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diff --git a/78662-0.txt b/78662-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b503a79 --- /dev/null +++ b/78662-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5434 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78662 *** + + [Cover Illustration] + + + + + THE + TYPE-WRITER GIRL + + BY + OLIVE PRATT RAYNER + + LONDON + + C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED + + HENRIETTA STREET W.C. + + 1897 + + + + + TO + THEODORE RAYNER + + AND + + OLIVER WENDELL PRATT, + + A WIFE’S HOMAGE, + + A SISTER’S LOVE. + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAP. PAGE + I. —INTRODUCES A LATTER-DAY HEROINE 9 + II. —THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 18 + III. —ENVIRONMENT WINS 29 + IV. —THE CHOICE OF A PATRON 41 + V. —VIVE L’ANARCHIE! 47 + VI. —THE INNER BROTHERHOOD 60 + VII. —A MUTINOUS MUTINEER 68 + VIII. —CALLED “OF ACCIDENTS” 83 + IX. —I PLAY CARMEN 95 + X. —SIC ME SERVAVIT APOLLO! 104 + XI. —A SAIL ON THE HORIZON 114 + XII. —A CAVALIER MAKES ADVANCES 131 + XIII. —CONCERNING ROMEO 137 + XIV. —“NOW BARABBAS WAS A PUBLISHER” 145 + XV. —FRESH LIGHT ON ROMEO 155 + XVI. —I TRY LITERATURE 165 + XVII. —A DRAWN BATTLE 176 + XVIII. —AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY 194 + XIX. —“O ROMEO, ROMEO!” 203 + XX. —“WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO?” 223 + XXI. —ENVOY PLENIPOTENTIARY 242 + XXII. —I CLING TO THE RIGGING 253 + + + + + NEW 3s. 6d. BOOKS. + + (TO APPEAR SHORTLY.) + + _____ + + =The Invisible Man.= + By H. G. WELLS. + _____ + + =Fortune’s Footballs.= + By G. B. BURGIN. + _____ + + =The Skipper’s Wooing.= + By W. W. JACOBS. + _____ + + =John of Strathbourne.= + By R. D. CHETWODE. + + + + + THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL. + + + CHAPTER I. + INTRODUCES A LATTER-DAY HEROINE. + +I was twenty-two, and without employment. + +I would not say by this that I was without occupation. In the world in +which we live, set with daisies and kingfishers and undeciphered faces +of men and women, I doubt I could be at a loss for something to occupy +me. A swallow’s back, as he turns in the sunshine, is so full of +meaning. If you dwell in the country, you need but pin on a hat and slip +out into a meadow, and there, in some bight of the hedgerow, you shall +see spring buds untwisting, sulphur butterflies coquetting; hear +nightingales sing as they sang to Keats, and streamlets make madrigal as +they wimpled for Marlowe. Nay, even here in London, where life is rarer, +how can I cruise down the Strand without encountering strange +barks—mysterious argosies that attract and intrigue me? That living +stream is so marvellous! Whence come they, these shadows, and whither do +they go?—innumerable, silent, each wrapped in his own thought, yet each +real to himself as I to my heart. To me, they are shooting stars, +phantoms that flash athwart the orbit of my life one second, and then +vanish. But to themselves they are the centre of a world—of _the_ +world; and I am but one of the meteors that dart across their horizon. + +I cannot choose but wonder who each is, and why he is here. For one +after another I invent a story. It may not be the true story, but at +least it amuses me. Every morning I see them stream in from the Unknown, +by the early trains, and disperse like sparks that twinkle on the thin +soot of the chimney-back—men with small black bags, bound for +mysterious offices. What happens in those offices I have no idea: they +may lend money, or buy shares, or promote Christian knowledge. I only +know I see them come in the morning and flit again at night, sometimes +the same figures, recognisably identical. They rush back, absorbed, to +catch the train to the Unknown, as they rushed up from it earlier. So, +day after day, the tide sets and ebbs; while I stand on the shore of the +vast sea of London like a child that watches. And Commissioner Lin +guards me. + +I have always been grateful to Mr. Samuel Butler for his eccentric +theory that a woman wrote the Odyssey. I do not say that I agree with +him; if I did, I am not aware that any critic would attach the least +importance to my opinion. But it is a soothing theory for us latter-day +women. Without thinking it true, I love to believe it. The Odyssey, you +will grant, is the epic of the imagination. It is the epic of mystery. +In the Iliad, which is the epic of fact, everything is clear-cut, +distinct, commonplace. I do not conceive that a woman could have written +the Iliad. Its theme would fail to interest her. That hard handplay of +battle counts for nought to our sex. Clang of bronze sword on ringing +shield rouses no echo in our heart or brain. It is a masculine poem. How +practical it is, how cold, how everyday, how mannish! Considering its +august age, how little it gleams with the glamour of antiquity! Ulysses +in the Iliad is just a shifty politician, an adroit public speaker. +Achilles is just a petulant, ill-disciplined young warrior—I have met +him in London, fresh home from the Transvaal. The whole mighty saga is a +saga of men’s ideas, so sharp is it in its outlines, so historical, so +definite. But the Odyssey! + +Yes, I read in it clearly the fine hand of a woman. It has the +vagueness, the elusiveness, the melting, hazy charm of feminine craft. +It thrills with mystery; and woman is the mystic. Look at its glorious +dimness. You descry its geography in veiled outline only, as one beholds +the Paps of Jura on a day of sea-fog through swaying sheets of white +cloud from a fisherman’s boat on the Bay of Oban. It is a Celtic +dreamland. From morning to night, in that enchanted poem, on and on we +sail, past uncertain isles or dubious blue headlands, begirt with +fantastic forms, and in perils of the sea more awesome than the real. +Architects have reconstructed Priam’s palace, I believe, from the +description in the Iliad. That is man’s way of describing. But who could +reconstruct, from the rapt words of the Odyssey, Circe’s island or the +gardens of Alcinous? Peering and prying Schliemann found in the +battle-epic a whole plan of the Troad; or, at least, read one into it: +fancy even imagining you could construct a chart of the Mediterranean to +show the homeward maze of the much-travelled wanderer from Ilion to +Ithaca! The bare idea would indicate a misconception of the Odyssey. For +those are the seas and islands that never were; they live but in the +ghost-geography of poets and women. + +As arguments, indeed, the proofs adduced seem to me preposterous. It is +nonsense to say that in the Odyssey the chief _rôle_ is played by women. +Do women’s books deal exclusively, or even mainly, with their own sex? +Is not the Titan man, the strong, sardonic, woman-quelling hero, a +recognised commonplace of women’s fancy? I do not believe an Ithacan +lady wrote the Odyssey _because_ of the relative importance of Penelope +and Nausicaa. Surely even a man might have set Penelope at her web, or +Nausicaa at her tennis. In that I see nothing occult or esoterically +feminine. Men must be aware that every Circe has the power of turning +men into swine. They ought to know; they have seen it done daily. No, +those are not the reasons that weigh with me. It is the wonder, the +magic, the purple mystery, of the Odyssey that tells to my mind in +favour of its female authorship. And though I know Mr. Samuel Butler’s +theory is not true, I thank God I am woman enough none the less to +embrace it. + +But what has all this to do with my story—the story I am setting out in +my own fashion to tell you? A great deal; and besides, unless you let me +tell it in my own wayward way, I can never get through with it. In that +respect also I hold myself true woman. And this is the connection. “If +only we could have lived in those days!” people say. I answer, “You +_are_ living in them.” It is not the days, not the places, not the +things that change, but we who see them otherwise. Consider, the +Mediterranean is the same sea to-day as when the Ithacan lady who wrote +the Odyssey looked out upon its blue zones to behold it peopled with +strange forms and wizard shadows. For that nameless Sappho, that +prehistoric Charlotte Brontë, that inchoate Elizabeth Barrett Browning, +the Ionian main swarmed alive with Gorgons and Harpies as Loch Fyne with +herrings. Sirens sang on every rock to lure the seaman; promontories +glowed red at set of sun with the forges of the Cyclops. You may steam +down the prosaic Adriatic to-day in an Austrian Lloyd steamer—a +fearsome Behemoth, bellowing, snorting, flame-breathing—and identify +those charmed shores of Hellenic fancy, as laid down, with soundings, in +the Admiralty surveys. But that is your blindness. Scylla and Charybdis +are there as of old: ’tis you who turn them into the Straits of Messina. +Polyphemus still haunts his seaward cave: ’tis you who transform him +into a custom-house officer. Adventures are to the adventurous. Go +through the world in search of Calypso, and you will surely find her. Be +modern, and you will find only Willesden Junction. That may suffice for +you. I live in “those days,” as all lovers of the mystical have always +lived in them. + +And I will go forth into the world in search of adventures. They are +sure to come to me; for faith moves mountains. In every age, when the +Princess Cleodolind is sent out from the city as a prey for the dragon, +some youthful St. George, in celestial armour, rides by in the nick of +time, on his snow-white steed, and draws his trusty blade, and fights +for her, and rescues her from the loathly thing. Else what were the use +of faith and of poetry? In every age we fashion the story anew in our +passing manner, dressing it up in our own clothes, and fitting it to our +particular modes and morals. But ’tis the same to the end through all +disguises. The Greeks told it as the tale of Perseus and Andromeda; they +made their hero purely Greek, a triumphant young son of immortal Zeus, +who rescues a beautiful princess, with fair nude limbs like Parian +marble, from the devouring sea-monster. Mediæval Italy made the sign of +the cross, turned the son of Danaë into a Christian martyr, and clad the +beautiful nude maiden in clinging silk robes, as it would fain have clad +Melian Aphrodite herself when it converted her image into a crowned +Madonna. The Renaissance came, and Cellini unclothed her again, in his +revived paganism, to set her polished bronze limbs, where every eye +might see and stare, in the Piazza at Florence. Our modern novelists +dress her up afresh in the princess robe of the day (sage green or +crushed strawberry), and turn her loose on that slimy old dragon the +world, till Prince Charming comes by, as a baronet in a tennis suit, to +lay at her feet ten thousand a year and the title of My Lady. But ’tis +the old tale still, and who lists to tell it may trick it out once more +in his own heart’s fashion. For though there be nothing new under the +sun, the old wonder is there, as marvellous as ever, if you choose to +marvel at it. Each spring brings it back, a perpetual miracle. + +So I set forth into the world, a Princess Cleodolind of the nineteenth +century, ready to face the dragons that, as I well know, abound in it, +and full of faith in the St. George who will come to rescue me. I mean +to sail away on my Odyssey, unabashed, touching at such shores as may +chance to beckon, yet hopeful of reaching at last the realms of +Alcinous. + +From all which you may guess that I am a Girton girl. + + + CHAPTER II. + THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. + +You may guess it, I say; for it is no part of my plan to tell you. Being +a woman, I throw out this hint to pique your curiosity. + +Let us return to the point that I was twenty-two, and had no employment. +Commissioner Lin and I were alone and friendless. + +Four months earlier I had suffered a great loss. How great a loss I am +not careful to assure you. It is far from my desire to make capital out +of my inmost heart. I cannot spin phrases about my dead father. But by +this time the first fierce numbness of my sorrow had worn away; I was no +longer a stone; I was beginning to smile, and to feel the sunshine. A +certain quicksilver light-heartedness in the veins of my race helps to +conceal a background of feeling. Besides, I had my livelihood to earn. +That is a great resource. The need for bread served to edge out my +grief. My first four months had been assured me beforehand in the +Settlement; for we paid in advance, half-yearly, our Warden being a +prudent soul who disliked bad debts, and preferred the safe side. But +when the four months of my deepest mourning were over, it was absolutely +necessary for me to find employment. + +How it all came about I need not inform you: the bank that broke, the +electric light that failed: I was told the details in terms so crabbed +that if I tried to repeat them I could but show my ignorance. + +It was not hard for me to be poor; for in the Settlement we lived as the +other East-Enders live, and I had learned from my match-girls how to be +hungry and merry. But my poverty hitherto had been that of the amateur; +I had now to learn professional indigence. When I shook hands with +Sister Phyllis and Sister Agatha at the door of the guild, leaving +Commissioner Lin in their charge for the moment, and went forth into the +world to earn my living, I had six and elevenpence as available assets. +I was a capitalist in my way. That formed my capital. + +“Under these circumstances,” I said to myself, “the first thing for a +prudent girl to do is to look out for lunch; the second thing is to look +out for a situation.” + +I do not pretend to prevision; on the contrary, I was born to take no +heed for the morrow. I belong to the tribe of the grasshopper, not that +of the ant. But I had been so deeply impressed by Sister Phyllis’s +exhortations during my last four months in the guild that I had taken +pains to learn shorthand and type-writing. I did not then know that +every girl in London can write shorthand, and that type-writing as an +accomplishment is as diffused as the piano; else I might have turned my +hand to some honest trade instead, such as millinery or cake-making. +However, a type-writer I was, and a type-writer I must remain. So I set +forth on my Odyssey by walking down the phantom-haunted channel of the +Strand, and cast anchor for my first halt in an aërated bread shop. + +Luxury, we are told, demoralises this age, and (while I remain a +type-writer) I am absolute to set my face against it. But a cup of +coffee and a slice of seed-cake (not too luxuriously sweetened) lay well +within the compass of my capital. I am a poor arithmetician, but I +arrive by finger-lore at the net result that fourpence from six and +elevenpence leaves six and seven. I took up an evening paper, which some +recklessly extravagant customer had bequeathed to his successors, and my +eye scanned the advertisements. Hands that waved a signal seemed to +catch my glance. “A sail on the horizon!” I cried to myself. And this is +what I read— + +“Shorthand and Type-writer wanted (female). Legal work.—Apply Flor and +Fingelman, 27B, Southampton Row.” + +I felt myself already on the road to fortune. A glance at the date: it +was to-day’s paper! In matters of business, promptitude is everything. I +would be the first to apply. I tossed off my hot coffee with unbecoming +haste, and, deeply impressed with the fact that in this age the struggle +for existence has become one of the rights of woman, I hurried with all +speed to Flor and Fingelman’s. + +I was a Shorthand and Type-writer (female); and I was fully prepared to +be as legal as they desired of me. + +I do not say that “female” is a poetical description. I have never heard +it applied to Heloise or to Ophelia—not even by the grave-digger; +though Touchstone, to be sure, uses it once of Audrey. But the +nineteenth century has a chivalry all its own, which I scruple to +depreciate. If it speaks of us as females, it has given us the bicycle, +and it almost admits that we are as fit for the franchise as the +forty-shilling lodger. It puts us a little lower than the navvies. I +call that magnanimity. + +I had made haste to run up Charing Cross Road, and when I reached +Southampton Row, impressed by the importance of the Struggle for +Existence, I believe I was absolute winner in the race against time for +the position of Shorthand and Type-writer (female). + +Up two pair of stairs, where a notice led, I entered the Outer Office. +Its keynote was fustiness. Three clerks (male), in seedy black coats, +the eldest with hair the colour of a fox’s, went on chaffing one another +for two minutes after I closed the door, with ostentatious +unconsciousness of my insignificant presence. + +No doubt they inferred that I was a candidate for the post of Shorthand +and Type-writer (female), and they treated me as such persons may look +to be treated. Their talk turned upon that noble animal, the horse. + +They spoke also of the turf; by which I understood them to allude, not +so much to the greensward of the downs, as to the imperceptible moral +turf of Fleet Street. The two younger were indeterminate young men, with +straight black hair, and features modelled on an oyster’s. As they +appeared to be loftily unaware of my intrusion, I signified my presence +by coughing slightly. It was the apologetic cough that stands for “I beg +your pardon, but will you kindly attend to me?” They did not permit even +the cough, however, to hurry them unduly. The youngest of the three, a +pulpy youth, adjusted his cuffs, and completed some deep remarks upon +two-year-old form before he turned to stare at me. I suppose he was kind +enough to be satisfied with my personal appearance, for after a while he +wheeled round on his high stool, and broke out with the chivalry of his +age and class, “Well, what’s your business?” + +My voice trembled a little, but I mustered up courage and spoke. “I have +called about your advertisement for a Shorthand and Type-writer +(female).” + +He eyed me up and down. I am slender, and, I will venture to say, if not +pretty, at least interesting-looking. + +“How many words a minute?” he asked after a long pause. + +I stretched truth as far as its elasticity would permit. “One +ninety-seven,” I answered with an affectation of the precisest accuracy. +To say “Two hundred” were commonplace. + +The pulpy youth ran his eyes over me as if I were a horse for sale. I +was conscious of my little black dress and hat; conscious also of a +fiery patch in the centre of my cheek; but if you struggle for life you +must expect these episodes. “That’s good enough,” he said slowly, with a +side-glance at his fellow-clerks. I had a painful suspicion that the +words were intended rather for them than for me, and that they bore +reference more to my face and figure than to my real or imagined pace +per minute. + +The eldest clerk, with the foxy head, wheeled round, and took his turn +to stare. He had hairy hands and large goggle eyes. + +“Got your own machine?” he asked. + +“Yes.” + +“What sort?” + +“A Barlock.” + +“That’ll do,” he said, eyeing the rest. And again I detected an +undercurrent of double meaning. He seemed to be expressing modified +satisfaction at my outer personality. + +They questioned me for some minutes with equal grace and charm. Then the +eldest rose slowly. “I’ll tell the governor,” he murmured, and +disappeared through a dingy door marked in large letters “Mr. +Fingelman.” + +In a short time he came back and beckoned me mysteriously. I followed +him, trembling. He waved his hairy hand towards me as if to show me off +to the man at the table. I felt disagreeably like Esther in the presence +of Ahasuerus—a fat and oily Ahasuerus of fifty. “This is the young +person,” he said, by way of introduction. + +Ahasuerus—otherwise Mr. Fingelman—inspected me in turn. I quailed +before his glance; he was a commissioner for oaths, and wore large round +spectacles. “Had experience?” he asked at last. In person he was rotund +and obviously wealthy, though ’twas a third-rate solicitor’s. + +“A little,” I replied. I had made up my mind to say “Lots” beforehand; +but when it came to the pinch, the ingrained bad habit of speaking the +truth reasserted itself partially. + +Ahasuerus stared. “What name?” he asked, after a long stony gaze. + +I stammered out “Juliet Appleton.” + +“Age?” + +“Twenty-two.” + +He perused me up and down with his small pig’s eyes, as if he were +buying a horse, scrutinising my face, my figure, my hands, my feet. I +felt like a Circassian in an Arab slave-market. I thought he would next +proceed to examine my teeth. But he did not. Having satisfied himself as +to externals, he went on to put me through my paces. + +“Sit down there,” he said, pointing to a seat. “Have you pen and +note-book?” I produced my stylograph. + +He grunted approbation, and dictated for a few minutes a short +business-letter. Then he waved me to the type-writer. “Transcribe,” he +said curtly. I sat down and transcribed. + +The chief clerk meanwhile stood by, with his hairy hands crossed in a +curved attitude of ostentatious servility, which contrasted strangely +with his Outer Office manner. When I had finished, he peered at my work, +nodded, and handed it over to Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus ran his eye up and +down, grunting again. “She’ll do?” he said interrogatively. + +The chief clerk signed _yes_. + +“She’s the first we’ve seen,” Ahasuerus interposed, with caution in his +tone. + +“Saves trouble,” said the chief clerk. I was aware with a rush of hot +blood that the chief clerk approved of me, and that to his lordly +approbation (as of the Sultan’s Vizier) I owed my appointment. + +The Oriental monarch waved his pen towards the door. “Very well,” he +answered. “Settle terms with her outside. You know what I give. Bother +me no more with it.” And wheeling round his swivel-chair, he buried +himself in his writing. + +The terms the Vizier proposed were not wholly superior to the dreams of +avarice; but they were a modest starvation; and after my East-End +experiences, I looked for no more. I accepted them without demur, and +went forth into Southampton Row an engaged type-writer. + +I have a mercurial temperament. My spirits rise and fall as if they were +consols. This success exalted me. I walked down Charing Cross Road (by +no means, as a rule, an exhilarating thoroughfare) in the seventh +heaven. I had justified myself before the impartial tribunal of +political economy. I could earn my own bread—butter doubtful. In the +Struggle for Life I had obtained a footing. This magnificent post of +Shorthand and Type-writer (female) had been thrown open by advertisement +to public competition. In that competition I had won the day. My energy, +my promptitude, the rapid resolution with which I had gulped down my +coffee, burnt my tongue, and rushed off to Southampton Row, had secured +for me the prize of a modest starvation. I had proved myself fittest by +the mere fact of survival. Matthew Arnold had taught me, indeed, with +much sweet reasonableness, that there was not any proper reason for my +existing; but I like to exist. The sole remaining question was, Could I +adapt myself to my environment? If so, I had fulfilled the whole gospel +of Darwinism. + + + CHAPTER III. + ENVIRONMENT WINS. + +It was a wrench to tear myself away from my old men and women in the +Isle of Dogs, for I truly loved them. The operation left a scar that was +slow to heal. I felt I did them good: my visits cheered them, unlike the +curate’s; my whimsical talk broke the monotony of old age and the +East-End. But doing good is a luxury, and I was now face to face with +the strict necessity of earning my livelihood. Yet hope lies still at +the bottom of Pandora’s box. Though I had but six and sevenpence in the +world, and starvation wages, I started blithely to my work at Flor and +Fingelman’s. + +I had found a room meanwhile to which my purse consented. The normal +difficulties of lodging-hunting had been aggravated in my case by the +need for finding a house where I should not be separated from +Commissioner Lin; which made a back-yard a necessity: but I succeeded in +surmounting them. Commissioner Lin, I may say, to allay your fears, is +my mongrel Chinese bull-pup. Like Ulysses, I have a dog; he is ugly, but +_a beauty_, and, oh, such a dear! I may starve, but the Commissioner +shares my last crust. + +Geographically, my post was in the Outer Office. Early each morning I +went in to the inner recess of Shushan the palace to receive Ahasuerus’s +instructions, and to take down from his royal lips my shorthand notes, +which I afterwards expanded on the type-writer in the anteroom. +Ahasuerus was graciously pleased to like me. I found favour, also, in +the eyes of the Grand Vizier; he was good enough to say my work was +intelligent. I had doubts in my own mind as to the Vizier’s competence +to form an opinion on this head; but was he not a man—a vote-wielding +citizen, empowered to take his share (vicariously) in the counsels of +the nation? and was not I but a Shorthand and Type-writer (female)? I +bowed to the wisdom of the superior sex, and answered with a modest +blush that I rejoiced to have earned his approval. + +The morning and afternoon were taken up in expanding letters and copying +drafts of documents. Their style was execrable. The principal verb +adroitly concealed itself: the principal adjective was usually +“aforesaid.” Now, regarded as an epithet, I find “aforesaid” colourless. +Its monotony bored me. I suggested to Ahasuerus that his prose might be +enriched by a greater variety of graphic adjectives such as +“amethystine,” “prismatic,” “opalescent,” “empyrean,” or even +“colossal;” but he stared at me coldly, and replied in a curt voice that +legal phraseology was necessarily limited. The Grand Vizier, also, +cavalierly rejected my mild suggestions for an enlarged vocabulary. He +contended that I should model my composition on _Chitty on Contract_. He +was right, of course; but I found the iteration of “provided always” in +that well of legal English intensely irksome. + +The anteroom where I clicked was shared by the Grand Vizier and the two +other clerks. They talked incessantly; I was forced to continue my +transcription without interruption, in spite of their voices. I will +admit that their discourse, as such, by no means distracted me, in +virtue either of its intrinsic attractiveness or of the nature of its +subjects. It circled chiefly round the noble quadruped, with divergences +on Rugby and Association football. I did not gather that the Vizier and +his satellites knew much at first hand about the breed of race-horses, +nor could they have distinguished with ease between a fetlock and a +cannon-bone. They loved sport from afar: they were platonically horsey. +But they were diligent students of a daily journal in the interest of +manly pastimes: and they extracted from its pages many charming +speculations as to the numerical chance of first and second favourites. +They also spoke freely of the ladies of the music-hall. As their tongues +rippled on, with peculiar London variants on the vowels of our native +language, my type-writer continued to go click, click, click, till I was +grateful for its sound as a counter-irritant to their inanity. + +That click, click, click became to me like music—if only because it +drowned the details of the Lewes Spring Meeting. I saw in it all a trail +of Ibsenesque atavism. The horse was the sacred beast of the English in +the days of Woden, and, in spite of St. Augustine and John Wesley, his +worship still survives, its festivals attracting thousands of pilgrims +each year to the centres of the cult at Epsom and Newmarket. Devotees +may be known by their badge, a pink paper, which blushes itself, and is +a cause of blushing in others. + +Another peculiarity of the Outer Office was its richness in dust—the +dust specific to a solicitor’s premises. I think, in this age of +sanitation, I have kept my head tolerably unprejudiced on the subject of +germs; I do not speak evil of bacteria with the reckless extravagance of +the world at large; I am prepared to live and let live; nor do I deny to +the bacilli of typhoid fever the common right to the struggle for +existence. But the bacilli at Flor and Fingelman’s, I must admit, were +obtrusively aggressive. They carried the war into Africa. They flew +about me visibly whenever I lifted a book; they settled in myriads on my +poor black dress; they invaded my hair, and required to be daily +dislodged by violent hostilities. The three clerks seemed to me to +disregard them altogether; and when I ventured timidly to suggest a +duster, they were almost as horrified as when I proposed to vary the +bald language of a writ by the introduction of a few graceful chromatic +adjectives. Fustiness and mustiness are part of the profession, it +seems; you must no more attempt to sweep the Augean stables than to +carry out that other Herculean task—the simplifying and codification of +the law of England. + +For three mornings and three afternoons I endured Flor and Fingelman’s. +It was a question of self _versus_ environment. I am a unit of the +proletariat, and dear Sister Agatha had impressed upon me often, with +her sad, sweet smile, the fundamental truth that beggars must not be +choosers. So I continued to click, click, click, like a machine that I +was, and to listen as little as possible to the calculated odds upon +King Arthur for the Ascot Cup, till I was tired of the subject. On the +fourth day, however, the rebel in my blood awoke. Not for nothing had my +fathers fought at Lexington. I felt I must strike one blow for freedom. +The aforesaid office failed to respond to the needs of the party of the +first part. I went out to lunch, half resolved in the whirligig I call +my mind never to go back again. + +It was not the Grand Vizier, with his hairy hands, his goggle eyes, and +his false diamonds; though a certain insolent condescension in the +creature’s manner made me shrink from his presence. It was not the +junior clerks; though the tone of voice with which they addressed me as +“Miss” reminded me of the accent in which I had often heard men of their +type bespeak a defenceless barmaid; while their demeanour varied from +the haughty to the condescending. It was Ahasuerus himself whose +Oriental leer drove me from the office. I felt sure Ahasuerus considered +his manner killing—a three-tailed bashaw, with a natural gift of +captivating Circassians. His smile was the smile that knows itself +irresistible. He had not as yet ventured anything rude to me; but I +scented prospective rudeness in the way he watched me come in and +out—the way he beamed on me benignly, with his small pig’s eyes, as who +should say, “See how bland and how pleasant I am; you must rejoice, mere +female, to have secured the favour of so genial a gentleman, who revels +in semi-detached affluence at Balham.” I fled from his oily face, +assured that the law was not my proper sphere. I would diverge into +paths of more commonplace business. + +All this time I had been living upon Capital. If you judge such conduct +imprudent, remember that I could hardly have lived upon its interest. My +six and sevenpence was almost spent. I owed my landlady (at the single +room I had taken) for bread and rent. I had nothing left for my own food +or for Mr. Commissioner. The outlook was serious. Dimly aware of failure +in the Struggle for Life—inability to succeed in Adaptation to the +Environment—I retired for lunch to a little shop close by, whose merits +the Grand Vizier had from the first impressed upon me. + +At the table by my side sat two middle-aged men. They were talking +earnestly. I detected at once in the mellow tone of the better-looking +of the two that he was a Cambridge man and a political economist. The +Moral Sciences Tripos has its special aroma. After the rippling +tittle-tattle of the noble quadruped I was glad to listen even to the +voice of economics. I strained my ears. It was pleasant to hear educated +men speak again. And their talk was full of interest. + +“You have been to see them?” the first voice said. + +“Yes,” the Cambridge man answered. “It is an interesting experiment, +though foredoomed to failure. They say they want to try anarchy in +practice. They have bought ten acres of wild land very cheap; they are +getting it into tillage; and they mean to manage it upon Kropotkine’s +system of intensive culture.” + +Intensive culture! I saw at once what that meant. What a capital plan! +Till the land to the utmost, so as to make the largest possible amount +of food or roses come out of it. And anarchists, too! Why, I was born an +anarchist. Never could I endure being ordered about by anyone. After +Flor and Fingelman’s—click, click, click, all day—what a vista of +Eden! I sat a postulant at the gate of that Paradise. Just to go out +into the fields and till them anarchically! + +“And have they no organisation?” + +“None at all. He told me it was a band of brothers. I asked him by what +rule they worked. He said each man or woman laboured when he or she +chose! If he didn’t feel inclined he left off for that day and sat in +the sun, basking. They cultivate in common; each member of the community +receives food and clothes; and at the end of the week, if any surplus +remain, they divide it between them by way of pocket-money.” + +“Then it acts, so far.” + +“Yes, apparently. But ’tis new. They look healthy enough, though pallid, +and they are certainly enthusiastic. I asked Rothenburg how he liked it; +he said it was delightful—ten thousand times better than being a tailor +in Paris.” + +I could no longer restrain myself. A caprice seized me. I leaned across +the table. “Pardon me,” I said, “but may I venture to ask, as an +anarchist in the grain, where shall I find this Utopia, this Eldorado of +anarchy?” + +The Cambridge man smiled. + +“Near Horsham,” he answered. “But—excuse curiosity—are you _really_ an +anarchist?” + +“I will join them!” I cried, clasping my hands. “I have every +qualification. I am alone in the world, and penniless—splendid material +for anarchy. Such idyllic anarchy, too! Do they receive mere women?” + +“I think,” the Cambridge man replied, “they would be charmed to take +you. But remember, they are uncultivated—the raw material of a state, +rough working men and women. Go down and see them by all means. But when +you have inspected their home I venture to hazard a guess that you will +decide it is not meant for ladies.” + +“I am young,” I answered; “I have tolerable strength and abundant +energy. Misfortunes are nothing if one takes them in the spirit of +camping out. Hardships cease to be hardships when you talk of them as +roughing it. After all, it is only what we voluntarily do at a picnic up +the river. At least, I will go down and interview your anarchists.” + +He scribbled their precise address on the back of an envelope, with a +smile for my enthusiasm. I went home to my solitary room at once, and +sat down to my private and particular Barlock—the same on which I am +inditing these present memoirs—to write out my resignation to Flor and +Fingelman. + + “GENTLEMEN, + + “WHEREAS I, the undersigned, have worked for three days + and upwards, be the same more or less, to my great discomfort, + in your dingy, stingy, musty, and fusty office; and WHEREAS I + have found the post of Shorthand and Type-writer (female) which + you have deigned to bestow upon me, in the aforesaid office, + highly disagreeable to my mind and brain, owing as well to the + impurity of the air as to the dulness and monotony of the terms + employed in it; and WHEREAS I am now desirous of seeking other + and more congenial employment elsewhere than in the aforesaid + dinginess, stinginess, mustiness, and fustiness, as herein + designated, NOW THEREFORE, This Indenture Witnesseth and know + all men by these presents, that I have made up my mind not to + return to your messuage or tenement this afternoon, nor on any + subsequent date, but to relinquish entirely the aforesaid post + of Shorthand and Type-writer (female) with all and sundry the + emoluments or salaries thereto pertaining, and to say good-bye + to you, the aforesaid Flor and Fingelman, and to your Grand + Vizier and other faithful satellites. In witness whereof I have + hereto set my hand and seal, this twenty-first day of May, in + the year of our Lord, &c., &c. + + “JULIET APPLETON.” + +I put it into an envelope and dropped it into the post; then I turned +again on my way, a Free Woman. + +Free, but penniless. + +Hurrah for anarchy! flowery, bowery anarchy, in a careless-ordered +garden, run wild with eglantine! Could a Peri hope to storm that Eden? + + + CHAPTER IV. + THE CHOICE OF A PATRON. + +I prowled along the Strand, in quest of an inspiration. You will readily +conceive that the situation was serious. I had disbursed my last coin +for lunch that morning. True, I had still my bicycle; and by its aid I +might set off to join my unknown brothers, the anarchists, near Horsham. +But my heart smote me, for I had not wherewith to pay my landlady. Had I +worked out my week with Ahasuerus, no doubt I might have settled her +bill, and gone on my way honestly. But I could not leave her in the +lurch; nor, indeed, could I set out without the contents of my modest +portmanteau. My effects must go with me. Thus the position teemed with +difficulties. I had an aunt in London, of course; I suppose not even the +most destitute are ever wholly deprived of the solace of a maiden aunt +in London. Conscience suggested that in such a crisis I ought to consult +her. But fortunately I belong to a generation which has analysed +conscience away. “Go to the aunt,” said Duty. “Stop away,” said +Inclination. And Inclination, as usual, won in a canter—I might almost +say, Inclination walked over. If you doubt that these metaphors are +becoming on a woman’s lips, you must recollect that my style had been +suffering for three days from the enforced proximity of the Grand +Vizier, his satraps, and the noble quadruped. + +I _could_ not go to the aunt. She was the average woman of the small +fixed income; prosaic, stagnant, serenely literal; a placid pool that +reflects its surroundings. It was her fixed belief that everything I did +was in equal parts foolish and wicked. No doubt she was right; but her +arguments vexed me. “It is quite impossible for a young lady to do so,” +she said about many actions which I knew from experience to be not only +possible but actual. So I avoided the aunt, and set my face toward the +shop-windows for light and guidance. I found it, of course. Faith is +always rewarded, or I like to think so. At a corner shop, devoted to the +sale of more or less genuine _bric-à-brac_, I saw in the window a +charming little Fra Angelico, almost a replica of a miniature I +remembered to have noted at the Vatican. Whether it was authentic or not +I do not presume to decide; who am I that I should give myself the airs +of a Morelli? But its _naïveté_, its grace, its frank purity of colour, +were obvious at once, even to the eye of a woman. The picture +represented what is called in art the Charity of St. Nicholas. Through +an open door you see into the home of a poor nobleman. ’Tis a dainty +interior, of the age when drab had not wholly ousted the primary hues. +In the background his three starving daughters lie snugly in bed—a trio +of innocent maidens, with pretty blonde heads of infantile +guilelessness, laid on white pillows, between dimity curtains. In the +foreground the nobleman their father is seated, the picture of despair, +in a long vermilion robe and a brown study; without, by a grated window, +the dear young saint himself, in Florentine hose, with a sleeveless +jerkin, stands timidly on tip-toe, in the very act of dropping three +purses of gold as dowries for the maidens through the open casement. The +story is told with the pellucid simplicity of early Tuscan art; no airs +and graces, but just the bare outline of facts which it behoves you to +know;—these girls are poor; their father is at his wits’ end; and +yonder amiable young gentleman, in crimson and puce, has come to their +rescue, like a gallant Christian, with purses of gold very fat and +opulent. + +I stood long and looked at it. It was so archly engaging. The clear-cut +outlines, the translucent hues, the sweet old-world directness, the +story-telling faculty, each charmed and beguiled me. “After all,” I said +to myself, “St. Nicholas, not St. George, is the saint for me. My dragon +is poverty. St. George for princesses; St. Nicholas for the poor and +portionless maiden!” I gazed at him long, with affectionate eyes; then I +went on my way towards the National Gallery, strengthened and comforted. + +Have you found out the true use of the National Gallery, I wonder? On +three days in the week the British nation throws those stately rooms +open, free, to any woman who chooses to enter them. I use them as my +drawing-room. You get a comfortable chair to sit upon for nothing; you +get pictures to look at; and in winter the gallery is heated by flues, +over which you can stand and warm your feet gratis. I went in on this +critical afternoon of my history, not only for rest, but in search of +St. Nicholas—St. Nicholas of Myra—St. Nicholas of Bari—St. Nicholas, +the giver of dowries to damsels. My dear father had been a lover of +Italian art, and had taught me betimes the legends of the saints, +without which Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli talk a strange tongue to +you. I was certain now that St. Nicholas, not St. George, was my +predestined patron. He was so good to the poor, and especially to +maidens. In many pictures on those walls I beheld him as of old, in his +bishop’s robes, benign and benevolent, a model of suavity, holding the +three golden balls which typify the three fat purses of gold he threw in +at the window to the starving daughters of the nobleman of Myra. He was +the saint of the oppressed, the enslaved, the suffering. If knighthood +had its St. George, serfdom had its St. Nicholas. I saw him again, with +his three spheres of gold, traced by the hand of Raphael in the Blenheim +Madonna; a courteous old gentleman here, bland and mild, and very sweet +of feature. I saw him in many other less famous pictures, a friend in +need, ever gentle and helpful, the patron of children, of the +distressed, of the storm-tossed. I saw him in many guises, painted for +the most part in what, in default of exact knowledge, I will call a +chasuble, but always as the deliverer. My heart went forth to him. “Holy +Nicholas,” I murmured, “you were my father’s friend; be my friend as +well! Stand by me, and protect me!” + +I issued once more into the phantom-crowded Strand. Below, the streaming +street was full of those hurrying, scurrying men with black bags, bound +as ever for the Unknown. But above—I lifted my eyes, and there, clear +against the sky, I beheld—the three golden balls of St. Nicholas. + + + CHAPTER V. + _VIVE L’ANARCHIE!_ + +I drew a deep breath. He was the poor man’s saint; his symbol has +descended to the poor man’s banker. + +Yet my confidence after all was not all misplaced. St. Nicholas, at a +pinch, would provide my dowry. + +It flashed across me at a stroke what those golden balls meant. Never +before had I divined their meaning—their intimate connection with my +newly-chosen patron. I caught at it now clearly. Nicholas, I knew, was +the saint of the people—the saint of the labourer who toils for daily +bread, of the fisherman who struggles with the stormy sea, of the +orphan, of the slave, of the child, the captive, the prisoner, the +unfortunate. No wonder, then, that his golden balls have survived as the +badge of that generous profession which freely lends to all the poor who +leave a pledge behind. + +I accepted the omen. Tempest-tossed as I was, my precious type-writer +might save me for the day from the present distresses. I hurried back to +my attic in a street off Soho, packed it up in its case, and carried it +with difficulty in my own small arms to the shrine of St. Nicholas. + +My errand, I grant, was new, and repugnant. But necessity, like our +magistrates, knows no law. I will not pretend that I passed those +dubious portals without a flush of shame. Still, I passed them bravely. + +“How much?” asked the acolyte. + +I was inexperienced in the ritual of the sordid temple. “Three pounds?” +I queried tentatively. + +He cut me short with a gesture of contempt. “We could do thirty +shillings.” + +“I _paid_ twenty pounds for it,” I murmured. + +He shrugged his shoulders. “An error of judgment, I should say. Thirty +shillings. Do you take it?” + +I was anxious to escape from the squalid place. Bundles of shabby +clothes in square pigeon-holes daunted me. “I accept,” I said, gasping. +He counted out the money, and handed me a ticket. + +I fled, like one followed by a roaring wild beast. No quicker flies the +Arimaspian whom the gryphon pursues. Nor did I pause or halt till I +reached my own bower. Safe back in that stronghold, I bolted and locked +the door, and washed the pollution off me in an orgy of cold water. + +Then the dignity of womanhood reasserted itself. I sat back in the one +arm-chair, and reflected. A freak is dear to my soul. I would pay my +weekly bill before starting, carry my knapsack with me, and engage the +room for another week in advance, in case the anarchists should chance +to prove too anarchic for my taste. And after that, who dare call me +imprudent? ’Tis the habit of twenty-two to burn its boats. When it takes +measures for preserving them, you should give it credit for singular +forethought. + +I had still my faithful bicycle. I rose betimes next morning, and endued +myself in my cycling costume, which, like all else about me (I trust), +is rational. The Commissioner and I stole silently down the stairs. +Before London was well awake we had left Westminster Bridge behind us in +the haze, and were off on the open road, on our way towards Horsham, two +palmers bent for the Holy Land of Anarchy. + +How light and free I felt! When man first set woman on two wheels with a +pair of pedals, did he know, I wonder, that he had rent the veil of the +harem in twain? I doubt it; but so it was. A woman on a bicycle has all +the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man +hindering. I felt it that brisk May morning as I span down the road, +with a Tam o’ Shanter on my head, and my loose hair travelling after me +like a Skye terrier. + +“This,” thought I to myself, “is truly my Odyssey. To play at being a +latter-day Ulysses in London, among those crowded streets, is like a +child’s game—too much make-believe. But mounted here on the ship of the +high-road, scudding gaily down hill, or luffing against head-winds on a +steep upward slope, I feel myself the heroine of a modern sea epic. As I +coast by narrow straits of hedge-bordered lane, round some lumbering +cart, I steer with care betwixt headland and whirlpool. Siren inns hang +out signs to beckon me into port; piratical carts, buccaneering drays, +skidding fast down long slopes, strive to crush me as they pass like +living Symplegades. In perils oft, I yet feel the fresh wind in my +teeth, and see the foam of May break over hawthorn promontories. Troy +lies behind; in front of me beckons the peaceful Ithaca of my anarchist +settlement.” + +The road, indeed, was a pleasant one. Lying at first among suburban +quarters, pink with blossom at that perfect moment of the year, and +heavy with lilac, it grew greener by degrees as it stretched out to the +rising plain of Surrey and then swelled up slowly into the great breaker +of the chalk downs. That huge wave of land rises in a long curve on the +side towards London, but curls over abruptly by Box Hill and Dorking, +like a billow that has hardened in the act of breaking. My way led me +through a deep gorge that cuts the slope of this ridge at right angles, +beside a wandering stream, as though one stroke of some great magician’s +wand had cleft a way for it through the barrier. The ravine is bordered +to the left by a cliff-like edge, overgrown with juniper bushes. They +call it the Vale of Mickleham. Spring had put on her best frock for my +visit. I rode at a good pace. Commissioner Lin toiled behind, with his +tongue out. Then we broke into the open, where a steeple showed the way, +and through a billowy common, crest after trough alternately, dotted +thick with holly-trees, across the Weald of Sussex. A still, pearly-pale +sky hung over the misty level. Despondent donkeys munched furze-tops and +mused pessimism. Trains dashed under bridges with long streamers of +steam, as I rode over them unabashed—huge monsters of burnished brass, +snorting death from their throats, such as would have terrified the +timid Achæan sailors. But I took no heed of them—I, the braver daughter +of an iron age, trained to disregard dragons of that mechanical sort, +and to fear only those against whom St. Nicholas is potent—I had seen +one but yesterday on Margaritone’s panel. The horses that passed over by +my side reared and quivered at the ungainly monster; but my undaunted +steel palfrey, himself a scion of the iron age, showed no sign of +weakness. Or if he trembled at all, ’twas something wrong in the +gearing. + +A mile or two from Horsham I diverged, as directed, down a cross-road to +the left. ’Twas a level lane in champaign country, bordered by a low +hedge of close-clipped maple. The fields were of leaden clay—so much I +saw where they were ploughed—muddy, and all but impassable in wet +weather, to meet which state of morass every cottage was approached by a +small paved causeway of flags, giving a singularly distinctive note to +the district. Many such I passed, each built of pale red brick, each +tiled with mossy tiles, and each approached through a square of front +garden by its town-like pavement. The lanes were a maze, running +aimlessly hither and thither. One after another, as I tried it, led me +back by circumvolutions to a rustic Clapham Junction, the centre of +Nowhere. Judge if I was nonplussed. + +At one of the cottages I reined up at last, and, leaning from my saddle, +called out to a boy who was weeding the front patch: “Can you tell me +where I shall find the anarchist settlement?” + +The boy looked up, taken aback. It was clear that the rationality of my +dress astonished him. And, indeed, ’tis so rare to be rational in this +world that I was not surprised at his surprise. He stared at me with a +frank provincial stare; I am not sure that he did not design heaving +half a brick at me, in recognition of my originality. But he contented +himself with a few contumelious epithets, which did not hurt me. I flung +him a penny; this softened his heart. He answered, after a pause, “I +guess you mean them furriners.” + +The American blood in me was flattered by that “I guess.” Thus my +ancestors must have spoken here in Sussex long ago, before they went +over in the _Mayflower_, to fight in due time at Lexington. It is a +point of honour with all Massachusetts folk to have gone over in the +_Mayflower_. She was a sloop of 180 tons, and must have carried +thousands of steerage passengers. I am not sure about the tonnage, but +there can be no doubt as to the passengers. + +“They are probably foreigners,” I replied, coming back to this century. +“At any rate, they are new-comers. And I was told they had settled down +somewhere near Pinfold.” + +He waved his hand vaguely towards the quarter of the sunrise, and gave +me directions of complicated topography. But he added, after a moment +for internal reflection, “They bain’t the sort o’ folk for the likes o’ +you to visit.” + +“Thank you,” I answered, “I am an anarchist myself.” And I spurred on my +mount, round the corner where he directed me. + +The day, which was brisk when I started, had become by this time hot and +windless, and the sun beat mercilessly. After various intricate twists +and turns, ill-deciphered from uncertain instructions, I found myself at +last by the side of a pond which formed the one fixed point in my +guide’s geography. He had called it “a horse-pond.” It was a pretty +little pool: tall glossy weeds grew lush by its edge; a grey-leaved +willow drooped into it; Naiads lurked among the broad green disks of the +water-lilies at its farther end. I was glad it was so taking. I accepted +it as an omen of success in my wild-goose chase. From the first I was +not without misgivings of my own wisdom in thus seeking to fraternise +with unknown anarchist brethren. But I knew how often fortune brings in +some boats that are not steered; and I took the beauty of this +“horse-pond” as a foretaste of what I should find in the anarchist +settlement. + +An old woman, with sleeves tucked up and the parboiled arms of a +laundress, stood near the door of a new brick cottage hard by. “Can you +tell me,” I called out, “where I can find Rothenburg?” + +I omitted the Mr., as my Cambridge friend had warned me that that +harmless prefix acted on your anarchist like the picador’s dart on the +bulls of Andalusia. + +“Rottenborough?” the old woman answered, transforming his name, as is +the wont of her class, into something significant in her own language. +“He’s down yonder by the new glass-house.” And she pointed with her hand +towards a deep clay field just behind her cottage. + +I dismounted, and led my bicycle gently through the mud. There was no +eglantine. At the far end of the field, under shelter of a hedge which +backed it to the north, I saw a slender, pale-faced young man in a blue +Continental blouse, digging a trench with a pick, to whose use he was +evidently but little accustomed. + +“Are you Rothenburg?” I asked, in French. + +He looked up and smiled. My costume took his fancy. “I am,” he answered +in the same language, but with a marked Alsatian accent. “What do you +want with me, comrade?” + +“I am an anarchist,” I said, simply, rushing straight to the point. “I +wish to join your community.” + +He laid down his pick, and came up out of the trench. I could see him +better now—a pallid, anæmic young man, with a high narrow forehead, +watery restless eyes, thin yellow hair, and twitching hands that played +nervously all the time with a shadowy moustache. I judged him at sight +the very type of an eager-hearted ineffectual enthusiast—a man born to +failure as the sparks fly upward. + +He looked me over, all surprised. “We are a party of working men,” he +objected, at last; “artisans, sempstresses, labourers. We do not desire +or court the aid of the _bourgeois_.” + +Now, I can endure most things, but not to be called a _bourgeoise_. I +coloured a little, I suppose; at any rate, I answered, “I am an +_ouvrière_ myself. I have nothing to do with the _bourgeoisie_. I have +ridden down from London to link my fate with yours. Are you the head of +this colony?” + +He flushed somewhat in turn—or rather, faint streaks of pink stole over +that bloodless face. “We have no head,” he answered. “We are +thorough-going anarchists. Equality is our aim. Since when do you belong +to our party?” + +“Since I was born,” I retorted, boldly. “I am anarchic by nature. +Wherever there is a government, I am always against it. Let me join your +band—and I promise disobedience.” + +He eyed me suspiciously. This confession of faith seemed rather to +disturb than to reassure him. He paused a moment. “How did you hear of +us?” + +“Casually, in an eating-house in London, from a Cambridge economist who +had been here to see you. When he spoke of you, I thought to myself, +‘These are the people I want. I recognise my kind. I must go and join +them.’” + +“Ha! He was a co-operator. A voluntary co-operator. But he had not the +whole truth. If he sent you here, you may be wrong—you are perhaps a +Marxian?” + +I perceived that there was an orthodoxy and a heterodoxy of anarchism; +in which case, of course, I should be on the heterodox side. “You will +find me sound,” I said, seeking to temporise, “in my uncompromisingly +anarchic anarchism of anarchy.” I thought I could hardly be more +mutinous than that. If ’twas rebellion they wanted, I was honestly +prepared to rebel against the rebels. + +He drew out a cheap gun-metal watch. “It is dinner-time,” he said, +temporising in return. “The comrades will have assembled. Come up and +discuss. We will see whether they are content to accept you as a +companion.” + +I confess I was disappointed. This seemed painfully close to a +legislative assembly—at the very least to a folk-moot or parish +council. Did they mean to decide things by base show of hands? And if +so, wherein did your anarchist differ from the ordinary coercive +governmental authority? + +In the Utopia I had framed for myself, every man (or woman) did that +which was right in his own eyes—without prejudice to his equal freedom +to do that which was wrong, if he chanced to be so minded. Here, I saw +just a common joint-stock company—Anarchy, Limited. + + + CHAPTER VI. + THE INNER BROTHERHOOD. + +We assembled in the large room of the first cottage I had seen—a sort +of bare, bald dining-hall, big enough to feed some twenty or thirty +souls, and ugly enough to take away their appetite for ever. Its +architect’s name, I would conjecture, was Jeremiah. + +“A new comrade,” Rothenburg said, waving his hand towards me not +ungracefully. “Let us dine first, and consider her afterward.” + +This was an awkward introduction. I sat down to eat and drink, painfully +conscious that the eyes of anarchic Europe were upon me. My long +unbroken ride had given me a keen edge for food; still, apart from their +scrutiny, I confess I eat with an undercurrent of disgust. The meat and +bread were wholesome; but I suspected their cleanliness. The napery, +too, was coarse and cried for the laundress. However, if one chooses to +herd with anarchists, one must not be too particular on matters of diet. +I eat a hearty dinner, in spite of my doubts, and even drank some sour +red wine; for they were not English enough yet to relish our beer, of +which I was not sorry. + +Replenished by dinner, they drew apart, discussing me in low tones and +in cosmopolitan languages. I fancy I detected the ring both of Czech and +Yiddish—tongues of which I do not profess an intimate knowledge, though +my East-End experiences had given me a distant nodding acquaintance with +either. Most of them were Austrians (assorted) or else subjects of the +Tsar, living here for their health, because they preferred England as a +place of residence to that part of the Russian territory which is called +Siberia. From time to time they appealed to me on some point of my +history—where was I born, of what nationality, why did I wish to join +them? I answered as best I might, though the ordeal was severe. It was +bad enough to stand as Esther before Ahasuerus, but I realised now that +I was set to perform the part of Vashti before a whole court of critical +anarchists. + +At last Rothenburg, still fumbling with his moustache, had the happy +thought to ask me my name. When I said “Juliet Appleton” I saw that it +moved them. The fact that I was a Juliet gave food to their fancy. Each +man drew himself up and stroked his chin with the very air of a Romeo. +Even the women smiled—for there were women among them, some four or +five, with pretty curly-haired children. Then they began to instruct me +in the doctrines of their sect. I was sworn to eternal friendship with +all and sundry. The intricate Eleusinian mysteries of anarchy were +explained to me, as catechumen, in Alsatian French and Bohemian German. +I answered in such dialects of either tongue as I had at command. My +profession of faith appeared to give satisfaction, especially when, +prompted by Rothenburg, I renounced Karl Marx and all his ways, and +embraced with fervour the true faith of Bakunin. Who or what Bakunin was +I had not an idea: but I made up in zeal what I lacked in understanding. + +It began to dawn on me that sectarianism is of the nature of man, and +that all things tend to fall into my doxy and your doxy. + +At last Rothenburg arrived at what he evidently considered a crucial +point in his catechism. “You understand, of course, that you must not +form an idolatrous attachment to any one of the comrades, to the +exclusion of the others?” + +I glanced around me at the dozen sorry specimens of the male of my +species there ranged before me, and felt convinced at sight I could +safely engage not to idolise excessively any one among them. And I said +so. + +This assurance appeared to give the community boundless satisfaction. +They turned next to my bicycle, which was a nice little machine—the +nicest in England, indeed, like everyone else’s. One or two of them were +kind enough to accept my full membership at once by trying to ride it. I +am tolerably tall for a woman, while the comrades, as I learned to call +them, were for the most part undersized town-bred working men, of the +skimpy order. Thus my machine just fitted them; they did not even +require to shift the pedals. I showed them how to stick on, correcting +the excessive line of grace in their initial curves: this obviously +pleased them, and I think they formed a high idea of the new comrade +herself and more especially of the property she brought into the +Community. They had not an equal opinion of Mr. Commissioner. + +So I settled down at once as a full-fledged anarchist. + +Figure to yourself a group of naked cottages, with bald slate roofs +untempered by the years—no moss, no house-leeks—dropped down at random +in a sticky clay cabbage-field—and you see our colony. + +My first business was to behold where I was to abide. The rotund old +lady whom I had found at the door of the first messuage or tenement took +me round to my cubicle; for they had a nomenclature of their own, suited +to the ways of anarchists. ’Twas in a brand-new building of pale pink +brick—a sort of anæmic brick, which bore the same relation to healthy +red brickiness that Rothenburg’s complexion bore to normal humanity. It +was vastly modern, like the views of its builders; it also betrayed the +same painful lack of æsthetic tendencies. It cried for creepers. In +front of it stretched a patch of utilitarian potato-ground. I would have +preferred hollyhocks. There was no hall or passage: the door opened +abruptly into a small parlour; behind lay three bedrooms of the minutest +dimensions. Mine was tiny. However, I have always inculcated kindness to +animals, and am not conscious of the faintest desire to swing a cat; so +it sufficed very well for me. The bath entailed difficulties, no other +anarchist being a slave to the habit: but a wooden water-tub and economy +of space speedily overcame them. I unpacked my knapsack, put my room to +rights, dusted the window-panes, and sallied forth to see what work the +Community demanded of me. + +The Community was ranged outside my cottage door as one man. It seemed +that, unable to resist the combined attractions of the bicycle and a new +comrade, they had decreed a half-holiday by universal suffrage, and were +waiting without to let me teach them the use of the machine. But the +Commissioner, who was an unregenerate monopolist as to private property, +effectually prevented its premature appropriation by a mute white +protest. + +I trembled as I saw how many awkward youths desired to ride my precious +cycle. But if you go in for Communism you must expect it to cut both +ways. I had eaten their dinner, they must share my bicycle. For so it is +written in the lawless law of anarchy. + +Most of these young men were good fellows in their way—very +simple-hearted anarchists. I do not credit it that they could have blown +up a Tsar, or even dropped a bomb into a suburban letter-box. They +confined themselves to cabbages and passionate denunciation of the +oppressors. But the ringleader in the attempt to borrow my bicycle from +an absent comrade was an exception to the rule. He was a +villainous-looking creature—the Caliban of our island. His name was +Léon. I think he must have been built after designs by Mr. Aubrey +Beardsley. He had rufous hair, a nose without a bridge, and thick +protruding lips. Those lips were a nightmare. I set him down as a +judicious cross between a Swiss _crétin_ and an albino negro. To make +matters worse, like many other repulsive people, he had the habit when +he spoke to you of coming up very close and breathing in your face, so +that his protruding lips almost seemed to touch you. I had an +irresistible impulse to say to him, “Take, oh take those lips away!” +only, I knew if I did he would not understand; or if he understood he +would misunderstand me. + +I felt from the outset that I might have trouble with Léon. + +That first night, for some time, I was kept awake by a continuous +concert, which sorely puzzled me. It could not be nightingales—the note +was not varied enough; nor was it the Six Great Powers of Europe—the +chorus was far too concordant. It reminded me most of the serenade made +by the small green southern tree-frogs; but here, in Sussex! I lay awake +and racked my brain. Next day solved the mystery. The hollow beyond our +plot of intensive culture was marshy and weedy, it teemed with +natterjacks. I will own that till I came to Pinfold I wist not even that +the natterjack existed. I had rolled him into one with his cousin the +toad. But our only British brother, a leather-dresser from Bermondsey, +and a born naturalist, soon showed me the difference. Ever since I have +met the natterjack in society everywhere. He is the gentleman and the +artist in his own family. Frogs croak, toads purr, but the natterjack +sings. You will admire his clear high note, trilled with a delicate +tremolo. + +At last I fell asleep, a very wearied anarchist. + + + CHAPTER VII. + A MUTINOUS MUTINEER. + +I respected Rothenburg; he was a man of ideas. Of course, they were +wrong; but, according to his rush-lights, he acted them out. He seemed +to me to have a shallow brain, in a constant state of feverish +agitation. He was a flamboyant rhetorician, a crisp denunciator. It did +one’s soul good to hear him declaim red-hot against kings, priests, and +the intolerable tyranny of public opinion. The rest were shadows. +Rothenburg by comparison was an intellectual Titan. + +Even old Mrs. Pritchard, of the parboiled arms, who lived in the +Community cottage with the bare, bald hall, recognised his superiority. +“That there Rottenborough,” she would say, with her arms akimbo, “why +he’s worth the whole lot of ’em.” She was a study in her way, Mrs. +Pritchard—globular and emotional. Rothenburg’s eloquence filled her +eyes with tears. _Why_ she was an anarchist I failed to perceive. She +seemed as much out of place in that cosmopolite crew as a Free Kirk +elder in a chorus of Mænads. She told me they had “convinced” her. If +so, she must have had a mind singularly open to conviction. I gather +rather that she took to anarchy as she might have taken to Primitive +Methodism, the Salvation Army, or any other variety of dithyrambic +religion. There chanced to be no Shakers or Mormons in the field at the +moment, so Mrs. Pritchard fell back upon the allurements of Communism. +She washed for the comrades, a post, you may guess, which almost +amounted to a lady-like sinecure. + +When I joined the Community I did so in dead earnest. You may think I +jest, but I assure you seriously that my first intention was to live and +die in the bosom of anarchy. Even the first sight of the ten acres, with +its fringe of natterjacks and its total lack of eglantine, did not damp +my ardour; nor did the dinner at the outset. I reflected that I had +taught a cookery class at the Guild, and that I could find an outlet for +my energies in radical reform of the Communal kitchen. It certainly +afforded a noble chance for the reformer. Meanwhile I said nothing, +though I eat every meal with an increasing undercurrent of distrust as +to its cleanliness. + +At night we gathered in the Community hall and decided the future of +Europe. Within, as without, it had anæmic brick walls, slightly inclined +towards jaundice, and under its roof we listened drearily while +Rothenburg settled the map of the twentieth century in unofficial +harangues. Save for his torrent of eloquence I found the hall +depressing. Our Community shared the common mania of the sectary for +placarding its sentiments. Only here “The Lord is my Shepherd” and “God +Bless our Home” gave place to “_Solidarité de la Race Humaine_,” “No +King, no Laws, no Taxes,” “_Das Land für das Volk_,” “_Ubi bene, ibi +Patria_,” and “Free Thought, Free Affection.” I read these legends over +and over till they palled. In another respect also my comrades resembled +the universal schismatic—their interests were confined to a single +range. They were great on altruism; but one saw their eyes glaze over +the moment one diverged from the beaten path of anarchic platitude. + +Rothenburg asked me the first day if I knew anything of gardening. +Anything of gardening! I could have told them at a glance that their +cauliflowers were planted three inches too close, while their views on +spring carrots were absurdly elementary. I had been reared in the +country. But I reflected that, even among anarchists, modesty befits a +woman, and I answered that I hoped so. + +They wished to set me at first upon light work in the glass-houses; even +those rough working men, I could see (notable mainly for the whiteness +of their faces and the redness of their politics), paid some homage to +my gentility; though they would have denied it themselves, they were +anxious to spare me as much as possible of manual labour. But I would +have none of that. If I joined their clan at all I must join on equal +terms. I am all for the absolute equation of the sexes. I wished to bear +my part in the burdens of the Community. + +So I devoted myself with a single mind to intensive culture. I may be +dense, but after close inspection my impression is that intensive +culture, were it not for its name, might readily be confused with +ordinary gardening. + +Rothenburg was working on the foundations of a new glass-house. To avoid +Léon, whose province was potatoes, I took a pick and worked by the +Alsatian’s side. He seldom spoke; when he did he left off delving—his +shallow brain had room but for one occupation at a time. It was curious +to see him pause, push his crush-hat from his brow, wipe his narrow +forehead with his shirt-sleeve, stroke the thin yellow hair, and then +give vent to some deep philosophical speculation, which a child of ten +might have considered profound. + +On the second day of my task at the trench a sudden thought struck me. +“Rothenburg,” I said, wielding my pick somewhat viciously, “you have +bought this land; how do you manage to hold it?” + +He struck work, as usual, and turned the watery blue eyes upon me. + +“We hold it, Juliet,” he said—I was officially known to all the +comrades as Juliet—“we hold it”—he paused as if I were drawing a +tooth—“we hold it by trustees. No other way is possible.” + +“The English law compels you?” + +“My faith, yes; we cannot own it as a Community.” + +“And suppose some comrade were to refuse to work, and yet stick to his +rooms. What could you do to get rid of him?” + +That was a problem for Rothenburg. He fondled the thin yellow hair till +I thought it would come out; he fingered the shadowy moustache with that +nervous hand till he made me frightened. + +“I imagine,” he said at last, after due deliberation, in a very slow +tone, “we would be compelled to call in . . . . the State . . . . to +eject him.” He uttered that hated word with visible effort. + +Appello Cæsarem! I dug my pick into the ground more viciously than ever. +But I said nothing. Coercive practices! I saw I was back with my old +friends Aforesaid and This Indenture Witnesseth. + +Yet I will do the anarchists the justice to say that none of them seemed +anxious to afford their pet bugbear, the State, the opportunity of +trying this test case. They toiled hard, and inefficiently. In the sweat +of their brow they did very little. None of them could be called a +specialist in gardening. Rothenburg himself had worked as a lady’s +tailor in Paris, he told me, and had flung up a post of fifty francs a +week—“Not bad wages for a working man,” he observed, preening himself, +with the complacency of a willing martyr—to till the soil with +intensive culture. I believe he was really a good tailor spoiled to make +an indifferent gardener. Still, one could not help respecting his +enthusiasm. When I pressed him further on this head, he admitted with +regret that in the present state of the world only a chosen few—“like +you and me, Juliet”—were fit for anarchy. (I felt half inclined to +retort with the last of the Sandemanians, that I was “no that sure of +Juliet.”) However, he thought it was well to begin the experiment; after +all, one should live up to one’s highest ideal. + +I glanced around at the sodden field, the bald brick cottages, and had +doubts in my mind whether they did really fulfil my highest ideal. + +I worked hard with the rest. A certain sense of honour made me work my +hardest. _Noblesse oblige_; and precisely in proportion as I saw the +comrades would be content to let me shirk some share of my task out of +regard for my gentility, did I feel it incumbent upon me to do my utmost +possible. I wore my cycling suit in the fields, and laboured like a man. +I am not muscularly strong, but I have been well trained, and I honestly +believe I was the most efficient workman in all that little group of +incompetent town toilers. + +In my spare time I set about reforming the kitchen. The vegetarian +dishes I had learned at the Guild delighted the souls of the simple +anarchists. My barley cutlets with tomato sauce were voted “heavenly” in +best lip-licking Teutonic; my vermicelli shape received the praise of +“bravissima” from our Neapolitan Luigi. This skill in cookery much +increased my vogue among the men of the Community; while the women were +not sorry to have their task lightened by a little amateur assistance. + +If I have not said much here of the women and children ’tis not for want +of appreciation: they were the salt of the settlement. There was no +nonsense of high principles about them: they had followed their husbands +and fathers and brothers to this outland spot as women will do; and they +would have shouted “Vive l’Empereur” as heartily to-morrow as they +shouted “Vive l’Anarchie” when asked to-day. But they loved to applaud +Rothenburg on the war-path of peace, and would have scalped anyone who +doubted the truth of the shibboleths of fraternity. + +With the children I made great friends. Dear rough-and-tumble little +things, they oozed with merriment. My rational dress delighted them: so +did Mr. Commissioner, with his white teeth, as soon as they had got over +the first formalities. He suffered them to pull his tail like a lamb. We +played games together at night, in the intervals of reorganising +European affairs and abolishing the capitalist. We romped like tomboys. +My attempts to tell them “Cinderella” and “The Three Bears,” in bad +German, translated by the more knowing into Czech and Yiddish, were not +a complete success; but neither were they a failure, for at any rate +they resulted in happy laughter. Besides I taught them cat’s-cradle, and +cat’s-cradle at least has escaped the curse of Babel. + +Still, rocks lay ahead. My Odyssey was not so quickly to bring me into +port. By the end of the week a cloud took shape: I foresaw storms +brewing. + +All the comrades were devoted in equal parts to myself and my bicycle. +In the evenings, when work was done, and we had watered the cabbages, I +gave them lessons in turn on the mysterious monster. From the beginning +it occurred to me that most of them were anxious to entice me away from +the common field towards remoter lanes where occasions for private talk +were more easily obtained. But, mindful of my promise not to form +idolatrous attachments, I resisted the temptations of the polyglot +Fausts who would fain have discoursed to me the words of love in many +uncouth languages. It was my policy to keep close to the cottages and +the other women, backed up by that round mountain of Britannic +matronhood, the guileless Mrs. Pritchard. Besides, in the Commissioner, +I had an efficient bodyguard. + +On Saturday came the weekly division of profits. We had done well that +week, having sent consignments of early roses and asparagus to Guildford +and London. We declared a dividend, a splendid communal dividend, at the +rate of four shillings per head for adults, and two shillings for +children. I thought this profit magnificent. But just before the +distribution of cash, Rothenburg strolled up to me, as I was dandling a +mottle-armed anarchist. His fingers twitched on the imperceptible +moustache more tremulously than ever. “Juliet,” he said, briefly, “I +want to speak to you.” + +He said it in the voice with which our Principal at College was wont to +summon us to her study for the discipline of exhortation. Free anarchist +though I was, I listened and trembled. + +“Well, Rothenburg?” I murmured, laying down the baby. + +“The question is, do you mean to remain with us?” + +“Why, certainly,” I cried, astonished. “Did we not swear eternal +friendship?” + +“But—the comrades complain that you take no notice of them.” + +“No notice! Absurd! Why, I have taught them how to bicycle.” + +“Yes; but that is not everything. Friends should show friendliness. You +hold them at arm’s length. You keep yourself aloof. You have no +_camaraderie_.” + +I looked him hard in the face. He blinked his watery eyes. I knew he was +sincere—a good, honest anarchist; but he expected too much of me. +“Rothenburg,” I said firmly, “I call this coercion.” + +“No, no; not coercion; but comrades ought to be sociable.” + +“’Tis intolerable!” I exclaimed. “What is anarchy for, if we are each to +be forced into talking to one another against our wills? I have done my +week’s work; I have cooked you good food; I have lent you my bicycle; +and still you complain of me. The Banded Despots”—which was our +technical phrase, to wit, for the British Government—“could not do +worse than that, nor as bad as that either. They do not insist that one +should make oneself agreeable. They are amply satisfied if man pays +man’s taxes.” + +He twirled the non-existent moustache till he put a visible point on it. +His fingers twitched painfully. “I only tell you what the comrades are +saying,” he replied, in a deprecatory way. “They find that you do not +behave to them like a sister. In one word, they think that you give +yourself the airs of a superior person. You pose as an _aristo_. They +believed when you came that you would amalgamate freely with us. We want +no women who decline to fraternise.” + +This was too much for my temper. I broke into open mutiny. “I shall +resign,” I cried. “You are bringing to bear against me the intolerable +tyranny of public opinion. I shall go back to the freedom and comfort of +the Despots.” + +His jaw dropped at this resolve. His eye glanced feelingly sideways +towards the bicycle. For a moment I feared Commissioner Lin would pin +him. “No, no,” he cried. “You must not do that. We all like and respect +you. We wish you to remain. But we wish you to be a sister. Give me time +to consider—to communicate with the comrades.” + +“Not one moment,” I answered, hardly liking this turn. “Hand me over my +money, and let me go! I have worked for a week, and the labourer is +worthy at least of his travelling expenses. I return to London.” + +He hurried back to the group who hung about the door of the Community +cottage, and spoke to them in low tones. Then he came again as envoy. +“All the comrades say, if you will reconsider your decision, they will +no longer insist upon your altering your demeanour.” + +“I will _not_ reconsider it,” I replied, growing really frightened, for +I caught Léon’s eye. “I go at once. Give me my money, and let me return +to the world I came from.” + +They debated again. Commissioner Lin watched the case in my interest. +Then one of the others approached. It was Léon—Caliban—the man with +the protruding lips. I had my hand on my bicycle, and was ready to mount +it. + +“This machine is ours,” he said calmly, putting his face close to mine. +“Whatever any comrade brings into the Community is common property. We +will give you your dividend and let you go; but this you must leave with +us.” + +My blood was up. The old Eve within me was roused. The American eagle in +my heart flapped its wings. I remembered how my fathers had fought at +Lexington (they were quite a property to me). “Sir,” I exclaimed, in my +most commanding voice, “you shall not touch my machine. If you venture +to detain it”—I tried to remember the worst phrases I had learnt at +Flor and Fingelman’s—“I will move for a mandamus to compel you to show +cause why you should escape the penalties of præmunire.” What it all +meant I do not know; but I am sure the effect upon Caliban’s mind was +most salutary. I have ever since had a vastly increased respect for the +law of England. + +They conferred again for a few minutes, with one eye on the +Commissioner. Then Rothenburg came forward once more as spokesman. “Will +you try it again for one week?” he asked in a really grieved voice. “We +shall be sorry to lose you.” + +“Not for one day!” I answered, a furtive gleam in Commissioner Lin’s eye +lending me courage. “Give me what I have earned, and let me go!” I asked +for it with the greater confidence because I felt sure in my own mind I +had done more effective work in the week than any of them. + +They paid me, murmuring. I retired to my cubicle, packed my knapsack in +haste, returned to my machine, and laid my hand on it firmly. But within +I was trembling like an Italian greyhound. Then I jumped into the +saddle, and waved my hand to my sworn brothers, with an affectation of +courage. “Messieurs,” I said—and to call them “messieurs” was to +excommunicate myself, to deny _camaraderie_—“Messieurs, you are a mass +of conventions. I wish you the very good morning. Your rules are too +stringent for me. I cannot away with them. I find myself too individual, +too anarchic for the anarchists!” + +Then I waved my hand again, and set my face sternly towards +civilisation, despotism, and the flesh-pots of Egypt. + +I was weary of dissent, and longed for the catholic church of humanity. +I must go back to London, and be once more a type-writer. + + + CHAPTER VIII. + CALLED “OF ACCIDENTS.” + +For the first three or four miles I kept on pedalling steadily. I grazed +the corners, not even daring to look back, for I was haunted by a terror +that Léon, with his lips, was on the track behind me. But I heard only +the cries of the anarchist babies, calling to their playmate to come +back in Czech and Yiddish. + +When I had escaped from the intricate tangle of Sussex lanes, and found +myself once more on the Queen’s highway of England, under the protecting +ægis of Britannia’s shield (in spite of the blood of the Pilgrim +Fathers), I paused to reflect upon the week’s adventures. + +A bicycle in full swing, I maintain, is not an ideal place for calm +reflection. Hence the face of the bicyclist. Moreover, I had started +without due attention to my screws, in my eagerness to escape from my +sworn brothers, the anarchists, into the open air of Banded Despotism. +So I called a halt, and dismounted for a moment to tighten my loose +joints, metaphorically and literally. My knees still trembled under me, +and the wraith of Caliban, panting ever in the rear, still pursed its +thick lips in my face to mock me. I felt like Pliable when he abandoned +Christian at the outset of his pilgrimage, and slank back from the first +slough to the City of Destruction. For, in the background of my heart, I +still loved and admired these simple earnest souls, eager after their +kind to right human wrong, and to attain human perfection. I saw their +comic side; but I saw also that the root of the matter was in them. They +had noble enthusiasms—all save Caliban; he was the serpent in that +ten-acred Eden. When I got under weigh again, at a good easy pace, +beneath rifts of blue through white summer cloud, I began to be aware +that my first fortnight of free life had culminated in two distinct and +acknowledged failures. I had failed to accommodate myself to the +environment at Flor and Fingelman’s; I had failed to accommodate myself +to the public opinion of the anarchists at Pinfold. Environment was +triumphing all along the line. I felt constrained to regard myself as +one of the unfittest, who do _not_ survive, and whom no man pities. + +Resolving myself into Committee of Finance, I found I had been acting +with reckless extravagance. Cash in hand amounted to four and +sevenpence—of which sum, four shillings represented my week’s earnings, +and sevenpence my balance from the bounty of St. Nicholas, after +settling for two weeks’ rent in London, with sundry expenses. It +occurred to me now (too late) that I had practically been paying twice +over for lodging—once in London by cash, and once at the Community by +giving my labour in return for a mere box of a cubicle. I felt so proud +of this discovery in economics, however, that I was almost inclined to +condone the error for the sake of its detection. In other ways, also, I +was demonstrably worse off than when I started. I had worn my pretty +brown cycling suit for a week in the stiff clay fields, not to mention +the fact that I had splashed it with mud in the vicarious effort to +rectify the lines of grace in my comrades’ riding; and I had done my +tyres no good on the rough roads of Sussex. Altogether, I was forced to +confess to myself with shame that I returned to London after this +escapade not only a wiser, but a poorer woman. + +To crown all, I had no longer the use of my type-writer. The thirty +pieces of silver for which I had betrayed my entire stock-in-trade, the +instrument of production, were spent and lost to me. St. Nicholas had +proved but a broken reed. I had leaned upon him, and he had pierced my +hand. Never again should I trust the hypocritical smile on the face of +that bland and benignant impostor! + +I pedalled on at half-speed. Little vocalists, ignorant of the name of +Mendelssohn, carolled songs without words in the sky overhead: but my +heart was heavy. + +Yet, after all, I had had my amusement, and bought my experience. + +A pheasant screamed; I mistook it for Caliban. Mr. Commissioner looked +up in my face and sympathised. + +It was still early afternoon; for Saturday was a half-holiday: we had +struck work at noon, and dined, before proceeding to the division of +profits. June was almost come, and the days were lengthening. I hoped to +reach London long before the hour at which the Banded Despots compel us +to light our red lamps in the public interest. + +Yet I was so delighted to have flung off the yoke of anarchy that I +could have fallen on the neck of a Banded Despot, had he appeared at +that moment, were it but in the guise of a Sussex County Constable. The +country smiled: if eglantine be sweet-briar, it bordered the road; if +honeysuckle, it scented the cottage porches. + +I rode on and on, glad to be free once more, though sorry to be poor, +and doubtful where I could turn for the next few days’ board and +lodging. The words of the anarchist alphabet, which I had learned from +the one British brother at Pinfold, recurred strongly to my mind— + + “F is the freedom that old England brags about; + If you haven’t got a dinner—why—you’re free to go without.” + +I felt sure I might soon taste that common privilege secured to all of +us by Magna Charta. + +In this mood I coasted recklessly down a slight hill near Holmwood, with +my feet on the rest, and my hands too incautiously removed from the +handle-bar. Behind me lay the Weald; in front rose the trenchant rampart +of the North Downs. + +At the foot of the slope was a sudden turn. As I reached the bottom my +hand gripped the brake—too late. I was aware of a Foreign Body, rushing +eagerly round the curve, with flying fair hair; next, of a considerable +impact; then, of myself on the road, sprawling, and the Foreign Body +with the fair hair wringing its hands beside me. + +She was a woman, fortunately. + +I raised myself with dignity. It is always a good plan, in case of +collision, to take the aggressive first. “You came round that corner +rather fast, considering how sharp it is,” I observed in a coldly +critical tone, whose effect was perhaps rather marred by the fact that +my fingers were torn and bleeding. This was sheer bluff, and I knew it. + +“Oh, I beg your pardon!” she cried, clapping her hands to her ears in an +agonised little paroxysm. I saw that she was slight and fair and +evidently frightened: a wisp of a figure, a fluff of amber hair, blue +eyes like April. + +“It was a nasty spill,” I went on, growing severer in proportion as I +realised that my antagonist was little inclined to defend herself (which +was a meanness on my part). “You should slow round corners. I hope you +have not hurt yourself.” + +She set to cry all at once. “A little,” she answered. “Or rather, a +great deal.” + +She was a timid small atomy. I began to regret my hasty sternness, the +more so as I knew I was at least as much to blame as she, for I had run +down the hill without my fingers on the brake, and had trusted to chance +at the turn of the corner. All this too, I admit, with a wheel that had +already been badly buckled. + +Happily, Commissioner Lin did not take it into his head to seize her. + +I tried to console her. Then I turned to my machine. Which shows that I +am a woman first and a cyclist afterwards; for I notice that your born +cyclist looks first at her wheels, and only proceeds in the second place +to enquire which of her limbs is broken. + +When I saw its condition, I recognised at once that my cup was full. +All, all was lost. The front wheel was twisted out of human recognition; +the tyre was punctured; I saw seven-and-sixpence worth of repairs +staring me full in the face before I could fall back upon my base of +operations in London. + +I blush to confess it; but I followed her example. Lexington faded away. +I burst into tears, outright, and sank down on the ground by my broken +cycle. I suppose the spill had shattered my nerves. Mr. Commissioner +squatted on his haunches and stared at me. + +How long we might have sat there, mingling tears together, it were hard +to say—had not St. George come by, in the nick of time, sword in hand, +to rescue us. + +He was not mounted as usual on his milk-white steed, but more +prosaically seated on the box of a dog-cart. Yet what matters that? A +cavalier is a cavalier, be he horseman or gigman. The knights who ride +in all their pride around the frieze of the Parthenon are only knights +in virtue of their possession of the noble quadruped platonically adored +by the Grand Vizier and his satraps. So I knew it was a St. George, +though in place of a lance he had a lancet in his instrument case. To +unimaginative eyes he was the village doctor. + +He pulled up his horse by the roadside, and called out to us cheerily: +“Anything wrong? Can I be of use to you?” + +“Not for me,” I broke out, fearing he would want to dress my wounds and +be paid for it; “I am not hurt at all. About this lady I do not know. +She cannoned against me, and somebody seems to have fallen.” + +St. George dismounted—if one can dismount from a dog-cart—a genial +giant. He looked at my hands, which were torn and bleeding, and +ingrained with sand and dirt from the road. “Excuse me,” he said, +gravely; “this is worse than you think. You have had a nasty wrench. +And, besides, the soil contains——” + +“I know all that,” I answered. “The germs of lockjaw. I have gone +through an ambulance course, and helped the trained nurse at an East-End +Settlement. Well, the germs must take their chance. Tetanus microbes +have a right to live like the rest of us, I suppose.” + +My manner was perhaps defiant. He smiled, not unkindly, a boundless +Pacific of a smile: his ears alone checked it. “Ha! an anarchist?” he +enquired, glancing back in the direction whence I had come. + +“Yes,” I answered. “From Pinfold.” + +“Tired of it?” + +“Very much so. I am on my way back to London and the Banded Despots.” + +He smiled again. “You must let me dress your hand,” he said, +persuasively. + +I drew back in alarm. “Oh, no!” I cried, for I had nothing to pay him +with. + +“Nonsense,” he went on with kind persistence, divining my thought in the +hot flush that came over me. “This is not a professional matter. A mere +passing courtesy to a lady in distress. Let me drive you to my surgery, +and then on to Holmwood Station. You won’t be able to get those machines +mended so as to return to town to-night. I can pack them both in. And +your friend will come with you.” + +There was no resisting the frank kindliness of his big genial smile. He +was broad-shouldered and large-hearted, with a face to match. I +clambered up into the dog-cart, and the fair girl sat behind. How he +annihilated space so as to pack in the bicycles as well I have no idea. +But the age of miracles is _not_ past, nor yet the age of chivalry. St. +George convinced me that both still exist. At a moment of despair, he +revived my waning belief in human nature. + +At the surgery, he washed my bleeding hands tenderly, spread an +antiseptic ointment and a cool rag on top, and bound it all up with +womanly solicitude. As a faint protest, I murmured at the end: “How much +am I in your debt?” But he smiled his expansive smile, and repeated, +“Nothing, nothing!” Then he examined the fair girl, who was the exact +counterpart of Michaela in the opera, and pronounced her sound in wind +and limb, though nervously shaken. Michaela wept at learning she was not +hurt; she would have fainted, I think, if he had told her she was +injured. + +When our wounds had been assuaged, he drove us down to the station. On +the way, Michaela grew gradually calm enough to communicate her +misfortunes. “I want to get to Leith Hill,” she said. “I was going there +when I was so unlucky as to upset this lady.” + +(My heart pricked me, but I refrained from confessing.) + +“Leith Hill!” St. George cried, with his hearty great laugh. “Why, you +are five miles out for it! You have taken the wrong road. You were +straight on the way to Horsham when I met you.” + +“Oh, I was afraid of that,” Michaela exclaimed, beginning to cry again; +she had a genius for tears that might have been utilised with advantage +for purposes of irrigation. “I—I was cycling with a gentleman.” + +“Indeed?” I put in coldly. + +“But I—I am engaged to him.” + +“Of course,” I answered. Having left anarchy and all its works nine +miles behind me, I affected to believe _no_ young lady could be +bicycling with a man _unless_ he were engaged to her. + +“And we kept together as far as Dorking,” Michaela went on; “but there I +stopped to speak to some friends I met by chance in the street, and +my—my escort went round the corner to buy some cigarettes; and when I +hurried on again to catch him up, I could not discover him; and I’m +afraid I must go back alone to London.” She spoke as though London were +in the heart of Africa. + +The doctor laughed. “You took quite the wrong turn,” he said. “Or +rather, you kept straight on, when you should have swerved to the right. +That unhappy young man must be seeking you now, on the summit of Leith +Hill, with many qualms of conscience.” + +“Do you think so?” Michaela cried, wringing her hands once more. She was +a study in helplessness. I could feel she was rich, brought up in +cotton-wool, and for her sake I was glad of it; for I wondered what she +would do if she should ever find herself face to face with real +misfortune. + + + CHAPTER IX. + I PLAY CARMEN. + +St. George joined tact to his chivalry. When we pulled up at the +station, he handed us both out, unloaded our iron steeds, raised his hat +with an amicable smile, and then, before we had time to thank him, +cracked a merry whip, and drove away hurriedly. My bandaged condition +forbade me even to grasp his hand; he vanished into the past, and was +once more a phantom. I never saw him again. Yet I have always been +grateful to that brief vision of a knight who saved me for one moment +from a passing dragon. If peradventure he happen to read these words, +will he accept my thanks for it? + +On the platform, as Chancellor of my own Exchequer, I had time to bring +in my private budget. It showed an obvious deficit. Had I been Leader of +the Opposition, I could have risen with scorn from the front bench, and +subjected it to a scathing—nay, a crushing criticism. In plain words, I +saw that I had not money enough to pay my way back to London, to take a +dog-ticket for the Commissioner, and also to carry my bicycle with me +(zone 50, one shilling.) This collision had proved even more disastrous +to my finances than to my hands. Two courses were now open to me. I must +cloak-room my machine—with little chance of redeeming it—or else +resolve to spend the residue of my days at Holmwood. + +The latter alternative being the more original of the two, naturally I +made up my mind to adopt it. I felt so poor and desolate that I looked +for the police to step in and disperse me. + +“I won’t go up to town,” I said curtly to Michaela. “I will spend the +night here.” I said “the night” only, instead of “my life,” lest she +should suspect me of exaggeration. + +To my vast surprise, this resolution, which I fancied of no importance +to anyone save myself, threw my companion into a tremor of anxiety. +“Then I can’t go either,” she cried, wetting her lips with fear. “If +_you_ stop, _I_ must stop with you, and telegraph up for my father.” + +I stared at her in astonishment. “Why so?” I asked at last. + +“Why, because—because of this _dreadful_ murder!” + +“What murder?” I inquired, reverting instinctively to Léon and his lips. + +She stared in turn. “You _must_ have heard of it,” she exclaimed. “It +has been in all the papers.” + +I remembered that at Pinfold we had been too much absorbed by the future +of Europe and the affair of the new glass-house ever to trouble our +minds about what chanced to be happening in the mere provincial world of +London. So I assured her I knew naught of it. + +She went on to explain to me that a woman had been found killed in a +first-class carriage—stabbed to the heart, and stuffed under the +seat—only three days before. + +“I _dare_ not travel alone,” she said, clasping her hands and opening +her blue eyes wide. “Do _please_ come with me.” + +This forced me to explain my financial position. My new friend declared +that that did not matter. Might she lend me a sovereign? A sovereign! I +gasped at the idea of such wealth. But I had further to make it clear +that my chance of repaying it was a vanishing quantity. + +She listened to my explanation with open-mouthed astonishment. I think +she had never heard of such poverty before—in one of her own +sort—though to me it was commonplace. “But you _must_ let me lend it to +you,” she said, drawing out the daintiest little lizard-skin purse I +have ever seen; “or, rather, you must let me pay you for the harm I have +done to your bicycle, and the difficulty I have brought upon you. That +is only fair. I ought to settle for your ticket up to town, and for the +mending.” + +I was compelled to confess. My duplicity had failed. “It was more my +fault than yours,” I faltered out. “I was reckless in my pace. You were +mounting a slight rise, with the wind against you: I was descending, and +had it in my favour. If anybody is to blame, it is I. Pray, pray, +forgive me.” + +She insisted in spite of me. “I shall take two first-class tickets.” + +My democratic gorge rose. “Never!” I cried firmly. “St. Nicholas +forfend! Not in my palmiest and most unregenerate days did I travel +first-class. If you consent to take two thirds, I will owe you for the +amount. You can give me your address; and whenever I am rich enough I +will repay you all. I have sufficient of my own to buy a ticket for my +dog and bicycle.” It went against the grain with me to receive this +favour from a stranger unseen till to-day; but I recognised that there +was no help for it. + +She took the tickets under protest. “Such _dreadful_ people travel +third—drunken soldiers and sailors!” + +“Brave defenders of our country!” I answered, remembering my father’s +profession. “It’s _Thank you, Mr. Atkins_, when the band begins to +play.” + +The liquid blue eyes stared at me in blank amazement. Rudyard Kipling, +one could see, was a sealed book to her. I think she had doubts of my +perfect sanity. Perhaps you share them. + +We arranged for our maimed mounts. I hold it one of the best points of a +bicycle, as compared with the noble animal, that it considerately +refrains from wringing your heart in the matter of sympathy. It has no +nerves. The train panted into the station. We explored an empty +carriage, free from the contamination of soldiers and sailors, drunk or +sober, and started off comfortably. + +Michaela took the precaution to peer under the seats beforehand. I am +not sure which of the two she expected to find—a corpse or a murderer. + +“This is nice,” she said at last, smiling, and recovering her spirits +for the first time since the collision. “We shall have the carriage to +ourselves all the way to Victoria. I gave the guard half-a-crown. I +_couldn’t_ travel with a man. I should be quite too frightened.” + +Some devil entered into me. I am subject to devils. My new acquaintance +was so insipidly fair, so mediævally shrinking, while I am dark and +modern, that I had an irresistible impulse to play Carmen to her +Michaela. “Have you reflected,” I said drily, “that a _woman_ may have +committed that murder?” + +It was heartless of me, I admit. My little companion was so timid and +shrinking. But the bolt fell flat. She clasped her hands and looked at +me. “I never thought of that!” she said. “How _dreadfully_ clever you +must be to discover it. Dreadful as well as clever! But I am _sure_ you +are not a murderess.” (She had a trick of emphasising one word in each +sentence.) “You are a _great_ deal too nice. You behaved so sweetly +about the ticket, you know, and the accident! Anyone else in your place +would have pretended it was my fault, and made me pay for the damages.” + +“That was only common honesty,” I objected. “Murderers need not be +deficient in common honesty.” + +“Oh, but they must be awful people!” + +“Murderers are not a class,” said I. “They are you and me, acting under +pressure of powerful impulses.” + +She glanced at me, more amazed than frightened. “I _know_ you would not +murder me,” she replied, less alarmed than I might have expected. “You +are so kind, though you are so queer. I feel quite safe in your hands. +With those honest eyes I am certain you would not hurt me.” + +I could have crept under the seat, I felt such a brute. I took her two +small hands in my bandaged palms. “You dear little thing!” I exclaimed, +“nobody could ever hurt you!” Then seven other devils entered into me +again, worse than the first ones, and I could not help adding, “Though +if I _wanted_ to murder, this is a unique opportunity. My bleeding +hands, and the evidence about the bicycle accident would suffice to +account for any number of blood-stains. Still, to stuff you under the +seat would be bad taste and vulgar.” + +She caught my eye, and laughed. “What a funny girl it is!” she cried. +“You _are_ so comical! But it isn’t the least use your trying to +frighten me. I can see the twinkle in your big black eyes; and I like +you in spite of your trying to be horrid. Do you know, I liked you from +the first moment I saw you.” + +’Twas impossible not to be taken by such charming childishness. She +cooed so prettily one was forced to love her. Before we reached Victoria +we were fast friends. Michaela thought me the queerest person she had +ever met, but, oh, so nice! Her tongue was loosed. She told me a great +deal about what a dear fellow she was engaged to. She spoke of him as +Toto. She also wanted to lend me a pound. But I sternly refused. I must +work out my own salvation in fear and trembling. (This Biblical trick +descends to me, no doubt, from the Pilgrim Fathers.) + +Michaela gave me her card at Clapham Junction—“Miss Allardyce” it +said—and begged me to call upon her. I was driven to explain that in +the rank of life to which I now belonged people did not call upon one +another; more particularly that the Jews of Onslow Gardens (I am +dropping into it again) had no dealings with the Soho Samaritans. +Michaela dissented from this finding: her position was that “a lady was +a lady.” I granted the truth of that identical proposition, but flatly +disallowed that all ladies had time for calling. I also pointed out that +my first consideration was bread, which brought tears again into her +tender blue eyes. We parted the best of friends. We even kissed one +another, though I am an infrequent kisser. She thanked me mightily for +my company, which made me feel small again. For I had upset her nerves, +broken her machine, and borrowed some shillings, which I scarcely dared +to hope I might have the luck to repay her. + +However, I took her address, and added one small square to the mosaic +design with which I am paving my possible future residence. + + + CHAPTER X. + SIC ME SERVAVIT APOLLO! + +Perhaps you think I have made too much of those ancestors of mine who +fought and bled at Lexington. That is always possible; if so, on further +thought, you will feel that there are excuses for me. My ancestors +bequeathed me nothing save the memory of their courage. Had I inherited +from them an estate in Middlesex, or even in Massachusetts, I might +dwell less on their valour. But since they have left me heiress of their +glory alone, ’tis natural that I should magnify the one legacy I have +received from them. To deprive me of that pittance were to leave me poor +indeed. Let me salve my indigence with the honour of the family. + +And, in truth, when I got back to my rooms in Soho, I stood in need of +every ghost among my ancestral warriors. All the dragons in London +flapped wings together in that narrow lodging. + +Picture my position. I had no money in hand, and no machine to work +upon. Besides, with my maimed fingers, it would be impossible for me to +type-write for three days at least. I had no prospect of food till my +wounds recovered. Even then, much must depend upon the chance of an +engagement; and for record of my “last place” what had I but my mocking +letter to This Indenture Witnesseth? + +_Must_ I fall back on the aunt, with her black thread gloves and her +Zenana Missions? I glanced at Commissioner Lin; no, a bone, and freedom! + +However, petty troubles are the mustard of life: they add pungency. +Besides, we are all Cinderellas with a fairy godmother. Her name is +Aide-toi-et-Dieu-t’aidera. I have never failed to find much efficacy in +Citizen Danton’s prescription. In hopeless circumstances our three best +allies are audacity, audacity, and again audacity. + +I made up my mind to be audacious. I have big black eyes, as Michaela +had truly observed, so audacity comes easily to me; celestial blue is +always shrinking. I presented myself at the door of my lodgings with the +air of one who had merely gone away for a few days’ bicycling trip, and +had thousands at her banker’s. I think my jauntiness impressed the +landlady. I spoke in vague terms of “a tour in Sussex,” and of its +premature close through the accident of a collision. Item, the knees of +my knickerbockers had distinctly suffered. However, as I had paid a +fortnight’s rent before I left, out of St. Nicholas’s benefaction, and +had been away for a week and a day, besides four days more or less spent +at Flor and Fingelman’s, I was still entitled to two clear nights’ +lodging. If the worst came, I might even stop on for another week +without paying. The mere fact of my return was a guarantee of +“respectability,” which, in the lodging-house acceptation, is a synonym +for probable continuous solvency. + +I commanded supper with my lordliest air. My landlady was too much taken +aback to refuse me. I suggested a chop, as though chops grew wild. She +acquiesced without a murmur. + +I have remarked already that I belong to a generation which has analysed +conscience away. But I am sorry to say analysis is not really one with +annihilation. Conscience resembles nature in that, when driven out with +a pitchfork, it recurs in spite of you. My enjoyment of that excellent +chump chop—grilled brown to a turn—was sadly interfered with by the +floating fear that I might never be able to pay for it. I had painful +qualms. Had my landlady been rich, I might have swallowed them with the +chop: but she was a reduced widow with one invalid daughter. + +Conscience, however, though it makes cowards of us all, does not (within +my experience) produce insomnia. I slept the sleep of the just, and woke +up an Antæus, or rather an Antæa. (This remark I offer as a contribution +to the unsolved problem whether or not I have been to Girton.) + +The sun was shining. The thrushes (at the bird fancier’s opposite) were +bent on justifying Browning, by singing twice over each careless +_leit-motiv_. I ordered breakfast with an undaunted face, like Leonidas +at Thermopylæ. The landlady, completely subdued, brought up coffee and +rolls as if I had been a duchess. I almost soared to an egg; as the word +hung on my lips, conscience stepped in with “Necessaries, yes; but +luxuries—that were an infamy.” I forewent the egg, though my long ride +had begotten in me a noble hunger. And I rather flatter myself that in +saying “forewent” I am enriching the language with a new preterite. +Oxford Dictionary, please copy. + +Breakfast inspired me with fresh hope. There is much virtue in a +breakfast. I began to surmise that I might have misjudged St. Nicholas. +Not the bland old bishop of the National Gallery—he was a humbug, I +felt sure—but that charming young benefactor in Fra Angelico’s panel; +could he be equally untrustworthy, and with so innocent a face? I, for +one, could scarce credit it. He seemed like the masculine counterpart of +Michaela. And Michaela was too mild not to be really guileless. + +At least, I would stroll round to the Strand and seek another interview +with the holy man. For the next two days it were futile to hunt for +work. Those bandaged hands must tell against me. So perforce I took +holiday. + +On Monday morning I sallied forth. I wore my little black dress and hat, +in which, even to myself, I looked absurdly proper. I love trudging down +the Strand. It may sound ungrateful to confess it, after the pains that +have been taken to make London ugly for us, but I find a weird charm in +its picturesque ugliness. When I reached the window of which I was in +search, a sudden thrill ran through me. It seemed as though I had +suffered some personal loss. My patron saint had disappeared! Not a +trace of St. Nicholas! + +If the embalmed body of the holy bishop had been missing from the shrine +where it lies at Bari, still exuding manna, I could not have been more +disconcerted. In my surprise and alarm I even ventured into the shop. +“The little Fra Angelico,” I cried, “in the window—what has become of +it?” + +My anxious manner made the astute proprietor scent a possible purchaser. +“Put up to auction to-day,” he answered. “You must be quick if you want +it.” + +“Where?” + +He mentioned a firm of picture-dealers in the West-End. + +I know not what possessed me—unless it were the fairy godmother—but I +hurried off to the sale-rooms. I had never attended an auction before, +yet I wedged my way to the front with the assured air of a buyer. + +I was only just in time. My patron saint was in the hands of the +slave-dealer, who expatiated, after the usual fashion of slave-dealers, +on his chattel’s youth, simplicity, and beauty. He also called attention +to the innocence and charm of the three sleeping maidens. His language +was florid. I could not help wondering whether, from some calm cell in +the heavenly monastery overhead, the angelic friar looked down with a +pitying smile on this vicissitude of his handicraft. How lovingly he +laid on his cinnabar and his cobalt! He painted that picture with holy +joy for some dim niche in a Florentine nunnery; could he have foreseen +how it would be bandied about, with unsympathetic remarks as to its +drawing and colouring, in the unsanctified hands of far northern +heretics? + +It was hateful to behold that lovely youth, with his long fair hair and +his delicate trunk-hose, held up for competition to the highest bidder. +The desecration sickened me. There he stood on tip-toe, his back +half-turned to us, with his three purses of gold, a rich and noble +saint, yet not wealthy enough to redeem himself from such last +dishonour! Oh, strange craft of the brush which could so give life to a +dead thing that, ages after its fashioner had mouldered into dust, my +heart still went forth to it as to a living lover! Men began to bid for +St. Nicholas. Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty guineas; seventy guineas for +the saint; slower, slower, slower. + +At last the auctioneer reached a hundred. Then came a long pause. I +could not bear to think that that coarse-looking dealer with the vulgar +laugh—fat, sleek, materialised—should possess my patron. A young man +with a sweet voice (on whose forehead I seemed to see the red star of +St. Dominic) had bid up to ninety-five. How I hoped he would continue! +But he was silent at the hundred. I could no longer contain myself. The +fairy godmother at my elbow impelled me. With an effort I gasped out, “A +hundred and five!”—just to keep up the bidding. + +“Going at a hundred and five! A hundred and five guineas! A genuine Fra +Angelico! This exquisite work! _So_ small a price! Does no other +gentleman offer?” He made a dramatic pause. Then down came the hammer. +“The lady has it.” + +In a second it rushed over me what I had done. I gasped in my +embarrassment. A clerk drew near and murmured something inaudible about +“conditions of sale.” Through a mist of words I caught faint echoes of +“Five per cent. at once, and the balance before to-morrow.” + +My face was fiery red. I had dim dreams of prison. The young man with +the sweet voice stole quietly up to me. + +“Excuse me,” he said, in my ear; “one moment, before you complete this +purchase. I want that picture. _Will_ you take five guineas for your +bargain?” + +“Five guineas?” I cried, aghast. “For a picture worth more than a +hundred.” + +“You misunderstand me,” he corrected. “I want that work very +much—though I doubt its authenticity: I believe it to be only a +contemporary replica. However, if you cede it to me, I will pay the +money down and give you five guineas over. I did not care to go on +bidding further against the dealer; he was running up the price: but I +will buy it from _you_. Do you accept my offer?” + +_Sic me servavit Apollo!_ Thus St. Nicholas saved me! I repented of my +distrust. Twice was he tried at a pinch, and twice not found wanting! + +In a haze, I assented. The stranger paid me the money, which I handed +over to the clerk, less my own profit. Then I went forth into the +street, a rich woman once more, with an almost inexhaustible capital of +five guineas. + +Was it St. Nicholas, I wonder, or the fairy godmother? + +The question is important, from the doctrinal point of view, for it +involves the conflict between the faith and paganism. + +But my own opinion is that the young man with the star of Dominic on his +brow was St. Nicholas himself, come down to earth yet another time with +a purse of five guineas for a maiden’s dower. So have I seen him more +than once descending from solid clouds, in _ex voto’s_ in Italy. + + + CHAPTER XI. + A SAIL ON THE HORIZON. + +“This story,” you say, “is deficient in love-interest.” + +My dear critic, has anybody more reason to regret that fact than its +author? I have felt it all along. Yet reflect upon the circumstances. +Ten thousand type-writer girls crowd London to-day, and ’tis precisely +in this that their life is deficient—love-interest. + +Remember, I am only telling you my own poor little story; and I am but +an amateur story-teller. The professional novelist keeps in stock in her +study a large number of vats, each marked (like drinks in a +refreshment-room) with the names of their contents in gilt +letters—“Sensation,” “Character-sketches,” “Humour,” and so forth. She +turns on the taps mechanically as they are needed. But by far the +biggest vat is labelled “Love-interest.” No matter what plot the +professional novelist may invent, she lets this tap run, as soon as her +puppets are devised, and drenches the whole work with an amatory +solvent, exactly as the chemist dilutes his mixtures with distilled +water to eight ounces. I, however, who am narrating to you the actual +history of one stray girl among ten thousand in London,—what can I do +but wait for the love-interest to develop itself? + +My name is Juliet; you may well believe I have had moments when I +thrilled with the expectation of a Romeo. But Romeos do not grow on +every gooseberry bush. It were unreasonable to expect that any mere man +is sufficient. You will admit, for instance, that neither the Grand +Vizier, nor Rothenburg of the watery eyes, was precisely the ideal +knight my fancy painted. St. George, to be sure, was a dear: but I +suspected him of one fatal flaw—being married. + +I waited and watched for that not impossible he; and the not impossible +he still lurked unmaterialised. + +When I came into my fortune (of five guineas) my first impulse was +naturally to repay Michaela (which I did at once by post-office order), +and thus to transfer that particular square of mosaic pavement from its +nether abode to some celestial mansion. My second was, to buy a bunch of +tea-roses for my lodgings: and my third, to redeem my type-writer, so as +to return to St. Nicholas, as some small mark of my gratitude, thirty +shillings from his latest benefaction. + +On further thought, however, it occurred to me that thirty shillings in +the hand are worth more at a crisis than a type-writer in the bush—a +mixed metaphor which not even the printer’s reader with his officious +query shall prevail upon me to rectify. If no work came, I could live +upon capital once more. Meanwhile, the machine could be of no possible +service. + +After three days, my hands were so far recovered that I began to look +about me for a situation again. I took up a daily paper and, in a column +of mixed wants, read another “Wanted” advertisement: “Lady type-writer, +with good knowledge of shorthand. Apply, Messrs. Blank and Sons, +Publishers,”—and the address followed. + +I liked the idea of a publisher’s office, and I liked that +advertisement. My theory is that a type-writer girl should call herself +a type-writer girl; but that an advertiser should do her the courtesy to +speak of her as a Lady Type-writer, or something of the sort: certainly +not as a (parenthetical) female. Also, I must have literature. The +literature at my aunt’s consisted of ladies’ newspapers, Bishop Jackson +on “The Sinfulness of Little Sins,” and books about the Holy Land. Here, +I should have access to the Springs of Culture. + +So I hastened to apply for the vacant post. I was not the first this +time; I met a girl on the stairs, less strong than myself, coming down +from the office with a most dejected countenance. If this were the +struggle for life, it made my heart ache (for her sake) to think I must +engage in it. However, I continued on my way, and boldly stated my +errand to the young man in attendance. That young man struck a keynote. +He was neat, well-dressed, and had a black fringe of moustache; in spite +of which advantages he was not supercilious. His voice was a +gentleman’s. He told me Mr. Blank would be disengaged in a moment; +meanwhile, would I take a seat? I sank into one and waited. + +The office was quite unlike Messrs. Flor and Fingelman’s. The anteroom +where I sat was exquisitely clean, and neatly fitted up with polished +shelves and wood-work. An air of quiet culture pervaded the whole; it +seemed to communicate itself even to the clerks. In the pigeon-holes +round the room stood rows of books in glazed paper covers, looking as +spotless and as tidy as if a woman had arranged them. Well-known names +adorned their backs. As for dust, it was not. + +In a few minutes came the word, “Mr. Blank will see you.” + +I followed my guide, expecting to be ushered into a rather bare room +with a venerable gentleman seated at a table; I pictured him, in fact, +as the exact original of the hale old grey-beard who testifies in the +omnibuses to the merits of Eno’s Fruit Salt. For the firm is one of the +most dignified in London. Instead of that, I found myself in a neat +study,—too cosy for an office, too severe for a boudoir. It had +curtains of silken Samarcand, and fittings of cedared Lebanon. It had +also a tawny Oriental carpet, and an old oak desk, at which sat a young +man of modest and statuesque countenance. I guessed his age at +twenty-seven. He rose undecided as I entered, like one whom native +politeness impels to an act which he half fears is ill-suited to the +occasion. As he turned towards me, I saw a face of notable strength and +culture; a finely-modelled nose, firm, yet soft in outline; acute brown +eyes, piercing, but gentle; abundant dark eyebrows that hung slightly +over them and gave a masterful air to their keenness and penetration. +His hair was black and shaggy, like a retriever’s. He was tall, but +well-knit. His eyes met mine as he gave a little inclination. A thrill +ran through me. I knew him as by instinct. I said to myself, “A Romeo!” + +I suppose I was the only person in London at the time who did not know +that the head of the firm had lately died, and been succeeded by his +son, an Eton boy and Oxford man, who had taken high honours. + +Romeo waved me to a chair. “You have come, I think,” he said, in a rich, +clear voice, pausing for a minute out of instinctive courtesy before he +seated himself, “in answer to our advertisement.” + +“Yes,” I replied; “I understand you want a type-writer girl.” + +His eyebrows moved up at the words. I could see they produced a +favourable impression. He was accustomed to the formula “a lady to +type-write for you.” + +“Exactly,” he answered, folding his hands, and trying to assume the +official tone of a man of business; though I was aware that he was +unobtrusively observing my dress and appearance, not as Ahasuerus had +done, like a cross between an Oriental monarch and a horse-dealer, but +like a gentleman of keen insight, accustomed to take things in at a +glance without disconcerting the object of his scrutiny. + +He put me a few stereotyped questions as to speed and qualifications, +which I was fortunately able to answer to his satisfaction. Then he went +on in a deprecatory way, “I must ask you, I am afraid, to write a little +to my dictation, and then transcribe what you have written. Excuse this +detail. One must test your ability.” + +“Of course,” I assented, producing my stylograph. + +“We have had applicants already who did not suit my requirements. One +left as you arrived. I—I was sorry not to be able to engage her; for I +judged her to be in want; but—she was quite incompetent.” He spoke +apologetically. + +“I met her on the stairs,” I replied. “She appeared to be downcast.” + +He gave me a hurried glance, for there was pity in my tone. “It is _so_ +unfortunate,” he said, “that one must insist on competence! For often +the incompetent most need employment.” + +“There is a beautiful story,” I answered, “about Robert Owen, when +somebody patted the head of a very pretty child at his school at Harmony +Hall. ‘You are like all the rest,’ said Owen; ‘you pat the prettiest. +But it is the ugly ones that need encouragement.’ That was true +philanthropy.” + +He looked me through and through. I took out my note-book, and assumed a +business-like air. He reached down a volume of some History of Greece, +and began dictating rapidly. The passage, chosen of set purpose, was +full of Greek names, and rather recondite words of technical import. I +saw he had selected it as a test of knowledge as well as of speed. I was +glad I had been at——But that would be confessing. I wrote rapidly and +well—more rapidly, I think, than I had ever before done; and I knew +why: he was a Romeo. + +“Do I go too fast?” he asked at last, looking up at me suddenly with a +gentle smile. + +“Not at all,” I replied. “You might try a little faster, if you like, as +you really wish to test me.” + +“And you know the names?” he inquired with an incredulous accent. + +“Perfectly. Please go on; ‘the hegemony of Thebes’ was the last clause +you dictated.” + +He continued to the end. “Bœotia thus lost the flower of her hoplites,” +were the words with which he finished. + +I wrote it all out in long-hand, very clearly and distinctly. He ran his +eye over it. “But this is excellent!” he said at last, glancing at it +close. “You have all the words right. You must have studied Greek, +haven’t you?” + +I temporised. “A little.” + +He paused again. Then, after a few questions to draw me out, especially +as to attainments, he began rather timidly. “This is precisely what I +want. I require a lady of education, who can take down instructions and +write letters to authors on the subject-matter of their works, without +need for correction. But—I’m afraid the post would hardly suit you. If +you will excuse my saying so, you are too good for the place. I do not +mean as to salary—that, no doubt, I could arrange . . . in accordance +. . . with qualifications.” He glanced quickly at my black dress again. +“But I fear—I fear you will find the work beneath you.” + +“You can set your mind entirely at rest on that score,” I answered +frankly. “I will tell you the plain truth—I am in need of a situation, +and shall be glad to get one.” + +He hesitated once more. “Still, I feel doubts of conscience,” he went +on. “I will be quite open with you. You may think me quixotic, but I +have ideas of my own—social ideas—some people might even say +socialistic. Here is this work, which I have it in my hands to bestow; +which I hold as a trust, almost. It would suffice to keep some poor +lady’s wants supplied—some lady who is in need of actual necessaries. +Now, I do not think it right that young gentlewomen who have all they +need already found them at home should compete in the market against +poor girls in search of a bare subsistence. They ought not to deprive +such girls of bread in order to add to their own pin-money. This +movement for ‘doing something’ on the part of well-to-do women is +pressing hard on the girls of the lower middle-class. Pardon my putting +it so; but you come from a home, no doubt, where you have all you +require; and you seek this work just to increase your income.” + +I thought it was sweet of him. I could see I was exactly the person he +wanted; yet for a matter of principle he was prepared to take someone +possibly less suited to his special requirements. I was glad that I +could answer with the ring of truth, “There, you are quite mistaken. I +am one of the class whom you desire to employ—in fact, a girl in search +of a bare subsistence. I do not say so in order to appeal to your +generosity; I only wish to obtain work on my merits for what my services +are worth in the open market. But if, as you say, I prove a suitable +person for your purpose in other respects, you need have no scruple on +the grounds you suggest about employing me. I have nothing to live upon +save what I can earn by type-writing.” + +He blushed like a girl of eighteen. He was distressed that he had driven +me into making this avowal. “Oh, forgive me,” he said, rising again from +his chair. “I—it was awkward of me to put it thus bluntly. But you are +so evidently a lady of education that I took it for granted—you will +understand my natural error. I only hesitated to give a post which might +be filled by a person in need of employment to an amateur who wanted +occupation and pocket-money.” + +“I quite understand,” I answered. “Out bicycling last week, I passed a +common where shaggy donkeys, with unkempt coats, stood in the sunshine +dejected, hanging their heads as if they had been reading Schopenhauer.” +(He looked up suddenly at the name with an inquiring glance.) “But their +mood was justified; for geese were tugging at the short grass hard by, +nibbling it close to the root; and I felt the four-footed beasts might +well be melancholy at the struggle for life when birds, winged creatures +that may career over the world, took to competing with them by grazing +like cattle, and snatched the bread out of the donkey’s mouth.” + +His face wore an amused smile. “But you are learned,” he put in. “You +might obviously be engaged in so much higher work—a teacher’s, for +instance.” + +“I should hate teaching!” I cried vehemently. “I prefer freedom. I am +prepared for the drudgery of earning my livelihood in a house of +business. But I must realise myself.” + +“I understand that,” he answered; “and—and sympathise with it. Well, I +apologise for my mistake. Under the circumstances, we need only proceed +to arrange the business part of this transaction.” + +He named a weekly sum. It was my turn to blush. “That is too much,” I +exclaimed. I could see he was fixing it, not by the market price, but by +what he thought a sufficient income for a person of my presumed position +in society. It was all so alien from Ahasuerus’s way of hiring a +Shorthand and Type-writer (female). + +“Not for so competent an assistant,” he answered, still nervous. + +Awkward as it might be to begin one’s relations with a new employer by +an apparent contest of generosity, yet I could not accept the sum he +proposed. I told him so in plain words; he insisted: I beat him down. +After a brief but well-contested skirmish, I camped on the field as +victor, though we compromised for a wage a little less than half-way +between what he wished to give and what I was prepared to accept. It did +not escape me at the time, however, that such a first step almost of +necessity entailed a certain sentimental tinge in our relations: they +would scarce be those of employer and employed, as regulated by custom +and political economy. + +When all protocols were settled he went on, “Can you come in at once?” + +“To-day, if you wish it.” + +“Oh, that would be such a convenience to me! I have matters to settle +which I do not wish to hand over just now to my clerks; it was my desire +that you should act as confidential letter-writer in my dealings with +authors, quite outside the business.” + +“I will begin this afternoon,” I said. + +“Our type-writing machine—the one I intended for you—is——” I forget +precisely which make he mentioned, but it was one to whose keyboard I +was unaccustomed. “Can you work with it?” + +“No,” I answered. “But I have my own. I will bring it.” + +“How kind of you! Though you must not continue to use it, of course. We +have no right to impose upon you the wear and tear. If you will tell me +which sort you prefer, it shall be here to-morrow. Meanwhile, for +to-day, if you would bring round your own, I should be greatly obliged +to you.” + +“I will go and fetch it,” I said, remembering that it lay close by in +St. Nicholas’s safe keeping. + +“How? In a cab?” + +I smiled. His politeness positively embarrassed me. “No; in my hands,” I +replied. “I am accustomed to carry it.” + +“But type-writers are so heavy,” he remonstrated. (I felt his anxiety to +treat me like a lady was leading to complications, and I half regretted +the Grand Vizier’s lofty sense of masculine superiority.) “Had you not +better take a cab?” + +“No,” I answered with firmness; for I felt I must put a stop to this +strain at the outset. An employer should know his place. “I can carry it +easily, thank you.” + +He looked at me with a curious look. I suppose I have the average +endowment of feminine intuition; and I felt sure he was debating in his +own mind whether or not he should tell me to call a hansom and charge it +to the office. It was my own old duologue of Inclination and Duty. +Inclination said, “Make her take it”; Duty interposed, “You must begin +as you mean to go on. This is an office matter. If she cannot work your +machine, and wishes to bring her own, she must convey it at her own +expense. You have no ground to stand upon.” + +After a pause in which, as I could see, either impulse got the upper +hand alternately, he compromised the matter. “Is it far?” he enquired. + +“Close by. I can fetch it in five minutes.” + +“Then one of my clerks will step round with you and carry it for you.” + +I blushed bright crimson. I had imagined shyness to be (like +“sensibility,” hysterics, and fainting) an obsolete disease of the early +Victorian epoch. I now knew that it survived into our own time. I could +feel the hot blood flooding my ears and cheeks, and running down my +neck. What on earth could I answer? How let the clerk see where I had +left my machine? How confess to Romeo to whose keeping I had confided +it? He could never understand that, to a girl of my temperament, those +golden balls were but the mystic symbol of the saint of Myra. I knew not +what to answer. I stood still and blushed; and my blush it was that +betrayed, yet saved me. + +Lifting my eyes one second in a mute appeal, I saw right into his soul +as he stood there, facing me, more nervous, more embarrassed than ever. +I saw he divined that I lived in some poor quarter, or had a drunken +mother, or something equally discreditable, and was ashamed to let his +clerk know it. But he withdrew, like a gentleman that he was to the +finger-ends. “How stupid of me!” he went on. “I see, of course, it would +be unpleasant for you to walk down the street with one of my +clerks—though they are nice young men, all of them. Excuse my +_gaucherie_. But—you are coming in at once to oblige me; I ought to +have arranged to have a machine here to suit you. Won’t you please take +a cab, and allow me to—to charge it to the office?” + +He had got it out at last. I changed colour once more. To hide my +shyness—for to my vast surprise, I was speechlessly shy by this time—I +pulled out my handkerchief. As fate would have it—fate that mocks at +human souls—I drew with it from my pocket a little square of blue paper +which fell, face downward, on the floor. How can I confess the truth? It +was—the counterfoil or ticket I had received for my machine from the +representative of St. Nicholas. + + + CHAPTER XII. + A CAVALIER MAKES ADVANCES. + +I grieve to hint a doubt of my chosen patron, but enlarged experience of +St. Nicholas has led me to believe that he lacks consistency. His action +is jerky. Though he will often sweep down, as of old, in a pale haze of +glory, to rescue some votary from instant shipwreck, he is hardly a +saint in whom a girl can repose implicit confidence. At tight places of +social trial he is apt to fail one. + +I had but one consolation. The ticket had fallen on the floor face +downward. + +I stooped to pick it up. My cheeks, I feel sure, must have glowed with +crimson. Shame tingled in my ears. But Romeo was beforehand with me. He +raised the scrap of paper and handed it to me, still face downward, with +a faint inclination. I lifted my lowered eyelids. My swimming eyes +parleyed with his for a second. I cannot say whether he was aware what +manner of thing he was passing me; but I fancy he _did_ know. Yet if he +knew I felt sure he interpreted the episode aright, for his glance was +one of mute respect and sympathy. + +I crushed the unspeakable pasteboard into my pocket, never uttering a +word, and rushed, hot and red, from the room, without daring to speak to +him. + +On the stairs I debated whether I could ever come back. Prudence and +Shame fought it out between them. Prudence won. I determined to go on as +if nought untoward had happened. + +I might have failed, even so, in my resolution, had it not chanced that +my road to the Depository of my machine lay past the eating-house where +I was wont to retire for bodily refreshment from Flor and Fingelman’s. +As I reached the door a hand touched my arm. I looked round, startled, +and saw the Grand Vizier, outward bound from luncheon, with his hairy +hands, his goggle eyes, his shiny black coat grown green on the seams, +and his false diamond pin shaped like a shoe of the noble animal. + +“Good-morning, miss,” he said in a pert tone. + +I echoed his salute, and made as though I would pass on hurriedly. But I +noted in his accent, even from the three words he had spoken, a change +of mien; he was almost what for him might be deemed respectful. + +“Look here,” he went on, striding after me, and keeping abreast of me +against my will. “That was a devilish clever letter of yours—to the +governor, you know—a _devilish_ clever letter!” + +“I am proud to have earned the approbation of so competent a critic,” I +answered in my chilliest voice. “Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley——” + +He glanced at me with suspicion. I think his first and most flattered +idea was that I mistook him for a distinguished baronet; his second, +neutral in tint, that I was mad; his third, and most reluctant, that I +was poking sly fun at him. + +“Look here,” he began again—it was his formula for introducing a fresh +paragraph in his converse—“I’ve got an invitation for you. I’ve been +looking about for you everywhere. Will you come with me on Thursday +night, dress circle, at the Olympic?” + +He rolled it out impressively, as one who felt sure that the solemnity +of the dress circle would subdue my stubborn neck. + +“No, thanks,” I answered; “I never go to theatres with casual +acquaintances.” + +Then I walked on still faster, for I foresaw that I must often meet him +in future, since our offices lay close together; and I judged it best to +let him see at once I did not crave the honour of his society. + +“Oh, but this is on the square,” he went on. “You don’t understand. You +think I don’t mean right by you because I am a gentleman in a position +of Trust and Responsibility, and you are”—he was about to say “a +type-writer girl,” but he checked himself in time and substituted for it +the phrase “a lady stenographer.” “While you were at the office,” he +went on, “I couldn’t treat you on equal terms, of course, because of my +official position. But when I read that letter I saw at one glance you +had brains; and I like a girl with brains, and I mean to walk out with +one.” + +“Indeed?” I answered. “Then I advise you not to waste your valuable time +on a woman who does not pant for that privilege.” + +He let his mouth drop open. “But it’s a ticket for two,” he +expostulated, “given me by a friend of mine who takes a part in the +piece. You’d better think twice. It isn’t every day one gets a chance of +a seat in the dress circle. And if I go at all I like to take a young +lady.” + +This marked advance. I had gone up in the world. At Southampton Row I +had been “a young person.” + +He continued to talk, and I continued to turn my coldest shoulder. + +At last we reached the door of the Depository. The goggle eyes ogled me. +I saw that some violent act was needful if I were to escape persecution +at the man’s hands in future. I paused by the step. “I am going in +here,” I said, bravely. + +The Vizier did not observe the peculiar character of the shop as a +shrine of St. Nicholas. “I will wait for you,” he answered, waving one +hairy hand with cheerful promptitude. + +I braced myself up for a deadly thrust. “I have left my machine here,” I +went on in a cold clear voice, “and I am going in . . . to redeem it. I +shall then carry it home. A Gentleman in a position of Trust and +Responsibility will not like to be seen by my side as I carry it.” + +He glanced up at the mystic sign—one glance, no more. I saw his face +grow pale. To so respectable a man such conduct was inexplicable. Refuse +a ticket for the dress circle, and yet—— + +I darted in, with the same fierce flush of shame and repugnance as +before. But this time the need for getting rid of him had given me false +courage. + +When I emerged with the machine, a limp flaccid creature, half-dead with +disgust, the Grand Vizier had melted away, disappeared among the +phantoms. So again Apollo or St. Nicholas had saved me. + +Our courses crossed afterwards in the street many times. But his +tolerance of type-writer girls had its proper limits. He tacked across +to the other side as I hove in sight lest he should be exposed to the +risk of having to acknowledge a salute from so compromising a person. + +I will say for St. Nicholas that though he has curious methods of +bringing about the deliverance of those who trust him, he is a gentleman +at heart, and he usually succeeds in the end in giving effect to his +benevolent intentions. + + + CHAPTER XIII. + CONCERNING ROMEO. + +It is a far cry from Verona to London. The ways of the Corso are not the +ways of Pall Mall. Therefore, when I admit that my heart cried “A +Romeo!” you are not to infer that I had fallen in love with him. I +merely mean that I recognised in my new friend the type of man who might +conceivably command my heart and me, should fate so will it. + +When Romeo of Verona first saw his Juliet at the Capulets’ masque, ’tis +on record that, at first sight of her, he forgot fair Rosaline (for +whose sake but one hour earlier he was dying to die), and seizing his +new goddess’s hand, assured her, without preamble or introduction, that +his lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stood to smooth that rough touch +with a tender kiss; while Juliet, in return, was prepared to avow at a +glance that if the stranger were married her grave was like to be her +wedding bed. Those be the modes of Verona, as vouched by Shakespeare. +Our northern hearts, however, have not the instant electric +responsiveness of Italian breasts. Love with us is the child, not the +mother of acquaintance. And though I thought of my Romeo as Romeo from +the first moment I beheld him, never calling him in my soul by any other +name, yet ’twas but some prophetic fancy on my part. For many weeks he +figured as no more than my employer. + +Juliet of Verona, if I recollect aright, when she flung herself upon +Romeo, was not yet full fourteen till Lammas night; at her age our +northern maid, with her fair hair down, has conceived a romantic +attachment for chocolate-creams and the prettiest of her governesses. I +was twenty-two; and twenty-two, that mature age, takes time to consider. +Moreover, it waits till its Romeo asks it. + +For, pretend as we will, the plain truth is this: woman is plastic till +the predestined man appears; then she takes the mould he chooses to +impose upon her. Men make their own lives, women’s are made for them. +Why, one of my dearest friends at the Guild—an ethereal being—was wont +to pace the garden with a vellum-covered Rossetti or Pater in her +pocket, composing chants-royal to the moon and to divine love, till a +man loomed on the horizon—a man in a Norfolk jacket, with a commission +in the Guards and estates in the Midlands; whereupon she exchanged the +Rossetti all at once for a blear-eyed ferret, and strolled about the +lanes accompanied by a fox-terrier and a Cuban bloodhound. This is not +poetical, but ’tis life as I have noted it. + +To cut moralising short, I settled down at once to work at my Romeo’s. + +When I arrived there with my machine, more dead than alive with shame, +the good-looking clerk carried it upstairs for me reverently. He was a +comely youth, with a clean round face, Devonshire apple cheeks, and +pleasant parsonage manners; he came, indeed, as I discovered later, from +an Exmoor rectory. A table was set for me in Romeo’s own room. I feared +to invade that sanctum. “Am I to sit right here?” I asked. He smiled and +answered, “Right there.” So I took my place under protest. Thenceforth, +I was part of the furniture of his study. + +My life at Romeo’s was a life of routine. Now routine (varied by +outbreaks) is excellent for the nerves; but it does not afford material +for romance. It is the drab of life: art insists rather on the purple +and scarlet. So I make no apology for dealing with it here only in a few +brief episodes. + +All our history is episode, with blanks between, which just serve +conveniently to divide the chapters. + +At home, my social circle was limited to Mr. Commissioner Lin: my +conversation to “Did ’ums, then? did ’ums?” At occasional intervals I +dined with my aunt, who abode at Paddington: but I did not yearn to make +that joy too common. My revered relation has all the vices of the +decayed gentlewoman: unheroic vices, which interest nobody. She hoards +bits of string, and half-sheets of note-paper. Her table, her ideas, and +her discourse are meagre. She entertains angels, disguised as curates, +and is a prop of the Deaconesses’ Institute. + +At the office, I had my seat in Romeo’s own room. Poverty emancipates. +It often occurred to me how different things would have been had my dear +father lived, and had I remained a young lady. In that case, I could +have seen Romeo at intervals only, under shelter of a chaperon; as it +was, no one hinted the faintest impropriety in the fact that the +type-writer girl was left alone with him half the day in the privacy of +his study. Not that this freedom gave me much occasion (at first) for +talk with Romeo. He was courtesy itself, and by nature conversible: but +his chivalrous feelings, and his sense of my isolation, made him chary +of speaking. He dictated all day, or left me to transcribe; but he +seldom broke silence save on matters of business. + +Nevertheless, from the outset, he was markedly kind to me. I had two +nice boys at hand to run errands and carry my notes; one, a skimpy +London imp, compact of saucy humour; I called him Puck: the other, a +slender lad of fifteen, pale, delicate, girlishly pretty, with long +straw-coloured hair and a distracted manner, whom I rechristened Ariel. +Romeo gradually adopted this trick of speech from me. It is a habit of +mine (as you may have observed) to invent names for my friends; and +these generally stick—I suppose because I borrow them as a rule from +the poets, who have classified us into types which recur perennially. + +After I had been at the office a few weeks, I happened one day to slip +into some Americanism. Though I have seen little of America (having gone +there but once on a visit to my father’s folk at Salem when I was not +quite fifteen) I have inherited from my ancestry not a few Massachusetts +idioms, one or other of which I sometimes let drop, unconsciously to +myself, in the course of conversation. Romeo snapped at the word at +once. “Why, you must be a New Englander!” + +“Not quite,” I answered, flushing. “My father was born at Salem, an +American citizen; but he became naturalised in England young, and was a +British officer.” + +“Not in the army?” Romeo cried, surprised. + +“Yes,” I answered. “Why not? A colonel.” + +I grew hot as I spoke. For the first and only time, I think Romeo +doubted me. “Then you—must have—a pension,” he broke out, slowly. + +It was partly desire to avoid telling the truth, partly a certain native +love of mystification—or rather of piquing other people’s curiosity; +but I answered with a touch of defiance, “An officer’s daughter loses +her pension on marriage. I may be married, perhaps—or separated—or a +widow.” And I bent down over my work to hide my heightened colour. + +He gazed at me for a second; his eye fell on my left hand; then he +glanced away. I could see him saying to himself he had no right to +cross-question me. But interest in me prevailed. He drew near, and stood +over me. “You must forgive my persistence,” he said, gently, in his +modulated voice—each syllable clear as crystal—“but I feel constrained +to ask you. Have you really a pension? . . . . For if so, you have +misled me.” + +I looked up at him with proud eyes. My father’s blood rose hot in me. “I +must tell you the truth,” I said, “or you will think I am ashamed of my +father. I am not ashamed; I am proud of him. He was an English colonel; +but I have no pension. He was a very brave man. He threw up his +commission, in time of war, at a moment of danger, almost in face of the +enemy, because he would not carry out orders which seemed to him unjust. +And he died of anxiety and fever just after, on the West Coast of +Africa.” + +“I remember the case. Pray forgive me. It was cruel of me to drive you.” + +“Not at all. I am glad you did. Now you will understand better.” + +I rose, flushed, and faced him. “They say a soldier should resign his +conscience into the keeping of the Queen’s advisers. My father could +not. He felt wrong was being done. He would not make his judgment blind. +He left me poor by it; and I am proud of it—proud of him.” + +“You have reason to be proud,” Romeo answered. “I recall it all now. His +previous record showed it was courage, not cowardice. I honoured him for +it at the time—though the world thought otherwise.” + +“Thank you,” I said in a low voice. “May I go now? It is nearly five. +And I feel, after this, I can do no more work this evening.” + +He opened the door for me and bowed even more respectfully than usual. +There was sympathy in every movement. I felt he understood. I felt I had +made a friend. I felt, still more surely than before, that _this_ was my +Romeo. + + + CHAPTER XIV. + “NOW BARABBAS WAS A PUBLISHER.” + +I regret to say that from that day forth Romeo was more marked in his +courtesy to me than ever. His manner had always a tinge of sweet antique +courtliness; but now he surpassed himself. I regret it, I say, because I +was afraid I recognised in this courtesy some lingering undercurrent of +class feeling. The dear fellow would have been polite to a type-writer +girl from the dregs of the people, no doubt—he did not know how to be +less than polite to anyone; but he was politer still when he understood +that I was an officer’s daughter, and (as he learned a week later) that +my mother had sprung from a great Anglo-Indian family. This was treason +to his principles; for Romeo, as he had said, was more than half a +socialist; but I condoned that fault for the sake of his unvarying +kindness. + +Besides, I think he thought well of me because I was loyal to my +father’s memory. As though anyone who had known my dear father could +have been otherwise! + +Romeo published for Sidney Trevelyan. From the moment when I first +noticed “An Heir of the Plantagenets” among the rows of books in glazed +paper covers in the pigeon-holes, I had always longed to be present some +day when the famous novelist came in to discuss royalties or _éditions +de luxe_ with his publisher. Sidney Trevelyan’s name was like Charing +Cross or Hyde Park Corner—a familiar piece of public property. One +afternoon I had my will. I was seated at my table, clicking away at some +letters, when I heard on the stairs a rich strident voice, diffusing +itself very loud in clear shrill accents. I know not which struck me +most, its richness or its stridency. It was a sonorous voice, which one +turn of a note would have made unendurable. “He is in his lair?” it +said, filling the room. “Plotting schemes to suck my blood? Then I will +track him to his earth—the young vampire. My dear Barabbas, how are +you?” + +He burst into the sanctum, a whirlwind of a man—large, loose-limbed, +masterful, with a restless grey eye, and a huge mop of brown hair, shot +with threads of russet. Romeo rose to greet him. He flung himself into a +chair. It creaked beneath his elephantine weight. I left off clicking at +once, and went on with a piece of long-hand transcription. Or rather, to +be frank, I feigned to transcribe, though my pen was inkless. + +As a rule, when authors came, ’twas my place to leave the study for +awhile, and take refuge with Puck and Ariel in the anteroom. But as the +great man entered—two yards of humanity, double width—Romeo signed to +me to remain, with a quick movement of the eyebrow. He knew my wish, and +was kind enough to remember it. I counted it to him for righteousness. + +Sidney Trevelyan sniffed, and scanned the room, with its Oriental +hangings, and its scent of cedar-wood. “A nice den, Barabbas, a nice +den!” he observed, in a condescending tone; “an Ali Baba’s cave, rich +with bones of authors; vastly improved since the days of the old +robber!” + +Romeo winced. Like myself, he respected his father. + +“You have garnished it afresh,” the great novelist continued, “from the +spoils of the Egyptians. You have decked yourself in purple and fine +linen! Well, ’tis well you should be comfortable in this world, no +doubt: for in the next——But I refrain from painting a Tartarean +picture. Dante has done it so well before me that, like the grocer in my +street, he defies competition. I see you, my dear Barabbas,” he raised +his voice still louder, almost lapsing into a falsetto, “I see you +lolling here in Eastern opulence, bathed in Cyprian perfumes, and fanned +by obsequious Circassian odalisques”—I _felt_ him glance my way, though +my eyes were fixed on my paper; “I see you, like the sultan in Shelley’s +_Hellas_, surrounded by large-eyed houris, of voluptuous bosoms, who +strew your restless pillow with opiate flowers—I call your pillow +restless, my dear fellow, partly because that was Shelley’s epithet, if +memory serves me, but partly also because a publisher (especially a +young one) can scarcely expect to enjoy sound slumber; later on, no +doubt, as he becomes hardened in crime, he sleeps as well as a digestion +impaired by old port permits; but at first, remorse must disturb his +fitful rest—I see you, I say, with opiate flowers on your couch +stripped—what was the rhyme?—ah, yes, ‘flowers,’ ‘pillow’—stripped +from orient bowers by the Indian billow. That is the picture—_here_. +But at last comes the awakening.” He struck a dramatic attitude, and +held up one hand; he had impressive fat hands, which seemed always in +evidence. “You start from your sleep like Mahmood. ‘Man the +seraglio—guard! Make fast the gate!’ You dream yourself still lapped in +Eastern magnificence. Then . . . . ha! what’s this? An odour of +brimstone—a pallid whiff of blue flame—Mephistopheles smiling grimly +on the victim he has landed—you know where you are—unlike the current +hero of music-hall romance—you stretch dim hands of fear and grope—you +sink down, down, down, on a couch of liquid fire. ‘All is lost! Why was +I ever a publisher?’ In which of his circles did Dante place publishers? +Was it not close between the avaricious and the prevaricators? But aloft +in the empyrean, pillowed on purple cloud, meanwhile, I enjoy that +delight upon which Tertullian insisted as a prime element in the ecstasy +of the Blest—the delight of beholding you——But your satellites +overhear me! Sense of discipline forbids! Barabbas,” he waved his hand, +“I draw a veil over your future condition!” + +He paused for want of breath. Most fat men are sluggish: this mountain +of flesh was alive and volcanic in every atom. Romeo began in his soft +voice, “And on what particular conspiracy of crime have you come to-day +to consult the habitual criminal?” + +Sidney Trevelyan smiled. He liked to be taken in his mood. “Well, my +business,” he said, “is, as you anticipate, a fresh raid against the +purses of the Philistines. We must spoil them, my dear Barabbas; we must +spoil them, in unison. Here, our interests are identical. They have +taken two thousand, I see, of the three-volume ‘Mahatmas.’ That’s not +enough; you must issue at once a six-shilling edition. Grovelling +beasts, prone in the mud they love, what do they mean by rejecting this +so great salvation? Let Mudies see to it! I shall answer their neglect +by flinging back ‘Mahatmas’ in their teeth for six shillings. I know +whence it comes, this rebuff: those ignorant parrots, the critics. They +toss at me ever their parrot cry of ‘Artificial, artificial!’ Their own +thoughts grub and grunt in the mud of their sty, and they blame it to +the eagle that he should circle about gleaming icy peaks in clear ether. +‘Unnatural,’ they say; ‘Overloaded.’ That man Snigg, or Snagg, or +Snogg—something Teutonic and unlovely—I decline to remember his +honoured name—he reviewed me in the _Parthenon_. He has no wings +himself, and therefore he thinks flight an indecent gambolling. But what +do I care for the whole crew? Not an obolus, not a doit—neither for +Snagg nor Bagg, neither for Archer nor Parcher.” + +He paused again to catch breath. In the lull, Romeo put in quietly, “It +is too soon, in my opinion, for a cheap edition.” + +“No, Barabbas, it is not; it is the psychological moment. The world +awaits it with hushed breath. Six shillings—bound in cloth—Irish +linen—dark green—a subtle shade—a shade I have in my mind’s eye—like +lavender leaves in spring, when the sap mounts emerald through sea-hoary +stems. You catch my idea? A green not wholly green, not altogether blue, +not grey, not glaucous, but something of all, and more than all; with a +cunning design by that mad young Belgian—withy-bands that twist into +interlacing dragons; the title in their midst, in somewhat Celtic +letters.” + +He broke off abruptly. Once more I could feel him glance my way. I +seemed to see through the back of my head. I was sensitive to his +movements. + +Suddenly, he burst out in a quite different voice, snorting like a +war-horse: “Send that young woman away!” he cried, executing a sort of +ponderous rhinoceros-dance before me. “Send her away! I tell you I can’t +stand her. I won’t have her scribbling there and making notes of all I +say. She’s a paragraphist—a paragraphist: the vilest spawn on God’s +earth, a paragraphist! What do you mean by setting spavined shorthand +writers to report my _obiter dicta_?” He advanced towards me, striding: +I had risen hurriedly. “Go off!” he cried, waving his hands at me as if +I were a gadfly. “Go off! I won’t be listened to and paragraphed. I +could feel you paragraphing me. Away, young woman: away with you.” And +by dint of sheer bulk, he drove me before him. + +Romeo opened the door for me. He spoke with deference. “I think, Miss +Appleton,” he said, “you had better take a seat in the anteroom for the +moment, as your presence here seems to disturb Mr. Trevelyan.” + +I went out, mystified. As the door closed behind me, I heard the great +man snort again. “Now, really, Barabbas, if you choose to keep dusky +Samian slaves chained in your lair for your hours of leisure, you should +have the decency to unchain them when fellow-conspirators come in with +proposals for a joint campaign against Askelon.” + +I sat in the anteroom for half an hour. Ariel gazed in my face with +sympathetic inquiry. “The old bear was rude?” he asked at last, in a low +voice. + +“I might almost call him so.” + +“It is his way,” Ariel replied. “He seems to wipe his shoes on one.” + +“But he’s not a bad old chap, either,” Puck put in. “He chucked me +half-a-crown once for going a message for him.” + +“And called you a Tartar-nosed imp,” Ariel added; “and hit you in the +eye with it.” + +“He is a very great genius,” I observed, sententiously, half to salve my +own offended dignity. + +“But a genius is a man,” Ariel remarked. And I felt he had reason. + +Twenty minutes later, the famous writer emerged. He cast a scowl at me +in passing. “Change your type-writer woman!” he said curtly to Romeo. +“Good-bye, my dear Barabbas. Rob on, rob ever.” His broad back vanished +down the staircase like a sinking hippopotamus. + +“Well?” Romeo asked, with an anxious face, as I returned to my post when +the tornado had passed. “Now you have seen him, what do you think of +Sidney Trevelyan?” + +“I think,” I said, “I would rather be a Barabbas than a Byron.” + + + CHAPTER XV. + FRESH LIGHT ON ROMEO. + +“Sidney Trevelyan is a great man,” Romeo said to me later; “but his +ideas are _too_ great—especially his idea of his own greatness. This +taints life for him: he moves in an atmosphere of social suspicion. ’Tis +his fixed belief that all the world is always thinking of him, when it +is really doing as he does—thinking of itself. He imagines reporters as +a sultan imagines poison, or as a tsar imagines nihilists; he scents a +paragraphist in every hedge, and a critic in every stranger.” Which +explains, I suppose, his odd behaviour. + +But my own opinion is that he needed an audience; I could catch it in +his voice that he meant me to overhear; because I affected to be +absorbed in my work he thought I was not listening, and that made him +angry. + +Romeo was kindness itself to me; yet I dare say I might never have grown +to know him better had it not been for the special providence of an +accident—or the accident of a special providence; put it whichever way +best suits your philosophy. + +Straying one afternoon through the Cretan labyrinth of Soho, I happened +to note a young girl, very poorly dressed, but with the air of a lady, +staring in at a confectioner’s. Her face struck a chord. I ransacked my +memory for it in vain. Then I recalled in a flash where I had met her +before; she was the girl whom I had passed on the stairs at Romeo’s on +the day when I went to apply for the situation; the girl whom I had +supplanted in the struggle for existence. + +Her shrinking figure, her whipped air, made me turn to ask an inevitable +question: “Have you found work yet?” + +“No, none,” she said dejectedly. “How came you to know I wanted it?” + +I explained where I had seen her, and how I had heard or guessed her +errand. She seemed unduly grateful. My heart was touched, for though I +doubt not you think me, on my own evidence, a heartless young woman, I +_have_ a heart, after all, when aught occurs to rouse it. I reflected at +once how even my gentle Romeo had said of this poor child that she was +hopelessly incompetent. Still, the incompetent have mouths to feed, and +bodies to clothe, and possibly, also, souls to save, like the rest of +us. The struggle for life has not quite choked out my soul (if I have +one). I invited her to my room for a cup of tea, and an ounce of +sympathy. Her gratitude was a satire on Christian charity in this town +of London. I found she could type fairly well, though quite +unintelligently, like a well-trained Chinaman; but she had no machine of +her own, and no money to buy one; nor could she undertake work where +dictation was necessary; though, given a copy, she could reproduce each +word with mechanical fidelity. + +It flashed across me at once that all day long I was away at Romeo’s, +and did not need my machine. “Better come here,” I said, “and use it. I +will find you manuscripts to transcribe; we have plenty of such work to +give away at the office.” + +She fawned on me like a dog accustomed to ill-treatment, and for once +used kindly. The ravenous way in which she ate bread and butter would +have satisfied even the Charity Organisation Society as to the +genuineness of her hunger. She was painfully grateful. Her gratitude +distressed me. After that we became fast friends. It is true, she was +terrified at the first smell of tobac—— But I forget; that delinquency +I have hitherto concealed from you. However, she used my machine every +day, and I helped her in the evenings. Pale, blue-eyed, colourless, with +thin hair tied up in a knot the size of a nutmeg, she was built on the +same lines as Michaela (whom I always remembered), but with this +trifling difference—that Michaela was rich, while my new little friend +had not a cent to bless herself with. One was bound in Morocco, with +gilt edges; the other, a cheap edition, in paper covers. + +Her name was Elsie, her front name, that is to say; for she had another, +I suppose, a surname; but I took no heed of it. Surnames lie on the +surface of things, and do not interest me. They are of this age, +utilitarian; while I, who dwell ever in Once-upon-a-time, care little +save for the persons and dates of fairyland. We give each other +surnames, indeed, only so long as we are mutual phantoms; once pierce to +the underlying realities of human life, and we call one another by pet +names, like so many children. + +In time Elsie became to me a sort of adopted daughter. She was older +than I to be sure; but her helplessness and incompetence inspired in me +at last that sense of motherliness which we women love—does it not come +out in us even toward our dolls in childhood? Her affection was canine. +I found work for her from a type-writing office hard by—simple work, +selected with a special eye to her limitations. She toiled at it with +that patience which one observes in the squirrel who turns the unceasing +treadmill of his cage; for minds of a certain calibre prefer routine, +which would kill a thinking animal, to any task that calls for the +slightest exercise of intelligence. As long as she was permitted to go +on copying like a machine, Elsie was perfectly happy: a doubt or a query +seemed (as she said) to comb her brain; she lost heart before an +alternative. + +I spent little time in my room myself, save for the strict necessaries +of sleep and breakfast; at other times I was driven out of it by a work +of art on the walls—the Portrait of a Locket. It represented, or rather +represents (for doubtless it still exists), a gold locket and chain, +reposing on an ample black silk bosom, with a woman’s face and hands in +the background. The face and hands, so far as can be seen, are fat and +placid; the hands crossed; the face featureless. Flesh-tints and +modelling, however, cast much rude work upon the imagination. I had not +courage enough to suggest the removal of this gem to my landlady, who +valued it highly as “a real oil-painting”; but it, and two vases, drove +me out, I will not say to the public-house, but to the public buildings. +I retired at odd moments to my drawing-room in the National Gallery, or +to the hospitable electric light of the British Museum. Elsie, on the +other hand, was not repelled by the locket or the lady. I had now no use +for my machine, and she worked on it constantly. She and the +Commissioner struck up a violent friendship. It did her good to have +some living creature at hand in the room to whom she could talk in the +intervals of click-clicking. To enlarge her circle I added in time a +starling and a canary, whom we christened Beef and Mustard. The canary +was Mustard because of his colour, and the starling Beef because there +was so much more of him. + +One of the points which had barred Elsie’s way in the matter of +obtaining employment, she felt profoundly convinced, was her religious +opinions, which were soundly narrow. This happily enabled her, like +Rothenburg, to gild her penury with the halo of the martyr. + +For myself, I suspect that incompetence had more to do with her failure +than religious prejudice; but that is a private conviction. She was a +Positivist, or a Plymouth Sister, or a member of some other uncanny +small sect; I will plead guilty to discriminating ill these minor brands +of creed; I am hazy as to the true distinction between General and +Particular Baptists (though, perhaps, a Particular Baptist uses soap); +and I always mix up Swedenborgians with Irvingites. It was a surprise to +Elsie to find that her form of faith seemed to me a question of small +import either way. I hold that most men are human, and, still more, most +women. My tolerance astonished her. When I suggested that perhaps at +that very minute Swedenborg and Irving, John Knox and Thomas à Kempis, +might perchance be gazing down upon us with kindly eyes and an amused +smile from some sequestered garden bench in one of the spacious +pleasure-grounds of the Celestial City, where they sat in rapt converse +with the soul of John Glas, who first prospected her own strictly +provincial path to Paradise, she turned her face to me with mingled +delight and terror. My view seemed to her sweet but highly heterodox. +She refused to her God a breadth of sympathy which she instinctively +admired in a fellow-creature. + +One evening I came home and found Elsie at work on a piece of +transcription which was evidently too deep for her. It was poetry, she +said, in an awed whisper: she had been given it at the office under a +promise of secrecy. But the arrangement of the long and short lines of +complicated stanzas, which needed some care in the adjustment of +margins, was evidently beyond her. She looked tired and worried, and was +mildly tearful. “Besides, dear,” she said, smoothing my hair, “there are +such difficult words in it—words nobody could spell; not even you, I +believe—such as _myrrh_ with two _r_’s and an _h_. I can’t manage them +anyhow.” + +“Dictate to me,” I said; “I can write for a bit. I’ve not done much +to-day, and I’m hardly the least bit tired.” + +She dictated several strophes. I was not surprised that she found the +words hard. “Chrysoprase” “mandragora,” “anaglyph,” “Libitina”—these +lay some miles outside poor little Elsie’s vocabulary. + +At first I noticed only the rare richness of the language, the +many-faceted words, set like jewels so as to show their full beauty; +gradually, as she dictated, I began to be aware that the verses she read +aloud to me in her infantile sing-song were not merely rhyme but also +poetry. I do not pretend to the name of critic; but I judged them to be +written with limpid felicity. They had that artlessness which comes of +the apt use of the perfect word without show of effort. Each noun and +adjective fell so naturally into its place that one fancied the writer +could have used no other—till one began to reflect that only studious +care results in so absolute a sense of inevitability. And the poems were +statuesque; they had none of the tropical exuberance of our time; they +were Greek in their austerity. + +“Who is the author?” I asked, curious to know the name of the poet with +this Ionic note, new to our English Helicon. + +“They didn’t tell me. They wished me not to know. He particularly +desired that his verses should be kept secret.” + +She went on dictating in her mechanical way. My hand struck the keys +rapidly. At last she paused, near the close of a curious variant on the +Spenserian stanza. “There’s a word I can’t make out,” she murmured. +“‘True woman has the magic’ _something_——” + +I took the manuscript from her hands. + + “True woman has the magic Midas gift; + Touched by her hand, dull clay transmutes to molten gold.” + +But that was not what made me give a sudden cry of surprise, and then +turn red as a peony. The verses were written in Romeo’s hand. And Romeo +was their author. + +In a second I was buried in them, like a bee in a crocus. I felt he was +even more to me than before. I had believed him a publisher; now I knew +him a poet. No Barabbas, but a Byron. + +How long I lay awake in my garret that night—thinking of whom but of +Romeo! + + + CHAPTER XVI. + I TRY LITERATURE. + +Next morning at lunch time, as I crossed Long Acre, I caught a glimpse +of Michaela, in the gondola of London, steering rapidly northward. A big +summer hat, all wild roses and gossamer, half hid her face, like a wild +rose itself, pink and white and delicate. + +At sight of me she recognised me, and stopped her hansom short for a +second to grasp my hand. I was pleased at her remembrance. She had come +from Waterloo, she said, and was hurrying now to catch a train at +Euston. She looked radiantly happy; I told her so. Her face flushed with +pleasure; she leaned forward and confided to me in a thrilling whisper +that she was to be married in the autumn to the friend whom she had lost +on the day I first met her. I wished her joy, and waved my hand. She +vanished, smiling, towards Euston and the Unknown, a phantom once more +among the flickering phantoms. + +Happy at her happiness, I tripped back to Romeo’s. She was an airy +little thing of gauze and bergamot, like a breath of fairyland. + +That afternoon Romeo’s talk to me was more human than usual. It was +always plain that he wanted to talk, but a sense of the official nature +of our relation restrained him often. To-day he spoke much of woman’s +place in literature. So many women, he said, wrote of life with a note +of personality rare among men. They put more heart in it. Even squalor +or crime grew less base when they handled it. + +Half unconsciously to myself, I murmured under my breath, + + “True woman has the magic Midas gift; + Touched by her hand, dull clay transmutes to molten gold.” + +I murmured it quite low; but he caught at the words with a sharp gasp. +“Where did you see that?” he asked quickly. + +I was forced to confess, “The lines occurred in some verses a little +friend of mine—I told you of her some days since—had for copy +yesterday from a type-writing office.” + +I tried not to let him know more; but, for a woman, I am a poor +dissembler; my colour or the trembling of my lips betrayed me. + +“Did you see the manuscript?” he inquired. + +“Yes; I helped her to transcribe it.” + +“They promised secrecy!” he cried. + +“And you shall have it,” I answered. + +He paused a moment. “But _you_ were the last person I would have wished +to see them,” he went on, his face twitching. + +I knew why. In some of them an allusion, a description—here, a +blue-veined eyelid; there, a gloss like a swallow’s wing on a woman’s +smooth hair—had seemed to me familiar. + +He paced up and down the tawny carpet for awhile. Then he broke out once +more. “I have written verse since I was a boy,” he said. “It has ever +been my ambition to be found worthy of the crown of poet. But if I +printed these lyrics under my own name, what use? I could but give a +handle for Sidney Trevelyan to ask in the _Saturday Review_ ‘Is Barabbas +also among the prophets?’ Nobody will take a publisher’s rhymes +seriously. So I decided to issue mine under an assumed name, and with +another firm, that critics might at least be rude to them on their +merits. For that purpose I had them type-written—and not by you. I am +sorry you have seen them.” + +“And I am glad,” I answered. “You may not care for my opinion; but these +verses are masterpieces of handicraft. You have the rare gift of +reticence. Besides, you understand the fitness of words; you appreciate +their melting shades of tone; you feel the emotional atmosphere with +which each is girdled.” + +“Thank you,” he said, checking himself. “And _you_ are one of the few +whose praise I value. You speak well of my work for the qualities I +strive to have, not for those I know I have not.” + +From that day forth he was much more at home with me. You see, we shared +a Secret in common. + +When his volume came out, several months later, it made no stir in the +world; but it gained the approbation of five or six out of the +twenty-three men and women in England who love poetry. It will yet be +known, I think; for though the public often flock together like sheep +after some noisy impostor, true poetry is always forced upon them from +above by the chosen few who can discover and impose it. The few are +frequently obscure, and bear no hall-mark; but they know one another by +the two gifts which make a critic—insight and foresight. + +My knowledge of this book drew me nearer to Romeo. Having once accepted +the fact that I knew of his work, he consulted me time and again as to +type and paper—sometimes also as to the choice of an epithet or a point +of cadence, when two equally-balanced alternatives divided his +preference. Should it be _lurid_ or _livid_? was _ruddy_ or _russet_ the +better? This led us into talks not altogether official. Though always +reticent, he began to treat me less as a type-writer and more as a +woman. + +This quality of reticence, which I observed in Romeo’s self no less than +in his work, impressed me profoundly. I admired his quiet strength, his +calm, his urbanity. I am not urbane myself, and I fear I must grant that +I am rather vehement than strong; therefore I respected all the more +these traits in Romeo. One honours one’s complement above one’s +counterpart. He never spoke strongly; he reserved strength for action. A +week or two after Sidney Trevelyan’s visit I asked him one day whether +the cheap edition of “Mahatmas” was going forward. He smiled his +restrained smile, and answered, “No, certainly not; I never intended +it.” + +“But Mr. Trevelyan was so urgent, so instant; he had quite made up his +mind.” + +“Yes; that is unimportant. The moment had not arrived, and I told him +so, calmly. He is a rock when opposed; but calmness, like faith, can +move mountains. I did not oppose him at the time; opposition just then +could only have irritated him. I saw the state of his soul; he came to +me, seething internally with suppressed wrath at the critics. I let him +blow off steam; in such circumstances I judge it unwise to sit upon the +safety-valve. He opened his heart and had it out, flinging many hard +jibes at me and at the public. That relieved the tension. I let three +days pass; then I wrote an ultimatum, stating quietly what I thought. He +gave in at once. The cheap edition shall not appear till the autumn.” + +Such masculine absence of fussiness pleased me. + +Once or twice when I discussed with him he asked me seriously why I had +never written. I laughed off his assault. He returned to the charge; so +much racy material going to waste in my own adventures. I told him of my +work among the East-End slop-makers! “Ready-made stories,” was his +verdict. I doubted my own faculty. He was sure I possessed it. + +This encouraged me to narrate my experience at Pinfold. +“Anarchists!—and they blamed me because I could not fall in love to +order!” + +“You are an intrepid young lady,” Romeo said. “Do you know, I doubt if +you quite realise always in what galleys you have embarked.” + +“I think I do,” I answered: “but I have confidence in myself and my +guardian angel.” + +He urged me to try my hand at a short story of the modern girl who earns +her own living in London—“for example, this little friend who uses your +type-writer,” he added with a clever side-thrust; I was grateful to him +for thus diverting the theme from my own personality: “there is no more +pathetic figure in our world to-day than the common figure of the poor +young lady, crushed between classes above and below, and left with +scarce a chance of earning her bread with decency.” + +“I fear,” I said, “I have no knack of pathos; even at difficult turns I +am apt to see rather the humorous than the tragic side of things.” + +“So I note. But why not try; your own late adventures, for instance?” + +I felt that that romance had not yet reached its _dénoûment_; but I +refrained from telling him so. I promised to make an attempt, however, +with one of my earlier East-End reminiscences, or else with a little +vignette of the infant anarchists, unsullied by soap, pulling +Commissioner Lin’s tail, while their sisters turned the House that Jack +built into Czech and Yiddish. + +For a week or two I worked hard in my stray moments at this my poor +little literary first-born. I put its phrases in curl-papers till I was +sick of twisting them. When it was ripe for the birth, I confess I +thought meanly of it. Mine own, but a poor thing, to reverse +Touchstone’s saying: I brought it to Romeo, trembling. He read it and +was enthusiastic. For the first time now I felt sure he really cared for +me; what else could so have blinded his critical faculty? For he was a +judicious reader. + +He praised it as if it were the work of a consummate artist. His +encouragement was unstinted. I will not repeat what he said as to my +style; you, who are reading my second effort in that line, would be +painfully aware how much personal partiality must have warped his +judgment. + +“It is so breezy,” he said. “You write open-air English.” + +“I learnt it on the moors, among the whins,” I answered. + +“This eclogue must go into the magazine!” he cried; for, like most other +great houses, the firm published one of its own. + +I drew a line at that. “Oh, no,” I cried, flushing. “You are too kind, +too generous. I will not allow it to be printed where—where personal +acquaintance and your recommendation may disturb the editor’s calmer +opinion. I must send it to someone else. Then it will be weighed for +what it is worth, and if it is accepted, I shall know on what grounds.” + +“But I shall be sorry to lose it,” he exclaimed; “for the magazine’s own +sake. When one discovers a new writer, one wishes to keep the full +credit of the discovery.” + +I looked down to hide my burning cheeks. “No, no,” I said firmly. “You +are too flattering—too good. Your”——I paused to think how I could +best word it; “your knowledge of me predisposes you too much in my +favour.” + +He looked at me and hesitated. “Not my knowledge alone,” he corrected; +“my . . . friendship, my——” + +He did not say “affection”; but we raised our eyes in unison; and in a +flash of those eyes each knew that he meant it. + +There was a long pause. I was aware of my heart, which called attention +to its existence by a violent throbbing. I went back to my machine and +began typing mechanically. Then he added all at once, “But quite apart +from that, I _want_ this story; I want the honour of publishing it, +because I see it is a good one.” + +I went on clicking. “You cannot separate these things,” I said, without +looking up. “A person is a totality. We do not know, ourselves, how much +of any feeling is due to this cause, and how much to that. Nothing ever +goes wholly free from either fear or favour. But I have made up my mind. +I shall send it to _The Pimlico_.” + +I sent it in the end; and, to my great joy, not unmixed with surprise, +the editor accepted it, in a chastening letter. He did not say, like +Romeo, “a gem of English”; he called it on the contrary, “high-spirited +if flippant”; but he printed it none the less, and forwarded me a cheque +for twelve guineas. + +Twelve guineas! Such wealth seemed to me almost incredible. I felt like +an Argonaut. + +Still, Romeo was vexed. “We ought to have had it,” he said; “for, after +all, you were _my_ discovery.” + + + CHAPTER XVII. + A DRAWN BATTLE. + +It was about this time, if I recollect aright (for _I_ am the girl who +does not keep a diary), that Romeo invited me to dinner. + +I have two reasons for my avoidance of the besetting sin of +diary-writing. The first is that I am usually dog-tired with work when +evening comes, so that to ask me to fill in a journal with the day’s +events is like asking a galley-slave to take a scull in a pleasure-boat +after his toil is over. The second is that if you keep no diary it +cannot be used in evidence against you. As yet, ’tis true, by rigid +self-examination, I have steered clear of capital crimes; but I remember +always Ophelia’s wise saw, “We know what we are; we know not what we may +be.” + +Romeo invited me with caution, and tentatively. He began by remarking, +as if for no special reason, that he was giving a dinner next week at +the Savoy—a dinner devised for a particular purpose. Then he added +after a while that his mother would be there. This to inspire +confidence, dear fellow! as though I ever doubted him. Next he inquired +in a rather timid voice whether, if his mother picked me up by the way +in her brougham, I would mind joining the party. “My mother has not +called upon you yet,” he murmured in an apologetic parenthesis, looking +up at me askance from under his ridged eyebrows with an interrogative +lid; “but—perhaps you would waive that.” From the way he said it I +could read much. I felt instinctively she was a black-satin old lady of +the straightest sect; Romeo had implored her to call; she had refused +point-blank to go and see a type-writer girl who lived in one room in an +impossible street in Soho. Romeo had begged and prayed; the mother had +presented the true stiff neck of the black-satin order. Then Romeo had +planned this dinner as a means of introducing me, confident (dear boy) +that if once we were brought together, his mother—well, would think as +much of me as he did. Poor purblind Romeo! I pitied him for that. How +little had he fathomed black-satin psychology! + +I hesitated a moment. Not on Romeo’s account, nor even on the +mother’s—I do not fear the smoothest black satin; but because of the +mere material difficulty of a gown, which just at first rose +insuperable. Otherwise I thought so much of Romeo now—he had begun to +play so large a part in the unwritten dramas of my future with which I +lulled myself to sleep—that I felt at all costs I must be present at +this dinner and face the mother. A mother is almost inevitable; the +sooner one gets over her, like measles, the better. + +I had one evening dress, or the ghost of one, which had descended to me +from the days when I was a lady. Its sleeves carried date; but the +bodice and skirt were of that fanciful kind which is above the fashion, +and therefore never either in it or out of it. The colour was +sweet—white, shot with faint streaks of the daintiest pink, like the +first downy stage of budding willow catkins. On the other hand, I was +still in mourning for my dear father. Had I loved him less I should have +shrunk from wearing that gown; but my sorrow was not of the sort that +measures itself by yards of crape, which is why I have troubled you with +it so little in this narrative. I reflected a moment; then I answered, +“Yes; it will give me great pleasure.” + +That it gave Romeo great pleasure was visibly written on his face. He +had expected a _no_, and was delighted at my acceptance. I knew by his +eyes he had anticipated and even exaggerated the dress difficulty. I did +not misinterpret his pleased look, however. I never thought Romeo was in +love with me; I knew he was interested in me, both personally and as a +possible authoress; and I saw he wished much to bring me officially into +his mother’s circle. More than that, I did not believe, or rather, if I +am to tell you the precise truth, I thought Romeo was falling in love +with me by slow steps, but mistaking his love for mere interest and +friendliness. + +For a week I was a woman, not merely a type-writer. I worked hard at +that gown, first planning, then executing my alterations. Dear little +Elsie helped me with it like a Trojan. Nay, in cutting out and fitting +she displayed or developed unexpected talent. When dress was in question +she was no longer stupid; the woman in her grew; she showed taste and +skill; indeed, I have noted in life, throughout, that taste has no +necessary connection, direct or inverse, with intelligence or stupidity; +it is a native endowment which may break out anywhere. She was glad it +was a dinner, not a dance; her religious opinions would not have +sanctioned her assisting me with a ball-dress. But all sects alike +approve the habit of feeding. I must admit that when it came to the +details of my gown she showed herself at once most frankly worldly. +Elsie had little chance of making dresses for herself, poor child; but +she aided me with her needle and her advice till I was truly grateful. +The way she reorganised the sleeves to a Parisian model made one believe +in alchemy. We spent a few shillings on new tulle and lining. Every +evening we had an orgy of dressmaking: whole packets of pins, snippets +of silk on the floor. Before the end of the week we had transformed that +old gown of mine into a joy for ever. It was better than new; as it fell +in soft folds the blush showed on the ridge and cream-white in the +hollows. When I tried it on, Elsie bent over me enraptured. “You dear +thing!” she cried, hugging me (to the danger of the tulle), “I always +knew you were pretty, but I never knew till now you were splendidly +beautiful.” + +And I will honestly admit that the frock became me. + +The day arrived at last. Elsie came round to help me dress my hair. We +made more of this dinner than I should have made of being presented in +the days of my grandeur—such as it was. Dear little Elsie had brought +me some flowers from a friend’s garden at Ealing, choice sweet-scented +flowers, with a background of maidenhair. If I had believed her, I would +have thought no fairy princess ever looked more radiant than I looked +that evening; and, indeed, our joint efforts on the gown repaid us with +interest. When the last touch had been given Elsie kissed me on both +cheeks. “He will propose to-night,” she whispered. “I know he will: he +can’t help himself, dear. You _are_ so captivating!” I blushed, for I +had never mentioned his name to Elsie; but then, I forgot that Elsie too +was a woman. + +At ten minutes to eight the brougham arrived at the door. Never before +had our street beheld so distinguished an equipage. This was +unfortunate, for the children next door came to gaze at me with dirty +faces and unaffected interest, exclaiming, “Oh, my, don’t she look a +reel lidy?” as I made a rush for the carriage. + +Romeo’s mother was precisely what I had painted her—a Lady Montague of +the severest, with coffee-coloured point-lace, a Cornelia one shade too +stout for the mother of the Gracchi. Her smooth white hair looked not +gentle, but forbidding; she listened to what I said with well-bred +reserve: too stiff to acquiesce, too polite to contradict, too stony to +show interest. + +At the hotel, we were ushered into a handsome private room, most +gracefully decorated with crimson arabesques on white panelling. The +party consisted of Romeo and his mother with some six or eight more +(including a prebendary), among whom the chief guests seemed to be a +certain amiable-faced Lady Donisthorpe and her husband, Sir Everard. I +name them in this order, for though the husband was a man of some force +and character—early English, comfortable—Lady Donisthorpe, like Paul, +was the chief speaker. She seemed what is called “a womanly woman”—one +of those tranquil women with soft, rounded outlines, who look like wax, +but within are flint. She reminded me most of all of a pouter pigeon. + +She apologised much because dear Meta could not come. It was _such_ a +disappointment. The poor child had been taken ill—nothing serious she +was glad to say—but impossible to go out. She hoped Romeo would excuse +her. Romeo expressed most courteous regret at dear Meta’s enforced +absence; though I, who knew him now so well, and was used at the office +to note the varying degrees of cordiality or boredom in his reception of +authors, inferred at once from his eyes that he was somewhat relieved at +heart by dear Meta’s non-appearance. It was clear to me, too, that Lady +Donisthorpe flung Meta inartistically at his head; twenty times during +the evening she referred with a rigid smile and a puff of the pouter +bust to one of dear Meta’s sweet ways or to something delightful that +dear Meta had said or done for somebody. The impression she left upon me +was that Meta must be an insipid paragon, with all the virtues and their +concomitant insupportability. Romeo’s absent smile at each such +advertisement of Meta’s charming qualities—“so gentle,” “so +unaffected”—made me feel convinced that he was of the same opinion. + +To put it plainly, Lady Donisthorpe showed want of tact in her crude +mode of placarding Meta. + +She had another trick of manner which disturbed my peace of mind; like +most of the newly-enriched, she attached an excessive importance to the +after all somewhat negative quality of ladylikeness. The highest praise +she could accord to each achromatically charming girl of her +acquaintance was that of being “a perfect lady.” She flung the phrase in +my teeth. Apart from the fact that it seems to imply a somewhat narrow +standard, I always suspect women who insist upon this point of being +themselves cotton-backed ladies. + +I knew her type: she belonged to an aristocracy recruited by the names +of all the best-known brands of beer, soap, and whiskey. + +I protest, however, that just at first I began by treating Romeo’s +mother and Lady Donisthorpe with the utmost cordiality. For had I not +good reasons for desiring to conciliate them? But their treatment +chilled me. I could see they had come prepared to dislike me for a +conceited upstart. In return, I soon found I disliked their texture. +Cornelia was cold; I felt she regarded my humour as ill-timed. Lady +Donisthorpe had the vulgar fear of vulgarity. I do not share it; nature +is vulgar enough; we can only be “perfect ladies” on the Donisthorpe +pattern by shutting our eyes, shutting our ears, and shutting our noses +to most things around us. Now, I will not shut my eyes nor my mouth +either. If facts obtrude themselves, I recognise them. I fear Lady +Donisthorpe thought it painfully unladylike of me to have lived in the +East-End, and positively rude to tell stories of slop-makers. She raised +her tortoise-shell glasses at the very word as a mute protest. + +In fine, both were conscious of a social barrier. So was I—with a +difference. Lady Donisthorpe moved in what calls itself “good society,” +but _genteel_ would have been scarce too hard a word to describe her. + +Romeo’s mother swept in to dinner on Sir Everard’s arm, a three-decker +under full sail. Romeo offered me his; I gathered it was because Meta +had not arrived as expected. Always handsome, he looked handsomer in +evening dress. A waxy white flower lay on each plate: Romeo pinned mine +on my bodice. Lady Donisthorpe’s placid eyes did not let the action pass +unnoticed. + +The dinner—by which you shall understand the food—was the best I ever +tasted. The champagne, in the judgment of one who is no judge, was a +thought too dry, but delicious. The _mousse de jambon_ was an epicure’s +dream. I really enjoyed myself. Besides, I was conscious that Romeo +liked my dress and felt some mild surprise to see how well I looked in +it. He had hitherto known me in my black office gown alone. I forgot my +poverty and was once more a lady. + +It suits me better. I blossom under it. I did not even object to Sir +Everard for being a millionaire; it was hardly his fault; millionaires, +after all, are an outcome of the age: one can but regret that they +absorb its income. Lady Donisthorpe’s talk reeked of wealth till I felt +it would be delightful to get home at night and see something cheap +again. My seat was between Romeo and a clever young man, with keen eyes +and _pince-nez_, a rising physiologist. It relieved me to learn he was +not an electrical engineer; all the young men I used to meet in my +præ-type-writing days had been given over to riotous electrical +engineering. My neighbour’s hobby was a cheerful one—the identity of +genius and madness. He took _Paradise Lost_ and the Vatican frescoes for +premonitory symptoms of acute mania; he held the steam-engine to be a +by-product of the insane temperament. Yet he urged his thesis so well +that, on his own showing, I foresaw he must be qualifying for residence +in an asylum. When I told him so, he cavilled at my graceful compliment. +To escape his retort, I turned to the other side and joined talk with +Romeo and the prebendary. I do not know what a prebendary does; his +functions are more mysterious than even the archidiaconal; but I have +said I love mystery; and I found the prebendary a capital talker. + +Romeo was charming, as always—more charming to me that night, I +fancied, than ever. Perhaps it was because he had never seen me dressed +like a human being before; but also, I think, he was conscious of his +mother’s keen eyes and Lady Donisthorpe’s steely glance; smiling ever +her set smile, she felt Meta’s chances were slipping from her visibly. +She was an ox-eyed Hera, a little run to seed, and now almost cow-faced, +but cat-like in her watchfulness. To counteract the chilling effect of +the two mothers—one a feather-bed, the other a poker—and to put me at +my ease, Romeo behaved with the sweetest courtesy. He talked to me; he +drew me out; if I ever can be brilliant (which ’tis not for me to judge) +I was brilliant that evening. I flashed to my own surprise; Romeo’s +admiration, and the two elder women’s scarcely concealed hostility, put +me on my mettle. + +I was not angry with his mother; it was comprehensible, of course; +mothers are made like that. We erect each other into a class, and judge +accordingly. Could any woman with an aquiline nose, and white hair +neatly dressed by an immaculate maid, sit by unperturbed while her only +son paid open court to a type-writer girl? I suppose I should have felt +as she did, had I been put in her place. Being put in my own, I +naturally did my best to let myself be seen to the greatest advantage. + +So did Romeo. Having brought me there, he was determined I should be +treated with proper respect. He insisted on talking to me; Lady +Donisthorpe’s cat-like graciousness, Cornelia’s Roman austerity, only +increased his anxiety to do me honour. The more his mother froze, the +more Lady Donisthorpe, smiling her mechanical smile, and gently +crushing, raised her tortoise-shell eye-glasses to decide whether I was +human, the more did Romeo draw me out, and the more did I scintillate, +till at last all the table was talking to me or listening to me. I +laughed and raised laughter; I sparkled and parried. When Lady +Donisthorpe interposed sweetly, “And so you type-write at the office! +How fatiguing it must be!” on purpose to disconcert me, I had my +repartee ready: “At least it preserves me from being a perfect lady.” I +could see Romeo was pleased. I was a social success. I had justified his +temerity. + +In the midst of our fencing, of a sudden, Cornelia drew out a gold +pencil, wrote something on a card, and handed it across to him. Romeo +glanced at it and crumpled it up; I could guess by his face her note had +not pleased him. “As you will,” he answered across the table; then he +turned to me once more. “That was delicious,” he said; “and what did you +reply to him?” + +I went on with my story. Still, I could gather that he was annoyed; not +only annoyed, indeed, but perplexed and troubled. Dinner solemnised, we +withdrew to the comfortable divans of the balcony for Turkish coffee. +All the party crowded round me, save the two mammas; they did not sit +apart, but, joining our group, they preserved an austere moral +aloofness. The rest, however, redeemed their abstention. Even Sir +Everard was untrue to poor Meta’s chances. I was flushed by this time, +and the men’s eyes told me I was looking my prettiest. The two other +girls of the party chimed in and encouraged me. So did the prebendary; I +talked easily and brightly. Sir Everard laughed again and again at my +sallies. He was a portly old gentleman with a massive white waistcoat, +very like a toad as he leaned back on the ottoman. His voice, too, was a +purr; he was a toad, not a natterjack. + +But Romeo had stolen away to give some mysterious orders. I felt rather +than saw that something had gone wrong somewhere with the machinery. + +We were to adjourn to a theatre. We drove round in state. Our stalls +were near the centre; Lady Donisthorpe in claret-coloured velvet looked +truly imposing. In one of the interludes I looked round at the pit. +Directly behind me, in the front row, sat a foxey-headed man staring +open-eyed towards me. It was the Grand Vizier, accompanied by a lady (no +doubt “with brains”) and concealing but imperfectly the fact that he had +been dining. + +For a moment—a rare moment—I felt really disconcerted. Under any other +circumstances it would only have amused me had the Vizier leaned forward +and shouted, “Good evening, miss,” in his own dialect. But to-night, +with the eyes of those two mothers fixed stonily on my face, I confess I +trembled lest he should rise in his seat, wave one hairy hand, and call +out loudly across the intervening rows, “Allow me to introduce my +fee-on-say to you, Miss Appleton!” I looked away hastily, not before he +had caught my eye. I expected to see his goggle eyes fall out and drop +upon the floor: he was so evidently surprised at my transfigured +appearance. The last time he had parted from me it was beneath the +golden symbol of St. Nicholas at the shop in the Strand; to light upon +me there that night, dressed like a lady, surrounded by a little court, +made much of by the men, and flushed from the Savoy, might naturally +astonish him. + +However, he behaved with better taste than I could have anticipated. He +nudged his companion, and whispered in her ear, but kept his face +averted. He was puzzled, I felt sure; still he had sense enough to know +that this greeting would be ill-timed, and good feeling enough to +prevent him from forcing himself upon my notice. + +When the play was over Romeo led me to the door. I was still hot and +uncertain. So far as he was concerned this evening was for me a great +triumph; every man and woman there, save only the two mothers, had paid +me much attention, and, I will even venture to add, admired me. I had +looked and talked my best, and I was satisfied with my performance. But +the two elder women hung like black clouds lowering in the rear; I could +feel them disapproving of me with various degrees of rancour. One feared +for her son, the other for her daughter. + +Very natural, I knew; but so too was my own attitude. No woman is born +to be merely a type-writer. + +At the door Romeo led me by myself into a well-appointed brougham. Then +I knew what had happened. Cornelia had written across to him that she +declined to take me back in her carriage to Soho; and Romeo, to save me +the knowledge of that slight, had slipped away at the hotel, and ordered +another carriage to await me at the theatre. He held my hand in his own +for a brief space after he put me into it. + +“It was so good of you to come,” he said. “I have so much enjoyed this +talk with you.” + +But the two mothers hardly gave me the tips of their fingers, and bowed +distantly as I drove away alone, with chilly politeness. + +When I got back to my room my feelings were mixed. The jealous Gods thus +alloy our triumphs. Romeo had seen me at last as I really was. But I had +innocently disturbed the peace of two families. + +I did what every other woman would have done in my place—sat down to a +good cry and thought about Romeo. + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY. + +I have large estates in Hertfordshire and the adjoining counties, free +of land tax. Some noble marquis, I am assured, lays claim to the bare +loam, the ploughed fields, the turnips; but who counts mere mud? The +rest is mine, to do as I will with. He may keep his rents: ’tis for me +to enjoy the green lawns, the huge buttressed beech-trees, the broad +circles of shade where drowsy sheep lie huddled: I own the stripling +streams that break against sharp stones in the sloping stickles, or +expand on the shallows between into placid pools, skimmed over by +water-beetles who dart and dance nimbly in interlacing whirligigs. The +sky overhead is mine, mine the road under foot; the scent of rain-wetted +earth; the broken song of the thrushes, the startled scream of the jay +as he bursts through the rustling oak-leaves, the long sweep of the +swift launching himself on the air from the battlements of the +church-tower. All these I own, by virtue of my freehold in the saddle of +my bicycle. + +Such a Sabine farm costs nought to manage; it gives pure delight without +counter-poise of trouble. I visited mine often, both on summer evenings +and on Saturday afternoons or Sundays. Early in my time at Romeo’s a +whimsical fancy seized me (being ever irresponsible) to spend my Sabbath +mornings in such churches within easy reach of London as were dedicated +to my chosen ally, St. Nicholas. I ran them down with care in an +Anglican Directory. If the day were doubtful, I strayed no farther +afield than to St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, in the City, where in a dark bay +of the aisle I prayed the prayer now nearest to my heart, which I leave +you to guess. Often as my patron had failed me at a pinch, still oftener +had he proved kind; I was prepared to give him one more chance of +distinguishing himself. But if the day promised to be fair, I got under +weigh betimes, and was spinning down the roads that lead northward out +of town while the smocked milkman still stood balanced by frothing pails +in the meadows. London lay, a vast blur, behind me. Cows on the common +chewed the cud of penury. Their eye was pensive. Commissioner Lin showed +a nasty Jack-in-office disposition to disturb them. He was called to +heel with difficulty. Then I would seek some country church, with low +tower and wooden lych-gate, where St. Nicholas still bore sway, spite of +iconoclast or Puritan, to pour out my heart’s wish to I know not what +Power that compels the universe. + +It was my wont to lean the bicycle meanwhile against the churchyard yew +or some convenient tombstone, leaving the Commissioner in charge. He was +well fitted for the task by his unregenerate monopolist views on private +property, backed up by a fine row of persuasive white arguments. + +These weekly trips made me careless of holiday. I waited to take my +summer outing till it should suit Romeo’s convenience. I was so much his +personal secretary that I must delay my vacation till he could take his; +and it had long been arranged that he should put it off till late +September—his partner having desired to go away in August. + +Romeo never alluded again to that evening at the Savoy; but I knew it +had brought him nought but disappointment. He had desired to include me +within his mother’s sphere, and Cornelia, gathering up her Roman robe, +had declined. Yet from that time he was more deferential and more +courteous, if possible, than even his wont. + +It was decided that his holiday should begin on the fifteenth of +September. As the time drew near, Romeo grew visibly distressed and +depressed. The spring failed in his step. I fancied he was suffering +some internal conflict. His manner was distraught; he sat at times as if +he hardly heard what was passing. It was plain to see he was struggling +within himself; irreconcilable feelings drew him alternately in opposite +directions. + +On the fourteenth he came down to the office as usual, but sat gloomy +and moody. He did not tell us whither he was bound: nay, more, he gave +orders that no letters should follow him. He made some mystery of his +destination. At three o’clock he went home, bidding me good-bye with +more reserve than was his wont. He kept his glance averted. I could see +he was fighting hard to avoid breaking down. This holiday must mean much +to him. He could not look me in the face to bid me good-bye. The tremor +of his eyelids was as of one who holds back tears with difficulty. I +wished him a pleasant trip. He answered a hurried “Thank you,” and +rushed out to his carriage. + +If I had known where he was going I think I should have followed him. + +As the thought passed through my mind, Puck came in for some money out +of hand. It was my duty to keep the petty cash for Romeo’s personal +office expenditure. “I want nine shillings, miss,” the boy said; +“Baedeker’s ‘North Italy’ and Hare’s ‘Venice.’” + +My heart gave a quick bound. I had surprised his objective. I am an +erratic creature. In one second my mind was made up. I should follow +him. + +I had still the twelve guineas I had received for my story. Thank +heaven, I am improvident. The _bourgeois_ vice of thrift is one from +which my family has never suffered: the Puritan blood in our veins must +have been too generously diluted. Besides, have I not learned from more +modern political economy that saving is the source of all the evils of +capitalism?—and do I not give thanks daily that I show not the faintest +tendency to develop in that direction? I have made up my mind never to +be a capitalist; and, up to date, I see every chance of my keeping my +resolution. So I decided to spend my twelve guineas like a man, to +please myself, leaving Providence or St. Nicholas to make good the +deficiency. This is called faith, and is a cardinal virtue. + +I gave Romeo two clear days’ start, lest I should travel along with him +and seem to be dogging him; then I set out alone on my way to Venice. + +I am nothing, if not frank. Therefore I do not seek to deny the truth +that I went to Italy on purpose to follow Romeo. + +“Unwomanly!” you say. What a false convention! + +Yes, I am always frank; I think the day has almost come for frankness. +Men novelists have depicted us as men wish us to be; we have meekly and +obediently accepted their portrait: to some extent, even, we have +striven, against the grain, to model ourselves upon it. A man’s ideal is +the girl that shrinks; the sweetly unconscious girl, who scarce knows +she loves, till his strong arm glides round her, and he clasps her to +his heart: then, with a sudden awakening, she awakens to the truth, and +knows she has loved him long, loved him from the beginning. That, I say, +is a man’s woman. Her purity, her maidenly modesty, are quite +unapproachable by concrete feminine humanity. She is too delicate in +mind ever to dream that she can love spontaneously, of her own mere +motion. She loiters in the shade; she waits to be wooed; she is coy, +undecided, shrinking, timid. + +There was a time, I suppose, when such women were common. I do not +know—for have I not Shakespeare to the contrary? But the type was once +true, I dare say, and widely distributed. Still, has not time altered +it? In the world in which we live men are no longer ardent. We scarce +affect to conceal the fact that they grow shy of marriage. As a +necessary consequence, women have changed too; the woman of this age +often knows she loves, knows it poignantly, breathlessly, and must use +those weapons which the world allows her if she would gain the affection +of the man who has taken her maiden fancy. She cannot by open means +pursue him, I admit; but she has recourse to the immemorial feminine +devices of ruse and stratagem. + +I have Shakespeare on my side, I say, because I remember Rosalind. A man +drew her; yet I see in her pure woman. She loves; she knows she loves; +she longs frankly for her lover. And that is the way with women as I +have found them. + +Why did I follow Romeo? Why did Rosalind fly to the forest of Arden? +Only once—scarcely once—had Romeo seen me as I was: that evening of +the dinner. At the office, what was I but the type-writer girl? If I +could meet him in Italy, he would know me as myself; we could talk more +freely; he might pluck up heart of grace to break the ice, and tell me +he loved me. + +For I knew he was fond of me. I could not now doubt it. When he talked +to me, it was with those unmistakable sidelong glances which a woman’s +heart can interpret. Often he broke off suddenly. But his mother was +against me; his mother wished him to marry Lady Donisthorpe’s dear Meta. +In London, I knew, I had little chance to prevail over that perfect +lady. But in Venice—ah, what miracles may not happen in Venice! + +Mirage of the lagoons, you show men everything! + +I had not set foot in the enchanted city since my father took me when I +was a girl of sixteen; but I remembered it well; I knew every refluent +ditch of it. I could have found my way, on foot, through little aimless +lanes that wander in and out, from the Piazza to the Ghetto. + +If Romeo met me there by accident—if we loitered together among those +churches and galleries—if I told him of my saints, if I pointed him out +my best-beloved pictures, surely the struggle within him would be +settled in my favour. He would prefer my wayward Gypsy-American fantasy +to dear Meta’s insipid graces of the perfect lady. He would know which +he preferred, in spite of his mother and Lady Donisthorpe’s crude +advertisements. + +My one regret was, that I could not take Mr. Commissioner and Elsie with +me. + + + CHAPTER XIX. + “O, ROMEO, ROMEO!” + +When Linnæus first saw gorse in blossom he fell on his knees and thanked +God. Our modern Pharisees, who say grace before meat, never, I fancy, +say grace before Venice. + +And yet there is only one Venice. + +From the moment you arrive in the dusk at the station, and stroll down +slippery steps to your gondola, to glide with stealthy movement along +the lesser canals, under mysterious bridges where mysterious bystanders +lean over to watch you, unknown forms that creep from dark doors in +unknown streets—do you not thank God, like Linnæus, that he has brought +you to Venice? And does not this feeling of gratitude and wonder for +that living romance deepen on you each day that you remain? Do you not +long to float for ever down those noiseless ways, to gaze up for ever at +those water-stained palaces, to dream for all time among those +innocent-faced St. Ursulas? Mint, anise, and cumin, indeed, when God has +given us Venice! The country or the south! I pine in London. + +I had loitered on my way out, breaking my nights at Lucerne and Milan, +that Romeo might have time to reach his journey’s end with certainty +before my arrival. And on my first morning of freedom by the motionless +lagoons, I set out early to renew my acquaintance with Venice. + +I did not know where Romeo was stopping; nor did I seek to find out. I +left everything to St. Nicholas. If chance should throw me in my Romeo’s +way, well and good; if chance chose to be unkind, better so than that I +should track him. Besides, in Venice, you cannot long fail to meet +whoever else is there. All the world gravitates towards the centre of +the Piazza. Sooner or later, you must needs cross the path of everyone +in the city. + +I set out from my hotel on foot; I love footing it in Venice; I love the +intricate tangle of narrow paved alleys, overhung by stone sills and +rusty iron balconies, by which the walker threads his way through the +mazes of the city. Millionaires in gondolas never know it. You must +ramble to see Venice. Past little dim shops where red water-melons, +sliced open, and strings of yellow carrots adorn the slabs; past odours +of salt fish and rank whiffs of garlic; past cavernous recesses where, +from murky Tintoretto-like gloom, the light of a little lamp just serves +to throw up the tinsel crown of Our Lady. So suddenly at once, under the +columns of a portico, into the open sky of the great square, the +thronging turmoil of pigeons, the liberal flood of southern sunshine, +the strong shadow of the campanile flung like a fallen obelisk on the +floor of the Piazza, the mighty flagstaffs of the dead republic, and +beyond them all, low and squat, a riot of white domes, the fantastic, +many-pinnacled carven front of St. Mark’s, glowing golden in the +pellucid air of morning. + +I stood still and drew a deep breath. It was even as I thought. Grace +before St. Mark’s: “For what we are about to receive——” There is but +one Venice. + +Holding my breath all the while, I drew near the great porches, with +their round-arched tops, and gazed up at the mosaics. My soul steeped +herself in beauty. I revelled in an orgy of jasper and porphyry. How +gross to give thanks for beef and pudding, but none for Carpaccio, +Bellini, Titian! + +Slowly, out of the great dream of form and colour, bit by bit, as I +gazed, distinct visions framed themselves—palm-leaves and lilies, robed +shapes of angels, half-translucent alabaster shafts or capitals, rich +foliage of acanthus, wandering lines of tracery. In the midst of it all, +one little relief held my eye at last—a flat relief of quaint +Romanesque workmanship, beautiful with the winning beauty of infantile +art; two birds that faced one another, and pecked at a bunch of +grapes—when, all at once, I was aware of a start of surprise beside me. +I turned round. My heart fluttered for a second. It was Romeo. + +Venice faded. Though I had come out to him, I was taken aback at his +presence. + +He gave a little gasp. “What, _you_ here,” he faltered out—“Miss +Appleton—Juliet?” + +“Yes,” I answered assuming an air of unconcern; “I thirsted for a breath +of Italy again. It is nearly five years since I have been out of +England.” + +“But—this is fate!” he blurted out. “I—I came here—to avoid you.” + +I was in a mischievous mood. “I can go away again,” I answered, looking +deep into his eyes, and half curtseying. “It is not for me to interfere +with my employer’s holiday.” + +He cast me an imploring look. “Juliet,” he cried, “do not jest. Do not +break my heart. This is no time for pleasantry. My child, my child, I +have suffered.” + +I saw it in his face. And yet I could not conceive what was his trouble. +Could a mother count for so much? I had never known mine. “You look +ill,” I said; “so different from what you looked last week in London. +Can I do anything for you? I—I will really go away—at once—if you +desire it.” + +He restrained himself with an effort from seizing my hands, then and +there, in the open Piazza. “_Go away?_” he cried. “_Go away?_ No, _that_ +is not my trouble. I wish you _not_ to go away. I wish you to stay with +me always. Juliet, you must have guessed it; you must have known it in +London. Do not tell me you did not know. You _saw_ that I loved you!” + +“I thought so, at times,” I answered in a very low voice. “But—why then +did you wish to run away from me?” + +He glanced about him with uneasy eyes. “Now this has come,” he burst +forth, “I must fight it out boldly. I must face it like a man. Juliet, +where can we go? I _must_ talk—alone—with you.” + +“Let us take a gondola,” I suggested, my heart throbbing high with joy; +for I felt I had triumphed now; his mother, and dear Meta, and ox-eyed +Lady Donisthorpe were wholly forgotten. + +“A gondola!” he echoed. “A gondola! Ah, how clever you are! Of course! I +never thought of that. There we can talk uninterrupted.” + +We moved towards the Molo. I hailed a gondolier. “Put up the felze,” I +said, “so that we may not be overlooked.” The man raised the little +black box, and shut us in as in a sedan-chair. Romeo gazed admiration +again. “And you talk Italian!” + +“Whither, signore?” the gondolier asked. + +“Where shall we go?” Romeo inquired, turning to me. + +“Where you will,” I answered; “it is all Venice.” I did not add that +with him by my side all the world would be Venice. + +He pointed towards the open, where we would be less observed. The +gondolier nodded. Then the old fancy seized me. “To San Nicolò di Lido!” +I cried. It seemed like an omen. My patron saint had always brought me +luck, and his church lay before me. In this crisis of my fate I would +commend myself to his favour. + +I told Romeo why I chose that way. He smiled, a little sadly. “May it +turn out as you wish,” he exclaimed. “May St. Nicholas help us!” + +I sat by his side on the soft black cushions, never uttering a +word—placidly, quietly happy. I was in no hurry to speak; the sense +that I had Romeo alone to myself at last was joy enough for me. He took +my hand in his. I let it lie there, unresisting. + +Words only spoil such first thrills of fruition. Touch is the +mother-sense of love; it needs no interpreter. + +At last Romeo broke the charmed silence. I gave a little sigh as he +broke it. “Oh, why so soon?” I asked. But, like a man, he was eager to +speak and explain himself. They _are_ so precipitate! + +“What am I to do, Juliet?” he cried, burying his face in his hands. +“Your coming has thrown me back upon my first resolve; it has driven me +from my stronghold. When I tore myself away from you in London and no +longer saw your eyes—those great magnetic uncomplaining eyes of yours, +those eyes that have bewitched me—I made up my mind that I must go +through with it now, and try to forget you. Not try, but pretend; for it +would be all pretence. Since the first day you came, daily and daily you +have meant more and more to me. It was hard to break away from you, but +I broke away and came here, so that I might be free from the spell; for +while I saw your eyes I could think of nothing else; and now chance has +thrown you in my path again, and—I cannot go through with it.” + +“Not chance,” I murmured low; “not chance—but St. Nicholas! I have come +with the money that my story brought me.” + +He smiled at my little conceit, for I had told him in London of my +half-fanciful cult of the poor maids’ saint, and I had called my little +tale “A Ward of St. Nicholas.” + +“You are a brownie!” he cried, gazing at me. “You wild thing, what +brought you here?” + +I laughed. “The Gotthard railway—and my love of adventure. I was +sickening of England; I had a migratory instinct, like birds when they +gather on the telegraph wires in autumn, or restless Spanish sheep in +spring, when they herd and leap, uneasy to be driven to their pastures +in the mountains.” + +“What a wild thing you are!” he repeated. “A brownie, a brownie! I +wonder where you got it from?” + +“From my gypsy ancestry, I suppose,” I answered. + +“Gypsy—but I thought you told me you were American?” + +“On my father’s side, yes; but on my mother’s Lowland Scot or +Anglo-Indian. She was a Baillie of the Borders; and I suspect all +borderers of sharing the blood of the Faas and the Petulengros. There +was plenty of intermarriage.” + +“No doubt,” he mused. “The difference must have been slight between a +moss-trooper and a gypsy. Each had much the same gentility. And, indeed, +I remember the ‘Lord and Earl of Little Egypt’ was summoned to Edinburgh +as a peer of parliament.” + +“At any rate,” I said gaily, “whether ’tis true or false, it accounts, +to my mind, for the Meg Merrilies vein in me. I was born a random +vagrant in the world, a peripatetic philosopher. I love movement, I love +freedom—Bohemia. Why, I could tell your fortune now if you cared to +cross my hand with silver.” + +He gazed into my eyes. “I do not doubt it,” he answered, “for it lies in +your hands to-day.” + +I thrilled and was still. The gondola glided over the glassy water. + +Soon he began again. “Gypsy, I want your help. You must _make_ my +fortune, not tell it. Show me how to act. Show me how to get free. What +can I do in this crisis, Juliet—my Juliet?” + +“How can I answer?” I replied. “’Tis for your own heart to say. I know +you are fond of me. But—your mother has money, I suppose, and you +prefer your mother.” + +He withdrew the arm that lay half round me, and sat up facing me in +surprise. “My mother!” he cried. “My mother! Why, Juliet, my child, what +do you mean? It is not my mother I think of—not her, but poor Meta!” + +A pang darted through me. “Then you love her!” I exclaimed; “that +woman’s daughter!” + +“Love her? I do not say that. Yet, Juliet, consider; put yourself in her +place: I have been five years engaged to her!” + +It burst upon me like a thunderbolt. Why had I never guessed it? From +the first day we met I had taken it for granted—unreservedly, +unthinkingly—that Romeo was heart-free and unfettered as I was. Even +when I met Lady Donisthorpe I imagined too fast that she was flinging +Meta openly at his head, but not that he was betrothed to her. My own +heart must have blinded me. Now that I realised it all, I stood aghast +at the way woman’s instinct had failed me. How had I managed to +misunderstand? I saw in a flash that the conflict I had observed in +Romeo before he left London was a conflict in his soul between love and +honour. + +He seized my hand again. “It is _that_ that made it so difficult,” he +whispered. “From the first day _you_ came I began to love you. I fought +against it hard, oh! so hard; I tried to talk little with you. Day after +day I felt you sitting there, with your great gypsy eyes fixed ever +steadily on your sheet of paper, and your heart going forth to me. I +knew it went forth to me. I could feel it in the room. A subtle wave or +thrill throbbed ever between us. I began to love you; and still I fought +hard. But the more we talked together the more did I feel you were the +woman God made for me, and that Meta was not. At last I had a great +struggle—a great struggle with my heart, and came out of it as I +thought victorious. I fled from you here, where the Donisthorpes had +come, to remain with Meta till the day I married her. It was what honour +demanded; I made love yield to honour.” + +I withdrew my hand slowly. “Give me time to think this out. It has burst +upon me so suddenly. Oh, Romeo, till this moment I never dreamt you were +engaged to her.” + +“Why _Romeo_?” + +I smiled, though my heart was aching. I remembered that he did not know +what I had always called him. Now I told him my fancy. “You have never +been anything but _Romeo_ to me,” I murmured. + +He seized my hand again. “Juliet, I _am_ your Romeo. I felt it from the +first. We were meant for one another.” + +“I know it!” I cried. “I know it! And this woman, who is not yours, has +stolen you from me. You are mine by natural fitness; and she took you, +_she_ took you!” + +We leaned back on the seats and mused. The gondolier sang low to himself +a soft Venetian love-song. + +After some minutes I began again. “Of course,” I murmured, “it is Lady +Donisthorpe’s daughter.” + +“Of course. Five years ago I proposed to her.” + +“Then _why_ did you not marry?” I cried vehemently. “I _hate_ these long +engagements! They are vile for everybody!” + +“Her stepfather would not permit it till she came of age. She is a ward +in Chancery, and he has influence with the court. Till her marriage her +mother has some interest in the property, and Sir Everard, to preserve +it, being fabulously rich already, made an excuse that a publisher was +hardly the person to whom she might expect to aspire—though he +permitted, or rather encouraged the engagement.” + +“And she is not yet of age?” + +“In October.” + +I gave an impatient wave of the hand. “But she was a child when you +proposed to her!” + +“A child? We were both children. We did not know our own minds. The +Nemesis of it is that I know mine now, while she remains still at the +childish standpoint.” + +“She loves you?” + +“In her baby way—yes; else it were all easy. But it would break her +poor heart. Such a trusting little creature!” + +“And _you_ love _her_?” + +“Juliet, I thought I did once. But then, I had not learnt what love +meant. She was only my Rosaline. I did not know the world of difference +between a sweet little wax doll, with masses of light yellow tow for +hair, and a woman, a thinking woman, with heart, soul, brain, courage—a +woman who could face life full of intrepid self-reliance; a woman with +nerve, audacity, spirit; a woman with Homeric love of danger and +adventure; a woman made dearer by her sense of humour, the merry twinkle +of her eye, her gay laugh at misfortune. I feel now that I need a +comrade and a helpmeet for me. Someone who could brace me up for the +battle of life; someone with great thoughts, fine fibre, noble impulses. +I cannot go back to Meta. I could have done it last night. This morning, +with you by my side, I feel it, I know it, impossible.” + +He drew a long breath. I lay back on the cushion. “Romeo,” I said, +pleading my rival’s cause, “you _must_ go back to her.” + +“Never!” he answered, “never!” + +I temporised. “This is not a question to decide all at once. Let us +think it over slowly; let us lay it—before St. Nicholas!” + +“If I lay it before St. Nicholas,” he cried, “with you beside me, the +oracle can give but one answer, I warrant. For I want you; I need you; +my whole being cries out for you.” + +We paused again. The water was cat’s-eye green. The inexorable gondola +glided on towards the Lido. + +We talked it over clause by clause. A light began to break upon me. The +nearer I drew to San Nicolò the clearer grew the light. Ought a man to +wreck two lives—his own and the girl’s whom he means to marry (for my +private fate I ignored)—in order to satisfy a false sense of honour? +What, after all, was this honour? A bugbear dressed up to frighten us +from the truth. And what was the truth? That Romeo was rushing madly +into marriage with a girl for whom he was not fit, and who was not fit +for him. + +“Romeo,” I said at last, “could you make her happy?” + +“That’s the rub,” he answered. “It could hardly be for long. I could +give her my hand, but not my heart; for my heart, my heart, Juliet, is +yours—yours only.” + +“Then for _her_ sake set her free,” I cried. “The whole man—body, soul, +and spirit—or nothing.” + +“So I think,” he murmured. “The question is, when one has made a +mistake, a mistake that involves final ruin for two lives, which is the +better, after all: to repair it beforehand, while repair is still +possible, or bow to an antiquated ideal of honour, an ideal that comes +to us from an age when women were toys, all alike, and run one’s head +into a noose from which there will be no escaping? For her sake, as well +as my own and yours, ought I not to tell her, frankly but gently, that +this marriage she desires must mean misery for both of us?” + +I tried to be impartial, though impartiality is hard when your own love +and life lie trembling in the balance. “You ought,” I answered, “if you +feel sure you cannot truly love her.” + +“Juliet, I can never love anyone but you. I know you for my counterpart. +My love did not come suddenly; it grew up by degrees from living so near +you; and it has grown, grown, grown, like a vast growth in my heart, +till it has absorbed my nature. I have watched you every day, talked +with you, listened to you. You know me and you understand me. But Meta, +dear little soul, she seems to me like a child. I cannot share life with +her. I can only take care of her. You have originality, initiative; +Meta’s soul has the shape that her mother has put upon it. Look how you +loved and appreciated my verses! Your criticism, your help, were of +infinite use to me. In each word that you altered I felt you were right. +Your suggestion of ‘harmonious’ in that last line where I had written +‘consistent’ made a full close for the sonnet, in sonorous organ music, +and turned my prose into poetry. Whereas, when I gave Meta my book she +read it through, and then kissed me. ‘How clever of you, you dear boy, +to be able to write verses!’ Would _such_ a help be meet for me?” + +I clung to his hand; it was hard to decide; but in a very low voice I +faltered out, “I think not, Romeo.” + +He talked of my poor attempts at writing stories; he praised them, as he +had always done. “You will be famous yet, my child; and I shall be +proud, whatever comes, that I was the first to encourage you.” He +appreciated me, I appreciated him; surely, if marriages are made in +heaven, we two were moulded for one another. Not alike, but +complementary. And then, how rash to dream of marrying one woman when, +even before marriage, you love another better! Is _that_ the way to +insure a happy home? Is that the safe path to a life of wedded +confidence? + +We drew near to San Nicolò at last. “Let us go in,” I said seriously, +“and submit ourselves to the saint. His body lies within. We will kneel +together before it.” + +“But I thought you told me St. Nicholas lay throned in a gorgeous shrine +at Bari?” he objected. + +“Why, of course,” I answered. “What is the use of being a saint if you +cannot have two bodies, and be in two places at once? And what is the +use of faith if it does not enable you to believe the impossible?” + +“I _do_ believe it,” he answered; “since I came to Venice to be out of +your enchantment, and found you here, more deliciously enchanting than +ever. The fascination of your eyes——” + +I cut him short with a gesture; but I was glad he praised them. + +We landed by the steps, and entered the sailors’ church. I led Romeo up +to a scalloped niche by the tribune, where I had often prayed as a girl +with my father. We knelt down, side by side, before the jewelled shrine +that contains the blessed dust of St. Nicholas of Myra, I hope not +irreverently. I may be what the Warden at our Guild was fond of calling +me, “an amiable heathen,” but at least I am sincere. Tears stole down my +cheek. I asked with an earnest heart for light, for guidance. We know +not, indeed, whose saintly bones repose at peace within that sculptured +marble altar-tomb; nor does it matter to me much whether they be or be +not those of the benign bishop of Myra. I accepted them as the symbol of +that Power, above ourselves, to which our hearts go forth at moments of +doubt, of fear, of anguish; and to such a Power I prayed unfeignedly, +that at this turning-point of my life I might be led aright, might form +the just judgment, unbiassed by self-profit, holding an equal scale +between myself and my rival. + +As I knelt there a single flashing ray of light beat down through a +little window above upon San Nicolò’s altar-slab. It gilt the niche for +a moment; it fell in gold on the tessellated floor; then it passed away +as a cloud covered the sun. Rightly or wrongly, I accepted the omen. +Tears stood in my eyes still, but they were tears of gladness. “St. +Nicholas has answered,” I whispered. “What did he say to you, Romeo?” + +Romeo looked me in the face solemnly as he made reply. “He said, ‘Better +tell her early than tell her too late. Save her while she can be saved, +and let three hearts be lightened.’” + +Venice hung like a haze. The row back to the Molo was a lane in +Paradise. + + + CHAPTER XX. + “WHEREFORE ART THOU ROMEO?” + +At the Molo we parted. The Donisthorpes, Romeo said, must long have been +expecting him, fidgeting that he did not arrive; he knew not what lame +excuse he could rake up to satisfy them. It was agreed on both sides, +however, and impressed with last words, that he must not break poor +Meta’s heart prematurely, by too abrupt an avowal of his new decision. +We were to break it by degrees—to give her three days of purgatory. +Meanwhile, Romeo promised he would not see me again, at least to speak +together; though he asked leave, wistfully, to pass under my window once +each morning and smile at me, just so as to make sure of my presence. I +wanted this interval; I wished to see whether he would remain firm to +his purpose when he was removed for a day or two from that “magnetism” +of my eyes on which he dwelt so strongly. + +I spent the three days of grace in wandering about Venice. For the most +part, I avoided the great square, St. Mark’s, the Academy—all the +familiar tourist haunts—because I did not desire collision with the +Donisthorpes. Most of my time I devoted to the out-of-the-way streets +and the out-of-the-way sights, which are so infinitely amusing; the +funny little alleys where the true Venetians stroll; the funny little +_campi_, where old men and children lie stretched in the shade on the +north side of some small church, as fallow-deer huddle on the north side +of the domed oaks in a park at noontide. Every turn revealed some +passing picture. As I had said to Romeo, it was all Venice. Not a remote +sunless lane, with walls of peeling plaster, tufted with pellitory, that +is not dear to my heart; not a sluggish side canal, into whose stagnant +green water branches of acacia and trailing sprays of Virginia creeper +hang from beyond the mouldering garden grill, but I love and cherish it. +Little Romanesque windows, high up on some red-washed steeple, with twin +round arches, tall and narrow, held apart in the midst by one twisted +column; great patches of sunlight falling through quatrefoils in +dazzling relief on the deep recessed gloom of the loggia; wee bridges +that rise, arched like a cat’s back, over streams strewn with +cabbage-leaves, where market boats from Mestre, laden high with +pumpkins, crawl slowly down the channel—do I not know them all? Are +they not etched on my brain by some fadeless process of mental +photography? + +In spite of my haunting these remoter by-ways, however, I did once by +accident catch sight of the Donisthorpes. They were seated with the +prebendary at a _café_ in the great Piazza, as I crossed it one +afternoon on my way home from San Zaccaria, where I had been feasting on +saints in the placid enjoyment of every form of martyrdom. Sir Everard, +leaning back on his chair and sipping black coffee, with a small brown +cap pushed well off his forehead, a brown tourist suit, and a capacious +yellow waistcoat, amply displayed in front of him, looked more absurdly +like a fat toad than ever. Lady Donisthorpe, smiling sweetly upon Venice +in general, with her lady-like softness, her mechanical amiability, her +pouter-pigeon suavity, yet showed marks about the eyes of some inner +dissatisfaction. They did not observe me; I stole close behind them, +anxious to see the immaculate colourless Meta; I wished to know for +myself what manner of girl she might be; but she was not with them—gone +off, no doubt, for a stroll round the square with Romeo. That thought +drove me quickly home; like a frightened rabbit, I rushed under the +clock-tower and along the thronged Merceria to my hotel on a side canal; +I could not have endured to see them together like lovers. + +Had I no qualms meanwhile? Aye, marry, had I? Do you think I slept much +through those three long nights of suspense and torture? If I tramped +from church to church and picture to picture during the day, ’twas but +to escape from my own stinging thoughts for a moment. I argued it all +out over and over again with myself. When we two had been seated side by +side in the gondola—Romeo’s arm half stealing round my waist, my head +half pillowed one second on Romeo’s shoulder—the question of ethics had +been translucent as crystal. We saw quite clearly our course was mapped +out for us by eternal equities. Even in Meta’s interest, I was advising +him for the best. “The whole man,” I had said—“body, soul, and +spirit—or else nothing!” That was woman’s full gospel of the new +dispensation. Less than that could be no true marriage. And “is it not +better, under such conditions, to change one’s mind early than to change +it too late? Is it not better for you to speak the truth, even at great +risk of pain and humiliation to a woman you have loved, than to tie her +for life to a man who cannot give her his whole heart unreservedly, +enthusiastically? Is it not better for her to be made miserable once +than to be made miserable for ever?” In advising Romeo to break off this +one-sided engagement, was I not advising him most of all in Meta +Donisthorpe’s interest? + +At times I even felt as if I had succeeded in doing a great favour, +unasked, to Meta. + +But in the dead hour of night, when all Venice slept, and the last +“Stalì!” had answered the last “Premè!” under my bedroom window, one +stanza of “In Memoriam” kept ever recurring most inopportunely to my +mind; I heard it in the creaking of the vane on the Dogana, in the lap +of the water against the honeycombed walls, in the sigh of the wind +through the arches of the belfry. It was a reproachful sound—the voice +of that conscience which I flattered myself the generation of whom I am +one had analysed away for ever. + + “Hold thou the good; define it well; + For fear divine Philosophy + Should push beyond her mark, and be + Procuress to the Lords of Hell.” + +The Lords of Hell! The Lords of Hell! It clanged with the hour from the +great Campanile! Was that where my sophisms were taking me, I wondered? +The Lords of Hell! The Lords of Hell! Had I advised Romeo aright, as the +woman who loves a man should strive to advise him at dangerous passes? + +On the third day of the three I rose early from my sleepless bed—tired +of tossing off the quilt—and wandered out by myself eastward through +the tortuous labyrinth of elbow-bending streets that spreads between St. +Mark’s and St. George of the Slavonians. I was bound no whither in +particular; I let each narrow flagged alley, each canal-side causeway, +lead me onward where it would; but, without design on my part, I found +myself at last on the small paved platform with the slimy green steps +that catches the morning sun, in front of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. +“San Giorgio!” I thought to myself; “I must stray in here for awhile for +rest and meditation. After Nicholas of Myra, has not the ever-blessed +George been most of all my patron? Let me lay before him my doubts—a +poor maiden’s doubts; it may be that the courteous young saint will +resolve them.” + +I pushed aside the padded curtain, and sat down on one of the seats. +Venetian women were there with their babies, praying—dark-haired, +dusky-eyed, poorly-clad, eager-spirited. For a while my eyes strayed to +those ever-exquisite Carpaccios, high ranged on the left-hand wall, +which tell the pretty tale of the tutelary saint with naïve Venetian +idealistic realism. I scarce knew which of the two chief actors I +admired the more—in the episode of the slaying of the dragon, so +familiar to me from my own life, the beautiful, graceful youth, with his +loose golden hair rippling free on the wind; or, in the scene of the +baptism, the kneeling Princess Cleodolind, her long, fair tresses +flowing richly down her back as she bends to receive the sacrament of +the font at the hands of her chivalrous and devout deliverer. St. +George, I fancied, in his earnest, clear face, somehow recalled my +Romeo; but the Princess—I shuddered: what ill-omen was this? The +Princess whom he baptised was a fair-haired maiden. I knew Meta was +fair—had he not spoken of her “masses of yellow tow”? A cold thrill ran +down my spine. Oh, St. Nicholas—oh, St. George, avert the omen! + +I pulled out my little silver crucifix, and, clasping it tight, decided +to lay my case before the Madonna herself, who reigns in the +altar-piece. Am I a Catholic, then? you ask. That is alien to this +story. There are three subjects which I decline to discuss: bimetallism, +the sex question, and my religious convictions. + +As I bent my knee before Our Lady on the shrine a low sob by my side +distracted my attention. It came from a young girl a little apart in the +gloom. Her face lay hidden in her hands—small gloved hands, like a +lady’s; but her fine-fibred hair was golden and luxuriantly abundant. I +glanced from her to the Carpaccio, and from the Carpaccio to her. Yes, +it could not be gainsaid—this was the Princess Cleodolind. + +Had her St. George proved untrue? She was crying bitterly. + +I knew at once that was the right explanation. The sound of her sobs +betrayed it. For there are species in crying. There is the cry of the +mother for the loss of her son; there is the cry of the wife for the +faithlessness of her husband; there is the cry of the maiden for the +defection of her lover. Each has its own note, recognisable at the first +sound to those who have once heard it. We talk in such cases of woman’s +intuition; it were truer, I think, to call it inference, for inference +it is from delicate observation. All women observe keenly the symptoms +of emotion; at moments of exaltation or passion they observe them with +an almost miraculous acuteness. I knew in a second that Cleodolind had +lost her lover’s heart; and I guessed in a flash that Cleodolind was +Meta. + +She was dressed like a lady; and out at this early hour; when she and I, +alone of our class, driven from our beds by alternative aspects of the +self-same problem, were abroad among the fisherwomen. + +I gazed at her with the respect one always accords to sorrow. My heart +misgave me. How easy it was in the gondola to philosophise in the +abstract; but here, on dry land, and in sight of this poor child with +the breaking heart—philosophy in the concrete seemed to present its own +fresh difficulties. + +Of a sudden she raised her face, and glanced across at me, piteously. +Her eyes met mine. I started. The wisp of a figure, the pathetic blue +eyes, the sunny fluff of hair: it was Michaela. + +I took it in with a great gulp. Michaela was Meta, then, and Meta +Michaela. + +I could not understand it, for the inscription on her card said, not +Donisthorpe, but “Miss Allardyce”; and had she not told me that her +Christian name was Margaret? But I had no time to think it out just +then. With a little cry of pleasure, she came over to me, still weeping. + +“You dear thing!” she whispered, holding out her gloved hand, “what a +comfort to see you! I want to have a talk with you. You were so good to +me at Holmwood.” + +I saw it was inevitable. I must face Meta now. I took her hand in mine, +with a deep sense of repentant treachery. “Come out with me, dear,” I +said, for she melted my heart. “Tell me all your trouble.” + +She pressed my hand in return. “I knew you would be good to me,” she +answered. “You are odd, but oh, so good. I saw it in your big eyes the +first day I met you. Do you know, your eyes are magnetic; they seem to +draw one.” + +“So I have been told,” I answered bitterly. + +“Where can we go to talk?” she asked. She had a caressing voice. “I am +sure you will do me good. And I do so want to talk this over with +somebody else besides mamma. Mamma is like a feather-bed. She is kind in +her way, but so soft and comfortable. Nothing seems to make a dint in +her.” + +Inventiveness forsook me. I had no suggestion to offer except another +gondola. And even at that moment, when the world whirled round madly +with myself for pivot, I was dimly conscious, as one is often conscious +of such trifles at a great crisis, that always in Venice, when people +wanted a _tête-à-tête_, they must have taken a gondola. Nowhere else in +that tangle of narrow streets and small squares could one go unobserved +for a second. + +We called a gondolier. “Where shall we tell him to take us?” Michaela +asked. It was not in her nature to suggest a route spontaneously. + +“Out on the open,” I replied. “We shall be less overlooked there.” Then +I added a little morosely, “If you are not afraid I shall drown you.” + +She smiled through her tears. “You were always so queer,” she said, “but +so kind.” She did not guess how much more reason I had now for drowning +her. She jumped lightly into the boat; she was a light little atomy; you +could have blown her away with a good puff, like thistledown. + +The gondolier took us across by San Giorgio Maggiore. Michaela sat by my +side, holding my hand in hers. If ever in my life, I felt guilty that +minute. + +So all those months I had been doing in earnest what I had said in +jest—unconsciously playing Carmen to her Michaela. I had stolen away +her Don José—and had never known it! + +She told me hurriedly how the man to whom she was engaged had always +seemed to love her, oh, so much—till five months ago; how, since that +time, his love had been gradually fading; how it had faded all away, +till she was wretched, hopeless! + +She cried so intensely that I laid her head on my shoulder. ’Twas a soft +little head. I felt like a man to her as I tried to comfort her. + +“Five years,” she sobbed out: “five years—all forgotten!” + +“You must have been a child at the time when you began to love him,” I +murmured. + +She raised her head. “Yes, a child. That’s what makes it so much worse! +We have loved and been loved since we were both children. Every thought, +every pleasure, we have shared with one another. I was cycling with him +that day when I first met you. We have grown up together. He has grown +into my heart—ever closer and closer.” + +“What is his name?” I asked, trembling. + +She told me. I hardly needed to ask it. + +“Why, I know him a little,” I said. “But I thought—he was engaged to a +daughter of Lady Donisthorpe’s.” + +“Yes, of course. Lady Donisthorpe is my mother.” + +“But—her name is Meta; and you are Margaret Allardyce?” + +“Mamma married again; I told you I had a stepfather.” + +She went on with her story. She loved him more and more. Her heart was +bound up with him. After so long a time, too! If he had told her three +years ago—— But five years—you could never make five years seem +nothing. + +“And can you account for it?” I inquired, to see how much she knew, +stroking her sunny hair with my hand as I did so. + +“You _dear_ thing! How sweetly sympathetic you are! Oh, yes, but it is +almost too dreadful to tell. A hateful woman—a type-writer girl at his +office! Could you ever have believed a person like _that_ would come +between us?” + +“Perhaps,” I ventured to suggest, “she did not mean it.” + +“Did not mean it? Oh, she did: the dreadful creature, she has bewitched +him! He loves _her_ best now. And yet, you would think that the years +must count; the years must count!” She sobbed, and became inaudible. + +“Has he told you of her?” I faltered. + +“Oh! no; he says nothing. He only lets me feel it. But mamma met her +once at a dinner Toto gave at the Savoy—a hateful vulgar creature! +Mamma and his mother both spoke to him of the way he treated her—the +attention he paid her—bringing a woman like that to dine with ladies, +it was unpardonable.” + +“Some type-writers _are_ ladies, Michaela,” I put in softly. “I am a +type-writer myself.” + +“Ah! yes, but that is different! you are so sweet, so gentle. You know +so much; you have been brought up like a lady; you have sympathy and +magnetism. This other creature—mother said it was horrid to be in the +same room with her. So loud, so noisy! And she’s here now, she’s here; +she has followed him to Venice on purpose to thwart us. He came out to +stay with me till the day we were to be married. And this woman, when +she saw her hold on him was failing, rushed after him to prevent it. Can +you believe such wickedness? Mamma saw her with him in a gondola. Oh! I +can’t bear to say it, dear, in a gondola, near the Riva, with his arm +around her!” + +“Perhaps,” I hazarded, “when she came here she did not know he was +engaged. Perhaps, if we could speak to her we might play upon some chord +in her better nature.” + +Michaela looked up at me admiringly. “You beautiful, broad-minded +person,” she cried; “how good you are, how tolerant! You make allowances +and excuses for everyone, I declare! How I wish I was like you! But she +_has_ no better nature, I believe. Mamma says she is a person lost to +all sense of shame. Why, the stories she told at that dinner of Toto’s +about the places she had been in and the people she had met were quite +beyond, you know, quite beyond; oh, too dreadful for anything.” + +I risked another card. “My dear little friend,” I said, “I speak of the +thing that I know: she _has_ a better nature.” (Oh, God, how it was +battling now against love of Romeo in her heart; how it was grappling +and struggling!) “I am almost sure I have met this girl of whom you +speak. There is a type-writer stopping at the same hotel as myself, and +I think she was out in a gondola the other day with your Romeo—let us +call him Romeo; it is ‘more real and agreeable,’ as Dick Swiveller said +to the Marchioness, and ’tis the only way in which I can talk about +people.” I maundered on, to gain time, for though outwardly I was +jesting, within I was fighting wild beasts at Ephesus. “Now, she has +talked to me of your Romeo, and I assure you solemnly, when she arrived +in Venice she had not an idea he was engaged—of that I am confident.” + +“Ah, but she knows it now, I am sure; and yet, she bewitches him!” + +I played one card still, a more doubtful and dangerous card than any. +“Perhaps,” I answered. “But the years must count. You are right in that. +Remember, as you say, I am (I hope) broad-minded. I try to see things +from everybody’s point of view. From yours, I see now that Romeo is +behaving—cruelly. From the type-writer girl’s, I see that she loves him +deeply, very deeply; but ’tis a new love, fresh grown; however firmly it +may have rooted itself, it has no claim on the score of age as against +yours; and if she is told so calmly and frankly, she may perhaps realise +it. From Romeo’s, I see—well, more than I like to tell you.” I paused +and hesitated. The effort to gain time made me didactic. “Life is the +interaction of individualities,” I said, “each seeing things its own +way. Justice is the attempt to reconcile them. Let us try here if we can +make this type-writer girl see something a little beyond her own point +of view—see, as you say, that the years must count. She is not wholly +bad, whatever Lady Donisthorpe may tell you. I will be your ambassador. +I will speak to _her_; I will speak to Romeo. I will try to make them +feel what you have made me feel—that the years should count. And I will +come to San Giorgio of the Slavonians to tell you what success I have +had in my embassy at this time to-morrow.” + +She brightened up at the idea. She thanked me profusely. “He loves me +still,” she said, “a little; only, this girl bewitches him. Oh, I have +read about her eyes and her hair in his verses. He thought no one knew; +he put it so darkly—all wrapped up in words; but I could see they were +hers, though he thinks me so silly. I am clever enough where one’s heart +is concerned; I can catch at a straw then. But if _she_ were once away, +I am sure he would come back to me.” She nestled into my shoulder. “You +_dear_ thing!” she cried again, grinding her teeth with affection, “you +have put fresh hope in me.” + +“Thank you, dear,” I answered. “Do you remember at Holmwood I called you +Michaela, because you were so fair, like the girl in the opera? Now, +this type-writer girl is dark, and she has been playing Carmen to +you—stealing your love away from you by her clever ways and her +blandishments. She has gypsy attractiveness. But, Michaela, I am sure +she did not mean it. If she had known of you, if she might have seen +you, she could not have wronged you. Do you recollect what I said to you +in the train that day—‘You dear little thing, no one could ever hurt +you!’? Well, I am sure the type-writer woman would feel as I do—if she +knew you. But I want to make you promise me one thing—if I bring you +back your Romeo, you will forgive her?—you will never again call her a +horrid creature?” + +She soothed my hand in turn. “I could promise you anything,” she said. +“I never knew anyone so tender and helpful.” + +We bid the gondolier turn. She held my hand still; blue sky in her eyes +shone after the rain. “Only to think,” she cried, “I have met you three +times—no more; and yet I feel you are a dear friend—the sort of friend +who would do anything for one.” + +“You have reason,” I answered. + +We returned to the Molo. A crushed heart and a doubtful one had embarked +in that gondola; a crushed heart and a doubtful one disembarked from it +again. But they had changed places. + +Three days ago I had seen through the gates of Paradise. To-day an angel +with a flaming sword stood to bar my entrance. And, worst of all, I knew +his name was Justice. + + + CHAPTER XXI. + ENVOY PLENIPOTENTIARY. + +I trailed back to my hotel, surely the most abject soul in Venice. +Michaela’s misapprehension of my motives I did not resent; the American +eagle in my breast had scarce a flap left—a more draggle-plumed bird I +had seldom seen. But all was at an end. I had lost my Romeo. + +My interview with the first of the two delinquents whom I had engaged to +lure back to the path of rectitude I got over quickly on my way home. It +was not a hard one. The culprit, sitting meekly on the penitent’s bench, +listened to all my blame with a contrite heart; and in consideration of +her contrition I condoned her evil deeds. It was easy to condone, for +here I knew all, and to know all is to forgive all. Michaela would have +forgiven had she seen into that poor mangled heart as I did. + +Looking back over my life dispassionately from the calm height of +twenty-three, as if I were looking at some other woman’s life, I think I +can say I have never acted wrong—grossly and unforgivably wrong—given +the circumstances. It is those alone that others fail to understand. If +they understood, they must sympathise where now they blame us. + +Could Michaela have watched, stage by stage, the slow organic growth of +my love for Romeo; could she have felt the inevitability, the +consecutiveness of the way it unfolded; could she have realised its +foregone certainty as an outcome of two natures, I think, dear little +soul, even she would have hesitated to call me “that horrid woman.” + +But it was all past now, and she had regained her Romeo. + +One culprit had recanted. I had still to face my embassy to the second +high contracting party. + +I sat by the balconied open window of my bedroom and looked down into +the canal. It was almost the hour for Romeo’s daily passage. Slow barges +with firewood drifted lazily by, then a boat-load of purple egg-fruit +and heaped golden melons, with a gondola or two loitering on the look +out for passengers, like our London crawlers. + +At last my heart began to beat, not high as it had beaten the two +previous mornings, but with a low foreboding. Another gondola swung with +a graceful curve round the huge bosses of the corner palace; in it, a +familiar crush Tyrolese hat, and beneath the hat, Romeo. + +He gazed up at me, smiled, and waved one hand; but his look was anxious. + +I leaned out and called to him: “Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!” + +He rose and glanced at me with checked breath and eager eyes. + +“Come up here,” I faltered; “I want to speak with you.” + +“In your room?” he cried, hesitating. + +I felt it was no moment to stand on false convention. “Yes, in my room,” +I answered. “Have I not told you I have confidence in myself and my +guardian angel?” + +He waved the gondolier to the steps, leaped lightly out, English athlete +that he was, and was with me in a moment. + +I might have treated the situation melodramatically and hissed out at +him “Traitor!” (But then, it is true, I unconsciously shared his +treachery.) Instead of that I treated it like a woman, and burst into +tears before him. + +He drew a chair by my side. His white face quivered. “You have seen +Meta?” he faltered out. + +I could feel his heart throb. + +“Yes,” I answered, “I have seen her, and—I find I know her. Romeo, we +were all wrong. We were deceiving our own hearts with specious sophisms. +She said to me in her soft small voice, all choked with tears, ‘The +years must count; the years must count!’—and—she was right when she +said it!” + +He flung himself upon me. “Juliet!” he cried, “dear Juliet, I too have +suffered. I have battled with my own soul. The beast has fought the +angel and the angel the man in me. When I see her, when I am with +her—so gentle, so childish, so cruelly hurt by my coldness, or what she +thinks my coldness—how can I have the heart to break to her the +resolution we formed? Yet the moment I leave her I know it is the right +one. It would be wrong of me to marry her now, having found my true +mate—wrong for her own sake. ‘The whole man—body, soul, and spirit—or +nothing.’ Do not go back on your own words. It would be treason to the +eternal cause of woman.” + +He spoke so vehemently that I faltered. + +Then Michaela’s pale face, with the gentle blue eyes swollen red from +weeping, came up like a mist before me. “You shall not wrong that +child!” I cried. “Much as I love you, Romeo, not even for my sake will I +allow you to wrong her. She is right and we are wrong; the years must +count. She has grown up with your love inextricably twined by rootlets +and tendrils through the fibre of her being; to tear it away now were to +tear her very heart out. She lives on your affection. To see is to +understand; before I saw her I thought as we thought at the Lido. Now I +know better. I will not allow you to wrong her.” + +He drew away a step and looked me over with his keen eyes from head to +foot. I quailed before his glance, so full it was of admiration. “My +Juliet!” he cried. “Why talk? I love you for _this_ better than I have +ever loved you! That you can contemplate such a sacrifice for honour’s +sake and for justice—the greater to the less, you to Meta—shows me you +are more worthy to be loved than even I thought you. I _cannot_ marry +anyone but you. You, you, you! O, God,” he flung himself upon me in an +ecstasy, “to think that in a world which holds such a woman as you they +should call upon me to content myself with that wax doll of a Meta!” + +I untwined his arms quietly. I was fighting now the battle of my sex, +and I almost forgot myself in my advocacy of Michaela. “You shall not +speak so of her!” I cried; “the girl whom you have loved for years—the +girl to whom you have uttered such vows, on whom you have bestowed such +kisses. It is an insult to our sex. The years must count—the years and +the endearments.” + +He stood away and began again. “Juliet,” he murmured, in caressing +tones, and in his flute-like voice, as if he loved to repeat my name, +“there is one woman in the world supremely fitted for me. She has +courage, she has wit, imagination, fancy. She can hold her own; +vivacious, brave, strenuous. One of her stray black elf-locks is worth +all Meta’s loose gold. Yet she has high purpose enough to plead another +woman’s cause against her own heart, her own happiness. Her brain is +alert; her eye electric; her soul womanly. The more she argues, the more +does she make me admire her, reverence her, worship her. Go on pleading +if you will, dear heart; I love to hear you, to watch you; but every +word you say, every hand you move, for Meta, only strengthens my resolve +that you I will have, or I will have nobody. Against your will, I will +make you happy.” + +He sat down by my side again, and bent towards me coaxingly. In his low +sweet voice he began to reason. I listened while he said over again +every argument we had used together by the shrine of St. Nicholas, with +others like them. If he married Meta, how could she hold his heart? She +would be the mistress of his house, a sort of superior pet bird, to be +tricked out in fine feathers, to be coaxed, stroked, fondled; but not a +wife. If he married me, we should go through the world together, equally +paired, soul-wedded, each mirroring the other’s mind, each respecting, +admiring, reinforcing the other. We two were natural complements. Why +seek to throw him back from the higher upon the lower? + +I listened and trembled. What he said was so flattering to one’s own +inner vanity, seemed so exactly what one thought in private when one +dared to be frank with oneself, had such a show of eternal and immutable +reason, that the temptation to go back on my word and accept his +argument as true was almost irresistible. If I had not seen Michaela, I +think I should have yielded. Love, one’s own heart, the man one adores +at one’s feet, these are dangerous assailants. But I closed my eyes, and +there Michaela’s blue eyes rose up, appealing to me in the gondola, with +that piteous cry, “The years must count; the years must count!” wailed +out ever from her heart; and I knew I was fighting the common battle of +womanhood. If I were to turn traitor now, I should turn traitor to +whatever I had within me best worth calling a conviction. + +He seized my hand and kissed it. When the lips of the man you love touch +you, it is hard to refuse. But I drew the hand away. He followed it up. +His breath was warm upon my cheek. My bosom rose in a tumult. I began to +fear I had presumed too much upon my guardian angel. If Romeo pressed me +hard now, I must throw Michaela overboard—I must forget his honour, the +years that count, the battle of my sex, all that is sacred on earth, +everything save myself and Romeo. If he asked me, I must say, “Yes; let +the white girl go; I will be yours, my Romeo.” + +Then, conscious of my own weakness—with an impulse as if from without, +of a sudden I flung myself on my knees, and prayed silently and +earnestly for strength to do right, strength to refrain from betraying +Michaela. + +Romeo stood off with clasped hands, observing me in dead silence. + +I rose from my knees another woman. The soul of womanhood found voice +within me. “Romeo, dear Romeo,” I cried, facing him, and speaking like +one inspired, “it is not a question for you; it is a question for me. I +love you with all my soul; but I refuse to marry you. I will not be a +traitor; the years must count: go back to Meta!” + +He caught my hand in his. I let it lie like a stone. “Do not send me +away,” he implored. “Let me stop with you a little!” + +I sank into a chair. He did the same. “But remember,” I gasped, between +two sighs, “this is final.” + +Tears rose to his eyes. He began to speak once more. “You must not +think, dearest,” he said, “I have not felt for Meta. Not all these +nights have I slept; but, honestly, in the dark, I thought it out, and I +came to the conclusion it would be best in the end—even for Meta.” + +“Romeo,” I said, raising my eyes, “do you love me?” + +He made a hasty gesture as if he would fling himself upon me once more. + +I waved him off with one open palm. “Then promise me, promise me, you +will go back to Meta.” + +“I cannot!” he cried. “I love you.” + +“Will you go back to Meta?” + +It was a hard, long struggle. We parried, thrust, marched, +countermarched, evaded; but I had taken it in hand, and I determined to +finish it. Inch by inch falling back, but still fighting, he gave way. +He saw I was in earnest. Behind each line of defence, each logical +hedge, he tried to argue it out again. I cut him short with a hasty +gesture. “A man, yes, he can forget the years; but a woman—never!” + +At last, worn out, he promised. In the agony of my excitement I took his +yielding as a personal triumph. I had asked of my lover a difficult +gift, and by dint of woman’s armoury, had prevailed on him to grant it. + +“But—you will stop on at the office?” he asked at last, holding his +breath. + +I turned on him. “How could I? For Meta’s sake, impossible; for my own, +an infamy.” + +“And—I must never see you again?” + +I bowed my head. “These things are made so. It is _yes_ or _no_. If +_yes_, for life; if _no_, then never.” + +He advanced towards me, with his lips trembling visibly. “I may say +good-bye?” he faltered. + +My heart leaped to break its strings. I knew not what to say. At +last—“Yes, if it is good-bye, and if you go back to Meta.” + +He seized me in his arms. I will not deny that for one whole minute I +lay there sobbing, happy. It is little, for a lifetime. Then I moved him +away softly. He clung to me, panting. “Now you must go,” I whispered. +“Do not tell her it was _I_. Keep my secret!” + +I opened the door. For a second he lingered. I waved him away. I could +endure it no longer. Looking back and breathing hard, he passed through +into the passage. I turned the key in the lock to satisfy myself that +that embassy was fulfilled; then I fell on the bed, and cried a low cry, +“Romeo! Romeo!” + + + CHAPTER XXII. + I CLING TO THE RIGGING. + +So my poor little Odyssey had come to an end in shipwreck! Mr. Samuel +Butler must be wrong, after all. I doubt a woman’s ability to handle +these sustained epics. I was to get no farther on my way to Ithaca than +the episode of Phæacia. Nor would any Nausicaa come forth to aid me. + +After I had cried my heart’s full—cried till that point when you begin +to leave off and to laugh like a child at nothing, for pure +weariness—the humorous element, which inevitably enters into all human +tragedy, pressed itself upon me. On the stage, art never lets these +incongruous incidents intervene at critical moments to disturb the +current: in real life, they _will_ obtrude their faces, like Paul Pry; +and ’tis my misfortune and my good luck that, with some grain of Heine +in my composition, I cannot shut my eyes to them. So here, the comic +muse, masquerading as Common Sense, stepped in with one grotesque +reminder: “You have no money to pay your way back to London.” + +Now, gypsy or American or Anglo-Indian or what you will, I am true +Briton in this, that whatever misfortune lowers, I see one path of +safety—the road home to London. “If only I could get back to London!” +is the Briton’s heart-felt cry of distress in a foreign land. He can +starve in comfort, so he may starve in Piccadilly. + +I have already explained that I am wholly free from the vile vice of +prudence. To take no thought for the morrow is to me an article of +religion, though ’tis rare among those who profess to accept it as a +divine injunction. Acting on this principle, I had bought a single +second-class ticket to Venice, as my funds were insufficient to pay for +a return. It was my idea, when I started, to trust for my journey home +to the saint who lies at the Lido. Now, however, I found myself in an +awkward predicament. St. Nicholas had played me a last bad turn. I had +bought perforce a new travelling costume before I left England, for I +recognised that my rational dress with the knickerbockers would +harmonise ill with the genius of Venice; the rest of my cash in hand had +gone for beds at Lucerne or Milan, and passing necessaries. I stood face +to face with an Italian court of bankruptcy; liabilities, my hotel bill; +assets, five paper lire. + +To borrow from Romeo was now clearly impossible. And the canals are so +redolent of thirty generations of Venetian refuse that suicide does not +offer here its normal allurements. + +This brought the revulsion. I lay on my bed and laughed to think that, +broken heart or not, I could not get away from Venice. + +By evening, I had a headache. I was crying once more. But the worst of +headache is that it never kills. + +Early next morning I woke from a short snatch of sleep with a dull pain +in my left side. It was moral, not physical. I rose, to ease it by +action. _Oubliez; voyagez!_ I had still qualms of conscience—I who +fancied I had dissected conscience out of existence: but this time they +were reversed. Had I done right, after all, in speeding Romeo to his +fate? Would Michaela be a mate for him? Was it not better as it was +before—for the greatest happiness of the greatest number at least? St. +Nicholas, help! John Stuart Mill, stand by me! + +I dressed, bathed my red eyes, and went out to keep my appointment. I +was early at San Giorgio, but Michaela was before me. As I lifted the +heavy curtain, her eyes shone happiness. In her radiant countenance I +read my doom. She was calmly, serenely joyous. I beckoned her to the +_campo_. She flitted out, and with a charming baby impulse flung her +arms around me. + +Tears rose in my eyes. It was sweet to see her happy. I held her hand +and said nothing. + +“Well, he has explained all,” she whispered. “You were a dear to speak +to him.” + +“Explained!” I cried. How true it is that explanations explain nothing! + +“Yes, he told mamma he did not know the type-writer girl was coming to +Venice. He went out with her in a gondola because he met her by +accident—and it was such a surprise to him; and he wanted to avoid +mamma. But he is not going to see her again, and I believe he will +dismiss her.” + +“No, dear,” I said gently, unable to restrain myself, “he will _not_ +dismiss her, because—she will go away of her own accord. She does not +intend to remain with him. I have seen her, and I can assure you she is +better than you think. She did not know Romeo was engaged; and when she +fully realised it she relinquished all claim to him, or rather admitted +she had never had one. Michaela, dear child, you must not be hard upon +her. You promised to forgive her. I feel sure she has suffered, for she +loved him devotedly.” + +“How good you are!” Michaela cried. “You sympathise so with everyone!” + +“She has promised me,” I went on, “that she will never again see him, +that she will avoid him with care, that she will not speak to him nor +write to him. She will try to forget him, though to forget him is as +impossible for her as for you. But she will be true to you; she will +keep her word. I can answer for her as I could answer for myself; she +spoke with such earnestness. She is tearing out her heart; but because +she thinks it right she will tear it out ruthlessly.” + +Michaela smiled a tranquil smile. “And it is all right now,” she said. +“We are to be married in October, as we arranged originally.” + +We walked along the canal. We walked side by side, but great gulfs +separated us. At last I spoke again. “You forgive her, Michaela?” + +“Oh! yes, dear, I forgive her. If she did not know, of course it was +natural. He _is_ such a dear! She could not help falling in love with +him!” + +“So I feel,” I said. She glanced up at me with inquiring blue eyes. I +think for a second she half suspected the truth, for I had spoken too +deeply. + +We walked on in silence a little farther. Then Michaela began again, +brimming over with her happiness. “I haven’t a quarter thanked you. But +I _am_ so grateful! You were a sweet to see them both. You will come to +my wedding?” + +“No, dearest,” I answered, driving back the tears with a fierce effort. +“If so, I should be breaking a solemn promise.” + +Again she seemed to suspect, and again the doubt went from her. + +“It was all a mistake,” she continued, in a childish, sunny way, “a +passing cloud. And Toto seemed so distressed, I couldn’t help feeling +sorry to see him so sorry for me. It has touched him very deep. He cried +a great deal. He has been crying all the time. But it is all right now. +We shall be quite happy!” + +I swallowed a lump. What a child it was! And _there_ lay the irony. I +think I could have spared Romeo better had I felt I was sparing him to +more of a woman. Self-sacrifice for some great soul would be easy: but +for a bit of thistledown! And yet I loved her. + +“I told mamma how kind you had been,” Michaela went on, quite +guilelessly, “and she wants to see you so much. You must come and dine +with us at our hotel. How long do you stop in Venice?” + +I paused and reflected. I had done her a service—a very great service; +what need to stand on trifles? For I do not share the vulgar dread of +putting myself under an obligation. + +“Dear little Michaela,” I said, spanning her arm with one hand—it was +so fairy-like and tiny—and drawing her towards me, “I will confess the +truth. I am travelling with that type-writer girl. I know her +intimately. Now, I want to spirit her away from Venice at once, so that +she may not see Romeo, and that Romeo may not see her. It would be +awkward for both of them. But I have no money. I borrowed from you once +and repaid you faithfully; if I borrow from you again I will repay in +like manner. This is a worse strait than Holmwood. I shall need six or +seven pounds. My dear, can you lend it to me?” + +She drew out the dainty purse. “Why, of course, dear, if I have it. +Fifty, a hundred and fifty, two hundred lire; will that be enough for +you?” + +“Yes, my child,” I gasped out, taking the crumpled notes and crushing +them in my folded hand. “If I work my fingers to the bone you shall have +it back.” + +We walked on towards the Molo. O grey, grey Venice! The greatest +happiness of the greatest number. Back, back, Stuart Mill! Get thee +behind me, Satan! A gondola approached. I hailed it. + +“Where are you going?” she cried, surprised. + +“Away,” I said, “at once. It is better—safer! I will give the devil no +chances.” Then to the gondolier, “Hold off a little!” + +He held off beyond jumping distance. Michaela hung over on the bridge +close by, wondering. + +“Michaela,” I cried, “now I will tell you!” An impulse came over me; I +could no longer resist it. “It was _I_ who stole your Romeo’s heart by +mistake! It was _I_ who played Carmen and beguiled your Don José. It was +_I_ who sent him back. _I_ am the type-writer girl!” + +“You!” she cried, waving to me to return. “Oh, you dear thing, come +back! If it was you, how good you have been! Why, I can see it in your +face. You have suffered for my sake! Come back, and let me kiss you!” + +“No, dearest,” I said, melting. “I must go. I dare not trust myself. +Good-bye for ever! Good-bye to you; good-bye to Romeo. Give him that +message for me; I will never again see him.” I turned to the gondolier. +“Quick, row for all you are worth! To my hotel first, then on to the +railway station!” + + * * * * * + +If this book succeeds I mean to repay Michaela. Meanwhile, in any case, +I am saving up daily every farthing to repay her. For I am still a +type-writer girl—at another office. + + THE END + _Malcomson & Co., Ltd., Printers, Redhill._ + + + + + NEW 3s. 3d. FICTION. + + _____ + + H. G. WELLS’ NEW ROMANCE. + + =THE INVISIBLE MAN.= + + By the Author of “The Time Machine.” Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 3s. 6d. + + Other writers have treated this theme, but they have generally + given the invisible man a power which it was something more than + a satisfaction for him to have. Mr. Wells, however, is original + in all things, and shows us in this story what a disadvantage it + is to become invisible. He describes how, if a man becomes + invisible, it does not follow that the clothes he wears become + invisible also, and on this supposition has woven a story that + will hold the reader with breathless interest from start to + finish. + +=The Duke and the Damsel.= By RICHARD MARSH, Author of the “Devil’s +Diamonds,” &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. + + In this story Mr. Richard Marsh devotes himself to a series of + light-comedy incidents, relieved by a few touches of strong + feeling. The scene is laid at Monte Carlo, and the whole tale is + a study of modern men (and women) and manners. + +=Fortune’s Footballs.= By G. B. BURGIN, Author of “Old Man’s Marriage,” +&c., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. + + In this story Mr. Burgin forsakes his customary Canadian and + Turkish haunts in favour of “dramatic life” in London. The plot + deals with a strolling vagabond who has stolen the half-finished + play of a great dramatic author and afterwords produces it as + his own. He is tracked by the daughter of the dead dramatist, + and ultimately meets with his deserts. There is a boy-and-girl + love-story in the subsidiary plot, and a “new thing” in villains + in the shape of a greasy Canadian philanthropist. + +=Her Royal Highness’s Love Affairs.= By J. MACLAREN COBBAN, Author of +“The Cure of Souls,” “The Red Sultan,” &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. + + In his new story, Mr. Maclaren Cobban follows Mr. Wells’ example + and makes a hero of a shopman. Unlike Mr. Wells, however, the + shopman in question is of good family, and sells lace for a + West-End firm. He first meets the heroine (the Princess) when + she is bicycling, and out of the _rencontre_ Mr. Maclaren Cobban + spins a very dainty love-story. + +=The Iron Cross.= By R. H. SHERARD, Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. + + Mr. Sherard has laid the scene of this story in an old French + village, and deals with a search for hidden treasure in a + thoroughly novel and interesting way. The mystery of the hidden + treasure is well maintained up to the last chapter. + +=John of Strathbourne.= By R. D. CHETWODE. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. + + In this story Mr. Chetwode challenges comparison with Mr. + Stanley Weyman in his most dramatic moments. He has fully caught + the romantic spirit of the time when “The Thousand Devils” + flourished in Old France, and furnishes a very pretty love-story + as a set-off to the foibles of the villains whom he depicts. + +=The Skipper’s Wooing.= By W. W. JACOBS, Author of “Many Cargoes,” &c. +Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. + + It will be remembered that Mr. Jacobs made an instantaneous + success with his first book of short stories. Mr. Jacobs is now + following up that success with a long novel, the scene of which + is laid among the semi-seafaring folk with whose peculiarities + he is so familiar. “The Skipper’s Wooing” deals with the + adventures of a Captain in search of his sweetheart’s father, + who has disappeared under a cloud. Despairing of the success of + his own exertions, the Captain offers a reward to all the + members of his crew to help him. They set forth in different + directions on the same quest, and meet with many ludicrous + misadventures by the way. The book is written with all the high + spirits of youth, and should more than confirm Mr. Jacobs’ + previous success. + +=When the Birds Begin to Sing.= By WINIFRED GRAHAM, Author of “On the +Down Grade.” With 16 illustrations by HAROLD PIFFARD. Square crown 8vo. +Price 3s. 6d. + + “A striking and interesting tale. The authoress has evidently a + strong imagination and a gift for story-telling.”—_Dundee + Courier._ + + + + + NEW 6s. NOVELS. + + _____ + + COMPANION VOLUME TO “THE FINAL WAR.” + +=An American Emperor.= By LOUIS TRACY. Square crown 8vo, cloth, 16 +full-page illustrations. Price 6s. + + It is a long time since such a daring book as “An American + Emperor” has been produced. Mr. Tracy has taken for his theme + the power of money, and the work is written in his best and most + graphic style. All through runs a vein of romance, mingled with + stirring adventure and with tragedy. And throughout there is + nothing improbable, nothing which outsteps the possibilities of + such a power as unlimited millions would bestow. With a + cheque-book Mr. Tracy’s hero performs what Napoleon accomplished + with an army. + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + +_THE FINAL WAR.—A Story of the Great Betrayal. Illustrated by Ernest F. +Sherie. Square crown 8vo, cloth. Price 6s._ + +=Queen of the Jesters.= By MAX PEMBERTON, Author of “Christine of the +Hills,” &c., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, illustrated, 6s. + + This is a collection of the stories by Mr. Pemberton which have + been delighting all England for the last few months. They are + full of stirring adventure, and written with Mr. Pemberton’s + customary skill in depicting strong emotion and dramatic + incident. + +=The Raid of the “Detrimental.”= By the EARL OF DESART, Author of “Lord +and Lady Piccadilly,” &c., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth. Price 6s. + + In this story the Earl of Desart has made a new departure. The + tale deals with the True History of the Great Disappearance of + 1862, and is related by several of those implicated and others. + The story is so fantastic and novel, the dialogue so brilliant, + that it recalls the former successes of the author in the + particular field which is almost his own. + +=The Zone of Fire.= By HEADON HILL, Author of “Guilty Gold,” “The +Rajah’s Second Wife,” &c., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ + +_GUILTY GOLD.—A Romance of Financial Fraud and City Crime. Illustrated +by Raymond Potter. Square crown 8vo, cloth. Price 6s._ + +=Valdar—The Oft-Born: A Saga of Seven Ages.= By GEORGE GRIFFITH, Author +of “The Angel of the Revolution,” &c., &c. Illustrated by HAROLD +PIFFARD. Square crown 8vo, cloth. Price 6s. + +=The Impudent Comedian, and Others.= By FRANKFORT MOORE. Illustrated by +ROBERT SAUBER. Large crown 8vo, cloth. Price 5s. + + “Really Mr. Frankfort Moore ought to write for the theatres. He + has not only an uncommon talent for dramatic dialogue—dialogue, + that is to say, which contributes at the same time to the + development of character and the conduct of a plot—he is also + particularly cunning in devising a telling situation. There are + two or three stories in his new book, ‘The Impudent Comedian,’ + which may be turned into plays as easily as pork may be made + into sausages—the same thing in another form.”—_The Referee._ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER NOTES + + Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where + multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. + + Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer + errors occur. + + Book cover illustration was taken from Wikipedia Commons. The + resulting cover is placed in the public domain. + + [The end of _The Type-writer Girl_, by Grant Allen.] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78662 *** |