+and, befalling any one—let me give the full measure of my craven
+heart—it might befall me. For one paralyzing instant that veil which
+mercifully cloaks the extreme chances of fate had been plucked aside.
+I had looked full into its malignant eyes, and, like the man in the
+Greek fable, what I had seen had been enough to turn flesh to stone. In
+that moment the shadowy safeguards which men erect between themselves
+and the grim possibilities of destiny—knowledge of the world,
+self-consciousness, confidence in untested friendships—stood revealed,
+the shams they are. The security born of years—anxious, toilsome years
+it is true, but during none of which, for a single day or night, bread,
+clothing, or sheltered sleep had failed me—shook and fluttered darkly
+like the eternal hills in an earthquake. I literally lost hold on life.</p>
+
+<p>Thank God, the mood was over soon. I had time to be pitiful, to be
+even angry, with an illogical but humanizing wrath that fate, taking
+hourly toll of the world, had not spared one dear to me. I blamed
+myself bitterly for leaving him alone those few minutes. I had wearied
+of well-doing too soon. He must have yielded at last. Seated by the
+familiar fireside, fed and comforted, with the pipe in his mouth that
+still bore the scar of his long wolfish teeth upon its stem, a better
+mood must have awakened. I say a better mood, because, at certain
+depths, misfortune calls almost for the same treatment as crime,
+and the kindness that seeks to save must be disciplining as well as
+compassionate.</p>
+
+<p>I dined at the <i>À-peu-près</i> after my work was done, hoping against
+hope there would be news of him there—some indication that might
+put me on his track again. Smeaton was in the chair to-night—old
+Smeaton, best and bravest knight that ever set quill in rest—with his
+little restless pink face, snapping black eyes, tumbled white hair,
+and bulging and disordered waistcoat. I was greeted uproariously.
+For nearly a month I had been away in the south of France, press
+correspondent at a murder trial which had stirred all thinking Europe
+by the depths it revealed of cynical depravity on the one side, and
+of morbid, reiterated condonation on the other. It was by far the
+biggest thing I had been given to do yet, and I hoped I had done it
+well; but it was too much to hope that, in a subject coming home so
+nearly to the average sensual male, the psychological conclusions I had
+drawn should pass unchallenged. I sat for over an hour, besieged by
+questions, pelted with authorities, shouted down, derided unexpectedly
+and as unexpectedly championed. Even madame's indulgence was not proof
+against such pandemonium. She pushed open the lace-curtained door, put
+her hands to her pretty brown ears, and shook a reproving finger at her
+unruly family.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Quel tapage! Mon Dieu, quel br-r-ruit!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oui!</i>" cries Smeaton, pointing at her excitedly with the
+nut-crackers. "<i>Et vous en êtes la cause!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember your Yankee friend's dictum on the little point
+of manners we've been discussing?" Mackworth asked me when order
+was restored. He was a dark, depressed man, perhaps the richest who
+dined at the <i>À-peu-près</i> regularly, and had written the most
+talked-about novel of the year before last.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," interrupted Smeaton, whose manners are bad, "who's seen
+Ingram lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him—to-day," I answered, balancing the spoon on my coffee-cup.</p>
+
+<p>"What's he doing? I thought he'd gone back to the States."</p>
+
+<p>"He followed a growler I took from Victoria and wanted to carry in my
+trunk. Would have had to fight another man, too, for the sixpence."</p>
+
+<p>Madame could not have desired a more complete cessation of turmoil than
+followed these words of mine. In more than one pair of eyes I saw the
+panic that would be my own lasting shame rise suddenly, and as suddenly
+be checked. I wonder how they got it under.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he very bad?" asks Smeaton, in a low voice. "Down—right down?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Poor—devil!</i> Did he know you, Prentice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at first. It was too foggy to recognize the house."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Grabbed him as he turned to run, and held him. He wouldn't come in,
+but let me go to fetch him some clothes. When I came out, he'd bolted."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" said Smeaton, and clapped his pudgy little hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that?" I asked, voicing a surprise I think we all
+shared.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it confirms a judgment of my own upon Ingram. He was the
+logical animal <i>par excellence</i>, and to take money or substance
+one hasn't been allowed to earn, if it's only a penny to buy a loaf or
+a rag to cover nakedness, is to sell logic as Esau sold his birthright.
+If there were more like Ingram, the tangle of this filthy old
+kaleidoscope we call life might straighten out. He'll die, of course,
+but at least he'll die with a man's soul in him."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to Satan rebuking sin!" said Waldron of the <i>Hemisphere</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Smeaton brought his fist down on the table. "Yes," he thundered. "I
+know what you mean. Yes, I've given charity. I've cast bread on the
+waters—to drowning men that were begging for a rope. I've helped
+lame dogs—over stiles that led to nowhere. And every time I've done
+it, Waldron, I've been ashamed of myself. For I know I'm helping to
+protract an agony and perpetuating a state of things that ought to
+have been done with twenty years ago. Literature isn't paying its way
+to-day: that's the cold fact we must face. And a thing that isn't
+paying its way is a sham, no matter if it's as brilliant as the last
+ten years of the old French monarchy. It's falling more and more into
+the hands of men and women who either eke out a little private means
+by scribbling, or else eke out their hire by borrowing. Journalism's
+not so rotten; but, by the Lord Harry, after a morning in Fleet Street
+I sometimes think half of us are living by taking in one another's
+washing."</p>
+
+<p>"You're taking rather a black view," said Waldron.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I? Well, compare the present day with long ago—with Grub
+Street—with what Macaulay calls the darkest period of English letters.
+Read Johnson's early life—Savage—all the historical instances. Look
+at the sums those beggars got! Twenty-five pounds benefit from a play
+that ran fourteen nights: fifty pounds for an ode to Royalty once a
+year: ten pounds for translating a volume of Portuguese travels. Why,
+to many a man whose name is a household word to-day these things read
+like a fairy tale. They used to call on publishers with 'projects' and
+have luncheon served them while he read 'em over."</p>
+
+<p>"What about the novel?" says Waldron, with a half-look at Mackworth.</p>
+
+<p>"In its death throes. Fifty years hence the English novel—considered
+as literature, mind you—will be as dead as the epic poem. I stick to
+what I've said. When a thing ceases to pay its way, it's a sign the
+stage of national development that called for it is over."</p>
+
+<p>"What's going to take its place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look around you. Something's begun to take its place already:
+articles, books—by people who've <i>done</i> things, not dreamed
+them—written in the English any one can write who tries. 'Three
+months' lion slaughter in Central Africa'; 'One degree nearer that
+pole'; 'How I made my millions.' Especially the last. People never
+weary of that. They don't see that the game must be up, or the secrets
+wouldn't be being given away."</p>
+
+<p>"Come!"—noticing a silence of dissent round the table. "Take a
+concrete instance. Mackworth, there's only one opinion about 'When the
+Sky Fell.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You're very good."</p>
+
+<p>"Simple justice, my boy. Now, take us behind the scenes a little. How
+long did it take you to write it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nine or ten months."</p>
+
+<p>"Say nine. Working hard?"</p>
+
+<p>"All day and every day."</p>
+
+<p>"How long before you found a publisher?"</p>
+
+<p>"Finished in June, and it came out in the autumn season."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a year. Were you paid on publication?"</p>
+
+<p>"No: six months afterward."</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen months. I don't like to ask you any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't mind telling. I've cleared a hundred and twenty pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"For eighteen months' work and worry."</p>
+
+<p>"It's great fun. I've nearly done another."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but assuming, for the sake of argument——"</p>
+
+<p>"——that I had to live on it, eh? Well, I'm afraid there'd have been a
+third after Prentice's cab this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that settles it," said Smeaton, looking round. "No. The
+novel's had its day. And what a day it's been! Let us think of that.
+Fielding to Henry James! It's like the creation of another world. Come!
+I'll give you a toast we can all drink in silence—'Speedy deliverance
+to Paul Ingram!' And now let's talk of something more cheerful. Who's
+been to see Fenella Barbour's Cuckoo dance at the Stadium?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that's really the stage of national development we've
+reached," hazarded Mackworth.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is, there's something to be said for it," said Smeaton, stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"She's paying <i>her</i> way, anyhow," said some one. "Two hundred and
+fifty a week ought to keep the wolf from the door."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the wolf at the stage door is a domesticated animal. No one wants
+to frighten him away."</p>
+
+<p>I wasn't interested in what followed, and dropped out. Now and then a
+word or two struck me: "A clog-dancer with sophistications." "Anyway,
+you'll see a jolly pretty girl!" "No, not Jewish, Mackworth—Phœnician.
+Mother was Cornish, and she's a throw-back more than two thousand years
+straight to Carthage." "As much again for the posters. Briggses paid
+her four hundred for the 'Crême de Pêche.'"</p>
+
+<p>And I smoked on, thinking of Ingram's rags. As our party broke up,
+I thought Smeaton made me a sign to stop on. When we were alone, he
+smoked silently for a while, and then—</p>
+
+<p>"This is a more than usually filthy tragedy, Prentice."</p>
+
+<p>"About Ingram? Yes, it's pretty bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't there some book he was going to set the Thames alight with? Has
+it been published?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. It had some funny adventures; but not that one."</p>
+
+<p>"You read it. Was it really good? Between ourselves, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I answer for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be in a hurry. It's not late. You knew Ingram better than most
+of us. Now, wasn't there something between him and the little girl
+we've been talking of? Perhaps you guessed I didn't mention her by
+accident. Didn't they come here together more than a year ago?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him what I knew, including the boat-train incident.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that Ingram all over?" he exclaimed. "If his eye or his friend
+or his ladylove offended him, one felt the axe would be out in a
+minute. You know what they're saying about her now?"</p>
+
+<p>"About dancing the night her mother died? Why shouldn't she? If she'd
+been a shop-girl or a typist, no one would have thrown stones at her
+for going on with her work. They'd have thought the more of her for it."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, my dear boy. I mean the Darcher case—woman at Hampstead who
+poisoned herself and the little boy, you know. There was a mysterious
+lady came down in the car with Lumsden. Her name was kept out, but they
+say——"</p>
+
+<p>"That it was she. Oh! impossible, Smeaton! How could it be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because she left the theatre with him, and happened to be in his house
+when the message came through. Two o'clock in the morning! I had it
+from a quarter that isn't usually wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"And you believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>Smeaton shrugged his shoulders. "My dear boy, I've given up guessing.
+Anybody that wants it can have the benefit of the doubt, now." <i>Puff!
+puff!</i> "I often think of poor Newstead, last time I saw him, at
+Guy's. They thought he was going to get well, and he was sitting up on
+the pillows reading one of those blasted Sunday papers that you write
+for. 'Well Newstead,' said I, as I was going, 'what am I to tell the
+boys?' 'Tell them,' he says, laying his poor claw of a hand on the
+paper, 'tell them I'm driven to my grave at last by the beauty and the
+horror of life!'" <i>Puff! puff!</i> "Why don't you go and see her?
+You can get there easy enough. She's interviewed once a week on an
+average."</p>
+
+<p>"What good would it do?"</p>
+
+<p>Smeaton rapped for his <i>addition</i>. "I dunno. I think if I were a
+friend of Ingram's I'd take a certain amount of malicious pleasure in
+letting her know what you saw to-day."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IVb">IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">SOMETHING LIKE CLOVES</p>
+
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, I found no difficulty at all. Little Winstanley
+was pleased with my murder specials, and fixed up an interview over the
+'phone in no time.</p>
+
+<p>"You're getting rather heavy metal for this, Prentice," he said,
+puffing out his cheeks and regarding me with the benevolence a man
+keeps for the work of his own hands; "but toddle along and see what you
+make of her." One of Winstanley's illusions is that he has "formed" me.</p>
+
+<p>Fenella had a very pretty little doll's house in the tiny square that
+is tucked away near Knightsbridge Barracks, whose gardens back upon the
+Park. The brickwork was very neatly pointed, and the window boxes were
+full of chrysanthemums, and a red door with brass appointments flew
+open to my rather timid ring with a disconcerting suddenness. But I was
+not prepossessed with the stunted little maid who opened it. Neither
+in manner nor appearance was she "up to" the house. There was a latent
+hostility, too, in the way she scanned me.</p>
+
+<p>"Noospapers?" she queried over her shoulder, as she closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>I admitted it.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in 'ere and wait."</p>
+
+<p>I was precipitated rather than ushered into a fireless dining-room,
+a little cold and uncheery for all its graceful furnishings of dark
+scrolled wood and striped mulberry velvet cushions. There was a hanging
+lamp over the oval table, of liver-colored bronze; mistletoe leaves
+stuck over with little electric berries, which budded into light as
+the girl left the room. The sideboard was covered with silver toys. I
+remember a jointed crab and lobster, and a ship on wheels with all its
+sails set, and a coach and six, whose driver, his calves in the air,
+waved a long whiplash over six curled, trampling stallions. I know
+there are more striking contrasts in the world if one goes seeking
+them, but for me the injustice of life always stands pictured now by a
+shelf full of useless beaten silver toys on the one hand, and on the
+other by a coat buttoned across a naked throat.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder would I have known my pale little girl with the frightened
+eyes, whose heart I had been so strangely commissioned to break,
+eighteen months ago? Then I had only been able to guess at the probable
+grace of the body which a rough travelling coat so thoroughly covered,
+and though, even in the strained, anxious face and disordered hair,
+beauty had been apparent, it had been beauty seen through a mist of
+tears, its harmonies disordered by the tortured questioning soul.</p>
+
+<p>Since that time I suppose her figure had attained its full graciousness
+of line and had reached the limit of development which modern standards
+of bodily beauty, forced to take a fashion into consideration, would
+consider compatible with elegance for a woman of her height. She was
+still in half-mourning, and wore a trained dress of some soft gray
+material embroidered in black on the breast and sleeves. I am a child
+in such matters, but imagine her dressmaker, or the builder of garments
+more intimate still, must have been something of an artist, for,
+seen thus, there was absolutely nothing to recall the boyish <i>sans
+gêne</i> of figure and manner which was her great asset—her trump card
+upon the stage, and which, from the moment she kissed her hands across
+the footlights, never failed to bring rapturous applause about her
+ears. Her dark hair, "fine as the finest silk" (after all, there is no
+bettering the robust descriptiveness of fairy-tale), was dressed rather
+fashionably than prettily—wide across her forehead in front, and
+rather far beyond her head at the back. I thought she wore too many
+rings, and diamonds glittered in the soft shadow of her throat.</p>
+
+<p>She did not recognize me, but gave me her hand to shake without
+condescension, which was all in her favor. I will make a further
+confession: At the first frank, interested glance of her eyes I
+consigned old Smeaton and his hateful friend who didn't often make
+mistakes to the eternal fellowship of Ananias. The impossibility simply
+began and ended with those eyes. It was not the glamour of a lovely
+face and a gracious welcome, for, as I took her hand, I remember
+feeling indignant that so little shadow of the wrong my friend had done
+her crossed the bright well-being of her life. It was too evident that
+she forgave and forgot with equal completeness. Poor, logical-minded
+Paul, carrying about with him night and day the image of this lost
+mistress. Did I blame him that food and raiment were hateful to him?</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she said, "poor man! you're shivering. This room is a bit cold,
+isn't it? I'm afraid Frances doesn't like the press. I've noticed she
+always shows them into whichever room hasn't a fire in it. She's rather
+a tyrant, Frances is. But it's nice isn't it, to have some one left who
+cares enough for you to bully you. Druce, the housekeeper, was my nurse
+once. Come across to the drawing-room. It's much prettier, and there's
+a fire in it. Twenty minutes now"—lifting a warning finger—"not an
+instant longer."</p>
+
+<p>I followed her across the ridiculous little hall into a drawing-room
+whose size surprised me. It was low but very long, and the bottom was
+filled in by a curved window of leaded glass looking out over the
+sodden Park, where a belated rider or two still walked a steaming
+horse and probably dreamed of a hot bath and dinner. The room, with
+its lacquered "dancing dado," and walls hung with Chinese silk, has
+been often paragraphed. It smelt of sandalwood and roses, and had a
+fire of old whale-ship logs burning in a steel casket upon the hearth,
+with little spurts of flame, all manner of unexpected tints—violet
+and bottle-green and strawberry red. How fond she was of color and
+glitter! A frightful old bull-terrier—reared, I should say, from his
+appearance, in the bosom of some knacker's family, and whose head
+something, prosperity perhaps, had turned violently on one side—got
+up from the hearth-rug and came limping and sniffing across the room.
+Fenella got down on her knees and put her soft cheek to the repulsive
+pink nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Did <i>he</i> want to be interviewed then? And so he shall. Do you
+know"—looking up at me—"you're the first one that's seen <i>him</i>?
+I generally show two small ones like pen-wipers; but they're away at a
+show." She turned to the dog again. "Is he vezzy old then, and vezzy
+blind, and vezzy much chewed and bitten, poor old man! and is the
+world just one big, dark smell to him? Well if 'oo <i>will</i> chew
+my whiskers, dear, of <i>tourse</i> 'oo'll sneeze!" She jumped up as
+though some thought suddenly checked her playful mood. "Put <i>him</i>
+down, please!" she said, pointing in a business-like manner to my open
+note-book. "Name? Roquelaure—Rock for short. Eighteen years old—two
+years less than me. Fancy <i>that</i>—younger than me! No tricks—only
+habits. We were puppies together—at least, I mean—Yes, yes. Put it
+down that way. It sounds rather <i>dear</i>, I think. Sit down, please.
+Now, what else do you want to hear about? My dancing? Oh! I've always
+danced. Used to do it instead of flying into a rage."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait one minute, please," I said. "'The usefulness of dancing as an
+outlet for the emotion is probably a discovery as old as the world
+itself.' Um—um——When did you begin to take regular lessons, and how
+far——?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked up. She had recognized me. Forgetfulness? Oh! I was as bad as
+the others.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment!" She rose, and left the room as quickly as her tight
+silk underskirt would let her. She was back again in a minute, holding
+my card in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you <i>his</i> Mr. Prentice?"</p>
+
+<p>I bowed my head, and laid note-book and pencil aside. What a fool I had
+been to come!</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he? Do you see him? Oh, <i>how</i> I've tried and tried to
+remember your name!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know where he is."</p>
+
+<p>"But you've seen him? I know you have. Answer, please. Why do you look
+so queer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him last week."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he well? Was he happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was—starving, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>O-oh!</i>" I had seen tragedy in the girl's face, now I saw it in
+the woman's. I told her as much as I dared. I hope I was merciful.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you hold him?" she cried, at one point of the story. "Oh,
+my God! Why did you let him go? Don't you know the sort of man he is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I was doing my best. I had only gone to get him some warm
+clothes. It was such a raw, foggy morning. That seemed the first thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Some warm clothes!" she repeated, under her breath, looking round
+at the silk and silver and roses. Then she broke down, and cried and
+cried. Poor soul! I had to stop her at last. I was afraid she'd be ill.</p>
+
+<p>She was very docile, dried her eyes, and begged my pardon for what
+she'd just said.</p>
+
+<p>"You're his friend, aren't you?" she pleaded, "his real, true friend?
+You won't give him up?"</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do? I'd even bear it for him if I could."</p>
+
+<p>"No you couldn't," she said, tightening her lips and shaking her head
+decisively. "Nobody can bear anything for him. Do you think I didn't
+try?"</p>
+
+<p>She rolled her handkerchief up into a ball, and tucked it away, with a
+resolute little gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to despair," she said bravely, with a kind of gulp and
+a tremor of her throat that set the diamonds streaming blue fire. "I
+think things will come all right. I've had a kind of a—kind of sign.
+Shall I tell you?"—timidly.</p>
+
+<p>I'm foolishly impulsive, and I kissed her hand. After all, the dog does
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, then! Thursday week"—I started, but she didn't notice
+it—"Thursday week I was feeling simply <i>awful</i> all day. I can't
+explain it. Imagine some one you love is being tried for something
+that means death—or more awful still, if it goes against him. It got
+worse and worse. I've never missed a night I was billed for, but I
+shouldn't have been able to go on as I was. Still, I went down to the
+theatre—just on chance, you know. It was half-past seven or quarter
+to eight. I had an hour, but I dressed early to be safe. Suddenly
+something seemed to say inside of me, 'Now! now! down on your knees,
+quick. This is the dangerous time.' My dresser had gone out. I locked
+the door, and fell on my knees in a kind of faint. I prayed, and prayed
+as well as I could. I don't remember much what. I think I asked God, if
+Paul was never, never to be happy again, to take him the best way to
+some place where nothing could hurt him any more, and where he would
+see me and know what I was feeling for him. And then, Mr. Prentice—and
+then——Oh! it was wonderful. Something all warm and comfortable,
+like—oh! like <i>cloves</i>—why do you laugh? I'm trying to tell you
+the best way I can—seemed to come round my heart. I got up from my
+knees. It was eight-fifteen, and my dresser was banging on the door and
+asking if I was ill. I opened it and hugged her. She must have thought
+me crazy. All the sadness was gone—every bit. I knew they'd done
+trying him, and he—and he——" She struggled with her emotion, and,
+then, covering her face with her hands, rocked backward and forward,
+moaning and sobbing—"he's Not Guilty. No! my love's Not Guilty."</p>
+
+<p>There was a knock at the door. She turned her head quickly into the
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's Sir Bryan, madam."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to wait in the dining-room.... Now, Mr. Prentice, we must
+try again. What are the best papers to advertise in? Papers that—that
+quite poor people read most?"</p>
+
+<p>I gave two or three an unsolicited testimonial.</p>
+
+<p>"Write your address—your private address—on this card. I'll put
+an advert."—she said it this way—"in three for a year. Just your
+initial. The moment you hear, telegraph—no, telephone me! I'll say
+you're to be always given my address. I don't go to New York for nearly
+a year. Good-bye. I'll send you something for your paper to-night."</p>
+
+<p>I did not see the sporting baronet, but I smelt his cigar in the hall,
+and I saw his damned motor-car outside the door. And as I walked out of
+the little square, I wondered whether perhaps it wouldn't be to every
+one's advantage, and his own, if Paul Ingram should never be heard of
+on this earth again.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Vb">V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A VERY VULGAR CHAPTER</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>"Ingram, Paul. Will Paul Ingram communicate at once with 'P.,' 15,
+Darlaston Crescent? The matter is urgent, and concerns the future
+happiness of another."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Some day, when Paul Ingram is already a legend, the dipper into musty
+records who stumbles upon this heartrending appeal in issue after
+issue will imagine he has made a rare find. Always supposing another
+eventuality, which I sometimes seem to foresee, has not supervened, and
+that a reformed society, for security's sake, and as an earnest of its
+reformation, does not make a bonfire once for all of the records of its
+past depravity and madness.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, to me, affords fruit for such sad thought as to see unworldly
+folk taking advantage of the machinery of a world that is organized
+to crush them and their like out of existence. That Oxford graduate
+who seeks "congenial employment as amanuensis or secretary," the
+gentlewoman "thrown suddenly upon her own resources through financial
+loss" who is anxious for a post as nursery governess, as companion, as
+anything that will allay the fright and loneliness at her heart—("fond
+of children," she adds. Poor soul, one sees her casting a wistful
+glance into passing perambulators.) Do not the very compositors, I
+wonder, laugh as they set up such type? I was sorry indeed for that
+"other" whose happiness depended upon Ingram's resurrection.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime I had given my word, and I was not idle. Every good
+journalist is a bit of a detective at heart, and I discovered a
+mournful zest in following Paul's calvary, step by step, from one
+lodging to another. Everywhere I found help and sympathy, and conceived
+a new regard for the maligned race of landladies. (Mrs. McNaughten, of
+course, is <i>hors concours</i>.)</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! poor gentleman," said one grimy soul. "Well I remember the
+night he come. I knocked at the door to arst 'im if 'e wouldn't take
+somethin' 'eartenin' with 'is tea—a bloater, or a rasher—and there
+'e wos, settin' with 'is 'ead down on the table. Money? Oh, a trifle
+of rent, sir. Wanted to leave 'is trunk be'ind; but there, live and
+let live's my motter. It went to my 'eart to 'ave 'im go—wanted care,
+'e did—but you see, sir, me bein' only a workin' woman, and 'avin' a
+'usband at 'ome with bronickal trouble——Thank you kindly, sir, sence
+you orfer it. You won't think no worst of me for takin' it, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>At the very next stopping place—I had almost said stumbling place—the
+trunk came to hand. Strangely enough, he owed nothing here. I suppose
+at a certain point in misfortune a man flings his possessions from him
+as a swimmer flings his clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"Took 'is things away in a bundle, wot there wos," said the mistress of
+this house, who was nursing and rocking a child as she spoke. "I ain't
+techt nothink," with a slight shiver. "If so be you're a friend of the
+party, you'd prabst better open it. The keys is upstairs. No: nothin'
+owin,' but I wasn't sorry w'en 'e went. Too strange in 'is manner. It
+goes agenst a 'ouse w'en things—you know wot I mean—'appens in it."</p>
+
+<p>To Mrs. Purvis's secret disappointment, I believe, there was nothing
+in the trunk but a mass of torn paper and a queer brown-paper parcel
+that I seemed to recognize. It was addressed to the house near Golden
+Square, and the label was headed with the name of some legal firm in
+the West End. It was the manuscript of "Sad Company."</p>
+
+<p>For a long while after Mrs. Purvis had left me to attend to the
+shrill wants of some of her elder children, I sat with it in my lap,
+looking out of the rain-spotted window upon the mouldering back gardens
+beneath, where string after string of intimate household linen dried or
+stiffened in the sooty air. I thought of the tender, mournful wisdom,
+the sad insight into life which that despised bundle contained, bought
+with the blood and sweat, and tears maybe, of thirty years: jotted
+down—for I knew its history—in cattle camps, by Algerian bivouac
+fires, in hotel lobbies of roaring Western cities. And I thought of the
+little luxurious house beside the Park, filled with all that ministers
+to the lust of the eye and the pride of life. A pretty face and figure,
+an aptitude for bodily movement, a few shallow tricks of manner, had
+earned that in a year for a woman whom I had already occasion to know
+couldn't spell. Well, the world knows what it wants. The world had
+chosen. Was there to be no appeal? Is failure here failure forever? Or
+is there, beyond this world, with its stark denials of justice, another
+where such things count still, and where the reward so insolently and
+capriciously withheld shall be bestowed, the hungerer after justice,
+even artistic justice, have his fill? Sad questions that no religion
+cares to answer.</p>
+
+<p>And here my search ended. He had left no address: no letters had
+followed him. I took the manuscript away with me and locked it into a
+drawer. I was not sure yet what I would do with it. Show the world what
+manner of man it had despised, perhaps. Or perhaps tie a stone around
+it and sink it in mid-channel. I must think which Paul would have
+chosen.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly six months afterward in late summer, I was sitting at my desk
+and beginning to think of turning in, when Mrs. McNaughten rapped at
+the door. A "vairy rough body" was asking for me. Should she show him
+up or bid him state the natur-re of his business?</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't he say what he wants?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll say nothing but that he wants Mister-r-r P. He says ye'll
+understand fine. <i>Mister 'P.'</i> I think the body's daft."</p>
+
+<p>The advertisement. My heart jumped. "Show him up, please. At once!"</p>
+
+<p>A short thick-set man in soiled working clothes and with a colored
+handkerchief round his neck came in, tossed a cap on the table with a
+gesture full of natural grace, stretched his neck two or three times,
+as if to intimate that he was ready for any manner of reception, and
+began to beat a limy dust with the back of his hand out of as much of
+his corduroys as was within easy reach.</p>
+
+<p>"Nime of Palamount," he said, oracularly and rather hoarsely.
+"Builder's mite, my tride is."</p>
+
+<p>I indicated a chair. "And what can I do for you, Mr. Palamount? I am
+not contemplating any repairs or additions to my quarters at present."</p>
+
+<p>All this time the man had kept one hand in his pocket. He drew it out,
+holding a newspaper, folded very small and very tight.</p>
+
+<p>"In conneckshun wiv two advertysements," said he. "Fifteen Darlaston
+Crescent is the address wot's on one. 'Ere y'are. Marked in blue it is.
+Initial of 'P.'"</p>
+
+<p>He unfolded the journal and handed it to me. It was the paragraph which
+heads this chapter, and which, having been paid for a year in advance,
+would reiterate its useless appeal for another six months to come
+unless——Somehow Mr. Palamount did not impress me as a bearer of glad
+tidings.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I asked, without much hope. "What news can you give?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Old 'ard," said my visitor, who was feeling through various pockets,
+as if in search of fresh documents.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't bother," I said, irritably. "I know it's in more than one."</p>
+
+<p>The horny-handed one smiled, a powdery and superior smile, as of
+foresight justified.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said he. "That's wot I thought you'd be in the dark abaht. Two
+parties there is. Complickitions—that's wot I calls it. 'Ere y'are.
+Sund'y <i>'Erald</i>. Twenty-first July. 'Work'ahse Marster, depitties
+<i>and</i> uvvers.'"</p>
+
+<p>I snatched the paper from his hand and devoured the salient paragraph.
+It was a very superior article; far more calculated to strike a
+reader's imagination than the feeble little effort we had concocted
+between us. I read it aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"£200 Reward. To workhouse masters, lodging-house deputies and
+others....</p>
+
+<p>"The above reward will be paid for information that shall lead to the
+discovery or certify the death of <span class="smcap">Paul Ingram</span>, native of
+Lilburn, Massachusetts, U. S. A. He was discharged from the French
+Foreign Legion in March 19—. Was subsequently correspondent in Morocco
+for the Federated Press, and is known to have been living in London in
+very reduced circumstances as recently as last September.</p>
+
+<p>"Communications are to be made to the American Consulate, St. Helens
+Place, Bishopsgate, or to Messrs. Pollexfen, Allport and Pollexfen,
+Solicitors, 52a, Bedford Row, W. C."</p>
+
+<p>A description of my hapless friend followed, remarkable, or perhaps not
+remarkable, for conveying the very haziest notion of his appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Palamount was regarding my amazed face meanwhile with excited
+relish, somewhat tempered by his surroundings which were ill adapted to
+its natural relief by expectoration.</p>
+
+<p>"Wotcher mike of it?"</p>
+
+<p>I stared helplessly. "It's—money, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>The builder of houses was now approaching his supreme effect. He half
+rose from his chair, made an ineffectual attempt to rid his voice of
+cobwebs, and pointed an accusing finger, about the shape and size of a
+banana, at the two papers in my lap. At last he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ue and cry: that's wot that is."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wot I ses. 'Ue and cry. There's lot of blokes, mind you as won't tike
+blood-money as'll give evidence of w'ereabahts if they thinks it's
+all stright. Money? yus—I <i>don't</i> fink. Certify 'is deaf? It'll
+be certified all right if 'e puts 'is nose inter that loryer's orfice
+or if any bloomin' copper's nark as knows 'im gets 'is eyes on that
+parrygraft. Tike it aht, guv'nor. Git 'im aw'y somew're w'ere there
+ain't no extry-edition treaties. Shive 'is beard, too, 'e'd better,
+less 'e growed it since."</p>
+
+<p>To say that I was dazed by Mr. Palamount's mental processes is to state
+bare truth.</p>
+
+<p>"You think he's done something, then, and is in hiding?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yus. Cut a bloke in hot blood, I fink."</p>
+
+<p>"And that my advertisement will help put the police on his track?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yus," said Mr. Palamount succinctly and without any implied respect
+for my superior lucidity. "Watch the 'ahse, they will, and pinch 'im
+w'en 'e calls."</p>
+
+<p>"But—my dear obfuscated friend——"</p>
+
+<p>"'Ere, guv'nor; no langwidge please."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear friend, Paul Ingram's an old friend of mine. He's a
+highly respectable citizen. It's true he's got no money, but you and I
+know that isn't a crime. One advertisement is put in by his friends who
+want to help him, and as for the other—it's too late to-night, but I
+shall find out all about it first thing to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>My new friend made a repressive gesture. "'Ere guv'nor—none o' that.
+I seen it fust. If it's all right, them two 'undred quids is prop'ly
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do you know where he is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know w'ere 'e wos a week ago. To fink," catching up his cap and
+dashing it to the ground, "to fink as I showed 'im that one o' yours
+four munfs ago."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better tell me all you know," I said, losing patience. "Will you
+have some beer first?" The cobwebs were getting on my nerves.</p>
+
+<p>"Beer!" echoed my visitor. He had, indeed, a generally unslaked
+appearance that rendered the question an impertinence. "Beer!" he said
+again, giving the word this time its full diapason or organ sound. The
+rest was vigorous action.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately he had not an equal talent for connected narrative, and I
+was too anxious about Paul to welcome the light upon dark places which
+his discursiveness incidentally threw. One day, late in the previous
+autumn, I made out, his own trade being slack, he was working on the
+tramway extension to one of the northern suburbs. About midday the fog
+came on so thickly that the road-making gang were laid off for the
+day, and wended their way home after the riotously sociable manner of
+their class, with frequent calls at favored houses of refreshment. When
+evening fell, he was drinking in a bar the other side of Blackfriars
+with a neighbor and fellow-workman, whose patronymic of Barker had
+been long abandoned in familiar discourse for the more recondite one
+of "Flying Fox." ("Put two tanners on the 'orse 'e did, at odds on,
+an' won fruppence.") The backer of certainties had only been taken on
+that morning by the foreman after a week's waiting, and was probably
+in ill-humor at his enforced leisure. Either for this reason or some
+other a dispute arose in the bar of the George and Cushion, which was
+ended by Mr. Barker's shouldering his way out, with the expressed
+intention of pursuing his homeward way unaccompanied by any "bleedin'
+skrim-shanker." Mr. Palamount was eager to detail the misunderstanding
+that had led to this cruel charge, but I checked him, and from this
+point the story took quite a leap forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Parsin' Thomases 'Orsepittel, I see'd a crahd rahnd the cas'alty door,
+an' arst 'oo was 'urt. 'Bloke on the Embankmint,' they ses, 'knocked
+over by a motor-keb near Blackfriars: come aht of the fog like a
+cannon-ball,' they ses. I arst the nime, 'cos I was feelin' anxious
+'baht Foxie; not drunk 'e wasn't, but I give you my word 'e'd 'ad
+some, and 'e wasn't a man as could 'old the booze. 'That's 'im, they
+ses—'that's the party. Ginger-'aired wiv freckles; arnswers to nime
+of Barker.' 'I'm a pal,' I ses, ''oo's in wiv 'im?' 'Man that fahnd
+'im,' they ses—'eddigicated bloke: give 'im fust ide, and 'eld 'is
+'ead in 'is lap in the tramcar.'</p>
+
+<p>"They let me in w'en they 'eard I was a friend of the party wot was
+'urt. Big room wiv benches: young tawfs in long w'ite coats—sawboneses
+I calls 'em—nurses too (my word, not 'alf givin' 'em the tale): blue
+jars, an' a smell wot mikes yer fice crack. 'Wotcher want?' the mitron
+ses to me. 'I fink I can identify the party, sister,' I ses, 'I'm a
+nighbor.' 'Wite 'ere,' she ses. 'They'll be bringin' 'im through in a
+minute.' So I sets dahn. A tall furrin' lookin' bloke was a settin' on
+a bench nigh me, wiv a beard. Werry thin an' fierce 'e wos and eyes a
+blazin' like coals. 'Crool business over there,' I ses, pointin' to the
+screen. 'Wife near 'er time, four nippers, an' only took on yesterday.
+Fust job since the spring.' 'I know abaht it,' 'e ses. I was a-goin'
+to arst 'im ow 'e knew, w'en the row begins from be'ind the screen.
+Just told 'im they 'ad as 'e was a free munfs' kise. 'I carn't do wiv
+it. I carn't do wiv it,' 'e was 'ollerin' over and over ag'in as they
+carries 'im through. 'My wife's near 'er time, and there ain't five
+shillin's in the 'ouse.' Tryin' to git up 'e was, and arstin' Gawd to
+strike 'im dead. ''Oo knows this man?' ses one of the doctors as was
+'olding 'is arms. I was a-goin' to speak w'en the tall bloke jumps up
+and goin' over to the stretcher, bends dahn and w'ispers somethin'
+quick. Foxie stops strugglin' an' looks rahnd at 'im. ''Ow will yer?'
+'e ses, and looks rahnd at 'im. 'Never you mind' ses the man. 'I didn't
+promust without knowin' 'ow. You wite,' 'e ses, 'and there'll be good
+news termorrer.' I fink Foxie was stunned like and let 'em carry 'im
+aw'y quiet. I was a wonderin' too w'ile they filled up 'is card for 'is
+missus, 'cos I never see destitootion so pline as on 'im.</p>
+
+<p>"W'en we was ahtside: 'Nah then,' he ses, and 'e couldn't 'ave spoke
+brisker not if 'ed bin one of the doctors. 'Somethin's got to be
+done.' 'Yus,' I ses, lookin' at 'im 'ard. '<i>Done</i>' I ses, like
+that. 'Tike me to 'is 'ome fust of all,' 'e ses. 'You know the w'y.'
+I'd mide up me mind be now as 'e was balmy, and I was a bit ashimed
+of 'im on the tram. But 'e pide 'is own fare and 'eld 'is jor. On'y
+w'en we wos gittin' near Camberwell: 'Wot sort of woman is this Mrs.
+Barker?' 'e arst me. 'I don't know much of 'er,' I told 'im. 'Keeps
+'erself to 'erself she does. But sence she's bin doin' laundery work,
+my missus looks in and gives the kids their meals and a bit of a
+wash. Gimekeeper's daughter, she wos, in the country.' 'E looks dahn
+on to the Walworth Road w'ere some gels was a-dancin' to a organ.
+'Gimekeeper's daughter!' 'e ses. 'In the country! My Gawd! 'Ow many
+kids?' 'Four,' I ses. 'Eldest is a van-boy earnin' five bob a week.
+T'other three's little gels. Don't see 'em in the street much. Mother
+keeps 'em indoors. Un'ealthy, I calls it.'</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Barker must 'ave been listenin' for 'er man, 'cos she comes
+aht 'fore we'd got to the landin'. Tall, dark, 'an'some woman, wiv a
+diffrunt voice to most of the wimmin' dahn our w'y. Not so 'igh. 'Oh,
+Jim,' she ses. 'Wot mikes you so lite. 'Ave you forgot—?' and then
+stops short, seein' us two. 'You tell 'er,' I ses, keeping aht o' sight
+and nudgin' 'im. 'That's wot I come for,' 'e ses, and goes in and shets
+the door in me fice. I listened, expectin' to 'ear screaming, but there
+wos only talkin'—fust 'im very low, then 'er, and then more talkin',
+like prayin'. 'You can come in now,' 'e ses, throwin' open the door.
+She was settin' by the fire, cryin' to 'erself and young Ern, in 'is
+blue coat and brass buttons, blubbering into 'is coker, and two plites
+under the 'arth, one on top of the other, and grivy bubbling between
+the edges. The little gels wos in bed. On'y one room they 'ad.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wot was Barker's job,' 'e asks. 'Road-making gang.' 'My old job,' 'e
+ses wiv a larf. 'Yus, I don't fink,' I ses, with a sidewise look at
+'im. 'That'd be a better tale, matey, if there was a little more meat
+on your ribs.' 'I've mide roads,' 'e ses, 'under a sun as'd melt you
+like a taller candle.' 'Wot kinder roads?' 'Millitery roads.' 'Oh,' I
+ses. 'You bin a soljer?' 'Yus,' 'e ses, 'the only real sort as is left.
+I never enlisted at eighteen to 'ave my 'ealth built up wiv 'ealthy
+food an' Swedish gymnastics, so be the time I was twenty I c'd go to
+Injer and sit in a verander durin' the 'eat of the d'y, flappin' the
+flies awf me fice w'ile a brown bag o 'bones shined me buttons and kep'
+me rifle clean. I never bin a luxury seven years and a problem all the
+rest of me life. Gimme that poker!'</p>
+
+<p>"Young Ern giv it 'im, staring like 'is eyes would drop aht. 'E took it
+up be the two ends and bent it double, then 'anded it to me. 'Staighten
+it out,' 'e ses, wipin' 'is forehead. 'It's a knack,' I ses. 'E took it
+agen' and laid it out true, wiv a kind of a 'eave of 'is chest an' a
+groan. Next thing 'e did wos to put 'is 'ands over 'is fice and tumble
+in a 'eap on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Wot a ter-do there was! Missis Barker bithing 'is 'ead wiv cold
+water, old Mrs. Conder from the nex' room tryin' to pour gin down 'is
+teef—'See wot it is,' she ses, 'to never be wivout a bottle'—young
+Ern 'ollering out to loosen 'is neck w'en there wasn't nothin' to
+loosen. 'Oh! is 'e dying?' ses Mrs. Barker to me. 'Dyin'!' I ses; 'not
+'im. Acceleration is wot's the matter with 'im and nothing else.' "</p>
+
+<p>Here my curiosity got the better of my anxiety. "What do you mean by
+acceleration?"</p>
+
+<p>He shifted uneasily in his chair. "Well, guv'nor, it's a word us
+people has got. 'Aven't you read in the pipers w'ere it ses, 'Vital
+Statistics. In London ten persons was found dead of starvition during
+the past year?' That's ten w'ere the coroner couldn't think o' nothin'
+else. All the others is only 'acceleration.' Pneumonia accelerated be
+insufficient nourishment, brownchitis accelerated, 'ousemaid's knee,
+tennis elber—wotcher like, so long as it's on'y accelerated. Looks
+better and keeps the charitable people comfortabler in their minds.
+'Acceleration,' I ses to 'er; 'and that's the meddicine 'e wants,'
+pointing to the plites under the fire. 'And, 'e wants it sharp.'</p>
+
+<p>"'E come to 'isself presently, and seemed quite ashimed. Sed it wos
+'is own fault, and that that poker trick didn't oughter be done on
+less than a 'ole roll once a d'y. We give 'im the tommy, and at first
+'e tried to eat slow. But it wasn't no use. 'E just seemed to in'ale
+them beef and taters an' a 'ousehold loaf and four cups o' coker.
+Mrs. Barker ackcherally larfed as she cut the slices. Women is funny,
+guv'nor. She seemed to fergit 'er own trouble. Wouldn't 'ear of 'im
+goin' away that night, but mide 'im up a bed in the passidge.</p>
+
+<p>"Before I come aw'y it was arranged wot we was to do. I was to call for
+'im in the morning and bring a suit of corduroys. We wos to go dahn
+togevver and apply for Foxie's job fer 'im.</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't no trouble over that. I got dahn early and give my mites
+the tile, and though the foreman wagged 'is mahth a bit, 'e saw there
+was trouble comin' unless 'e give in. 'E went a bit slow the fust d'y
+or so; but arter that there wasn't a better 'and, and in three weeks'
+time the foreman give 'im charge of a gang on a job up Finchley w'y."</p>
+
+<p>"And you became great friends, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, guv'nor, I won't s'y that. 'E wasn't a bloke you could tike
+lib'ties wiv. Not enough wot I calls give an' tike abaht 'im. One 'er
+two tried calling 'im 'the lodger' and was sorry. But we went 'ome
+togevver and dahn to 'orsepittle of a Sund'y, and after Mrs. Barker
+gone to Queen Charlotte my missus useter look in reglar. But I give
+you my word there wasn't much as she could do. 'Owever early she come
+round, there was the floor swep' an' the kids dressed and barfed—great
+on barfs, 'e was: fussy I calls it—and 'avin' their breakfast and 'im
+sluicin' 'isself in the passidge. Wonderful 'ow 'e could cook too.
+Useter mike soup outer milk and vegitables. Never seed sich a thing,
+nor my missus neither."</p>
+
+<p>"When did he tell you his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a-comin' to that. Fust night I arst 'im and 'e said 's nime was
+'Bruvverhood.' Well, it might be; 'cos I worked for a firm 'o that nime
+at Deptford—engineers they was. But one night soon after Barker's
+missus gone aw'y, I got a letter from 'im askin' me to call. Funny,
+I thought it, 'cos we'd come home togevver that evening. 'Owever, I
+cleaned up and went rahnd. There 'e was in what 'e called the buzzum
+of 'is fam'ly. Pretty sight it was. Young Ern was gone to the cawfy
+concert at Syviour's Schools. There was 'im smokin' 'is pipe an'
+little Effel wiv 'er curls brushed out recitin' a pome 'baht the night
+afore Christmas, and anuvver little gel on 'is knee, and Gertie on the
+floor pl'yin' wiv piper chickens wot 'e'd cut out. Schools was shut on
+accahnt o' scarlet fever, and 'e'd bin teachin' them their lessons.</p>
+
+<p>"'E jumped up and called in Mrs. Conder to put the kids to bed.
+''Ammertoe,' 'e ses, w'en we was in the street—that's my nime with
+my mites—''Ammertoe, I got to trust some one, and it's goin' ter be
+you.' 'E pulls a bit o' piper out of 'is wescutt pocket. 'This 'ere's
+a cheque,' 'e ses, 'an' I want you to go down termorrer and cash it
+at the bank.' Well, remembering 'ow I'd met 'im, you c'ud a knocked
+me over wiv a canary's wing fevver. 'You ain't done bad, matey,' I
+ses, 'out of two munfs' navvyin',' 'No, I 'aven't bin long putting a
+nest-egg by,' 'e ses, quietly. 'That's a fact,' I ses, very serious.
+'What's your gime?' 'E 'anded me the bit o' piper and I read the nime
+at the bottom. 'Ullo,' I ses, 'you're the bloke they're advertisn'
+for—spoilin' some one's 'appiness—in the <i>Sund'y 'Erald</i>.'
+'Yus,' 'e ses.' 'And that's wot I'm trustin' you with. Not the
+money—that's nothin'.' 'But wot abaht it?' I ses. 'Will they give
+it me?' 'They may arst questions,' 'e ses. 'But you ain't to know
+too much. Say you've give consideration, and a workin' man ain't to
+be kep' out of 'is due. There's no one can give that talk better'n
+you, 'Ammertoe', 'e ses, smilin'. 'And besides, I'll p'y you for your
+trouble.' ''Ere, guv'nor,' I ses, 'old lard! You're a eddigicated
+bloke, but don't think a artesian ain't got feelin's. You 'ave pide
+me,' I ses. 'I'm pide by wot I jest see up in Barker's 'ome.'</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't no real trouble at the bank. 'E'd give me annuvver letter
+to put into the envelope 'e'd sent me, signed wiv the same name as was
+on the cheque. The cashier looked pretty 'ard at me, and two or three
+clurks puts their 'eads togevver. 'Don't 'urry,' I ses. 'I'm pide be
+the year, and it don't matter w'ere I spend me time.' Cahnted the five
+quids free times, they did, to be sure two wasn't stuck togevver.
+Non-prejoocers, that's wot I calls them.</p>
+
+<p>"This 'appened so often that the clurks got to know me. One night, jest
+before Foxie comes 'ome, I couldn't 'elp openin' my mahth a bit, jest
+to 'im. 'Wotcher goin' to do wiv all the money I drawed to-d'y? Give
+Barker a surprise be gettin' their stuff out o' pawn? Rare lot's bin
+up the spaht,' I ses. 'No,' 'e ses. 'It ain't wuth while now.' 'W'y
+not?' 'Cos they ain't 'ere for long. I'm a goin' to emmygrite them,
+'Ammertoe.' I was 'avin a drink at the time, an' I nearly choked.
+'Yus,' 'e goes on, afore I could speak, lookin' at the ceilin',
+'they're a goin' to God's promust land. Them kids is a goin' to grow up
+somew'eres they don't 'ave to be shut in a room for fear of wot they
+may see and 'ear. It's full of tigers and wolves, that street is,' 'e
+ses, pointin' aht the winder, w'ere Bill Shannon was a tryin' to git
+'is missus 'ome wiv all her clothes on. 'They're a goin' to be woke
+up on the trine some mornin' to see the blessed sun come up under the
+prairie as big and red as the dome of Paul's. It ain't spoiled sence I
+seed it fust, nigh on to twenty-five years ago. I've fallen from there
+to 'ell,' 'e ses, 'and there ain't no return ticket the w'y I come. But
+if I can't go back meself, I can show uvvers the w'y to escape.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And ain't you a-goin' now'eres?' I ses, noticin' for the fust time
+'ow w'ite and ill 'e was lookin'. 'Oh, yus,' 'e ses. 'I got my journey
+to go too.' 'Crost the sea?' I arst 'im. 'Just a short w'y,' 'e ses.
+'Crost the sea to a big white furrin town I knows of, w'ere there's a
+tramcar w'itin', as'll tike me 'alf-w'y. Full of women in wi'te caps
+it'll be, goin' 'ome from marketin' wiv baskets in their laps, and
+maybe there'll be some like meself as found there wasn't no sale for
+the wares wot they carried in. And w'ere it stops there's a road up a
+'ill that turns through a field w'ere they're stackin' 'ay this minnit,
+wiv steep clay banks on bofe sides, and a old farm w'ere ducks is a
+swimmin' in a pond and pigeons a slippin' and slidin' dahn the roof.
+And w'en I've reached that,' 'e ses, 'I'll rest a bit and look down
+on a gray village and miles and miles of sand, wiv the sea a-crawlin'
+and a-crinklin' beyond; 'cos I'll know,' 'e ses, 'as I've reached my
+journey's end at last. Think of it,' 'e ses, grippin' my shoulder 'ard.
+'Think of it,' 'e ses, 'man! Clean, soft, dry sand, warm from a 'ole
+day's sun, and the grass a-wavin' and the sea w'isperin' and the gulls
+mewin'. There's worse ends to a journey than that, and you and me's
+seen 'em.' I looks at 'im very 'ard indeed. 'If you tike my advice,' I
+ses, 'before you goes on any of them journeys you'll 'ave a rest and
+some one to look arter you.' 'I shall 'ave some one,' 'e ses. 'She'll
+be a w'itin' for me in that town I telled you of. She'll tike my 'and
+and won't never let go until——Tell me, 'Ammertoe,' 'e ses, breakin'
+off sudden, 'wotcher think of me? Man to man. Think I'm a good man,
+dontcher?' 'Yus,' I ses. 'Bit balmy all the sime.' 'I ain't balmy,'
+'e ses, 'and I ain't good. I'm a very crooil man, 'Ammertoe, and the
+reason is I'm too sine; too clear in me ed. W'en a man's too clear in
+'is mind, it's death and ruin for 'em as 'as to do wiv 'im.... And nah,
+drink yer beer up. We're talkin' nonsense, and I must git back to my
+bybies."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you never talk to him again about this plan of his?" It was
+curious how our voices had dropped. We had both risen, and were
+standing opposite one another with a curious effect of being on
+different sides of an open grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Never, guv'nor. Flyin' Fox come 'ome nex' day, and wot with explainin'
+everything to 'im, and wot with n'ighbors droppin' in, some s'yin',
+'It's the best thing could 'a 'appened,' and uvvers, 'mark my words,
+you'll rue the d'y.' There wasn't no chanst again not for private talk.
+Foxie was dized in 'is manner. Mrs. Barker and the kids they 'ad it
+all cut an' dried. It was too lite for 'im like to 'ave any s'y in the
+matter. 'Let 'im alone,' Mr. Bruvver'ood says—still called 'im that
+afore stringers, I did—'let 'im alone. 'E'll come to 'isself on the
+steamer. With wot you got and wot a woman can earn cookin' and cleanin'
+w'ere you're goin', 'e can 'ave the fust year to git well and strong.
+It'll be a convalescent 'ome to 'm, Canada will.'</p>
+
+<p>"I took a mornin' off to see 'em start. Wonderful sight it was! Near
+four 'undred on the one trine, singin' 'Old Lang Syne' and 'Gawd Sive
+the King,' and shykin' 'ands all rahnd, and the people left be'ind
+s'yin': 'Leave us in your will.' The nippers was very smart, all in
+new warm togs, and little Gladys wiv a Teddy bear wot my missus giv'
+'er. Thought 'e was coming with 'em up to the end they did. Didn't
+dare to tell'm no different. And at the end, as the guard was a-wavin'
+'is flag, Mrs. Barker broke dahn and frows 'er arms round 'is neck and
+kisses 'im like 'e was another woman or praps more, cryin' like 'er
+'eart would break. 'Good job for you, Foxie,' my missus ses,'as you're
+leavin' the lodger behind.' We all larft at that, and then the w'istle
+blew and the trine went awf wiv 'ankerchiffs at all the winders. 'E
+stood a long time lookin' after it. W'en it was gone,' e turns to me.
+'Let's 'ave one more drink,' 'e ses. 'Wot ho,' I ses. 'But ain't you
+comin' to work? 'Cos we was on a job togevver. 'Not to-d'y,' 'e ses.
+'Tell the foreman I ain't up to the mark.' So we 'ad one drink and I
+goes off, ignorant as a blessed byby wot was in 'is 'ead. And w'en I
+got home in the evenin'——"</p>
+
+<p>"Well——?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gawn, guv'nor. Took all 'is fings—not as there was much—and left no
+address. And I ain't set eyes on 'im from that day to this."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you suggest anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yus, I can. That's w'y I come here. I fink 'e's done something 'fore
+you knowed 'im or I knowed 'im, and is a-goin' to give 'isself up. You
+don't? Well, no matter. Wotever it is, I don't fink 'e'll likely tike
+any steps before 'e 'ears a word from the parties as is in Canada to
+know 'ow they gets on at fust. They 'ave 'is address, I'm sure o' that.
+Wotcher think? Don't that 'elp us a bit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you give me theirs?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Palamount had come well provided with documentary evidence. He drew
+a soiled and crumpled piece of print from another waistcoat pocket. It
+was only the name of the Canadian Pacific agent in Alberta. The straw
+was a very slender one.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll cable them to-morrow, prepaid. And I'll see the lawyers first
+thing in the morning. Don't be afraid," for I thought I detected a
+slight look of anxiety on Mr. Palamount's battered face. "I'm after
+something better even than two hundred pounds."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIb">VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">GENEALOGICAL</p>
+
+
+<p>The first thing I did the next morning, after a sleepless night
+besieged by possibilities, was to send a prepaid cable to Alberta;
+rather for the relief of my own feelings than because my promptitude
+could effect any possible good. Indeed, as the telegraph clerk was
+at pains to inform me, eight o'clock in England is three o'clock
+in western Canada, and the very earliest of alarm clocks had not
+yet delivered its nerve-racking message there. Also I was pacing up
+and down the passage outside Pollexfen and Allport's offices fully
+three quarters of an hour before their managing clerk ascended the
+linoleum-covered stairs, rattling his keys and warbling a morning
+carol, to open them for the day.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pollexfen, the senior partner, was a spruce, well-preserved man,
+with white hair and moustache, but as little of parchment in his manner
+as in his florid, supple skin. He swung round in his chair and listened
+to my story attentively, with the tips of his fingers joined, and
+clicking his well-groomed nails as I talked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! well! well!" said he, with a commentary sigh, when I had ended.
+"It's a strange case: the strangest, I verily believe, that I've had to
+deal with in the whole course of my practice."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled a drawer open and tossed something to me across the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know anything of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"This" was a little book sumptuously bound in blue roan, and bearing
+upon its cover, embossed and gilt, a coat-of-arms, and the following
+legend in old English lettering.</p>
+
+<p>"Pedigree of the Ingram or Ingraham family of Lilburn, Mass."</p>
+
+<p>It was the very pamphlet over which, more than two years ago now, Paul
+had joined me in rather shamefaced laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," I replied. "I saw it at his rooms. Look! there's his name at
+the bottom."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems so strange to us," the lawyer mused. "So contrary to all
+preconceived notions of America. Here, in peer-governed, class-beridden
+England, we take these things so much more as a matter of course.
+Myself, as an instance. I believe we are a highly respectable landed
+family, somewhere in the Eastern Counties, but I'd be bothered to say
+what my great-grandmother's maiden name was, and, I assure you, except
+for some tangible reason, I would regard time spent in finding out as
+time sadly wasted. The very crest on my spoons and carriage is a matter
+of tradition. It's never occurred to me to regard it with any degree
+of complacency. But, indeed, I must own to a rather complete ignorance
+of America, though we manage a good deal of business for clients over
+there. My ignorance extended, until lately, to the very name of the
+city where all this money was made. Oshkosh? You're a journalist, I
+see. Can you truthfully say the name stirs any latent geographical
+idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I've heard Ingram mention it. It's a big grain-shipping place on
+the Lakes."</p>
+
+<p>"Grain?—grain? Yes. That's how the dollars were made, I remember.
+Three quarters of a million of them. Over sixty thousand pounds. We had
+no idea of it. The plainest, driest little man. Stayed at one of those
+cheap Bloomsbury hotels, and lunched on an apple and a wheat biscuit."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say all this money is left to my friend
+unconditionally?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely, sir. Lester Ingraham—he'd even gone back to the old
+spelling—seems to have spent the evening of his days in compiling the
+little book you hold in your hand. That's how he came to be sent to
+us by our New York correspondents. They are big people, and seemed to
+think him very small fry indeed. It had become an absolute obsession
+with him. Used to bore Allport to death talking of the senior and the
+junior branches, and sometimes it was all I could do to keep a straight
+face. His dream had been to buy the old homestead and die there, and he
+told me the discovery it had been pulled down robbed him of ten years'
+life. Then the idea occurred to him, since it had vanished and he had
+no near relatives, to leave his money to the last Ingram born within
+the old walls, the walls which, as he told me impressively, had had an
+Indian arrow-head sticking in them for two hundred and fifty years. He
+had seen that in the museum. Well, well—who says romance is dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sixty thousand pounds!" All the time Mr. Pollexfen was speaking I kept
+writing the sum on the Ingram pedigree with my finger nail, calculating
+interest at, say, four per cent, and thinking of Paul as I had last
+seen him.</p>
+
+<p>"I've told you everything, Mr. Pollexfen. What do you think of our
+chance of finding him again within the year that is stipulated?"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "Very slight indeed, I fear, even
+if the advertisement reaches his eye. You say he had over two hundred
+pounds in a bank at his disposal, and chose to run after cabs. Now, to
+me, that looks very like hallucination. No. If I was the reversionary
+legatee, I'd feel pretty comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>I said I had told him everything, but, as a matter of fact, I had not
+told him what I had every reason to believe I knew, and that is, the
+source whence the money came which Ingram had been loath to touch. I
+wonder, if I had, whether he would have changed his estimate of my poor
+quixotic friend. Codes of honor must seem shadowy things to a man who
+has been instructing counsel for thirty years.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIIb">VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">THE WAITING-ROOM</p>
+
+
+<p>And, after all, it happened so simply in the end. A brief note, lying
+on my table, when I got back, with an address at the top that was
+strange to me, asking me to call "when convenient, for a chat." Imagine
+if I found it convenient. Is there in all the world a cleaner, purer
+joy than to be the bearer of such tidings as mine?</p>
+
+<p>The house proved to be one of some shabby mouldering little stucco
+"gardens" near Chalk Farm. It suggested seediness rather than great
+poverty, and, with my abominable journalist's <i>flair</i> for the
+dramatic, I was almost sorry the contrast was not to be a more
+startling one. Perhaps I hardly realized how much misery a decorous
+exterior can conceal in modern London, until an old woman, bent, deaf
+and short-sighted almost to blindness, opened the door. The hall was
+more than bare; it was naked. Not a picture on the walls, not a strip
+of oilcloth on the boards. On the bottom stair a cheap glass lamp
+without a shade had been set down and filled the passage with wavering,
+smoky shadows. The air was penetrated with the raw smell of paraffin,
+the "<i>triple bouquet</i>" of poverty.</p>
+
+<p>If the nakedness had repelled in the hall, its persistence in the room
+to which I was let find my way was shocking. No curtains nor blinds
+at the window; a low truckle bed, rather felt than seen in the shadow
+at one side; upon the uncarpeted floor a great, crooked parallelogram
+of moonlight. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I made
+out further a chair by the bedside, with a flat candlestick and a
+paper-covered book turned face downward, and a big china wash-basin
+close to the bedside. I don't know what made me look more curiously
+at this than at anything else, and shudder when I saw how dark its
+contents were. Next moment I had felt for his hand and grasped it in
+mine, Thank God! it was not cold and heavy as I had half dreaded.
+Life—feverish, parched, burning life, it is true, but still life, was
+in its contact.</p>
+
+<p>He must have been sleeping, and it is eloquent of his utter abandonment
+that, before I uttered a word, he guessed who had awakened him.</p>
+
+<p>"Clear away that candle and sit down," he said, in a drowsy, muffled
+voice. "No! don't light it please."</p>
+
+<p>I sat down obediently, and looked around me again. Gradually, as I
+gazed, the full significance of the stripped room came home to me. It
+was the bareness of the station waiting-room—the room in which one
+chafes and frets, watching the hand crawl over the clock-face, with an
+ear strained to catch the faint whistle of the train that is to bear us
+away to where we would or should be. That was it. He had come here to
+wait. The poor faint voice spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd been lying here a long time," it said, "watching the moon, and
+it must have sent me to sleep. Don't ride rough, old man," feeling
+clumsily for the hand that was at my eyes. "It's easier for me than
+it would be for almost any one else. I often wonder what it was gave
+me such a conviction of the utter unreality of the world. I think it
+was the years I spent, month after month, alone on the great wastes.
+I used to come into the cities and see the people swarming under the
+arc-lights round the hotels and theatres, and think that's what they'd
+been doing all the while, night after night. One can't take a world
+seriously that can mean two such different things to different men.
+Hold that basin a minute, will you, Prentice? I've got to cough. I
+can't put it off any longer. Thanks! Yes, it was that last winter in
+London that broke the bowl and loosed the golden cord. I thought
+I'd been through a lot and knew all life could do; but, by God! I
+never imagined anything like that. Stop snivelling, man. I tell you
+there's no pain at all now. Just something like a big yawn that gets
+worse while I speak. And I had a lot to say. Do you know, what you
+said rankled a bit: I mean about my not understanding the ethics of
+friendship. Why, old man, I've often said to myself that there'd have
+to be a God if only to thank Him for a friend like you. Now I'm going
+to discharge the debt. Where shall I begin?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him what I knew already. I forget exactly what words I used.
+Poor broken ones, no doubt. I told him he was a hero, a saint: that
+just to have lived a life like his to the end was to have won the bays
+and gained the victory. He stopped me halfway.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, you sentimental old penny-a-liner! Any one would have done
+the same. You'd have done it yourself, and you'd have done it far
+better, because you'd have loved while you worked. That's where I break
+down. Try to see me as I am, Prentice. I like to have you sorry for me;
+but don't let illusion mingle with the regret. I hated them! yes, yes,
+I did. Hated them as a man like me hates anything warm and human that
+encumbers him and tangles his feet upon his own ruinous tragic course.
+Even while those angels sat on my knee and ate their bread and jam and
+asked for more fairy stories I was straining for escape—thinking out
+ways by which I could rid myself of them, once and for all. You know
+the way I took. I had to sell my honor for it—handle money that you'd
+have died before you touched. For I'd given my word to them, fool that
+I was. I'd eaten their bread, and there's only the one law among white
+men. Fumble round, Prentice—there's a tumbler full of water somewhere
+near your feet."</p>
+
+<p>He drank and went on, at first in a calmer voice:</p>
+
+<p>"It began by my going to the theatre where she was dancing. I'd gone
+to the door again and again, taken my place in the queue and come
+away at the last moment. And one night I went on and sat up in the
+gallery, jammed tight, waiting for her. People were talking. I won't
+say what I heard. It may be true. They didn't know that what they were
+heaping up was only more damnation for the shabby, shame-faced brute
+that sat among them, biting his tongue, and keeping his fists deep in
+his pockets for fear he should curse them suddenly and strike them over
+their unclean mouths. And then—she came on the stage, Prentice, and
+kissed her hands, and the whole house got up and roared and cheered.
+But I hung my head. I didn't dare look at her for a long, long time.
+At last, when I knew the dance was over, I found the courage. She was
+curtseying and smiling up at us, and it happened my first glance went
+straight into her eyes."</p>
+
+<p>He gripped my wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the shadow there, Prentice, what I told you of the night we
+walked home: the look I was afraid of when I sent you to meet her. None
+of you see it, because you didn't know her before. God! how it shocked
+me. I couldn't stand it. I jumped up and climbed out. Some of the men
+hit out at me. There's some sort of a chapel on the other side of the
+Circus. The door was open, and there were about twenty people listening
+to a man gabbling in a language that's like nothing in heaven or earth.
+I knelt down on a bench at the bottom of the church and prayed, the
+first time since I swore off—oh! twenty years ago. 'Don't let it touch
+her!' I kept on saying. 'It's up to my neck, it's over my mouth and
+down my loathing throat, but don't let it touch the hem of her dress! I
+give in, God! You have me beaten, eternal Father, all in, down and out.
+But oh, Jehovah, Jahveh! Shining One! don't hurt a slip of a girl.' A
+man touched me on the shoulder. Said I'd better go out and come back on
+an evidence night.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see, Prentice, for all my cleverness, I've had to come to it
+at last. I've had to whine for mercy to the God that made the tiger
+and the cancer microbe. I am only an old Puritan, after all. One
+lifetime's too short to get two centuries and a half of Massachusetts
+out of your blood. The only time a real codfish Yankee's out of
+mischief is when he's making the dollars. A hundred years ago I should
+have been a great preacher of the word, Prentice. One of the sort
+that the sight of a man rejoicing in his strength or a woman in her
+beauty goads to cruel madness. And wherever I'd have gone I'd have left
+bowed heads and chilled hearts and minds half-crazed with the fear of
+judgment to come. What joy I'd have taken in it! I'd have been so busy
+seeing death got its due, it never would have occurred to me life had
+any rights. But it's a hundred years too late for that. The world's
+grown wiser. It never will let that sort of deviltry get the upper hand
+again. They saw it in my work, Prentice. That's why they've kept me
+bottled up and let me kill myself inch by inch with my own poison. But
+if a man can't do ill broadcast, there's always a quiet place where
+mischief can be done. You can always take your revenge for the world's
+common sense on some trustful soul that's laid itself bare in your
+hands...."</p>
+
+<p>Then I think he ceased to talk coherently.</p>
+
+<p>"——and so I said to myself: I'll go down to the sea, where I had my
+darling all my own, pure and loving, before the stain of the world
+reached her or evil tongues made busy with her name. She's there
+still, I know. She's haunting those lonely sands, crying and wringing
+her hands and kissing the old letters because I won't write her any
+new. But she must forgive me when I ask her pardon and show her my
+punishment, and when it's all told, we'll sit hand in hand and knee to
+knee and watch the sun foundering out at sea and when the last little
+red streak has gone——"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off suddenly, and sat up in bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are my clothes? Haven't they sent them yet? I <i>can't</i>—I
+can't be found like this, you know! It's a wretched little piece of
+vanity, but I can't. And now I'm getting so weak, I can't go into town
+again. Perhaps I didn't tell them where to—send—the right number."...</p>
+
+<p>His voice died away in his throat, and he lay back, quite exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly two hours afterward before I left the house for the last
+time. A doctor had seen him, and a nurse was settling in an arm-chair
+to watch him for the night. We'd done what we could to that awful room.
+That wasn't much, but the train was nearly due now, so it didn't really
+matter. There was a lot of work before me on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>And it wasn't until I was halfway home that I remembered the sixty
+thousand pounds!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIIIb">VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">'TWIXT SHINE AND SHADE</p>
+
+
+<p>To be young, to be beautiful, to be free; to radiate a charm which it
+is felt not ungracious alone but ridiculous to pretend to withstand,
+and to be paid for its exercise in the tangible form that renders
+all else possible; to wake one morning and discover that pleasure,
+change of scene, and gracious surroundings have become the anxious
+concern of good genii whose motives are too evident to make any demands
+upon gratitude: to find each day a fairy vista wherein, by a happy
+perversion of the gray old rule, fulfilment waits upon desire: in one
+word, to be "the vogue." Has life ever offered more than this? and is
+it not a mere question of time how long any memory of old defeat, any
+regret for a lost Eden, can resist an assault by happiness made from so
+many quarters?</p>
+
+<p>I think, if the whole truth could be known, Fenella's state of mind
+during her two years of furore would be a curious psychological
+study. I have just been looking through a pile of <i>Sceptres</i> and
+<i>Prattlers</i>, the issue of those enchanted years. It is hardly
+an exaggeration to say her photograph appeared in one or the other
+every week.—Fenella at Ascot—"The Secret of Success. One favorite
+whispers it to another."—"Look pleasant, please! A recent snapshot
+of Lord Lulford's popular niece." (I forget who invented this phrase.
+It was rather done to death.) Here are more: "Commons idol among the
+'backwoodsmen' at the Burbery point-to-point. Names from left to
+right: Miss Barbour, Sir Bryan Lumsden, et cetera, et cetera." "Will
+'No. 8' go up to-night? After a strenuous day with the North Herts,
+Miss Barbour has to hustle to catch the London train." I say, take
+out all the palpable poses, all the profitable winsomeness of poster
+or postcard—there must be one or two where she was taken off her
+guard—and then try to trace the shadow poor Paul fancied he saw. I
+can only say I have failed. Complete absorption in the business of the
+moment—that is all I ever found.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I know that people in the world do not wear their hearts upon
+their sleeves, and that there are all sorts of dodges whereby if not
+happiness, at any rate the peace of mind necessary for due enjoyment
+of life, can be secured. The sad thought can be kept moving on a day
+ahead, an hour ahead; always in sight, as it were, but always out of
+one's mental reach. Even so, the question remains whether such a shifty
+process can be continued indefinitely, and if a day does not come when
+the harassed ghost, weary, like poor Joe, of incessant moving on, takes
+wing, once and for all, for the land of oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>I was years making up my mind about Fenella. I sometimes fancied the
+dear lady knew it, and that that was the reason my brooding glances
+were never surprised. It would have been so easy to look up and catch
+them. "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Prentice." And then—remember
+I'm a journalist, and used to seeing truth sold at the price—"I was
+wondering whether I wasn't only just in time, after all."</p>
+
+<p>She did catch me at last. It was on that night, I fancy, that I passed
+once and for all from the sober status of "my husband's great friend"
+to the more vertiginous one of "my own." Paul was out at some committee
+meeting or another—he leaves her a good deal alone—and would not be
+in till late. I had been sitting silent a long while, watching the busy
+slender fingers and the sweet puckered brow. Knitting is rather a rite
+with Fenella, but I pity the naked she clothes if they had to wait on
+the work of her own hands. She had dropped a stitch. "One—two—three,"
+she was counting under her breath—"<i>one</i> and <i>two</i> and
+<i>three</i>!" and then——Oh, I protest, madam! it was an unfair
+advantage that you took. I forget what answer I stammered out. She
+stuck her needles into the wool, glanced at the clock and told me
+everything.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A long electric launch, whose stern was covered by a white awning lined
+with green, skimmed its way through the lines of moored yachts, and
+across the blue Solent, its prow held high like the breast of a diving
+sea-bird. Over the bows, from which two sheets of water spurted away,
+clear and convex as blown glass, a seaman sat, dressed in ducks, and
+holding a long boat-hook in his hand. Round the ribbon of his glazed
+hat, in letters of gold, the legend ran—</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">S.Y. <i>Castadiva</i>, R.Y.C.</p>
+
+<p>Amidships a tall, broad-shouldered man in blue serge, very sunburnt,
+and wearing a peaked cap, sat, or rather sprawled, in conversation,
+probably technical, with the driver of the dynamo, whose head and
+shoulders only appeared above the half-deck. Under the awning a girl
+was sitting alone. Her furled parasol made a vivid splash of scarlet
+against her snowy dress.</p>
+
+<p>Near the jetty of the yacht club the engine ceased to flutter, and the
+sailor, putting out his boat-hook, drew the launch to shore. The man in
+blue jumped out and, extending a long arm, helped the girl to land.</p>
+
+<p>"Moor her where you can to-night, Mr. Weeks," he said to the head and
+shoulders. "I'll see the commodore to-morrow and find out why we're not
+given our usual berth."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And, Weeks, have the launch sent back at three sharp, with the baggage
+on board. Becket needn't come. I'm going to Beverbrook immediately
+after lunch, and shall sleep there. Good-day, Weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"Good day, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the girl, unfurling her parasol and balancing it daintily
+on her shoulder, walked toward the land, looking about her with a
+bright interest at the blue bay, the white sails of the yachts, and the
+smartly dressed crowd loitering outside the yacht club enclosure. She
+wore a white linen princesse robe, its costly simplicity adorned only
+by a wide band of embroidery that ran from throat to hem, and a big
+gray straw hat trimmed with a wreath of what roses would look like if
+nature had had the good taste to make them the color of pansies—the
+roses that bloom in the Rue de la Paix.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly as she walked, she had reached the hedge of the enclosure
+before her companion overtook her. Inside the lawn was not crowded.
+The big regatta had taken place the day before, and it was lunch
+hour. Such groups as were strolling up and down or sitting in little
+encampments of canopied arm-chairs stopped flirting or talking to
+stare and whisper. On some of the women's faces appeared the dubious
+admiration that is kept for social audacity in their sex. The girl
+seemed unconscious of the effect she was creating and looked about her
+indifferently. Espying some friends in a far corner, she signalled
+vigorously with her open parasol.</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan, there's Lady Carphilly and Mrs. Rolf d'Oyley. I must go and
+talk to them. Will you come too, or wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wait," the man answered shortly. "I've sent in for my letters and
+I'll open them here. We ought to have lunch soon. Don't be long, Flash."</p>
+
+<p>A club waiter who had been standing in the offing with a pile of
+letters on a salver and an initialled leather dispatch case, approached
+and disposed them on a table near the chair into which the baronet
+had flung himself. Lumsden bestowed a casual glance upon the pile and
+looked toward the man's free hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got there?"</p>
+
+<p>"A telegram for Miss Barbour, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to me."</p>
+
+<p>The man handed it over without demur. Bryan ripped it open and read the
+message through. He looked thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"How long has this been here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two days, Sir Bryan."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't they try to get it through by wireless?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say, Sir Bryan. I'll ask if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"No: it doesn't matter. Bring me a 'John Henry'."</p>
+
+<p>He slipped the opened telegram into his coat pocket and, lighting a
+cigar, proceeded to read his mail through, systematically, but with a
+pre-occupied brow.</p>
+
+<p>The past twelve months had dealt hardly with Bryan. There is probably
+in the life of most of us some day, or preferably some night, when fate
+chooses to pay us the arrears of years, in which the hours as they pass
+over our heads grizzle them, and our tears, if tears we can shed, are
+a corrosive acid that bite their record upon our cheeks for all time.
+No one honestly mistook Lumsden for a young man after his little son's
+death.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been something in one of the letters he had just read—may
+be, who knows, something even in the telegram, that made him, after he
+had swept his correspondence, with various pencil scribblings on the
+margins, into the dispatch case, recall that night with rather more
+deliberation than he usually permitted himself, and stare gloomily at
+the group into which, with much embracing and chatter, pitched in a key
+of congratulatory envy, Fenella had been drawn.</p>
+
+<p>How she had changed! How she had changed since then! To-day, as for
+many a day past, it was in nothing more precise than this loose mental
+phrase that his ill-defined dissatisfaction could find vent. Beyond
+it he seemed unable to go, and was even forced to admit a certain
+flimsiness in a charge out of which no better indictment could be
+framed. Because, whatever strain upon his finer perceptions had made
+the year of probation the torture it had undoubtedly been, he could
+not deny that she had remained true as steel to the bargain made
+with him in the house of death—a bargain so vague that scarcely any
+pretext would have been too tawdry to discharge her from it had she
+wished. She had sacrificed her good repute to him forthwith; had even
+seemed eager for circumstances that, as far as the world was concerned,
+should put the sacrifice past doubt, and if, of late, it had been
+coming back to her, as most women's is conveyed from them, in whispers,
+the rehabilitation was not of her own devising, but rather part of
+the observed tendency of murder and other violations of established
+usage to "out." Strangely enough, her fame fared better at women's
+hands than at men's, and worse among those who were convinced of her
+technical integrity (the phrase was even invented for her) than with
+those who inclined to give the ominous face of appearances its full
+value. I don't know why this should have been so. Perhaps vice has
+its own hypocrisies and canting code of law, and her resistance to
+the spirit after the letter had been so admirably fulfilled was held
+an outrage. At least she gave him no anxiety, although he knew that
+temptation had reached her, once from a quarter so exalted that it is
+not usually taken into account—even suspected one wooing as honorable
+as perfunctory, and although all his money and all his good will could
+not make him as young as the hot blood that besieged her. Her house
+was always open to him, at hours which his own forbearance was trusted
+to keep within the limits set by decorum; she kept whisky and cigars
+for him in her sideboard, with even the little sprig of vanilla in
+the cigar cabinet that she must have seen and taken note of in his
+own rooms. She never denied him her company nor discovered affinities
+among his friends; she even seemed to have a tender conscience in this
+regard, and looked round anxiously for him whenever the ripple of
+her little triumphs carried her temporarily out of hail. Whence then
+his secret dissatisfaction? Oh, this termless war of attainment with
+desire, old in human story as the history of David's unruly sons!
+Was Bryan the first to set a snare and grudge the fair plumage he had
+coveted for the marks of his own springe upon it?</p>
+
+<p>She was a great success, socially. She entered the smart world, it
+is true, under his auspices, and because he was sulky if she was not
+asked to the same houses, and because it was important to a good many
+people that Bryan Lumsden, to say nothing of Calvert &amp; Co., should be
+kept in good humor. But, once in, her own talents were quite competent
+to keep her in the place he had made for her. She had even reached a
+point now where her successes were her own, and no longer were held to
+throw reflected lustre upon her sponsor. She fitted quickly and easily
+into what, after all, was her own class. In a year she rode hard and
+straight and had developed a heady but hitherto successful system of
+tactics at bridge. Bryan no longer got the credit of her clothes, but
+it was generally understood she was frightfully in debt and would marry
+him when her creditors delivered their ultimatum. She had an infantile
+wit and a faculty for what the French term <i>choses inouïes</i>. One
+of her riddles became proverbial.</p>
+
+<p>"What did the fishes say to Noah when he asked them into the ark?" "No
+tanks."</p>
+
+<p>I subjoin a few more specimens, not with any hope that their charm will
+subsist in print, but just to show with what things, on pretty lips,
+the weary old world is prepared to be amused.</p>
+
+<p>Once she was trying to collect money for some charity and no one had
+change. This happens sometimes even in smart society. "Oh, dear,"
+sighed Fenella, "everybody has the hand-to-mouth disease."</p>
+
+<p>She was slightly angered at a restraining clause in one of her
+contracts, discovered when too late.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a bad man," she told the flustered manager, "and you deserve to
+come to a nasty sticky end."</p>
+
+<p>To Rock, of ill odor in the Park, after his senile advances had been
+rebuffed by a snobby little Pekinese: "Don't whine, <i>dee-ar</i>!
+I don't believe that kind of dog knows whether it's a dog or a
+poll-parrot or an insect."</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan's caught cold, I think," she said one morning. "He keeps calling
+for 'Letitia'."</p>
+
+<p>If these are fair samples of the parts she put at the disposal of her
+new friends, her reputation is not the surprise it might be to a man
+who knows that the dear lady to this day conducts her conversation upon
+an economical little vocabulary of about three hundred words.</p>
+
+<p>Maybe the conscience we have spoken of had been pricking her, for when
+Lumsden raised his head from his reverie the world had gone red, and he
+was looking at the sun through her parasol.</p>
+
+<p>"You look glum, old man," said Fenella. "What's the matter? Do you want
+your lunch?"</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden got up and stretched. He had been pulling at his moustache,
+and one hair—a white one—was on the shoulder of his blue reefer. She
+picked it off, held it up to the light, looked unfathomably at him and
+blew it daintily into the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we'd best have lunch now," she said. "I want to get to
+Beverbrook soon and see what arrangements they've made. Do you remember
+Edmaston, Bryan, where they put that dreadful polish down—Takko or
+Stikko or something—and when my foot stuck I buzzed and every one
+laughed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you feel nervous, Flash?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a teeny. When do <i>They</i> come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, to dinner; but you won't be introduced till you've danced. And
+remember, Flash, you must only speak when you're spoken to by Them.
+Just answer questions."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try not to disgrace you," she said airily, and led the way to the
+pavilion.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="IXb">IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">BEATEN AT THE POST</p>
+
+
+<p>She was very gay and flippant during lunch, and while crossing the
+bay, and in the motor on the way to the great ducal house, where she
+was going, if not to sing for her supper, at least to dance for her
+dinner. She was very serious and a little dictatorial on the stage,
+but immediately after tea took the owner of the Chaste Goddess and so
+much else by the arm, and proceeded to drag him on a prolonged tour of
+inspection, through the stables, round the noble Italian gardens—at
+whose lichened fawns and satyrs she made faces, expressive of the
+utmost scorn and defiance, but which only succeeded in being charming,
+and the English garden—where the leaden shepherdesses were pronounced
+"ducks"; into the aviary to drive four macaws to frenzy with a long
+straw, and back by orchid houses and hothouses to the terrace again.
+She picked a good many flowers and ate a quantity of fruit.</p>
+
+<p>It was while she was picking grapes in the vine house that Lumsden took
+heart and disburthened himself of a little of his recent chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"Flash! I'm going to scold you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Bryan! what for? For culling all these grapes? I like 'cull,'
+it sounds less greedy than 'pick.' I cull, thou culleth—no,
+<i>cullest</i>—she culls."</p>
+
+<p>"Flash! out of all the world what made you pick on those two Jezebels
+to speak to on the lawn?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with them besides 'jezziness'?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know well enough. They're not nice women."</p>
+
+<p>"Really nice women don't have much to say to me? Have you noticed it,
+skipper?"</p>
+
+<p>"They would if——Oh! stop eating all those grapes. You'll make
+yourself sick."</p>
+
+<p>"If what, please?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you'd only do the straight thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? Go into a refuge?"</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>refuge</i>! What abominable twaddle you can talk when you like."</p>
+
+<p>She laid a sticky finger over his mouth. "Tut-tut-tut! Come outside if
+you're going to scold. It's too fuzzy in here. You'll get a rush of
+brains to the head."</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the garden was deserted. The centre of interest seemed to have
+shifted to the upper terrace. A large horny beetle was pursuing his
+homeward or outward way over the pounded shell of the walk. Fenella
+assisted him with the point of her parasol, and did not relax her good
+offices until he was in dazed safety upon the border. Then she looked
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"Flash! why don't you marry me and have done with it?"</p>
+
+<p>She punched six holes in the path before replying.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to 'have done with?' Why can't we go on as we are a
+little longer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it's—unnatural. There are other reasons, but that's enough."</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't, if you don't let it worry you—Oh! what am I saying? Bryan,
+do you think we'd care as much for one another if—if I did as you say."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we should—more every day."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you keep getting fonder and fonder of those others, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that question most unseemly. You don't seem to realize I'm
+asking you to be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"M-m! It is hard to."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't be clever. Every one's clever. What are you waiting for?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you think you know, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"You're waiting until there's not one little bit left of the girl I
+fell in love with, the girl who tried to hide her bare arms under
+Perse's ruffle in the hall at Lulford, and who cried by the cot where
+my poor little urchin was dying. You've never forgiven me that cursed
+night in Mount Street."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear! I've never mentioned it from that day to this."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's behind everything you say. It's behind your eyes when they
+look at me. Can't you understand I wasn't myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You were a little—eh? Weren't you, dear? Not much; just a gentlemanly
+glow."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's your way of taking revenge for it. And a d——d cruel woman's
+way it is."</p>
+
+<p>She laid her hand on his arm. "Bryan, don't worry me now. I've got a
+lot to go through to-night. It's harder than anybody thinks. There's
+some sense in what you say. But we can talk about it some other
+time.... Oh! look up there! What's happening?"</p>
+
+<p>A big browny-red closed motor-car rolled along the upper terrace and
+stopped at the great doorway. In a moment servants—visitors seemed
+to run together, to range themselves in two lines, one on each side
+of the wide curved steps. Framed in the dark gothic arch, the Lord of
+Beverbrook appeared, noble, white of hair and moustache, with a serene
+and lofty humility in his bent head that was strangely impressive. The
+rest is Apotheosis. Before it we veil our dazzled eyes.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He had not gone to bed at two o'clock the next morning. He sat,
+completely dressed, smoking and looking out his bedroom window over the
+silvering terraces and park. The great gay house was abed: the night
+very still. Only to his left, above the low quadrangle of some stables
+or outhouses, could be seen a dim shaft of light. A murmur of voices,
+the sound of water running and splashing about a hose-pipe, seemed to
+come from that direction.</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts were busy, but not directly with the girl whose interests
+and his own were by now tacitly associated. The night had been a
+new triumph for her—in a way the crown upon all the rest—but such
+triumphs by now were discounted in advance, felt almost to be in the
+order of nature. No. It was the telegram he was thinking of, the
+telegram that he had intercepted on the lawn at Cowes. He had not so
+much forgotten it till now as mentally pigeon-holed it for future
+consideration. This habit, acquired in business, he unconsciously
+followed in all the concerns of life.</p>
+
+<p>Who was making himself this beggar's advocate in London. Who was
+"Prentice." Curse him! whoever he was. Few though the words had been,
+they contained a hint of some previous understanding or rendezvous.
+Who were the conspirators that wanted to drag a girl away from the
+light and laughter that was her due, (influences so desirable from
+every point of view) into the chill shadow of a hospital death-bed. He
+had long ceased to be jealous of Ingram, as of a man whom the world
+that was his friend had taken in hand and beaten handsomely, but there
+is no hatred so merciless and lawless as that with which contempt is
+mingled. The suppression of the telegram never struck him as dishonor,
+although he was not a cruel or a treacherous man. He counted it a
+fair counter-stroke to what he esteemed a blow in the dark, a stab
+from behind. Letter by letter and word for word the hateful thing was
+printed on his brain, but who does not know the instinct of return
+to a message in which substance and significance are so inversely
+proportioned? To have read nine times is no reason for not reading a
+tenth. The screed has not changed, but the mood may have; and, with the
+new mood, who knows what fresh meaning may not leap at us.</p>
+
+<p>He got up, opened the wardrobe, and felt in the pockets of his blue
+coat. It was not in either of them. He considered awhile. Had he
+packed it, with the letters, into his dispatch case? If so, it had
+gone aboard to his secretary, which didn't matter much. But—no. He
+distinctly remembered feeling it in his pocket during the crossing to
+the mainland. Plainly gone, then. But where?</p>
+
+<p>He took the coat off the rack and looked at it as though he would
+read its history since dinner. His own man was not with him, but he
+had stopped at Beverbrook before and knew the valeting was a little
+overdone. R—— was so natty himself. He had flung it on the bed when
+he dressed. Whoever did the room had taken it to be brushed or pressed,
+and the telegram had fallen out of the pocket. How could he be sure?
+Oh! he knew. There had been a tiny smear of white paint under the left
+cuff. If the coat had been taken away——He took it to the light. The
+white smudge was gone.</p>
+
+<p>He was not pleased at the accident, but decided to dismiss the matter
+for the night. The faculty to do so, and to fall asleep on some
+pleasant thought, was part of his life's sound régime. He began to
+think of her again. How prettily she had carried off her success. He
+recalled the little bob-curtsey in the Presence, so in character after
+the hoydenish dance—the gleam of sub-audacity that accompanied it,
+which every charming woman knows she can permit herself in company,
+however august, where her charm is likely to be felt. But who would
+have done it so gracefully? He had stood aloof (it seemed more decent
+to), but he remembered how long she had been kept in the circle, and
+how every one had laughed from time to time. Her competence, her
+amazing competence—that was what he was never done marvelling at.
+Nothing seemed to scare her, nothing to dazzle her. What a genius there
+can be in school nicknames! And then, that chin and jaw of turned
+ivory, and the hair, dark and fragrant as a West India night, and the
+diamond twinkling in the little fleshy ear.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he stood quite still, with his hair-brushes in his hand,
+listening intently. Some one was scratching stealthily on the upper
+panel of his bedroom door. Remember the hour—the stillness—the man's
+old experience, and of what his imagination was full. His heart seemed
+to miss two or three beats, and to resume its function thickly and
+heavily in his throat. The last traces of anger and dissatisfaction
+died away. Women had called Bryan Lumsden's face beautiful before. They
+might have called it so now again.</p>
+
+<p>He walked to the door and opened it softly. It was she; but dressed,
+with her hat and veil, and with the telegram in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan!—Bryan!" she said under her breath, and then stopped. Her
+agitation was so great that she could not go on. He drew her gently
+into his room and closed the door.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be careful, Flash," he said gravely. "This isn't an ordinary
+visit like Lulford, you know. It won't do to have any scandal here."</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan, can I speak to you a minute?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"You know what you asked me this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, I will, I <i>will</i>; any time you like."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the telegram and his face hardened.</p>
+
+<p>"If——?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. If you get me to London to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Flash! it's absurd. Think of the hour! Can't you wait till morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I shall go mad."</p>
+
+<p>"But even if the station is open, it will take hours to get a special."</p>
+
+<p>"You have your car."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but every one's in bed, and the garage probably locked up. Be
+reasonable."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no they're not," she said eagerly. "I can hear them from my
+window. They have lamps and they're washing the cars with a hose."</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>She handed him the telegram quite simply. "I found this on my table.
+It's been opened. I don't understand——"</p>
+
+<p>He read it through again and folded it quite small and evenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your room? You can't wait here."</p>
+
+<p>"At the other end of the corridor—Oh, Bryan! God bless you!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>S-sh!</i> How will I know it? It won't do to make a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I hang a stocking over the knob?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her askance a moment, then put on his jacket and walked
+away into the darkness. After what must have seemed more, and was
+probably less, than half an hour, he tapped softly at her door. He was
+wearing the big coat she knew so well. He had wrapped her in it more
+than once.</p>
+
+<p>"I've arranged it," he said, in a low voice, strangely gentle. "Follow
+me, and walk quietly."</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Xb">X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">A YEAR AND A DAY</p>
+
+
+<p>We got Paul out of that dreadful lodging and into a private ward at
+St. Faith's. I'll never forget the way Smeaton helped. We had the very
+best advice, but all the doctors shook their heads over him. Some old
+adhesion of the lung, they said, that, under normal conditions, he
+might have lived till eighty and never suspected, but which privation,
+or a chill, or a blow, or perhaps all three, had fretted to malignity.
+There'd have to be an operation. It wasn't what is called a desperate
+one, was well within the competence of modern surgery in an ordinary
+case, but everything was against poor Ingram. Webber, who was watching
+the general condition, took no responsibility for the operation, and
+Tuckey, who was to do the cutting, took no responsibility for the
+result. As a division of responsibility, it was the neatest piece of
+work, I think, I have ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not really strength he lacks," said Webber, after his last visit
+before the critical morning. "It's the <i>vivida vis</i>, the desire
+of life, that isn't there. Two grains of hope would be worth all the
+oxygen and beef-juice and brandy we could pump into him in a month."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't confide to Webber that I'd already told Paul sixty thousand
+pounds was waiting till he was well enough to claim it, without seeing
+one shade of pleasurable emotion come into the tired, drooping eyes.
+As for Fenella, her name was never mentioned between us. I don't think
+he had any idea how much he had told me in that dark room at Chalk
+Farm, and I did not remind him. I had reason, soon enough, to bless
+my forbearance, for day followed day, and no answer to my telegram
+reached me. At Park Row I had found a sullen reluctance to give any
+information at all. She was travelling—she was on the sea—had left no
+instructions for forwarding. But a journalist is not to be thrown off
+the scent by a sulky and probably venal little slavey. Two telephone
+calls put me into possession of Lumsden's probable movements, and I
+knew I had not gone very far astray in sending the telegram to his care
+at Cowes. I never doubted for an instant that it had reached her hands.
+No; she had sought advice where advice, perhaps, was already backed by
+natural authority, and had decided that, under the circumstances——You
+see what I mean? It is true she might have written or wired asking for
+news. But trying to repair life's errors is a thankless task. Through
+the breach we are patching up the whole salt, dark ocean of destiny
+comes pouring and thundering about our stunned ears.</p>
+
+<p>I slept little on the night before Paul's operation, and was up and
+moving restlessly about my rooms before the sun had risen. Who is it
+says, "Help cometh with the morning?" The Bible, probably. Anyway, I
+know I was heartened by seeing the rosy glow on the curtained windows
+opposite. It is a strange thing that I, who was to have no share in
+the day's great business, was probably up the first. Paul, I hope, was
+asleep, and I am sure Tuckey and Webber were. How far easier is work
+than waiting! The one has its seasons—a life may be wasted in the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>I was looking out my sitting-room window, thinking this and many a
+deep solemn thought besides, when a big car, covered so thickly with
+mud and dust that its color could not be distinguished, and with the
+unmistakable appearance of having been driven far and furiously,
+swung—one might almost say dropped—into the crescent. I knew it was
+she. Oh, how I loathed myself for my doubt! I had the door open before
+she could put her foot on the steps.</p>
+
+<p>She flashed into my face one mute, awful question in which I could tell
+the anguish of hours was concentrated, and I gave her the mute reply
+which says, "Not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank God! thank God!" she said, and clasped her hands across her
+breast. The man in the car, stooped above the steering-wheel, did not
+move once nor look round.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I see him now? Will he know me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be let see him till nine. The operation is at eleven, and
+there's hope. He was conscious last night but very weak. I can tell you
+no more."</p>
+
+<p>If I sound harsh or cold, lay it to the charge of the man at the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>I went on. "Shall I arrange for you to see him at nine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it far?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just across the river."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll call back at quarter to nine, and you must take me."</p>
+
+<p>She climbed into the car without looking at me again, and next moment
+was gone. Across the road I counted six blinds drawn to one side.</p>
+
+<p>Lumsden never asked whether the man he had brought her a hundred and
+thirty miles to see was dead or alive. His face was set like a stone.
+In the main road he turned it to her, a mere dusty mask.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you want to go now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go to my house. I'll get you a drink and some breakfast. You must be
+half dead."</p>
+
+<p>He headed the car for Knightsbridge without a word, and while Frances,
+sleep struggling with surprise in her bemused brain, was fulfilling
+her humble rôle in the romance by poaching two eggs over the electric
+stove, they sat in the dining-room on opposite sides of the table. She
+had filled a long, thin glass with the beverage his heart loved, but
+he only sipped it, which was not like Bryan, and turned the tumbler
+thoughtfully round and round. He avoided her eyes. He had seemed to
+avoid them all the way up.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come with me to—to the hospital?" she asked, when the
+silence had begun to weigh upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I don't want to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan, since we're to be married, I think I'd best tell you what I
+wouldn't tell that night at Mount Street. Do you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, there's no reason, when you see him, you should feel anything
+but just a great, deep pity for all his unhappiness. I don't know why I
+didn't tell you this before. I think it was your doubting him drove me
+mad. And you're quite right in saying I've changed myself on purpose.
+It was because, after I learned the world a bit, I saw what a fraud I
+really was. All those little girl's ways you liked so much—they're
+very pretty, I dare say, but they're shams for me, anywhere off the
+stage. I had no right to them. I'm only what the world calls a 'good
+girl'—I'm only a girl at all, because he was merciful and—spared me.
+He must have been a very good man."</p>
+
+<p>"Or a very cold one? Which?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well. I'm not going to try to answer that, Bryan. It's what you call
+yourself an 'unseemly question'."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a strange creature."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, I'm not, Bryan. Not a bit different really to heaps and heaps
+of other women. I used to think I was once, at Sharland, because I
+didn't seem to have the other girls' ways or their curiosity. But I
+know better now. Do you remember Lord—the old lawyer beast that we
+went to the White City with? He took me on the launches, and when we
+were alone, he leaned over and told me—oh, something I can't even tell
+you, Bryan—now. He said it in French first and then, in case I didn't
+know what it was in French, he translated it into English. Those are
+the things that make us <i>loathe</i> you, Bryan—deep, deep, deep,
+down in the little bit of us you never reach. But I only giggled, as
+any other girl would have done, any other girl who felt the same as
+me. And now he'll always remember me as—the woman who laughed."</p>
+
+<p>"You're all a mystery."</p>
+
+<p>"Not half as much as is pretended, Bryan. The mystery comes about
+because we don't tell the truth. Married women don't tell it, even,
+to one another, and it's thought shocking to tell a girl things that
+the first man she meets will tell her if she lets him. I hear more
+than most, 'cos I'm not one thing nor the other, and every one thinks
+I'll tell them things back, and then they'll find out what's puzzling
+them about us two. And we never tell you. How dare we? We find a set
+of rules ready made for us—by you. You take the men we really want
+from us because you're stronger than they are, or richer, or even
+braver than they are, and since it's the way you settle things among
+yourselves, and since you're satisfied with what you get by it, we
+pretend we're satisfied too. But it's one thing to conquer them, Bryan,
+and it's another thing to conquer us. I'll tell you a little woman's
+secret: No nice girl ever gives herself up quite to a man unless
+there's a little of <i>her mother</i> in him. There was an awful lot in
+Paul. I found it out."</p>
+
+<p>"A bit of an old woman, in fact?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I see I can't teach you. It doesn't matter. So you see, dear," in
+a different voice and raising her head, "there's not much left for you.
+But what there is I'd rather you had than any one else. I <i>like</i>
+you, Bryan—I like you <i>so</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think I ought to be satisfied with that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know what you said a year ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes—a year ago, but not now. Yesterday perhaps, but not this morning.
+It's the old Scots law limit—a year and a day. Often the wisdom that
+doesn't come in the year comes in a night. You're too deadly wise,
+Flash; too utterly disillusioned. I never could stand it. There'd be
+nothing to teach you; nothing to break down. You believe you've taken
+my measure, and every time I tried to lift our lives out of the mud,
+I'd feel you were laughing at me—down in that little bit you've just
+told me of. It may be as you say, all a make-believe, but, by G—d! it
+doesn't do to have both know it. What do you want most, really? Your
+liberty?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer or raise her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you can have it." He got up and took his cap off the table.
+"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>She didn't speak until he had his hand on the handle of the door. And
+then—</p>
+
+<p>"Bryan, I've never let you kiss me. You can now if you like."</p>
+
+<p>He spun round on his heel, as though some one had given him a blow
+between the shoulders. For a moment she thought he was going to strike
+her, or humble her pride to death. A foul name seemed to be actually
+forming itself on his lips. But he came across the room, and took her
+in his arms, and held her a long while.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, please," she said, breathlessly, "you're hurting me—a
+little."</p>
+
+<p>Then he let her go.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Flash!" he said hoarsely. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?
+Doesn't that tell you something?"</p>
+
+<p>She was looking in the mirror at a little red mark where he had pressed
+the earring into her neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," he said again, and she heard the hall door slam. And then
+the throb of the motor began to rattle the windows in their frames.</p>
+
+<p>She fell upon her knees and buried her face in her hands.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIb">XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ph2">TWO GRAINS OF HOPE</p>
+
+
+<p>If that early morning call at half-past five had been my only meeting
+with Fenella, I don't think I should have known her when she came back
+at nine. All the weariness had gone out of her face. Under her light
+cloak she was freshly and beautifully dressed. Her eyes seemed to brim
+with a sort of wistful happiness. I hated the task; but knowing what
+she was about to see, I <i>had</i> to try and prepare her. But I soon
+saw I was having my trouble for nothing. I think she hardly heard me.
+Her heart, it was plain, was full of that brave, sane hope that, even
+when it is brought to nothing, I think bears sorrow best. Webber had
+just paid his morning visit, but she did not wait for his report. I
+fancy from the look he gave me that he took in the situation at a
+glance. I smiled back at him a little nervously. He had prescribed two
+grains of hope, and I was conscious of bringing an overdose.</p>
+
+<p>In the private ward my impulsive companion took no notice of doctors
+or nurses, but went straight over to the bed on whose snowy pillow the
+poor wasted face lay like a gray shadow. She gave a little moan at the
+first sight of it: that was all. His eyes were closed. She knelt down,
+and passing her arm ever so gently underneath his neck, threw back her
+cloak, and laid the shadowy face upon the warmth, and the fragrance,
+and the softness beneath.</p>
+
+<p>"Paul," she said at his ear, low, but so distinctly that we all heard.
+"Don't you know me, dear? It's Nelly, come back to take care of you,
+and look after you and love you all the rest of your life. You're
+going to get well, aren't you, dear, for her sake? 'Cos you mustn't
+break her heart a second time, you know. And, dear, she doesn't want
+you to talk; but won't you just open your poor tired eyes once, a teeny
+second, to show you know whose arm is round you? Because she's been
+waiting, waiting—oh, such a weary time! just waiting, dear, till you
+sent for her."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a few seconds, broken only by the unrestrained
+sobbing of the little day nurse at the foot of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ingram opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"I don't know whether he's going to die or get well," I said, some
+hours later. I was trying to swallow <i>chateaubriand</i> and
+champagne and unmanly emotion all at the same time, which doesn't help
+lucidity. But I'd been supporting an anxious day on a tin and a half
+of cigarettes, and the champagne was old Smeaton's fault, so perhaps
+I shall be forgiven. "I don't know whether he's going to get well or
+die. I can't feel it matters much, to-night. You'd know what I meant
+if you'd seen his face. Oh! it was wonderful. I think I know now how a
+man looks when he wakes in heaven and knows he very nearly missed it.
+And the Barbour woman, crooning and cooing over him, and the nurses
+snivelling, and all those doctors trying to pull the poor devil back to
+life! Yes, you can laugh if you like, Smeaton. But I say it's a damned
+fine old world, and I'm glad to have a place where I can sit and watch
+it—even if it is only a second-floor front and back in Pimlico."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Possibly Prussic acid.—Ed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Worcester</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p class="ph3">THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK</p>
+
+<p class="ph3">[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75372 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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