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+*** Project Gutenberg etext of Passing of the Third Floor Back ***
+By Jerome K. Jerome
+
+Scanned and proofed by Ronald Burkey (rburkey@heads-up.com) and Amy
+Thomte.
+
+Notes on the editing:  Punctuation and hyphenation have been retained
+as in the original, except words broken across lines have been joined.
+Italicized text is delimited by underlines ("_").  A long break
+between paragraphs is represented by "***".
+
+
+PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK
+By JEROME K. JEROME
+
+Author of "Paul Kelver," "Three Men in a Boat," etc., etc.
+
+NEW YORK
+DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+1909
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY JEROME K. JEROME
+COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+Published, September, 1908
+
+
+PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK
+
+The neighbourhood of Bloomsbury Square towards four o'clock of a
+November afternoon is not so crowded as to secure to the stranger, of
+appearance anything out of the common, immunity from observation.
+Tibb's boy, screaming at the top of his voice that _she_ was his
+honey, stopped suddenly, stepped backwards on to the toes of a voluble
+young lady wheeling a perambulator, and remained deaf, apparently, to
+the somewhat personal remarks of the voluble young lady.  Not until he
+had reached the next corner--and then more as a soliloquy than as
+information to the street--did Tibb's boy recover sufficient interest
+in his own affairs to remark that _he_ was her bee.  The voluble young
+lady herself, following some half-a-dozen yards behind, forgot her
+wrongs in contemplation of the stranger's back.  There was this that
+was peculiar about the stranger's back:  that instead of being flat it
+presented a decided curve.  "It ain't a 'ump, and it don't look like
+kervitcher of the spine," observed the voluble young lady to herself.
+"Blimy if I don't believe 'e's taking 'ome 'is washing up his back."
+
+The constable at the corner, trying to seem busy doing nothing,
+noticed the stranger's approach with gathering interest.  "That's an
+odd sort of a walk of yours, young man," thought the constable.  "You
+take care you don't fall down and tumble over yourself."
+
+"Thought he was a young man," murmured the constable, the stranger
+having passed him.  "He had a young face right enough."
+
+The daylight was fading.  The stranger, finding it impossible to read
+the name of the street upon the corner house, turned back.
+
+"Why, 'tis a young man," the constable told himself; "a mere boy."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the stranger; "but would you mind telling me
+my way to Bloomsbury Square."
+
+"This is Bloomsbury Square," explained the constable; "leastways round
+the corner is.  What number might you be wanting?"
+
+The stranger took from the ticket pocket of his tightly buttoned
+overcoat a piece of paper, unfolded it and read it out:  "Mrs.
+Pennycherry.  Number Forty-eight."
+
+"Round to the left," instructed him the constable; "fourth house.
+Been recommended there?"
+
+"By--by a friend," replied the stranger.  "Thank you very much."
+
+"Ah," muttered the constable to himself; "guess you won't be calling
+him that by the end of the week, young--"
+
+"Funny," added the constable, gazing after the retreating figure of
+the stranger.  "Seen plenty of the other sex as looked young behind
+and old in front.  This cove looks young in front and old behind.
+Guess he'll look old all round if he stops long at mother
+Pennycherry's:  stingy old cat."
+
+Constables whose beat included Bloomsbury Square had their reasons for
+not liking Mrs. Pennycherry.  Indeed it might have been difficult to
+discover any human being with reasons for liking that sharp-featured
+lady.  Maybe the keeping of second-rate boarding houses in the
+neighbourhood of Bloomsbury does not tend to develop the virtues of
+generosity and amiability.
+
+Meanwhile the stranger, proceeding npon his way, had rung the bell of
+Number Forty-eight.  Mrs. Pennycherry, peeping from the area and
+catching a glimpse, above the railings, of a handsome if somewhat
+effeminate masculine face, hastened to readjust her widow's cap before
+the looking-glass while directing Mary Jane to show the stranger,
+should he prove a problematical boarder, into the dining-room, and to
+light the gas.
+
+"And don't stop gossiping, and don't you take it upon yourself to
+answer questions.  Say I'll be up in a minute," were Mrs.
+Pennycherry's further instructions, "and mind you hide your hands as
+much as you can."
+
+                                  ***
+                                   
+"What are you grinning at?" demanded Mrs. Pennycherry, a couple of
+minutes later, of the dingy Mary Jane.
+
+"Wasn't grinning," explained the meek Mary Jane, "was only smiling to
+myself."
+
+"What at?"
+
+"Dunno," admitted Mary Jane.  But still she went on smiling.
+
+"What's he like then?" demanded Mrs. Pennycherry.
+
+"'E ain't the usual sort," was Mary Jane's opinion.
+
+"Thank God for that," ejaculated Mrs. Pennycherry piously.
+
+"Says 'e's been recommended, by a friend."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By a friend.  'E didn't say no name."  Mrs. Pennycherry pondered.
+"He's not the funny sort, is he?"
+
+Not that sort at all.  Mary Jane was sure of it.
+
+Mrs. Pennycherry ascended the stairs still pondering.  As she entered
+the room the stranger rose and bowed.  Nothing could have been simpler
+than the stranger's bow, yet there came with it to Mrs. Pennycherry a
+rush of old sensations long forgotten.  For one brief moment Mrs.
+Pennycherry saw herself an amiable well-bred lady, widow of a
+solicitor:  a visitor had called to see her.  It was but a momentary
+fancy.  The next instant Reality reasserted itself.  Mrs. Pennycherry,
+a lodging-house keeper, existing precariously upon a daily round of
+petty meannesses, was prepared for contest with a possible new
+boarder, who fortunately looked an inexperienced young gentleman.
+
+"Someone has recommended me to you," began Mrs. Pennycherry; "may I
+ask who?"
+
+But the stranger waved the question aside as immaterial.
+
+"You might not remember--him," he smiled.  "He thought that I should
+do well to pass the few months I am given--that I have to be in
+London, here.  You can take me in?"
+
+Mrs. Pennycherry thought that she would be able to take the stranger
+in.
+
+"A room to sleep in," explained the stranger, "--any room will
+do--with food and drink sufficient for a man, is all that I require."
+
+"For breakfast," began Mrs. Pennycherry, "I always give--"
+
+"What is right and proper, I am convinced," interrupted the stranger.
+"Pray do not trouble to go into detail, Mrs. Pennycherry.  With
+whatever it is I shall be content."
+
+Mrs. Pennycherry, puzzled, shot a quick glance at the stranger, but
+his face, though the gentle eyes were smiling, was frank and serious.
+
+"At all events you will see the room," suggested Mrs. Pennycherry,
+"before we discuss terms."
+
+"Certainly," agreed the stranger.  "I am a little tired and shall be
+glad to rest there."
+
+Mrs. Pennycherry led the way upward; on the landing of the third
+floor, paused a moment undecided, then opened the door of the back
+bedroom.
+
+"It is very comfortable," commented the stranger.
+
+"For this room," stated Mrs. Pennycherry, "together with full board,
+consisting of--"
+
+"Of everything needful.  It goes without saying," again interrupted
+the stranger with his quiet grave smile.
+
+"I have generally asked," continued Mrs. Pennycherry, "four pounds a
+week.  To you--" Mrs. Pennycherry's voice, unknown to her, took to
+itself the note of aggressive generosity--"seeing you have been
+recommended here, say three pounds ten."
+
+"Dear lady," said the stranger, "that is kind of you.  As you have
+divined, I am not a rich man.  If it be not imposing upon you I accept
+your reduction with gratitude."
+
+Again Mrs. Pennycherry, familiar with the satirical method, shot a
+suspicious glance upon the stranger, but not a line was there, upon
+that smooth fair face, to which a sneer could for a moment have clung.
+Clearly he was as simple as he looked.
+
+"Gas, of course, extra."
+
+"Of course," agreed the Stranger.
+
+"Coals--"
+
+"We shall not quarrel," for a third time the stranger interrupted.
+"You have been very considerate to me as it is.  I feel, Mrs.
+Pennycherry, I can leave myself entirely in your hands."
+
+The stranger appeared anxious to be alone.  Mrs. Pennycherry, having
+put a match to the stranger's fire, turned to depart.  And at this
+point it was that Mrs. Pennycherry, the holder hitherto of an unbroken
+record for sanity, behaved in a manner she herself, five minutes
+earlier in her career, would have deemed impossible--that no living
+soul who had ever known her would have believed, even had Mrs.
+Pennycherry gone down upon her knees and sworn it to them.
+
+"Did I say three pound ten?" demanded Mrs. Pennycherry of the
+stranger, her hand upon the door.  She spoke crossly.  She was feeling
+cross, with the stranger, with herself--particularly with herself.
+
+"You were kind enough to reduce it to that amount," replied the
+stranger; "but if upon reflection you find yourself unable--"
+
+"I was making a mistake," said Mrs. Pennycherry, "it should have been
+two pound ten."
+
+"I cannot--I will not accept such sacrifice," exclaimed the stranger;
+"the three pound ten I can well afford."
+
+"Two pound ten are my terms," snapped Mrs. Pennycherry.  "If you are
+bent on paying more, you can go elsewhere.  You'll find plenty to
+oblige you."
+
+Her vehemence must have impressed the stranger.  "We will not contend
+further," he smiled.  "I was merely afraid that in the goodness of
+your heart--"
+
+"Oh, it isn't as good as all that," growled Mrs. Pennycherry.
+
+"I am not so sure," returned the stranger.  "I am somewhat suspicious
+of you.  But wilful woman must, I suppose, have her way."
+
+The stranger held out his hand, and to Mrs. Pennycherry, at that
+moment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take it as if
+it had been the hand of an old friend and to end the interview with a
+pleasant laugh--though laughing was an exercise not often indulged in
+by Mrs. Pennycherry.
+
+Mary Jane was standing by the window, her hands folded in front of
+her, when Mrs. Pennycherry re-entered the kitchen.  By standing close
+to the window one caught a glimpse of the trees in Bloomsbury Square
+and through their bare branches of the sky beyond.
+
+"There's nothing much to do for the next half hour, till Cook comes
+back.  I'll see to the door if you'd like a run out?" suggested Mrs.
+Pennycherry.
+
+"It would be nice," agreed the girl so soon as she had recovered power
+of speech; "it's just the time of day I like."
+
+"Don't be longer than the half hour," added Mrs. Pennycherry.
+
+Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, assembled after dinner in the
+drawing-room, discussed the stranger with that freedom and frankness
+characteristic of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, towards the absent.
+
+"Not what I call a smart young man," was the opinion of Augustus
+Longcord, who was something in the City.
+
+"Thpeaking  for  mythelf,"  commented his partner Isidore, "hav'n'th
+any uthe for the thmart young man.  Too many of him, ath it ith."
+
+"Must be pretty smart if he's one too many for you," laughed his
+partner.
+
+There was this to be said for the repartee of Forty-eight Bloomsbury
+Square:  it was simple of construction and easy of comprehension.
+
+"Well it made me feel good just looking at him," declared Miss Kite,
+the highly coloured.  "It was his clothes, I suppose--made me think of
+Noah and the ark--all that sort of thing."
+
+"It would be clothes that would make you think--if anything," drawled
+the languid Miss Devine.  She was a tall, handsome girl, engaged at
+the moment in futile efforts to recline with elegance and comfort
+combined upon a horsehair sofa.  Miss Kite, by reason of having
+secured the only easy-chair, was unpopular that evening; so that Miss
+Devine's remark received from the rest of the company more approbation
+than perhaps it merited.
+
+"Is that intended to be clever, dear, or only rude?" Miss Kite
+requested to be informed.
+
+"Both," claimed Miss Devine.
+
+"Myself? I must confess," shouted the tall young lady's father,
+commonly called the Colonel, "I found him a fool."
+
+"I noticed you seemed to be getting on very well together," purred his
+wife, a plump, smiling little lady.
+
+"Possibly we were," retorted the Colonel.  "Fate has accustomed me to
+the society of fools."
+
+"Isn't it a pity to start quarrelling immediately after dinner, you
+two," suggested their thoughtful daughter from the sofa, "you'll have
+nothing left to amuse you for the rest of the evening."
+
+"He didn't strike me as a conversationalist," said the lady who was
+cousin to a baronet; "but he did pass the vegetables before he helped
+himself.  A little thing like that shows breeding."
+
+"Or that he didn't know you and thought maybe you'd leave him half a
+spoonful," laughed Augustus the wit.
+
+"What I can't make out about him--" shouted the Colonel.
+
+The stranger entered the room.
+
+The Colonel, securing the evening paper, retired into a corner.  The
+highly coloured Kite, reaching down from the mantelpiece a paper fan,
+held it coyly before her face.  Miss Devine sat upright on the
+horse-hair sofa, and rearranged her skirts.
+
+"Know anything?" demanded Augustus of the stranger, breaking the
+somewhat remarkable silence.
+
+The stranger evidently did not understand.  It was necessary for
+Augustus, the witty, to advance further into that odd silence.
+
+"What's going to pull off the Lincoln handicap?  Tell me, and I'll go
+out straight and put my shirt upon it."
+
+"I think you would act unwisely," smiled the stranger; "I am not an
+authority upon the subject."
+
+"Not!  Why they told me you were Captain Spy of the _Sporting
+Life_--in disguise."
+
+It would have been difficult for a joke to fall more flat.  Nobody
+laughed, though why Mr. Augustus Longcord could not understand, and
+maybe none of his audience could have told him, for at Forty-eight
+Bloomsbury Square Mr. Augustus Longcord passed as a humorist.  The
+stranger himself appeared unaware that he was being made fun of.
+
+"You have been misinformed," assured him the stranger.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Augustus Longcord.
+
+"It is nothing," replied the stranger in his sweet low voice, and
+passed on.
+
+"Well what about this theatre," demanded Mr. Longcord of his friend
+and partner; "do you want to go or don't you?" Mr. Longcord was
+feeling irritable.
+
+"Goth the ticketh--may ath well," thought Isidore.
+
+"Damn stupid piece, I'm told."
+
+"Motht of them thupid, more or leth.  Pity to wathte the ticketh,"
+argued Isidore, and the pair went out.
+
+"Are you staying long in London?" asked Miss Kite, raising her
+practised eyes towards the stranger.
+
+"Not long," answered the stranger.  "At least I do not know.  It
+depends."
+
+An unusual quiet had invaded the drawing-room of Forty-eight
+Bloomsbury Square, generally noisy with strident voices about this
+hour.  The Colonel remained engrossed in his paper.  Mrs. Devine sat
+with her plump white hands folded on her lap, whether asleep or not it
+was impossible to say.  The lady who was cousin to a baronet had
+shifted her chair beneath the gasolier, her eyes bent on her
+everlasting crochet work.  The languid Miss Devine had crossed to the
+piano, where she sat fingering softly the tuneless keys, her back to
+the cold barely-furnished room.
+
+"Sit down!" commanded saucily Miss Kite, indicating with her fan the
+vacant seat beside her.  "Tell me about yourself.  You interest me."
+Miss Kite adopted a pretty authoritative air towards all
+youthful-looking members of the opposite sex.  It harmonised with the
+peach complexion and the golden hair, and fitted her about as well.
+
+"I am glad of that," answered the stranger, taking the chair
+suggested.  "I so wish to interest you."
+
+"You're a very bold boy."  Miss Kite lowered her fan, for the purpose
+of glancing archly over the edge of it, and for the first time
+encountered the eyes of the stranger looking into hers.  And then it
+was that Miss Kite experienced precisely the same curious sensation
+that an hour or so ago had troubled Mrs. Pennycherry when the stranger
+had first bowed to her.  It seemed to Miss Kite that she was no longer
+the Miss Kite that, had she risen and looked into it, the fly-blown
+mirror over the marble mantelpiece would, she knew, have presented to
+her view; but quite another Miss Kite--a cheerful, bright-eyed lady
+verging on middle age, yet still good-looking in spite of her faded
+complexion and somewhat thin brown locks.  Miss Kite felt a pang of
+jealousy shoot through her; this middle-aged Miss Kite seemed, on the
+whole, a more attractive lady.  There was a wholesomeness, a
+broadmindedness about her that instinctively drew one towards her.
+Not hampered, as Miss Kite herself was, by the necessity of appearing
+to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two, this other Miss Kite
+could talk sensibly, even brilliantly:  one felt it.  A thoroughly
+"nice" woman this other Miss Kite; the real Miss Kite, though envious,
+was bound to admit it.  Miss Kite wished to goodness she had never
+seen the woman.  The glimpse of her had rendered Miss Kite
+dissatisfied with herself.
+
+"I am not a boy," explained the stranger; "and I had no intention of
+being bold."
+
+"I know," replied Miss Kite.  "It was a silly remark.  Whatever
+induced me to make it, I can't think.  Getting foolish in my old age,
+I suppose."
+
+The stranger laughed.  "Surely you are not old."
+
+"I'm thirty-nine," snapped out Miss Kite.  "You don't call it young?"
+
+"I think it a beautiful age," insisted the stranger; "young enough not
+to have lost the joy of youth, old enough to have learnt sympathy."
+
+"Oh, I daresay," returned Miss Kite, "any age you'd think beautiful.
+I'm going to bed."  Miss Kite rose.  The paper fan had somehow got
+itself broken.  She threw the fragments into the fire.
+
+"It is early yet," pleaded the stranger, "I was looking forward to a
+talk with you."
+
+"Well, you'll be able to look forward to it," retorted Miss Kite.
+"Good-night."
+
+The truth was, Miss Kite was impatient to have a look at herself in
+the glass, in her own room with the door shut.  The vision of that
+other Miss Kite--the clean-looking lady of the pale face and the brown
+hair had been so vivid, Miss Kite wondered whether temporary
+forgetfulness might not have fallen upon her while dressing for dinner
+that evening.
+
+The stranger, left to his own devices, strolled towards the loo table,
+seeking something to read.
+
+"You seem to have frightened away Miss Kite," remarked the lady who
+was cousin to a baronet.
+
+"It seems so," admitted the stranger.
+
+"My cousin, Sir William Bosster," observed the crocheting lady, "who
+married old Lord Egham's niece--you never met the Eghams?"
+
+"Hitherto," replied the stranger, "I have not had that pleasure."
+
+"A charming family.  Cannot understand--my cousin Sir William, I mean,
+cannot understand my remaining here.  'My dear Emily'--he says the
+same thing every time he sees me:  'My dear Emily, how can you exist
+among the sort of people one meets with in a boarding-house.'  But
+they amuse me."
+
+A sense of humour, agreed the stranger, was always of advantage.
+
+"Our family on my mother's side," continued Sir William's cousin in
+her placid monotone, "was connected with the Tatton-Joneses, who when
+King George the Fourth--"  Sir William's cousin, needing another reel
+of cotton, glanced up, and met the stranger's gaze.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know why I'm telling you all this," said Sir
+William's cousin in an irritable tone.  "It can't possibly interest
+you."
+
+"Everything connected with you interests me," gravely the stranger
+assured her.
+
+"It is very kind of you to say so," sighed Sir William's cousin, but
+without conviction; "I am afraid sometimes I bore people."
+
+The polite stranger refrained from contradiction.
+
+"You see," continued the poor lady, "I really am of good family."
+
+"Dear lady," said the stranger, "your gentle face, your gentle voice,
+your gentle bearing, all proclaim it."
+
+She looked without flinching into the stranger's eyes, and gradually a
+smile banished the reigning dulness of her features.
+
+"How foolish of me."  She spoke rather to herself than to the
+stranger.  "Why, of course, people--people whose opinion is worth
+troubling about--judge of you by what you are, not by what you go
+about saying you are."
+
+The stranger remained silent.
+
+"I am the widow of a provincial doctor, with an income of just two
+hundred and thirty pounds per annum," she argued.  "The sensible thing
+for me to do is to make the best of it, and to worry myself about
+these high and mighty relations of mine as little as they have ever
+worried themselves about me."
+
+The stranger appeared unable to think of anything worth saying.
+
+"I have other connections," remembered Sir William's cousin; "those of
+my poor husband, to whom instead of being the 'poor relation' I could
+be the fairy god-mama.  They are my people--or would be," added Sir
+William's cousin tartly, "if I wasn't a vulgar snob."
+
+She flushed the instant she had said the words and, rising, commenced
+preparations for a hurried departure.
+
+"Now it seems I am driving you away," sighed the stranger.
+
+"Having been called a 'vulgar snob,'" retorted the lady with some
+heat, "I think it about time I went."
+
+"The words were your own," the stranger reminded her.
+
+"Whatever I may have thought," remarked the indignant dame, "no
+lady--least of all in the presence of a total stranger--would have
+called herself--"  The poor dame paused, bewildered.  "There is
+something very curious the matter with me this evening, that I cannot
+understand," she explained, "I seem quite unable to avoid insulting
+myself."
+
+Still surrounded by bewilderment, she wished the stranger good-night,
+hoping that when next they met she would be more herself.  The
+stranger, hoping so also, opened the door and closed it again behind
+her.
+
+"Tell me," laughed Miss Devine, who by sheer force of talent was
+contriving to wring harmony from the reluctant piano, "how did you
+manage to do it?  I should like to know."
+
+"How did I do what?" inquired the stranger.
+
+"Contrive to get rid so quickly of those two old frumps?"
+
+"How well you play!" observed the stranger.  "I knew you had genius
+for music the moment I saw you."
+
+"How could you tell?"
+
+"It is written so clearly in your face."
+
+The girl laughed, well pleased.  "You seem to have lost no time in
+studying my face."
+
+"It is a beautiful and interesting face," observed the stranger.
+
+She swung round sharply on the stool and their eyes met.
+
+"You can read faces?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell me, what else do you read in mine?"
+
+"Frankness, courage--"
+
+"Ah, yes, all the virtues.  Perhaps.  We will take them for granted."
+It was odd how serious the girl had suddenly become.  "Tell me the
+reverse side."
+
+"I see no reverse side," replied the stranger.  "I see but a fair
+girl, bursting into noble womanhood."
+
+"And nothing else?  You read no trace of greed, of vanity, of
+sordidness, of--"  An angry laugh escaped her lips.  "And you are a
+reader of faces!"
+
+"A reader of faces."  The stranger smiled.  "Do you know what is
+written upon yours at this very moment?  A love of truth that is
+almost fierce, scorn of lies, scorn of hypocrisy, the desire for all
+things pure, contempt of all things that are contemptible--especially
+of such things as are contemptible in woman.  Tell me, do I not read
+aright?"
+
+I wonder, thought the girl, is that why those two others both hurried
+from the room?  Does everyone feel ashamed of the littleness that is
+in them when looked at by those clear, believing eyes of yours?
+
+The idea occurred to her:  "Papa seemed to have a good deal to say to
+you during dinner.  Tell me, what were you talking about?"
+
+"The military looking gentleman upon my left?  We talked about your
+mother principally."
+
+"I am sorry," returned the girl, wishful now she had not asked the
+question.  "I was hoping he might have chosen another topic for the
+first evening!"
+
+"He did try one or two," admitted the stranger; "but I have been about
+the world so little, I was glad when he talked to me about himself.  I
+feel we shall be friends.  He spoke so nicely, too, about Mrs.
+Devine."
+
+"Indeed," commented the girl.
+
+"He told me he had been married for twenty years and had never
+regretted it but once!"
+
+Her black eyes flashed upon him, but meeting his, the suspicion died
+from them.  She turned aside to hide her smile.
+
+"So he regretted it--once."
+
+"Only once," explained the stranger, "in a passing irritable mood.  It
+was so frank of him to admit it.  He told me--I think he has taken a
+liking to me.  Indeed he hinted as much.  He said he did not often get
+an opportnnity of talking to a man like myself--he told me that he and
+your mother, when they travel together, are always mistaken for a
+honeymoon couple.  Some of the experiences he related to me were
+really quite amusing."  The stranger laughed at recollection of
+them--"that even here, in this place, they are generally referred to
+as 'Darby and Joan.'"
+
+"Yes," said the girl, "that is true.  Mr. Longcord gave them that
+name, the second evening after our arrival.  It was considered
+clever--but rather obvious I thought myself."
+
+"Nothing--so it seems to me," said the stranger, "is more beautiful
+than the love that has weathered the storms of life.  The sweet,
+tender blossom that flowers in the heart of the young--in hearts such
+as yours--that, too, is beautiful.  The love of the young for the
+young, that is the beginning of life.  But the love of the old for the
+old, that is the beginning of--of things longer."
+
+"You seem to find all things beautiful," the girl grumbled.
+
+"But are not all things beautiful?" demanded the stranger.
+
+The Colonel had finished his paper.  "You two are engaged in a very
+absorbing conversation," observed the Colonel, approaching them.
+
+"We were discussing Darbies and Joans," explained his daughter.  "How
+beautiful is the love that has weathered the storms of life!"
+
+"Ah!" smiled the Colonel, "that is hardly fair.  My friend has been
+repeating to cynical youth the confessions of an amorous husband's
+affection for his middle-aged and somewhat--"  The Colonel in playful
+mood laid his hand upon the stranger's shoulder, an action that
+necessitated his looking straight into the stranger's eyes.  The
+Colonel drew himself up stiffly and turned scarlet.
+
+Somebody was calling the Colonel a cad.  Not only that, but was
+explaining quite clearly, so that the Colonel could see it for
+himself, why he was a cad.
+
+"That you and your wife lead a cat and dog existence is a disgrace to
+both of you.  At least you might have the decency to try and hide it
+from the world--not make a jest of your shame to every passing
+stranger.  You are a cad, sir, a cad!"
+
+Who was daring to say these things?  Not the stranger, his lips had
+not moved.  Besides, it was not his voice.  Indeed it sounded much
+more like the voice of the Colonel himself.  The Colonel looked from
+the stranger to his daughter, from his daughter back to the stranger.
+Clearly they had not heard the voice--a mere hallucination.  The
+Colonel breathed again.
+
+Yet the impression remaining was not to be shaken off.  Undoubtedly it
+was bad taste to have joked to the stranger upon such a subject.  No
+gentleman would have done so.
+
+But then no gentleman would have permitted such a jest to be possible.
+No gentleman would be forever wrangling with his wife--certainly never
+in public.  However irritating the woman, a gentleman would have
+exercised self-control.
+
+Mrs. Devine had risen, was coming slowly across the room.  Fear laid
+hold of the Colonel.  She was going to address some aggravating remark
+to him--he could see it in her eye--which would irritate him into
+savage retort.
+
+Even this prize idiot of a stranger would understand why
+boarding-house wits had dubbed them "Darby and Joan," would grasp the
+fact that the gallant Colonel had thought it amusing, in conversation
+with a table acquaintance, to hold his own wife up to ridicule.
+
+"My dear," cried the Colonel, hurrying to speak first, "does not this
+room strike you as cold?  Let me fetch you a shawl."
+
+It was useless:  the Colonel felt it.  It had been too long the custom
+of both of them to preface with politeness their deadliest insults to
+each other.  She came on, thinking of a suitable reply:  suitable from
+her point of view, that is.  In another moment the truth would be out.
+A wild, fantastic possibility flashed through the Colonel's brain:  If
+to him, why not to her?
+
+"Letitia," cried the Colonel, and the tone of his voice surprised her
+into silence, "I want you to look closely at our friend.  Does he not
+remind you of someone?"
+
+Mrs. Devine, so urged, looked at the stranger long and hard.  "Yes,"
+she murmured, turning to her husband, "he does, who is it?"
+
+"I cannot fix it," replied the Colonel; "I thought that maybe you
+would remember."
+
+"It will come to me," mused Mrs. Devine.  "It is someone--years ago,
+when I was a girl--in Devonshire.  Thank you, if it isn't troubling
+you, Harry.  I left it in the dining-room."
+
+It was, as Mr. Augustus Longcord explained to his partner Isidore, the
+colossal foolishness of the stranger that was the cause of all the
+trouble.  "Give me a man, who can take care of himself--or thinks he
+can," declared Augustus Longcord, "and I am prepared to give a good
+account of myself.  But when a helpless baby refuses even to look at
+what you call your figures, tells you that your mere word is
+sufficient for him, and hands you over his cheque-book to fill up for
+yourself--well, it isn't playing the game."
+
+"Auguthuth," was the curt comment of his partner, "you're a fool."
+
+"All right, my boy, you try," suggested Augustus.
+
+"Jutht what I mean to do," asserted his partner.
+
+"Well," demanded Augustus one evening later, meeting Isidore ascending
+the stairs after a long talk with the stranger in the dining-room with
+the door shut.
+
+"Oh, don't arth me," retorted Isidore, "thilly ath, thath what he
+ith."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"What did he thay! talked about the Jewth:  what a grand rathe they
+were--how people mithjudged them:  all that thort of rot.
+
+"Thaid thome of the motht honorable men he had ever met had been
+Jewth.  Thought I wath one of 'em!"
+
+"Well, did you get anything out of him?"
+
+"Get anything out of him.  Of courthe not.  Couldn't very well thell
+the whole rathe, ath it were, for a couple of hundred poundth, after
+that.  Didn't theem worth it."
+
+There were many things Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square came gradually to
+the conclusion were not worth the doing:--Snatching at the gravy;
+pouncing out of one's turn upon the vegetables and helping oneself to
+more than one's fair share; manoeuvering for the easy-chair; sitting
+on the evening paper while pretending not to have seen it--all
+such-like tiresome bits of business.  For the little one made out of
+it, really it was not worth the bother.  Grumbling everlastingly at
+one's food; grumbling everlastingly at most things; abusing
+Pennycherry behind her back; abusing, for a change, one's
+fellow-boarders; squabbling with one's fellow-boarders about nothing
+in particular; sneering at one's fellow-boarders;  talking scandal of
+one's fellow-boarders; making senseless jokes about one's
+fellow-boarders; talking big about oneself, nobody believing one--all
+such-like vulgarities.  Other boarding-houses might indulge in them:
+Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square had its dignity to consider.
+
+The truth is, Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square was coming to a very good
+opinion of itself:  for the which not Bloomsbury Square so much as the
+stranger must be blamed.  The stranger had arrived at Forty-eight
+Bloomsbury Square with the preconceived idea--where obtained from
+Heaven knows--that its seemingly commonplace, mean-minded,
+coarse-fibred occupants were in reality ladies and gentlemen of the
+first water; and time and observation had apparently only strengthened
+this absurd idea.  The natural result was, Forty-eight Bloomsbury
+Square was coming round to the stranger's opinion of itself.
+
+Mrs. Pennycherry, the stranger would persist in regarding as a lady
+born and bred, compelled by circumstances over which she had no
+control to fill an arduous but honorable position of middle-class
+society--a sort of foster-mother, to whom were due the thanks and
+gratitude of her promiscuous family; and this view of herself Mrs.
+Pennycherry now clung to with obstinate conviction.  There were
+disadvantages attaching, but these Mrs. Pennycherry appeared prepared
+to suffer cheerfully.  A lady born and bred cannot charge other ladies
+and gentlemen for coals and candles they have never burnt; a
+foster-mother cannot palm off upon her children New Zealand mutton for
+Southdown.  A mere lodging-house-keeper can play these tricks, and
+pocket the profits.  But a lady feels she cannot:  Mrs. Pennycherry
+felt she no longer could.
+
+To the stranger Miss Kite was a witty and delightful conversationalist
+of most attractive personality.  Miss Kite had one failing:  it was
+lack of vanity.  She was unaware of her own delicate and refined
+beauty.  If Miss Kite could only see herself with his, the stranger's
+eyes, the modesty that rendered her distrustful of her natural charms
+would fall from her.  The stranger was so sure of it Miss Kite
+determined to put it to the test.  One evening, an hour before dinner,
+there entered the drawing-room, when the stranger only was there and
+before the gas was lighted, a pleasant, good-looking lady, somewhat
+pale, with neatly-arranged brown hair, who demanded of the stranger if
+he knew her.  All her body was trembling, and her voice seemed
+inclined to run away from her and become a sob.  But when the
+stranger, looking straight into her eyes, told her that from the
+likeness he thought she must be Miss Kite's younger sister, but much
+prettier, it became a laugh instead:  and that evening the
+golden-haired Miss Kite disappeared never to show her high-coloured
+face again; and what perhaps, more than all else, might have impressed
+some former habitue of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square with awe, it was
+that no one in the house made even a passing inquiry concerning her.
+
+Sir William's cousin the stranger thought an acquisition to any
+boarding-house.  A lady of high-class family!  There was nothing
+outward or visible perhaps to tell you that she was of high-class
+family.  She herself, naturally, would not mention the fact, yet
+somehow you felt it.  Unconsciously she set a high-class tone,
+diffused an atmosphere of gentle manners.  Not that the stranger had
+said this in so many words; Sir William's cousin gathered that he
+thought it, and felt herself in agreement with him.
+
+For Mr. Longcord and his partner, as representatives of the best type
+of business men, the stranger had a great respect.  With what
+unfortunate results to themselves has been noted.  The curious thing
+is that the Firm appeared content with the price they had paid for the
+stranger's good opinion--had even, it was rumoured, acquired a taste
+for honest men's respect--that in the long run was likely to cost them
+dear.  But we all have our pet extravagance.
+
+The Colonel and Mrs. Devine both suffered a good deal at first from
+the necessity imposed upon them of learning, somewhat late in life,
+new tricks.  In the privacy of their own apartment they condoled with
+one another.
+
+"Tomfool nonsense," grumbled the Colonel, "you and I starting billing
+and cooing at our age!"
+
+"What I object to," said Mrs. Devine, "is the feeling that somehow I
+am being made to do it."
+
+"The idea that a man and his wife cannot have their little joke
+together for fear of what some impertinent jackanapes may think of
+them! it's damn ridiculous," the Colonel exploded.
+
+"Even when he isn't there," said Mrs. Devine, "I seem to see him
+looking at me with those vexing eyes of his.  Really the man quite
+haunts me."
+
+"I have met him somewhere," mused the Colonel, "I'll swear I've met
+him somewhere.  I wish to goodness he would go."
+
+A hundred things a day the Colonel wanted to say to Mrs. Devine, a
+hundred things a day Mrs. Devine would have liked to observe to the
+Colonel.  But by the time the opportunity occurred--when nobody else
+was by to hear--all interest in saying them was gone.
+
+"Women will be women," was the sentiment with which the Colonel
+consoled himself.  "A man must bear with them--must never forget that
+he is a gentleman."
+
+"Oh, well, I suppose they're all alike," laughed Mrs. Devine to
+herself, having arrived at that stage of despair when one seeks refuge
+in cheerfulness.  "What's the use of putting oneself out--it does no
+good, and only upsets one."  There is a certain satisfaction in
+feeling you are bearing with heroic resignation the irritating follies
+of others.  Colonel and Mrs. Devine came to enjoy the luxury of much
+self-approbation.
+
+But the person seriously annoyed by the stranger's bigoted belief in
+the innate goodness of everyone he came across was the languid,
+handsome Miss Devine.  The stranger would have it that Miss Devine was
+a noble-souled, high-minded young woman, something midway between a
+Flora Macdonald and a Joan of Arc.  Miss Devine, on the contrary, knew
+herself to be a sleek, luxury-loving animal, quite willing to sell
+herself to the bidder who could offer her the finest clothes, the
+richest foods, the most sumptuous surroundings.  Such a bidder was to
+hand in the person of a retired bookmaker, a somewhat greasy old
+gentleman, but exceedingly rich and undoubtedly fond of her.
+
+Miss Devine, having made up her mind that the thing had got to be
+done, was anxious that it should be done quickly.  And here it was
+that the stranger's ridiculous opinion of her not only irritated but
+inconvenienced her.  Under the very eyes of a person--however
+foolish--convinced that you are possessed of all the highest
+attributes of your sex, it is difficult to behave as though actuated
+by only the basest motives.  A dozen times had Miss Devine determined
+to end the matter by formal acceptance of her elderly admirer's large
+and flabby hand, and a dozen times--the vision intervening of the
+stranger's grave, believing eyes--had Miss Devine refused decided
+answer.  The stranger would one day depart.  Indeed, he had told her
+himself, he was but a passing traveller.  When he was gone it would be
+easier.  So she thought at the time.
+
+One afternoon the stranger entered the room where she was standing by
+the window, looking out upon the bare branches of the trees in
+Bloomsbury Square.  She remembered afterwards, it was just such
+another foggy afternoon as the afternoon of the stranger's arrival
+three months before.  No one else was in the room.  The stranger
+closed the door, and came towards her with that curious, quick-leaping
+step of his.  His long coat was tightly buttoned, and in his hands he
+carried his old felt hat and the massive knotted stick that was almost
+a staff.
+
+"I have come to say good-bye," explained the stranger.  "I am going."
+
+"I shall not see you again?" asked the girl.
+
+"I cannot say," replied the stranger.  "But you will think of me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered with a smile, "I can promise that."
+
+"And I shall always remember you," promised the stranger, "and I wish
+you every joy--the joy of love, the joy of a happy marriage."
+
+The girl winced.  "Love and marriage are not always the same thing,"
+she said.
+
+"Not always," agreed the stranger, "but in your case they will be
+one."
+
+She looked at him.
+
+"Do you think I have not noticed?" smiled the stranger, "a gallant,
+handsome lad, and clever.  You love him and he loves you.  I could not
+have gone away without knowing it was well with you."
+
+Her gaze wandered towards the fading light.
+
+"Ah, yes, I love him," she answered petulantly.  "Your eyes can see
+clearly enough, when they want to.  But one does not live on love, in
+our world.  I will tell you the man I am going to marry if you care to
+know."  She would not meet his eyes.  She kept her gaze still fixed
+upon the dingy trees, the mist beyond, and spoke rapidly and
+vehemently:  "The man who can give me all my soul's desire--money and
+the things that money can buy.  You think me a woman, I'm only a pig.
+He is moist, and breathes like a porpoise; with cunning in place of a
+brain, and the rest of him mere stomach.  But he is good enough for
+me."
+
+She hoped this would shock the stranger and that now, perhaps, he
+would go.  It irritated her to hear him only laugh.
+
+"No," he said, "you will not marry him."
+
+"Who will stop me?" she cried angrily.
+
+"Your Better Self."
+
+His voice had a strange ring of authority, compelling her to turn and
+look upon his face.  Yes, it was true, the fancy that from the very
+first had haunted her.  She had met him, talked to him--in silent
+country roads, in crowded city streets, where was it?  And always in
+talking with him her spirit had been lifted up:  she had been--what he
+had always thought her.
+
+"There are those," continued the stranger (and for the first time she
+saw that he was of a noble presence, that his gentle, child-like eyes
+could also command), "whose Better Self lies slain by their own hand
+and troubles them no more.  But yours, my child, you have let grow too
+strong; it will ever be your master.  You must obey.  Flee from it and
+it will follow you; you cannot escape it.  Insult it and it will
+chastise you with burning shame, with stinging self-reproach from day
+to day."  The sternness faded from the beautiful face, the tenderness
+crept back.  He laid his hand upon the young girl's shoulder.  "You
+will marry your lover," he smiled.  "With him you will walk the way of
+sunlight and of shadow."
+
+And the girl, looking up into the strong, calm face, knew that it
+would be so, that the power of resisting her Better Self had passed
+away from her for ever.
+
+"Now," said the stranger, "come to the door with me.  Leave-takings
+are but wasted sadness.  Let me pass out quietly.  Close the door
+softly behind me."
+
+She thought that perhaps he would turn his face again, but she saw no
+more of him than the odd roundness of his back under the tightly
+buttoned coat, before he faded into the gathering fog.
+
+Then softly she closed the door.
+
+*** End of Project Gutenberg etext of Pass of the Third Floor Back ***