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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Tom, by Mrs. Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sir Tom
+
+Author: Mrs. Oliphant
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2009 [EBook #30692]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR TOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brenda Lewis, woodie4 and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  SIR TOM
+
+
+  BY
+
+  MRS. OLIPHANT
+
+  AUTHOR OF "THE WIZARD'S SON," "HESTER," ETC.
+
+
+  London
+
+  MACMILLAN AND CO.
+
+  AND NEW YORK
+
+  1893
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+
+  _First Edition (3 Vols. Crown 8vo) Sept. 1884_
+
+  _Second Edition (1 Vol. Crown 8vo) 1884_
+
+  _Reprinted (Globe 8vo) 1888, (Crown 8vo) 1893_
+
+
+
+
+                           CONTENTS.
+
+                                                  PAGE
+
+                           CHAPTER I.
+
+  HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE              1
+
+
+                           CHAPTER II.
+
+  HIS WIFE                                          9
+
+
+                           CHAPTER III.
+
+  OLD MR. TREVOR'S WILL                            20
+
+
+                           CHAPTER IV.
+
+  YOUNG MR. TREVOR                                 29
+
+
+                           CHAPTER V.
+
+  CONSULTATIONS                                    39
+
+
+                           CHAPTER VI.
+
+  A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS                        48
+
+
+                           CHAPTER VII.
+
+  A WARNING                                        58
+
+
+                           CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  THE SHADOW OF DEATH                              67
+
+
+                           CHAPTER IX.
+
+  A CHRISTMAS VISIT                                77
+
+
+                           CHAPTER X.
+
+  LUCY'S ADVISERS                                  86
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XI.
+
+  AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY                           96
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XII.
+
+  THE FIRST STRUGGLE                              105
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  AN IDLE MORNING                                 115
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  AN UNWILLING MARTYR                             126
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XV.
+
+  ON BUSINESS                                     135
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL                           146
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  FOREWARNED                                      157
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  THE VISITORS                                    167
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA                        179
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XX.
+
+  AN ANXIOUS CRITIC                               189
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER                         200
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  A PAIR OF FRIENDS                               211
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  THE BREAKFAST TABLE                             221
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  THE ORACLE SPEAKS                               230
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  THE CONTESSA'S BOUDOIR                          242
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  THE TWO STRANGERS                               259
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  AN ADVENTURESS                                  269
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE                        280
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+  THE CONTESSA'S TRIUMPH                          291
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  DIFFERENT VIEWS                                 301
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  TWO FRIENDS                                     311
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+  YOUTHFUL UNREST                                 321
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+  THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY                   332
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+  IN SUSPENSE                                     342
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+  THE DÉBUT                                       354
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+  THE EVENING AFTER                               366
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+  THE CONTESSA'S TACTICS                          377
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+  DISCOVERIES                                     388
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+  LUCY'S DISCOVERY                                397
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XL.
+
+  THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION                       409
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLI.
+
+  SEVERED                                         417
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLII.
+
+  LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS              427
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+  THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR                     437
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+  THE SIEGE OF LONDON                             448
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLV.
+
+  THE BALL                                        458
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+  THE BALL CONTINUED                              469
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+  NEXT MORNING                                    480
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+  THE LAST BLOW                                   491
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+  THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE                         502
+
+
+                           CHAPTER L.
+
+  THE EVE OF SORROW                               514
+
+
+                           CHAPTER LI.
+
+  THE LAST CRISIS                                 522
+
+
+                           CHAPTER LII.
+
+  THE END                                         538
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE.
+
+
+Sir Thomas Randolph had lived a somewhat stormy life during the earliest
+half of his career. He had gone through what the French called a
+_jeunesse orageuse_; nothing very bad had ever been laid to his charge;
+but he had been adventurous, unsettled, a roamer about the world even
+after the period at which youthful extravagances cease. Nobody ever knew
+when or where he might appear. He set off to the farthest parts of the
+earth at a day's notice, sometimes on pretext of sport, sometimes on no
+pretext at all, and re-appeared again as unexpectedly as he had gone
+away. He had run out his fortune by these and other extravagances, and
+was at forty in one of the most uncomfortable positions in which a man
+can find himself, with the external appearance of large estates and an
+established and important position, but in reality with scarcely any
+income at all, just enough to satisfy the mortgagees, and leave himself
+a pittance not much more than the wages of a gamekeeper. If his aunt,
+Lady Randolph, had not been so good to him it was uncertain whether he
+could have existed at all, and when the heiress, whom an eccentric will
+had consigned to her charge, fell in his way, all her friends concluded
+as a matter of certainty that Sir Tom would jump at this extraordinary
+windfall, this gift of a too kind Providence, which sometimes will care
+for a prodigal in a way which he is quite unworthy of, while leaving the
+righteous man to struggle on unaided. But for some time it appeared as
+if society for once was out in its reckoning. Sir Tom did not pounce
+upon the heiress. He was a person of very independent mind, and there
+were some who thought he was happier in his untrammelled poverty, doing
+what he pleased, than he ever had been as a great proprietor. Even when
+it became apparent to the wise and far-seeing that little Miss Trevor
+was only waiting till his handkerchief was thrown at her to become the
+happiest of women, still he did nothing. He exasperated his kind aunt,
+he made all his friends indignant, and what was more, he exposed the
+young heiress hourly to many attempts on the part of the inferior class,
+from which as a matter of fact she herself sprang; and it was not until
+she was driven nearly desperate by those attempts that Sir Tom suddenly
+appeared upon the scene, and moved, it was thought, more by a
+half-fatherly kindness and sympathy for her, than either by love or
+desire of wealth, took her to himself, and made her his wife, to the
+great and grateful satisfaction of the girl herself, whose strange
+upbringing and brief introduction into a higher sphere had spoiled her
+for that homely country-town existence in which every woman flattered
+and every man made love to her.
+
+Whether Lucy Trevor was in love with him was as uncertain as whether he
+was in love with her. So far as any one knew neither one nor the other
+had asked themselves this question. She had, as it were, thrown herself
+into his arms in sudden delight and relief of mind when he appeared and
+saved her from her suitors; while he had received her tenderly when she
+did this, out of kindness and pleasure in her genuine, half-childish
+appreciation of him. There were, of course, people who said that Lucy
+had been violently in love with Sir Tom, and that he had made up his
+mind to marry her money from the first moment he saw her; but neither of
+these things was true. They married with a great deal more pleasure and
+ease of mind than many people do who are very much in love, for they had
+mutual faith in each other, and felt a mutual repose and satisfaction in
+their union. Each supplied something the other wanted. Lucy obtained a
+secure and settled home, a protector and ever kind and genial guardian,
+while Sir Tom got not only a good and dutiful and pleasant companion,
+with a great deal of sense, and good-nature and good looks,--all of
+which gifts he prized highly,--but at the same time the control of a
+great fortune, and money enough at once to clear his estates and restore
+him to his position as a great landowner.
+
+There were very peculiar conditions attached to the great fortune, but
+to these for the moment he paid very little heed, considering them as
+fantastic follies not worth thinking about, which were never likely to
+become difficulties in his way. The advantage he derived from the
+marriage was enormous. All at once, at a bound, it restored him to what
+he had lost, to the possession of his own property, which had been not
+more than nominally his for so many years, and to the position of a man
+of weight and importance, whose opinion told with all his neighbours and
+the county generally, as did those of few others in the district.
+
+Sir Tom, the wanderer, had not been thought very highly of in his
+younger days. He had been called wild. He had been thought
+untrustworthy, a fellow here to-day and gone to-morrow, who had no
+solidity in him. But when the mortgages were all paid off, and the old
+hall restored, and Sir Thomas Randolph came to settle down at home, with
+his pretty little wife, and an establishment quite worthy of his name,
+the county discovered in a day, almost in a moment, that he was very
+much improved. He had always been clever enough, they said, for
+anything, and now that he had sown his wild oats and learned how to
+conduct himself, and attained an age when follies are naturally over,
+there was no reason why he should not be received with open arms. Such a
+man had a great many more experiences, the county thought with a certain
+pride, than other men who had sown no wild oats, and had never gone
+farther afield than the recognised round of European cities. Sir Tom had
+been in all the four quarters of the globe; he had travelled in America
+long before it became fashionable to do so, and even had been in Africa
+while it was as yet untrod by any white foot but that of a missionary.
+And it was whispered that in the days when he was "wild" he had
+penetrated into regions nearer at hand, but more obscure and mysterious
+even than Africa. All this made the county think more of him now when he
+appeared staid yet genial, in the fulness of manhood, with a crisp brown
+beard and a few gray hairs about his temples mingled with his abundant
+locks, and that capability of paying his way which is dear to every
+well-regulated community. But for this last particular the county would
+not have been so tolerant, nay almost pleased, with the fact that he had
+been "wild." They saw all his qualities in the halo that surrounded the
+newly-decorated hall, the liberated farms, the lands upon which no
+creditor had now any claim. He was the most popular man in the district
+when Parliament was dissolved, and he was elected for the county almost
+without opposition, he, at whom all the sober people had shaken their
+heads only a few years before. The very name of "Sir Tom," which had
+been given rather contemptuously to denote a somewhat careless fellow,
+who minded nothing, became all at once the sign of popular amity and
+kindness. And if it had been necessary to gain votes for him by any
+canvassing tricks, this name of his would have carried away all
+objections. "Sir Tom!" it established a sort of affectionate
+relationship at once between him and his constituency. The people felt
+that they had known him all his life, and had always called him by his
+Christian name.
+
+Lady Randolph was much excited and delighted with her husband's success.
+She canvassed for him in a modest way, making herself pleasant to the
+wives of his supporters in a unique manner of her own which was not
+perhaps quite dignified considering her position, but yet was found very
+captivating by those good women. She did not condescend to them as other
+titled ladies do, but she took their advice about her baby, and how he
+was to be managed, with a pretty humility which made her irresistible.
+They all felt an individual interest thenceforward in the heir of the
+Randolphs, as if they had some personal concern in him; and Lady
+Randolph's gentle accost, and the pretty blush upon her cheeks, and her
+way of speaking to them all, "as if they were just as good as she was,"
+had a wonderful effect. When she received him in the hotel which was the
+headquarters of his party, as soon as the result of the election was
+known, Sir Tom, coming in flushed with applauses and victory, took his
+wife into his arms and kissed her. "I owe this to you, as well as so
+much else, Lucy," he said.
+
+"Oh, don't say that! when you know I don't understand much, and never
+can do anything; but I am so glad, nobody could be more glad," said
+Lucy. Little Tom had been brought in, too, in his nurse's arms, and
+crowed and clapped his fat little baby hands for his father; and when
+his mother took him and stepped out upon the balcony, from which her
+husband was speaking an impromptu address to his new constituents, with
+the child in her arms, not suspecting that she would be seen, the cheers
+and outcries ran into an uproar of applause. "Three cheers for my lady
+and the baby," the crowd shouted at the top of its many voices; and
+Lucy, blushing and smiling and crying with pleasure, instead of
+shrinking away as everybody feared she would do, stood up in her modest,
+pretty youthfulness, shy, but full of sense and courage, and held up the
+child, who stared at them all solemnly with big blue eyes, and, after a
+moment's consideration, again patted his fat little hands together, an
+action which put the multitude beside itself with delight. Sir Tom's
+speech did not make nearly so much impression as the baby's
+"patti-cake." Every man in the crowd, not to say every woman, and with
+still more reason every child, clapped his or her hands too, and shouted
+and laughed and hurrahed.
+
+The incident of the baby's appearance before the public, and the early
+success he had gained--the earliest on record, the newspapers said--made
+quite a sensation throughout the county, and made Farafield famous for
+a week. It was mentioned in a leading article in the first newspaper in
+the world. It appeared in large headlines in the placards under such
+titles as "Baby in Politics," "The Nursery and the Hustings," and such
+like. As for the little hero of the moment, he was handed down to his
+anxious nurse just as symptoms of a whimper of fear at the alarming
+tumult outside began to appear about the corners of his mouth. "For
+heaven's sake take him away; he mustn't cry, or he will spoil all," said
+the chairman of Sir Tom's committee. And the young mother, disappearing
+too into the room behind, sat down in a great chair behind their backs,
+and cried to relieve her feelings. Never had there been such a day. If
+Sir Tom had not been the thoroughly good-humoured man he was, it is
+possible that he might have objected to the interruption thus made in
+his speech, which was altogether lost in the tumult of delight which
+followed his son's appearance. But as a matter of fact he was as much
+delighted as any one, and proud as man could be of his pretty little
+wife and his splendid boy. He took "the little beggar," as he called
+him, in his arms, and kissed the mother again, soothing and laughing at
+her in the tender, kindly, fatherly way which had won Lucy.
+
+"It is you who have got the seat," he said; "I vote that you go and sit
+in it, Lady Randolph. You are a born legislator, and your son is a
+favourite of the public, whereas I am only an old fogey."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" Lucy said, lifting her simple eyes to his with a mist of
+happiness in them. She was accustomed to his nonsense. She never said
+anything more than "Oh, Tom!" and indeed it was not very long since she
+had given up the title and ceased to say "Oh, Sir Tom!" which seemed
+somehow to come more natural. It was what she had said when he came
+suddenly to see her in the midst of her early embarrassments and
+troubles; when the cry of relief and delight with which she turned to
+him, uttering in her surprise that title of familiarity, "Oh, Sir Tom!"
+had signified first to her middle-aged hero, with the most flattering
+simplicity and completeness, that he had won the girl's pure and
+inexperienced heart.
+
+There was no happier evening in their lives than this, when, after all
+the commotion, threatenings of the ecstatic crowd to take the horses
+from their carriage, and other follies, they got off at last together
+and drove home through roads that wound among the autumn fields, on some
+of which the golden sheaves were still standing in the sunshine. Sir Tom
+held Lucy's hand in his own. He had told her a dozen times over that he
+owed it all to her.
+
+"You have made me rich, and you have made me happy," he said, "though I
+am old enough to be your father, and you are only a little girl. If
+there is any good to come out of me, it will all be to your credit,
+Lucy. They say in story books that a man should be ashamed to own so
+much to his wife, but I am not the least ashamed."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" she said, "how can you talk so much nonsense," with a laugh,
+and the tears in her eyes.
+
+"I always did talk nonsense," he said; "that was why you got to like me.
+But this is excellent sense and quite true. And that little beggar; I am
+owing you for him, too. There is no end to my indebtedness. When they
+put the return in the papers it should be Sir Thomas Randolph, etc.,
+returned as representative of his wife, Lucy, a little woman worth as
+much as any county in England."
+
+"O, Sir Tom," Lucy cried.
+
+"Well, so you are, my dear," he said, composedly. "That is a mere matter
+of fact, you know, and there can be no question about it at all."
+
+For the truth was that she was so rich as to have been called the
+greatest heiress in England in her day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+HIS WIFE.
+
+
+Young Lady Randolph had herself been much changed by the progress of
+these years. Marriage is always the great touchstone of character at
+least with women; but in her case the change from a troubled and
+premature independence, full of responsibilities and an extremely
+difficult and arduous duty, to the protection and calm of early married
+life, in which everything was done for her, and all her burdens taken
+from her shoulders, rather arrested than aided in the development of her
+character. She had lived six months with the Dowager Lady Randolph after
+her father's death; but those six months had been all she knew of the
+larger existence of the wealthy and great. All she knew--and even in
+that short period she had learned less than she might have been expected
+to learn; for Lucy had not been introduced into society, partly on
+account of her very youthful age, and partly because she was still in
+mourning, so that her acquaintance with life on the higher line
+consisted merely in a knowledge of certain simple luxuries, of larger
+rooms and prettier furniture, and more careful service than in her
+natural condition. And by birth she belonged to the class of small
+townsfolk who are nobody, and whose gentility is more appalling than
+their homeliness. So that when she came to be Sir Thomas Randolph's wife
+and a great lady, not merely the ward of an important personage, but
+herself occupying that position, the change was so wonderful that it
+required all Lucy's mental resources to encounter and accustom herself
+to it.
+
+Sir Tom was the kindest of middle-aged husbands. If he did not adore his
+young wife with the fervour of passion, he had a sincere affection for
+her, and the warmest desire to make her happy. She had done a great deal
+for him, she had changed his position unspeakably, and he was fully
+determined that no lady in England should have more observance, more
+honour and luxury, and what was better, more happiness, than the little
+girl who had made a man of him. There had always been a sweet and
+serious simplicity about her, an air of good sense and reasonableness,
+which had attracted everybody whose opinion was worth having to Lucy;
+but she was neither beautiful nor clever. She had been so brought up
+that, though she was not badly educated, she had no accomplishments, and
+not more knowledge than falls to the lot of an ordinary schoolgirl. The
+farthest extent of her mild experiences was Sloane Street and Cadogan
+Place: and there were people who thought it impossible that Sir Tom, who
+had been everywhere, and run through the entire gamut of pleasures and
+adventures, should find anything interesting in this bread-and-butter
+girl, whom, of course, it was his duty to marry, and having married to
+be kind to. But when he found himself set down in an English country
+house with this little piece of simplicity opposite to him, what would
+he do, the sympathising spectators said? Even his kind aunt, who felt
+that she had brought about the marriage, and who, as a matter of fact,
+had fully intended it from the first, though she herself liked Lucy, had
+a little terror in her soul as she asked herself the same question. He
+would fill the house with company and get over it in that way, was what
+the most kind and moderate people thought. But Sir Tom laughed at all
+their prognostications. He said afterwards that he had never known
+before how pretty it was to know nothing, and to have seen nothing, when
+these defects were conjoined with intelligence and delightful curiosity
+and never-failing interest. He declared that he had never truly enjoyed
+his own adventures and experiences as he did when he told them over to
+his young wife. You may be sure there were some of them which were not
+adapted for Lucy's ears: but these Sir Tom left religiously away in the
+background. He had been a careless liver no doubt, like so many men, but
+he would rather have cut off his right hand, as the Scripture bids, than
+have soiled Lucy's white soul with an idea, or an image, that was
+unworthy of her. She knew him under all sorts of aspects, but not one
+that was evil. Their solitary evenings together were to her more
+delightful than any play, and to him nearly as delightful. When the
+dinner was over and the cold shut out, she would wait his appearance in
+the inner drawing-room, which she had chosen for her special abode, with
+some of the homely cares that had been natural to her former condition,
+drawing his chair to the fire, taking pride in making his coffee for
+him, and a hundred little attentions. "Now begin," she would say,
+recalling with a child's eager interest and earnest recollection the
+point at which he had left off. This was the greater part of Lucy's
+education. She travelled with him through very distant regions, and went
+through all kinds of adventure.
+
+And in the season they went to London, where she made her appearance in
+society, not perhaps with _éclat_, but with a modest composure which
+delighted him. She understood then, for the first time, what it was to
+be rich, and was amused and pleased--amused above all by the position
+which she occupied with the utmost simplicity. People said it would turn
+the little creature's head, but it never even disturbed her imagination.
+She took it with a calm that was extraordinary. Thus her education
+progressed, and Lucy was so fully occupied with it, with learning her
+husband and her life and the world, that she had no time to think of the
+responsibilities which once had weighed so heavily upon her. When now
+and then they occurred to her and she made some passing reference to
+them, there were so many other things to do that she forgot
+again--forgot everything except to be happy and learn and see, as she
+had now so many ways of doing. She forgot herself altogether, and
+everything that had been hers, not in excitement, but in the soft
+absorbing influence of her new life, which drew her away into endless
+novelties and occupations, such as were, indeed, duties and necessities
+of her altered sphere.
+
+If this was the case in the first three or four years of her marriage,
+when she had only Sir Tom to think of, you may suppose what it was when
+the baby came, to add a hundredfold to the interests of her existence.
+Everything else in life, it may be believed, dwindled into nothing in
+comparison with this boy of boys--this wonderful infant. There had
+never been one in the world like him it is unnecessary to say: and
+everything was so novel to her, and she felt the importance of being
+little Tom's mother so deeply, that her mind was quite carried away from
+all other thoughts. She grew almost beautiful in the light of this new
+addition to her happiness. And how happy she was! The child grew and
+throve. He was a splendid boy. His mother did not sing litanies in his
+praise in public, for her good sense never forsook her: but his little
+being seemed to fill up her life like a new stream flowing into it, and
+she expanded in life, in thought, and in understanding. She began to see
+a reason for her own position, and to believe in it, and take it
+seriously. She was a great lady, the first in the neighbourhood, and she
+felt that, as little Tom's mother, it was natural and befitting that she
+should be so. She began to be sensible of ambition within herself, as
+well as something that felt like pride. It was so little like ordinary
+pride, however, that Lucy was sorry for everybody who had not all the
+noble surroundings which she began to enjoy. She would have liked that
+every child should have a nursery like little Tom's, and every mother
+the same prospects for her infant, and was charitable and tender beyond
+measure to all the mothers and children within reach on little Tom's
+account, which was an extravagance which her husband did not grudge, but
+liked and encouraged, knowing the sentiment from which it sprang. It was
+with no view to popularity that the pair thus endeavoured to diffuse
+happiness about them, being so happy themselves; but it answered the
+same purpose, and their popularity was great.
+
+When the county conferred the highest honour in its power upon Sir Tom,
+his immediate neighbours in the villages about took the honour as their
+own, and rejoiced as, even at a majority or a marriage, they had never
+rejoiced before, for so kind a landlord, so universal a friend, had
+never been.
+
+The villages were model villages on the Randolph lands. Sir Tom and his
+young wife had gone into every detail about the labourers' cottages with
+as much interest as if they had themselves meant to live in one of them.
+There were no such trim gardens or bright flower-beds to be seen
+anywhere, and it was well for the people that the Rector of the parish
+was judicious, and kept Lady Randolph's charities within bounds. There
+had been no small amount of poverty and distress among these rustics
+when the Squire was poor and absent, when they lived in tumbledown old
+houses, which nobody took any interest in, and where neither decency nor
+comfort was considered; but now little industries sprang up and
+prospered, and the whole landscape smiled. A wise landlord with
+unlimited sway over his neighbourhood and no rivals in the field can do
+so much to increase the comfort of everybody about him; and such a small
+matter can make a poor household comfortable. Political economists, no
+doubt, say it is demoralising: but when it made Lucy happy and the poor
+women happy, how could Sir Tom step in and arrest the genial bounty? He
+gave the Rector a hint to see that she did not go too far, and walked
+about with his hands in his pockets and looked on. All this amused him
+greatly; even the little ingratitudes she met with, which went to Lucy's
+heart, made her husband laugh. It pleased his satirical vein to see how
+human nature displayed itself, and the black sheep appeared among the
+white even in a model village. But as for Lucy, though she would
+sometimes cry over these spots upon the general goodness, it satisfied
+every wish of her heart to be able to do so much for the cottagers. They
+did not, perhaps, stand so much in awe of her as they ought to have
+done, but they brought all their troubles to her with the most perfect
+and undoubting confidence.
+
+All this time, however, Lucy, following the dictates of her own heart,
+and using what after all was only a little running over of her great
+wealth to secure the comfort of the people round, was neglecting what
+she had once thought the great duty of her life as entirely as if she
+had been the most selfish of worldly women. Her life had been so
+entirely changed--swung, as one might say, out of one orbit into
+another--that the burdens of the former existence seemed to have been
+taken from her shoulders along with its habits and external
+circumstances. Her husband thought of these as little as herself; yet
+even he was somewhat surprised to find that he had no trouble in weaning
+Lucy from the extravagances of her earlier independence. He had not
+expected much trouble, but still it had seemed likely enough that she
+would at least propose things that his stronger sense condemned, and
+would have to be convinced and persuaded that they were impracticable;
+but nothing of the kind occurred, and when he thought of it Sir Tom
+himself was surprised, as also were various other people who knew what
+Lucy's obstinacy on the subject before her marriage had been, and
+especially the Dowager Lady Randolph, who paid her nephew a yearly
+visit, and never failed to question him on the subject.
+
+"And Lucy?" she would say. "Lucy never makes any allusion? She has
+dismissed everything from her mind? I really think you must be a
+magician, Tom. I could not have believed it, after all the trouble she
+gave us, and all the money she threw away. Those Russells, you know,
+that she was so ridiculously liberal to, they are as bad as ever. That
+sort of extravagant giving of money is never successful. But I never
+thought you would have got it out of her mind."
+
+"Don't flatter me," he said; "it is not I that have got it out of her
+mind. It is life and all the novelties in it--and small Tom, who is more
+of a magician than I am----"
+
+"Oh, the baby!" said the dowager, with the indifference of a woman who
+has never had a child, and cannot conceive why a little sprawling
+tadpole in long clothes should make such a difference. "Yes, I suppose
+that's a novelty," she said, "to be mother of a bit of a thing like that
+naturally turns a girl's head. It is inconceivable the airs they give
+themselves, as if there was nothing so wonderful in creation. And so far
+as I can see you are just as bad, though you ought to know better, Tom."
+
+"Oh, just as bad," he said, with his large laugh. "I never had a share
+in anything so wonderful. If you only could see the superiority of this
+bit of a thing to all other things about him----"
+
+"Oh! spare me," cried Lady Randolph the elder, holding up her hands. "Of
+course I don't undervalue the importance of an heir to the property,"
+she said in a different tone. "I have heard enough about it to be pretty
+sensible of that."
+
+This the Dowager said with a slight tone of bitterness, which indeed was
+comprehensible enough: for she had suffered much in her day from the
+fact that no such production had been possible to her. Had it been so,
+her nephew who stood by her would not (she could scarcely help
+reflecting with some grudge against Providence) have been the great man
+he now was, and no child of his would have mattered to the family. Lady
+Randolph was a very sensible woman, and had long been reconciled to the
+state of affairs, and liked her nephew, whom she had been the means of
+providing for so nobly; and she was glad there was a baby; still, for
+the sake of her own who had never existed, she resented the
+self-exaltation of father and mother over this very common and in no way
+extraordinary phenomenon of a child.
+
+Sir Tom laughed again with a sense of superiority, which was in itself
+somewhat ludicrous; but as nobody is clear-sighted in their own
+concerns, he was quite unconscious of this. His laugh nettled Lady
+Randolph still more. She said, with a certain disdain in her tone,--
+
+"And so you think you have sailed triumphantly over all that
+difficulty--thanks to your charms and the baby's, and are going to hear
+nothing of it any more?"
+
+Sir Tom felt that he was suddenly pulled up, and was a little resentful
+in return.
+
+"I hope," he said, "that is, I do more than hope, I feel convinced, that
+my wife, who has great sense, has outgrown that nonsense, and that she
+has sufficient confidence in me to leave her business matters in my
+hands."
+
+Lady Randolph shook her head.
+
+"Outgrown nonsense--at three and twenty?" she said. "Don't you think
+that's premature? and, my dear boy, take my word for it, a woman when
+she has the power, likes to keep the control of her own business just as
+well as a man does. I advise you not to holloa till you are out of the
+wood."
+
+"I don't expect to have any occasion to holloa; there is no wood for
+that matter; Lucy, though perhaps you may not think it, is one of the
+most reasonable of creatures."
+
+"She is everything that is nice and good," said the Dowager, "but how
+about the will? Lucy may be reasonable, but that is not. And she cannot
+forget it always."
+
+"Pshaw! The will is a piece of folly," cried Sir Tom. He grew red at the
+very thought with irritation and opposition. "I believe the old man was
+mad. Nothing else could excuse such imbecility. Happily there is no
+question of the will."
+
+"But there must be, some time or other."
+
+"I see no occasion for it," said Sir Tom coldly; and as his aunt was a
+reasonable woman, she did not push the matter any farther. But if the
+truth must be told this sensible old lady contemplated the great
+happiness of these young people with a sort of interested and alarmed
+spectatorship (for she wished them nothing but good), watching and
+wondering when the explosion would come which might in all probability
+shatter it to ruins. For she felt thoroughly convinced in her own mind
+that Lucy would not always forget the conditions by which she held her
+fortune, and that all the reason and good sense in the world would not
+convince her that it was right to ignore and baulk her father's
+intentions, as conveyed with great solemnity in his will. And when the
+question should come to be raised, Lady Randolph felt that it would be
+no trifling one. Lucy was very simple and sweet, but when her conscience
+spoke even the influence of Sir Tom would not suffice to silence it. She
+was a girl who would stand to what she felt to be right if all the world
+and even her husband were against her--and the Dowager, who wished them
+no harm, felt a little alarmed as to the issue. Sir Tom was not a man
+easy to manage, and the reddening of his usually smiling countenance at
+the mere suggestion of the subject was very ominous. It would be better,
+far better, for Lucy if she would yield at once and say nothing about
+it. But that was not what it was natural for her to do. She would stand
+by her duty to her father, just as, were it assailed, she would stand by
+her duty to her husband; but she would never be got to understand that
+the second cancelled the first. The Dowager Lady Randolph watched the
+young household with something of the interest with which a playgoer
+watches the stage. She felt sure that the explosion would come, and that
+a breath, a touch, might bring it on at any moment; and then what was to
+be the issue? Would Lucy yield? would Lucy conquer? or would the easy
+temper with which everybody credited Sir Tom support this trial? The old
+lady, who knew him so well, believed that there was a certain fiery
+element below, and she trembled for the peace of the household which was
+so happy and triumphant, and had no fear whatever for itself. She
+thought of "the torrent's smoothness ere it dash below," of the calm
+that precedes a storm, and many other such images, and so frightened did
+she become at the dangers she had conjured up that she put the will
+hurriedly out of her thoughts, as Sir Tom had done, and would think no
+more of it. "Sufficient," she said to herself, "is the evil to the day."
+
+In the meantime, the married pair smiled serenely at any doubts of their
+perfect union, and Lucy felt a great satisfaction in showing her
+husband's aunt (who had not thought her good enough for Sir Tom,
+notwithstanding that she so warmly promoted the match) how satisfied he
+was with his home, and how exultant in his heir.
+
+In the following chapters the reader will discover what was the cause
+which made the Dowager shake her head when she got into the carriage to
+drive to the railway at the termination of her visit. It was all very
+pretty and very delightful, and thoroughly satisfactory; but still Lady
+Randolph, the elder, shook her experienced head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+OLD MR. TREVOR'S WILL.
+
+
+Lucy Trevor, when she married Sir Thomas Randolph, was the heiress of so
+great a fortune that no one ventured to state it in words or figures.
+She was not old enough, indeed, to have the entire control of it in her
+hands, but she had unlimited control over a portion of it in a certain
+sense, not for her own advantage, but for the aggrandisement of others.
+Her father, who was eccentric and full of notions, had so settled it
+that a large portion of the money should eventually return, as he
+phrased it, to the people from whom it had come, and this not in the way
+of public charities and institutions, as is the common idea in such
+cases, but by private and individual aid to struggling persons and
+families. Lucy, who was then all conscience and devotion to the
+difficult yet exciting duty which her father had left to her to do, had
+made a beginning of this extraordinary work before her marriage,
+resisting all the arguments that were brought to bear upon her as to
+the folly of the will, and the impossibility of carrying it out. It is
+likely, indeed, that the trustees and guardians would have taken steps
+at once to have old Trevor's will set aside but for the fact that Lucy
+had a brother, who in that case would divide the inheritance with her,
+but who was specially excluded by the will, as being a son of Mr.
+Trevor's second wife, and entirely unconnected with the source from
+which the fortune came. It was Lucy's mother who had brought it into the
+family, although she was not herself aware of its magnitude, and did not
+live long enough to have any enjoyment of it. Neither did old Trevor
+himself have any enjoyment of it, save in the making of the will by
+which he laid down exactly his regulations for its final disposal. In
+any case Lucy was to retain the half, which was of itself a great sum;
+but the condition of her inheritance, and indeed the occupation of her
+life, according to her father's intention, was that she should select
+suitable persons to whom to distribute the other half of her fortune. It
+is needless to say that this commission had seriously occupied the
+thoughts of the serious girl who, without any sense of personal
+importance, found herself thus placed in the position of an official
+bestower of fortune, having it in her power to confer comfort,
+independence, and even wealth; for she was left almost entirely
+unrestricted as to her disposition of the money, and might at her
+pleasure confer a very large sum upon a favourite. Everybody who had
+ever heard of old Trevor's will considered it the very maddest upon
+record, and there were many who congratulated themselves that Lucy's
+husband, if she was so lucky as to marry a man of sense, would certainly
+put a stop to it--or even that Lucy herself, when she came to years of
+serious judgment, would see the folly; for there was no stipulation as
+to the time at which the distributions should be made, these, as well as
+the selection of the objects of her bounty, being left to herself. She
+had been very full of this strange duty before her marriage, and had
+selected several persons who, as it turned out, did but little credit to
+her choice, almost forcing her will upon the reluctant trustees, who had
+no power to hinder her from carrying it out, and whose efforts at
+reasoning with her had been totally unsuccessful. In these early
+proceedings Sir Tom, who was intensely amused by the oddity of the
+business altogether, and who had then formed no idea of appropriating
+her and her money to himself, gave her a delighted support.
+
+He had never in his life encountered anything which amused him so much,
+and his only regret was that he had not known the absurd but high-minded
+old English Quixote who, wiser in his generation than that noble knight,
+left it to his heir to redress the wrongs of the world, while he himself
+had the pleasure of the anticipation only, not perhaps unmixed with a
+malicious sense of all the confusions and exhibitions of the weakness of
+humanity it would produce. Sir Tom himself had humour enough to
+appreciate the philosophy of the old humorist, and the droll spectator
+position which he had evidently chosen for himself, as though he could
+somehow see and enjoy all the struggles of self-interest raised by his
+will, with one of those curious self-delusions which so often seem to
+actuate the dying. Sir Tom, however, had thought it little more than a
+folly even at the moment when it had amused him the most. He had thought
+that in time Lucy would come to see how ridiculous it was, and would
+tacitly, without saying anything, give it up, so sensible a girl being
+sure in the long run to see how entirely unsuited to modern times and
+habits such a disposition was. And had she done so, there was nobody who
+was likely to awaken her to a sense of her duty. Her trustees, who
+considered old Trevor mad, and Lucy a fool to humour him, would
+certainly make no objection; and little Jock, the little brother to whom
+Lucy was everything in the world, was still less likely to interfere.
+When it came about that Lucy herself, and her fortune, and all her
+right, were in Sir Tom's own hands, he was naturally more and more sure
+that this foolish will (after giving him a great deal of amusement, and
+perhaps producing a supernatural chuckle, if such an expression of
+feeling is possible in the spiritual region where old Trevor might be
+supposed to be) would be henceforward like a testament in black letter,
+voided by good sense and better knowledge and time, the most certain
+agency of all. And his conviction had been more than carried out in the
+first years of his married life. Lucy forgot what was required of her.
+She thought no more of her father's will. It glided away into the unseen
+along with so many other things, extravagances, or if not extravagances,
+still phantasies of youth. She found enough in her new life--in her
+husband, her baby, and the humble community which looked up to her and
+claimed everything from her--to occupy both her mind and her hands. Life
+seemed to be so full that there was no time for more.
+
+It had been no doing of Sir Tom's that little Jock, the brother who had
+been Lucy's child, her Mentor, her counsellor and guide, had been
+separated from her for so long. Jock had been sent to school with his
+own entire concurrence and control. He was a little philosopher with a
+mind beyond his years, and he had seemed to understand fully, without
+any childish objection, the reason why he should be separated from her,
+and even why it was necessary to give up the hope of visiting his
+sister. The first year it was because she was absent on her prolonged
+wedding tour: the next because Jock was himself away on a long and
+delightful expedition with a tutor, who had taken a special fancy to
+him. Afterwards the baby was expected, and all exciting visits and
+visitors were given up. They had met in the interval. Lucy had visited
+Jock at his school, and he had been with them in London on several
+ occasions. But there had been little possibility of anything like their
+old intercourse. Perhaps they could never again be to each other what
+they had been when these two young creatures, strangely separated from
+all about them, had been alone in the world, having entire and perfect
+confidence in each other. They both looked back upon these bygone times
+with a sort of regretful consciousness of the difference; but Lucy was
+very happy in her new life, and Jock was a perfectly natural boy, given
+to no sentimentalities, not jealous, and enjoying his existence too
+completely to sigh for the time when he was a quaint old-fashioned
+child, and knew no life apart from his sister.
+
+Their intercourse then had been so pretty, so tender and touching; the
+child being at once his sister's charge and her superior in his
+old-fashioned reflectiveness, her pupil and her teacher, the little
+judge of whose opinions she stood in awe, while at the same time quite
+subject and submissive to her--that it was a pity it should ever come to
+an end; but it is a pity, too, when children grow up, when they grow out
+of all the softness and keen impressions of youth into the harder stuff
+of man and woman. To their parents it is a change which has often
+little to recommend it--but it is inevitable, as we all know; and so it
+was a pity that Lucy and Jock were no longer all in all to each other;
+but the change was in their case, too, inevitable, and accepted by both.
+When, however, the time came that Jock was to arrive really on his first
+long visit at the Hall, Lucy prepared for this event with a little
+excitement, with a lighting up of her eyes and countenance, and a
+pleasant warmth of anticipation in which even little Tom was for the
+moment set aside. She asked her husband a dozen times in the previous
+day if he thought the boy would be altered. "I know he must be taller
+and all that," Lucy said. "I do not mean the outside of him. But do you
+think he will be changed?"
+
+"It is to be hoped so," said Sir Tom, serenely. "He is sixteen. I trust
+he is not what he was at ten. That would be a sad business, indeed----"
+
+"Oh, Tom, you know that's not what I mean!--of course he has grown
+older; but he always was very old for his age. He has become a real boy
+now. Perhaps in some things he will seem younger too."
+
+"I always said you were very reasonable," said her husband, admiringly.
+"That is just what I wanted you to be prepared for--not a wise little
+old man as he was when he had the charge of your soul, Lucy."
+
+She smiled at him, shaking her head. "What ridiculous things you say.
+But Jock was always the wise one. He knew much better than I did. He did
+take care of me whatever you may think, though he was such a child."
+
+"Perhaps it was as well that he did not continue to take care of you. On
+the whole, though I have no such lofty views, I am a better guide."
+
+Lucy looked at him once more without replying for a moment. Was her mind
+ever crossed by the idea that there were perhaps certain particulars in
+which little Jock was the best guide? If so the blasphemy was
+involuntary. She shook it off with a little movement of her head, and
+met his glance with her usual serene confidence. "You ought to be," she
+said, "Tom; but you liked him always. Didn't you like him? I always
+thought so; and you will like him now?"
+
+"I hope so," said Sir Tom.
+
+Then a slight gleam of anxiety came into Lucy's eyes. This seemed the
+only shape in which evil could come to her, and with one of those
+forewarnings of Nature always prone to alarm, which come when we are
+most happy, she looked wistfully at her husband, saying nothing, but
+with an anxious question and prayer combined in her look. He smiled at
+her, laying his hand upon her head, which was one of his caressing ways,
+for Lucy, not an imposing person in any particular, was short, and Sir
+Tom was tall.
+
+"Does that frighten you, Lucy? I shall like him for your sake, if not
+for his own, never fear."
+
+"That is kind," she said, "but I want you to like him for his own sake.
+Indeed, I should like you if you would, Tom," she added almost timidly,
+"to like him for your own. Perhaps you think that is presuming, as if
+he, a little boy, could be anything to you; but I almost think that is
+the only real way--if you know what I mean."
+
+"Now this is humbling," said Sir Tom, "that one's wife should consider
+one too dull to know what she means. You are quite right, and a complete
+philosopher, Lucy. I will like the boy for my own sake. I always did
+like him, as you say. He was the quaintest little beggar, an old man
+and a child in one. But it would have been bad for him had you kept on
+cultivating him in that sort of hot-house atmosphere. It was well for
+Jock, whatever it might be for you, that I arrived in time."
+
+Lucy pondered for a little without answering; and then she said, "Why
+should it be considered so necessary for a boy to be sent away from
+home?"
+
+"Why!" cried Sir Tom, in astonishment; and then he added, laughingly,
+"It shows your ignorance, Lucy, to ask such a question. He must be sent
+to school, and there is an end of it. There are some things that are
+like axioms in Euclid, though you don't know very much about that--they
+are made to be acted upon, not to be discussed. A boy must go to
+school."
+
+"But why?" said Lucy undaunted. "That is no answer." She was
+untrammelled by any respect for Euclid, and would have freely questioned
+the infallibility of an axiom, with a courage such as only ignorance
+possesses. She was thinking not only of Jock, but had an eye to distant
+contingencies, when there might be question of a still more precious
+boy. "God," she said, reverentially, "must have meant surely that the
+father and mother should have something to do in bringing them up."
+
+"In the holidays, my dear," said Sir Tom; "that is what we are made for.
+Have you never found that out?"
+
+Lucy never felt perfectly sure whether he was in jest or earnest. She
+looked at him again to see what he meant--which was not very easy, for
+Sir Tom meant two things directly opposed to each other. He meant what
+he said, and yet said what he knew was nonsense, and laughed at himself
+inwardly with a keen recognition of this fact. Notwithstanding, he was
+as much determined to act upon it as if it had been the most certain
+truth, and in a way pinned his faith to it as such.
+
+"I suppose you are laughing," said Lucy, "and I wish you would not,
+because it is so important. I am sure we are not meant only for the
+holidays, and you don't really think so, Tom; and to take a child away
+from his natural teachers, and those that love him best in the world, to
+throw him among strangers! Oh, I cannot think that is the best way,
+whatever Euclid may make you think."
+
+At this Sir Tom laughed, as he generally did, though never
+disrespectfully, at Lucy's decisions. He said, "That is a very just
+expression, my dear, though Euclid never made us think so much as he
+ought to have done. You are thinking of that little beggar. Wait till he
+is out of long clothes."
+
+"Which shows all you know about it. He was shortcoated at the proper
+time, I hope," said Lucy, with some indignation, "do you call these long
+clothes?"
+
+_These_ were garments which showed when he sprawled, as he always did, a
+great deal of little Tom's person, and as his mother was at that time
+holding him by them, while he "felt his feet," upon the carpet, the
+spectacle of two little dimpled knees without any covering at all
+triumphantly proved her right. Sir Tom threw himself upon the carpet to
+kiss those sturdy, yet wavering little limbs, which were not quite under
+the guidance of Tommy's will as yet, and taking the child from his
+mother, propped it up against his own person. "For the present, I allow
+that fathers and mothers are the best," he said.
+
+Lucy stood and gazed at them in that ecstasy of love and pleasure with
+which a young mother beholds her husband's adoration for their child.
+Though she feels it to be the highest pride and crown of their joint
+existence, yet there is always in her mind a sense of admiration and
+gratitude for his devotion. She looked down upon them at her feet, with
+eyes running over with happiness. It is to be feared that at such a
+moment Lucy forgot even Jock, the little brother who had been as a child
+to her in her earlier days; and yet there was no want of love for Jock
+in her warm and constant heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+YOUNG MR. TREVOR.
+
+
+John Trevor, otherwise Jock, arrived at the Hall in a state of
+considerable though suppressed excitement. It was not in his nature to
+show the feelings which were most profound and strongest in his nature,
+even if the religion of an English public school boy had not forbidden
+demonstration. But he had very strong feelings underneath his calm
+exterior, and the approach to Lucy's home gave him many thoughts. The
+sense of separation which had once affected him with a deep though
+unspoken sentiment had passed away long ago into a faint grudge, a
+feeling of something lost--but between ten and sixteen one does not
+brood upon a grievance, especially when one is surrounded by everything
+that can make one happy; and there was a certain innate philosophy in
+the mind of Jock which enabled him to see the justice and necessity of
+the separation. He it was who in very early day, had ordained his own
+going to school with a realisation of the need of it which is not
+usually given to his age--and he had understood without any explanation
+and without any complaint that Lucy must live her own life, and that
+their constant brother and sister fellowship became impossible when she
+married. The curious little solemn boy, who had made so many shrewd
+guesses at the ways of life while he was still only a child, accepted
+this without a word, working it out in his own silent soul; but
+nevertheless it had affected him deeply. And when the time came at last
+for a real meeting, not a week's visit in town where she was fully
+occupied, and he did not well know what to do with himself--or a hurried
+rapid meeting at school, where Jock's pride in introducing his tutor to
+his sister was a somewhat imperfect set-off to the loss of personal
+advantage to himself in thus seeing Lucy always in the company of other
+people--his being was greatly moved with diverse thoughts. Lucy was all
+he had in the world to represent the homes, the fathers and mothers and
+sisters and brothers of his companions. The old time when they had been
+all in all to each other had a more delicate beauty than the ordinary
+glow of childhood. He thought there was nobody like her, with that
+mingled adoration and affectionate contempt which make up a boy's love
+for the women belonging to him. She was not clever: but he regarded the
+simplicity of her mind with pride. This seemed to give her her crowning
+charm. "Any fellow can be clever," Jock said to himself. It was part of
+Lucy's superiority that she was not so. He arrived at the railway
+station at Farafield with much excitement in his mind, though his looks
+were quiet enough. The place, though it was the first he had ever known,
+did not attract a thought from the other and more important meeting. It
+was a wet day in August, and the coachman who had been sent for him gave
+him a note to say that Lucy would have come to meet him but for the
+rain. He was rather glad of the rain, this being the case. He did not
+want to meet her on a railway platform--he even regretted the long
+stretches of the stubble fields as he whirled past, and wished that the
+way had been longer, though he was so anxious to see her. And when he
+jumped down at the great door of the hall and found himself in the
+embrace of his sister, the youth was thrilling with excitement, hope,
+and pleasure. Lucy had changed much less than he had. Jock, who had been
+the smallest of pale-faced boys, was now long and weedy, with limbs and
+fingers of portentous length. His hair was light and limp; his large
+eyes, well set in his head, had a vague and often dreamy look. It was
+impossible to call him a handsome boy. There was an entire want of
+colour about him, as there had been about Lucy in her first youth, and
+his gray morning clothes, like the little gray dress she had worn as a
+young girl were not very becoming to him. They had been so long apart
+that he met her very shyly, with an awkwardness that almost looked like
+reluctance, and for the first hour scarcely knew what to say to her, so
+full was he of the wonder and pleasure of being by her, and the
+impossibility of expressing this. She asked him about his journey, and
+he made the usual replies, scarcely knowing what he said, but looking at
+her with a suppressed beatitude which made Jock dull in the very
+intensity of his feeling. The rain came steadily down outside, shutting
+them in as with veils of falling water. Sir Tom, in order to leave them
+entirely free to have their first meeting over, had taken himself off
+for the day. Lucy took her young brother into the inner drawing-room,
+the centre of her own life. She made him sit down in a luxurious chair,
+and stood over him gazing at the boy, who was abashed and did not know
+what to say. "You are different, Jock. It is not that you are taller and
+bigger altogether, but you are different. I suppose so am I."
+
+"Not much," he said, looking shyly at her. "You couldn't change."
+
+"How so?" she asked with a laugh. "I am such a great deal older I ought
+to look wiser. Let me see what it is. Your eyes have grown darker, I
+think, and your face is longer, Jock; and what is that? a little down,
+actually, upon your upper lip. Jock, not a moustache!"
+
+Jock blushed with pleasure and embarrassment, and put up his hand fondly
+to feel those few soft hairs. "There isn't very much of it," he said.
+
+"Oh, there is enough to swear by; and you like school as well as ever?
+and MTutor, how is he? Are you as fond of him as you used to be, Jock?"
+
+"You don't say you're fond of him," said Jock, "but he's just as jolly
+as ever, if that is what you mean."
+
+"That is what I mean, I suppose. You must tell me when I say anything
+wrong," said Lucy. She took his head between her hands and gave him a
+kiss upon his forehead. "I am so glad to see you here at last," she
+said.
+
+And then there was a pause. Her first little overflow of questions had
+come to an end, and she did not exactly know what to say, while Jock sat
+silent, staring at her with an earnest gaze. It was all so strange, the
+scene and surroundings, and Lucy in the midst, who was a great lady,
+instead of being merely his sister--all these confused the boy's
+faculties. He wanted time to realise it all. But Lucy, for her part,
+felt the faintest little touch of disappointment. It seemed to her as if
+they ought to have had so much to say to each other, such a rush of
+questions and answers, and full-hearted confidence. Jock's heart would
+be at his lips, she thought, ready to rush forth--and her own also, with
+all the many things of which she had said to herself: "I must tell that
+to Jock." But as a matter of fact, many of these things had been told by
+letter, and the rest would have been quite out of place in the moment of
+reunion, in which indeed it seemed inappropriate to introduce any
+subject other than their pleasure in seeing each other again, and those
+personal inquiries which we all so long to make face to face when we are
+separated from those near to us, yet which are so little capable of
+filling all the needs of the situation when that moment comes. Jock was
+indeed showing his happiness much more by his expressive silence and shy
+eager gaze at her than if he had plunged into immediate talk; but Lucy
+felt a little disappointed, and as if the meeting had not come up to her
+hopes. She said, after a pause which was almost awkward, "You would like
+to see baby, Jock? How strange that you should not know baby! I wonder
+what you will think of him." She rose and rang the bell while she was
+speaking in a pleasant stir of fresh expectation. No doubt it would stir
+Jock to the depths of his heart, and bring out all his latent feeling,
+when he saw Lucy's boy. Little Tom was brought in state to see "his
+uncle," a title of dignity which the nurse felt indignantly disappointed
+to have bestowed upon the lanky, colourless boy who got up with great
+embarrassment and came forward reluctantly to see the creature quite
+unknown and unrealised, of whom Lucy spoke with so much exultation. Jock
+was not jealous, but he thought it rather odd that "a little thing like
+that" should excite so much attention. It seemed to him that it was a
+thing all legs and arms, sprawling in every direction, and when it
+seized Lucy by the hair, pulling it about her face with the most riotous
+freedom, Jock felt deeply disposed to box its ears. But Lucy was
+delighted. "Oh, naughty baby!" she said, with a voice of such admiration
+and ecstasy as the finest poetry, Jock reflected, would never have awoke
+in her; and when the thing "loved" her, at its nurse's bidding, clasping
+its fat arms round her neck, and applying a wide-open wet mouth to her
+cheek, the tears were in her eyes for very pleasure. "Baby, darling,
+that is your uncle; won't you go to your uncle? Take him, Jock. If he is
+a little shy at first he will soon get used to you," Lucy cried. To see
+Jock holding back on one side, and the baby on the other, which
+strenuously refused to go to its uncle, was as good as a play.
+
+"I'm afraid I should let it fall," said Jock, "I don't know anything
+about babies."
+
+"Then sit down, dear, and I will put him upon your lap," said the young
+mother. There never was a more complete picture of wretchedness than
+poor Jock, as he placed himself unwillingly on the sofa with his knees
+put firmly together and his feet slanting outwards to support them. "I
+sha'n't know what to do with it," he said. It is to be feared that he
+resented its existence altogether. It was to him a quite unnecessary
+addition. Was he never to see Lucy any more without that thing clinging
+to her? Little Tom, for his part, was equally decided in his
+sentiments. He put his little fists, which were by no means without
+force, against his uncle's face, and pushed him away, with squalls that
+would have exasperated Job; and then, instead of consoling Jock, Lucy
+took the little demon to her arms and soothed him. "Did they want it to
+make friends against its will," Lucy was so ridiculous as to say, like
+one of the women in _Punch_, petting and smoothing down that odious
+little creature. Both she and the nurse seemed to think that it was the
+baby who wanted consoling for the appearance of Jock, and not Jock who
+had been insulted; for one does not like even a baby to consider one as
+repulsive and disagreeable. The incident was scarcely at an end when Sir
+Tom came in, fresh, smiling, and damp from the farm, where he had been
+inspecting the cattle and enjoying himself. Mature age and settled life
+and a sense of property had converted Sir Tom to the pleasure of
+farming. He shook Jock heartily by the hand, and clapped him on the
+back, and bade him welcome with great kindness. Then he took "the little
+beggar" on his shoulder and carried him, shrieking with delight, about
+the room. It seemed a very strange thing to Jock to see how entirely
+these two full-grown people gave themselves up to the deification of
+this child. It was not bringing themselves to his level, it was looking
+up to him as their superior. If he had been a king his careless favours
+could not have been more keenly contended for. Jock, who was fond of
+poetry and philosophy and many other fine things, looked on at this new
+mystery with wondering and indignant contempt. After dinner there was
+the baby again. It was allowed to stay out of bed longer than usual in
+honour of its uncle, and dinner was hurried over, Jock thought, in
+order that it might be produced, decked out in a sash almost as broad as
+its person. When it appeared rational conversation was at an end, Sir
+Tom, whom Jock had always respected highly, stopped the inquiries he was
+making, with all the knowledge and pleasure, of an old schoolboy, into
+school life, comparing his own experiences with those of the present
+generation--to play bo-peep behind Lucy's shoulder with the baby.
+Bo-peep! a Member of Parliament, a fellow who had been at the
+University, who had travelled, who had seen America and gone through the
+Desert! There was consternation in the astonishment with which Jock
+looked on at this unlooked-for, almost incredible, exhibition. It was
+ridiculous in Lucy, but in Sir Tom!
+
+"I suppose we were all like that one time?" he said, trying to be
+philosophical, as little Tom at last, half smothered with kisses, was
+carried away.
+
+"Like _that_--do you mean like baby? You were a little darling, dear,
+and I was always very, very fond of you," said Lucy, giving him the
+kindest look of her soft eyes. "But you were not a beauty, like my boy."
+
+Sir Tom had laughed, with something of the same sentiment very evident
+in his mirth, when Lucy spoke. He put out his hand and patted his young
+brother-in-law on the shoulder. "It is absurd," he said, "to put that
+little beggar in the foreground when we have somebody here who is in
+Sixth form at sixteen, and is captain of his house, and has got a school
+prize already. If Lucy does not appreciate all that, I do, Jock, and the
+best I can wish for Tommy is that he should have done as much at your
+age."
+
+"Oh, I was not thinking of that," said Jock with a violent blush.
+
+"Of course he was not," said Lucy calmly, "for he always had the kindest
+heart though he was so clever. If you think I don't appreciate it as you
+say, Tom, it is only because I knew it all the time. Do you think I am
+surprised that Jock has beaten everybody? He was like that when he was
+six, before he had any education. And he will be just as proud of baby
+as we are when he knows him. He is a little strange at first," said
+Lucy, beaming upon her brother; "but as soon as he is used to you, he
+will go to you just as he does to me."
+
+To this Jock could not reply by betraying the shiver that went over him
+at the thought, but it gave great occupation to his mind to make out how
+a little thing like that could attain, as it had done, such empire over
+the minds of two sensible people. He consulted MTutor on the subject by
+letter, who was his great referee on difficult subjects, and he could
+not help betraying his wonder to the household as he grew more familiar
+and the days went on. "He can't do anything for you," Jock said. "He
+can't talk; he doesn't know anything about--well, about books: I know
+that's more my line than yours, Lucy--but about anything. Oh! you
+needn't flare up. When he dabs his mouth at you all wet----"
+
+"Oh! you little wretch, you infidel, you savage," Lucy cried; "his sweet
+mouth! and a dear big wet kiss that lets you know he means it."
+
+Jock looked at her as he had done often in the old days, with mingled
+admiration and contempt. It was like Lucy, and yet how odd it was. "I
+suppose, then," he said, "I was rather worse than _that_ when you took
+me up and were good to me. What for, I wonder? and you were fond of me,
+too, although you are fonder of _it_----"
+
+"If you talk of It again I will never speak to you more," Lucy said, "as
+if my beautiful boy was a thing and not a person. He is not It: he is
+Tom, he is Mr. Randolph: that is what Williams calls him." Williams was
+the butler who had been all over the world with Sir Tom, and who was
+respectful of the heir, but a little impatient and surprised, as Jock
+was, of the fuss that was made about Tommy for his own small sake.
+
+By this time, however, Jock had recovered from his shyness--his
+difficulty in talking, all the little mist that absence had made--and
+roamed about after Lucy, hanging upon her, putting his arm through hers,
+though he was much the taller, wherever she went. He held her back a
+little now as they walked through the park in a sort of procession, Mrs.
+Richens, the nurse, going first with the boy. "When I was a little
+slobbering beast, like----" he stopped himself in time, "like the
+t'other kind of baby, and nobody wanted me, you were the only one that
+took any trouble."
+
+"How do you know?" said Lucy; "you don't remember and I don't remember."
+
+"Ah! but I remember the time in the Terrace, when I lay on the rug, and
+heard papa making his will over my head. I was listening for you all the
+time. I was thinking of nothing but your step coming to take me out."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Lucy, "you were deep in your books, and thinking of
+them only; of that--gentleman with the windmills--or Shakspeare, or some
+other nonsense. Oh, I don't mean Shakspeare is nonsense. I mean you were
+thinking of nothing but your books, and nobody would believe you
+understood all that at your age."
+
+"I did not understand," said Jock with a blush. "I was a little prig.
+Lucy, how strange it all is, like a picture one has seen somewhere, or a
+scene in a play or a dream! Sometimes I can remember little bits of it,
+just as he used to read it out to old Ford. Bits of it are all in and
+out of _As You Like It_, as if Touchstone had said them, or Jaques. Poor
+old papa! how particular he was about it all. Are you doing everything
+he told you, Lucy, in the will?"
+
+He did not in the least mean it as an alarming question, as he stooped
+over, in his awkward way holding her arm, and looked into her face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CONSULTATIONS.
+
+
+Lucy was much startled by her brother's demand. It struck, however, not
+her conscience so much as her recollection, bringing back that past
+which was still so near, yet which seemed a world away, in which she had
+made so many anxious efforts to carry out her father's will and
+considered it the main object of her life. A young wife who is happy,
+and upon whom life smiles, can scarcely help looking back upon the time
+when she was a girl with a sense of superiority, an amused and
+affectionate contempt for herself. "How could I be so silly?" she will
+say, and laugh, not without a passing blush. This was not exactly Lucy's
+feeling; but in three years she had, even in her sheltered and happy
+position, attained a certain acquaintance with life, and she saw
+difficulties which in those former days had not been apparent to her.
+When Jock began to recall these reminiscences it seemed to her as if she
+saw once more the white commonplace walls of her father's sitting-room
+rising about her, and heard him laying down the law which she had
+accepted with such calm. She had seen no difficulty then. She had not
+even been surprised by the burden laid upon her. It had appeared as
+natural to obey him in matters which concerned large external interests,
+and the well-being of strangers, as it was to fill him out a cup of tea.
+But the interval of time, and the change of position, had made a great
+difference; and when Jock asked, "Are you doing all he told you?" the
+question brought a sudden surging of the blood to her head, which made a
+singing in her ears and a giddiness in her brain. It seemed to place her
+in front of something which must interrupt all her life and put a stop
+to the even flow of her existence. She caught her breath. "Doing all he
+told me!"
+
+Jock, though he did not mean it, though he was no longer her
+self-appointed guardian and guide, became to Lucy a monitor, recalling
+her as to another world.
+
+But the effect though startling was not permanent. They began to talk it
+all over, and by dint of familiarity the impression wore away. The
+impression, but not the talk. It gave the brother and sister just what
+they wanted to bring back all the habits of their old affectionate
+confidential intercourse, a subject upon which they could carry on
+endless discussions and consultations, which was all their own, like one
+of those innocent secrets which children delight in, and which, with
+arms entwined and heads close together, they can carry on endlessly for
+days together. They ceased the discussion when Sir Tom appeared, not
+with any fear of him as a disturbing influence, but with a tacit
+understanding that this subject was for themselves alone. It involved
+everything; the past with all those scenes of their strange childhood,
+the homely living, the fantastic possibilities always in the air, the
+old dear tender relationship between the two young creatures who alone
+belonged to each other. Lucy almost forgot her present self as she
+talked, and they moved about together, the tall boy clinging to her arm
+as the little urchin had done, altogether dependent, yet always with a
+curious leadership, suggesting a thousand things that would not have
+occurred to her.
+
+Lucy had no occasion now for the advice which Jock at eight years old
+had so freely given her. She had her husband to lead and advise her. But
+in this one matter Sir Tom was put tacitly out of court, and Jock had
+his old place. "It does not matter at all that you have not done
+anything lately," Jock said; "there is plenty of time--and now that I am
+to spend all my holidays here, it will be far easier. It was better not
+to do things so hastily as you began."
+
+"But, Jock," said Lucy, "We must not deceive ourselves; it will be very
+hard. People who are very nice do not like to take the money; and those
+who are willing to take it----"
+
+"Does the will say the people are to be nice?" asked Jock. "Then what
+does that matter? The will is all against reason, Lucy. It is wrong, you
+know. Fellows who know political economy would think we are all mad; for
+it just goes against it, straight."
+
+"That is strange, Jock; for papa was very economical. He never could
+bear waste: he used to say----"
+
+"Yes, yes; but political economy means something different. It is a
+science. It means that you should sell everything as dear as you can,
+and buy it as cheap as you can--and never give anything away----"
+
+"That is dreadful, Jock," said Lucy. "It is all very well to be a
+science, but nobody like ourselves could be expected to act upon
+it--private people, you know."
+
+"There is something in that," Jock allowed; "there are always
+exceptions. I only want to show you that the will being all against
+rule, it _must_ be hard to carry it out. Don't you do anything by
+yourself, Lucy. When you come across any case that is promising, just
+you wait till I come, and we'll talk it all over. I don't quite
+understand about nice people not taking it. Fellows I know are always
+pleased with presents--or a tip, nobody refuses a tip. And that is just
+the same sort of thing, you know."
+
+"Not just the same," said Lucy, "for a tip--that means a sovereign,
+doesn't it?"
+
+"It sometimes means--paper," said Jock, with some solemnity. "Last time
+you came to see me at school Sir Tom gave me a fiver----"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"Oh, a five-pound note," said Jock, with momentary impatience; "the
+other's shorter to say and less fuss. MTutor thought he had better not;
+but I didn't mind. I don't see why anybody should mind. There's a fellow
+I know--his father is a curate, and there are no end of them, and
+they've no money. Fellow himself is on the foundation, so he doesn't
+cost much. Why they shouldn't take a big tip from you, who have too
+much, I'm sure I can't tell; and I don't believe they would mind," Jock
+added, after a pause.
+
+This, which would have inspired Lucy in the days of her dauntless
+maidenhood to calculate at once how much it would take to make this
+family happy, gave her a little shudder now.
+
+"I don't feel as if I could do it," she said. "I wish papa had found an
+easier way. People don't like you afterwards when you do _that_ for
+them. They are angry--they think, why should I have all that to give
+away, a little thing like me?"
+
+"The easiest way would be an exam.," said Jock. "Everybody now goes in
+for exams.; and if they passed, they would think they had won the money
+all right."
+
+"Perhaps there is something in that, Jock; but then it is not for young
+men. It is for ladies, perhaps, or old people, or----"
+
+"You might let them choose their own subjects," said the boy. "A lady
+might do a good paper about--servants, or sewing, or that sort of thing;
+or housekeeping--that would be all right. MTutor might look over the
+papers----"
+
+"Does he know about housekeeping?"
+
+"He knows about most things," cried Jock, "I should like to see the
+thing he didn't know. He is the best scholar we have got; and he's what
+you call an all-round man besides," the boy said with pride.
+
+"What is an all-round man?" Lucy asked, diffidently. "He is tall and
+slight, so it cannot mean his appearance."
+
+"Oh, what a muff you are, Lucy; you're awfully nice, but you are a muff.
+It means a man who knows a little of everything. MTutor is more than
+that, he knows a great deal of everything; indeed, as I was saying,"
+Jock added defiantly, "I should just like to see the thing he didn't
+know."
+
+"And yet he is so nice," said Lucy, with a gentle air of astonishment.
+
+MTutor was a subject which was endless with Jock, so that the original
+topic here glided out of sight as the exalted gifts of that model of all
+the virtues became the theme. This conversation, however, was but one of
+many. It was their meeting ground, the matter upon which they found each
+other as of old, two beings separated from the world, which wondered at
+and did not understand them. What a curious office it was for them, two
+favourites of fortune as they seemed, to disperse and give away the
+foundation of their own importance! for Jock owed everything to Lucy,
+and Lucy, when she had accomplished this object of her existence, and
+carried out her father's will, would no doubt still be a wealthy woman,
+but not in any respect the great personage she was now. This was a view
+of the matter which never crossed the minds of these two. Their strange
+training had made Lucy less conscious of the immense personal advantage
+which her money was to her than any other could have done. She knew,
+indeed, that there was a great difference between her early home in
+Farafield and the house in London where she had lived with Lady
+Randolph, and still more, the Hall which was her home--but she had been
+not less but more courted and worshipped in her lowly estate than in her
+high one, and her father's curious philosophy had affected her mind and
+coloured her perceptions. She had learned, indeed, to know that there
+are difficulties in attempting to enact the part of Providence, and
+taking upon herself the task of providing for her fellow-creatures; but
+these difficulties had nothing to do with the fact that she would
+herself suffer by such a dispersion. Perhaps her imagination was not
+lively enough to realise this part of the situation. Jock and she
+ignored it altogether. As for Jock, the delight of giving away was
+strong in him, and the position was so strange that it fascinated his
+boyish imagination. To act such a part as that of Haroun-al-Raschid in
+real life, and change the whole life of whatsoever poor cobbler or
+fruit-seller attracted him, was a vision of fairyland such as Jock had
+not yet outgrown. But the chief thing that he impressed on his sister
+was the necessity of doing nothing by herself. "Just wait till we can
+talk it over," he said, "two are always better than one: and a fellow
+learns a lot at school. You wouldn't think it, perhaps, but there's all
+sorts there, and you learn a lot when you have your eyes well open. We
+can talk it all over and settle if it's good enough; but don't go and be
+rash, Lucy, and do anything by yourself."
+
+"I sha'n't, dear; I should be too frightened," Lucy said.
+
+This was on one of his last days, when they were walking together
+through the shrubbery. It was September by this time, and he might have
+been shooting partridges with Sir Tom, but Jock was not so much an
+out-door boy as he ought to have been, and he preferred walking with his
+sister, his arm thrust through hers, his head stooping over her. It was
+perhaps the last opportunity they would have of discussing their family
+secrets, a matter (they thought) which really concerned nobody else,
+which no one else would care to be troubled with. Perhaps in Lucy's mind
+there was a sense of unreality in the whole matter; but Jock was
+entirely in earnest, and quite convinced that in such an important
+business he was his sister's natural adviser, and might be of a great
+deal of use. It was towards evening when they went out, and a red
+autumnal sunset was accomplishing itself in the west, throwing a gleam
+as of the brilliant tints which were yet to come, on the still green and
+luxuriant foliage. The light was low, and came into Lucy's eyes, who
+shaded them with her hand. And the paths had a touch of autumnal damp,
+and a certain mistiness, mellow and golden by reason of the sunshine,
+was rising among the trees.
+
+"We will not be hasty," said Jock; "we will take everything into
+consideration: and I don't think you will find so much difficulty, Lucy,
+when you have me."
+
+"I hope not, dear," Lucy said; and she began to talk to him about his
+flannels and other precautions he was to take; for Jock was supposed not
+to be very strong. He had grown fast, and he was rather weedy and long,
+without strength to support it. "We have been so happy together," she
+said. "We always were happy together, Jock. Remember, dear, no wet feet,
+and as little football as you can help, for my sake."
+
+"Oh, yes," he said, with a wave of his hand; "all right, Lucy. There is
+no fear about that. The first thing to think of is poor old father's
+will, and what you are going to do about it. I mean to think out all
+that about the examinations, and I suppose I may speak to MTutor----"
+
+"It is too private, don't you think, Jock? Nobody knows about it. It is
+better to keep it between you and me."
+
+"I can put it as a supposed case," said Jock, "and ask what he would
+advise; for you see, Lucy, you and even I are not very experienced, and
+MTutor, he knows such a lot. It would always be a good thing to have his
+advice, you know; he----"
+
+There was no telling how long Jock might have gone on on this subject.
+But just at this moment a quick step came round the corner of a clump of
+wood, and a hand was laid on the shoulder of each. "What are you
+plotting about?" asked the voice of Sir Tom in their ears. It was a
+curious sign of her mental condition which Lucy remembered with shame
+afterwards, without being very well able to account for it, that she
+suddenly dropped Jock's arm and turned round upon her husband with a
+quick blush and access of breathing, as if somehow--she could not tell
+how--she had been found out. It had never occurred to her before,
+through all those long drawn out consultations, that she was concealing
+anything from Sir Tom. She dropped Jock's arm as if it hurt her, and
+turned to her husband in the twinkling of an eye.
+
+"Jock," she said quickly, "and I--were talking about MTutor, Tom."
+
+"Ah! once landed on that subject, and there is no telling when we may
+come to an end," Sir Tom said, with a laugh, "but never mind, I like you
+all the better for it, my boy."
+
+Jock gave an astonished look at Lucy, a half-defiant one at her husband.
+
+"That was only by the way," he said, lifting up his shoulders with a
+little air of offence. He did not condescend to any further explanation,
+but walked along by their side with a lofty abstraction, looking at them
+now and then from the corner of his eye. Lucy had taken Sir Tom's arm,
+and was hanging upon her tall husband, looking up in his face. The
+little blush of surprise--or was it of guilt?--with which she had
+received him was still upon her cheek. She was far more animated than
+usual, almost a little agitated. She asked about the shooting, about the
+bag, and how many brace was to Sir Tom's own gun, with that conciliating
+interest which is one of the signs of a conscious fault; while Sir Tom,
+on his side bending down to his little wife, received all her flatteries
+with so complacent a smile, and such a beatific belief in her perfect
+sincerity and devotion, that Jock, looking on from his superiority of
+passionless youth, regarded them both with a wondering disdain. Why did
+she "make up" in that way to her husband, dropping her brother as if she
+had been plotting harm? Jock was amazed, he could not understand it.
+Perhaps it was only because he thus fell in a moment from being the
+chief object of interest to the position of nobody at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS.
+
+
+Lucy's mind had sustained a certain shock when her husband appeared.
+During her short married life there had not been a cloud, or a shadow of
+a cloud, between them. But then there had been no question between them,
+nothing to cause any question, no difference of opinion. Sir Tom had
+taken all her business naturally into his hands. Whatever she wished she
+had got--nay, before she expressed a wish it had been satisfied. He had
+talked to her about everything, and she had listened with docile
+attention, but without concealing the fact that she neither understood
+nor wished to understand; and he had not only never chided her, but had
+accepted her indifference with a smile of pleasure as the most natural
+thing in the world. He had encouraged her in all her liberal charities,
+shaking his head and declaring with a radiant face that she would ruin
+herself, and that not even her fortune would stand it. But the one
+matter which had given Lucy so much trouble before her marriage, and
+which Jock had now brought back to her mind, was one that had never been
+mentioned between them. He had known all about it, and her eccentric
+proceedings and conflict with her guardians, backing her up, indeed,
+with much laughter, and showing every symptom of amiable amusement; but
+he had never given any opinion on the subject, nor made the slightest
+allusion since to this grand condition of her father's will. In the
+sunny years that were past Lucy had taken no notice of this omission.
+She had not thought much on the subject herself. She had withdrawn from
+it tacitly, as one is apt to do from a matter which has been productive
+of pain and disappointment, and had been content to ignore that portion
+of her responsibilities. Even when Jock forcibly revived the subject it
+continued without any practical importance, and its existence was a
+question between themselves to afford material for endless conversation
+which had been pleasant and harmless. But when Sir Tom's hand was laid
+on her shoulder, and his cheerful voice sounded in her ear, a sudden
+shock was given to Lucy's being. It flashed upon her in a moment that
+this question which she had been discussing with Jock had never been
+mentioned between her and her husband, and with a sudden instinctive
+perception she became aware that Sir Tom would look upon it with very
+different eyes from theirs. She felt that she had been disloyal to him
+in having a secret subject of consultation even with her brother. If he
+heard he would be displeased, he would be taken by surprise, perhaps
+wounded, perhaps made angry. In any wise it would introduce a new
+element into their life. Lucy saw, with a sudden sensation of fright and
+pain, an unknown crowd of possibilities which might pour down upon her,
+were it to be communicated to Sir Tom that his wife and her brother were
+debating as to a course of action on her part, unknown to him. All this
+occurred in a moment, and it was not any lucid and real perception of
+difficulties, but only a sudden alarmed compunctious consciousness that
+filled her mind. She fled, as it were, from the circumstances which made
+these horrors possible, hurrying back into her former attitude with a
+penitential urgency. Jock, indeed, was very dear to her, but he was no
+more than second, nay he was but third, in Lady Randolph's heart. Her
+husband's supremacy he could not touch, and though he had been almost
+her child in the old days, yet he was not, nor ever would be, her child
+in the same ineffable sense as little Tom was, who was her very own, the
+centre of her life. So she ran away (so to speak) from Jock with a real
+panic, and clung to her husband, conciliating, nay almost wheedling him,
+if we may use the word, with a curious feminine instinct, to make up to
+him for the momentary wrong she had done, and which he was not aware of.
+Sir Tom himself was a little surprised by the warmth of the reception
+she gave him. Her interest in his shooting was usually very mild, for
+she had never been able to get over a little horror she had, due,
+perhaps, to her bourgeois training, of the slaughter of the birds. He
+glanced at the pair with an unusual perception that there was something
+here more than met the eye. "You have been egging her up to some
+rebellion," he said; "Jock, you villain; you have been hatching treason
+behind my back!" He said this with one of those cordial laughs which
+nobody could refrain from joining--full of good humour and fun, and a
+pleased consciousness that to teach Lucy to rebel would be beyond any
+one's power. At any other moment she would have taken the accusation
+with the tranquil smile which was Lucy's usual reply to her husband's
+pleasantries; but this time her laugh was a little strained, and the
+warmth of her denial, "No, no! there has been no treason," gave the
+slightest jar of surprise to Sir Tom. It sounded like a false note in
+the air; he did not understand what it could mean.
+
+Jock went away the next day. He went with a basket of game for MTutor
+and many nice things for himself, and all the attention and care which
+might have been his had he been the heir instead of only the young
+brother and dependent. Lucy herself drove in with him to Farafield to
+see him off, and Sir Tom, who had business in the little town and meant
+to drive back with his wife, appeared on the railway platform just in
+time to say good-bye. "Now, Lucy, you will not forget," were Jock's last
+words as he looked out of the window when the train was already in
+motion. Lucy nodded and smiled, and waved her hand, but she did not make
+any other reply. Sir Tom said nothing until they were driving along the
+stubble fields in the afternoon sunshine. Lucy lay back in her corner
+with that mingled sense of regret and relief with which, when we are
+very happy at home, we see a guest go away--a gentle sorrow to part, a
+soft pleasure in being once more restored to the more intimate circle.
+She had not shaken off that impression of guiltiness, but now it was
+over, and nothing further could be said on the subject for a long time
+to come.
+
+"What is it, Lucy, that you are not to forget?"
+
+She roused herself up, and a warm flush of colour came to her face. "Oh,
+nothing, Tom, a little thing we were consulting about. It was Jock that
+brought it to my mind."
+
+"I think it must be more than just a little thing. Mayn't I hear what
+this secret is?"
+
+"Oh, it is nothing, Tom," Lady Randolph repeated; and then she sat up
+erect and said, "I must not deceive you. It is not merely a small
+matter. Still it is just between Jock and me. It was about--papa's will,
+Tom."
+
+"Ah! that is a large matter. I don't quite see how that can be between
+you and Jock, Lucy. Jock has very little to do with it. I don't want to
+find fault, my dear, but I think as an adviser you will find me better
+than Jock."
+
+"I know you are far better, Tom. You know more than both of us put
+together."
+
+"That would not be very difficult," he said, with a smile.
+
+Perhaps this calm acceptance of the fact nettled Lucy. At least she
+said, with a little touch of spirit, "And yet I know something about our
+kind of people better than you will ever do, Tom."
+
+"Lucy, this is a wonderful new tone. Perhaps you may know better, but I
+am doubtful if you understand the relation of things as well. What is
+it, my dear?--that is to say, if you like to tell me, for I am not going
+to force your confidence."
+
+"Tom--oh dear Tom! It is not that. It is rather that it was something to
+talk to Jock about. He remembers everything. When papa was making that
+will----" here Lucy stopped and sighed. It had not been doing her a good
+service to make her recollect that will, which had enough in it to make
+her life wretched, though that as yet nobody knew. "He recollects it
+all," she said. "He used to hear it read out. He remembers everything."
+
+"I suppose, then," said Sir Tom, with a peculiar smile, "there is
+something in particular which he thought you were likely to forget?"
+
+Here Lucy sighed again. "I am afraid I had forgotten it. No, not
+forgotten, but--I never knew very well what to do. Perhaps you don't
+remember either. It is about giving the money away."
+
+Sir Tom was a far more considerable person in every way than the little
+girl who was his wife, and who was not clever nor of any great account
+apart from her wealth; and she was devoted to him, so that he could have
+very little fear how any conflict should end when he was on one side, if
+all the world were on the other. But perhaps he had been spoiled by
+Lucy's entire agreement and consent to whatever he pleased to wish, so
+that his tone was a little sharp, not so good-humoured as usual, but
+with almost a sneer in it when he replied quickly, not leaving her a
+moment to get her breath, "I see; Jock having inspiration from the
+fountain head, was to be your guide in that."
+
+She looked at him alarmed and penitent, but reproachful. "I would have
+done nothing, I could have done nothing, oh Tom! without you."
+
+"It is very obliging of you Lucy to say so; nevertheless, Jock thought
+himself entitled to remind you of what you had forgotten, and to offer
+himself as your adviser. Perhaps MTutor was to come in, too," he said,
+with a laugh.
+
+Sir Tom was not immaculate in point of temper any more than other men,
+but Lucy had never suffered from it before. She was frightened, but she
+did not give way. The colour went out of her cheeks, but there was more
+in her than mere insipid submission. She looked at her husband with a
+certain courage, though she was so pale, and felt so profoundly the
+displeasure which she had never encountered before.
+
+"I don't think you should speak like that, Tom. I have done nothing
+wrong. I have only been talking to my brother of--of--a thing that
+nobody cares about but him and me in all the world."
+
+"And that is----"
+
+"Doing what papa wished," Lucy said in a low voice. A little moisture
+stole into her eyes. Whether it came because of her father, or because
+her husband spoke sharply to her, it perhaps would have been difficult
+to say.
+
+This made Sir Tom ashamed of his ill-humour. It was cruel to be unkind
+to a creature so gentle, who was not used to be found fault with; and
+yet he felt that for Lucy to set up an independence of any kind was a
+thing to be crushed in the bud. A man may have the most liberal
+principles about women, and yet feel a natural indignation when his own
+wife shows signs of desiring to act for herself; and besides, it was not
+to be endured that a boy and girl conspiracy should be hatched under his
+very nose to take the disposal of an important sum of money out of his
+hands. Such an idea was not only ridiculous in itself, but apt to make
+him ridiculous, a man who ought to be strong enough to keep the young
+ones in order. "My dear," he said, "I have no wish to speak in any way
+that vexes you; but I see no reason you can have--at least I hope there
+has been nothing in my conduct to give you any reason--to withdraw your
+confidence from me and give it to Jock."
+
+Lucy did not make him any reply. She looked at him pathetically through
+the water in her eyes. If she had spoken she would have cried, and this
+in an open carriage, with a village close at hand, and people coming and
+going upon the road, was not to be thought of. By the time she had
+mastered herself Sir Tom had cooled down, and he was ashamed of having
+made Lucy's lips to quiver and taken away her voice.
+
+"That was a very nasty thing to say," he said, "wasn't it, Lucy? I ought
+to be ashamed of myself. Still, my little woman must remember that I am
+too fond of her to let her have secrets with anybody but me."
+
+And with this he took the hand that was nearest to him into both of his
+and held it close, and throwing a temptation in her way which she could
+not resist, led her to talk of the baby and forget everything else
+except that precious little morsel of humanity. He was far cleverer than
+Lucy; he could make her do whatever he pleased. No fear of any
+opposition, any setting up of her own will against his. When they got
+home he gave her a kiss, and then the momentary trouble was all over. So
+he thought at least. Lucy was so little and gentle and fair, that she
+appeared to her husband even younger than she was; and she was a great
+deal younger than himself. He thought her a sort of child-wife, whom a
+little scolding or a kiss would altogether sway. The kiss had been
+quite enough hitherto. Perhaps, since Jock had come upon the scene, a
+few words of admonition might prove now and then necessary, but it would
+be cruel to be hard upon her, or do more than let her see what his
+pleasure was.
+
+But Lucy was not what Sir Tom thought. She could not endure that there
+should be any shadow between her husband and herself, but her mind was
+not satisfied with this way of settling an important question. She took
+his kiss and his apology gratefully, but if anything had been wanted to
+impress more deeply upon her mind the sense of a duty before her, of
+which her husband did not approve, and in doing which she could not have
+his help, it would have been this little episode altogether. Even little
+Tom did not efface the impression from her mind. At dinner she met her
+husband with her usual smile, and even assented when he remarked upon
+the pleasantness of finding themselves again alone together. There had
+been other guests besides Jock, so that the remark did not offend her;
+but yet Lucy was not quite like herself. She felt it vaguely, and he
+felt it vaguely, and neither was entirely aware what it was.
+
+In the morning, at breakfast, Sir Tom received a foreign letter, which
+made him start a little. He started and cried, "Hollo!" then, opening
+it, and finding two or three closely-scribbled sheets, gave way to a
+laugh. "Here's literature!" he said. Lucy, who had no jealousy of his
+correspondents, read her own calm little letters, and poured out the
+tea, with no particular notice of her husband's interjections. It did
+not even move her curiosity that the letter was in a feminine hand, and
+gave forth a faint perfume. She reminded him that his tea was getting
+cold, but otherwise took no notice. One of her own letters was from the
+Dowager Lady Randolph, full of advice about the baby. "Mrs. Russell
+tells me that Katie's children are the most lovely babies that ever were
+seen; but she is very fantastic about them; will not let them wear shoes
+to spoil their feet, and other vagaries of that kind. I hope, my dear
+Lucy, that you are not fanciful about little Tom," Lady Randolph wrote.
+Lucy read this very composedly, and smiled at the suggestion. Fanciful!
+Oh, no, she was not fanciful about him--she was not even silly, Lucy
+thought. She was capable of allowing that other babies might be lovely,
+though why the feet of Katie's children should be of so much importance
+she allowed to herself she could not see. She was roused from these
+tranquil thoughts by a little commotion on the other side of the table,
+where Sir Tom had just thrown down his letter. He was laughing and
+talking to himself. "Why shouldn't she come if she likes it?" he was
+saying. "Lucy, look here, since you have set up a confidant, I shall
+have one too," and with that Sir Tom went off into an immoderate fit of
+laughing. The letter scattered upon the table all opened out, two large
+foreign sheets, looked endless. Nobody had ever written so much to Lucy
+in all her life. She could see it was largely underlined and full of
+notes of admiration and interrogation, altogether an out-of-the-way
+epistle. Was it possible that Sir Tom was a little excited as well as
+amused? He put his roll upon a hot plate, and began to cut it with his
+knife and fork in an absence of mind, which was not usual with him, and
+at intervals of a minute or two would burst out with his long "Ha, ha,"
+again. "That will serve you out, Lucy," he said, with a shout, "if I set
+up a confidant too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A WARNING.
+
+
+"I wonder if I shall like her," Lucy said to herself.
+
+She had been hearing from her husband about the Contessa di
+Forno-Populo, who had promised to pay them a visit at Christmas. He had
+laughed a great deal while he described this lady. "What she will do
+here in a country-house in the depth of winter, I cannot tell," he said,
+"but if she wants to come why shouldn't she? She and I are old friends.
+One time and another we have seen a great deal of each other. She will
+not understand me in the character of a Benedick, but that will be all
+the greater fun," he said with a laugh. Lucy looked at him with a little
+surprise. She could not quite make him out.
+
+"If she is a friend she will not mind the country and the winter," said
+Lucy; "it will be you she will want to see----"
+
+"That is all very well, my dear," said Sir Tom, "but she wants something
+more than me. She wants a little amusement. We must have a party to meet
+her, Lucy. We have never yet had the house full for Christmas. Don't you
+think it will be better to furnish the Contessa with other objects
+instead of letting her loose upon your husband. You don't know what it
+is you are treating so lightly."
+
+"I--treat any one lightly that you care for, Tom! Oh, no; I was only
+thinking. I thought she would come to see you, not a number of strange
+people----"
+
+"And you would not mind, Lucy?"
+
+"Mind?" Lucy lifted her innocent eyes upon him with the greatest
+surprise. "To be sure it is most nice of all when there is nobody with
+us," she said--as if that had been what he meant. Enlightenment on this
+subject had not entered her mind. She did not understand him; nor did he
+understand her. He gave her a sort of friendly hug as he passed, still
+with that laugh in which there was no doubt a great perception of
+something comic, yet--an enlightened observer might have thought--a
+little uneasiness, a tremor which was almost agitation too. Lucy too had
+a perception of something a little out of the way which she did not
+understand, but she offered to herself no explanation of it. She said to
+herself, when he was gone, "I wonder if I shall like her?" and she did
+not make herself any reply. She had been in society, and held her little
+place with a simple composure which was natural to her, whoever might
+come in her way. If she was indeed a little frightened of the great
+ladies, that was only at the first moment before she became used to
+them; and afterwards all had gone well--but there was something in the
+suggestion of a foreign great lady, who perhaps might not speak English,
+and who would be used to very different "ways," which alarmed her a
+little; and then it occurred to her with some disappointment that this
+would be the time of Jock's holidays, and that it would disappoint him
+sadly to find her in the midst of a crowd of visitors. She said to
+herself, however, quickly, that it was not to be expected that
+everything should always go exactly as one wished it, and that no doubt
+the Countess of ---- what was it she was the Countess of?--would be very
+nice, and everything go well; and so Lady Randolph went away to her
+baby and her household business, and put it aside for the moment. She
+found other things far more important to occupy her, however, before
+Christmas came.
+
+For that winter was very severe and cold, and there was a great deal of
+sickness in the neighbourhood. Measles and colds and feverish attacks
+were prevalent in the village, and there were heartrending "cases," in
+which young Lady Randolph at the Hall took so close an interest that her
+whole life was disturbed by them. One of the babies, who was little
+Tom's age, died. When it became evident that there was danger in this
+case it is impossible to describe the sensations with which Lucy's brain
+was filled. She could not keep away from the house in which the child
+was. She sent to Farafield for the best doctor there, and everything
+that money could procure was got for the suffering infant, whose
+belongings looked on with wonder and even dismay, with a secret question
+like that of him who was a thief and kept the bag--to what purpose was
+this waste? for they were all persuaded that the baby was going to die.
+
+"And the best thing for him, my lady," the grandmother said. "He'll be
+better done by where he's agoing than he ever could have been here."
+
+"Oh, don't say so," said Lucy. The young mother, who was as young as
+herself, cried; yet if Lucy had been absent would have been consoled by
+that terrible philosophy of poverty that it was "for the best." But Lady
+Randolph, in such a tumult of all her being as she had never known
+before, with unspeakable yearning over the dying baby, and a panic
+beyond all reckoning for her own, would not listen to any such easy
+consolation. She shut her ears to it with a gleam of anger such as had
+never been seen in her gentle face before, and would have sat up all
+night with the poor little thing in her lap if death had not ended its
+little plaints and suffering. Sir Tom, in this moment of trial, came out
+in all his true goodness and kindness. He went with her himself to the
+cottage, and when the vigil was over appeared again to take her home. It
+was a wintry night, frosty and clear, the stars all twinkling with that
+mysterious life and motion which makes them appear to so many wistful
+eyes like persons rather than worlds, and as if there was knowledge and
+sympathy in those far-shining lights of heaven. Sir Thomas was alarmed
+by Lucy's colourless face, and the dumb passion of misery and awe that
+was about her. He was very tender-hearted himself at sight of the dead
+baby which was the same age as his lovely boy. He clasped the trembling
+hand with which his wife held his arm, and tried to comfort her. "Look
+at the stars, my darling," he said, "the angels must have carried the
+poor little soul that way." He was not ashamed to let fall a tear for
+the little dead child. But Lucy could neither weep nor think of the
+angels. She hurried him on through the long avenue, clinging to his arm
+but not leaning upon it, hastening home. Now and then a sob escaped her,
+but no tears. She flew upstairs to her own boy's nursery, and fell down
+on her knees by the side of his little crib. He was lying in rosy sleep,
+his little dimpled arms thrown up over his head, a model of baby beauty.
+But even that sight did not restore her. She buried her wan face in her
+hands and so gasped for breath that Sir Tom, who had followed her, took
+her in his arms and carrying her to her own room laid her down on the
+sofa by the fire and did all that man could to soothe her.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy! we must thank God that all is well with our own," he said,
+half terrified by the gasping and the paleness; and then she burst
+forth:
+
+"Oh, why should it be well with him, and little Willie gone? Why should
+we be happy and the others miserable? My baby safe and warm in my arms,
+and poor Ellen's--poor Ellen's----"
+
+This name, and the recollection of the poor young mother, whom she had
+left in her desolation, made Lucy's tears pour forth like a summer
+storm. She flung her arms round her husband's neck, and called out to
+him in an agony of anxiety and excitement:
+
+"Oh, what shall we do to save him? Oh, Tom, pray, pray! Little Willie
+was well on Saturday--and now--How can we tell what a day may bring
+forth?" Lucy cried, wildly pushing him away from her, and rising from
+the sofa.
+
+Then she began to pace about the room as we all do in trouble, clasping
+her hands in a wild and inarticulate appeal to heaven. Death had never
+come across her path before save in the case of her father, an old man
+whose course was run, and his end a thing necessary and to be looked
+for. She could not get out of her eyes the vision of that little solemn
+figure, so motionless, so marble white. The thought would not leave her.
+To see the calm Lucy pacing up and down in this passion of terror and
+agony made Sir Tom almost as miserable as herself. He tried to take her
+into his arms, to draw her back to the sofa.
+
+"My darling, you are over-excited. It has been too much for you," he
+said.
+
+"Oh, what does it matter about me?" cried Lucy; "think--oh, God! oh, God
+I--if we should have _that_ to bear."
+
+"My dear love--my Lucy, you that have always been so reasonable--the
+child is quite well; come and see him again and satisfy yourself."
+
+"Little Willie was quite well on Saturday," she cried again. "Oh, I
+cannot bear it, I cannot bear it! and why should it be poor Ellen and
+not me?"
+
+When a person of composed mind and quiet disposition is thus carried
+beyond all the bounds of reason and self-restraint, it is natural that
+everybody round her should be doubly alarmed. Lucy's maid hung about the
+door, and the nurse, wrapped in a shawl, stole out of little Tom's room.
+They thought their mistress had the hysterics, and almost forced their
+way into the room to help her. It did Sir Tom good to send these
+busybodies away. But he was more anxious himself than words could say.
+He drew her arms within his, and walked up and down with her. "You know,
+my darling, what the Bible says, 'that one shall be taken and another
+left; and that the wind bloweth where it listeth,'" he said, with a
+pardonable mingling of texts. "We must just take care of him, dear, and
+hope the best."
+
+Here Lucy stopped, and looked him in the face with an air of solemnity
+that startled him.
+
+"I have been thinking," she said; "God has tried us with happiness
+first. That is how He always does--and if we abuse _that_ then there
+comes--the other. We have been so happy. Oh, so happy!" Her face, which
+had been stilled by this profounder wave of feeling, began to quiver
+again. "I did not think any one could be so happy," she said.
+
+"Well, my darling! and you have been very thankful and good----"
+
+"Oh, no, no, no," she cried. "I have forgotten my trust. I have let the
+poor suffer, and put aside what was laid upon me--and now, now----" Lucy
+caught her husband's arm with both her hands, and drew him close to her.
+"Tom, God has sent his angel to warn us," she said, in a broken voice.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy, this is not like you. Do you think that poor little woman
+has lost her baby for our sake? Are we of so much more importance than
+she is, in the sight of God, do you think? Come, come, that is not like
+you."
+
+Lucy gazed at him for a moment with a sudden opening of her eyes, which
+were contracted with misery. She was subdued by the words, though she
+only partially comprehended them.
+
+"Don't you think," he said, "that to deprive another woman of her child
+in order to warn you, would be unjust, Lucy? Come and sit down and warm
+your poor little hands, and take back your reason, and do not accuse God
+of wrong, for that is not possible. Poor Ellen I don't doubt is composed
+and submissive, while you, who have so little cause----"
+
+She gave him a wild look. "With her it is over, it is over!" she cried,
+"but with us----"
+
+Lucy had never been fanciful, but love quickens the imagination and
+gives it tenfold power; and no poet could have felt with such a
+breathless and agonised realisation the difference between the
+accomplished and the possible, the past which nothing can alter, and the
+pain and sickening terror with which we anticipate what may come. Ellen
+had entered into the calm of the one. She herself stood facing wildly
+the unspeakable terror of the other. "Oh, Tom, I could not bear it, I
+could not bear it!" she cried.
+
+It was almost morning before he had succeeded in soothing her, in
+making her lie down and compose herself. But by that time nature had
+begun to take the task in hand, wrapping her in the calm of exhaustion.
+Sir Tom had the kindest heart, though he had not been without reproach
+in his life. He sat by her till she had fallen into a deep and quiet
+sleep, and then he stole into the nursery and cast a glance at little
+Tom by the dim light of the night lamp. His heart leaped to see the
+child with its fair locks all tumbled upon the pillow, a dimpled hand
+laid under a dimpled cheek, ease and comfort and well-being in every
+lovely curve; and then there came a momentary spasm across his face, and
+he murmured "Poor little beggar!" under his breath. He was not
+panic-stricken like Lucy. He was a man made robust by much experience of
+the world, and a child more or less was not a thing to affect him as it
+would a young mother; but the pathos of the contrast touched him with a
+keen momentary pang. He stole away again quite subdued, and went to bed
+thankfully, saying an uncustomary prayer in the emotion that possessed
+him: Good God, to think of it; if that poor little beggar had been
+little Tom!
+
+Lucy woke to the sound of her boy's little babbling of happiness in the
+morning, and found him blooming on her bed, brought there by his father,
+that she might see him and how well he was, even before she was awake.
+It was thus not till the first minute of delight was over that her
+recollections came back to her and she remembered the anguish of the
+previous night; and then with a softened pang, as was natural, and warm
+flood of thankfulness, which carried away harsher thoughts. But her mind
+was in a highly susceptible and tender state, open to every impression.
+And when she knelt down to make her morning supplications, Lucy made a
+dedication of herself and solemn vow. She said, like the little princess
+when she first knew that she was to be made queen, "I will be good." She
+put forth this promise trembling, not with any sense that she was making
+a bargain with God, as more rigid minds might suppose, but with all the
+remorseful loving consciousness of a child which feels that it has not
+made the return it ought for the good things showered upon it, and
+confronts for the first time the awful possibility that these tender
+privileges might be taken away. There was a trembling all over her, body
+and soul. She was shaken by the ordeal through which she had come--the
+ordeal which was not hers but another's: and with the artlessness of the
+child was mingled that supreme human instinct which struggles to disarm
+Fate by immediate prostration and submission. She laid herself down at
+the feet of the Sovereign greatness which could mar all her happiness in
+a moment, with a feeling that was not much more than half Christian.
+Lucy tried to remind herself that He to whom she knelt was love as well
+as power. But nature, which still "trembles like a guilty thing
+surprised" in that great Presence, made her heart beat once more with
+passion and sickening terror. God knew, if no one else did, that she had
+abandoned her father's trust and neglected her duty. "Sell all thou hast
+and give to the poor." Lucy rose from her knees with anxious haste,
+feeling as if she must do this, come what might and whoever should
+oppose; or at least since it was not needful for her to sell all she
+had, that she must hurry forth, and forestall any further discipline by
+beginning at once to fulfil the duty she had neglected. She could not
+yet divest herself of the thought that the baby who was dead was a
+little warning messenger to recall her to a sense of the punishments
+that might be hanging over her. A messenger to her of mercy, for what,
+oh! what would she have done if the blow had fallen upon little Tom?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
+
+
+After this it may perhaps be surprising to hear that Lucy did nothing to
+carry out that great trust with which she had been charged. She had
+felt, and did feel at intervals, for a long time afterwards, as if God
+Himself had warned her what might come upon her if she neglected her
+duty. But if you will reflect how very difficult that duty was, and how
+far she was from any opportunity of being able to discharge it! In early
+days, when she was fresh from her father's teaching, and deeply
+impressed with the instant necessity of carrying it out, Providence
+itself had sent the Russell family, poor and helpless people, who had
+not the faculty of getting on by themselves, into her way, and Lucy had
+promptly, or at least as promptly as indignant guardians would permit,
+provided for them in the modest way which was all her ideas reached to
+at the time. But around the Hall there was nobody to whom the same
+summary process could be applied. The people about were either working
+people, whom it is always easy to help, or well-off people, who had no
+wants which Lucy could supply. And this continued to be so even after
+her fright and determination to return to the work that had been
+allotted to her. No doubt, could she have come down to the hearts and
+lives of the neighbours who visited Lady Randolph on the externally
+equal footing which society pretends to allot to all gentlefolks, she
+would have found several of them who would have been glad to free her
+from her money; but then she could not see into their hearts. She did
+not know what a difficult thing it was for Mr. Routledge of Newby to pay
+the debts of his son when he had left college, or how hardly hit was
+young Archer of Fordham in the matter of the last joint-stock bank that
+stopped payment. If they had not all been so determined to hold up their
+heads with the best, and keep up appearances, Lucy might have managed
+somehow to transfer to them a little of the money which she wanted to
+get rid of, and of which they stood so much in need. But this was not to
+be thought of; and when she cast her eyes around her it was with a
+certain despair that Lucy saw no outlet whatever for those bounties
+which it had seemed to her heaven itself was concerned about, and had
+warned her not to neglect. Many an anxious thought occupied her mind on
+this subject. She thought of calling her cousin Philip Rainy, who was
+established and thriving at Farafield, and whose fortune had been
+founded upon her liberality, to her counsels. But if Sir Tom had
+disliked the confidences between her and her brother, what would he
+think of Philip Rainy as her adviser? Then Lucy in her perplexity turned
+again to the thought of Jock. Jock had a great deal more sense in him
+than anybody knew. He had been the wisest child, respected by everybody;
+and now he was almost a man, and had learned, as he said, a great deal
+at school. She thought wistfully of the poor curate of whom Jock had
+told her. Very likely that poor clergyman would do very well for what
+Lucy wanted. Surely there could be no better use for money than to endow
+such a man, with a whole family growing up, all the better for it, and a
+son on the foundation! And then she remembered that Jock had entreated
+her to do nothing till he came. Thus the time went on, and her
+passionate resolution, her sense that heaven itself was calling upon
+her, menacing her with judgment even, seemed to come to nothing--not out
+of forgetfulness or sloth, or want of will--but because she saw no way
+open before her, and could not tell what to do. And after that miserable
+night when Ellen Bailey's baby died, and death seemed to enter in, as
+novel and terrible as if he had never been known before, for the first
+time into Lucy's Paradise, she had never said anything to Sir Tom. Day
+after day she had meant to do it, to throw herself upon his guidance, to
+appeal to him to help her; but day after day she had put it off,
+shrinking from the possible contest of which some instinct warned her.
+She knew, without knowing how, that in this he would not stand by her.
+Impossible to have been kinder in that crisis, more tender, more
+indulgent, even more understanding than her husband was; but she felt
+instinctively the limits of his sympathy. He would not go that length.
+When she got to that point he would change. But she could not have him
+change; she could not anticipate the idea of a cloud upon his face, or
+any shadow between them. And then Lucy made up her mind that she would
+wait for Jock, and that he and she together, when there were two to talk
+it over, would make out a way.
+
+All was going on well again, the grass above little Willie's grave was
+green, his mother consoled and smiling as before, and at the Hall the
+idea of the Christmas party had been resumed, and the invitations,
+indeed, were sent off, when one morning the visitor whom Lucy had
+anticipated with such dread came out of the village, where infantile
+diseases always lingered, and entered the carefully-kept nursery. Little
+Tom awoke crying and fretful, hot with fever, his poor little eyes heavy
+with acrid tears. His mother had not been among the huts where poor men
+lie for nought, and she saw at a glance what it was. Well! not anything
+so very dreadful--measles, which almost all children have. There was no
+reason in the world why she should be alarmed. She acknowledged as much,
+with a tremor that went to her heart. There were no bad symptoms. The
+baby was no more ill than it was necessary he should be. "He was having
+them beautiful," the nurse said, and Lucy scarcely allowed even her
+husband to see the deep, harrowing dread that was in her. By and by,
+however, this dread was justified; she had been very anxious about all
+the little patients in the village that they should not catch cold,
+which in the careless ignorance of their attendants, and in the limited
+accommodation of the cottages, was so usual, so likely, almost
+inevitable. A door would be left open, a sudden blast of cold would come
+upon the little sufferer; how could any one help it? Lucy had given the
+poor women no peace on this subject. She had "worrited them out o' their
+lives." And now, wonder above all finding out, it was in little Tom's
+luxurious nursery, where everything was arranged for his safety, where
+one careful nurse succeeded another by night and by day, and Lady
+Randolph herself was never absent for an hour, where the ventilation was
+anxiously watched and regulated, and no incautious intruder ever
+entered--it was there that the evil came. When the child had shaken off
+his little complaint and all was going well, he took cold, and in a few
+hours more his little lungs were labouring heavily, and the fever of
+inflammation consuming his strength. Little Tom, the heir, the only
+child! A cloud fell over the house; from Sir Tom himself to the lowest
+servant, all became partakers, unawares, of Lucy's dumb terror. It was
+because the little life was so important, because so much hung upon it,
+that everybody jumped to the conclusion that the worst issue might be
+looked for. Humanity has an instinctive, heathenish feeling that God
+will take advantage of all the special circumstances that aggravate a
+blow.
+
+Lucy, for her part, received the stroke into her very soul. She was
+outwardly more calm than when her heart had first been roused to terror
+by the death of the little child in the village. That which she had
+dreaded was come, and all her powers were collected to support her. The
+moment had arrived--the time of trial--and she would not fail. Her hand
+was steady and her head clear, as is the case with finer natures when
+confronted with deadly danger. This simple girl suddenly became like one
+of the women of tragedy, fighting, still and strong, with a desperation
+beyond all symbols--the fight with death. But Sir Tom took it
+differently. A woman can nurse her child, can do something for him; but
+a man is helpless. At first he got rid of his anxieties by putting a
+cheerful face upon the matter, and denying the possibility of danger.
+"The measles! every child had the measles. If no fuss was made the
+little chap," he declared, "would soon be all right. It was always a
+mistake to exaggerate." But when there could no longer be any doubt on
+the subject, a curious struggle took place in Sir Tom's mind. That
+baby--die? That crowing, babbling creature pass away into the solemnity
+of death! It had not seemed possible, and when he tried to get it into
+his mind his brain whirled. Wonder for the moment seemed to silence even
+the possibility of grief. He had himself gone through labours and
+adventures that would have killed a dozen men, and had never been
+conscious even of alarm about himself; and the idea of a life quenched
+in its beginning by so accidental a matter as a draught in a nursery
+seemed to him something incomprehensible. When he had heard of a child's
+death he had been used to say that the mother would feel it, no doubt,
+poor thing; but it was a small event, that scarcely counted in human
+history to Sir Tom. When, however, his own boy was threatened, after the
+first incredulity, Sir Tom felt a pang of anger and wretchedness which
+he could not understand. It was not that the family misfortune of the
+loss of the heir overwhelmed him, for it was very improbable that poor
+little Tom would be his only child; it was a more intimate and personal
+sensation. A sort of terrified rage came over him which he dared not
+express; for if indeed his child was to be taken from him, who was it
+but God that would do this? and he did not venture to turn his rage to
+that quarter. And then a confusion of miserable feelings rose within
+him. One night he did not go to bed. It was impossible in the midst of
+the anxiety that filled the house, he said to himself. He spent the
+weary hours in going softly up and down stairs, now listening at the
+door of the nursery and waiting for his wife, who came out now and then
+to bring him a bulletin, now dozing drearily in his library downstairs.
+When the first gleams of the dawn stole in at the window he went out
+upon the terrace in the misty chill morning, all damp and miserable,
+with the trees standing about like ghosts. There was a dripping thaw
+after a frost, and the air was raw and the prospect dismal; but even
+that was less wretched than the glimmer of the shaded lights, the
+muffled whispering and stealthy footsteps indoors. He took a few turns
+up and down the terrace, trying to reason himself out of this misery.
+How was it, after all, that the little figure of this infant should
+overshadow earth and heaven to a man, a reasonable being, whose mind and
+life were full of interests far more important? Love, yes! but love must
+have some foundation. The feeling which clung so strongly to a child
+with no power of returning it, and no personal qualities to excite it,
+must be mere instinct not much above that of the animals. He would not
+say this before Lucy, but there could be no doubt it was the truth. He
+shook himself up mentally, and recalled himself to what he attempted to
+represent as the true aspect of affairs. He was a man who had obtained
+most things that this world can give. He had sounded life to its depths
+(as he thought), and tasted both the bitter and the sweet; and after
+having indulged in all these varied experiences it had been given to
+him, as it is not given to many men, to come back from all wanderings
+and secure the satisfactions of mature life, wealth, and social
+importance, and the power of acting in the largest imperial concerns.
+Round about him everything was his; the noble woods that swept away into
+the mist on every side; the fields and farms which began to appear in
+the misty paleness of the morning through the openings in the trees. And
+if he had not by his side such a companion as he had once dreamed of,
+the beautiful, high-minded ideal woman of romance, yet he had got one
+of the best of gentle souls to tread the path of life along with him,
+and sympathise even when she did not understand. For a man who had not
+perhaps deserved very much, how unusual was this happiness. And was it
+possible that all these things should be obscured, cast into the shade,
+by so small a matter as the sickness of a child? What had the baby ever
+done to make itself of so much importance? Nothing. It did not even
+understand the love it excited, and was incapable of making any
+response. Its very life was little more than a mechanical life. The
+woman who fed it was far more to it than its father, and there was
+nothing excellent or noble in the world to which it would not prefer a
+glittering tinsel or a hideous doll. If the little thing had grown up,
+indeed, if it had developed human tastes and sympathies, and become a
+companion, an intelligence, a creature with affections and
+thoughts,--but that the whole house should thus be overwhelmed with
+miserable anxiety and pain because of a being in the embryo state of
+existence, who could neither respond nor understand, what a strange
+thing it was! No doubt this instinct had been implanted in order to
+preserve the germ and keep the race going; but that it should thus
+develop into an absorbing passion and overshadow everything else in life
+was a proof how the natural gets exaggerated, and, if we do not take
+care, changes its character altogether, mastering us instead of being
+kept in its fit place, and in check, as it ought to be by sense and
+reason. From time to time, as Sir Tom made these reflections, there
+would flit across his mind, as across a mirror, something which was not
+thought, which was like a picture momentarily presented before him. One
+of the most persistent of these, which flashed out and in upon his
+senses like a view in a magic lantern, was of that moment in the midst
+of the flurry of the election when little Tom, held up in his mother's
+arms, had clapped his baby hands for his father. This for a second would
+confound all his thoughts, and give his heart a pang as if some one had
+seized and pressed it with an iron grasp; but the next moment he would
+pick up the thread of his reflections again, and go on with them. That,
+too, was merely mechanical, like all the little chap's existence up to
+this point. Poor little chap! here Sir Tom stopped in his course of
+thought, impeded by a weight at his heart which he could not shake off;
+nor could he see the blurred and vague landscape round him--something
+more blinding even than the fog had got into his eyes.
+
+Then Sir Tom started and his heart sprang up to his throat beating
+loudly. It was not anything of much importance, it was only the opening
+of the window by which he himself had come out upon the terrace. He
+turned round quickly, too anxious even to ask a question. If it had been
+a king's messenger bringing him news that affected the whole kingdom, he
+would have turned away with an impatient "Pshaw!" or struck the intruder
+out of his way. But it was his wife, wrapped in a dressing-gown, pale
+with watching, her hair pushed back upon her forehead, her eyes
+unnaturally bright. "How is he?" cried Sir Tom, as if the question was
+one of life or death.
+
+Lucy told him, catching at his arm to support herself, that she thought
+there was a little improvement. "I have been thinking so for the last
+hour, not daring to think it, and yet I felt sure; and now nurse says so
+too. His breathing is easier. I have been on thorns to come and tell
+you, but I would not till I was quite sure."
+
+"Thank God! God be praised!" said Sir Tom. He did not pretend to be a
+religious man on ordinary occasions, but at the present moment he had no
+time to think, and spoke from the bottom of his heart. He supported his
+little wife tenderly on one arm, and put back the disordered hair on her
+forehead. "Now you will go and take a little rest, my darling," he said.
+
+"Not yet, not till the doctor comes. But you want it as much as I."
+
+"No; I had a long sleep on the sofa. We are all making fools of
+ourselves, Lucy. The poor little chap will be all right. We are queer
+creatures. To think that you and I should make ourselves so miserable
+over a little thing like that, that knows nothing about it, that has no
+feelings, that does not care a button for you and me."
+
+"Tom, what are you talking of? Not of my boy, surely--not my boy!"
+
+"Hush, my sweet. Well," said Sir Tom, with a tremulous laugh, "what is
+it but a little polypus after all? that can do nothing but eat and
+sleep, and crow perhaps--and clap its little fat hands," he said, with
+the tears somehow getting into his voice, and mingling with the
+laughter. "I allow that I am confusing my metaphors."
+
+At this moment the window opening upon the terrace jarred again, and
+another figure in a dressing-gown, dark and ghost-like, appeared
+beckoning to Lucy, "My lady! my lady!"
+
+Lucy let go her husband's arm, thrust him away from her with passion,
+gave him one wild look of reproach, and flew noiselessly like a spirit
+after the nurse to her child. Sir Tom, with his laugh still wavering
+about his mouth, half hysterically, though he was no weakling, tottered
+along the terrace to the open window, and stood there leaning against
+it, scarcely breathing, the light gone out of his eyes, his whole soul
+suspended, and every part of his strong body, waiting for what another
+moment might bring to pass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A CHRISTMAS VISIT.
+
+
+Little Tom did not die, but he became "delicate,"--and fathers and
+mothers know what that means. The entire household was possessed by one
+pervading terror lest he should catch cold, and Lucy's life became
+absorbed in this constant watchfulness. Naturally the Christmas guests
+were put off, and it was understood in respect to the Contessa di
+Forno-Populo, that she was to come at Easter. Sir Tom himself thought
+this a better arrangement. The Parliamentary recess was not a long one,
+and the Contessa would naturally prefer, after a short visit to her old
+friend, to go to town, where she would find so many people she knew.
+
+"And even in the country the weather is more tolerable in April," said
+Sir Tom.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes. The doctor says if we keep clear of the east winds that
+he may begin to go out again and get up his strength," said Lucy.
+
+"My love, I am thinking of your visitors, and you are thinking of your
+baby," Sir Tom said.
+
+"Oh, Tom, what do you suppose I could be thinking of?" his wife cried.
+
+Sir Tom himself was very solicitous about the baby, but to hear of
+nothing else worried him. He was glad when old Lady Randolph, who was an
+invariable visitor, arrived.
+
+"How is the baby?" was her first question when he met her at the train.
+
+"The baby would be a great deal better if there was less fuss made about
+him," he said. "You must give Lucy a hint on that subject, aunt."
+
+Lady Randolph was a good woman, and it was her conviction that she had
+made this match. But it is so pleasant to feel that you have been right,
+that she was half pleased, though very sorry, to think that Sir Tom (as
+she had always known) was getting a little tired of sweet simplicity.
+She met Lucy with an affectionate determination to be very plain with
+her, and warn her of the dangers in her path. Jock had arrived the day
+before. He rose up in all the lanky length of sixteen from the side of
+the fire in the little drawing-room when the Dowager came in. It was
+just the room into which one likes to come after a cold journey at
+Christmas; the fire shining brightly in the midst of the reflectors of
+burnished steel and brass, shining like gold and silver, of the most
+luxurious fireplace that skill could contrive (the day of tiled stoves
+was not as yet), and sending a delicious glow on the soft mossy carpets
+into which the foot sank; a table with tea, reflecting the firelight in
+all the polished surfaces of the china and silver, stood near; and
+chairs invitingly drawn towards the fire. The only drawback was that
+there was no one to welcome the visitor. On ordinary occasions Lucy was
+at the door, if not at the station, to receive the kind lady whom she
+loved. Lady Randolph was somewhat surprised at the difference, and when
+she saw the lengthy boy raising himself up from the fireside, turned
+round to her nephew and asked, "Do I know this young gentleman? There is
+not light enough to see him," with a voice in which Jock, shy and
+awkward, felt all the old objection to his presence as a burden upon
+Lucy, which in his precocious toleration he had accepted as reasonable,
+but did not like much the better for that. And then she sat down
+somewhat sullenly at the fire. The next minute Lucy came hastily in with
+many apologies: "I did not hear the carriage, aunt. I was in the
+nursery----"
+
+"And how is the child?" Lady Randolph said.
+
+"Oh, he is a great deal better--don't you think he is much better, Tom?
+Only a little delicate, and that, we hope, will pass away."
+
+"Then, Lucy, my dear, though I don't want to blame you, I think you
+should have heard the carriage," said Aunt Randolph. "The tea-table does
+not look cheerful when the mistress of the house is away."
+
+"Oh, but little Tom----" Lucy said, and then stopped herself, with a
+vague sense that there was not so much sympathy around her as usual. Her
+husband had gone out again, and Jock stood dumb, an awkward shadow
+against the mantelpiece.
+
+"My dear, I only speak for your good," the elder lady said. "Big Tom
+wants a little attention too. I thought you were going to have quite a
+merry Christmas and a great many people here."
+
+"But, Aunt Randolph, baby----"
+
+"Oh, my dear, you must think of something else besides baby. Take my
+word for it, baby would be a great deal stronger if you left him a
+little to himself. You have your husband, you know, to think of, and
+what harm would it have done baby if there had been a little cheerful
+company for his father? But you will think I have come to scold, and I
+don't in the least mean that. Give me a cup of tea, Lucy. Tom tells me
+that this tall person is Jock."
+
+"You would not have known him?" said Lucy, much subdued in tone.
+
+She occupied herself with the tea, arranging the cups and saucers with
+hands that trembled a little at the unexpected and unaccustomed
+sensation of a repulse.
+
+"Well, I cannot even see him. But he has certainly grown out of
+knowledge--I never thought he would have been so tall; he was quite a
+little pinched creature as a child. I daresay you took too much care of
+him, my dear. I remember I used to think so; and then when he was tossed
+into the world or sent to school--it comes to much the same thing, I
+suppose--he flourished and grew."
+
+"I wonder," said Lucy, somewhat wistfully, "if that is really so?
+Certainly it is since he has been at school that he has grown so much."
+Jock all this time fidgeted about from one leg to another with
+unutterable darkness upon his brow, could any one have seen it. There
+are few things so irritating, especially at his age, as to be thus
+discussed over one's own head.
+
+"My dear Lucy," said Lady Randolph, "don't you remember some one
+says--who was it, I wonder? it sounds like one of those dreadfully
+clever French sayings that are always so much to the point--about the
+advantages of a little wholesome neglect?"
+
+"Can neglect ever be wholesome? Oh, I don't think so--I can't think
+so--at least with children."
+
+"It is precisely children that are meant," said the elder Lady
+Randolph. But as she talked, sitting in the warm light of the fire, with
+her cup in her hand, feeling extremely comfortable, discoursing at her
+ease, and putting sharp arrows as if they had been pins into the heart
+of Lucy, Sir Tom's large footsteps became audible coming through the
+great drawing-room, which was dark. The very sound of him was cheerful
+as he came in, and he brought the scent of fresh night air, cold but
+delightful, with him. He passed by Lucy's chair and said, "How is the
+little 'un?" laying a kind hand upon her head.
+
+"Oh, better. I am sure he is better. Aunt Randolph thinks----"
+
+"I am giving Lucy a lecture," said Lady Randolph, "and telling her she
+must not shut herself up with that child. He'll get on all the better if
+he is not coddled too much."
+
+Sir Tom made no reply, but came to the fire, and drew a chair into the
+cheerful glow. "You are all in the dark," he said, "but the fire is
+pleasant this cold night. Well, now that you are thawed, what news have
+you brought us out of the world? We are two hermits, Lucy and I. We
+forget what kind of language you speak. We have a little sort of talk of
+our own which answers common needs about babies and so forth, but we
+should like to hear what you are discoursing about, just for a change."
+
+"There is no such thing as a world just now," said Lady Randolph, "there
+are nothing but country-houses. Society is all broken up into little
+bits, as you know as well as I do. One gleans a little here and a little
+there, and one carries it about like a basket of eggs."
+
+"Jock has a world, and it is quite entire," said Sir Tom, with his
+cordial laugh. "No breaking up into little bits there. If you want a
+society that knows its own opinions, and will stick to them through
+thick and thin, I can tell you where to find it; and to see how it holds
+together and sits square whatever happens----"
+
+Here there came a sort of falsetto growl from Jock's corner, where he
+was blushing in the firelight. "It's because you were once a fellow
+yourself, and know all about it."
+
+"So it is, Jock; you are right, as usual," said Sir Tom; "I was once a
+fellow myself, and now I'm an old fellow, and growing duller. Turn out
+your basket of eggs, Aunt Randolph, and let us know what is going on.
+Where did you come from last--the Mulberrys? Come; there must have been
+some pretty pickings of gossip there."
+
+"You shall have it all in good time. I am not going to run myself dry
+the first hour. I want to know about yourselves, and when you are going
+to give up this honeymooning. I expected to have met all sorts of people
+here."
+
+"Yes," said Sir Tom, and then he burst forth in a laugh, "La
+Forno-Populo and a few others; but as little Tom is not quite up to
+visitors, we have put them off till Easter."
+
+"La Forno-Populo!" said Lady Randolph, in a voice of dismay.
+
+"Why not?" said Sir Tom. "She wrote and offered herself. I thought she
+might find it a doubtful pleasure, but if she likes it---- However, you
+may make yourself easy, nobody is coming," he added, with a certain jar
+of impatience in his tone.
+
+"Well, Tom, I must say I am very glad of that," Lady Randolph said
+gravely--and then there was a pause. "I doubt whether Lucy would have
+liked her," she added, after a moment. Then with another interval, "I
+think, Lucy, my love, after that nice cup of tea, and my first sight of
+you, that I will go to my own room. I like a little rest before
+dinner--you know my lazy way."
+
+"And it's getting ridiculously dark in this room," Sir Tom said, kicking
+a footstool out of the way. This little impatient movement was like one
+of those expletives that seem to relieve a man's mind, and both the
+ladies understood it as such, and knew that he was angry. Lucy, as she
+rose from her tea-table to attend upon her visitor, herself in a
+confused and painful mood, and vexed with what had been said to her,
+thought her husband was irritated by his aunt, and felt much sympathy
+with him, and anxiety to conduct Lady Randolph to her room before it
+should go any farther. But the elder lady understood it very
+differently. She went away, followed by Lucy through the great
+drawing-room, where a solitary lamp had been placed on a table to show
+the way. It had been the Dowager's own house in her day, and she did not
+require any guidance to her room. Nor did she detain Lucy after the
+conventional visit to see that all was comfortable.
+
+"That I haven't the least doubt of," Lady Randolph said, "and I am at
+home, you know, and will ask for anything I want; but I must have my nap
+before dinner; and do you go and talk to your husband."
+
+Lucy could not resist one glance into the nursery, where little Tom, a
+little languid but so much better, was sitting on his nurse's knee
+before the fire, amused by those little fables about his fingers and
+toes which are the earliest of all dramatic performances. The sight of
+him thus content, and the sound of his laugh, was sweet to her in her
+anxiety. She ran downstairs again without disturbing him, closing so
+carefully the double doors that shut him out from all draughts, not
+without a wondering doubt as she did so, whether it was true, perhaps,
+that she was "coddling" him, and if there was such a thing as wholesome
+neglect. She went quickly through the dim drawing-room to the warm ruddy
+flush of firelight that shone between the curtains from the smaller
+room, thinking nothing less than to find her husband, who was fond of an
+hour's repose in that kindly light before dinner. She had got to her old
+place in front of the fire before she perceived that Sir Tom's tall
+shadow was no longer there. Lucy uttered a little exclamation of
+disappointment, and then she perceived remorsefully another shadow, not
+like Sir Tom's, the long weedy boyish figure of her brother against the
+warm light.
+
+"But you are here, Jock," she said, advancing to him. Jock took hold of
+her arm, as he was so fond of doing.
+
+"I shall never have you, now _she_ has come," Jock said.
+
+"Why not, dear? You were never fond of Lady Randolph--you don't know how
+good and kind she is. It is only when you like people that you know how
+nice they are," Lucy said, all unconscious that a deeper voice than hers
+had announced that truth.
+
+"Then I shall never know, for I don't like her," said Jock
+uncompromising. "You'll have to sit and gossip with her when you're not
+in the nursery, and I shall have no time to tell you, for the holidays
+last only a month."
+
+"But you can tell me everything in a month, you silly boy; and if we
+can't have our walks, Jock (for it's cold), there is one place where
+she will never come," said Lucy, upon which Jock turned away with an
+exclamation of impatience.
+
+His sister put her hand on his shoulder and looked reproachfully in his
+face.
+
+"You too! You used to like it. You used to come and toss him up and make
+him laugh----"
+
+"Oh, don't, Lucy! can't you see? So I would again, if he were like that.
+How you can bear it!" said the boy, bursting away from her. And then
+Jock returned very much ashamed and horror-stricken, and took the hand
+that dropped by her side, and clumsily patted and kissed it, and held it
+between his own, looking penitently, wistfully, in her face all the
+while: but not knowing what to say.
+
+Lucy stood looking down into the glowing fire, with her head drooping
+and an air of utter dejection in her little gentle figure. "Do you think
+he looks so bad as that?" she said, in a broken voice.
+
+"Oh, no, no; that is not what I mean," the boy cried. "It's--the little
+chap is not so jolly; he's--a little cross; or else he's forgotten me. I
+suppose it's that. He wouldn't look at me when I ran up. He's so little
+one oughtn't to mind, but it made me----your baby, Lucy! and the little
+beggar cried and wouldn't look at me."
+
+"Is that all?" said Lucy. She only half believed him, but she pretended
+to be deceived. She gave a little trembling laugh, and laid her head for
+a moment upon Jock's boyish breast, where his heart was beating high
+with a passion of sorrow and tender love. "Sometimes," she said, leaning
+against him, "sometimes I think I shall die. I can't live to see
+anything happen to him: and sometimes---- But he is ever so much better;
+don't you think he looks almost himself?" she said, raising her head
+hurriedly, and interrogating the scarcely visible face with her eyes.
+
+"Looks! I don't see much difference in his looks, if he wouldn't be so
+cross," said Jock, lying boldly, but with a tremor, for he was not used
+to it. And then he said hurriedly, "But there's that clergyman, the
+father of the fellow on the foundation. I've found out all about him. I
+must tell you, Lucy. He is the very man. There is no call to think about
+it or put off any longer. What a thing it would be if he could have it
+by Christmas! I have got all the particulars--they look as if they were
+just made for us," Jock cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+LUCY'S ADVISERS.
+
+
+Lady Randolph found her visit dull. It is true that there had been no
+guests to speak of on previous Christmases since Sir Tom's marriage; but
+the house had been more cheerful, and Lucy had been ready to drive, or
+walk, or call, or go out to the festivities around. But now she was
+absorbed by the nursing, and never liked to be an hour out of call. The
+Dowager put up with it as long as she was able. She did not say anything
+more on the subject for some days. It was not, indeed, until she had
+been a week at the Hall that, being disturbed by the appeals of Lucy as
+to whether she did not think baby was looking better than when she came,
+she burst forth at last. They were sitting by themselves in the hour
+after dinner when ladies have the drawing-room all to themselves. It is
+supposed by young persons in novels to be a very dreary interval, but to
+the great majority of women it is a pleasant moment. The two ladies sat
+before the pleasant fire; Lucy with some fleecy white wool in her lap
+with which she was knitting something for her child, Lady Randolph with
+a screen interposed between her and the fire, doing nothing, an
+operation which she always performed gracefully and comfortably. It
+could not be said that the gentlemen were lingering over their wine.
+Jock had retired to the library, where he was working through all the
+long-collected literary stores of the Randolph family, with an
+instinctive sense that his presence in the drawing-room was not desired.
+Sir Tom had business to do, or else he was tired of the domestic calm.
+The ladies had been sitting for some time in silence when Lady Randolph
+suddenly broke forth--
+
+"You know what I said to you the first evening, Lucy? I have not said a
+word on the subject since--of course I didn't come down here to enjoy
+your hospitality and then to find fault."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Randolph! don't speak of hospitality; it is your own house."
+
+"My dear, it is very pretty of you to say so. I hope I am not the sort
+of person to take advantage of it. But I feel a sort of responsibility,
+seeing it was I that brought you together first. Lucy, I must tell you.
+You are not doing what you ought by Tom. Here he is, a middle-aged man,
+you know, and one of the first in the county. People look to him for a
+great many things: he is the member: he is a great landowner: he is
+(thanks to you) very well off. And here is Christmas, and not a visitor
+in the house but myself. Oh, there's Jock! a schoolboy home for his
+holidays--that does not count; not a single dinner that I can hear
+of----"
+
+"Yes, aunt, on the 6th," said Lucy, with humility.
+
+"On the 6th, and it is now the 27th! and no fuss at all made about
+Christmas. My dear, you needn't tell me it's a bore. I know it is a
+bore--everywhere wherever one goes; still, everybody does it. It is just
+a part of one's responsibilities. You don't go to balls in Lent, and you
+stand on your heads, so to speak, at Christmas. The country expects it
+of you; and it is always a mistake to take one's own way in such
+matters. You should have had, in the first place," said Lady Randolph,
+counting on her fingers, "your house full; in the second, a ball, to
+which everybody should have been asked. On these occasions no one that
+could possibly be imagined to be gentlefolk should be left out. I would
+even stretch a point--doctors and lawyers, and so forth, go without
+saying, and those big brewers, you know, I always took in; and some
+people go as far as the 'vet.,' as they call him. He was a very
+objectionable person in my day, and that was where I drew the line; then
+three or four dinners at the least."
+
+"But, Aunt Randolph, how could we when baby is so poorly----"
+
+"What has baby to do with it, Lucy? You don't have the child down to
+receive your guests. With the door of his nursery shut to keep out the
+noise (if you think it necessary: I shouldn't think it would matter)
+what harm would it do him? He would never be a bit the wiser, poor
+little dear. Yes, I dare say your heart would be with him many a time
+when you were elsewhere; but you must not think of yourself."
+
+"I did not mean to do so, aunt. I thought little Tom was my first duty."
+
+"Now, I should have thought, my dear," said the Dowager, smiling
+blandly, "that it would have been big Tom who answered to that
+description."
+
+"But, Tom----" Lucy paused, not knowing in what shape to put so obvious
+a truth, "he is like me," she said. "He is far, far more anxious than he
+lets you see. It is his--duty too."
+
+"A great many other things are his duty as well; besides, there is so
+much, especially in a social point of view, which the man never sees
+till his wife points it out. That's one of the uses of a woman. She must
+keep up her husband's popularity, don't you see? You must never let it
+be said: 'Oh, Sir Tom! he is all very well in Parliament, but he does
+nothing for the county.'"
+
+"I never thought of that," said Lucy, with dismay.
+
+"But you must learn to think of it, my love. Never mind, this is the
+first Christmas since the election. But one dinner, and nothing else
+done, not so much as a magic lantern in the village! I do assure you, my
+dearest girl, you are very much to blame."
+
+"I am very sorry," said Lucy, with a startled look, "but, dear aunt,
+little Tom----"
+
+"My dear Lucy! I am sure you don't wish everybody to get sick of that
+poor child's very name."
+
+Lucy sprang up from her chair at this outrage; she could not bear any
+more. A flush of almost fury came upon her face. She went up to the
+mantelpiece, which was a very fine one of carved wood, and leant her
+head upon it. She did not trust herself to reply.
+
+"Now, I know what you are thinking," said Lady Randolph blandly. "You
+are saying to yourself, that horrid old woman, who never had a child,
+how can she know?--and I don't suppose I do," said the clever Dowager
+pathetically. "All that sweetness has been denied to me. I have never
+had a little creature that was all mine. But when I was your age, Lucy,
+and far older than you, I would have given anything--almost my life--to
+have had a child."
+
+Lucy melted in a moment, threw herself down upon the hearth-rug upon her
+knees, and took Lady Randolph's hands in her own and kissed them.
+
+"Oh, dear aunt, dear aunt!" she cried, "to think I should have gone on
+so about little Tom and never remembered that you---- But we are all your
+children," she said, in the innocence and fervour of her heart.
+
+"Yes, my love." Lady Randolph freed one of her hands and put it up with
+her handkerchief to her cheek. As a matter of fact she did not regret it
+now, but felt that a woman when she is growing old is really much more
+able to look after her own comforts when she has no children; and yet,
+when she remembered how she had been bullied on the subject, and all the
+reproaches that had been addressed to her as if it were her fault,
+perhaps there was something like a tear. "That is why I venture to say
+many things to you that I would not otherwise. Tom, indeed, is too old
+to have been my son; but I have felt, Lucy, as if I had a daughter in
+you." Then shaking off this little bit of sentiment with a laugh, the
+Dowager raised Lucy and kissed her and put her into a chair by her own
+side.
+
+"Since we are about it," she said, "there is one other thing I should
+like to talk to you about. Of course your husband knows a great deal
+more of the world than you do, Lucy; but it is perhaps better that he
+should not decide altogether who is to be asked. Men have such strange
+notions. If people are amusing it is all they think of. Well, now, there
+is that Contessa di Forno-Populo. I would not have her, Lucy, if I were
+you."
+
+"But it was she who was the special person," said Lucy, in amaze. "The
+others were to come to meet her. She is an old friend."
+
+"Oh, I know all about the old friendship," said Lady Randolph. "I think
+Tom should be ashamed of himself. He knows that in other houses where
+the mistress knows more about the world. Yes, yes, she is an old friend.
+All the more reason, my dear, why you should have as little to say to
+her as possible; they are never to be reckoned upon. Didn't you hear
+what he called her. _La_ Forno-Populo? Englishmen never talk of a lady
+like that if they have any great respect for her; but it can't be denied
+that this lady has a great deal of charm. And I would just keep her at
+arm's length, Lucy, if I were you."
+
+"Dear Aunt Randolph, why should I do that?" said Lucy, gravely. "If she
+is Tom's friend, she must always be welcome here. I do not know her,
+therefore I can only welcome her for my husband's sake; but that is
+reason enough. You must not ask me to do anything that is against Tom."
+
+"Against Tom! I think you are a little goose, Lucy, though you are so
+sensible. Is it not all for his sake that I am talking? I want you to
+see more of the world, not to shut yourself up here in the nursery
+entirely on his account. If you don't understand that, then words have
+no meaning."
+
+"I do understand it, aunt," said Lucy meekly. "Don't be angry; but why
+should I be disagreeable to Tom's friend? The only thing I am afraid of
+is, should she not speak English. My French is so bad----"
+
+"Oh, your French will do very well; and you will take your own way, my
+dear," said the elder lady, getting up. "You all do, you young people.
+The opinion of others never does any good; and as Tom does not seem to
+be coming, I think I shall take my way to bed. Good-night, Lucy.
+Remember what I said, at all events, about the magic lantern. And if you
+are wise you will have as little to do as possible with La Forno-Populo
+as you can--and there you have my two pieces of advice."
+
+Lucy was disturbed a little by her elder's counsel, both in respect to
+the foreign lady, whom, however, she simply supposed Lady Randolph did
+not like--and in regard to her own nursery tastes and avoidance of
+society;--could that be why Tom sat so much longer in the dining-room
+and did not come in to talk to his aunt? She began to think with a
+little ache in her heart, and to remember that in her great
+preoccupation with the child he had been left to spend many evenings
+alone, and that he no longer complained of this. She stood up in front
+of the fire and pressed her hot forehead to the mantel-shelf. How was a
+woman to know what to do? Was not he that was most helpless and had most
+need of her the one to devote her time to? There was not a thought in
+her that was disloyal to Sir Tom. But what if he were to form the habit
+of doing without her society? This was an idea that filled her with a
+vague dread. Some one came in through the great drawing-room as she
+stood thinking, and she turned round eagerly, supposing that it was her
+husband; but it was only Jock, who had been on the watch to hear Lady
+Randolph go upstairs.
+
+"I never see you at all now, Lucy," cried Jock. "I never have a chance
+but in the holidays, and now they're half over, and we have not had one
+good talk. And what about poor Mr. Churchill, Lucy? I thought he was the
+very man for you. He has got about a dozen children and no money.
+Somebody else pays for Churchill, that's the fellow I told you of that's
+on the foundation. I shouldn't have found out all that, and gone and
+asked questions and got myself thought an inquisitive beggar, if it
+hadn't been for your sake."
+
+"Oh, Jock, I'm sure I am much obliged to you," said Lucy, dolefully;
+"and I am so sorry for the poor gentleman. It must be dreadful to have
+so many children and not to be able to give them everything they
+require."
+
+At this speech, which was uttered with something between impatience and
+despair, and which made no promise of any help or succour, her brother
+regarded her with a mixture of anger and disappointment.
+
+"Is that all about it, Lucy?" he said.
+
+"Oh, no, Jock! I am sure you are right, dear. I know I ought to bestir
+myself and do something, but only---- How much do you think it would take
+to make them comfortable? Oh, Jock, I wish that papa had put it all into
+somebody's hands, to be done like business--somebody that had nothing
+else to think of!"
+
+"What have you to think of, Lucy?" said the boy, seriously, in the
+superiority of his youth. "I suppose, you know, you are just too well
+off. You can't understand what it is to be like that. You get angry at
+people for not being happy, you don't want to be disturbed." He paused
+remorsefully, and cast a glance at her, melting in spite of himself, for
+Lucy did not look too well off. Her soft brow was contracted a little;
+there was a faint quiver upon her lip. "If you really want to know,"
+Jock said, "people can live and get along when they have about five
+hundred a year. That is, as far as I can make out. If you gave them
+that, they would think it awful luck."
+
+"I wish I could give them all of it, and be done with it!"
+
+"I don't see much good that would do. It would be two rich people in
+place of one, and the two would not be so grand as you. That would not
+have done for father at all. He liked you to be a great heiress, and
+everybody to wonder at you, and then to give your money away like a
+queen. I like it too," said Jock, throwing up his head; "it satisfies
+the imagination: it is a kind of a fairy tale."
+
+Lucy shook her head.
+
+"He never thought how hard it would be upon me. A woman is never so well
+off as a man. Oh, if it had been you, Jock, and I only just your
+sister."
+
+"Talking does not bring us any nearer a settlement," said Jock, with
+some impatience. "When will you do it, Lucy? Have you got to speak to
+old Rushton, or write to old Chervil, or what? or can't you just draw
+them a cheque? I suppose about ten thousand or so would be enough. And
+it is as easy to do it at one time as another. Why not to-morrow, Lucy?
+and then you would have it off your mind."
+
+This proposal took away Lucy's breath. She thought with a gasp of Sir
+Tom and the look with which he would regard her--the laugh, the amused
+incredulity. He would not be unkind, and her right to do it was quite
+well established and certain. But she shrank within herself when she
+thought how he would look at her, and her heart jumped into her throat
+as she realised that perhaps he might not laugh only. How could she
+stand before him and carry her own war in opposition to his? Her whole
+being trembled even with the idea of conflict. "Oh, Jock, it is not just
+so easily managed as that," she said faltering; "there are several
+things to think of. I will have to let the trustees know, and it must
+all be calculated."
+
+"There is not much need for calculation," said Jock, "that is just about
+it. Five per cent is what you get for money. You had better send the
+cheque for it, Lucy, and then let the old duffers know of it afterwards.
+One would think you were afraid!"
+
+"Oh, no," said Lucy, with a slight shiver, "I am not afraid." And then
+she added, with growing hesitation, "I must--speak to---- Oh! Is it you,
+Tom?" She made a sudden start from Jock's side, who was standing close
+by her, argumentative and eager, and whose bewildered spectatorship of
+her guilty surprise and embarrassment she was conscious of through all.
+
+"Yes, it is I," said Sir Tom, putting his hand upon her shoulders; "you
+must have been up to some mischief, Jock and you, or you would not look
+so frightened. What is the secret?" he said, with his genial laugh. But
+when he looked from Jock, astonished but resentful and lowering, to
+Lucy, all trembling and pale with guilt, even Sir Tom, who was not
+suspicious, was startled. His little Lucy! What had she been plotting
+that made her look so scared at his appearance? Or was it something that
+had been told to her, some secret accusation against himself? This
+startled Sir Tom also a little, and it was with a sudden gravity, not
+unmingled with resentment, that he added, "Come! I mean to know what it
+is."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY.
+
+
+"It was only something that Jock was saying," said Lucy, "but, Tom, I
+will tell you another time. I wish you had come in before Lady Randolph
+went upstairs. I think she was a little disappointed to have only me."
+
+"Did she share Jock's secret?" Sir Tom said with a keen look of inquiry.
+It is perhaps one advantage in the dim light which fashion delights in,
+that it is less easy to scrutinise the secrets of a face.
+
+"We are all a little put wrong when you do not come in," said Lucy. The
+cunning which weakness finds refuge in when it has to defend itself came
+to her aid. "Jock is shy when you are not here. He thinks he bores Lady
+Randolph; and so we ladies are left to our own devices."
+
+"Jock must not be so sensitive," Sir Tom said; but he was not satisfied.
+It occurred to him suddenly (for schoolboys are terrible gossips) that
+the boy might have heard something which he had been repeating to Lucy.
+Nothing could have been more unlikely, had he thought of it, than that
+Jock should carry tales on such a subject. But we do not stop to argue
+out matters when our own self-regard is in question. He looked at the
+two with a doubtful and suspicious eye.
+
+"He will get over it as he grows older," said Lucy; but she gave her
+brother a look which to Sir Tom seemed one of warning, and he was
+irritated by it; he looked from one to another and he laughed; but not
+with the genial laugh which was his best known utterance.
+
+"You are prodigiously on your guard," he said. "I suppose you have your
+reasons for it. Have you been confiding the Masons' secret or something
+of that awful character to her, Jock?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I tell him?" cried Jock with great impatience. "What is
+the use of making all those signs? It's nothing of the sort. It's only
+I've heard of somebody that is poor--somebody she ought to know of--the
+sort of thing that is meant in father's will."
+
+"Oh!" said Sir Tom. It was the simplest of exclamations, but it meant
+much. He was partially relieved that it was not gossip, but yet more
+gravely annoyed than if it had been.
+
+Lucy made haste to interpose.
+
+"I will tell you afterwards," she said. "If I made signs, as Jock said,
+it was only that I might tell it you, Tom, myself, when there was more
+time."
+
+"I am at no loss for time," said Sir Tom, placing himself in the vacant
+chair. The others were both standing, as became this accidental moment
+before bed-time. And Lucy had been on thorns to get away, even before
+her husband appeared. She had wanted to escape from the discussion even
+with Jock. She had wanted to steal into the nursery, and see that her
+boy was asleep, to feel his little forehead with her soft hand, and make
+sure there was no fever. To be betrayed into a prolonged and agitating
+discussion now was very provoking, very undesirable; and Lucy had grown
+rather cowardly and anxious to push away from her, as far as she could,
+everything that did not belong to the moment.
+
+"Tom," she said, a little tremulously, "I wish you would put it off till
+to-morrow. I am--rather sleepy; it is nearly eleven o'clock, and I
+always run in to see how little Tom is going on. Besides," she added,
+with a little anxiety which was quite fictitious, "it is keeping
+Fletcher up----"
+
+"I am not afraid of Fletcher, Lucy."
+
+"Oh! but I am," she said. "I will tell you about it to-morrow. There is
+nothing in the least settled, only Jock thought----"
+
+"Settled!" Sir Tom said, with a curious look. "No, I hope not."
+
+"Oh! nothing at all settled," said Lucy. She stood restlessly, now on
+one foot now on the other, eager for flight. She did not even observe
+the implied authority in this remark, at which Jock pricked up his ears
+with incipient offence. "And Jock ought to be in bed--oh, yes, Jock, you
+ought. I am sure you are not allowed to sit up so late at school. Come
+now, there's a good boy--and I will just run and see how baby is."
+
+She put her hand on her brother's arm to take him away with her, but
+Jock hung back, and Sir Tom interposed, "Now that I have just settled
+myself for a chat, you had better leave Jock with me at least, Lucy. Run
+away to your baby, that is all right. Jock and I will entertain each
+other. I respect his youth, you see, and don't try to seduce him into a
+cigar--you should be thankful to me for that."
+
+"If I was not in sixth form," said Jock sharply, nettled by this
+indignity, "I should smoke; but it is bad form when you are high up in
+school. In the holidays I don't mind," he added, with careless
+grandeur, upon which Sir Tom, mollified, laughed as Lucy felt like
+himself.
+
+"Off duty, eh?" he said, "that's a very fine sentiment, Jock. You may be
+sure it's bad form to do anything you have promised not to do. You will
+say that sounds like a copy-book. Come now, Lucy, are not you going,
+little woman? Do you want to have your share in the moralities?"
+
+For this sudden change had somehow quenched Lucy's desire both to
+inspect the baby and get to bed. But what could she do? She looked very
+earnestly at Jock as she bade him good-night, but neither could she
+shake his respect for her husband by giving him any warning, nor offend
+her husband by any appearance of secret intelligence with Jock. Poor
+little Lucy went away after this through the stately rooms and up the
+grand staircase with a great tremor in her heart. There could not be a
+life more guarded and happy than hers had been--full of wealth, full of
+love, not a crumpled rose-leaf to disturb her comfort. But as she stole
+along the dim corridor to the nursery her heart was beating full of all
+the terrors that make other hearts to ache. She was afraid for the
+child's life, which was the worst of all, and looked with a suppressed
+yet terrible panic into the dark future which contained she knew not
+what for him. And she was afraid of her husband, the kindest man in the
+world, not knowing how he might take the discovery he had just made,
+fearing to disclose her mind to him, finding herself guilty in the mere
+idea of hiding anything from him. And she was afraid of Jock, that he
+would irritate Sir Tom, or be irritated by him, or that some wretched
+breach or quarrel might arise between these two. Jock was not an
+ordinary boy; there was no telling how he might take any reproof that
+might be addressed to him--perhaps with the utmost reasonableness,
+perhaps with a rapid defiance. Lady Randolph thus, though no harm had
+befallen her, had come into the usual heritage of humanity, and was as
+anxious and troubled as most of us are; though she was so happy and well
+off. She was on thorns to know what was passing in the room she had just
+left.
+
+This was all that passed. Jock, standing up against the mantelpiece,
+looked down somewhat lowering upon Sir Tom in the easy chair. He
+expected to be questioned, and had made up his mind, though with great
+indignation at the idea that any one should find fault with Lucy, to
+take the whole blame upon himself. That Lucy should not be free to carry
+out her duty as seemed to her best was to Jock intolerable. He had put
+his boyish faith in her all his life. Even since the time, a very early
+one, when Jock had felt himself much cleverer than Lucy; even when he
+had been obliged to make up his mind that Lucy was not clever at all--he
+had still believed in her. She had a mission in the world which
+separated her from other women. Nobody else had ever had the same thing
+to do. Many people had dispensed charities and founded hospitals, but
+Lucy's office in the world was of a different description--and Jock had
+faith in her power to do it. To see her wavering was trouble to him, and
+the discovery he had just made of something beneath the surface, a
+latent opposition in her husband which she plainly shrank from
+encountering, gave the boy a shock from which it was not easy to
+recover. He had always liked Sir Tom; but if---- One thing, however, was
+apparent, if there was any blame, anything to find fault with, it was
+he, Jock, and not Lucy, that must bear that blame.
+
+"So, Jock, Lucy thinks you should be in bed. When do they put out your
+lights at school? In my time we were up to all manner of tricks. I
+remember a certain dark lantern that was my joy; but that was in old
+Keate's time, you know, who never trusted the fellows. You are under a
+better rule now."
+
+This took away Jock's breath, who had been prepared for a sterner
+interrogation. He answered with a sudden blush, but with the rallying of
+all his forces: "I light them again sometimes. It's hard on a fellow,
+don't you think, sir, when he's not sleepy and has a lot to do?"
+
+"I never had much experience of that," said Sir Tom. "We were always
+sleepy, and never did anything in my time. It was for larking, I'm
+afraid, that we wanted light. And so it is seen on me, Jock. You will be
+a fellow of your college, whereas I----"
+
+"I don't think so," said Jock generously. "That construe you gave me,
+don't you remember, last half? MTutor says it is capital. He says he
+couldn't have done it so well. Of course, that is his modest way," the
+boy added, "for everybody knows there isn't such another scholar! but
+that's what he says."
+
+Sir Tom laughed, and a slight suffusion of colour appeared on his face.
+He was pleased with this unexpected applause. At five-and-forty, after
+knocking about the world for years, and "never opening a book," as
+people say, to have given a good "construe" is a feather in one's cap.
+"To be second to your tutor is all a man has to hope for," he said, with
+that mellow laugh which it was so pleasant to hear. "I hope I know my
+place, Jock. We had no such godlike beings in my time. Old Puck, as we
+used to call him, was my tutor. He had a red nose, which was the chief
+feature in his character. He looked upon us all as his natural enemies,
+and we paid him back with interest. Did I ever tell of that time when we
+were going to Ascot in a cab, four of us, and he caught sight of the
+turn-out?"
+
+"I don't think so," said Jock, with a little hesitation. He remembered
+every detail of this story, which indeed Sir Tom had told him perhaps
+more than once; for in respect to such legends the best of us repeat
+ourselves. Many were the thoughts in the boy's mind as he stood against
+the mantelpiece and looked down upon the man before him, going over with
+much relish the tale of boyish mischief, the delight of the urchins and
+the pedagogue's discomfiture. Sir Tom threw himself back in his chair
+with a peal of joyous laughter.
+
+"Jove! I think I can see him now with the corners of his mouth all
+dropped, and his nose like a beacon," he cried. Jock meanwhile looked
+down upon him very gravely, though he smiled in courtesy. He was a
+different manner of boy from anything Sir Tom could ever have been, and
+he wondered, as young creatures will, over the little world of mystery
+and knowledge which was shut up within the elder man. What things he had
+done in his life--what places he had seen! He had lived among savages,
+and fought his way, and seen death and life. Jock, only on the
+threshold, gazed at him with a curious mixture of awe and wonder and
+kind contempt. He would himself rather look down upon a fellow (he
+thought) who did that sort of practical joke now. MTutor would regard
+such an individual as a natural curiosity. And yet here was this man who
+had seen so much, and done so much, who ought to have profited by the
+long results of time, and grown to such superiority and mental
+elevation--here was he, turning back with delight to the schoolboy's
+trick. It filled Jock with a great and compassionate wonder. But he was
+a very civil boy. He was one who could not bear to hurt a
+fellow-creature's feelings, even those of an old duffer whose
+recollections were all of the bygone ages. So he did his best to laugh.
+And Sir Tom enjoyed his own joke so much that he did not know that it
+was from the lips only that his young companion's laugh came. He got up
+and patted Jock on the shoulders with the utmost benevolence when this
+pastime was done.
+
+"They don't indulge in that sort of fooling nowadays," he said. "So much
+the better--though I don't know that it did us much harm. Now come
+along, let us go to bed, according to my lady's orders. We must all, you
+know, do what Lucy tells us in this house."
+
+Jock obeyed, feeling somewhat "shut up," as he called it, in a sort of
+blank of confused discomfiture. Sir Tom had the best of it, by whatever
+means he attained that end. The boy had intended to offer himself a
+sacrifice, to brave anything that an angry man could say to him for
+Lucy's sake, and at the same time to die if necessary for Lucy's right
+to carry out her father's will, and accomplish her mission uninterrupted
+and untrammelled. When lo, Sir Tom had taken to telling him schoolboy
+stories, and sent him to bed with good-humoured kindness, without
+leaving him the slightest opening either to defend Lucy or take blame
+upon himself. He was half angry, and humbled in his own esteem, but
+there was nothing for it but to submit. Sir Tom for his part, did not go
+to bed. He went and smoked a lonely cigar, and his face lost its genial
+smile. The light of it, indeed, disappeared altogether under a cloud, as
+he sat gravely over his fire and puffed the smoke away. He had the air
+of a man who had a task to do which was not congenial to him. "Poor
+little soul," he said to himself. He could not bear to vex her. There
+was nothing in the world that he would have grudged to his wife. Any
+luxury, any adornment that he could have procured for her he would have
+jumped at. But it was his fate to be compelled to oppose and subdue her
+instead. The only thing was to do it quickly and decisively, since done
+it must be. If she had been a warrior worthy of his steel, a woman who
+would have defended herself and held her own, it would have been so much
+more easy; but it was not without a compunction that Sir Tom thought of
+the disproportion of their forces, of the soft and compliant creature
+who had never raised her will against his or done other than accept his
+suggestions and respond to his guidance. He remembered how Lucy had
+stuck to her colours before her marriage, and how she had vanquished the
+unwilling guardians who regarded what they thought the squandering of
+her money with a consternation and fury that were beyond bounds. He had
+thought it highly comic at the time, and even now there passed a gleam
+of humour over his face at the recollection. He could not deny himself a
+smile when he thought it all over. She had worsted her guardians, and
+thrown away her money triumphantly, and Sir Tom had regarded the whole
+as an excellent joke. But the recollection of this did not discourage
+him now. He had no thought that Lucy would stand out against him. It
+might vex her, however, dear little woman. No doubt she and Jock had
+been making up some fine Quixotic plans between them, and probably it
+would be a shock to her when her husband interfered. He had got to be so
+fond of his little wife, and his heart was so kind, that he could not
+bear the idea of vexing Lucy. But still it would have to be done. He
+rose up at last, and threw away the end of his cigar with a look of
+vexation and trouble. It was necessary, but it was a nuisance, however.
+"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly,"
+he said to himself; then laughed again, as he took his way upstairs, at
+the over-significance of the words. He was not going to murder anybody;
+only when the moment proved favourable, for once and only once, seeing
+it was inevitable, he had to bring under lawful authority--an easy
+task--the gentle little feminine creature who was his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE FIRST STRUGGLE.
+
+
+Lucy knew nothing of this till the next forenoon after breakfast, and
+after the many morning occupations which a lady has in her own house.
+She looked wistfully at both her brother and her husband when they met
+at table, and it was a great consolation to her, and lightening of her
+heart, when she perceived that they were quite at ease with each other;
+but still she was burning with curiosity to know what had passed. Sir
+Tom had not said a word. He had been just as usual, not even looking a
+consciousness of the unexplained question between them. She was glad and
+yet half sorry that all was about to blow over, and to be as if it had
+not been. After going so far, perhaps it would have been better that it
+had gone farther and that the matter had been settled. This she said to
+herself in the security of a respite, believing that it had passed away
+from Sir Tom's mind. She wanted to know, and yet she was afraid to ask,
+for her heart revolted against asking questions of Jock which might
+betray to him the fear of a possible quarrel. After she had
+superintended little Tom's toilet, and watched him go out for his walk
+(for the weather was very mild for the time of the year), and seen Mrs.
+Freshwater, the housekeeper, and settled about the dinner, always with a
+little quiver of anxiety in her heart, she met Jock by a happy chance,
+just as she was about to join Lady Randolph in the drawing-room. She
+seized his arm with energy, and drew him within the door of the library;
+but after she had done this with an eagerness not to be disguised, Lucy
+suddenly remembered all that it was inexpedient for her to betray to
+Jock. Accordingly she stopped short, as it were, on the threshold, and
+instead of saying as she had intended, "What did he say to you?" dropped
+down into the routine question, "Where are you going--were you going
+out?"
+
+"I shall some time, I suppose. What do you grip a fellow's arm for like
+that? and then when I thought you had something important to say to me,
+only asking am I going out?"
+
+"Yes, clear," said Lucy, recovering herself with an effort. "You don't
+take enough exercise. I wish you would not be always among the books."
+
+"Stuff, Lucy!" said Jock.
+
+"I am sure Tom thinks the same. He was telling me--now didn't he say
+something to you about it last night?"
+
+"That's all bosh," said the boy. "And if you want to know what he said
+to me last night, he just said nothing at all, but told me old stories
+of school that I've heard a hundred times. These old d---- fellows,"
+(Jock did not swear; he was going to say duffers, that was all) "always
+talk like that. One would think they had not had much fun in their life
+when they are always turning back upon school," Jock added, with fine
+sarcasm.
+
+"Oh, only stories about school!" said Lucy with extreme relief. But the
+next moment she was not quite so sure that she was comfortable about
+this entire ignoring of a matter which Sir Tom had seemed to think so
+grave. "What sort of stories?" she said dreamily, pursuing her own
+thoughts without much attention to the answer.
+
+"Oh, that old stuff about Ascot and about the old master that stopped
+them. It isn't much. I know it," said Jock, disrespectfully, "as well as
+I know my a, b, c."
+
+"It is very rude of you to say so, Jock."
+
+"Perhaps it is rude," the boy replied, with candour; but he did not
+further explain himself, and Lucy, to veil her mingled relief and
+disquietude, dismissed him with an exhortation to go out.
+
+"You read and read," she cried, glad to throw off a little excitement in
+this manner, though she really felt very little anxiety on the subject,
+"till you will be all brains and nothing else. I wish you would use your
+legs a little too." And then, with a little affectionate push away from
+her, she left him in undisturbed possession of his books, and the
+morning, which, fine as it was, was not bright enough to tempt him away
+from them.
+
+Then Lucy pursued her way to the drawing-room: but she had not gone many
+steps before she met her husband, who stopped and asked her a question
+or two. Had the boy gone out? It was so fine it would do him good, poor
+little beggar; and where was her ladyship going? When he heard she was
+going to join the Dowager, Sir Tom smilingly took her hand and drew it
+within his own. "Then come here with me for a minute first," he said.
+And strange to say, Lucy had no fear. She allowed him to have his way,
+thinking it was to show her something, perhaps to ask her advice on some
+small matter. He took her into a little room he had, full of trophies of
+his travels, a place more distinctively his own than any other in the
+house. When he had closed the door a faint little thrill of alarm came
+over her. She looked up at him wondering, inquiring. Sir Tom took her by
+her arms and drew her towards him in the full light of the window. "Come
+and let me look at you, Lucy," he said. "I want to see in your eyes what
+it is that makes you afraid of me."
+
+She met his eyes with great bravery and self-command, but nothing could
+save her from the nervous quiver which he felt as he held her, or from
+the tell-tale ebb and flow of the blood from her face. "I--I am not
+afraid of you, Tom."
+
+"Then have you ceased to trust me, Lucy? How is it that you discuss the
+most important matters with Jock, who is only a boy, and leave me out?
+You do not think that can be agreeable to me."
+
+"Tom," she said; then stopped short, her voice being interrupted by the
+fluttering of her heart.
+
+"I told you: you are afraid. What have I ever done to make my wife
+afraid of me?" he said.
+
+"Oh, Tom, it is not that! it is only that I felt--there has never been
+anything said, and you have always done all, and more than all, that I
+wished; but I have felt that you were opposed to me in one thing. I may
+be wrong, perhaps," she added, looking up at him suddenly with a
+catching of her breath.
+
+Sir Tom did not say she was wrong. He was very kind, but very grave. "In
+that case," he said, "Lucy, my love, don't you think it would have been
+better to speak to me about it, and ascertain what were my objections,
+and why I was opposed to you--rather than turn without a word to another
+instead of me?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Lucy, "I could not. I was a coward. I could not bear to make
+sure. To stand against you, how could I do it? But if you will hear me
+out, Tom, I never, never turned to another. Oh! what strange words to
+say. It was not another. It was Jock, only Jock; but I did not turn even
+to him. It was he who brought it forward, and I---- Now that we have
+begun to talk about it, and it cannot be escaped," cried Lucy, with
+sudden nervous boldness, freeing herself from his hold, "I will own
+everything to you, Tom. Yes, I was afraid. I would not, I could not do
+it, for I could feel that you were against it. You never said anything;
+is it necessary that you should speak for me to understand you? but I
+knew it all through. And to go against you and do something you did not
+like was more than I could face. I should have gone on for years,
+perhaps, and never had courage for it," she cried. She was tingling all
+over with excitement and desperate daring now.
+
+"My darling," said Sir Tom, "it makes me happier to think that it was
+not me you were afraid of, but only of putting yourself in opposition to
+me; but still, Lucy, even that is not right, you know. Don't you think
+that it would be better that we should talk it over, and that I should
+show you my objections to this strange scheme you have in your head, and
+convince you----"
+
+"Oh!" cried Lucy, stepping back a little and putting up her hands as if
+in self-defence, "that was what I was most frightened for."
+
+"What, to be convinced?" he laughed: but his laugh jarred upon her in
+her excited state. "Well, that is not at all uncommon; but few people
+avow it so frankly," he said.
+
+She looked up at him with appealing eyes. "Oh, Tom," she cried, "I fear
+you will not understand me now. I am not afraid to be convinced. I am
+afraid of what you will think when you know that I cannot be convinced.
+Now," she said, with a certain calm of despair, "I have said it all."
+
+To her astonishment her husband replied by a sudden hug and a laugh.
+"Whether you are accessible to reason or not, you are always my dear
+little woman," he said. "I like best to have it out. Do you know, Lucy,
+that it is supposed your sex are all of that mind? You believe what you
+like, and the reason for your faith does not trouble you. You must not
+suppose that you are singular in that respect."
+
+To this she listened without any response at all either in words or
+look, except, perhaps, a little lifting of her eyelids in faint
+surprise; for Lucy was not concerned about what was common to her sex.
+Nor did she take such questions at all into consideration. Therefore,
+this speech sounded to her irrelevant; and so quick was Sir Tom's
+intelligence that, though he made it as a sort of conventional
+necessity, he saw that it was irrelevant too. It might have been all
+very well to address a clever woman who could have given him back his
+reply in such words. But to Lucy's straightforward, simple, limited
+intellect such dialectics were altogether out of place. Her very want of
+capacity to understand them made them a disrespect to her which she had
+done nothing to deserve. He coloured in his quick sense of this, and
+sudden perception that his wife in the limitation of her intellect and
+fine perfection of her moral nature was such an antagonist as a man
+might well be alarmed to meet, more alarmed even than she generously was
+to displease him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Lucy," he said, "I was talking to you as if you were
+one of the ordinary people. All this must be treated between you and me
+on a different footing. I have a great deal more experience than you
+have, and I ought to know better. You must let me show you how it
+appears to me. You see I don't pretend not to know what the point was. I
+have felt for a long time that it was one that must be cleared up
+between you and me. I never thought of Jock coming in," he said with a
+laugh. "That is quite a new and unlooked-for feature; but begging his
+pardon, though he is a clever fellow, we will leave Jock out of the
+question. He can't be supposed to have much knowledge of the world."
+
+"No," said Lucy, with a little suspicion. She did not quite see what
+this had to do with it, nor what course her husband was going to adopt,
+nor indeed at all what was to follow.
+
+"Your father's will was a very absurd one," he said.
+
+At this Lucy was slightly startled, but she said after a moment, "He did
+not think what hard things he was leaving me to do."
+
+"He did not think at all, it seems to me," said Sir Tom; "so far as I
+can see he merely amused himself by arranging the world after his
+fashion, and trying how much confusion he could make. I don't mean to
+say anything unkind of him. I should like to have known him: he must
+have been a character. But he has left us a great deal of botheration.
+This particular thing, you know, that you are driving yourself crazy
+about is sheer absurdity, Lucy. Solomon himself could not do it,--and
+who are you, a little girl without any knowledge of the world, to see
+into people's hearts, and decide whom it is safe to trust?"
+
+"You are putting more upon me than poor papa did, Tom," said Lucy, a
+little more cheerfully. "He never said, as we do in charities, that it
+was to go to deserving people. I was never intended to see into their
+hearts. So long as they required it and got the money, that was all he
+wanted."
+
+"Well, then, my dear," said Sir Tom, "if your father in his great sense
+and judgment wanted nothing but to get rid of the money, I wonder he did
+not tell you to stand upon Beachy Head or Dover Cliff on a certain day
+in every year and throw so much of it into the sea--to be sure," he
+added with a laugh, "that would come to very much the same thing--for
+you can't annihilate money, you can only make it change hands--and the
+London roughs would soon have found out your days for this wise purpose
+and interrupted it somehow. But it would have been just as sensible.
+Poor little woman! Here I am beginning to argue, and abusing your poor
+father, whom, of course, you were fond of, and never so much as offering
+you a chair! There is something on every one of them, I believe. Here,
+my love, here is a seat for you," he said, displacing a box of
+curiosities and clearing a corner for her by the fire. But Lucy resisted
+quietly.
+
+"Wouldn't it do another time, Tom?" she said with a little anxiety, "for
+Aunt Randolph is all by herself, and she will wonder what has become of
+me; and baby will be coming back from his walk." Then she made a little
+pause, and resumed again, folding her hands, and raising her mild eyes
+to his face. "I am very sorry to go against you, Tom. I think I would
+rather lose all the money altogether. But there is just one thing, and
+oh, do not be angry! I must carry out papa's will if I were to die!"
+
+Her husband, who had begun to enter smilingly upon this discussion, with
+a certainty of having the best of it, and who had listened to her
+smilingly in her simple pleas for deferring the conversation, pleas
+which he was very willing to yield to, was so utterly taken by surprise
+at this sudden and most earnest statement, that he could do nothing but
+stare at her, with a loud alarmed exclamation, "Lucy!" and a look of
+utter bewilderment in his face. But she stood this without flinching,
+not nervous as many a woman might have been after delivering such a
+blow, but quite still, clasping her hands in each other, facing him with
+a desperate quietness. Lucy was not insensible to the tremendous nature
+of the utterance she had just made.
+
+"This is surprising, indeed, Lucy," cried Sir Tom. He grew quite pale in
+that sensation of being disobeyed, which is one of the most disagreeable
+that human nature is subject to. He scarcely knew what to reply to a
+rebellion so complete and determined. To see her attitude, the look of
+her soft girlish face (for she looked still younger than her actual
+years), the firm pose of her little figure, was enough to show that it
+was no rash utterance, such as many a combatant makes, to withdraw from
+it one hour after. Sir Tom, in his amazement, felt his very words come
+back to him; he did not know what to say. "Do you mean to tell me," he
+said, almost stammering in his consternation, "that whatever I may think
+or advise, and however mad this proceeding may be, you have made up your
+mind to carry it out whether I will or not?"
+
+"Tom! in every other thing I will do what you tell me. I have always
+done what you told me. You know a great deal better than I do, and never
+more will I go against you; but I knew papa before I knew you. He is
+dead; I cannot go to him to ask him to let me off, to tell him you don't
+like it, or to say it is more than I can do. If I could I would do that.
+But he is dead: all that he can have is just that I should be faithful
+to him. And it is not only that he put it in his will, but I gave him my
+promise that I would do it. How could I break my promise to one that is
+dead, that trusted in me? Oh, no, no! It will kill me if you are angry;
+but even then, even then, I must do what I promised to papa."
+
+The tears had risen to her eyes as she spoke: they filled her eyelids
+full, till she saw her husband only through two blinding seas: then they
+fell slowly one after another upon her dress: her face was raised to
+him, her features all moving with the earnestness of her plea. The
+anguish of the struggle against her heart, and desire to please him, was
+such that Lucy felt what it was to be faithful till death. As for Sir
+Tom, it was impossible for such a man to remain unmoved by emotion so
+great. But it had never occurred to him as possible that Lucy could
+resist his will, or, indeed, stand for a moment against his injunction;
+he had believed that he had only to say to her, "You must not do it,"
+and that she would have cried, but given way. He felt himself utterly
+defeated, silenced, put out of consideration. He did nothing but stare
+and gasp at her in his consternation; and, more still, he was betrayed.
+Her gentleness had deceived him and made him a fool; his pride was
+touched, he who was supposed to have no pride. He stood silent for a
+time, and then he burst out with a sort of roar of astonished and angry
+dismay.
+
+"Lucy, do you mean to tell me that you will disobey me?" he cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+AN IDLE MORNING.
+
+
+The Dowager Lady Randolph had never found the Hall so dull. There was
+nothing going on, nothing even to look forward to: one formal
+dinner-party was the only thing to represent that large and cordial
+hospitality which she was glad to think had in her own time
+characterised the period when the Hall was open. She had never pretended
+to be fond of the county society. In the late Sir Robert's time she had
+not concealed the fact that the less time she spent in it the better she
+was pleased. But when she was there, all the county had known it. She
+was a woman who loved to live a large and liberal life. It was not so
+much that she liked gaiety, or what is called pleasure, as that she
+loved to have people about her, to be the dispenser of enjoyment, to
+live a life in which there was always something going on. This is a
+temperament which meets much censure from the world, and is stigmatised
+as a love of excitement, and by many other unlovely names; but that is
+hard upon the people who are born with it, and who are in many cases
+benefactors to mankind. Lady Randolph's desire was that there should
+always be something doing--"a magic lantern at the least," she had said.
+Indeed, there can be no doubt that in managing that magic lantern she
+would have given as much satisfaction to everybody, and perhaps managed
+to enjoy herself as much, as if it had been the first entertainment in
+Mayfair. She could not stagnate comfortably, she said; and as so much of
+an ordinary woman's life must be stagnation more or less gracefully
+veiled, it may be supposed that Lady Randolph had learned the useful
+lesson of putting up with what she could get when what she liked was not
+procurable. And it was seldom that she had been set down to so languid a
+feast as the present. On former occasions a great deal more had been
+going on, except the last year, which was that of the baby's birth, on
+which occasion Lucy was, of course, out of the way of entertainment
+altogether. Lady Randolph had, indeed, found her visits to the Hall
+amusing, which was delightful, seeing they were duty visits as well. She
+had stayed only a day or two at that time--just long enough to kiss the
+baby and talk for half an hour at a time, on two or three distinct
+opportunities, to the young mother in very subdued and caressing tones.
+And she had been glad to get away again when she had performed this
+duty, but yet did not grudge in the least the sacrifice she had made for
+her family. The case, however, was quite different now: there was no
+reason in the world why they should be quiet. The baby was
+delicate!--could there be a more absurd reason for closing your house to
+your friends, putting off your Christmas visits, entertaining not at
+all, ignoring altogether the natural expectations of the county, which
+did not elect a man to be its member in order that he might shut himself
+up and superintend his nursery? It was ridiculous, his aunt felt; it
+went to her nerves, and made her quite uncomfortable, to see all the
+resources of the house, with which she was so well acquainted, wasted
+upon four people. It was preposterous--an excellent cook, the best cook
+almost she had ever come across, and only four to dine! People have
+different ideas of what waste is--there are some who consider all large
+expenditure, especially in the entertainment of guests, to be subject to
+this censure. But Lady Randolph took a completely different view. The
+wickedness of having such a cook and only a family party of four persons
+to dine was that which offended her. It was scandalous, it was wicked.
+If Lucy meant to live in this way let her return to her bourgeois
+existence, and the small vulgar life in Farafield. It was ridiculous
+living the life of a nobody here, and in Sir Tom's case was plainly
+suicidal. How was he to hold up his face at another election, with the
+consciousness that he had done nothing at all for his county, not even
+given them a ball, nor so much as a magic lantern, she repeated,
+bursting with a reprobation which could scarcely find words?
+
+All this went through her mind with double force when she found herself
+left alone in Lucy's morning-room, which was a bright room opening out
+upon the flower garden, getting all the morning sun, and the full
+advantage of the flowers when there were any. There were none, it is
+true, at this moment, except a few snow-drops forcing their way through
+the smooth turf under a tree which stood at the corner of a little bit
+of lawn. Lady Randolph was not very fond of flowers, except in their
+proper place, which meant when employed in the decoration of rooms in
+the proper artistic way, and after the most approved fashion. Thus she
+liked sunflowers when they were approved by society, and modest violets
+and pansies in other developments of popular taste, but did not for her
+own individual part care much which she had, so long as they looked well
+in her vases, and "came well" against her draperies and furniture. She
+had come down on this bright morning with her work, as it is the proper
+thing for a lady to do, but she had no more idea of being left here
+calmly and undisturbed to do that work than she had of attempting a
+flight into the inviting and brilliant, if cold and frosty, skies. She
+sat down with it between the fire and the sunny window, enjoying both
+without being quite within the range of either. It was an ideal picture
+of a lady no longer young or capable of much out-door life, or personal
+emotion; a pretty room; a sunny, soft winter morning, almost as warm as
+summer, the sunshine pouring in, a cheerful fire in the background to
+make up what was lacking in respect of warmth; the softest of easiest
+chairs, yet not too low or demoralising; a subdued sound breaking in now
+and then from a distance, which pleasantly betrayed the existence of a
+household; and in the midst of all, in a velvet gown, which was very
+pretty to look at, and very comfortable to wear, and with a lace cap on
+her head that had the same characteristics, a lady of sixty, in perfect
+health, rich enough for all her requirements, without even the thought
+of a dentist to trouble her. She had a piece of very pretty work in her
+hand, the newspapers on the table, books within reach. And yet she was
+not content! What a delightful ideal sketch might not be made of such a
+moment! How she might have been thinking of her past, sweetly, with a
+sigh, yet with a thankful thought of all the good things that had been
+hers; of those whom she had loved, and who were gone from earth, as only
+awaiting her a little farther on, and of those about her, with such a
+tender commendation of them to God's blessing, and cordial desire for
+their happiness, as would have reached the height of a prayer. And she
+might have been feeling a tranquil pleasure in the material things about
+her: the stillness, the warmth, the dreamy quiet, even the pretty work,
+and the exemption from care which she had arrived at in the peaceful
+concluding chapter of existence. This is what we all like to think of as
+the condition of mind and circumstances in which age is best met. But we
+are grieved to say that this was not in the least Lady Randolph's pose.
+Anything more distasteful to her than this quiet could not be. It was
+her principle and philosophy to live in the present. She drew many
+experiences from the past, and a vast knowledge of the constitutions and
+changes of society; but personally it did not amuse her to think of it,
+and the future she declined to contemplate. It had disagreeable things
+in it, of that there could be no doubt; and why go out and meet the
+disagreeable? It was time enough when it arrived. There was probably
+illness, and certainly dying, in it; things which she was brave enough
+to face when they came, and no doubt would encounter in quite a
+collected and courageous way. But why anticipate them? She lived
+philosophically in the day as it came. After all whatever you do or
+think, you cannot do much more. Your one day, your hour, is your world.
+Acquit yourself fitly in that, and you will be able to encounter
+whatever occurs.
+
+This was the conviction on which Lady Randolph acted. But her pursuit
+for the moment was not entertaining; she very quickly tired of her work.
+Work is, on the whole, tiresome when there is no particular use in it,
+when it is done solely for the sake of occupation, as ladies' work so
+often is. It wants a meaning and a necessity to give it interest, and
+Lady Randolph's had neither. She worked about ten minutes, and then she
+paused and wondered what could have become of Lucy. Lucy was not a very
+amusing companion, but she was somebody; and then Sir Tom would come in
+occasionally to consult her, to give her some little piece of
+information, and for a few minutes would talk and give his relative a
+real pleasure. But even Lucy did not come; and soon Lady Randolph became
+tired of looking out of the window and then walking to the fire, of
+taking up the newspaper and throwing it down again, of doing a few
+stitches, then letting the work fall on her lap; and above all, of
+thinking, as she was forced to do, from sheer want of occupation. She
+listened, and nobody came. Two or three times she thought she heard
+steps approaching, but nobody came. She had thought of perhaps going out
+since the morning was so fine, walking down to the village, which was
+quite within her powers, and of planning several calls which might be
+made in the afternoon to take advantage of the fine day. But she became
+really fretted and annoyed as the morning crept along. Lucy was losing
+even her politeness, the Dowager thought. This is what comes of what
+people call happiness! They get so absorbed in themselves, there is no
+possibility of paying ordinary attention to other people. At last, after
+completely tiring herself out, Lady Randolph got up and put down her
+work altogether, throwing it away with anger. She had not lived so long
+in its sole company for years, and there is no describing how tired she
+was of it. She got up and went out into the other rooms in search of
+something to amuse her. Little Tom had just come in, but she did not go
+to the nursery. She took care not to expose herself to that. She was
+willing to allow that she did not understand babies; and then to see
+such a pale little thing the heir of the Randolphs worried her. He ought
+to have been a little Hercules; it wounded her that he was so puny and
+pale. She went through the great drawing-room, and looked at all the
+additions to the furniture and decorations that Tom and Lucy had made.
+They had kept a number of the old things; but naturally they had added a
+good deal of _bric-à-brac_, of old things that here were new. Then Lady
+Randolph turned into the library. She had gone up to one of the
+bookcases, and was leisurely contemplating the books, with a keen eye,
+too, to the additions which had been made, when she heard a sound near
+her, the unmistakable sound of turning over the leaves of a book. Lady
+Randolph turned round with a start, and there was Jock, sunk into the
+depths of a large chair with a tall folio supported on the arms of it.
+She had not seen him when she came in, and, indeed, many people might
+have come and gone without perceiving him, buried in his corner. Lady
+Randolph was thankful for anybody to talk to, even a boy.
+
+"Is it you?" she said. "I might have known it could be nobody but you.
+Do you never do anything but read?"
+
+"Sometimes," said Jock, who had done nothing but watch her since she
+came into the room. She gave him a sort of half smile.
+
+"It is more reasonable now than when you were a child," she said; "for I
+hear you are doing extremely well at school, and gaining golden
+opinions. That is quite as it should be. It is the only way you can
+repay Lucy for all she has done for you."
+
+"I don't think," said Jock, looking at her over his book, "that Lucy
+wants to be repaid."
+
+"Probably not," said Lady Randolph. Then she made a pause, and looked
+from him to the book he held, and then to him again. "Perhaps you don't
+think," she said, "there is anything to be repaid."
+
+They were old antagonists; when he was a child and Lucy had insisted on
+carrying him with her wherever she went, Lady Randolph had made no
+objections, but she had not looked upon Jock with a friendly eye. And
+afterwards, when he had interposed with his precocious wisdom, and
+worsted her now and then, she had come to have a holy dread of him. But
+now things had righted themselves, and Jock had attained an age of which
+nobody could be afraid. The Dowager thought, as people are so apt to
+think, that Jock was not grateful enough. He was very fond of Lucy, but
+he took things as a matter of course, seldom or never remembering that
+whereas Lucy was rich, he was poor, and all his luxuries and well-being
+came from her. She was glad to take an opportunity of reminding him of
+it, all the more as she was of opinion that Sir Tom did not sufficiently
+impress this upon the boy, to whom she thought he was unnecessarily
+kind. "I suppose," she resumed, after a pause, "that you come here
+always in the holidays, and quite consider it as your home?"
+
+Jock still sat and looked at her across his great folio. He made her no
+reply. He was not so ready in the small interchanges of talk as he had
+been at eight, and, besides, it was new to him to have the subject
+introduced in this way. It is not amusing to plant arrows of this sort
+in any one's flesh if they show no sign of any wound, and accordingly
+Lady Randolph grew angry as Jock made no reply. "Is it considered good
+manners," she said, "at school--when a lady speaks to you that you
+should make no answer?"
+
+"I was thinking," Jock said. "A fellow, whether he is at school, or not,
+can't answer all that at once."
+
+"I hope you do not mean to be impertinent. In that case I should be
+obliged to speak to my nephew," said Lady Randolph. She had not intended
+to quarrel with Jock. It was only the vacancy of the morning, and her
+desire for movement of some sort, that had brought her to this; and now
+she grew angry with Lucy as well as with Jock, having gone so much
+farther than she had intended to go. She turned from him to the books
+which she had been languidly examining, and began to take them out one
+after another, impatiently, as if searching for something. Jock sat and
+looked at her for some time, with the same sort of deliberate
+observation with which he used to regard her when he was a child, seeing
+(as she had always felt) through and through her. But presently another
+impulse swayed him. He got himself out behind his book, and suddenly
+appeared by her side, startling her nerves, which were usually so firm.
+
+"If you will tell me what you want," he said, "I'll get it for you. I
+know where they all are. If it is French you want, they are up there. I
+like going up the ladder," he added, half to himself.
+
+Perhaps it was this confession of childishness, perhaps the unlooked-for
+civility, that touched her. She turned round with a subdued half
+frightened air, feeling that there was no telling how to take this
+strange creature, and said, half apologetically, "I think I should like
+a French--novel. They are not--so--long, you know, as the English," and
+sat down in the chair he rolled towards her. Jock was at the top of the
+ladder in a moment. She watched him, making a little comment in her own
+mind about Tom's motive in placing books of this description in such a
+place--in order to keep them out of Lucy's way, she said to herself.
+Jock brought her down half a dozen to choose from, and even the eye of
+Jock, who doubtless knew nothing about them, made Lady Randolph a little
+more scrupulous than usual in choosing her book. She was one of those
+women who like the piquancy and freedom of French fiction. She would say
+to persons of like tastes that the English proprieties were tame beside
+the other, and she thought herself old enough to be altogether beyond
+any risk of harm. Perhaps this was why she divined Sir Tom's motive in
+placing them at the top of the shelves; divined and approved, for though
+she read all that came in her way, she would not have liked Lucy to
+share that privilege. She said to Jock as he brought them to her,
+
+"They are shorter than the English. I can't carry three volumes about,
+you know; all these are in one; but I should not advise you to take to
+this sort of reading, Jock."
+
+"I don't want to," said Jock, briefly; then he added more gravely, "I
+can't construe French like you. I suppose you just open it and go
+straight on?"
+
+"I do," said Lady Randolph, with a smile.
+
+She was mollified, for her French was excellent, and she liked a little
+compliment, of whatever kind.
+
+"You should give your mind to it; it is the most useful of all
+languages," she said.
+
+"And Lucy is not great at it either," said Jock.
+
+"That is true, and it is a pity," said Lady Randolph, quite restored to
+good-humour. "I would take her in hand myself, but I have so many things
+to do. Do you know where she is, for I have not seen her all this
+morning?"
+
+"No more have I," said Jock. "I think they have just gone off somewhere
+together. Lucy never minds. She ought to pay a little attention when
+there are people in the house."
+
+"That is just what I have been thinking," Lady Randolph said. "I am at
+home, of course, here; it does not matter for me, and you are her
+brother--but she really ought; I think I must speak seriously to her."
+
+"To whom are you going to speak seriously? I hope not to me, my dear
+aunt," said Sir Tom, coming in. He did not look quite his usual self. He
+was a little pale, and he had an air about him as of some disagreeable
+surprise. He had the post-bag in his hand--for there was a post twice a
+day--and opened it as he spoke. Lady Randolph, with her quick
+perception, saw at once that something had happened, and jumped at the
+idea of a first quarrel. It was generally the butler Williams who opened
+the letter-bag; but he was out of the way, and Sir Tom had taken the
+office on himself. He took out the contents with a little impatience,
+throwing across to her her share of the correspondence. "Hallo," he
+said. "Here is a letter for Lucy from your tutor, Jock. What have you
+been doing, my young man?"
+
+"Oh, I know what it's about," Jock said in a tone of satisfaction. Sir
+Tom turned round and looked at him with the letter in his hand, as if he
+would have liked to throw it at his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+AN UNWILLING MARTYR.
+
+
+Lucy came into the morning-room shortly after, a little paler than
+usual, but with none of the agitation about her which Lady Randolph
+expected from Sir Tom's aspect to see. Lucy was not one to bear any
+outward traces of emotion. When she wept her eyes recovered rapidly, and
+after half an hour were no longer red. She had a quiet respect for other
+people, and a determination not to betray anything which she could not
+explain, which had the effect of that "proper pride" which is inculcated
+upon every woman, and yet was something different. Lucy would have died
+rather than give Lady Randolph ground to suppose that she had quarrelled
+with her husband, and as she could not explain the matter to her, it was
+necessary to efface all signs of perturbation as far as that was
+possible. The elder lady was reading her letters when Lucy came in, but
+she raised her eyes at once with the keenest watchfulness. Young Lady
+Randolph was pale--but at no time had she much colour. She came in
+quite simply, without any explanation or giving of reasons, and sat down
+in her usual place near the window, from which the sunshine, as it was
+now afternoon, was beginning to die away. Then Lucy gave a slight start
+to see a letter placed for her on the little table beside her work. She
+had few correspondents at any time, and when Jock and Lady Randolph were
+both at the Hall received scarcely any letters. She took it up and
+looked at its outside with a little surprise.
+
+"I forgot to tell you, Lucy," the Dowager said at this point, "that
+there was a letter for you. Tom placed it there. He said it was from
+Jock's tutor, and I hope sincerely, my dear, it does not mean that Jock
+has got into any scrape----"
+
+"A scrape," said Lucy, "why should he have got into a scrape?" in
+unbounded surprise; for this was a thing that never had happened
+throughout Jock's career.
+
+"Oh, boys are so often in trouble," Lady Randolph said, while Lucy
+opened her letter in some trepidation. But the first words of the letter
+disturbed her more than any story about Jock was likely to do. It
+brought the crisis nearer, and made immediate action almost
+indispensable. It ran as follows:--
+
+     "Dear Lady Randolph--In accordance with Jock's request, which he
+     assured me was also yours, I have made all the inquiries you wished
+     about the Churchill family. It was not very difficult to do, as
+     there is but one voice in respect to them. Mr. Churchill himself is
+     represented to me as a model of all that a clergyman ought to be.
+     Whatever we may think of his functions, that he should have all the
+     virtues supposed to be attached to them is desirable in every point
+     of view; and he is a gentleman of good sense and intelligence
+     besides, which is not always implied even in the character of a
+     saint. It seems that the failure of an inheritance, which he had
+     every reason to expect, was the cause of his first disadvantage in
+     the world; and since then, in consonance with that curious natural
+     law which seems so contrary to justice, yet constantly consonant
+     with fact, this evil has been cumulative, and he has had nothing
+     but disappointments ever since. He has a very small living now, and
+     is never likely to get a better, for he is getting old, and
+     patrons, I am told, scarcely venture to give a cure to a man of his
+     age lest it should be said they were gratifying their personal
+     likings at the expense of the people. This seems contrary to
+     abstract justice in such a case; but it is a doctrine of our time
+     to which we must all bow.
+
+     "The young people, so far as I know, are all promising and good.
+     Young Churchill, whom Jock knows, is a boy for whom I have the
+     greatest regard. He is one whom Goethe would have described as a
+     beautiful soul. His sisters are engaged in educational work, and
+     are, I am told, in their way equally high-minded and interesting;
+     but naturally I know little of the female portion of the family.
+
+     "It is extremely kind of you and Sir Thomas to repeat your
+     invitation. I hope, perhaps at Easter, if convenient, to be able to
+     take advantage of it. I hear with the greatest pleasure from Jock
+     how much he enjoys his renewed intercourse with his home circle. It
+     will do him good, for his mind is full of the ideal, and it will be
+     of endless advantage to him to be brought back to the more ordinary
+     and practical interests. There are very few boys of whom it can be
+     said that their intellectual aspirations over-balance their
+     material impulses. As usual he has not only done his work this half
+     entirely to my satisfaction, but has more than repaid any services
+     I can render him by the precious companionship of a fresh and
+     elevated spirit.
+
+                        "Believe me, dear Lady Randolph,
+                                    "Most faithfully yours,
+                                              "MAXIMUS D. DERWENTWATER."
+
+A long-drawn breath, which sounded like a sigh, burst from Lucy's breast
+as she closed this letter. She had, with humility and shrinking, yet
+with a certain resolution, disclosed to her husband that when the
+occasion occurred she must do her duty according to her father's will,
+whether it pleased him or not. She had steeled herself to do this; but
+she had prayed that the occasion might be slow to come. Nobody but Jock
+knew anything about these Churchills, and Jock was going back to school,
+and he was young and perhaps he might forget! But here was another who
+would not forget. She read all the recommendations of the family and
+their excellences with a sort of despair. Money, it was evident, could
+not be better bestowed than in this way. There seemed no opening by
+which she could escape; no way of thrusting this act away from her. She
+felt a panic seize her. How was she to disobey Tom, how to do a thing of
+so much importance, contrary to his will, against his advice? The whole
+world around her, the solid walls, and the sky that shone in through the
+great window, swam in Lucy's eyes. She drew her breath hard like a
+hunted creature; there was a singing in her ears, and a dimness in her
+sight. Lady Randolph's voice asking with a certain satisfaction, yet
+sympathy, "What is the matter? I hope it is not anything very bad,"
+seemed to come to her from a distance as from a different world; and
+when she added, after a moment, soothingly, "You must not vex yourself
+about it, Lucy, if it is just a piece of folly. Boys are constantly in
+that way coming to grief:" it was with difficulty that Lucy remembered
+to what she could refer. Jock! Ah, if it had been but a boyish folly,
+Sir Tom would have been the first to forgive that; he would have opened
+his kind heart and taken the offender in, and laughed and persuaded him
+out of his folly. He would have been like a father to the boy. To feel
+all that, and how good he was; and yet determinedly to contradict his
+will and go against him! Oh, how could she do it? and yet what else was
+there to do?
+
+"It is not about Jock," she answered with a faint voice.
+
+"I beg your pardon, my dear. I was not aware that you knew Jock's tutor
+well enough for general correspondence. These gentlemen seem to make a
+great deal of themselves now-a-days, but in my time, Lucy----"
+
+"I do not know him very well, Aunt Randolph. He is only sending me some
+information. I wish I might ask you a question," she cried suddenly,
+looking into the Dowager's face with earnest eyes. This lady had perhaps
+not all the qualities that make a perfect woman, but she had always been
+very kind to Lucy. She was not unkind to anybody, although there were
+persons, of whom Jock was one, whom she did not like. And in all
+circumstances to Lucy, even when there was no immediate prospect that
+the Randolph family would be any the better for her, she had always been
+kind.
+
+"As many as you like, my love," she answered, cordially.
+
+"Yes," said Lucy; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, what I want is that you
+should let me ask, without asking anything in return. I want to know
+what you think, but I don't want to explain----"
+
+"It is a strange condition," said Lady Randolph; but then she thought in
+her superior experience that she was very sure to find out what this
+simple girl meant without explanations. "But I am not inquisitive," she
+added, with a smile, "and I am quite willing, dear, to tell you anything
+I know----"
+
+"It is this," said Lucy, leaning forward in her great earnestness; "do
+you think a woman is ever justified in doing anything which her husband
+disapproves?"
+
+"Lucy!" cried Lady Randolph, in great dismay, "when her husband is my
+Tom, and the thing she wants to do is connected with Jock's tutor----"
+
+Lucy's gaze of astonishment, and her wondering repetition of the words,
+"connected with Jock's tutor!" brought Lady Randolph to herself. In
+society, such a suspicion being fostered by all the gossips, comes
+naturally; but though she was a society-woman, and had not much faith in
+holy ignorance, she paused here, horrified by her own suggestion, and
+blushed at herself.
+
+"No, no," she said, "that was not what I meant; but perhaps I could not
+quite advise, Lucy, where I am so closely concerned."
+
+At which Lucy looked at her somewhat wistfully. "I thought you would
+perhaps remember," she said, "when you were like me, Aunt Randolph, and
+perhaps did not know so well as you know now----"
+
+This touched the elder lady's heart. "Lucy," she said, "my dear, if you
+were not as innocent as I know you are, you would not ask your husband's
+nearest relation such a question. But I will answer you as one woman to
+another, and let Tom take care of himself. I never was one that was very
+strong upon a husband's rights. I always thought that to obey meant
+something different from the common meaning of the word. A child must
+obey; but even a grown-up child's obedience is very different from what
+is natural and proper in youth; and a full-grown woman, you know, never
+could be supposed to obey like a child. No wise man, for that matter,
+would ever ask it or think of it."
+
+This did not give Lucy any help. She was very willing, for her part, to
+accept his light yoke without any restriction, except in the great and
+momentous exception which she did not want to specify.
+
+"I think," Lady Randolph went on, "that to obey means rather--keep in
+harmony with your husband, pay attention to his opinions, don't take up
+an opposite course, or thwart him, be united--instead of the obedience
+of a servant, you know: still less of a slave."
+
+She was a great deal cleverer than Lucy, who was not thinking of the
+general question at all. And this answer did the perplexed mind little
+good. Lucy followed every word with curious attention, but at the end
+slowly shook her head.
+
+"It is not that. Lady Randolph, if there was something that was your
+duty before you were married, and that is still and always your duty, a
+sacred promise you had made; and your husband said no, you must not do
+it--tell me what you would have done? The rest is all so easy," cried
+Lucy, "one likes what he likes, one prefers to please him. But this is
+difficult. What would you have done?"
+
+Here Lady Randolph all at once, after giving forth the philosophical
+view which was so much above her companion, found herself beyond her
+depth altogether, and incapable of the fathom of that simple soul.
+
+"I don't understand you, Lucy. Lucy, for heaven's sake, take care what
+you are doing! If it is anything about Jock, I implore of you give way
+to your husband. You may be sure in dealing with a boy that he knows
+best."
+
+Lucy sighed. "It is nothing about Jock," she said; but she did not
+repeat her demand. Lady Randolph gave her a lecture upon the subject of
+relations which was very wide of the question; and, with a sigh, owning
+to herself that there was no light to be got from this, Lucy listened
+very patiently to the irrelevant discourse. The clever dowager cut it
+short when it was but half over, perceiving the same, and asked herself
+not without excitement what it was possible Lucy's difficulty could be?
+If it was not Jock (and a young brother hanging on to her, with no home
+but hers, an inquisitive young intelligence, always in the way, was a
+difficulty which anybody could perceive at a glance) what was it? But
+Lucy baffled altogether this much experienced woman of the world.
+
+And Jock watched all the day for an opportunity to get possession of
+her, and assail her on the other side of the question. She avoided him
+as persistently as he sought her, and with a panic which was very
+different from her usual happy confidence in him. But the moment came
+when she could elude him no longer. Lady Randolph had gone to her own
+room after her cup of tea, for that little nap before dinner which was
+essential to her good looks and pleasantness in the evening. Sir Tom,
+who was too much disturbed for the usual rules of domestic life, had not
+come in for that twilight talk which he usually enjoyed; and as Lucy
+found herself thus plunged into the danger she dreaded, she was hurrying
+after Lady Randolph, declaring that she heard baby cry, when Jock
+stepped into her way, and detained her, if not by physical, at least by
+moral force--
+
+"Lucy," he said, "are you not going to tell me anything? I know you have
+got the letter, but you won't look at me, or speak a word."
+
+"Oh, Jock, how silly! why shouldn't I look at you? but I have so many
+things to do, and baby--I am sure I heard baby cry."
+
+"He is no more crying than I am. I saw him, and he was as jolly as
+possible. I want awfully to know about the Churchills, and what MTutor
+says."
+
+"Jock, I think Mr. Derwentwater is rather grand in his writing. It looks
+as if he thought a great deal of himself."
+
+"No, he doesn't," said Jock, hotly, "not half enough. He's the best man
+we've got, and yet he can't see it. You needn't give me any information
+about MTutor," added the young gentleman, "for naturally I know all that
+much better than you. But I want to know about the Churchills. Lucy, is
+it all right?"
+
+Lucy gave a little shiver though she was in front of the fire. She said,
+reluctantly, "I think they seem very nice people, Jock."
+
+"I know they are," said Jock, exultantly. "Churchill in college is the
+nicest fellow I know. He read such a paper at the Poetical Society. It
+was on the Method of Sophocles; but of course you would not understand
+that."
+
+"No, dear," said Lucy, mildly; and again she murmured something about
+the baby crying, "I think indeed, Jock, I must go."
+
+"Just a moment," said the boy, "Now you are satisfied couldn't we drive
+into Farafield to-morrow and settle about it? I want to go with you, you
+and I together, and if old Rushton makes a row you can just call me."
+
+"But I can't leave Lady Randolph, Jock," cried Lucy, driven to her wits'
+end. "It would be unkind to leave her, and a few days cannot do much
+harm. When she has gone away----"
+
+"I shall be back at school. Let Sir Tom take her out for once. He might
+as well drive her in his new phaeton that he is so proud of. If it is
+fine she'll like that, and we can say we have some business."
+
+"Oh! Jock, don't press me so; a few days can't make much difference."
+
+"Lucy," said Jock, sternly, "do you think it makes no difference to keep
+a set of good people unhappy, just to save you a little trouble? I
+thought you had more heart than that."
+
+"Oh, let me go, Jock; let me go--that is little Tom, and he wants me,"
+Lucy cried. She had no answer to make him--the only thing she could do
+was to fly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ON BUSINESS.
+
+
+Ten thousand pounds! These words have very different meanings to
+different people. Many of us can form little idea of what those simple
+syllables contain. They enclose as in a golden casket, rest, freedom
+from care, bounty, kindness, an easy existence, and an ending free of
+anxiety to many. To others they are nothing more than a cipher on paper,
+a symbol without any connection with themselves. To some it is great
+fortune, to others a drop in the ocean. A merchant will risk it any day,
+and think but little if the speculation is a failure. A prodigal will
+throw it away in a month, perhaps in a night. But the proportion of
+people to whom its possession would make all the difference between
+poverty and wealth far transcends the number of those who are careless
+of it. It is a pleasure to deal with such a sum of money even on paper.
+To be concerned in giving it away, makes even the historian, who has
+nothing to do with it, feel magnificent and all-bounteous. Jock, who had
+as little experience to back him as any other boy of his age, felt a
+vague elation as he drove in by Lucy's side to Farafield. To confer a
+great benefit is always sweet. Perhaps if we analyse it, as is the
+fashion of the day, we will find that the pleasure of giving has a
+_fond_ of gratified vanity and self-consideration in it; but this
+weakness is at least supposed to be generous, and Jock was generous to
+his own consciousness, and full of delight at what was going to be done,
+and satisfaction with his own share in it. But Lucy's sensations were
+very different. She went with him with no goodwill of her own, like a
+culprit being dragged to execution. Duty is not always willing, even
+when we see it most clearly. Young Lady Randolph had a clear conviction
+of what she was bound to do, but she had no wish to do it, though she
+was so thoroughly convinced that it was incumbent upon her. Could she
+have pushed it out of her own recollection, banished it from her mind,
+she would have gladly done so. She had succeeded for a long time in
+doing this--excluding the consideration of it, and forgetting the burden
+bound upon her shoulders. But now she could forget it no longer--the
+thongs which secured it seemed to cut into her flesh. Her heart was sick
+with thoughts of the thing she must do, yet revolted against doing. "Oh,
+papa, papa!" she said to herself, shaking her head at the grim,
+respectable house in which her early days had been passed, as they drove
+past it to Mr. Rushton's office. Why had the old man put such a burden
+upon her? Why had not he distributed his money himself and left her
+poor if he pleased, with at least no unnatural charge upon her heart and
+life?
+
+"Why do you shake your head?" said Jock, who was full of the keenest
+observation, and lost nothing.
+
+He had an instinctive feeling that she was by no means so much
+interested in her duty as he was, and that it was his business to keep
+her up to the mark.
+
+"Don't you remember the old house?" Lucy said, "where we used to live
+when you were a child? Where poor papa died--where----"
+
+"Of course I remember it. I always look at it when I pass, and think
+what a little ass I used to be. But why did you shake your head? That's
+what I want to know."
+
+"Oh, Jock!" Lucy cried; and said no more.
+
+"That throws very little light on the question," said Jock. "You are
+thinking of the difference, I suppose. Well, there is no doubt it's a
+great difference. I was a little idiot in those days. I recollect I
+thought the circus boy was a sort of little prince, and that it was
+grand to ride along like that with all the people staring--the grandest
+thing in the world----"
+
+"Poor little circus boy! What a pretty child he was," said Lucy. And
+then she sighed to relieve the oppression on her breast, and said, "Do
+you ever wonder, Jock, why people should have such different lots? You
+and I driving along here in what we once would have thought such state,
+and look, these people that are crossing the road in the mud are just as
+good as we are----"
+
+Jock looked at his sister with a philosophical eye, in which for the
+moment there was some contempt. "It is as easy as a, b, c," said Jock;
+"it's your money. You might set me a much harder one. Of course, in the
+way of horses and carriages and so forth, there is nothing that money
+cannot buy."
+
+This matter-of-fact reply silenced Lucy. She would have asked, perhaps,
+why did I have all this money? being in a questioning frame of mind; but
+she knew that he would answer shortly because her father made it, and this
+was not any more satisfactory. So she only looked at him with wistful eyes
+that set many much harder ones, and was silent. Jock himself was too
+philosophical to be satisfied with his own reply.
+
+"You see," he said condescendingly, "Money is the easiest explanation.
+If you were to ask me why Sir Tom should be Sir Tom, and that man sweep
+a crossing, I could not tell you."
+
+"Oh," cried Lucy, "I don't see any difficulty about that at all, for Tom
+was born to it. You might as well say why should baby be born to be the
+heir."
+
+Jock did not know whether to be indignant or to laugh at this feminine
+begging of the question. He stared at her for a moment uncertain, and
+then went on as if she had not spoken. "But money is always
+intelligible. That's political economy. If you have money, as a matter
+of course you have everything that money can buy; and I suppose it can
+buy almost everything?" Jock said, reflectively.
+
+"It cannot buy a moment's happiness," cried Lucy, "nor one of those
+things one wishes most for. Oh Jock, at your age don't be deceived like
+that. For my part," she cried, "I think it is just the trouble of life.
+If it was not for this horrible money----"
+
+She stopped short, the tears were in her eyes, but she would not betray
+to Jock how great was the difficulty in which she found herself. She
+turned her head away and was glad to wave her hand to a well known face
+that was passing, an acquaintance of old times, who was greatly elated
+to find that Lady Randolph in her grandeur still remembered her. Jock
+looked on upon all this with a partial comprehension, mingled with
+disapproval. He did not quite understand what she meant, but he
+disapproved of her for meaning it all the same.
+
+"Money can't be horrible," he said, "unless it's badly spent: and to say
+you can't buy happiness with it is nonsense. If it don't make _you_
+happy to save people from poverty it will make them happy, so somebody
+will always get the advantage. What are you so silly about, Lucy? I
+don't say money is so very fine a thing. I only say it's intelligible.
+If you ask me why a man should be a great deal better than you or me,
+only because he took the trouble to be born----"
+
+"I am not so silly, though you think me so silly, as to ask that," said
+Lucy; "that is so easy to understand. Of course you can only be who you
+are. You can't make yourself into another person; I hope I understand
+that."
+
+She looked him so sweetly and seriously in the face as she spoke, and
+was so completely unaware of any flaw in her reply, that Jock,
+argumentative as he was, only gasped and said nothing more. And it was
+in this pause of their conversation that they swept up to Mr. Rushton's
+door. Mr. Rushton was the town-clerk of Farafield, the most important
+representative of legal knowledge in the place. He had been the late Mr.
+Trevor's man of business, and had still the greater part of Lucy's
+affairs in his hands. He had known her from her childhood, and in the
+disturbed chapter of her life before her marriage, his wife had taken a
+great deal of notice, as she expressed it, of Lucy: and young Raymond,
+who had now settled down in the office as his father's partner (but
+never half such a man as his father, in the opinion of the community),
+had done her the honour of paying her his addresses. But all that had
+passed from everybody's mind. Mrs. Rushton, never very resentful, was
+delighted now to receive Lady Randolph's invitation, and proud of the
+character of an old friend. And if Raymond occasionally showed a little
+embarrassment in Lucy's presence, that was only because he was by nature
+awkward in the society of ladies, and according to his own description
+never knew what to say.
+
+"And what can I do for your ladyship this morning?" Mr. Rushton said,
+rising from his chair. His private room was very warm and comfortable,
+too warm, the visitors thought, as an office always is to people going
+in from the fresh air. The fire burned with concentrated heat, and Lucy,
+in her furs and suppressed agitation, felt her very brain confused. As
+for Jock, he lounged in the background with his hands in his pockets,
+reading the names upon the boxes that lined the walls, and now that it
+had come to the crisis, feeling truly helpless to aid his sister, and
+considerably in the way.
+
+"It is a very serious business," said Lucy, drawing her breath hard. "It
+is a thing you have never liked or approved of, Mr. Rushton, nor any
+one," she added, in a faint voice.
+
+"Dear me, that is very unfortunate," said the lawyer, cheerfully; "but I
+don't think you have ever been much disapproved of, Lady Randolph. Come,
+there is nothing you can't talk to me about--an old friend. I was in
+all your good father's secrets, and I never saw a better head for
+business. Why, this is Jock, I believe, grown into a man almost! I
+wonder if he has any of his father's talent? Is it about him you want to
+consult me? Why, that's perfectly natural, now he's coming to an age to
+look to the future," Mr. Rushton said.
+
+"Oh, no! it is not about Jock. He is only sixteen, and, besides, it is
+something that is much more difficult," said Lucy. And then she paused,
+and cleared her throat, and put down her muff among Mr. Rushton's
+papers, that she might have her hands free for this tremendous piece of
+business. Then she said, with a sort of desperation, looking him in the
+face: "I have come to get you to--settle some money for me in obedience
+to papa's will."
+
+Mr. Rushton started as if he had been shot. "You don't mean----" he
+cried, "You don't mean---- Come, I dare say I am making a mountain out of
+a mole-hill, and that what you are thinking of is quite innocent. If not
+about our young friend here, some of your charities or improvements? You
+are a most extravagant little lady in your improvements, Lady Randolph.
+Those last cottages you know--but I don't doubt the estate will reap the
+advantage, and it's an outlay that pays; oh, yes, I don't deny it's an
+outlay that pays."
+
+Lucy's countenance betrayed the futility of this supposition long before
+he had finished speaking. He had been standing with his back to the
+fire, in a cheerful and easy way. Now his countenance grew grave. He
+drew his chair to the table and sat down facing her. "If it is not that,
+what is it?" he said.
+
+"Mr. Rushton," said Lucy, and she cleared her throat. She looked back
+to Jock for support, but he had his back turned to her, and was still
+reading the names on the lawyer's boxes. She turned round again with a
+little sigh. "Mr. Rushton, I want to carry out papa's will. You know all
+about it. It is codicil F. I have heard of some one who is the right
+kind of person. I want you to transfer ten thousand pounds----"
+
+The lawyer gave a sort of shriek; he bolted out of his chair, pushing it
+so far from him that the substantial mahogany shivered and tottered upon
+its four legs.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, "Nonsense!" increasing the firmness of his tone
+until the word thundered forth in capitals, "NONSENSE!--you are going
+out of your senses; you don't know what you are saying. I made sure we
+had done with all this folly----"
+
+When it had happened to Lucy to propose such an operation as she now
+proposed, for the first time, to her other trustee, she had been spoken
+to in a way which young ladies rarely experience. That excellent man of
+business had tried to put this young lady--then a very young lady--down,
+and he had not succeeded. It may be supposed that at her present age of
+twenty-three, a wife, a mother, and with a modest consciousness of her
+own place and position, she was not a less difficult antagonist. She was
+still a little frightened, and grew somewhat pale, but she looked
+steadfastly at Mr. Rushton with a nervous smile.
+
+"I think you must not speak to me so," she said. "I am not a child, and
+I know my father's will and what it meant. It is not nonsense, nor
+folly--it may perhaps have been," she said with a little sigh--"not
+wise."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Lady Randolph," Mr. Rushton said precipitately,
+with a blush upon his middle-aged countenance, for to be sure, when you
+think of it, to tell a gracious young lady with a title, one of your
+chief clients, that she is talking nonsense, even if you have known her
+all her life, is going perhaps a little too far. "I am sure you will
+understand _that_ is what I meant," he cried, "unwise--the very word I
+meant. In the heat of the moment other words slip out, but no offence
+was intended."
+
+She made him a little bow; she was trembling, though she would not have
+him see it. "We are not here," she said, "to criticise my father." Lucy
+was scarcely half aware how much she had gained in composure and the art
+of self-command. "I think he would have been more wise and more kind to
+have done himself what he thought to be his duty; but what does that
+matter? You must not try to convince me, please, but take the
+directions, which are very simple. I have written them all down in this
+paper. If you think you ought to make independent inquiries, you have
+the right to do that; but you will spare the poor gentleman's feelings,
+Mr. Rushton. It is all put down here."
+
+Mr. Rushton took the paper from her hand. He smiled inwardly to himself,
+subduing his fret of impatience. "You will not object to let me talk it
+over," he said, "first with Sir Tom?"
+
+Lucy coloured, and then she grew pale. "You will remember," she said,
+"that it has nothing to do with my husband, Mr. Rushton."
+
+"My dear lady," said the lawyer, "I never expected to hear you, who I
+have always known as the best of wives, say of anything that it has
+nothing to do with your husband. Surely that is not how ladies speak of
+their lords?"
+
+Lucy heard a sound behind her which seemed to imply to her quick ear
+that Jock was losing patience. She had brought him with her, with the
+idea of deriving some support from his presence; but if Sir Tom had
+nothing to do with it, clearly on much stronger grounds neither had her
+brother. She turned round and cast a hurried warning glance at him. She
+had herself no words ready to reply to the lawyer's gibe. She would
+neither defend herself as from a grave accusation, nor reply in the same
+tone. "Mr. Rushton," she said faltering, "I don't think we need argue,
+need we? I have put down all the particulars. You know about it as well
+as I do. It is not for pleasure. If you think it is right, you will
+inquire about the gentleman--otherwise--I don't think there need be any
+more to say."
+
+"I will talk it over with Sir Tom," said Mr. Rushton, feeling that he
+had found the only argument by which to manage this young woman. He even
+chuckled a little to himself at the thought. "Evidently," he said to
+himself, "she is afraid of Sir Tom, and he knows nothing about this. He
+will soon put a stop to it." He added aloud, "My dear Lady Randolph,
+this is far too serious a matter to be dismissed so summarily. You are
+young and very inexperienced. Of course I know all about it, and so does
+Sir Thomas. We will talk it over between us, and no doubt we will manage
+to decide upon some course that will harmonise everything."
+
+Lucy looked at him with grave suspicion. "I don't know," she said, "what
+there is to be harmonised, Mr. Rushton. There is a thing which I have to
+do, and I have shrunk from it for a long time; but I cannot do so any
+longer."
+
+"Look here," said Jock, "it's Lucy's affair, it's nobody else's. Just
+you look at her paper and do what she says."
+
+"My young friend," said the lawyer blandly, "that is capital advice for
+yourself: I hope you always do what your sister says."
+
+"Most times I do," said Jock; "not that it's your business to tell me.
+But you know very well you'll have to do it. No one has got any right to
+interfere with her. She has more sense than a dozen. She has got the
+right on her side. You may do what you please, but you know very well
+you can't stop her--neither you, nor Sir Tom, nor the old lady, nor one
+single living creature; and you know it," said Jock. He confronted Mr.
+Rushton with lowering brows, and with an angry sparkle in his deep-set
+eyes. Lucy was half proud of and half alarmed by her champion.
+
+"Oh hush, Jock!" she cried. "You must not speak; you are only a boy. You
+must beg Mr. Rushton's pardon for speaking to him so. But, indeed, what
+he says is quite true; it is no one's duty but mine. My husband will not
+interfere with what he knows I must do," she said, with a little chill
+of apprehension. Would he indeed be so considerate for her? It made her
+heart sick to think that she was not on this point quite certain about
+Sir Tom.
+
+"In that case there will be no harm in talking it over with him," said
+the lawyer briefly. "I thought you were far too sensible not to see that
+was the right way. Oh, never mind about his asking my pardon. I forgive
+him without that. He has a high idea of his sister's authority, which is
+quite right; and so have I--and so have all of us. Certainly, certainly,
+Master Jock, she has the right; and she will arrange it judiciously, of
+that there is no fear. But first, as a couple of business men, more
+experienced in the world than you young philanthropists, I will just,
+the first time I see him, talk it over with Sir Tom. My dear Lady
+Randolph, no trouble at all. Is that all I can do for you? Then I will
+not detain you any longer this fine morning," the lawyer said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.
+
+
+They drove away again with scarcely a word to each other. It was a
+bright, breezy, wintry day. The roads about Farafield were wet with
+recent rains, and gleamed in the sunshine. The river was as blue as
+steel, and gave forth a dazzling reflection; the bare trees stood up
+against the sky without a pretence of affording any shadow. The cold to
+these two young people, warmly dressed and prosperous, was nothing to
+object to--indeed, it was not very cold. But they both had a slight
+sense of discomfiture--a feeling of having suffered in their own
+opinion. Jock, who was much regarded at school as a fellow high up, and
+a great friend of his tutor, was not used to such unceremonious
+treatment, and he was wroth to see that even Lucy was supposed to
+require the sanction of Sir Tom for what it was clearly her own business
+to do. He said nothing, however, until they had quite cleared the town,
+and were skimming along the more open country roads; then he said
+suddenly--
+
+"That old Rushton has a great deal of cheek. I should have another
+fellow to manage my affairs, Lucy, if I were you."
+
+"Don't you know, Jock, that I can't? Papa appointed him. He is my
+trustee; he has always to be consulted. Papa did not mind," said Lucy
+with a little sigh. "He said it would be good for me to be contradicted,
+and not to have my own way."
+
+"Don't you have your own way?" said Jock, opening his eyes. "Lucy, who
+contradicts you? I should like to know who it was, and tell him my mind
+a bit. I thought you did whatever you pleased. Do you mean to say there
+is any truth in all that about Sir Tom?"
+
+"In what about Sir Tom?" cried Lucy, instantly on her defence; and then
+she changed her tone with a little laugh. "Of course I do whatever I
+please. It is not good for anybody, Jock. Don't you know we must be
+crossed sometimes, or we should never do any good at all?"
+
+"Now I wonder which she means?" said Jock. "If she does have her own way
+or if she don't? I begin to think you speak something else than English,
+Lucy. I know it is the thing to say that women must do what their
+husbands tell them; but do you mean that it's true like _that_? and that
+a fellow may order you to do this or not to do that, with what is your
+own and not his at all?"
+
+"I don't think I understand you, dear," said Lucy sweetly.
+
+"Oh! you can't be such a stupid as that," said the boy; "you understand
+right enough. What did he mean by talking it over with Sir Tom? He
+thought Sir Tom would put a stop to it, Lucy."
+
+"If Mr. Rushton forms such false ideas, dear, what does it matter? That
+is not of any consequence either to you or me."
+
+"I wish you would give me a plain answer," said Jock, impatiently. "I
+ask you one thing, and you say another; you never give me any
+satisfaction."
+
+She smiled upon him with a look which, clever as Jock was, he did not
+understand. "Isn't that conversation?" she said.
+
+"Conversation!" The boy repeated the word almost with a shriek of
+disdain: "You don't know very much about that, down here in the country,
+Lucy. You should hear MTutor; when he's got two or three fellows from
+Cambridge with him, and they go at it! That's something like talk."
+
+"It is very nice for you, Jock, that you get on so well with Mr.
+Derwentwater," said Lucy, catching with some eagerness at this way of
+escape from embarrassing questions. "I hope he will come and see us at
+Easter, as he promised."
+
+"He may," said Jock, with great gravity, "but the thing is, everybody
+wants to have him; and then, you see, whenever he has an opportunity he
+likes to go abroad. He says it freshens one up more than anything. After
+working his brain all the half, as he does, and taking the interest he
+does in everything, he has got to pay attention, you know, and not to
+overdo it; he must have change, and he must have rest."
+
+Lucy was much impressed by this, as she was by all she heard of MTutor.
+She was quite satisfied that such immense intellectual exertions as his
+did indeed merit compensation. She said, "I am sure he would get rest
+with us, Jock. There would be nothing to tire him, and whatever I could
+do for him, dear, or Sir Tom either, we should be glad, as he is so good
+to you."
+
+"I don't know that he's what you call fond of the country--I mean the
+English country. Of course it is different abroad," said Jock
+doubtfully. Then he came back to the original subject with a bound,
+scattering all Lucy's hopes. "But we didn't begin about MTutor. It was
+the other business we were talking of. Is it true that Sir Tom----"
+
+"Jock," said Lucy seriously. Her mild eyes got a look he had never seen
+in them before. It was a sort of dilation of unshed tears, and yet they
+were not wet. "If you know any time when Sir Tom was ever unkind or
+untrue, I don't know it. He has always, always been good. I don't think
+he will change now. I have always done what he told me, and I always
+will. But he never told me anything. He knows a great deal better than
+all of us put together. Of course, to obey him, that is my first duty.
+And I always shall. But he never asks it--he is too good. What is his
+will, is my will," she said. She fixed her eyes very seriously on Jock,
+all the time she spoke, and he followed every movement of her lips with
+a sort of astonished confusion, which it is difficult to describe. When
+she had ceased Jock drew a long breath, and seemed to come to the
+surface again, after much tossing in darker waters.
+
+"I think that it must be true," he said slowly, after a pause, "as
+people say--that women are very queer, Lucy. I didn't understand one
+word you said."
+
+"Didn't you, then?" she said, with a smile of gentle benignity; "but
+what does it matter, when it will all come right in the end? Is that our
+omnibus, Jock, that is going along with all that luggage? How curious
+that is, for nobody was coming to-day that I know of. Don't you see it
+just turning in to the avenue? Now that is very strange indeed," said
+Lucy, raising herself very erect upon her cushions with a little
+quickened and eager look. An arrival is always exciting in the country,
+and an arrival which was quite unexpected, and of which she could form
+no surmise as to who it could be, stirred up all her faculties. "I
+wonder if Mrs. Freshwater will know what rooms are best?" she said, "and
+if Sir Tom will be at home to receive them; or perhaps it may be some
+friends of Aunt Randolph's, or perhaps--I wonder very much who it can
+be."
+
+Jock's countenance covered itself quickly with a tinge of gloom.
+
+"Whoever it is, I know it will be disgusting," cried the boy. "Just when
+we have got so much to talk about! and now I shall never see you any
+more. Lady Randolph was bad enough, and now here's more of them! I
+should just as soon go back to school at once," he said, with premature
+indignation. The servants on the box perceived the other carriage in
+advance with equal curiosity and excitement. They were still more
+startled, perhaps, for a profound wonder as to what horses had been sent
+out, and who was driving them, agitated their minds. The horses,
+solicited by a private token between them and their driver which both
+understood, quickened their pace with a slight dash, and the carriage
+swept along as if in pursuit of the larger and heavier vehicle, which,
+however, had so much the advance of them, that it had deposited its
+passengers, and turned round to the servants' entrance with the luggage,
+before Lady Randolph could reach the door. Williams the butler wore a
+startled look upon his dignified countenance, as he came out on the
+steps to receive his mistress.
+
+"Some one has arrived," said Lucy with a little eagerness. "We saw the
+omnibus."
+
+"Yes, my lady. A telegram came for Sir Thomas soon after your ladyship
+left; there was just time to put in the horses----"
+
+"But who is it, Williams?"
+
+Williams had a curious apologetic air. "I heard say, my lady, that it
+was some of the party that were invited before Mr. Randolph fell ill.
+There had been a mistake about the letters, and the lady has come all
+the same--a lady with a foreign title, my lady----"
+
+"Oh!" said Lucy, with English brevity. She stood startled, in the hall,
+lingering a little, changing colour, not with any of the deep emotions
+which Williams from his own superior knowledge suspected, but with
+shyness and excitement. "It will be the lady from Italy, the
+Contessa---- Oh, I hope they have attended to her properly! Was Sir
+Thomas at home when she came?"
+
+"Sir Thomas, my lady, went to meet them at the station," Williams said.
+
+"Oh, that is all right," cried Lucy, relieved. "I am so glad she did not
+arrive and find nobody. And I hope Mrs. Freshwater----"
+
+"Mrs. Freshwater put the party into the east wing, my lady. There are
+two ladies besides the man and the maid. We thought it would be the
+warmest for them, as they came from the South."
+
+"It may be the warmest, but it is not the prettiest," said Lucy. "The
+lady is a great friend of Sir Thomas', Williams."
+
+The man gave her a curious look.
+
+"Yes, my lady, I was aware of that," he said.
+
+This surprised Lucy a little, but for the moment she took no notice of
+it. "And therefore," she went on, "the best rooms should have been got
+ready. Mrs. Freshwater ought to have known that. However, perhaps she
+will change afterwards. Jock, I will just run upstairs and see that
+everything is right."
+
+As she turned towards the great staircase, so saying, she ran almost
+into her husband's arms. Sir Tom had appeared from a side door, where he
+had been on the watch, and it was certain that his face bore some traces
+of the new event that had happened. He was not at his ease as usual. He
+laughed a little uncomfortable laugh, and put his hand on Lucy's
+shoulder as she brushed against him. "There," he said, "that will do;
+don't be in such a hurry," arresting her in full career.
+
+"Oh, Tom!" Lucy for her part looked at her husband with the greatest
+relief and happiness. There had been a cloud between them which had been
+more grievous to her than anything else in the world. She had felt
+hourly compelled to stand up before him and tell him that she must do
+what he desired her not to do. The consternation and pain and wrath that
+had risen over his face after that painful interview had not passed away
+through all the intervening time. There had been a sort of desperation
+in her mind when she went to Mr. Rushton, a feeling that she so hated
+the duty which had risen like a ghost between her husband and herself,
+that she must do it at all hazards and without delay. But this cloud had
+now departed from Sir Tom's countenance. There was a little suffusion of
+colour upon it which was unusual to him. Had it been anybody but Sir
+Tom, it would have looked like embarrassment, shyness mingled with a
+certain self-ridicule and sense of the ludicrous in the position
+altogether. He caught his wife in his arms and met her eyes with a
+certain laughing shamefacedness, "Don't," he said, "be in such a hurry,
+Lucy. _Ces dames_ have gone to their rooms; they have been travelling
+all night, and they are not fit to be seen. It is only silly little
+English girls like you that can bear to be looked at at all times and
+seasons." And with this he stooped over her and gave her a kiss on her
+forehead, to Lucy's delight, yet horror--before Williams, who looked on
+approving, and the footman with the traps, and Jock and all! But what a
+load it took off her breast! He was not any longer vexed or disturbed or
+angry. He was indeed conciliatory and apologetic, but Lucy only saw that
+he was kind.
+
+"Poor lady," cried Lucy, "has she been travelling all night? And I am so
+sorry she has been put into the east wing. If I had been at home I
+should have said the blue rooms, Tom, which you know are the nicest----"
+
+"I think they are quite comfortable, my dear," said Sir Tom, with his
+usual laugh, which was half-mocking half-serious, "you may be sure they
+will ask for anything they want. They are quite accustomed to making
+themselves at home."
+
+"Oh, I hope so, Tom," said Lucy, "but don't you think it would be more
+polite, more respectful, if I were to go and ask if they have
+everything? Mrs. Freshwater is very well you know, Tom, but the mistress
+of the house----"
+
+He gave her another little hug, and laughed again. "No," he said, "you
+may be sure Madame Forno-Populo is not going to let you see her till she
+has repaired all ravages. It was extremely indiscreet of me to go to the
+station," he continued, still with that chuckle, leading Lucy away. "I
+had forgotten all these precautions after a few years of you, Lucy. I
+was received with a shriek of horror and a double veil."
+
+Lucy looked at him with great surprise, asking: "Why? wasn't she glad to
+see you?" with incipient indignation and a sense of grievance.
+
+"Not at all," cried Sir Tom, "indeed I heard her mutter something about
+English savagery. The Contessa expresses herself strongly sometimes.
+Freshwater and the maid, and the excellent breakfast Williams has
+ordered, knowing her ways----"
+
+"Does Williams know her ways?" asked Lucy, wondering. There was not the
+faintest gleam of suspicion in her mind; but she was surprised, and her
+husband bit his lip for a moment, yet laughed still.
+
+"He knows those sort of people," he said. "I was very much about in
+society at one time you must know, Lucy, though I am such a steady old
+fellow now. We knew something of most countries in these days. We were
+_bien vu_, he and I, in various places. Don't tell Mrs. Williams, my
+love." He laughed almost violently at this mild joke, and Lucy looked
+surprised. But still no shadow came upon her simple countenance. Lucy
+was like Desdemona, and did not believe that there were such women. She
+thought it was "fun," such fun as she sometimes saw in the newspapers,
+and considered as vulgar as it was foolish. Such words could not be used
+in respect to anything Sir Tom said, but even in her husband it was not
+good taste, Lucy thought. She smiled at the reference to Mrs. Williams
+with a kind of quiet disdain, but it never occurred to her that she too
+might require to be kept in the dark.
+
+"I dare say most of what you are talking is nonsense," she said; "but if
+Madame Forno ----"--Lucy was not very sure of the name, and
+hesitated--"is really very tired, perhaps it may be kindness not to
+disturb her. I hope she will go to bed, and get a thorough rest. Did she
+not get your second letter, Tom? and what a thing it is that dear baby
+is so much better, and that we can really pay a little attention to
+her."
+
+"Either she did not get my letter, or I didn't write, I cannot say which
+it was, Lucy. But now we have got her we must pay attention to her, as
+you say. You will have to get up a few dinner parties, and ask some
+people to stay. She will like to see the humours of the wilderness while
+she is in it."
+
+"The wilderness--but, Tom, everybody says society is so good in the
+county."
+
+"Everybody does not know the Forno-Populo," cried Sir Tom; and then he
+burst out into a great laugh. "I wonder what her Grace will say to the
+Contessa; they have met before now."
+
+"Must we ask the Duchess?" cried Lucy, with awe and alarm, coming a
+little nearer to her husband's side.
+
+But Sir Tom did nothing but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms,"
+he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two ---- at
+it tooth and nail. Two--what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no
+mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as for
+the Forno-Populo herself----"
+
+"Dear Tom" said Lucy with gentle gravity, "Is it nice to speak of ladies
+so? If any one called me the Randolph, I should be, oh, so----"
+
+"You," cried her husband with a hot and angry colour rising to his very
+hair, and then he perceived that he was betraying himself, and paused.
+"You see, my love, that's different," he said. "Madame di Forno-Populo
+is--an old stager: and you are very young, and nobody ever thought of
+you but with--reverence, my dear. Yes, that's the word, Lucy, though you
+are only a bit of a girl."
+
+"Tom," said Lucy with great dignity, "I have you to take care of me, and
+I have never been known in the world. But, dear, if this poor lady has
+no one--and I suppose she is a widow, is she not, Tom?"
+
+He had been listening to her almost with emotion--with a half-abashed
+look, full of fondness and admiration. But at this question he drew back
+a little, with a sort of stagger, and burst into a wild fit of laughter.
+When he came to himself wiping his eyes, he was, there could be no
+doubt, ashamed of himself. "I beg you ten thousand pardons," he cried.
+"Lucy, my darling! Yes, yes--I suppose she is a widow, as you say."
+
+Lucy looked at him while he laughed, with profound gravity, without the
+slightest inclination to join in his merriment, which is a thing which
+has a very uncomfortable effect. She waited till he was done, with a
+mixture of wonder and disapproval in her seriousness, looking at his
+laughter as if at some phenomenon which she did not understand. "I have
+often heard gentlemen," she said, "talk about widows as if it were a
+sort of laughable name, and as if they might make their jokes as they
+pleased. But I did not think you would have done it, Tom. I should feel
+all the other way," said Lucy. "I should think I could never do enough
+to make it up, if that were possible, and to make them forget. Is it
+their fault that they are left desolate, that a man should laugh?" She
+turned away from her husband with a soft superiority of innocence and
+true feeling which struck him dumb.
+
+He begged her pardon in the most abject way; and then he left her for a
+moment quietly, and had his laugh out. But he was ashamed of himself all
+the same. "I wonder what she will say when she sees the Forno-Populo,"
+he said to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FOREWARNED.
+
+
+Lucy did not see her visitors till the hour of dinner. She had expected
+them to appear in the afternoon at the mystic hour of tea, which calls
+an English household together, but when it was represented to her that
+afternoon tea was not the same interesting institution in Italy, her
+surprise ceased, and though her expectations were still more warmly
+excited by this delay, she bore it with becoming patience. There was no
+doubt, however, that the arrival had made a great commotion in the
+house, and Lucy perceived without in the least understanding it, a
+peculiarity in the looks which various of the people around her cast
+upon her during the course of the day. Her own maid was one of these
+people, and Mrs. Freshwater, the housekeeper, who explained in a
+semi-apologetic tone all the preparations she had made for the comfort
+of the guests, was another. And Williams, though he was always so
+dignified, thought Lucy could not help feeling an eye upon her. He was
+almost compassionately attentive to his young mistress. There was a
+certain pathos in the way in which he handed her the potatoes at lunch.
+He pressed a little more claret upon her with a fatherly anxiety, and an
+air that seemed to say, "It will do you good." Lucy was conscious of all
+this additional attention without realising the cause of it. But it
+found its culmination in Lady Randolph, in whom a slightly-injured and
+aggrieved air towards Sir Tom was enhanced by the extreme tenderness of
+her aspect to Lucy, for whom she could not do too much. "Williams is
+quite right in giving you a little more wine. You take nothing," she
+said, "and I am sure you want support. After your long drive, too, my
+dear: and how cold it has been this morning!"
+
+"Yes, it was cold; but we did not mind, we rather liked it, Jock and I.
+Poor Madame di Forno-Populo! She must have felt it travelling all
+night."
+
+"Bravo, Lucy, that is right! you have tackled the name at last, and got
+through with it beautifully," said Sir Tom with a laugh.
+
+Lucy was pleased to be praised. "I hope I shan't forget," she said, "it
+is so long: and oh, Tom, I do hope she can talk English, for you know my
+French."
+
+"I should think she could talk English!" said Lady Randolph, with a
+little scorn. And what was very extraordinary was that Williams showed a
+distinct but suppressed consciousness, putting his lips tight as if to
+keep in what he knew about the matter. "And I don't think you need be so
+sorry for the lady, Lucy," said the dowager. "No doubt she didn't mean
+to travel by night. It arose from some mistake or other in Tom's letter.
+But she does not mind that, you may be sure, now that she has made out
+her point."
+
+"What point?" said Sir Tom, with some heat. But Lady Randolph made no
+reply, and he did not press the question. They were both aware that it
+is sometimes better to hold one's tongue. And the curious thing to all
+of those well-informed persons was that Lucy took no notice of all their
+hints and innuendoes. She was in the greatest spirits, not only
+interested about her unknown visitors and anxious to secure their
+comfort, but in herself more gay than she had been for some time past.
+In fact this arrival was a godsend to Lucy. The cloud had disappeared
+entirely from her husband's brow. Instead of making any inquiries about
+her visit to Farafield, or resuming the agitating discussion which had
+ended in what was really a refusal on her part to do what he wished, he
+was full of a desire to conciliate and please her. The matter which had
+brought so stern a look to his face, and occasioned her an anxiety and
+pain far more severe than anything that had occurred before in her
+married life, seemed to have dropped out of his mind altogether. Instead
+of that opposition and disapproval, mingled with angry suspicion, which
+had been in his manner and looks, he was now on the watch to propitiate
+Lucy; to show a gratitude for which she knew no reason, and a pride in
+her which was still less comprehensible. What did it all mean, the
+compassion on one side, the satisfaction on the other? But Lucy scarcely
+asked herself the question. In her relief at having no new discussion
+with her husband, and at his apparent forgetfulness of all displeasure
+and of any question between them, her heart rose with all the glee of a
+child's. It seemed to her that she had surmounted the difficulties of
+her position by an intervention which was providential. It even occurred
+to her innocent mind to make reflections as to the advantage of doing
+what was right in the face of all difficulties. God, she said to
+herself, evidently was protecting her. It was known in heaven what an
+effort it had cost her to do her duty to fulfil her father's will, and
+now heavenly succour was coming, and the difficulties disappearing out
+of her way. Lucy would have been ready in any case with the most
+unhesitating readiness to receive and do any kindness to her husband's
+friend. No idea of jealousy had come into her unsuspicious soul. She had
+taken it as a matter of course that this unknown lady should have the
+best that the Hall could offer her, and that her old alliance with Sir
+Tom should throw open his doors and his wife's heart. Perhaps it was
+because Lucy's warm and simple-minded attachment to her husband had
+little in it of the character of passion that it was thus entirely
+without any impulse of jealousy. And what was so natural in common
+circumstances became still more so in the exhilaration and rebound of
+her troubled heart. Sir Tom was so kind to her in departing from his
+opposition, in letting her have her way without a word. It was certain
+that Lucy would not have relinquished her duty for any opposition he had
+made. But with what a bleeding heart she would have done it, and how
+hateful would have been the necessity which separated her from his
+goodwill and assistance! Now she felt that terrible danger was over.
+Probably he would not ask her what she had been about. He would not give
+it his approval, which would have been most sweet of all, but if he did
+not interfere, if he permitted it to be done without opposition, without
+even demanding of his wife an account of her action, how much that would
+be, and how cordially, with what a genuine impulse of the heart would
+she set to work to carry out his wishes--he who had been so generous, so
+kind to her! This was how it was that her gaiety, the ease and
+happiness of her look, startled them all so much. That she should have
+been amiable to the new comers was comprehensible. She was so amiable by
+nature, and so ignorant and unsuspicious: but that their coming should
+give her pleasure, this was the thing that confounded the spectators:
+they could not understand how any other subject should withdraw her from
+what is supposed to be a wife's master emotion--nay, they could not
+understand how it was that mere instinct had not enlightened Lucy, and
+pointed out to her what elements were coming together that would be
+obnoxious to her peace. Even Sir Tom felt this, with a deepened
+tenderness for his pure-minded little wife, and pride in her
+unconsciousness. Was there another woman in England who would have been
+so entirely generous, so unaware even of the possibility of evil? He
+admired her for it, and wondered--if it was a little silly (which he had
+a kind of undisclosed suspicion that it was), yet what a heavenly
+silliness. There was nobody else who would have been so magnanimous, so
+confident in his perfect honour and truth.
+
+The only other element that could have added to Lucy's satisfaction was
+also present. Little Tom was better than usual. Notwithstanding the cold
+he had been able to go out, and was all the brighter for it, not chilled
+and coughing as he sometimes was. His mother had found him careering
+about his nursery in wild glee, and flinging his toys about, in
+perfectly boyish, almost mannish, altogether wicked, indifference to the
+danger of destroying them. It was this that brought her downstairs
+radiant to the luncheon table, where Lady Randolph and Williams were so
+anxious to be good to her. Lucy was much surprised by the solicitude
+which she felt to be so unnecessary. She was disposed to laugh at the
+care they took of her; feeling in her own mind, more triumphant, more
+happy and fortunate, than she had ever been before.
+
+As for Jock, he took no notice at all of the incident of the day. He
+perceived with satisfaction, a point on which for the moment he was
+unusually observant, that Sir Tom showed no intention of questioning
+them as to their morning's expedition or opposing Lucy. This being the
+case, what was it to the boy who went or came? A couple of ladies were
+quite indifferent to him. He did not expect anything or fear anything.
+His own doings interested him much more. The conversation about this new
+subject floated over his head. He did not take the trouble to pay any
+attention to it. As for Williams' significant looks or Lady Randolph's
+anxieties, Jock was totally unconscious of their existence. He did not
+pay any attention. When the party was not interesting he had plenty of
+other thoughts to retire into, and the coming of new people, except in
+so far as it might be a bore, did not affect him at all.
+
+Lucy went out dutifully for a drive with Lady Randolph after luncheon.
+It was still very bright, though it was cold, and after a little demur
+as to the propriety of going out when it was possible her guests might
+be coming downstairs, Lucy took her place beside the fur-enveloped
+Dowager with her hot water footstool and mountain of wrappings. They
+talked about ordinary matters for a little, about the landscape and the
+improvements, and about little Tom, whose improvement was the most
+important of all. But it was not possible to continue long upon
+indifferent matters in face of the remarkable events which had disturbed
+the family calm.
+
+"I hope," said Lucy, "that Madame di Forno-Populo" (she was very
+careful about all the syllables) "may not be more active than you think,
+and come down while we are away."
+
+"Oh, there is not the least fear," said Lady Randolph, somewhat
+scornfully. "She was always a candle-light beauty. She is not very fond
+of the eye of day."
+
+"She is a beauty, then?" said Lucy. "I am very glad. There are so few.
+You know I have always been--rather--disappointed. There are many pretty
+people: but to be beautiful is quite different."
+
+"That is because you are so unsophisticated, my dear. You don't
+understand that beauty in society means a fashion, and not much more. I
+have seen a quantity of beauties in my day. How they came to be so,
+nobody knew; but there they were, and we all bowed down to them. This
+woman, however, was very pretty, there was no doubt about it," said Lady
+Randolph, with reluctant candour. "I don't know what she may be now. She
+was enough to turn any man's head when she was young--or even a
+woman's--who ought to have known better."
+
+"Do you think then, Aunt Randolph, that women don't admire pretty
+people?" It is to be feared that Lucy asked for the sake of making
+conversation, which it is sometimes necessary to do.
+
+"I think that men and women see differently--as they always do," said
+Lady Randolph. She was rather fond of discriminating between the ideas
+of the sexes, as many ladies of a reasonable age are. "There is a
+gentleman's beauty, you know, and there is a kind of beauty that women
+love. I could point out the difference to you better if the specimens
+were before us; but it is a little difficult to describe. I rather
+think we admire expression, you know. What men care for is flesh and
+blood. We like people that are good--that is to say, who have the air of
+being good, for the reality doesn't by any means follow. Perhaps I am
+taking too much credit to ourselves," said the old lady, "but that is
+the best description I can hit upon. We like the interesting kind--the
+pensive kind--which was the fashion when I was young. Your great, fat,
+golden-haired, red and white women are gentlemen's beauties; they don't
+commend themselves to us."
+
+"And is Madame di Forno-Populo," said Lucy, in her usual elaborate way,
+"of that kind?"
+
+"Oh! my dear, she is just a witch," Lady Randolph said. "It does not
+matter who it is, she can bring them to her feet if she pleases!" Then
+she seemed to think she had gone too far, and stopped herself: "I mean
+when she was young; she is young no longer, and I dare say all that has
+come to an end."
+
+"It must be sad to grow old when one is like that," said Lucy, with a
+look of sympathetic regret.
+
+"Oh, you are a great deal too charitable, Lucy!" said the old lady: and
+then she stopped short, putting a sudden restraint upon herself, as if
+it were possible that she might have said too much; then after a while
+she resumed: "As you are in such a heavenly frame of mind, my dear, and
+disposed to think so well of her, there is just one word of advice I
+will give you--don't allow yourself to get intimate with this lady. She
+is quite out of your way. If she liked, she could turn you round her
+little finger. But it is to be hoped she will not like; and, in any
+case, you must remember that I have warned you. Don't let her, my dear,
+make a catspaw of you."
+
+"A catspaw of me!" Lucy was amused by these words--not offended, as so
+many might have been--perhaps because she felt herself little likely to
+be so dominated; a fact that the much older and more experienced woman
+by her side was quite unaware of. "But," she said, "Tom would not have
+invited her, Aunt Randolph, if he had thought her likely to do
+that--indeed, how could he have been such great friends with her if she
+had not been nice as well as pretty? You forget there must always be
+that in her favour to me."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" cried Lady Randolph with indignation. "My dear Lucy," she
+added after a pause, with subdued exasperation, "men are the most
+unaccountable creatures! Knowing him as I do, I should have thought she
+was the very last person--but how can we tell? I dare say the idea
+amused him. Tom will do anything that amuses him--or tickles his vanity.
+I confess it is as you say, very, very difficult to account for it; but
+he has done it. He wants to show off a little to her, I suppose; or else
+he---- There is really no telling, Lucy. It is the last thing in the
+world I should have thought of; and you may be quite sure, my dear," she
+added with emphasis, "she never would have been invited at all if he had
+expected me to be here when she came."
+
+Lucy did not make any answer for some time. Her face, which had kept its
+gaiety and radiance, grew grave, and when they had driven back towards
+the hall for about ten minutes in silence, she said quietly "You do not
+mean it, I am sure; but do you know, Aunt Randolph, you are trying to
+make me think very badly of my husband; and no one has ever done that
+before."
+
+"Oh, your husband is just like other people's husbands, Lucy," cried
+the elder lady impatiently. Then, however, she subdued herself, with an
+anxious look at her companion. "My dear, you know how fond I am of Tom:
+and I know he is fond of you; he would not do anything to harm you for
+the world. I suppose it is because he has such a prodigious confidence
+in you that he thinks it does not matter; and I don't suppose it does
+matter. The only thing is, don't be over intimate with her, Lucy; don't
+let her fix herself upon you when you go to town, and talk about young
+Lady Randolph as her dearest friend. She is quite capable of doing it.
+And as for Tom--well, he is just a man when all is said."
+
+Lucy did not ask any more questions. That she was greatly perplexed
+there is no doubt, and her first fervour of affectionate interest in
+Tom's friend was slightly damped, or at least changed. But she was more
+curious than ever; and there was in her mind the natural contradiction
+of youth against the warnings addressed to her. Lucy knew very well that
+she herself was not one to be twisted round anybody's little finger. She
+was not afraid of being subjugated; and she had a prejudice in favour of
+her husband which neither Lady Randolph nor any other witness could
+impair. The drive home was more silent than the outset. Naturally, the
+cold increased as the afternoon went on, and the Dowager shrunk into her
+furs, and declared that she was too much chilled to talk. "Oh how
+pleasant a cup of tea will be," she said.
+
+Lucy longed for her part to get down from the carriage and walk home
+through the village, to see all the cottage fires burning, and quicken
+the blood in her veins, which is a better way than fur for keeping one's
+self warm. When they got in, it was exciting to think that perhaps the
+stranger was coming down to tea; though that, as has been already said,
+was a hope in which Lucy was disappointed. Everything was prepared for
+her reception, however--a sort of throne had been arranged for her, a
+special chair near the fire, shaded by a little screen, and with a
+little table placed close to it to hold her cup of tea. The room was all
+in a ruddy blaze of firelight, the atmosphere delightful after the cold
+air outside, and all the little party a little quiet, thinking that
+every sound that was heard must be the stranger.
+
+"She must have been very tired," Lucy said sympathetically.
+
+"I dare say," said Lady Randolph, "she thinks a dinner dress will make a
+better effect."
+
+Lucy looked towards her husband almost with indignation, with eyes that
+asked why he did not defend his friend. But, to be sure, Sir Tom could
+not judge of their expression in the firelight, and instead of defending
+her he only laughed. "One general understands another's tactics," he
+said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE VISITORS.
+
+
+Sir Tom paid his wife a visit when she was in the midst of her toilette
+for dinner. He came in, and looked at her dress with an air of
+dissatisfaction. It was a white dress, of a kind which suited Lucy very
+well, and which she was in the habit of wearing for small home parties,
+at which full dress was unnecessary. He looked at her from head to
+foot, and gave a little pull to her skirt with a doubtful air. "It
+doesn't sit, does it?" he said; "can't you pin it, or something, to make
+it come better?"
+
+This, it need not be said, was a foolish piece of ignorance on Sir Tom's
+part, and as Miss Fletcher, Lucy's maid, thought, "just like a man."
+Fletcher was for the moment not well-disposed towards Sir Tom. She
+said--"Oh no, Sir Thomas, my lady don't hold with pins. Some ladies may
+that are all for effect; but my lady, that is not her way."
+
+Sir Tom felt that these words inclosed a dart as sharp as any pin, and
+directed at himself; but he took no notice. He walked round his wife,
+eyeing her on every side; and then he gave a little pull to her hair as
+he had done to her dress. "After all," he said, "it is some time since
+you left school, Lucy. Why this simplicity? I want you to look your best
+to-night."
+
+"But, dear Tom," said Lucy, "you always say that I am not to be
+over-dressed."
+
+"I don't want you to be under-dressed; there is plenty of time. Don't
+you think you might do a little more in the way of toilette? Put on some
+lace or something; Fletcher will know. Look here, Fletcher, I want Lady
+Randolph to look very well to-night. Don't you think this get-up would
+stand improvement? I dare say you could do it with ribbons, or
+something. We must not have her look like my grandchild, you know."
+
+Upon which Fletcher, somewhat mollified and murmuring that Sir Thomas
+was a gentleman that would always have his joke, answered boldly that
+_that_ was not how she would have dressed her lady had she had the doing
+of it. "But I know my place," Fletcher said, "though to see my lady
+like this always goes against me, Sir Thomas, and especially with
+foreigners in the house that are always dressed up to the nines and
+don't think of nothing else. But if Lady Randolph would wear her blue it
+could all be done in five minutes, and look far nicer and more like the
+lady of the house."
+
+This transfer was finally made, for Lucy had no small obstinacies and
+was glad to please her husband. The "blue" was of the lightest tint of
+shimmering silk, and gave a little background of colour, upon which
+Lucy's fairness and whiteness stood out. Sir Thomas always took an
+interest in his wife's dress; but it was seldom he occupied himself so
+much about it. It was he who went to the conservatory to get a flower
+for her hair. He took her downstairs upon his arm "as if they were out
+visiting," Lucy said, instead of at home in their own house. She was
+amused at all this form and ceremony, and came down to the drawing-room
+with a little flush of pleasure and merriment about her, quite different
+from the demure little Lady Randolph, half frightened and very serious,
+with the weight on her mind of a strange language to be spoken, who but
+for Sir Tom's intervention would have been standing by the fire awaiting
+her visitor. The Dowager was downstairs before her, looking grave
+enough, and Jock, slim and dark, supporting a corner of the mantelpiece,
+like a young Caryatides in black. Lucy's brightness, her pretty shimmer
+of blue, the flower in her hair, relieved these depressing influences.
+She stood in the firelight with the ruddy irregular glare playing on
+her, a pretty youthful figure; and her husband's assiduities, and the
+entire cessation of any apparent consciousness on his part that any
+question had ever arisen between them, made Lucy's heart light in her
+breast. She forgot even the possibility of having to talk French in the
+ease of her mind; and before she had time to remember her former alarm
+there came gliding through the subdued light of the greater drawing-room
+two figures. Sir Tom stepped forward to meet the stranger, who gave him
+her hand as if she saw him for the first time, and Lucy advanced with a
+little tremor. Here was the Contessa--the Forno-Populo--the foreign
+great lady and great beauty at last.
+
+She was tall--almost as tall as Sir Tom--and had the majestic grace
+which only height can give. She was clothed in dark velvet, which fell
+in long folds to her feet, and her hair, which seemed very abundant, was
+much dressed with puffs and curlings and frizzings, which filled Lucy
+with wonder, but furnished a delicate frame-work for her beautiful,
+clear, high features, and the wonderful tint of her complexion--a sort
+of warm ivory, which made all brighter colours look excessive. Her eyes
+were large and blue, with long but not very dark eyelashes; her throat
+was like a slender column out of a close circle of feathery lace. Lucy,
+who had a great deal of natural taste, felt on the moment a thrill of
+shame on account of her blue gown, and an almost disgust of Lady
+Randolph's old-fashioned openness about the shoulders. The stranger was
+one of those women whose dress always impresses other women with such a
+sense of fitness that fashion itself looks vulgar or insipid beside her.
+She gave Sir Tom her left hand in passing, and then she turned with both
+extended to Lucy. "So this is the little wife," she said. She did not
+pause for the modest little word of welcome which Lucy had prepared. She
+drew her into the light, and gazed at her with benignant but dauntless
+inspection, taking in, Lucy felt sure, every particular of her
+appearance--the something too much of the blue gown, the deficiency of
+dignity, the insignificance of the smooth fair locks, and open if
+somewhat anxious countenance. "_Bel enfant_," said the Contessa, "your
+husband and I are such old friends that I cannot meet you as a stranger.
+You must let me kiss you, and accept me as one of yours too." The
+salutation that followed made Lucy's heart jump with mingled pleasure
+and distaste. She was swallowed up altogether in that embrace. When it
+was over, the lady turned from her to Sir Tom without another word. "I
+congratulate you, _mon ami_. Candour itself, and sweetness, and every
+English quality"--upon which she proceeded to seat herself in the chair
+which Lucy had set for her in the afternoon with the screen and the
+footstool. "How thoughtful some one has been for my comfort," she said,
+sinking into it, and distributing a gracious smile all round. There was
+something in the way in which she seized the central place in the scene,
+and made all the others look like surroundings which bewildered Lucy,
+who did nothing but gaze, forgetting everything she meant to say, and
+even that it was she who was the mistress of the house.
+
+"You do not see my aunt, Contessa," said Sir Tom, "and yet I think you
+ought to know each other."
+
+"Your aunt," said the Contessa, looking round, "that dear Lady
+Randolph--who is now Dowager. Chère dame!" she added, half rising,
+holding out again both hands.
+
+Lady Randolph the elder knew the world better than Lucy. She remained in
+the background into which the Contessa was looking with eyes which she
+called shortsighted. "How do you do, Madame di Forno-Populo!" she said.
+"It is a long time since we met. We have both grown older since that
+period. I hope you have recovered from your fatigue."
+
+The Contessa sank back again into her chair. "Ah, _both_, yes!" she
+said, with an eloquent movement of her hands. At this Sir Tom gave vent
+to a faint chuckle, as if he could not contain himself any longer.
+
+"The passage of time is a myth," he said; "it is a fable; it goes the
+other way. To look at you----"
+
+"Both!" said the Contessa, with a soft, little laugh, spreading out her
+beautiful hands.
+
+Lucy hoped that Lady Randolph, who had kept behind, did not hear this
+last monosyllable, but she was angry with her husband for laughing, for
+abandoning his aunt's side, upon which she herself, astonished, ranged
+herself without delay. But what was still more surprising to Lucy, with
+her old-fashioned politeness, was to see the second stranger who had
+followed the Contessa into the room, but who had not been introduced or
+noticed. She had the air of being very young--a dependent probably, and
+looking for no attention--and with a little curtsey to the company,
+withdrew to the other side of the table on which the lamp was standing.
+Lucy had only time to see that there was a second figure, very slim and
+slight, and that the light of the lamp seemed to reflect itself in the
+soft oval of a youthful face as she passed behind it; but save for this
+noiseless movement the young lady gave not the smallest sign of
+existence, nor did any one notice her. And it was only when the summons
+came to dinner, and when Lucy called forth the bashful Jock to offer his
+awkward arm to Lady Randolph, that the unannounced and unconsidered
+guest came fully into sight.
+
+"There are no more gentlemen, and I think we must go in together," Lucy
+said.
+
+"It is a great honour for me," said the girl. She had a very slight
+foreign accent, but she was not in the least shy. She came forward at
+once with the utmost composure. Though she was a stranger and a
+dependent without a name, she was a great deal more at her ease than
+Lucy was, who was the mistress of everything. Lucy for her part was
+considerably embarrassed. She looked at the girl, who smiled at her, not
+without a little air of encouragement and almost patronage in return.
+
+"I have not heard your name," Lucy at last prevailed upon herself to
+say, as they went through the long drawing-room together. "It is very
+stupid of me; but I was occupied with Madame di Forno-Populo----"
+
+"You could not hear it, for it was never mentioned," said the girl. "The
+Contessa does not think it worth while. I am at present in the cocoon.
+If I am pretty enough when I am quite grown up, then she will tell my
+name----"
+
+"Pretty enough? But what does that matter? one does not talk of such
+things," said the decorous little matron, startled and alarmed.
+
+"Oh, it means everything to me," said the anonymous. "It is doubtful
+what I shall be. If I am only a little pretty I shall be sent home; but
+if it should happen to me--ah! no such luck!--to be beautiful, then the
+Contessa will introduce me, and everybody says I may go far--farther,
+indeed, than even she has ever done. Where am I to sit? Beside you?"
+
+"Here, please," said Lucy, trembling a little, and confounded by the
+ease of this new actor on the scene, who spoke so frankly. She was
+dressed in a little black frock up to her throat; her hair in great
+shining bands coiled about her head, but not an ornament of any kind
+about her. A little charity girl could not have been dressed more
+plainly. But she showed no consciousness of this, nor, indeed, of
+anything that was embarrassing. She looked round the table with a free
+and fearless look. There was not about her any appearance of timidity,
+even in respect to the Contessa. She included that lady in her
+inspection as well as the others, and even made a momentary pause before
+she sat down, to complete her survey. Lucy, who had on ordinary
+occasions a great deal of gentle composure, and had sat with a Cabinet
+Minister by her side without feeling afraid, was more disconcerted than
+it would be easy to say by this young creature, of whom she did not know
+the name. It was so small a party that a separate little conversation
+with her neighbour was scarcely practicable, but the Contessa was
+talking to Sir Tom with the confidential air of one who has a great deal
+to say, and Lady Randolph on his other side was keeping a stern silence,
+so that Lucy was glad to make a little attempt at her end of the table.
+
+"You must have had a very fatiguing journey?" she said. "Travelling by
+night, when you are not used to it----"
+
+"But we are quite used to it," said the girl. "It is our usual way. By
+land it is so much easier: and even at sea one goes to bed, and one is
+at the other side before one knows."
+
+"Then you are a good sailor, I suppose----"
+
+"_Pas mal_," said the young lady. She began to look at Jock, and to
+turn round from time to time to the elder Lady Randolph, who sat on the
+other side of her. "They are not dumb, are they?" she asked. "Not once
+have I heard them speak. That is very English, so like what one reads in
+books."
+
+"You speak English very well, Mademoiselle," said the Dowager suddenly.
+
+The girl turned round and examined her with a candid surprise. "I am so
+glad you do," she said calmly: a little _mot_ which brought the colour
+to Lady Randolph's cheeks.
+
+"A pupil of the Contessa naturally knows a good many languages," she
+said, "and would be little at a loss wherever she went. You have come
+last from Florence, Rome, or perhaps some other capital. The Contessa
+has friends everywhere--still."
+
+This last little syllable caught the Contessa's fine ear, though it was
+not directed to her. She gave the Dowager a very gracious smile across
+the table. "Still," she repeated, "everywhere! People are so kind. My
+invitations are so many it was with difficulty I managed to accept that
+of our excellent Tom. But I had made up my mind not to disappoint him
+nor his dear young wife. I was not prepared for the pleasure of finding
+your ladyship here."
+
+"How fortunate that you were able to manage it! I have been
+complimenting Mademoiselle on her English. She does credit to her
+instructors. Tell me, is this your first visit," Lady Randolph said,
+turning to the young lady "to England?" Even in this innocent question
+there was more than met the eye. The girl, however, had begun to make a
+remark to Lucy, and thus evaded it in the most easy way.
+
+"I saw you come home soon after our arrival," she said. "I was at my
+window. You came with--Monsieur----" She cast a glance at Jock as she
+spoke, with a smile in her eyes that was not without its effect. There
+was a little provocation in it, which an older man would have known how
+to answer. But Jock, in the awkwardness of his youth, blushed fiery red,
+and turned away his gaze, which, indeed, had been dwelling upon her with
+an absorbed but shy attention. The boy had never seen anything at all
+like her before.
+
+"My brother," said Lucy, and the young lady gave him a beaming smile and
+bow which made Jock's head turn round. He did not know how to reply to
+it, whether he ought not to get up to answer her salutation; and being
+so uncertain and abashed and excited, he did nothing at all, but gazed
+again with an absorption which was not uncomplimentary. She gave him
+from time to time a little encouraging glance.
+
+"That was what I thought. You drive out always at that early hour in
+England, and always with--Monsieur?" The girl laughed now, looking at
+him, so that Jock longed to say something witty and clever. Oh, why was
+not MTutor here? He would have known the sort of thing to say.
+
+"Oh not, not always with Jock," Lucy answered, with honest
+matter-of-fact. "He is still at school, and we have him only for the
+holidays. Perhaps you don't know what that means?"
+
+"The holidays? yes, I know. Monsieur, no doubt, is at one of the great
+schools that are nowhere but in England, where they stay till they are
+men."
+
+"We stay," said Jock, making an almost convulsive effort, "till we are
+nineteen. We like to stay as long as we can."
+
+"How innocent," said the girl with a pretty elderly look of superiority
+and patronage; and then she burst into a laugh, which neither Lucy nor
+Jock knew how to take, and turned back again in the twinkling of an eye
+to Lady Randolph, who had relapsed into silence. "And you drive in the
+afternoon," she said. "I have already made my observations. And the baby
+in the middle, between. And Sir Tom always. He goes out and he goes in,
+and one sees him continually. I already know all the habits of the
+house."
+
+"You were not so very tired, then, after all. Why did you not come down
+stairs and join us in what we were doing?"
+
+The young lady did not make any articulate reply, but her answer was
+clear enough. She cast a glance across the table to the Contessa, and
+laid her hand upon her own cheek. Lucy was a little mystified by this
+pantomime, but to Lady Randolph there was no difficulty about it. "That
+is easily understood," she said, "when one is _sur le retour_. But the
+same precautions are not necessary with all."
+
+A smile came upon the girl's lip. "I am sympathetic," she said. "Oh,
+troppo! I feel just like those that I am with. It is sometimes a
+trouble, and sometimes it is an advantage." This was to Lucy like the
+utterance of an oracle, and she understood it not.
+
+"Another time," she said kindly, "you must not only observe us from the
+window, but come down and share what we are doing. Jock will show you
+the park and the grounds, and I will take you to the village. It is
+quite a pretty village, and the cottages are very nice now."
+
+The young stranger's eyes blazed with intelligence. She seemed to
+perceive everything at a glance.
+
+"I know the village," she said, "it is at the park gates, and Milady
+takes a great deal of trouble that all is nice in the cottages. And
+there is an old woman that knows all about the family, and tells legends
+of it; and a school and a church, and many other _objets-de-piété_. I
+know it like that," she cried, holding out the pretty pink palm of her
+hand.
+
+"This information is preternatural," said Lady Randolph. "You are
+astonished, Lucy. Mademoiselle is a sorceress. I am sure that Jock
+thinks so. Nothing save an alliance with something diabolical could have
+made her so well instructed, she who has never been in England before."
+
+"Do you ask how I know all that?" the girl said laughing. "Then I
+answer, novels. It is all Herr Tauchnitz and his pretty books."
+
+"And so you really never were in England before--not even as a baby?"
+Lady Randolph said.
+
+The girl's gaiety had attracted even the pair at the other end of the
+table, who had so much to say to each other. The Contessa and Sir Tom
+exchanged a look, which Lucy remarked with a little surprise, and
+remarked in spite of herself: and the great lady interfered to help her
+young dependent out.
+
+"How glad I am to give her that advantage, dear lady! It is the crown of
+the petite's education. In England she finds the most fine manners, as
+well as villages full of _objets-de-piété_. It is what is needful to
+form her," the Contessa said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA.
+
+
+"Come and sit beside me and tell me everything," said the Contessa. She
+had appropriated the little sofa next the fire where Lady Randolph
+generally sat in the evening. She had taken Lucy's arm on the way from
+the dining-room, and drew her with her to this corner. Nothing could be
+more caressing or tender than her manner. She seemed to be conferring
+the most delightful of favours as she drew towards her the mistress of
+the house. "You have been married--how long? Six years! But it is
+impossible! And you have all the freshness of a child. And very happy?"
+she said smiling upon Lucy. She had not a fault in her pronunciation,
+but when she uttered these two words she gave a little roll of the "r"
+as if she meant to assume a defect which she had not, and smiled with a
+tender benevolence in which there was the faintest touch of derision.
+Lucy did not make out what it was, but she felt that something lay under
+the dazzling of that smile. She allowed the stranger to draw her to the
+sofa, and sat down by her.
+
+"Yes, it is six years," she said.
+
+"And ver--r--y happy?" the Contessa repeated. "I am sure that dear Tom
+is a model husband. I have known him a very long time. Has he told you
+about me?"
+
+"That you were an old friend," said Lucy, looking at her. "Oh yes! The
+only thing is, that we are so much afraid you will find the country
+dull."
+
+The Contessa replied only with an eloquent look and a pressure of the
+hand. Her eyes were quite capable of expressing their meaning without
+words; and Lucy felt that she had guessed her rightly.
+
+"We wished to have a party to meet you," Lucy said, "but the baby fell
+ill--and I thought as you had kindly come so far to see Tom, you would
+not mind if you found us alone."
+
+The lady still made no direct reply. She said after a little pause,
+
+"The country is very dull----" still smiling upon Lucy, and allowed a
+full minute to pass without another word. Then she added, "And
+Milady?--is she always with you?"--with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
+She did not even lower her voice to prevent Lady Randolph from hearing,
+but gave Lucy's hand a special pressure, and fixed upon her a
+significant look.
+
+"Oh! Aunt Randolph?" cried Lucy. "Oh no; she is only paying her usual
+Christmas visit."
+
+The Contessa drew a sigh of relief, and laid her other delicate hand
+upon her breast. "You take a load off my heart," she said; then gliding
+gracefully from the subject, "And that excellent Tom----? you met
+him--in society?"
+
+Lucy did not quite like the questioning, or those emphatic pressures of
+her hand. She said quickly, "We met at Lady Randolph's. I was living
+there."
+
+"Oh--I see," the stranger said, and she gave vent to a little gentle
+laugh. "I see!" Her meaning was entirely unknown to Lucy; but she felt
+an indefinable offence. She made a slight effort to withdraw her hand;
+but this the Contessa would not permit. She pressed the imprisoned
+fingers more closely in her own. "You do not like this questioning.
+Pardon! I had forgotten English ways. It is because I hope you will let
+me be your friend too."
+
+"Oh yes," cried Lucy, ashamed of her own hesitation, yet feeling every
+moment more reluctant. She subdued her rising distaste with an effort.
+"I hope," she said, sweetly, "that we shall be able to make you feel at
+home, Madame di Forno-Populo. If there is anything you do not like, will
+you tell me? Had I been at home I should have chosen other rooms for
+you."
+
+"They are so pretty, those words, 'at home!' so English," the Contessa
+said, with smiles that were more and more sweet. "But it will fatigue
+you to call me all that long name."
+
+"Oh no!" cried Lucy, with a vivid blush. She did not know what to say,
+whether this meant a little derision of her careful pronunciation, or
+what it was. She went on, after a little pause, "But if you are not
+quite comfortable the other rooms can be got ready directly. It was the
+housekeeper who thought the rooms you have would be the warmest."
+
+The Contessa gave her another gentle pressure of the hand. "Everything
+is perfect," she said. "The house and the wife, and all. I may call you
+Lucy? You are so fresh and young. How do you keep that pretty bloom
+after six years--did you say six years? Ah! the English are always those
+that wear best. You are not afraid of a great deal of light--no? but it
+is trying sometimes. Shades are an advantage. And he has not spoken to
+you of me, that dear Tom? There was a time when he talked much of
+me--oh, much--constantly! He was young then--and," she said with a
+little sigh--"so was I. He was perhaps not handsome, but he was
+distinguished. Many Englishmen are so who have no beauty, no
+handsomeness, as you say, and English women also, though that is more
+rare. And you are ver-r-y happy?" the Contessa asked again. She said it
+with a smile that was quite dazzling, but yet had just the faintest
+touch of ridicule in it, and rippled over into a little laugh. "When we
+know each other better I will betray all his little secrets to you," she
+said.
+
+This was so very injudicious on the part of an old friend, that a wiser
+person than Lucy would have divined some malign meaning in it. But Lucy,
+though suppressing an instinctive distrust, took no notice, not even in
+her thoughts. It was not necessary for her to divine or try to divine
+what people meant; she took what they said, simply, without requiring
+interpretation. "He has told me a great deal," she said. "I think I
+almost know his journeys by heart." Then Lucy carried the war into the
+enemy's country without realising what she was doing. "You will think it
+very stupid of me," she said, "but I did not hear Mademoiselle,--the
+young lady's name?"
+
+The Contessa's eyes dwelt meditatively upon Lucy: she patted her hand
+and smiled upon her, as if every other subject was irrelevant. "And he
+has taken you into society?" she said, continuing her examination. "How
+delightful is that English domesticity. You go everywhere together?" She
+had no appearance of having so much as heard Lucy's question. "And you
+do not fear that he will find it dull in the country? You have the
+confidence of being enough for him? How sweet for me to find the
+happiness of my friend so assured. And now I shall share it for a
+little. You will make us all happy. Dear child!" said the lady with
+enthusiasm, drawing Lucy to her and kissing her forehead. Then she broke
+into a pretty laugh. "You will work for your poor, and I, who am good
+for nothing--I shall take out my _tapisserie_, and he will read to us
+while we work. What a tableau!" cried the Contessa. "Domestic happiness,
+which one only tastes in England. The Eden before the fall!"
+
+It was at this moment that the gentlemen, _i.e._ Sir Tom and Jock,
+appeared out of the dining-room. They had not lingered long after the
+ladies. Sir Tom had been somewhat glum after they left. His look of
+amusement was not so lively. He said sententiously, not so much to Jock
+as to himself, "That woman is bent on mischief," and got up and walked
+about the room instead of taking his wine. Then he laughed and turned to
+Jock, who was musing over his orange skins. "When you get a fellow into
+your house that is not much good--I suppose it must happen
+sometimes--that knows too much and puts the young ones up to tricks,
+what do you do with him, most noble Captain? Come, you find out a lot of
+things for yourselves, you boys. Tell me what you do."
+
+Jock was a little startled by this demand, but he rose to the occasion.
+"It has happened," he said. "You know, unless a fellow's been awfully
+bad, you can't always keep him out."
+
+"And what then?" said Sir Tom. "MTutor sets his great wits to work?"
+
+"I hope, sir," cried Jock, "that you don't think I would trouble MTutor,
+who has enough on his hands without that. I made great friends with the
+fellow myself. You know," said the lad, looking up with splendid
+confidence, "he couldn't harm _me_----"
+
+Sir Tom looked at him with a little drawing of his breath, such as the
+experienced sometimes feel as they look at the daring of the
+innocent--but with a smile, too.
+
+"When he tried it on with me, I just kicked him," said Jock, calmly;
+"once was enough; he didn't do it again; for naturally he stood a bit in
+awe of me. Then I kept him that he hadn't a moment to himself. It was
+the football half, when you've not got much time to spare all day. And
+in the evenings he had poenas and things. When he got with two or three
+of the others, one of us would just be loafing about, and call out
+'Hallo, what's up?' He never had any time to go wrong, and then he got
+to find out it didn't pay."
+
+"Philosopher! sage!" cried Sir Tom. "It is you that should teach us;
+but, alas, my boy, have you never found out that even that last argument
+fails to tell--and that they don't mind even if it doesn't pay?"
+
+He sighed as he spoke; then laughed out, and added, "I can at all events
+try the first part of your programme. Come along and let's cry, Hallo!
+what's up? It simplifies matters immensely, though," said Sir Tom, with
+a serious face, "when you can kick the fellow you disapprove of in that
+charming candid way. Guard the privilege; it is invaluable, Jock."
+
+"Well," said Jock, "some fellows think it's brutal, you know. MTutor he
+always says try argument first. But I just want to know how are you to
+do your duty, captain of a big house, unless it's known that you will
+just kick 'em when they're beastly. When it's known, even _that_ does a
+deal of good."
+
+"Every thing you say confirms my opinion of your sense," said Sir Tom,
+taking the boy by the arm, "but also of your advantages, Jock, my boy.
+We cannot act, you see, in that straightforward manner, more's the
+pity, in the world; but I shall try the first part of your programme,
+and act on your advice," he said, as they walked into the room where the
+ladies were awaiting them. The smaller room looked very warm and bright
+after the large, dimly-lighted one through which they had passed. The
+Contessa, in her tender conference with Lucy, formed a charming group in
+the middle of the picture. Lady Randolph sat by, exiled out of her usual
+place, with an illustrated magazine in her hand, and an air of quick
+watchfulness about her, opposite to them. She was looking on like a
+spectator at a play. In the background behind the table, on which stood
+a large lamp, was the Contessa's companion, with her back turned to the
+rest, lightly flitting from picture to picture, examining everything.
+She had been entirely careless of the action of the piece, but she
+turned round at the voices of the new-comers, as if her attention was
+aroused.
+
+"You are going to take somebody's advice?" said the Contessa. "That is
+something new; come here at once and explain. To do so is due to
+your--wife; yes, to your wife. An Englishman tells every thought to his
+wife; is it not so? Oh yes, _mon ami_, your sweet little wife and I are
+the best of friends. It is for life," she said, looking with
+inexpressible sentiment in Lucy's face, and pressing her hands. Then,
+was it possible? a flash of intelligence flew from her eyes to those of
+Sir Tom, and she burst into a laugh and clapped her beautiful hands
+together. "He is so ridiculous, he makes one laugh at everything," she
+cried.
+
+Lucy remained very serious, with a somewhat forced smile upon her face,
+between these two, looking from one to another.
+
+"Nay, if you have come the length of swearing eternal friendship----"
+said Sir Tom.
+
+Jock did not know what to do with himself. He began by stumbling over
+Lady Randolph's train, which though carefully coiled about her, was so
+long and so substantial that it got in his way. In getting out of its
+way he almost stumbled against the slim, straight figure of the girl,
+who stood behind surveying the company. She met his awkward apology with
+a smile. "It doesn't matter," she said, "I am so glad you are come. I
+had nobody to talk to." Then she made a little pause, regarding him with
+a bright, impartial look, as if weighing all his qualities. "Don't you
+talk?" she said. "Do you prefer not to say anything? because I know how
+to behave: I will not trouble you if it is so. In England there are some
+who do not say anything?" she added with an inquiring look. Jock, who
+was conscious of blushing all over from top to toe, ventured a glance at
+her, to which she replied by a peal of laughter, very merry but very
+subdued, in which, in spite of himself, he was obliged to join.
+
+"So you can laugh!" she said; "oh, that is well; for otherwise I should
+not know how to live. We must laugh low, not to make any noise and
+distract the old ones; but still, one must live. Tell me, you are the
+brother of Madame--Should I say Milady? In my novels they never do, but
+I do not know if the novels are just or not."
+
+"The servants say my lady, but no one else," said Jock.
+
+"How fine that is," the young lady said admiringly, "in a moment to have
+it all put right. I am glad we came to England; we say mi-ladi and
+mi-lord as if that was the name of every one here; but it is not so in
+the books. You are, perhaps Sir? like Sir Tom--or you are----"
+
+"I am Trevor, that is all," said Jock with a blush; "I am nobody in
+particular: that is, here"--he added with a momentary gleam of natural
+importance.
+
+"Ah!" cried the young lady, "I understand--you are a great person at
+home."
+
+Jock had no wish to deceive, but he could not prevent a smile from
+creeping about the corners of his mouth. "Not a great person at all," he
+said, not wishing to boast.
+
+The young stranger, who was so curious about all her new surroundings,
+formed her own conclusion. She had been brought up in an atmosphere full
+of much knowledge, but also of theories which were but partially
+tenable. She interpreted Jock according to her own ideas, which were not
+at all suited to his case; but it was impossible that she could know
+that.
+
+"I am finding people out," she said to him. "You are the only one that
+is young like me. Let us form an alliance--while the old ones are
+working out all their plans and fighting it out among themselves."
+
+"Fighting it out! I know some that are not likely to fight," cried Jock,
+bewildered.
+
+"Was not that right?" said the girl, distressed. "I thought it was an
+_idiotisme_, as the French say. Ah! they are always fighting. Look at
+them now! The Contessa, she is on the war-path. That is an American
+word. I have a little of all languages. Madame, you will see--ah, that
+is what you meant!--does not understand, she looks from one to another.
+She is silent, but Sir Tom, he knows everything. And the old lady, she
+sees it too. I have gone through so many dramas, I am blasée. It
+wearies at last, but yet it is exciting too. I ask myself what is going
+to be done here? You have heard perhaps of the Contessa in England,
+Mr.----"
+
+"Trevor," said Jock.
+
+"And you pronounce it just like this--Mis-ter? I want to know; for
+perhaps I shall have to stay here. There is not known very much about
+me. Nor do I know myself. But if the Contessa finds for me---- I am quite
+mad," said the girl suddenly. "I am telling you--and of course it is a
+secret. The old lady watches the Contessa to see what it is she intends.
+But I do not myself know what the Contessa intends--except in respect to
+me."
+
+Jock was too shy to inquire what that was: and he was confused with this
+unusual confidence. Young ladies had not been in the habit of opening to
+him their secrets; indeed he had little experience of these kind of
+creatures at all. She looked at him as she spoke as if she wished to
+provoke him to inquiry--with a gaze that was very open and withal bold,
+yet innocent too. And Jock, on his side, was as entirely innocent as if
+he had been a Babe in the Wood.
+
+"Don't you want to know what she is going to do with me, and why she has
+brought me?" the girl said, talking so quickly that he could scarcely
+follow the stream of words. "I was not invited, and I am not introduced,
+and no one knows anything of me. Don't you want to know why I am here?"
+
+Jock followed the movements of her lips, the little gestures of her
+hands, which were almost as eloquent, with eyes that were confused by so
+great a call upon them. He could not make any reply, but only gazed at
+her, entranced, as he had never been in his life before, and so anxious
+not to lose the hurried words, the quick flash of the small white hands
+against her dark dress, that his mind had not time to make out what she
+meant.
+
+Lucy on her side sat between her husband and the Contessa for some time,
+listening to their conversation. That was more rapid, too, than she was
+used to, and it was full of allusions, understood when they were
+half-said by the others, which to her were all darkness. She tried to
+follow them with a wistful sort of smile, a kind of painful homage to
+the Contessa's soft laugh and the ready response of Sir Tom. She tried
+too, to follow, and share the brightening interest of his face, the
+amusement and eagerness of his listening; but by and by she got chilled,
+she knew not how--the smile grew frozen upon her face, her comprehension
+seemed to fail altogether. She got up softly after a while from her
+corner of the sofa, and neither her husband nor her guest took any
+particular notice. She came across the room to Lady Randolph, and drew a
+low chair beside her, and asked her about the pictures in the magazine
+which she was still holding in her hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+AN ANXIOUS CRITIC.
+
+
+In a few days after the arrival of Madame di Forno-Populo, there was
+almost an entire change of aspect at the Hall. Nobody could tell how
+this change had come about. It was involuntary, unconscious, yet
+complete. The Contessa came quietly into the foreground. She made no
+demonstration of power, and claimed no sort of authority. She never
+accosted the mistress of the house without tender words and caresses.
+Her attitude towards Lucy, indeed, was that of an admiring relation to a
+delightful and promising child. She could not sufficiently praise and
+applaud her. When she spoke, her visitor turned towards her with the
+most tender of smiles. In whatsoever way the Contessa was occupied, she
+never failed when she heard Lucy's voice to turn round upon her, to
+bestow this smile, to murmur a word of affectionate approval. When they
+were near enough to each other, she would take her hand and press it
+with affectionate emotion. The other members of the household, except
+Sir Tom, she scarcely noticed at all. The Dowager Lady Randolph
+exchanged with her now and then a few words of polite defiance, but that
+was all. And she had not been long at the Hall before her position there
+was more commanding than that of Lady Randolph. Insensibly all the
+customs of the house changed for her. There was no question as to who
+was the centre of conversation in the evening. Sir Tom went to the sofa
+from which she had so cleverly ousted his aunt, as soon as he came in
+after dinner, and leaning over her with his arm on the mantelpiece, or
+drawing a chair beside her, would laugh and talk with endless spirit and
+amusement. When he talked of the people in the neighbourhood who
+afforded scope for satire, she would tap him with her fan and say, "Why
+do I not see these originals? bring them to see me," to Lucy's wonder
+and often dismay. "They would not amuse you at all," Sir Tom would
+reply, upon which the lady would turn and call Lucy to her. "My little
+angel! he pretends that it is he that is so clever, that he creates
+these characters. We do not believe him, my Lucy, do we? Ask them, ask
+them, _cara_, then we shall judge."
+
+In this way the house was filled evening after evening. A reign of
+boundless hospitality seemed to have begun. The other affairs of the
+house slipped aside, and to provide amusement for the Contessa became
+the chief object of life. She had everybody brought to see her, from the
+little magnates of Farafield to the Duchess herself, and the greatest
+people in the county. The nursery, which had been so much, perhaps too
+much, in the foreground, regulating the whole great household according
+as little Tom was better or worse, was thrust altogether into the
+shadow. If neglect was wholesome, then he had that advantage. Even his
+mother could do no more than run furtively to him, as she did about a
+hundred times a day in the intervals of her duties. His little mendings
+and fallings back ceased to be the chief things in the house. His
+father, indeed, would play with his child in the mornings when he was
+brought to Lucy's room; but the burden of his remarks was to point out
+to her how much better the little beggar got on when there was less fuss
+made about him. And Lucy's one grievance against her visitor, the only
+one which she permitted herself to perceive, was that she never took any
+notice of little Tom. She never asked for him, a thing which was
+unexampled in Lucy's experience. When he was produced she smiled,
+indeed, but contemplated him at a distance. The utmost stretch of
+kindness she had ever shown was to touch his cheek with a finger
+delicately when he was carried past her. Lucy made theories in her mind
+about this, feeling it necessary to account in some elaborate way for
+what was so entirely out of nature. "I know what it must be--she must
+have lost her own," she said to her husband. Sir Tom's countenance was
+almost convulsed by one of those laughs, which he now found it expedient
+to suppress, but he only replied that he had never heard of such an
+event. "Ah! it must have been before you knew her; but she has never got
+it out of her mind," Lucy cried. That hypothesis explained everything.
+At this time it is scarcely necessary to say Lucy was with her whole
+soul trying to be "very fond," as she expressed it, of the Contessa.
+There were some things about her which startled young Lady Randolph. For
+one thing, she would go out shooting with Sir Tom, and was as good a
+shot as any of the gentlemen. This wounded Lucy terribly, and took her a
+great effort to swallow. It went against all her traditions. With her
+bourgeois education she hated sport, and even in her husband with
+difficulty made up her mind to it; but that a woman should go forth and
+slay was intolerable.
+
+There were other things besides which were a mystery to her. Lady
+Randolph's invariably defiant attitude for one, and the curious aspect
+of the Duchess when suddenly brought face to face with the stranger. It
+appeared that they were old friends, which astonished Lucy, but not so
+much as the great lady's bewildered look when Madame di Forno-Populo
+went up to her. It seemed for a moment as if the shock was too much for
+her. She stammered and shook through all her dignity and greatness, as
+she exclaimed. "_You_! here?" in two distinct outcries, gazing appalled
+into the smiling and beautiful face before her. But then the Duchess
+came to, after a while. She seemed to get over her surprise, which was
+more than surprise. All these things disturbed Lucy. She did not know
+what to make of them. She was uneasy at the change that had been
+wrought upon her own household, which she did not understand. Yet it was
+all perfectly simple, she said to herself. It was Tom's duty to devote
+himself to the stranger. It was the duty of both as hosts to procure for
+her such amusement as was to be found. These were things of which Lucy
+convinced herself by various half unconscious processes of argument. But
+it was necessary to renew these arguments from time to time, to keep
+possession of them in order to feel their force as she wished to do. She
+said nothing to her husband on the subject, with an instinctive sense
+that it would be very difficult to handle. And Sir Tom, too, avoided it.
+But it was impossible to pursue the same reticence with Lady Randolph,
+who now and then insisted on opening it up. When the end of her visit
+arrived she sent for Lucy into her own room, to speak to her seriously.
+She said--
+
+"My dear, I am due to-morrow at the Maltravers', as you know. It is a
+visit I like to pay, they are always so nice; but I cannot bear the
+thought of going off, Lucy, to enjoy myself and leaving you alone."
+
+"Alone, Aunt Randolph!" cried Lucy, "when Tom is at home!"
+
+"Oh, Tom! I have no patience with Tom," cried the Dowager. "I think he
+must be mad to let that woman come upon you so. Of course you know very
+well, my dear, it is of her that I want to speak. In the country it does
+not so much matter; but you must not let her identify herself with you,
+Lucy, in town."
+
+"In town!" Lucy said with a little dismay; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, it
+will be six weeks before we go to town; and, surely, long before
+that----" She paused, and blushed with a sense of the inhospitality
+involved in her words, which made Lucy ashamed of herself.
+
+"You think so?" said Lady Randolph, smiling somewhat grimly. "Well, we
+shall see. For my part, I think she will find Park Lane a very desirable
+situation, and if you do not take the greatest care---- But why should I
+speak to you of taking care? Of course, if Tom wished it, you would take
+in all Bohemia, and never say a word----"
+
+"Surely," said Lucy, looking with serene eyes in the elder lady's face,
+"I do not know what you mean by Bohemia, Aunt Randolph; but if you think
+it possible that I should object when Tom asks his friends----"
+
+"Oh--his friends! I have no patience with you, either the one or the
+other," said the old lady. "When Sir Robert was living, do you think it
+was he who invited _my_ guests? I should think not indeed! especially
+the women. If that was to be the case, marriage would soon become an
+impossibility. And is it possible, Lucy, is it possible that you, with
+your good sense, can like all that petting and coaxing, and the way she
+talks to you as if you were a child?"
+
+As a matter of fact Lucy had not been able to school herself into liking
+it; but when the objection was stated so plainly, she coloured high with
+a vexation and annoyance which were very grievous and hard to bear. It
+seemed to her that it would be disloyal both to her husband and her
+guest if she complained, and at the same time Lady Randolph's shot went
+straight to the mark. She did her best to smile, but it was not a very
+easy task.
+
+"You have always taught me, Aunt Randolph," she said with great
+astuteness, "that I ought not to judge of the manners of strangers by
+my own little rules--especially of foreigners," she added, with a sense
+of her own cleverness which half comforted her amid other feelings not
+agreeable. It was seldom that Lucy felt any sense of triumph in her own
+powers.
+
+"Foreigners?" said Lady Randolph, with disdain. But then she stopped
+short with a pause of indignation. "That woman," she said, which was the
+only name she ever gave the visitor, "has some scheme in her head you
+may be sure. I do not know what it is. It would not do her any good that
+I can see to increase her hold upon Tom."
+
+"Upon Tom!" cried Lucy. It was her turn now to be indignant. "I don't
+know what you mean, Aunt Randolph," she said. "I cannot think that you
+want to make me--uncomfortable. There are some things I do not like in
+Madame di Forno-Populo. She is--different; but she is my husband's
+friend. If you mean that they will become still greater friends seeing
+more of each other, that is natural. For why should you be friends at
+all unless you like each other? And that Tom likes her must be just a
+proof that I am wrong. It is my ignorance. Perhaps the wisest way would
+be to say nothing more about it," young Lady Randolph concluded,
+briskly, with a sudden smile.
+
+The Dowager looked at her as if she were some wonder in natural history,
+the nature of which it was impossible to divine. She thought she knew
+Lucy very well, but yet had never understood her, it being more
+difficult for a woman of the world to understand absolute
+straightforwardness and simplicity than it is even for the simple to
+understand the worldly. She was silent for a moment and stared at Lucy,
+not knowing what to make of her. At last she resumed as if going on
+without interruption. "But she has some scheme in hand, perhaps in
+respect to the girl. The girl is a very handsome creature, and might
+make a hit if she were properly managed. My belief is that this has been
+her scheme all through. But partly the presence of Tom--an old friend as
+you say of her own--and partly the want of opportunity, has kept it in
+abeyance. That is my idea, Lucy; you can take it for what it is worth.
+And your home will be the headquarters, the centre from which the
+adventuress will carry on----"
+
+"Aunt Randolph!" Lucy's voice was almost loud in the pain and
+indignation that possessed her. She put out her hands as if to stop the
+other's mouth. "You want to make me think she is a wicked woman," she
+said. "And that Tom--Tom----"
+
+Lucy had never permitted suspicion to enter her mind. She did not know
+now what it was that penetrated her innocent soul like an arrow. It was
+not jealousy. It was the wounding suggestion of a possibility which she
+would not and could not entertain.
+
+"Lucy, Tom has no excuse at all," said the Dowager solemnly. "You'll
+believe nothing against him, of course, and I can't possibly wish to
+turn you against him; but I don't suppose he meant all that is likely to
+come out of it. He thought it would be a joke--and in the country what
+could it matter? And then things have never gone so far as that people
+could refuse to receive her, you know. Oh no! the Contessa has her wits
+too much about her for that. But you saw for yourself that the Duchess
+was petrified; and I--not that I am an authority, like her Grace. One
+thing, Lucy, is quite clear, and that I must say; you must not take upon
+yourself to be answerable--you so young as you are and not accustomed to
+society--for _that_ woman, before the world. You must just take your
+courage in both hands, and tell Tom that though you give in to him in
+the country, in town you will not have her. She means to take advantage
+of you, and bring forward her girl, and make a _grand coup_. That is
+what she means--I know that sort of person. It is just the greatest luck
+in the world for them to get hold of some one that is so unexceptionable
+and so unsuspicious as you."
+
+Lady Randolph insisted upon saying all this, notwithstanding the
+interruptions of Lucy. "Now I wash my hands of it," she said. "If you
+won't be advised, I can do no more." It was the day after the great
+dinner when the Duchess had met Madame di Forno-Populo with so much
+surprise. The elder lady had been in much excitement all the evening.
+She had conversed with her Grace apart on several occasions, and from
+the way in which they laid their heads together, and their gestures, it
+was clear enough that their feeling was the same upon the point they
+discussed. All the best people in the county had been collected
+together, and there could be no doubt that the Contessa had achieved a
+great success. She sang as no woman had ever been heard to sing for a
+hundred miles round, and her beauty and her grace and her diamonds had
+been enough to turn the heads of both men and women. It was remarked
+that the Duchess, though she received her with a gasp of astonishment,
+was evidently very well acquainted with the fascinating foreign lady,
+and though there was a little natural and national distrust of her at
+first, as a person too remarkable, and who sang too well for the common
+occasions of life, yet not to gaze at her, watch her, and admire, was
+impossible. Lucy had been gratified with the success of her visitor.
+Even though she was not sure that she was comfortable about her presence
+there at all, she was pleased with the effect she produced. When the
+Contessa sang there suddenly appeared out of the midst of the crowd a
+slim, straight figure in a black gown, which instantly sat down at the
+piano, played the accompaniments, and disappeared again without a word.
+The spectators thronging round the piano saw that this was a girl, as
+graceful and distinguished as the Contessa herself, who passed away
+without a word, and disappeared when her office was accomplished, with a
+smile on her face, but without lingering for a moment or speaking to any
+one; which was a pretty bit of mystery too.
+
+All this had happened on the night before Lady Randolph's summons to
+Lucy. It was in the air that the party at the Hall was to break up after
+the great entertainment; the Dowager was going, as she had said, to the
+Maltravers'; Jock was going back to school; and though no limit of
+Madame di Forno-Populo's visit had been mentioned, still it was natural
+that she should go when the other people did. She had been a fortnight
+at the Hall. That is long for a visit at a country house where generally
+people are coming and going continually. And Lucy had begun to look
+forward to the time when once more she would be mistress of her own
+house and actions, with all visitors and interruptions gone. She had
+been looking forward to the happy old evenings, the days in which baby
+should be set up again on his domestic throne. The idea that the
+Contessa might not be going away, the suggestion that she might still be
+there when it was time to make the yearly migration to town, chilled the
+very blood in her veins. But it was a thought that she would not dwell
+upon. She would not betray her feeling in this respect to any one. She
+returned the kiss which old Lady Randolph bestowed upon her at the end
+of their interview, very affectionately; for, though she did not always
+agree with her, she was attached to the lady who had been so kind to her
+when she was a friendless little girl. "Thank you, Aunt Randolph, for
+telling me," she said very sweetly, though, indeed, she had no intention
+of taking the Dowager's advice. Lady Randolph went off in the afternoon
+of the next day, for it was a very short journey to the Maltravers',
+where she was going. All the party came out into the hall to see her
+away, the Contessa herself as well as the others. Nothing, indeed, could
+be more cordial than the Contessa. She caught up a shawl and wound it
+round her, elaborately defending herself against the cold, and came out
+to the steps to share in the last farewells.
+
+When Lady Randolph was in the carriage with her maid by her side, and
+her hot-water footstool under her feet, and the coachman waiting his
+signal to drive away, she put out her hand amid her furs to Lucy. "Now
+remember!" Lady Randolph said. It was almost as solemn as the mysterious
+reminder of the dying king to the bishop. But unfortunately, what is
+solemn in certain circumstances may be ludicrous in others. The party in
+the Hall scarcely restrained its merriment till the carriage had driven
+away.
+
+"What awful compact is this between you, Lucy?" Sir Tom said. "Has she
+bound you by a vow to assassinate me in my sleep?"
+
+The Contessa unwound herself out of her shawl, and putting her arm
+caressingly round Lucy, led her back to the drawing-room. "It has
+something to do with me," she said. "Come and tell me all about it."
+Lucy had been disconcerted by Lady Randolph's reminder. She was still
+more disconcerted now.
+
+"It is--something Aunt Randolph wishes me to do in the spring, when we
+go to town," she said.
+
+"Ah! I know what that is," said the Contessa. "They see that you are too
+kind to your husband's friend. Milady would wish you to be more as she
+herself is. I understand her very well. I understand them all, these
+women. They cannot endure me. They see a meaning in everything I do. I
+have not a meaning in everything I do," she added, with a pathetic look,
+which went to Lucy's heart.
+
+"No, no, indeed you are mistaken. It was not that. I am sure you have no
+meaning," said Lucy, vehement and confused.
+
+The Contessa read her innocent _distraite_ countenance like a book, as
+she said--or at least she thought so. She linked her own delicate arm in
+hers, and clasped Lucy's hand. "One day I will tell you why all these
+ladies hate me, my little angel," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.
+
+
+In the meantime something had been going on behind-backs of which nobody
+took much notice. It had been discovered long before this, in the
+family, that the Contessa's young companion had a name like other
+people--that is to say, a Christian name. She was called by the
+Contessa, in the rare moments when she addressed her, Bice--that is to
+say, according to English pronunciation, Beeshée (you would probably
+call it Beetchee if you learned to speak Italian in England, but the
+Contessa had the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth, according to the
+proverb), which, as everybody knows, is the contraction of Beatrice. She
+was called Miss Beachey in the household, a name which was received--by
+the servants at least--as a quite proper and natural name; a great deal
+more sensible than Forno-Populo. Her position, however, in the little
+party was a quite peculiar one. The Contessa took her for granted in a
+way which silenced all inquisitive researches. She gave no explanation
+who she was, or what she was, or why she carried this girl about with
+her. If she was related to herself, if she was a dependent, nobody knew;
+her manner gave no clue at all to the mystery. It was very seldom that
+the two had any conversation whatsoever in the presence of the others.
+Now and then the Contessa would send the girl upon an errand, telling
+her to bring something, with an absence of directions where to find it
+that suggested the most absolute confidence in her young companion. When
+the Contessa sang, Bice, as a matter of course, produced herself at the
+right moment to play her accompaniments, and got herself out of the way,
+noiselessly, instantly, the moment that duty was over. These
+accompaniments were played with an exquisite skill and judgment, an
+exact adaptation to the necessities of the voice, which could only have
+been attained by much and severe study; but she never, save on these
+occasions, was seen to look at a piano. For the greater part of the time
+the girl was invisible. She appeared in the Contessa's train, always in
+her closely-fitting, perfectly plain, black frock, without an ornament,
+at luncheon and dinner, and was present all the evening in the
+drawing-room. But for the rest of the day no one knew what became of
+this young creature, who nevertheless was not shy, nor showed any
+appearance of feeling herself out of place, or uncomfortable in her
+strange position. She looked out upon them all with frank eyes, in which
+it was evident there was no sort of mist, either of timidity or
+ignorance, understanding everything that was said, even allusions which
+puzzled Lucy; always intelligent and observant, though often with a
+shade of that benevolent contempt which the young with difficulty
+prevent themselves from feeling towards their elders. The littleness of
+their jokes and their philosophies was evidently quite apparent to this
+observer, who sat secure in the superiority of sixteen taking in
+everything; for she took in everything, even when she was not doing the
+elder people the honour of attending to what they were saying, with a
+faculty which belongs to that age. Opinions were divided as to Bice's
+beauty. The simpler members of the party, Lucy and Jock, admired her
+least; but such a competent critic as Lady Randolph, who understood what
+was effective, had a great opinion and even respect for her, as of one
+whose capabilities were very great indeed, and who might "go far," as
+she had herself said. As there was so much difference of opinion it is
+only right that the reader should be able to judge, as much as is
+possible, from a description. She was very slight and rather tall, with
+a great deal of the Contessa's grace, moving lightly as if she scarcely
+touched the ground, but like a bird rather than a cat. There was nothing
+in her of the feline grace of which we hear so much. Her movements were
+all direct and rapid; her feet seemed to skim, not to tread, the ground
+with an airy poise, which even when she stood still implied movement,
+always light, untiring, full of energy and impulse. Her eyes were
+gray--if it is possible to call by the name of the dullest of tints
+those two globes of light, now dark, now golden, now liquid with dew,
+and now with flame. Her hair was dusky, of no particular colour, with a
+crispness about the temples; but her complexion--ay, there was the rub.
+Bice had no complexion at all. By times in the evening, in artificial
+light, or when she was excited, there came a little flush to her cheeks,
+which miraculously chased away the shadows from her paleness, and made
+her radiant; but in daylight there could be no doubt that she was
+sallow, sometimes almost olive, though with a soft velvety texture which
+is more often seen on the dark-complexioned through all its gradations
+than on any but the most delicate of white skins. A black baby has a
+bloom upon its little dusky cheek like a purple peach, and this was the
+quality which gave to Bice's sallowness a certain charm. Her hands and
+arms were of the same indefinite tint--not white, whatever they might be
+called. Her throat was slender and beautifully-formed, but shared the
+same deficiency of colour. It is impossible to say how much disappointed
+Lucy was in the young stranger's appearance after the first evening. She
+had thought her very pretty, and she now thought her plain. To remember
+what the girl had said of her chances if she turned out beautiful filled
+her with a sort of pitying contempt.
+
+But the more experienced people were not of Lucy's opinion. They thought
+well, on the contrary, of Bice's prospects. Lady Randolph, as has been
+said, regarded her with a certain respectfulness. She was not offended
+by the saucy speeches which the girl might now and then make. She went
+so far as to say even that if introduced under other auspices than those
+of the Contessa, there was no telling what such a girl might do. "But
+the chances now are that she will end on the stage," Lady Randolph said.
+
+This strange girl unfolded herself very little in the family. When she
+spoke, she spoke with the utmost frankness, and was afraid of nobody.
+But in general she sat in the regions behind the table, with its big
+lamp, and said little or nothing. The others would all be collected
+about the fire, but Bice never approached the fire. Sometimes she read,
+sitting motionless, till the others forgot her presence altogether.
+Sometimes she worked at long strips of Berlin-wool work, the
+_tapisserie_ to which, by moments, the Contessa would have recourse. But
+she heard and saw everything, as has been said, whether she attended or
+not, in the keenness of her youthful faculties. When the Contessa rose
+to sing, she was at the piano without a word; and when anything was
+wanted she gave an alert mute obedience to the lady who was her relation
+or her patroness, nobody knew which, almost without being told what was
+wanted. Except in this way, however, they seldom approached or said a
+word to each other that any one saw. During the long morning, which the
+Contessa spent in her room, appearing only at luncheon, Bice too was
+invisible. Thus she lived the strangest life of retirement and
+seclusion, such as a crushed dependent would find intolerable in the
+midst of a family, but without the least appearance of anything but
+enjoyment, and a perfect and dauntless freedom.
+
+Bice, however, had one confidant in the house, and this, as is natural,
+was the very last person who would have seemed probable--it was Jock.
+Jock, it need scarcely be said, had no tendency at all to the society
+of girls. Deep as he was in MTutor's confidence, captain of his house,
+used to live in a little male community, and to despise (not unkindly)
+the rest of the world, it is not likely that he would care much for the
+antagonistic creatures who invariably interfered, he thought, with talk
+and enjoyment wherever they appeared. Making an exception in favour of
+Lucy and an older person now and then, who had been soothing to him when
+he was ill or out of sorts, Jock held that the feminine part of the
+creation was a mistake, and to be avoided in every practicable way. He
+had been startled by the young stranger's advances to him on the first
+evening, and her claim of fellowship on the score that he was young like
+herself. But when Bice first appeared suddenly in his way, far down in
+the depths of the winterly park, the boy's impulse would have been, had
+that been practicable, to turn and flee. She was skimming along, singing
+to herself, leaping lightly over fallen branches and the inequalities of
+the humid way, when he first perceived her; and Jock had a moment's
+controversy with himself as to what he ought to do. If he took to flight
+across the open park she would see him and understand the reason
+why--besides, it would be cowardly to fly from a girl, an inferior
+creature, who probably had lost her way, and would not know how to get
+back again. This reflection made him withdraw a little deeper into the
+covert, with the intention of keeping her in sight lest she should
+wander astray altogether, but yet keeping out of the way, that he might
+exercise this secret protecting charge of his, which Jock felt was his
+natural attitude even to a girl without the embarrassment of her
+society. He tried to persuade himself that she was a lower boy, of an
+inferior kind no doubt, but yet possessing claims upon his care; for
+MTutor had a great idea of influence, and had imprinted deeply upon the
+minds of his leading pupils the importance of exercising it in the most
+beneficial way for those who were under them.
+
+Jock accordingly stayed among the brushwood watching where she went. How
+light she was! her feet scarcely made a dint upon the wet and spongy
+grass, in which his own had sunk. She went over everything like a bird.
+Now and then she would stop to gather a handful of brown rustling
+brambles, and the stiff yellow oak leaves, and here and there a rusty
+bough to which some rays of autumn colour still hung, which at first
+Jock supposed to mean botany, and was semi-respectful of, until she took
+off her hat and arranged them in it, when he was immediately
+contemptuous, saying to himself that it was just like a girl. All the
+same, it was interesting to watch her as she skipped and skimmed along
+with an air of enjoyment and delight in her freedom, which it was
+impossible not to sympathise with. She sang, not loudly, but almost
+under her breath, for pure pleasure, it seemed, but sometimes would
+break off and whistle, at which Jock was much shocked at first, but
+gradually got reconciled to, it was so clear and sweet. After awhile,
+however, he made an incautious step upon the brushwood, and the crashing
+of the branches betrayed him. She stopped suddenly with her head to the
+wind like a fine hound, and caught him with her keen eyes. Then there
+occurred a little incident which had a very strange effect--an effect he
+was too young to understand--upon Jock. She stood perfectly still, with
+her face towards the bushes in which he was, her head thrown high, her
+nostrils a little dilated, a flush of sudden energy and courage on her
+face. She did not know who he was or what he wanted watching her from
+behind the covert. He might be a tramp, a violent beggar, for anything
+she knew. These things are more tragic where Bice came from, and it was
+likely enough that she took him for a brigand. It was a quick sense of
+alarm that sprang over her, stringing all her nerves, and bringing the
+colour to her cheeks. She never flinched or attempted to flee, but stood
+at bay, with a high valour and proud scorn of her pursuer. Her attitude,
+the flush which made her fair in a moment, the expanded nostrils, the
+fulness which her panting breath of alarm gave to her breast, made an
+impression upon the boy which was ineffable and beyond words. It was his
+first consciousness that there was something in the world--not boy, or
+man, or sister, something which he did not understand, which feared yet
+confronted him, startled but defiant. He too paused for a moment, gazing
+at her, getting up his courage. Then he came slowly out from under the
+shade of the bushes and went towards her. There were a few yards of the
+open park to traverse before he reached her, so that he thought it
+necessary to relieve her anxiety before they met. He called out to her,
+"Don't be afraid, it is only me." For a moment more that fine poise
+lasted, and then she clapped her hands with a peal of laughter that
+seemed to fill the entire atmosphere and ring back from the clumps of
+wintry wood. "Oh," she cried, "it is you!" Jock did not know whether to
+be deeply affronted or to laugh too.
+
+"I----thought you might have lost your way," he said, knitting his brows
+and looking as forbidding as he knew how, by way of correcting the
+involuntary sentiment that had stolen into his boyish heart.
+
+"Then why did not you come to me?" she said, "is not that what you call
+to spy--to watch when one does not know you are there?"
+
+Jock's countenance flushed at this word. "Spy! I never spied upon any
+one. I thought perhaps you might not be able to get back--so I would not
+go away out of reach."
+
+"I see," she cried, "you meant to be kind but not friendly. Do I say it
+right? Why will not you be friendly? I have so many things I want to
+say, and no one, no one! to say them to. What harm would it do if you
+came out from yourself, and talked with me a little? You are too young
+to make it any--inconvenience," the girl said. She laughed a little and
+blushed a little as she said this, eyeing him all the time with frank,
+open eyes. "I am sixteen; how old are you?" she added, with a quick
+breath.
+
+"Sixteen past," said Jock, with a little emphasis, to show his
+superiority in age as well as in other things.
+
+"Sixteen in a boy means no more than nine or so," she said, with a light
+disdain, "so you need not have any fear. Oh, come and talk! I have a
+hundred and more of things to say. It is all so strange. How would you
+like to plunge in a new world like the sea, and never say what you think
+of it, or ask any questions, or tell when it makes you laugh or cry?"
+
+"I should not mind much. I should neither laugh nor cry. It is only
+girls that do," said Jock, somewhat contemptuous too.
+
+"Well! But then I am a girl. I cannot change my nature to please you,"
+she said. "Sometimes I think I should have liked better to be a boy, for
+you have not to do the things we have to do--but then when I saw how
+awkward you were, and how clumsy, and not good for anything"--she
+pointed these very plain remarks with a laugh between each and a look at
+Jock, by which she very plainly applied what she said. He did not know
+at all how to take this. The instinct of a gentleman to betray no angry
+feeling towards a girl, who was at the same time a lady, contrasted in
+him with the instinct of a child, scarcely yet aware of the distinctions
+of sex, to fight fairly for itself; but the former prevailed. And then
+it was scarcely possible to resist the contagion of the laugh which the
+damp air seemed to hold suspended, and bring back in curls and wreaths
+of pleasant sound. So Jock commanded himself and replied with an
+effort--
+
+"We are just as good for things that we care about as you--but not for
+girls' things," he added, with another little fling of the mutual
+contempt which they felt for each other. Then after a pause: "I suppose
+we may as well go home, for it is getting late; and when it is dark you
+would be sure to lose your way----"
+
+"Do you think so?" she said. "Then I will come, for I do not like to be
+lost. What should you do if we were lost? Build me a hut to take shelter
+in? or take off your coat to keep me warm and then go and look for the
+nearest village? That is what happens in some of the Contessa's old
+books--but, ah, not in the Tauchnitz now. But it would be nonsense, of
+course, for there are the red chimneys of the Hall staring us in the
+face, so how could we be lost?"
+
+"When it is dark," said Jock, "you can't see the red always; and then
+you go rambling and wandering about, and hit yourself against the trees,
+and get up to the ankles in the wet grass and--don't like it at all."
+He laughed himself a little, with a laugh that was somewhat like a growl
+at his own abrupt conclusion, to which Bice responded cordially.
+
+"How nice it is to laugh," she said, "it gets the air into your lungs
+and then you can breathe. It is to breathe I want--large--a whole world
+full," she cried, throwing out her arms and opening her mouth. "Because
+you know the rooms are small here, and there is so much furniture, the
+windows closed with curtains, the floors all hot with carpets. Do they
+shut you up as if in a box at night, with the shutters shut and all so
+dark? They do me. But as soon as they are gone I open. I like far better
+our rooms with big walls, and marble that is cool, and large, large
+windows that you can lie and look out at, when you wake, all painted
+upon the sky."
+
+"I should think," said Jock, with the impulse of contradiction, "they
+would not be at all comfortable----"
+
+"Comfortable," she cried in high disdain, "does one want to be
+comfortable? One wants to live, and feel the air, and everything that is
+round."
+
+"That's what we do at school," said Jock, waking up to a sense of the
+affinities as he had already done to the diversities between them.
+
+"Tell me about school," she cried, with a pretty imperious air; and
+Jock, who never desired any better, obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A PAIR OF FRIENDS.
+
+
+After this it came to be a very common occurrence that Jock and Bice
+should meet in the afternoon. He for one thing had lost his
+companionship with Lucy, and had been straying forth forlorn not knowing
+what to do with himself, taking long walks which he did not care for,
+and longing for the intellectual companionship of MTutor, or even of the
+other fellows who, if not intellectual, at least were acquainted with
+the same things, and accustomed to the same occupations as himself. It
+worked in him a tremor and commotion of a kind in which he was wholly
+inexperienced, when he saw the slim figure of the girl approaching him,
+through the paths of the shrubberies, or across the glades of the park.
+He said to himself once or twice, "What a bore;" but those words did not
+express his feelings. It was not a bore, it was something very
+different. He could not explain the mingled reluctance and pleasure of
+his own mood, the little tumult that arose in him when he saw her. He
+wanted to turn his back and rush away, and yet he wanted to be there
+waiting for her, seeing her approach step by step. He had no notion what
+his own mingled sentiments meant. But Bice to all appearance had neither
+the reluctance nor the excitement. She came running to her playmate
+whenever she saw him with frank satisfaction. "I was looking for you,"
+she would say, "Let us go out into the park where nobody can see us.
+Run, or some one will be coming," and then she would fly over stock and
+stone, summoning him after her. There were many occasions when Jock did
+not approve, but he always followed her, though with internal
+grumblings, in which he indulged consciously, making out his own
+annoyance to be very great. "Why can't she let me alone?" he said to
+himself; but when it occurred that Bice did leave him alone, and made no
+appearance, his sense of injury was almost bitter. On such occasions he
+said cutting things within himself, and was very satirical as to the
+stupidity of girls who were afraid to wet their feet, and estimated the
+danger of catching a cold as greater than any natural advantage. For
+Jock had all that instinctive hostility to womankind, which is natural
+to the male bosom, except perhaps at one varying period of life. They
+had no place in the economy of his existence at school, and he knew
+nothing of them nor wanted to know. But Bice, though, when he was
+annoyed with her, she became to him the typical girl, the epitome of
+offending woman, had at other times a very different position. It
+stirred his entire being, he did not know how, when she roamed with him
+about the woods talking of everything, from a point of view which was
+certainly different from Jock's. Occasionally, even, he did not
+understand her any more than if she had been speaking a foreign
+language. She had never any difficulty in penetrating his meaning as he
+had in penetrating hers, but there were times when she did not
+understand him any more than he understood her. She was by far the
+easiest in morals, the least Puritanical. It was not easy to shock Bice,
+but it was not at all difficult to shock Jock, brought up as he was in
+the highest sentiments under the wing of MTutor, who believed in moral
+influence. But the fashion of the intercourse held between these two,
+was very remarkable in its way. They were like brother and sister,
+without being brother and sister. They were strangers to each other, yet
+living in the most entire intimacy, and likely to be parted for ever
+to-morrow. They were of the same age, yet the girl was, in experience of
+life, a world in advance of the boy, who, notwithstanding, had the
+better of her in a thousand ways. In short, they were a paradox, such as
+youth, more or less, is always, and the careless close companionship
+that grew up between them was at once the most natural and the most
+strange alliance. They told each other everything by degrees, without
+being at all aware of the nature of their mutual confidence; Bice
+revealing to Jock the conditions on which she was to be brought out in
+England, and Jock to Bice the unusual features of his own and his
+sister's position, to the unbounded astonishment and scepticism of each.
+
+"Beautiful?" said Jock, drawing a long breath. "But beautiful's not a
+thing you can go in for, like an exam: You're born so, or you're born
+not so; and you know you're not--I mean, you know you're---- Well, it
+isn't your fault. Are you going to be sent away for just being--not
+pretty?"
+
+"I told you," said the girl, with a little impatience. "Being pretty is
+of no consequence. I am pretty, of course," she added regretfully. "But
+it is only if I turn out beautiful that she will take the trouble. And
+at sixteen, I am told, one cannot yet know."
+
+"But--" cried Jock with a sort of consternation, "you don't mind, do
+you? I don't mean anything unkind, you know; I don't think it
+matters--and I am sure it isn't your fault; you are not
+even--good-looking," candour compelled the boy to say, as to an honest
+comrade with whom sincerity was best.
+
+"Ah!" cried Bice, with a little excitement. "Do you think so? Then
+perhaps there is more hope."
+
+Jock was confounded by this utterance, and he began to feel that he had
+been uncivil. "I don't mean," he said, "that you are not--I mean that it
+is not of the least consequence. What does it matter? I am sure you are
+clever, which is far better. I think you could get up anything faster
+than most fellows if you were to try."
+
+"Get up! What does that mean? And when I tell you that it does matter to
+me--oh much,--very much!" she cried. "When you are beautiful, everything
+is before you--you marry, you have whatever you wish, you become a great
+lady; only to be pretty--that does nothing for you. Ugly, however," said
+the girl reflectively; "if I am ugly, then there is some hope."
+
+"I did not say that," cried Jock, shocked at the suggestion. "I wouldn't
+be so uncivil. You are--just like other people," he added encouragingly,
+"not much either one way or another--like the rest of us," Jock said,
+with the intention of soothing her ruffled feelings. At sixteen decorum
+is not always the first thing we think of; and though Bice was not an
+English girl, she was very young. She threw out a vigorous arm and
+pushed him from her, so that the astonished critic, stumbling over some
+fallen branches, measured his length upon the dewy sod.
+
+"That was not I," she said demurely, as he picked himself up in great
+surprise--drawing a step away, and looking at him with wide-open eyes,
+to which the little fright of seeing him fall, and the spark of malice
+that took pleasure in it, had given sudden brilliancy. Jock was so much
+astonished that he uttered no reproach, but went on by her side, after a
+moment, pondering. He could not see how any offence could have lurked
+in the encouraging and consolatory words he had said.
+
+But when they reached the other chapter, which concerned his fortunes,
+Bice was not more understanding. Her gray eyes absolutely flamed upon
+him when he told her of his father's will, and the conditions upon which
+Lucy's inheritance was held. "To give her money away! But that is
+impossible--it would be to prove one's self mad," the girl said.
+
+"Why? You forget it's my father you're speaking of. He was not mad, he
+was just," said Jock, reddening. "What's mad in it? You've got a great
+fortune--far more than you want. It all came out of other people's
+pockets somehow. Oh, of course, not in a dishonest way. That is the
+worst of speaking to a girl that doesn't understand political economy
+and the laws of production. Of course it must come out of other people's
+pockets. If I sell anything and get a profit (and nobody would sell
+anything if they didn't get a profit), of course that comes out of your
+pocket. Well, now, I've got a great deal more than I want, and I say you
+shall have some of it back."
+
+"And I say," cried Bice, making him a curtsey, "Merci Monsieur! Grazia
+Signor! oh thank you, thank you very much--as much as you like, sir, as
+much as you like! but all the same I think you are mad. Your money! all
+that makes you happy and great----"
+
+"Money," said Jock, loftily, "makes nobody happy. It may make you
+comfortable. It gives you fine houses, horses and carriages, and all
+that sort of thing. So it will do to the other people to whom it goes;
+so it is wisdom to divide it, for the more good you can get out of it
+the better. Lucy has money lying in the bank--or somewhere--that she
+does not want, that does her no good; and there is some one else" (a
+fellow I know, Jock added in a parenthesis), "who has not got enough to
+live upon. So you see she just hands over what she doesn't want to him,
+and that's better for both. So far from being mad, it's"--Jock paused
+for a word--"it's philosophy, it's wisdom, it's statesmanship. It is
+just the grandest way that was ever invented for putting things
+straight."
+
+Bice looked at him with a sort of incredulous cynical gaze--as if asking
+whether he meant her to believe this fiction--whether perhaps he was
+such a fool as to think that she could be persuaded to believe it. It
+was evident that she did not for a moment suppose him to be serious. She
+laughed at last in ridicule and scorn. "You think," she said, "I know so
+little. Ah, I know a great deal more than that. What are you without
+money? You are nobody. The more you have, so much more have you
+everything at your command. Without money you are nobody. Yes, you may
+be a prince or an English milord, but that is nothing without money. Oh
+yes! I have known princes that had nothing and the people laughed at
+them. And a milord who is poor--the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can
+do nothing without money," the girl said with almost fierce derision,
+"and you tell me you will give it away!" She laughed again angrily, as
+if such a brag was offensive and insulting to her own poverty. The boy
+who had never in his life known what it was to want anything that money
+could procure for him, treated the whole question lightly, and
+undervalued its importance altogether. But the girl who knew by
+experience what was involved in the want of it, heard with a sort of
+wondering fury this slighting treatment of what was to her the
+universal panacea. Her cynicism and satirical unbelief grew into
+indignation. "And you tell me it is wise to give it away!"
+
+"Lucy has got to do it, whether it is wise or not," said Jock, almost
+overawed by this high moral disapproval. "We went to the lawyer about it
+the day you came. He is settling it now. She is giving away--well, a
+good many thousand pounds."
+
+"Pounds are more than francs, eh?" said Bice quickly.
+
+"More than francs! just twenty-five times more," cried Jock, proud of
+his knowledge, "a thousand pounds is----"
+
+"Then I don't believe you!" cried the girl in an outburst of passion,
+and she fled from him across the park, catching up her dress and running
+at a pace which even Jock with his long legs knew he could not keep up
+with. He gazed with surprise, standing still and watching her with the
+words arrested on his lips. "But she can't keep it up long like that,"
+after a moment Jock said.
+
+The time, however, approached when the two friends had to part. Jock
+left the Hall a few days after Lady Randolph, and he was somehow not
+very glad to go. The family life had been less cheerful lately, and
+conversation languished when the domestic party were alone together.
+When the Contessa was present she kept up the ball, maintaining at least
+with Sir Tom an always animated and lively strain of talk; but at
+breakfast there was not much said, and of late a little restraint had
+crept even between the master and mistress of the house, no one could
+tell how. The names of the guests were scarcely mentioned between them.
+Sir Tom was very attentive and kind to his wife, but he was more silent
+than he used to be, reading his letters and his newspapers. Lucy had
+been quite satisfied when he said, though it must be allowed with a
+laugh not devoid of embarrassment, that it was more important he should
+master all the papers and see how public opinion was running, now when
+it was so near the opening of Parliament. But a little veil of silence
+had fallen over Lucy too. It cost her an effort to speak even to Jock of
+common subjects and of his going away. She had thought him looking a
+little disturbed, however, on the last morning, and with the newspaper
+forming a sort of screen between them and Sir Tom, Lucy made an attempt
+to talk to her brother as of old.
+
+"I shall miss you very much, Jock. We have not had so much time together
+as we thought."
+
+"We have had no time together, Lucy."
+
+"You must not say that, dear. Don't you recollect that drive to
+Farafield? We have not had so many walks, it is true; but then I have
+been--occupied."
+
+"Is it ever finished yet, that business?" Jock said suddenly.
+
+It was all Lucy could do not to give him a warning look. "I have had
+some letters about it. A thing cannot be finished in a minute like
+that." Instinctively she spoke low to escape her husband's ear; he had
+never referred to the subject, and she avoided it religiously. It gave
+her a thrill of alarm to have it thus reintroduced. To escape it, she
+said, raising her voice a little: "The Contessa's letters have not been
+sent to her. You must ring the bell, Jock. There are a great many for
+her." The name of the Contessa always moved Sir Tom to a certain
+attention. He seemed to be on the alert for what might be said of her.
+He looked round the corner of the paper with a short laugh, and said,
+jocularly, with mock gravity--
+
+"It is a great thing to keep up your correspondence, Lucy. You never can
+know when it may prove serviceable. If it had not been for that, she
+most likely never would have come here."
+
+Lucy smiled, though with a little restraint. "Perhaps she is sorry now,"
+she said, "for it must be dull." Then she hurriedly changed the subject,
+afraid lest she might seem ill-natured. "Poor Miss Bice has never any
+letters," she said; "she must have very few friends."
+
+"Oh, she has nobody at all," said Jock, "She hasn't got a relation. She
+has always lived like this, in different places; and never been to
+school, or--anywhere; though she has been nearly round the world."
+
+"Poor little thing! and she is fond of children too," said Lucy. "I
+found her one day with baby on her shoulder, a wet day when he could not
+get out, racing up and down the long gallery with him crowing and
+laughing. It was so pretty to see him----"
+
+"Or to see her, Lucy, most people would say," said Sir Tom, interrupting
+again.
+
+"Would they? Oh, yes. But I thought naturally of baby," said the young
+mother. Then she made a pause and added softly, "I hope--they--are
+always kind to her."
+
+There was a little silence. Sir Tom was behind his newspaper. He
+listened, but he did not say anything, and Jock was not aware that he
+was listening.
+
+"Oh, I don't think she minds," said Jock. "She is rather jolly when you
+come to know her. I say, Lucy, it will be awfully dull for her, you
+know, when----"
+
+"When what, Jock?"
+
+"When I am gone," the boy intended to have said, but some gleam of
+consciousness came over him that made him pause. He did not say this,
+but grew a little red in the effort to think of something else that he
+could say.
+
+"Well, I mean here," he said, "for she hasn't been used to it. She has
+been in places where there was always music playing and that sort of
+thing. She never was in the country. There's plenty of books, to be
+sure; but she's not very fond of reading. Few people, are, I think.
+_You_ never open a book----"
+
+"Oh yes, Jock! I read the books from Mudie's," Lucy said, with some
+spirit, "and I always send them upstairs."
+
+Jock had it on his lips to say something derogatory of the books from
+Mudie's; but he checked himself, for he remembered to have seen MTutor
+with one of those frivolous volumes, and he refrained from snubbing
+Lucy. "I believe she can't read," he said. "She can do nothing but laugh
+at one. And she thinks she's pretty," he added, with a little laugh yet
+sense of unfaithfulness to the trust reposed in him, which once more
+covered his face with crimson.
+
+Lucy laughed too, with hesitation and doubt. "I cannot see it," she
+said, "but that is what Lady Randolph thought. It is strange that she
+should talk of such things; but people are very funny who have been
+brought up abroad."
+
+"All girls are like that," said Jock, authoritatively. "They think so
+much of being pretty. But I tell her it doesn't matter. What difference
+could it make? Nobody will suppose it was her fault. She says----"
+
+"Hallo, young man," said Sir Tom. "It is time you went back to school, I
+think. What would MTutor say to all these confidences with young
+ladies, and knowledge of their ways!"
+
+Jock gave his brother-in-law a look, in which defiant virtue struggled
+with a certain consciousness; but he scorned to make any reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE BREAKFAST TABLE.
+
+
+Lucy found her life much changed when Jock had gone, and she was left
+alone to face the change of circumstances which had tacitly taken place.
+The Contessa said not a word of terminating her visit. The departure of
+Lady Randolph apparently suggested nothing to her. She could scarcely
+have filled up the foreground more entirely than she did before--but she
+was now uncriticised, unremarked upon. There seemed even to be no
+appropriation of more than her due, for it was very natural that a
+person of experience and powers of conversation like hers should take
+the leading place, and simple Lucy, so much younger and with so much
+less acquaintance with the world, fall into the background. And
+accordingly this was what happened. Madame di Forno-Populo knew
+everybody. She had a hundred mutual acquaintances to tell Sir Tom about,
+and they seemed to have an old habit of intercourse, which by this time
+had been fully resumed. The evenings were the time when this was most
+apparent. Then the Contessa was at her brightest. She had managed to
+introduce shades upon all the lamps, so as to diffuse round her a
+softened artificial illumination such as is favourable to beauty that
+has passed its prime: and in this ruddy gloom she sat half seen, Sir Tom
+sometimes standing by her, sometimes permitted to take the other corner
+of her sofa--and talked to him, sometimes sinking her voice low as her
+reminiscences took some special vein, sometimes calling sweetly to her
+pretty Lucy to listen to this or that. These extensions of confidence,
+generally, were brought in to make up for a long stretch of more private
+communications, and the aspect of the little domestic circle was on such
+occasions curious enough. By the table, in a low chair, with the full
+light of the lamp upon her, sat Lucy, generally with some work in her
+hands; she did not read or write (exercises to which, to tell the truth,
+she was not much addicted) out of politeness, lest she should seem to be
+withdrawing her attention from her guest, but sat there with her slight
+occupation, so as to be open to any appeal, and ready if she were
+wanted. On the other side of the table, the light making a sort of
+screen and division between them, sat Bice, generally with a book before
+her, which, as has been said, did not at all interfere with her power of
+giving a vivid attention to what was going on around her. These two said
+nothing to each other, and were often silent for the whole evening, like
+pieces of still life. Bice sat with her book upon the table, so that
+only the open page and the hands that held the book were within the
+brightness of the light, which on the other side streamed down upon
+Lucy's fair shoulders and soft young face, and upon the work in her
+hands. In the corner was the light continuous murmur of talk; the
+half-seen figure of the Contessa, generally leaning back, looking up to
+Sir Tom, who stood with his arm on the mantelpiece with much animation,
+gesticulation of her hands and subdued laughter, the most lively
+current of sound, soft, intensified by little eloquent breaks, by
+emphatic gestures, by sentences left incomplete, but understood all the
+better for being half said. There were many evenings in which Lucy sat
+there with a little wonder, but no other active feeling in her mind. It
+is needless to say that it was not pleasant to her. She would sit and
+wonder wistfully whether her husband had forgotten she was there, but
+then reminded herself that of course it was his duty to think of the
+Contessa first, and consoled herself that by and by the stranger would
+go away, and all would be as it had been. As time went on, the desire
+that this should happen, and longing to have possession of her home
+again, grew so strong that she could scarcely subdue it, and it was with
+the greatest difficulty that she kept all expression of it from her
+lips. And by and by, the warmth of this restrained desire so absorbed
+Lucy that she scarcely dared allow herself to speak lest it should burst
+forth, and there seemed to herself to be continually going on in her
+mind a calculation of the chances, a scrutiny of everything the Contessa
+said which seemed to point at such a movement. But, indeed, the Contessa
+said very little upon which the most sanguine could build. She said
+nothing of her arrangements at all, nor spoke of what she was going to
+do, and answered none of Lucy's ardent and innocent fishings after
+information. The evenings became more and more intolerable to Lady
+Randolph as they went on. She was glad that anybody should come, however
+little she might care for their society, to break these private
+conferences up.
+
+And this was not all, nor even perhaps the worst, of the vague evils not
+yet defined in her mind, and which she was so very reluctant to define,
+which Lucy had to go through. At breakfast, when she was alone with her
+husband, matters were almost worse. Sir Tom, it was evident, began to
+feel the _tête-à-tête_ embarrassing. He did not know what to say to his
+little wife when they were alone. The presence of the Dowager and Jock
+had freed him from any necessity of explanation, had kept him in his
+usual easy way; but now that Lucy alone sat opposite to him, he was more
+silent than his wont, and with no longer any of the little flow of
+simple observations which had once been so delightful to her. Sir Tom
+was more uneasy than if she had been a stern and jealous Eleanor, a
+clear-sighted critic seeing through and through him. The contest was so
+unequal, and the weaker creature so destitute of any intention or
+thought of resistance, that he felt himself a coward and traitor for
+thus deserting her and overclouding her home and her life. Then he took
+to asking himself, Did he overcloud her? Was she sensible of any
+difference? Did she know enough to know that this was not how she ought
+to be treated, or was she not quite contented with her secondary place?
+Such a simple creature, would she not cry--would she not show her anger
+if she was conscious of anything to be grieved or angry about? He took
+refuge in those newspapers which, he gave out, it was so necessary he
+should study, to understand the mind of the country before the opening
+of Parliament. And thus they would sit, Lucy dutifully filling out the
+tea, taking care that he had the dish he liked for breakfast, swallowing
+her own with difficulty yet lingering over it, always thinking that
+perhaps Tom might have something to say. While he, on the other hand,
+kept behind his newspaper, feeling himself guilty, conscious that
+another sort of woman would make one of those "scenes" which men dread,
+yet despising Lucy a little in spite of himself for the very quality he
+most admired in her, and wondering if she were really capable of feeling
+at all. Sometimes little Tom would be brought downstairs to roll about
+the carpet and try his unsteady little limbs in a series of clutches at
+the chairs and table; and on these occasions the meal was got through
+more easily. But little Tom was not always well enough to come
+downstairs, and sometimes Lucy thought that her husband might have
+something to say to her which the baby's all-engrossing presence
+hindered. Thus it came about that the hours in which the Contessa was
+present and in the front of everything, were really less painful than
+those in which the pair were alone with the shadow of the intruder, more
+powerful even than her presence holding them apart.
+
+One of these mornings, however, Lucy's anticipations and hopes seemed
+about to be realised. Sir Tom laid down his paper, looked at her frankly
+without any shield, and said, as she had so often imagined him saying,
+"I want to talk to you, Lucy." How glad she was that little Tom was not
+downstairs that morning!
+
+She looked at him across the table with a brightening countenance, and
+said, "Yes, Tom!" with such warm eagerness and sudden pleasure that her
+look penetrated his very heart. It implied a great deal more than Sir
+Tom intended and thought, and he was a man of very quick intelligence.
+The expectation in her eyes touched him beyond a thousand complaints.
+
+"I had an interview yesterday, in which you were much concerned," he
+said; then made a pause, with such a revolution going on within him as
+seldom happens in a mature and self-collected mind. He had begun with
+totally different sentiments from those which suddenly came over him at
+the sight of her kindling face. When he said, "I want to talk to you,
+Lucy," he had meant to speak of her interview with Mr. Rushton, to point
+out to her the folly of what she was doing, and to show her how it was
+that he should be compelled to do everything that was in his power to
+oppose her. He did not mean to go to the root of the matter, as he had
+done before, when he was obliged to admit to himself that he had
+failed--but to address himself to the secondary view of the question, to
+the small prospect there was of doing any good. But when he caught her
+eager, questioning look, her eyes growing liquid and bright with
+emotion, her face full of restrained anxiety and hope, Sir Tom's heart
+smote him. What did she think he was going to say? Not anything about
+money, important as that subject was in their life--but something far
+more important, something that touched her to the quick, a revelation
+upon which her very soul hung. He was startled beyond measure by this
+disclosure. He had thought she did not feel, and that her heart
+unawakened had regarded calmly, with no pain to speak of, the new state
+of affairs of which he himself was guiltily conscious; but that eager
+look put an end in a moment to his delusion. He paused and swerved
+mentally as if an angel had suddenly stepped into his way.
+
+"It is about--that will of your father's," he said.
+
+Lucy, gazing at him with such hope and expectation, suddenly sank, as it
+were, prostrate in the depth of a disappointment that almost took the
+life out of her. She did not indeed fall physically or faint, which
+people seldom do in moments of extreme mental suffering. It was only her
+countenance that fell. Her brightening, beaming, hopeful face grew
+blank in a moment, her eyes grew utterly dim, a kind of mist running
+over them: a sound--half a sob, half a sigh, came from her breast. She
+put up her hand trembling to support her head, which shook too with the
+quiver that went over her. It took her at least a minute to get over the
+shock of the disappointment. Then commanding herself painfully, but
+without looking at him, which, indeed, she dared not do, she said again,
+"Yes, Tom?" with a piteous quiver of her lip.
+
+It did not make Sir Tom any the less kind, and full of tender impulses,
+that he was wounding his wife in the profoundest sensibilities of her
+heart. In this point the greater does not include the lesser. He was
+cruel in the more important matter, without intending it indeed, and
+from what he considered a fatality, a painful combination of
+circumstances out of which he could not escape; but in the lesser
+particulars he was as kind as ever. He could not bear to see her
+suffering. The quiver in her lip, the failure of the colour in her
+cheeks affected him so that he could scarcely contain himself.
+
+"My dear love," he cried, "my little Lucy! you are not afraid of what I
+am going to say to you?" These words came to his lips naturally, by the
+affectionate impulse of his kind nature. But when he had said them, an
+impulse, which was perhaps more crafty than loving, followed. Quick as
+thought he changed his intention, his purpose altogether. He could not
+resist the appeal of Lucy's face; but he slipped instinctively from the
+more serious question that lay between them, and resolved to sacrifice
+the other, which was indeed very important, yet could be treated in an
+easier way and without involving anything more painful. Sir Tom was at
+an age when money has a great value, and the mere sense of possession is
+pleasant; and there was a principle involved which he had determined a
+few weeks ago not to relinquish. But the position in which he found
+himself placed was one out of which some way of escape had to be
+invented at once. "Lucy," he said, "you are frightened; you think I am
+going to cross you in the matter that lies so near your heart. But you
+mistake me, my dear. I think I ought to be your chief adviser in that as
+in all matters. It is my duty: but I hope you never thought that I would
+exercise any force upon you to put a stop to--what you thought right."
+
+Lucy had overcome herself, though with a painful effort. She followed
+with a quivering humility what he was saying. She acknowledged to
+herself that this was, indeed, the great thing in her life, and that it
+was only her childishness and foolishness which had made her place other
+matters in the chief place. Most likely, she said to herself, Tom was
+not aware of anything that required explanation; he would never think it
+possible that she could be so ungracious and unkind as to grudge his
+guests their place in his house. She gathered herself up hastily to meet
+him when he entered upon the great question which was far more
+important, which was indeed the only question between them. "I know,"
+she said, "that you were always kind, Tom. If I did not ask you first it
+was because----"
+
+"We need not enter upon that, my dear. I was angry, and went too far. At
+the same time, Lucy, it is a mad affair altogether. Your father himself,
+had he realised the difficulty of carrying it out, would have seen this.
+I only say so to let you know my opinion is unchanged. And you know
+your trustees are of the same mind. But if you think this is your duty,
+as I am sure you do----"
+
+It seemed to Lucy that her duty had sailed far away from her on some sea
+of strange distance and dullness where she could scarcely keep it in
+sight. Her own very voice seemed strange and dull to her and far away,
+as she said almost mechanically: "I do think it is my duty--to my
+father----"
+
+"I am aware that you think so, my love. As you get older you will,
+perhaps, see as I do--that to carry out the spirit of your father's will
+would be better than to follow so closely the letter of it. But you are
+still very young, and Jock is younger; and, fortunately, you can afford
+to indulge a freak of this sort. I shall let Mr. Rushton know that I
+withdraw all opposition. And now, give me a kiss, and let us forget that
+there ever was any controversy between us--it never went further than a
+controversy, did it, darling?" Sir Tom said.
+
+Lucy could not speak for the moment. She looked up into his face with
+her eyes all liquid with tears, and a great confusion in her soul. Was
+this all? as he kissed her, and smiled, leaning over her in the old kind
+way, with a tenderness that was half-fatherly and indulgent to her
+weakness, she did not seem at all sure what it was that had moved like a
+ghost between him and her; was it in reality only this--this and no
+more? She almost thought so as she looked up into his kind face. Only
+this! How glad it would have made her three weeks ago to have his
+sanction for the thing she was so reluctant to attempt, which it was so
+much her duty to do, which Jock urged with so much pertinacity, and
+which her father from his grave enjoined. If it affected her but dully
+now, whose was the fault? Not Tom's, who was so generously ready to
+yield to her, although he disapproved. When he retired behind his
+newspaper once more with a kind smile at her, to end the matter, Lucy
+sat quite still in a curious stunned confusion trying to account for it
+all to herself. There could be no doubt, she thought, that it was she
+who was in the wrong. She it was who had created the embarrassment
+altogether. He was not even aware of any other cause. It had never
+occurred to his greater mind that she could be so petty as to fret under
+the interruption which their visitors had made in her life. He had
+thought that the other matter was the cause of her dullness and silence,
+and generously had put an end to it, not by requiring any sacrifice from
+her, but by making one in his own person. She sat silent trying to
+realise all this, but unable to get quite free from the confusion and
+dimness that had invaded her soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE ORACLE SPEAKS.
+
+
+Lucy went up to the nursery when breakfast was over. It was her habit to
+go and take counsel of little Tom when her heart was troubled or heavy.
+He was now eighteen months old, an age at which you will say the
+judicial faculties are small; but a young mother has superstitions, and
+there are many dilemmas in life in which it will do a woman, though the
+male critic may laugh, great good to go and confide it all to her baby,
+and hold that little bundle of white against her heart to conquer the
+pain of it. When little Tom was lively and well, when he put his arms
+about her neck and dabbed his velvety mouth against her cheek, Lucy felt
+that she was approved of and her heart rose. When he was cross and cried
+and pushed her away from him, as sometimes happened, she ceased to be
+sure of anything, and felt dissatisfied with herself and all the world.
+It was with a great longing to consult this baby oracle and see what
+heaven might have to say to her through his means, that she ran
+upstairs, neglecting even Mrs. Freshwater, who advanced ceremoniously
+from her own retirement with her bill of fare in her hand, as Lucy
+darted past. "Wait a little and I will come to you," she cried. What was
+the dinner in comparison? She flew up to the nursery only to find it
+vacant. The morning was clingy and damp, no weather for the delicate
+child to go out, and Lucy was not alarmed but knew well enough where to
+find him. The long picture gallery which ran along the front of the
+house was his usual promenade on such occasions, and there she betook
+herself hurriedly. There could not be much doubt as to little Tom's
+whereabouts. Shrieks of baby fun were audible whenever she came within
+hearing, and the sound of a flying foot careering from end to end of the
+long space, which certainly was not the foot of Tom's nurse, whose voice
+could be heard in cries of caution, "Oh, take care, Miss! Oh, for
+goodness sake--oh, what will my lady say to me if you should trip with
+him!" Lucy paused suddenly, checked by the sound of this commotion. Once
+before she had surprised a scene of the kind, and she knew what it
+meant. She stopped short, and stood still to get possession of herself.
+It was a circumstance which pulled her up sharply and changed the
+current of her mind. Her first feeling was one of disappointment and
+almost irritation. Could she not even have the baby to herself, she
+murmured? But there was in reality so little of the petty in Lucy's
+disposition that this was but a momentary sentiment. It changed,
+however, the manner of her entrance. She came in quietly, not rushing to
+seize her boy as she had intended, but still with her superstition
+strong in her heart, and as determined to resort to the _Sortes Tomianae_
+as ever. The sight she saw was one to make a picture of. Skimming along
+the long gallery with that free light step which scarcely seemed to
+touch the ground was Bice, a long stream of hair flying behind her, the
+child seated on her shoulder, supported by one raised arm, while the
+other held aloft the end of a red scarf which she had twisted round him.
+Little Tom had one hand twisted in her hair, and with his small feet
+beating upon her breast, and his little chest expanded with cries of
+delight, encouraged his steed in her wild career. The dark old pictures,
+some full-length Randolphs of an elder age, good for little but a
+background, threw up this airy group with all the perfection of
+contrast. They flew by as Lucy came in, so joyous, so careless, so
+delightful in pose and movement, that she could not utter the little cry
+of alarm that came to her lips. Bice had never in her life looked so
+near that beauty which she considered as so serious a necessity. She was
+flushed with the movement, her fine light figure, too light and slight
+as yet for the full perfection of feminine form, was the very
+impersonation of youth. She flew, she did not glide nor run--her elastic
+foot spurned the floor. She was like a runner in a Greek game. Lucy
+stood breathless between admiration and pleasure and alarm, as the
+animated figure turned and came fast towards her in its airy career.
+Little Tom perceived his mother as they came up. He was still more
+daring than his bearer. He detached himself suddenly from Bice's
+shoulder, and with a shout of pleasure threw himself upon Lucy. The
+oracle had spoken. It almost brought her to her knees indeed, descending
+upon her like a little thunderbolt, catching her round the throat and
+tearing off with a hurried clutch the lace upon her dress; while the
+flying steed, suddenly arrested, came to a dead stop in front of her,
+panting, blushing, and disconcerted. "There was no fear," she cried,
+with involuntary self-defence, "I held him fast." Bice forgot even in
+the surprise how wildly she stood with her hair floating, and the scarf
+in her hand still knotted round the baby's waist.
+
+"There was no danger, my lady. I was watching every step; and it do
+Master Tom a world of good," cried the nurse, coming to the rescue.
+
+"Why should you think I am afraid?" said Lucy. "Don't you know I am most
+grateful to you for being so kind to him? and it was pretty to see you.
+You looked so bright and strong, and my boy so happy."
+
+"Miss is just our salvation, my lady," said the nurse; "these wet days
+when we can't get out, I don't know what I should do without her. Master
+Tom, bless him, is always cross when he don't get no air; but once set
+on Miss' shoulder he crows till it do your heart good to hear him," the
+woman cried.
+
+Bice stood with the colour still in her face, her head thrown back a
+little, and her breath coming less quickly. She laughed at this
+applause. "I like it," she said. "I like him; he is my only little
+companion. He is pleased when he sees me."
+
+This went to Lucy's heart. "And so are we all," she said; "but you will
+not let me see you. I am often alone, too. If you will come and--and
+give me your company----"
+
+Bice gave her a wistful look; then shook her head.
+
+"I know you do not wish for us here; and why should you?" she said.
+
+"My dear!" cried Lucy in alarm, with a glance at the woman who stood by,
+all ears. And now it was that little Tom at eighteen months showed that
+precocious judgment in which his mother had an instinctive belief. He
+had satisfied himself with the destruction of Lucy's lace, and with
+printing the impression of his mouth all over her cheeks. That little
+wet wide open mouth was delicious to Lucy. No trouble had befallen her
+yet that could not be wiped out by its touch. But now a new distraction
+was necessary for the little hero; and his eye caught the red sash which
+still was round his waist. He transferred all his thoughts to it with an
+instant revolution of idea, and holding on by it like a little sailor on
+a rope, drew Bice close till he could succeed in the arduous task, not
+unattended by danger, of flinging himself from one to another. This game
+enchanted Master Tom. Had he been a little older it would have been
+changed into that daring faltering hop from one eminence, say a
+footstool, to another, which flutters the baby soul. He was too insecure
+in possession of those aimless little legs to venture on any such daring
+feat now; but, with a valour more desperate still, he flung himself
+across the gulf from Lucy's arms to those of Bice and back again, with
+cries of delight. These cries, it must be allowed, were not very
+articulate, but they soon became urgent, with a demand which the little
+tyrant insisted upon with increasing vehemence.
+
+"Oh, my lady," cried the nurse, "it is as plain as if he said it, and he
+is saying of it, the pet, as pretty!---- He wants you to kiss Miss, he
+do. Ain't that it, my own? Nursey knows his little talk. Ain't that it,
+my darling lamb?"
+
+There was a momentary pause in the strange little group linked together
+by the baby's clutches. The young mother and the girl with their heads
+so near each other, looked in each other's faces. In Lucy's there was a
+kind of awe, in Bice's a sort of wondering wistfulness mingled with
+incipient defiance. They were not born to be each other's friends. They
+were different in everything; they were even on different sides in this
+house--the one an intruder, belonging to the party which was destroying
+the other's domestic peace. It would be vain to say that there was not a
+little reluctance in Lucy's soul as she gazed at the younger girl, come
+from she knew not where, established under her roof she knew not how.
+She hesitated for one moment, then she bent forward almost with
+solemnity and kissed Bice's cheek. She seemed to communicate her own
+agitation to the girl who stood straight up with her head a little back,
+half eager, half defiant. When Bice felt the touch of Lucy's lips,
+however, she melted in a moment. Her slight figure swayed, she took
+Lucy's disengaged hand with her own, and, stooping over it, kissed it
+with lips that quivered. There was not a word said between them; but a
+secret compact was thus made under little Tom's inspiration. The little
+oracle clambered up upon his mother afterwards, and laid down his head
+upon her shoulder and dropped off to sleep with that entire confiding
+and abandonment of the whole little being which is one of the deepest
+charms of childhood. Who is there with any semblance of a heart in his,
+much more her, bosom, who is not touched in the tenderest part when a
+child goes to sleep in his arms? The appeal conveyed in the act is one
+which scarcely a savage could withstand. The three women gathered round
+to see this common spectacle, so universal, so touching. Bice, who was
+almost too young for the maternal sentiment, and who was a stern young
+Stoic by nature, never shedding a tear, could not tell how it was that
+her eyes moistened. But Lucy's filled with an emotion which was sharp
+and sore with alarm. "Oh, nurse, don't call my boy a little angel!" she
+said, with a sentiment which a woman will understand.
+
+This baby scene upstairs was balanced by one of a very different
+character below. Sir Tom had gone into his own room a little disturbed
+and out of sorts. Circumstances had been hard upon him, he felt. The
+Contessa's letter offering her visit had been a jest to him. He was one
+of those who thought the best of the Contessa. He had seen a good deal
+of her one time and another in his life, and she held the clue to one or
+two matters which it would not have pleased him, at this mature period
+of his existence, to have published abroad. She was an adventuress, he
+knew, and her friends were not among the best of humanity. She had led a
+life which, without being positively evil, had shut her out from the
+sympathies of many good people. When a woman has to solve the problem
+how to obtain all the luxuries and amusements of life without money, it
+is to be expected that her attempts to do so should lead her into risky
+places, where the footing was far from sure. But she had never, as Lady
+Randolph acknowledged, gone so far as that society should refuse to
+receive her, and Sir Tom was always an indulgent critic. If she were
+coming to England, as she gave him to understand, he saw no reason why
+she should not come to the Hall. For himself, it would be rather amusing
+than otherwise, and Lucy would take no harm--even if there was harm in
+the Forno-Populo (which he did not believe), his wife was far too
+innocent even to suspect it. She would not know evil if she saw it, he
+said to himself proudly; and then there was no chance that the Contessa,
+who loved merriment and gaiety, could long be content with anything so
+humdrum as his quiet life in the country. Thus it will be seen that Sir
+Tom had got himself innocently enough into this imbroglio. He had meant
+no particular harm. He had meant to be kind to a poor woman, who after
+all needed kindness much; and if the comic character of the situation
+touched his sense of humour, and he was not unwilling in his own person
+to get a little amusement out of it, who could blame him? This was the
+worst that Sir Tom meant. To amuse himself partly by the sight of the
+conventional beauty and woman of the world in the midst of circumstances
+so incongruous, and partly by the fluttering of the dovecotes which the
+appearance of such an adventuress would cause. He liked her conversation
+too, and to hear all about the more noisy company, full of talk and
+diversion in which he had wasted so much of his youth. But there were
+two or three things which Sir Tom did not take into his calculations.
+The first was the sort of fascination which that talk, and all the
+associations of the old world, and the charms of the professional
+sorceress, would exercise upon himself after his settling down as the
+head of a family and pillar of the State. He had not thought how much
+amused he would be, how the contrast even would tickle his fancy and
+affect (for the moment) his life. He laughed within himself at the
+transparent way in which his old friend bade for his sympathy and
+society. She was the same as ever, living upon admiration, upon
+compliments whether fictitious or not, and demanding a show of devotion,
+somebody always at her feet. She thought, no doubt, he said to himself,
+that she had got him at her feet, and he laughed to himself when he was
+alone at the thought. But, nevertheless, it did amuse him to talk to the
+Contessa, and before long, what with skilful reminders of the past, what
+with hints and reference to a knowledge which he would not like extended
+to the world, he had begun by degrees to find himself in a confidential
+position with her. "We know each other's secrets," she would say to him
+with a meaning look. He was caught in her snare. On the other hand an
+indefinite visit prolonged and endless had never come within his
+calculation. He did not know how to put an end to the situation--perhaps
+as it was an amusement for his evenings to see the siren spread her
+snares, and even to be more or less caught in them, he did not sincerely
+wish to put an end to it as yet. He was caught in them more or less, but
+never so much as to be unaware of the skill with which the snares were
+laid, which would have amused him whatever had been the seriousness of
+the attendant circumstances. He did not, however, allow that he had no
+desire to make an end of these circumstances, but only said to himself,
+with a shrug of his shoulders, how could he do it? He could not send his
+old friend away. He could not but be civil and attentive to her so long
+as she was under his roof. It distressed him that Lucy should feel it,
+as this morning's experience proved her to do, but how could he help it?
+He made that other sacrifice to Lucy by way of reconciling her to the
+inevitable, but he could do no more. When you invite a friend to be your
+guest, he said to himself, you must be more or less at the mercy of that
+friend. If he (or she) stays too long, what can you do? Sir Tom was not
+the sort of man to be reduced to helplessness by such a difficulty. Yet
+this was what he said to himself.
+
+It vexed him, however, that Lucy should feel it so much. He could not
+throw off this uneasy feeling. He had stopped her mouth as one might
+stop a child's mouth with a sugar plum; but he could not escape from the
+consciousness that Lucy felt her domain invaded, and that her feeling
+was just. He had thrown himself into the great chair, and was pondering
+not what to do, but the impossibility of doing anything, when Williams,
+his confidential man, who knew all about the Contessa almost as well as
+he did, suddenly appeared before him. Williams had been all over the
+world with Sir Tom before he settled down as his butler at the Hall. He
+was, therefore, not one who could be dismissed summarily if he
+interfered in any matter out of his sphere. He appeared on the other
+side of Sir Tom's writing-table with a face as long as his arm, the face
+with which Sir Tom was so well acquainted--the same face with which he
+had a hundred times announced the failure of supplies, the delay of
+carriages, the general hopelessness of the situation. There was tragedy
+in it of the most solemn kind, but there was a certain enjoyment too.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Sir Tom; and then he jumped to his feet.
+"Something is wrong with the baby," he cried.
+
+"No, Sir Thomas; Mr. Randolph is pretty well, thank you, Sir Thomas. It
+is about something else that I made so bold. There is Antonio, sir, in
+the servants' hall; Madame the Countess' man."
+
+"Oh, the Countess," cried Sir Tom, and he seated himself again; then
+said, with the confidence of a man to the follower who has been his
+companion in many straits, "You gave me a fright, Williams. I thought
+that little shaver---- But what's the matter with Antonio? Can't you keep
+a fellow like that in order without bothering me?"
+
+"Sir Thomas," said Williams, solemnly, "I am not one as troubles my
+master when things are straightforward. But them foreigners, you never
+know when you have 'em. And an idle man about an establishment, that is,
+so to speak, under nobody, and for ever a-kicking of his heels, and
+following the women servants about, and not a blessed hand's turn to
+do"--a tone of personal offence came into Williams' complaint; "there is
+a deal to do in this house," he added, "and neither me nor any of the
+men haven't got a moment to spare. Why, there's your hunting things, Sir
+Thomas, is just a man's work. And to see that fellow loafing, and
+a-hanging on about the women--I don't wonder, Sir Thomas, that it's more
+than any man can stand," said Williams, lighting up. He was a married
+man himself, with a very respectable family in the village, but he was
+not too old to be able to understand the feelings of John and Charles,
+whose hearts were lacerated by the success of the Italian fellow with
+his black eyes.
+
+"Well, well, don't worry me," said Sir Tom, "take him by the collar and
+give him a shake. You're big enough." Then he laughed unfeelingly, which
+Williams did not expect. "Too big, eh, Will? Not so ready for a shindy
+as we used to be." This identification of himself with his factotum was
+mere irony, and Williams felt it; for Sir Tom, if perhaps less slim than
+in his young days, was still what Williams called a "fine figger of a
+man;" whereas the butler had widened much round the waist, and was apt
+to puff as he came upstairs, and no longer contemplated a shindy as a
+possibility at all.
+
+"Sir Thomas," he said, with great gravity, "if I'm corpulent, which I
+don't deny, but never thought to have it made a reproach, it's neither
+over-feeding nor want of care, but constitootion, as derived from my
+parents, Sir Thomas. There is nothing," he added with a pensive
+superiority, "as is so gen'rally misunderstood." Then Williams drew
+himself up to still greater dignity, stimulated by Sir Tom's laugh. "If
+this fellow is to be long in the house, Sir Thomas, I won't answer for
+what may happen; for he's got the devil's own temper, like all of them,
+and carries a knife like all of them."
+
+"What do you want of me, man? Say it out! Am I to represent to Madame di
+Forno-Populo that three great hulking fellows of you are afraid of her
+slim Neapolitan?" Sir Tom cried impatiently.
+
+"Not afraid, Sir Thomas, of nothing, but of breaking the law," said
+Williams, quickly. Then he added in an insinuating tone: "But I tell
+them, ladies don't stop long in country visits, not at this time of the
+year. And a thing can be put up with for short that any man'd kick at
+for long. Madame the Countess will be moving on to pay her other visits,
+Sir Thomas, if I might make so bold? She is a lady as likes variety;
+leastways she was so in the old times."
+
+Sir Thomas stared at the bold questioner, who thus went to the heart of
+the matter. Then he burst into a hearty laugh. "If you knew so much
+about Madame the Countess," he cried, "my good fellow, what need have
+you to come and consult me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE CONTESSA'S BOUDOIR.
+
+
+The east rooms in which Madame di Forno-Populo had been placed on her
+arrival at the Hall were handsome and comfortable, though they were not
+the best in the house, and they were furnished as English rooms
+generally are, the bed forming the principal object in each chamber. The
+Contessa had looked around her in dismay when first ushered into the
+spacious room with its huge couch, and wardrobes, and its unmistakable
+destination as a sleeping-room merely: and it was only the addition of a
+dressing-room of tolerable proportions which had made her quarters so
+agreeable to her as they proved. The transformation of this room from a
+severe male dressing-room into the boudoir of a fanciful and luxurious
+woman, was a work of art of which neither the master nor the mistress of
+the house had the faintest conception. The Contessa was never at home;
+so that she was--having that regard for her own comfort which is one of
+the leading features in such a life as hers--everywhere at home,
+carrying about with her wherever she went the materials for creating an
+individual centre (a _chez soi_, which is something far more intimate
+and personal than a home), in which everything was arranged according to
+her fancy. Had Lucy, or even had Sir Tom, who knew more about such
+matters, penetrated into that sacred retirement, they would not have
+recognised it for a room in their own house. Out of one of the
+Contessa's boxes there came a paraphernalia of decoration such as would
+turn the head of the aesthetic furnisher of the present day. As she had
+been everywhere, and had "taste," when it was not so usual to have taste
+as it is now, she had "picked up" priceless articles, in the shape of
+tapestries, embroideries, silken tissues no longer made, delicate bits
+of Eastern carpet, soft falling drapery of curtains, such as
+artistically arranged in almost any room, impressed upon it the
+Contessa's individuality, and made something dainty and luxurious among
+the meanest surroundings. The Contessa's maid, from long practice, had
+become almost an artist in the arrangement of these properties, without
+which her mistress could not live; and on the evening of the first day
+of their arrival at the Hall, when Madame di Forno-Populo emerged from
+the darkness of the chamber in which she had rested all day after her
+journey, she stepped into a little paradise of subdued colour and
+harmonious effect. Antonio and Marietta were the authors of these
+wonders. They took down Mrs. Freshwater's curtains, which were of a
+solid character adapted to the locality, and replaced them by draperies
+that veiled the light tenderly and hung with studied grace. They took
+to pieces the small bed and made a divan covered with old brocade of the
+prosaic English mattress. They brought the finest of the furniture out
+of the bedchamber to add to the contents of this, and covered tables
+with Italian work, and veiled the bare wall with tapestry. This made
+such a magical change that the maids who penetrated by chance now and
+then into this little temple of the Graces could only stand aghast and
+gaze with open mouths; but no profane hand of theirs was ever permitted
+to touch those sacred things. There were even pictures on the wall,
+evolved out of the depths of that great coffer, which, more dear to the
+Contessa even than her wardrobe, went about with her everywhere--and
+precious pieces of porcelain: Madame di Forno-Populo, it need not be
+said, being quite above the mean and cheap decoration made with fans or
+unmeaning scraps of colour. The maids aforesaid, who obtained perilous
+and breathless glimpses from time to time of all these wonders, were at
+a loss to understand why so much trouble should be taken for a room that
+nobody but its inmate ever saw. The finer intelligence of the reader
+will no doubt set it down as something in the Contessa's favour that she
+could not live, even when in the strictest privacy, without her pretty
+things about her. To be sure it was not always so; in other regions,
+where other habits prevailed, this shrine so artistically prepared was
+open to worshippers; but the Contessa knew better than to make any such
+innovation here. She intended, indeed, nothing that was not entirely
+consistent with the strictest propriety. Her objects, no doubt, were her
+own interest and her own pleasure, which are more or less the objects of
+most people; but she intended no harm. She believed that she had a hold
+over Sir Tom which she could work for her advantage, but she did not
+mean to hurt Lucy. She thought that repose and a temporary absence from
+the usual scenes of her existence would be of use to her, and she
+thought also that a campaign in London under the warrant of the highest
+respectability would further her grand object. It amused her besides,
+perhaps, to flutter the susceptibilities of the innocent little
+_ingénue_ whom Sir Tom had married; but she meant no harm. As for
+seizing upon Sir Tom in the evenings, and occupying all his attention,
+that was the most natural and simple of proceedings. She did this as
+another woman played bezique. Some entertainment was a necessity, and
+everybody had something. There were people who insisted upon whist--she
+insisted only upon "some one to talk to." What could be more natural?
+The Contessa's "some one" had to be a man and one who could pay with
+sense and spirit the homage to which she was accustomed. It was her only
+stipulation--and surely it must be an ungracious hostess indeed who
+could object to that.
+
+She had just finished her breakfast on one of those gray
+mornings--seated before the fire in an easy-chair, which was covered
+with a shawl of soft but bright Indian colouring. She had her back to
+the light, but it was scarcely necessary even had there been any eyes to
+see her save those of Marietta, who naturally was familiar with her
+aspect at all times. Marietta made the Contessa's chocolate, as well as
+arranged and kept in order the Contessa's boudoir. To such a retainer
+nothing comes amiss. She would sit up till all hours, and perform
+marvels of waiting, of working, service of every kind. It never occurred
+to her that it "was not her place" to do anything that her mistress
+required. Antonio was her brother, which was insipid, but she generally
+managed to indemnify herself, one way or another, for the loss of this
+legitimate method of flirtation. She had not great wages, and she had a
+great deal of work, but Marietta felt her life amusing, and did not
+object to it. Here in England the excitement indeed flagged a little.
+Williams was stout and married, and the other men had ties of the heart
+with which, as has been seen, Antonio ruthlessly interfered. Marietta
+was not unwilling to give to Charles the footman, who was a handsome
+young fellow, the means of avenging himself, but as yet this expedient
+for a little amusement had not succeeded, and there had been a touch of
+peevishness in the tone with which she asked whether it was true that
+the Contessa intended remaining here. Madame di Forno-Populo was a woman
+who disliked the bondage of question and reply.
+
+"You do not amuse yourself, Marietta mia?" said the Contessa. She spoke
+Italian with her servants, and she was always caressing, fond of tender
+appellatives. "Patience! the country even in England is very good for
+the complexion, and in London there is a great deal that is amusing.
+Wheel this table away and give me the other with my writing things. The
+cushion for my elbow. Thanks! You forget nothing. My Marietta, you will
+have a happy life."
+
+"Do you think so, Signora Contessa?" said the girl, a little wistfully.
+
+The Contessa smiled upon her and said "Cara!" with an air of tenderness
+that might have made any one happy. Then she addressed herself to her
+correspondence, while Marietta removed into the other room not only the
+tray but the table with the tray which her mistress had used. The
+Contessa did not like to know or see anything of the processes of
+readjustment and restoration. She glanced over her morning's letters
+again with now and then a smile of satisfaction, and addressed herself
+to the task of answering them with apparent pleasure. Indeed, her own
+letters amused her even more than the others had done. When she had
+finished her task she took up a silver whistle and blew into it a long
+melodious note. She made the most charming picture, leaning back in her
+chair, in a white cashmere dressing-gown covered with lace, and a little
+cap upon her dark locks. All the accessories of her toilette were
+exquisite, as well as the draperies about her that relieved and set off
+her whiteness. Her shoes were of white plush with a cockade of lace to
+correspond. Her sleeves, a little more loose than common, showed her
+beautiful arms through a mist of lace. She was not more carefully nor
+more elegantly dressed when she went downstairs in all her panoply of
+conquest. What a pity there was no one to see it! but the Contessa did
+not even think of this. In other circumstances, no doubt, there might
+have been spectators, but in the meantime she pleased herself, which
+after all is the first object with every well-constituted mind. She
+leaned back in her chair pleased with herself and her surroundings, in a
+gentle languor after her occupation, and conscious of a yellow novel
+within reach should her young companion be slow of appearing. But Bice
+she knew had the ears of a savage, and would hear her summons wherever
+she might be.
+
+Bice at this moment was in a very different scene. She was in the large
+gallery, which was a little chill and dreary of a morning when all the
+windows were full of a gray, indefinable mist instead of light, and the
+ancestors were indistinguishable in their frames. She had just been
+going through her usual exercise with the baby, and had joined Lucy at
+the upper end of the gallery, that sport being over, and little Tom
+carried off to his mid-day sleep. There was a fire there, in the
+old-fashioned chimney, and Lucy had been sitting beside it watching the
+sport. Bice seated herself on a stool at a little distance. She had a
+half affection half dislike for this young woman, who was most near her
+in age of any one in the house. For one thing they were on different
+sides and representing different interests; and Bice had been trained to
+dislike the ordinary housekeeping woman. They had been brought together,
+indeed, in a moment of emotion by the instrumentality of the little
+delicate child, for whom Bice had conceived a compassionate affection.
+But the girl felt that they were antagonistic. She did not expect
+understanding or charity, but to be judged harshly and condemned
+summarily by this type of the conventional and proper. She believed that
+Lucy would be "shocked" by what she said, and horrified by her freedom
+and absence of prejudice. Yet, notwithstanding all this, there was an
+attraction in the candid eyes and countenance of little Lady Randolph
+which drew her in spite of herself. It was of her own will, though with
+a little appearance of reluctance, that she drew near, and soon plunged
+into talk--for to tell the truth, now that Jock was gone, Bice felt
+occasionally as if she must talk to the winds and trees, and could not
+at the hazard of her life keep silence any more. She could scarcely tell
+how it was that she was led into confessions of all kinds and
+descriptions of the details of her past life.
+
+"We are a little alike," said Lucy. "I was not much older than you are
+when my father died, and afterwards we had no real home: to be sure, I
+had always Jock. Even when papa was living it was not very homelike, not
+what I should choose for a girl. I felt how different it was when I went
+to Lady Randolph, who thought of everything----"
+
+Bice did not say anything for some time, and then she laughed. "The
+Contessa does not think of everything," she said.
+
+Lucy looked at her with a question in her eyes. She wanted to ask if the
+Contessa was kind. But there was a certain domestic treachery involved
+in asking such a question.
+
+"People are different," she said, with a certain soothing tone. "We are
+not made alike, you know; one person is good in one way and one in
+another." This abstract deliverance was not at all in Lucy's way. She
+returned to the particular point before them with relief. "England," she
+said, "must seem strange to you after your own country. I suppose it is
+much colder and less bright?"
+
+"I have no country" said Bice; "everywhere is my country. We have a
+house in Rome, but we travel; we go from one place to another--to all
+the places that are what you call for pleasure. We go in the season.
+Sometimes it is for the waters, sometimes for the sports or the
+games--always _festa_ wherever we go."
+
+"And you like that? To be sure, you are so very young; otherwise I
+should think it was rather tiresome," Lucy said.
+
+"No, it is not rather tiresome," said Bice, with a roll of her "r," "it
+is horrible! When we came here I did not know why it was, but I rejoiced
+myself that there was no band playing. I thought at first it was merely
+_jour de relâche_: but when morning after morning came and no band, that
+was heavenly," she said, drawing a long breath.
+
+"A band playing!" Lucy's laugh at the absurdity of the idea rang out
+with all the gaiety of a child. It amused her beyond measure, and Bice,
+always encouraged by approbation, went on.
+
+"I expected it every morning. The house is so large. I thought the
+season, perhaps, was just beginning, and the people not arrived yet.
+Sometimes we go like that too soon. The rooms are cheaper. You can make
+your own arrangement."
+
+Lucy looked at her very compassionately. "That is why you pass the
+mornings in your own room," she said, "were you never then in a country
+house before?"
+
+"I do not know what is a country house. We have been in a great castle
+where there was the chase every day. No, that is not what _la chasse_
+means in England--to shoot I would say. And then in the evening the
+theatre, tableaux, or music. But to be quiet all day and all night too,
+that is what I have never seen. We have never known it. It is confusing.
+It makes you feel as if all went on without any division; all one day,
+all one night."
+
+Bice laughed, but Lucy looked somewhat grave. "This is our natural life
+in England," she said; "we like to be quiet; though I have not thought
+we were very quiet, we have had people almost every night."
+
+To this Bice made no reply. But at Lucy's next question she stared, not
+understanding what it meant. "You go everywhere with the Contessa," she
+said; "are you out?"
+
+"Out!" Bice's eyes opened wide. She shook her head. "What is out?" she
+said.
+
+"It is when a girl begins to go to parties--when she comes out of her
+home, out of the schoolroom, from being just a little girl----"
+
+"Ah, I know! From the Convent," said Bice; "but I never was there."
+
+"And have you always gone to parties--all your life?" asked Lucy, with
+wondering eyes.
+
+Bice looked at her, wondering too. "We do not go to parties. What is a
+party?" she said. "We go to the rooms--oh yes, and to the great
+receptions sometimes, and at hotels. Parties? I don't know what that
+means. Of course, I go with the Contessa to the rooms, and to the tables
+d'hôte. I give her my arm ever since I was tall enough. I carry her fan
+and her little things. When she sings I am always ready to play. They
+call me the shadow of the Contessa, for I always wear a black frock, and
+I never talk except when some one talks to me. It is most amusing how
+the English look at me. They say, Miss----? and then stop that I may
+tell them my name."
+
+"And don't you?" said Lucy. "Do you know; though it is so strange to say
+it, I don't even know your name."
+
+Bice laughed, but she made no attempt to supply the omission. "The
+Contessa thinks it is more piquant," she said. "But nothing is decided
+about me, till it is known how I turn out. If I am beautiful the
+Contessa will marry me well, and all will be right."
+
+"And is that what you--wish?" said Lucy, in a tone of horror.
+
+"Monsieur, your brother," said Bice, with a laugh, "says I am not
+pretty, even. He says it does not matter. How ignorant men are, and
+stupid! And then suddenly they are old, old, and sour. I do not know
+which is the worst. I do not like men."
+
+"And yet you think of being married, which it is not nice to speak of,"
+said Lucy, with disapproval.
+
+"Not--nice? Why is that? Must not girls be married? and if so, why not
+think of it?" said Bice, gravely. There was not the ghost of a blush
+upon her cheek. "If you might live without being married that would
+understand itself; but otherwise----"
+
+"Indeed," cried Lucy, "you can, indeed you can! In England, at least. To
+marry for a living, that is terrible."
+
+"Ah!" cried Bice, with interest, drawing her chair nearer, "tell me how
+that is to be done."
+
+There was the seriousness of a practical interest in the girl's manner.
+The question was very vital to her. There was no other way of existence
+possible so far as she knew; but if there was it was well worth taking
+into consideration.
+
+Lucy felt the question embarrassing when it was put to her in this very
+decisive way. "Oh," she cried with an Englishwoman's usual monosyllabic
+appeal for help to heaven and earth: "there are now a great number of
+ways. There are so many things that girls can do; there are things open
+to them that never used to be--they can even be doctors when they are
+clever. There are many ways in which they can maintain themselves."
+
+"By trades?" cried Bice, "by work?" She laughed. "We hear of that
+sometimes, and the doctors; everybody laughs; the men make jokes, and
+say they will have one when they are ill. If that is all, I do not
+think there is anything in it. I should not like to work even if I were
+a man, but a woman----! that gets no money, that is _mal vu_. If that is
+all! Work," she said, with a little oracular air, "takes up all your
+time, and the money that one can earn is so small. A girl avoids saying
+much to men who are like this. She knows how little they can have to
+offer her; and to work herself, why, it is impossible. What time would
+you have for anything?" cried the girl, with an impatient sense of the
+fatuity of the suggestion. Lucy was so much startled by this view of the
+subject that she made no reply.
+
+"There is no question of working," said Bice with decision, "neither for
+women, neither for men. That is not in our world. But if I am only
+pretty, no more," she added, "what will become of me? It is not known. I
+shall follow the Contessa as before. I will be useful to her, and
+afterwards---- I prefer not to think of that. In the meantime I am young.
+I do not wish for anything. It is all amusing. I become weary of the
+band playing, that is true; but then sometimes it plays not badly, and
+there is something always to laugh at. Afterwards, if I marry, then I
+can do as I like," the girl said.
+
+Lucy gave her another look of surprised awe, for it was really with that
+feeling that she regarded this strange little philosopher. But she did
+not feel herself able to pursue the subject with so enlightened a
+person. She said: "How very well you speak English. You have scarcely
+any accent, and the Contessa has none at all. I was afraid she would
+speak only French, and my French is so bad."
+
+"I have always spoken English all my life. When the Contessa is angry
+she says I am English all over; and she--she is of no country--she is
+of all countries; we are what you call vagabonds," the girl cried, with
+a laugh. She said it so calmly, without the smallest shadow of shame or
+embarrassment, that Lucy could only gaze at her and could not find a
+word to say. Was it true? It was evident that Bice at least believed so,
+and was not at all afraid to say it. This conversation took place, as
+has been said, in the picture gallery, where Lady Randolph and her young
+visitor had first found a ground of amity. The rainy weather had
+continued, and this place had gradually become the scene of a great deal
+of intercourse between the young mistress of the house and her guest.
+They scarcely spoke to each other in the evening. But in the morning
+after the game of romps with little Tom, by which Bice indemnified
+herself for the absence of other society, Lucy would join the party, and
+after the child had been carried off for his mid-day sleep, the others
+left behind would have many a talk. To Lucy the revelations thus made
+were more wonderful than any romance--so wonderful that she did not half
+take in the strange life to which they gave a clue, nor realise how
+perfectly right was Bice's description of herself and her patroness.
+They were vagabonds, as she said; and like other vagabonds, they got a
+great deal of pleasure out of their life. But to Lucy it seemed the most
+terrible that mind could conceive. Without any home, without any
+retirement or quietness, with a noisy band always playing, and a series
+of migrations from one place to another--no work, no duties, nothing to
+represent home occupations but a piece of _tapisserie_. She put her hand
+very tenderly upon Bice's shoulder. There had been prejudices in her
+mind against this girl--but they all melted away in a womanly pity.
+"Oh," she said, "Cannot I help you in any way? Cannot Sir Tom--" But
+here she paused. "I am afraid," she said, "that all we could think of
+would be an occupation for you; something to do, which would be far, far
+better, surely, than this wandering life."
+
+Bice looked at her for a moment with a doubtful air. "I don't know what
+you mean by occupation," she said.
+
+And this, to Lucy's discomfiture, she found to be true. Bice had no idea
+of occupation. Young Lady Randolph, who was herself not much instructed,
+made a conscientious effort at least to persuade the strange girl to
+read and improve her mind. But she flew off on all such occasions with a
+laugh that was half mocking and half merry. "To what good?" she said,
+with that simplicity of cynicism which is a quality of extreme youth.
+"If I turn out beautiful, if I can marry whom I will, I will then get
+all I want without any trouble."
+
+"But if not?" said Lucy, too careful of the other's feelings to express
+what her own opinions were on this subject.
+
+"If not it will be still less good," said Bice, "for I shall never then
+do anything or be of any importance at all; and why should I tr-rouble?"
+she said, with that rattle of the r's which was about the only sign that
+English was not her native speech. This was very distressing to Lucy,
+who wished the girl well, and altogether Lady Randolph was anxious to
+interfere on Bice's behalf, and put her on a more comprehensible
+footing.
+
+"It will be very strange when you go among other people in London," she
+said. "Madame di Forno-Populo does not know England. People will want
+to know who you are. And if you were to be married, since you will talk
+of that," Lucy added with a blush, "your name and who you are will have
+to be known. I will ask Sir Tom to talk to the Contessa--or," she said
+with reluctance, "I will speak to her if you think she will listen to
+me."
+
+"I am called," said Bice, making a sweeping curtsey, and waving her hand
+as she darted suddenly away, leaving Lucy in much doubt and perplexity.
+Was she really called? Lucy heard nothing but a faint sound in the
+distance, as of a low whistle. Was this a signal between the strange
+pair who were not mother and daughter, nor mistress and servant, and yet
+were so linked together. It seemed to Lucy, with all her honest English
+prejudices, that to train so young a girl (and a girl so fond of
+children, and, therefore, a good girl at bottom, whatever her little
+faults might be) to such a wandering life, and to put her up as it were
+to auction for whoever would bid highest, was too terrible to be thought
+of. Better a thousand times to be a governess, or a sempstress, or any
+honest occupation by which she could earn her own bread. But then to
+Bice any such expedient was out of the question. Her incredulous look of
+wonder and mirth came back to Lucy with a sensation of dumb
+astonishment. She had no right feelings, no sense of the advantages of
+independence, no horror of being sold in marriage. Lady Randolph did not
+know what to think of a creature so utterly beyond all rules known to
+her. She was in such a condition of mind, unsettled, unhinged, feeling
+all her old landmarks breaking up, that a new interest was of great
+importance to her. It withdrew her thoughts from the Contessa, and the
+irksomeness of her sway, when she thought of Bice and what could be
+done for her. The strange thing was that the girl wanted nothing done
+for her. She was happy enough so far as could be seen. In her close
+confinement and subjection she was so fearless and free that she might
+have been thought the mistress of the situation. It was incomprehensible
+altogether. To state the circumstances from one side was to represent a
+victim of oppression. A poor girl stealing into a strange house and room
+in the shadow of her patroness; unnamed, unnoticed, made no more account
+of than the chair upon which she sat, held in a bondage which was almost
+slavery, and intended to be disposed of when the moment came without a
+reference to her own will and affections. Lucy felt her blood boil when
+she thought of all this, and determined that she would leave no
+expedient untried to free this white slave, this unfortunate thrall. But
+the other side was one which could not pass without consideration. The
+girl was careless and fearless and free, without an appearance of
+bondage about her. She scoffed at the thought of escaping, of somehow
+earning a personal independence--such was not for persons in her world,
+she said. She was not horrified by her own probable fate. She was not
+unhappy, but amused and interested in her life, and taking everything
+gaily, both the present quiet and the tumult of the many "seasons" in
+watering-places and other resorts of gaiety through which, young as she
+was, she had already gone. She had looked at Lucy with a smile, which
+was half cynical, and altogether decisive, when the anxious young matron
+had pointed out to her the way of escaping from such a sale and bargain.
+She did not want to escape. It seemed to her right and natural. She
+walked as lightly as a bird with this yoke upon her shoulders. Lucy had
+never met anything of this kind before, and it called forth a sort of
+panic in her mind. She did not know how to deal with it; but neither
+would she give it up. She had something else to think upon, when the
+Contessa, lying back on her sofa, almost going to sleep before Sir Tom
+entered, roused herself on the moment to occupy and amuse him all the
+evening. Instead of thinking of that and making herself unhappy, Lucy
+looked the other way at Bice reading a novel rapidly at the other side
+of the table, with all her young savage faculties about her to see and
+hear everything. How to get her delivered from her fate! To make her
+feel that deliverance was necessary, to save her before she should be
+sacrificed, and take her out of her present slavery. It was very strange
+that it never occurred to Lucy to free the girl by making her one of the
+recipients of the money she had to give away. She was very faithful to
+the letter of her father's will, and he had excluded foreigners. But
+even that was not the reason. The reason was that it did not occur to
+her. She thought of every way of relieving the too-contented thrall
+before her except that way. And in the meantime the time wore on, and
+everything fell into a routine, and not a word was said of the
+Contessa's plans. It was evident, for the time being at least, that she
+meant to make no change, but was fully minded, notwithstanding the
+dullness of the country, to remain where she was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE TWO STRANGERS.
+
+
+The Contessa did not turn her head or change her position when Bice
+entered. She said, "You have not been out?" in a tone which was half
+question and half reproof.
+
+"It rained, and there is nothing to breathe but the damp and fog."
+
+"What does it matter? it is very good for the complexion, this damp; it
+softens the skin, it clears your colour. I see the improvement every
+day."
+
+"Do you think so?" said Bice, going up to the long mirror which had been
+established in a sort of niche against the wall, and draped as
+everything was draped, with graceful hangings. She went up to it and put
+her face close, looking with some anxiety at the image which she found
+there. "I do not see it," she said. "You are too sanguine. I am no
+better than I was. I have been racing in the long gallery with the
+child; that makes one's blood flow."
+
+"You do well," said the Contessa, nodding her head. "I cannot take any
+notice of the child; it is too much for me. They are odious at that
+age."
+
+"Ah! they are delightful," said Bice. "They are so good to play with,
+they ask no questions, and are always pleased. I put him on my shoulder
+and we fly. I wish that I might have a gymnastique, trapeze,
+what-you-call it, in that long gallery; it would be heaven."
+
+The Contessa uttered an easy exclamation meaning nothing, which
+translated into English would have been a terrible oath. "Do not do it,
+in the name of----they will be shocked, oh, beyond everything."
+
+Bice, still standing close to the glass, examining critically her cheek
+which she pinched, answered with a laugh. "She is shocked already. When
+I say that you will marry me well, if I turn out as I ought, she is full
+of horror. She says it is not necessary in England that a young girl
+should marry, that there are other ways."
+
+The Contessa started to her feet. "Giove!" she cried, "Baccho! that
+insipidity, that puritan. And I who have kept you from every soil. _She_
+speak of other ways. Oh, it is too much!"
+
+Bice turned from the glass to address a look of surprise to her
+patroness. "Reassure yourself, Madama," she said. "What Milady said was
+this, that I might work if I willed, and escape from marrying--that to
+marry was not everything. It appears that in England one may make one's
+living as if (she says) one were a man."
+
+"As if one were a man!"
+
+"That is what Milady said," Bice answered demurely. "I think she would
+help me to work, to get something to do. But she did not tell me what it
+would be; perhaps to teach children; perhaps to work with the needle. I
+know that is how it happens in the Tauchnitz. You do not read them, and,
+therefore, do not know; but I am instructed in all these things. The
+girl who is poor like me is always beautiful; but she never thinks of it
+as we do. She becomes a governess, or perhaps an artiste; or even she
+will make dresses, or at the worst _tapisserie_."
+
+"And this she says to you--to you!" cried the Contessa, with flaming
+eyes.
+
+"Oh, restrain yourself, Madama! It does not matter at all. She makes the
+great marriage just the same. It is not Milady who says this, it is in
+the Tauchnitz. It is the English way. Supposing," said Bice, "that I
+remain as I am? Something will have to be done with me. Put me, then, as
+a governess in a great family where there is a son who is a great
+nobleman, or very rich; and you shall see it will so happen, though I
+never should be beautiful at all."
+
+"My child," said the Contessa, "all this is foolishness. You will not
+remain as you are. I see a little difference every day. In a little time
+you will be dazzling; you will be ready to produce. A governess! It is
+more likely that you will be a duchess; and then you will laugh at
+everybody--except me," said Madame di Forno-Populo, tapping her breast
+with her delicate fingers, "except me."
+
+Bice looked at her with a searching, inquiring look. "I want to ask
+something," she said. "If I should be beautiful, you were so before
+me--oh, more, more!--you we----are very lovely, Madama."
+
+The Contessa smiled--who would not smile at such a speech? made with all
+the sincerity and simplicity possible--simplicity scarcely affected by
+the instinct which made Bice aware before she said it, that to use the
+past tense would spoil all. The Contessa smiled. "Well," she said, "and
+then?"
+
+"They married you," said Bice with a curious tone between philosophical
+remark and interrogation.
+
+"Ah!" the Contessa said. She leaned back in her chair making herself
+very comfortable, and shook her head. "I understand. You think then it
+has been a--failure in my case? Yes, they married me--that is to say
+there was no they at all. I married myself, which makes a great
+difference. Ah, yes, I follow your reasoning very well. This woman you
+say was beautiful, was all that I hope to be, and married; and what has
+come of it? It is quite true. I speak to you as I speak to no one, Bice
+mia. The fact was we deceived each other. The Conte expected to make his
+fortune by me, and I by him. I was English, you perceive, though no one
+now remembers this. Poor Forno-Populo! He was very handsome; people were
+pleased to say we were a magnificent pair--but we had not the _sous_:
+and though we were fond of each other, he proceeded in one direction to
+repair his fortunes, and I--on another to--_enfin_ to do as best I
+could. But no such accident shall happen in your case. It is not only
+your interest I have in hand; it is my own. I want a home for my
+declining years."
+
+She said this with a smile at the absurdity of the expression in her
+case, but Bice at sixteen naturally took the words _au pied de la
+lettre_, and did not see any absurdity in them. To her forty was very
+much the same as seventy. She nodded her head very seriously in answer
+to this, and turning round to the glass surveyed herself once more, but
+not with that complacency which is supposed to be excited in the
+feminine bosom by the spectacle. She was far too serious for vanity--the
+gaze she cast upon her own youthful countenance was severely critical,
+and she ended by a shrug of her shoulders, as she turned away. "The only
+thing is," she said, "that perhaps the young brother is right, and at
+present I am not even pretty at all."
+
+The Contessa had a great deal to think of during this somewhat dull
+interval. The days flowed on so regular, and with so little in them,
+that it was scarcely possible to take note of the time at all. Lucy was
+always scrupulously polite and sometimes had little movements of anxious
+civility, as if to make up for impulses that were less kind. And Sir
+Tom, though he enjoyed the evenings as much as ever, and felt this
+manner of passing the heavy hours to retain a great attraction, was at
+other times a little constrained, and made furtive attempts to find out
+what the Contessa's intentions were for the future, which betrayed to a
+woman who had always her wits about her, a certain strain of the old
+bonds, and uneasiness in the indefinite length of her visit. She had
+many reasons, however, for determining to ignore this uneasiness, and to
+move on upon the steady tenor of her way as if unconscious of any reason
+for change, opposing a smiling insensibility to all suggestions as to
+the approaching removal of the household to London. It seemed to the
+Contessa that the association of her _débutante_ with so innocent and
+wealthy a person as Lady Randolph would do away with all the prejudices
+which her own dubious antecedents might have provoked; while the very
+dubiousness of those antecedents had procured her friends in high
+quarters and acquaintances everywhere, so that both God and Mammon were,
+so to speak, enlisted in her favour, and Bice would have all the
+advantage, without any of the disadvantage, of her patroness' position,
+such as it was. This was so important that she was quite fortified
+against any pricks of offence, or intrusive consciousness that she was
+less welcome than might have been desired. And in the end of January,
+when the entire household at the Hall had begun to be anxious to make
+sure of her departure, an event occurred which strengthened all her
+resolutions in this respect, and made her more and more determined,
+whatever might be the result, to cling to her present associations and
+shelter.
+
+This was the arrival of a visitor, very unexpected and unthought of, who
+came in one afternoon after the daily drive, often a somewhat dull
+performance, which Lucy, when there was nothing more amusing to do,
+dutifully took with her visitor. Madame di Forno-Populo was reclining in
+the easiest of chairs after the fatigue of this expedition. There had
+been a fresh wind, and notwithstanding a number of veils, her delicate
+complexion had been caught by the keen touch of the breeze. Her cheeks
+burned, she declared, as she held up a screen to shield her from the
+glow of the fire. The waning afternoon light from the tall window behind
+threw her beautiful face into shadow, but she was undeniably the most
+important person in the tranquil domestic scene, occupying the central
+position, so that it was not wonderful that the new comer suddenly
+ushered in, who was somewhat timid and confused, and advanced with the
+hesitating step of a stranger, should without any doubt have addressed
+himself to her as the mistress of the house. Lucy, little and young, who
+was moving about the room, with her light step and in the simple dress
+of a girl, appeared to Mr. Churchill, who had many daughters of his own,
+to be (no doubt) the eldest, the mother's companion. He came in with a
+slightly embarrassed air and manner. He was a man beyond middle age,
+gray haired, stooping, with the deprecating look of one who had been
+obliged in many ways to propitiate fate in the shape of superiors,
+officials, creditors, all sorts of alien forces. He came up with his
+hesitating step to the Contessa's chair. "Madam," he said, with a voice
+which had a tremor in it, "my name will partly tell you the confused
+feelings that I don't know how to express. I am come in a kind of
+bewilderment, scarcely able to believe that what I have heard is
+true----"
+
+The Contessa gazed at him calmly from the depths of her chair. The
+figure before her, thin, gray haired, submissive, with the long clerical
+coat and deprecating air, did not promise very much, but she had no
+objection to hear what he had to say in the absolute dearth of subjects
+of interest. Lucy, to whom his name seemed vaguely familiar, without
+recalling any distinct idea, and who was a little startled by his
+immediate identification of the Contessa, came forward a little and put
+a chair for him, then withdrew again, supposing his business to be with
+her guest.
+
+"I will not sit down," Mr. Churchill said, faltering a little, "till I
+have said what I have no words to say. If what I am told is actually
+true, and your ladyship means to confer upon me a gift so--so
+magnificent--oh! pardon me--I cannot help thinking still that there must
+be some extraordinary mistake."
+
+"Oh!" Lucy began, hurriedly making a step forward again; but the
+Contessa, to her surprise, accepted the address with great calm.
+
+"Be seated, sir," Madame di Forno-Populo said, with a dignity which Lucy
+was far from being able to emulate. "And pray do not hesitate to say
+anything which occurs to you. I am already interested----" She waved her
+hand to him with a sort of regal grace, without moving in any other way.
+She had the air of a princess not deeply concerned indeed, but
+benevolently willing to listen. It was evident that this reception of
+him confused the stranger more and more. He became more deeply
+embarrassed in sight of the perfect composure with which he was
+contemplated, and cleared his throat nervously three or four times.
+
+"I think," he said, "that there must be some mistake. It was, indeed,
+impossible that it should be true; but as I heard it from two quarters
+at once--and it was said to be something in the nature of a
+trust---- But," he added, looking with a nervous intentness at the
+unresponsive face which he could with difficulty see, "it must be, since
+your ladyship does not recognise my name, a--mistake. I felt it was so
+from the beginning. A lady of whom I know nothing!--to bestow what is
+really a fortune--upon a man with no claim----"
+
+He gave a little nervous laugh as he went on--the disappointment, after
+such a dazzling giddy hope, took away every vestige of colour from his
+face. "I will sit down for a moment, if you please," he said suddenly.
+"I--am a little tired with the walk--you will excuse me, Lady
+Randolph----"
+
+"Oh, sir," cried Lucy, coming forward, "forgive me that I did not
+understand at once. It is no mistake at all. Oh, I am afraid you are
+very much fatigued, and I ought to have known at once when I heard your
+name."
+
+He put out his hand in his deprecating way as she came close to the
+chair into which he had dropped. "It is nothing--nothing--my dear young
+lady: in a moment," he said.
+
+"My Lucy," said the Contessa, "this is one of your secret bounties. I am
+quite interested. But do not interrupt; let us hear it out."
+
+"It is something which is entirely between Mr. Churchill and me," cried
+Lucy. "Indeed, it would not interest you at all. But, pray, don't think
+it is a mistake," she said, earnestly turning to him. "It is quite
+right--it is a trust--there is nothing that need distress you. I am
+obliged to do it, and you need not mind. Indeed, you must not mind. I
+will tell you all about it afterwards."
+
+"My dear young lady!" the clergyman said. He was relieved, but he was
+perplexed; he turned still towards the stately lady in the chair--"If it
+is really so, which I scarcely can allow myself to believe, how can I
+express my obligation? It seems more than any man ought to take; it is
+like a fairy tale. I have not ventured to mention it to my children, in
+case,---- Thanks are nothing," he cried, with excitement; "thanks are
+for a trifle, a little every-day service; but this is a fortune; it is
+something beyond belief. I have been a poor man all my life, struggling
+to do my best for my children; and now, what I have never been able to
+do with all my exertions, you--put me in a position to do in a moment.
+What am I to say to you? Words can't reach such a case. It is simply
+unspeakable--incredible; and why out of all the world you should have
+chosen me----"
+
+He had to stop, his emotion getting the better of him. Bice had come
+into the room while this strange scene was going on, and she stood in
+the shadow, unseen by the speaker, listening too.
+
+"Pray compose yourself," said the Contessa, in her most gracious voice.
+"Your expressions are full of feeling. To have a fortune given to one
+must be very delightful; it is an experience that does not often happen.
+Probably a little tea, as I hear tea is coming, will restore
+Mr. ---- Pardon me, they are a little difficult to catch those, your
+English names."
+
+The Contessa produced a curious idiom now and then like a work of art.
+It was almost the only sign of any uncertainty in her English; and while
+the poor clergyman, not quite understanding in his own emotion what she
+was saying, made an effort to gulp it down and bring himself to the
+level of ordinary life, the little stir of the bringing-in of tea
+suddenly converted everything into commonplace. He sat in a confusion
+that made all dull to him while this little stir went on. Then he rose
+up and said, faltering: "If your ladyship will permit me, I will go out
+into the air a little. I have got a sort of singing in my ears. I
+am--not very strong; I shall come back presently if you will allow me,
+and try to make my acknowledgments--in a less confused way."
+
+Lucy followed him out of the room; he was not confused with her. "My
+dear young lady," he said, "my head is going round and round. Perhaps
+you will explain it all to me." He looked at her with a helpless,
+appealing air. Lucy had the appearance of a girl of his own. He was not
+afraid to ask her anything. But the great lady, his benefactress, who
+spoke so regally and responded so little to his emotion, alarmed him.
+Lucy, too, on her side, felt as if she had been a girl of his own. She
+put her arm within his, and led him to the library, where all was quiet,
+and where she felt by instinct--though she was not bookish--that the
+very backs of the books would console him and make him feel himself at
+home.
+
+"It is very easy to explain," she said. "It is all through my brother
+Jock and your son, who is at school with him. And it is I who am Lady
+Randolph," she said, smiling, supporting him with her arm through his.
+The shock would have been almost too much for poor Mr. Churchill if she
+had not been so like a child of his own.
+
+The moment this pair had left the room the Contessa raised herself
+eagerly from the chair. She looked round to Bice in the background with
+an imperative question. "What does this all mean?" she said, in a voice
+as different from the languor of her former address as night from day.
+"Who is it that gives away fortunes, that makes a poor man rich? Did you
+know all that? Is it that chit of a girl, that piece of
+simplicity--that--Giove! You have been her friend; you know her secrets.
+What does it mean?"
+
+"She has no secrets," said Bice, coming slowly forward. "She is not like
+us, she is like the day."
+
+"Fool!" the Contessa said, stamping her foot--"don't you see there must
+be something in it. I am thinking of you, though you are so ungrateful.
+One knows she is rich, all the money is hers; but I thought it had gone
+to Sir Tom. I thought it was he who could-- ... Happily, I have always
+kept her in hand; and you, you have become her friend----"
+
+"Madama," said Bice, with ironical politeness, "since it happens that
+Milady is gone, shall I pour out for you your cup of tea?"
+
+"Oh, tea! do I care for tea? when there are possibilities--possibilities!"
+said the Contessa. She got up from her chair and began to pace about the
+room, a grand figure in the gathering twilight. As for Bice, some demon of
+perversity possessed her. She began to move about the tea-table, making
+the china ring, and pouring out the tea as she had said, betook herself to
+the eating of cake with a relish which was certainly much intensified by
+the preoccupation of her patroness. She remembered well enough, very well,
+what Jock had told her, and her own incredulity; but she would have died
+rather than give a sign of this--and there was a tacit defiance in the way
+in which she munched her cake under the Contessa's excited eyes, but this
+was only a momentary perversity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+AN ADVENTURESS.
+
+
+"When he told me first, I was angry like you, I would not believe it.
+Money! that is a thing to keep, I said, not to give away."
+
+"To give away!" Few things in all her life, at least in all her later
+life, had so moved the Contessa. She was walking about the pretty room
+in an excitement which was like agitation, now sitting down in one
+place, now in another, turning over without knowing it the things on the
+table, arranging a drapery here and there instinctively. To how few
+people in the world would it be a matter of indifference that money, so
+to speak, was going begging, and might fall into their hands as well as
+another's! The best of us on this argument would prick up our ears.
+Nobody cared less for money in itself than Madame di Forno-Populo. She
+liked not to spend it only, but to squander--to make it fly on all
+hands. To be utterly extravagant one must be poor, and the money hunger
+which belongs to poverty is almost, one might say, a disinterested
+quality, so little is it concerned with the possession of the thing
+coveted. "Oh," she said, "this is too wonderful! and you are sure you
+have not been deceived by the language? You know English so well--are
+you sure that you were not deceived?"
+
+Bice did not deign any reply to this question. She gave her head a
+slight toss of scorn. The suggestion that she could be mistaken was
+unworthy of an answer, and indeed was not put in seriousness, nor did
+the Contessa wait for a reply. "What then," the Contessa went on, "is
+the position of Sir Tom? Has he no control? Does he permit this? To have
+it taken away from himself and his family, thrown into the sea, parted
+with--Oh, it is too much! But how can it be done? I was aware that
+settlements were very troublesome, but I had not thought it
+possible--Bice! Bice! this is very exciting, it makes one's heart beat!
+And you are her friend."
+
+"I am her--friend?" Bice turned one ear to her patroness with a startled
+look of interrogation.
+
+"Oh!" cried the Contessa once more; by which exclamation, naturally
+occurring when she was excited, she proved that she was of English
+race. "What difficulty is there in my meaning? You have English enough
+for that. What! do you feel no impatience when you hear of money running
+away?--going into a different channel--to strangers--to people that have
+nothing to do with it--that have no right to it--anybody--a clergyman,
+a----"
+
+Her feelings were too much for her. She threw herself into a chair, out
+of breath.
+
+"He looked a very good man," said Bice, with that absolute calm which is
+so exasperating to an excited woman, "and what does it matter, if it has
+to be given away, who gets it? I should give it to the beggars. I should
+fling it for them, as you do the _bajocchi_ when you are out driving."
+
+"You are a fool! you are a fool!" cried the Contessa, "or rather you are
+a child, and don't understand anything. Fling it to the beggars? Yes, if
+it was in shillings or even sovereigns. You don't understand what money
+is."
+
+"That is true, Madama, for I never had any," cried the girl, with a
+laugh. She was perfectly unmoved--the desire of money was not in her as
+yet, though she was far more enlightened as to its uses than most
+persons of her age. It amused her to see the excitement of her
+companion; and she knew very well what the Contessa meant, though she
+would not betray any consciousness of it. "If I marry," she said, "then
+perhaps I shall know."
+
+"Bice! you are not a fool--you are very sharp, though you choose not to
+see. Why should not you have this as well as another?--oh, much better
+than another! I can't stand by and see it all float into alien channels,
+while you--it would not be doing my duty while you---- Oh, don't look at
+me with that blank face, as if it did not move you in the least! Would
+it be nothing to have it in your power to dress as you like, to do as
+you like, to go into the world, to have a handsome house, to enjoy
+life?----"
+
+"But, yes!" said Bice, "is it necessary to ask?" She was still as calm
+as if the question they were discussing had been of the very smallest
+importance. "But we are not good poor people that will spend the money
+_comme il faut_. If we had it we should throw it away. Me also--I would
+throw it away. It would be for nothing good; why should it be given to
+us? Oh no, Madama. The good old clergyman had many children. He will not
+waste the money--which we should. What do you care for money, but to
+spend it fast, fast; and I too----"
+
+"You are a child," said the Contessa. "No, perhaps I am not what people
+call good, though I am poor enough--but you are a child. If it was given
+to you it would be invested; you would have power over the income only.
+You could not throw it away, nor could I, which, perhaps, is what you
+are thinking of. You are just the person she wants, so far as I can see.
+She objects to my plan of putting you out in the world; she says it
+would be better if you were to work; but this is the best of all. Let
+her provide for you, and then it will not need that you should either
+marry or work. This is, beyond all description, the best way. And you
+are her friend. Tell me, was it before or after the boy informed you of
+this that you advised yourself to become her friend?"
+
+"Contessa!" cried Bice, with a shock of angry feeling which brought the
+blood to her face. She was not sensitive in many matters which would
+have stung an English girl; but this suggestion, which was so
+undeserved, moved her to passion. She turned away with an almost tragic
+scorn, and seizing the _tapisserie_, which was part of the Contessa's
+_mise en scene_, flung a long strip of the many-coloured embroidery over
+her arm, and began to work with a sort of savage energy. The Contessa
+watched her movements with a sudden pause in her own excitement. She
+stopped short in the eagerness of her own thoughts, and looked with keen
+curiosity at the young creature upon whom she had built so many
+expectations. She was not an ungenerous or mercenary woman, though she
+had many faults, and as she gazed a certain compunction awoke within
+her, mingled with amusement. She was sorry for the unworthy suggestion
+she had made, but the sight of the girl in her indignation was like a
+scene in a play to this woman of the world. Her youthful dignity and
+wrath, her silent scorn, the manner in which she flung her needle
+through the canvas, working out her rage, were full of entertainment to
+the Contessa. She was not irritated by the girl's resentment; it even
+took off her thoughts from the primary matter to watch this exhibition
+of feeling. She gave vent to a little laugh as she noted how the needle
+flew.
+
+"Cara! I was nasty when I said that. I did not mean it. I suffered
+myself to talk as one talks in the world. You are not of the world--it
+is not applicable to you."
+
+"Yes, Madama, I am of the world," cried Bice. "What have I known else?
+But I did not mean to become Milady's friend, as you say. It was by
+accident. I was in the gallery only to amuse myself, and she came--it
+was not intention. I think that Milady is----"
+
+Here Bice stopped, looked up from the sudden fervour of her working,
+threw back her head, and said nothing more.
+
+"That Milady is--what?" the Contessa cried.
+
+A laugh so joyous, so childish, that no one could have refused to be
+sympathetic, burst from Bice's lips. She gave her patroness a look of
+merriment and derision, in which there was something tender and sweet.
+"Milady is--sorry for me," she said.
+
+This speech had a strange effect upon the Contessa. She coloured, and
+the tears seemed to flood in a moment to her eyes. "Poor child!" she
+said--"poor child! She has reason. But that amuses you, Bice mia," she
+said, in a voice full of the softest caressing, looking at her through
+those sudden tears. The Contessa was an adventuress, and she had brought
+up this girl after her own traditions; but it was clear as they looked
+at each other that they loved each other. There was perfect confidence
+between them. Bice looked with fearless laughing eyes, and a sense of
+the absurdity of the fact that some one was sorry for her, into the face
+of her friend.
+
+"She thinks I would be happier if I worked. To give lessons to little
+children and be their slave would be better, she thinks. To know nothing
+and see nothing, but live far away from the world and be independent,
+and take no trouble about my looks, or, if I please--that is Milady's
+way of thinking," Bice said.
+
+The Contessa's face softened more and more as she looked at the girl.
+There even dropped a tear from her full eyes. She shook her head. "I am
+not sure," she said, "dear child, that I am not of Milady's opinion.
+There are ways in which it is better. Sometimes I think I was most happy
+when I was like that--without money, without experience, with no
+wishes."
+
+"No wishes, Madama! Did you not wish to go out into the beautiful bright
+world, to see people, to hear music, to talk, to please? It is
+impossible. Money, that is different, and experience that is different:
+but to wish, every one must do that."
+
+"Bice, you have a great deal of experience for so young a girl. You have
+seen so much. I ought to have brought you up otherwise, perhaps, but how
+could I? You have always shared with me, and what I had I gave you. And
+you know besides how little satisfaction there is in it--how sick one
+becomes of a crowd of faces that are nothing to you, and of music that
+goes on just the same whatever you are feeling--and this to please, as
+you call it! Whom do I please? Persons who do not care at all for me
+except that I amuse them sometimes--who like me to sing; who like to
+look at me; who find themselves less dull when I am there. That is all.
+And that will be all for you, unless you marry well, my Bice, which it
+is the object of my life to make you do."
+
+"I hope I shall marry well," said the girl, composedly. "It would be
+very pleasant to find one's self above all shifts, Madama. Still that is
+not everything; and I would much rather have led the life I have led,
+and enjoyed myself and seen so much, than to have been the little
+governess of the English family--the little girl who is always so quiet,
+who walks out with the children, and will not accept the eldest son even
+when he makes love to her. I should have laughed at the eldest son. I
+know what they are like--they are so stupid; they have not a word to
+say; that would have amused me; but in the Tauchnitz books it is all
+honour and wretchedness. I am glad I know the world, and have seen all
+kinds of people, and wish for everything that is pleasant, instead of
+being so good and having no wishes as you say."
+
+The Contessa laughed, having got rid of all her incipient tears. "There
+is more life in it," she said. "You see now what it is--this life in
+England; one day is like another, one does the same things. The
+newspaper comes in the morning, then luncheon, then to go out, then tea,
+dinner; there is no change. When we talk in the evening, and I remind
+Sir Tom of the past when I lived in Florence, and he was with me every
+day,"--the Contessa once more uttered that easy exclamation which would
+sound so profane in English. "_Quelle vie!_" she cried, "how much we got
+out of every day. There were no silences! They came in one after another
+with some new thing, something to see and to do. We separated to dress,
+to make ourselves beautiful for the evening, and then till the morning
+light came in through the curtains, never a pause or a weariness. Yes!
+sometimes one had a terrible pang. There would be a toilette, which was
+ravishing, which was far superior to mine--for I never had money to
+dress as I wished--or some one else would have a success, and attract
+all eyes. But what did that matter?" the Contessa cried, lighting up
+more and more. "One did not really grudge what lasted only for a time;
+for one knew next day one would have one's turn. Ah!" she said, with a
+sigh, "I knew what it was to be a queen, Bice, in those days."
+
+"And so you do still, Madama," said the girl, soothingly.
+
+Madama di Forno-Populo shook her head. "It is no longer the same," she
+said. "You have known only the worst side, my _poverina_. It is no
+longer one's own palace, one's own people, and the best of the
+strangers, the finest company. You saw the Duchess at Milady's party the
+other day. To see me made her lose her breath. She could not refuse to
+speak to me--to salute me--but it was with a consternation! But, Bice,
+that lady was only too happy to be invited to the Palazzo Populino. To
+make one of our expeditions was her pride. I believe in my soul," cried
+the Contessa, "that when she looks back she remembers those days as the
+most bright of her life."
+
+Bice's clear shining eyes rested upon her patroness with a light in them
+which was keen with indignation and wonder. She cried, "And why the
+change--and why the change, Madama?" with a high indignant tone, such as
+youth assumes in presence of ingratitude and meanness. Bice knew much
+that a young girl does not usually know; but the reason why her best
+friend should be thus slighted was not one of these things.
+
+The Contessa shrank a little from her gaze. She rose up again and went
+to the window and looked out upon the wintry landscape, and standing
+there with her face averted, shrugged her shoulders a little and made
+answer in a tone of levity very different from the sincerer sound of her
+previous communications. "It is poverty, my child, poverty, always the
+easiest explanation! I was never rich, but then there had been no crash,
+no downfall. I was in my own palace. I had the means of entertaining. I
+was somebody. Ah! very different; it was not then at the baths, in the
+watering-places, that the Contessa di Forno-Populo was known. It is
+this, my Bice, that makes me say that sometimes I am of Milady's
+opinion; that to have no wishes, to know nothing, to desire
+nothing--that is best. When I knew the Duchess first I could be of
+service to her. Now that I meet her again it is she only that can be of
+service to me."
+
+"But----" Bice began and stopped short. She was, as has been said, a
+girl of many experiences. When a very young creature is thus prematurely
+introduced to a knowledge of human nature she approaches the subject
+with an impartiality scarcely possible at an older age. She had seen
+much. She had been acquainted with those vicissitudes that occur in the
+lives of the seekers of pleasure almost since ever she was born. She had
+been acquainted with persons of the most gay and cheerful appearance,
+who had enjoyed themselves highly, and called all their acquaintances
+round them to feast, and who had then suddenly collapsed and after an
+interval of tears and wailings had disappeared from the scene of their
+downfall. But Bice had not learnt the commonplace lesson so deeply
+impressed upon the world from the Athenian Timon downwards, that a
+downfall of this kind instantly cuts all ties. She was aware, on the
+contrary, that a great deal of kindness, sympathy, and attempts to aid
+were always called forth on such occasions; that the women used to form
+a sort of rampart around the ruined with tears and outcries, and that
+the men had anxious meetings and consultations and were constantly going
+to see some one or other upon the affairs of the downfallen. Bice had
+not seen in her experience that poverty was an argument for desertion.
+She was so worldly wise that she did not press her question as a simple
+girl might have done. She stopped short with an air of bewilderment and
+pain, which the Contessa, as her head was turned, did not see. She gave
+up the inquiry; but there arose in her mind a suspicion, a question,
+such as had not ever had admission there before.
+
+"Ah!" cried the Contessa, suddenly turning round, clasping her hands,
+"it was different indeed when my house was open to all these English,
+and they came as they pleased. But now I do not know, if I am turned out
+of this house, this dull house in which I have taken refuge, where I
+shall go. I don't know where to go!"
+
+"Madama!" Bice sprang to her feet too, and clasped her hands.
+
+"It is true--it is quite true. We have spent everything. I have not the
+means to go even to a third-rate place. As for Cannes it is impossible.
+I told you so before we came here. Rome is impossible--the apartment is
+let, and without that I could not live at all. Everything is gone. Here
+one may manage to exist a little while, for the house is good, and Sir
+Tom is rather amusing. But how to get to London unless they will take us
+I know not, and London is the place to produce you, Bice. It is for that
+I have been working. But Milady does not like me; she is jealous of me,
+and if she can she will send us away. Is it wonderful, then, that I am
+glad you are her friend? I am very glad of it, and I should wish you to
+let her know that to no one could she give her money more fitly. You
+see," said the Contessa, with a smile, resuming her seat and her easy
+tone, "I have come back to the point we started from. It is seldom one
+does that so naturally. If it is true (which seems so impossible) that
+there is money to give away, no one has a better right to it than you."
+
+Bice went away from this interview with a mind more disturbed than it
+had ever been in her life before. Naturally, the novel circumstances
+which surrounded her awakened deeper questions as her mind developed,
+and she began to find herself a distinct personage. They set her
+wondering. Madame di Forno-Populo had been of a tenderness unparalleled
+to this girl, and had sheltered her existence ever since she could
+remember. It had not occurred to her mind as yet to ask what the
+relations were between them, or why she had been the object of so much
+affection and thought. She had accepted this with all the composure of a
+child ever since she was a child. And the prospect of achieving a
+marriage should she turn out beautiful, and thus being in a position to
+return some of the kindness shown her, seemed to Bice the most natural
+thing in the world. But the change of atmosphere had done something, and
+Lucy's company, and the growth, perhaps, of her own young spirit. She
+went away troubled. There seemed to be more in the world and its
+philosophy than Bice's simple rules could explain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE.
+
+
+On the very next day after this conversation took place a marked change
+occurred in the manner of the Contessa. She had been always caressing to
+Lucy, calling her by pretty names, and using a hundred tender
+expressions as if to a child; but had never pretended to talk to her
+otherwise than in a condescending way. On this occasion, however, she
+exerted herself to a most unusual extent during their drive to captivate
+and charm Lady Randolph; and as Lucy was very simple and accessible to
+everything that seemed kindness, and the Contessa very clever and with
+full command of her powers, it is not wonderful that her success was
+easy. She led her to talk of Mr. Churchill, who had been kept to dinner
+on the previous night, and to whom Sir Tom had been very polite, and
+Lucy anxiously kind, doing all that was possible to put the good man at
+his ease, though with but indifferent success. For the thought of such
+an obligation was too great to be easily borne, and the agitation of his
+mind was scarcely settled, even by the commonplaces of the dinner, and
+the devotion which young Lady Randolph showed him. Perhaps the grave
+politeness of Sir Tom, which was not very encouraging, and the curiosity
+of the great lady, whom he had mistaken for his benefactress,
+counterbalanced Mr. Churchill's satisfaction, for he did not regain his
+confidence, and it was evidently with great relief of mind that he got
+up from his seat when the carriage was announced to take him away. The
+Contessa had given her attention to all he said and did, with a most
+lively and even anxious interest, and it was from this that she had
+mastered so many details which Bice had reluctantly confirmed by her
+report of the information she had derived from Jock. It was not long
+before Madame di Forno-Populo managed to extract everything from Lucy.
+Lady Randolph was not used to defend herself against such inquiries, nor
+was there any reason why she should do so. She was glad indeed when she
+saw how sweetly her companion looked, and how kind were her tones, to
+talk over her own difficult position with another woman, one who was
+interested, and who did not express her disapproval and horror as most
+people did. The Contessa, on the contrary, took a great deal of
+interest. She was astonished, indeed, but she did not represent to Lucy
+that what she had to do was impossible or even vicious, as most people
+seemed to suppose. She listened with the gravest attention; and she gave
+a soothing sense of sympathy to Lucy's troubled soul. She was so little
+prepared for sympathy from such a quarter that the unexpectedness of it
+made it more soothing still.
+
+"This is a great charge to be laid upon you," the Contessa said, with
+the most kind look. "Upon you so young and with so little experience.
+Your father must have been a man of very original mind, my Lucy. I have
+heard of a great many schemes of benevolence, but never one like this."
+
+"No?" said Lucy, anxiously watching the Contessa's eye, for it was so
+strange to her to have sympathy on this point, that she felt a sort of
+longing for it, and that this new critic, who treated the whole matter
+with more moderation and reasonableness than usual, should approve.
+
+"Generally one endows hospitals or builds churches; in my country there
+is a way which is a little like yours; it is to give marriage
+portions--that is very good I am told. It is done by finding out who is
+the most worthy. And it is said also that not the most worthy is always
+taken. Don't you remember there is a Rosiere in Barbe Bleue? Oh, I
+believe you have never heard of Barbe Bleue."
+
+"I know the story," said Lucy, with a smile, "of the many wives, and the
+key, and sister Anne--sister Anne."
+
+"Ah! that is not precisely what I mean; but it does not matter. So it is
+this which makes you so grave, my pretty Lucy. I do not wonder. What a
+charge for you! To encounter all the prejudices of the world which will
+think you mad. I know it. And now your husband--the excellent Tom--he,"
+said the Contessa, laying a caressing and significant touch upon Lucy's
+arm, "does not approve?"
+
+"Oh, Madame di Forno-Populo, that is the worst of it," cried Lucy, whose
+heart was opened, and who had taken no precaution against assault on
+this side; "but how do you know? for I thought that nobody knew."
+
+The Contessa this time took Lucy's hand between hers, and pressed it
+tenderly, looking at her all the time with a look full of meaning. "Dear
+child," she said, "I have been a great deal in the world. I see much
+that other people do not see. And I know his face, and yours, my little
+angel. It is much for you to carry upon those young shoulders. And all
+for the sake of goodness and charity."
+
+"I do not know," said Lucy, "that it is right to say that; for, had it
+been left to me, perhaps I should never have thought of it. I should
+have been content with doing just what I could for the poor. No one,"
+said Lucy, with a sigh, "objects to that. When people are quite poor it
+is natural to give them what they want; but the others----"
+
+"Ah, the others," said the Contessa. "Dear child, the others are the
+most to be pitied. It is a greater thing, and far more difficult to give
+to this good clergyman enough to make his children happy, than it is to
+supply what is wanted in a cottage. Ah yes, your father was wise, he was
+a person of character. The poor are always cared for. There are none of
+us, even when we are ourselves poor, who do not hold out a hand to them.
+There is a society in my Florence which is like you. It is for the
+_Poveri Vergognosi_. You don't understand Italian? That means those who
+are ashamed to beg. These are they," said the Contessa impressively,
+"who are to be the most pitied. They must starve and never cry out; they
+must conceal their misery and smile; they must put always a fair front
+to the world, and seem to want nothing, while they want everything. Oh!"
+The Contessa ended with a sigh, which said more than words. She pressed
+Lucy's hand, and turned her face away. Her feelings were too much for
+her, and on the delicate cheek, which Lucy could see, there was the
+trace of a tear. After a moment she looked round again, and said, with
+a little quiver in her voice: "I respect your father, my Lucy. It was a
+noble thought, and it is original. No one I have ever heard of had such
+an intention before."
+
+Lucy, at this unlooked-for applause, brightened with pleasure; but at
+the same time was so moved that she could only look up into her
+companion's face and return the pressure of her hand. When she recovered
+a little she said: "You have known people like that?"
+
+"Known them? In my country," said the Contessa (who was not an Italian
+at all), "they are as plentiful as in England--blackberries. People with
+noble names, with noble old houses, with children who must never learn
+anything, never be anything, because there is no money. Know them! dear
+child, who can know better? If I were to tell you my history! I have for
+my own part known--what I could not trouble your gentle spirit to hear."
+
+"But, Madame di Forno-Populo, oh! if you think me worthy of your
+confidence, tell me!" cried Lucy. "Indeed, I am not so insensible as you
+may think. I have known more than you suppose. You look as if no harm
+could ever have touched you," Lucy cried, with a look of genuine
+admiration. The Contessa had found the right way into her heart.
+
+The Contessa smiled with mournful meaning and shook her head. "A great
+deal of harm has touched me," she said; "I am the very person to meet
+with harm in the world. A solitary woman without any one to take care of
+me, and also a very silly one, with many foolish tastes and
+inclinations. Not prudent, not careful, my Lucy, and with very little
+money; what could be more forlorn? You see," she said, with a smile "I
+do not put all this blame upon Providence, but a great deal on myself.
+But to put me out of the question----"
+
+Lucy put a hand upon the Contessa's arm. She was much moved by this
+revelation.
+
+"Oh! don't do that," she said; "it is you I want to hear of."
+
+Madame di Forno-Populo had an object in every word she was saying, and
+knew exactly how much she meant to tell and how much to conceal. It was
+indeed a purely artificial appeal that she was making to her companion's
+feelings; and yet, when she looked upon the simple sympathy and generous
+interest in Lucy's face, her heart was touched.
+
+"How good you are," she said; "how generous! though I have come to you
+against your will, and am staying--when I am not wanted."
+
+"Oh! do not say so," cried Lucy with eagerness; "do not think
+so--indeed, it was not against my will. I was glad, as glad as I could
+be, to receive my husband's friend."
+
+"Few women are so," said the Contessa gravely. "I knew it when I came.
+Few, very few, care for their husband's friend--especially when she is a
+woman----"
+
+Lucy fixed her eyes upon her with earnest attention. Her look was not
+suspicious, yet there was investigation in it.
+
+"I do not think I am like that," she said simply.
+
+"No, you are not like that," said the Contessa. "You are the soul of
+candour and sweetness; but I have vexed you. Ah, my Lucy, I have vexed
+you. I know it--innocently, my love--but still I have done it. That is
+one of the curses of poverty. Now look," she said, after a momentary
+pause, "how truth brings truth! I did not intend to say this when I
+began" (and this was perfectly true), "but now I must open my heart to
+you. I came without caring much what you would think, meaning no
+harm--Oh, trust me, meaning no harm! but since I have come all the
+advantages of being here have appeared to me so strongly that I have set
+my heart upon remaining, though I knew it was disagreeable to you."
+
+"Indeed:" cried Lucy, divided between sincerity and kindness: "if it was
+ever so for a moment, it was only because I did not understand."
+
+"My sweetest child! this I tell you is one of the curses of poverty. I
+knew it was disagreeable to you; but because of the great advantage of
+being in your house, not only for me, but for Bice, for whom I have
+sworn to do my best--Lucy, pardon me--I could not make up my mind to go
+away. Listen! I said to myself, I am poor, I cannot give her all the
+advantages; and they are rich; it is nothing to them--I will stay, I
+will continue, though they do not want me, not for my sake, for the sake
+of Bice. They will not be sorry afterwards to have made the fortune of
+Bice. Listen, dear one; hear me out. I had the intention of forcing
+myself upon you--oh no! the words are not too strong--in London, always
+for Bice's sake, for she has no one but me; and if her career is
+stopped---- I am not a woman," said the Contessa, with dignity, "who am
+used to find myself _de trop_. I have been in my life courted, I may say
+it, rather than disagreeable; yet this I was willing to bear--and impose
+myself upon you for Bice's sake----"
+
+Lucy listened to this moving address with many differing emotions. It
+gave her a pang to think that her hopes of having her house to herself
+were thus permanently threatened. But at the same time her heart
+swelled, and all her generous feelings were stirred. Was she indeed so
+poor a creature as to grudge to two lonely women the shelter and
+advantage of her wealth and position? If she did this, what did it
+matter if she gave money away? This would indeed be keeping to the
+letter of her father's will, and abjuring its meaning. She could not
+resist the pathos, the dignity, the sweetness of the Contessa's appeal,
+which was not for herself but for Bice, for the girl who was so good to
+baby, and whom that little oracle had bound her to with links of
+gratitude and tenderness. "Oh," Lucy said to herself, "if I should ever
+have to appeal to any one for kindness to him!" And Bice was the
+Contessa's child--the child of her heart, at least--the voluntary charge
+which she had taken upon her, and to which she was devoting herself. Was
+it possible that only because she wanted to have her husband to herself
+in the evenings, and objected to any interruption of their privacy, a
+woman should be made to suffer who was a good woman, and to whom Lucy
+could be of use? No, no, she cried within herself, the tears coming to
+her eyes; and yet there was a very real pang behind.
+
+"But reassure yourself, dear child," said the Contessa, "for now that I
+see what you are doing for others, I cannot be so selfish. No; I cannot
+do it any longer. In England you do not love society; you love your home
+unbroken; you do not like strangers. No, my Lucy, I will learn a lesson
+from your goodness. I too will sacrifice--oh, if it was only myself and
+not Bice!"
+
+"Contessa," said Lucy with an effort, looking up with a smile through some
+tears, "I am not like that. It never was that you were--disagreeable. How
+could you be disagreeable? And Bice is--oh, so kind, so good to my boy.
+You must never think of it more. The town house is not so large as the
+Hall, but we shall find room in it. Oh, I am not so heartless, not so
+stupid, as you think! Do you suppose I would let you go away after you
+have been so kind as to open your heart to me, and let me know that we
+are really of use? Oh, no, no! And I am sure," she added, faltering
+slightly, "that Tom--will think the same."
+
+"It is not Tom--excellent, _cher_ Tom! that shall be consulted," cried
+the Contessa. "Lucy, my little angel! if it is really so that you will
+give my Bice the advantage of your protection for her _début_---- But
+that is to be an angel indeed, superior to all our little, petty,
+miserable---- Is it possible, then," cried the Contessa, "that there is
+some one so good, so noble in this low world?"
+
+This gratitude confused Lucy more than all the rest. She did her best to
+deprecate and subdue; but in her heart she felt that it was a great
+sacrifice she was making. "Indeed, it is nothing," she said faintly. "I
+am fond of her, and she has been so good to baby; and if we can be of
+any use--but oh, Madame di Forno-Populo," Lady Randolph cried, taking
+courage. "Her _début_? do you really mean what she says that she must
+marry----"
+
+"That I mean to marry her," said the Contessa, "that is how we express
+it," with a very concise ending to her transports of gratitude. "Sweet
+Lucy," she continued, "it is the usage of our country. The parents, or
+those who stand in their place, think it their duty. We marry our
+children as you clothe them in England. You do not wait till your little
+boy can choose. You find him what is necessary. Just so do we. We choose
+so much better than an inexperienced girl can choose. If she has an
+aversion, if she says I cannot suffer him, we do not press it upon her.
+Many guardians will pay no attention, but me," said the Contessa,
+putting forth a little foreign accent, which she displayed very
+rarely--"I have lived among the English, and I am influenced by their
+ways. Neither do I think it right," she added, with an air of candour,
+"to offer an old person, or one who is hideous, or even very
+disagreeable. But, yes, she must marry well. What else is there that a
+girl of family can do?"
+
+Lucy was about to answer with enthusiasm that there were many things she
+could do; but stopped short, arrested by these last words. "A girl of
+family,"--that, no doubt, made a difference. She paused, and looked
+somewhat wistfully in her companion's face. "We think," she said, "in
+England that anything is better than a marriage without----"
+
+The Contessa put up her hand to stay the words. "Without love---- I know
+what you are going to say; but, my angel, that is a word which Bice has
+never heard spoken. She knows it not. She has not the habit of thinking
+it necessary--she is a good girl, and she has no sentiment. Besides, why
+should we go so fast? If she produces the effect I hope---- Why should
+not some one present himself whom she could also love? Oh yes; fall in
+love with, as you say in English--such an innocent phrase; let us hope
+that, when the proper person comes who satisfies my requirements,
+Bice--to whom not a word shall be said--will fall in love with him
+_comme il faut_!"
+
+Lucy did not make any reply. She was troubled by the light laugh with
+which the Contessa concluded, and with the slight change of tone which
+was perceptible. But she was still too much moved by her own emotion to
+have got beyond its spell, and she had committed herself beyond recall.
+While the Contessa talked on with--was it a little, little change?--a
+faint difference, a levity that had not been in her voice before? Lucy's
+thoughts went back upon what she had done with a little tremor. Not this
+time as to what Tom might say, but with a deeper wonder and pang as to
+what might come of it; was she going voluntarily into new danger, such
+as she had no clue to, and could not understand? After a little while
+she asked almost timidly--
+
+"But if Bice should not see any one----"
+
+"You mean if no one suitable should present himself?" The Contessa
+suddenly grew very grave. She put her hands together with a gesture of
+entreaty. "My sweet one, let us not think of that. When she is dressed
+as I shall dress her, and brought out--as you will enable me to bring
+her out. My Lucy, we do not know what is in her. She will shine, she
+will charm. Even now, if she is excited, there are moments in which she
+is beautiful. If she fails altogether---- Ah, my love, as I tell you,
+there is where the curse of poverty comes in. Had she even a moderate
+fortune, poor child; but alas, orphan, with no one but me----"
+
+"Is she an orphan?" said Lucy, feeling ashamed of the momentary failure
+of her interest, "and without relations--except----"
+
+"Relations?" said the Contessa; there was something peculiar in her tone
+which attracted Lucy's attention, and came back to her mind in other
+days. "Ah, my Lucy, there are many things in this life which you have
+never thought of. She has relations who think nothing of her, who would
+be angry, be grieved, if they knew that she existed. Yes, it is terrible
+to think of, but it is true. She is, on one side, of English parentage.
+But pardon me, my sweetest, I did not mean to tell you all this: only,
+my Lucy, you will one time be glad to think that you have been kind to
+Bice. It will be a pleasure to you. Now let us think of it no more.
+Marry; yes, she must marry. She has not even so much as your poor
+clergyman; she has nothing, not a penny. So I must marry her, there is
+nothing more to be said."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE CONTESSA'S TRIUMPH.
+
+
+And it was with very mingled sensations that Sir Tom heard from Lucy
+(for it was from her lips he heard it) the intimation that Madame di
+Forno-Populo was going to be so good as to remain at the Hall till they
+moved to London, and then to accompany them to Park Lane. Sir Tom was
+taken entirely by surprise. He was not a man who had much difficulty in
+commanding himself, or showing such an aspect as he pleased to the
+general world; but on this occasion he was so much surprised that his
+very jaw dropped with wonder and astonishment. It was at luncheon that
+the intimation was made, in the Contessa's presence, so that he did not
+venture to let loose any expression of his feelings. He gave a cry, only
+half uttered, of astonishment, restrained by politeness, turning his
+eyes, which grew twice their size in the bewilderment of the moment,
+from Lucy to the Contessa and back again. Then he burst into a
+breathless laugh--a twinkle of humour lighted in those eyes which were
+big with wonder, and he turned a look of amused admiration towards the
+Contessa. How had she done it? There was no fathoming the cleverness of
+women, he said to himself, and for the rest of the day he kept bursting
+forth into little peals of laughter all by himself. How had she managed
+to do it? It was a task which he himself would not have ventured to
+undertake. He would not, he said to himself, have had the slightest idea
+how to bring forward such a proposition. On the contrary, had not his
+sense that Lucy had much to forgive in respect to this invasion of her
+home and privacy induced him to make a great sacrifice, to withdraw his
+opposition to those proceedings of hers of which he so much disapproved?
+And yet in an afternoon, in one interview, the Contessa had got the
+upper hand! Her cleverness was extraordinary. It tickled him so that he
+could not take time to think how very little satisfied he was with the
+result. He, too, had fallen under her enchantments in the country, in
+the stillness, if not dulness, of those long evenings, and he had been
+very willing to be good to her for the sake of old times, to make her as
+comfortable as possible, to give her time to settle her plans for her
+London campaign. But that she should begin that campaign under his own
+roof, and that Lucy, his innocent and simple wife, should be visible to
+the world as the friend and ally of a lady whose name was too well known
+to society, was by no means satisfactory to Sir Tom. When his first
+astonishment and amazement was over, he began to look grave; but what
+was he to do? He had so much respect for Lucy that when the idea
+occurred to him of warning her that the Contessa's antecedents were not
+of a comfortable kind, and that her generosity was mistaken, he rejected
+it again with a sort of panic, and did not dare, experienced and
+courageous as he was, to acknowledge to his little wife that he had
+ventured to bring to her house a woman of whom it could be said that she
+was not above suspicion. Sir Tom had dared a great many perils in his
+life, but he did not venture to face this. He recoiled from before it,
+as he would not have done from any lion in the way. He could not even
+suggest to her any reticence in her communications, any reserve in
+showing herself at the Contessa's side, or in inviting other people to
+meet her. If all his happiness depended upon it, he felt that he could
+not disturb Lucy's mind by any such warning. Confess to her that he had
+brought to her a woman with whom scandal had been busy, that he had
+introduced to her as his friend, and recommended to honour and kindness,
+one whose name had been in all men's mouths! Sir Tom ran away morally
+from this suggestion as if he had been the veriest coward; he could not
+breathe a word of it in Lucy's ear. How could he explain to her that
+mixture of amazement at the woman's boldness, and humorous sense of the
+incongruity of her appearance in the absolute quiet of an English home,
+without company, which, combined with ancient kindness and careless good
+humour, had made him sanction her first appearance? Still less, how
+could he explain the mingling of more subtle sensations, the
+recollections of a past which Sir Tom could not himself much approve of,
+yet which was full of interest still, and the formation of an
+intercourse which renewed that past, and brought a little tingling of
+agreeable excitement into life when it had fallen to too low an ebb to
+be agreeable in itself? He would not say a word of all this to Lucy. Her
+purity, her simplicity, even her want of imagination and experience, her
+incapacity to understand that debatable land between vice and virtue in
+which so many men find little harm, and which so many women regard with
+interest and curiosity, closed his mouth. And then he comforted himself
+with the reflection that, as his aunt herself had admitted, the Contessa
+had never brought herself openly within the ban. Men might laugh when
+the name of La Forno-Populo was introduced, and women draw themselves up
+with indignation, or stare with astonishment not unmingled with
+consternation as the Duchess had done; but they could not refuse to
+recognise her, nor could any one assert that there was sufficient reason
+to exclude her from society. Not even when she was younger, and
+surrounded by worshippers, could this be said. And now when she was
+less---- But here Sir Tom paused to ask himself, was she less attractive
+than of old? When he came to consider the question he was obliged to
+allow that he did not think so; and if she really meant to bring out
+that girl---- Did she mean to bring out that girl? Could she make up her
+mind to exhibit beside her own waning (if they were waning) charms the
+first flush of this young beauty? Sir Tom, who thought he knew women (at
+least of the kind of La Forno-Populo), shook his head and felt it very
+doubtful whether the Contessa was sincere, or if she could indeed make
+up her mind to take a secondary place. He thought with a rueful
+anticipation of the sort of people who would flock to Park Lane to renew
+their acquaintance with La Forno-Populo. "By Jove! but shall they
+though? Not if I know it," said Sir Tom firmly to himself.
+
+Williams, the butler, was still more profoundly discomposed. He had
+opened his mind to Mrs. Freshwater on various occasions when his
+feelings were too many for him. Naturally, Williams gave the Contessa
+the benefit of no doubt as to her reputation. He was entirely convinced,
+as is the fashion of his class, that all that could have been said of
+her was true, and that she was as unfit for the society of the
+respectable as any wretched creature could be. "That foreign madam" was
+what he called her, in the privacy of the housekeeper's room, with many
+opprobrious epithets. Mrs. Freshwater, who was, perhaps, more
+good-natured than was advantageous to the housekeeper and manager of a
+large establishment, was melted whenever she saw her, by the Contessa's
+gracious looks and ways, but Williams was immovable. "If you'd seen what
+I've seen," he said, shaking his head. The women, for Lucy's maid
+Fletcher sometimes shared these revelations, were deeply excited by
+this--longing, yet fearing to ask what it was that Williams had seen.
+"And when I think of my lady, that is as innocent as the babe unborn,"
+he said, "mixed up in all that---- You'll see such racketing as never was
+thought of," cried Williams. "I know just how things will go. Night
+turned into day, carriages driving up at all hours, suppers going on
+after the play all the night through, masks and dominoes
+arriving;--no--to be sure this is England. There will be no _veglionis_,
+at least--which in England, ladies, would be masked balls--with Madam
+the Countess and her gentlemen--and even ladies too, a sort of
+ladies--in all sorts of dresses."
+
+"O-oh!" the women cried.
+
+They were partially shocked, as they were intended to be, but partially
+their curiosity was excited, and a feeling that they would like to see
+all these gaieties and fine dresses moved their minds. The primitive
+intelligence always feel certain that "racketing" and orgies that go on
+all night, must be at least guiltily delightful, exciting, and amusing,
+if nothing else. They were not of those who "held with" such
+dissipation; still for once in a way to see it, the responsibility not
+being theirs, would be something. They held their breath, but it was not
+altogether in horror; there was in it a mixture of anticipation too.
+
+"And I know what will come of it," said Williams. "What has come afore:
+the money will have to come out o' some one's pocket; and master never
+knew how to keep his to himself, never, as long as I've known him. To be
+sure, he hadn't got a great deal in the old days. But I know what'll
+happen; he'll just have to pay up now--he's that soft," said Williams;
+"a man that can't say no to a woman. Not that I care for the money. I'd
+a deal sooner he gave her an allowance, or set her up in some other
+place, or just give her a good round sum--as he could afford to do--and
+get shut of her. That is what I should advise. Just a round sum and get
+shut of her."
+
+"I've always heard," said Miss Fletcher, "as the money was my lady's,
+and not from the Randolph side at all."
+
+"What's hers is his," said Williams; "what's my lady's is her husband's;
+and a good bargain too--on her side."
+
+"I declare," cried Fletcher energetically, stung with that sense of
+wrong to her own side which gives heat to party feeling--"I declare if
+any man took my money to keep up his--his--his old sweetheart, I'd
+murder him. I'd take his life, that's what I should do."
+
+"Poor dear," said Mrs. Freshwater, wiping her eyes with her apron. "Poor
+dear! She'll never murder no one, my lady. Bless her innocent face. I
+only hope as she'll never find it out."
+
+"Sooner than she don't find it out I'll tell her myself," cried
+Williams. "Now I don't understand you women. You'd let my lady be
+deceived and made game of, rather than tell her."
+
+"Made game of!" cried Fletcher, with a shriek of indignation. "I should
+like to see who dared to do that."
+
+"Oh, they'll dare do it, soon enough, and take their fun out of
+her--it's just what them foreigners are fond of," said Williams, who
+knew them and all their tricks down to the ground, as he said. Still,
+however, notwithstanding his evil reports, good Mrs. Freshwater, who was
+as good-natured as she was fat, could scarcely make up her mind to
+believe all that of the Contessa. "She do look so sweet, and talk so
+pretty, not as if she was foreign at all," the housekeeper said.
+
+That evening, however, the Contessa herself took occasion to explain to
+Sir Tom what her intentions were. She had thought the subject all over
+while she dressed for dinner, with a certain elation in her success, yet
+keen clear-mindedness which never deserted her. And then, to be sure,
+her object had not been entirely the simple one of getting an invitation
+to Park Lane. She had intended something more than this. And she was not
+sure of success in that second and still more important point. She meant
+that Lady Randolph should endow Bice largely, liberally. She intended to
+bring every sort of motive to bear--even some that verged upon
+tragedy--to procure this. She had no compunction or faltering on the
+subject, for it was not for herself, she said within herself, that she
+was scheming, and she did not mean to be foiled. In considering the best
+means to attain this great and final object, she decided that it would
+be well to go softly, not to insist too much upon the advantages she had
+secured, or to give Lucy too much cause to regret her yielding. The
+Contessa had the soul of a strategist, the imagination of a great
+general. She did not ignore the feelings of the subject of her
+experiment. She even put herself in Lucy's place, and asked herself how
+she could bear this or that. She would not oppose or overwhelm the
+probable benefactress to whom she, or at least Bice, might afterwards
+owe so much. When Sir Tom approached her chair in the evening when he
+came in after dinner, as he always did, she made room for him on the
+sofa beside her. "I am going to make you my confidant," she said in her
+most charming way, with that air of smiling graciousness which made Sir
+Tom laugh, yet fascinated him in spite of himself. He knew that she put
+on the same air for whomsoever she chose to charm; but it had a power
+which he could not resist all the same. "But perhaps you don't care to
+be taken into my confidence," she added, smiling, too, as if willing to
+admit all he could allege as to her syren graces. She had a delightful
+air of being in the joke which entirely deceived Sir Tom.
+
+"On the contrary," he said. "But as we have just heard your plans from
+my wife----"
+
+The Contessa kissed her hand to Lucy, who occupied her usual place at
+the table.
+
+"I wonder," she said, "if you understand, being only a man, what there
+is in that child; for she is but a child. You and I, we are Methuselahs
+in comparison."
+
+"Not quite so much as that," he said, with a laugh.
+
+"Methuselahs," she said reflectively. "Older, if that is possible;
+knowing everything, while she knows nothing. She is our good angel. It
+is what you would not have dared to offer, you who know me--yes, I
+believe it--and like me. Oh no, I do not go beyond that English word,
+never! You like the Forno-Populo. I know how you men speak. You think
+that there is amusement to be got from her, and you will do me the
+honour to say, no harm. That is, no permanent harm. But you would not
+offer to befriend me, no, not the best of you. But she who by nature is
+against such women as I am--Sweet Lucy! Yes it is you I am talking of,"
+the Contessa said, who was skilful to break any lengthened speeches like
+this by all manner of interruptions, so that it should never tire the
+person to whom it was addressed. "She, who is not amused by me, who does
+not like me, whose prejudices are all against me, she it is who offers
+me her little hand to help me. It is a lovely little hand, though she is
+not a beauty----"
+
+"My wife is very well," said Sir Tom, with a certain hauteur and
+abruptness, such as in all their lengthened conversations he had never
+shown before.
+
+The Contessa gave him a look in which there was much of that feminine
+contempt at which men laugh as one of the pretences of women. "I am
+going to be good to her as she is to me," she said. "The Carnival will
+be short this year, and in England you have no Carnival. I will find
+myself a little house for the season. I will not too much impose upon
+that angel. There, now, is something good for you to relieve your mind.
+I can read you, _mon ami_, like a book. You are fond of me--oh yes!--but
+not too long; not too much. I can read you like a book."
+
+"Too long, too much, are not in my vocabulary," said Sir Tom; "have they
+a meaning? not certainly that has any connection with a certain charming
+Contessina. If that lady has a fault, which I doubt, it is that she
+gives too little of her gracious countenance to her friends."
+
+"She does not come down to breakfast," said the Contessa, with her soft
+laugh, which in itself was a work of art. "She is not so foolish as to
+put herself in competition with the lilies and the roses, the English
+flowers. Poverina! she keeps herself for the afternoon which is
+charitable, and the light of the lamps which is flattering. But she
+remembers other days--alas! in which she was not afraid of the sun
+himself, not even of the mid-day, nor of the dawn when it comes in above
+the lamps. There was a certain _bal costumé_ in Florence, a year when
+many English came to the Populino palace. But why do I talk of that? You
+will not remember----"
+
+There was something apparently in the recollection that touched Sir Tom.
+His eye softened. An unaccustomed colour came to his middle-aged cheek.
+"I! not remember? I remember every hour, every moment," he said, and
+then their voices sank lower, and a murmur of reminiscences, one filling
+up another, ensued between the pair. Their tone softened, there were
+broken phrases, exclamations, a rapid interchange which was far too
+indistinct to be audible. Lucy sat by her table and worked, and was
+vaguely conscious of it all. She had said to herself that she would take
+no heed any more, that the poor Contessa was too open-hearted, too
+generous to harm her, that they were but two old friends talking of the
+past. And so it was; but there was a something forlorn in sitting by at
+a distance, out of it all, and knowing that it was to go on and last,
+alas! by her own doing, who could tell how many evenings, how many long
+hours to come!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+DIFFERENT VIEWS.
+
+
+The time after this seemed to fly in the great quiet, all the
+entertainments of the Christmas season being over, and the houses in the
+neighbourhood gradually emptying of guests. The only visitors at the
+Hall were the clergyman, the doctor, an odd man now and then whom Sir
+Tom would invite in the character of a "native," for the Contessa's
+amusement; and Mr. Rushton, who came from Farafield two or three times
+on business, at first with a very keen curiosity, to know how it was
+that Lucy had subdued her husband and got him to relinquish his
+objection to her alienation of her money. This had puzzled the lawyer
+very greatly. There had been no uncertainty about Sir Tom's opinion when
+the subject was mooted to him first. He had looked upon it with very
+proper sentiments. It had seemed to him ridiculous, incredible, that
+Lucy should set up her will against his, or take her own way, when she
+knew how he regarded the matter. He had told the lawyer that he had
+little doubt of being able to bring her to hear reason. And then he had
+written to say that he withdrew his objection! Mr. Rushton felt that
+there must be some reason here more than met the eye. He made a pretence
+of business that he might discover what it was, and he had done so
+triumphantly, as he thought. Sir Tom, as everybody knew, had been "a
+rover" in his youth, and the world was charitable enough to conclude
+that in that youth there must be many things which he would not care to
+expose to the eye of day. When Mr. Rushton beheld at luncheon the
+Contessa, followed by the young and slim figure of Bice, it seemed to
+him that everything was solved. And Lady Randolph, he thought, did not
+look with very favourable eyes upon the younger lady. What doubt that
+Sir Tom had bought the assent of his wife to the presence of the guests
+by giving up on his side some of his reasonable rights?
+
+"Did you ever hear of an Italian lady that Sir Tom was thick with before
+he married?" he asked his wife when he came home.
+
+"How can you ask me such a question," said that virtuous woman, "when
+you know as well as I do that there were half-a-dozen?"
+
+"Did you ever hear the name of Forno-Populo?" he asked.
+
+Mrs. Rushton paused and did her best to look as if she was trying to
+recollect. As a matter of fact all Italian names sounded alike to her,
+as English names do to foreign ears. But after a moment she said boldly:
+"Of course I have heard it. That was the lady from Naples, or Venice, or
+some of those places, that ran away with him. You heard all about it at
+the time as well as I."
+
+And upon this Mr. Rushton smote upon his thigh, and made a mighty
+exclamation. "By George!" he said, "he's got her there, under his wife's
+very nose; and that's why he has given in about the money." Nothing
+could have been more clearly reasoned out--there could be no doubt upon
+that subject. And the presence of Bice decided the question. Bice must
+be--they said, to be sure! Dates and everything answered to this view of
+the question. There could be no doubt as to who Bice was. They were very
+respectable, good people themselves, and had never given any scandal to
+the world; but they never hesitated for a moment or thought there was
+anything unnatural in attributing the most shameful scandal and domestic
+treachery to Sir Tom. In fact it would be difficult to say that they
+thought much less of him in consequence. It was Lucy, rather, upon whom
+their censure fell. She ought to have known better. She ought never to
+have allowed it. To pretend to such simplicity was sickening, Mrs.
+Rushton thought.
+
+It was early in February when they all went to London--a time when
+society is in a sort of promissory state, full of hopes of dazzling
+delights to come, but for the present not dazzling, parliamentary,
+residential, a society made up of people who live in London, who are not
+merely gay birds of fashion, basking in the sunshine of the seasons.
+There was only a week or two of what the Contessa called Carnival, which
+indeed was not Carnival at all, but a sober time in which dinner parties
+began, and the men began to gather at the clubs. The Contessa did not
+object to this period of quiet. She acquainted Lucy with all she meant
+to do in the meantime, to the great confusion of that ingenious spirit.
+"Bice must be dressed," the Contessa said, "which of itself requires no
+little time and thought. Unhappily M. Worth is not in London. Even with
+M. Worth I exert my own faculties. He is excellent, but he has not the
+intuitions which come when one is very much interested in an object.
+Sweet Lucy! you have not thought upon that matter. Your dress is as your
+dressmaker sends it to you. Yes; but, my angel, Bice has her career
+before her. It is different."
+
+"Oh, Madame di Forno-Populo," said Lucy, "do you still think in that
+way--must it still be exhibiting her, marrying her?"
+
+"Marriage is honourable," said the Contessa. "It is what all girls are
+thinking of; but me, I think it better that their parents should take it
+in hand instead of the young ladies. There is something in Bice that is
+difficult, oh, very difficult. If one chooses well for her, one will be
+richly repaid; but if, on the contrary, one leaves it to the
+conventional, the ordinary--My sweetest! your pretty white dresses, your
+blues are delightful for you; but Bice is different, quite different.
+And then she has no fortune. She must be piquant. She must be striking.
+She must please. In England you take no trouble for that. It is not
+_comme il faut_ here; but it is in our country. Each of us we like the
+ways of our country best."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Lucy, "to hear you speak such perfect
+English, and Bice too. It is, I suppose, because you are so musical and
+have such good ears----"
+
+"Darling!" said the Contessa sweetly. She said this or a similar word
+when nothing else occurred to her. She had her room full of lovely
+stuffs, brought by obsequious shopmen, to whom Lady Randolph's name was
+sufficient warrant for any extravagance the Contessa might think of. But
+she said to herself that she was not at all extravagant; for Bice's
+wardrobe was her stock-in-trade, and if she did not take the opportunity
+of securing it while in her power, the Contessa thought she would be
+false to Bice's interests. The girl still wore nothing but her black
+frock. She went out in the park early in the morning when nobody was
+there, and sometimes had riding lessons at an unearthly hour, so that
+nobody should see her. The Contessa was very anxious on this point. When
+Lucy would have taken Bice out driving, when she would have taken her
+to the theatre, her patroness instantly interfered. "All that will come
+in its time," she said. "Not now. She must not appear now. I cannot have
+her seen. Recollect, my Lucy, she has no fortune. She must depend upon
+herself for everything." This doctrine, at which Lucy stood aghast, was
+maintained in the most matter-of-fact way by the neophyte herself. "If I
+were seen," she said, "now, I should be quite stale when I appear. I
+must appear before I go anywhere. Oh yes, I love the theatre. I should
+like to go with you driving. But I should forestall myself. Some persons
+do and they are never successful. First of all, before anything, I must
+appear."
+
+"Oh my child," Lucy cried, "I cannot bear to hear of all this. You
+should not calculate so at your age. And when you appear, as you call
+it, what then, Bice? Nobody will take any particular notice, perhaps,
+and you will be so disappointed you will not know what to do. Hundreds
+of girls appear every season and nobody minds."
+
+Bice took no notice of these subduing and moderating previsions. She
+smiled and repeated what the Contessa said. "I must do the best for
+myself, for I have no fortune."
+
+No fortune! and to think that Lucy, with her mind directed to other
+matters, never once realised that this was a state of affairs which she
+could put an end to in a moment. It never occurred to her--perhaps, as
+she certainly was matter of fact, the recollection that there was a sort
+of stipulation in the will against foreigners turned her thoughts into
+another channel.
+
+It was, however, during this time of preparation and quiet that the
+household in Park Lane one day received a visit from Jock, accompanied
+by no less a person than MTutor, the leader of intellectual life and
+light of the world to the boy. They came to luncheon by appointment, and
+after visiting some museum on which Jock's mind was set, came to remain
+to dinner and go to the theatre. MTutor had a condescending appreciation
+of the stage. He thought it was an educational influence, not perhaps of
+any great utility to the youths under such care as his own, but of no
+small importance to the less fortunate members of society; and he liked
+to encourage the efforts of conscientious actors who looked upon their
+own calling in this light. It was rather for this purpose than with the
+idea of amusement that he patronised the play, and Jock, as in duty
+bound, though there was in him a certain boyish excitement as to the
+pleasure itself, did his best to regard the performance in the same
+exalted light. MTutor was a young man of about thirty, slim and tall. He
+was a man who had taken honours at college, though his admirers said not
+such high honours as he might have taken; "For MTutor," said Jock,
+"never would go in for pot-hunting, you know. What he always wanted was
+to cultivate his own mind, not to get prizes." It was with heartfelt
+admiration that this feature in his character was dwelt upon by his
+disciples. Not a doubt that he could have got whatever he liked to go in
+for, had he not been so fastidious and high-minded. He was fellow of his
+college as it was, had got a poetry prize which, perhaps, was not the
+Newdigate; and smiled indulgently at those who were more warm in the
+arena of competition than himself. On other occasions when "men" came to
+luncheon, the Contessa, though quite ready to be amused by them in her
+own person, sternly forbade the appearance of Bice, the effect of whose
+future was not, she was determined, to be spoilt by any such preliminary
+peeps; but the Contessa's vigilance slackened when the visitors were of
+no greater importance than this. She was insensible to the greatness of
+MTutor. It did not seem to matter that he should be there sitting grave
+and dignified by Lucy's side, and talking somewhat over Lucy's head, any
+more than it mattered that Mr. Rushton should be there, or any other
+person of an inferior level. It was not upon such men that Bice's
+appearance was to tell. She took no precautions against such persons.
+Jock himself at sixteen was not more utterly out of the question. And
+the Contessa herself, as it happened, was much amused by MTutor; his
+great ideas of everything, the exalted ideal that showed in all he did
+or said, gave great pleasure to this woman of the world. And when they
+came to the question of the educational influence of the stage, and the
+conscientious character of the actors' work, she could not conceal her
+satisfaction. "I will go with you, too," she said, "this evening." "We
+shall all go," said Sir Tom, "even Bice. There is a big box, and behind
+the curtain nobody will see her." To this the Contessa demurred, but,
+after a little while, being in a yielding humour, gave way. "It is for
+the play alone," she said in an undertone, raising her finger in
+admonition, "You will remember, my child, for the play alone."
+
+"We are all going for the play alone," said Sir Tom, cheerfully. "Here
+is Lucy, who is a baby for a play. She likes melodrama best, disguises
+and trap-doors and long-lost sons, and all the rest of it."
+
+"It is a taste that is very general," said MTutor, indulgently; "but I
+am sure Lady Randolph appreciates the efforts of a conscientious
+interpreter--one who calls all the resources of art to his aid----"
+
+"I don't care for the play alone," said Bice to Jock in an undertone. "I
+want to see the people. They are always the most amusing. I have seen
+nobody yet in London. And though I must not be seen, I may look, that
+will do no harm. Then there will be the people who come into the box."
+
+"The people who come into the box! but you know us all," said Jock,
+astonished, "before we go----"
+
+"You all?" said Bice, with some disdain. "It is easy to see _you_; that
+is not what I mean; this will be the first time I put my foot into the
+world. The actors, that is nothing. Is it the custom in England to look
+much at the play? No, you go to see your friends."
+
+MTutor was on the other side of this strange girl in her black frock. He
+took it upon him to reply. He said: "That is the case in some countries,
+but not here. In England the play is actually thought of. English actors
+are not so good as the French, nor even the Italian. And the Germans are
+much better trained. Nevertheless, we do what perhaps no other nation
+does. We give them our attention. It is this which makes the position of
+the actors more important, more interesting in England."
+
+"Stop a little, stop a little!" cried Sir Tom; "don't let me interrupt
+you, Derwentwater, if you are instructing the young ones; but don't
+forget the _Comédie Française_ and the aristocracy of art."
+
+"I do not forget it," said Mr. Derwentwater; "in that point of view we
+are far behind France; still I uphold that nowhere else do people go to
+the theatre for the sake of the play as we do; and it is this," he
+said, turning to Bice, "that makes it possible that the theatre may be
+an influence and a power."
+
+Bice lifted her eyes upon this man with a wondering gaze of contempt.
+She gave him a full look which abashed him, though he was so much more
+important, so much more intellectual, than she. Then, without deigning
+to take any notice, she turned to Jock at her other side. "If that is
+all I do not care for going," she said. "I have seen many plays--oh,
+many! I like quite as well to read at home. It is not for that I wish to
+go; but to see the world. The world, that is far more interesting. It is
+like a novel, but living. You look at the people and you read what they
+are thinking. You see their stories going on. That is what amuses
+me;--but a play on the stage, what is it? People dressed in clothes that
+do not belong to them, trying to make themselves look like somebody
+else--but they never do. One says--that is not I, but the people that
+know--Bravo, Got! Bravo Regnier! It does not matter what parts they are
+acting. You do not care for the part. Then why go and look at it?" said
+Bice with straightforward philosophy.
+
+All this she poured forth upon Jock in a low clear voice, as if there
+was no one else near. Jock, for his part, was carried away by the flood.
+
+"I don't know about Got and Regnier. But what we are going to see is
+Shakespeare," he said, with a little awe, "that is not just like a
+common play."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater had been astonished by Bice's indifference to his own
+instructive remarks. It was this perhaps more than her beauty which had
+called his attention to her, and he had listened as well as he could to
+the low rapid stream of her conversation, not without wonder that she
+should have chosen Jock as the recipient of her confidence. What she
+said, though he heard it but imperfectly, interested him still more. He
+wanted to make her out--it was a new kind of study. While Lucy, by his
+side, went on tranquilly with some soft talk about the theatre, of which
+she knew very little, he thought, he made her a civil response, but gave
+all his attention to what was going on at the other side; and there was
+suddenly a lull of the general commotion, in which he heard distinctly
+Bice's next words.
+
+"_What_ is Shakespeare?" she said; then went on with her own
+reflections. "What I want to see is the world. I have never yet gone
+into the world; but I must know it, for it is there I have to live. If
+one could live in Shakespeare," cried the girl, "it would be easy; but I
+have not been brought up for that; and I want to see the world--just a
+little corner--because that is what concerns me, not a play. If it is
+only for the play, I think I shall not go."
+
+"You had much better come," said Jock; "after all it is fun, and some of
+the fellows will be good. The world is not to be seen at the theatre
+that I know of," continued the boy. "Rows of people sitting one behind
+another, most of them as stupid as possible--you don't call that the
+world? But come--I wish you would come. It is a change--it stirs you
+up."
+
+"I don't want to be stirred up. I am all living," cried Bice. There
+seemed to breathe out from her a sort of visible atmosphere of energy
+and impatient life. Looking across this thrill in the air, which somehow
+was like the vibration of heat in the atmosphere, Jock's eyes
+encountered those of his tutor, turned very curiously, and not without
+bewilderment, to the same point as his own. It gave the boy a curious
+sensation which he could not define. He had wished to exhibit to Mr.
+Derwentwater this strange phenomenon in the shape of a girl, with a
+sense that there was something very unusual in her, something in which
+he himself had a certain proprietorship. But when MTutor's eyes
+encountered Jock's with an astonished glance of discovery in them, which
+seemed to say that he had found out Bice for himself without the
+interposition of the original discoverer, Jock felt a thrill of
+displeasure, and almost pain, which he could not explain to himself.
+What did it mean? It seemed to bring with it a certain defiance of, and
+opposition to, this king of men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+TWO FRIENDS.
+
+
+"Who was that young lady?" Mr. Derwentwater said. "I did not catch the
+name."
+
+"What young lady?" To suppose for a moment that Jock did not know who
+was meant would be ridiculous, of course; but, for some reason which he
+did not explain even to himself, this was the reply he made.
+
+"My dear Jock, there was but one," said MTutor, with much friendliness.
+"At your age you do not take much notice of the other sex, and that is
+very well and right; but still it would be wrong to imagine that there
+is not something interesting in girls occasionally. I did not make her
+out. She was quite a study to me at the theatre. I am afraid the greater
+part of the performance, and all the most meritorious portion of it,
+was thrown away upon her; but still there were gleams of interest. She
+is not without intelligence, that is clear."
+
+"You mean Bice," said Jock, with a certain dogged air which Mr.
+Derwentwater had seldom seen in him before, and did not understand. He
+spoke as if he intended to say as little as was practicable, and as if
+he resented being made to speak at all.
+
+"Bice--ah! like Dante's Bice," said MTutor. "That makes her more
+interesting still. Though it is not perhaps under that aspect that one
+represents to oneself the Bice of Dante--_ben son, ben son, Beatrice._
+No, not exactly under that aspect. Dante's Bice must have been more
+grand, more imposing, in her dress of crimson or dazzling white."
+
+Jock made no response. It was usual for him to regard MTutor devoutly
+when he talked in this way, and to feel that no man on earth talked so
+well. Jock in his omnivorous reading knew perhaps Dante better than his
+instructor, but he had come to the age when the mind, confused in all
+its first awakening of emotions, cannot talk of what affects it most.
+The time had been at which he had discussed everything he read with
+whosoever would listen, and instructed the world in a child's
+straightforward way. At that period he had often improved Lucy's mind on
+the subject of Dante, telling her all the details of that wonderful
+pilgrimage through earth and heaven, to her great interest and wonder,
+as something that had happened the other day. Lucy had not in those days
+been quite able to understand how it was that the gentleman of Florence
+should have met everybody he knew in the unseen, but she had taken it
+all in respectfully, as was her wont. Jock, however, had passed beyond
+this stage, and no longer told Lucy, or any one, stories from his
+reading; and other sensations had begun to stir in him which he could
+not put into words. In this way it was a constant admiration to him to
+hear MTutor, who could always, he thought, say the right thing and never
+was at a loss. But this evening he was dissatisfied. They were returning
+from the theatre by a late train, and nothing but Jock's reputation and
+high character as a boy of boys, high up in everything intellectual, and
+without reproach in any way, besides the devoted friendship which
+subsisted between himself and his tutor, could have justified Mr.
+Derwentwater in permitting him in the middle of the half to go to London
+to the theatre, and return by the twelve o'clock train. This privilege
+came to him from the favour of his tutor, and yet for the first time his
+tutor did not seem the superhuman being he had always previously
+appeared to Jock. But Mr. Derwentwater was quite unsuspicious of this.
+
+"There is something very much out of the way in the young lady
+altogether," he said. "That little black dress, fitting her like a
+glove, and no ornament or finery of any description. It is not so with
+girls in general. It was very striking--tell me----"
+
+"I didn't think," cried Jock, "that you paid any attention to what women
+wore."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater yielded to a gentle smile. "Tell me," he said, as if he
+had not been interrupted, "who this young lady may be. Is she a daughter
+of the Italian lady, a handsome woman, too, in her way, who was with
+your people?" The railway carriage in which they were coursing through
+the blackness of the night was but dimly lighted, and it was not easy to
+see from one corner to another the expression of Jock's face.
+
+"I don't know," said Jock, in a voice that sounded gruff, "I can't tell
+who she is--I never asked. It did not seem any business of mine."
+
+"Old fellow," said MTutor, "don't cultivate those bearish ways. Some men
+do, but it's not good form. I don't like to see it in you."
+
+This silenced Jock, and made his face flame in the darkness. He did not
+know what excuse to make. He added reluctantly: "Of course I know that
+she came with the Contessa; but who she is I don't know, and I don't
+think Lucy knows. She is just--there."
+
+"Well, my boy," said Mr. Derwentwater, "if there is any mystery, all
+right; I don't want to be prying;" but, as was natural, this only
+increased his curiosity. After an interval, he broke forth again. "A
+little mystery," he said, "suits them; a woman ought to be mysterious,
+with her long robes falling round her, and her mystery of long hair, and
+all the natural veils and mists that are about her. It is more poetic
+and in keeping that they should only have a lovely suggestive name, what
+we call a Christian name, instead of a commonplace patronymic, Miss
+So-and-so! Yes; I recognise your Bice as by far the most suitable
+symbol."
+
+It is impossible to say what an amount of unexpressed and inexpressible
+irritation arose in the mind of Jock with every word. "Your Bice!" The
+words excited him almost beyond his power of control. The mere fact of
+having somehow got into opposition to MTutor was in itself an irritation
+almost more than he could bear. How it was he could not explain to
+himself; but only felt that from the moment when they had got into their
+carriage together, Mr. Derwentwater, hitherto his god, had become almost
+odious to him. The evening altogether had been exciting, but
+uncomfortable. They had all gone to the theatre, where Jock had been
+prepared to look on not so much at a fine piece of acting as at a
+conscientious study, the laboriousness of which was one of its chief
+qualities. Neither the Contessa nor Bice had been much impressed by that
+fine view of the performance. Madame di Forno-Populo, indeed, had swept
+the audience with her opera-glass, and paid very little attention to the
+stage. She had yawned at the most important moments. When the curtain
+fell she had woke up, looking with interest for visitors, as it
+appeared, though very few visitors had come. Bice was put into the
+corner under shelter of the Contessa, and thence had taken furtive
+peeps, though without any opera-glass, with her own keen, intelligent
+young eyes, at the people sitting near, whom Jock had declared not to be
+in any sense of the word the world. Bice too looked up, when the box
+door opened, with great interest. She kept well in the shade, but it was
+evident that she was anxious to see whosoever might come. And very few
+people came; one or two men who came to pay their respects to Lucy, one
+or two who appeared with faces of excitement and surprise to ask if it
+was indeed Madame di Forno-Populo whom they had seen? At these Bice from
+out her corner gazed with large eyes; they were not persons of an
+interesting kind. One of them was a Lord Somebody, who was red-faced and
+had an air which somehow did not suit the place in which Lucy was, and
+towards whom Sir Tom, though he knew him, maintained an aspect of
+seriousness not at all usual to his cordial countenance. Bice, it was
+evident, was struck with a contemptuous amaze at the appearance of these
+visitors. There was a quick interchange of glances between her and the
+Contessa with shrugs of the shoulders and much play of fans. Bice's
+raised eyebrows and curled lips perhaps meant--"Are those your famous
+friends? Is this all?" Whereas the Contessa answered deprecatingly, with
+a sort of "wait a little" look. Jock, who generally was pleased to
+stroll about the lobbies in a sort of mannish way in the intervals
+between the acts, sat still in his place to watch all this with a
+wondering sense that here was something going on in which there was a
+still closer interest, and to notice everything almost without knowing
+that he noted it, following in this respect, as in most others, the lead
+of his tutor, who likewise addressed himself to the supervision of
+everything that went on, discoursing in the meantime to Lucy about the
+actors' "interpretation" of the part, and how far he, Mr. Derwentwater,
+agreed with their view. To Lucy, indeed, the action of the play was
+everything, and the intervals between tedious. She laughed and cried,
+and followed every movement, and looked round, hushing the others when
+they whispered, almost with indignation. Lucy was far younger, Jock
+decided, than Bice or even himself. He, too, had learned already--how
+had he learned it?--that the play going on upon the stage was less
+interesting than that which was being performed outside. Even Jock had
+found this out, though he could not have told how. Shakespeare, indeed,
+was far greater, nobler; but the excitement of a living story, the
+progress of events of which nobody could tell what would come next, had
+an interest transcending even the poetry. That was what people said,
+Jock was aware, in novels and other productions; but until to-night he
+never believed it was true.
+
+And then there was the journey from town, with all the curious sensation
+of parting at the theatre doors, and returning from that shining world
+of gaslight, and ladies' dresses, into the dimness of the railway, the
+tedious though not very long journey, the plunging of the carriage
+through the blackness of the night; and along with these the questions
+of Mr. Derwentwater, so unlike him, so uncalled-for, as Jock could not
+help thinking. What had he to do with Bice? What had any one to do with
+her? So far as she belonged to any one, it was to himself, Jock; her
+first friend, her companion in her walks, he to whom she had spoken so
+freely, and who had told her his opinion with such simplicity. When Jock
+remembered that he had told her she was not pretty his cheeks burned.
+There had stolen into his mind, he could not tell how, a very different
+feeling now--not perhaps a different opinion. When he reflected it did
+not seem to him even now that pretty was the word to use--but the
+impression of Bice which was in his mind was something that made the boy
+thrill. He did not understand it, nor could he tell what it was. But it
+made him quiver with resentment when there was any question about
+her--anything like this cold-blooded investigation which Mr.
+Derwentwater had attempted to make. It troubled Jock all the more that
+it should be MTutor who made it. When our god, our model of excellence,
+comes down from his high state to anything that is petty, or less than
+perfect, how sore is the pang with which we acknowledge it. "To be wroth
+with those we love doth work like madness in the brain." Jock had both
+these pangs together. He was angry because MTutor had been interfering
+with matters in which he had no concern, and he was pained because
+MTutor had condescended to ask questions and invite gossip, like the
+smaller beings well enough known in the boy-world as in every other,
+who make gossip the chief object of their existence. Could there be
+anything in the idol of his youth akin to these? He felt sore and
+disappointed, without knowing why, with a dim consciousness that there
+were many other people whom Mr. Derwentwater might have inquired about
+without awakening any such feelings in him. When the train stopped, and
+they got out, it was strange to walk down the silent, midnight streets
+by MTutor's side, without the old sensation of pleasure with which the
+boy felt himself made into the man's companion. He was awakened out of
+his maze of dark and painful feelings by the voice of Derwentwater
+calling upon him to admire the effect of the moonlight upon the river as
+they crossed the bridge. For long after that scene remained in Jock's
+mind against a background of mysterious shadows and perplexity. The moon
+rode in the midst of a wide clearing of blue between two broken banks of
+clouds. She was almost full, and approaching her setting. She shone full
+upon the river, sweeping from side to side in one flood of silver,
+broken only by a few strange little blacknesses, the few boats, like
+houseless stragglers out by night and without shelter, which lay here
+and there by a wharf or at the water's edge. The scene was wonderfully
+still and solemn, not a motion to be seen either on street or stream.
+"How is it, do you think," said Mr. Derwentwater, "that we think so
+little of the sun when it is he that lights up a scene like this, and so
+much of the moon?"
+
+Jock was taken by surprise by this question, which was of a kind which
+his tutor was fond of putting, and which brought back their old
+relations instantaneously. Jock seemed to himself to wake up out of a
+strange inarticulate dream of displeasure and embarrassment, and to feel
+himself with sudden remorse, a traitor to his friend. He said,
+faltering: "I don't know; it is always you that finds out the analogies.
+I don't think that my mind is poetical at all."
+
+"You do yourself injustice, Jock," said Derwentwater, his arm within
+that of his pupil in their old familiar way. And then he said: "The moon
+is the feminine influence which charms us by showing herself clearly as
+the source of the light she sheds. The sun we rarely think of at all,
+but only of what he gives us--the light and the heat that are our life.
+Her," he pointed to the sky, "we could dispense with, save for the
+beauty of her."
+
+"I wish," said Jock, "I could think of anything so fine. But do you
+think we could do without women like that?" said the inquiring young
+spirit, ready to follow with his bosom bare whithersoever this refined
+philosophy might lead.
+
+"You and I will," said the instructor. "There are grosser and there are
+tamer spirits to whom it might be different. I would not wrong you by
+supposing that you, my boy, could ever be tempted in the gross way; and
+I don't think you are of the butterfly dancing kind."
+
+"I should rather think not!" said Jock, with a short laugh.
+
+"Then, except as a beautiful object, setting herself forth in conscious
+brightness, like that emblem of woman yonder," said MTutor with a wave
+of his hand, admiring, familiar, but somewhat contemptuous, towards the
+moon, "what do we want with that feminine influence? Our lives are set
+to higher uses, and occupied with other aims."
+
+Jock was perfectly satisfied with this profession of faith. He went
+along the street with his tutor's arm in his, and a vague elation as of
+something settled and concluded upon in his mind. Their footsteps rang
+upon the pavement with a manly tramp as they paced away from the light
+on the bridge into the shadow of the old houses with their red roofs.
+They had gone some way before, being above all things loyal, Jock
+thought it right to put in a proviso. "Not intellectually, perhaps," he
+said, "but I can't forget how much I owe to my sister. I should have
+been a most forlorn little wretch when I was a child, and I shouldn't be
+much now, but for Lucy standing by me. It's not well to forget that, is
+it, sir? though Lucy is not at all clever," he added in an undertone.
+
+"You are a loyal soul," said MTutor, with a pressure of his arm, "but
+Woman does not mean our mothers and sisters." Here he permitted himself
+a little laugh. "It shows me how much inferior is my position to that of
+your youth, my dear boy," he said, "when you give me such an answer.
+Believe me it is far finer than anything you suppose me to be able to
+say."
+
+Jock did not know how to respond to this speech. It half angered, half
+pleased him, but on the whole he was more ashamed of the supposed
+youthfulness than satisfied with the approbation. No one, however young,
+likes the imputation of innocence; and Jock had feelings rising within
+him of which he scarcely knew the meaning, but which made him still more
+sensible of the injustice of this view. He was too proud, however, to
+explain himself even if he had been able to do so, and the little way
+that remained was trodden in silence. The boy, however, could not help a
+curious sensation of superiority as he went to his room through the
+sleeping-house, feeling the stillness of the slumber into which he
+stole, treading very quietly that he might not disturb any one. He
+stopped for a moment with a candle in his hand and looked down the long
+passage with its line of closed doors on each side, holding his breath
+with a half smile of sympathy, respect for the hush of sleep, yet keen
+superiority of life and emotion over all the unconscious household. His
+own brain and heart seemed tingling with the activity and tumult of life
+in them. It seemed to him impossible to sleep, to still the commotion in
+his mind, and bring himself into harmony with that hushed atmosphere and
+childish calm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+YOUTHFUL UNREST.
+
+
+Easter was very early that year, about as early as Easter can be, and
+there was in Jock's mind a disturbing consciousness of the holidays, and
+the manner in which he was likely to spend them, which no doubt
+interfered to a certain extent with his work. He ought to have been
+first in the competition for a certain school prize, and he was not. It
+was carried off to the disappointment of Jock's house, and, indeed, of
+the greater part of the school, by a King's scholar, which was the fate
+of most of the prizes. Mr. Derwentwater was deeply cast down by this
+disappointment. He expressed himself on the subject indeed with all the
+fine feeling for which he was distinguished. "The loss of a
+distinction," he said, "is not in itself a matter to disturb us; but I
+own I should be sorry to think that you were failing at all in that
+intellectual energy which has already placed you so often at the head of
+the lists--that, my dear fellow, I should unfeignedly regret; but not a
+mere prize, which is nothing." This was a very handsome way of speaking
+of it; but that MTutor was disappointed there could be no doubt. To Jock
+himself it gave a keen momentary pang to see his own name only third in
+that beadroll of honour; but so it was. The holidays had all that to
+answer for; the holidays, or rather what they were to bring. When he
+thought of the Hall and the company there, Jock felt a certain high tide
+in his veins, an awakening of interest and anticipation which he did not
+understand. He did not say to himself that he was going to be happy. He
+only looked forward with an eager heart, with a sense of something to
+come, which was different from the routine of ordinary life. MTutor
+after many hindrances and hesitations was at last going to accept the
+invitation of Sir Tom, and accompany his pupil. This Jock had looked
+forward to as the greatest of pleasures. But somehow he did not feel so
+happy about it now. He did not seem to himself to want Mr. Derwentwater.
+In some ways, indeed, he had become impatient of Mr. Derwentwater. Since
+that visit to the theatre, involuntarily without any cause for it, there
+had commenced to be moments in which MTutor was tedious. This sacrilege
+was unconscious, and never yet had been put into words; but still the
+feeling was there; and the beginning of any such revolution in the soul
+must be accompanied with many uneasinesses. Jock was on the stroke, so
+to speak, of seventeen. He was old for his age, yet he had been almost
+childish too in his devotion to his books, and the subjects of his
+school life. The last year had introduced many new thoughts to his mind
+by restoring him to the partial society of his sister and her house; but
+into these new subjects he had carried the devotion of his studious
+habits and the enthusiasm of his discipleship, transferring himself
+bodily with all his traditions into the new atmosphere. But a change
+somehow had begun in him, he could not tell how. He was stirred beyond
+the lines of his former being--sentiments, confusions of spirit quite
+new to him, were vaguely fermenting, he could not tell how; and school
+work, and prizes, and all the emulations of sixth form had somehow tamed
+and paled. The colour seemed to have gone out of them. And the library
+of MTutor, that paradise of thought, that home of conversation, where so
+many fine things used to be said--that too had palled upon the boy's
+uneasy soul. He felt as if he should prefer to leave everything behind
+him,--books and compositions and talk, and even MTutor himself. Such a
+state of mind is sure to occur some time or other in a boy's
+experiences; but in this case it was too early, and Mr. Derwentwater,
+who was very deeply devoted to his pupils, was much exercised on the
+subject. He had lost Jock's confidence, he thought. How had he lost his
+confidence? was it that some other less wholesome influence was coming
+in? Thus there were feelings of discomfort between them, hesitations as
+to what to say, instinctive avoidance of some subjects, concealed
+allusions to others. It might even be said that in a very refined and
+superior way, such as was alone possible to such a man, Mr. Derwentwater
+occasionally talked at Jock. He talked of the pain and grief of seeing a
+young heart closed to you which once had been open, and of the poignant
+disappointment which arises in an elder spirit when its spiritual
+child--its disciple--gets beyond its leading. Jock, occupied with his
+own thoughts, only partially understood.
+
+It was in this state of mind that they set out together, amid all the
+bustle of breaking up, to pay their promised visit. Jock, who up to this
+moment had hated London, and looked with alarm upon society, had eagerly
+accepted his tutor's proposal that after the ten days which they were to
+spend at the Hall they should go to Normandy together for the rest of
+the holidays, which was an arrangement very pleasant in anticipation.
+But by this time neither of the two was at all anxious to carry it out.
+Mr. Derwentwater had begun to talk of the expediency of giving a little
+attention to one's own country. "We are just as foolish as the ignorant
+masses," he said, "though we think ourselves so wise. Why not Devonshire
+instead of Normandy? it is finer in natural scenery. Why not London
+instead of Paris? there is no spell in mere going, as the ignorant say
+'abroad.'" When you come to think of it, in just the same proportion as
+one is superior to the common round of gaping British tourists, by going
+on a walking tour in Normandy, one is superior to the walkers in
+Normandy by choosing Devonshire.
+
+These remarks were preliminary to the intention of giving up the plan
+altogether, and by the time they set out it was tacitly understood that
+this was to be the case. It was to be given up--not for Devonshire. The
+pair of friends had become two--they were to do each what was good in
+his own eyes. Jock would remain "at home," whether that home meant the
+Hall or Park Lane, and Mr. Derwentwater, after his week's visit, should
+go on--where seemed to him good.
+
+There was a considerable party gathered in the inner drawing-room when
+Jock and his companion presented themselves there. The scene was very
+different from that to which Jock had been accustomed, when the
+tea-table was a sort of fireside adjunct to the warmth and brightness
+centred there. Now the windows were full of a clear yellow sky, shining
+a little shrilly after rain, and promising in its too-clear and watery
+brightness more rain to come; and many people were about, some standing
+up against the light, some lounging in the comfortable chairs, some
+talking together in groups, some hanging about Lucy and her tea service.
+Lucy said, "Oh, is it you, Jock?" and kissed him, with a look of
+pleasure; but she had not run out to meet him as of old. Lucy, indeed,
+was changed, perhaps more evidently changed than any member of the
+family. She was far more self-possessed than she had ever been before.
+She did not now turn to her husband with that pretty look, half-smiling,
+half-wistful, to know how she had got through her domestic duties. There
+was a slight air of hurry and embarrassment about her eyes. The season
+had not begun, and she could not have been overdone by her social
+duties; but something had aged and changed her. Some old acquaintances
+came forward and shook hands with Jock; and Sir Tom, when he saw who it
+was, detached himself from the person he was talking to, and came
+forward and gave him a sufficiently cordial welcome. The person with
+whom he was talking was the Contessa. She was in her old place in the
+room, the comfortable sofa which she had taken from Lady Randolph, and
+where Sir Tom, leaning upon the mantelpiece, as an Englishman loves to
+do, could talk to her in the easiest of attitudes. Jock, though he was
+not discerning, thought that Sir Tom looked aged and changed too. The
+people in general had a tired afternoon sort of look about them. They
+were not like people exulting to get out of town, and out of darkness
+and winter weather to the fresh air and April skies. Perhaps, however,
+this effect was produced by the fact that looking for one special person
+in the assembly Jock had not found her. He had never cared who was there
+before. Except Lucy, the whole world was much the same to him. To talk
+to her now and then, but by preference alone, when he could have her to
+himself and nobody else was by, and then to escape to the library, had
+been the height of his desire. Now he no longer thought of the library,
+or even, save in a secondary way, of Lucy. He looked about for some one
+else. There was the Contessa, sure enough, with one man on the sofa by
+her side and another seated in front of her, and Sir Tom against the
+mantelpiece lounging and talking. She was enchanting them all with her
+rapid talk, with the pretty, swift movements of her hands, her
+expressive looks and ways. But there was no shadow of Bice about the
+room. Jock looked at once behind the table, where she had been always
+visible when the Contessa was present. But Bice was not there. There was
+not a trace of her among the people whom Jock neither knew nor cared to
+know. But everything went on cheerfully, notwithstanding this omission,
+which nobody but Jock seemed to remark. Ladies chattered softly as they
+sipped their tea, men standing over them telling anecdotes of this
+person and that, with runs of soft laughter here and there. Lucy at the
+tea-table was the only one who was at all isolated. She was bending over
+her cups and saucers, supplying now one and now another, listening to a
+chance remark here and there, giving an abstracted smile to the person
+who might chance to be next to her. What was she thinking of? Not of
+Jock, who had only got a smile a little more animated than the others.
+Mr. Derwentwater did not know anybody in this company. He stood on the
+outskirts of it, with that look of mingled conciliation and defiance
+which is natural to a man who feels himself overlooked. He was more
+disappointed even than Jock, for he had anticipated a great deal of
+attention, and not to find himself nobody in a fashionable crowd.
+
+Things did not mend even at dinner. Then the people were more easily
+identified in their evening clothes, exposing themselves steadily to all
+observers on either side of the table; but they did not seem more
+interesting. There were two or three political men, friends of Sir Tom,
+and some of a very different type who were attached to the
+Contessa--indeed, the party consisted chiefly of men, with a few ladies
+thrown in. The ladies were not much more attractive. One of them, a Lady
+Anastasia something, was one of the most inveterate of gossip
+collectors, a lady who not only provided piquant tales for home
+consumption, but served them up to the general public afterwards in a
+newspaper--the only representatives of ordinary womankind being a mother
+and two daughters, who had no particular qualities, and who duly
+occupied a certain amount of space, without giving anything in return.
+But Bice was not visible. She who had been so little noticed, yet so far
+from insignificant, where was she? Could it be that the Contessa had
+left her behind, or that Lucy had objected to her, or that she was ill,
+or that--Jock did not know what to think. The company was a strange one.
+Those sedate, political friends of Sir Tom found themselves with a
+little dismay in the society of the lady who wrote for what she called
+the Press, and the gentlemen from the clubs. One of the guests was the
+young Marquis Montjoie, who had quite lately come into his title and the
+world. He had been at school with Jock a few years before, and he
+recognised Mr. Derwentwater with a curious mixture of awe and contempt.
+"Hallo!" he had cried when he perceived him first, and he had whispered
+something to the Contessa which made her laugh also. All this Jock
+remarked vaguely in his uneasiness and disappointment. What was the good
+of coming home, he said to himself, if---- What was the use of having so
+looked forward to the holidays and lost that prize, and disappointed
+everybody, if---- There rose such a ferment in Jock's veins as had never
+been there before. When the ladies left the room after dinner it was he
+that opened the door for them, and as Lucy looked up with a smile into
+her brother's face she met from him a scowl which took away her breath.
+Why did he scowl at Lucy? and why think that in all his life he had
+never seen so dull a company before? Their good things after dinner were
+odious to his ears; and to think, that even MTutor should be able to
+laugh at such miserable jokes and take an interest in such small talk!
+That fellow Montjoie, above all, was intolerable to Jock. He had been
+quite low down in the school when he left, a being of no account, a
+creature called by opprobrious names, and not worthy to tie the shoes of
+a member of Sixth Form. But when he rattled loudly on about nothing at
+all, even Sir Tom did not refuse to listen. What was Montjoie doing
+here? When the gentlemen streamed into the drawing-room, a procession of
+black coats, Jock, who came last, could not help being aware that he was
+scowling at everybody. He met the eyes of one of those inoffensive
+little girls in blue, and made her jump, looking at her as if he would
+eat her. And all the evening through he kept prowling about with his
+hands in his pockets, now looking at the books in the shelves, now
+frowning at Lucy, who could not think what was the matter with her
+brother. Was Jock ill? What had happened to him? The young ladies in
+blue sang an innocent little duet, and Jock stared at the Contessa,
+wondering if she was going to sing, and if the door would open and the
+slim figure in the black frock come in as by a signal and place herself
+at the piano. But the Contessa only laughed behind her fan, and made a
+little pretence at applause when the music ceased, having talked all
+through it, she and the gentlemen about her, of whom Montjoie was one
+and the loudest. No, she was not going to sing. When the door opened it
+was only to admit the servants with their trays and the tea which nobody
+wanted. What was the use of looking forward to the holidays if---- Mr.
+Derwentwater, perhaps, had similar thoughts. He came up to Jock behind
+the backs of the other people, and put an uneasy question to him.
+
+"I thought you said that Madame di Forno-Populo sang?"
+
+"She used to," said Jock laconically.
+
+"The music here does not seem of a high class," said MTutor. "I hope she
+will sing. Italians, though their music is sensuous, generally know
+something about the art."
+
+To this Jock made no reply, but hunched his shoulders a little higher,
+and dug his hands down deeper into his pockets.
+
+"By the way, is the--young lady who was with Madame di Forno-Populo
+here no longer?" said MTutor in a sort of accidental manner, as if that
+had for the first time occurred to him. He raised his eyes to Jock's
+face, which was foolish, and they both reddened in spite of themselves;
+Mr. Derwentwater with sudden confusion, and Jock with angry dismay.
+
+"Not that I know of," said the boy. "I haven't heard anything." Then he
+went on hurriedly: "No more than I know what Montjoie's doing here.
+What's he been asked here for I wonder? He can't amuse anybody much."
+These words, however, were contradicted practically as soon as they were
+said by a peal of laughter which rose from the Contessa's little corner,
+all caused as it was evident by some pleasantry of Montjoie's.
+
+"It seems that he does, though," said Mr. Derwentwater; and then he
+added with a smile, "We are novices in society, you and I. We do best in
+our own class; not to know that Montjoie will be in the very front of
+society, the admired of all admirers at least for a season or two! Isn't
+he a favourite of fortune, the best _parti_, a golden youth in every
+sense of the word----"
+
+"Why, he was a scug!" cried Jock, with illimitable disdain. This
+mysterious and terrible monosyllable was applied at school to a youth
+hopelessly low down and destitute of any personal advantages to
+counterbalance his inferiority. Jock launched it at the Marquis,
+evidently now in a very different situation, as if it had been a stone.
+
+"Hush!" said MTutor blandly. "You will meet a great many such in
+society, and they will think themselves quite as good as you."
+
+Then the mother of the young ladies in blue approached and disturbed
+this _tête-à-tête_.
+
+"I think you were talking of Lord Montjoie," she said. "I hear he is so
+clever; there are some comic songs he sings, which, I am told, are quite
+irresistible. Mr. Trevor, don't you think you could induce him to sing
+one?--as you were at school with him, and are a sort of son of the
+house?"
+
+At this Jock glowered with eyes that were alarming to see under the deep
+cover of his eyebrows, and MTutor laughed out. "We had not so exalted an
+opinion of Montjoie," he said; and then, with a politic diversion of
+which he was proud, "Would not your daughters favour us again? A comic
+song in the present state of our feelings would be more than we could
+bear."
+
+"What a clever fellow he is after all!" said Jock to himself admiringly,
+"how he can manage people and say the right thing at the right moment! I
+dare say Lucy will tell me if I ask her," he said, quite irrelevantly,
+as the lady, well pleased to hear her daughters appreciated, sailed
+away. There was something in the complete sympathy of Mr. Derwentwater's
+mind, even though it irritated, which touched him. He put the question
+point blank to Lucy when he found an opportunity of speaking to her. "I
+say, Lucy, where is Bice? You have got all the old fogeys about the
+place, and she is not here," the boy said.
+
+"Is that why you are glooming upon everybody so?" said the unfeeling
+Lucy. "You cannot call your friend Lord Montjoie an old fogey, Jock. He
+says you were such friends at school."
+
+"I--friends!" cried Jock with disdain. "Why, he was nothing but a scug."
+
+Thus Lucy, too, avoided the question; but it was not because she had any
+real reluctance to speak of Bice, though this was what Jock could not
+know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY.
+
+
+"I never sing," said the Contessa, with that serene smile with which she
+was in the habit of accompanying a statement which her hearers knew to
+be quite untrue. "Oh never! It is one of my possibilities which are
+over--one of the things which you remember of me in--other days----"
+
+"So far back as March," said Sir Tom; "but we all recognise that in a
+lady's calendar that may mean a century."
+
+"Put it in the plural, _mon ami_--centuries, that is more correct," said
+the Contessa, with her dazzling smile.
+
+"And might one ask why this sudden acceleration of time?" asked one of
+the gentlemen who were always in attendance, belonging, so to speak, to
+the Contessa's side of the party. She opened out her lovely hands and
+gave a little shrug to her shoulders, and elevation of her eyebrows.
+
+"It is easy to tell: but whether I shall tell you is another
+question----"
+
+"Oh, do, do, Countess," cried young Montjoie, who was somewhat rough in
+his attentions, and treated the lady with less ceremony than a less
+noble youth would have ventured upon. "Come, don't keep us all in
+suspense. I must hear you, don't you know; all the other fellows have
+heard you. So, please, get over the preliminaries, and let's come to the
+music. I'm awfully fond of music, especially singing. I'm a dab at that
+myself----"
+
+The Contessa let her eyes dwell upon this illustrious young man. "Why,"
+she said, "have I been prevented from making acquaintance with the art
+in which my Lord Montjoie is--a dab----"
+
+At this there was a laugh, in which the good-natured young nobleman did
+not refuse to join. "I say, you know! it's too bad to make fun of me
+like this," he cried; "but I'll tell you what, Countess, I'll make a
+bargain with you. I'll sing you three of mine if you'll sing me one of
+yours."
+
+The Contessa smiled with that gracious response which so often answered
+instead of words. The other ladies had withdrawn, except Lucy, who
+waited somewhat uneasily till her guest was ready. Though Madame di
+Forno-Populo had never lost the ascendency which she had acquired over
+Lady Randolph by throwing herself upon her understanding and sympathy,
+there were still many things which Lucy could not acquiesce in without
+uneasiness, in the Contessa's ways. The group of men about her chair,
+when all the other ladies took their candles and made their way
+upstairs, wounded Lucy's instinctive sense of what was befitting. She
+waited, punctilious in her feeling of duty, though the Contessa had not
+hesitated to make her understand that the precaution was quite
+unnecessary--and though even Sir Tom had said something of a similar
+signification. "She is old enough to take care of herself. She doesn't
+want a chaperon," Sir Tom had said; but nevertheless Lucy would take up
+a book and sit down at the table and wait: which was the more
+troublesome that it was precisely at this moment that the Contessa was
+most amusing and enjoyed herself most. Sir Tom's parliamentary friends
+had disappeared to the smoking-room when the ladies left the room. It
+was the other kind of visitors, the gentlemen who had known the
+Contessa in former days, and were old friends likewise of Sir Tom, who
+gathered round her now--they and young Lord Montjoie, who was rather out
+of place in the party, but who admired the Contessa greatly, and thought
+her better fun than any one he knew.
+
+The Contessa gave the young man one of those speaking smiles which were
+more eloquent than words. And then she said: "If I were to tell you why,
+you would not believe me. I am going to retire from the world."
+
+At this there was a little tumult of outcry and laughter. "The world
+cannot spare you, Contessa." "We can't permit any such sacrifice." And,
+"Retire! Till to-morrow?" her courtiers said.
+
+"Not till to-morrow. I do more than retire. I abdicate," said the
+Contessa, waving her beautiful hands as if in farewell.
+
+"This sounds very mysterious; for an abdication is different from a
+withdrawal; it suggests a successor."
+
+"Which is an impossibility," another said.
+
+The Contessa distributed her smiles with gracious impartiality to all,
+but she kept a little watch upon young Montjoie, who was eager amid the
+ring of her worshippers. "Nevertheless, it is more than a successor,"
+she said, playing with them, with a strange pleasure. To be thus
+surrounded, flattered more openly than men ever venture to flatter a
+woman whom they respect, addressed with exaggerated admiration,
+contemplated with bold and unwavering eyes, had come by many descents to
+be delightful to the Contessa. It reminded her of her old triumphs--of
+the days when men of a different sort brought homage perhaps not much
+more real but far more delicate, to her feet. A long career of baths and
+watering-places, of Baden and Homburg, and every other conceivable
+resort of temporary gaiety and fashion, had brought her to this. Sir
+Tom, who was not taking much share in the conversation, stood with his
+arm on the mantelpiece, and watched her and her little court with
+compassionate eyes. He had laughed often before; but he did not laugh
+now. Perhaps the fact that he was himself no longer her first object
+helped to change the aspect of affairs. He had consented to invite these
+men as old acquaintances; but it was intolerable to him to see this
+scene going on in the room in which his wife was; and the Contessa's
+radiant satisfaction seemed almost horrible to him in Lucy's presence.
+Lucy was seated at some distance from the group, her face turned away,
+her head bent, to all appearance very intent upon the book she was
+reading. He looked at her with a sort of reverential impatience. She was
+not capable of understanding the degradation which her own pure and
+simple presence made apparent. He could not endure her to be there
+sanctioning the indecorum;--and yet the tenacity with which she held her
+place, and did what she thought her duty to her guest, filled him with a
+wondering pride. No other scene, perhaps, he thought, in all England,
+could have presented a contrast so curious.
+
+"The Contessa speaks in riddles," said one of the circle. "We want an
+OEdipus."
+
+"Oh, come, Countess," said young Montjoie, "don't hang us up like this.
+We are all of us on pins and needles, don't you know? It all began about
+you singing. Why don't you sing? All the fellows say it's as good as
+Grisi. I never heard Grisi, but I know every note Patti's got in her
+voice; and I want to compare, don't you know?"
+
+The Contessa contemplated the young man with a sort of indulgent smile
+like a mother who withholds a toy.
+
+"When are you going away?" she said. "You will soon go back to your dear
+London, to your clubs and all your delights."
+
+"Oh, come, Countess," repeated Montjoie, "that isn't kind. You talk as
+if you wanted to get rid of a fellow. I'm due at the Duke's on Friday,
+don't you know?"
+
+"Then it shall be on Thursday," said the Contessa, with a laugh.
+
+"What shall be on Thursday?"
+
+The others all came round her with eager questions.
+
+"I am going on Wednesday," said one. "What is this that is going to
+happen?"
+
+"And why am I to be excluded?"
+
+"And I? If there is to be anything new, tell us what it is."
+
+"Inquisitors! and they say that curiosity belongs to women," said the
+Contessa. "Messieurs, if I were to tell you what it was, it would be no
+longer new."
+
+"Well, but hang it all," cried young Montjoie, who was excited and had
+forgotten his manners, "do tell us what it is. Don't you see we don't
+even know what kind of thing you mean? If it's music----"
+
+Madame di Forno-Populo laughed once more. She loved to mystify and raise
+expectations. "It is not music," she said. "It is my reason for
+withdrawing. When you see that, you will understand. You will all say
+the Contessa is wise. She has foreseen exactly the right moment to
+retire."
+
+And with this she rose from the sofa with a sudden movement which took
+her attendants by surprise. She was not given to shaking hands. She
+withdrew quickly from Montjoie's effort to seize her delicate fingers,
+which she waved to the company in general. "My Lucy," she said, "I have
+kept you waiting! to this extent does one forget one's self in your
+delightful house. But, my angel, you should not permit me to do it. You
+should hold up your finger, and I would obey."
+
+"Bravo," said Montjoie's voice behind their backs in a murmur of
+delight. "Oh, by Jove, isn't that good? Fancy, a woman like her, and
+that simple----"
+
+One of the elder men gave Montjoie something like a kick, inappropriate
+as the scene was for such a demonstration. "You little----think what you
+are saying," he cried.
+
+But Sir Tom was opening the door for the ladies, and did not hear. Lucy
+was tired and pale. She looked like a child beside the stately Contessa.
+She had taken no notice of Madame di Forno-Populo's profession of
+submission. In her heart she was longing to run to the nursery, to see
+her boy asleep, and make sure that all was well; and she was not only
+tired with her vigil, but uneasy, disapproving. She divined what the
+Contessa meant, though not even Sir Tom had made it out. Perhaps it was
+feminine instinct that instructed her on this point. Perhaps the strong
+repugnance she had, and sense of opposition to what was about to be
+done, quickened her powers of divination. She who had never suspected
+anybody in all her life fathomed the Contessa's intentions at a glance.
+"That boy!" she said to herself as she followed up the great staircase.
+Lucy divined the Contessa, and the Contessa divined that she had
+divined her. She turned round when they reached the top of the stairs
+and paused for a moment looking at Lady Randolph's face, lit up with the
+light of her candle. "My sweetest," said the Contessa, "you do not
+approve. It breaks my heart to see it. But what can I do! This is my
+way, it is not yours; but to me it is the only way."
+
+Lucy could do nothing but shake her head as she turned the way of the
+nursery where her boy was sleeping. The contrast gave her a pang. Bice,
+too, was no doubt sleeping the deep and dreamless sleep of youth behind
+one of those closed doors; poor Bice! secluded there to increase the
+effect of her eventual appearance, and about whom her protectress was
+draping all those veils of mystery in order to tempt the fancy of a
+commonplace youth not much more than a schoolboy! And yet the Contessa
+loved her charge, and persuaded herself that she was acting for Bice's
+good. Poor Bice, who was so good to little Tom! Was there nothing to be
+done to save her?
+
+"What's going to happen on Thursday?" the men of the Contessa's train
+asked of Sir Tom, as they followed him to the smoking-room, where Mr.
+Derwentwater, in a velvet coat, was already seated smoking a mild
+cigarette, and conversing with one of the parliamentary gentlemen. Jock
+hung about in the background, turning over the books (for there were
+books everywhere in this well-provided house) rather with the intention
+of making it quite evident that he went to bed when he liked, and could
+stay up as late as any one, than from any hankering after that cigar
+which a Sixth Form fellow, so conscientious as Jock was, might not
+trifle with. "Oh, here are those two duffers; those saps, don't you
+know," Montjoie said, with a grimace, as he perceived them on entering
+the room; in which remark he was perhaps justified by the epithets which
+these two superior persons applied to him. The two parties did not
+amalgamate in the smoking-room any more than in other places. The new
+comers surrounded Sir Tom in a noisy little crowd, demanding of him an
+explanation of the Contessa's meaning. This, however, was subdued
+presently by a somewhat startling little incident. The gentlemen were
+discussing the Contessa with the greatest freedom. "It's rather
+astounding to meet her in a good house, just like any one else," one man
+forgot himself sufficiently to say, but he came to his recollection very
+quickly on meeting Sir Tom's eyes. "I beg your pardon, Randolph, of
+course that's not what I mean. I mean after all those years." "Then I
+hope you will remember to say exactly what you mean," said Sir Tom, "on
+other occasions. It will simplify matters."
+
+This momentary incident, though it was quiet enough, and expressed in
+tones rather less than more loud than the ordinary conversation, made a
+sensation in the room, and produced first an involuntary stillness, and
+then an eager access of talk. It had the effect, however, of making
+everybody aware that the Contessa intended to make, on Thursday, some
+revelation or other, an intimation which moved Jock and his tutor as
+much or even more than it moved the others. Mr. Derwentwater even made
+advances to Montjoie, whom he had steadily ignored, in order to
+ascertain what it was. "Something's coming off, that's all we can tell,"
+that young patrician said. "She is going to retire, so she says, from
+the world, don't you know? That's like a tradesman shutting up shop when
+he's made his fortune, or a _prima donna_ going off the stage. It ain't
+so easy to make out, is it, how the Forno-Populo can retire from the
+world? She can't be going to take poison, like the great Sarah, and give
+us a grand dying seance in Lady Randolph's drawing-room. That would be
+going a bit too far, don't you know?"
+
+"It is going a bit too far to imagine such a thing," Derwentwater said.
+
+"Oh, come, you know, it isn't school-time," cried Montjoie, with a
+laugh. And though Mr. Derwentwater was as much superior to the little
+lordling as could be conceived, he retired disconcerted from this
+passage of arms. To be reminded that you are a pedagogue is difficult to
+bear, especially an unsuccessful pedagogue, attempting to exert
+authority which exists no longer. MTutor prided himself on being a man
+of the world, but he retired a little with an involuntary sense of
+offence from this easy setting down. He rose shortly after and took Jock
+by the arm and led him away. "You are not smoking, which I am glad to
+see--and shows your sense," he said. "Come out and have a breath of air
+before we go upstairs. Can you imagine anything more detestable than
+that little precocious _roué_, that washed-out little man-about-town,"
+he added with some energy, as they stepped out of the open windows of
+the library, left open in case the fine night should have seduced the
+gentlemen on to the terrace to smoke their cigars. It was a lovely
+spring night, soft and balmy, with a sensation of growth in the air, the
+sky very clear, with airy white clouds all lit up by the moon. The quiet
+and freshness gave to those who stepped into it a curious sensation of
+superiority to the men whom they left in the warm brightly-lit room,
+with its heavy atmosphere and artificial delights. It felt like a moral
+atmosphere in contrast with the air all laden with human emanations,
+smoke, and the careless talk of men. These two were perhaps somewhat
+inclined to feel a superiority in any circumstances. They did so doubly
+in these.
+
+"He was always a little cad," said Jock.
+
+"To hear a lady's name from his mouth is revolting," said Derwentwater.
+"We are all too careless in that respect. I admire Madame di
+Forno-Populo for keeping her--is it her daughter or niece?--out of the
+way while that little animal is here."
+
+"Oh, Bice would soon make him know his place," said Jock; "she is not
+just like one of the girls that are civil, you know. She is not afraid
+of telling you what she thinks of you. I know exactly how she'd look at
+Montjoie." Jock permitted himself an abrupt laugh in the pleasure of
+feeling that he knew her ways far better than any one. "She would soon
+set him down--the little beast!--in his right place."
+
+As they walked up and down the terrace their steps and voices were very
+audible in the stillness of the night; and the windows were lighted in
+the east wing, showing that the inhabitants were still up there and
+about. While Jock spoke, one of these windows opened quite suddenly, and
+for a single moment a figure like a shadow appeared in it. The light
+movement, sudden as a bird's on the wing, would have betrayed her (she
+felt) to Jock, even if she had not spoken. But she waved her hand and
+called out "Good-night" in a voice full of laughter. "Don't talk
+secrets, for we can hear you," she said. "Good-night!" And so vanished
+again, with a little echo of laughter from within. The young men were
+both excited and disconcerted by this interruption. It gave them a
+sensation of shame for the moment as if they had been caught in a
+discussion of a forbidden subject; and then a tingling ran through their
+veins. Even MTutor for the moment found no fine speech in which to
+express his sense of this sudden momentary tantalising appearance of the
+mystic woman standing half visible out of the background of the unknown.
+He did think some very fine things on the subject after a time, with a
+side glance of philosophical reflection that her light laugh of mockery
+as she momentarily revealed herself, was an outcome of this sceptical
+century, and that in a previous age her utterance would have been a song
+or a sigh. But at the moment even Mr. Derwentwater was subjugated by the
+thrill of sensation and feeling, and found nothing to say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+IN SUSPENSE.
+
+
+It was thus that Bice was engaged while Lucy imagined her asleep in her
+innocence, unaware of the net that was being spread for her unsuspecting
+feet. Bice was neither asleep nor unsuspecting. She was innocent in a
+way inconceivable to the ordinary home-keeping imagination, knowing no
+evil in the devices to which she was a party; but she was not innocent
+in the conventional sense. That any high feminine ideal should be
+affected by the design of the Contessa or by her own participation in it
+had not occurred to the girl. She had been accustomed to smile at the
+high virtue of those ladies in the novels who would not receive the
+addresses of the eldest son of their patroness, and who preferred a
+humble village and the delights of self-sacrifice to all the grandeurs
+of an ambitious marriage. That might be well enough in a novel, Bice
+thought, but it was not so in life. In her own case there was no
+question about it. The other way it was which seemed to her the virtuous
+way. Had it been proposed to her to throw herself away upon a poor man
+whom she might be supposed to love, and so prove herself incapable of
+being of any use to the Contessa, and make all her previous training and
+teaching of no effect, Bice's moral indignation would have been as
+elevated as that of any English heroine at the idea of marrying for
+interest instead of love. The possibility did not occur to her at all;
+but it would have been rejected with disdain had it attempted to force
+its way across the threshold of her mind. She loved nobody--except the
+Contessa; which was a great defence and preservation to her thoughts.
+She accepted the suggestion that Montjoie should be the means of raising
+her to that position she was made for, with composure and without an
+objection. It was not arranged upon secretly, without her knowledge, but
+with her full concurrence. "He is not very much to look at. I wish he
+had been more handsome," the Contessa said; but Bice's indifference on
+this point was sublime. "What can it matter?" she said loftily. She was
+not even very deeply interested in his disposition or mental qualities.
+Everything else being so suitable, it would have been cowardly to shrink
+from any minor disadvantage. She silenced the Contessa in the attempt to
+make the best of him. "All these things are so secondary," the girl
+said. Her devotion to the career chosen for her was above all weakly
+arguments of this kind. She looked upon them even with a certain scorn.
+And though there was in her mind some excitement as to her appearance
+"in the world," as she phrased it, and her skill "to please," which was
+as yet untried, it was, notwithstanding with the composure of a nature
+quite unaware of any higher questions involved, that she took her part
+in all the preparations. Her knowledge of the very doubtful world in
+which she had lived had been of a philosophical character. She was quite
+impartial. She had no prejudices. Those of whom she approved were those
+who had carried out their intentions, whatever they might be, as she
+should do by marrying an English Milord with a good title and much
+money. She meant, indeed, to spend his money, but legitimately. She
+meant to become a great lady by his means, but not to do him any harm.
+Bice had an almost savage purity of heart, and the thought that any of
+the stains she knew of should touch her was incredible, impossible;
+neither was it in her to be unkind, or unjust, or envious, or
+ungenerous. Nothing of all this was involved in the purely business
+operation in which she was engaged. According to her code no professions
+of attachment or pretence of feeling were necessary. She had indeed no
+theories in her mind about being a good wife; but she would not be a bad
+one. She would keep her part of the compact; there should be nothing to
+complain of, nothing to object to. She would do her best to amuse the
+man she had to live with and make his life agreeable to him, which is a
+thing not always taken into consideration in marriage-contracts much
+more ideal in character. He should not be allowed to be dull, that was
+one thing certain. Regarding the matter in this reasonable point of
+view, Bice prepared for the great event of Thursday with just excitement
+enough to make it amusing. It might be that she should fail. Few
+succeed at the very first effort without difficulty, she said to
+herself; but if she failed there would be nothing tragical in the
+failure, and the season was all before her. It could scarcely be hoped
+that she would bring down her antagonist the first time she set lance in
+rest.
+
+She was carefully kept out of sight during the intervening days; no one
+saw her; no one had any acquaintance with the fact of her existence. The
+precautions taken were such that Bice was never even encountered on the
+staircase, never seen to flit in or out of a room, and indeed did not
+exist at all for the party in the house. Notwithstanding these
+precautions she had the needful exercise to keep her in health and good
+looks, and still romped with the baby and held conversations with the
+sympathetic Lucy, who did not know what to say to express her feeling of
+anxious disapproval and desire to succour, without, at the same time,
+injuring in Bice's mind her nearest friend and protectress. She might,
+indeed, have spared herself the trouble of any such anxiety, for Bice
+neither felt injured by the Contessa's scheme nor degraded by her
+precautions. It amused the girl highly to be made a secret of, to run
+all the risks of discovery and baffle the curious. The fun of it was
+delightful to her. Sometimes she would amuse herself by hanging till the
+last practicable moment in the gallery at the top of the staircase, on
+the balcony at the window, or at the door of the Contessa's room which
+was commanded by various other doors; but always vanished within in time
+to avoid all inquisitive eyes, with the laughter and delight of a child
+at the danger escaped, and the fun of the situation. In these cases the
+Contessa would sometimes take fright, but never, so light was the
+temper of this scheming woman, this deep plotter and conspirator,
+refused to join in the laughter when the flight was made and safety
+secured. They were like a couple of children with a mystification in
+hand, notwithstanding that they were planning an invasion so serious of
+all the proprieties, and meant to make so disreputable and revolting a
+bargain. But this was not in their ideas. Bice went out very early in
+the morning before any one was astir, to take needful exercise in the
+park, and gather early primroses and the catkins that hung upon the
+trees. On one of these occasions she met Mr. Derwentwater, of whom she
+was not afraid; and at another time, when skirting the shrubberies at a
+somewhat later hour to keep clear of any stragglers, Jock. Mr.
+Derwentwater talked to her in a tone which amused the girl. He spoke of
+Proserpina gathering flowers, herself a----and then altered and grew
+confused under her eye.
+
+"Herself a---- What?" said Bice. "Have you forgotten what you were going
+to say?"
+
+"I have not forgotten--herself a fairer flower. One does not forget such
+lovely words as these," he said, injured by the question. "But when one
+comes face to face with the impersonation of the poet's idea----"
+
+"It was poetry, then?" said Bice. "I know very little of that. It is not
+in Tauchnitz, perhaps? All I know of English is from the Tauchnitz. I
+read, chiefly, novels. You do not approve of that? But, yes, I like
+them; because it is life."
+
+"Is it life?" said Derwentwater, who was somewhat contemptuous of
+fiction.
+
+"At least it is England," said Bice. "The girls who will not make a good
+marriage because of some one else, or because it is their parents who
+arrange it. That is how Lady Randolph speaks. She says that nothing is
+right but to fall--how do you call it?--in love?--It is not _comme il
+faut_ even to talk of that."
+
+Derwentwater blushed like a girl. He was more inexperienced in many ways
+than Bice. "And do you regard it in another point of view?" he said.
+
+Bice laughed out with frank disdain. "Certainly, I regard it
+different--oh, quite different. That is not what happens in life."
+
+"And do you consider life is chiefly occupied with getting married?" he
+continued, feeling, along with a good deal of quite unnecessary
+excitement, a great desire to know what was her way of looking at this
+great subject. Visions had been flashing recently through his mind,
+which pointed a little this way too.
+
+"Altogether," said Bice, with great gravity, "how can you begin to live
+till you have settled that? Till then you do not know what is going to
+happen to you. When you get up in the morning you know not what may come
+before the night; when you walk out you know not who may be the next
+person you meet; perhaps your husband. But then you marry, and that is
+all settled; henceforward nothing can happen!" said Bice, throwing out
+her hands. "Then, after all is settled, you can begin to live."
+
+"This is very interesting," said Derwentwater, "I am so glad to get at a
+real and individual view. But this, perhaps, only applies to--ladies? It
+is, perhaps, not the same with men?"
+
+Bice gave him a careless, half-contemptuous glance. "I have never known
+anything," she said, "about men."
+
+There are many girls, much more innocent in outward matters than Bice,
+who would have said these words with an intention _agaçante_--the
+intention of leading to a great deal more badinage. But Bice spoke with
+a calm, almost scornful, composure. She had no desire to _agacer_. She
+looked him in the face as tranquilly as if he had been an old woman. And
+so far as she was concerned he might have been an old woman; for he had
+virtually no existence in his capacity of young man. Had she possessed
+any clue to the thoughts that had taken rise in his mind, the new
+revelation which she had conveyed to him, Bice's amazement would have
+been without bounds. But instinct indicated to her that the interview
+should proceed no further. She waved her hand to him as she came to a
+cross road which led into the woods. "I am going this way," she cried,
+darting off round the corner of a great tree. He stood and looked after
+her bewildered, as her light figure skimmed along into the depths of the
+shadows. "Then, after all is settled, you can begin to live," he
+repeated to himself. Was it true? He had got up the morning on which he
+saw her first without any thought that everything might be changed for
+him that day. And now it was quite true that there lay before him an
+interval which must be somehow filled up before he could begin to live.
+How was it to be filled up? Would _she_ have anything to do with the
+settling which must precede his recommencement of existence? He went on
+with his mind altogether absorbed in these thoughts, and with a thrill
+and tingling through all his veins. And that was the only time he
+encountered Bice, for whom in fact, though he had not hitherto allowed
+it even to himself, he had come to the Hall--till the great night.
+
+Jock encountered her the next day not so early, at the hour indeed when
+the great people were at breakfast. He had been one of the first to
+come downstairs, and he had not lingered at table as persons do who have
+letters to read, and the newspapers, and all that is going on to talk
+about. He met her coming from the park. She put out her hand when she
+saw him as if to keep him off.
+
+"If you wish to speak to me," she said, "you must turn back and walk
+with me. I do not want any one to see me, and they will soon be coming
+out from breakfast."
+
+"Why don't you want any one to see you?" Jock said.
+
+Bice had learned the secret of the Contessa's smile; but this which she
+cast upon Jock had something mocking in it, and ended in a laugh. "Oh,
+don't you know?" she said, "it is so silly to be a boy!"
+
+"You are no older than I am," cried Jock, aggrieved; "and why don't you
+come down to dinner as you used to do? I always liked you to come. It is
+quite different when you are not there. If I had known I should not have
+come home at all this Easter," Jock cried.
+
+"Oh!" cried Bice, "that means that you like me, then?--and so does
+Milady. If I should go away altogether----"
+
+"You are not going away altogether? Why should you? There is no other
+place you could be so well as here. The Contessa never says a word, but
+laughs at a fellow, which is scarcely civil; and she has those men about
+her that are--not----; but you----why should you go away?" cried Jock
+with angry vehemence. He looked at her with eyes lowering fiercely under
+his eyebrows; yet in his heart he was not angry but wretched, as if
+something were rending him. Jock did not understand how he felt.
+
+"Oh, now, you look at me as if you would eat me," said Bice, "as if I
+were the little girl in the red hood and you the wolf---- But it is
+silly, for how should I stay here when Milady is going away? We are all
+going to London--and then! it will soon be decided, I suppose," said
+Bice, herself feeling a little sad for the first time at the idea, "what
+is going to be done with me."
+
+"What is going to be done with you?" cried Jock hoarsely, for he was
+angry and grieved, and full of impatient indignation, though he scarcely
+knew why.
+
+Bice turned upon him with that lingering smile which was like the
+Contessa's. But, unlike the Contessa's, it ended as usual in a laugh.
+She kissed her hand to him, and darted round the corner of the shrubbery
+just as some one appeared from breakfast. "Good-bye," she said, "do not
+be angry," and so vanished like lightning. This was one of the cases
+which made her heart beat with fun and exhilaration, when she was, as
+she told the Contessa, nearly caught. She got into the shelter of the
+east rooms, panting with the run she had made, her complexion brilliant,
+her eyes shining. "I thought I should certainly be seen this time," she
+said.
+
+The Contessa looked at the girl with admiring eyes. "I could almost have
+wished you had," she said. "You are superb like that." They talked
+without a shade of embarrassment on this subject, upon which English
+mothers and children would blush and hesitate.
+
+This was the day, the great day of the revelation which the Contessa had
+promised. There had been a great deal of discussion and speculation
+about it in the company. No one, even Sir Tom, knew what it was. Lucy,
+though she was not clever, had her wits sharpened in this respect, and
+she had divined; but no one else had any conception of what was coming.
+Two of the elder men had gone, very sorry to miss the great event,
+whatever it was. And young Montjoie had talked of nothing else since the
+promise had been made. The conversation in the drawing-room late in the
+afternoon chiefly turned on this subject, and the lady visitors too
+heard of it, and were not less curious. She who had the two daughters
+addressed herself to Lucy for information. She said: "I hear some
+novelty is expected to-night, Lady Randolph, something the Contessa has
+arranged. She is very clever, is she not? and sings delightfully, I
+know. There is so much more talent of that kind among foreigners than
+there is among us. Is it tableaux? The girls are so longing to know."
+
+"Oh, yes, we want so much to know," said the young ladies in blue.
+
+"I don't think it is tableaux," Lucy said; "but I have not been told
+what it is."
+
+This the ladies did not believe, but they asked no further questions.
+"It is clear that she does not wish us to know; so, girls, you must say
+nothing," was the conclusion of the mother.
+
+They said a great deal, notwithstanding this warning. The house
+altogether was excited on the subject, and even Mr. Derwentwater took
+part in the speculations. He looked upon the Contessa as one of those
+inscrutable women of the stage, the Sirens who beguile everybody. She
+had some design upon Montjoie, he felt, and it was only the youth's
+impertinence which prevented Mr. Derwentwater from interfering. He
+watched with the natural instinct of his profession and a strong
+impulse to write to the lad's parents and have him taken away. But
+Montjoie had no parents. He had attained his majority, and was supposed
+by the law capable of taking care of himself. What did that woman mean
+to do with the boy? She had some designs upon him. But there was nobody
+to whom Mr. Derwentwater could confide his suspicions, or whom he could
+ask what the Contessa meant. MTutor had not on the whole a pleasant
+visit. He was disappointed in that which had been his chief object--his
+favourite pupil was detached from him, he knew not how--and this other
+boy, whom, though he did not love him, he could not help feeling a sort
+of responsibility for, was in danger from a designing woman, a woman out
+of a French play, _L'Aventurière_, something of that sort. Mr.
+Derwentwater felt that he could not drag himself away, the attractions
+were so strong. He wanted to see the _dénoûement_; still more he wanted
+to see Bice. No drama in the world had so powerful an interest. But
+though it was so impossible to go away, it was not pleasant to stay.
+Jock did not want him. Lucy, though she was always sweet and friendly,
+had a look of haste and over-occupation; her eyes wandered when she
+talked to him; her mind was occupied with other things. Most of the men
+of the party were more than indifferent; were disagreeable to him. He
+thought they were a danger for Jock. And Bice never was visible; that
+moment on the balcony--those few minutes in the park--the half dozen
+words which had been so "suggestive," he thought, which had woke so many
+echoes in his mind--these were all he had had of her. Had she intended
+them to awaken echoes? He asked himself this question a thousand times.
+Had she willingly cast this seed of thought into his mind to
+germinate--to produce--what result? If it was so, then, indeed, all the
+little annoyances of his stay would be a cheap price to pay. It did not
+occur to this judicious person, whose influence over his pupils was so
+great, and who had studied so deeply the mind of youth, that a girl of
+sixteen was but little likely to be consciously suggestive--to sow, with
+any intention in her mind, seeds of meaning to develop in his. To do him
+justice, he was as unconscious of the limits of sixteen in Bice's case
+as we all are in the case of Juliet. She was of no age. She was the
+ideal woman capable of comprehensions and intentions as far above
+anything possible to the genus boy as heaven was above earth. It would
+have been a profanation, a sacrilege too dreadful to be thought of, to
+compare that ethereal creature with the other things of her age with
+which he was so familiar. Of her age! Her age was the age of romance, of
+love, of poetry, of all ineffable things.
+
+"I say, Countess," said Montjoie, "I hope you're not forgetting. This is
+the night, don't you know. And here we are all ready for dinner and
+nothing has happened. When is it coming? You are so awfully mysterious;
+it ain't fair upon a fellow."
+
+"Is every one in the room?" said the Contessa, with an indulgent smile
+at the young man's eagerness. They all looked round, for everybody was
+curious. And all were there--the lady who wrote for the Press, and the
+lady with the two daughters, the girls in blue; and Sir Tom's
+parliamentary friends standing up against the mantelpiece, and Mr.
+Derwentwater by himself, more curious than any one, keeping one eye on
+Montjoie, as if he would have liked to send him to the pupil-room to do
+a _poena_; and Jock indifferent, with his back to the door. All the rest
+were expectant except Jock, who took no notice. The Contessa's special
+friends were about her chair, rubbing their hands, and ready to back the
+Forno-Populo for a new sensation. The Contessa looked round, her eye
+dwelling for a moment upon Lucy, who looked a little fluttered and
+uncomfortable, and upon Sir Tom, who evidently knew nothing, and was
+looking on with a smile.
+
+"Now you shall see," she said, "why I abdicate," and made a sign,
+clapping softly her beautiful hands.
+
+There was a momentary pause. Montjoie, who was standing out in the clear
+space in the centre of the room, turned round at the Contessa's call. He
+turned towards the open door, which was less lighted than the inner
+room. It was he who saw first what was coming. "Oh, by Jove!" the young
+Marquis said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE DÉBUT.
+
+
+The door was open. The long drawing-room afforded a sort of processional
+path for the newcomer. Her dress was not white like that of the ordinary
+_débutante_. It had a yellow golden glow of colour, warm yet soft. She
+walked not with the confused air of a novice perceiving herself
+observed, but with a slow and serene gait like a young queen. She was
+not alarmed by the consciousness that everybody was looking at her. Not
+to have been looked at would have been more likely to embarrass Bice.
+Her beautiful throat and shoulders were uncovered, her hair dressed
+more elaborately than that of English girls in general. English
+girls--the two innocents in blue, who were nice girls enough, and stood
+with their mouths and eyes open in speechless wonder and
+admiration--seemed of an entirely different species from this dazzling
+creature. She made a momentary pause on the threshold, while all the
+beholders held their breath. Montjoie, for one, was struck dumb. His
+commonplace countenance changed altogether. He looked at her with his
+face growing longer, his jaw dropping. It was more than a sensation, it
+was such a climax of excitement and surprise as does not happen above
+once or twice in a lifetime. The whole company were moved by similar
+feelings, all except the Contessa, lying back in her chair, and Lucy,
+who stood rather troubled, moving from one foot to another, clasping and
+unclasping her hands. Jock, roused by the murmur, turned round with a
+start, and eyed her too with looks of wild astonishment. She stood for a
+moment looking at them all--with a smile which was half mischievous,
+half appealing--on the threshold, as Bice felt it, not only of Lady
+Randolph's drawing-room, but of the world.
+
+Sir Tom had started at the sight of her as much as any one. He had not
+been in the secret. He cried out, "By Jove!" like Montjoie. But he had
+those instincts which are, perhaps, rather old-fashioned, of protection
+and service to women. He belonged to the school which thinks a girl
+should not walk across a room without some man's arm to sustain her, or
+open a door for herself. He started forward with a little sense of being
+to blame, and offered her his arm. "Why didn't you send for me to bring
+you in if you were late?" he cried, with a tone in which there was some
+tremor and vexation. The effectiveness of her appearance was terrible to
+Sir Tom. She looked up at him with a look of pleasure and kindness, and
+said, "I was not late," with a smile. She looked taller, more developed
+in a single day. But for that little pucker of vexation on Sir Tom's
+forehead they would have looked like a father and daughter, the father
+proudly bringing his young princess into the circle of her adorers. Bice
+swept him towards Lucy, and made a low obeisance to Lady Randolph, and
+took her hand and kissed it. "I must come to you first," she said.
+
+"Well?" said the Contessa, turning round to her retainers with a quick
+movement. They were all gazing at the _débutante_ so intently that they
+had no eyes for her. One of them at length replied, with something like
+solemnity: "Oh, I understand what you mean, Contessa; anybody but you
+would have to abdicate." "But not you," said another, who had some
+kindness in his heart. The Contessa rose up with an air of triumph. "I
+do not want to be compelled," she said, "I told you. I give up. I will
+take your arm Mr. St. John, as a private person, having relinquished my
+claims, and leave milord to the new _régime_."
+
+This was how it came about, in the slight scuffle caused by the sudden
+change of programme, that Bice, in all her splendour, found herself
+going in to the dining-room on Lord Montjoie's arm. Notwithstanding that
+he had been struck dumb by her beauty, little Montjoie was by no means
+happy when this wonderful good fortune fell upon him. He would have
+preferred to gaze at her from the other side of the table: on the whole,
+he would have been a great deal more at his ease with the Contessa. He
+would have asked her a hundred questions about this wonderful beauty;
+but the beauty herself rather frightened the young man. Presently,
+however, he regained his courage, and as lack of boldness was not his
+weak point, soon began to lose the sense of awe which had been so strong
+upon him. She smiled; she was as ready to talk as he was, as the
+overwhelming impression she had made upon him began to be modified by
+familiarity. "I suppose," he said, when he had reached this point, "that
+you arrived to-day?" And then, after a pause, "You speak English?" he
+added, in a hesitating tone. She received this question with so merry a
+laugh that he was quite encouraged.
+
+"Always," she said, "since I was a child. Was that why you were afraid
+of me?"
+
+"Afraid?" he said; and then he looked at her almost with a recurrence of
+his first fright, till her laugh reassured him. "Yes I was frightened,"
+Lord Montjoie said; "you looked so--so--don't you know? I was struck all
+of a heap. I suppose you came to-day? We were all on the outlook from
+something the Contessa said. You must be clever to get in without
+anybody seeing you."
+
+"I was far more clever than that," said Bice; "you don't know how clever
+I am."
+
+"I dare say," said Lord Montjoie, admiringly, "because you don't want
+it. That's always the way."
+
+"I am so clever that I have been here all the time," said Bice, with
+another laugh so joyous,--"so jolly," Montjoie said, that his terrors
+died away. But his surprise took another development at this
+extraordinary information.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried, "you don't mean that, Miss--Mademoiselle--I am so
+awfully stupid I never heard--that is to say I ain't at all clever at
+foreign names."
+
+"Oh, never mind," cried Bice; "neither am I. But yours is delightful; it
+is so easy, Milord. Ought I to say Milord?"
+
+"Oh," cried Montjoie, a little confused. "No; I don't think so--people
+don't as a rule."
+
+"Lord Montjoie, that is right? I like always to know----"
+
+"So do I," said Montjoie; "it's always best to ask, ain't it, and then
+there can be no mistakes? But you don't mean to say _that_? You here
+yesterday and all the time? I shouldn't think you could have been hid.
+Not the kind of person, don't you know."
+
+"I can't tell about being the kind of person. It has been fun," said
+Bice; "sometimes I have seen you all coming, and waited till there was
+just time to fly. I like leaving it till the last moment, and then there
+is the excitement, don't you know."
+
+"By Jove, what fun!" said Montjoie. He was not clever enough, few people
+are, to perceive that she had mimicked himself in tone and expression.
+"And I might have caught you any day," he cried. "What a muff I have
+been."
+
+"If I had allowed myself to be caught I should have been a greater--what
+do you call it? You wear beautiful things to do your smoking in, Lord
+Montjoie; what is it? Velvet? And why don't you wear them to
+dinner?--you would look so much more handsome. I am very fond myself of
+beautiful clothes."
+
+"Oh, by Jove!" cried Montjoie again, with something like a blush.
+"You've seen me in those things! I only wear them when I think nobody
+sees. They're something from the East," he added, with a tone of
+careless complacency; for, as a matter of fact, he piqued himself very
+much upon this smoking-suit which had not, at the Hall, received the
+applause it deserved.
+
+"You go and smoke like that among other men? Yes, I perceive," said
+Bice, "you are just like women, there is no difference. We put on our
+pretty things for other ladies, because you cannot understand them; and
+you do the same."
+
+"Oh, come now, Miss---- Forno-Populo! you don't mean to tell me that you
+got yourself up like that for the sake of the ladies?" cried the young
+man.
+
+"For whom, then?" said Bice, throwing up her head; but afterwards, with
+the instinct of a young actress, she remembered her _rôle_, which it was
+fun to carry out thoroughly. She laughed. "You are the most clever," she
+said. "I see you are one that women cannot deceive."
+
+Montjoie laughed, too, with gratified vanity and superior knowledge.
+"You are about right there," he said. "I am not to be taken in, don't
+you know. It's no good trying it on with me. I see through ladies'
+little pretences. If there were no men you would not care what guys you
+were; and no more do we."
+
+Bice made no reply. She turned upon him that dazzling smile of which she
+had learned the secret from the Contessa, which was unfathomable to the
+observer but quite simple to the simple-minded; and then she said: "Do
+you amuse yourself very much in the evening? I used to hear the voices
+and think how pleasant it would have been to be there."
+
+"Not so pleasant as you think," said the young man. "The only fun was
+the Contessa's, don't you know. She's a fine woman for her age, but
+she's---- Goodness! I forgot. She's your----"
+
+"She is _passée_," said the girl calmly. "You make me afraid, Lord
+Montjoie. How much of a critic you are, and see through women, through
+and through." At this the noble Marquis laughed with true enjoyment of
+his own gifts.
+
+"But you ain't offended?" he said. "There was no harm meant. Even a lady
+can't, don't you know, be always the same age."
+
+"Don't you think so?" said Bice. "Oh, I think you are wrong. The
+Contessa is of no age. She is the age she pleases--she has all the
+secrets. I see nobody more beautiful."
+
+"That may be," said Montjoie; "but you can't see everybody, don't you
+know. She's very handsome and all that--and when the real thing isn't
+there--but when it is, don't you know----"
+
+"English is very perplexing," said Bice, shaking her head, but with a
+smile in her eyes which somewhat belied her air of simplicity. "What may
+that be--the real thing? Shall I find it in the dictionary?" she asked;
+and then their eyes met and there was another burst of laughter,
+somewhat boisterous on his part, but on hers with a ring of
+lightheartedness which quenched the malice. She was so young that she
+had a pleasure in playing her _rôle_, and did not feel any immorality
+involved.
+
+While this conversation was going on, which was much observed and
+commented on by all the company, Jock from one end of the table and Mr.
+Derwentwater from the other, looked on with an eager observation and
+breathless desire to make out what was being said which gave an
+expression of anxiety to the features of MTutor, and one of almost
+ferocity to the lowering countenance of Jock. Both of these gentlemen
+were eagerly questioned by the ladies next them as to who this young
+lady might be.
+
+"Terribly theatrical, don't you think, to come into a room like that?"
+said the mother of the girls in blue. "If my Minnie or Edith had been
+asked to do it they would have died of shame."
+
+"I do not deny," said Mr. Derwentwater, "the advantage of conventional
+restraints. I like the little airs of seclusion, of retirement, that
+surround young ladies. But the----" he paused a little for a name, and
+then with that acquaintance with foreign ways on which Mr. Derwentwater
+prided himself, added, "the Signorina was at home."
+
+"The Signorina! Is that what you call her--just like a person that is
+going on the stage. She will be the--niece, I suppose?"
+
+Jock's next neighbour was the lady who was engaged in literature. She
+said to Jock: "I must get you to tell me her name. She is lovely. She
+will make a great sensation. I must make a few notes of her dress after
+dinner--would you call that yellow or white? Whoever dressed her knew
+what they were about. Mademoiselle, I imagine, one ought to call her. I
+know that's French, and she's Italian, but still---- The new beauty!
+that's what she will be called. I am so glad to be the first to see her;
+but I must get you to tell me her name."
+
+Among the gentlemen there was no other subject of conversation, and but
+one opinion. A little hum of curiosity ran round the table. It was far
+more exciting than tableaux, which was what some of the guests had
+expected to be arranged by the Contessa. Tableaux! nothing could have
+been equal to the effect of that dramatic entry and sudden revelation.
+"As for Montjoie, all was up with him, but the Contessa knew what she
+was about. She was not going to throw away her effects," they said.
+"There could be no doubt for whose benefit it all was." The Contessa
+graciously baffled with her charming smile all the questions that were
+poured upon her. She received the compliments addressed to her with
+gracious bows, but she gave no reply to any one. As she swept out of the
+room after dinner she tapped Montjoie lightly on the arm with her fan.
+"I will sing for you to-night," she said.
+
+In the drawing-room the elements were a little heterogeneous without the
+gentlemen. The two girls in blue gazed at this wonderful new competitor
+with a curiosity which was almost alarm. They would have liked to make
+acquaintance, to draw her into their little party of youth outside the
+phalanx of the elders. But Bice took no more note of them than if they
+had been cabbages. She was in great excitement, all smiles and glory.
+"Do I please you like this?" she said, going up to Lucy, spreading out
+all her finery with the delight of a child. Lucy shrank a little. She
+had a troubled anxious look, which did not look like pleasure; but Lady
+Anastasia, who wrote for the newspapers, walked round and round the
+_débutante_ and took notes frankly. "Of course I shall describe her
+dress. I never saw anything so lovely," the lady said. Bice, in the glow
+of her golden yellow, and of her smiles and delight, with the noble
+correspondent of the newspapers examining her, found the acutest
+interest in the position. The Contessa from her sofa smiled upon the
+scene, looking on with the air of a gratified exhibitor whose show had
+succeeded beyond her hopes. Lady Randolph, with an air of anxiety in her
+fair and simple countenance, stood behind, looking at Bice with
+protecting yet disturbed and troubled looks. The mother and daughters at
+the other side looked on, she all solid and speechless with
+disapproval, they in a flutter of interest and wonder and gentle envy
+and offence. More than a tableau; it was like an act out of a play. And
+when the gentlemen came in what a sudden quickening of the interest!
+Bice rose to the action like a heroine when the great scene has come,
+and the others all gathered round with a spectatorship that was almost
+breathless. The worst feature of the whole to those who were interested
+in Bice was her own evident enjoyment. She talked, she distributed her
+smiles right and left, she mimicked yet flattered Montjoie with a
+dazzling youthful assurance which confounded Mr. Derwentwater, and made
+Jock furious, and brought looks of pain not only to the face of Lucy but
+also to that of Sir Tom, who was less easily shocked. She was like a
+young actress in her first triumph, filling her _rôle_ with a sort of
+enthusiasm, enjoying it with all her heart. And when the Contessa rose
+to sing, Bice followed her to the piano with an air as different as
+possible from the swift, noiseless self-effacement of her performance on
+previous occasions. She looked round upon the company with a sort of
+malicious triumph, a laugh on her lips as of some delightful
+mystification, some surprise of which she was in the secret. "Come and
+listen," she said to Jock, lightly touching him on the shoulder as she
+passed him. The Contessa's singing was already known. It was considered
+by some with a certain contempt, by others with admiration, as almost as
+good as professional. But when instead of one of her usual performances
+there arose in splendid fulness the harmony of two voices, that of Bice
+suddenly breaking forth in all the freshness of youth, unexpected,
+unprepared for, the climax of wonder and enthusiasm was reached. Lady
+Anastasia, after the first start and thrill of wonder, rushed to the
+usual writing-table and dashed off a hurried note, which she fastened to
+her fan in her excitement. "Everybody must know of this!" she cried. One
+of the young ladies in the background wept with admiration, crying,
+"Mamma, she is heavenly," while even the virtuous mother was moved.
+"They must intend her for the stage," that lady said, wondering,
+withdrawing from her _rôle_ of disapproval. As for the gentlemen, those
+of them who were not speechless with enthusiasm were almost noisy in
+their excitement. Montjoie pressed into the first rank, almost touching
+Bice's dress, which she drew away between two bars, turning half round
+with a slight shake of her head and a smile in her eyes, even while the
+loveliest notes were flowing forth from her melodious throat. The
+listeners could hear the noble lord's "by Jove," in the midst of the
+music, and even detect the slight quaver of laughter which followed in
+Bice's wonderful voice.
+
+The commotion of applause, enthusiasm, and wonder afterwards was
+indescribable. The gentlemen crowded round the singers--even the
+parliamentary gentlemen had lost their self-control, while the young
+lady who had wept forgot her timidity to make an eager approach to the
+_débutante_.
+
+"It was heavenly: it was a rapture: oh, sing again!" cried Miss Edith,
+which was much prettier than Lord Montjoie's broken exclamations, "Oh,
+by Jove! don't you know," to which Bice was listening with delighted
+mockery.
+
+Bice had been trained to pay very little attention to the opinions of
+other girls, but she gave the young lady in blue a friendly look, and
+launched over her shoulder an appeal to Jock. "Didn't you like it,
+you?" she cried, with a slight clap together of her hands to call his
+attention.
+
+Jock glared at her over Miss Edith's shoulder. "I don't understand
+music," he said, in his most surly voice. These were the distinct
+utterances which enchanted Bice amid the murmurs of more ordinary
+applause. She was delighted with them. She clapped her hands once more
+with a delight which was contagious. "Ah, I know now, this is what it is
+to have _succès_," she cried.
+
+"Now," said the Contessa, "it is the turn of Lord Montjoie, who is a
+dab--that is the word--at singing, and who promised me three for one."
+
+At this there rose a hubbub of laughter, in the midst of which, though
+with many protestations and remonstrances, "don't you know," that young
+nobleman was driven to the fulfilment of his promise. In the midst of
+this commotion, a sign as swift as lightning, but, unlike lightning,
+imperceptible, a lifting of the eyebrows, a movement of a finger, was
+given and noted. In such a musical assembly the performance of a young
+marquis, with nobody knows how many thousands a year and entirely his
+own master, is rarely without interest. Mr. Derwentwater turned his back
+with marked indifference, and Jock with a sort of snort went away
+altogether. But of the others, the majority, though some with laughter
+and some with sneers, were civil, and listened to the performance. Jock
+marched off with a disdain beyond expression; but he had scarcely issued
+forth into the hall before he heard a rustle behind him, and, looking
+back, to his amazement saw Bice in all the glory of her golden robes.
+
+"Hush!" she cried, smothering a laugh, and with a quick gesture of
+repression, "don't say anything. It must not be discovered that I have
+run away!"
+
+"Why have you run away? I thought you thought no end of that little
+scug," cried savage Jock.
+
+Bice turned upon him that smile that said everything and nothing, and
+then flew like a bird upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE EVENING AFTER.
+
+
+The outcry that rose when, after Montjoie's comic song, a performance of
+the broadest and silliest description, was over, it was discovered that
+Bice had disappeared, and especially the blank look of the performer
+himself when turning round from the piano he surveyed the company in
+vain for her, gratified the Contessa beyond measure. She smiled
+radiantly upon the assembly in answer to all their indignant questions.
+"It has been for once an indulgence," she said; "but little girls must
+keep early hours." Montjoie was wounded and disappointed beyond measure
+that it should have been at the moment of his performance that she was
+spirited away. His reproaches were vehement, and there was something of
+the pettishness of a boy in their indignant tones. "I shouldn't have
+sung a note if I'd thought what was going on," he cried. "Contessa, I
+would not have believed you could have been so mean--and I singing only
+to please you."
+
+"But think how you have pleased me--and all these ladies!" cried the
+Contessa. "Does not that recompense you?" Montjoie guessed that she was
+laughing at him, but he did not, in fact, see anything to laugh about.
+It was natural enough that the other ladies should be pleased; still he
+did not care whether they were pleased or not, and he did care much that
+the object of his admiration had not waited to hear him. The Contessa
+found the greatest amusement in his boyish sulk and resentment, and the
+rest of the evening was passed in baffling the questions with which, now
+that Bice was gone, her friends overpowered her. She gave the smallest
+possible dole of reply to their interrogations, but smiled upon the
+questioners with sunshiny smiles. "You must come and see me in town,"
+she said to Montjoie. It was the only satisfaction she would give him.
+And she perceived at a much earlier hour than usual that Lucy was
+waiting for her to go to bed. She gave a little cry of distress when
+this seemed to flash upon her.
+
+"Sweet Lucy! it is for me you wait!" she cried. "How could I keep you so
+late, my dear one?"
+
+Montjoie was the foremost of those who attended her to the door, and got
+her candle for her, that indispensable but unnecessary formula.
+
+"Of course I shall look you up in town; but we'll talk of that
+to-morrow. I don't go till three--to-morrow," the young fellow said.
+
+The Contessa gave him her hand with a smile, but without a word, in that
+inimitable way she had, leaving Montjoie a prey to such uncertainty as
+poisoned his night's rest. He was not humble-minded, and he knew that he
+was a prize which no lady he had met with as yet had disregarded; but
+for the first time his bosom was torn by disquietude. Of course he must
+see her to-morrow. Should he see her to-morrow? The Contessa's smile,
+so radiant, so inexplainable, tormented him with a thousand doubts.
+
+Lucy had looked on at all this with an uneasiness indescribable. She
+felt like an accomplice, watching this course of intrigue, of which she
+indeed disapproved entirely, but could not clear herself from a certain
+guilty knowledge of. That it should all be going on under her roof was
+terrible to her, though it was not for Montjoie but for Bice that her
+anxieties were awakened. She followed the Contessa upstairs, bearing her
+candle as if they formed part of a procession, with a countenance
+absolutely opposed in expression to the smiles of Madame di
+Forno-Populo. When they reached the Contessa's door, Lucy, by a sudden
+impulse, followed her in. It was not the first time that she had been
+allowed to cross the threshold of that little enchanted world which had
+filled her with wonder on her first entrance, but which by this time she
+regarded with composure, no longer bewildered to find it in her own
+house. Bice sprang up from a sofa on which she was lying on their
+entrance. She had taken off her beautiful dress, and her hair was
+streaming over her shoulders, her countenance radiant with delight. She
+threw herself upon the Contessa, without perceiving the presence of Lady
+Randolph.
+
+"But it is enchanting; it is ravishing. I have never been so happy," she
+cried.
+
+"My child," said the Contessa, "here is our dear lady who is of a
+different opinion."
+
+"Of what opinion?" Bice cried. She was startled by the sudden
+appearance, when she had no thought of such an apparition, of Lucy's
+face so grave and uneasy. It gave a contradiction which was painful to
+the girl's excitement and delight.
+
+"Indeed, I did not mean to find fault," said Lucy. "I was only
+sorry----" and here she paused, feeling herself incapable of expressing
+her real meaning, and convicted of interference and unnecessary severity
+by the girl's astonished eyes.
+
+"My dear one," said the Contessa, "it is only that we look from two
+different points of view. You will not object to little Bice that she
+finds society intoxicating when she first goes into it. The child has
+made what you call a sensation. She has had her little _succès_. That is
+nothing to object to. An English girl is perhaps more reticent. She is
+brought up to believe that she does not care for _succès_. But Bice is
+otherwise. She has been trained for that, and to please makes her
+happy."
+
+"To please--whom?" cried Lady Randolph. "Oh, don't think I am finding
+fault. We are brought up to please our parents and people who--care for
+us--in England."
+
+Here Bice and the Contessa mutually looked at each other, and the girl
+laughed, putting her hands together. "_She_ is pleased most of all," she
+cried; "she is all my parents. I please her first of all."
+
+"What you say is sweet," said the Contessa, smiling upon Lucy; "and she
+is right too. She pleases me most of all. To see her have her little
+triumph, looking really her very best, and her dress so successful, is
+to me a delight. I am nearly as much excited as the child herself!"
+
+Lucy looked from one to another, and felt that it was impossible for her
+to say what she wished to say. The girl's pleasure seemed so innocent,
+and that of her protectress and guardian so generous, so tender. All
+that had offended Lucy's instincts, the dramatic effort of the
+Contessa, the careful preparation of all the effects, the singling out
+of young Montjoie as the object, all seemed to melt away in the girlish
+delight of Bice, and the sympathetic triumph of her guardian. She did
+not know what to say to them. It was she who was the culprit, putting
+thoughts of harm which had not found any entrance there into the girl's
+mind. She flushed with shame and an uneasy sense that the tables were
+thus turned upon her; and yet how could she depart without some warning?
+It was not only her own troubled uncomfortable feeling; but had she not
+read the same, still more serious and decided, in her husband's eyes?
+
+"I don't know what to say," said Lucy. "But Sir Tom thinks so too. He
+will tell you better, he knows better. Lord Montjoie is--I do not know
+why he was asked. I did not wish it. He is--dear Madame di Forno-Populo,
+you have seen so much more than I--he is vulgar--a little. And Bice is
+so young; she may be deceived."
+
+For a moment a cloud, more dark than had ever been seen there before,
+overshadowed the Contessa's face. But Bice burst forth into a peal of
+laughter, clapping her hands. "Is that vulgar?" the girl cried. "I am
+glad. Now I know how he is different. It is what you call fun, don't you
+know?" she cried with sudden mimicry, at which Lucy herself could not
+refuse to laugh.
+
+"I waited outside to hear a little of the song. It was so wonderful that
+I could not laugh; and to utter all that before you, Madama, after he
+had heard you--oh, what courage! what braveness!" cried Bice. "I did not
+think any one could be so brave!"
+
+"You mean so simple, dear child," said the Contessa, whose brow had
+cleared; "that is really what is so wonderful in these English men. They
+are so simple, they never see how it is different. It is brave if you
+please, but still more simple-minded. Little Montjoie is so. He knows no
+better; not to me only, but even to you, Bice, with that voice of yours,
+so pure, so fresh, he listens, then performs as you heard. It is
+wonderful, as you say. But you have not told me, Lucy, my sweetest, what
+you think of the little one's voice."
+
+"I think," said Lucy, with that disapproval which she could not
+altogether restrain, "that it is very wonderful, when it is so fine,
+that we never heard it before----"
+
+"Ah, Bice," cried the Contessa, "our dear lady is determined that she
+will not be pleased to-night. We had prepared a little surprise, and it
+is a failure. She will not understand that we love to please. She will
+have us to be superior, as if we were English."
+
+"Indeed, indeed," cried Lucy, full of compunction, "I know you are
+always kind. And I know your ways are different--but----" with a sort of
+regretful reflectiveness, shaking her head.
+
+"All England is in that but," said the Contessa. "It is what has always
+been said to me. In our country we love to arrange these little effects,
+to have surprises, impromptus, events that are unexpected. Bice, go, my
+child, go to bed, after this excitement you must rest. You did well, and
+pleased me at least. My sweet Lucy," she said, when the girl with
+instant obedience had disappeared into the next room, "I know how you
+see it all from your point of view. But we are not as you, rich, secure.
+We must make while we can our _coup_. To succeed by one _coup_, that is
+my desire. And you will not interfere?"
+
+"Oh, Contessa," cried Lucy, "will you not spare the child? It is like
+selling her. She is too good for such a man. He is scarcely a man; he is
+a boy. I am ashamed to think that you should care to please----him, or
+any one like him. Oh, let it come naturally! Do not plan like this, and
+scheme and take trouble for----"
+
+"For an establishment that will make her at once safe and sure; that
+will give her so many of the things that people care for--beautiful
+houses, a good name, money---- I have schemed, as you say, for little
+things much of my life," said the Contessa, shaking her head with a
+mournful smile; "I have told you my history: for very, very little
+things--for a box at the opera, for a carriage, things which are
+nothing, sweetest Lucy. You have plenty; such things are nothing to you.
+You cannot understand it. But that is me, my dear one. I have not a
+higher mind like you; and shall I not scheme," cried the Contessa, with
+sudden energy, "for the child, to make her safe that she may never
+require scheming? Ah, my Lucy! I have the heart of a mother to her, and
+you know what a mother will do."
+
+Lucy was silent, partly touched, partly resisting. If it ever could be
+right to do evil that good might come, perhaps this motive might justify
+it. And then came the question how much, in the Contessa's code, was
+evil, of these proceedings? She was silenced, if not satisfied. There is
+a certain casuistry involved in the most Christian charity: "thinketh no
+evil," sometimes even implies an effort to think that there is no harm
+in evil according to the intention in it. Lucy's intellect was confused,
+though not that unobtrusive faculty of judgment in her which was
+infallible, yet could be kept dumb.
+
+"My love," said the Contessa, suddenly kissing her as a sort of
+dismissal, "think that you are rich and we poor. If Bice had a
+provision, if she had even as much as you give away to your poor friends
+and never think of again, how different would all things be for her! But
+she has nothing; and therefore I prepare my little tableaux, and study
+all the effects I can think of, and produce her as in a theatre, and
+shut her up to _agacer_ the audience, and keep her silent and make her
+sing, all for effect; yes, all for effect. But what can I do? She has
+not a penny, not a penny, not even like your poor friends."
+
+The sudden energy with which this was said was indescribable. The
+Contessa's countenance, usually so ivory-pale, shone with a sort of
+reflection as if of light within, her eyes blazed, her smile gave place
+to a seriousness which was almost indignation. She looked like a heroine
+maintaining her right to do all that human strength could do for the
+forlorn and oppressed; and there was, in fact, a certain _abandon_ of
+feeling in her which made her half unconsciously open the door, and do
+what was tantamount to turning her visitor out, though her visitor was
+mistress of the house. Her feelings had, indeed, for the moment, got the
+better of the Contessa. She had worked herself up to the point of
+indignation, that Lucy who could, if she would, deliver Bice from all
+the snares of poverty, had not done so, and was not, so far as appeared,
+intending to do so. To find fault with the devices of the poor, and yet
+not to help them--is not that one of the things least easily supportable
+of all the spurns of patient merit? The Contessa was doing what she
+could, all she could in her own fashion, strenuously, anxiously. But
+Lucy was doing nothing, though she could have done it so easily: and
+yet she found fault and criticised. Madame di Forno-Populo was swept by
+a great flood of instinctive resentment. She put her hostess to the door
+in the strength of it, tenderly with a kiss but not less hotly, and with
+full meaning. Such impulses had stood her instead of virtue on other
+occasions; she felt a certain virtue as of superior generosity and
+self-sacrifice in her proceedings now.
+
+As for Lucy, still much confused and scarcely recognising the full
+meaning of the Contessa's warmth, she made her way to her own room in a
+haze of disturbed and uneasy feeling. Somehow--she could not tell
+how--she felt herself in the wrong. What was it she had done? What was
+it she had left undone? To further the scheme by which young Montjoie
+was to be caught and trapped and made the means of fortune and endowment
+to Bice was not possible. In such cases it is usually of the possible
+victim, the man against whom such plots are formed, that the bystander
+thinks; but Lucy thought of young Montjoie only with an instinctive
+dislike, which would have been contempt in a less calm and tolerant
+mind. That Bice, with all her gifts, a creature so full of life and
+sweetness and strength, should be handed over to this trifling
+commonplace lad, was in itself terrible to think of. Lucy did not think
+of the girl's beauty, or of that newly-developed gift of song which had
+taken her by surprise, but only and simply of herself, the warm-hearted
+and smiling girl, the creature full of fun and frolic whom she had
+learned to be fond of, first, for the sake of little Tom, and then for
+her own. Little Tom's friend, his playmate, who had found him out in his
+infant weakness and made his life so much brighter! And then Lucy asked
+herself what the Contessa could mean, what it was that made her own
+interference a sort of impertinence, why her protests had been received
+with so little of the usual caressing deference? Thoughts go fast, and
+Lucy had not yet reached the door of her own room, when it flashed upon
+her what it was. She put down her candle on a table in the corridor, and
+stood still to realise it. This gallery at the head of the great
+staircase was dimly lighted, and the hall below threw up a glimmer,
+reflected in the oaken balusters and doors of the closed rooms, and
+dying away in the half-lit gloom above. There were sounds below far off
+that betrayed the assembly still undispersed in the smoking-room, and
+some fainter still, above, of the ladies who had retired to their rooms,
+but were still discussing the strange events of the evening. In the
+centre of this partial darkness stood Lucy, with her candle, the only
+visible representative of all the hidden life around, suddenly pausing,
+asking herself--
+
+Was this what it meant? Undoubtedly, this was what it meant. She had the
+power, and she had not used it. With a word she could make all their
+schemes unnecessary, and relieve the burden on the soul of the woman who
+had the heart of a mother for Bice. Tears sprang up into Lucy's eyes
+unawares as this recollection suddenly seized her. The Contessa was not
+perfect--there were many things in her which Lady Randolph could with
+difficulty excuse to herself: but she had the heart of a mother for
+Bice. Oh, yes, it was true, quite true. The heart of a mother! and how
+was it possible that another mother could look on at this and not
+sympathise; and how was it that the idea had never occurred to her
+before--that she had never thought how changed in a moment might be
+Bice's position, if only---- Here she picked up her candle again, and
+went away hastily to her room. She said to herself that she was keeping
+Fletcher up, and that this was unkind. But, as a matter of fact, she was
+not thinking about Fletcher. There had sprung up in her soul a fear
+which was twofold and contradictory. If one of those alarms was
+justified, then the other would be fallacious; and yet the existence of
+the one doubled the force of the other. One of these elements of
+fear--the contradiction, the new terror--was wholly unthought of, and
+had never troubled her peace before. She thought--and this was her old
+burden, the anxiety which had already restrained her action and made her
+forego what she had never failed to feel as her duty, the carrying out
+of her father's will--of her husband's objection, of his opposition, of
+the terrible interview she had once had with him, when she had refused
+to acquiesce in his command. And then, with a sort of stealthy horror,
+she thought of his departure from that opposition, and asked herself,
+would he, for Bice's sake, consent to that which he had so much objected
+to in other cases? This it was that made her shrink from herself and her
+own thoughts, and hurry into her room for the solace of Fletcher's
+companionship, and to put off as long as she could the discussion of the
+question. Would Sir Tom agree to everything? Would he make no
+objections--for Bice's sake?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE CONTESSA'S TACTICS.
+
+
+That morning the whole party came down to breakfast expectant, for,
+notwithstanding the Contessa's habit of not appearing, it was supposed
+that the young lady whom most people supposed to have arrived very
+recently must be present at the morning meal. Young Montjoie, who was
+generally very late, appeared among the first; and there was a look of
+curiosity and anxiety in his face as he turned towards the door every
+time it was opened, which betrayed his motive. But this expectation was
+not destined to be repaid. Bice did not appear at breakfast. She did not
+even come downstairs, though the Contessa did, for luncheon. When Madame
+di Forno-Populo came in to this meal there was a general elevation of
+all heads and eager look towards her, to which she replied with her
+usual smile but no explanation of any kind; nor would she make any
+reply, even to direct questions. She did nothing but smile when Montjoie
+demanded to know if Miss Forno-Populo was not coming downstairs, if she
+had gone away, if she were ill, if she would appear before three
+o'clock--with which questions he assailed her in downright fashion. When
+the Contessa did not smile she put on a look of injured sweetness.
+"What!" she said, "Am I then so little thought of? You have no more
+pleasure, ficklest of young men, in seeing me?" "Oh, I assure you,
+Countess," he cried, "that's all right, don't you know; but a fellow may
+ask. And then it was your own doing to make us so excited."
+
+"Yes, a fellow may ask," said the Contessa, smiling; but this was all
+the response she would give, nothing that could really throw the least
+light upon the subject of his curiosity. The other men of her following
+looked on with undisguised admiration at this skilled and accomplished
+woman. To see how she held in hand the youth whom they all considered as
+her victim was beautiful they thought; and bets even were going amongst
+them as to the certainty that she would land her big fish. Sir Tom, at
+the head of the table, did not regard the matter so lightly. There was a
+curve of annoyance in his forehead. He did not understand what game she
+was playing. It was, without doubt, a game of some sort, and its object
+was transparent enough; and Sir Tom could not easily forgive the
+dramatic efforts of the previous night, or endure the thought that his
+house was the scene of tactics so little creditable. He was vexed with
+the Contessa, with Bice, even with Lucy, who, he could not keep from
+saying to himself, should have found some means of baulking such an
+intention. He was somewhat mollified by the absence of Bice now, which
+seemed to him, perhaps, a tribute to his own evident disapproval; but
+still he was uneasy. It was not a fit thing to take place in his house.
+He saw far more clearly than he had done before that a stop should have
+been put ere now to the Contessa's operations, and in the light of last
+night's proceedings perceived his own errors in judgment--those errors
+which he had, indeed, been sensible of, yet condoned in himself with
+that wonderful charity which we show towards our own mistakes and
+follies. He ought not to have asked her to the Hall; he ought not to
+have permitted himself to be flattered and amused by her society, or to
+have encouraged her to remain, or to have been so weak as to ask the
+people she wished, which was the crowning error of all. He had invited
+Montjoie, a trifling boy in whom he felt little or no interest, to
+please her, without any definite idea as to what she meant, but only
+with an amused sense that she had designs on the lad which Montjoie was
+quite knowing enough to deliver himself from. But the turn things had
+taken displeased Sir Tom. It was too barefaced, he said to himself. He,
+too, felt like his more innocent wife, as if he were an accomplice in a
+social crime.
+
+"I've been swindled, don't you know," Montjoie said; "I've been taken a
+mean advantage of. None of these other beggars are going away like me.
+They will get all the good of the music to-night, and I shall be far
+away. I could cry to think of it, I could, don't you know; but you don't
+care a bit, Countess."
+
+The Contessa, as usual, smiled. "_Enfant_!" she said.
+
+"I am not an infant. I am just the same age as everybody, old enough to
+look after myself, don't you know, and pay for myself, and all that sort
+of thing. Besides, I haven't got any parents and guardians. Is that why
+you take such a base advantage of me?" cried the young man.
+
+"It is, perhaps, why----" The Contessa was not much in the way of
+answering questions; and when she had said this she broke off with a
+laugh. Was she going to say that this was why she had taken any trouble
+about him, with a frankness which it is sometimes part of the astutest
+policy to employ.
+
+"Why what? why what? Oh, come, you must tell me now," the young man
+said.
+
+"Why one takes so much interest in you," said the Contessa sweetly.
+"You shall come and see me, _cher petit Marquis_, in my little house
+that is to be, in Mayfair; for you have found me, _n'est ce pas_, a
+little house in Mayfair?" she said, turning to another of her train.
+
+"Hung with rose-coloured curtains and pink glass in the windows,
+according to your orders, Contessa," said the gentleman appealed to.
+
+"How good it is to have a friend! but those curtains will be terrible,"
+said the Contessa, with a shiver, "if it were not that I carry with me a
+few little things in a great box."
+
+"Oh, my dear Contessa, how many things you must have picked up!" cried
+Lady Anastasia. "That peep into your boudoir made me sick with envy;
+those Eastern embroideries, those Persian rugs! They have furnished me
+with a lovely paragraph for my paper, and it is such a delightful
+original idea to carry about one's pet furniture like one's dresses. It
+will become quite the fashion when it is known. And how I shall long to
+see that little house in Mayfair!"
+
+The Contessa smiled upon Lady Anastasia as she smiled upon the male
+friends that surrounded her. Her paper and her paragraphs were not to be
+despised, and those little mysterious intimations about the new beauty
+which it delighted her to make. Madame di Forno-Populo turned to
+Montjoie afterwards with a little wave of the hand. "You are going?" she
+said; "how sad for us! we shall have no song to make us gay to-night.
+But come and you shall sing to us in Mayfair."
+
+"Countess, you are only laughing at me. But I shall come, don't you
+know," said Montjoie, "whether you mean it or not."
+
+The company, who were so much interested in this conversation, did not
+observe the preoccupied looks of the master and mistress of the house,
+although to some of the gentlemen the gravity of Sir Tom was apparent
+enough. And not much wonder that he should be grave. Even the men who were
+most easy in their own code looked with a certain severity and
+astonishment upon him who had opened his door to the adventuress-Contessa,
+of whom they all judged the worst, without even the charitable
+acknowledgment which her enemy the Dowager had made, that there was
+nothing in her past history bad enough to procure her absolute expulsion
+from society. The men who crowded round her when she appeared, who
+flattered and paid their court to her, and even took a little credit to
+themselves as intimates of the siren, were one and all of opinion that to
+bring her into his house was discreditable to Sir Tom. They were even a
+little less respectful to Lucy for not knowing or finding out the quality
+of her guest. If Tom Randolph was beginning to find out that he had been a
+fool it was wonderful he had not made the discovery sooner. For he had
+been a fool, and no mistake! To bring that woman to England, to keep her
+in his house, to associate her in men's minds with his wife--the worst of
+his present guests found it most difficult to forgive him. But they were
+all the more interested in the situation from the fact that Sir Tom was
+beginning to feel the effects of his folly. He said very little during
+that meal. He took no notice of the badinage going on between the Contessa
+and her train. When he spoke at all it was to that virtuous mother at his
+other hand, who was not at all amusing, and talked of nothing but Edith
+and Minnie, and her successful treatment of them through all the nursery
+troubles of their life.
+
+Lucy, at the other end of the table, was scarcely more expansive. She
+had been relieved by the absence of Bice, which, in her innocence, she
+believed to be a concession to her own anxiety, feeling a certain
+gratitude to the Contessa for thus foregoing the chance of another
+interview with Montjoie. It could never have occurred to Lucy to suppose
+that this was policy on the Contessa's part, and that her refusal to
+satisfy Montjoie was in reality planned to strengthen her hold on him,
+and to increase the curiosity she pretended to baffle. Lucy had no such
+artificial idea in her mind. She accepted the girl's withdrawal as a
+tribute to her own powers of persuasion, and a proof that though the
+Contessa had been led astray by her foreign notions, she was yet ready
+to perceive and adopt the more excellent way. This touched Lucy's heart
+and made her feel that she was herself bound to reciprocate the
+generosity. They had done it without knowing anything about the
+intention in her mind, and it should be hers to carry out that intention
+liberally, generously, not like an unwilling giver. She cast many a
+glance at her husband while this was going through her mind. Would he
+object as before? or would he, because it was the Contessa who was to be
+benefited, make no objection? Lucy did not know which of the two it
+would be most painful to her to bear. She had read carefully the
+paragraph in her father's will about foreigners, and had found there was
+no distinct objection to foreigners, only a preference the other way.
+She knew indeed, but would not permit herself to think, that these were
+not persons who would have commended themselves to Mr. Trevor as objects
+of his bounty. Mr. Churchill, with his large family, was very
+different. But to endow two frivolous and expensive women with a portion
+of his fortune was a thing to which he never would have consented. With
+a certain shiver she recognised this; and then she made a rush past the
+objection and turned her back upon it. It was quite a common form of
+beneficence in old times to provide a dower for a girl that she might
+marry. What could there be wrong in providing a poor girl with something
+to live upon that she might not be forced into a mercenary marriage?
+While all the talk was going on at the other end of the table she was
+turning this over in her mind--the manner of it, the amount of it, all
+the details. She did not hear the talk, it was immaterial to her, she
+cared not for it. Now and then she gave an anxious look at Sir Tom at
+the other end. He was serious. He did not laugh as usual. What was he
+thinking of? Would his objections be forgotten because it was the
+Contessa or would he oppose her and struggle against her? Her heart beat
+at the thought of the conflict which might be before her; or perhaps if
+there was no conflict, if he were too willing, might not that be the
+worst of all!
+
+Thus the background against which the Contessa wove her web of smiles
+and humorous schemes was both dark and serious. There were many shadows
+behind that frivolous central light. Herself the chief actor, the
+plotter, she to whom only it could be a matter of personal advantage,
+was perhaps the least serious of all the agents in it. The others
+thought of possibilities dark enough, of perhaps the destruction of
+family peace in this house which had been so hospitable to her, which
+had received her when no other house would; and some, of the success of
+a plan which did not deserve to succeed, and some of the danger of a
+youth to whom at present all the world was bright. All these things
+seemed to be involved in the present crisis. What more likely than that
+Lucy, at last enlightened, should turn upon her husband, who no doubt
+had forced this uncongenial companion upon her, should turn from Sir Tom
+altogether, and put her trust in him no longer! And the men who most
+admired the Contessa were those who looked with the greatest horror upon
+a marriage made by her, and called young Montjoie poor little beggar and
+poor devil, wondering much whether he ought not to be "spoken to." The
+men were not sorry for Bice, nor thought of her at all in the matter,
+save to conclude her a true pupil of the guardian whom most of them
+believed to be her mother. But in this point where the others were
+wanting Lucy came in, whose simple heart bled for the girl about to be
+sacrificed to a man whom she could not love. Thus tragical surmises
+floated in the air about Madame di Forno-Populo, that arch plotter whose
+heart was throbbing indeed with her success, and the hope of successes
+to come, but who had no tragical alarms in her breast. She was perfectly
+easy in her mind about Sir Tom and Lucy. Even if a matrimonial quarrel
+should be the result, what was that to an experienced woman of the
+world, who knew that such things are only for the minute? and neither
+Bice nor Montjoie caused her any alarm. Bice was perfectly pleased with
+the little Marquis. He amused her. She had not the slightest objection
+to him; and as for Montjoie, he was perfectly well able to take care of
+himself. So that while everybody else was more or less anxious, the
+Contessa in the centre of all her webs was perfectly tranquil. She was
+not aware that she wished harm to any man, or woman either. Her light
+heart and easy conscience carried her quite triumphantly through all.
+
+When Montjoie had gone away, carrying in his pocket-book the address of
+the little house in Mayfair, and when the party had dispersed to walk or
+ride or drive, as each thought fit, Lucy, who was doing neither, met her
+husband coming out of his den. Sir Tom was full of a remorseful sense
+that he had wronged Lucy. He took her by both hands, and drew her into
+his room. It was a long time since he had met her with the same
+effusion. "You are looking very serious," he said, "you are vexed, and I
+don't wonder; but I see land, Lucy. It will be over directly--only a
+week more----"
+
+"I thought you were looking serious, Tom," she said.
+
+"So I was, my love. All that business last night was more than I could
+stand. You may think me callous enough, but I could not stand that."
+
+"Tom!" said Lucy, faltering. It seemed an opportunity she could not let
+slip--but how she trembled between her two terrors! "There is something
+that I want to say to you."
+
+"Say whatever you like, Lucy," he cried; "but for God's sake don't
+tremble, my little woman, when you speak to me. I've done nothing to
+deserve that."
+
+"I am not trembling," said Lucy, with the most innocent and transparent
+of falsehoods. "But oh, Tom, I am so sorry, so unhappy."
+
+"For what?" he said. He did not know what accusation she might be going
+to bring against him; and how could he defend himself? Whatever she
+might say he was sure to be half guilty; and if she thought him wholly
+guilty, how could he prevent it? A hot colour came up upon his
+middle-aged face. To have to blush when you are past the age of blushing
+is a more terrible necessity than the young can conceive.
+
+"Oh, Tom!" cried Lucy again, "for Bice! Can we stand by and let her be
+sacrificed? She is not much more than a child; and she is always so good
+to little Tom."
+
+"For Bice!" he cried. In the relief of his mind he was ready to have
+done anything for Bice. He laughed with a somewhat nervous tremulous
+outburst. "Why, what is the matter with her?" he said. "She did her part
+last night with assurance enough. She is young indeed, but she ought to
+have known better than that."
+
+"She is very young, and it is the way she has been brought up--how
+should she know any better? But, Tom, if she had any fortune she would
+not be compelled to marry. How can we stand by and see her sacrificed to
+that odious young man?"
+
+"What odious young man?" said Sir Tom, astonished, and then with another
+burst of his old laughter such as had not been heard for weeks, he cried
+out: "Montjoie! Why, Lucy, are you crazy? Half the girls in England are
+in competition for him. Sacrificed to----! She will be in the greatest
+luck if she ever has such a chance."
+
+Lucy gave him a reproachful look.
+
+"How can you say so? A little vulgar boy--a creature not worthy to----"
+
+"My dear, you are prejudiced. You are taking Jock's view. That worthy's
+opinion of a fellow who never rose above Lower Fourth is to be received
+with reservation. A fellow may be a scug, and yet not a bad fellow--that
+is what Jock has yet to learn."
+
+"Oh, Tom, I cannot laugh," said Lucy. "What can she do, the Contessa
+says? She must marry the first that offers, and in the meantime she
+attracts notice _like that_. It is dreadful to think of it. I think that
+some one--that we--I--ought to interfere."
+
+"My innocent Lucy," said Sir Tom, "how can you interfere? You know
+nothing about the tactics of such people. I am very penitent for my
+share in the matter. I ought not to have brought so much upon you."
+
+"Oh, Tom," cried Lucy again, drawing closer to him, eager to anticipate
+with her pardon any blame to which he might be liable. And then she
+added, returning to her own subject: "She is of English parentage--on
+one side."
+
+Why this fact, so simply stated, should have startled her husband so
+much, Lucy could not imagine. He almost gasped as he met her eyes, as if
+he had received or feared a sudden blow, and underneath the brownness of
+his complexion grew suddenly pale, all the ruddy colour forsaking his
+face. "Of English parentage!" he said, faltering, "do you mean?--what do
+you mean? Why--do you tell this to me?"
+
+Lucy was surprised, but saw no significance in his agitation. And her
+mind was full of her own purpose. "Because of the will which is against
+foreigners," she said simply. "But in that case she would not be a
+foreigner, Tom. I think a great deal of this. I want to do it. Oh, don't
+oppose me! It makes it so much harder when you go against me."
+
+He gazed at her with a sort of awe. He did not seem able to speak. What
+she had said, though she was unconscious of any special meaning in it,
+seemed to have acted upon him like a spell. There was something tragic
+in his look which frightened Lucy. She came closer still and put her
+hand upon his arm.
+
+"Oh, it is not to trouble you, Tom; it is not that I want to go against
+you! But give me your consent this once. Baby is so fond of her, and she
+is so good to him. I want to give something to Bice. Let me make a
+provision for her?" she said, pleading. "Do not take all the pleasure
+out of it and oppose me. Oh, dear Tom, give me your free consent!" Lucy
+cried.
+
+He kept gazing at her with that look of awe. "Oppose you!" he said. What
+was the shock he had received which made him so unlike himself? His very
+lips quivered as he spoke. "God forgive me; what have I been doing?" he
+cried. "Lucy, I think I will never oppose you more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+DISCOVERIES.
+
+
+This interview had an agitating and painful effect upon Lucy, though she
+could not tell why. It was not what she expected or feared--neither in
+one sense nor the other. He had neither distressed her by opposing her
+proceedings, nor accepted her beneficence towards the Contessa with
+levity and satisfaction, both of which dangers she had been prepared
+for. Instead, however, of agitating her by the reception he gave to her
+proposal, it was he who was agitated by something which in entire
+unconsciousness she had said. But what that could be Lucy could not
+divine. She had said nothing that could affect him personally so far as
+she knew. She went over every word of the conversation without being
+able to discover what could have had this effect. But she could find
+nothing, there was no clue anywhere that her unconscious mind could
+discover. She concluded finally with much compunction that it was the
+implied reproach that he had taken away all pleasure in what she did by
+opposing her, that had so disturbed her husband. He was so kind. He had
+not been able to bear even the possibility that his opposition had been
+a source of pain. "I think I will never oppose you any more." In an
+answering burst of generosity Lucy said to herself that she did not
+desire this; that she preferred that he should find fault and object
+when he disapproved, not consent to everything. But the reflection of
+the disturbance she had seen in her husband's countenance was in her
+mind all day; she could not shake it off; and he was so grave that every
+look she cast at him strengthened the impression. He did not approach
+the circle in which the Contessa sat all the evening, but stood apart,
+silent, taking little notice of anybody until Mr. Derwentwater secured
+his ear, when Sir Tom, instead of his usual genial laugh at MTutor's
+solemnities, discharged little caustic criticisms which astonished his
+companion. Mr. Derwentwater was going away next day, and he, too, was
+preoccupied. After that conversation with Sir Tom, he betook himself to
+Lucy, who was very silent too, and doing little for the entertainment of
+her guests. He made her sundry pretty speeches, such as are appropriate
+from a departing guest.
+
+"Jock has made up his mind to stay behind," he said. "I am sorry, but I
+am not surprised. I shall lose a most agreeable travelling companion;
+but, perhaps, home influences are best for the young."
+
+"I don't know why Jock has changed his mind, Mr. Derwentwater. He wanted
+very much to go."
+
+"He would say that here's metal more attractive," said the tutor with an
+offended smile; and then he paused, and, clearing his throat, asked in a
+still more evident tone of offence--"Does not your young friend the
+Signorina appear again? I thought from her appearance last night that
+she was making her _début_."
+
+"Yes, it was like it," said Lucy. "The Contessa is not like one of us,"
+she added after a moment. "She has her own ways--and, perhaps, I don't
+know--that may be the Italian fashion."
+
+"Not at all," Mr. Derwentwater said promptly. He was an authority upon
+national usages. "But I am afraid it was very transparent what the
+Contessa meant," he said, after a pause.
+
+To this Lucy made no reply, and the tutor, who was sensitive, especially
+as to bad taste, reddened at his inappropriate observation. He went on
+hastily; "The Signorina--or should I say Mademoiselle di
+Forno-Populo?--has a great deal of charm. I do not know if she is so
+beautiful as her mother----"
+
+"Oh, not her mother," cried Lucy quickly, with a smile at the mistake.
+
+"Is she not her mother? The young lady's face indeed is different. It is
+of a higher order--it is full of thought. It is noble in repose. She
+does not seem made for these scenes of festivity, if you will pardon me,
+Lady Randolph, but for the higher retirements----"
+
+"Oh, she is very fond of seeing people," said Lucy. "You must not
+suppose she is too serious for her age. She enjoyed herself last night."
+
+"There is no age," said Mr. Derwentwater, "at which one can be too
+serious--and especially in youth, when all the world is before one, when
+one cannot tell what effect a careless step may have one way or another.
+It is just that sweet gravity that charms me. I think she was quite out
+of her element, excuse me for saying so, Lady Randolph, last night."
+
+"Do you think so? Oh, I am afraid not. I am afraid she liked it," said
+Lucy. "Jock, don't you think Bice liked it. I should much rather think
+not, but I am afraid--I am afraid----"
+
+"She couldn't like that little cad," said Jock, who had drawn near with
+an instinctive sense that something was going on which concerned him.
+"But she's never solemn either," added the boy.
+
+"Is that for me, Jock?" said MTutor, with a pensive gentleness of
+reproach. "Well, never mind. We must all put up with little
+misunderstandings from the younger generation. Some time or other you
+will judge differently. I should like to have had an opportunity again
+of such music as we heard last night; but I suppose I must not hope for
+it."
+
+"Oh, do you mean Lord Montjoie's song?" cried one of the young ladies in
+blue, who had drawn near. "Wasn't it fun? Of course I know it wasn't to
+be compared to the Contessa; but I've no musical taste. I always confess
+it--that's Edith's line. But Lord Montjoie _was_ fun. Don't you think
+so, dear Lady Randolph," Miss Minnie said.
+
+Mr. Derwentwater gave her one glance, and retired, Jock following.
+"Perhaps that's your opinion too," he said, "that Lord Montjoie's was
+fun?"
+
+"He's a scug," said Jock, laconically, "that's all I think about him."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater took the lad's arm. "And yet," he said, "Jock, though
+you and I consider ourselves his superiors, that is the fellow that will
+carry off the prize. Beauty and genius are for him. He must have the
+best that humanity can produce. You ought to be too young to have any
+feeling on the subject; but it is a humiliating thought."
+
+"Bice will have nothing to say to him," said Jock, with straightforward
+application of the abstract description; but MTutor shook his head.
+
+"How can we tell the persecutions to which Woman is subject?" he said.
+"You and I, Jock, are in a very different position. But we should try to
+realise, though it is difficult, those dangers to which she is subject.
+Kept indoors," said MTutor, with pathos in his voice, "debarred from all
+knowledge of the world, with all the authorities about her leading one
+way. How can we tell what is said to her? with a host of petty maxims
+preaching down a daughter's heart--strange!" cried Mr. Derwentwater,
+with a closer pressure of the boy's arm, "that the most lovely existence
+should thus continually be led to link itself with the basest. We must
+not blame Woman; we must keep her idea sacred, whatever happens in our
+own experience."
+
+"It always sets one right to talk to you," cried Jock, full of emotion.
+"I was a beast to say that."
+
+"My boy, don't you think I understand the disturbance in your mind?"
+with a sigh, MTutor said.
+
+They had left the drawing-room during the course of this conversation,
+and were crossing the hall on the way to the library, when some one
+suddenly drew back with a startled movement from the passage which led
+to Sir Tom's den. Then there followed a laugh, and "Oh, is it only you!"
+after which there came forth a slim shadow, as unlike as possible to the
+siren of the previous night. "We have met before, and I don't mind. Is
+there any one else coming?" Bice said.
+
+"Why do you hide and skulk in corners?" cried Jock. "Why shouldn't you
+meet any one? Have you done something wrong?"
+
+This made Bice laugh still more. "You don't understand," she said.
+
+"Signorina," said Mr. Derwentwater (who was somewhat proud of having
+remembered this good abstract title to give to the mysterious girl), "I
+am going away to-morrow, and perhaps I shall never hear you again. Your
+voice seemed to open the heavenly gates. Why, since you are so good as
+to consider us different from the others, won't you sing to us once
+more?"
+
+"Sing?" said Bice, with a little surprise; "but by myself my voice is
+not much----"
+
+"It is like a voice out of heaven," Mr. Derwentwater said fervently.
+
+"Do you really, really think so?" she said with a wondering look. She
+was surprised, but pleased too. "I don't think you would care for it
+without the Contessa's; but, perhaps----" Then she looked round her with
+a reflective look. "What can I do? There is no piano, and then these
+people would hear." After this a sudden idea struck her. She laughed
+aloud like a child with sudden glee. "I don't suppose it would be any
+harm! You belong to the house--and then there is Marietta. Yes! Come!"
+she cried suddenly, rushing up the great staircase and waving her hand
+impatiently, beckoning them to follow. "Come quick, quick," she cried;
+"I hear some one coming," and flew upstairs. They followed her, Mr.
+Derwentwater passing Jock, who hung back a little, and did not know
+what to think of this adventure. "Come quick," she cried, darting along
+the dimly-lighted corridor with a laugh that rang lightly along like the
+music to which her steps were set. "Oh, come in, come in. They will
+hear, but they will not know where it comes from." The young men
+stupefied, hesitating, followed her. They found themselves among all the
+curiosities and luxuries of the Contessa's boudoir. And in a moment Bice
+had placed herself at the little piano which was placed across one of
+the corners, its back covered with a wonderful piece of Eastern
+embroidery which would have invited Derwentwater's attention had he been
+able to fix that upon anything but Bice. As it was, he gave a half
+regard to these treasures. He would have examined them all with the
+devotion of a connoisseur but for her presence, which exercised a spell
+still more subtle than that of art.
+
+The sound of the singing penetrated vaguely even into the drawing-room,
+where the Contessa, startled, rose from her seat much earlier than
+usual. Lucy, who attended her dutifully upstairs according to her usual
+custom, was dismayed beyond measure by seeing Jock and his tutor issue
+from that door. Bice came with them, with an air of excitement and
+triumphant satisfaction. She had been singing, and the inspiration and
+applause had gone to her head. She met the ladies not with the air of a
+culprit, but in all the boldness of innocence. "They like to hear me,
+even by myself," she cried; "they have listened, as if I had been an
+angel." And she clapped her hands with almost childish pleasure.
+
+"Perhaps they think you are," said the Contessa, who shook her head, yet
+smiled with sympathy. "You must not say to these messieurs below that
+you have been in my room. Oh, I know the confidences of a smoking-room!
+You must not brag, _mes amis_. For Bice does not understand the
+_convenances_, nor remember that this is England, where people meet only
+in the drawing-room."
+
+"Divine forgetfulness!" murmured Derwentwater. Jock, for his part,
+turned his back with a certain sense of shame. He had liked it, but he
+had not thought it right. The room altogether, with its draperies and
+mysteries, had conveyed to him a certain intoxication as of wrong-doing.
+Something that was dangerous was in the air of it. It was seductive, it
+was fascinating; he had felt like a man banished when Bice had started
+from the piano and bidden them "Go away; go away!" in the same laughing
+tone in which she had bidden them come. But the moment he was outside
+the threshold his impulse was to escape--to rush out of sight--and
+obliterate even from his own mind the sense that he had been there. To
+meet the Contessa, and still more his sister, full in the face, was a
+shock to all his susceptibilities. He turned his back upon them, and but
+that his fellow-culprit made a momentary stand, would have fled away.
+Lucy partook of Jock's feeling. It wounded her to see him at that door.
+She gave him a glance of mingled reproach and pity; a vague sense that
+these were siren-women dangerous to all mankind stole into her heart.
+
+But Lucy was destined to a still greater shock. The party from the
+smoking-room was late in breaking up. The sound of their steps and
+voices as they came upstairs roused Lady Randolph, not from sleep--for
+she had been unable to sleep--but from the confused maze of
+recollections and efforts to think which distracted her placid soul. She
+was not made for these agitations. The constitution of her mind was
+overset altogether. The moment that suspicion and distrust came in there
+was no further strength in her. She was lying not thinking so much as
+remembering stray words and looks which drifted across her memory as
+across a dim mirror, with a meaning in them which she did not grasp. She
+was not clever. She could not put this and that together with the
+dolorous skill which some women possess. It is a skill which does not
+promote the happiness of the possessor, but perhaps it is scarcely more
+happy to stand in the midst of a vague mass of suggestions without being
+able to make out what they mean, which was Lucy's case. She did not
+understand her husband's sudden excitement; what it had to do with Bice,
+with the Contessa, with her own resolution and plans she could not tell,
+but felt vaguely that many things deeply concerning her were in the air,
+and was unhappy in the confusion of her thoughts. For a long time after
+the sounds of various persons coming upstairs had died away, Lucy lay
+silent waiting for her husband's appearance--but at last unable to bear
+the vague wretchedness of her thoughts any longer, got up and put on a
+dressing-gown and stole out into the dark gallery to go to the nursery
+to look at her boy asleep, which was her best anodyne. The lights were
+all extinguished except the faint ray that came from the nursery door,
+and Lucy went softly towards that, anxious to disturb little Tom by no
+sound. As she did so a door suddenly opened, sending a glare of light
+into the dark corridor. It was the door of the Contessa's room, and with
+the light came Sir Tom, the Contessa herself appearing after him on the
+threshold. She was still in her dinner dress, and her appearance
+remained long impressed upon Lucy's imagination like a photograph
+without colour, in shadow and light. She gave Sir Tom a little packet
+apparently of letters, and then she held out both hands to him, which he
+took in his. Something seemed to flash through Lucy's heart like a
+knife, quivering like the "pale death" of the poet, in sight and sense.
+The sudden surprise and pang of it was such for a moment that she seemed
+turned into stone, and stood gazing like a spectre in her white flowing
+dress, her face more white, her eyes and mouth open in the misery and
+trouble of the moment. Then she stole back softly into her room--her
+head throbbing, her heart beating--and buried her face in her pillow and
+closed her eyes. Even baby could not soothe her in this unlooked-for
+pang. And then she heard his step come slowly along the gallery. How was
+she to look at him? how listen to him in the shock of such an
+extraordinary discovery? She took refuge in a semblance of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+LUCY'S DISCOVERY.
+
+
+When it happens to an innocent and simple soul to find out suddenly at a
+stroke the falsehood of some one upon whose truth the whole universe
+depends, the effect is such as perhaps has never been put forth by any
+attempt at psychological investigation. When it happens to a great mind,
+we have Hamlet with all the world in ruins round him--all other thoughts
+as of revenge or ambition are but secondary and spasmodic, since neither
+revenge nor advancement can put together again the works of life or
+make man delight him, or woman either. But Lady Randolph was not a
+Hamlet. She had no genius, nor even a great intellect to be
+unhinged--scarcely mind enough to understand how it was that the glory
+had paled out of earth and sky, and all the world seemed different when
+she rose from her uneasy bed next morning, pale, after a night without
+sleep, in which she had not been able to have even the relief of
+restlessness, but had lain motionless, without even a sigh or tear, so
+crushed by the unexpected blow that she could neither fathom nor
+understand what had happened to her. She was too pure herself to jump at
+any thought of gross infidelity. She felt she knew not what--that the
+world had gone to pieces--that she did not know how to shape it again
+into anything--that she could not look into her husband's face, or
+command her voice to speak to him, for shame of the thought that he had
+failed in truth. Lucy felt somehow as if she were the culprit. She was
+ashamed to look him in the face. She made an early visit to the nursery,
+and stayed there pretending various little occupations until she heard
+Sir Tom go down stairs. He had returned so much to the old ways, and now
+that the house was full, and there were other people to occupy the
+Contessa, had shown so clearly (as Lucy had thought) that he was pleased
+to be liberated from his attendance upon her, that the cloud that had
+risen between them had melted away; and indeed, for some time back, it
+had been Lucy who was the Contessa's stay and support, a change at which
+Sir Tom had sometimes laughed. All had been well between the husband and
+wife during the early part of the season parliamentary, the beginning of
+their life in London. Sir Tom had been much engrossed with the cares of
+public life, but he had been delightful to Lucy, whose faith in him and
+his new occupations was great. And it was exhilarating to think that the
+Contessa had secured that little house in Mayfair for her own campaign,
+and that something like a new honeymoon was about to begin for the pair,
+whose happiness had seemed for a moment to tremble in the balance. Lucy
+had been looking forward to the return to London with a more bright and
+conscious anticipation of well-being than she had ever experienced. In
+the first outset of life happiness seems a necessary of existence. It is
+calculated upon without misgiving; it is simple nature, beyond question.
+But when the natural "of course" has once been broken, it is with a
+warmer glow of content that we see the prospect once more stretching
+before us bright as at first and more assured. This is how Lucy had been
+regarding her life. It was not so simple, so easy as it once had been,
+but the happiness to which she was looking forward, and which she had
+already partially entered into possession of, was all the more sweet and
+dear, that she had known, or fancied herself about to know, the loss and
+absence of it. Now, in a moment, all that fair prospect, that blessed
+certainty, was gone. The earth was cut away from under her feet; she
+felt everything to be tottering, falling round her, and nothing in all
+the universe to lay hold of to prop herself up; for when the pillars of
+the world are thus unrooted the heaving of the earthquake and the
+falling of the ruins impart a certain vertigo and giddy instability even
+to heaven.
+
+Fletcher, Lucy's maid, who was usually discreet enough, waited upon her
+mistress that morning with a certain air of importance, and of knowing
+something which she was bursting with eagerness to tell, such as must
+have attracted Lady Randolph's attention in any other circumstances. But
+Lucy was far too much occupied with what was in her own mind to observe
+the perturbation of the maid, who consequently had no resource, since
+her mistress would not question her, than to introduce herself the
+subject on which she was so anxious to utter her mind. She began by
+inquiring if her ladyship had heard the music last night. "The music?"
+Lucy said.
+
+"Oh, my lady, haven't you heard what a singer Miss Beachy has turned
+out?" Fletcher cried.
+
+Lucy, to whom all this seemed dim and far away as if it had happened
+years ago, answered with a faint smile--"Yes, she has a lovely voice."
+
+"It is not my place," said Fletcher, "being only a servant, to make
+remarks; but, my lady, if I might make so bold, it do seem to the like
+of us an 'orrible thing to take advantage of a young lady like your
+ladyship that thinks no harm."
+
+"You should not make such remarks," said Lucy, roused a little.
+
+"No, my lady; but still a woman is a woman, even though but a servant. I
+said to Mrs. Freshwater I was sure your ladyship would never sanction
+it. I never thought that of Miss Beachy, I will allow. I always said she
+was a nice young lady; but evil communications, my lady--we all know
+what the Bible says. Gentlemen upstairs in her room and her singing to
+them, and laughing and talking like as no housemaid in the house as
+valued her character would do----"
+
+"Fletcher," said Lucy, "you must say no more about this. It was Mr. Jock
+and Mr. Derwentwater only who were with Miss Bice--and with my
+permission," she added after a moment, "as he is going away to-morrow."
+Such deceits are so easy to learn.
+
+"Oh-oh!" Miss Fletcher cried, with a quaver in her voice. "I beg your
+pardon, my lady; I'm sure--I thought--there must be something
+underneath, and that Miss Beachy would never---- And when she was down
+with Sir Thomas in the study it would be the same, my lady?" the woman
+said.
+
+"With Sir Thomas in the study!" The words went vaguely into Lucy's mind.
+It had not seemed possible to increase the confusion and misery in her
+brain, but this produced a heightening of it, a sort of wave of
+bewilderment and pain greater than before, a sense of additional
+giddiness and failing. She gave a wave of her hand and said something,
+she scarcely knew what, which silenced Fletcher; and then she went down
+stairs to the new world. She did not go to the nursery even, as was her
+wont; her heart turned from little Tom. She felt that to look at him
+would be more than she could bear. There was no deceit in him, no
+falsehood--as yet; but perhaps when he grew up he would cheat her too.
+He would pretend to love her and betray her trust; he would kiss her,
+and then go away and scoff at her; he would smile, and smile, and be a
+villain. Such words were not in Lucy's mind, and it was altogether out
+of nature that she should even receive the thought: which made it all
+the more terrible when it was poured into her soul. And it cannot be
+told what discoveries she seemed to make even in the course of that
+morning in this strange condition of her mind. There was a haze over
+everything, but yet there was an enlightenment even in the haze. She saw
+in her little way, as Hamlet saw the falsehood of his courtiers, his
+gallant young companions, and the schemes of Polonius, and even Ophelia
+in the plot to trap him. She saw how false all these people were in
+their civilities, in their extravagant thanks and compliments to her as
+they went away; for the Easter recess was just over, and everybody was
+going. The mother and her daughters said to her, "Such a delightful
+visit, dear Lady Randolph!" with kisses of farewell and wreathed smiles;
+and she perceived, somehow by a sort of second sight, that they added to
+each other, "Oh, what a bore it has been; nobody worth meeting," and
+"how thankful I am it's over!" which was indeed what Miss Minnie and
+Miss Edith said. If Lucy had seen a little deeper she would have known
+that this too was a sort of conventional falsity which the young ladies
+said to each other, according to the fashion of the day, without any
+meaning to speak of; but one must have learned a great many lessons
+before one comes to that.
+
+Then Jock, who had been woke up in quite a different way, took leave of
+MTutor, that god of his old idolatry, without being able to refrain from
+some semblance of the old absorbing affection.
+
+"I am so sorry you are not coming with me, old fellow," Mr. Derwentwater
+said.
+
+Jock replied, "So am I," with an effort, as if firing a parting volley
+in honour of his friend: but then turned gloomily with an expression of
+relief. "I'm glad he's gone, Lucy."
+
+"Then you did not want to go with him, Jock?"
+
+"I wouldn't have gone for anything. I've just got to that--that I can't
+bear him," cried Jock.
+
+And Lucy, in the midst of the ruins, felt her head go round: though here
+too it was the falsehood that was fictitious, had she but known. It is
+not, however, in the nature of such a shock that any of those
+alleviating circumstances which modify the character of human sentiment
+can be taken into account. Lucy had taken everything for gospel in the
+first chapter of existence; she had believed what everybody said; and
+like every other human soul, after such a discovery as she had made, she
+went to the opposite extremity now--not wittingly, not voluntarily--but
+the pillars of the earth were shaken, and nothing stood fast.
+
+They went up to town next day. In the meantime she had little or no
+intercourse with the Contessa, who was preparing for the journey and
+absorbed in letter-writing, making known to everybody whom she could
+think of, the existence of the little house in Mayfair. It is doubtful
+whether she so much as observed any difference in the demeanour of her
+hostess, having in fact the most unbounded confidence in Lucy, whom she
+did not believe capable of any such revulsion of feeling. Bice was more
+clear-sighted, but she thought Milady was displeased with her own
+proceedings, and sought no further for a cause. And the only thing the
+girl could do was to endeavour by all the little devices she could think
+of to show the warm affection she really felt for Lucy--a method which
+made the heart of Lucy more and more sick with that sense of falsehood
+which sometimes rose in her, almost to the height of passion. A woman
+who had ever learned to use harsh words, or to whose mind it had ever
+been possible to do or say anything to hurt another, would no doubt have
+burst forth upon the girl with some reproach or intimation of doubt
+which might have cleared the matter so far as Bice went. But Lucy had no
+such words at her command. She could not say anything unkind. It was not
+in her. She could be silent, indeed, but not even that, so far as to
+"hurt the feelings" of her companion. The effect, therefore, was only
+that Lucy laboured to maintain a little artificial conversation, which
+in its turn reacted upon her mind, showing that even in herself there
+was the same disposition to insincerity which she had begun to discover
+in the world. She could say nothing to Bice about the matters which a
+little while before, when all was well, she had grieved over and
+objected to. Now she had nothing to say on such subjects. That the girl
+should be set up to auction, that she should put forth all those arts in
+which she had been trained, to attract and secure young Montjoie, or any
+like him, were things which had passed beyond her sphere. To think of
+them rendered her heart more sick, her head more giddy. But if Bice
+married some one whom she did not love, that was not so bad as to think
+that perhaps she herself all this time had been living with, and loving,
+in sacred trust and faith, a man who even by her side was full of
+thoughts unknown to her, given to another. Sometimes Lucy closed her
+eyes in a sort of sick despair, feeling everything about her go round
+and round. But she said nothing to throw any light upon the state of her
+being. Sir Tom felt a little gravity--a little distance in his wife; but
+he himself was much occupied with a new and painful subject of thought.
+And Jock observed nothing at all, being at a stage when man (or boy) is
+wholly possessed with affairs of his own. He had his troubles, too. He
+was not easy about that breach with his master now that they were
+separated. When Bice was kind to him a gleam of triumph, mingled with
+pity, made him remorseful towards that earlier friend; and when she was
+unkind a bitter sense of fellowship turned Jock's thoughts towards that
+sublime ideal of masculine friendship which is above the lighter loves
+of women. How can a boy think of his sister when absorbed in such a
+mystery of his own?--even if he considered his sister at all as a person
+whom it was needful to think about--which he did not, Lucy being herself
+one of the pillars of the earth to his unopened eyes.
+
+All this, however, made no difference in Lucy's determination. She wrote
+to Mr. Rushton that very morning, after this revolution in her soul, to
+instruct him as to her intentions in respect to Bice, and to her other
+trustee in London to request him to see her immediately on her arrival
+in Park Lane. Nothing should be changed in that matter, for why, she
+said to herself, should Bice suffer because Sir Tom was untrue? It
+seemed to her that there was more reason than ever why she should rouse
+herself and throw off her inaction. No doubt there were many people whom
+she could make, if not happy, yet comfortable. It was comfortable
+(everybody said) to have enough of money--to be well off. Lucy had no
+experience of what it was to be without it. She thought to herself she
+would like to try, to have only what she actually wanted, to cook the
+food for her little family, to nurse little Tom all by herself, to live
+as the cottagers lived. There was in her mind no repugnance to any of
+the details of poverty. Her wealth was an accident; it was the habit of
+her race to be poor, and it seemed to Lucy that she would be happier
+could she shake off now all those external circumstances which had
+grown, like everything else, into falsehoods, giving an appearance of
+well-being which did not exist. But other people thought it well to have
+money, and it was her duty to give it. A kind of contempt rose within
+her for all that withheld her previously. To avoid her duty because it
+would displease Sir Tom--what was that but falsehood too? All was
+falsehood, only she had never seen it before.
+
+They reached town in the afternoon of a sweet April day, the sky aglow
+with a golden sunset, against which the trees in the park stood out with
+their half-developed buds: and all the freshness of the spring was in
+the long stretches of green, and the softened jubilee of sound to which
+somehow, as the air warms towards summer, the voices of the world
+outside tune themselves. The Contessa and Bice in great spirits and
+happiness, like two children home from school, had left the Randolph
+party at the railway, to take possession of the little house in Mayfair.
+They had both waved their hands from the carriage window and called out,
+"Be sure you come and see us," as they drove away. "You will come
+to-night," they had stipulated with Sir Tom and Jock. It was like a new
+toy which filled them with glee. Could it be possible that those two
+adventurers going off to their little temporary home with smiles so
+genuine, with so simple a delight in their new beginning, were not, in
+their strange way, innocent, full of guile and shifts as one was, and
+the other so apt a scholar? Lucy would have joined in all this pleasure
+two days ago, but she could not now. She went home to her luxurious
+house, where all was ready, as if she had not been absent an hour. How
+wonderfully wealth smooths away the inconveniences of change! and how
+little it has to do, Lucy thought, with the comfort of the soul! No need
+for any exertion on her part, any scuffling for the first arrival, any
+trouble of novelty. She came from the Hall to London without any sense
+of change. Had she been compelled to superintend the arrangement of her
+house, to make it habitable, to make it pretty, that would have done her
+good. But the only thing for her to do was to see Mr. Chervil, her
+trustee, who waited upon her according to her request, and who, after
+the usual remonstrances, took her instructions about the gift to Bice
+very unwillingly, but still with a forced submission. "If I cannot make
+you see the folly of it, Lady Randolph, and if Sir Thomas does not
+object, I don't know what more is to be said." "There is nothing more to
+be said," Lucy said, with a smile; but there was this difficulty in the
+proceeding which she had not thought of, that Bice's name all this time
+was unknown to her--Beatrice di Forno-Populo, she supposed, but the
+Contessa had never called her so, and it was necessary to be exact, Mr.
+Chervil said. He hailed this as an occasion of delay. He was not so
+violent as he had been on previous occasions when Lucy was young; and he
+did not, like Mr. Rushton, assume the necessity of speaking to Sir Tom.
+Mr. Chervil was a London solicitor, and knew very little about Sir Tom.
+But he was glad to seize upon anything that was good for a little delay.
+
+After this interview was over it was a mingled vexation and relief to
+Lucy to see the Dowager drive up to the door. Lady Randolph the elder
+was always in London from the first moment possible. She preferred the
+first bursting of the spring in the squares and parks. She liked to see
+her friends arrive by degrees, and to feel that she had so far the
+better of them. She came in, full as she always was of matter, with a
+thousand things to say. "I have come to stay to dinner, if you will have
+me," she said, "for of course Tom will be going out in the evening. They
+are always so glad to get back to their life." And it was, perhaps, a
+relief to have Lady Randolph to dinner, to be saved from the purely
+domestic party, to which Jock scarcely added any new element; but it was
+hard for Lucy to encounter even the brief questionings which were
+addressed to her in the short interval before dinner. "So you have got
+rid of that woman at last," Lady Randolph said; "I hear she has got a
+house in Mayfair."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Randolph, if you mean the Contessa," said Lucy.
+
+"And that she intends to make a bold _coup_ to get the girl off her
+hands. These sort of people so often succeed: I shouldn't wonder if she
+were to succeed. I always said the girl would be handsome, but I think
+she might have waited another year."
+
+To this Lucy made no reply, and it was necessary for the Dowager to
+carry on the conversation, so to speak, at her own cost.
+
+"I hope most earnestly, Lucy," she said, "that now you have got clear of
+them you will not mix yourself up with them again. You were placed in an
+uneasy position, very difficult to get out of, I will allow; but now
+that you have shaken them off, and they have proved they can get on
+without you, don't, I entreat you, mix yourself up with them again."
+
+Lucy could not keep the blood from mounting, and colouring her face. She
+had always spoken of the Contessa calmly before. She tried to keep her
+composure now. "Dear Aunt Randolph, I have not shaken them off. They
+have gone away of themselves, and how can I refuse to see them? There is
+to be a party here for them on the 26th."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear, that was very imprudent! I had hoped you would
+keep clear of them in London. It is one thing showing kindness to an old
+friend in the country, and it is quite another----"
+
+Here Lucy made an imperative gesture, almost commanding silence. Sir Tom
+was coming into the room. She was seated in the great bay window
+against the early twilight, the soft radiance of which dazzled the eyes
+of the elder lady, and prevented her from perceiving her nephew's
+approach. But Lady Randolph, before she rose to meet him, gave a
+startled look at Lucy. "Have you found it out, then?" she said
+involuntarily, in her great surprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION.
+
+
+The Dowager was a woman far more clever than Lucy, who knew the world.
+And she was apt perhaps, instead of missing the meaning of the facts
+around her, to put too much significance in them. Now, when the little
+party met at dinner, Lady Randolph saw in the faces of both husband and
+wife more than was there, though much was there. Sir Tom was more grave
+than became a man who had returned into life, as his aunt said, and was
+looking forward to resuming the better part of existence--the House, the
+clubs, the quick throb of living which is in London. His countenance was
+full of thought, and there was both trouble and perplexity in it, but
+not the excitement which the Dowager supposed she found there, and those
+signs of having yielded to an evil influence which eyes accustomed to
+the world are so ready to discover. Lucy for her part was pale and
+silent. She had little to say, and scarcely addressed her husband at
+all. Lady Randolph, and that was very natural, took those signs of heart
+sickness for tokens of complete enlightenment, for the passion of a
+woman who had entered upon that struggle with another woman for a man's
+love which, even when the man is her husband, has something degrading in
+it. There had been a disclosure, a terrible scene, no doubt, a stirring
+up of all the passions, Lady Randolph thought. No doubt that was the
+reason why the Contessa had loosed her clutches, and left the house free
+of her presence; but Lucy was still trembling after the tempest, and had
+not learned to take any pleasure in her victory. This was the conclusion
+of the woman of the world.
+
+The dinner was not a lengthy one, and the ladies went upstairs again,
+with a suppressed constraint, each anxious to know what the other was on
+her guard not to tell. They sat alone expectant for some time, making
+conversation, taking their coffee, listening, and watching each how the
+other listened, for the coming of the gentlemen, or rather for Sir Tom;
+for Jock, in his boyish insignificance, counted for little. The trivial
+little words that passed between them during this interval were charged
+with a sort of moral electricity, and stung and tingled in the too
+conscious silence. At length, after some time had elapsed: "I am glad I
+came," said Lady Randolph, "to sit with you, Lucy, this first evening;
+for of course Tom cannot resist, the first evening in town, the charms
+of his club."
+
+"His club! Oh, I think he has gone to see the house," Lucy said. "He
+promised----; it is not very far off."
+
+"The house? You mean that woman's house. Lucy, I have no patience with
+you any more than I have with Tom. Why don't you put a stop to it? why
+don't you--for I suppose you have found out what sort of a woman she is
+by this time, and why she came here?"
+
+"She came----to introduce Bice and establish her in the world," Lucy
+said, in a faint tone. "Oh! Aunt Randolph, please do not let us discuss
+it! It is not what I like to think of. Bice will be sacrificed to the
+first rich man who asks her; or at least that is what the Contessa
+means."
+
+"My dear Lucy," said the Dowager, calmly, "that is reasonable enough. I
+wish the Contessa meant no worse than that. Most girls are persuaded to
+marry a rich man if he asks them. I don't think so much of that. But it
+will not be so easy as she thinks," the Dowager added. "It is true that
+beauty does much--but not everything; and a girl in that position, with
+no connections, or, at least, none that she would not be better
+without----"
+
+Lucy's attention strayed from this question, which once had been so
+important, and which now seemed so secondary; but the conversation must
+be maintained. She said at random: "She has a beautiful voice."
+
+"Has she? And the Contessa herself sings very well. That will no doubt
+be another attraction," said Lady Randolph, in her impartial way. "But
+the end of it all is, who will she get to go, and who will invite them?
+It is vain to lay snares if there is nothing to be caught."
+
+"They will be invited--here," said Lucy, faltering a little. "I told you
+I am to have a great gathering on the 26th."
+
+"I could not believe my ears. You!--and she is to appear here for the
+first time to make her _début_. Good heavens, Lucy! What can I say to
+you--_that_ girl!"
+
+"Why not, Aunt Randolph?" said Lucy (oh, what does it matter--what does
+it matter, that she should make so much fuss about it? she was saying
+in herself); "I have always liked Bice, and she has been very good to
+little Tom."
+
+"Well," cried the angry lady, forgetting herself, and smiling the fierce
+smile of wrath, "there is no doubt that it is perfectly appropriate--the
+very thing that ought to happen if we lived according to the rules of
+nature, without thought of conventionalities and decorums, and so
+forth--oh, perfectly appropriate! If you don't object I know no one who
+has any right to say a word."
+
+Even now Lucy was scarcely roused enough to be surprised by the
+vehemence of these words. "Why should I object?" she said; "or why
+should any one say a word?" Her calm, which was almost indifference,
+excited Lady Randolph more and more.
+
+"You are either superhuman," she said, with exasperation, "or you
+are---- Lucy, I don't know what words to use. You put one out of every
+reckoning. You are like nobody I ever knew before. Why should you
+object? Why, good heavens! you are the only person that has any
+right---- Who should object if not you?"
+
+"Aunt Randolph," said Lucy, rousing herself with an effort, "would you
+please tell me plainly what you mean? I am not clever. I can't make
+things out. I have always liked Bice. To save her from being made a
+victim I am going to give her some of the money under my father's
+will--and if I could give her---- What is the matter?" she cried,
+stopping short suddenly, and in spite of herself growing pale.
+
+Lady Randolph flung up her hands in dismay. She gave something like a
+shriek as she exclaimed: "And Tom is letting you do this?" with horror
+in her tone.
+
+"He has promised that he will not oppose," Lucy said; "but why do you
+speak so, and look so? Bice--has done no harm."
+
+"Oh, no; Bice has done no harm," cried Lady Randolph bitterly; "nothing,
+except being born, which is harm enough, I think. But do you mean to
+tell me, Lucy, that Tom--a man of honour, notwithstanding all his
+vagaries--Tom----lets you do this and never says a word? Oh, it is too
+much. I have always stood by him. I have been his support when every one
+else failed. But this is too much, that he should put the burden upon
+you--that he should make _you_ responsible for this girl of his----"
+
+"Aunt Randolph!" cried Lucy, rising up quickly and confronting the angry
+woman. She put up her hand with a serious dignity that was doubly
+impressive from her usual simpleness. "What is it you mean? This girl of
+his! I do not understand. She is not much more than a child. You cannot,
+cannot suppose that Bice--that it is she--that she is----" Here she
+suddenly covered her face with her hands. "Oh, you put things in my mind
+that I am ashamed to think of," Lucy cried.
+
+"I mean," said Lady Randolph, who in the heat of this discussion had got
+beyond her own power of self-restraint, "what everybody but yourself
+must have seen long ago. That woman is a shameless woman, but even she
+would not have had the effrontery to bring any other girl to your house.
+It was more shameless, I think, to bring that one than any other; but
+she would not think so. Oh, cannot you see it even now? Why, the
+likeness might have told you; that was enough. The girl is Tom's girl.
+She is your husband's----"
+
+Lucy uncovered her face, which was perfectly colourless, with eyes
+dilated and wide open. "What?" she whispered, looking intently into Lady
+Randolph's face.
+
+"His own child--his--daughter--though I am bitterly ashamed to say it,"
+the Dowager said.
+
+For a moment everything seemed to waver and turn round in Lucy's eyes,
+as if the walls were making a circuit with her in giddy space. Then she
+came to her feet with the sensation of a shock, and found herself
+standing erect, with the most amazing incomprehensible sense of relief.
+Why should she have felt relieved by this communication which filled her
+companion with horror? A softer air seemed to breathe about Lucy, she
+felt solid ground under her feet. For the first moment there seemed
+nothing but ease and sweet soothing and refreshment in what she heard.
+
+"His--daughter?" she said. Her mind went back with a sudden flash upon
+the past, gathering up instantaneously pieces of corroborative evidence,
+things which she had not noted at the moment, which she had forgotten,
+yet which came back nevertheless when they were needed: the Contessa's
+mysterious words about Bice's parentage, her intimation that Lucy would
+one day be glad to have befriended her: Sir Tom's sudden agitation when
+she had told him of Bice's English descent: finally, and most conclusive
+of all, touching Lucy with a most unreasonable conviction and bringing a
+rush of warm feeling to her heart, Baby's adoption of the girl and
+recommendation of her to his mother. Was it not the voice of nature, the
+voice of God? Lucy had no instinctive sense of recoil, no horror of the
+discovery. She did not realise the guilt involved, nor was she painfully
+struck, as some women might have been, by this evidence of her husband's
+previous life "If it is so," she said quietly, "there is more reason
+than ever, Aunt Randolph, that I should do everything I can for Bice. It
+never came into my mind before. I see now--various things: but I do not
+see why it should--make me unhappy," she added with a faint smile which
+brought the water to her eyes; "it must have been--long before I knew
+him. Will you tell me who was her mother? Was she a foreigner? Did she
+die long ago?"
+
+"Oh, Lucy, Lucy," cried Lady Randolph, "is it possible you don't see?
+Who would take all that trouble about her? Who would burden themselves
+with another woman's girl that was no concern of theirs? Who
+would--can't you see? can't you see?"
+
+There came over Lucy's face a hot and feverish flush. She grew red to
+her hair, agitation and shame took possession of her; something seemed
+to throb and swell as if it would burst in her forehead. She could not
+speak. She could not look at her informant for shame of the revelation
+that had been made. All the bewildered sensations which for the moment
+had been stilled in her breast sprang up again with a feverish whirl and
+tumult. She tottered back to the chair on which she had been sitting and
+dropped down upon it, holding by it as if that were the only thing in
+the world secure and steadfast. It was only now that Lady Randolph
+seemed to awake to the risks and dangers of this bold step she had
+taken. She had roused the placid soul at last. To what strange agony, to
+what revenge might she have roused it? She had looked for tears and
+misery, and fleeting rage and mad jealousy. But Lucy's look of utter
+giddiness and overthrow alarmed her more than she could say.
+
+"Lucy! Oh, my love, you must recollect, as you say, that it was all
+long before he knew you--that there was no injury to you!"
+
+Lucy made a movement with her hand to bar further discussion, but she
+could not say anything. She pointed Lady Randolph to her chair, and made
+that mute prayer for silence, for no more. But in such a moment of
+excitement there is nothing that is more difficult to grant than this.
+
+"Oh, Lucy," the Dowager cried, "forgive me! Perhaps I ought not to have
+said anything. Oh, my dear, if you will but think what a painful
+position it was for me. To see you so unsuspicious, ready to do
+anything, and even Tom taking advantage of you. It is not more than a
+week since I found it all out, and how could I keep silence? Think what
+a painful position it was for me."
+
+Lucy made no reply. There seemed nothing but darkness round her. She put
+out her hand imploring that no more might be said; and though there was
+a great deal more said, she scarcely made out what it was. Her brain
+refused to take in any more. She suffered herself to be kissed and
+blessed, and said good-night to, almost mechanically. And when the elder
+lady at last went away, Lucy sat where Lady Randolph had left her, she
+did not know how long, gazing woefully at the ruins of that crumbled
+world which had all fallen to pieces about her. All was to pieces now.
+What was she and what was the other? Why should she be here and not the
+other? Two, were there?--two with an equal claim upon him? Was
+everything false, even the law, even the external facts which made her
+Tom's wife. He had another wife and a child. He was two, he was not one
+true man; one for baby and her, another for Bice and the Contessa. When
+she heard her husband coming in Lucy fled upstairs like a hunted thing,
+and took refuge in the nursery where little Tom was sleeping. Even her
+bourgeoise horror of betraying herself, of letting the servants suspect
+that anything was wrong, had no effect upon her to-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+SEVERED.
+
+
+Sir Tom came home later, so much later than he intended that he entered
+the house with such a sense of compunction as had not visited him since
+the days when the alarm of being caught was a part of the pleasure. He
+had no fear of a lecture from Lucy, whose gifts were not of that kind;
+but he was partially conscious of having neglected her on her first
+night in town, as well as having sinned against her in matters more
+serious. And he did not know how to explain his detention at the
+Contessa's new house, or the matters which he had been discussing there.
+It was a sensible relief to him not to find her in any of the
+sitting-rooms, all dark and closed up, except his own room, in which
+there was no trace of her. She had gone to bed, which was so sensible,
+like Lucy's unexaggerated natural good sense: he smiled to
+himself--though, at the same time, a wondering question within himself,
+whether she felt at all, passed through his mind--a reflection full of
+mingled disappointment and satisfaction. But when, a full hour after his
+return, after a tranquil period of reflection, he went leisurely
+upstairs, expecting to find her peacefully asleep, and found her not,
+nor any evidence that she had ever been there, a great wave of alarm
+passed over the mind of Sir Tom. He paused confounded, looking at her
+vacant place, startled beyond expression. "Lucy!" he cried, looking in
+his dismay into every corner, into his own dressing-room, and even into
+the large wardrobe where her dresses hung, like shells and husks, which
+she had laid aside. And then he made an agitated pause, standing in the
+middle of the room, not knowing what to think. It was by this time about
+two in the morning; the middle of the night, according to Lucy. Where
+could she have gone? Then he bethought himself with an immediate relief,
+which was soon replaced by poignant anxiety, of the only possible reason
+for her absence--a reason which would explain everything--little Tom.
+When this thought occurred to him all the excitement that had been in
+Sir Tom's mind disappeared in a moment, and he thought of nothing but
+that baby lying, perhaps tossing uneasily, upon his little bed, his
+mother watching over him; most sacred group on earth to him, who,
+whatever his faults might be, loved them both dearly. He took a candle
+in his hand and, stepping lightly, went up the stairs to the nursery
+door. There was no sound of wailing within, no pitiful little cry to
+tell the tale; all was still and dark. He tried the door softly, but it
+would not open. Then another terror awoke, and for the moment took his
+breath from him. What had happened to the child? Sir Tom suffered enough
+at this moment to have expiated many sins. There came upon him a vision
+of the child extended motionless upon his bed, and his mother by him
+refusing to be comforted. What could it mean? The door looked as if hope
+had departed. He knocked softly, yet imperatively, divided between the
+horror of these thoughts and the gentle every-day sentiment which
+forbade any noise at little Tom's door. It was some time before he got
+any reply--a time which seemed to him interminable. Then he suddenly
+heard Lucy's voice close to the door whispering. There had been no sound
+of any footsteps. Had she been there all the time listening to all his
+appeals and taking no notice?
+
+"Open the door," he said anxiously. "Speak to me. What is the matter? Is
+he ill? Have you sent for the doctor? Let me in."
+
+"We are all shut up and settled for the night," said Lucy, through the
+door.
+
+"Shut up for the night? Has he been very ill?" Sir Tom cried.
+
+"Oh, hush, you will wake him; no, not very ill: but I am going to stay
+with him," said the voice inside with a quiver in it.
+
+"Lucy, what does this mean? You are concealing something from me. Have
+you had the doctor? Good God, tell me. What is the matter? Can't I see
+my boy?"
+
+"There is nothing--nothing to be alarmed about," said Lucy from within.
+"He is asleep--he is--doing well. Oh! go to bed and don't mind us. I am
+going to stay with him."
+
+"Don't mind you? that is so easy," he cried, with a broken laugh; then
+the silence stealing to his heart, he cried out, "Is the child----?" But
+Sir Tom could not say the word. He shivered, standing outside the closed
+door. The mystery seemed incomprehensible, save on the score of some
+great calamity. The bitterness of death went over him; but then he asked
+himself what reason there could be to conceal from him any terrible
+sudden blow. Lucy would have wanted him in such a case, not kept him
+from her. In this dread moment of sudden panic he thought of everything
+but the real cause, which made a more effectual barrier between them
+than that closed door.
+
+"He is well enough now," said Lucy's voice, coming faintly out of the
+darkness. "Oh, indeed, there is nothing the matter. Please go away; go
+to bed. It is so late. I am going to stay with him."
+
+"Lucy," said Sir Tom, "I have never been shut out before. There is
+something you are concealing from me. Let me see him and then you shall
+do as you please."
+
+There was a little pause, and then slowly, reluctantly, Lucy opened the
+door. She was still fully dressed as she had been for dinner. There was
+not a particle of colour in her face. Her eyes had a scared look and
+were surrounded by wide circles, as if the orbit had been hollowed out.
+She stood aside to let him pass without a word. The room in which little
+Tom slept was an inner room. There was scarcely any light in either,
+nothing but the faint glimmer of the night-lamp. The sleeping-room was
+hushed and full of the most tranquil quiet, the regular soft breathing
+of the sleeping child in his little bed, and of his nurse by him, who
+was as completely unaware as he of any intrusion. Sir Tom stole in and
+looked at his boy, in the pretty baby attitude of perfect repose, his
+little arms thrown up over his head. The anxiety vanished from his
+heart, but not the troubled sense of something wrong, a mystery which
+altogether baffled him. Mystery had no place here in this little
+sanctuary of innocence. But what did it mean? He stole out again to
+where Lucy stood, scared and silent in her white dress, with a jewelled
+pendant at her neck which gleamed strangely in the half light.
+
+"He seems quite well now. What was it, and why are you so anxious?" he
+asked. "Did the doctor----"
+
+"There was no need for a doctor. It is only--myself. I must stay with
+him, he might want me----" And nobody else does, Lucy was about to say,
+but pride and modesty restrained her. Her husband looked at her
+earnestly. He perceived with a curious pang of astonishment that she
+drew away from him, standing as far off as the limited space permitted
+and avoiding his eye.
+
+"I don't understand it," he said; "there is something underneath; either
+he has been more ill than you will let me know, or--there is something
+else----"
+
+She gave him no answering look, made no wondering exclamation what could
+there be else? as he had hoped; but replied hurriedly, as she had done
+before, "I want to stay with him. I must stay with him for to-night----"
+
+It was with the most extraordinary sense of some change, which he could
+not fathom or divine, that Sir Tom consented at last to leave his wife
+in the child's room and go to his own. What did it mean? What had
+happened to him, or was about to happen? He could not explain to himself
+the aspect of the slight little youthful figure in her airy white dress,
+with the diamonds still at her throat, careless of the hour and time,
+standing there in the middle of the night, shrinking away from him,
+forlorn and wakeful with her scared eyes. At this hour on ordinary
+occasions Lucy was fast asleep. When she came to see her boy, if society
+had kept her up late, it was in the ease of a dressing-gown, not with
+any cold glitter of ornaments. And to see her shrink and draw herself
+away in that strange repugnance from his touch and shadow confounded
+him. He was not angry, as he might have been in another case, but
+pitiful to the bottom of his heart. What could have come to Lucy? Half
+a dozen times he turned back on his way to his room. What meaning could
+she have in it? What could have happened to her? Her manifest shrinking
+from him had terrified him, and filled his mind with confusion. But
+controversy of any kind in the child's room at the risk of waking him in
+the middle of the night was impossible, and no doubt, he tried to say to
+himself, it must be some panic she had taken, some sudden alarm for the
+child, justified by reasons which she did not like to explain to him
+till the morning light restored her confidence. Women were so, he had
+often heard: and the women he had known in his youth had certainly been
+so--unreasoning creatures, subject to their imagination, taking fright
+when no occasion for fright was, incapable of explaining. Lucy had never
+been like this; but yet Lucy, though sensible, was a woman too, and if
+it is not permitted to a woman to take an unreasoning panic about her
+only child, she must be hardly judged indeed. Sir Tom was not a hard
+judge. When he got over the painful sense that there must be something
+more in this than met the eye, he was half glad to find that Lucy was
+like other women--a dear little fool, not always sensible. He thought
+almost the better of her for it, he said to himself. She would laugh
+herself at her panic, whatever it was, when little Tom woke up fresh and
+fair in the morning light.
+
+With this idea he did what he could to satisfy himself. The situation
+was strange, unprecedented in his experience; but he had many subjects
+of thought on his own part which returned to his mind as the surprise of
+the moment calmed down. He had a great deal to think about. Old
+difficulties which seemed to have passed away for long years were now
+coming back again to embarrass and confuse him. "Our pleasant vices are
+made the whips to scourge us," he said to himself. The past had come
+back to him like the opening of a book, no longer merely frivolous and
+amusing, as in the Contessa's talk, touched with all manner of light
+emotions, but bitter, with tragedy in it, and death and desolation.
+Death and life: he had heard enough of the dead to make them seem alive
+again, and of the living to confuse their identity altogether; but he
+had not yet succeeded in clearing up the doubt which had been thrown
+into his mind. That question about Bice's parentage, "English on one
+side," tormented him still. He had made again an attempt to discover the
+truth, and he had been foiled. The probabilities seemed all in favour of
+the solution which at the first word had presented itself to him; but
+still there was a chance that it might not be so.
+
+His mind had been full and troubled enough, when he returned to the
+still house, and thought with compunction how many thoughts which he
+could not share with her he was bringing back to Lucy's side. He could
+not trust them to her, or confide in her, and secure her help, as in
+many other circumstances he would have done without hesitation. But he
+could not do that in this case,--not so much because she was his wife,
+as because she was so young, so innocent, so unaware of the
+complications of existence. How could she understand the temptations
+that assail a young man in the heyday of life, to whom many indulgences
+appear permissible or venial, which to her limited and innocent soul
+would seem unpardonable sins? To live even for a few years with a
+stainless nature like that of Lucy, in whom there was not even so much
+knowledge as would make the approaches of vice comprehensible, is a new
+kind of education to the most experienced of men. He had not believed it
+to be possible to be so altogether ignorant of evil as he had found her;
+and how could he explain to her and gain her indulgent consideration of
+the circumstances which had led him into what in her vocabulary would be
+branded with the name of vice? Sir Tom even now did not feel it to be
+vice. It was unfortunate that it had so happened. He had been a fool. It
+was almost inconceivable to him now how for the indulgence of a
+momentary passion he could have placed himself in a position that might
+one day be so embarrassing and disagreeable. He had not behaved ill at
+the moment; it was the woman who had behaved ill. But how in the name of
+wonder to explain all this to Lucy? Lucy, who was not conscious of any
+reason why a man's code of morals should be different from that of a
+woman! When Sir Tom returned to this painful and difficult subject, the
+immediate question as to Lucy's strange conduct died from his mind. It
+became more easy, by dint of repeating it, to believe that a mere
+unreasonable panic about little Tom was the cause of her withdrawal. It
+was foolish, but a loving and lovely foolishness which a man might do
+more than forgive, which he might adore and smile at, as men love to do,
+feeling that for a woman to be thus silly is desirable, a counterpoise
+to the selfishness and want of feeling which are so common in the world.
+But how to make this spotless creature understand that a man might slip
+aside and yet not be a dissolute man, that he might be betrayed into
+certain proceedings which would not perhaps bear the inspection of
+severe judges, and yet be neither vicious nor heartless. This problem,
+after he had considered it in every possible way, Sir Tom finally gave
+up with a sort of despair. He must keep his secret within his own bosom.
+He must contrive some means of doing what, in case his hypothesis was
+right, would now be clearly a duty, without exciting any suspicion on
+Lucy's part. That, he thought with a compunction, would be easy enough.
+There was no one whom it would cost less trouble to deceive. With these
+thoughts he went to sleep in the room which seemed strangely lonely
+without her presence. Perhaps, however, it was not ungrateful to him to
+be alone to think all those thoughts without the additional sense of
+treachery which must have ensued had he thought them in her presence.
+There was no treachery. He had been all along, he thought to himself, a
+man somewhat sinned against in the matter. To be sure it was
+wrong--according to all rules of morals, it was necessary to admit this;
+but not more wrong, not so much wrong, as most other men had been. And,
+granting the impropriety of that first step, he had nothing to reproach
+himself with afterwards. In that respect he knew he had behaved both
+liberally and honourably, though he had been deceived. But
+how--how--good heavens!--explain this to Lucy? In the silence of her
+room, where she was not, he actually laughed out to himself at the
+thought; laughed with a sense of all impossibility beyond all laws or
+power of reasoning. What miracle would make her understand? It would be
+easier to move the solid earth than to make her understand.
+
+But it was altogether a very strange night--such a night as never had
+been passed in that house before; and fearful things were about in the
+darkness, ill dreams, strange shadows of trouble. When Sir Tom woke in
+the morning and found no sign that his wife had been in the room or any
+trace of her, there arose once more a painful apprehension in his mind.
+He hurried half-dressed to the nursery to ask for news of the child, but
+was met by the nurse with the most cheerful countenance, with little Tom
+holding by her skirts, in high spirits, and fun of babble and glee.
+
+"He has had a good night, then?" the father said aloud, lifting the
+little fellow to his shoulder.
+
+"An excellent night, Sir Thomas," the woman said, "and not a bit tired
+with his journey, and so pleased to see all the carriages and the folks
+passing."
+
+Sir Tom put the boy down with a cloud upon his face.
+
+"What was the cause, then, of Lady Randolph's anxiety last night?"
+
+"Anxiety, Sir Thomas! Oh no; her ladyship was quite pleased. She do
+always say he is a regular little town-bird, and always better in
+London. And so she said when I was putting of him to sleep. And he never
+stirred, not from the moment he went off till six o'clock this morning,
+the darling. I do think now, Sir Thomas, as we may hope he's taken hold
+of his strength."
+
+Sir Tom turned away with a blank countenance. What did it mean, then? He
+went back to his dressing-room, and completed his toilette without
+seeing anything of Lucy. The nurse seemed quite unconscious of her
+mistress's vigil by the baby's side. Where, then, had Lucy passed the
+night, and why taken refuge in that nursery? Sir Tom grew pale, and saw
+his own countenance white and full of trouble, as if it had been a
+stranger's, in the glass. He hurried downstairs to the breakfast-room,
+into which the sun was shining. There could not have been a more
+cheerful sight. Some of the flowers brought up from the Hall were on the
+table; there was a merry little fire burning; the usual pile of
+newspapers were arranged for him by Williams's care, who felt himself a
+political character too, and understood the necessity of seeing what the
+country was thinking. Jock stood at the window with a book, reading and
+watching the changeful movements outside. But the chair at the head of
+the table was vacant. "Have you seen Lucy?" he said to Jock, with an
+anxiety which he could scarcely disguise. At this moment she came in,
+very guilty, very pale, like a ghost. She gave him no greeting, save a
+sort of attempt at a smile and warning look, calling his attention to
+Williams, who had followed her into the room with that one special dish
+which the butler always condescended to place on the table. Sir Tom sat
+down to his newspapers confounded, not knowing what to think or to say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS.
+
+
+Lucy contrived somehow to elude all private intercourse with her husband
+that morning. She was not alone with him for a moment. To his question
+about little Tom and her anxiety of last night she made as slight an
+answer as possible. "Nurse tells me he is all right." "He is quite well
+this morning," Lucy replied with quiet dignity, as if she did not limit
+herself to nurse's observations. She talked a little to Jock about his
+school and how long the holidays lasted, while Sir Tom retired behind
+the shield of his newspapers. He did not get much benefit from them that
+morning, or instruction as to what the country was thinking. He was so
+much more curious to know what his wife was thinking, that simple
+little girl who knew no evil. The most astute of men could not have
+perplexed Sir Tom so much. It seemed to him that something must have
+happened, but what? What was there that any one could betray to her? not
+the discovery that he himself thought he had made. That was impossible.
+If any one else had known it he surely must have known it. It could not
+be anything so unlikely as that.
+
+But Lucy gave him no opportunity of inquiring. She went away to see the
+housekeeper, to look after her domestic affairs; and then Sir Tom made
+sure he should find her in the nursery, whither he took his way, when he
+thought he had left sufficient time for her other occupations. But Lady
+Randolph was not there. He heard from Fletcher, whose disturbed
+countenance seemed to reflect his own, that her mistress had gone out.
+She was the only one of the household who shared his certainty that
+something had happened out of the ordinary routine. Fletcher knew that
+her mistress had not undressed in the usual way; that she had not gone
+to bed. Her own services had not been required either in the morning or
+evening, and she had a strong suspicion that Lady Randolph had passed
+the night on a sofa in the little morning-room upstairs. To Fletcher's
+mind it was not very difficult to account for this. Quarrels between
+husband and wife are common enough. But her consciousness and
+sympathetic significance of look struck Sir Tom with a troubled sense of
+the humour of the situation which broke the spell of his increasing
+agitation, if but for a moment. It was droll to think that Fletcher
+should be in a manner his confidant, the only participator in his woes.
+
+Lucy had gone out half to avoid her husband, half with a determination
+to expedite the business which she had begun, with very different
+feelings the day before. The streets were very gay and bright on that
+April morning, with all the quickening of life which many arrivals and
+the approach of the season, with all its excitements, brings. Houses
+were opening up, carriages coming out, even the groups of children and
+nurse-maids in the Park making a sensible difference on the other side
+of the great railing. It was very unusual for her to find herself in the
+streets alone, and this increased the curious dazed sensation with which
+she went out among all these real people, so lively and energetic, while
+she was still little more than a dream-woman, possessed by one thought,
+moving along, she knew not how, with a sense of helplessness and
+unprotectedness, which made the novelty all the more sensible to her.
+She went on for what seemed to be a long time, following mechanically
+the line of the pavement, without knowing what she was doing, along the
+long course of Park Lane, and then into the cheerful bustle of
+Piccadilly, where, with a sense of morning ease and leisure, not like
+the artificiality of the afternoon, so many people were coming and
+going, all occupied in business of their own, though so different from
+the bustle of more absorbing business, the haste and obstruction of the
+city. Lucy was not beautiful enough or splendid enough to attract much
+attention from the passers-by in the streets, though one or two
+sympathetic and observant wayfarers were caught by the look of trouble
+in her face. She had never walked about London, and she did not know
+where she was going. But she did not think of this. She thought only on
+one subject,--about her husband and that other life which he had, of
+which she knew nothing, which might, for anything she could tell, have
+been going on side by side with the life she knew and shared. This was
+the point upon which Lucy's mind had given way. The revelation as to
+Bice had startled and shaken her soul to its foundations; but after the
+shock things had fallen into their place again, and she had felt no
+anger, though much pain and pity. Her mind had thrown itself back into
+the unknown past almost tenderly towards the mother who had died long
+ago, to whom perhaps Bice had been what little Tom was now to herself.
+But when the further statement reached her ears all that softening which
+seemed to have swept over her disappeared in a moment. A horrible
+bewilderment had seized her. Was he two men, with two wives, two lives,
+two children dear to him?
+
+It is usual to talk of women as being the most severe judges of each
+other's failures in one particular at least, an accusation which no
+doubt is true of both sexes, though generally applied, like so many
+universal truths, to one. And an injured wife is a raging fury in those
+primitive characterisations which are so common in the world. But the
+ideas which circled like the flakes in a snowstorm through the mind of
+Lucy were of a kind incomprehensible to the vulgar critic who judges
+humanity in the general. Her ways of thinking, her modes of judging were
+as different as possible from those of minds accustomed to
+generalisation and lightly acquainted with the vices of the world. Lucy
+knew no general; she knew three persons involved in an imbroglio so
+terrible that she saw no way out of it. Herself, her husband, another
+woman. Her mind was the mind almost of a child. It had resisted all that
+dismal information which the chatter of society conveys. She knew that
+married people were "not happy" sometimes. She knew that there were
+wretched stories of which she held that they could not be true. She was
+of Desdemona's mind, and did not believe that there was any such woman.
+And when she was suddenly strangely brought face to face with a tragedy
+of her own, that was not enough to turn this innocent and modest girl
+into a raging Eleanor. She was profoundly reasonable in her simple way,
+unapt to blame; thinking no evil, and full of those prepossessions and
+fixed canons of innocence which the world-instructed are incapable not
+only of understanding, but of believing in the existence of. A
+connection between a man and a woman was to her, in one way or other, a
+marriage. Into the reasons, whatever they might have been, that could
+have brought about any such connection without the rites that made it
+sacred, she could not penetrate or inquire. It was a subject too
+terrible, from which her mind retreated with awe and incomprehension.
+Never could it, she felt, have been intended so, at least on the woman's
+side. The mock marriage of romance, the deceits practised on the stage
+and in novels upon the innocent, she believed in without hesitation,
+everything in the world being more comprehensible than impurity. There
+might be villainous men, betrayers, seducers, Lucy could not tell; there
+might be monsters, griffins, fiery dragons, for anything she knew; but a
+woman abandoned by all her natural guard of modesties and reluctances,
+moved by passion, capable of being seduced, she could not understand.
+And still more impossible was it to imagine such sins as the outcome of
+mere levity, without any tragic circumstances; or to conceive of the
+mysteries of life as outraged and intruded upon by folly, or for the
+darker bait of interest. Her heart sickened at such suggestions. She
+knew there were poor women in the streets, victims of want and vice,
+poor degraded creatures for whom her heart bled, whom she could not
+think of for the intolerable pang of pity and shame. But all these
+questions had nothing to do with the sudden revelation in which she
+herself had so painful a part. These broken reflections were in her mind
+like the falling of snow. They whirled through the vague world of her
+troubled soul without consequence or coherence; all that had nothing to
+do with her. Her husband was no villain, and the woman--the beautiful,
+smiling woman, so much fairer, greater, more important than Lucy, she
+was no wretched, degraded creature. What was she then? His wife--his
+true wife? And if so, what was Lucy? Her brain reeled and the world went
+round her in a sickening whirl. The circumstances were too terrible for
+resentment. What could anger do, or any other quick-springing
+short-lived emotion? What did it matter even what Lucy felt, what any
+one felt? It was far beyond that. Here was fact which no emotion could
+undo. A wife and a child on either side, and what was to come of it; and
+how could life go on with this to think of, never to be forgotten, not
+to be put aside for a moment? It brought existence to a stand-still. She
+did not know what was the next step she must take, or how she could go
+back, or what she must say to the man who, perhaps, was not her husband,
+or how she could continue under that roof, or arrange the commonest
+details of life. There was but one thing clear before her, the business
+which she was bent on hurrying to a conclusion now.
+
+She found herself in the bustle of the streets that converge upon the
+circus at the end of Piccadilly as she thus went on thinking, and there
+Lucy looked about her in some dismay, finding that she had reached the
+limit of the little world she knew. She was afraid of plunging alone
+into those bustling ways, and almost afraid of the only other
+alternative, which, however, she adopted, of calling a cab and giving
+the driver the address of Mr. Chervil in the city. To do this, and to
+mount into the uneasy jingling cab, gave her a little shock of the
+unaccustomed, which was like a breach of morals to Lucy. It seemed,
+though she had been independent enough in more important matters, the
+most daring step she had ever taken on her own responsibility. But the
+matter of the cab, and the aspect of this unknown world into which it
+conveyed her, occupied her mind a little, and stopped the tumult of her
+thoughts. She seemed scarcely to know what she had come about when she
+found herself set down at the door of Mr. Chervil's office, and
+ascending the grimy staircase, meeting people who stared at her, and
+wondered what a lady could be doing there. Mr. Chervil himself was
+scarcely less surprised. He said, "Lady Randolph!" with a cry of
+astonishment when she was shown in. And she found some difficulty, which
+she had not thought of, in explaining her business. He reminded her that
+she had given him the same instructions yesterday when he had the honour
+of waiting upon her in Park Lane. He was far more respectful to Lady
+Randolph than he had been to Lucy Trevor in her first attempts to carry
+out her father's will.
+
+"I assure you," he said, "I have not neglected your wishes. I have
+written to Rushton on the subject. We both know by this time, Lady
+Randolph, that when you have made up your mind--and you have the most
+perfect right to do so--though we may not like it, nor think it anything
+but a squandering of money, still we are aware we have no right to
+oppose----"
+
+"It is not that," said Lucy faintly. "It is that the circumstances have
+changed since yesterday. I want to--I should like to----"
+
+"Give up your intention? I am delighted to hear it. For you must allow
+me to say, as a man of business----"
+
+"It is not that," Lucy repeated. "I want to increase the sum. I find the
+young lady has a claim--and I want it to be done immediately, without
+the loss of a day. Oh, I am more, much more in earnest about it than I
+was yesterday. I want it settled at once. If it is not settled at once
+difficulties might arise. I want to double the amount. Could you not
+telegraph to Mr. Rushton instead of writing? I have heard that people
+telegraph about business."
+
+"Double the amount! Have you thought over this? Have you had Sir
+Thomas's advice? It is a very important matter to decide so suddenly.
+Pardon me, Lady Randolph, but you must know that if you bestow at this
+rate you will soon not have very much left to you."
+
+"Ah, that would be a comfort!" cried Lucy; and then there came over her
+the miserable thought that all the circumstances were changed, and to
+have a subject of disagreement between her husband and herself removed
+would not matter now. Once it had been the only subject, now---- The
+suddenness of this realisation of the change filled her eyes with tears.
+But she restrained herself with a great effort. "Yes," she said, "I
+should be glad, very glad, to have done all my father wished--for many
+things might happen. I might die--and then who would do it?"
+
+"We need not discuss that very unlikely contingency," said Mr. Chervil.
+(He said to himself: Sir Tom wouldn't, that is certain.) "But even under
+Mr. Trevor's will," he added, "this will be a very large sum to
+give--larger, don't you think, than he intended; unless there is some
+very special claim?"
+
+"It is a special claim," cried Lucy, "and papa made no conditions. I was
+to be free in doing it. He left me quite free."
+
+"Without doubt," the lawyer said. "I need not repeat my opinion on the
+subject, but you are certainly quite free. And you have brought me the
+young lady's name, no doubt, Lady Randolph? Yesterday, you recollect you
+were uncertain about her name. It is important to be quite accurate in
+an affair of so much importance. She is a lucky young lady. A great many
+would like to learn the secret of pleasing you to this extent."
+
+Lucy looked at him with a gasp. She did not understand the rest of his
+speech or care to hear it. Her name? What was her name? If she had not
+known it before, still less did she know it now.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "what does it matter about a name? People, girls,
+change their names. She is Beatrice. You might leave a blank and it
+could be filled up after. She is going to--marry. She is--must
+everything be delayed for that?--and yet it is of no importance--no
+importance that I can see," Lucy said, wringing her hands.
+
+"My dear Lady Randolph! Let me say that to give a very large sum of
+money to a person with whose very name you are unacquainted--forgive me,
+but in your own interests I must speak. Let me consult with Sir
+Thomas."
+
+"I do not wish my husband to be consulted. He has promised me not to
+interfere, and it is my business, not his," Lucy said, with a flush of
+excitement. And though there was much further conversation, and the
+lawyer did all he could to move her, it need not be said that Lucy was
+immovable. He went down to the door with her to put her into her
+carriage, as he supposed, not unwilling even in that centre of practical
+life to have the surrounding population see on what confidential terms
+he was with this fine young lady. But when he perceived that no carriage
+was there, and Lucy, not without a tremor, as of a very strange request,
+and one which might shock the nerves of her companion, asked him to get
+a cab for her, Mr. Chervil's astonishment knew no bounds.
+
+"I never thought how far it was," Lucy said, faltering and apologetic.
+"I thought I might perhaps have been able to walk."
+
+"Walk!" he cried, "from Park Lane?" with consternation. He stood looking
+after her as she drove away, saying to himself that the old man had
+undoubtedly been mad, and that this poor young thing was evidently
+cracked too. He thought it would be best to write to Sir Thomas, who was
+not Sir Tom to Mr. Chervil; but if it was going to happen that the poor
+young lady should show what he had no doubt was the hereditary weakness,
+Mr. Chervil could not restrain a devout wish that it might show itself
+decisively before half her fortune was alienated. No Sir Thomas in
+existence would carry out a father-in-law's will of such an insane
+character as that.
+
+In the meanwhile Lucy jingled home in her cab, feeling more giddy, more
+heartsick than ever. There now came upon her with more potency than ever,
+since now it was the matter immediately before her, the question what was
+she to do? What was she to do? She had eluded Sir Tom on the night before,
+and obliged him to accept, without any demand for explanation, her strange
+retirement. But now what was she to do? Little Tom would not answer for a
+pretext again. She must either resume the former habits of her life,
+subdue herself entirely, meet him with a cheerful face, ignore the sudden
+chasm that had been made between them--or---- She looked with terrified
+eyes at this blank wall of impossibility, and could see no way through it.
+Live with him as of old, in a pretence of union where no union could be,
+or explain how it was that she could not do so. Both these things were
+impossible--impossible!--and what, then, was she to do?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR.
+
+
+The little house in Mayfair was very bright and gay. What conventional
+words are those! It was nothing of the kind. It was dim and poetical. No
+light that could be kept out of it was permitted to come in. The quality
+of light in London, even in April, is not exquisite, and perhaps the
+Contessa's long curtains and all the delicate draperies which she loved
+to hang about her were more desirable to see than that very poor thing
+in the way of daylight which exists in Mayfair. Bice, who was a child of
+light, objected a little to this shutting out, and she would have
+objected strongly, being young enough to love the sunshine for itself,
+but for the exquisite reason which the Contessa gave for the interdict
+she had put upon it. "Cara," she said, "if you were all white and red
+like those English girls (it is _tant soit peu_ vulgar between
+ourselves, and not half so effective as your _blanc mat_), then you
+might have as much light as you pleased; but to put yourself in
+competition with them on their own ground--no, Bice mia. But in this
+light there is nothing to desire."
+
+"Don't you think, then, Madama," said Bice, piqued, "that no light at
+all would be better still, and not to be seen the best----"
+
+"Darling!" said the Contessa, with that smile which embodied so many
+things. It answered for encouragement and applause and gentle reproof,
+and many other matters which words could but indifferently say, and it
+was one of her favourite ways of turning aside a question to which she
+did not think fit to give any reply. And Bice swallowed her pique and
+asked no more. The lamps were all shaded like the windows in this bower
+of beauty. There was scarcely a corner that was not draped with some
+softly-falling, richly-tinted tissue. A delicate perfume breathed
+through this half-lighted world. Thus, though neither gay nor bright, it
+realised the effect which in our day, in the time when everything was
+different, was meant by these words. It was a place for pleasure, for
+intimate society, and conversation, and laughter, and wit; for music and
+soft words; and, above all, for the setting off of beauty, and the
+expression of admiration. The chairs were soft, the carpets like moss;
+there were flowers everywhere betraying themselves by their odour, even
+when you could not see them. The Contessa had spared no expense in
+making the little place--which she laughed at softly, calling it her
+doll's house--as perfect as it could be made.
+
+And here the two ladies began to live a life very different from that of
+the Randolphs' simple dwelling. Bice, it need scarcely be said, had
+fulfilled all the hopes of her patroness, else had she never been
+produced with such bewildering mystery, yet deftness, to dazzle the eyes
+of young Montjoie at the Hall. She had realised all the Contessa's
+expectations, and justified the bills which Madame di Forno-Populo
+looked upon with a certain complacency as they came in, as something
+creditable to her, as proof of her magnificence of mind and devotion to
+the best interests of her _protégée_. And now they had entered upon
+their campaign. It had annoyed her in this new beginning, amid all its
+excitements and hopes, to be called upon by Sir Tom for explanations
+which it was not to her interest to give; which she had, indeed, when
+she deliberately sowed the seed of mystery, resolved not to give. To
+allow herself to be brought to book was not in her mind at all, and she
+was clever enough to mystify even Sir Tom, and keep his mind in a
+suspense and uncertainty very painful to him. But she had managed to
+elude his inquiries, and though it had changed the demeanour of Sir Tom,
+and entirely done away with the careless good humour which had been so
+pleasant, still she felt herself now independent of the Randolphs, and
+had begun her life very cheerfully and with every promise of great
+enjoyment. The Contessa "received" every day and all day long, from the
+time when she was visible, which was not, however, at a very early hour.
+About four the day of the ladies began. Sometimes, indeed, before that
+hour two favoured persons, not always the same, who had accompanied
+them home from the Park, would be admitted to share a dainty little
+luncheon. Bice now rode at the hour when everybody rides, with the
+Contessa, who was a graceful horsewoman, and never looked to greater
+advantage than in the saddle. The two beautiful Italians, as they were
+called, had in this way, within a week of their arrival, caused a
+sensation in the Row, and already their days overflowed with amusement
+and society. Few ladies visited the little house in Mayfair, but then
+they were not much wanted there. The Contessa was not one of those
+vulgar practitioners who profess in words their preference for men's
+society. But she said, so sweetly that it was barbarous to laugh (though
+many of her friends did so), that, having one close companion of her own
+sex, her dearest Bice, who was everything to her, she was independent of
+the feminine element. "And then they are so busy, these ladies of
+fashion; they have no leisure; they have so many things to do. It is a
+thraldom, a heavy thraldom, though the chains are gilded." "Shall we see
+you at Lady Blank Blank's to-night? You must be going to the Duchess's?
+Of course we shall meet at the Highton Grandmodes!" "Ah!" cried the
+Contessa, spreading out her white hands, "it is fatiguing even only to
+hear of it. We love our ease, Bice and I; we go nowhere where we are
+expected to go."
+
+The gentlemen to whom this speech was made laughed "consumedly." They
+even made little signs to each other behind back, and exploded again.
+When she looked round at them they said the Contessa was a perfect
+mimic, better than anything on the stage, and that she had perfectly
+caught the tone of that old Lady Barbe Montfichet, who went everywhere
+(whom, indeed, the Contessa did not know), and laughed again. But it was
+not at the Contessa's power of mimicry that they laughed. It was at the
+delicious falsehood of her pretensions, and the thought that if she
+pleased she might appear at the Highton Grandmodes, or meet the best
+society at Lady Blank Blank's. These gentlemen knew better; and it was a
+joke of which they never tired. They were not, perhaps, the most
+desirable class of people in society who had the _entrée_ in the
+Contessa's little house; they were old acquaintances who had known her
+in her progress through the world, mingled with a few young men whom
+they brought with them, partly because the boys admired these two lovely
+foreign women; partly because, with a certain easy benevolence that cost
+them nothing, they wanted the Contessa's little girl, whoever she was,
+to have her chance. But few, if any, of these astute gentlemen, young or
+old, was in any doubt as to the position she held.
+
+Nor was she altogether without female visitors. Lady Anastasia, that
+authority of the press, who made the public acquainted with the
+movements of distinguished strangers and was not afraid of compromising
+herself, sometimes made one at the little parties and enjoyed them much.
+The Dowager Lady Randolph's card was left at the Contessa's door, as was
+that of the Duchess, who had looked upon her with such consternation at
+Lucy's party in the country. What these ladies meant it would be curious
+to know. Perhaps it was a lingering touch of kindness, perhaps a wish to
+save their credit in case it should happen by some bewildering turn of
+fortune that La Forno-Populo might come uppermost again. Would she dare
+to have herself put forward at the Drawing-room was what these ladies
+asked each other with bated breath. It was possible, nay, quite likely,
+that she might succeed in doing so, for there were plenty of
+good-natured people who would not refuse if she asked them, and of
+course so close a scrutiny was not kept upon foreigners as upon native
+subjects; while, as a matter of fact, the Dowager Lady Randolph was
+right in her assertion that, so far as could be proved, there was
+nothing absolutely fatal to a woman's reputation in the history of the
+Contessa. Would she have the courage to dare that ordeal, or would she
+set up a standard of revolt, and declare herself superior to that
+hall-mark of fashion? She was clever enough, all the people who knew her
+allowed, for either _rôle_; either to persuade some good woman, innocent
+and ignorant enough, to be responsible for her, and elude the researches
+of the Lord Chamberlain, or else to retreat bravely in gay rebellion and
+declare that she was not rich enough, nor her diamonds good enough, for
+that noonday display. For either part the Contessa was clever enough.
+
+Meanwhile Bice had all the enjoyment, without any of the drawbacks of
+this new life. It was far more luxurious, splendid, and even amusing,
+than the old existence of the watering-places. To ride in the Park and
+feel herself one of that brilliant crowd, to be surrounded by a
+succession of lively companions, to have always "something going on,"
+that delight of youth, and a continual incense of admiration rising
+around her enough to have turned a less steady head, filled Bice's cup
+with happiness. But perhaps the most penetrating pleasure of all was
+that of having carried out the Contessa's expectations and fulfilled her
+hopes. Had not Madame di Forno-Populo been satisfied with the beauty of
+her charge, none of these expenses would have been incurred, and this
+life of many delights would never have been; so that the soothing and
+exhilarating consciousness of having indeed deserved and earned her
+present well-being was in Bice's mind. The future, too, opened before
+her a horizon of boundless hope. To have everything she now had and
+more, along with that one element of happiness which had always been
+wanting, the certainty that it would last, was the happy prospect within
+her grasp. Her head was so steady, and the practical sense of the
+advantage so great, that the excitement and pleasure did not intoxicate
+her; but everything was delightful, novel, breathing confidence and
+hope. The guests at the table, where she now took her place, equal in
+importance to the Contessa herself, all flattered and did their best to
+please her. They amused her, either because they were clever or because
+they were ridiculous--Bice, with youthful cynicism, did not much mind
+which it was. When they went to the opera, a similar crowd would flutter
+in and out of the box, and appear afterwards to share the gay little
+supper and declare that no _prime-donne_ on the stage could equal the
+two lovely blending voices of the Contessa and her ward. To sit late
+talking, laughing, singing, surrounded by all this worship, and to wake
+up again to a dozen plans and the same routine of pleasure next day,
+what heart of seventeen (and she was not quite seventeen) could resist
+it? One thing, however, Bice missed amid all this. It was the long
+gallery at the Hall, the nursery in Park Lane, little Tom crowing upon
+her shoulder, digging his hands into her hair, and Lucy looking on--many
+things, yet one. She missed this, and laughed at herself, and said she
+was a fool--but missed it all the same. Lucy had come, as in duty bound,
+and paid her call. She had been very grave--not like herself. And Sir
+Tom was very grave; looking at her she could not tell how; no longer
+with his old easy good humour, with a look of criticism and anxiety--an
+uneasy look, as if he had something to say to her and could not. Bice
+felt instinctively that if he ever said that something it would be
+disagreeable, and avoided his presence. But it troubled her to lose this
+side of her landscape, so to speak. The new was entrancing, but the old
+was a loss. She missed it, and thought herself a fool for missing it,
+and laughed, but felt it the more.
+
+The only member of the household with whom she remained on the same easy
+terms as before was Jock, who came to the house in Mayfair at hours when
+nobody else was admitted, though he was quite unaware of the privilege
+he possessed. He came in the morning when Bice, too young to want the
+renewal which the Contessa sought in bed and in the mysteries of the
+toilette, sometimes fretted a little indoors at the impossibility of
+getting the air into her lungs, and feeling the warmth of the morning
+light. She was so glad to see him that Jock was deeply flattered, and
+sweet thoughts of the most boundless foolishness got in to his head.
+Bice ran to her room, and found one of her old hats which she had worn
+in the country, and tied a veil over her face, and came flying
+downstairs like a bird.
+
+"We may go out and run in the Park so long as no one sees us," she
+cried. "Oh, come; nobody can see me through this veil."
+
+"And what good will the air do you through that veil?" said Jock
+contemptuously. "You can't see the sun through it; it makes the whole
+world black. I would not go out if I were you with that thing over my
+face, the only chance I had for a walk. I'd rather stay at home; but
+perhaps you like it. Girls are such----"
+
+"What? You are going to swear, and if you swear I will simply turn my
+back. Well, perhaps you didn't mean it. But I mean it. Boys are
+such---- What? little prudes, like the old duennas in the books, and that
+is what you are. You think things are wrong that are not wrong. But it
+is to an Englishman the right thing to grumble," Bice said, with a smile
+of reconciliation as they stepped into the street. On that sweet morning
+even the street was delightful. It restored them to perfect satisfaction
+with each other as they made their way to the Park, which stretched its
+long lines of waving grass almost within sight.
+
+"And I suppose," said Jock, after a pause, "that you like being here?"
+
+Bice gave him a look half friendly, half disdainful. "I like living,"
+she said. "In the country in what you call the quiet, it is only to be
+half alive: we are always living here. But you never come to see us
+ride, to be among the crowd. You are never at the opera. You don't talk
+as those others do----"
+
+"Montjoie, for instance," said Jock, with a strange sense of jealousy
+and pain.
+
+"Very well, Montjoie. He is what you call fun; he has always something
+to say, _bêtises_ perhaps, but what does that matter? He makes me
+laugh."
+
+"Makes you laugh! at his wit perhaps?" cried Jock. "Oh, what things
+girls are! Laugh at what a duffer like that, an ass, a fellow that has
+not two ideas, says."
+
+"You have a great many ideas," said Bice; "you are clever--you know a
+number of things; but you are not so amusing, and you are not so
+good-natured. You scold me; and you say another, a friend, is an
+ass----"
+
+"He was never any friend of mine," said Jock, with a hot flush of anger.
+"That fellow! I never had anything to say to him."
+
+"No," said Bice, with a smiling disdain which cut poor Jock like a
+knife. "I made a mistake, that was not possible, for he is a man and you
+are only a boy."
+
+To describe Jock's feelings under this blow would be beyond the power of
+words. He inferior to Montjoie! he only a boy while the other was a man!
+Rage was nothing in such an emergency. He looked at her with eyes that
+were almost pathetic in their sense of unappreciated merit, and, deeper
+sting still, of folly preferred. In spite of himself, Locksley Hall and
+those musings which have become, by no fault of the poet's, the
+expression of a despair which is half ridiculous, came into his mind. He
+did not see the ridicule. "Having known me to decline"--his eyes became
+moist with a dew of pain--"If you think that," he said slowly,
+"Bice----"
+
+Bice answered only with a laugh. "Let us make haste; let us run," she
+cried. "It is so early, no one will see us. Why don't you ride, it is
+like flying? And to run is next best." She stopped after a flight, swift
+as a bird, along an unfrequented path which lay still in the April
+sunshine, the lilac bushes standing up on each side all athrill and
+rustling with the spring, with eyes that shone like stars, and that
+unusual colour which made her radiant. Jock, though he could have gone
+on much faster, was behind her for the moment, and came up after her,
+more occupied by the shame of being outrun and laughed at than by
+admiration of the girl and her beauty. She was more conscious of her own
+splendour of bloom than he was: though Bice was not vain, and he was
+more occupied by the thought of her than by any other thought.
+
+"Girls never think of being able to stay," he said, "you do only what
+can be done with a rush; but that's not running. If you had ever seen
+the School Mile----"
+
+"Oh no, I want to see no miles," cried Bice; "this is what I like, to
+have all my fingers tingle." Then she suddenly calmed down in a moment,
+and walked along demurely as the paths widened out to a more frequented
+thoroughfare. "What I want," she said, "is little Tom upon my shoulder,
+and to hear him scream and hold by my hair. Milady does not look as if I
+pleased her now. She has come once only and looked--not as she once
+looked. But she is still kind. She has made this ball for me--for me
+only. Did you know? do you dance then, if nothing else? Oh, you shall
+dance since the ball is for me. I love dancing--to distraction; but not
+once have I had a single turn, not once, since we came to England," Bice
+said with a sigh, which rose into a laugh in another moment, as she
+added, "It will be for me to come out, as you say, to be introduced into
+society, and after that we shall go everywhere, the Contessa says."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE SIEGE OF LONDON.
+
+
+The Contessa, but perhaps not more than half, believed what she said.
+Everything was on the cards in this capricious society of England, which
+is not governed by the same absolute laws as in other places. It seemed
+to be quite possible that she and her charge might be asked everywhere
+after their appearance at the ball which, she should take care to tell
+everybody, Lucy was giving for Bice. It was always possible in England
+that some leader of fashion, some great lady whose nod gave distinction,
+might take pity upon Bice's youth and think it hard that she should
+suffer, even if without any relentings towards the Contessa. And Madame
+di Forno-Populo was very strong on the point, already mentioned, that
+there was nothing against her which could give any one a right to shut
+her out. The mere suggestion that the doors of society might or could be
+closed in her face would have driven another woman into frantic
+indignation, but the Contessa had passed that stage. She took the matter
+quite reasonably, philosophically. There was no reason. She had been
+poor and put to many shifts. Sometimes she had been compelled to permit
+herself to be indebted to a man in a way no woman should allow herself
+to be. She was quite aware of this, and was not, therefore, angry with
+society for its reluctance to receive her; but she said to herself, with
+great energy, that there was no cause. She was not hopeless even of the
+drawing-room, nor of getting the Duchess herself, a model of all the
+virtues, to present her, if the ball went off well at Park Lane. She
+said to herself that there was nothing on her mind which would make her
+shrink from seeking admission to the presence of the Queen. She was not
+afraid even of that royal lady's penetrating eye. Shiftiness, poverty,
+debts, modes of getting money that were, perhaps, equivocal, help too
+lightly accepted, all these are bad enough; but they are not in a woman
+the unpardonable sin. And a caprice in English society was always
+possible. The young beauty of Bice might attract the eye of some one
+whose notice would throw down all obstacles; or it might touch the heart
+of some woman who was so high placed as to be able to defy prejudice.
+And after that, of course, they would go everywhere, and every
+prognostication of success and triumph would come true.
+
+Nevertheless, if things did not go on so well as this, the Contessa had
+furnished herself with what to say. She would tell Bice that the women
+were jealous, that she had been pursued by their hostility wherever she
+went, that a woman who secured the homage of men was always an object of
+their spite and malice, that it was a sort of persecution which the
+lovely had to bear from the unlovely in all regions. Knowing that it was
+fully more likely that she should fail than succeed, the Contessa had
+carefully provided herself with this ancient plea and would not hesitate
+to use it if necessary; but these were _grands moyens_, not to be
+resorted to save in case of necessity. She would herself have been
+willing enough to dispense with recognition and live as she was doing
+now, among the old and new admirers who had never failed her, enjoying
+everything except those dull drawing-rooms and heavy parties for which
+her soul longed, yet which she despised heartily, which she would have
+undergone any humiliation to get admission to, and turned to ridicule
+afterwards with the best grace in the world. She despised them, but
+there was nothing that could make up for absence from them; they alone
+had in their power the _cachet_, the symbol of universal acceptance. All
+these things depended upon the ball at Park Lane. Something had been
+going on there since she separated herself from that household which the
+Contessa did not understand. Sir Tom, indeed, was comprehensible. The
+discovery which he thought he had made, the things which she had allowed
+him to divine, and even permitted him to prove for himself without
+making a single assertion on her own part, were quite sufficient to
+account for his changed looks. But Lucy, what had she found out? It was
+not likely that Sir Tom had communicated his discovery to her. Lucy's
+demeanour confused the Contessa more than words can say. The simple
+creature had grown into a strange dignity, which nothing could explain.
+Instead of the sweet compliance and almost obedience of former days, the
+deference of the younger to the older woman, Lucy looked at her with
+grave composure, as of an equal or superior. What had happened to the
+girl? And it was so important that she should be friendly now and kept
+in good humour! Madame di Forno-Populo put forth all her attractions,
+gave her dear Lucy her sweetest looks and words, but made very little
+impression. This gave her a little tremor when she thought of it; for
+all her plans for the future were connected with the ball on the 26th at
+Park Lane.
+
+This ball appeared to Lucy, too, the most important crisis in her life.
+She had made a sacrifice which was heroic that nothing might go wrong
+upon that day. Somehow or other, she could not tell how, for the
+struggle had been desperate within her, she had subdued the emotion in
+her own heart and schooled herself to an acceptance of the old routine
+of her life until that event should be over. All her calculations went
+to that date, but not beyond. Life seemed to stop short there. It had
+been arranged and settled with a light heart in the pleasure of knowing
+that the Contessa had taken a house for herself, and that, consequently,
+Lucy was henceforward to be once more mistress of her own. She had been
+so ashamed of her own pleasure in this prospect, so full of compunctions
+in respect to her guest, whose departure made her happy, that she had
+thrown herself with enthusiasm into this expedient for making it up to
+them. She had said it was to be Bice's ball. When the Dowager's
+revelation came upon her like a thunderbolt, as soon as she was able to
+think at all, she had thought of this ball with a depth of emotion which
+was strange to be excited by so frivolous a matter. It was a pledge of
+the warmest friendship, but those for whom it was to be, had turned out
+the enemies of her peace, the destroyers of her happiness: and it was
+high festival and gaiety, but her heart was breaking. Lady Randolph,
+afraid of what she had done, yet virulent against the Contessa, had
+suggested that it should be given up. It was easy to do such a thing--a
+few notes, a paragraph in the newspaper, a report of a cousin dead, or a
+sudden illness; any excuse would do. But Lucy was not to be so moved.
+There was in her soft bosom a sense of justice which was almost stern,
+and through all her troubles she remembered that Bice, at least, had a
+claim upon all Sir Thomas Randolph could do for her, such as nobody
+else could have. Under what roof but his should she make her first
+appearance in the world? Lucy held sternly with a mixture of bitterness
+and tenderness to Bice's rights. In all this misery Bice was without
+blame, the only innocent person, the one most wronged, more wronged even
+than was Lucy herself. She it was who would have to bear the deepest
+stigma, without any fault of hers. Whatever could be done to advance her
+(as she counted advancement), to make her happy (as she reckoned
+happiness) it was right she should have it done. Lucy suppressed her own
+wretchedness heroically for this cause. She bore the confusion that had
+come into her life without saying a word for the sake of the other young
+creature who was her fellow-sufferer. How hard it was to do she could
+not have told, nor did any one suspect, except, vaguely, Sir Tom
+himself, who perceived some tragic mischief that was at work without
+knowing how it had come there or what it was. He tried to come to some
+explanation, but Lucy would have no explanation. She avoided him as much
+as it was possible to do. She had nothing to say when he questioned her.
+Till the 26th! Nothing, she was resolved, should interfere with that.
+And then--but not the baby in the nursery knew less than Lucy what was
+to happen then.
+
+They had come to London on the 2d, so that this day of fate was three
+weeks off, and during that time the Contessa had made no small progress
+in her affairs. Three weeks is a long time in a house which is open to
+visitors, even if only from four o'clock in the afternoon, every day,
+and without intermission; and indeed that was not the whole, for the
+ladies were accessible elsewhere than in the house in Mayfair. It had
+pleased the Contessa not to be visible when Lord Montjoie called at a
+somewhat early hour on the very earliest day. He was a young man who
+knew the world, and not one to have things made too easy for him. He was
+all aflame accordingly to gain the _entrée_ thus withheld, and when the
+Contessa appeared for the first time in the Park, with her lovely
+companion, Montjoie was eagerly on the watch, and lost no time in
+claiming acquaintance, and joining himself to her train. He was one of
+the two who were received to luncheon two or three days afterwards. When
+the ladies went to the opera he was on thorns till he could join them.
+He was allowed to go home with them for one song, and to come in next
+afternoon for a little music. And from that time forward there was no
+more question of shutting him out. He came and went almost when he
+pleased, as a young man may be permitted to do when he has become one of
+the intimates in an easy-going, pleasure-loving household, where there
+is always "something going on." He was so little flattered that never
+during all these days and nights had he once been allowed to repeat the
+performance upon which he prided himself, and with which he had followed
+up the singing of the Contessa and Bice at the Hall. The admirable lady
+whom they had met there, with her two daughters, had been eager that
+Lord Montjoie should display this accomplishment of his, and the girls
+had been enchanted by his singing; but the Contessa, though not so
+irreproachable, would have none of it. And Bice laughed freely at the
+young nobleman who had so much to bestow, and they both threw at him
+delicate little shafts of wit, which never pierced his stolid
+complacency, though he was quite quick withal to see the fun when other
+gentlemen looked at each other over the Contessa's shoulder, and burst
+into little peals of laughter at her little speeches about the Highton
+Grandmodes and other such exclusive houses. Montjoie knew all about La
+Forno-Populo. "But yet that little Bice," he said, "don't you know?" No
+one like her had come within Montjoie's ken. He knew all about the girls
+in blue or in pink or in white, who asked him to sing. But Bice, who
+laughed at his accomplishment and at himself, and was so saucy to him,
+and made fun of him, he allowed, to his face, that was very different.
+He described her in terms that were not chivalrous, and his own emotions
+in words still less ornate; but before the fortnight was over the best
+judges declared among themselves that, by Jove, the Forno-Populo had
+done it this time, that the little one knew how to play her cards, that
+it was all up with Montjoie, poor little beggar, with other elegances of
+a similar kind. The man who had taken the Contessa's house for her, and
+a great deal of trouble about all her arrangements, whom she described
+as a very old friend, and whose rueful sense that house-agents and
+livery stables might eventually look to him if she had no success in her
+enterprise did not impair his fidelity, went so far as to speak
+seriously to Montjoie on the subject. "Look here, Mont," he said, "don't
+you think you are going it rather too strong? There is not a thing
+against the girl, who is as nice as a girl can be, but then the aunt,
+you know----"
+
+"I'm glad she is the aunt," said Montjoie. "I thought she was the
+mother: and I always heard you were devoted to her."
+
+"We are very old friends," said this disinterested adviser. "There's
+nothing I would not do for her. She is the best soul out, and was the
+loveliest woman I can tell you--the girl is nothing to what she was.
+Aunt or cousin, I am not sure what is the relationship; but that's not
+the question. Don't you think you are coming it rather strong?"
+
+"Oh, I've got my wits about me," said Montjoie; and then he added,
+rather reluctantly--for it is the fashion of his kind to be vulgar and
+to keep what generosity or nobleness there is in them carefully out of
+sight--"and I've no relations, don't you know? I've got nobody to please
+but myself----"
+
+"Well, that is a piece of luck anyhow," the Mentor said; and he told the
+Contessa the gist of the conversation next morning, who was highly
+pleased by the news.
+
+The curious point in all this was that Bice had not the least objection
+to Montjoie. She was a clever girl and he was a stupid young man, but
+whether it was that her entirely unawakened heart had no share at all in
+the matter, or that her clear practical view of affairs influenced her
+sentiments as well as her mind, it is certain that she was quite pleased
+with her fate, and ready to embrace it without the least sense that it
+was a sacrifice or anything but the happiest thing possible. He amused
+her, as she had said to Jock. He made her laugh, most frequently at
+himself; but what did that matter? He had a kind of good looks, and that
+good nature which is the product of prosperity and well-being, and a
+sense of general superiority to the world. Perhaps the girl saw no man
+of a superior order to compare him with; but, as a matter of fact, she
+was perfectly satisfied with Montjoie. Mr. Derwentwater and Jock were
+more ridiculous to her than he was, and were less in harmony with
+everything she had previously known. Their work, their intellectual
+occupations, their cleverness and aspirations were out of her world
+altogether. The young man-about-town who had nothing to do but amuse
+himself, who was always "knocking about," as he said, whose business was
+pleasure, was the kind of being with whom she was acquainted. She had no
+understanding of the other kind. He who had been her comrade in the
+country, whose society had amused her there, and for whom she had a sort
+of half-condescending affection, was droll to her beyond measure, with
+his ambitions and great ideas as to what he was to do. He, too, made her
+laugh; but not as Montjoie did. She laughed, though this would have
+immeasurably surprised Jock, with much less sympathy than she had with
+the other, upon whom he looked with so much contempt. They were both
+silly to Bice,--silly as, in her strange experience, she thought it
+usual and natural for men to be,--but Montjoie's manner of being silly
+was more congenial to her than the other. He was more in tune with the
+life she had known. Hamburg, Baden, Wiesbaden, and all the other Bads,
+even Monaco, would have suited Montjoie well enough. The trade of
+pleasure-making has its affinities like every other, and a tramp on his
+way from fair to fair is more _en rapport_ with a duke than the world
+dreams of. Thus Bice found that the young English marquis, with more
+money than he knew how to spend, was far more like the elegant
+adventurer living on his wits, than all those intervening classes of
+society, to whom life is a more serious, and certainly a much less
+festive and costly affair. She understood him far better. And instead of
+being, as Lucy thought, a sacrifice, an unfortunate victim sold to a
+loveless marriage for the money and the advantages it would bring, Bice
+went on very gaily, her heart as unmoved as possible, to what she felt
+to be a most congenial fate.
+
+And they all waited for the 26th and the ball with growing excitement.
+It would decide many matters. It would settle what was to be the
+character of the Contessa's campaign. It might reintroduce her into
+society under better auspices than ever, or it might--but there was no
+need to foretell anything unpleasant. And very likely it would conclude
+at the same source as it began, Bice's triumph--a _débutante_ who was
+already the affianced bride of the young Marquis of Montjoie, the
+greatest _parti_ in the kingdom. The idea was like wine, and went to the
+Contessa's head.
+
+She had in this interval of excitement a brief little note from Lucy,
+which startled her beyond measure for the moment. It was to ask the
+exact names of Bice. "You shall know in a few days why I ask, but it is
+necessary they should be written down in full and exactly," Lucy said.
+The Contessa had half forgotten, in the new flood of life about her,
+what was in Lucy's power, and the further advantage that might come of
+their relations, and she did not think of this even now, but felt with
+momentary tremor as if some snare lay concealed under these simple
+words. After a moment's consideration, however, she wrote with a bold
+and flowing hand:
+
+     "SWEET LUCY--The child's name is Beatrice Ersilia. You cannot, I am
+     sure, mean her anything but good by such a question. She has not
+     been properly introduced, I know--I am fantastic, I loved the Bice,
+     and no more.
+
+                                                        "DARLING, A TE."
+
+This was signed with a cipher, which it was not very easy to make out--a
+little mystery which pleased the Contessa. She thus involved in a
+pleasant little uncertainty her own name, which nobody knew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE BALL.
+
+
+Lady Randolph's ball was one of the first of the season, and as it was
+the first ball she had ever given, and both Lucy and her husband were
+favourites in society, it was looked forward to as the forerunner of
+much excitement and pleasure, and with a freshness of interest and
+anticipation which, unless in April, is scarcely to be expected in town.
+The rooms in Park Lane, though there was nothing specially exquisite or
+remarkable in their equipment, were handsome and convenient. They formed
+a good background for the people assembled under their many lights
+without withdrawing the attention of any one from the looks, the
+dresses, the bright eyes, and jewels collected within, which, perhaps,
+after all, is an advantage in its way. And everybody who was in town was
+there, from the Duchess, upon whom the Contessa had designs of so
+momentous a character, down to those wandering young men-about-town who
+form the rank and file of the great world and fill up all the corners.
+There was, it is true, not much room to dance, but a bewildering amount
+of people, great names, fine toilettes, and beautiful persons.
+
+The Contessa timed her arrival at the most effective moment, when the
+rooms were almost full, but not yet crowded, and most of the more
+important guests had already arrived. It was just after the first
+greetings of people seeing each other for the first time were over, and
+an event of some kind was wanted. At such a moment princes and
+princesses are timed to arrive and bring the glory of the assembly to a
+climax. Lucy had no princess to honour her. But when out of the crowd
+round the doorway there were seen to emerge two beautiful and stately
+women unknown, the sensation was almost as great. One of them, who had
+the air of a Queen-Mother, was in dark dress studiously arranged to be a
+little older, a little more massive and magnificent than a woman of the
+Contessa's age required to wear (and which, accordingly, threw up all
+the more, though this, to do her justice, was a coquetry more or less
+unintentional, her unfaded beauty); and the other, an impersonation of
+youth, contemplated the world by her side with that open-eyed and
+sovereign gaze, proud and modest, but without any of the shyness or
+timidity of a _débutante_ which becomes a young princess in her own
+right. There was a general thrill of wonder and admiration wherever they
+were seen. Who were they, everybody asked? Though the name of the
+Forno-Populo was too familiarly known to a section of society, that is
+not to say that the ladies of Lucy's party, or even all the men had
+heard it bandied from mouth to mouth, or were aware that it had ever
+been received with less than respect: and the universal interest was
+spoiled only here and there in a corner by the laugh of the male
+gossips, who made little signs to each other, in token of knowing more
+than their neighbours. It was said among the more innocent that this was
+an Italian lady of distinction with her daughter or niece, and her
+appearance, if a little more marked and effective than an English lady's
+might have been, was thus fully explained and accounted for by the
+difference in manners and that inalienable dramatic gift, which it is
+common to believe in England, foreigners possess. No doubt their
+entrance was very dramatic. The way in which they contrasted and
+harmonised with each other was too studied for English traditions,
+which, in all circumstances, cling to something of the impromptu, an air
+of accidentalism. They were a spectacle in themselves as they advanced
+through the open central space, from which the ordinary guests
+instinctively withdrew to leave room for them. "Is it the Princess?"
+people asked, and craned their necks to see. It must at least be a
+German Serenity--the Margravine of Pimpernikel, the Hereditary Princess
+of Weissnichtwo--but more beautiful and graceful than English prejudice
+expects German ladies to be. Ah, Italian! that explained
+everything--their height, their grace, their dark beauty, their
+effective pose. The Latin races alone know how to arrange a spectacle in
+that easy way, how to produce themselves so that nobody could be
+unimpressed. There was a dramatic pause before them, a hum of excitement
+after they had passed. Who were they? Evidently the most distinguished
+persons present--the guests of the evening. Sir Tom, uneasy enough, and
+looking grave and preoccupied, which was so far from being his usual
+aspect, led them into the great drawing-room, where the Duchess, who had
+daughters who danced, had taken her place. He did not look as if he
+liked it, but the Contessa, for her part, looked round her with a
+radiant smile, and bowed very much as the Queen does in a state
+ceremonial to the people she knew. She performed a magnificent curtsey,
+half irony, half defiance, before the Dowager Lady Randolph, who looked
+on at this progress speechless. How Lucy could permit it; how Tom could
+have the assurance to do it; occupied the Dowager's thoughts. She had
+scarcely self-command to make a stiff sweep of recognition as the
+procession passed.
+
+The Duchess was at the upper end of the room, with all her daughters
+about her. Besides the younger ones who danced, there were two
+countesses supporting their mother. She was the greatest lady present,
+and she felt the dignity. But when she perceived the little opening that
+took place among the groups about, and, looking up, perceived the
+Contessa sweeping along in that regal separation, you might have blown
+her Grace away with a breath. Not only was the Duchess the most
+important person in the room, but her reception of the newcomer would be
+final, a sort of social life or death for the Contessa. But the
+supplicant approached with the air of a queen, while the arbiter of fate
+grew pale and trembled at the sight. If there was a tremor in her
+Grace's breast there was no less a tremor under the Contessa's velvet.
+But Madame di Forno-Populo had this great advantage, that she knew
+precisely what to do, and the Duchess did not know: she was fully
+prepared, and the Duchess taken by surprise: and still more that her
+Grace was a shy woman, whose intellect, such as it was, moved slowly,
+while the Contessa was very clever, and as prompt as lightning. She
+perceived at a glance that the less time the great lady had to think the
+better, and hastened forward for a step or two, hurrying her stately
+pace, "Ah, Duchess!" she said, "how glad I am to meet so old an
+acquaintance. And I want, above all things, to have your patronage for
+my little one. Bice--the Duchess, an old friend of my prosperous days,
+permits me to present you to her." She drew her young companion forward
+as she spoke, while the Duchess faltered and stammered a "How d'ye do?"
+and looked in vain for succour to her daughters, who were looking on.
+Then Bice showed her blood. It had not been set down in the Contessa's
+programme what she was to do, so that the action took her patroness by
+surprise, as well as the great lady whom it was so important to
+captivate. While the Duchess stood stiff and awkward, making a
+conventional curtsey against her will, and with a conventional smile on
+her mouth, Bice, with the air of a young princess, innocently, yet
+consciously superior to all her surroundings, suddenly stepped forward,
+and taking the Duchess's hand, bent her stately young head to kiss it.
+There was in the sudden movement that air of accident, of impulse, which
+we all love. It overcame all the tremors of the great lady. She said,
+"My dear!" in the excitement of the moment, and bent forward to kiss the
+cheek of this beautiful young creature, who was so deferential, so
+reverent in her young pride. And the Duchess's daughters did not
+disapprove! Still more wonderful than the effect on the Duchess was the
+effect upon these ladies, of whose criticisms their mother stood in
+dread. They drew close about the lovely stranger, and it immediately
+became apparent to the less important guests that the Italian ladies,
+the heroines of the evening, had amalgamated with the ducal party--as it
+was natural they should.
+
+Never had there been a more complete triumph. The Contessa stepped in
+and made hay while the sun shone. She waved off with a scarcely
+perceptible movement of her hand several of her intimates who would have
+gathered round her, and vouchsafed only a careless word to Montjoie, who
+had hastened to present himself. The work to which she devoted herself
+was the amusement of the Duchess, who was not, to tell the truth, very
+easily amused. But Madame di Forno-Populo had infinite resources, and
+she succeeded. She selected the Dowager Lady Randolph for her butt, and
+made fun of her so completely that her Grace almost exceeded the bounds
+of decorum in her laughter.
+
+"You must not, really; you must not--she is a great friend of mine," the
+Duchess said. But perhaps there was not much love between the two
+ladies. And thus by degrees the conversation was brought round to the
+Populina palace and the gay scenes so long ago.
+
+"You must have heard of our ruin," the Contessa said, looking full into
+the Duchess's face; "everybody has heard of that. I have been too poor
+to live in my own house. We have wandered everywhere, Bice and I. When
+one is proud it is more easy to be poor away from home. But we are in
+very high spirits to-day, the child and I," she added. "All can be put
+right again. My little niece has come into a fortune. She has made an
+inheritance. We received the news to-night only. That is how I have
+recovered my spirits--and to see you, Duchess, and renew the beautiful
+old times."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" the Duchess said, which was not much; but then she was a
+woman of few words.
+
+"Yes, we came to London very poor," said the Contessa. "What could I do?
+It was the moment to produce the little one. We have no Court. Could I
+seek for her the favour of the Piedmontese? Oh no! that was impossible.
+I said to myself she shall come to that generous England, and my old
+friends there will not refuse to take my Bice by the hand."
+
+"Oh no; I am sure not," said the Duchess.
+
+As for Bice she had long ere now set off with Montjoie, who had hung
+round her from the moment of her entrance into the room, and whose
+admiration had grown to such a height by the cumulative force of
+everybody else's admiration swelling into it, that he could scarcely
+keep within those bounds of compliment which are permitted to an adorer
+who has not yet acquired the right to be hyperbolical.
+
+"Oh yes, it's pretty enough: but you don't see half how pretty it is,
+for you can't see yourself, don't you know?" said this not altogether
+maladroit young practitioner. Bice gave him a smile like one of the
+Contessa's smiles, which said everything that was needful without giving
+her any trouble. But now that the effect of her entrance was attained,
+and all that dramatic business done with, the girl's soul was set upon
+enjoyment. She loved dancing as she loved every other form of rapid
+movement. The only drawback was that there was so little room. "Why do
+they make the rooms so small?" she said pathetically; a speech which was
+repeated from mouth to mouth like a witticism, as something so
+characteristic of the young Italian, w hose marble halls would never be
+overcrowded: though, as a matter of fact, Bice knew very little of
+marble halls.
+
+"Were you ever in the gallery at the Hall?" she asked. "To go from one
+end to the other, that was worth the while. It was as if one flew."
+
+"I never knew they danced down there," said Montjoie. "I thought it very
+dull, don't you know, till you appeared. If I had known you had dances,
+and fun going on, and other fellows cutting one out----"
+
+"There was but one other fellow," said Bice gravely. "I have seen in
+this country no one like him. Ah, why is he not here? He is more fun
+than any one, but better than fun. He is----"
+
+Montjoie's countenance was like a thunder-cloud big with fire and flame.
+
+"Trevor, I suppose you mean. I never thought that duffer could dance. He
+was a great sap at school, and a hideous little prig, giving himself
+such airs! But if you think all that of him----"
+
+"It was not Mr. Trevor," said Bice. Then catching sight of Lady Randolph
+at a little distance, she made a dart towards her on her partner's arm.
+
+"I am telling Lord Montjoie of my partner at the Hall," she said. "Ah,
+Milady, let him come and look! How he would clap his hands to see the
+lights and the flowers. But we could not have our gymnastique with all
+the people here."
+
+Lucy was very pale; standing alone, abstracted amid the gay crowd, as if
+she did not very well know where she was.
+
+"Baby? Oh, he is quite well, he is fast asleep," she said, looking up
+with dim eyes. And then there broke forth a little faint smile on her
+face. "You were always good to him," she said.
+
+"So it was the baby," said Montjoie, delighted. "What a one you are to
+frighten a fellow. If it had been Trevor I think I'd have killed him.
+How jolly of you to do gymnastics with that little beggar; he's
+dreadfully delicate, ain't he, not likely to live? But you're awfully
+cruel to me. You think no more of giving a wring to my heart than if it
+was a bit of rag. I think you'd like to see the blood come."
+
+"Let us dance," said Bice with great composure. She was bent upon
+enjoyment. She had not calculated upon any conversation. Indeed she
+objected to conversation on this point even when it did not interfere
+with the waltz. All could be settled much more easily by the Contessa,
+and if marriage was to be the end, that was a matter of business not
+adapted for a ballroom. She would not allow herself to be led away to
+the conservatory or any other retired nook such as Montjoie felt he must
+find for this affecting purpose. Bice did not want to be proposed to.
+She wanted to dance. She abandoned him for other partners without the
+slightest evidence of regret. She even accepted, when he was just about
+to seize upon her at the end of a dance, Mr. Derwentwater, preferring to
+dance the Lancers with him to the bliss of sitting out with Lord
+Montjoie. That forsaken one gazed at her with a consternation beyond
+words. To leave him and the proposal that was on his very lips for a
+square dance with a tutor! The young Marquis gazed after her as she
+disappeared with a certain awe. It could not be that she preferred
+Derwentwater. It must be her cleverness which he could not fathom, and
+some wonderful new system of Italian subtlety to draw a fellow on.
+
+"I like it better than standing still--I like it--enough," said Bice.
+"To dance, that is always something." Mr. Derwentwater also felt, like
+Lord Montjoie, that the young lady gave but little importance to her
+partner.
+
+"You like the rhythm, the measure, the woven paces and the waving
+hands," her companion said.
+
+Bice stared at him a little, not comprehending. "But you prefer," he
+continued, "like most ladies, the modern Bacchic dance, the whirl, the
+round, though what the old Puritans call promiscuous dancing of men and
+women together was not, I fear, Greek----"
+
+"I know nothing of the Greeks," said Bice. "Vienna is the best place for
+the valse, but Greek--no, we never were there."
+
+"I am thinking of classic terms," said MTutor with a smile, but he liked
+her all the better for not knowing. "We have in vases and in sculpture
+the most exquisite examples. You have never perhaps given your attention
+to ancient art? I cannot quite agree with Mr. Alma Tadema on that point.
+He is a great artist, but I don't think the wild leap of his dances is
+sanctioned by anything we possess."
+
+"Do not take wild leaps," said Bice, "but keep time. That is all you
+require in a quadrille. Why does every one laugh and go wrong. But it is
+a shame! One should not dance if one will not take the trouble. And why
+does _he_ not do anything?" she said, in the pause between two figures,
+suddenly coming in sight of Jock, who stood against the wall in their
+sight, following her about with eyes over which his brows were curved
+heavily; "he does not dance nor ride; he only looks on."
+
+"He reads," said Mr. Derwentwater. "The boy will be a great scholar if
+he keeps it up."
+
+"One cannot read in society," said Bice. "Now, you must remember, you go
+_that_ way; you do not come after me."
+
+"I should prefer to come after you. That is the heavenly way when one
+can follow such a leader. You remember what your own Dante----"
+
+"Oh!" murmured Bice, with a long sigh of impatience, "I have no Dante. I
+have a partner who will not give himself the pains--Now," she said, with
+an emphatic little pat of her foot and movement of her hands. Her soul
+was in the dance, though it was only the Lancers. With a slight line of
+annoyance upon her forehead she watched his performance, taking upon
+herself the responsibility, pushing him by his elbow when he went wrong,
+or leading him in the right way. Mr. Derwentwater had thought to carry
+off his mistakes with a laugh, but this was not Bice's way of thinking.
+She made him a little speech when the dance was over.
+
+"I think you are a great scholar too," she said; "but it will be well
+that you should not come forward again with a lady to dance the Lancers,
+for you cannot do it. And that will sometimes make a girl to have the
+air of being also awkward, which is not just."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater grew very red while this speech was making to him. He
+was a man of great and varied attainments, and had any one told him that
+he would blush about so trivial a matter as a Lancers----! But he grew
+very red and almost stammered as he said with humility, "I am afraid I
+am very deficient, but with you to guide me--Signorina, there is one
+divine hour which I never forget--when you sang that evening. May I
+call? May I see you for half an hour to-morrow?"
+
+"Oh," said Bice, with a deep-drawn breath, "here is some one else coming
+who does not dance very well! Talk to him about the Greek, and Lord
+Montjoie will take me. To-morrow! oh yes, with pleasure," she said as
+she took Montjoie's arm and darted away into the crowd. Montjoie was
+all glowing and radiant with pride and joy.
+
+"I thought I'd hang off and on and take my chance, don't you know? I
+thought you'd soon get sick of that sort. You and I go together like two
+birds. I have been watching you all this time, you and old Derwentwater.
+What was that he said about to-morrow? I want to talk about to-morrow
+too--unless, indeed to-night----"
+
+"Oh, Lord Montjoie," cried Bice, "dance! It was not to talk you came
+here, and you can dance better than you talk," she added, with that
+candour which distinguished her. And Montjoie flew away with her rushing
+and whirling. He could dance. It was almost his only accomplishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE BALL CONTINUED.
+
+
+Other eyes than those of her lovers followed Bice through this brilliant
+scene. Sir Tom had been living a strange stagnant life since that day
+before he left the Hall, when Lucy, innocently talking of Bice's English
+parentage, had suddenly roused him to the question--Who was Bice, and
+who her parents, English or otherwise? The suggestion was very sudden
+and very simple, conveying in it no intended hint or innuendo. But it
+came upon Sir Tom like a sudden thunderbolt, or rather like the firing
+of some train that had been laid and prepared for explosion. The tenor
+of his fears and suspicions has already been indicated. Nor has it ever
+been concealed from the reader of this history that there were incidents
+in Sir Tom's life upon which he did not look back with satisfaction, and
+which it would have grieved him much to have revealed to his wife in her
+simplicity and unsuspecting trust in him. One of these was a chapter of
+existence so long past as to be almost forgotten, yet unforgettable,
+which gave, when he thought of it, an instant meaning to the fact that a
+half-Italian girl of English parentage on one side should have been
+brought mysteriously, without warning or formal introduction, to his
+house by the Contessa. From that time, as has been already said, the
+disturbance in his mind was great. He could get no satisfaction one way
+or another. But to-night his uneasiness had taken a new and unexpected
+form. Should it so happen that Bice's identity with a certain poor baby,
+born in Tuscany seventeen years before, might some day be proved, what
+new cares, what new charge might it not place upon his shoulders? At
+such a thought Sir Tom held his very breath.
+
+The first result of such a possibility was, that he might find himself
+to stand in a relationship to the girl for whom he had hitherto had a
+careless liking and no more, which would change both his life and hers;
+and already he watched her with uneasy eyes and with a desire to
+interfere which bewildered him like a new light upon his own character.
+He could scarcely understand how he had taken it all so lightly before
+and interested himself so little in the fate of a young creature for
+whom it would not be well to be brought up according to the Contessa's
+canons, and follow her example in the world. He remembered, in the light
+of this new possibility, the levity with which he had received his
+wife's distress about Bice, and how lightly he had laughed at Lucy's
+horror as to the Contessa's ideas of marriage, and of what her
+_protégée_ was to do. He had said if they could catch any decent fellow
+with money enough it was the best thing that could happen to the girl,
+and that Bice would be no worse off than others, and that she herself,
+after the training she had gone through, was very little likely to have
+any delicacy on the subject. But when it had once occurred to him that
+the girl of whom he spoke so lightly might be his own child, an
+extraordinary change came over Sir Tom's views. He laughed no longer--he
+became so uneasy lest something should be done or said to affect Bice's
+good name, or throw her into evil hands, that his thoughts had circled
+unquietly round the house in Mayfair, and he had spent far more of his
+time there on the watch than he himself thought right. He knew very well
+the explanation that would be given of those visits of his, and he did
+not feel sure that some good-natured friends might not have already
+suggested suspicion to Lucy, who had certainly been very strange since
+their arrival in town. But he would not give up his watch, which was in
+a way, he said to himself, his duty, if---- He followed the girl's
+movements with disturbed attention, and would hurry into the Park to
+ride by her, to shut out an unsuitable cavalier, and make little
+lectures to her as to her behaviour with an embarrassed anxiety which
+Bice could not understand but which amused more than it benefited the
+Contessa, to whom this result of her mystification was the best fun in
+the world. But it was not amusing to Sir Tom. He regarded the society of
+men who gathered about the ladies with disgust. Montjoie was about the
+best--he was not old enough to be much more than silly--but even
+Montjoie was not a person whom he would himself choose to be closely
+connected with. Then came the question: If it should turn out that she
+was _that_ child, was it expedient that any one should know of it? Would
+it be better for her to be known as Sir Thomas Randolph's daughter, even
+illegitimate, or as the relative and dependent of the Forno-Populo? In
+the one case, her interests would have no guardian at all; in the other,
+what a shock it would give to his now-established respectability and the
+confidence all men had in him, to make such a connection known. Turning
+over everything in his thoughts, it even occurred to Sir Tom that it
+would be better for him to confess an early secret marriage, and thus
+save his own reputation and give to Bice a lawful standing ground. The
+poor young mother was dead long ago; there could be no harm in such an
+invention. Lucy could not be wounded by anything which happened so long
+before he ever saw her. And Bice would be saved from all stigma; if only
+it was Bice! if only he could be sure!
+
+But Sir Tom, whose countenance had not the habit of expressing anything
+but a large and humorous content, the careless philosophy of a happy
+temper and easy mind, was changed beyond description by the surging up
+of such thoughts. He became jealous and suspicious, watching Bice with a
+constant impulse to interfere, and even--while disregarding all the
+safeguards of his own domestic happiness for this reason--in his heart
+condemned the girl because she was not like Lucy, and followed her
+movements with a criticism which was as severe as that of the harshest
+moralist.
+
+Nobody in that lighthearted house could understand what had come over
+the good Sir Tom, not even the Contessa, who after a manner knew the
+reason, yet never imagined that the idea, which gave her a sort of
+malicious pleasure, would have led to such a result. Sir Tom had always
+been the most genial of hosts, but in his present state of mind even in
+this respect he was not himself. He kept his eye on Bice with a
+sternness of regard quite out of keeping with his character. If she
+should flirt unduly, if she began to show any of those arts which made
+the Contessa so fascinating, he felt, with a mingling of self-ridicule
+which tickled him in spite of his seriousness, that nothing could keep
+him from interposing. He had been charmed in spite of himself, even
+while he saw through and laughed at the Contessa's cunning ways; but to
+see them in a girl who might, for all he knew, have his own blood in her
+veins was a very different matter. He felt it was in him to interpose
+roughly, imperiously--and if he did so, would Bice care? She would turn
+upon him with smiling defiance, or perhaps ask what right had he to
+meddle in her affairs. Thus Sir Tom was so preoccupied that the change
+in Lucy, the effort she made to go through her necessary duties, the
+blotting out of all her simple kindness and brightness, affected him
+only dully as an element of the general confusion, and nothing more.
+
+But the Contessa, for her part, was radiant. She was victorious all
+along the line. She had received Lucy's note informing her of the
+provision she meant to make for Bice only that afternoon, and her heart
+was dancing with the sense of wealth, of money to spend and endless
+capability of pleasure. Whatever happened this was secure, and she had
+already in the first hour planned new outlays which would make Lucy's
+beneficence very little of a permanent advantage. But she said nothing
+of it to Bice, who might (who could tell, girls being at all times
+capricious) take into her little head that it was no longer necessary to
+encourage Montjoie, on whom at present she looked complacently enough as
+the probable giver of all that was best in life. This was almost enough
+for one day; but the Contessa fully believed in the proverb that there
+is nothing that succeeds like success, and had faith in her own
+fortunate star for the other events of the evening. And she had been
+splendidly successful. She had altogether vanquished the timid spirit of
+the Duchess, that model of propriety. Her entry upon the London world
+had been triumphant, and she had all but achieved the honours of the
+drawing-room. Unless the Lord Chamberlain should interfere, and why
+should he interfere? her appearance in the larger world of society would
+be as triumphant as in Park Lane. Her beautiful eyes were swimming in
+light, the glow of satisfaction and triumph. It fatigued her a little
+indeed to play the part of a virtuous chaperon, and stand or sit in one
+place all the evening, awaiting her _débutante_ between the dances,
+talking with the other virtuous ladies in the same exercise of patience,
+and smilingly keeping aloof from all participation at first hand in the
+scene which would have helped to amuse her indeed, but interfered with
+the fulfilment of her _rôle_. But she had internal happiness enough to
+make up to her for her self-denial. She would order that set of pearls
+for Bice and the emerald pendant for herself which had tempted her so
+much, to-morrow. And the Duchess was to present her, and probably this
+evening Montjoie would propose. Was it possible to expect in this world
+a more perfect combination of successes?
+
+Mr. Derwentwater went off somewhat discomfited to make a tour of the
+rooms after the remorseless address of Bice. He tried to smile at the
+mock severity of her judgment. He, no more than Montjoie, would believe
+that she meant only what she said. This accomplished man of letters and
+parts agreed, if in nothing else, in this, with the young fool of
+quality, that such extreme candour and plain speaking was some subtle
+Italian way of drawing an admirer on. He put it into finer words than
+Montjoie could command, and said to himself that it was that mysterious
+adorable feminine instinct which attracted by seeming to repel. And even
+on a more simple explanation it was comprehensible enough. A girl who
+attached so much importance to the accomplishments of society would
+naturally be annoyed by the failure in these of one to whom she looked
+up. A regret even moved his mind that he had not given more attention to
+them in earlier days. It was perhaps foolish to neglect our
+acquirements, which after all would not take very much trouble, and need
+only be brought forward, as Dogberry says, when there was no need for
+such vanities. He determined with a little blush at himself to note
+closely how other men did, and so be able another time to acquit himself
+to her satisfaction. And even her severity was sweet; it implied that he
+was not to her what other men were, that even in the more trifling
+accessories of knowledge she would have him to excel. If he had been
+quite indifferent to her, why should she have taken this trouble? And
+then that "To-morrow; with pleasure." What did it mean? That though she
+would not give him her attention to-night, being devoted to her dancing
+(which is what girls are brought up to in this strangely imperfect
+system), she would do so on the earliest possible occasion. He went
+about the room like a man in a dream, following everywhere with his eyes
+that vision of beauty, and looking forward to the next step in his
+life-drama with an intoxication of hope which he did not attempt to
+subdue. He was indeed pleased to experience a _grande passion_. It was a
+thing which completed the mental equipment of a man. Love--not humdrum
+household affection, such as is all that is looked for when the
+exigencies of life make a wife expedient, and with full calculation of
+all he requires the man sets out to look for her and marry her. This was
+very different, an all-mastering passion, disdainful of every obstacle.
+To-morrow! He felt an internal conviction that, though Montjoie might
+dance and answer for the amusement of an evening, that bright and
+peerless creature would not hesitate as to who should be her guide for
+life.
+
+It was while he was thus roaming about in a state of great excitement
+and a subdued ecstasy of anticipation, that he encountered Jock, who had
+not been enjoying himself at all. At this great entertainment Jock had
+been considered a boy, and no more. Even as a boy, had he danced there
+might have been some notice taken of him, but he was incapable in this
+way, and in no other could he secure any attention. At a party of a
+graver kind there were often people who were well enough pleased to talk
+to Jock, and from men who owed allegiance to his school a boy who had
+distinguished himself and done credit to the old place was always sure
+of notice. But then, though high up in Sixth Form, and capable of any
+eminence in Greek verse, he was nobody; while a fellow like Montjoie,
+who had never got beyond the rank of lower boy, was in the front of
+affairs, the admired of all admirers, Bice's chosen partner and
+companion. The mind develops with a bound when it has gone through such
+an experience. Jock stood with his back against the wall, and watched
+everything from under his eyebrows. Sometimes there was a glimmer as of
+moisture in those eyes, half veiled under eyelids heavily curved and
+puckered with wrath and pain, for he was very young, not much more than
+a child, notwithstanding his manhood. But what with a keenness of
+natural sight, and what with the bitter enlightening medium of that
+moisture, Jock saw the reality of the scene more clearly than Mr.
+Derwentwater, roaming about in his dream of anticipation, self-deceived,
+was capable of doing. He caught sight of Jock in his progress, and,
+though it was this sentiment which had separated them, its natural
+effect was also to throw them together. MTutor paused and took up a
+position by his pupil's side. "What a foolish scene considered
+philosophically," he said; "and yet how many human interests in
+solution, and floating adumbrations of human fate! I have been dancing,"
+Mr. Derwentwater continued, with some solemnity and a full sense of the
+superior position involved, "with, I verily believe, the most beautiful
+creature in the world."
+
+Jock looked up, fixing him with a critical, slightly cynical regard. He
+had been well aware of Mr. Derwentwater's very ineffective performance,
+and divined too clearly the sentiments of Bice not to feel all a
+spectator's derision for this uncalled-for self-complacency; but he made
+no remark.
+
+"There is nothing trivial in the exercise in such a combination. I
+incline to think that beauty is almost the greatest of all the
+spectacles that Nature sets before us. The effect she has upon us is
+greater than that produced by any other influence. You are perhaps too
+young to have your mind awakened on such a subject----"
+
+To hear this foolish wisdom pouring forth, while the listener felt at
+every breath how his own bosom thrilled with an emotion too deep to be
+put into words, with a passion, hopeless, ridiculous, to which no one
+would accord any sympathy or comment but a laugh! Heaven and earth! and
+all because a fellow was some dozen years older, thinking himself a man,
+and you only a boy!
+
+"----but you have a fine intelligence, and it can never be amiss for you
+to approach a great subject on its most elevated side. She is not much
+older than you are, Jock."
+
+"She is not so old as I am. She is three months younger than I am,"
+cried Jock, in his gruffest voice.
+
+"And yet she is a revelation," said Mr. Derwentwater. "I feel that I am
+on the eve of a great crisis in my being. You have always been my
+favourite, my friend, though you are so much younger; and in this I feel
+we are more than ever sympathetic. Jock, to-morrow--to-morrow I am to
+see her, to tell her---- Come out on the balcony, there is no one there,
+and the moonlight and the pure air of night are more fit for such heart
+opening than this crowded scene."
+
+"What are you going to tell her?" said Jock, with his eyebrows meeting
+over his eyes and his back against the wall. "If you think she'll listen
+to what you tell her! She likes Montjoie. It is not that he's rich and
+that, but she likes him, don't you know, better than any of us. Oh, talk
+about mysteries," cried Jock, turning his head away, conscious of that
+moisture which half-blinded him, but which he could not get rid of, "how
+can you account for that? She likes him, that fellow, better than either
+you or me!"
+
+Better than Jock; far better than this man, his impersonation of noble
+manhood, whom the most levelling of all emotions, the more than Red
+Republican Love, had suddenly brought down to, nay, below, Jock's
+level--for not only was he a fool like Jock, but a hopeful fool, while
+Jock had penetrated the fulness of despair, and dismissed all illusion
+from his youthful bosom. The boy turned his head away, and the voice
+which he had made so gruff quavered at the end. He felt in himself at
+that moment all the depths of profound and visionary passion, something
+more than any man ever was conscious of who had an object and a hope.
+The boy had neither; he neither hoped to marry her nor to get a hearing,
+nor even to be taken seriously. Not even the remorse of a serious
+passion rejected, the pain of self-reproach, the afterthought of pity
+and tenderness would be his. He would get a laugh, nothing more. That
+schoolboy, that brother of Lady Randolph's, who does not leave school
+for a year! He knew what everybody would say. And yet he loved her
+better than any one of them! MTutor startled, touched, went after him as
+Jock turned away, and linking his arm in his, said something of the
+kind which one would naturally say to a boy. "My dear fellow, you don't
+mean to tell me----? Come, Jock! This is but your imagination that
+beguiles you. The heart has not learned to speak so soon," MTutor said,
+leaning upon Jock's shoulder. The boy turned upon him with a fiery glow
+in his eyes.
+
+"What were you saying about dancing?" he said. "They seem to be making
+up that Lancers business again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+NEXT MORNING.
+
+
+"You have news to tell me, Bice mia?"
+
+There was a faint daylight in the streets, a blueness of dawn as the
+ladies drove home.
+
+"Have I? I have amused myself very much. I am not fatigued, no. I could
+continue as long--as long as you please," Bice answered, who was sitting
+up in her corner with more bloom than at the beginning of the evening,
+her eyes shining, a creature incapable of fatigue. The Contessa lay back
+in hers, with a languor which was rather adapted to her _rôle_ as a
+chaperon than rendered necessary by the fatigue she felt. If she had not
+been amused, she was triumphant, and this supplied a still more
+intoxicating exhilaration than that of mere pleasure.
+
+"Darling!" she said, in her most expressive tone. She added a few
+moments after, "But Lord Montjoie! He has spoken? I read it in his
+face----"
+
+"Spoken? He said a great deal--some things that made me laugh, some
+things that were not amusing. After all he is perhaps a little stupid,
+but to dance there is no one like him!"
+
+"And you go together--to perfection----"
+
+"Ah!" said Bice, with a long breath of pleasure, "when the people began
+to go away, when there was room! Certainly we deserted our other
+partners, both he and I. Does that matter in London? He says No."
+
+"Not, my angel, if you are to marry."
+
+"That was what he said," said Bice, with superb calm. "Now, I remember
+that was what he said; but I answered that I knew nothing of
+affairs--that it was to dance I wanted, not to talk; and that it was
+you, Madama, who disposed of me. It seemed to amuse him," the girl said
+reflectively. "Is it for that reason you kiss me? But it was he that
+spoke, as you call it, not I."
+
+"You are like a little savage," cried the Contessa. "Don't you care then
+to make the greatest marriage, to win the prize, to settle everything
+with no trouble, before you are presented or anything has been done at
+all?"
+
+"Is it settled then?" said Bice. She shrugged her shoulders a little
+within her white cloak. "Is that all?--no more excitement, nothing to
+look forward to, no tr-rouble? But it would have been more amusing if
+there had been a great deal of tr-rouble," the girl said.
+
+This was in the blue dawn, when the better portion of the world which
+does not go to balls was fast asleep, the first pioneers of day only
+beginning to stir about the silent streets, through which now and then
+the carriage of late revellers like themselves darted abrupt with a
+clang that had in it something of almost guilt. Twelve hours after, the
+Contessa in her boudoir--with not much more than light enough to see the
+flushed and happy countenance of young Montjoie, who had been on thorns
+all the night and morning with a horrible doubt in his mind lest, after
+all, Bice's careless reply might mean nothing more than that fine system
+of drawing a fellow on--settled everything in the most delightful way.
+
+"Nor is she without a sou, as perhaps you think. She has something that
+will not bear comparison with your wealth, yet something--which has been
+settled upon her by a relation. The Forno-Populi are not rich--but
+neither are they without friends."
+
+Montjoie listened to this with a little surprise and impatience. He
+scarcely believed it, for one thing; and when he was assured that all
+was right as to Bice herself, he cared but little for the Forno-Populi.
+"I don't know anything about the sous. I have plenty for both," he said,
+"that had a great deal better go to you, don't you know. She is all I
+want. Bice! oh that's too foreign. I shall call her Bee, for she must be
+English, don't you know, Countess, none of your Bohem--Oh, I don't mean
+that; none of your foreign ways. They draw a fellow on, but when it's
+all settled and we're married and that sort of thing, she'll have to be
+out and out English, don't you know?"
+
+"But that is reasonable," said the Contessa, who could when it was
+necessary reply very distinctly. "When one has a great English name and
+a position to keep up, one must be English. You shall call her what you
+please."
+
+"There's one thing more," Montjoie said with a little redness and
+hesitation, but a certain dogged air, with which the Contessa had not as
+yet made acquaintance. "It's best to understand each other, don't you
+know; it's sort of hard-hearted to take her right away. But, Countess,
+you're a woman of the world, and you know a fellow must start fair. You
+keep all those sous you were talking of, and just let us knock along our
+own way. I don't want the money, and I dare say you'll find a use for
+it. And let's start fair; it'll be better for all parties, don't you
+know," the young man said. He reddened, but he met the Contessa's eye
+unflinchingly, though the effort to respond to this distinct statement
+in the spirit in which it was made cost her a struggle. She stared at
+him for a moment across the dainty little table laden with knick-knacks.
+It was strange in the moment of victory to receive such a sudden
+decisive defeat. There was just a possibility for a moment that this
+brave spirit should own itself mere woman, and break down and cry. For
+one second there was a quiver on her lip; then she smiled, which for
+every purpose was the better way.
+
+"You would like," she said, "to see Bice. She is in the little
+drawing-room. The lawyers will settle the rest; but I understand your
+suggestion, Lord Montjoie." She rose with all her natural stately grace,
+which made the ordinary young fellow feel very small in spite of
+himself. The smile she gave him had something in it that made his knees
+knock together.
+
+"I hope," he said, faltering, "you don't mind, Countess. My people,
+though I've not got any people to speak of, might make themselves
+disagreeable about--don't you know? you--you're a woman of the world."
+
+The Contessa smiled upon him once more with dazzling sweetness. "She is
+in the little drawing-room," she said.
+
+And so it was concluded, the excitement, the tr-rouble, as Bice said; it
+would have been far more amusing if there had been a great deal more
+tr-rouble. The Contessa dropped down in the corner of the sofa from
+which she had risen. She closed her eyes for the moment, and swallowed
+the affront that had been put upon her, and what was worse than the
+affront, the blow at her heart which this trifling little lord had
+delivered without flinching. This was to be the end of her schemes, that
+she was to be separated summarily and remorselessly from the child she
+had brought up. The Contessa knew, being of the same order of being,
+that, already somewhat disappointed to find the ardour of the chase over
+and all the excitement of bringing down the quarry, Bice, who cared
+little more about Montjoie than about any other likely person, would be
+as ready as not to throw him off if she were to communicate rashly the
+conditions on which he insisted. But, though she was of the same order
+of being, the Contessa was older and wiser. She had gone through a great
+many experiences. She knew that rich young English peers, marquises,
+uncontrolled by any parent or guardians, were fruit that did not grow on
+every bush, and that if this tide of fortune was not taken at its flood
+there was no telling when another might come. Now, though Bice was so
+dear, the Contessa had still a great many resources of her own, and was
+neither old nor tired of life. She would make herself a new career even
+without Bice, in which there might still be much interest--especially
+with the aid of a settled income. The careless speech about the sous was
+not without an eloquence of its own. Sous make everything that is
+disagreeable less disagreeable, and everything that is pleasant more
+pleasant. And she had got her triumph. She had secured for her Bice a
+splendid lot. She had accomplished what she had vowed to do, which many
+scoffers had thought she would never do. She was about to be presented
+at the English Court, and all her soils and spots from the world cleared
+from her, and herself rehabilitated wherever she might go. Was it
+reasonable then to break her heart over Montjoie and his miserable
+conditions? He could not separate Bice's love from her, though he might
+separate their lives--and that about the sous was generous. She was not
+one who would have sold her affections or given up anybody whom she
+loved for money. But still there were many things to be said, and for
+Bice's advantage what would she not do? The Contessa ended by a
+resolution which many a better woman would not have had the courage to
+make. She buried Montjoie's condition in her own heart--never to hint
+its existence--to ignore it as if it had not been. Many a more
+satisfactory person would have flinched at this. Most of us would at
+least have allowed the object of our sacrifice to be aware what we were
+doing for them. The Contessa did not even, so far as this, yield to the
+temptation of fate.
+
+In the meantime Bice had gone through her own little episode. Mr.
+Derwentwater came about noon, before the Contessa was up; but he did not
+know the Contessa's habits, and he was admitted, which neither Montjoie
+nor any of the Contessa's friends would have been. He was overjoyed to
+find the lady of his affections alone. This made everything, he thought,
+simple and easy for him, and filled him with a delightful confidence
+that she was prepared for the object of his visit and had contrived to
+keep the Contessa out of the way. His heart was beating high, his mind
+full of excitement. He took the chair she pointed him to, and then got
+up again, poising his hat between his hands.
+
+"Signorina," he said, "they say that a woman always knows the impression
+she has made."
+
+"Why do you call me Signorina?" said Bice. "Yes, it is quite right. But
+then it is so long that I have not heard it, and it is only you that
+call me so."
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Derwentwater, with a little natural complacency,
+"others are not so well acquainted with your beautiful country and
+language. What should I call you? Ah, I know what I should like to call
+you. _Beatrice, loda di deo vera._ You are like the supreme and sovran
+lady whom every one must think of who hears your name."
+
+Bice looked at him with a half-comic attention. "You are a very learned
+man," she said, "one can see that. You always say something that is
+pretty, that one does not understand."
+
+This piqued the suitor a little and brought the colour to his cheek.
+"Teach me," he said, "to make you understand me. If I could show you my
+heart, you would see that from the first moment I saw you the name of
+Bice has been written----"
+
+"Oh, I know it already," cried Bice, "that you have a great devotion for
+poetry. Unhappily I have no education. I know it so very little. But I
+have found out what you mean about Bice. It is more soft than you say
+it. There is no sound of _tch_ in it at all. Beeshè, like that. Your
+Italian is very good," she added, "but it is Tuscan, and the _bocca
+romana_ is the best."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater was more put out than it became a philosopher to be. "I
+came," he cried, with a kind of asperity, "for a very different purpose,
+not to be corrected in my Italian. I came----" but here his feelings
+were too strong for him, "to lay my life and my heart at your feet. Do
+you understand me now? To tell you that I love you--no, that is not
+enough, it is not love, it is adoration," he said. "I have never known
+what it meant before. However fair women might be, I have passed them
+by; my heart has never spoken. But now! Since the first moment I saw
+you, Bice----"
+
+The girl rose up; she became a little alarmed. Emotion was strange to
+her, and she shrank from it. "I have given," she said, "to nobody
+permission to call me by my name."
+
+"But you will give it to me! to your true lover," he cried. "No one can
+admire and adore you as much as I do. It was from the first moment.
+Bice, oh, listen! I have nothing to offer you but love, the devotion of
+a life. What could a king give more? A true man cannot think of anything
+else when he is speaking to the woman he loves. Nothing else is worthy
+to offer you. Bice, I love you! I love you! Have you nothing, nothing in
+return to say to me?"
+
+All his self-importance and intellectual superiority had abandoned him.
+He was so much agitated that he saw her but dimly through the mists of
+excitement and passion. He stretched out his hands appealing to her. He
+might have been on his knees for anything he knew. It seemed incredible
+to him that his strong passion should have no return.
+
+"Have you nothing, nothing to say to me?" he cried.
+
+Bice had been frightened, but she had regained her composure. She looked
+on at this strange exhibition of feeling with the wondering calm of
+extreme youth. She was touched a little, but more surprised than
+anything else. She said, with a slight tremor, "I think it must be all a
+mistake. One is never so serious--oh, never so serious! It is not
+something of--gravity like that. Did not you know? I am intended to make
+a marriage--to marry well, very well--what you call a great marriage. It
+is for that I am brought here. The Contessa would never listen--Oh, it
+is a mistake altogether--a mistake! You do not know what is my career.
+It has all been thought of since I was born. Pray, pray, go away, and do
+not say any more."
+
+"Bice," he cried, more earnestly than ever, "I know. I heard that you
+were to be sacrificed. Who is the lady who is going to sacrifice you to
+Mammon? she is not your mother; you owe her no obedience. It is your
+happiness, not hers, that is at stake. And I will preserve you from her.
+I will guard you like my own soul; the winds of heaven shall not visit
+your cheek roughly. I will cherish you; I will adore you. Come, only
+come to me."
+
+His voice was husky with emotion; his last words were scarcely audible,
+said within his breath in a high strain of passion which had got beyond
+his control. The contrast between this tremendous force of feeling and
+her absolute youthful calm was beyond description. It was more wonderful
+than anything ever represented on the tragic stage. Only in the depth
+and mystery of human experience could such a wonderful juxtaposition be.
+
+"Mr. Derwentwater," she said, trembling a little, "I cannot understand
+you. Go away, oh, go away!"
+
+"Bice!"
+
+"Go away, oh, go away! I am not able to bear it; no one is ever so
+serious. I am not great enough, nor old enough. Don't you know," cried
+Bice, with a little stamp of her foot, "I like the other way best? Oh,
+go away, go away!"
+
+He stood quiet, silently gazing at her till he had regained his power of
+speech, which was not for a moment or two. Then he said hoarsely, "You
+like--the other way best?"
+
+She clasped her hands together with a mingling of impatience and wonder
+and rising anger. "I am made like that," she cried. "I don't know how to
+be so serious. Oh, go away from me. You tr-rouble me. I like the other
+best."
+
+He never knew how he got out of the strange, unnatural atmosphere of the
+house in which he seemed to leave his heart behind him. The perfumes,
+the curtains, the half lights, the blending draperies, were round him
+one moment; the next he found himself in the greenness of the Park, with
+the breeze blowing in his face, and his dream ended and done with.
+
+He had a kind of vision of having touched the girl's reluctant hand, and
+even of having seen a frightened look in her eyes as if he had awakened
+some echo or touched some string whose sound was new to her. But if that
+were so, it was not he, but only some discovery of unknown feeling that
+moved her. When he came to himself, he felt that all the innocent
+morning people in the Park, the children with their maids, the sick
+ladies and old men sunning themselves on the benches, the people going
+about their honest business, cast wondering looks at his pale face and
+the agitation of his aspect. He took a long walk, he did not know how
+long, with that strange sense that something capital had happened to
+him, something never to be got over or altered, which follows such an
+incident in life. He was even conscious by and by, habit coming to his
+aid, of a curious question in his mind if this was how people usually
+felt after such a wonderful incident--a thing that had happened quite
+without demonstration, which nobody could ever know of, yet which made
+as much change in him as if he had been sentenced to death. Sentenced to
+death! that was what it felt like more or less. It had happened, and
+could never be undone, and he walked away and away, but never got beyond
+it, with the chain always round his neck. When he got into the streets
+where nobody took any notice of him, it struck him with surprise, almost
+offence. Was it possible that they did not see that something had
+happened--a mystery, something that would never be shaken off but with
+life?
+
+He met Jock as he walked, and without stopping gave him a sort of
+ghastly smile, and said, "You were right; she likes that best," and went
+on again, with a sense that he might go on for ever like the wandering
+Jew, and never get beyond the wonder and the pain.
+
+And there is no doubt that Bice was glad to hear Montjoie's laugh, and
+the nonsense he talked, and to throw off that sudden impression which
+had frightened her. What was it? Something which was in life, but which
+she had not met with before. "We are to have it all our own way, don't
+you know?" Montjoie said. "I have no people, to call people, and she is
+not going to interfere. We shall have it all our own way, and have a
+good time, as the Yankees say. And I am not going to call you Bice,
+which is a silly sort of name, and spells quite different from its
+pronunciation. What are you holding back for? You have no call to be shy
+with me now. Bee, you belong to me now, don't you know?" the young
+fellow said, with demonstrations from which Bice shrunk a little. She
+liked, yes, his way; but, but yet--she was perhaps a little savage, as
+the Contessa said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+THE LAST BLOW.
+
+
+Lucy stood out stoutly to the last gasp. She did not betray herself,
+except by the paleness, the seriousness which she could not banish from
+her countenance. Her guests thought that Lady Randolph must be ill, that
+she was disguising a bad headache, or even something more serious, under
+the smile with which she received them. "I am sure you ought to be in
+bed," the older ladies said, and when they took their leave of her,
+after their congratulations as to the success of the evening, they all
+repeated this in various tones. "I am sure you are quite worn out; I
+shall send in the morning to ask how you are," the Duchess said. Lucy
+listened to everything with a smile which was somewhat set and painful.
+She was so worn out with emotion and pain that at last neither words nor
+looks made much impression upon her. She saw the Contessa and Bice
+stream by to their carriage with a circle of attendants, still in all
+the dazzle and flash of their triumph; and after that the less important
+crowd, the insignificant people who lingered to the last, the girls who
+would not give up a last waltz, and the men who returned for a final
+supper, swam in her dazed eyes. She stood at the door mechanically
+shaking hands and saying "Good-night." The Dowager, moved by curiosity,
+anxiety, perhaps by pity, kept by her till a late hour, though Lucy was
+scarcely aware of it. When she went away at last, she repeated with
+earnestness and a certain compunction the advice of the other ladies.
+"You don't look fit to stand," she said. "If you will go to bed I will
+wait till all these tiresome people are gone. You have been doing too
+much, far too much." "It does not matter," Lucy said, in her
+semi-consciousness hearing her own voice like something in a dream. "Oh,
+my dear, I am quite unhappy about you!" Lady Randolph cried. "If you are
+thinking of what I told you, Lucy, perhaps it may not be true." There
+was a bevy of people going away at that moment, and she had to shake
+hands with them. She waited till they were gone and then turned, with a
+laugh that frightened the old lady, towards her.
+
+"You should have thought of that before," she said. Perhaps it might not
+be true! Can heaven be veiled and the pillars of the earth pulled down
+by a perhaps? The laugh sounded even to herself unnatural, and the elder
+Lady Randolph was frightened by it, and stole away almost without
+another word. When everybody was gone Sir Tom stood by her in the
+deserted rooms, with all the lights blazing and the blue day coming in
+through the curtains, as grave and as pale as she was. They did not look
+like the exhausted yet happy entertainers of the (as yet) most
+successful party of the season. Lucy could scarcely stand and could not
+speak at all, and he seemed little more fit for those mutual
+congratulations, even the "Thank heaven it is well over," with which the
+master and the mistress of the house usually salute each other in such
+circumstances. They stood at different ends of the room, and made no
+remark. At last, "I suppose you are going to bed," Sir Tom said. He came
+up to her in a preoccupied way. "I shall go and smoke a cigar first, and
+it does not seem much good lighting a candle for you." They both looked
+somewhat drearily at the daylight, now no longer blue, but rosy. Then
+he laid his hand upon her shoulder. "You are dreadfully tired, Lucy, and
+I think there has been something the matter with you these few days. I'd
+ask you what it was, but I'm dead beat, and you are dreadfully tired
+too." He stopped and kissed her forehead, and took her hand in his in a
+sort of languid way. "Good-night; go to bed my poor little woman," he
+said.
+
+It is terrible to be wroth with those we love. Anger against them is
+deadly to ourselves. It "works like madness in the brain;" it involves
+heaven and earth in a gloom that nothing can lighten. But when that
+anger being just, and such as we must not depart from, is crossed by
+those unspeakable relentings, those quick revivals of love, those sudden
+touches of tenderness that carry all before them, what anguish is equal
+to those bitter sweetnesses? Lucy felt this as she stood there with her
+husband's hand upon her shoulder, in utter fatigue, and broken down in
+all her faculties. Through all those dark and bitter mists which rose
+about her, his voice broke like a ray of light: her timid heart sprang
+up in her bosom and went out to him with an _abandon_ which, but for the
+extreme physical fatigue which produces a sort of apathy, must have
+broken down everything. For a moment she swayed towards him as if she
+would have thrown herself upon his breast.
+
+When this movement comes to both the estranged persons, there follows a
+clearing away of difficulties, a revolution of the heart, a
+reconciliation when that is possible, and sometimes when it is not
+possible. But it very seldom happens that this comes to both at the same
+time. Sir Tom remained unmoved while his wife had that sudden access of
+reawakened tenderness. He was scarcely aware even how far she had been
+from him, and now was quite unaware how near. His mind was full of cares
+and doubts, and an embarrassing situation which he could not see how to
+manage. He was not even aware that she was moved beyond the common. He
+took his hand from her shoulder, and without another word let her go
+away.
+
+Oh, those other words that are never spoken! They are counterbalanced in
+the record of human misfortune by the many other words which are too
+much, which should never have been spoken at all. Thus all explanation,
+all ending of the desperate situation, was staved off for another night.
+
+Lucy woke next morning in a kind of desperation. No new event had
+happened, but she could not rest. She felt that she must do something or
+die, and what could she do? She spent the early morning in the nursery,
+and then went out. This time she was reasonable, not like that former
+time when she went out to the city. She knew very well now that nothing
+was to be gained by walking or by jolting in a disagreeable cab. On the
+former occasion that had been something of a relief to her; but not now.
+It is scarcely so bad when some out-of-the-way proceeding like this,
+some strange thing to be done, gives the hurt and wounded spirit a
+little relief. She had come to the further stage now when she knew that
+nothing of the sort could give any relief; nothing but mere dull
+endurance, going on, and no more. She drove to Mr. Chervil's office
+quietly, as she might have gone anywhere, and thus, though it seems
+strange to say so, betrayed a deeper despair than before. She took with
+her a list of names with sums written opposite. There was enough there
+put down to make away with a large fortune. This one so much, that one
+so much. This too was an impulse of the despair in her mind. She was
+carrying out her father's will in a lump. It meant no exercise of
+discrimination, no careful choice of persons to be benefited, such as he
+had intended, but only a hurried rush at a duty which she had neglected,
+a desire to be done with it. Lucy was on the eve, she felt, of some
+great change in her life. She could not tell what she might be able to
+do after; whether she should live through it or bring her mind and
+memory unimpaired through it, or think any longer of anything that had
+once been her duty. She would get it done while she could. She was very
+sensible that the money she had given to Bice was not in accordance with
+what her father would have wished: neither were these perhaps. She could
+not tell, she did not care. At least it would be done with, and could
+not be done over again.
+
+"Lady Randolph," said Mr. Chervil, in dismay, "have you any idea of the
+sum you are--throwing away?"
+
+"I have no idea of any sum," said Lucy, gently, "except just the money I
+spend, so much in my purse. But you have taught me how to calculate, and
+that so much would--make people comfortable. Is not that what you said?
+Well, if it was not you, it was--I do not remember. When I first got the
+charge of this into my hands----"
+
+"Lady Randolph, you cannot surely think what you are doing. At the
+worst," said the distressed trustee, "this was meant to be a fund
+for--beneficence all your life: not to be squandered away, thousands and
+thousands in a day----"
+
+"Is it squandered when it gives comfort--perhaps even happiness? And
+how do you know how long my life may last? It may be over--in a day----"
+
+"You are ill," said the lawyer. "I thought so the moment I saw you. I
+felt sure you were not up to business to-day."
+
+"I don't think I am ill," said Lucy; "a little tired, for I was late
+last night--did not you know we had a ball, a very pretty ball?" she
+added, with a curious smile, half of gratification, half of mockery. "It
+was a strange thing to have, perhaps, just--at this moment."
+
+"A very natural thing," said Mr. Chervil. "I am glad to know it; you are
+so young, Lady Randolph, pardon me for saying so."
+
+"It was not for me," said Lucy; "it was for a young lady--my
+husband's----"
+
+Was she going out of her senses? What was she about to say?
+
+"A relation?" said Mr. Chervil. "Perhaps the young lady for whom you
+interested yourself so much in a more important way? They are fortunate,
+Lady Randolph, who have you for a friend."
+
+"Do you think so? I don't know that any one thinks so." She recovered
+herself a little and pointed to the papers. "You will carry that out,
+please. I may be going away. I am not quite sure of my movements. As
+soon as you can you will carry this out."
+
+"Going away--at the beginning of the season!"
+
+"Oh, there is nothing settled; and besides you know life--life is very
+insecure."
+
+"At your age it is very seldom one thinks so," said the lawyer, at which
+she smiled only, then rose up, and without any further remark went away.
+He saw her to her carriage, not now with any recollection of the
+pleasant show and the exhibition of so fine a client to the admiration
+of his neighbours. He had a heart after all, and daughters of his own;
+and he was troubled more than he could say. He stood bare-headed and saw
+her drive away, with a look of anxiety upon his face. Was it the same
+bee in her bonnet which old Trevor had shown so conspicuously? was it
+eccentricity verging upon madness? He went back to his office and wrote
+to Sir Tom, enclosing a copy of Lucy's list. "I must ask your advice in
+the matter instead of offering you mine," he wrote. "Lady Randolph has a
+right, of course, if she chooses to press matters to an extremity, but I
+can't fancy that this is right."
+
+Lucy went home still in the same strange excitement of mind. All had
+been executed that was in her programme. She had gone through it without
+flinching. The ball--that strange, frivolous-tragic effort of
+despair--it was over, thank heaven! and Bice had got full justice in
+her--was it in her--father's house? She could not have been introduced
+to greater advantage, Lucy thought, with a certain forlorn, simple
+pride, had she been Sir Tom's acknowledged daughter. Oh, not to so much
+advantage! for the Contessa, her guardian, her----was far more skilful
+than Lucy ever could have been. Bice had got her triumph; nothing had
+been neglected. And the other business was in train--the disposing of
+the money. She had made her wishes fully known, and even taken great
+trouble, calculating and transcribing to prevent any possibility of a
+mistake. And now, now the moment had come, the crisis of life when she
+must tell her husband what she had heard, and say to him that this
+existence could not go on any longer. A man could not have two lives.
+She did not mean to upbraid him. What good would it do to upbraid? none,
+none at all; that would not make things as they were again, or return
+to her him whom she had lost. She had not a word to say to him, except
+that it was impossible--that it could not go on any more.
+
+To think that she should have this to say to him made everything dark
+about her as Lucy went home. She felt as if the world must come to an
+end to-night. All was straightforward, now that the need of
+self-restraint was over. She contemplated no delay or withdrawal from
+her position. She went in to accomplish this dark and miserable
+necessity like a martyr going to the cross. She would go and see baby
+first, who was his boy as well as hers. Sir Tom no doubt would be in his
+library, and would come out for luncheon after a while, but not until
+she had spoken. But first she would go, just for a little needful
+strength, and kiss her boy.
+
+Fletcher met her at the head of the stairs.
+
+"Oh, if you please, my lady--not to hurry you or frighten you--but nurse
+says please would you step in and look at baby."
+
+Suddenly, in a moment, Lucy's whole being changed. She forgot
+everything. Her languor disappeared and her fatigue. She sprang up to
+where the woman was standing. "What is it? is he ill? Is it the old----"
+She hurried along towards the nursery as she spoke.
+
+"No, my lady, nothing he has had before; but nurse thinks he looks--oh,
+my lady, there will be nothing to be frightened about--we have sent for
+the doctor."
+
+Lucy was in the room where little Tom was, before Fletcher had finished
+what she was saying. The child was seated on his nurse's knee. His eyes
+were heavy, yet blazing with fever. He was plucking with his little hot
+hands at the woman's dress, flinging himself about her, from one arm,
+from one side to the other. When he saw his mother he stretched out
+towards her. Just eighteen months old; not able to express a thought;
+not much, you will say, perhaps, to change to a woman the aspect of
+heaven and earth. She took him into her arms without a word, and laid
+her cheek--which was so cool, fresh with the morning air, though her
+heart was so fevered and sick--against the little cheek, which burned
+and glowed. "What is it? Can you tell what it is?" she said in a whisper
+of awe. Was it God Himself who had stepped in--who had come to
+interfere?
+
+Then the baby began to wail with that cry of inarticulate suffering
+which is the most pitiful of all the utterances of humanity. He could
+not tell what ailed him. He looked with his great dazed eyes pitifully
+from one to another as if asking them to help him.
+
+"It is the fever, my lady," said the nurse. "We have sent for the
+doctor. It may not be a bad attack."
+
+Lucy sat down, her limbs failing her, her heart failing her still more,
+her bonnet and out-door dress cumbering her movements, the child tossing
+and restless in her arms. This was not the form his ailments had ever
+taken before. "Do you know what is to be done? Tell me what to do for
+him," she said.
+
+There was a kind of hush over all the house. The servants would not
+admit that anything was wrong until their mistress should come home. As
+soon as she was in the nursery and fully aware of the state of affairs,
+they left off their precautions. The maids appeared on the staircases
+clandestinely as they ought not to have done. Mrs. Freshwater herself
+abandoned her cosy closet, and declared in an impressive voice that no
+bell must be rung for luncheon--nor anything done that could possibly
+disturb the blessed baby, she said as she gave the order. And Williams
+desired to know what was preparing for Mr. Randolph's dinner, and
+announced his intention of taking it up himself. The other meal, the
+lunch, in the dining-room, was of no importance to any one. If he could
+take his beef-tea it would do him good, they all said.
+
+It seemed as if a long time passed before the doctor came; from Sir Tom
+to the youngest kitchen-wench, the scullery-maid, all were in suspense.
+There was but one breath, long drawn and stifled, when he came into the
+house. He was a long time in the nursery, and when he came out he went
+on talking to those who accompanied him. "You had better shut off this
+part of the house altogether," he was saying, "hang a sheet over this
+doorway, and let it be always kept wet. I will send in a person I can
+rely upon to take the night. You must not let Lady Randolph sit up." He
+repeated the same caution to Sir Tom, who came out with a bewildered air
+to hear what he had said. Sir Tom was the only one who had taken no
+fright. "Highly infectious," the Doctor said. "I advise you to send away
+every one who is not wanted. If Lady Randolph could be kept out of the
+room so much the better, but I don't suppose that is possible; anyhow,
+don't let her sit up. She is just in the condition to take it. It would
+be better if you did not go near the child yourself; but, of course, I
+understand how difficult that is. Parents are a nuisance in such cases,"
+the Doctor said, with a smile which Sir Tom thought heartless, though it
+was intended to cheer him. "It is far better to give the little patient
+over to scientific unemotional care."
+
+"But you don't mean to say that there is danger, Doctor," cried Sir Tom.
+"Why, the little beggar was as jolly as possible only this morning."
+
+"Oh, we'll pull him through, we'll pull him through," the good-natured
+Doctor said. He preferred to talk all the time, not to be asked
+questions, for what could he say? Nurse looked very awful as she went
+upstairs, charged with private information almost too important for any
+woman to contain. She stopped at the head of the stairs to whisper to
+Fletcher, shaking her head the while, and Fletcher, too, shook her head
+and whispered to Mrs. Freshwater that the doctor had a very bad opinion
+of the case. Poor little Tom had got to be "the case" all in a moment.
+And "no constitution" they said to each other under their breath.
+
+Thus the door closed upon Lucy and all her trouble. She forgot it clean,
+as if it never had existed. Everything in the world in one moment became
+utterly unimportant to her, except the fever in those heavy eyes. She
+reflected dimly, with an awful sense of having forestalled fate, that
+she had made a pretence that he was ill to shield herself that night,
+the first night after their arrival. She had said he was ill when all
+was well. And lo! sudden punishment scathing and terrible had come to
+her out of the angry skies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE.
+
+
+Sir Tom was concerned and anxious, but not alarmed like the women. After
+all it was a complaint of which children recovered every day. It had
+nothing to do with the child's lungs, which had been enfeebled by his
+former illness. He had as good a chance as any other in the present
+malady. Sir Tom was much depressed for an hour or two, but when
+everything was done that could be done, and an experienced woman arrived
+to whom the "case," though "anxious," as she said, did not appear
+immediately alarming, he forced his mind to check that depression, and
+to return to the cares which, if less grave, harassed and worried him
+more. Lucy was invisible all day. She spoke to him through the closed
+door from behind the curtain, but in a voice which he could scarcely
+hear and which had no tone of individuality in it, but only a faint
+human sound of distress. "He is no better. They say we cannot expect him
+to be better," she said. "Come down, dear, and have some dinner," said
+the round and large voice of Sir Tom, which even into that stillness
+brought a certain cheer. But as it sounded into the shut-up room, where
+nobody ventured to speak above their breath, it was like a bell pealing
+or a discharge of artillery, something that broke up the quiet, and
+made, or so the poor mother thought, the little patient start in his
+uneasy bed. Dinner! oh how could he ask it, how could he think of it?
+Sir Tom went away with a sigh of mingled uneasiness and impatience. He
+had always thought Lucy a happy exception to the caprices and vagaries
+of womankind. He had hoped that she was without nerves, as she had
+certainly been without those whims that amuse a man in other people's
+wives, but disgust him in his own. Was she going to turn out just like
+the rest, with extravagant terrors, humours, fancies--like all of them?
+Why should not she come to dinner, and why speak to him only from behind
+the closed door? He was annoyed and almost angry with Lucy. There had
+been something the matter, he reflected, for some time. She had taken
+offence at something; but surely the appearance of a real trouble might,
+at least, have made an end of that. He felt vexed and impatient as he
+sat down with Jock alone. "You will have to get out of this, my boy," he
+said, "or they won't let you go back to school; don't you know it's
+catching?" To have infection in one's house, and to be considered
+dangerous by one's friends, is always irritating. Sir Tom spoke with a
+laugh, but it was a laugh of offence. "I ought to have thought of it
+sooner," he said; "you can't go straight to school, you know, from a
+house with fever in it. You must pack up and get off at once."
+
+"I am not afraid," cried Jock. "Do you think I am such a cad as to leave
+Lucy when she's in trouble? or--or--the little one either?" Jock added,
+in a husky voice.
+
+"We are all cads in that respect nowadays," said Sir Tom. "It is the
+right thing. It is high principle. Men will elbow off and keep me at a
+distance, and not a soul will come near Lucy. Well, I suppose, it's all
+right. But there is some reason in it, so far as you are concerned.
+Come, you must be off to-night. Get hold of MTutor, he's still in town,
+and ask him what you must do."
+
+After dinner Sir Tom strolled forth. He did not mean to go out, but the
+house was intolerable, and he was very uneasy on the subject of Bice. It
+felt, indeed, something like a treason to Lucy, shut up in the child's
+sick-room, to go to the house which somehow or other was felt to be in
+opposition, and dimly suspected as the occasion of her changed looks and
+ways. He did not even say to himself that he meant to go there. And it
+was not any charm in the Contessa that drew him. It was that uneasy
+sense of a possibility which involved responsibility, and which,
+probably, he would never either make sure of or get rid of. The little
+house in Mayfair was lighted from garret to basement. If the lights were
+dim inside they looked bright without. It had the air of a house
+overflowing with life, every room with its sign of occupation. When he
+got in, the first sight he saw was Montjoie striding across the doorway
+of the small dining-room. Montjoie was very much at home, puffing his
+cigarette at the new comer. "Hallo, St. John!" he cried, then added with
+a tone of disappointment, "Oh! it's you."
+
+"It is I, I'm sorry to say, as you don't seem to like it," said Sir Tom.
+
+The young fellow looked a little abashed. "I expected another fellow.
+That's not to say I ain't glad to see you. Come in and have a glass of
+wine."
+
+"Thank you," said Sir Tom. "I suppose as you are smoking the ladies are
+upstairs."
+
+"Oh, they don't mind," said Montjoie; "at least the Contessa, don't you
+know? She's up to a cigarette herself. I shouldn't stand it," he added,
+after a moment, "in--Mademoiselle. Oh, perhaps you haven't heard. She
+and I--have fixed it all up, don't you know?"
+
+"Fixed it all up?"
+
+"Engaged, and that sort of thing. I'm a kind of boss in this house now.
+I thought, perhaps, that was why you were coming, to hear all about it,
+don't you know?"
+
+"Engaged!" cried Sir Tom, with a surprise in which there was no
+qualification. He felt disposed to catch the young fellow by the throat
+and pitch him out of doors.
+
+"You don't seem over and above pleased," said Montjoie, throwing away
+his cigarette, and confronting Sir Tom with a flush of defiance. They
+stood looking at each other for a moment, while Antonio, in the
+background, watched at the foot of the stairs, not without hopes of a
+disturbance.
+
+"I don't suppose that my pleasure or displeasure matters much: but you
+will pardon me if I pass, for my visit was to the Contessa," Sir Tom
+said, going on quickly. He was in an irritable state of mind to begin
+with. He thought he ought to have been consulted, even as an old friend,
+much more as---- And the young ass was offensive. If it turned out that
+Sir Tom had anything to do with it Montjoie should find that to be the
+best _parti_ of the season was not a thing that would infallibly
+recommend him to a father at least. The Contessa had risen from her
+chair at the sound of the voices. She came forward to Sir Tom with both
+her hands extended as he entered the drawing-room. "Dear old friend!
+congratulate me. I have accomplished all I wished," she said.
+
+"That was Montjoie," said Sir Tom. He laughed, but not with his usual
+laugh. "No great ambition, I am afraid. But," he said, pressing those
+delicate hands not as they were used to be pressed, with a hard
+seriousness and imperativeness, "you must tell me! I must have an
+explanation. There can be no delay or quibbling longer."
+
+"You hurt me, sir," she said with a little cry, and looked at her hands,
+"body and mind," she added, with one of her smiles. "Quibbling--that is
+one of your English words a woman cannot be expected to understand. Come
+then with me, barbarian, into my boudoir."
+
+Bice sat alone somewhat pensively with one of those favourite Tauchnitz
+volumes from which she had obtained her knowledge of English life in her
+hand. It was contraband, which made it all the dearer to her. She was
+not reading, but leaning her chin against it lost in thought. She was
+not pining for the presence of Montjoie, but rather glad after a long
+afternoon of him that he should prefer a cigarette to her company. She
+felt that this was precisely her own case, the cigarette being
+represented by the book or any other expedient that answered to cover
+the process of thought.
+
+Bice was not used to these processes. Keen observation of the ways of
+mankind in all the strange exhibitions of them which she had seen in her
+life had been the chief exercise of her lively intelligence. To Mr.
+Derwentwater, perhaps, may be given the credit of having roused the
+girl's mind, not indeed to sympathy with himself, but into a kind of
+perturbation and general commotion of spirit. Events were crowding
+quickly upon her. She had accepted one suitor and refused another within
+the course of a few hours. Such incidents develop the being; not,
+perhaps, the first in any great degree--but the second was not in the
+programme, and it had perplexed and roused her. There had come into her
+mind glimmerings, reflections, she could not tell what. Montjoie was
+occupied in something of the same manner downstairs, thinking it all
+over with his cigarette, wondering what Society and what his uncle would
+say, for whom he had a certain respect. He said to himself on the whole
+that he did not care that for Society! She suited him down to the
+ground. She was the jolliest girl he had ever met, besides being so
+awfully handsome. It was worth while going out riding with her just to
+see how the fellows stared and the women grew green with envy; or coming
+into a room with her, Jove! what a sensation she would make, and how
+everybody would open their eyes when she appeared blazing in the
+Montjoie diamonds! His satisfaction went a little deeper than this, to
+do him justice. He was, in his way, very much in love with the beautiful
+creature whom he had made up his mind to secure from the first moment he
+saw her. But, perhaps, if it had not been for the triumph of her
+appearance at Park Lane, and the hum of admiration and wonder that rose
+around her, he would not have so early fixed his fate; and the shadow of
+the uncle now and then came like a cloud over his glee. After the sudden
+gravity with which he remembered this, there suddenly gleamed upon him a
+vision of all his plain cousins gathering round his bride to scowl her
+down, and blast her with criticism and disapproval, which made him burst
+into a fit of laughter. Bice would hold her own; she would give as good
+as she got. She was not one to be cowed or put down, wasn't Bee! He felt
+himself clapping his hands and urging her on to the combat, and
+celebrated in advance with a shout of laughter the discomfiture of all
+those young ladies. But she should have nothing more to do with the
+Forno-Populo. No; his wife should have none of that sort about her. What
+did old Randolph mean always hanging about that old woman, and all the
+rest of the old fogeys? It was fun enough so long as you had nothing to
+do with them, but, by Jove, not for Lady Montjoie. Then he rushed
+upstairs to shower a few rough caresses upon Bice and take his leave of
+her, for he had an evening engagement formed before he was aware of the
+change which was coming in his life. He had been about her all the
+afternoon, and Bice, disturbed in her musings by this onslaught and
+somewhat impatient of the caresses, beheld his departure with
+satisfaction. It was the first evening since their arrival in town,
+which the ladies had planned to spend alone.
+
+And then she recommenced these thinkings which were not so easy as those
+of her lover: but she was soon subject to another inroad of a very
+different kind. Jock, who had never before come in the evening, appeared
+suddenly unannounced at the door of the room with a pale and heavy
+countenance. Though Bice had objected to be disturbed by her lover, she
+did not object to Jock; he harmonised with the state of her mind, which
+Montjoie did not. It seemed even to relieve her of the necessity of
+thinking when he appeared--he who did thinking enough, she felt, with
+half-conscious humour, for any number of people. He came in with a sort
+of eagerness, yet weariness, and explained that he had come to say
+good-bye, for he was going off--at once.
+
+"Going off! but it is not time yet," Bice said.
+
+"Because of the fever. But that is not altogether why I have come
+either," he said, looking at her from under his curved eyebrows. "I have
+got something to say."
+
+"What fever?" she said, sitting upright in her chair.
+
+Jock took no notice of the question; his mind was full of his own
+purpose. "Look here," he said huskily, "I know you'll never speak to me
+again. But there's something I want to say. We've been friends----"
+
+"Oh yes," she said, raising her head with a gleam of frank and cordial
+pleasure, "good friends--_camarades_--and I shall always, always speak
+to you. You were my first friend."
+
+"That is" said Jock, taking no notice, "you were--friends. I can't tell
+what I was. I don't know. It's something very droll. You would laugh, I
+suppose. But that's not to the purpose either. You wouldn't have
+Derwentwater to-day."
+
+Bice looked up with a half laugh. She began to consider him closely with
+her clear-sighted penetrating eyes, and the agitation under which Jock
+was labouring impressed the girl's quick mind. She watched every change
+of his face with a surprised interest, but she did not make any reply.
+
+"I never expected you would. I could have told him so. I did tell him
+you liked the other best. They say that's common with women," Jock said
+with a little awe, "when they have the choice offered, that it is always
+the worst they take."
+
+But still Bice did not reply. It was a sort of carrying out without any
+responsibility of hers, the vague wonder and questionings of her own
+mind. She had no responsibility in what Jock said. She could even
+question and combat it cheerfully now that it was presented to her from
+outside, but for the moment she said nothing to help him on, and he did
+not seem to require it, though he paused from time to time.
+
+"This is what I've got to say," Jock went on almost fiercely. "If you
+take Montjoie it's a mistake. He looks good-natured and all that; he
+looks easy to get on with. You hear me out, and then I'll go away and
+never trouble you again. He is not--a nice fellow. If you were to go and
+do such a thing as--marry him, and then find it out! I want you to know.
+Perhaps you think it's mean of me to say so, like sneaking, and perhaps
+it is. But, look here, I can't help it. Of course you would laugh at
+me--any one would. I'm a boy at school. I know that as well as you
+do----" Something got into Jock's voice so that he paused, and made a
+gulp before he could go on. "But, Bice, don't have that fellow. There
+are such lots; don't have _him_. I don't think I could stand it," Jock
+cried. "And look here, if it's because the Contessa wants money, I have
+some myself. What do I want with money? When I am older I shall work.
+There it is for you, if you like. But don't--have that fellow. Have a
+good fellow, there are plenty--there are fellows like Sir Tom. He is a
+good man. I should not," said Jock, with a sort of sob, which came in
+spite of himself, and which he did not remark even, so strong was the
+passion in him. "I should not--mind. I could put up with it then. So
+would Derwentwater. But, Bice----"
+
+She had risen up, and so had he. They were neither of them aware of it.
+Jock had lost consciousness, perception, all thought of anything but her
+and this that he was urging upon her. While as for Bice the tide had
+gone too high over her head. She felt giddy in the presence of something
+so much more powerful than any feeling she had ever known, and yet
+gazed at him half alarmed, half troubled as she was, with a perception
+that could not be anything but humorous of the boy's voice sounding so
+bass and deep, sometimes bursting into childish, womanish treble, and
+the boy's aspect which contrasted so strongly with the passion in which
+he spoke. When Sir Tom's voice made itself audible, coming from the
+boudoir in conversation with the Contessa, the effect upon the two thus
+standing in a sort of mortal encounter was extraordinary. Bice straining
+up to the mark which he was setting before her, bewildered with the
+flood on which she was rising, sank into ease again and a mastery of the
+situation, while Jock, worn out and with a sense that all was over, sat
+down abruptly, and left, as it were, the stage clear.
+
+"The poor little man is rather bad, I fear," said Sir Tom, coming
+through the dim room. There was something in his voice, an easier tone,
+a sound of relief. How had the Contessa succeeded in cheering him? "And
+what is worse (for he will do well I hope) is the scattering of all her
+friends from about Lucy. I am kept out of it, and it does not matter,
+you see; but she, poor little woman,"--his voice softened as he named
+her with a tone of tenderness--"nobody will go near her," he said.
+
+The Contessa gave a little shiver, and drew about her the loose shawl
+she wore. "What can we say in such a case? It is not for us, it is for
+those around us. It is a risk for so many----"
+
+"My aunt," said Sir Tom, "would be her natural ally; but I know Lady
+Randolph too well to think of that. And there is Jock, whom we are
+compelled to send away. We shall be like two crows all alone in the
+house."
+
+"Is it this you told me of, fever?" cried Bice, turning to Jock. "But it
+is I that will go--oh, this moment! It is no tr-rouble. I can sit up. I
+never am sleepy. I am so strong nothing hurts me. I will go directly,
+now."
+
+"You!" they all cried, but the Contessa's tones were most high. She made
+a protest full of indignant virtue.
+
+"Do you think," she said, "if I had but myself to think of that I would
+not fly to her? But, child in your position! _fiancée_ only to-day--with
+all to do, all to think of, how could I leave you? Oh, it is impossible;
+my good Lucy, who is never unreasonable, she will know it, she will
+understand. Besides, to what use, my Bice? She has nurses for day and
+night. She has her dear husband, her good husband, to be with her. What
+does a woman want more? You would be _de trop_. You would be out of
+place. It would be a trouble to them. It would be a blame to me. And you
+would take it, and bring it back and spread it, Bice--and perhaps Lord
+Montjoie----"
+
+Bice looked round her bewildered from one to another.
+
+"Should I be _de trop_?" she said, turning to Sir Tom with anxious eyes.
+
+Sir Tom looked at her with an air of singular emotion. He laid his hand
+caressingly on her shoulder: "_De trop_? no; never in my house. But that
+is not the question. Lucy will be cheered when she knows that you wanted
+to come. But what the Contessa says is true; there are plenty of
+nurses--and my wife--has me, if I am any good; and we would not have you
+run any risk----"
+
+"In her position!" cried the Contessa; "_fiancée_ only to-day. She owes
+herself already to Lord Montjoie, who would never consent, never; it is
+against every rule. Speak to her, _mon ami_, speak to her; she is a girl
+who is capable of all. Tell her that now it is thought criminal, that
+one does not risk one's self and others. She might bring it here, if not
+to herself, to me, Montjoie, the domestics." The Contessa sank into a
+chair and began fanning herself; then got up again and went towards the
+girl clasping her hands. "My sweetest," she cried, "you will not be
+_entétée_, and risk everything. We shall have news, good news, every
+morning, three, four times a day."
+
+"And Milady," said Bice, "who has done everything, will be alone and in
+tr-rouble. Sir Tom, he must leave her, he must attend to his affairs. He
+is a man; he must take the air; he must go out in the world. And
+she--she will be alone: when we have lived with her, when she has been
+more good, more good than any one could deserve. Risk! The doctor does
+not take it, who is everywhere, who will, perhaps, come to you next,
+Madama; and the nurses do not take it. It is a shame," cried the girl,
+throwing up her fine head, "if Love is not as good as the servants, if
+to have gratitude in your heart is nothing! And the risk, what is it? An
+illness, a fever. I have had a fever----"
+
+"Bice, you might bring--what is dreadful to think of," cried the
+Contessa, with a shiver. "You might die."
+
+"Die!" the girl cried, in a voice like a silver trumpet with a keen
+sweetness of scorn and tenderness combined. "_Après_?" she said,
+throwing back her head. She was not capable of those questions which Mr.
+Derwentwater and his pupil had set before her. But here she was upon
+different ground.
+
+"Oh, she is capable of all! she is a girl that is capable of all," cried
+the Contessa, sinking once more into a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+THE EVE OF SORROW.
+
+
+Sir Tom stepped out into the night some time after, holding Jock by the
+arm. The boy had a sort of thrill and tremble in him as if he had been
+reading poetry or witnessing some great tragic scene, which the elder
+man partially understood without being at all aware that Jock had
+himself been an actor in this drama. He himself had been dismissed out
+of it, so to speak. His mind was relieved, and yet he was not so
+satisfied as he expected to be. It had been proved to him that he had no
+responsibility for Bice, and his anxiety relieved on that subject;
+relieved, oh yes: and yet was he a little disappointed too. It would
+have been endless embarrassment, and Lucy would not have liked it. Still
+he had been accustoming himself to the idea, and, now that it was broken
+clean off, he was not so much pleased as he had expected. Poor little
+Bice! her little burst of generous gratitude and affection had gone to
+his heart. If that little thing who (it appeared) had died in Florence
+so many years ago had survived and grown a woman, as an hour ago he had
+believed her to have done, that is how he should have liked her to feel
+and to express herself. Such a sense of approval and admiration was in
+him that he felt the disappointment the more. Yes, he supposed it was a
+disappointment. He had begun to get used to the idea, and he had always
+liked the girl; but of course it was a relief--the greatest relief--to
+have no explanation to make to Lucy, instead of the painful one which
+perhaps she would only partially believe. He had felt that it would be
+most difficult to make her understand that, though this was so, he had
+not been in any plot, and had not known of it any more than she did when
+Bice was brought to his house. This would have been the difficult point
+in the matter, and now, heaven be praised! all that was over, and there
+was no mystery, nothing to explain. But so strange is human sentiment
+that the world felt quite impoverished to Sir Tom, though he was much
+relieved. Life became for the moment a more commonplace affair
+altogether. He was free from the annoyance. It mattered nothing to him
+now who she married--the best _parti_ in society, or Jock's tutor, or
+anybody the girl pleased. If it had not been for that exhibition of
+feeling Sir Tom would probably have said to himself, satirically, that
+there could be little doubt which the Contessa's ward and pupil would
+choose. But after that little scene he came out very much shaken,
+touched to the heart, thinking that perhaps life would have been more
+full and sweet had his apprehensions been true. She had been overcome by
+the united pressure of himself and the Contessa, and for the moment
+subdued, though the fire in her eye and swelling of her young bosom
+seemed to say that the victory was very incomplete. He would have liked
+the little one that died to have looked like that, and felt like that,
+had she lived to grow a woman like Bice. Great heaven, the little one
+that died! The words as they went through his mind sent a chill to Sir
+Tom's breast. Might it be that they would be said again--once more--and
+that far-back sin bring thus a punishment all the more bitter for being
+so long delayed. Human nature will never get to believe that God is not
+lying in wait somewhere to exact payment of every account.
+
+"She understands that," said Jock suddenly. "She don't know the meaning
+of other things."
+
+"What may be the other things?" said Sir Tom, feeling a half jealousy of
+anything that could be said to Bice's disadvantage. "I don't think she
+is wanting in understanding. Ah, I see. You don't know how any one could
+resist the influence of MTutor, Jock."
+
+Through the darkness under the feeble lamp Jock shot a glance at his
+elder of that immeasurable contempt which youth feels for the absence of
+all penetration shown by its seniors, and their limited powers of
+observation. But he said nothing. Perhaps he could not trust himself to
+speak.
+
+"Don't think I'm a scoffer, my boy," said Sir Tom. "MTutor's a very
+decent fellow. Let us go and look him up. He would be better, to my
+thinking, if he were not quite so fine, you know. But that's a trifle,
+and I'm an old fogey. You are not going back to Park Lane to-night."
+
+"After what you heard her say? Do you think I've got no heart either? If
+I could have it instead of him!"
+
+"But you can't, my boy," Sir Tom said with a pressure of Jock's arm.
+"And you must not make Lucy more wretched by hanging about. There's the
+mystery," he broke out suddenly. "You can't--none of us can. What might
+be nothing to you or me may be death to that little thing, but it is he
+that has to go through with it; life is a horrible sort of pleasure,
+Jock."
+
+"Is it a pleasure?" the boy said under his breath. Life in him at that
+moment was one big heavy throbbing through all his being, full of
+mysterious powers unknown, of which Death was the least--yet, coming as
+he did a great shadow upon the feeblest, a terrible and awe-striking
+power beyond the strength of man to understand.
+
+After this night, so full of emotion, there came certain days which
+passed without sign or mark in the dim great house looking out upon all
+the lively sights and sounds of the great park. The sun rose and
+reddened the windows, the noon blazed, the gray twilight touched
+everything into colour. In the chamber which was the centre of all
+interest no one knew or cared how the hours went, and whether it was
+morning or noon or night. Instead of these common ways of reckoning,
+they counted by the hours when the doctor came, when the child must have
+his medicine, when it was time to refresh the little cot with cool clean
+linen, or sponge the little hot hands. The other attendants took their
+turns and rested, but Lucy was capable of no rest. She dozed sometimes
+with her eyes half opened, hearing every movement and little cry.
+Perhaps as the time went on and the watch continued her faculties were a
+little blunted by this, so that she was scarcely full awake at any time,
+since she never slept. She moved mechanically about, and was conscious
+of nothing but a dazed and confused misery, without anticipation or
+recollection. Something there was in her mind besides, which perhaps
+made it worse; she could not tell. Could anything make it worse? The
+heart, like any other vessel, can hold but what it is capable of, and no
+more.
+
+It is not easy to estimate what is the greatest sorrow of human life.
+It is that which has us in its grip, whatever it may be. Bereavement is
+terrible until there comes to you a pang more bitter from living than
+from dying: and one grief is supreme until another tops it, and the sea
+comes on and on in mountain waves. But perhaps of all the endurances of
+nature there is none which the general consent would agree upon as the
+greatest, like that of a mother watching death approach, with noiseless,
+awful step, to the bed of her only child. If humanity can approach more
+near the infinite in capacity of suffering, it is hard to know how. We
+must all bow down before this extremity of anguish, humbly begging the
+pardon of that sufferer, that in our lesser griefs, we dare to bemoan
+ourselves in her presence. And whether it is the dear companion--man or
+woman grown--or the infant out of her clasping arms, would seem to
+matter very little. According as it happens, so is the blow the most
+terrible. To Lucy, enveloped by that woe, there could have been no
+change that would not have lightened something (or so she felt) of her
+intolerable burden. Could he have breathed his fever and pain into
+words, could he have told what ailed him, could he have said to her only
+one little phrase of love, to be laid up in her heart! But the pitiful
+looks of those baby eyes, now bright with fever, now dull as dead
+violets, the little inarticulate murmurings, the appeals that could not
+be comprehended, added such a misery as was almost too much for flesh
+and blood to bear. This terrible ordeal was what Lucy had to go through.
+The child, though he had, as the maids said, no constitution, and though
+he had been enfeebled by illness for half his little lifetime, fought on
+hour after hour and day after day. Sometimes there was a look in his
+little face as of a conscious intelligence fighting a brave battle for
+life. His young mother beside him rose and fell with his breath, lived
+only in him, knew nothing but the vicissitudes of the sick room, taking
+her momentary broken rest when he slept, only to start up when, with a
+louder breath, a little cry, the struggle was resumed. The nurses could
+not, it would be unreasonable to expect it, be as entirely absorbed in
+their charge as was his mother. They got to talk at last, not minding
+her presence, quite freely in half whispers about other "cases," of
+patients and circumstances they had known. Stories of children who had
+died, and of some who had been miraculously raised from the brink of the
+grave, and of families swept away and houses desolated, seemed to get
+into the air of the room and float about Lucy, catching her confused
+ear, which was always on the watch for other sounds. Three or four times
+a day Sir Tom came to the door for news, but was not admitted, as the
+doctor's orders were stringent. There was no one admitted except the
+doctor; no cheer or comfort from without came into the sick room. Sir
+Tom did his best to speak a cheerful word, and would fain have persuaded
+Lucy to come out into the corridor, or to breathe the fresh air from a
+balcony. But Lucy, had she been capable of leaving the child, had a dim
+recollection in her mind that there was something, she could not tell
+what, interposing between her and her husband, and turned away from him
+with a sinking at her heart. She remembered vaguely that he had
+something else--some other possessions to comfort him--not this child
+alone as she had. He had something that he could perhaps love as
+well--but she had nothing; and she turned away from him with an
+instinctive sense of the difference, feeling it to be a wrong to her
+boy. But for this they might have comforted each other, and consulted
+each other over the fever and its symptoms. And she might have stolen a
+few moments from her child's bed and thrown herself on her husband's
+bosom and been consoled. But after all what did it matter? Could
+anything have made it more easy to bear? When sorrow and pain occupy the
+whole being, what room is there for consolation, what importance in the
+lessening by an infinitesimal shred of sorrow!
+
+This had gone on for--Lucy could not tell how many days (though not in
+reality for very many), when there came one afternoon in which
+everything seemed to draw towards the close. It is the time when the
+heart fails most easily and the tide of being runs most low. The light
+was beginning to wane in those dim rooms, though a great golden sunset
+was being enacted in purple and flame on the other side of the house.
+The child's eyes were dull and glazed; they seemed to turn inward with
+that awful blank which is like the soul's withdrawal; its little powers
+seemed all exhausted. The little moan, the struggle, had fallen into
+quiet. The little lips were parched and dry. Those pathetic looks that
+seemed to plead for help and understanding came no more. The baby was
+too much worn out for such painful indications of life. The women had
+drawn aside, all their talk hushed, only a faint whisper now and then of
+directions from the most experienced of the two to the subordinates
+aiding the solemn watch. Lucy sat by the side of the little bed on the
+floor, sometimes raising herself on her knees to see better. She had
+fallen into the chill and apathy of despair.
+
+At this time a door opened, not loudly or with any breach of the decorum
+of such a crisis, but with a distinct soft sound, which denoted some
+one not bound by the habits of a sick room. A step equally distinct,
+though soft, not the noiseless step of a watcher, came in through the
+outer room and to the bed. The women, who were standing a little apart,
+gave a low, involuntary cry. It looked like health and youthful vigour
+embodied which came sweeping into the dim room to the bedside of the
+dying child. It was Bice, who had asked no leave, who fell on her knees
+beside Lucy and stooped down her beautiful head, and kissed the hand
+which lay on the baby's coverlet. "Oh, pardon me," she said, "I could
+not keep away any longer. They kept me by force, or I would have come
+long, long since. I have come to stay, that you may have some rest, for
+I can nurse him--oh, with all my heart!"
+
+She had said all this hurriedly in a breath before she looked at the
+child. Now she turned her head to the little bed. Her countenance
+underwent a sudden change. The colour forsook her cheeks, her lips
+dropped apart. She turned round to the nurse with a low cry, with a
+terrified question in her eyes.
+
+"You see," said Lucy, speaking with a gasp as if in answer to some
+previous argument, "she thinks so, too----" Then there was a terrible
+pause. There seemed to come another "change," as the women said, over
+the little face, out of which life ebbed at every breath. Lucy started
+to her feet; she seized Bice's arm and raised her, which would have been
+impossible in a less terrible crisis. "Go," she said; "Go, Bice, to your
+father, and tell him to come, for my boy is dying Go--go!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+THE LAST CRISIS.
+
+
+"Go to your father." Bice did not know what Lucy meant. The words
+bewildered her beyond description, but she did not hesitate what to do.
+She went downstairs to Sir Tom, who sat with his door opened and his
+heart sinking in his bosom waiting to hear. There was no need for any
+words. He followed her at once, almost as softly and as noiselessly as
+she had come. And when they entered the dim room, where by this time
+there was scarcely light enough for unaccustomed eyes to see, he went up
+to Lucy and put his arms round her as she stood leaning on the little
+bed. "My love," he said, "my love; we must be all in all to each other
+now." His voice was choked and broken, but it did not reach Lucy's
+heart. She put him away from her with an almost imperceptible movement.
+"You have others," she said hoarsely; "I have nothing, nothing but him."
+Just then the child stirred faintly in his bed, and first extending her
+arms to put them all away from her, Lucy bent over him and lifted him to
+her bosom. The nurse made a step forward to interfere, but then stepped
+back again wringing her hands. The mother had risen into a sort of
+sublimity, irresponsible in her great woe--if she had killed him to
+forestall her agony a little, as is the instinct of desperation, they
+could not have interfered. She sat down, and gathered the child close,
+close in her embrace, his head upon her breast, holding him as if to
+communicate life to him with the contact of hers. Her breath, her arms,
+her whole being enveloped the little dying creature with a fulness of
+passionate existence expanded to its highest. It was like taking back
+the half-extinguished germ into the very bosom and core of life. They
+stood round her with an awe of her, which would permit no intrusion
+either of word or act. Even the experienced nurse who believed that the
+little spark of life would be shaken out by this movement, only wrung
+her hands and said nothing. The rest were but as spectators, gathering
+round to see the tragedy accomplished and the woman's heart shattered
+before their eyes.
+
+Which was unjust too--for the husband who stood behind was as great a
+sufferer. He was struck in everything a man can feel most, the instincts
+of paternal love awakened late, the pride a man has in his heir, all
+were crushed in him by a blow that seemed to wring his very heart out of
+his breast; but neither did any one think of him, nor did he think of
+himself. The mother that bare him!--that mysterious tie that goes beyond
+and before all, was acknowledged by them all without a word. It was hers
+to do as she pleased. The moments are long at such a time. They seemed
+to stand still on that strange scene. The light remained the same; the
+darkness seemed arrested, perhaps because it had come on too early on
+account of clouds overhead; perhaps because time was standing still to
+witness the easy parting of a soul not yet accustomed to this earth; the
+far more terrible rending of the woman's heart.
+
+Presently a sensation of great calm fell, no one could tell how, into
+the room. The terror seemed to leave the hearts of the watchers. Was it
+the angel who had arrived and shed a soothing from his very presence
+though he had come to accomplish the end?
+
+Another little change, almost imperceptible, Lucy beginning to rock her
+child softly, as if lulling him to sleep. No one moved, or even
+breathed, it seemed, for how long? some minutes, half a lifetime. Then
+another sound. Oh, God in heaven! had she gone distracted, the innocent
+creature, the young mother, in her anguish? She began to sing--a few low
+notes, a little lullaby, in a voice ineffable, indescribable, not like
+any mortal voice. One of the women burst out into a wail--it was the
+child's nurse--and tried to take him from the mother's arms. The other
+took her by the shoulders and turned her away. "What does it matter, a
+few minutes more or less; she'll come to herself soon enough, poor
+dear," said the attendant with a sob. Thus the group was diminished. Sir
+Tom stood with one hand on his wife's chair, his face covered with the
+other, and in his heart the bitterness of death; Bice had dropped down
+on her knees by the side of that pathetic group; and in the midst sat
+the mother bent over, almost enfolding the child, cradling him in her
+own life. Bice was herself not much more than a child; to her all things
+were possible--miracles, restorations from the dead. Her eyes were full
+of tears, but there was a smile upon her quivering mouth. It was at her
+Lucy looked, with eyes full of something like that "awful rose of dawn"
+of which the poet speaks. They were dilated to twice their natural size.
+She made a slight movement, opening to Bice the little face upon her
+bosom, bidding her look as at a breathless secret to be kept from all
+else. Was it a reflection or a faint glow of warmth upon the little worn
+cheek? The eyes were no longer open, showing the white, but closed, with
+the eyelashes shadowing against the cheek. There came into Lucy's eyes a
+sort of warning look to keep the secret, and the wonderful spectacle
+was, as it were, closed again, hidden with her arms and bending head.
+And the soft coo of the lullaby went on.
+
+Presently the women stole back, awed and silenced, but full of a
+reviving thrill of curiosity. The elder one, who was from the hospital
+and prepared for everything, drew nearer, and regarded with a
+scientific, but not unsympathetic eye, the mother and the child. She
+withdrew a little the shawl in which the infant was wrapped, and put her
+too-experienced, instructed hands upon his little limbs, without taking
+any notice of Lucy, who remained passive through this examination. "He's
+beautiful and warm," said the woman, in a wondering tone. Then Bice rose
+to her feet with a quick sudden movement, and went to Sir Tom and drew
+his hand from his face. "He is not dying, he is sleeping," she said.
+"And I think, miss, you're right. He has taken a turn for the better,"
+said the experienced woman from the hospital. "Don't move, my lady,
+don't move; we'll prop you with cushions--we'll pull him through still,
+please God," the nurse said, with a few genuine tears.
+
+When the doctor came some time after, instead of watching the child's
+last moments, he had only to confirm their certainty of this favourable
+change, and give his sanction to it; and the cloud that had seemed to
+hang over it all day lifted from the house. The servants began to move
+about again and bustle. The lamps were lighted. The household resumed
+their occupations, and Williams himself in token of sympathy carried up
+Mr. Randolph's beef-tea. When Lucy, after a long interval, was liberated
+from her confined attitude and the child restored to his bed, the
+improvement was so evident that she allowed herself to be persuaded to
+lie down and rest. "Milady," said Bice, "I am not good for anything,
+but I love him. I will not interfere, but neither will I ever take away
+my eyes from him till you are again here." There was no use in this, but
+it was something to the young mother. She lay down and slept, for the
+first time since the illness began; slept not in broken, painful
+dozings, but a real sleep. She was not in a condition to think; but
+there was a vague feeling in her mind that here was some one, not as
+others were, to whom little Tom was something more than to the rest.
+Consciously she ought to have shrunk from Bice's presence; unconsciously
+it soothed her and warmed her heart.
+
+Sir Tom went back to his room, shaken as with a long illness, but
+feeling that the world had begun again, and life was once more liveable.
+He sat down and thought over every incident, and thanked God with such
+tears as men too, like women, are often fain to indulge in, though they
+do it chiefly in private. Then, as the effect of this great crisis began
+to go off a little, and the common round to come back, there recurred to
+his mind Lucy's strange speech, "You have others----" What others was he
+supposed to have? She had drawn herself away from him. She had made no
+appeal to his sympathy. "You have--others. I have nothing but him." What
+did Lucy mean? And then he remembered how little intercourse there had
+been of late between them, how she had kept aloof from him. They might
+have been separated and living in different houses for all the union
+there had been between them. "You have others----" What did Lucy mean?
+
+He got up, moved by the uneasiness of this question, and began to pace
+about the floor. He had no others; never had a man been more devoted to
+his own house. She had not been exacting, nor he uxorious. He had lived
+a man's life in the world, and had not neglected his duties for his
+wife; but he reminded himself, with a sort of indignant satisfaction,
+that he had found Lucy far more interesting than he expected, and that
+her fresh curiosity, her interest in everything, and the just enough of
+receptive intelligence, which is more agreeable than cleverness, had
+made her the most pleasant companion he had ever known. It was not an
+exercise of self-denial, of virtue on his part, as the Dowager and
+indeed many other of his friends had attempted to make out, but a real
+pleasure in her society. He had liked to talk to her, to tell her his
+own past history (selections from it), to like, yet laugh at her simple
+comments. He never despised anything she said, though he had laughed at
+some of it with a genial and placid amusement. And that little beggar!
+about whom Sir Tom could not even think to-day without a rush of water
+to his eyes--could any man have considered the little fellow more, or
+been more proud of him or fond? He could not live in the nursery, it was
+true, like Lucy, but short of that--"Others." What could she mean? There
+were no others. He was content to live and die, if but they might be
+spared to him, with her and the boy. A sort of chill doubt that somebody
+might have breathed into her ear that suggestion about Bice's parentage
+did indeed cross his mind; but ever since he had ascertained that this
+fear was a delusion, it had seemed to him the most ridiculous idea in
+the world. It had not seemed so before; it had appeared probable enough,
+nay, with many coincidences in its favour. And he had even been
+conscious of something like disappointment to find that it was not true.
+But now it seemed to him too absurd for credence; and what creature in
+the world, except himself, could have known the circumstances that made
+it possible? No one but Williams, and Williams was true.
+
+It was not till next morning that the ordinary habits of the household
+could be said to be in any measure resumed. On that day Bice came down
+to breakfast with Sir Tom with a smiling brightness which cheered his
+solitary heart. She had gone back out of all her finery to the simple
+black frock, which she told him had been the easiest thing to carry.
+This was in answer to his question, "How had she come? Had the Contessa
+sent her?" Bice clapped her hands with pleasure, and recounted how she
+had run away.
+
+"The news were always bad, more bad; and Milady all alone. At length the
+time came when I could bear it no longer. I love him, my little Tom; and
+Milady has always been kind, so kind, more kind than any one. Nobody has
+been kind to me like her, and also you, Sir Tom; and baby that was my
+darling," the girl said.
+
+"God bless you, my dear," said Sir Tom; "but," he added, "you should not
+have done it. You should have remembered the infection."
+
+Bice made a little face of merry disdain and laughed aloud. "Do I care
+for infection? Love is more strong than a fever. And then," she added,
+"I had a purpose too."
+
+Sir Tom was delighted with her girlish confidences about her frock and
+her purpose. "Something very grave, I should imagine, from those looks."
+
+"Oh, it is very grave," said Bice, her countenance changing. "You know I
+am _fiancée_. There has been a good deal said to me of Lord Montjoie;
+sometimes that he was not wise, what you call silly, not clever, not
+good to have to do with. That he is not clever one can see; but what
+then? The clever they do not always please. Others say that he is a
+great _parti_, and all that is desirable. Myself," she added with an air
+of judicial impartiality, "I like him well enough; even when he does not
+please me, he amuses. The clever they are not always amusing. I am
+willing to marry him since it is wished, otherwise I do not care much.
+For there is, you know, plenty of time, and to marry so soon--it is a
+disappointment, it is no longer exciting. So it is not easy to know
+distinctly what to do. That is what you call a dilemma," Bice said.
+
+"It is a serious dilemma," said Sir Tom, much amused and flattered too.
+"You want me then to give you my advice----"
+
+"No," said Bice, which made his countenance suddenly blank, "not advice.
+I have thought of a way. All say that it is almost wicked, at least very
+wrong to come here (in the Tauchnitz it would be miserable to be afraid,
+and so I think), and that the fever is more than everything. Now for me
+it is not so. If Lord Montjoie is of my opinion, and if he thinks I am
+right to come, then I shall know that, though he is not clever---- Yes;
+that is my purpose. Do you think I shall be right?"
+
+"I see," said Sir Tom, though he looked somewhat crestfallen. "You have
+come not so much for us, though you are kindly disposed towards us, but
+to put your future husband to the test. There is only this drawback,
+that he might be an excellent fellow and yet object to the step you have
+taken. Also that these sort of tests are very risky, and that it is
+scarcely worth while for this, to run the risk of a bad illness, perhaps
+of your life."
+
+"That is unjust," said Bice with tears in her eyes. "I should have come
+to Milady had there been no Montjoie at all. It is first and above all
+for her sake. I will have a fever for her, oh willingly!" cried the
+girl. Then she added after a little pause: "Why did she bid me 'go to
+your father and tell him----?' What does that mean, go to my father? I
+have never had any father."
+
+"Did she say that?" Sir Tom cried. "When? and why?"
+
+"It was when all seemed without hope. She was kneeling by the bed, and
+he, my little boy, my little darling! Ah," cried Bice, with a shiver.
+"To think it should have been so near! when God put that into her mind
+to save him. She said 'Go to your father, and tell him my boy is dying.'
+What did she mean? I came to you; but you are not my father."
+
+He had risen up in great agitation and was walking about the room. When
+she said these words he came up to her and laid his hand for a moment on
+her head. "No," he said, with a sense of loss which was painful; "No,
+the more's the pity, Bice. God bless you, my dear."
+
+His voice was tremulous, his hand shook a little. The girl took it in
+her pretty way and kissed it. "You have been as good to me as if it were
+so. But tell me what Milady means? for at that moment she would say
+nothing but what was at the bottom of her heart."
+
+"I cannot tell you, Bice," said Sir Tom, almost with tears. "If I have
+made her unhappy, my Lucy, who is better than any of us, what do I
+deserve? what should be done to me? And she has been unhappy, she has
+lost her faith in me. I see it all now."
+
+Bice sat and looked at him with her eyes full of thought. She was not a
+novice in life though she was so young. She had heard many a tale not
+adapted for youthful ears. That a child might have a father whose name
+she did not bear and who had never been disclosed to her was not
+incomprehensible, as it would have been to an English girl. She looked
+him severely in the face, like a young Daniel come to judgment. Had she
+been indeed his child to what a terrible ordeal would Sir Tom have been
+exposed under the light of those steady eyes. "Is it true that you have
+made her unhappy?" she said, as if she had the power of death in her
+hands.
+
+"No!" he said, with a sudden outburst of feeling. "No! there are things
+in my life that I would not have raked up; but since I have known her,
+nothing; there is no offence to her in any record of my life----"
+
+Bice looked at him still unfaltering. "You forget us--the Contessa and
+me. You brought us, though she did not know. We are not like her, but
+you brought us to her house. Nevertheless," said the young judge
+gravely, "that might be unthoughtful, but not a wrong to her. Is it
+perhaps a mistake?"
+
+"A mistake or a slander, or--some evil tongue," he cried.
+
+Bice rose up from the chair which had been her bench of justice, and
+walked to the door with a stately step, befitting her office, full of
+thought. Then she paused again for a moment and looked back and waved
+her hand. "I think it is a pity," she said with great gravity. She
+recognised the visionary fitness as he had done. They would have suited
+each other, when it was thus suggested to them, for father and
+daughter; and that it was not so, by some spite of fate, was a pity. She
+found Lucy dressed and refreshed sitting by the bed of the child, who
+had already begun to smile faintly. "Milady," said Bice, "will you go
+downstairs? There is a long time that you have not spoken to Sir Tom. Is
+he afraid of your fever? No more than me! But his heart is breaking for
+you. Go to him, Milady, and I will stay with the boy."
+
+It was not for some time that Lucy could be persuaded to go. He
+had--others. What was she to him but a portion of his life? and the
+child was all of hers: a small portion of his life only a few years,
+while the others had a far older and stronger claim. There was no anger
+in her mind, all hushed in the exhaustion of great suffering past, but a
+great reluctance to enter upon the question once more. Lucy wished only
+to be left in quiet. She went slowly, reluctantly, downstairs. Unhappy?
+No. He had not made her unhappy. Nothing could make her unhappy now that
+her child was saved. It seemed to Lucy that it was she who had been ill
+and was getting better, and she longed to be left alone. Sir Tom was
+standing against the window with his head upon his hand. He did not hear
+her light step till she was close to him. Then he turned round, but not
+with the eagerness for her which Bice had represented. He took her hand
+gently and drew it within his arm.
+
+"All is going well?" he said, "and you have had a little rest, my dear?
+Bice has told me----"
+
+She withdrew a little the hand which lay on his arm. "He is much
+better," she said; "more than one would have thought possible."
+
+"Thank God!" Sir Tom cried; and they were silent for a moment, united
+in thanksgiving, yet so divided, with a sickening gulf between them.
+Lucy felt her heart begin to stir and ache that had been so quiet. "And
+you," he said, "have had a little rest? Thank God for that too. Anything
+that had happened to him would have been bad enough; but to you,
+Lucy----"
+
+"Oh, hush, hush," she cried, "that is over; let us not speak of anything
+happening to him."
+
+"But all is not over," he said. "Something has happened--to us. What did
+you mean when you spoke to me of others? 'You have others.' I scarcely
+noticed it at that dreadful moment; but now---- Who are those others,
+Lucy? Whom have I but him and you?"
+
+She did not say anything, but withdrew her hand altogether from his arm,
+and looked at him. A look scarcely reproachful, wistful, sorrowful,
+saying, but not in words, in its steady gaze--You know.
+
+He answered as if it had been speech.
+
+"But I don't know. What is it, Lucy? Bice too has something she asked me
+to explain, and I cannot explain it. You said to her, 'Go to your
+father.' What is this? You must tell what you mean."
+
+"Bice?" she said, faltering; "it was at a moment when I did not think
+what I was saying."
+
+"No, when you spoke out that perilous stuff you have got in your heart.
+Oh, my Lucy, what is it, and who has put it there?"
+
+"Tom," she said, trembling very much. "It is not Bice; she--that--is
+long ago--if her mother had been dead. But a man cannot have two lives.
+There cannot be two in the same place. It is not jealousy. I am not
+finding fault. It has been perhaps without intention; but it is not
+befitting--oh, not befitting. It cannot--oh, it is impossible! it must
+not be."
+
+"What must not be? Of what in the name of heaven are you speaking?" he
+cried.
+
+Once more she fixed on him that look, more reproachful this time, full
+of meaning and grieved surprise. She drew away a little from his side.
+"I did not want to speak," she said. "I was so thankful; I want to say
+nothing. You thought you had left that other life behind; perhaps you
+forgot altogether. They say that people do. And now it is here at your
+side, and on the other side my little boy and me. Ah! no, no, it is not
+befitting, it cannot be----"
+
+"I understand dimly," he said; "they have told you Bice was my child. I
+wish it were so. I had a child, Lucy, it is true, who is dead in
+Florence long ago. The mother is dead too, long ago. It is so long past
+that, if you can believe it, I had--forgotten."
+
+"Dead!" she said. And there came into her mild eyes a scared and
+frightened look. "And--the Contessa?"
+
+"The Contessa!" he cried.
+
+They were standing apart gazing at each other with something more like
+the heat of a passionate debate than had ever arisen between them, or
+indeed seemed possible to Lucy's tranquil nature, when the door was
+suddenly opened and the voice of Williams saying, "Sir Thomas is here,
+my lady," reduced them both in an instant to silence. Then there was a
+bustle and a movement, and of all wonderful sights to meet their eyes,
+the Contessa herself came with hesitation into the room. She had her
+handkerchief pressed against the lower part of her face, from above
+which her eyes looked out watchfully. She gave a little shriek at the
+sight of Lucy. "I thought," she said, "Sir Tom was alone. Lucy, my
+angel, my sweetest, do not come near me!" She recoiled to the door which
+Williams had just closed. "I will say what I have to say here. Dearest
+people, I love you, but you are charged with pestilence. My Lucy, how
+glad I am for your little boy--but every moment they tell me increases
+the danger. Where is Bice? Bice! I have come to bring her away."
+
+"Contessa," said Sir Tom, "you have come at a fortunate moment. Tell
+Lady Randolph who Bice is. I think she has a right to know."
+
+"Who Bice is? But what has that to do with it? She is _fiancée_, she
+belongs to more than herself. And there is the drawing-room in a
+week--imagine, only in a week!--and how can she go into the presence of
+the Queen full of infection? I acknowledge, I acknowledge," cried the
+Contessa, through her handkerchief, "you have been very kind--oh, more
+than kind. But why then now will you spoil all? It might make a
+revolution--it might convey to Majesty herself---- Ah! it might spoil all
+the child's prospects. Who is she? Why should you reproach me with my
+little mystery now? She is all that is most natural; Guido's child, whom
+you remember well enough, Sir Tom, who married my poor little sister, my
+little girl who followed me, who would do as I did. You know all this,
+for I have told you. They are all dead, all dead--how can you make me
+talk of them? And Bice perhaps with the fever in her veins, ready to
+communicate it--to Majesty herself, to me, to every one!"
+
+The Contessa sank down on a chair by the door. She drew forth her fan,
+which hung by her side, and fanned away from her this air of pestilence.
+"The child must come back at once," she said, with little cries and
+sobs--an _accès de nerfs_, if these simple people had known--through her
+handkerchief. "Let her come at once, and we may conceal it still. She
+shall have baths. She shall be fumigated. I will not see her or let her
+be seen. She shall have a succession of headaches. This is what I have
+said to Montjoie. Imagine me out in the air, that is so bad for the
+complexion, at this hour! But I think of nothing in comparison with the
+interests of Bice. Send for her. Lucy, sweet one, you would not spoil
+her prospects. Send for her--before it is known." Then she laughed with
+a hysterical vehemence. "I see; some one has been telling her it was the
+poor little child whom you left with me, whom I watched over--yes, I was
+good to the little one. I am not a hard-hearted woman. Lucy: it was I
+who put this thought into your mind. I said--of English parentage. I
+meant you to believe so--that you might give something, when you were
+giving so much, to my poor Bice. What was wrong? I said you would be
+glad one day that you had helped her:--yes--and I allowed also my enemy
+the Dowager, to believe it."
+
+"To believe _that_." Lucy stood out alone in the middle of the room,
+notwithstanding the shrinking back to the wall of the visitor, whose
+alarm was far more visible than any other emotion. "To believe
+_that_--that she was your child, and----"
+
+Something stopped Lucy's mouth. She drew back, her pale face dyed with
+crimson, her whole form quivering with remorse and pain as of one who
+has given a cowardly and cruel blow.
+
+The Contessa rose. She stood up against the wall. It did not seem to
+occur to her what kind of terrible accusation this was, but only that
+it was something strange, incomprehensible. She withdrew for a moment
+the handkerchief from her mouth. "My child? But I have never had a
+child!" she said.
+
+"Lucy," cried Sir Tom in a terrible voice.
+
+And then Lucy stood aghast between them, looking from one to another.
+The scales seemed to fall from her eyes. The perfectly innocent when
+they fall under the power of suspicion go farthest in that bitter way.
+They take no limit of possibility into their doubts and fears. They do
+not think of character or nature. Now, in a moment the scales fell from
+Lucy's eyes. Was her husband a man to treat her with such unimaginable
+insult? Was the Contessa, with all her triumphant designs, her
+mendacities, her mendicities, her thirst for pleasure, such a woman?
+Whoever said it, could this be true?
+
+The Contessa perceived with a start that her hand had dropped from her
+mouth. She put back the handkerchief again with tremulous eagerness. "If
+I take it, all will go wrong--all will fall to pieces," she said
+pathetically. "Lucy, dear one, do not come near me, but send me Bice, if
+you love me," the Contessa cried. She smiled with her eyes, though her
+mouth was covered. She had not so much as understood, she, so
+experienced, so acquainted with the wicked world, so _connaisseuse_ in
+evil tales--she had not even so much as divined what innocent Lucy meant
+to say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+Bice was taken away in the cab, there being no reason why she should
+remain in a house where Lucy was no longer lonely or heartbroken--but
+not by her patroness, who was doubly her aunt, but did not love that
+old-fashioned title, and did love a mystery. The Contessa would not
+trust herself in the same vehicle with the girl who had come out of
+little Tom's nursery, and was no doubt charged with pestilence. She
+walked, marvel of marvels, with a thick veil over her face, and Sir Tom,
+in amused attendance, looking with some curiosity through the gauze at
+this wonder of a spring morning which she had not seen for years. Bice,
+for her part, was conveyed by the old woman who waited in the cab, the
+mother of one of the servants in the Mayfair house, to her humble home,
+where the girl was fumigated and disinfected to the Contessa's desire.
+She was presented a week after, the strictest secrecy being kept about
+these proceedings; and mercifully, as a matter of fact, did not convey
+infection either to the Contessa or to the still more distinguished
+ladies with whom she came in contact. What a day for Madame di
+Forno-Populo! There was nothing against her. The Duchess had spent an
+anxious week, inquiring everywhere. She had pledged herself in a weak
+hour; but though the men laughed, that was all. Not even in the clubs
+was there any story to be got hold of. The Duchess had a son-in-law who
+was clever in gossip. He said there was nothing, and the Lord
+Chamberlain made no objection. The Contessa di Forno-Populo had not
+indeed, she said loftily, ever desired to make her appearance before the
+Piedmontese; but she had the stamp upon her, though partially worn out,
+of the old Grand Ducal Court of Tuscany--which many people think more
+of--and these two stately Italian ladies made as great a sensation by
+their beauty and their stately air as had been made at any drawing-room
+in the present reign. The most august and discriminating of critics
+remarked them above all others. And a Lady, whose knowledge of family
+history is unrivalled, like her place in the world, condescended to
+remember that the Conte di Forno-Populo had married an English lady.
+Their dresses were specially described by Lady Anastasia in her
+favourite paper; and their portraits were almost recognisable in the
+_Graphic_, which gave a special (fancy) picture of the drawing-room in
+question. Triumph could not farther go.
+
+It was not till after this event that Bice revealed the purpose which
+was one of her inducements for that visit to little Tom's sick bed. On
+the evening of that great day, just before going out in all her
+splendour to the Duchess's reception held on that occasion, she took her
+lover aside, whose pride in her magnificence and all the applause that
+had been lavished on her knew no bounds.
+
+"Listen," she said, "I have something to tell you. Perhaps, when you
+hear it, all will be over. I have not allowed you to come near me nor
+touch me----"
+
+"No, by Jove! It has been stand off, indeed! I don't know what you mean
+by it," cried Montjoie ruefully; "that wasn't what I bargained for,
+don't you know?"
+
+"I am going to explain," said Bice. "You shall know, then, that when I
+had those headaches--you remember--and you could not see me, I had no
+headaches, _mon ami_. I was with Milady Randolph in Park Lane, in the
+middle of the fever, nursing the boy."
+
+Montjoie gazed at her with round eyes. He recoiled a step, then rushing
+at his betrothed, notwithstanding her Court plumes and flounces, got
+Bice in his arms. "By Jove!" he cried, "and that was why! You thought I
+was frightened of the fever; that is the best joke I have heard for
+ages, don't you know? What a pluck you've got, Bee! And what a beauty
+you are, my pretty dear! I am going to pay myself all the arrears."
+
+"Don't," said Bice, plaintively; the caresses were not much to her mind,
+but she endured them to a certain limit. "I wondered," she said with a
+faint sigh, "what you would say."
+
+"It was awfully silly," said Montjoie. "I couldn't have believed you
+were so soft, Bee, with your training, don't you know? And how did you
+come over _her_ to let you go? She was in a dead funk all the time. It
+was awfully silly; you might have caught it, or given it to me, or a
+hundred things, and lost all your fun; but it was awfully plucky," cried
+Montjoie, "by Jove! I knew you were a plucky one;" and he added, after a
+moment's reflection, in a softened tone, "a good little girl too."
+
+It was thus that Bice's fate was sealed.
+
+That afternoon Lucy received a note from Lady Randolph in the following
+words:--
+
+     "DEAREST LUCY--I am more glad than I can tell you to hear the good
+     news of the dear boy. Probably he will be stronger now than he has
+     ever been, having got over this so well.
+
+     "I want to tell you not to think any more of what I said _that_
+     day. I hope it has not vexed you. I find that my informant was
+     entirely mistaken, and acted upon a misconception all the time. I
+     can't tell how sorry I am ever to have mentioned such a thing; but
+     it seemed to be on the very best authority. I do hope it has not
+     made any coolness between Tom and you.
+
+     "Don't take the trouble to answer this. There is nothing that
+     carries infection like letters, and I inquire after the boy every
+     day.--Your loving
+
+                                                           M. RANDOLPH."
+
+"It was not her fault," said Lucy, sobbing upon her husband's shoulder.
+"I should have known you better, Tom."
+
+"I think so, my dear," he said quietly, "though I have been more foolish
+than a man of my age ought to be; but there is no harm in the Contessa,
+Lucy."
+
+"No," Lucy said, yet with a grave face. "But Bice will be made a
+sacrifice: Bice, and----" she added with a guilty look, "I shall have
+thrown away that money, for it has not saved her."
+
+"Here is a great deal of money," said Sir Tom, drawing a letter from his
+pocket, "which seems also in a fair way of being thrown away."
+
+He took out the list which Lucy had given to her trustee, which Mr.
+Chervil had returned to her husband, and held it out before her. It was
+a very curious document, an experiment in the way of making poor people
+rich. The names were of people of whom Lucy knew very little personally;
+and yet it had not been done without thought. There was nobody there to
+whom such a gift might not mean deliverance from many cares. In the
+abstract it was not throwing anything away. Perhaps, had there been some
+public commission to reward with good incomes the struggling and
+honourable, these might not have been the chosen names; but yet it was
+all legitimate, honest, in the light of Lucy's exceptional position.
+The husband and wife stood and looked at it together in this moment of
+their reunion, when both had escaped from the deadliest perils that
+could threaten life--the loss of their child, the loss of their union.
+It was hard to tell which would have been the most mortal blow.
+
+"He says I must prevent you; that you cannot have thought what you were
+doing; that it is madness, Lucy."
+
+"I think I was nearly mad," said Lucy simply. "I thought to get rid of
+it whatever might happen to me--that was best."
+
+"Let us look at it now in our full senses," said Sir Tom.
+
+Lucy grasped his arm with both her hands. "Tom," she said in a hurried
+tone, "this is the only thing in which I ever set myself against you. It
+was the beginning of all our trouble; and I might have to do that again.
+What does it matter if perhaps we might do it more wisely now? All these
+people are poor, and there is the money to make them well off; that is
+what my father meant. He meant it to be scattered again, like seed given
+back to the reaper. He used to say so. Shall not we let it go as it is,
+and be done with it and avoid trouble any more?"
+
+He stood holding her in his arms, looking over the paper. It was a great
+deal of money. To sacrifice a great deal of money does not affect a
+young woman who has never known any need of it in her life, but a man in
+middle age who knows all about it, that makes a great difference. Many
+thoughts passed through the mind of Sir Tom. It was a moment in which
+Lucy's heart was very soft. She was ready to do anything for the husband
+to whom, she thought, she had been unjust. And it was hard upon him to
+diminish his own importance and cut off at a stroke by such a sacrifice
+half the power and importance of the wealth which was his, though Lucy
+might be the source of it. Was he to consent to this loss, not even
+wisely, carefully arranged, but which might do little good to any one,
+and to him harm unquestionable? He stood silent for some time thinking,
+almost disposed to tear up the paper and throw it away. But then he
+began to reflect of other things more important than money; of unbroken
+peace and happiness; of Lucy's faithful, loyal spirit that would never
+be satisfied with less than the entire discharge of her trust, of the
+full accord, never so entirely comprehensive and understanding as now,
+that had been restored between them; and of the boy given back from the
+gates of hell, from the jaws of death. It was no small struggle. He had
+to conquer a hundred hesitations, the disapproval, the resistance of his
+own mind. It was with a hand that shook a little that he put it back.
+"That little beggar," he said, with his old laugh--though not his old
+laugh, for in this one there was a sound of tears--"will be a hundred
+thousand or so the poorer. Do you think he'd mind, if we were to ask
+him? Come, here is a kiss upon the bargain. The money shall go, and a
+good riddance, Lucy. There is now nothing between you and me."
+
+Bice was married at the end of the season, in the most fashionable
+church, in the most correct way. Montjoie's plain cousins had
+asked--asked! without a sign of enmity!--to be bridesmaids, "as she had
+no sisters of her own, poor thing!" Montjoie declared that he was "ready
+to split" at their cheek in asking, and in calling Bice "poor thing,"
+she who was the most fortunate girl in the world. The Contessa took the
+good the gods provided her, without grumbling at the fate which
+transferred to her the little fortune which had been given to Bice to
+keep her from a mercenary marriage. It was not a mercenary marriage, in
+the ordinary sense of the word. To Bice's mind it was simply fulfilling
+her natural career; and she had no dislike to Montjoie. She liked him
+well enough. He had answered well to her test. He was not clever, to be
+sure; but what then? She was well enough content, if not rapturous, when
+she walked out of the church Marchioness of Montjoie on her husband's
+arm. There was a large and fashionable assembly, it need not be said.
+Lucy, in a first place, looking very wistful, wondering if the girl was
+happy, and Sir Tom saying to himself it was very well that he had no
+more to do with it than as a friend. There were two other spectators who
+looked upon the ceremony with still more serious countenances, a man and
+a boy, restored to each other as dearest friends. They watched all the
+details of the service with unfailing interest, but when the beautiful
+bride came down the aisle on her husband's arm, they turned with one
+accord and looked at each other. They had been quite still until that
+point, making no remark. She passed them by, walking as if on air, as
+she always walked, though ballasted now for ever by that duller being at
+her side. She was not subdued under her falling veil, like so many
+brides, but saw everything, them among the rest, as she passed, and
+showed by a half smile her recognition of their presence. There was no
+mystic veil of sentiment about her; no consciousness of any mystery. She
+walked forth bravely, smiling, to meet life and the world. What was
+there in that beautiful, beaming creature to suggest a thought of
+future necessity, trouble, or the most distant occasion for help or
+succour? Perhaps it is a kind of revenge we take upon too great
+prosperity to say to ourselves: "There may come a time!"
+
+These two spectators made their way out slowly among the crowd. They
+walked a long way towards their after destination without a word. Then
+Mr. Derwentwater spoke:
+
+"If there should ever come a time when we can help her, or be of use to
+her, you and I--for the time must come when she will find out she has
+chosen evil instead of good----"
+
+"Oh, humbug!" cried Jock roughly, with a sharpness in his tone which was
+its apology. "She has done what she always meant to do--and that is what
+she likes best."
+
+"Nevertheless----" said MTutor with a sigh.
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:-                                         |
+  |                                                              |
+  | The following printers spelling errors have been corrected:- |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 66                                                      |
+  | 'direst' to 'divest'                                         |
+  | 'could not yet divest himself'                               |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 278                                                     |
+  | 'down' to 'done'                                             |
+  | 'as a simple girl might have done'                           |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 397                                                     |
+  | 'pyschological' to 'psychological'                           |
+  | 'any attempt at psychological investigation'                 |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 470                                                     |
+  | 'unforgetable' to 'unforgettable'                            |
+  | 'almost forgotten, yet unforgettable'                        |
+  |                                                              |
+  | The following word has been changed on page 138:-            |
+  |                                                              |
+  | 'uncle' to 'father'                                          |
+  | There is no previous mention of an uncle and the title       |
+  | 'father' makes more sense in the context of the story.       |
+  |                                                              |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+                 _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
+
+
+  MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
+
+  _POPULAR NOVELS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
+
+  Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each.
+
+  NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.
+
+  KIRSTEEN.
+
+  _SCOTSMAN_--"One of the most powerful stories Mrs. Oliphant has ever
+  written."
+
+  _MURRAY'S MAGAZINE_--"One of the best books which Mrs. Oliphant's
+  fertile pen has within recent years produced."
+
+  _WORLD_--"Mrs. Oliphant has written many novels, and many good ones; but
+  if she has hitherto written one so good as _Kirsteen_, we have not read
+  it.... It is the highest praise we can give, when we say that there are
+  passages in it which, as pictures of Scottish life and character, it
+  would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to match out of Sir Walter's
+  pages."
+
+  _NATIONAL OBSERVER_--"Seldom, if ever, has Mrs. Oliphant done better
+  than in _Kirsteen_.... There is humour, there is pathos, there is
+  tragedy, there is even crime--in short, there is human life."
+
+  JOYCE.
+
+  _GUARDIAN_--"It has seldom been our lot to fall in with so engrossing a
+  story."
+
+  A BELEAGUERED CITY.
+
+  _TIMES_--"The story is a powerful one and very original to boot."
+
+  HESTER.
+
+  _ACADEMY_--"At her best, she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of
+  living English novelists. She is at her best in _Hester_."
+
+  HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.
+
+  _SCOTSMAN_--"The workmanship of the book is simply admirable."
+
+  THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.
+
+  _ANTI-JACOBIN_--"An extremely interesting story, and a perfectly
+  satisfactory achievement of literary art."
+
+  _MORNING POST_--"Mrs. Oliphant has never written a simpler, and at the
+  same time a better conceived story. An excellent example of pure and
+  simple fiction, which is also of the deepest interest."
+
+  THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.
+
+  _NATIONAL OBSERVER_--"In spite of yourself and of them, you become
+  interested in uninteresting people, annoyed at their follies, and
+  sympathetic with their trifling sorrows and joys. This is Mrs.
+  Oliphant's secret."
+
+  SIR TOM.
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Has the charm of style, the literary quality and
+  flavour that never fail to please."
+
+  Globe 8vo. 2s. each.
+
+  A SON OF THE SOIL.
+
+  THE CURATE IN CHARGE.
+
+  YOUNG MUSGRAVE.
+
+  THE WIZARD'S SON.
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"We have read it twice, once in snippets, and once as a
+  whole, and our interest has never flagged."
+
+  A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AND HIS FAMILY.
+
+  _ACADEMY_--"Never has her workmanship been surer, steadier, or more
+  masterly."
+
+  THE SECOND SON.
+
+  _MORNING POST_--"Mrs. Oliphant has never shown herself more completely
+  mistress of her art.... The entire story is clever and powerful."
+
+  _WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
+
+  JERUSALEM, THE HOLY CITY: ITS HISTORY AND HOPE.
+
+  With 50 Illustrations. Medium 8vo. 21s.
+
+  _Also a limited Edition on Large Paper._ 50s. net.
+
+  _GRAPHIC_--"An eloquent monograph on Jerusalem, written with all the
+  picturesqueness and force of style which distinguishes the writer."
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"Mrs. Oliphant has successfully accomplished the difficult
+  achievement of recasting the familiar old Hebrew stories into the
+  language of our own land and century without losing their charm."
+
+  _SCOTSMAN_--"One of the most attractive books of the year."
+
+  _RECORD_--"It is entitled to yet higher praise than that which is due to
+  it for its charm as an expression of the highest literary skill."
+
+  _OBSERVER_--"Mrs. Oliphant has written no better literature than this.
+  It is a history; but it is one of more than human interest."
+
+  THE MAKERS OF VENICE: DOGES, CONQUERORS, PAINTERS, AND MEN OF LETTERS.
+  With numerous Illustrations.
+
+  Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.
+
+  _Edition de Luxe_, with additional Plates. 8vo. 20s. net.
+
+  _BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE_--"Even more delightful than the _Makers of
+  Florence_. The writing is bright and animated, the research thorough,
+  the presentation of Venetian life brilliantly vivid. It is an entirely
+  workmanlike piece of work."
+
+  THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE: DANTE, GIOTTO, SAVONAROLA, AND THEIR CITY. With
+  Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.
+
+  _Edition de Luxe_, with 20 additional Plates, reproduced from line
+  engravings after pictures by Florentine artists. Medium 8vo. 20s. net.
+
+  _EDINBURGH REVIEW_--"One of the most elegant and interesting books which
+  has been inspired in our times by the arts and annals of that celebrated
+  republic."
+
+  _WESTMINSTER REVIEW_--"No one visiting Florence can better prepare for a
+  just appreciation of the temper and spirit of the place, than by
+  studying Mrs. Oliphant's capital treatise."
+
+  ROYAL EDINBURGH: HER SAINTS, KINGS, AND SCHOLARS. Illustrated by GEORGE
+  REID, R.S.A. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.
+
+  _PALL MALL GAZETTE_--"Is fascinating and full of interest throughout.
+  Mr. Reid has long occupied a place in the very front rank of Scottish
+  artists, and we have seen nothing finer from his pencil than the
+  illustrations in the present volume."
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"Between letterpress and illustrations, _Royal Edinburgh_
+  reproduces the tragedy, the glory, and the picturesqueness of Scotch
+  history as no other work has done."
+
+  AGNES HOPETOUN'S SCHOOLS AND HOLIDAYS. Illustrated.
+  Globe 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+  S. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. Crown 8vo. 6s.
+
+  THE LITERARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE END
+  OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH
+  CENTURY. 3 vols. 8vo. 21s.
+
+  SHERIDAN. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.; sewed, 1s. [_English Men of Letters._]
+
+  SELECTIONS FROM COWPER'S POEMS. 18mo. 2s. 6d. net.
+    [_Golden Treasury Series._]
+
+
+  MACMILLAN'S THREE-AND-SIXPENNY SERIES
+
+  OF
+
+  =WORKS BY POPULAR AUTHORS.=
+
+  In Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d. each.
+
+  =By Sir SAMUEL BAKER.=
+
+  TRUE TALES FOR MY GRANDSONS.
+
+  =By ROLF BOLDREWOOD=
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great
+  point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous
+  parts of his books."
+
+  _PALL MALL GAZETTE_--"The volumes are brimful of adventure, in which
+  gold, gold-diggers, prospectors, claim-holders, take an active part."
+
+  ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.
+  THE MINERS RIGHT.
+  A COLONIAL REFORMER.
+  THE SQUATTER'S DREAM.
+  A SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON.
+  NEVERMORE.
+
+  =By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.=
+  LOUISIANA; AND THAT LASS O' LOWRIE'S.
+
+  =By HUGH CONWAY.=
+
+  _MORNING POST_--"Life-like and full of individuality."
+
+  _DAILY NEWS_--"Throughout written with spirit, good feeling, and
+  ability, and a certain dash of humour."
+
+  LIVING OR DEAD?
+  A FAMILY AFFAIR.
+
+  =By Mrs. CRAIK.=
+  (The Author of "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.")
+
+  OLIVE. With Illustrations by G. BOWERS.
+  THE OGILVIES. With Illustrations.
+  AGATHA'S HUSBAND. With Illustrations.
+  HEAD OF THE FAMILY. With Illustrations.
+  TWO MARRIAGES.
+  THE LAUREL BUSH.
+  MY MOTHER AND I. With Illustrations.
+  MISS TOMMY: A Mediaeval Romance. Illustrated.
+  KING ARTHUR: Not a Love Story.
+  SERMONS OUT OF CHURCH.
+
+  =By F. MARION CRAWFORD.=
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"With the solitary exception of Mrs. Oliphant we have no
+  living novelist more distinguished for variety of theme and range of
+  imaginative outlook than Mr. Marion Crawford."
+
+  MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India. Portrait of Author.
+  DR. CLAUDIUS: A True Story.
+  A ROMAN SINGER.
+  ZOROASTER.
+  MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX.
+  A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.
+  PAUL PATOFF.
+  WITH THE IMMORTALS.
+  GREIFENSTEIN.
+  SANT' ILARIO.
+  A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE.
+
+  =By Sir HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E.=
+
+  _ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE_--"Interesting as specimens of romance, the style
+  of writing is so excellent--scholarly and at the same time easy and
+  natural--that the volumes are worth reading on that account alone. But
+  there is also masterly description of persons, places, and things;
+  skilful analysis of character; a constant play of wit and humour; and a
+  happy gift of instantaneous portraiture."
+
+  THE COERULEANS.
+  THE HERIOTS.
+  WHEAT AND TARES.
+
+  =By CHARLES DICKENS=
+
+  THE PICKWICK PAPERS. With 50 Illustrations.
+  OLIVER TWIST. With 27 Illustrations.
+  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. With 44 Illustrations.
+  MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. With 41 Illustrations.
+  THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. With 97 Illustrations.
+  BARNABY RUDGE. With 76 Illustrations.
+  DOMBEY AND SON. With 40 Illustrations.      _September 26._
+  CHRISTMAS BOOKS. With 65 Illustrations.      _October 26._
+  SKETCHES BY BOZ. With 44 Illustrations.      _November 21._
+  DAVID COPPERFIELD. With 41 Illustrations.      _December 21._
+  AMERICAN NOTES AND PICTURES FROM ITALY. With 4 Illustrations.
+  _January 26._
+  THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+  =By LANOE FALCONER.=
+
+  CECILIA DE NOEL.
+
+  =By W. WARDE FOWLER.=
+
+  A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS. Illustrated by BRYAN HOOK.
+  TALES OF THE BIRDS. Illustrated by BRYAN HOOK.
+
+  =By the Rev. JOHN GILMORE=
+
+  STORM WARRIORS.
+
+  =By THOMAS HARDY=
+
+  _TIMES_--"There is hardly a novelist, dead or living, who so skilfully
+  harmonises the poetry of moral life with its penury. Just as Millet
+  could in the figure of a solitary peasant toiling on a plain convey a
+  world of pathetic meaning, so Mr. Hardy with his yeomen and villagers.
+  Their occupations in his hands wear a pathetic dignity, which not even
+  the encomiums of a Ruskin could heighten."
+
+  THE WOODLANDERS.
+  WESSEX TALES.
+
+  =By BRET HARTE.=
+
+  _SPEAKER_--"The best work of Mr. Bret Harte stands entirely alone ...
+  marked on every page by distinction and quality.... Strength and
+  delicacy, spirit and tenderness, go together in his best work."
+
+  CRESSY.
+  THE HERITAGE of DEDLOW MARSH.
+  A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA.
+
+  By the Author of "Hogan, M.P."
+
+  HOGAN, M.P.
+
+  =By THOMAS HUGHES.=
+
+  TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS. With Illustrations by A. HUGHES and S. P. HALL.
+  TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. With Illustrations by S. P. HALL.
+  THE SCOURING OF THE WHITE HORSE, AND THE ASHEN FAGGOT.
+    With Illustrations by RICHARD DOYLE.
+
+  =By HENRY JAMES.=
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"He has the power of seeing with the artistic
+  perception of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that
+  the many can understand and feel with him."
+
+  _WORLD_--"His touch is so light, and his humour, while shrewd and keen,
+  so free from bitterness."
+
+  A LONDON LIFE.
+  THE ASPERN PAPERS.
+  THE TRAGIC MUSE.
+
+  =By ANNIE KEARY.=
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"In our opinion there have not been many novels published
+  better worth reading. The literary workmanship is excellent, and all the
+  windings of the stories are worked with patient fulness and a skill not
+  often found."
+
+  CASTLE DALY.
+  A YORK AND A LANCASTER ROSE.
+  A DOUBTING HEART.
+  JANET'S HOME.
+  OLDBURY.
+
+  =By PATRICK KENNEDY.=
+
+  LEGENDARY FICTIONS OF THE IRISH CELTS.
+
+  =CHARLES KINGSLEY.=
+
+  WESTWARD HO!
+  HYPATIA.
+  YEAST.
+  ALTON LOCKE.
+  TWO YEARS AGO.
+  HEREWARD THE WAKE.
+  POEMS.
+  THE HEROES.
+  THE WATER BABIES.
+  MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY.
+  AT LAST.
+  PROSE IDYLLS.
+  PLAYS AND PURITANS, &c.
+  THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON.
+  SANITARY AND SOCIAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
+  HISTORICAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
+  SCIENTIFIC LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
+  LITERARY AND GENERAL LECTURES.
+  THE HERMITS.
+  GLAUCUS; OR, THE WONDERS OF THE SEA-SHORE.
+  With Coloured Illustrations.
+  VILLAGE AND TOWN AND COUNTRY SERMONS.
+  THE WATER OF LIFE, AND OTHER SERMONS.
+  SERMONS ON NATIONAL SUBJECTS, AND THE KING OF THE EARTH.
+  SERMONS FOR THE TIMES.
+  GOOD NEWS OF GOD.
+  THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH, AND DAVID.
+  DISCIPLINE, AND OTHER SERMONS.
+  WESTMINSTER SERMONS.
+  ALL SAINTS' DAY, AND OTHER SERMONS.
+
+  =By HENRY KINGSLEY.=
+
+  TALES OF OLD TRAVEL.
+
+  =By MARGARET LEE.=
+
+  FAITHFUL AND UNFAITHFUL.
+
+  =By AMY LEVY.=
+
+  REUBEN SACHS.
+
+  =By the EARL OF LYTTON.=
+
+  THE RING OF AMASIS.
+
+  =By MALCOLM M'LENNAN.=
+
+  MUCKLE JOCK, AND OTHER STORIES OF PEASANT LIFE.
+
+  =By LUCAS MALET.=
+
+  MRS. LORIMER.
+
+  =By A. B. MITFORD.=
+
+  TALES OF OLD JAPAN. Illustrated.
+
+  =By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.=
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"Mr. Christie Murray has more power and genius for the
+  delineation of English rustic life than any half-dozen of our surviving
+  novelists put together."
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Few modern novelists can tell a story of English
+  country life better than Mr. D. Christie Murray."
+
+  AUNT RACHEL.
+  JOHN VALE'S GUARDIAN.
+  SCHWARTZ.
+  THE WEAKER VESSEL.
+  HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. By D. C. MURRAY and H. HERMAN.
+
+  =By Mrs. OLIPHANT.=
+
+  _ACADEMY_--"At her best she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of
+  living English novelists."
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Has the charm of style, the literary quality and
+  flavour that never fails to please."
+
+  A BELEAGUERED CITY.
+  JOYCE.
+  NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.
+  KIRSTEEN.
+  HESTER.
+  HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.
+  THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.
+  THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.
+
+  =By W. CLARK RUSSELL.=
+
+  _TIMES_--"Mr. Clark Russell is one of those writers who have set
+  themselves to revive the British sea story in all its glorious
+  excitement. Mr. Russell has made a considerable reputation in this line.
+  His plots are well conceived, and that of _Marooned_ is no exception to
+  this rule."
+
+  MAROONED.
+  A STRANGE ELOPEMENT.
+
+  =By J. H. SHORTHOUSE.=
+
+  _ANTI-JACOBIN_--"Powerful, striking, and fascinating romances."
+
+  JOHN INGLESANT.
+  SIR PERCIVAL.
+  THE LITTLE SCHOOLMASTER MARK.
+  THE COUNTESS EVE.
+  A TEACHER OF THE VIOLIN.
+
+  =By Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD.=
+
+  MISS BRETHERTON.
+
+  =By MONTAGU WILLIAMS, Q.C.=
+
+  LEAVES OF A LIFE.
+  LATER LEAVES.
+
+  =By Miss CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.=
+
+  THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.
+  HEARTSEASE.
+  HOPES AND FEARS.
+  DYNEVOR TERRACE.
+  THE DAISY CHAIN.
+  THE TRIAL: MORE LINKS OF THE DAISY CHAIN.
+  PILLARS OF THE HOUSE. Vol. I.
+  PILLARS OF THE HOUSE. Vol. II.
+  THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER.
+  THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY.
+  THE THREE BRIDES.
+  MY YOUNG ALCIDES.
+  THE CAGED LION.
+  THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.
+  THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS.
+  LADY HESTER, AND THE DANVERS PAPERS.
+  MAGNUM BONUM.
+  LOVE AND LIFE.
+  UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.
+  STRAY PEARLS.
+  THE ARMOURER'S 'PRENTICES.
+  THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD.
+  NUTTIE'S FATHER.
+  SCENES AND CHARACTERS.
+  CHANTRY HOUSE.
+  A MODERN TELEMACHUS.
+  BYE-WORDS.
+  BEECHCROFT AT ROCKSTONE.
+  MORE BYWORDS.
+  A REPUTED CHANGELING.
+  THE LITTLE DUKE.
+  THE LANCES OF LYNWOOD.
+  THE PRINCE AND THE PAGE.
+  P's AND Q's AND LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE.
+  THE TWO PENNILESS PRINCESSES.
+  THAT STICK.
+
+  =By ARCHDEACON FARRAR.=
+
+  SEEKERS AFTER GOD.
+  ETERNAL HOPE.
+  THE FALL OF MAN.
+  THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO CHRIST.
+  THE SILENCE AND VOICES OF GOD.
+  IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH.
+  SAINTLY WORKERS.
+  EPHPHATHA.
+  MERCY AND JUDGMENT.
+  SERMONS AND ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN AMERICA.
+
+  =By FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE.=
+
+  SERMONS PREACHED IN LINCOLN'S INN CHAPEL. _In 6 vols._
+
+  =Collected Works.=
+
+  In Monthly Volumes from October 1892. 3s. 6d. per vol.
+
+  1. CHRISTMAS DAY AND OTHER SERMONS.
+  2. THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.
+  3. PROPHETS AND KINGS.
+  4. PATRIARCHS AND LAWGIVERS.
+  5. THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
+  6. GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
+  7. EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
+  8. LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE.
+  9. FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS.
+  10. SOCIAL MORALITY.
+  11. PRAYER BOOK AND LORD'S PRAYER.
+  12. THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE.
+
+
+  MACMILLAN & CO., BEDFORD STREET,
+
+  STRAND, LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Tom, by Mrs. Oliphant
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Tom, by Mrs. Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sir Tom
+
+Author: Mrs. Oliphant
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2009 [EBook #30692]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR TOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brenda Lewis, woodie4 and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>SIR TOM<br /></h1>
+
+<h4>BY<br /></h4>
+
+<h2>MRS. OLIPHANT<br /></h2>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF "THE WIZARD'S SON," "HESTER," ETC.<br /></h5>
+
+<h3>London<br /></h3>
+
+<h2>MACMILLAN AND CO.<br /></h2>
+
+<h4>AND NEW YORK<br /></h4>
+
+<h3>1893<br /></h3>
+
+<h5><i>All rights reserved</i><br /><br /><br /></h5>
+
+
+<h4><i>First Edition (3 Vols. Crown 8vo) Sept. 1884</i><br />
+
+<i>Second Edition (1 Vol. Crown 8vo) 1884</i><br />
+
+<i>Reprinted (Globe 8vo) 1888, (Crown 8vo) 1893</i><br /><br /><br /></h4>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.<br /></h2>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="contents">
+
+<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE</td>
+<td align="right">1</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">HIS WIFE</td>
+<td align="right">9</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">OLD MR. TREVOR'S WILL</td>
+<td align="right">20</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">YOUNG MR. TREVOR</td>
+<td align="right">29</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CONSULTATIONS</td>
+<td align="right">39</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS</td>
+<td align="right">48</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A WARNING</td>
+<td align="right">58</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE SHADOW OF DEATH</td>
+<td align="right">67</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A CHRISTMAS VISIT</td>
+<td align="right">77</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">LUCY'S ADVISERS</td>
+<td align="right">86</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY</td>
+<td align="right">96</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE FIRST STRUGGLE</td>
+<td align="right">105</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">AN IDLE MORNING</td>
+<td align="right">115</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">AN UNWILLING MARTYR</td>
+<td align="right">126</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">ON BUSINESS</td>
+<td align="right">135</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL</td>
+<td align="right">146</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">FOREWARNED</td>
+<td align="right">157</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE VISITORS</td>
+<td align="right">167</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA</td>
+<td align="right">179</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">AN ANXIOUS CRITIC</td>
+<td align="right">189</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER</td>
+<td align="right">200</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">A PAIR OF FRIENDS</td>
+<td align="right">211</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE BREAKFAST TABLE</td>
+<td align="right">221</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE ORACLE SPEAKS</td>
+<td align="right">230</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE CONTESSA'S BOUDOIR</td>
+<td align="right">242</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE TWO STRANGERS</td>
+<td align="right">259</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">AN ADVENTURESS</td>
+<td align="right">269</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE</td>
+<td align="right">280</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE CONTESSA'S TRIUMPH</td>
+<td align="right">291</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">DIFFERENT VIEWS</td>
+<td align="right">301</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">TWO FRIENDS</td>
+<td align="right">311</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">YOUTHFUL UNREST</td>
+<td align="right">321</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY</td>
+<td align="right">332</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">IN SUSPENSE</td>
+<td align="right">342</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE DÉBUT</td>
+<td align="right">354</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">XXXVI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE EVENING AFTER</td>
+<td align="right">366</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">XXXVII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE CONTESSA'S TACTICS</td>
+<td align="right">377</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">XXXVIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">DISCOVERIES</td>
+<td align="right">388</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">XXXIX</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">LUCY'S DISCOVERY</td>
+<td align="right">397</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XL">XL</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION</td>
+<td align="right">409</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">XLI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">SEVERED</td>
+<td align="right">417</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">XLII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS</td>
+<td align="right">427</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">XLIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR</td>
+<td align="right">437</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">XLIV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE SIEGE OF LONDON</td>
+<td align="right">448</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">XLV</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE BALL</td>
+<td align="right">458</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">XLVI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE BALL CONTINUED</td>
+<td align="right">469</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">XLVII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">NEXT MORNING</td>
+<td align="right">480</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">XLVIII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE LAST BLOW</td>
+<td align="right">491</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">XLIX</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE</td>
+<td align="right">502</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_L">L</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE EVE OF SORROW</td>
+<td align="right">514</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_LI">LI</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE LAST CRISIS</td>
+<td align="right">522</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">CHAPTER <a href="#CHAPTER_LII">LII</a>.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left">THE END</td>
+<td align="right">538</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sir Thomas Randolph had lived a somewhat stormy life during the earliest
+half of his career. He had gone through what the French called a
+<i>jeunesse orageuse</i>; nothing very bad had ever been laid to his charge;
+but he had been adventurous, unsettled, a roamer about the world even
+after the period at which youthful extravagances cease. Nobody ever knew
+when or where he might appear. He set off to the farthest parts of the
+earth at a day's notice, sometimes on pretext of sport, sometimes on no
+pretext at all, and re-appeared again as unexpectedly as he had gone
+away. He had run out his fortune by these and other extravagances, and
+was at forty in one of the most uncomfortable positions in which a man
+can find himself, with the external appearance of large estates and an
+established and important position, but in reality with scarcely any
+income at all, just enough to satisfy the mortgagees, and leave himself
+a pittance not much more than the wages of a gamekeeper. If his aunt,
+Lady Randolph, had not been so good to him it was uncertain whether he
+could have existed at all, and when the heiress, whom an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> eccentric will
+had consigned to her charge, fell in his way, all her friends concluded
+as a matter of certainty that Sir Tom would jump at this extraordinary
+windfall, this gift of a too kind Providence, which sometimes will care
+for a prodigal in a way which he is quite unworthy of, while leaving the
+righteous man to struggle on unaided. But for some time it appeared as
+if society for once was out in its reckoning. Sir Tom did not pounce
+upon the heiress. He was a person of very independent mind, and there
+were some who thought he was happier in his untrammelled poverty, doing
+what he pleased, than he ever had been as a great proprietor. Even when
+it became apparent to the wise and far-seeing that little Miss Trevor
+was only waiting till his handkerchief was thrown at her to become the
+happiest of women, still he did nothing. He exasperated his kind aunt,
+he made all his friends indignant, and what was more, he exposed the
+young heiress hourly to many attempts on the part of the inferior class,
+from which as a matter of fact she herself sprang; and it was not until
+she was driven nearly desperate by those attempts that Sir Tom suddenly
+appeared upon the scene, and moved, it was thought, more by a
+half-fatherly kindness and sympathy for her, than either by love or
+desire of wealth, took her to himself, and made her his wife, to the
+great and grateful satisfaction of the girl herself, whose strange
+upbringing and brief introduction into a higher sphere had spoiled her
+for that homely country-town existence in which every woman flattered
+and every man made love to her.</p>
+
+<p>Whether Lucy Trevor was in love with him was as uncertain as whether he
+was in love with her. So far as any one knew neither one nor the other
+had asked themselves this question. She had, as it were,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> thrown herself
+into his arms in sudden delight and relief of mind when he appeared and
+saved her from her suitors; while he had received her tenderly when she
+did this, out of kindness and pleasure in her genuine, half-childish
+appreciation of him. There were, of course, people who said that Lucy
+had been violently in love with Sir Tom, and that he had made up his
+mind to marry her money from the first moment he saw her; but neither of
+these things was true. They married with a great deal more pleasure and
+ease of mind than many people do who are very much in love, for they had
+mutual faith in each other, and felt a mutual repose and satisfaction in
+their union. Each supplied something the other wanted. Lucy obtained a
+secure and settled home, a protector and ever kind and genial guardian,
+while Sir Tom got not only a good and dutiful and pleasant companion,
+with a great deal of sense, and good-nature and good looks,&mdash;all of
+which gifts he prized highly,&mdash;but at the same time the control of a
+great fortune, and money enough at once to clear his estates and restore
+him to his position as a great landowner.</p>
+
+<p>There were very peculiar conditions attached to the great fortune, but
+to these for the moment he paid very little heed, considering them as
+fantastic follies not worth thinking about, which were never likely to
+become difficulties in his way. The advantage he derived from the
+marriage was enormous. All at once, at a bound, it restored him to what
+he had lost, to the possession of his own property, which had been not
+more than nominally his for so many years, and to the position of a man
+of weight and importance, whose opinion told with all his neighbours and
+the county generally, as did those of few others in the district.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom, the wanderer, had not been thought very highly of in his
+younger days. He had been called wild. He had been thought
+untrustworthy, a fellow here to-day and gone to-morrow, who had no
+solidity in him. But when the mortgages were all paid off, and the old
+hall restored, and Sir Thomas Randolph came to settle down at home, with
+his pretty little wife, and an establishment quite worthy of his name,
+the county discovered in a day, almost in a moment, that he was very
+much improved. He had always been clever enough, they said, for
+anything, and now that he had sown his wild oats and learned how to
+conduct himself, and attained an age when follies are naturally over,
+there was no reason why he should not be received with open arms. Such a
+man had a great many more experiences, the county thought with a certain
+pride, than other men who had sown no wild oats, and had never gone
+farther afield than the recognised round of European cities. Sir Tom had
+been in all the four quarters of the globe; he had travelled in America
+long before it became fashionable to do so, and even had been in Africa
+while it was as yet untrod by any white foot but that of a missionary.
+And it was whispered that in the days when he was "wild" he had
+penetrated into regions nearer at hand, but more obscure and mysterious
+even than Africa. All this made the county think more of him now when he
+appeared staid yet genial, in the fulness of manhood, with a crisp brown
+beard and a few gray hairs about his temples mingled with his abundant
+locks, and that capability of paying his way which is dear to every
+well-regulated community. But for this last particular the county would
+not have been so tolerant, nay almost pleased, with the fact that he had
+been "wild." They saw all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> his qualities in the halo that surrounded the
+newly-decorated hall, the liberated farms, the lands upon which no
+creditor had now any claim. He was the most popular man in the district
+when Parliament was dissolved, and he was elected for the county almost
+without opposition, he, at whom all the sober people had shaken their
+heads only a few years before. The very name of "Sir Tom," which had
+been given rather contemptuously to denote a somewhat careless fellow,
+who minded nothing, became all at once the sign of popular amity and
+kindness. And if it had been necessary to gain votes for him by any
+canvassing tricks, this name of his would have carried away all
+objections. "Sir Tom!" it established a sort of affectionate
+relationship at once between him and his constituency. The people felt
+that they had known him all his life, and had always called him by his
+Christian name.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Randolph was much excited and delighted with her husband's success.
+She canvassed for him in a modest way, making herself pleasant to the
+wives of his supporters in a unique manner of her own which was not
+perhaps quite dignified considering her position, but yet was found very
+captivating by those good women. She did not condescend to them as other
+titled ladies do, but she took their advice about her baby, and how he
+was to be managed, with a pretty humility which made her irresistible.
+They all felt an individual interest thenceforward in the heir of the
+Randolphs, as if they had some personal concern in him; and Lady
+Randolph's gentle accost, and the pretty blush upon her cheeks, and her
+way of speaking to them all, "as if they were just as good as she was,"
+had a wonderful effect. When she received him in the hotel which was the
+headquarters of his party, as soon as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> the result of the election was
+known, Sir Tom, coming in flushed with applauses and victory, took his
+wife into his arms and kissed her. "I owe this to you, as well as so
+much else, Lucy," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't say that! when you know I don't understand much, and never
+can do anything; but I am so glad, nobody could be more glad," said
+Lucy. Little Tom had been brought in, too, in his nurse's arms, and
+crowed and clapped his fat little baby hands for his father; and when
+his mother took him and stepped out upon the balcony, from which her
+husband was speaking an impromptu address to his new constituents, with
+the child in her arms, not suspecting that she would be seen, the cheers
+and outcries ran into an uproar of applause. "Three cheers for my lady
+and the baby," the crowd shouted at the top of its many voices; and
+Lucy, blushing and smiling and crying with pleasure, instead of
+shrinking away as everybody feared she would do, stood up in her modest,
+pretty youthfulness, shy, but full of sense and courage, and held up the
+child, who stared at them all solemnly with big blue eyes, and, after a
+moment's consideration, again patted his fat little hands together, an
+action which put the multitude beside itself with delight. Sir Tom's
+speech did not make nearly so much impression as the baby's
+"patti-cake." Every man in the crowd, not to say every woman, and with
+still more reason every child, clapped his or her hands too, and shouted
+and laughed and hurrahed.</p>
+
+<p>The incident of the baby's appearance before the public, and the early
+success he had gained&mdash;the earliest on record, the newspapers said&mdash;made
+quite a sensation throughout the county, and made Farafield<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> famous for
+a week. It was mentioned in a leading article in the first newspaper in
+the world. It appeared in large headlines in the placards under such
+titles as "Baby in Politics," "The Nursery and the Hustings," and such
+like. As for the little hero of the moment, he was handed down to his
+anxious nurse just as symptoms of a whimper of fear at the alarming
+tumult outside began to appear about the corners of his mouth. "For
+heaven's sake take him away; he mustn't cry, or he will spoil all," said
+the chairman of Sir Tom's committee. And the young mother, disappearing
+too into the room behind, sat down in a great chair behind their backs,
+and cried to relieve her feelings. Never had there been such a day. If
+Sir Tom had not been the thoroughly good-humoured man he was, it is
+possible that he might have objected to the interruption thus made in
+his speech, which was altogether lost in the tumult of delight which
+followed his son's appearance. But as a matter of fact he was as much
+delighted as any one, and proud as man could be of his pretty little
+wife and his splendid boy. He took "the little beggar," as he called
+him, in his arms, and kissed the mother again, soothing and laughing at
+her in the tender, kindly, fatherly way which had won Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"It is you who have got the seat," he said; "I vote that you go and sit
+in it, Lady Randolph. You are a born legislator, and your son is a
+favourite of the public, whereas I am only an old fogey."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom!" Lucy said, lifting her simple eyes to his with a mist of
+happiness in them. She was accustomed to his nonsense. She never said
+anything more than "Oh, Tom!" and indeed it was not very long since she
+had given up the title and ceased to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> say "Oh, Sir Tom!" which seemed
+somehow to come more natural. It was what she had said when he came
+suddenly to see her in the midst of her early embarrassments and
+troubles; when the cry of relief and delight with which she turned to
+him, uttering in her surprise that title of familiarity, "Oh, Sir Tom!"
+had signified first to her middle-aged hero, with the most flattering
+simplicity and completeness, that he had won the girl's pure and
+inexperienced heart.</p>
+
+<p>There was no happier evening in their lives than this, when, after all
+the commotion, threatenings of the ecstatic crowd to take the horses
+from their carriage, and other follies, they got off at last together
+and drove home through roads that wound among the autumn fields, on some
+of which the golden sheaves were still standing in the sunshine. Sir Tom
+held Lucy's hand in his own. He had told her a dozen times over that he
+owed it all to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You have made me rich, and you have made me happy," he said, "though I
+am old enough to be your father, and you are only a little girl. If
+there is any good to come out of me, it will all be to your credit,
+Lucy. They say in story books that a man should be ashamed to own so
+much to his wife, but I am not the least ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom!" she said, "how can you talk so much nonsense," with a laugh,
+and the tears in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I always did talk nonsense," he said; "that was why you got to like me.
+But this is excellent sense and quite true. And that little beggar; I am
+owing you for him, too. There is no end to my indebtedness. When they
+put the return in the papers it should be Sir Thomas Randolph, etc.,
+returned as re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>presentative of his wife, Lucy, a little woman worth as
+much as any county in England."</p>
+
+<p>"O, Sir Tom," Lucy cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, so you are, my dear," he said, composedly. "That is a mere matter
+of fact, you know, and there can be no question about it at all."</p>
+
+<p>For the truth was that she was so rich as to have been called the
+greatest heiress in England in her day.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>HIS WIFE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Young Lady Randolph had herself been much changed by the progress of
+these years. Marriage is always the great touchstone of character at
+least with women; but in her case the change from a troubled and
+premature independence, full of responsibilities and an extremely
+difficult and arduous duty, to the protection and calm of early married
+life, in which everything was done for her, and all her burdens taken
+from her shoulders, rather arrested than aided in the development of her
+character. She had lived six months with the Dowager Lady Randolph after
+her father's death; but those six months had been all she knew of the
+larger existence of the wealthy and great. All she knew&mdash;and even in
+that short period she had learned less than she might have been expected
+to learn; for Lucy had not been introduced into society, partly on
+account of her very youthful age, and partly because she was still in
+mourning, so that her acquaintance with life on the higher line
+consisted merely in a know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>ledge of certain simple luxuries, of larger
+rooms and prettier furniture, and more careful service than in her
+natural condition. And by birth she belonged to the class of small
+townsfolk who are nobody, and whose gentility is more appalling than
+their homeliness. So that when she came to be Sir Thomas Randolph's wife
+and a great lady, not merely the ward of an important personage, but
+herself occupying that position, the change was so wonderful that it
+required all Lucy's mental resources to encounter and accustom herself
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom was the kindest of middle-aged husbands. If he did not adore his
+young wife with the fervour of passion, he had a sincere affection for
+her, and the warmest desire to make her happy. She had done a great deal
+for him, she had changed his position unspeakably, and he was fully
+determined that no lady in England should have more observance, more
+honour and luxury, and what was better, more happiness, than the little
+girl who had made a man of him. There had always been a sweet and
+serious simplicity about her, an air of good sense and reasonableness,
+which had attracted everybody whose opinion was worth having to Lucy;
+but she was neither beautiful nor clever. She had been so brought up
+that, though she was not badly educated, she had no accomplishments, and
+not more knowledge than falls to the lot of an ordinary schoolgirl. The
+farthest extent of her mild experiences was Sloane Street and Cadogan
+Place: and there were people who thought it impossible that Sir Tom, who
+had been everywhere, and run through the entire gamut of pleasures and
+adventures, should find anything interesting in this bread-and-butter
+girl, whom, of course, it was his duty to marry, and having married to
+be kind to. But when he found himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> set down in an English country
+house with this little piece of simplicity opposite to him, what would
+he do, the sympathising spectators said? Even his kind aunt, who felt
+that she had brought about the marriage, and who, as a matter of fact,
+had fully intended it from the first, though she herself liked Lucy, had
+a little terror in her soul as she asked herself the same question. He
+would fill the house with company and get over it in that way, was what
+the most kind and moderate people thought. But Sir Tom laughed at all
+their prognostications. He said afterwards that he had never known
+before how pretty it was to know nothing, and to have seen nothing, when
+these defects were conjoined with intelligence and delightful curiosity
+and never-failing interest. He declared that he had never truly enjoyed
+his own adventures and experiences as he did when he told them over to
+his young wife. You may be sure there were some of them which were not
+adapted for Lucy's ears: but these Sir Tom left religiously away in the
+background. He had been a careless liver no doubt, like so many men, but
+he would rather have cut off his right hand, as the Scripture bids, than
+have soiled Lucy's white soul with an idea, or an image, that was
+unworthy of her. She knew him under all sorts of aspects, but not one
+that was evil. Their solitary evenings together were to her more
+delightful than any play, and to him nearly as delightful. When the
+dinner was over and the cold shut out, she would wait his appearance in
+the inner drawing-room, which she had chosen for her special abode, with
+some of the homely cares that had been natural to her former condition,
+drawing his chair to the fire, taking pride in making his coffee for
+him, and a hundred little attentions. "Now begin," she would say,
+recalling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> with a child's eager interest and earnest recollection the
+point at which he had left off. This was the greater part of Lucy's
+education. She travelled with him through very distant regions, and went
+through all kinds of adventure.</p>
+
+<p>And in the season they went to London, where she made her appearance in
+society, not perhaps with <i>éclat</i>, but with a modest composure which
+delighted him. She understood then, for the first time, what it was to
+be rich, and was amused and pleased&mdash;amused above all by the position
+which she occupied with the utmost simplicity. People said it would turn
+the little creature's head, but it never even disturbed her imagination.
+She took it with a calm that was extraordinary. Thus her education
+progressed, and Lucy was so fully occupied with it, with learning her
+husband and her life and the world, that she had no time to think of the
+responsibilities which once had weighed so heavily upon her. When now
+and then they occurred to her and she made some passing reference to
+them, there were so many other things to do that she forgot
+again&mdash;forgot everything except to be happy and learn and see, as she
+had now so many ways of doing. She forgot herself altogether, and
+everything that had been hers, not in excitement, but in the soft
+absorbing influence of her new life, which drew her away into endless
+novelties and occupations, such as were, indeed, duties and necessities
+of her altered sphere.</p>
+
+<p>If this was the case in the first three or four years of her marriage,
+when she had only Sir Tom to think of, you may suppose what it was when
+the baby came, to add a hundredfold to the interests of her existence.
+Everything else in life, it may be believed, dwindled into nothing in
+comparison with this boy of boys&mdash;this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> wonderful infant. There had
+never been one in the world like him it is unnecessary to say: and
+everything was so novel to her, and she felt the importance of being
+little Tom's mother so deeply, that her mind was quite carried away from
+all other thoughts. She grew almost beautiful in the light of this new
+addition to her happiness. And how happy she was! The child grew and
+throve. He was a splendid boy. His mother did not sing litanies in his
+praise in public, for her good sense never forsook her: but his little
+being seemed to fill up her life like a new stream flowing into it, and
+she expanded in life, in thought, and in understanding. She began to see
+a reason for her own position, and to believe in it, and take it
+seriously. She was a great lady, the first in the neighbourhood, and she
+felt that, as little Tom's mother, it was natural and befitting that she
+should be so. She began to be sensible of ambition within herself, as
+well as something that felt like pride. It was so little like ordinary
+pride, however, that Lucy was sorry for everybody who had not all the
+noble surroundings which she began to enjoy. She would have liked that
+every child should have a nursery like little Tom's, and every mother
+the same prospects for her infant, and was charitable and tender beyond
+measure to all the mothers and children within reach on little Tom's
+account, which was an extravagance which her husband did not grudge, but
+liked and encouraged, knowing the sentiment from which it sprang. It was
+with no view to popularity that the pair thus endeavoured to diffuse
+happiness about them, being so happy themselves; but it answered the
+same purpose, and their popularity was great.</p>
+
+<p>When the county conferred the highest honour in its power upon Sir Tom,
+his immediate neighbours in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> the villages about took the honour as their
+own, and rejoiced as, even at a majority or a marriage, they had never
+rejoiced before, for so kind a landlord, so universal a friend, had
+never been.</p>
+
+<p>The villages were model villages on the Randolph lands. Sir Tom and his
+young wife had gone into every detail about the labourers' cottages with
+as much interest as if they had themselves meant to live in one of them.
+There were no such trim gardens or bright flower-beds to be seen
+anywhere, and it was well for the people that the Rector of the parish
+was judicious, and kept Lady Randolph's charities within bounds. There
+had been no small amount of poverty and distress among these rustics
+when the Squire was poor and absent, when they lived in tumbledown old
+houses, which nobody took any interest in, and where neither decency nor
+comfort was considered; but now little industries sprang up and
+prospered, and the whole landscape smiled. A wise landlord with
+unlimited sway over his neighbourhood and no rivals in the field can do
+so much to increase the comfort of everybody about him; and such a small
+matter can make a poor household comfortable. Political economists, no
+doubt, say it is demoralising: but when it made Lucy happy and the poor
+women happy, how could Sir Tom step in and arrest the genial bounty? He
+gave the Rector a hint to see that she did not go too far, and walked
+about with his hands in his pockets and looked on. All this amused him
+greatly; even the little ingratitudes she met with, which went to Lucy's
+heart, made her husband laugh. It pleased his satirical vein to see how
+human nature displayed itself, and the black sheep appeared among the
+white even in a model village. But as for Lucy, though she would
+sometimes cry over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> these spots upon the general goodness, it satisfied
+every wish of her heart to be able to do so much for the cottagers. They
+did not, perhaps, stand so much in awe of her as they ought to have
+done, but they brought all their troubles to her with the most perfect
+and undoubting confidence.</p>
+
+<p>All this time, however, Lucy, following the dictates of her own heart,
+and using what after all was only a little running over of her great
+wealth to secure the comfort of the people round, was neglecting what
+she had once thought the great duty of her life as entirely as if she
+had been the most selfish of worldly women. Her life had been so
+entirely changed&mdash;swung, as one might say, out of one orbit into
+another&mdash;that the burdens of the former existence seemed to have been
+taken from her shoulders along with its habits and external
+circumstances. Her husband thought of these as little as herself; yet
+even he was somewhat surprised to find that he had no trouble in weaning
+Lucy from the extravagances of her earlier independence. He had not
+expected much trouble, but still it had seemed likely enough that she
+would at least propose things that his stronger sense condemned, and
+would have to be convinced and persuaded that they were impracticable;
+but nothing of the kind occurred, and when he thought of it Sir Tom
+himself was surprised, as also were various other people who knew what
+Lucy's obstinacy on the subject before her marriage had been, and
+especially the Dowager Lady Randolph, who paid her nephew a yearly
+visit, and never failed to question him on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"And Lucy?" she would say. "Lucy never makes any allusion? She has
+dismissed everything from her mind? I really think you must be a
+magician, Tom. I could not have believed it, after all the trouble she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+gave us, and all the money she threw away. Those Russells, you know,
+that she was so ridiculously liberal to, they are as bad as ever. That
+sort of extravagant giving of money is never successful. But I never
+thought you would have got it out of her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't flatter me," he said; "it is not I that have got it out of her
+mind. It is life and all the novelties in it&mdash;and small Tom, who is more
+of a magician than I am&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the baby!" said the dowager, with the indifference of a woman who
+has never had a child, and cannot conceive why a little sprawling
+tadpole in long clothes should make such a difference. "Yes, I suppose
+that's a novelty," she said, "to be mother of a bit of a thing like that
+naturally turns a girl's head. It is inconceivable the airs they give
+themselves, as if there was nothing so wonderful in creation. And so far
+as I can see you are just as bad, though you ought to know better, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just as bad," he said, with his large laugh. "I never had a share
+in anything so wonderful. If you only could see the superiority of this
+bit of a thing to all other things about him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! spare me," cried Lady Randolph the elder, holding up her hands. "Of
+course I don't undervalue the importance of an heir to the property,"
+she said in a different tone. "I have heard enough about it to be pretty
+sensible of that."</p>
+
+<p>This the Dowager said with a slight tone of bitterness, which indeed was
+comprehensible enough: for she had suffered much in her day from the
+fact that no such production had been possible to her. Had it been so,
+her nephew who stood by her would not (she could scarcely help
+reflecting with some grudge against Pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>vidence) have been the great man
+he now was, and no child of his would have mattered to the family. Lady
+Randolph was a very sensible woman, and had long been reconciled to the
+state of affairs, and liked her nephew, whom she had been the means of
+providing for so nobly; and she was glad there was a baby; still, for
+the sake of her own who had never existed, she resented the
+self-exaltation of father and mother over this very common and in no way
+extraordinary phenomenon of a child.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom laughed again with a sense of superiority, which was in itself
+somewhat ludicrous; but as nobody is clear-sighted in their own
+concerns, he was quite unconscious of this. His laugh nettled Lady
+Randolph still more. She said, with a certain disdain in her tone,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And so you think you have sailed triumphantly over all that
+difficulty&mdash;thanks to your charms and the baby's, and are going to hear
+nothing of it any more?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom felt that he was suddenly pulled up, and was a little resentful
+in return.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," he said, "that is, I do more than hope, I feel convinced, that
+my wife, who has great sense, has outgrown that nonsense, and that she
+has sufficient confidence in me to leave her business matters in my
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Randolph shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Outgrown nonsense&mdash;at three and twenty?" she said. "Don't you think
+that's premature? and, my dear boy, take my word for it, a woman when
+she has the power, likes to keep the control of her own business just as
+well as a man does. I advise you not to holloa till you are out of the
+wood."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't expect to have any occasion to holloa;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> there is no wood for
+that matter; Lucy, though perhaps you may not think it, is one of the
+most reasonable of creatures."</p>
+
+<p>"She is everything that is nice and good," said the Dowager, "but how
+about the will? Lucy may be reasonable, but that is not. And she cannot
+forget it always."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! The will is a piece of folly," cried Sir Tom. He grew red at the
+very thought with irritation and opposition. "I believe the old man was
+mad. Nothing else could excuse such imbecility. Happily there is no
+question of the will."</p>
+
+<p>"But there must be, some time or other."</p>
+
+<p>"I see no occasion for it," said Sir Tom coldly; and as his aunt was a
+reasonable woman, she did not push the matter any farther. But if the
+truth must be told this sensible old lady contemplated the great
+happiness of these young people with a sort of interested and alarmed
+spectatorship (for she wished them nothing but good), watching and
+wondering when the explosion would come which might in all probability
+shatter it to ruins. For she felt thoroughly convinced in her own mind
+that Lucy would not always forget the conditions by which she held her
+fortune, and that all the reason and good sense in the world would not
+convince her that it was right to ignore and baulk her father's
+intentions, as conveyed with great solemnity in his will. And when the
+question should come to be raised, Lady Randolph felt that it would be
+no trifling one. Lucy was very simple and sweet, but when her conscience
+spoke even the influence of Sir Tom would not suffice to silence it. She
+was a girl who would stand to what she felt to be right if all the world
+and even her husband were against her&mdash;and the Dowager, who wished them
+no harm, felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> a little alarmed as to the issue. Sir Tom was not a man
+easy to manage, and the reddening of his usually smiling countenance at
+the mere suggestion of the subject was very ominous. It would be better,
+far better, for Lucy if she would yield at once and say nothing about
+it. But that was not what it was natural for her to do. She would stand
+by her duty to her father, just as, were it assailed, she would stand by
+her duty to her husband; but she would never be got to understand that
+the second cancelled the first. The Dowager Lady Randolph watched the
+young household with something of the interest with which a playgoer
+watches the stage. She felt sure that the explosion would come, and that
+a breath, a touch, might bring it on at any moment; and then what was to
+be the issue? Would Lucy yield? would Lucy conquer? or would the easy
+temper with which everybody credited Sir Tom support this trial? The old
+lady, who knew him so well, believed that there was a certain fiery
+element below, and she trembled for the peace of the household which was
+so happy and triumphant, and had no fear whatever for itself. She
+thought of "the torrent's smoothness ere it dash below," of the calm
+that precedes a storm, and many other such images, and so frightened did
+she become at the dangers she had conjured up that she put the will
+hurriedly out of her thoughts, as Sir Tom had done, and would think no
+more of it. "Sufficient," she said to herself, "is the evil to the day."</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the married pair smiled serenely at any doubts of their
+perfect union, and Lucy felt a great satisfaction in showing her
+husband's aunt (who had not thought her good enough for Sir Tom,
+notwithstanding that she so warmly promoted the match) how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> satisfied he
+was with his home, and how exultant in his heir.</p>
+
+<p>In the following chapters the reader will discover what was the cause
+which made the Dowager shake her head when she got into the carriage to
+drive to the railway at the termination of her visit. It was all very
+pretty and very delightful, and thoroughly satisfactory; but still Lady
+Randolph, the elder, shook her experienced head.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD MR. TREVOR'S WILL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy Trevor, when she married Sir Thomas Randolph, was the heiress of so
+great a fortune that no one ventured to state it in words or figures.
+She was not old enough, indeed, to have the entire control of it in her
+hands, but she had unlimited control over a portion of it in a certain
+sense, not for her own advantage, but for the aggrandisement of others.
+Her father, who was eccentric and full of notions, had so settled it
+that a large portion of the money should eventually return, as he
+phrased it, to the people from whom it had come, and this not in the way
+of public charities and institutions, as is the common idea in such
+cases, but by private and individual aid to struggling persons and
+families. Lucy, who was then all conscience and devotion to the
+difficult yet exciting duty which her father had left to her to do, had
+made a beginning of this extraordinary work before her marriage,
+resisting all the arguments that were brought to bear upon her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> as to
+the folly of the will, and the impossibility of carrying it out. It is
+likely, indeed, that the trustees and guardians would have taken steps
+at once to have old Trevor's will set aside but for the fact that Lucy
+had a brother, who in that case would divide the inheritance with her,
+but who was specially excluded by the will, as being a son of Mr.
+Trevor's second wife, and entirely unconnected with the source from
+which the fortune came. It was Lucy's mother who had brought it into the
+family, although she was not herself aware of its magnitude, and did not
+live long enough to have any enjoyment of it. Neither did old Trevor
+himself have any enjoyment of it, save in the making of the will by
+which he laid down exactly his regulations for its final disposal. In
+any case Lucy was to retain the half, which was of itself a great sum;
+but the condition of her inheritance, and indeed the occupation of her
+life, according to her father's intention, was that she should select
+suitable persons to whom to distribute the other half of her fortune. It
+is needless to say that this commission had seriously occupied the
+thoughts of the serious girl who, without any sense of personal
+importance, found herself thus placed in the position of an official
+bestower of fortune, having it in her power to confer comfort,
+independence, and even wealth; for she was left almost entirely
+unrestricted as to her disposition of the money, and might at her
+pleasure confer a very large sum upon a favourite. Everybody who had
+ever heard of old Trevor's will considered it the very maddest upon
+record, and there were many who congratulated themselves that Lucy's
+husband, if she was so lucky as to marry a man of sense, would certainly
+put a stop to it&mdash;or even that Lucy herself, when she came to years of
+serious judg<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>ment, would see the folly; for there was no stipulation as
+to the time at which the distributions should be made, these, as well as
+the selection of the objects of her bounty, being left to herself. She
+had been very full of this strange duty before her marriage, and had
+selected several persons who, as it turned out, did but little credit to
+her choice, almost forcing her will upon the reluctant trustees, who had
+no power to hinder her from carrying it out, and whose efforts at
+reasoning with her had been totally unsuccessful. In these early
+proceedings Sir Tom, who was intensely amused by the oddity of the
+business altogether, and who had then formed no idea of appropriating
+her and her money to himself, gave her a delighted support.</p>
+
+<p>He had never in his life encountered anything which amused him so much,
+and his only regret was that he had not known the absurd but high-minded
+old English Quixote who, wiser in his generation than that noble knight,
+left it to his heir to redress the wrongs of the world, while he himself
+had the pleasure of the anticipation only, not perhaps unmixed with a
+malicious sense of all the confusions and exhibitions of the weakness of
+humanity it would produce. Sir Tom himself had humour enough to
+appreciate the philosophy of the old humorist, and the droll spectator
+position which he had evidently chosen for himself, as though he could
+somehow see and enjoy all the struggles of self-interest raised by his
+will, with one of those curious self-delusions which so often seem to
+actuate the dying. Sir Tom, however, had thought it little more than a
+folly even at the moment when it had amused him the most. He had thought
+that in time Lucy would come to see how ridiculous it was, and would
+tacitly, without saying anything, give it up, so sensible a girl being
+sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> in the long run to see how entirely unsuited to modern times and
+habits such a disposition was. And had she done so, there was nobody who
+was likely to awaken her to a sense of her duty. Her trustees, who
+considered old Trevor mad, and Lucy a fool to humour him, would
+certainly make no objection; and little Jock, the little brother to whom
+Lucy was everything in the world, was still less likely to interfere.
+When it came about that Lucy herself, and her fortune, and all her
+right, were in Sir Tom's own hands, he was naturally more and more sure
+that this foolish will (after giving him a great deal of amusement, and
+perhaps producing a supernatural chuckle, if such an expression of
+feeling is possible in the spiritual region where old Trevor might be
+supposed to be) would be henceforward like a testament in black letter,
+voided by good sense and better knowledge and time, the most certain
+agency of all. And his conviction had been more than carried out in the
+first years of his married life. Lucy forgot what was required of her.
+She thought no more of her father's will. It glided away into the unseen
+along with so many other things, extravagances, or if not extravagances,
+still phantasies of youth. She found enough in her new life&mdash;in her
+husband, her baby, and the humble community which looked up to her and
+claimed everything from her&mdash;to occupy both her mind and her hands. Life
+seemed to be so full that there was no time for more.</p>
+
+<p>It had been no doing of Sir Tom's that little Jock, the brother who had
+been Lucy's child, her Mentor, her counsellor and guide, had been
+separated from her for so long. Jock had been sent to school with his
+own entire concurrence and control. He was a little philosopher with a
+mind beyond his years, and he had seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> understand fully, without
+any childish objection, the reason why he should be separated from her,
+and even why it was necessary to give up the hope of visiting his
+sister. The first year it was because she was absent on her prolonged
+wedding tour: the next because Jock was himself away on a long and
+delightful expedition with a tutor, who had taken a special fancy to
+him. Afterwards the baby was expected, and all exciting visits and
+visitors were given up. They had met in the interval. Lucy had visited
+Jock at his school, and he had been with them in London on several
+occasions. But there had been little possibility of anything like their
+old intercourse. Perhaps they could never again be to each other what
+they had been when these two young creatures, strangely separated from
+all about them, had been alone in the world, having entire and perfect
+confidence in each other. They both looked back upon these bygone times
+with a sort of regretful consciousness of the difference; but Lucy was
+very happy in her new life, and Jock was a perfectly natural boy, given
+to no sentimentalities, not jealous, and enjoying his existence too
+completely to sigh for the time when he was a quaint old-fashioned
+child, and knew no life apart from his sister.</p>
+
+<p>Their intercourse then had been so pretty, so tender and touching; the
+child being at once his sister's charge and her superior in his
+old-fashioned reflectiveness, her pupil and her teacher, the little
+judge of whose opinions she stood in awe, while at the same time quite
+subject and submissive to her&mdash;that it was a pity it should ever come to
+an end; but it is a pity, too, when children grow up, when they grow out
+of all the softness and keen impressions of youth into the harder stuff
+of man and woman. To their parents it is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> change which has often
+little to recommend it&mdash;but it is inevitable, as we all know; and so it
+was a pity that Lucy and Jock were no longer all in all to each other;
+but the change was in their case, too, inevitable, and accepted by both.
+When, however, the time came that Jock was to arrive really on his first
+long visit at the Hall, Lucy prepared for this event with a little
+excitement, with a lighting up of her eyes and countenance, and a
+pleasant warmth of anticipation in which even little Tom was for the
+moment set aside. She asked her husband a dozen times in the previous
+day if he thought the boy would be altered. "I know he must be taller
+and all that," Lucy said. "I do not mean the outside of him. But do you
+think he will be changed?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is to be hoped so," said Sir Tom, serenely. "He is sixteen. I trust
+he is not what he was at ten. That would be a sad business, indeed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom, you know that's not what I mean!&mdash;of course he has grown
+older; but he always was very old for his age. He has become a real boy
+now. Perhaps in some things he will seem younger too."</p>
+
+<p>"I always said you were very reasonable," said her husband, admiringly.
+"That is just what I wanted you to be prepared for&mdash;not a wise little
+old man as he was when he had the charge of your soul, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him, shaking her head. "What ridiculous things you say.
+But Jock was always the wise one. He knew much better than I did. He did
+take care of me whatever you may think, though he was such a child."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it was as well that he did not continue to take care of you. On
+the whole, though I have no such lofty views, I am a better guide."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked at him once more without replying for a moment. Was her mind
+ever crossed by the idea that there were perhaps certain particulars in
+which little Jock was the best guide? If so the blasphemy was
+involuntary. She shook it off with a little movement of her head, and
+met his glance with her usual serene confidence. "You ought to be," she
+said, "Tom; but you liked him always. Didn't you like him? I always
+thought so; and you will like him now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," said Sir Tom.</p>
+
+<p>Then a slight gleam of anxiety came into Lucy's eyes. This seemed the
+only shape in which evil could come to her, and with one of those
+forewarnings of Nature always prone to alarm, which come when we are
+most happy, she looked wistfully at her husband, saying nothing, but
+with an anxious question and prayer combined in her look. He smiled at
+her, laying his hand upon her head, which was one of his caressing ways,
+for Lucy, not an imposing person in any particular, was short, and Sir
+Tom was tall.</p>
+
+<p>"Does that frighten you, Lucy? I shall like him for your sake, if not
+for his own, never fear."</p>
+
+<p>"That is kind," she said, "but I want you to like him for his own sake.
+Indeed, I should like you if you would, Tom," she added almost timidly,
+"to like him for your own. Perhaps you think that is presuming, as if
+he, a little boy, could be anything to you; but I almost think that is
+the only real way&mdash;if you know what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Now this is humbling," said Sir Tom, "that one's wife should consider
+one too dull to know what she means. You are quite right, and a complete
+philosopher, Lucy. I will like the boy for my own sake. I always did
+like him, as you say. He was the quaintest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> little beggar, an old man
+and a child in one. But it would have been bad for him had you kept on
+cultivating him in that sort of hot-house atmosphere. It was well for
+Jock, whatever it might be for you, that I arrived in time."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy pondered for a little without answering; and then she said, "Why
+should it be considered so necessary for a boy to be sent away from
+home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" cried Sir Tom, in astonishment; and then he added, laughingly,
+"It shows your ignorance, Lucy, to ask such a question. He must be sent
+to school, and there is an end of it. There are some things that are
+like axioms in Euclid, though you don't know very much about that&mdash;they
+are made to be acted upon, not to be discussed. A boy must go to
+school."</p>
+
+<p>"But why?" said Lucy undaunted. "That is no answer." She was
+untrammelled by any respect for Euclid, and would have freely questioned
+the infallibility of an axiom, with a courage such as only ignorance
+possesses. She was thinking not only of Jock, but had an eye to distant
+contingencies, when there might be question of a still more precious
+boy. "God," she said, reverentially, "must have meant surely that the
+father and mother should have something to do in bringing them up."</p>
+
+<p>"In the holidays, my dear," said Sir Tom; "that is what we are made for.
+Have you never found that out?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy never felt perfectly sure whether he was in jest or earnest. She
+looked at him again to see what he meant&mdash;which was not very easy, for
+Sir Tom meant two things directly opposed to each other. He meant what
+he said, and yet said what he knew was nonsense, and laughed at himself
+inwardly with a keen recogni<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>tion of this fact. Notwithstanding, he was
+as much determined to act upon it as if it had been the most certain
+truth, and in a way pinned his faith to it as such.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are laughing," said Lucy, "and I wish you would not,
+because it is so important. I am sure we are not meant only for the
+holidays, and you don't really think so, Tom; and to take a child away
+from his natural teachers, and those that love him best in the world, to
+throw him among strangers! Oh, I cannot think that is the best way,
+whatever Euclid may make you think."</p>
+
+<p>At this Sir Tom laughed, as he generally did, though never
+disrespectfully, at Lucy's decisions. He said, "That is a very just
+expression, my dear, though Euclid never made us think so much as he
+ought to have done. You are thinking of that little beggar. Wait till he
+is out of long clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"Which shows all you know about it. He was shortcoated at the proper
+time, I hope," said Lucy, with some indignation, "do you call these long
+clothes?"</p>
+
+<p><i>These</i>  were garments which showed when he sprawled, as he always did, a
+great deal of little Tom's person, and as his mother was at that time
+holding him by them, while he "felt his feet," upon the carpet, the
+spectacle of two little dimpled knees without any covering at all
+triumphantly proved her right. Sir Tom threw himself upon the carpet to
+kiss those sturdy, yet wavering little limbs, which were not quite under
+the guidance of Tommy's will as yet, and taking the child from his
+mother, propped it up against his own person. "For the present, I allow
+that fathers and mothers are the best," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy stood and gazed at them in that ecstasy of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> love and pleasure with
+which a young mother beholds her husband's adoration for their child.
+Though she feels it to be the highest pride and crown of their joint
+existence, yet there is always in her mind a sense of admiration and
+gratitude for his devotion. She looked down upon them at her feet, with
+eyes running over with happiness. It is to be feared that at such a
+moment Lucy forgot even Jock, the little brother who had been as a child
+to her in her earlier days; and yet there was no want of love for Jock
+in her warm and constant heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>YOUNG MR. TREVOR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>John Trevor, otherwise Jock, arrived at the Hall in a state of
+considerable though suppressed excitement. It was not in his nature to
+show the feelings which were most profound and strongest in his nature,
+even if the religion of an English public school boy had not forbidden
+demonstration. But he had very strong feelings underneath his calm
+exterior, and the approach to Lucy's home gave him many thoughts. The
+sense of separation which had once affected him with a deep though
+unspoken sentiment had passed away long ago into a faint grudge, a
+feeling of something lost&mdash;but between ten and sixteen one does not
+brood upon a grievance, especially when one is surrounded by everything
+that can make one happy; and there was a certain innate philosophy in
+the mind of Jock which enabled him to see the justice and necessity of
+the separation. He it was who in very early day, had ordained his own
+going<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> to school with a realisation of the need of it which is not
+usually given to his age&mdash;and he had understood without any explanation
+and without any complaint that Lucy must live her own life, and that
+their constant brother and sister fellowship became impossible when she
+married. The curious little solemn boy, who had made so many shrewd
+guesses at the ways of life while he was still only a child, accepted
+this without a word, working it out in his own silent soul; but
+nevertheless it had affected him deeply. And when the time came at last
+for a real meeting, not a week's visit in town where she was fully
+occupied, and he did not well know what to do with himself&mdash;or a hurried
+rapid meeting at school, where Jock's pride in introducing his tutor to
+his sister was a somewhat imperfect set-off to the loss of personal
+advantage to himself in thus seeing Lucy always in the company of other
+people&mdash;his being was greatly moved with diverse thoughts. Lucy was all
+he had in the world to represent the homes, the fathers and mothers and
+sisters and brothers of his companions. The old time when they had been
+all in all to each other had a more delicate beauty than the ordinary
+glow of childhood. He thought there was nobody like her, with that
+mingled adoration and affectionate contempt which make up a boy's love
+for the women belonging to him. She was not clever: but he regarded the
+simplicity of her mind with pride. This seemed to give her her crowning
+charm. "Any fellow can be clever," Jock said to himself. It was part of
+Lucy's superiority that she was not so. He arrived at the railway
+station at Farafield with much excitement in his mind, though his looks
+were quiet enough. The place, though it was the first he had ever known,
+did not attract a thought from the other and more im<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>portant meeting. It
+was a wet day in August, and the coachman who had been sent for him gave
+him a note to say that Lucy would have come to meet him but for the
+rain. He was rather glad of the rain, this being the case. He did not
+want to meet her on a railway platform&mdash;he even regretted the long
+stretches of the stubble fields as he whirled past, and wished that the
+way had been longer, though he was so anxious to see her. And when he
+jumped down at the great door of the hall and found himself in the
+embrace of his sister, the youth was thrilling with excitement, hope,
+and pleasure. Lucy had changed much less than he had. Jock, who had been
+the smallest of pale-faced boys, was now long and weedy, with limbs and
+fingers of portentous length. His hair was light and limp; his large
+eyes, well set in his head, had a vague and often dreamy look. It was
+impossible to call him a handsome boy. There was an entire want of
+colour about him, as there had been about Lucy in her first youth, and
+his gray morning clothes, like the little gray dress she had worn as a
+young girl were not very becoming to him. They had been so long apart
+that he met her very shyly, with an awkwardness that almost looked like
+reluctance, and for the first hour scarcely knew what to say to her, so
+full was he of the wonder and pleasure of being by her, and the
+impossibility of expressing this. She asked him about his journey, and
+he made the usual replies, scarcely knowing what he said, but looking at
+her with a suppressed beatitude which made Jock dull in the very
+intensity of his feeling. The rain came steadily down outside, shutting
+them in as with veils of falling water. Sir Tom, in order to leave them
+entirely free to have their first meeting over, had taken himself off
+for the day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> Lucy took her young brother into the inner drawing-room,
+the centre of her own life. She made him sit down in a luxurious chair,
+and stood over him gazing at the boy, who was abashed and did not know
+what to say. "You are different, Jock. It is not that you are taller and
+bigger altogether, but you are different. I suppose so am I."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," he said, looking shyly at her. "You couldn't change."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" she asked with a laugh. "I am such a great deal older I ought
+to look wiser. Let me see what it is. Your eyes have grown darker, I
+think, and your face is longer, Jock; and what is that? a little down,
+actually, upon your upper lip. Jock, not a moustache!"</p>
+
+<p>Jock blushed with pleasure and embarrassment, and put up his hand fondly
+to feel those few soft hairs. "There isn't very much of it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is enough to swear by; and you like school as well as ever?
+and MTutor, how is he? Are you as fond of him as you used to be, Jock?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say you're fond of him," said Jock, "but he's just as jolly
+as ever, if that is what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I mean, I suppose. You must tell me when I say anything
+wrong," said Lucy. She took his head between her hands and gave him a
+kiss upon his forehead. "I am so glad to see you here at last," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>And then there was a pause. Her first little overflow of questions had
+come to an end, and she did not exactly know what to say, while Jock sat
+silent, staring at her with an earnest gaze. It was all so strange, the
+scene and surroundings, and Lucy in the midst,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> who was a great lady,
+instead of being merely his sister&mdash;all these confused the boy's
+faculties. He wanted time to realise it all. But Lucy, for her part,
+felt the faintest little touch of disappointment. It seemed to her as if
+they ought to have had so much to say to each other, such a rush of
+questions and answers, and full-hearted confidence. Jock's heart would
+be at his lips, she thought, ready to rush forth&mdash;and her own also, with
+all the many things of which she had said to herself: "I must tell that
+to Jock." But as a matter of fact, many of these things had been told by
+letter, and the rest would have been quite out of place in the moment of
+reunion, in which indeed it seemed inappropriate to introduce any
+subject other than their pleasure in seeing each other again, and those
+personal inquiries which we all so long to make face to face when we are
+separated from those near to us, yet which are so little capable of
+filling all the needs of the situation when that moment comes. Jock was
+indeed showing his happiness much more by his expressive silence and shy
+eager gaze at her than if he had plunged into immediate talk; but Lucy
+felt a little disappointed, and as if the meeting had not come up to her
+hopes. She said, after a pause which was almost awkward, "You would like
+to see baby, Jock? How strange that you should not know baby! I wonder
+what you will think of him." She rose and rang the bell while she was
+speaking in a pleasant stir of fresh expectation. No doubt it would stir
+Jock to the depths of his heart, and bring out all his latent feeling,
+when he saw Lucy's boy. Little Tom was brought in state to see "his
+uncle," a title of dignity which the nurse felt indignantly disappointed
+to have bestowed upon the lanky, colourless boy who got up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> with great
+embarrassment and came forward reluctantly to see the creature quite
+unknown and unrealised, of whom Lucy spoke with so much exultation. Jock
+was not jealous, but he thought it rather odd that "a little thing like
+that" should excite so much attention. It seemed to him that it was a
+thing all legs and arms, sprawling in every direction, and when it
+seized Lucy by the hair, pulling it about her face with the most riotous
+freedom, Jock felt deeply disposed to box its ears. But Lucy was
+delighted. "Oh, naughty baby!" she said, with a voice of such admiration
+and ecstasy as the finest poetry, Jock reflected, would never have awoke
+in her; and when the thing "loved" her, at its nurse's bidding, clasping
+its fat arms round her neck, and applying a wide-open wet mouth to her
+cheek, the tears were in her eyes for very pleasure. "Baby, darling,
+that is your uncle; won't you go to your uncle? Take him, Jock. If he is
+a little shy at first he will soon get used to you," Lucy cried. To see
+Jock holding back on one side, and the baby on the other, which
+strenuously refused to go to its uncle, was as good as a play.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I should let it fall," said Jock, "I don't know anything
+about babies."</p>
+
+<p>"Then sit down, dear, and I will put him upon your lap," said the young
+mother. There never was a more complete picture of wretchedness than
+poor Jock, as he placed himself unwillingly on the sofa with his knees
+put firmly together and his feet slanting outwards to support them. "I
+sha'n't know what to do with it," he said. It is to be feared that he
+resented its existence altogether. It was to him a quite unnecessary
+addition. Was he never to see Lucy any more without that thing clinging
+to her?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> Little Tom, for his part, was equally decided in his
+sentiments. He put his little fists, which were by no means without
+force, against his uncle's face, and pushed him away, with squalls that
+would have exasperated Job; and then, instead of consoling Jock, Lucy
+took the little demon to her arms and soothed him. "Did they want it to
+make friends against its will," Lucy was so ridiculous as to say, like
+one of the women in <i>Punch</i>, petting and smoothing down that odious
+little creature. Both she and the nurse seemed to think that it was the
+baby who wanted consoling for the appearance of Jock, and not Jock who
+had been insulted; for one does not like even a baby to consider one as
+repulsive and disagreeable. The incident was scarcely at an end when Sir
+Tom came in, fresh, smiling, and damp from the farm, where he had been
+inspecting the cattle and enjoying himself. Mature age and settled life
+and a sense of property had converted Sir Tom to the pleasure of
+farming. He shook Jock heartily by the hand, and clapped him on the
+back, and bade him welcome with great kindness. Then he took "the little
+beggar" on his shoulder and carried him, shrieking with delight, about
+the room. It seemed a very strange thing to Jock to see how entirely
+these two full-grown people gave themselves up to the deification of
+this child. It was not bringing themselves to his level, it was looking
+up to him as their superior. If he had been a king his careless favours
+could not have been more keenly contended for. Jock, who was fond of
+poetry and philosophy and many other fine things, looked on at this new
+mystery with wondering and indignant contempt. After dinner there was
+the baby again. It was allowed to stay out of bed longer than usual in
+honour of its uncle, and dinner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> was hurried over, Jock thought, in
+order that it might be produced, decked out in a sash almost as broad as
+its person. When it appeared rational conversation was at an end, Sir
+Tom, whom Jock had always respected highly, stopped the inquiries he was
+making, with all the knowledge and pleasure, of an old schoolboy, into
+school life, comparing his own experiences with those of the present
+generation&mdash;to play bo-peep behind Lucy's shoulder with the baby.
+Bo-peep! a Member of Parliament, a fellow who had been at the
+University, who had travelled, who had seen America and gone through the
+Desert! There was consternation in the astonishment with which Jock
+looked on at this unlooked-for, almost incredible, exhibition. It was
+ridiculous in Lucy, but in Sir Tom!</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose we were all like that one time?" he said, trying to be
+philosophical, as little Tom at last, half smothered with kisses, was
+carried away.</p>
+
+<p>"Like <i>that</i> &mdash;do you mean like baby? You were a little darling, dear,
+and I was always very, very fond of you," said Lucy, giving him the
+kindest look of her soft eyes. "But you were not a beauty, like my boy."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom had laughed, with something of the same sentiment very evident
+in his mirth, when Lucy spoke. He put out his hand and patted his young
+brother-in-law on the shoulder. "It is absurd," he said, "to put that
+little beggar in the foreground when we have somebody here who is in
+Sixth form at sixteen, and is captain of his house, and has got a school
+prize already. If Lucy does not appreciate all that, I do, Jock, and the
+best I can wish for Tommy is that he should have done as much at your
+age."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I was not thinking of that," said Jock with a violent blush.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Of course he was not," said Lucy calmly, "for he always had the kindest
+heart though he was so clever. If you think I don't appreciate it as you
+say, Tom, it is only because I knew it all the time. Do you think I am
+surprised that Jock has beaten everybody? He was like that when he was
+six, before he had any education. And he will be just as proud of baby
+as we are when he knows him. He is a little strange at first," said
+Lucy, beaming upon her brother; "but as soon as he is used to you, he
+will go to you just as he does to me."</p>
+
+<p>To this Jock could not reply by betraying the shiver that went over him
+at the thought, but it gave great occupation to his mind to make out how
+a little thing like that could attain, as it had done, such empire over
+the minds of two sensible people. He consulted MTutor on the subject by
+letter, who was his great referee on difficult subjects, and he could
+not help betraying his wonder to the household as he grew more familiar
+and the days went on. "He can't do anything for you," Jock said. "He
+can't talk; he doesn't know anything about&mdash;well, about books: I know
+that's more my line than yours, Lucy&mdash;but about anything. Oh! you
+needn't flare up. When he dabs his mouth at you all wet&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you little wretch, you infidel, you savage," Lucy cried; "his sweet
+mouth! and a dear big wet kiss that lets you know he means it."</p>
+
+<p>Jock looked at her as he had done often in the old days, with mingled
+admiration and contempt. It was like Lucy, and yet how odd it was. "I
+suppose, then," he said, "I was rather worse than <i>that</i>  when you took
+me up and were good to me. What for, I wonder? and you were fond of me,
+too, although you are fonder of <i>it</i>&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you talk of It again I will never speak to you more," Lucy said, "as
+if my beautiful boy was a thing and not a person. He is not It: he is
+Tom, he is Mr. Randolph: that is what Williams calls him." Williams was
+the butler who had been all over the world with Sir Tom, and who was
+respectful of the heir, but a little impatient and surprised, as Jock
+was, of the fuss that was made about Tommy for his own small sake.</p>
+
+<p>By this time, however, Jock had recovered from his shyness&mdash;his
+difficulty in talking, all the little mist that absence had made&mdash;and
+roamed about after Lucy, hanging upon her, putting his arm through hers,
+though he was much the taller, wherever she went. He held her back a
+little now as they walked through the park in a sort of procession, Mrs.
+Richens, the nurse, going first with the boy. "When I was a little
+slobbering beast, like&mdash;&mdash;" he stopped himself in time, "like the
+t'other kind of baby, and nobody wanted me, you were the only one that
+took any trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" said Lucy; "you don't remember and I don't remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! but I remember the time in the Terrace, when I lay on the rug, and
+heard papa making his will over my head. I was listening for you all the
+time. I was thinking of nothing but your step coming to take me out."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Lucy, "you were deep in your books, and thinking of
+them only; of that&mdash;gentleman with the windmills&mdash;or Shakspeare, or some
+other nonsense. Oh, I don't mean Shakspeare is nonsense. I mean you were
+thinking of nothing but your books, and nobody would believe you
+understood all that at your age.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not understand," said Jock with a blush. "I was a little prig.
+Lucy, how strange it all is, like a picture one has seen somewhere, or a
+scene in a play or a dream! Sometimes I can remember little bits of it,
+just as he used to read it out to old Ford. Bits of it are all in and
+out of <i>As You Like It</i>, as if Touchstone had said them, or Jaques. Poor
+old papa! how particular he was about it all. Are you doing everything
+he told you, Lucy, in the will?"</p>
+
+<p>He did not in the least mean it as an alarming question, as he stooped
+over, in his awkward way holding her arm, and looked into her face.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>CONSULTATIONS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy was much startled by her brother's demand. It struck, however, not
+her conscience so much as her recollection, bringing back that past
+which was still so near, yet which seemed a world away, in which she had
+made so many anxious efforts to carry out her father's will and
+considered it the main object of her life. A young wife who is happy,
+and upon whom life smiles, can scarcely help looking back upon the time
+when she was a girl with a sense of superiority, an amused and
+affectionate contempt for herself. "How could I be so silly?" she will
+say, and laugh, not without a passing blush. This was not exactly Lucy's
+feeling; but in three years she had, even in her sheltered and happy
+position, attained a certain acquaintance with life, and she saw
+difficulties which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> in those former days had not been apparent to her.
+When Jock began to recall these reminiscences it seemed to her as if she
+saw once more the white commonplace walls of her father's sitting-room
+rising about her, and heard him laying down the law which she had
+accepted with such calm. She had seen no difficulty then. She had not
+even been surprised by the burden laid upon her. It had appeared as
+natural to obey him in matters which concerned large external interests,
+and the well-being of strangers, as it was to fill him out a cup of tea.
+But the interval of time, and the change of position, had made a great
+difference; and when Jock asked, "Are you doing all he told you?" the
+question brought a sudden surging of the blood to her head, which made a
+singing in her ears and a giddiness in her brain. It seemed to place her
+in front of something which must interrupt all her life and put a stop
+to the even flow of her existence. She caught her breath. "Doing all he
+told me!"</p>
+
+<p>Jock, though he did not mean it, though he was no longer her
+self-appointed guardian and guide, became to Lucy a monitor, recalling
+her as to another world.</p>
+
+<p>But the effect though startling was not permanent. They began to talk it
+all over, and by dint of familiarity the impression wore away. The
+impression, but not the talk. It gave the brother and sister just what
+they wanted to bring back all the habits of their old affectionate
+confidential intercourse, a subject upon which they could carry on
+endless discussions and consultations, which was all their own, like one
+of those innocent secrets which children delight in, and which, with
+arms entwined and heads close together, they can carry on endlessly for
+days together. They ceased the discussion when Sir Tom appeared, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+with any fear of him as a disturbing influence, but with a tacit
+understanding that this subject was for themselves alone. It involved
+everything; the past with all those scenes of their strange childhood,
+the homely living, the fantastic possibilities always in the air, the
+old dear tender relationship between the two young creatures who alone
+belonged to each other. Lucy almost forgot her present self as she
+talked, and they moved about together, the tall boy clinging to her arm
+as the little urchin had done, altogether dependent, yet always with a
+curious leadership, suggesting a thousand things that would not have
+occurred to her.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had no occasion now for the advice which Jock at eight years old
+had so freely given her. She had her husband to lead and advise her. But
+in this one matter Sir Tom was put tacitly out of court, and Jock had
+his old place. "It does not matter at all that you have not done
+anything lately," Jock said; "there is plenty of time&mdash;and now that I am
+to spend all my holidays here, it will be far easier. It was better not
+to do things so hastily as you began."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Jock," said Lucy, "We must not deceive ourselves; it will be very
+hard. People who are very nice do not like to take the money; and those
+who are willing to take it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Does the will say the people are to be nice?" asked Jock. "Then what
+does that matter? The will is all against reason, Lucy. It is wrong, you
+know. Fellows who know political economy would think we are all mad; for
+it just goes against it, straight."</p>
+
+<p>"That is strange, Jock; for papa was very economical. He never could
+bear waste: he used to say&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; but political economy means something different. It is a
+science. It means that you should sell everything as dear as you can,
+and buy it as cheap as you can&mdash;and never give anything away&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is dreadful, Jock," said Lucy. "It is all very well to be a
+science, but nobody like ourselves could be expected to act upon
+it&mdash;private people, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"There is something in that," Jock allowed; "there are always
+exceptions. I only want to show you that the will being all against
+rule, it <i>must</i>  be hard to carry it out. Don't you do anything by
+yourself, Lucy. When you come across any case that is promising, just
+you wait till I come, and we'll talk it all over. I don't quite
+understand about nice people not taking it. Fellows I know are always
+pleased with presents&mdash;or a tip, nobody refuses a tip. And that is just
+the same sort of thing, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Not just the same," said Lucy, "for a tip&mdash;that means a sovereign,
+doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It sometimes means&mdash;paper," said Jock, with some solemnity. "Last time
+you came to see me at school Sir Tom gave me a fiver&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a five-pound note," said Jock, with momentary impatience; "the
+other's shorter to say and less fuss. MTutor thought he had better not;
+but I didn't mind. I don't see why anybody should mind. There's a fellow
+I know&mdash;his father is a curate, and there are no end of them, and
+they've no money. Fellow himself is on the foundation, so he doesn't
+cost much. Why they shouldn't take a big tip from you, who have too
+much, I'm sure I can't tell; and I don't believe they would mind," Jock
+added, after a pause.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This, which would have inspired Lucy in the days of her dauntless
+maidenhood to calculate at once how much it would take to make this
+family happy, gave her a little shudder now.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel as if I could do it," she said. "I wish papa had found an
+easier way. People don't like you afterwards when you do <i>that</i>  for
+them. They are angry&mdash;they think, why should I have all that to give
+away, a little thing like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"The easiest way would be an exam.," said Jock. "Everybody now goes in
+for exams.; and if they passed, they would think they had won the money
+all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps there is something in that, Jock; but then it is not for young
+men. It is for ladies, perhaps, or old people, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You might let them choose their own subjects," said the boy. "A lady
+might do a good paper about&mdash;servants, or sewing, or that sort of thing;
+or housekeeping&mdash;that would be all right. MTutor might look over the
+papers&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he know about housekeeping?"</p>
+
+<p>"He knows about most things," cried Jock, "I should like to see the
+thing he didn't know. He is the best scholar we have got; and he's what
+you call an all-round man besides," the boy said with pride.</p>
+
+<p>"What is an all-round man?" Lucy asked, diffidently. "He is tall and
+slight, so it cannot mean his appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a muff you are, Lucy; you're awfully nice, but you are a muff.
+It means a man who knows a little of everything. MTutor is more than
+that, he knows a great deal of everything; indeed, as I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> saying,"
+Jock added defiantly, "I should just like to see the thing he didn't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet he is so nice," said Lucy, with a gentle air of astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>MTutor was a subject which was endless with Jock, so that the original
+topic here glided out of sight as the exalted gifts of that model of all
+the virtues became the theme. This conversation, however, was but one of
+many. It was their meeting ground, the matter upon which they found each
+other as of old, two beings separated from the world, which wondered at
+and did not understand them. What a curious office it was for them, two
+favourites of fortune as they seemed, to disperse and give away the
+foundation of their own importance! for Jock owed everything to Lucy,
+and Lucy, when she had accomplished this object of her existence, and
+carried out her father's will, would no doubt still be a wealthy woman,
+but not in any respect the great personage she was now. This was a view
+of the matter which never crossed the minds of these two. Their strange
+training had made Lucy less conscious of the immense personal advantage
+which her money was to her than any other could have done. She knew,
+indeed, that there was a great difference between her early home in
+Farafield and the house in London where she had lived with Lady
+Randolph, and still more, the Hall which was her home&mdash;but she had been
+not less but more courted and worshipped in her lowly estate than in her
+high one, and her father's curious philosophy had affected her mind and
+coloured her perceptions. She had learned, indeed, to know that there
+are difficulties in attempting to enact the part of Providence, and
+taking upon herself the task of providing for her fellow-creatures; but
+these difficulties had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> nothing to do with the fact that she would
+herself suffer by such a dispersion. Perhaps her imagination was not
+lively enough to realise this part of the situation. Jock and she
+ignored it altogether. As for Jock, the delight of giving away was
+strong in him, and the position was so strange that it fascinated his
+boyish imagination. To act such a part as that of Haroun-al-Raschid in
+real life, and change the whole life of whatsoever poor cobbler or
+fruit-seller attracted him, was a vision of fairyland such as Jock had
+not yet outgrown. But the chief thing that he impressed on his sister
+was the necessity of doing nothing by herself. "Just wait till we can
+talk it over," he said, "two are always better than one: and a fellow
+learns a lot at school. You wouldn't think it, perhaps, but there's all
+sorts there, and you learn a lot when you have your eyes well open. We
+can talk it all over and settle if it's good enough; but don't go and be
+rash, Lucy, and do anything by yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I sha'n't, dear; I should be too frightened," Lucy said.</p>
+
+<p>This was on one of his last days, when they were walking together
+through the shrubbery. It was September by this time, and he might have
+been shooting partridges with Sir Tom, but Jock was not so much an
+out-door boy as he ought to have been, and he preferred walking with his
+sister, his arm thrust through hers, his head stooping over her. It was
+perhaps the last opportunity they would have of discussing their family
+secrets, a matter (they thought) which really concerned nobody else,
+which no one else would care to be troubled with. Perhaps in Lucy's mind
+there was a sense of unreality in the whole matter; but Jock was
+entirely in earnest, and quite convinced that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> in such an important
+business he was his sister's natural adviser, and might be of a great
+deal of use. It was towards evening when they went out, and a red
+autumnal sunset was accomplishing itself in the west, throwing a gleam
+as of the brilliant tints which were yet to come, on the still green and
+luxuriant foliage. The light was low, and came into Lucy's eyes, who
+shaded them with her hand. And the paths had a touch of autumnal damp,
+and a certain mistiness, mellow and golden by reason of the sunshine,
+was rising among the trees.</p>
+
+<p>"We will not be hasty," said Jock; "we will take everything into
+consideration: and I don't think you will find so much difficulty, Lucy,
+when you have me."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not, dear," Lucy said; and she began to talk to him about his
+flannels and other precautions he was to take; for Jock was supposed not
+to be very strong. He had grown fast, and he was rather weedy and long,
+without strength to support it. "We have been so happy together," she
+said. "We always were happy together, Jock. Remember, dear, no wet feet,
+and as little football as you can help, for my sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," he said, with a wave of his hand; "all right, Lucy. There is
+no fear about that. The first thing to think of is poor old father's
+will, and what you are going to do about it. I mean to think out all
+that about the examinations, and I suppose I may speak to MTutor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is too private, don't you think, Jock? Nobody knows about it. It is
+better to keep it between you and me."</p>
+
+<p>"I can put it as a supposed case," said Jock, "and ask what he would
+advise; for you see, Lucy, you and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> even I are not very experienced, and
+MTutor, he knows such a lot. It would always be a good thing to have his
+advice, you know; he&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was no telling how long Jock might have gone on on this subject.
+But just at this moment a quick step came round the corner of a clump of
+wood, and a hand was laid on the shoulder of each. "What are you
+plotting about?" asked the voice of Sir Tom in their ears. It was a
+curious sign of her mental condition which Lucy remembered with shame
+afterwards, without being very well able to account for it, that she
+suddenly dropped Jock's arm and turned round upon her husband with a
+quick blush and access of breathing, as if somehow&mdash;she could not tell
+how&mdash;she had been found out. It had never occurred to her before,
+through all those long drawn out consultations, that she was concealing
+anything from Sir Tom. She dropped Jock's arm as if it hurt her, and
+turned to her husband in the twinkling of an eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Jock," she said quickly, "and I&mdash;were talking about MTutor, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! once landed on that subject, and there is no telling when we may
+come to an end," Sir Tom said, with a laugh, "but never mind, I like you
+all the better for it, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>Jock gave an astonished look at Lucy, a half-defiant one at her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"That was only by the way," he said, lifting up his shoulders with a
+little air of offence. He did not condescend to any further explanation,
+but walked along by their side with a lofty abstraction, looking at them
+now and then from the corner of his eye. Lucy had taken Sir Tom's arm,
+and was hanging upon her tall husband, looking up in his face. The
+little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> blush of surprise&mdash;or was it of guilt?&mdash;with which she had
+received him was still upon her cheek. She was far more animated than
+usual, almost a little agitated. She asked about the shooting, about the
+bag, and how many brace was to Sir Tom's own gun, with that conciliating
+interest which is one of the signs of a conscious fault; while Sir Tom,
+on his side bending down to his little wife, received all her flatteries
+with so complacent a smile, and such a beatific belief in her perfect
+sincerity and devotion, that Jock, looking on from his superiority of
+passionless youth, regarded them both with a wondering disdain. Why did
+she "make up" in that way to her husband, dropping her brother as if she
+had been plotting harm? Jock was amazed, he could not understand it.
+Perhaps it was only because he thus fell in a moment from being the
+chief object of interest to the position of nobody at all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy's mind had sustained a certain shock when her husband appeared.
+During her short married life there had not been a cloud, or a shadow of
+a cloud, between them. But then there had been no question between them,
+nothing to cause any question, no difference of opinion. Sir Tom had
+taken all her business naturally into his hands. Whatever she wished she
+had got&mdash;nay, before she expressed a wish it had been satisfied. He had
+talked to her about everything, and she had listened with docile
+attention, but without conceal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>ing the fact that she neither understood
+nor wished to understand; and he had not only never chided her, but had
+accepted her indifference with a smile of pleasure as the most natural
+thing in the world. He had encouraged her in all her liberal charities,
+shaking his head and declaring with a radiant face that she would ruin
+herself, and that not even her fortune would stand it. But the one
+matter which had given Lucy so much trouble before her marriage, and
+which Jock had now brought back to her mind, was one that had never been
+mentioned between them. He had known all about it, and her eccentric
+proceedings and conflict with her guardians, backing her up, indeed,
+with much laughter, and showing every symptom of amiable amusement; but
+he had never given any opinion on the subject, nor made the slightest
+allusion since to this grand condition of her father's will. In the
+sunny years that were past Lucy had taken no notice of this omission.
+She had not thought much on the subject herself. She had withdrawn from
+it tacitly, as one is apt to do from a matter which has been productive
+of pain and disappointment, and had been content to ignore that portion
+of her responsibilities. Even when Jock forcibly revived the subject it
+continued without any practical importance, and its existence was a
+question between themselves to afford material for endless conversation
+which had been pleasant and harmless. But when Sir Tom's hand was laid
+on her shoulder, and his cheerful voice sounded in her ear, a sudden
+shock was given to Lucy's being. It flashed upon her in a moment that
+this question which she had been discussing with Jock had never been
+mentioned between her and her husband, and with a sudden instinctive
+perception she became aware that Sir Tom would look upon it with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> very
+different eyes from theirs. She felt that she had been disloyal to him
+in having a secret subject of consultation even with her brother. If he
+heard he would be displeased, he would be taken by surprise, perhaps
+wounded, perhaps made angry. In any wise it would introduce a new
+element into their life. Lucy saw, with a sudden sensation of fright and
+pain, an unknown crowd of possibilities which might pour down upon her,
+were it to be communicated to Sir Tom that his wife and her brother were
+debating as to a course of action on her part, unknown to him. All this
+occurred in a moment, and it was not any lucid and real perception of
+difficulties, but only a sudden alarmed compunctious consciousness that
+filled her mind. She fled, as it were, from the circumstances which made
+these horrors possible, hurrying back into her former attitude with a
+penitential urgency. Jock, indeed, was very dear to her, but he was no
+more than second, nay he was but third, in Lady Randolph's heart. Her
+husband's supremacy he could not touch, and though he had been almost
+her child in the old days, yet he was not, nor ever would be, her child
+in the same ineffable sense as little Tom was, who was her very own, the
+centre of her life. So she ran away (so to speak) from Jock with a real
+panic, and clung to her husband, conciliating, nay almost wheedling him,
+if we may use the word, with a curious feminine instinct, to make up to
+him for the momentary wrong she had done, and which he was not aware of.
+Sir Tom himself was a little surprised by the warmth of the reception
+she gave him. Her interest in his shooting was usually very mild, for
+she had never been able to get over a little horror she had, due,
+perhaps, to her bourgeois training, of the slaughter of the birds. He
+glanced at the pair with an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> unusual perception that there was something
+here more than met the eye. "You have been egging her up to some
+rebellion," he said; "Jock, you villain; you have been hatching treason
+behind my back!" He said this with one of those cordial laughs which
+nobody could refrain from joining&mdash;full of good humour and fun, and a
+pleased consciousness that to teach Lucy to rebel would be beyond any
+one's power. At any other moment she would have taken the accusation
+with the tranquil smile which was Lucy's usual reply to her husband's
+pleasantries; but this time her laugh was a little strained, and the
+warmth of her denial, "No, no! there has been no treason," gave the
+slightest jar of surprise to Sir Tom. It sounded like a false note in
+the air; he did not understand what it could mean.</p>
+
+<p>Jock went away the next day. He went with a basket of game for MTutor
+and many nice things for himself, and all the attention and care which
+might have been his had he been the heir instead of only the young
+brother and dependent. Lucy herself drove in with him to Farafield to
+see him off, and Sir Tom, who had business in the little town and meant
+to drive back with his wife, appeared on the railway platform just in
+time to say good-bye. "Now, Lucy, you will not forget," were Jock's last
+words as he looked out of the window when the train was already in
+motion. Lucy nodded and smiled, and waved her hand, but she did not make
+any other reply. Sir Tom said nothing until they were driving along the
+stubble fields in the afternoon sunshine. Lucy lay back in her corner
+with that mingled sense of regret and relief with which, when we are
+very happy at home, we see a guest go away&mdash;a gentle sorrow to part, a
+soft pleasure in being once more restored<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> to the more intimate circle.
+She had not shaken off that impression of guiltiness, but now it was
+over, and nothing further could be said on the subject for a long time
+to come.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Lucy, that you are not to forget?"</p>
+
+<p>She roused herself up, and a warm flush of colour came to her face. "Oh,
+nothing, Tom, a little thing we were consulting about. It was Jock that
+brought it to my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it must be more than just a little thing. Mayn't I hear what
+this secret is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is nothing, Tom," Lady Randolph repeated; and then she sat up
+erect and said, "I must not deceive you. It is not merely a small
+matter. Still it is just between Jock and me. It was about&mdash;papa's will,
+Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that is a large matter. I don't quite see how that can be between
+you and Jock, Lucy. Jock has very little to do with it. I don't want to
+find fault, my dear, but I think as an adviser you will find me better
+than Jock."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are far better, Tom. You know more than both of us put
+together."</p>
+
+<p>"That would not be very difficult," he said, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this calm acceptance of the fact nettled Lucy. At least she
+said, with a little touch of spirit, "And yet I know something about our
+kind of people better than you will ever do, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, this is a wonderful new tone. Perhaps you may know better, but I
+am doubtful if you understand the relation of things as well. What is
+it, my dear?&mdash;that is to say, if you like to tell me, for I am not going
+to force your confidence."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tom&mdash;oh dear Tom! It is not that. It is rather that it was something to
+talk to Jock about. He remembers everything. When papa was making that
+will&mdash;&mdash;" here Lucy stopped and sighed. It had not been doing her a good
+service to make her recollect that will, which had enough in it to make
+her life wretched, though that as yet nobody knew. "He recollects it
+all," she said. "He used to hear it read out. He remembers everything."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, then," said Sir Tom, with a peculiar smile, "there is
+something in particular which he thought you were likely to forget?"</p>
+
+<p>Here Lucy sighed again. "I am afraid I had forgotten it. No, not
+forgotten, but&mdash;I never knew very well what to do. Perhaps you don't
+remember either. It is about giving the money away."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom was a far more considerable person in every way than the little
+girl who was his wife, and who was not clever nor of any great account
+apart from her wealth; and she was devoted to him, so that he could have
+very little fear how any conflict should end when he was on one side, if
+all the world were on the other. But perhaps he had been spoiled by
+Lucy's entire agreement and consent to whatever he pleased to wish, so
+that his tone was a little sharp, not so good-humoured as usual, but
+with almost a sneer in it when he replied quickly, not leaving her a
+moment to get her breath, "I see; Jock having inspiration from the
+fountain head, was to be your guide in that."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him alarmed and penitent, but reproachful. "I would have
+done nothing, I could have done nothing, oh Tom! without you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very obliging of you Lucy to say so; nevertheless, Jock thought
+himself entitled to remind you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> of what you had forgotten, and to offer
+himself as your adviser. Perhaps MTutor was to come in, too," he said,
+with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom was not immaculate in point of temper any more than other men,
+but Lucy had never suffered from it before. She was frightened, but she
+did not give way. The colour went out of her cheeks, but there was more
+in her than mere insipid submission. She looked at her husband with a
+certain courage, though she was so pale, and felt so profoundly the
+displeasure which she had never encountered before.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you should speak like that, Tom. I have done nothing
+wrong. I have only been talking to my brother of&mdash;of&mdash;a thing that
+nobody cares about but him and me in all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Doing what papa wished," Lucy said in a low voice. A little moisture
+stole into her eyes. Whether it came because of her father, or because
+her husband spoke sharply to her, it perhaps would have been difficult
+to say.</p>
+
+<p>This made Sir Tom ashamed of his ill-humour. It was cruel to be unkind
+to a creature so gentle, who was not used to be found fault with; and
+yet he felt that for Lucy to set up an independence of any kind was a
+thing to be crushed in the bud. A man may have the most liberal
+principles about women, and yet feel a natural indignation when his own
+wife shows signs of desiring to act for herself; and besides, it was not
+to be endured that a boy and girl conspiracy should be hatched under his
+very nose to take the disposal of an important sum of money out of his
+hands. Such an idea was not only ridiculous in itself, but apt to make
+him ridiculous, a man who ought to be strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> enough to keep the young
+ones in order. "My dear," he said, "I have no wish to speak in any way
+that vexes you; but I see no reason you can have&mdash;at least I hope there
+has been nothing in my conduct to give you any reason&mdash;to withdraw your
+confidence from me and give it to Jock."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy did not make him any reply. She looked at him pathetically through
+the water in her eyes. If she had spoken she would have cried, and this
+in an open carriage, with a village close at hand, and people coming and
+going upon the road, was not to be thought of. By the time she had
+mastered herself Sir Tom had cooled down, and he was ashamed of having
+made Lucy's lips to quiver and taken away her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a very nasty thing to say," he said, "wasn't it, Lucy? I ought
+to be ashamed of myself. Still, my little woman must remember that I am
+too fond of her to let her have secrets with anybody but me."</p>
+
+<p>And with this he took the hand that was nearest to him into both of his
+and held it close, and throwing a temptation in her way which she could
+not resist, led her to talk of the baby and forget everything else
+except that precious little morsel of humanity. He was far cleverer than
+Lucy; he could make her do whatever he pleased. No fear of any
+opposition, any setting up of her own will against his. When they got
+home he gave her a kiss, and then the momentary trouble was all over. So
+he thought at least. Lucy was so little and gentle and fair, that she
+appeared to her husband even younger than she was; and she was a great
+deal younger than himself. He thought her a sort of child-wife, whom a
+little scolding or a kiss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> would altogether sway. The kiss had been
+quite enough hitherto. Perhaps, since Jock had come upon the scene, a
+few words of admonition might prove now and then necessary, but it would
+be cruel to be hard upon her, or do more than let her see what his
+pleasure was.</p>
+
+<p>But Lucy was not what Sir Tom thought. She could not endure that there
+should be any shadow between her husband and herself, but her mind was
+not satisfied with this way of settling an important question. She took
+his kiss and his apology gratefully, but if anything had been wanted to
+impress more deeply upon her mind the sense of a duty before her, of
+which her husband did not approve, and in doing which she could not have
+his help, it would have been this little episode altogether. Even little
+Tom did not efface the impression from her mind. At dinner she met her
+husband with her usual smile, and even assented when he remarked upon
+the pleasantness of finding themselves again alone together. There had
+been other guests besides Jock, so that the remark did not offend her;
+but yet Lucy was not quite like herself. She felt it vaguely, and he
+felt it vaguely, and neither was entirely aware what it was.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, at breakfast, Sir Tom received a foreign letter, which
+made him start a little. He started and cried, "Hollo!" then, opening
+it, and finding two or three closely-scribbled sheets, gave way to a
+laugh. "Here's literature!" he said. Lucy, who had no jealousy of his
+correspondents, read her own calm little letters, and poured out the
+tea, with no particular notice of her husband's interjections. It did
+not even move her curiosity that the letter was in a feminine hand, and
+gave forth a faint perfume. She reminded him that his tea was getting
+cold, but otherwise took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> no notice. One of her own letters was from the
+Dowager Lady Randolph, full of advice about the baby. "Mrs. Russell
+tells me that Katie's children are the most lovely babies that ever were
+seen; but she is very fantastic about them; will not let them wear shoes
+to spoil their feet, and other vagaries of that kind. I hope, my dear
+Lucy, that you are not fanciful about little Tom," Lady Randolph wrote.
+Lucy read this very composedly, and smiled at the suggestion. Fanciful!
+Oh, no, she was not fanciful about him&mdash;she was not even silly, Lucy
+thought. She was capable of allowing that other babies might be lovely,
+though why the feet of Katie's children should be of so much importance
+she allowed to herself she could not see. She was roused from these
+tranquil thoughts by a little commotion on the other side of the table,
+where Sir Tom had just thrown down his letter. He was laughing and
+talking to himself. "Why shouldn't she come if she likes it?" he was
+saying. "Lucy, look here, since you have set up a confidant, I shall
+have one too," and with that Sir Tom went off into an immoderate fit of
+laughing. The letter scattered upon the table all opened out, two large
+foreign sheets, looked endless. Nobody had ever written so much to Lucy
+in all her life. She could see it was largely underlined and full of
+notes of admiration and interrogation, altogether an out-of-the-way
+epistle. Was it possible that Sir Tom was a little excited as well as
+amused? He put his roll upon a hot plate, and began to cut it with his
+knife and fork in an absence of mind, which was not usual with him, and
+at intervals of a minute or two would burst out with his long "Ha, ha,"
+again. "That will serve you out, Lucy," he said, with a shout, "if I set
+up a confidant too."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A WARNING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I wonder if I shall like her," Lucy said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>She had been hearing from her husband about the Contessa di
+Forno-Populo, who had promised to pay them a visit at Christmas. He had
+laughed a great deal while he described this lady. "What she will do
+here in a country-house in the depth of winter, I cannot tell," he said,
+"but if she wants to come why shouldn't she? She and I are old friends.
+One time and another we have seen a great deal of each other. She will
+not understand me in the character of a Benedick, but that will be all
+the greater fun," he said with a laugh. Lucy looked at him with a little
+surprise. She could not quite make him out.</p>
+
+<p>"If she is a friend she will not mind the country and the winter," said
+Lucy; "it will be you she will want to see&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That is all very well, my dear," said Sir Tom, "but she wants something
+more than me. She wants a little amusement. We must have a party to meet
+her, Lucy. We have never yet had the house full for Christmas. Don't you
+think it will be better to furnish the Contessa with other objects
+instead of letting her loose upon your husband. You don't know what it
+is you are treating so lightly."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;treat any one lightly that you care for, Tom! Oh, no; I was only
+thinking. I thought she would come to see you, not a number of strange
+people&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And you would not mind, Lucy?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mind?" Lucy lifted her innocent eyes upon him with the greatest
+surprise. "To be sure it is most nice of all when there is nobody with
+us," she said&mdash;as if that had been what he meant. Enlightenment on this
+subject had not entered her mind. She did not understand him; nor did he
+understand her. He gave her a sort of friendly hug as he passed, still
+with that laugh in which there was no doubt a great perception of
+something comic, yet&mdash;an enlightened observer might have thought&mdash;a
+little uneasiness, a tremor which was almost agitation too. Lucy too had
+a perception of something a little out of the way which she did not
+understand, but she offered to herself no explanation of it. She said to
+herself, when he was gone, "I wonder if I shall like her?" and she did
+not make herself any reply. She had been in society, and held her little
+place with a simple composure which was natural to her, whoever might
+come in her way. If she was indeed a little frightened of the great
+ladies, that was only at the first moment before she became used to
+them; and afterwards all had gone well&mdash;but there was something in the
+suggestion of a foreign great lady, who perhaps might not speak English,
+and who would be used to very different "ways," which alarmed her a
+little; and then it occurred to her with some disappointment that this
+would be the time of Jock's holidays, and that it would disappoint him
+sadly to find her in the midst of a crowd of visitors. She said to
+herself, however, quickly, that it was not to be expected that
+everything should always go exactly as one wished it, and that no doubt
+the Countess of &mdash;&mdash; what was it she was the Countess of?&mdash;would be very
+nice, and everything go well; and so Lady Randolph went away to her
+baby<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> and her household business, and put it aside for the moment. She
+found other things far more important to occupy her, however, before
+Christmas came.</p>
+
+<p>For that winter was very severe and cold, and there was a great deal of
+sickness in the neighbourhood. Measles and colds and feverish attacks
+were prevalent in the village, and there were heartrending "cases," in
+which young Lady Randolph at the Hall took so close an interest that her
+whole life was disturbed by them. One of the babies, who was little
+Tom's age, died. When it became evident that there was danger in this
+case it is impossible to describe the sensations with which Lucy's brain
+was filled. She could not keep away from the house in which the child
+was. She sent to Farafield for the best doctor there, and everything
+that money could procure was got for the suffering infant, whose
+belongings looked on with wonder and even dismay, with a secret question
+like that of him who was a thief and kept the bag&mdash;to what purpose was
+this waste? for they were all persuaded that the baby was going to die.</p>
+
+<p>"And the best thing for him, my lady," the grandmother said. "He'll be
+better done by where he's agoing than he ever could have been here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't say so," said Lucy. The young mother, who was as young as
+herself, cried; yet if Lucy had been absent would have been consoled by
+that terrible philosophy of poverty that it was "for the best." But Lady
+Randolph, in such a tumult of all her being as she had never known
+before, with unspeakable yearning over the dying baby, and a panic
+beyond all reckoning for her own, would not listen to any such easy
+consolation. She shut her ears to it with a gleam of anger such as had
+never been seen in her gentle face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> before, and would have sat up all
+night with the poor little thing in her lap if death had not ended its
+little plaints and suffering. Sir Tom, in this moment of trial, came out
+in all his true goodness and kindness. He went with her himself to the
+cottage, and when the vigil was over appeared again to take her home. It
+was a wintry night, frosty and clear, the stars all twinkling with that
+mysterious life and motion which makes them appear to so many wistful
+eyes like persons rather than worlds, and as if there was knowledge and
+sympathy in those far-shining lights of heaven. Sir Thomas was alarmed
+by Lucy's colourless face, and the dumb passion of misery and awe that
+was about her. He was very tender-hearted himself at sight of the dead
+baby which was the same age as his lovely boy. He clasped the trembling
+hand with which his wife held his arm, and tried to comfort her. "Look
+at the stars, my darling," he said, "the angels must have carried the
+poor little soul that way." He was not ashamed to let fall a tear for
+the little dead child. But Lucy could neither weep nor think of the
+angels. She hurried him on through the long avenue, clinging to his arm
+but not leaning upon it, hastening home. Now and then a sob escaped her,
+but no tears. She flew upstairs to her own boy's nursery, and fell down
+on her knees by the side of his little crib. He was lying in rosy sleep,
+his little dimpled arms thrown up over his head, a model of baby beauty.
+But even that sight did not restore her. She buried her wan face in her
+hands and so gasped for breath that Sir Tom, who had followed her, took
+her in his arms and carrying her to her own room laid her down on the
+sofa by the fire and did all that man could to soothe her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, Lucy! we must thank God that all is well with our own," he said,
+half terrified by the gasping and the paleness; and then she burst
+forth:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, why should it be well with him, and little Willie gone? Why should
+we be happy and the others miserable? My baby safe and warm in my arms,
+and poor Ellen's&mdash;poor Ellen's&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This name, and the recollection of the poor young mother, whom she had
+left in her desolation, made Lucy's tears pour forth like a summer
+storm. She flung her arms round her husband's neck, and called out to
+him in an agony of anxiety and excitement:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what shall we do to save him? Oh, Tom, pray, pray! Little Willie
+was well on Saturday&mdash;and now&mdash;How can we tell what a day may bring
+forth?" Lucy cried, wildly pushing him away from her, and rising from
+the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>Then she began to pace about the room as we all do in trouble, clasping
+her hands in a wild and inarticulate appeal to heaven. Death had never
+come across her path before save in the case of her father, an old man
+whose course was run, and his end a thing necessary and to be looked
+for. She could not get out of her eyes the vision of that little solemn
+figure, so motionless, so marble white. The thought would not leave her.
+To see the calm Lucy pacing up and down in this passion of terror and
+agony made Sir Tom almost as miserable as herself. He tried to take her
+into his arms, to draw her back to the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling, you are over-excited. It has been too much for you," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what does it matter about me?" cried Lucy; "think&mdash;oh, God! oh, God
+I&mdash;if we should have <i>that</i>  to bear."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My dear love&mdash;my Lucy, you that have always been so reasonable&mdash;the
+child is quite well; come and see him again and satisfy yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Little Willie was quite well on Saturday," she cried again. "Oh, I
+cannot bear it, I cannot bear it! and why should it be poor Ellen and
+not me?"</p>
+
+<p>When a person of composed mind and quiet disposition is thus carried
+beyond all the bounds of reason and self-restraint, it is natural that
+everybody round her should be doubly alarmed. Lucy's maid hung about the
+door, and the nurse, wrapped in a shawl, stole out of little Tom's room.
+They thought their mistress had the hysterics, and almost forced their
+way into the room to help her. It did Sir Tom good to send these
+busybodies away. But he was more anxious himself than words could say.
+He drew her arms within his, and walked up and down with her. "You know,
+my darling, what the Bible says, 'that one shall be taken and another
+left; and that the wind bloweth where it listeth,'" he said, with a
+pardonable mingling of texts. "We must just take care of him, dear, and
+hope the best."</p>
+
+<p>Here Lucy stopped, and looked him in the face with an air of solemnity
+that startled him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thinking," she said; "God has tried us with happiness
+first. That is how He always does&mdash;and if we abuse <i>that</i>  then there
+comes&mdash;the other. We have been so happy. Oh, so happy!" Her face, which
+had been stilled by this profounder wave of feeling, began to quiver
+again. "I did not think any one could be so happy," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my darling! and you have been very thankful and good&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no, no," she cried. "I have forgotten my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> trust. I have let the
+poor suffer, and put aside what was laid upon me&mdash;and now, now&mdash;&mdash;" Lucy
+caught her husband's arm with both her hands, and drew him close to her.
+"Tom, God has sent his angel to warn us," she said, in a broken voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, Lucy, this is not like you. Do you think that poor little woman
+has lost her baby for our sake? Are we of so much more importance than
+she is, in the sight of God, do you think? Come, come, that is not like
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy gazed at him for a moment with a sudden opening of her eyes, which
+were contracted with misery. She was subdued by the words, though she
+only partially comprehended them.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think," he said, "that to deprive another woman of her child
+in order to warn you, would be unjust, Lucy? Come and sit down and warm
+your poor little hands, and take back your reason, and do not accuse God
+of wrong, for that is not possible. Poor Ellen I don't doubt is composed
+and submissive, while you, who have so little cause&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a wild look. "With her it is over, it is over!" she cried,
+"but with us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had never been fanciful, but love quickens the imagination and
+gives it tenfold power; and no poet could have felt with such a
+breathless and agonised realisation the difference between the
+accomplished and the possible, the past which nothing can alter, and the
+pain and sickening terror with which we anticipate what may come. Ellen
+had entered into the calm of the one. She herself stood facing wildly
+the unspeakable terror of the other. "Oh, Tom, I could not bear it, I
+could not bear it!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>It was almost morning before he had succeeded in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> soothing her, in
+making her lie down and compose herself. But by that time nature had
+begun to take the task in hand, wrapping her in the calm of exhaustion.
+Sir Tom had the kindest heart, though he had not been without reproach
+in his life. He sat by her till she had fallen into a deep and quiet
+sleep, and then he stole into the nursery and cast a glance at little
+Tom by the dim light of the night lamp. His heart leaped to see the
+child with its fair locks all tumbled upon the pillow, a dimpled hand
+laid under a dimpled cheek, ease and comfort and well-being in every
+lovely curve; and then there came a momentary spasm across his face, and
+he murmured "Poor little beggar!" under his breath. He was not
+panic-stricken like Lucy. He was a man made robust by much experience of
+the world, and a child more or less was not a thing to affect him as it
+would a young mother; but the pathos of the contrast touched him with a
+keen momentary pang. He stole away again quite subdued, and went to bed
+thankfully, saying an uncustomary prayer in the emotion that possessed
+him: Good God, to think of it; if that poor little beggar had been
+little Tom!</p>
+
+<p>Lucy woke to the sound of her boy's little babbling of happiness in the
+morning, and found him blooming on her bed, brought there by his father,
+that she might see him and how well he was, even before she was awake.
+It was thus not till the first minute of delight was over that her
+recollections came back to her and she remembered the anguish of the
+previous night; and then with a softened pang, as was natural, and warm
+flood of thankfulness, which carried away harsher thoughts. But her mind
+was in a highly susceptible and tender state, open to every impression.
+And when she knelt down to make her morning sup<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>plications, Lucy made a
+dedication of herself and solemn vow. She said, like the little princess
+when she first knew that she was to be made queen, "I will be good." She
+put forth this promise trembling, not with any sense that she was making
+a bargain with God, as more rigid minds might suppose, but with all the
+remorseful loving consciousness of a child which feels that it has not
+made the return it ought for the good things showered upon it, and
+confronts for the first time the awful possibility that these tender
+privileges might be taken away. There was a trembling all over her, body
+and soul. She was shaken by the ordeal through which she had come&mdash;the
+ordeal which was not hers but another's: and with the artlessness of the
+child was mingled that supreme human instinct which struggles to disarm
+Fate by immediate prostration and submission. She laid herself down at
+the feet of the Sovereign greatness which could mar all her happiness in
+a moment, with a feeling that was not much more than half Christian.
+Lucy tried to remind herself that He to whom she knelt was love as well
+as power. But nature, which still "trembles like a guilty thing
+surprised" in that great Presence, made her heart beat once more with
+passion and sickening terror. God knew, if no one else did, that she had
+abandoned her father's trust and neglected her duty. "Sell all thou hast
+and give to the poor." Lucy rose from her knees with anxious haste,
+feeling as if she must do this, come what might and whoever should
+oppose; or at least since it was not needful for her to sell all she
+had, that she must hurry forth, and forestall any further discipline by
+beginning at once to fulfil the duty she had neglected. She could not
+yet divest herself of the thought that the baby who was dead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> was a
+little warning messenger to recall her to a sense of the punishments
+that might be hanging over her. A messenger to her of mercy, for what,
+oh! what would she have done if the blow had fallen upon little Tom?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SHADOW OF DEATH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After this it may perhaps be surprising to hear that Lucy did nothing to
+carry out that great trust with which she had been charged. She had
+felt, and did feel at intervals, for a long time afterwards, as if God
+Himself had warned her what might come upon her if she neglected her
+duty. But if you will reflect how very difficult that duty was, and how
+far she was from any opportunity of being able to discharge it! In early
+days, when she was fresh from her father's teaching, and deeply
+impressed with the instant necessity of carrying it out, Providence
+itself had sent the Russell family, poor and helpless people, who had
+not the faculty of getting on by themselves, into her way, and Lucy had
+promptly, or at least as promptly as indignant guardians would permit,
+provided for them in the modest way which was all her ideas reached to
+at the time. But around the Hall there was nobody to whom the same
+summary process could be applied. The people about were either working
+people, whom it is always easy to help, or well-off people, who had no
+wants which Lucy could supply. And this continued to be so even after
+her fright and determination to return to the work that had been
+allotted to her. No<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> doubt, could she have come down to the hearts and
+lives of the neighbours who visited Lady Randolph on the externally
+equal footing which society pretends to allot to all gentlefolks, she
+would have found several of them who would have been glad to free her
+from her money; but then she could not see into their hearts. She did
+not know what a difficult thing it was for Mr. Routledge of Newby to pay
+the debts of his son when he had left college, or how hardly hit was
+young Archer of Fordham in the matter of the last joint-stock bank that
+stopped payment. If they had not all been so determined to hold up their
+heads with the best, and keep up appearances, Lucy might have managed
+somehow to transfer to them a little of the money which she wanted to
+get rid of, and of which they stood so much in need. But this was not to
+be thought of; and when she cast her eyes around her it was with a
+certain despair that Lucy saw no outlet whatever for those bounties
+which it had seemed to her heaven itself was concerned about, and had
+warned her not to neglect. Many an anxious thought occupied her mind on
+this subject. She thought of calling her cousin Philip Rainy, who was
+established and thriving at Farafield, and whose fortune had been
+founded upon her liberality, to her counsels. But if Sir Tom had
+disliked the confidences between her and her brother, what would he
+think of Philip Rainy as her adviser? Then Lucy in her perplexity turned
+again to the thought of Jock. Jock had a great deal more sense in him
+than anybody knew. He had been the wisest child, respected by everybody;
+and now he was almost a man, and had learned, as he said, a great deal
+at school. She thought wistfully of the poor curate of whom Jock had
+told her. Very likely that poor clergyman would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> do very well for what
+Lucy wanted. Surely there could be no better use for money than to endow
+such a man, with a whole family growing up, all the better for it, and a
+son on the foundation! And then she remembered that Jock had entreated
+her to do nothing till he came. Thus the time went on, and her
+passionate resolution, her sense that heaven itself was calling upon
+her, menacing her with judgment even, seemed to come to nothing&mdash;not out
+of forgetfulness or sloth, or want of will&mdash;but because she saw no way
+open before her, and could not tell what to do. And after that miserable
+night when Ellen Bailey's baby died, and death seemed to enter in, as
+novel and terrible as if he had never been known before, for the first
+time into Lucy's Paradise, she had never said anything to Sir Tom. Day
+after day she had meant to do it, to throw herself upon his guidance, to
+appeal to him to help her; but day after day she had put it off,
+shrinking from the possible contest of which some instinct warned her.
+She knew, without knowing how, that in this he would not stand by her.
+Impossible to have been kinder in that crisis, more tender, more
+indulgent, even more understanding than her husband was; but she felt
+instinctively the limits of his sympathy. He would not go that length.
+When she got to that point he would change. But she could not have him
+change; she could not anticipate the idea of a cloud upon his face, or
+any shadow between them. And then Lucy made up her mind that she would
+wait for Jock, and that he and she together, when there were two to talk
+it over, would make out a way.</p>
+
+<p>All was going on well again, the grass above little Willie's grave was
+green, his mother consoled and smiling as before, and at the Hall the
+idea of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> Christmas party had been resumed, and the invitations,
+indeed, were sent off, when one morning the visitor whom Lucy had
+anticipated with such dread came out of the village, where infantile
+diseases always lingered, and entered the carefully-kept nursery. Little
+Tom awoke crying and fretful, hot with fever, his poor little eyes heavy
+with acrid tears. His mother had not been among the huts where poor men
+lie for nought, and she saw at a glance what it was. Well! not anything
+so very dreadful&mdash;measles, which almost all children have. There was no
+reason in the world why she should be alarmed. She acknowledged as much,
+with a tremor that went to her heart. There were no bad symptoms. The
+baby was no more ill than it was necessary he should be. "He was having
+them beautiful," the nurse said, and Lucy scarcely allowed even her
+husband to see the deep, harrowing dread that was in her. By and by,
+however, this dread was justified; she had been very anxious about all
+the little patients in the village that they should not catch cold,
+which in the careless ignorance of their attendants, and in the limited
+accommodation of the cottages, was so usual, so likely, almost
+inevitable. A door would be left open, a sudden blast of cold would come
+upon the little sufferer; how could any one help it? Lucy had given the
+poor women no peace on this subject. She had "worrited them out o' their
+lives." And now, wonder above all finding out, it was in little Tom's
+luxurious nursery, where everything was arranged for his safety, where
+one careful nurse succeeded another by night and by day, and Lady
+Randolph herself was never absent for an hour, where the ventilation was
+anxiously watched and regulated, and no incautious intruder ever
+entered&mdash;it was there that the evil came. When the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> child had shaken off
+his little complaint and all was going well, he took cold, and in a few
+hours more his little lungs were labouring heavily, and the fever of
+inflammation consuming his strength. Little Tom, the heir, the only
+child! A cloud fell over the house; from Sir Tom himself to the lowest
+servant, all became partakers, unawares, of Lucy's dumb terror. It was
+because the little life was so important, because so much hung upon it,
+that everybody jumped to the conclusion that the worst issue might be
+looked for. Humanity has an instinctive, heathenish feeling that God
+will take advantage of all the special circumstances that aggravate a
+blow.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy, for her part, received the stroke into her very soul. She was
+outwardly more calm than when her heart had first been roused to terror
+by the death of the little child in the village. That which she had
+dreaded was come, and all her powers were collected to support her. The
+moment had arrived&mdash;the time of trial&mdash;and she would not fail. Her hand
+was steady and her head clear, as is the case with finer natures when
+confronted with deadly danger. This simple girl suddenly became like one
+of the women of tragedy, fighting, still and strong, with a desperation
+beyond all symbols&mdash;the fight with death. But Sir Tom took it
+differently. A woman can nurse her child, can do something for him; but
+a man is helpless. At first he got rid of his anxieties by putting a
+cheerful face upon the matter, and denying the possibility of danger.
+"The measles! every child had the measles. If no fuss was made the
+little chap," he declared, "would soon be all right. It was always a
+mistake to exaggerate." But when there could no longer be any doubt on
+the subject, a curious struggle took place in Sir Tom's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> mind. That
+baby&mdash;die? That crowing, babbling creature pass away into the solemnity
+of death! It had not seemed possible, and when he tried to get it into
+his mind his brain whirled. Wonder for the moment seemed to silence even
+the possibility of grief. He had himself gone through labours and
+adventures that would have killed a dozen men, and had never been
+conscious even of alarm about himself; and the idea of a life quenched
+in its beginning by so accidental a matter as a draught in a nursery
+seemed to him something incomprehensible. When he had heard of a child's
+death he had been used to say that the mother would feel it, no doubt,
+poor thing; but it was a small event, that scarcely counted in human
+history to Sir Tom. When, however, his own boy was threatened, after the
+first incredulity, Sir Tom felt a pang of anger and wretchedness which
+he could not understand. It was not that the family misfortune of the
+loss of the heir overwhelmed him, for it was very improbable that poor
+little Tom would be his only child; it was a more intimate and personal
+sensation. A sort of terrified rage came over him which he dared not
+express; for if indeed his child was to be taken from him, who was it
+but God that would do this? and he did not venture to turn his rage to
+that quarter. And then a confusion of miserable feelings rose within
+him. One night he did not go to bed. It was impossible in the midst of
+the anxiety that filled the house, he said to himself. He spent the
+weary hours in going softly up and down stairs, now listening at the
+door of the nursery and waiting for his wife, who came out now and then
+to bring him a bulletin, now dozing drearily in his library downstairs.
+When the first gleams of the dawn stole in at the window he went out
+upon the terrace in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> misty chill morning, all damp and miserable,
+with the trees standing about like ghosts. There was a dripping thaw
+after a frost, and the air was raw and the prospect dismal; but even
+that was less wretched than the glimmer of the shaded lights, the
+muffled whispering and stealthy footsteps indoors. He took a few turns
+up and down the terrace, trying to reason himself out of this misery.
+How was it, after all, that the little figure of this infant should
+overshadow earth and heaven to a man, a reasonable being, whose mind and
+life were full of interests far more important? Love, yes! but love must
+have some foundation. The feeling which clung so strongly to a child
+with no power of returning it, and no personal qualities to excite it,
+must be mere instinct not much above that of the animals. He would not
+say this before Lucy, but there could be no doubt it was the truth. He
+shook himself up mentally, and recalled himself to what he attempted to
+represent as the true aspect of affairs. He was a man who had obtained
+most things that this world can give. He had sounded life to its depths
+(as he thought), and tasted both the bitter and the sweet; and after
+having indulged in all these varied experiences it had been given to
+him, as it is not given to many men, to come back from all wanderings
+and secure the satisfactions of mature life, wealth, and social
+importance, and the power of acting in the largest imperial concerns.
+Round about him everything was his; the noble woods that swept away into
+the mist on every side; the fields and farms which began to appear in
+the misty paleness of the morning through the openings in the trees. And
+if he had not by his side such a companion as he had once dreamed of,
+the beautiful, high-minded ideal woman of romance, yet he had got<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> one
+of the best of gentle souls to tread the path of life along with him,
+and sympathise even when she did not understand. For a man who had not
+perhaps deserved very much, how unusual was this happiness. And was it
+possible that all these things should be obscured, cast into the shade,
+by so small a matter as the sickness of a child? What had the baby ever
+done to make itself of so much importance? Nothing. It did not even
+understand the love it excited, and was incapable of making any
+response. Its very life was little more than a mechanical life. The
+woman who fed it was far more to it than its father, and there was
+nothing excellent or noble in the world to which it would not prefer a
+glittering tinsel or a hideous doll. If the little thing had grown up,
+indeed, if it had developed human tastes and sympathies, and become a
+companion, an intelligence, a creature with affections and
+thoughts,&mdash;but that the whole house should thus be overwhelmed with
+miserable anxiety and pain because of a being in the embryo state of
+existence, who could neither respond nor understand, what a strange
+thing it was! No doubt this instinct had been implanted in order to
+preserve the germ and keep the race going; but that it should thus
+develop into an absorbing passion and overshadow everything else in life
+was a proof how the natural gets exaggerated, and, if we do not take
+care, changes its character altogether, mastering us instead of being
+kept in its fit place, and in check, as it ought to be by sense and
+reason. From time to time, as Sir Tom made these reflections, there
+would flit across his mind, as across a mirror, something which was not
+thought, which was like a picture momentarily presented before him. One
+of the most persistent of these, which flashed out and in upon his
+senses like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> view in a magic lantern, was of that moment in the midst
+of the flurry of the election when little Tom, held up in his mother's
+arms, had clapped his baby hands for his father. This for a second would
+confound all his thoughts, and give his heart a pang as if some one had
+seized and pressed it with an iron grasp; but the next moment he would
+pick up the thread of his reflections again, and go on with them. That,
+too, was merely mechanical, like all the little chap's existence up to
+this point. Poor little chap! here Sir Tom stopped in his course of
+thought, impeded by a weight at his heart which he could not shake off;
+nor could he see the blurred and vague landscape round him&mdash;something
+more blinding even than the fog had got into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Then Sir Tom started and his heart sprang up to his throat beating
+loudly. It was not anything of much importance, it was only the opening
+of the window by which he himself had come out upon the terrace. He
+turned round quickly, too anxious even to ask a question. If it had been
+a king's messenger bringing him news that affected the whole kingdom, he
+would have turned away with an impatient "Pshaw!" or struck the intruder
+out of his way. But it was his wife, wrapped in a dressing-gown, pale
+with watching, her hair pushed back upon her forehead, her eyes
+unnaturally bright. "How is he?" cried Sir Tom, as if the question was
+one of life or death.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy told him, catching at his arm to support herself, that she thought
+there was a little improvement. "I have been thinking so for the last
+hour, not daring to think it, and yet I felt sure; and now nurse says so
+too. His breathing is easier. I have been on thorns to come and tell
+you, but I would not till I was quite sure."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! God be praised!" said Sir Tom. He did not pretend to be a
+religious man on ordinary occasions, but at the present moment he had no
+time to think, and spoke from the bottom of his heart. He supported his
+little wife tenderly on one arm, and put back the disordered hair on her
+forehead. "Now you will go and take a little rest, my darling," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, not till the doctor comes. But you want it as much as I."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I had a long sleep on the sofa. We are all making fools of
+ourselves, Lucy. The poor little chap will be all right. We are queer
+creatures. To think that you and I should make ourselves so miserable
+over a little thing like that, that knows nothing about it, that has no
+feelings, that does not care a button for you and me."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom, what are you talking of? Not of my boy, surely&mdash;not my boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, my sweet. Well," said Sir Tom, with a tremulous laugh, "what is
+it but a little polypus after all? that can do nothing but eat and
+sleep, and crow perhaps&mdash;and clap its little fat hands," he said, with
+the tears somehow getting into his voice, and mingling with the
+laughter. "I allow that I am confusing my metaphors."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the window opening upon the terrace jarred again, and
+another figure in a dressing-gown, dark and ghost-like, appeared
+beckoning to Lucy, "My lady! my lady!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy let go her husband's arm, thrust him away from her with passion,
+gave him one wild look of reproach, and flew noiselessly like a spirit
+after the nurse to her child. Sir Tom, with his laugh still wavering
+about his mouth, half hysterically, though he was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> weakling, tottered
+along the terrace to the open window, and stood there leaning against
+it, scarcely breathing, the light gone out of his eyes, his whole soul
+suspended, and every part of his strong body, waiting for what another
+moment might bring to pass.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CHRISTMAS VISIT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Little Tom did not die, but he became "delicate,"&mdash;and fathers and
+mothers know what that means. The entire household was possessed by one
+pervading terror lest he should catch cold, and Lucy's life became
+absorbed in this constant watchfulness. Naturally the Christmas guests
+were put off, and it was understood in respect to the Contessa di
+Forno-Populo, that she was to come at Easter. Sir Tom himself thought
+this a better arrangement. The Parliamentary recess was not a long one,
+and the Contessa would naturally prefer, after a short visit to her old
+friend, to go to town, where she would find so many people she knew.</p>
+
+<p>"And even in the country the weather is more tolerable in April," said
+Sir Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, yes. The doctor says if we keep clear of the east winds that
+he may begin to go out again and get up his strength," said Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"My love, I am thinking of your visitors, and you are thinking of your
+baby," Sir Tom said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom, what do you suppose I could be thinking of?" his wife cried.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom himself was very solicitous about the baby, but to hear of
+nothing else worried him. He was glad when old Lady Randolph, who was an
+invariable visitor, arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"How is the baby?" was her first question when he met her at the train.</p>
+
+<p>"The baby would be a great deal better if there was less fuss made about
+him," he said. "You must give Lucy a hint on that subject, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Randolph was a good woman, and it was her conviction that she had
+made this match. But it is so pleasant to feel that you have been right,
+that she was half pleased, though very sorry, to think that Sir Tom (as
+she had always known) was getting a little tired of sweet simplicity.
+She met Lucy with an affectionate determination to be very plain with
+her, and warn her of the dangers in her path. Jock had arrived the day
+before. He rose up in all the lanky length of sixteen from the side of
+the fire in the little drawing-room when the Dowager came in. It was
+just the room into which one likes to come after a cold journey at
+Christmas; the fire shining brightly in the midst of the reflectors of
+burnished steel and brass, shining like gold and silver, of the most
+luxurious fireplace that skill could contrive (the day of tiled stoves
+was not as yet), and sending a delicious glow on the soft mossy carpets
+into which the foot sank; a table with tea, reflecting the firelight in
+all the polished surfaces of the china and silver, stood near; and
+chairs invitingly drawn towards the fire. The only drawback was that
+there was no one to welcome the visitor. On ordinary occasions Lucy was
+at the door, if not at the station, to receive the kind lady whom she
+loved. Lady Randolph was somewhat surprised at the difference,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> and when
+she saw the lengthy boy raising himself up from the fireside, turned
+round to her nephew and asked, "Do I know this young gentleman? There is
+not light enough to see him," with a voice in which Jock, shy and
+awkward, felt all the old objection to his presence as a burden upon
+Lucy, which in his precocious toleration he had accepted as reasonable,
+but did not like much the better for that. And then she sat down
+somewhat sullenly at the fire. The next minute Lucy came hastily in with
+many apologies: "I did not hear the carriage, aunt. I was in the
+nursery&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And how is the child?" Lady Randolph said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he is a great deal better&mdash;don't you think he is much better, Tom?
+Only a little delicate, and that, we hope, will pass away."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Lucy, my dear, though I don't want to blame you, I think you
+should have heard the carriage," said Aunt Randolph. "The tea-table does
+not look cheerful when the mistress of the house is away."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but little Tom&mdash;&mdash;" Lucy said, and then stopped herself, with a
+vague sense that there was not so much sympathy around her as usual. Her
+husband had gone out again, and Jock stood dumb, an awkward shadow
+against the mantelpiece.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I only speak for your good," the elder lady said. "Big Tom
+wants a little attention too. I thought you were going to have quite a
+merry Christmas and a great many people here."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Aunt Randolph, baby&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, you must think of something else besides baby. Take my
+word for it, baby would be a great deal stronger if you left him a
+little to himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> You have your husband, you know, to think of, and
+what harm would it have done baby if there had been a little cheerful
+company for his father? But you will think I have come to scold, and I
+don't in the least mean that. Give me a cup of tea, Lucy. Tom tells me
+that this tall person is Jock."</p>
+
+<p>"You would not have known him?" said Lucy, much subdued in tone.</p>
+
+<p>She occupied herself with the tea, arranging the cups and saucers with
+hands that trembled a little at the unexpected and unaccustomed
+sensation of a repulse.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I cannot even see him. But he has certainly grown out of
+knowledge&mdash;I never thought he would have been so tall; he was quite a
+little pinched creature as a child. I daresay you took too much care of
+him, my dear. I remember I used to think so; and then when he was tossed
+into the world or sent to school&mdash;it comes to much the same thing, I
+suppose&mdash;he flourished and grew."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," said Lucy, somewhat wistfully, "if that is really so?
+Certainly it is since he has been at school that he has grown so much."
+Jock all this time fidgeted about from one leg to another with
+unutterable darkness upon his brow, could any one have seen it. There
+are few things so irritating, especially at his age, as to be thus
+discussed over one's own head.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Lucy," said Lady Randolph, "don't you remember some one
+says&mdash;who was it, I wonder? it sounds like one of those dreadfully
+clever French sayings that are always so much to the point&mdash;about the
+advantages of a little wholesome neglect?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can neglect ever be wholesome? Oh, I don't think so&mdash;I can't think
+so&mdash;at least with children."</p>
+
+<p>"It is precisely children that are meant," said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> elder Lady
+Randolph. But as she talked, sitting in the warm light of the fire, with
+her cup in her hand, feeling extremely comfortable, discoursing at her
+ease, and putting sharp arrows as if they had been pins into the heart
+of Lucy, Sir Tom's large footsteps became audible coming through the
+great drawing-room, which was dark. The very sound of him was cheerful
+as he came in, and he brought the scent of fresh night air, cold but
+delightful, with him. He passed by Lucy's chair and said, "How is the
+little 'un?" laying a kind hand upon her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, better. I am sure he is better. Aunt Randolph thinks&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am giving Lucy a lecture," said Lady Randolph, "and telling her she
+must not shut herself up with that child. He'll get on all the better if
+he is not coddled too much."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom made no reply, but came to the fire, and drew a chair into the
+cheerful glow. "You are all in the dark," he said, "but the fire is
+pleasant this cold night. Well, now that you are thawed, what news have
+you brought us out of the world? We are two hermits, Lucy and I. We
+forget what kind of language you speak. We have a little sort of talk of
+our own which answers common needs about babies and so forth, but we
+should like to hear what you are discoursing about, just for a change."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such thing as a world just now," said Lady Randolph, "there
+are nothing but country-houses. Society is all broken up into little
+bits, as you know as well as I do. One gleans a little here and a little
+there, and one carries it about like a basket of eggs."</p>
+
+<p>"Jock has a world, and it is quite entire," said Sir Tom, with his
+cordial laugh. "No breaking up into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> little bits there. If you want a
+society that knows its own opinions, and will stick to them through
+thick and thin, I can tell you where to find it; and to see how it holds
+together and sits square whatever happens&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here there came a sort of falsetto growl from Jock's corner, where he
+was blushing in the firelight. "It's because you were once a fellow
+yourself, and know all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is, Jock; you are right, as usual," said Sir Tom; "I was once a
+fellow myself, and now I'm an old fellow, and growing duller. Turn out
+your basket of eggs, Aunt Randolph, and let us know what is going on.
+Where did you come from last&mdash;the Mulberrys? Come; there must have been
+some pretty pickings of gossip there."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have it all in good time. I am not going to run myself dry
+the first hour. I want to know about yourselves, and when you are going
+to give up this honeymooning. I expected to have met all sorts of people
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Sir Tom, and then he burst forth in a laugh, "La
+Forno-Populo and a few others; but as little Tom is not quite up to
+visitors, we have put them off till Easter."</p>
+
+<p>"La Forno-Populo!" said Lady Randolph, in a voice of dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" said Sir Tom. "She wrote and offered herself. I thought she
+might find it a doubtful pleasure, but if she likes it&mdash;&mdash; However, you
+may make yourself easy, nobody is coming," he added, with a certain jar
+of impatience in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Tom, I must say I am very glad of that," Lady Randolph said
+gravely&mdash;and then there was a pause. "I doubt whether Lucy would have
+liked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> her," she added, after a moment. Then with another interval, "I
+think, Lucy, my love, after that nice cup of tea, and my first sight of
+you, that I will go to my own room. I like a little rest before
+dinner&mdash;you know my lazy way."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's getting ridiculously dark in this room," Sir Tom said, kicking
+a footstool out of the way. This little impatient movement was like one
+of those expletives that seem to relieve a man's mind, and both the
+ladies understood it as such, and knew that he was angry. Lucy, as she
+rose from her tea-table to attend upon her visitor, herself in a
+confused and painful mood, and vexed with what had been said to her,
+thought her husband was irritated by his aunt, and felt much sympathy
+with him, and anxiety to conduct Lady Randolph to her room before it
+should go any farther. But the elder lady understood it very
+differently. She went away, followed by Lucy through the great
+drawing-room, where a solitary lamp had been placed on a table to show
+the way. It had been the Dowager's own house in her day, and she did not
+require any guidance to her room. Nor did she detain Lucy after the
+conventional visit to see that all was comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>"That I haven't the least doubt of," Lady Randolph said, "and I am at
+home, you know, and will ask for anything I want; but I must have my nap
+before dinner; and do you go and talk to your husband."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy could not resist one glance into the nursery, where little Tom, a
+little languid but so much better, was sitting on his nurse's knee
+before the fire, amused by those little fables about his fingers and
+toes which are the earliest of all dramatic performances. The sight of
+him thus content, and the sound of his laugh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> was sweet to her in her
+anxiety. She ran downstairs again without disturbing him, closing so
+carefully the double doors that shut him out from all draughts, not
+without a wondering doubt as she did so, whether it was true, perhaps,
+that she was "coddling" him, and if there was such a thing as wholesome
+neglect. She went quickly through the dim drawing-room to the warm ruddy
+flush of firelight that shone between the curtains from the smaller
+room, thinking nothing less than to find her husband, who was fond of an
+hour's repose in that kindly light before dinner. She had got to her old
+place in front of the fire before she perceived that Sir Tom's tall
+shadow was no longer there. Lucy uttered a little exclamation of
+disappointment, and then she perceived remorsefully another shadow, not
+like Sir Tom's, the long weedy boyish figure of her brother against the
+warm light.</p>
+
+<p>"But you are here, Jock," she said, advancing to him. Jock took hold of
+her arm, as he was so fond of doing.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never have you, now <i>she</i>  has come," Jock said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, dear? You were never fond of Lady Randolph&mdash;you don't know how
+good and kind she is. It is only when you like people that you know how
+nice they are," Lucy said, all unconscious that a deeper voice than hers
+had announced that truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall never know, for I don't like her," said Jock
+uncompromising. "You'll have to sit and gossip with her when you're not
+in the nursery, and I shall have no time to tell you, for the holidays
+last only a month."</p>
+
+<p>"But you can tell me everything in a month, you silly boy; and if we
+can't have our walks, Jock (for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> it's cold), there is one place where
+she will never come," said Lucy, upon which Jock turned away with an
+exclamation of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>His sister put her hand on his shoulder and looked reproachfully in his
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"You too! You used to like it. You used to come and toss him up and make
+him laugh&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't, Lucy! can't you see? So I would again, if he were like that.
+How you can bear it!" said the boy, bursting away from her. And then
+Jock returned very much ashamed and horror-stricken, and took the hand
+that dropped by her side, and clumsily patted and kissed it, and held it
+between his own, looking penitently, wistfully, in her face all the
+while: but not knowing what to say.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy stood looking down into the glowing fire, with her head drooping
+and an air of utter dejection in her little gentle figure. "Do you think
+he looks so bad as that?" she said, in a broken voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no; that is not what I mean," the boy cried. "It's&mdash;the little
+chap is not so jolly; he's&mdash;a little cross; or else he's forgotten me. I
+suppose it's that. He wouldn't look at me when I ran up. He's so little
+one oughtn't to mind, but it made me&mdash;&mdash;your baby, Lucy! and the little
+beggar cried and wouldn't look at me."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" said Lucy. She only half believed him, but she pretended
+to be deceived. She gave a little trembling laugh, and laid her head for
+a moment upon Jock's boyish breast, where his heart was beating high
+with a passion of sorrow and tender love. "Sometimes," she said, leaning
+against him, "sometimes I think I shall die. I can't live to see
+anything happen to him: and sometimes&mdash;&mdash; But he is ever so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> better;
+don't you think he looks almost himself?" she said, raising her head
+hurriedly, and interrogating the scarcely visible face with her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks! I don't see much difference in his looks, if he wouldn't be so
+cross," said Jock, lying boldly, but with a tremor, for he was not used
+to it. And then he said hurriedly, "But there's that clergyman, the
+father of the fellow on the foundation. I've found out all about him. I
+must tell you, Lucy. He is the very man. There is no call to think about
+it or put off any longer. What a thing it would be if he could have it
+by Christmas! I have got all the particulars&mdash;they look as if they were
+just made for us," Jock cried.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>LUCY'S ADVISERS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lady Randolph found her visit dull. It is true that there had been no
+guests to speak of on previous Christmases since Sir Tom's marriage; but
+the house had been more cheerful, and Lucy had been ready to drive, or
+walk, or call, or go out to the festivities around. But now she was
+absorbed by the nursing, and never liked to be an hour out of call. The
+Dowager put up with it as long as she was able. She did not say anything
+more on the subject for some days. It was not, indeed, until she had
+been a week at the Hall that, being disturbed by the appeals of Lucy as
+to whether she did not think baby was looking better than when she came,
+she burst forth at last. They were sitting by themselves in the hour
+after dinner when ladies have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> the drawing-room all to themselves. It is
+supposed by young persons in novels to be a very dreary interval, but to
+the great majority of women it is a pleasant moment. The two ladies sat
+before the pleasant fire; Lucy with some fleecy white wool in her lap
+with which she was knitting something for her child, Lady Randolph with
+a screen interposed between her and the fire, doing nothing, an
+operation which she always performed gracefully and comfortably. It
+could not be said that the gentlemen were lingering over their wine.
+Jock had retired to the library, where he was working through all the
+long-collected literary stores of the Randolph family, with an
+instinctive sense that his presence in the drawing-room was not desired.
+Sir Tom had business to do, or else he was tired of the domestic calm.
+The ladies had been sitting for some time in silence when Lady Randolph
+suddenly broke forth&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I said to you the first evening, Lucy? I have not said a
+word on the subject since&mdash;of course I didn't come down here to enjoy
+your hospitality and then to find fault."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Randolph! don't speak of hospitality; it is your own house."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, it is very pretty of you to say so. I hope I am not the sort
+of person to take advantage of it. But I feel a sort of responsibility,
+seeing it was I that brought you together first. Lucy, I must tell you.
+You are not doing what you ought by Tom. Here he is, a middle-aged man,
+you know, and one of the first in the county. People look to him for a
+great many things: he is the member: he is a great landowner: he is
+(thanks to you) very well off. And here is Christmas, and not a visitor
+in the house but myself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> Oh, there's Jock! a schoolboy home for his
+holidays&mdash;that does not count; not a single dinner that I can hear
+of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, aunt, on the 6th," said Lucy, with humility.</p>
+
+<p>"On the 6th, and it is now the 27th! and no fuss at all made about
+Christmas. My dear, you needn't tell me it's a bore. I know it is a
+bore&mdash;everywhere wherever one goes; still, everybody does it. It is just
+a part of one's responsibilities. You don't go to balls in Lent, and you
+stand on your heads, so to speak, at Christmas. The country expects it
+of you; and it is always a mistake to take one's own way in such
+matters. You should have had, in the first place," said Lady Randolph,
+counting on her fingers, "your house full; in the second, a ball, to
+which everybody should have been asked. On these occasions no one that
+could possibly be imagined to be gentlefolk should be left out. I would
+even stretch a point&mdash;doctors and lawyers, and so forth, go without
+saying, and those big brewers, you know, I always took in; and some
+people go as far as the 'vet.,' as they call him. He was a very
+objectionable person in my day, and that was where I drew the line; then
+three or four dinners at the least."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Aunt Randolph, how could we when baby is so poorly&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What has baby to do with it, Lucy? You don't have the child down to
+receive your guests. With the door of his nursery shut to keep out the
+noise (if you think it necessary: I shouldn't think it would matter)
+what harm would it do him? He would never be a bit the wiser, poor
+little dear. Yes, I dare say your heart would be with him many a time
+when you were elsewhere; but you must not think of yourself."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean to do so, aunt. I thought little Tom was my first duty."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I should have thought, my dear," said the Dowager, smiling
+blandly, "that it would have been big Tom who answered to that
+description."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Tom&mdash;&mdash;" Lucy paused, not knowing in what shape to put so obvious
+a truth, "he is like me," she said. "He is far, far more anxious than he
+lets you see. It is his&mdash;duty too."</p>
+
+<p>"A great many other things are his duty as well; besides, there is so
+much, especially in a social point of view, which the man never sees
+till his wife points it out. That's one of the uses of a woman. She must
+keep up her husband's popularity, don't you see? You must never let it
+be said: 'Oh, Sir Tom! he is all very well in Parliament, but he does
+nothing for the county.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of that," said Lucy, with dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"But you must learn to think of it, my love. Never mind, this is the
+first Christmas since the election. But one dinner, and nothing else
+done, not so much as a magic lantern in the village! I do assure you, my
+dearest girl, you are very much to blame."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry," said Lucy, with a startled look, "but, dear aunt,
+little Tom&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Lucy! I am sure you don't wish everybody to get sick of that
+poor child's very name."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy sprang up from her chair at this outrage; she could not bear any
+more. A flush of almost fury came upon her face. She went up to the
+mantelpiece, which was a very fine one of carved wood, and leant her
+head upon it. She did not trust herself to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I know what you are thinking," said Lady Randolph blandly. "You
+are saying to yourself, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> horrid old woman, who never had a child,
+how can she know?&mdash;and I don't suppose I do," said the clever Dowager
+pathetically. "All that sweetness has been denied to me. I have never
+had a little creature that was all mine. But when I was your age, Lucy,
+and far older than you, I would have given anything&mdash;almost my life&mdash;to
+have had a child."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy melted in a moment, threw herself down upon the hearth-rug upon her
+knees, and took Lady Randolph's hands in her own and kissed them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear aunt, dear aunt!" she cried, "to think I should have gone on
+so about little Tom and never remembered that you&mdash;&mdash; But we are all your
+children," she said, in the innocence and fervour of her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my love." Lady Randolph freed one of her hands and put it up with
+her handkerchief to her cheek. As a matter of fact she did not regret it
+now, but felt that a woman when she is growing old is really much more
+able to look after her own comforts when she has no children; and yet,
+when she remembered how she had been bullied on the subject, and all the
+reproaches that had been addressed to her as if it were her fault,
+perhaps there was something like a tear. "That is why I venture to say
+many things to you that I would not otherwise. Tom, indeed, is too old
+to have been my son; but I have felt, Lucy, as if I had a daughter in
+you." Then shaking off this little bit of sentiment with a laugh, the
+Dowager raised Lucy and kissed her and put her into a chair by her own
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Since we are about it," she said, "there is one other thing I should
+like to talk to you about. Of course your husband knows a great deal
+more of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> world than you do, Lucy; but it is perhaps better that he
+should not decide altogether who is to be asked. Men have such strange
+notions. If people are amusing it is all they think of. Well, now, there
+is that Contessa di Forno-Populo. I would not have her, Lucy, if I were
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"But it was she who was the special person," said Lucy, in amaze. "The
+others were to come to meet her. She is an old friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know all about the old friendship," said Lady Randolph. "I think
+Tom should be ashamed of himself. He knows that in other houses where
+the mistress knows more about the world. Yes, yes, she is an old friend.
+All the more reason, my dear, why you should have as little to say to
+her as possible; they are never to be reckoned upon. Didn't you hear
+what he called her. <i>La</i>  Forno-Populo? Englishmen never talk of a lady
+like that if they have any great respect for her; but it can't be denied
+that this lady has a great deal of charm. And I would just keep her at
+arm's length, Lucy, if I were you."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Aunt Randolph, why should I do that?" said Lucy, gravely. "If she
+is Tom's friend, she must always be welcome here. I do not know her,
+therefore I can only welcome her for my husband's sake; but that is
+reason enough. You must not ask me to do anything that is against Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Against Tom! I think you are a little goose, Lucy, though you are so
+sensible. Is it not all for his sake that I am talking? I want you to
+see more of the world, not to shut yourself up here in the nursery
+entirely on his account. If you don't understand that, then words have
+no meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"I do understand it, aunt," said Lucy meekly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> "Don't be angry; but why
+should I be disagreeable to Tom's friend? The only thing I am afraid of
+is, should she not speak English. My French is so bad&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, your French will do very well; and you will take your own way, my
+dear," said the elder lady, getting up. "You all do, you young people.
+The opinion of others never does any good; and as Tom does not seem to
+be coming, I think I shall take my way to bed. Good-night, Lucy.
+Remember what I said, at all events, about the magic lantern. And if you
+are wise you will have as little to do as possible with La Forno-Populo
+as you can&mdash;and there you have my two pieces of advice."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was disturbed a little by her elder's counsel, both in respect to
+the foreign lady, whom, however, she simply supposed Lady Randolph did
+not like&mdash;and in regard to her own nursery tastes and avoidance of
+society;&mdash;could that be why Tom sat so much longer in the dining-room
+and did not come in to talk to his aunt? She began to think with a
+little ache in her heart, and to remember that in her great
+preoccupation with the child he had been left to spend many evenings
+alone, and that he no longer complained of this. She stood up in front
+of the fire and pressed her hot forehead to the mantel-shelf. How was a
+woman to know what to do? Was not he that was most helpless and had most
+need of her the one to devote her time to? There was not a thought in
+her that was disloyal to Sir Tom. But what if he were to form the habit
+of doing without her society? This was an idea that filled her with a
+vague dread. Some one came in through the great drawing-room as she
+stood thinking, and she turned round eagerly, supposing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> that it was her
+husband; but it was only Jock, who had been on the watch to hear Lady
+Randolph go upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I never see you at all now, Lucy," cried Jock. "I never have a chance
+but in the holidays, and now they're half over, and we have not had one
+good talk. And what about poor Mr. Churchill, Lucy? I thought he was the
+very man for you. He has got about a dozen children and no money.
+Somebody else pays for Churchill, that's the fellow I told you of that's
+on the foundation. I shouldn't have found out all that, and gone and
+asked questions and got myself thought an inquisitive beggar, if it
+hadn't been for your sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jock, I'm sure I am much obliged to you," said Lucy, dolefully;
+"and I am so sorry for the poor gentleman. It must be dreadful to have
+so many children and not to be able to give them everything they
+require."</p>
+
+<p>At this speech, which was uttered with something between impatience and
+despair, and which made no promise of any help or succour, her brother
+regarded her with a mixture of anger and disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all about it, Lucy?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Jock! I am sure you are right, dear. I know I ought to bestir
+myself and do something, but only&mdash;&mdash; How much do you think it would take
+to make them comfortable? Oh, Jock, I wish that papa had put it all into
+somebody's hands, to be done like business&mdash;somebody that had nothing
+else to think of!"</p>
+
+<p>"What have you to think of, Lucy?" said the boy, seriously, in the
+superiority of his youth. "I suppose, you know, you are just too well
+off. You can't understand what it is to be like that. You get angry at
+people for not being happy, you don't want to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> disturbed." He paused
+remorsefully, and cast a glance at her, melting in spite of himself, for
+Lucy did not look too well off. Her soft brow was contracted a little;
+there was a faint quiver upon her lip. "If you really want to know,"
+Jock said, "people can live and get along when they have about five
+hundred a year. That is, as far as I can make out. If you gave them
+that, they would think it awful luck."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could give them all of it, and be done with it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see much good that would do. It would be two rich people in
+place of one, and the two would not be so grand as you. That would not
+have done for father at all. He liked you to be a great heiress, and
+everybody to wonder at you, and then to give your money away like a
+queen. I like it too," said Jock, throwing up his head; "it satisfies
+the imagination: it is a kind of a fairy tale."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"He never thought how hard it would be upon me. A woman is never so well
+off as a man. Oh, if it had been you, Jock, and I only just your
+sister."</p>
+
+<p>"Talking does not bring us any nearer a settlement," said Jock, with
+some impatience. "When will you do it, Lucy? Have you got to speak to
+old Rushton, or write to old Chervil, or what? or can't you just draw
+them a cheque? I suppose about ten thousand or so would be enough. And
+it is as easy to do it at one time as another. Why not to-morrow, Lucy?
+and then you would have it off your mind."</p>
+
+<p>This proposal took away Lucy's breath. She thought with a gasp of Sir
+Tom and the look with which he would regard her&mdash;the laugh, the amused
+incredulity. He would not be unkind, and her right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> to do it was quite
+well established and certain. But she shrank within herself when she
+thought how he would look at her, and her heart jumped into her throat
+as she realised that perhaps he might not laugh only. How could she
+stand before him and carry her own war in opposition to his? Her whole
+being trembled even with the idea of conflict. "Oh, Jock, it is not just
+so easily managed as that," she said faltering; "there are several
+things to think of. I will have to let the trustees know, and it must
+all be calculated."</p>
+
+<p>"There is not much need for calculation," said Jock, "that is just about
+it. Five per cent is what you get for money. You had better send the
+cheque for it, Lucy, and then let the old duffers know of it afterwards.
+One would think you were afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," said Lucy, with a slight shiver, "I am not afraid." And then
+she added, with growing hesitation, "I must&mdash;speak to&mdash;&mdash; Oh! Is it you,
+Tom?" She made a sudden start from Jock's side, who was standing close
+by her, argumentative and eager, and whose bewildered spectatorship of
+her guilty surprise and embarrassment she was conscious of through all.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is I," said Sir Tom, putting his hand upon her shoulders; "you
+must have been up to some mischief, Jock and you, or you would not look
+so frightened. What is the secret?" he said, with his genial laugh. But
+when he looked from Jock, astonished but resentful and lowering, to
+Lucy, all trembling and pale with guilt, even Sir Tom, who was not
+suspicious, was startled. His little Lucy! What had she been plotting
+that made her look so scared at his appearance? Or was it something that
+had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> told to her, some secret accusation against himself? This
+startled Sir Tom also a little, and it was with a sudden gravity, not
+unmingled with resentment, that he added, "Come! I mean to know what it
+is."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"It was only something that Jock was saying," said Lucy, "but, Tom, I
+will tell you another time. I wish you had come in before Lady Randolph
+went upstairs. I think she was a little disappointed to have only me."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she share Jock's secret?" Sir Tom said with a keen look of inquiry.
+It is perhaps one advantage in the dim light which fashion delights in,
+that it is less easy to scrutinise the secrets of a face.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all a little put wrong when you do not come in," said Lucy. The
+cunning which weakness finds refuge in when it has to defend itself came
+to her aid. "Jock is shy when you are not here. He thinks he bores Lady
+Randolph; and so we ladies are left to our own devices."</p>
+
+<p>"Jock must not be so sensitive," Sir Tom said; but he was not satisfied.
+It occurred to him suddenly (for schoolboys are terrible gossips) that
+the boy might have heard something which he had been repeating to Lucy.
+Nothing could have been more unlikely, had he thought of it, than that
+Jock should carry tales on such a subject. But we do not stop to argue
+out matters when our own self-regard is in question. He looked at the
+two with a doubtful and suspicious eye.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He will get over it as he grows older," said Lucy; but she gave her
+brother a look which to Sir Tom seemed one of warning, and he was
+irritated by it; he looked from one to another and he laughed; but not
+with the genial laugh which was his best known utterance.</p>
+
+<p>"You are prodigiously on your guard," he said. "I suppose you have your
+reasons for it. Have you been confiding the Masons' secret or something
+of that awful character to her, Jock?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't I tell him?" cried Jock with great impatience. "What is
+the use of making all those signs? It's nothing of the sort. It's only
+I've heard of somebody that is poor&mdash;somebody she ought to know of&mdash;the
+sort of thing that is meant in father's will."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Sir Tom. It was the simplest of exclamations, but it meant
+much. He was partially relieved that it was not gossip, but yet more
+gravely annoyed than if it had been.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy made haste to interpose.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you afterwards," she said. "If I made signs, as Jock said,
+it was only that I might tell it you, Tom, myself, when there was more
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"I am at no loss for time," said Sir Tom, placing himself in the vacant
+chair. The others were both standing, as became this accidental moment
+before bed-time. And Lucy had been on thorns to get away, even before
+her husband appeared. She had wanted to escape from the discussion even
+with Jock. She had wanted to steal into the nursery, and see that her
+boy was asleep, to feel his little forehead with her soft hand, and make
+sure there was no fever. To be betrayed into a prolonged and agitating
+discussion now was very provoking, very undesirable; and Lucy had grown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+rather cowardly and anxious to push away from her, as far as she could,
+everything that did not belong to the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom," she said, a little tremulously, "I wish you would put it off till
+to-morrow. I am&mdash;rather sleepy; it is nearly eleven o'clock, and I
+always run in to see how little Tom is going on. Besides," she added,
+with a little anxiety which was quite fictitious, "it is keeping
+Fletcher up&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid of Fletcher, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! but I am," she said. "I will tell you about it to-morrow. There is
+nothing in the least settled, only Jock thought&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Settled!" Sir Tom said, with a curious look. "No, I hope not."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! nothing at all settled," said Lucy. She stood restlessly, now on
+one foot now on the other, eager for flight. She did not even observe
+the implied authority in this remark, at which Jock pricked up his ears
+with incipient offence. "And Jock ought to be in bed&mdash;oh, yes, Jock, you
+ought. I am sure you are not allowed to sit up so late at school. Come
+now, there's a good boy&mdash;and I will just run and see how baby is."</p>
+
+<p>She put her hand on her brother's arm to take him away with her, but
+Jock hung back, and Sir Tom interposed, "Now that I have just settled
+myself for a chat, you had better leave Jock with me at least, Lucy. Run
+away to your baby, that is all right. Jock and I will entertain each
+other. I respect his youth, you see, and don't try to seduce him into a
+cigar&mdash;you should be thankful to me for that."</p>
+
+<p>"If I was not in sixth form," said Jock sharply, nettled by this
+indignity, "I should smoke; but it is bad form when you are high up in
+school. In the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> holidays I don't mind," he added, with careless
+grandeur, upon which Sir Tom, mollified, laughed as Lucy felt like
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Off duty, eh?" he said, "that's a very fine sentiment, Jock. You may be
+sure it's bad form to do anything you have promised not to do. You will
+say that sounds like a copy-book. Come now, Lucy, are not you going,
+little woman? Do you want to have your share in the moralities?"</p>
+
+<p>For this sudden change had somehow quenched Lucy's desire both to
+inspect the baby and get to bed. But what could she do? She looked very
+earnestly at Jock as she bade him good-night, but neither could she
+shake his respect for her husband by giving him any warning, nor offend
+her husband by any appearance of secret intelligence with Jock. Poor
+little Lucy went away after this through the stately rooms and up the
+grand staircase with a great tremor in her heart. There could not be a
+life more guarded and happy than hers had been&mdash;full of wealth, full of
+love, not a crumpled rose-leaf to disturb her comfort. But as she stole
+along the dim corridor to the nursery her heart was beating full of all
+the terrors that make other hearts to ache. She was afraid for the
+child's life, which was the worst of all, and looked with a suppressed
+yet terrible panic into the dark future which contained she knew not
+what for him. And she was afraid of her husband, the kindest man in the
+world, not knowing how he might take the discovery he had just made,
+fearing to disclose her mind to him, finding herself guilty in the mere
+idea of hiding anything from him. And she was afraid of Jock, that he
+would irritate Sir Tom, or be irritated by him, or that some wretched
+breach or quarrel might arise between these two. Jock<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> was not an
+ordinary boy; there was no telling how he might take any reproof that
+might be addressed to him&mdash;perhaps with the utmost reasonableness,
+perhaps with a rapid defiance. Lady Randolph thus, though no harm had
+befallen her, had come into the usual heritage of humanity, and was as
+anxious and troubled as most of us are; though she was so happy and well
+off. She was on thorns to know what was passing in the room she had just
+left.</p>
+
+<p>This was all that passed. Jock, standing up against the mantelpiece,
+looked down somewhat lowering upon Sir Tom in the easy chair. He
+expected to be questioned, and had made up his mind, though with great
+indignation at the idea that any one should find fault with Lucy, to
+take the whole blame upon himself. That Lucy should not be free to carry
+out her duty as seemed to her best was to Jock intolerable. He had put
+his boyish faith in her all his life. Even since the time, a very early
+one, when Jock had felt himself much cleverer than Lucy; even when he
+had been obliged to make up his mind that Lucy was not clever at all&mdash;he
+had still believed in her. She had a mission in the world which
+separated her from other women. Nobody else had ever had the same thing
+to do. Many people had dispensed charities and founded hospitals, but
+Lucy's office in the world was of a different description&mdash;and Jock had
+faith in her power to do it. To see her wavering was trouble to him, and
+the discovery he had just made of something beneath the surface, a
+latent opposition in her husband which she plainly shrank from
+encountering, gave the boy a shock from which it was not easy to
+recover. He had always liked Sir Tom; but if&mdash;&mdash; One thing, however, was
+apparent, if there was any blame, anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> to find fault with, it was
+he, Jock, and not Lucy, that must bear that blame.</p>
+
+<p>"So, Jock, Lucy thinks you should be in bed. When do they put out your
+lights at school? In my time we were up to all manner of tricks. I
+remember a certain dark lantern that was my joy; but that was in old
+Keate's time, you know, who never trusted the fellows. You are under a
+better rule now."</p>
+
+<p>This took away Jock's breath, who had been prepared for a sterner
+interrogation. He answered with a sudden blush, but with the rallying of
+all his forces: "I light them again sometimes. It's hard on a fellow,
+don't you think, sir, when he's not sleepy and has a lot to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never had much experience of that," said Sir Tom. "We were always
+sleepy, and never did anything in my time. It was for larking, I'm
+afraid, that we wanted light. And so it is seen on me, Jock. You will be
+a fellow of your college, whereas I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," said Jock generously. "That construe you gave me,
+don't you remember, last half? MTutor says it is capital. He says he
+couldn't have done it so well. Of course, that is his modest way," the
+boy added, "for everybody knows there isn't such another scholar! but
+that's what he says."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom laughed, and a slight suffusion of colour appeared on his face.
+He was pleased with this unexpected applause. At five-and-forty, after
+knocking about the world for years, and "never opening a book," as
+people say, to have given a good "construe" is a feather in one's cap.
+"To be second to your tutor is all a man has to hope for," he said, with
+that mellow laugh which it was so pleasant to hear. "I hope I know my
+place, Jock. We had no such godlike beings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> in my time. Old Puck, as we
+used to call him, was my tutor. He had a red nose, which was the chief
+feature in his character. He looked upon us all as his natural enemies,
+and we paid him back with interest. Did I ever tell of that time when we
+were going to Ascot in a cab, four of us, and he caught sight of the
+turn-out?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," said Jock, with a little hesitation. He remembered
+every detail of this story, which indeed Sir Tom had told him perhaps
+more than once; for in respect to such legends the best of us repeat
+ourselves. Many were the thoughts in the boy's mind as he stood against
+the mantelpiece and looked down upon the man before him, going over with
+much relish the tale of boyish mischief, the delight of the urchins and
+the pedagogue's discomfiture. Sir Tom threw himself back in his chair
+with a peal of joyous laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Jove! I think I can see him now with the corners of his mouth all
+dropped, and his nose like a beacon," he cried. Jock meanwhile looked
+down upon him very gravely, though he smiled in courtesy. He was a
+different manner of boy from anything Sir Tom could ever have been, and
+he wondered, as young creatures will, over the little world of mystery
+and knowledge which was shut up within the elder man. What things he had
+done in his life&mdash;what places he had seen! He had lived among savages,
+and fought his way, and seen death and life. Jock, only on the
+threshold, gazed at him with a curious mixture of awe and wonder and
+kind contempt. He would himself rather look down upon a fellow (he
+thought) who did that sort of practical joke now. MTutor would regard
+such an individual as a natural curiosity. And yet here was this man who
+had seen so much, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> done so much, who ought to have profited by the
+long results of time, and grown to such superiority and mental
+elevation&mdash;here was he, turning back with delight to the schoolboy's
+trick. It filled Jock with a great and compassionate wonder. But he was
+a very civil boy. He was one who could not bear to hurt a
+fellow-creature's feelings, even those of an old duffer whose
+recollections were all of the bygone ages. So he did his best to laugh.
+And Sir Tom enjoyed his own joke so much that he did not know that it
+was from the lips only that his young companion's laugh came. He got up
+and patted Jock on the shoulders with the utmost benevolence when this
+pastime was done.</p>
+
+<p>"They don't indulge in that sort of fooling nowadays," he said. "So much
+the better&mdash;though I don't know that it did us much harm. Now come
+along, let us go to bed, according to my lady's orders. We must all, you
+know, do what Lucy tells us in this house."</p>
+
+<p>Jock obeyed, feeling somewhat "shut up," as he called it, in a sort of
+blank of confused discomfiture. Sir Tom had the best of it, by whatever
+means he attained that end. The boy had intended to offer himself a
+sacrifice, to brave anything that an angry man could say to him for
+Lucy's sake, and at the same time to die if necessary for Lucy's right
+to carry out her father's will, and accomplish her mission uninterrupted
+and untrammelled. When lo, Sir Tom had taken to telling him schoolboy
+stories, and sent him to bed with good-humoured kindness, without
+leaving him the slightest opening either to defend Lucy or take blame
+upon himself. He was half angry, and humbled in his own esteem, but
+there was nothing for it but to submit. Sir Tom for his part, did not go
+to bed. He went and smoked a lonely cigar, and his face lost its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> genial
+smile. The light of it, indeed, disappeared altogether under a cloud, as
+he sat gravely over his fire and puffed the smoke away. He had the air
+of a man who had a task to do which was not congenial to him. "Poor
+little soul," he said to himself. He could not bear to vex her. There
+was nothing in the world that he would have grudged to his wife. Any
+luxury, any adornment that he could have procured for her he would have
+jumped at. But it was his fate to be compelled to oppose and subdue her
+instead. The only thing was to do it quickly and decisively, since done
+it must be. If she had been a warrior worthy of his steel, a woman who
+would have defended herself and held her own, it would have been so much
+more easy; but it was not without a compunction that Sir Tom thought of
+the disproportion of their forces, of the soft and compliant creature
+who had never raised her will against his or done other than accept his
+suggestions and respond to his guidance. He remembered how Lucy had
+stuck to her colours before her marriage, and how she had vanquished the
+unwilling guardians who regarded what they thought the squandering of
+her money with a consternation and fury that were beyond bounds. He had
+thought it highly comic at the time, and even now there passed a gleam
+of humour over his face at the recollection. He could not deny himself a
+smile when he thought it all over. She had worsted her guardians, and
+thrown away her money triumphantly, and Sir Tom had regarded the whole
+as an excellent joke. But the recollection of this did not discourage
+him now. He had no thought that Lucy would stand out against him. It
+might vex her, however, dear little woman. No doubt she and Jock had
+been making up some fine Quixotic plans between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> them, and probably it
+would be a shock to her when her husband interfered. He had got to be so
+fond of his little wife, and his heart was so kind, that he could not
+bear the idea of vexing Lucy. But still it would have to be done. He
+rose up at last, and threw away the end of his cigar with a look of
+vexation and trouble. It was necessary, but it was a nuisance, however.
+"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly,"
+he said to himself; then laughed again, as he took his way upstairs, at
+the over-significance of the words. He was not going to murder anybody;
+only when the moment proved favourable, for once and only once, seeing
+it was inevitable, he had to bring under lawful authority&mdash;an easy
+task&mdash;the gentle little feminine creature who was his wife.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST STRUGGLE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy knew nothing of this till the next forenoon after breakfast, and
+after the many morning occupations which a lady has in her own house.
+She looked wistfully at both her brother and her husband when they met
+at table, and it was a great consolation to her, and lightening of her
+heart, when she perceived that they were quite at ease with each other;
+but still she was burning with curiosity to know what had passed. Sir
+Tom had not said a word. He had been just as usual, not even looking a
+consciousness of the unexplained question between them. She was glad and
+yet half sorry that all was about to blow over, and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> be as if it had
+not been. After going so far, perhaps it would have been better that it
+had gone farther and that the matter had been settled. This she said to
+herself in the security of a respite, believing that it had passed away
+from Sir Tom's mind. She wanted to know, and yet she was afraid to ask,
+for her heart revolted against asking questions of Jock which might
+betray to him the fear of a possible quarrel. After she had
+superintended little Tom's toilet, and watched him go out for his walk
+(for the weather was very mild for the time of the year), and seen Mrs.
+Freshwater, the housekeeper, and settled about the dinner, always with a
+little quiver of anxiety in her heart, she met Jock by a happy chance,
+just as she was about to join Lady Randolph in the drawing-room. She
+seized his arm with energy, and drew him within the door of the library;
+but after she had done this with an eagerness not to be disguised, Lucy
+suddenly remembered all that it was inexpedient for her to betray to
+Jock. Accordingly she stopped short, as it were, on the threshold, and
+instead of saying as she had intended, "What did he say to you?" dropped
+down into the routine question, "Where are you going&mdash;were you going
+out?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall some time, I suppose. What do you grip a fellow's arm for like
+that? and then when I thought you had something important to say to me,
+only asking am I going out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, clear," said Lucy, recovering herself with an effort. "You don't
+take enough exercise. I wish you would not be always among the books."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff, Lucy!" said Jock.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure Tom thinks the same. He was telling me&mdash;now didn't he say
+something to you about it last night?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That's all bosh," said the boy. "And if you want to know what he said
+to me last night, he just said nothing at all, but told me old stories
+of school that I've heard a hundred times. These old d&mdash;&mdash;fellows,"
+(Jock did not swear; he was going to say duffers, that was all) "always
+talk like that. One would think they had not had much fun in their life
+when they are always turning back upon school," Jock added, with fine
+sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, only stories about school!" said Lucy with extreme relief. But the
+next moment she was not quite so sure that she was comfortable about
+this entire ignoring of a matter which Sir Tom had seemed to think so
+grave. "What sort of stories?" she said dreamily, pursuing her own
+thoughts without much attention to the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that old stuff about Ascot and about the old master that stopped
+them. It isn't much. I know it," said Jock, disrespectfully, "as well as
+I know my a, b, c."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very rude of you to say so, Jock."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is rude," the boy replied, with candour; but he did not
+further explain himself, and Lucy, to veil her mingled relief and
+disquietude, dismissed him with an exhortation to go out.</p>
+
+<p>"You read and read," she cried, glad to throw off a little excitement in
+this manner, though she really felt very little anxiety on the subject,
+"till you will be all brains and nothing else. I wish you would use your
+legs a little too." And then, with a little affectionate push away from
+her, she left him in undisturbed possession of his books, and the
+morning, which, fine as it was, was not bright enough to tempt him away
+from them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then Lucy pursued her way to the drawing-room: but she had not gone many
+steps before she met her husband, who stopped and asked her a question
+or two. Had the boy gone out? It was so fine it would do him good, poor
+little beggar; and where was her ladyship going? When he heard she was
+going to join the Dowager, Sir Tom smilingly took her hand and drew it
+within his own. "Then come here with me for a minute first," he said.
+And strange to say, Lucy had no fear. She allowed him to have his way,
+thinking it was to show her something, perhaps to ask her advice on some
+small matter. He took her into a little room he had, full of trophies of
+his travels, a place more distinctively his own than any other in the
+house. When he had closed the door a faint little thrill of alarm came
+over her. She looked up at him wondering, inquiring. Sir Tom took her by
+her arms and drew her towards him in the full light of the window. "Come
+and let me look at you, Lucy," he said. "I want to see in your eyes what
+it is that makes you afraid of me."</p>
+
+<p>She met his eyes with great bravery and self-command, but nothing could
+save her from the nervous quiver which he felt as he held her, or from
+the tell-tale ebb and flow of the blood from her face. "I&mdash;I am not
+afraid of you, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Then have you ceased to trust me, Lucy? How is it that you discuss the
+most important matters with Jock, who is only a boy, and leave me out?
+You do not think that can be agreeable to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom," she said; then stopped short, her voice being interrupted by the
+fluttering of her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you: you are afraid. What have I ever done to make my wife
+afraid of me?" he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom, it is not that! it is only that I felt&mdash;there has never been
+anything said, and you have always done all, and more than all, that I
+wished; but I have felt that you were opposed to me in one thing. I may
+be wrong, perhaps," she added, looking up at him suddenly with a
+catching of her breath.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom did not say she was wrong. He was very kind, but very grave. "In
+that case," he said, "Lucy, my love, don't you think it would have been
+better to speak to me about it, and ascertain what were my objections,
+and why I was opposed to you&mdash;rather than turn without a word to another
+instead of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Lucy, "I could not. I was a coward. I could not bear to make
+sure. To stand against you, how could I do it? But if you will hear me
+out, Tom, I never, never turned to another. Oh! what strange words to
+say. It was not another. It was Jock, only Jock; but I did not turn even
+to him. It was he who brought it forward, and I&mdash;&mdash; Now that we have
+begun to talk about it, and it cannot be escaped," cried Lucy, with
+sudden nervous boldness, freeing herself from his hold, "I will own
+everything to you, Tom. Yes, I was afraid. I would not, I could not do
+it, for I could feel that you were against it. You never said anything;
+is it necessary that you should speak for me to understand you? but I
+knew it all through. And to go against you and do something you did not
+like was more than I could face. I should have gone on for years,
+perhaps, and never had courage for it," she cried. She was tingling all
+over with excitement and desperate daring now.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling," said Sir Tom, "it makes me happier to think that it was
+not me you were afraid of, but only of putting yourself in opposition to
+me; but still,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Lucy, even that is not right, you know. Don't you think
+that it would be better that we should talk it over, and that I should
+show you my objections to this strange scheme you have in your head, and
+convince you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Lucy, stepping back a little and putting up her hands as if
+in self-defence, "that was what I was most frightened for."</p>
+
+<p>"What, to be convinced?" he laughed: but his laugh jarred upon her in
+her excited state. "Well, that is not at all uncommon; but few people
+avow it so frankly," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him with appealing eyes. "Oh, Tom," she cried, "I fear
+you will not understand me now. I am not afraid to be convinced. I am
+afraid of what you will think when you know that I cannot be convinced.
+Now," she said, with a certain calm of despair, "I have said it all."</p>
+
+<p>To her astonishment her husband replied by a sudden hug and a laugh.
+"Whether you are accessible to reason or not, you are always my dear
+little woman," he said. "I like best to have it out. Do you know, Lucy,
+that it is supposed your sex are all of that mind? You believe what you
+like, and the reason for your faith does not trouble you. You must not
+suppose that you are singular in that respect."</p>
+
+<p>To this she listened without any response at all either in words or
+look, except, perhaps, a little lifting of her eyelids in faint
+surprise; for Lucy was not concerned about what was common to her sex.
+Nor did she take such questions at all into consideration. Therefore,
+this speech sounded to her irrelevant; and so quick was Sir Tom's
+intelligence that, though he made it as a sort of conventional
+necessity, he saw that it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> irrelevant too. It might have been all
+very well to address a clever woman who could have given him back his
+reply in such words. But to Lucy's straightforward, simple, limited
+intellect such dialectics were altogether out of place. Her very want of
+capacity to understand them made them a disrespect to her which she had
+done nothing to deserve. He coloured in his quick sense of this, and
+sudden perception that his wife in the limitation of her intellect and
+fine perfection of her moral nature was such an antagonist as a man
+might well be alarmed to meet, more alarmed even than she generously was
+to displease him.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Lucy," he said, "I was talking to you as if you were
+one of the ordinary people. All this must be treated between you and me
+on a different footing. I have a great deal more experience than you
+have, and I ought to know better. You must let me show you how it
+appears to me. You see I don't pretend not to know what the point was. I
+have felt for a long time that it was one that must be cleared up
+between you and me. I never thought of Jock coming in," he said with a
+laugh. "That is quite a new and unlooked-for feature; but begging his
+pardon, though he is a clever fellow, we will leave Jock out of the
+question. He can't be supposed to have much knowledge of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Lucy, with a little suspicion. She did not quite see what
+this had to do with it, nor what course her husband was going to adopt,
+nor indeed at all what was to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father's will was a very absurd one," he said.</p>
+
+<p>At this Lucy was slightly startled, but she said after a moment, "He did
+not think what hard things he was leaving me to do."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He did not think at all, it seems to me," said Sir Tom; "so far as I
+can see he merely amused himself by arranging the world after his
+fashion, and trying how much confusion he could make. I don't mean to
+say anything unkind of him. I should like to have known him: he must
+have been a character. But he has left us a great deal of botheration.
+This particular thing, you know, that you are driving yourself crazy
+about is sheer absurdity, Lucy. Solomon himself could not do it,&mdash;and
+who are you, a little girl without any knowledge of the world, to see
+into people's hearts, and decide whom it is safe to trust?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are putting more upon me than poor papa did, Tom," said Lucy, a
+little more cheerfully. "He never said, as we do in charities, that it
+was to go to deserving people. I was never intended to see into their
+hearts. So long as they required it and got the money, that was all he
+wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, my dear," said Sir Tom, "if your father in his great sense
+and judgment wanted nothing but to get rid of the money, I wonder he did
+not tell you to stand upon Beachy Head or Dover Cliff on a certain day
+in every year and throw so much of it into the sea&mdash;to be sure," he
+added with a laugh, "that would come to very much the same thing&mdash;for
+you can't annihilate money, you can only make it change hands&mdash;and the
+London roughs would soon have found out your days for this wise purpose
+and interrupted it somehow. But it would have been just as sensible.
+Poor little woman! Here I am beginning to argue, and abusing your poor
+father, whom, of course, you were fond of, and never so much as offering
+you a chair! There is something on every one of them, I believe. Here,
+my love, here is a seat for you," he said, dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>placing a box of
+curiosities and clearing a corner for her by the fire. But Lucy resisted
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it do another time, Tom?" she said with a little anxiety, "for
+Aunt Randolph is all by herself, and she will wonder what has become of
+me; and baby will be coming back from his walk." Then she made a little
+pause, and resumed again, folding her hands, and raising her mild eyes
+to his face. "I am very sorry to go against you, Tom. I think I would
+rather lose all the money altogether. But there is just one thing, and
+oh, do not be angry! I must carry out papa's will if I were to die!"</p>
+
+<p>Her husband, who had begun to enter smilingly upon this discussion, with
+a certainty of having the best of it, and who had listened to her
+smilingly in her simple pleas for deferring the conversation, pleas
+which he was very willing to yield to, was so utterly taken by surprise
+at this sudden and most earnest statement, that he could do nothing but
+stare at her, with a loud alarmed exclamation, "Lucy!" and a look of
+utter bewilderment in his face. But she stood this without flinching,
+not nervous as many a woman might have been after delivering such a
+blow, but quite still, clasping her hands in each other, facing him with
+a desperate quietness. Lucy was not insensible to the tremendous nature
+of the utterance she had just made.</p>
+
+<p>"This is surprising, indeed, Lucy," cried Sir Tom. He grew quite pale in
+that sensation of being disobeyed, which is one of the most disagreeable
+that human nature is subject to. He scarcely knew what to reply to a
+rebellion so complete and determined. To see her attitude, the look of
+her soft girlish face (for she looked still younger than her actual
+years), the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> firm pose of her little figure, was enough to show that it
+was no rash utterance, such as many a combatant makes, to withdraw from
+it one hour after. Sir Tom, in his amazement, felt his very words come
+back to him; he did not know what to say. "Do you mean to tell me," he
+said, almost stammering in his consternation, "that whatever I may think
+or advise, and however mad this proceeding may be, you have made up your
+mind to carry it out whether I will or not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tom! in every other thing I will do what you tell me. I have always
+done what you told me. You know a great deal better than I do, and never
+more will I go against you; but I knew papa before I knew you. He is
+dead; I cannot go to him to ask him to let me off, to tell him you don't
+like it, or to say it is more than I can do. If I could I would do that.
+But he is dead: all that he can have is just that I should be faithful
+to him. And it is not only that he put it in his will, but I gave him my
+promise that I would do it. How could I break my promise to one that is
+dead, that trusted in me? Oh, no, no! It will kill me if you are angry;
+but even then, even then, I must do what I promised to papa."</p>
+
+<p>The tears had risen to her eyes as she spoke: they filled her eyelids
+full, till she saw her husband only through two blinding seas: then they
+fell slowly one after another upon her dress: her face was raised to
+him, her features all moving with the earnestness of her plea. The
+anguish of the struggle against her heart, and desire to please him, was
+such that Lucy felt what it was to be faithful till death. As for Sir
+Tom, it was impossible for such a man to remain unmoved by emotion so
+great. But it had never occurred to him as possible that Lucy could
+resist his will, or, indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> stand for a moment against his injunction;
+he had believed that he had only to say to her, "You must not do it,"
+and that she would have cried, but given way. He felt himself utterly
+defeated, silenced, put out of consideration. He did nothing but stare
+and gasp at her in his consternation; and, more still, he was betrayed.
+Her gentleness had deceived him and made him a fool; his pride was
+touched, he who was supposed to have no pride. He stood silent for a
+time, and then he burst out with a sort of roar of astonished and angry
+dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, do you mean to tell me that you will disobey me?" he cried.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN IDLE MORNING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Dowager Lady Randolph had never found the Hall so dull. There was
+nothing going on, nothing even to look forward to: one formal
+dinner-party was the only thing to represent that large and cordial
+hospitality which she was glad to think had in her own time
+characterised the period when the Hall was open. She had never pretended
+to be fond of the county society. In the late Sir Robert's time she had
+not concealed the fact that the less time she spent in it the better she
+was pleased. But when she was there, all the county had known it. She
+was a woman who loved to live a large and liberal life. It was not so
+much that she liked gaiety, or what is called pleasure, as that she
+loved to have people about her, to be the dispenser<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> of enjoyment, to
+live a life in which there was always something going on. This is a
+temperament which meets much censure from the world, and is stigmatised
+as a love of excitement, and by many other unlovely names; but that is
+hard upon the people who are born with it, and who are in many cases
+benefactors to mankind. Lady Randolph's desire was that there should
+always be something doing&mdash;"a magic lantern at the least," she had said.
+Indeed, there can be no doubt that in managing that magic lantern she
+would have given as much satisfaction to everybody, and perhaps managed
+to enjoy herself as much, as if it had been the first entertainment in
+Mayfair. She could not stagnate comfortably, she said; and as so much of
+an ordinary woman's life must be stagnation more or less gracefully
+veiled, it may be supposed that Lady Randolph had learned the useful
+lesson of putting up with what she could get when what she liked was not
+procurable. And it was seldom that she had been set down to so languid a
+feast as the present. On former occasions a great deal more had been
+going on, except the last year, which was that of the baby's birth, on
+which occasion Lucy was, of course, out of the way of entertainment
+altogether. Lady Randolph had, indeed, found her visits to the Hall
+amusing, which was delightful, seeing they were duty visits as well. She
+had stayed only a day or two at that time&mdash;just long enough to kiss the
+baby and talk for half an hour at a time, on two or three distinct
+opportunities, to the young mother in very subdued and caressing tones.
+And she had been glad to get away again when she had performed this
+duty, but yet did not grudge in the least the sacrifice she had made for
+her family. The case, however, was quite different now: there was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+reason in the world why they should be quiet. The baby was
+delicate!&mdash;could there be a more absurd reason for closing your house to
+your friends, putting off your Christmas visits, entertaining not at
+all, ignoring altogether the natural expectations of the county, which
+did not elect a man to be its member in order that he might shut himself
+up and superintend his nursery? It was ridiculous, his aunt felt; it
+went to her nerves, and made her quite uncomfortable, to see all the
+resources of the house, with which she was so well acquainted, wasted
+upon four people. It was preposterous&mdash;an excellent cook, the best cook
+almost she had ever come across, and only four to dine! People have
+different ideas of what waste is&mdash;there are some who consider all large
+expenditure, especially in the entertainment of guests, to be subject to
+this censure. But Lady Randolph took a completely different view. The
+wickedness of having such a cook and only a family party of four persons
+to dine was that which offended her. It was scandalous, it was wicked.
+If Lucy meant to live in this way let her return to her bourgeois
+existence, and the small vulgar life in Farafield. It was ridiculous
+living the life of a nobody here, and in Sir Tom's case was plainly
+suicidal. How was he to hold up his face at another election, with the
+consciousness that he had done nothing at all for his county, not even
+given them a ball, nor so much as a magic lantern, she repeated,
+bursting with a reprobation which could scarcely find words?</p>
+
+<p>All this went through her mind with double force when she found herself
+left alone in Lucy's morning-room, which was a bright room opening out
+upon the flower garden, getting all the morning sun, and the full
+advantage of the flowers when there were any. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> were none, it is
+true, at this moment, except a few snow-drops forcing their way through
+the smooth turf under a tree which stood at the corner of a little bit
+of lawn. Lady Randolph was not very fond of flowers, except in their
+proper place, which meant when employed in the decoration of rooms in
+the proper artistic way, and after the most approved fashion. Thus she
+liked sunflowers when they were approved by society, and modest violets
+and pansies in other developments of popular taste, but did not for her
+own individual part care much which she had, so long as they looked well
+in her vases, and "came well" against her draperies and furniture. She
+had come down on this bright morning with her work, as it is the proper
+thing for a lady to do, but she had no more idea of being left here
+calmly and undisturbed to do that work than she had of attempting a
+flight into the inviting and brilliant, if cold and frosty, skies. She
+sat down with it between the fire and the sunny window, enjoying both
+without being quite within the range of either. It was an ideal picture
+of a lady no longer young or capable of much out-door life, or personal
+emotion; a pretty room; a sunny, soft winter morning, almost as warm as
+summer, the sunshine pouring in, a cheerful fire in the background to
+make up what was lacking in respect of warmth; the softest of easiest
+chairs, yet not too low or demoralising; a subdued sound breaking in now
+and then from a distance, which pleasantly betrayed the existence of a
+household; and in the midst of all, in a velvet gown, which was very
+pretty to look at, and very comfortable to wear, and with a lace cap on
+her head that had the same characteristics, a lady of sixty, in perfect
+health, rich enough for all her requirements, without even the thought
+of a dentist to trouble her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> She had a piece of very pretty work in her
+hand, the newspapers on the table, books within reach. And yet she was
+not content! What a delightful ideal sketch might not be made of such a
+moment! How she might have been thinking of her past, sweetly, with a
+sigh, yet with a thankful thought of all the good things that had been
+hers; of those whom she had loved, and who were gone from earth, as only
+awaiting her a little farther on, and of those about her, with such a
+tender commendation of them to God's blessing, and cordial desire for
+their happiness, as would have reached the height of a prayer. And she
+might have been feeling a tranquil pleasure in the material things about
+her: the stillness, the warmth, the dreamy quiet, even the pretty work,
+and the exemption from care which she had arrived at in the peaceful
+concluding chapter of existence. This is what we all like to think of as
+the condition of mind and circumstances in which age is best met. But we
+are grieved to say that this was not in the least Lady Randolph's pose.
+Anything more distasteful to her than this quiet could not be. It was
+her principle and philosophy to live in the present. She drew many
+experiences from the past, and a vast knowledge of the constitutions and
+changes of society; but personally it did not amuse her to think of it,
+and the future she declined to contemplate. It had disagreeable things
+in it, of that there could be no doubt; and why go out and meet the
+disagreeable? It was time enough when it arrived. There was probably
+illness, and certainly dying, in it; things which she was brave enough
+to face when they came, and no doubt would encounter in quite a
+collected and courageous way. But why anticipate them? She lived
+philosophically in the day as it came. After all what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>ever you do or
+think, you cannot do much more. Your one day, your hour, is your world.
+Acquit yourself fitly in that, and you will be able to encounter
+whatever occurs.</p>
+
+<p>This was the conviction on which Lady Randolph acted. But her pursuit
+for the moment was not entertaining; she very quickly tired of her work.
+Work is, on the whole, tiresome when there is no particular use in it,
+when it is done solely for the sake of occupation, as ladies' work so
+often is. It wants a meaning and a necessity to give it interest, and
+Lady Randolph's had neither. She worked about ten minutes, and then she
+paused and wondered what could have become of Lucy. Lucy was not a very
+amusing companion, but she was somebody; and then Sir Tom would come in
+occasionally to consult her, to give her some little piece of
+information, and for a few minutes would talk and give his relative a
+real pleasure. But even Lucy did not come; and soon Lady Randolph became
+tired of looking out of the window and then walking to the fire, of
+taking up the newspaper and throwing it down again, of doing a few
+stitches, then letting the work fall on her lap; and above all, of
+thinking, as she was forced to do, from sheer want of occupation. She
+listened, and nobody came. Two or three times she thought she heard
+steps approaching, but nobody came. She had thought of perhaps going out
+since the morning was so fine, walking down to the village, which was
+quite within her powers, and of planning several calls which might be
+made in the afternoon to take advantage of the fine day. But she became
+really fretted and annoyed as the morning crept along. Lucy was losing
+even her politeness, the Dowager thought. This is what comes of what
+people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> call happiness! They get so absorbed in themselves, there is no
+possibility of paying ordinary attention to other people. At last, after
+completely tiring herself out, Lady Randolph got up and put down her
+work altogether, throwing it away with anger. She had not lived so long
+in its sole company for years, and there is no describing how tired she
+was of it. She got up and went out into the other rooms in search of
+something to amuse her. Little Tom had just come in, but she did not go
+to the nursery. She took care not to expose herself to that. She was
+willing to allow that she did not understand babies; and then to see
+such a pale little thing the heir of the Randolphs worried her. He ought
+to have been a little Hercules; it wounded her that he was so puny and
+pale. She went through the great drawing-room, and looked at all the
+additions to the furniture and decorations that Tom and Lucy had made.
+They had kept a number of the old things; but naturally they had added a
+good deal of <i>bric-à-brac</i>, of old things that here were new. Then Lady
+Randolph turned into the library. She had gone up to one of the
+bookcases, and was leisurely contemplating the books, with a keen eye,
+too, to the additions which had been made, when she heard a sound near
+her, the unmistakable sound of turning over the leaves of a book. Lady
+Randolph turned round with a start, and there was Jock, sunk into the
+depths of a large chair with a tall folio supported on the arms of it.
+She had not seen him when she came in, and, indeed, many people might
+have come and gone without perceiving him, buried in his corner. Lady
+Randolph was thankful for anybody to talk to, even a boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you?" she said. "I might have known it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> could be nobody but you.
+Do you never do anything but read?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said Jock, who had done nothing but watch her since she
+came into the room. She gave him a sort of half smile.</p>
+
+<p>"It is more reasonable now than when you were a child," she said; "for I
+hear you are doing extremely well at school, and gaining golden
+opinions. That is quite as it should be. It is the only way you can
+repay Lucy for all she has done for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think," said Jock, looking at her over his book, "that Lucy
+wants to be repaid."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably not," said Lady Randolph. Then she made a pause, and looked
+from him to the book he held, and then to him again. "Perhaps you don't
+think," she said, "there is anything to be repaid."</p>
+
+<p>They were old antagonists; when he was a child and Lucy had insisted on
+carrying him with her wherever she went, Lady Randolph had made no
+objections, but she had not looked upon Jock with a friendly eye. And
+afterwards, when he had interposed with his precocious wisdom, and
+worsted her now and then, she had come to have a holy dread of him. But
+now things had righted themselves, and Jock had attained an age of which
+nobody could be afraid. The Dowager thought, as people are so apt to
+think, that Jock was not grateful enough. He was very fond of Lucy, but
+he took things as a matter of course, seldom or never remembering that
+whereas Lucy was rich, he was poor, and all his luxuries and well-being
+came from her. She was glad to take an opportunity of reminding him of
+it, all the more as she was of opinion that Sir Tom did not sufficiently
+impress this upon the boy, to whom she thought he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> was unnecessarily
+kind. "I suppose," she resumed, after a pause, "that you come here
+always in the holidays, and quite consider it as your home?"</p>
+
+<p>Jock still sat and looked at her across his great folio. He made her no
+reply. He was not so ready in the small interchanges of talk as he had
+been at eight, and, besides, it was new to him to have the subject
+introduced in this way. It is not amusing to plant arrows of this sort
+in any one's flesh if they show no sign of any wound, and accordingly
+Lady Randolph grew angry as Jock made no reply. "Is it considered good
+manners," she said, "at school&mdash;when a lady speaks to you that you
+should make no answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking," Jock said. "A fellow, whether he is at school, or not,
+can't answer all that at once."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you do not mean to be impertinent. In that case I should be
+obliged to speak to my nephew," said Lady Randolph. She had not intended
+to quarrel with Jock. It was only the vacancy of the morning, and her
+desire for movement of some sort, that had brought her to this; and now
+she grew angry with Lucy as well as with Jock, having gone so much
+farther than she had intended to go. She turned from him to the books
+which she had been languidly examining, and began to take them out one
+after another, impatiently, as if searching for something. Jock sat and
+looked at her for some time, with the same sort of deliberate
+observation with which he used to regard her when he was a child, seeing
+(as she had always felt) through and through her. But presently another
+impulse swayed him. He got himself out behind his book, and suddenly
+appeared by her side, startling her nerves, which were usually so firm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you will tell me what you want," he said, "I'll get it for you. I
+know where they all are. If it is French you want, they are up there. I
+like going up the ladder," he added, half to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was this confession of childishness, perhaps the unlooked-for
+civility, that touched her. She turned round with a subdued half
+frightened air, feeling that there was no telling how to take this
+strange creature, and said, half apologetically, "I think I should like
+a French&mdash;novel. They are not&mdash;so&mdash;long, you know, as the English," and
+sat down in the chair he rolled towards her. Jock was at the top of the
+ladder in a moment. She watched him, making a little comment in her own
+mind about Tom's motive in placing books of this description in such a
+place&mdash;in order to keep them out of Lucy's way, she said to herself.
+Jock brought her down half a dozen to choose from, and even the eye of
+Jock, who doubtless knew nothing about them, made Lady Randolph a little
+more scrupulous than usual in choosing her book. She was one of those
+women who like the piquancy and freedom of French fiction. She would say
+to persons of like tastes that the English proprieties were tame beside
+the other, and she thought herself old enough to be altogether beyond
+any risk of harm. Perhaps this was why she divined Sir Tom's motive in
+placing them at the top of the shelves; divined and approved, for though
+she read all that came in her way, she would not have liked Lucy to
+share that privilege. She said to Jock as he brought them to her,</p>
+
+<p>"They are shorter than the English. I can't carry three volumes about,
+you know; all these are in one; but I should not advise you to take to
+this sort of reading, Jock."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to," said Jock, briefly; then he added more gravely, "I
+can't construe French like you. I suppose you just open it and go
+straight on?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Lady Randolph, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>She was mollified, for her French was excellent, and she liked a little
+compliment, of whatever kind.</p>
+
+<p>"You should give your mind to it; it is the most useful of all
+languages," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"And Lucy is not great at it either," said Jock.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, and it is a pity," said Lady Randolph, quite restored to
+good-humour. "I would take her in hand myself, but I have so many things
+to do. Do you know where she is, for I have not seen her all this
+morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"No more have I," said Jock. "I think they have just gone off somewhere
+together. Lucy never minds. She ought to pay a little attention when
+there are people in the house."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just what I have been thinking," Lady Randolph said. "I am at
+home, of course, here; it does not matter for me, and you are her
+brother&mdash;but she really ought; I think I must speak seriously to her."</p>
+
+<p>"To whom are you going to speak seriously? I hope not to me, my dear
+aunt," said Sir Tom, coming in. He did not look quite his usual self. He
+was a little pale, and he had an air about him as of some disagreeable
+surprise. He had the post-bag in his hand&mdash;for there was a post twice a
+day&mdash;and opened it as he spoke. Lady Randolph, with her quick
+perception, saw at once that something had happened, and jumped at the
+idea of a first quarrel. It was generally the butler Williams who opened
+the letter-bag; but he was out of the way, and Sir Tom had taken the
+office<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> on himself. He took out the contents with a little impatience,
+throwing across to her her share of the correspondence. "Hallo," he
+said. "Here is a letter for Lucy from your tutor, Jock. What have you
+been doing, my young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what it's about," Jock said in a tone of satisfaction. Sir
+Tom turned round and looked at him with the letter in his hand, as if he
+would have liked to throw it at his head.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN UNWILLING MARTYR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy came into the morning-room shortly after, a little paler than
+usual, but with none of the agitation about her which Lady Randolph
+expected from Sir Tom's aspect to see. Lucy was not one to bear any
+outward traces of emotion. When she wept her eyes recovered rapidly, and
+after half an hour were no longer red. She had a quiet respect for other
+people, and a determination not to betray anything which she could not
+explain, which had the effect of that "proper pride" which is inculcated
+upon every woman, and yet was something different. Lucy would have died
+rather than give Lady Randolph ground to suppose that she had quarrelled
+with her husband, and as she could not explain the matter to her, it was
+necessary to efface all signs of perturbation as far as that was
+possible. The elder lady was reading her letters when Lucy came in, but
+she raised her eyes at once with the keenest watchfulness. Young Lady
+Randolph was pale&mdash;but at no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> time had she much colour. She came in
+quite simply, without any explanation or giving of reasons, and sat down
+in her usual place near the window, from which the sunshine, as it was
+now afternoon, was beginning to die away. Then Lucy gave a slight start
+to see a letter placed for her on the little table beside her work. She
+had few correspondents at any time, and when Jock and Lady Randolph were
+both at the Hall received scarcely any letters. She took it up and
+looked at its outside with a little surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot to tell you, Lucy," the Dowager said at this point, "that
+there was a letter for you. Tom placed it there. He said it was from
+Jock's tutor, and I hope sincerely, my dear, it does not mean that Jock
+has got into any scrape&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A scrape," said Lucy, "why should he have got into a scrape?" in
+unbounded surprise; for this was a thing that never had happened
+throughout Jock's career.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, boys are so often in trouble," Lady Randolph said, while Lucy
+opened her letter in some trepidation. But the first words of the letter
+disturbed her more than any story about Jock was likely to do. It
+brought the crisis nearer, and made immediate action almost
+indispensable. It ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Dear Lady Randolph&mdash;In accordance with Jock's request, which he
+assured me was also yours, I have made all the inquiries you wished about
+the Churchill family. It was not very difficult to do, as there is but one
+voice in respect to them. Mr. Churchill himself is represented to me as a
+model of all that a clergyman ought to be. Whatever we may think of his
+functions, that he should have all the virtues supposed to be attached to
+them is desirable in every point of view; and he is a gentleman of good
+sense and intelligence besides, which is not always implied even in the
+character of a saint. It seems that the failure of an inheritance, which
+he had <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> every reason to expect, was the cause of his first
+disadvantage in the world; and since then, in consonance with that curious
+natural law which seems so contrary to justice, yet constantly consonant
+with fact, this evil has been cumulative, and he has had nothing but
+disappointments ever since. He has a very small living now, and is never
+likely to get a better, for he is getting old, and patrons, I am told,
+scarcely venture to give a cure to a man of his age lest it should be said
+they were gratifying their personal likings at the expense of the people.
+This seems contrary to abstract justice in such a case; but it is a
+doctrine of our time to which we must all bow.<br /><br />
+
+"The young people, so far as I know, are all promising and good. Young
+Churchill, whom Jock knows, is a boy for whom I have the greatest regard.
+He is one whom Goethe would have described as a beautiful soul. His
+sisters are engaged in educational work, and are, I am told, in their way
+equally high-minded and interesting; but naturally I know little of the
+female portion of the family.<br /><br />
+
+"It is extremely kind of you and Sir Thomas to repeat your
+invitation. I hope, perhaps at Easter, if convenient, to be able to take
+advantage of it. I hear with the greatest pleasure from Jock how much he
+enjoys his renewed intercourse with his home circle. It will do him good,
+for his mind is full of the ideal, and it will be of endless advantage to
+him to be brought back to the more ordinary and practical interests. There
+are very few boys of whom it can be said that their intellectual
+aspirations over-balance their material impulses. As usual he has not only
+done his work this half entirely to my satisfaction, but has more than
+repaid any services I can render him by the precious companionship of a
+fresh and elevated spirit. <br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 45%;">"Believe me, dear Lady Randolph,</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 60%;">"Most faithfully yours,</p>
+<p class="citation">"<span class="smcap">Maximus D. Derwentwater</span>."</p>
+
+<p>A long-drawn breath, which sounded like a sigh, burst from Lucy's breast
+as she closed this letter. She had, with humility and shrinking, yet
+with a certain resolution, disclosed to her husband that when the
+occasion occurred she must do her duty according to her father's will,
+whether it pleased him or not. She had steeled herself to do this; but
+she had prayed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> the occasion might be slow to come. Nobody but Jock
+knew anything about these Churchills, and Jock was going back to school,
+and he was young and perhaps he might forget! But here was another who
+would not forget. She read all the recommendations of the family and
+their excellences with a sort of despair. Money, it was evident, could
+not be better bestowed than in this way. There seemed no opening by
+which she could escape; no way of thrusting this act away from her. She
+felt a panic seize her. How was she to disobey Tom, how to do a thing of
+so much importance, contrary to his will, against his advice? The whole
+world around her, the solid walls, and the sky that shone in through the
+great window, swam in Lucy's eyes. She drew her breath hard like a
+hunted creature; there was a singing in her ears, and a dimness in her
+sight. Lady Randolph's voice asking with a certain satisfaction, yet
+sympathy, "What is the matter? I hope it is not anything very bad,"
+seemed to come to her from a distance as from a different world; and
+when she added, after a moment, soothingly, "You must not vex yourself
+about it, Lucy, if it is just a piece of folly. Boys are constantly in
+that way coming to grief:" it was with difficulty that Lucy remembered
+to what she could refer. Jock! Ah, if it had been but a boyish folly,
+Sir Tom would have been the first to forgive that; he would have opened
+his kind heart and taken the offender in, and laughed and persuaded him
+out of his folly. He would have been like a father to the boy. To feel
+all that, and how good he was; and yet determinedly to contradict his
+will and go against him! Oh, how could she do it? and yet what else was
+there to do?</p>
+
+<p>"It is not about Jock," she answered with a faint voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, my dear. I was not aware that you knew Jock's tutor
+well enough for general correspondence. These gentlemen seem to make a
+great deal of themselves now-a-days, but in my time, Lucy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know him very well, Aunt Randolph. He is only sending me some
+information. I wish I might ask you a question," she cried suddenly,
+looking into the Dowager's face with earnest eyes. This lady had perhaps
+not all the qualities that make a perfect woman, but she had always been
+very kind to Lucy. She was not unkind to anybody, although there were
+persons, of whom Jock was one, whom she did not like. And in all
+circumstances to Lucy, even when there was no immediate prospect that
+the Randolph family would be any the better for her, she had always been
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>"As many as you like, my love," she answered, cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lucy; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, what I want is that you
+should let me ask, without asking anything in return. I want to know
+what you think, but I don't want to explain&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a strange condition," said Lady Randolph; but then she thought in
+her superior experience that she was very sure to find out what this
+simple girl meant without explanations. "But I am not inquisitive," she
+added, with a smile, "and I am quite willing, dear, to tell you anything
+I know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is this," said Lucy, leaning forward in her great earnestness; "do
+you think a woman is ever justified in doing anything which her husband
+disapproves?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy!" cried Lady Randolph, in great dismay,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> "when her husband is my
+Tom, and the thing she wants to do is connected with Jock's tutor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's gaze of astonishment, and her wondering repetition of the words,
+"connected with Jock's tutor!" brought Lady Randolph to herself. In
+society, such a suspicion being fostered by all the gossips, comes
+naturally; but though she was a society-woman, and had not much faith in
+holy ignorance, she paused here, horrified by her own suggestion, and
+blushed at herself.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," she said, "that was not what I meant; but perhaps I could not
+quite advise, Lucy, where I am so closely concerned."</p>
+
+<p>At which Lucy looked at her somewhat wistfully. "I thought you would
+perhaps remember," she said, "when you were like me, Aunt Randolph, and
+perhaps did not know so well as you know now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This touched the elder lady's heart. "Lucy," she said, "my dear, if you
+were not as innocent as I know you are, you would not ask your husband's
+nearest relation such a question. But I will answer you as one woman to
+another, and let Tom take care of himself. I never was one that was very
+strong upon a husband's rights. I always thought that to obey meant
+something different from the common meaning of the word. A child must
+obey; but even a grown-up child's obedience is very different from what
+is natural and proper in youth; and a full-grown woman, you know, never
+could be supposed to obey like a child. No wise man, for that matter,
+would ever ask it or think of it."</p>
+
+<p>This did not give Lucy any help. She was very willing, for her part, to
+accept his light yoke without any restriction, except in the great and
+momentous exception which she did not want to specify.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think," Lady Randolph went on, "that to obey means rather&mdash;keep in
+harmony with your husband, pay attention to his opinions, don't take up
+an opposite course, or thwart him, be united&mdash;instead of the obedience
+of a servant, you know: still less of a slave."</p>
+
+<p>She was a great deal cleverer than Lucy, who was not thinking of the
+general question at all. And this answer did the perplexed mind little
+good. Lucy followed every word with curious attention, but at the end
+slowly shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not that. Lady Randolph, if there was something that was your
+duty before you were married, and that is still and always your duty, a
+sacred promise you had made; and your husband said no, you must not do
+it&mdash;tell me what you would have done? The rest is all so easy," cried
+Lucy, "one likes what he likes, one prefers to please him. But this is
+difficult. What would you have done?"</p>
+
+<p>Here Lady Randolph all at once, after giving forth the philosophical
+view which was so much above her companion, found herself beyond her
+depth altogether, and incapable of the fathom of that simple soul.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you, Lucy. Lucy, for heaven's sake, take care what
+you are doing! If it is anything about Jock, I implore of you give way
+to your husband. You may be sure in dealing with a boy that he knows
+best."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy sighed. "It is nothing about Jock," she said; but she did not
+repeat her demand. Lady Randolph gave her a lecture upon the subject of
+relations which was very wide of the question; and, with a sigh, owning
+to herself that there was no light to be got from this, Lucy listened
+very patiently to the irrele<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>vant discourse. The clever dowager cut it
+short when it was but half over, perceiving the same, and asked herself
+not without excitement what it was possible Lucy's difficulty could be?
+If it was not Jock (and a young brother hanging on to her, with no home
+but hers, an inquisitive young intelligence, always in the way, was a
+difficulty which anybody could perceive at a glance) what was it? But
+Lucy baffled altogether this much experienced woman of the world.</p>
+
+<p>And Jock watched all the day for an opportunity to get possession of
+her, and assail her on the other side of the question. She avoided him
+as persistently as he sought her, and with a panic which was very
+different from her usual happy confidence in him. But the moment came
+when she could elude him no longer. Lady Randolph had gone to her own
+room after her cup of tea, for that little nap before dinner which was
+essential to her good looks and pleasantness in the evening. Sir Tom,
+who was too much disturbed for the usual rules of domestic life, had not
+come in for that twilight talk which he usually enjoyed; and as Lucy
+found herself thus plunged into the danger she dreaded, she was hurrying
+after Lady Randolph, declaring that she heard baby cry, when Jock
+stepped into her way, and detained her, if not by physical, at least by
+moral force&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy," he said, "are you not going to tell me anything? I know you have
+got the letter, but you won't look at me, or speak a word."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jock, how silly! why shouldn't I look at you? but I have so many
+things to do, and baby&mdash;I am sure I heard baby cry."</p>
+
+<p>"He is no more crying than I am. I saw him, and he was as jolly as
+possible. I want awfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> to know about the Churchills, and what MTutor
+says."</p>
+
+<p>"Jock, I think Mr. Derwentwater is rather grand in his writing. It looks
+as if he thought a great deal of himself."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he doesn't," said Jock, hotly, "not half enough. He's the best man
+we've got, and yet he can't see it. You needn't give me any information
+about MTutor," added the young gentleman, "for naturally I know all that
+much better than you. But I want to know about the Churchills. Lucy, is
+it all right?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy gave a little shiver though she was in front of the fire. She said,
+reluctantly, "I think they seem very nice people, Jock."</p>
+
+<p>"I know they are," said Jock, exultantly. "Churchill in college is the
+nicest fellow I know. He read such a paper at the Poetical Society. It
+was on the Method of Sophocles; but of course you would not understand
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear," said Lucy, mildly; and again she murmured something about
+the baby crying, "I think indeed, Jock, I must go."</p>
+
+<p>"Just a moment," said the boy, "Now you are satisfied couldn't we drive
+into Farafield to-morrow and settle about it? I want to go with you, you
+and I together, and if old Rushton makes a row you can just call me."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't leave Lady Randolph, Jock," cried Lucy, driven to her wits'
+end. "It would be unkind to leave her, and a few days cannot do much
+harm. When she has gone away&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be back at school. Let Sir Tom take her out for once. He might
+as well drive her in his new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> ph&aelig;ton that he is so proud of. If it is
+fine she'll like that, and we can say we have some business."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Jock, don't press me so; a few days can't make much difference."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy," said Jock, sternly, "do you think it makes no difference to keep
+a set of good people unhappy, just to save you a little trouble? I
+thought you had more heart than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let me go, Jock; let me go&mdash;that is little Tom, and he wants me,"
+Lucy cried. She had no answer to make him&mdash;the only thing she could do
+was to fly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>ON BUSINESS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ten thousand pounds! These words have very different meanings to
+different people. Many of us can form little idea of what those simple
+syllables contain. They enclose as in a golden casket, rest, freedom
+from care, bounty, kindness, an easy existence, and an ending free of
+anxiety to many. To others they are nothing more than a cipher on paper,
+a symbol without any connection with themselves. To some it is great
+fortune, to others a drop in the ocean. A merchant will risk it any day,
+and think but little if the speculation is a failure. A prodigal will
+throw it away in a month, perhaps in a night. But the proportion of
+people to whom its possession would make all the difference between
+poverty and wealth far transcends the number of those who are careless
+of it. It is a pleasure to deal with such a sum of money<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> even on paper.
+To be concerned in giving it away, makes even the historian, who has
+nothing to do with it, feel magnificent and all-bounteous. Jock, who had
+as little experience to back him as any other boy of his age, felt a
+vague elation as he drove in by Lucy's side to Farafield. To confer a
+great benefit is always sweet. Perhaps if we analyse it, as is the
+fashion of the day, we will find that the pleasure of giving has a
+<i>fond</i>  of gratified vanity and self-consideration in it; but this
+weakness is at least supposed to be generous, and Jock was generous to
+his own consciousness, and full of delight at what was going to be done,
+and satisfaction with his own share in it. But Lucy's sensations were
+very different. She went with him with no goodwill of her own, like a
+culprit being dragged to execution. Duty is not always willing, even
+when we see it most clearly. Young Lady Randolph had a clear conviction
+of what she was bound to do, but she had no wish to do it, though she
+was so thoroughly convinced that it was incumbent upon her. Could she
+have pushed it out of her own recollection, banished it from her mind,
+she would have gladly done so. She had succeeded for a long time in
+doing this&mdash;excluding the consideration of it, and forgetting the burden
+bound upon her shoulders. But now she could forget it no longer&mdash;the
+thongs which secured it seemed to cut into her flesh. Her heart was sick
+with thoughts of the thing she must do, yet revolted against doing. "Oh,
+papa, papa!" she said to herself, shaking her head at the grim,
+respectable house in which her early days had been passed, as they drove
+past it to Mr. Rushton's office. Why had the old man put such a burden
+upon her? Why had not he distributed his money himself and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> left her
+poor if he pleased, with at least no unnatural charge upon her heart and
+life?</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you shake your head?" said Jock, who was full of the keenest
+observation, and lost nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He had an instinctive feeling that she was by no means so much
+interested in her duty as he was, and that it was his business to keep
+her up to the mark.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember the old house?" Lucy said, "where we used to live
+when you were a child? Where poor papa died&mdash;where&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I remember it. I always look at it when I pass, and think
+what a little ass I used to be. But why did you shake your head? That's
+what I want to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Jock!" Lucy cried; and said no more.</p>
+
+<p>"That throws very little light on the question," said Jock. "You are
+thinking of the difference, I suppose. Well, there is no doubt it's a
+great difference. I was a little idiot in those days. I recollect I
+thought the circus boy was a sort of little prince, and that it was
+grand to ride along like that with all the people staring&mdash;the grandest
+thing in the world&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little circus boy! What a pretty child he was," said Lucy. And
+then she sighed to relieve the oppression on her breast, and said, "Do
+you ever wonder, Jock, why people should have such different lots? You
+and I driving along here in what we once would have thought such state,
+and look, these people that are crossing the road in the mud are just as
+good as we are&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jock looked at his sister with a philosophical eye, in which for the
+moment there was some contempt. "It is as easy as a, b, c," said Jock;
+"it's your money. You might set me a much harder one. Of course, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> the
+way of horses and carriages and so forth, there is nothing that money
+cannot buy."</p>
+
+<p>This matter-of-fact reply silenced Lucy. She would have asked, perhaps,
+why did I have all this money? being in a questioning frame of mind; but
+she knew that he would answer shortly because her father made
+it, and this was not any more satisfactory. So she only looked at him
+with wistful eyes that set many much harder ones, and was silent. Jock
+himself was too philosophical to be satisfied with his own reply.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he said condescendingly, "Money is the easiest explanation.
+If you were to ask me why Sir Tom should be Sir Tom, and that man sweep
+a crossing, I could not tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Lucy, "I don't see any difficulty about that at all, for Tom
+was born to it. You might as well say why should baby be born to be the
+heir."</p>
+
+<p>Jock did not know whether to be indignant or to laugh at this feminine
+begging of the question. He stared at her for a moment uncertain, and
+then went on as if she had not spoken. "But money is always
+intelligible. That's political economy. If you have money, as a matter
+of course you have everything that money can buy; and I suppose it can
+buy almost everything?" Jock said, reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot buy a moment's happiness," cried Lucy, "nor one of those
+things one wishes most for. Oh Jock, at your age don't be deceived like
+that. For my part," she cried, "I think it is just the trouble of life.
+If it was not for this horrible money&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped short, the tears were in her eyes, but she would not betray
+to Jock how great was the difficulty in which she found herself. She
+turned her head away and was glad to wave her hand to a well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> known face
+that was passing, an acquaintance of old times, who was greatly elated
+to find that Lady Randolph in her grandeur still remembered her. Jock
+looked on upon all this with a partial comprehension, mingled with
+disapproval. He did not quite understand what she meant, but he
+disapproved of her for meaning it all the same.</p>
+
+<p>"Money can't be horrible," he said, "unless it's badly spent: and to say
+you can't buy happiness with it is nonsense. If it don't make <i>you</i>
+happy to save people from poverty it will make them happy, so somebody
+will always get the advantage. What are you so silly about, Lucy? I
+don't say money is so very fine a thing. I only say it's intelligible.
+If you ask me why a man should be a great deal better than you or me,
+only because he took the trouble to be born&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so silly, though you think me so silly, as to ask that," said
+Lucy; "that is so easy to understand. Of course you can only be who you
+are. You can't make yourself into another person; I hope I understand
+that."</p>
+
+<p>She looked him so sweetly and seriously in the face as she spoke, and
+was so completely unaware of any flaw in her reply, that Jock,
+argumentative as he was, only gasped and said nothing more. And it was
+in this pause of their conversation that they swept up to Mr. Rushton's
+door. Mr. Rushton was the town-clerk of Farafield, the most important
+representative of legal knowledge in the place. He had been the late Mr.
+Trevor's man of business, and had still the greater part of Lucy's
+affairs in his hands. He had known her from her childhood, and in the
+disturbed chapter of her life before her marriage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> his wife had taken a
+great deal of notice, as she expressed it, of Lucy: and young Raymond,
+who had now settled down in the office as his father's partner (but
+never half such a man as his father, in the opinion of the community),
+had done her the honour of paying her his addresses. But all that had
+passed from everybody's mind. Mrs. Rushton, never very resentful, was
+delighted now to receive Lady Randolph's invitation, and proud of the
+character of an old friend. And if Raymond occasionally showed a little
+embarrassment in Lucy's presence, that was only because he was by nature
+awkward in the society of ladies, and according to his own description
+never knew what to say.</p>
+
+<p>"And what can I do for your ladyship this morning?" Mr. Rushton said,
+rising from his chair. His private room was very warm and comfortable,
+too warm, the visitors thought, as an office always is to people going
+in from the fresh air. The fire burned with concentrated heat, and Lucy,
+in her furs and suppressed agitation, felt her very brain confused. As
+for Jock, he lounged in the background with his hands in his pockets,
+reading the names upon the boxes that lined the walls, and now that it
+had come to the crisis, feeling truly helpless to aid his sister, and
+considerably in the way.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a very serious business," said Lucy, drawing her breath hard. "It
+is a thing you have never liked or approved of, Mr. Rushton, nor any
+one," she added, in a faint voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, that is very unfortunate," said the lawyer, cheerfully; "but I
+don't think you have ever been much disapproved of, Lady Randolph. Come,
+there is nothing you can't talk to me about&mdash;an old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> friend. I was in
+all your good father's secrets, and I never saw a better head for
+business. Why, this is Jock, I believe, grown into a man almost! I
+wonder if he has any of his father's talent? Is it about him you want to
+consult me? Why, that's perfectly natural, now he's coming to an age to
+look to the future," Mr. Rushton said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! it is not about Jock. He is only sixteen, and, besides, it is
+something that is much more difficult," said Lucy. And then she paused,
+and cleared her throat, and put down her muff among Mr. Rushton's
+papers, that she might have her hands free for this tremendous piece of
+business. Then she said, with a sort of desperation, looking him in the
+face: "I have come to get you to&mdash;settle some money for me in obedience
+to papa's will."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rushton started as if he had been shot. "You don't mean&mdash;&mdash;" he
+cried, "You don't mean&mdash;&mdash; Come, I dare say I am making a mountain out of
+a mole-hill, and that what you are thinking of is quite innocent. If not
+about our young friend here, some of your charities or improvements? You
+are a most extravagant little lady in your improvements, Lady Randolph.
+Those last cottages you know&mdash;but I don't doubt the estate will reap the
+advantage, and it's an outlay that pays; oh, yes, I don't deny it's an
+outlay that pays."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's countenance betrayed the futility of this supposition long before
+he had finished speaking. He had been standing with his back to the
+fire, in a cheerful and easy way. Now his countenance grew grave. He
+drew his chair to the table and sat down facing her. "If it is not that,
+what is it?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rushton," said Lucy, and she cleared her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> throat. She looked back
+to Jock for support, but he had his back turned to her, and was still
+reading the names on the lawyer's boxes. She turned round again with a
+little sigh. "Mr. Rushton, I want to carry out papa's will. You know all
+about it. It is codicil F. I have heard of some one who is the right
+kind of person. I want you to transfer ten thousand pounds&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer gave a sort of shriek; he bolted out of his chair, pushing it
+so far from him that the substantial mahogany shivered and tottered upon
+its four legs.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" he said, "Nonsense!" increasing the firmness of his tone
+until the word thundered forth in capitals, "NONSENSE!&mdash;you are going
+out of your senses; you don't know what you are saying. I made sure we
+had done with all this folly&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>When it had happened to Lucy to propose such an operation as she now
+proposed, for the first time, to her other trustee, she had been spoken
+to in a way which young ladies rarely experience. That excellent man of
+business had tried to put this young lady&mdash;then a very young lady&mdash;down,
+and he had not succeeded. It may be supposed that at her present age of
+twenty-three, a wife, a mother, and with a modest consciousness of her
+own place and position, she was not a less difficult antagonist. She was
+still a little frightened, and grew somewhat pale, but she looked
+steadfastly at Mr. Rushton with a nervous smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must not speak to me so," she said. "I am not a child, and
+I know my father's will and what it meant. It is not nonsense, nor
+folly&mdash;it may perhaps have been," she said with a little sigh&mdash;"not
+wise."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Lady Randolph," Mr. Rushton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> said precipitately,
+with a blush upon his middle-aged countenance, for to be sure, when you
+think of it, to tell a gracious young lady with a title, one of your
+chief clients, that she is talking nonsense, even if you have known her
+all her life, is going perhaps a little too far. "I am sure you will
+understand <i>that</i>  is what I meant," he cried, "unwise&mdash;the very word I
+meant. In the heat of the moment other words slip out, but no offence
+was intended."</p>
+
+<p>She made him a little bow; she was trembling, though she would not have
+him see it. "We are not here," she said, "to criticise my father." Lucy
+was scarcely half aware how much she had gained in composure and the art
+of self-command. "I think he would have been more wise and more kind to
+have done himself what he thought to be his duty; but what does that
+matter? You must not try to convince me, please, but take the
+directions, which are very simple. I have written them all down in this
+paper. If you think you ought to make independent inquiries, you have
+the right to do that; but you will spare the poor gentleman's feelings,
+Mr. Rushton. It is all put down here."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rushton took the paper from her hand. He smiled inwardly to himself,
+subduing his fret of impatience. "You will not object to let me talk it
+over," he said, "first with Sir Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy coloured, and then she grew pale. "You will remember," she said,
+"that it has nothing to do with my husband, Mr. Rushton."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear lady," said the lawyer, "I never expected to hear you, who I
+have always known as the best of wives, say of anything that it has
+nothing to do with your husband. Surely that is not how ladies speak of
+their lords?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucy heard a sound behind her which seemed to imply to her quick ear
+that Jock was losing patience. She had brought him with her, with the
+idea of deriving some support from his presence; but if Sir Tom had
+nothing to do with it, clearly on much stronger grounds neither had her
+brother. She turned round and cast a hurried warning glance at him. She
+had herself no words ready to reply to the lawyer's gibe. She would
+neither defend herself as from a grave accusation, nor reply in the same
+tone. "Mr. Rushton," she said faltering, "I don't think we need argue,
+need we? I have put down all the particulars. You know about it as well
+as I do. It is not for pleasure. If you think it is right, you will
+inquire about the gentleman&mdash;otherwise&mdash;I don't think there need be any
+more to say."</p>
+
+<p>"I will talk it over with Sir Tom," said Mr. Rushton, feeling that he
+had found the only argument by which to manage this young woman. He even
+chuckled a little to himself at the thought. "Evidently," he said to
+himself, "she is afraid of Sir Tom, and he knows nothing about this. He
+will soon put a stop to it." He added aloud, "My dear Lady Randolph,
+this is far too serious a matter to be dismissed so summarily. You are
+young and very inexperienced. Of course I know all about it, and so does
+Sir Thomas. We will talk it over between us, and no doubt we will manage
+to decide upon some course that will harmonise everything."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked at him with grave suspicion. "I don't know," she said, "what
+there is to be harmonised, Mr. Rushton. There is a thing which I have to
+do, and I have shrunk from it for a long time; but I cannot do so any
+longer."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Jock, "it's Lucy's affair, it's nobody else's. Just
+you look at her paper and do what she says."</p>
+
+<p>"My young friend," said the lawyer blandly, "that is capital advice for
+yourself: I hope you always do what your sister says."</p>
+
+<p>"Most times I do," said Jock; "not that it's your business to tell me.
+But you know very well you'll have to do it. No one has got any right to
+interfere with her. She has more sense than a dozen. She has got the
+right on her side. You may do what you please, but you know very well
+you can't stop her&mdash;neither you, nor Sir Tom, nor the old lady, nor one
+single living creature; and you know it," said Jock. He confronted Mr.
+Rushton with lowering brows, and with an angry sparkle in his deep-set
+eyes. Lucy was half proud of and half alarmed by her champion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh hush, Jock!" she cried. "You must not speak; you are only a boy. You
+must beg Mr. Rushton's pardon for speaking to him so. But, indeed, what
+he says is quite true; it is no one's duty but mine. My husband will not
+interfere with what he knows I must do," she said, with a little chill
+of apprehension. Would he indeed be so considerate for her? It made her
+heart sick to think that she was not on this point quite certain about
+Sir Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case there will be no harm in talking it over with him," said
+the lawyer briefly. "I thought you were far too sensible not to see that
+was the right way. Oh, never mind about his asking my pardon. I forgive
+him without that. He has a high idea of his sister's authority, which is
+quite right; and so have I&mdash;and so have all of us. Certainly, certainly,
+Master Jock, she has the right; and she will arrange it judi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>ciously, of
+that there is no fear. But first, as a couple of business men, more
+experienced in the world than you young philanthropists, I will just,
+the first time I see him, talk it over with Sir Tom. My dear Lady
+Randolph, no trouble at all. Is that all I can do for you? Then I will
+not detain you any longer this fine morning," the lawyer said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>They drove away again with scarcely a word to each other. It was a
+bright, breezy, wintry day. The roads about Farafield were wet with
+recent rains, and gleamed in the sunshine. The river was as blue as
+steel, and gave forth a dazzling reflection; the bare trees stood up
+against the sky without a pretence of affording any shadow. The cold to
+these two young people, warmly dressed and prosperous, was nothing to
+object to&mdash;indeed, it was not very cold. But they both had a slight
+sense of discomfiture&mdash;a feeling of having suffered in their own
+opinion. Jock, who was much regarded at school as a fellow high up, and
+a great friend of his tutor, was not used to such unceremonious
+treatment, and he was wroth to see that even Lucy was supposed to
+require the sanction of Sir Tom for what it was clearly her own business
+to do. He said nothing, however, until they had quite cleared the town,
+and were skimming along the more open country roads; then he said
+suddenly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That old Rushton has a great deal of cheek. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> should have another
+fellow to manage my affairs, Lucy, if I were you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know, Jock, that I can't? Papa appointed him. He is my
+trustee; he has always to be consulted. Papa did not mind," said Lucy
+with a little sigh. "He said it would be good for me to be contradicted,
+and not to have my own way."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you have your own way?" said Jock, opening his eyes. "Lucy, who
+contradicts you? I should like to know who it was, and tell him my mind
+a bit. I thought you did whatever you pleased. Do you mean to say there
+is any truth in all that about Sir Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"In what about Sir Tom?" cried Lucy, instantly on her defence; and then
+she changed her tone with a little laugh. "Of course I do whatever I
+please. It is not good for anybody, Jock. Don't you know we must be
+crossed sometimes, or we should never do any good at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now I wonder which she means?" said Jock. "If she does have her own way
+or if she don't? I begin to think you speak something else than English,
+Lucy. I know it is the thing to say that women must do what their
+husbands tell them; but do you mean that it's true like <i>that</i>? and that
+a fellow may order you to do this or not to do that, with what is your
+own and not his at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I understand you, dear," said Lucy sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you can't be such a stupid as that," said the boy; "you understand
+right enough. What did he mean by talking it over with Sir Tom? He
+thought Sir Tom would put a stop to it, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"If Mr. Rushton forms such false ideas, dear, what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> does it matter? That
+is not of any consequence either to you or me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would give me a plain answer," said Jock, impatiently. "I
+ask you one thing, and you say another; you never give me any
+satisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled upon him with a look which, clever as Jock was, he did not
+understand. "Isn't that conversation?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Conversation!" The boy repeated the word almost with a shriek of
+disdain: "You don't know very much about that, down here in the country,
+Lucy. You should hear MTutor; when he's got two or three fellows from
+Cambridge with him, and they go at it! That's something like talk."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very nice for you, Jock, that you get on so well with Mr.
+Derwentwater," said Lucy, catching with some eagerness at this way of
+escape from embarrassing questions. "I hope he will come and see us at
+Easter, as he promised."</p>
+
+<p>"He may," said Jock, with great gravity, "but the thing is, everybody
+wants to have him; and then, you see, whenever he has an opportunity he
+likes to go abroad. He says it freshens one up more than anything. After
+working his brain all the half, as he does, and taking the interest he
+does in everything, he has got to pay attention, you know, and not to
+overdo it; he must have change, and he must have rest."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was much impressed by this, as she was by all she heard of MTutor.
+She was quite satisfied that such immense intellectual exertions as his
+did indeed merit compensation. She said, "I am sure he would get rest
+with us, Jock. There would be nothing to tire him, and whatever I could
+do for him, dear, or Sir Tom either, we should be glad, as he is so good
+to you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that he's what you call fond of the country&mdash;I mean the
+English country. Of course it is different abroad," said Jock
+doubtfully. Then he came back to the original subject with a bound,
+scattering all Lucy's hopes. "But we didn't begin about MTutor. It was
+the other business we were talking of. Is it true that Sir Tom&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Jock," said Lucy seriously. Her mild eyes got a look he had never seen
+in them before. It was a sort of dilation of unshed tears, and yet they
+were not wet. "If you know any time when Sir Tom was ever unkind or
+untrue, I don't know it. He has always, always been good. I don't think
+he will change now. I have always done what he told me, and I always
+will. But he never told me anything. He knows a great deal better than
+all of us put together. Of course, to obey him, that is my first duty.
+And I always shall. But he never asks it&mdash;he is too good. What is his
+will, is my will," she said. She fixed her eyes very seriously on Jock,
+all the time she spoke, and he followed every movement of her lips with
+a sort of astonished confusion, which it is difficult to describe. When
+she had ceased Jock drew a long breath, and seemed to come to the
+surface again, after much tossing in darker waters.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that it must be true," he said slowly, after a pause, "as
+people say&mdash;that women are very queer, Lucy. I didn't understand one
+word you said."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you, then?" she said, with a smile of gentle benignity; "but
+what does it matter, when it will all come right in the end? Is that our
+omnibus, Jock, that is going along with all that luggage? How curious
+that is, for nobody was coming to-day that I know of. Don't you see it
+just turning in to the avenue? Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> that is very strange indeed," said
+Lucy, raising herself very erect upon her cushions with a little
+quickened and eager look. An arrival is always exciting in the country,
+and an arrival which was quite unexpected, and of which she could form
+no surmise as to who it could be, stirred up all her faculties. "I
+wonder if Mrs. Freshwater will know what rooms are best?" she said, "and
+if Sir Tom will be at home to receive them; or perhaps it may be some
+friends of Aunt Randolph's, or perhaps&mdash;I wonder very much who it can
+be."</p>
+
+<p>Jock's countenance covered itself quickly with a tinge of gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever it is, I know it will be disgusting," cried the boy. "Just when
+we have got so much to talk about! and now I shall never see you any
+more. Lady Randolph was bad enough, and now here's more of them! I
+should just as soon go back to school at once," he said, with premature
+indignation. The servants on the box perceived the other carriage in
+advance with equal curiosity and excitement. They were still more
+startled, perhaps, for a profound wonder as to what horses had been sent
+out, and who was driving them, agitated their minds. The horses,
+solicited by a private token between them and their driver which both
+understood, quickened their pace with a slight dash, and the carriage
+swept along as if in pursuit of the larger and heavier vehicle, which,
+however, had so much the advance of them, that it had deposited its
+passengers, and turned round to the servants' entrance with the luggage,
+before Lady Randolph could reach the door. Williams the butler wore a
+startled look upon his dignified countenance, as he came out on the
+steps to receive his mistress.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Some one has arrived," said Lucy with a little eagerness. "We saw the
+omnibus."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my lady. A telegram came for Sir Thomas soon after your ladyship
+left; there was just time to put in the horses&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But who is it, Williams?"</p>
+
+<p>Williams had a curious apologetic air. "I heard say, my lady, that it
+was some of the party that were invited before Mr. Randolph fell ill.
+There had been a mistake about the letters, and the lady has come all
+the same&mdash;a lady with a foreign title, my lady&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Lucy, with English brevity. She stood startled, in the hall,
+lingering a little, changing colour, not with any of the deep emotions
+which Williams from his own superior knowledge suspected, but with
+shyness and excitement. "It will be the lady from Italy, the
+Contessa&mdash;&mdash; Oh, I hope they have attended to her properly! Was Sir
+Thomas at home when she came?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Thomas, my lady, went to meet them at the station," Williams said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is all right," cried Lucy, relieved. "I am so glad she did not
+arrive and find nobody. And I hope Mrs. Freshwater&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Freshwater put the party into the east wing, my lady. There are
+two ladies besides the man and the maid. We thought it would be the
+warmest for them, as they came from the South."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be the warmest, but it is not the prettiest," said Lucy. "The
+lady is a great friend of Sir Thomas', Williams."</p>
+
+<p>The man gave her a curious look.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my lady, I was aware of that," he said.</p>
+
+<p>This surprised Lucy a little, but for the moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> she took no notice of
+it. "And therefore," she went on, "the best rooms should have been got
+ready. Mrs. Freshwater ought to have known that. However, perhaps she
+will change afterwards. Jock, I will just run upstairs and see that
+everything is right."</p>
+
+<p>As she turned towards the great staircase, so saying, she ran almost
+into her husband's arms. Sir Tom had appeared from a side door, where he
+had been on the watch, and it was certain that his face bore some traces
+of the new event that had happened. He was not at his ease as usual. He
+laughed a little uncomfortable laugh, and put his hand on Lucy's
+shoulder as she brushed against him. "There," he said, "that will do;
+don't be in such a hurry," arresting her in full career.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom!" Lucy for her part looked at her husband with the greatest
+relief and happiness. There had been a cloud between them which had been
+more grievous to her than anything else in the world. She had felt
+hourly compelled to stand up before him and tell him that she must do
+what he desired her not to do. The consternation and pain and wrath that
+had risen over his face after that painful interview had not passed away
+through all the intervening time. There had been a sort of desperation
+in her mind when she went to Mr. Rushton, a feeling that she so hated
+the duty which had risen like a ghost between her husband and herself,
+that she must do it at all hazards and without delay. But this cloud had
+now departed from Sir Tom's countenance. There was a little suffusion of
+colour upon it which was unusual to him. Had it been anybody but Sir
+Tom, it would have looked like embarrassment, shyness mingled with a
+certain self-ridicule and sense of the ludicrous in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> position
+altogether. He caught his wife in his arms and met her eyes with a
+certain laughing shamefacedness, "Don't," he said, "be in such a hurry,
+Lucy. <i>Ces dames</i>  have gone to their rooms; they have been travelling
+all night, and they are not fit to be seen. It is only silly little
+English girls like you that can bear to be looked at at all times and
+seasons." And with this he stooped over her and gave her a kiss on her
+forehead, to Lucy's delight, yet horror&mdash;before Williams, who looked on
+approving, and the footman with the traps, and Jock and all! But what a
+load it took off her breast! He was not any longer vexed or disturbed or
+angry. He was indeed conciliatory and apologetic, but Lucy only saw that
+he was kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor lady," cried Lucy, "has she been travelling all night? And I am so
+sorry she has been put into the east wing. If I had been at home I
+should have said the blue rooms, Tom, which you know are the nicest&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I think they are quite comfortable, my dear," said Sir Tom, with his
+usual laugh, which was half-mocking half-serious, "you may be sure they
+will ask for anything they want. They are quite accustomed to making
+themselves at home."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I hope so, Tom," said Lucy, "but don't you think it would be more
+polite, more respectful, if I were to go and ask if they have
+everything? Mrs. Freshwater is very well you know, Tom, but the mistress
+of the house&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He gave her another little hug, and laughed again. "No," he said, "you
+may be sure Madame Forno-Populo is not going to let you see her till she
+has repaired all ravages. It was extremely indiscreet of me to go to the
+station," he continued, still with that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> chuckle, leading Lucy away. "I
+had forgotten all these precautions after a few years of you, Lucy. I
+was received with a shriek of horror and a double veil."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked at him with great surprise, asking: "Why? wasn't she glad to
+see you?" with incipient indignation and a sense of grievance.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," cried Sir Tom, "indeed I heard her mutter something about
+English savagery. The Contessa expresses herself strongly sometimes.
+Freshwater and the maid, and the excellent breakfast Williams has
+ordered, knowing her ways&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Does Williams know her ways?" asked Lucy, wondering. There was not the
+faintest gleam of suspicion in her mind; but she was surprised, and her
+husband bit his lip for a moment, yet laughed still.</p>
+
+<p>"He knows those sort of people," he said. "I was very much about in
+society at one time you must know, Lucy, though I am such a steady old
+fellow now. We knew something of most countries in these days. We were
+<i>bien vu</i>, he and I, in various places. Don't tell Mrs. Williams, my
+love." He laughed almost violently at this mild joke, and Lucy looked
+surprised. But still no shadow came upon her simple countenance. Lucy
+was like Desdemona, and did not believe that there were such women. She
+thought it was "fun," such fun as she sometimes saw in the newspapers,
+and considered as vulgar as it was foolish. Such words could not be used
+in respect to anything Sir Tom said, but even in her husband it was not
+good taste, Lucy thought. She smiled at the reference to Mrs. Williams
+with a kind of quiet disdain, but it never occurred to her that she too
+might require to be kept in the dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I dare say most of what you are talking is nonsense," she said; "but if
+Madame Forno&mdash;&mdash;"&mdash;Lucy was not very sure of the name, and
+hesitated&mdash;"is really very tired, perhaps it may be kindness not to
+disturb her. I hope she will go to bed, and get a thorough rest. Did she
+not get your second letter, Tom? and what a thing it is that dear baby
+is so much better, and that we can really pay a little attention to
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"Either she did not get my letter, or I didn't write, I cannot say which
+it was, Lucy. But now we have got her we must pay attention to her, as
+you say. You will have to get up a few dinner parties, and ask some
+people to stay. She will like to see the humours of the wilderness while
+she is in it."</p>
+
+<p>"The wilderness&mdash;but, Tom, everybody says society is so good in the
+county."</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody does not know the Forno-Populo," cried Sir Tom; and then he
+burst out into a great laugh. "I wonder what her Grace will say to the
+Contessa; they have met before now."</p>
+
+<p>"Must we ask the Duchess?" cried Lucy, with awe and alarm, coming a
+little nearer to her husband's side.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Tom did nothing but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms,"
+he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two &mdash;&mdash; at
+it tooth and nail. Two&mdash;what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no
+mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as for
+the Forno-Populo herself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Tom" said Lucy with gentle gravity, "Is it nice to speak of ladies
+so? If any one called me the Randolph, I should be, oh, so&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You," cried her husband with a hot and angry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> colour rising to his very
+hair, and then he perceived that he was betraying himself, and paused.
+"You see, my love, that's different," he said. "Madame di Forno-Populo
+is&mdash;an old stager: and you are very young, and nobody ever thought of
+you but with&mdash;reverence, my dear. Yes, that's the word, Lucy, though you
+are only a bit of a girl."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom," said Lucy with great dignity, "I have you to take care of me, and
+I have never been known in the world. But, dear, if this poor lady has
+no one&mdash;and I suppose she is a widow, is she not, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>He had been listening to her almost with emotion&mdash;with a half-abashed
+look, full of fondness and admiration. But at this question he drew back
+a little, with a sort of stagger, and burst into a wild fit of laughter.
+When he came to himself wiping his eyes, he was, there could be no
+doubt, ashamed of himself. "I beg you ten thousand pardons," he cried.
+"Lucy, my darling! Yes, yes&mdash;I suppose she is a widow, as you say."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked at him while he laughed, with profound gravity, without the
+slightest inclination to join in his merriment, which is a thing which
+has a very uncomfortable effect. She waited till he was done, with a
+mixture of wonder and disapproval in her seriousness, looking at his
+laughter as if at some phenomenon which she did not understand. "I have
+often heard gentlemen," she said, "talk about widows as if it were a
+sort of laughable name, and as if they might make their jokes as they
+pleased. But I did not think you would have done it, Tom. I should feel
+all the other way," said Lucy. "I should think I could never do enough
+to make it up, if that were possible, and to make them forget. Is it
+their fault that they are left desolate, that a man should laugh?" She
+turned away from her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> husband with a soft superiority of innocence and
+true feeling which struck him dumb.</p>
+
+<p>He begged her pardon in the most abject way; and then he left her for a
+moment quietly, and had his laugh out. But he was ashamed of himself all
+the same. "I wonder what she will say when she sees the Forno-Populo,"
+he said to himself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>FOREWARNED.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy did not see her visitors till the hour of dinner. She had expected
+them to appear in the afternoon at the mystic hour of tea, which calls
+an English household together, but when it was represented to her that
+afternoon tea was not the same interesting institution in Italy, her
+surprise ceased, and though her expectations were still more warmly
+excited by this delay, she bore it with becoming patience. There was no
+doubt, however, that the arrival had made a great commotion in the
+house, and Lucy perceived without in the least understanding it, a
+peculiarity in the looks which various of the people around her cast
+upon her during the course of the day. Her own maid was one of these
+people, and Mrs. Freshwater, the housekeeper, who explained in a
+semi-apologetic tone all the preparations she had made for the comfort
+of the guests, was another. And Williams, though he was always so
+dignified, thought Lucy could not help feeling an eye upon her. He was
+almost compassionately attentive to his young mistress. There was a
+certain pathos in the way in which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> handed her the potatoes at lunch.
+He pressed a little more claret upon her with a fatherly anxiety, and an
+air that seemed to say, "It will do you good." Lucy was conscious of all
+this additional attention without realising the cause of it. But it
+found its culmination in Lady Randolph, in whom a slightly-injured and
+aggrieved air towards Sir Tom was enhanced by the extreme tenderness of
+her aspect to Lucy, for whom she could not do too much. "Williams is
+quite right in giving you a little more wine. You take nothing," she
+said, "and I am sure you want support. After your long drive, too, my
+dear: and how cold it has been this morning!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was cold; but we did not mind, we rather liked it, Jock and I.
+Poor Madame di Forno-Populo! She must have felt it travelling all
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo, Lucy, that is right! you have tackled the name at last, and got
+through with it beautifully," said Sir Tom with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was pleased to be praised. "I hope I shan't forget," she said, "it
+is so long: and oh, Tom, I do hope she can talk English, for you know my
+French."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think she could talk English!" said Lady Randolph, with a
+little scorn. And what was very extraordinary was that Williams showed a
+distinct but suppressed consciousness, putting his lips tight as if to
+keep in what he knew about the matter. "And I don't think you need be so
+sorry for the lady, Lucy," said the dowager. "No doubt she didn't mean
+to travel by night. It arose from some mistake or other in Tom's letter.
+But she does not mind that, you may be sure, now that she has made out
+her point."</p>
+
+<p>"What point?" said Sir Tom, with some heat. But Lady Randolph made no
+reply, and he did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> press the question. They were both aware that it
+is sometimes better to hold one's tongue. And the curious thing to all
+of those well-informed persons was that Lucy took no notice of all their
+hints and innuendoes. She was in the greatest spirits, not only
+interested about her unknown visitors and anxious to secure their
+comfort, but in herself more gay than she had been for some time past.
+In fact this arrival was a godsend to Lucy. The cloud had disappeared
+entirely from her husband's brow. Instead of making any inquiries about
+her visit to Farafield, or resuming the agitating discussion which had
+ended in what was really a refusal on her part to do what he wished, he
+was full of a desire to conciliate and please her. The matter which had
+brought so stern a look to his face, and occasioned her an anxiety and
+pain far more severe than anything that had occurred before in her
+married life, seemed to have dropped out of his mind altogether. Instead
+of that opposition and disapproval, mingled with angry suspicion, which
+had been in his manner and looks, he was now on the watch to propitiate
+Lucy; to show a gratitude for which she knew no reason, and a pride in
+her which was still less comprehensible. What did it all mean, the
+compassion on one side, the satisfaction on the other? But Lucy scarcely
+asked herself the question. In her relief at having no new discussion
+with her husband, and at his apparent forgetfulness of all displeasure
+and of any question between them, her heart rose with all the glee of a
+child's. It seemed to her that she had surmounted the difficulties of
+her position by an intervention which was providential. It even occurred
+to her innocent mind to make reflections as to the advantage of doing
+what was right in the face of all difficulties. God, she said to
+herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>, evidently was protecting her. It was known in heaven what an
+effort it had cost her to do her duty to fulfil her father's will, and
+now heavenly succour was coming, and the difficulties disappearing out
+of her way. Lucy would have been ready in any case with the most
+unhesitating readiness to receive and do any kindness to her husband's
+friend. No idea of jealousy had come into her unsuspicious soul. She had
+taken it as a matter of course that this unknown lady should have the
+best that the Hall could offer her, and that her old alliance with Sir
+Tom should throw open his doors and his wife's heart. Perhaps it was
+because Lucy's warm and simple-minded attachment to her husband had
+little in it of the character of passion that it was thus entirely
+without any impulse of jealousy. And what was so natural in common
+circumstances became still more so in the exhilaration and rebound of
+her troubled heart. Sir Tom was so kind to her in departing from his
+opposition, in letting her have her way without a word. It was certain
+that Lucy would not have relinquished her duty for any opposition he had
+made. But with what a bleeding heart she would have done it, and how
+hateful would have been the necessity which separated her from his
+goodwill and assistance! Now she felt that terrible danger was over.
+Probably he would not ask her what she had been about. He would not give
+it his approval, which would have been most sweet of all, but if he did
+not interfere, if he permitted it to be done without opposition, without
+even demanding of his wife an account of her action, how much that would
+be, and how cordially, with what a genuine impulse of the heart would
+she set to work to carry out his wishes&mdash;he who had been so generous, so
+kind to her! This was how it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> was that her gaiety, the ease and
+happiness of her look, startled them all so much. That she should have
+been amiable to the new comers was comprehensible. She was so amiable by
+nature, and so ignorant and unsuspicious: but that their coming should
+give her pleasure, this was the thing that confounded the spectators:
+they could not understand how any other subject should withdraw her from
+what is supposed to be a wife's master emotion&mdash;nay, they could not
+understand how it was that mere instinct had not enlightened Lucy, and
+pointed out to her what elements were coming together that would be
+obnoxious to her peace. Even Sir Tom felt this, with a deepened
+tenderness for his pure-minded little wife, and pride in her
+unconsciousness. Was there another woman in England who would have been
+so entirely generous, so unaware even of the possibility of evil? He
+admired her for it, and wondered&mdash;if it was a little silly (which he had
+a kind of undisclosed suspicion that it was), yet what a heavenly
+silliness. There was nobody else who would have been so magnanimous, so
+confident in his perfect honour and truth.</p>
+
+<p>The only other element that could have added to Lucy's satisfaction was
+also present. Little Tom was better than usual. Notwithstanding the cold
+he had been able to go out, and was all the brighter for it, not chilled
+and coughing as he sometimes was. His mother had found him careering
+about his nursery in wild glee, and flinging his toys about, in
+perfectly boyish, almost mannish, altogether wicked, indifference to the
+danger of destroying them. It was this that brought her downstairs
+radiant to the luncheon table, where Lady Randolph and Williams were so
+anxious to be good to her. Lucy was much surprised by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> solicitude
+which she felt to be so unnecessary. She was disposed to laugh at the
+care they took of her; feeling in her own mind, more triumphant, more
+happy and fortunate, than she had ever been before.</p>
+
+<p>As for Jock, he took no notice at all of the incident of the day. He
+perceived with satisfaction, a point on which for the moment he was
+unusually observant, that Sir Tom showed no intention of questioning
+them as to their morning's expedition or opposing Lucy. This being the
+case, what was it to the boy who went or came? A couple of ladies were
+quite indifferent to him. He did not expect anything or fear anything.
+His own doings interested him much more. The conversation about this new
+subject floated over his head. He did not take the trouble to pay any
+attention to it. As for Williams' significant looks or Lady Randolph's
+anxieties, Jock was totally unconscious of their existence. He did not
+pay any attention. When the party was not interesting he had plenty of
+other thoughts to retire into, and the coming of new people, except in
+so far as it might be a bore, did not affect him at all.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy went out dutifully for a drive with Lady Randolph after luncheon.
+It was still very bright, though it was cold, and after a little demur
+as to the propriety of going out when it was possible her guests might
+be coming downstairs, Lucy took her place beside the fur-enveloped
+Dowager with her hot water footstool and mountain of wrappings. They
+talked about ordinary matters for a little, about the landscape and the
+improvements, and about little Tom, whose improvement was the most
+important of all. But it was not possible to continue long upon
+indifferent matters in face of the remarkable events which had disturbed
+the family calm.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," said Lucy, "that Madame di Forno<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>-Populo" (she was very
+careful about all the syllables) "may not be more active than you think,
+and come down while we are away."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is not the least fear," said Lady Randolph, somewhat
+scornfully. "She was always a candle-light beauty. She is not very fond
+of the eye of day."</p>
+
+<p>"She is a beauty, then?" said Lucy. "I am very glad. There are so few.
+You know I have always been&mdash;rather&mdash;disappointed. There are many pretty
+people: but to be beautiful is quite different."</p>
+
+<p>"That is because you are so unsophisticated, my dear. You don't
+understand that beauty in society means a fashion, and not much more. I
+have seen a quantity of beauties in my day. How they came to be so,
+nobody knew; but there they were, and we all bowed down to them. This
+woman, however, was very pretty, there was no doubt about it," said Lady
+Randolph, with reluctant candour. "I don't know what she may be now. She
+was enough to turn any man's head when she was young&mdash;or even a
+woman's&mdash;who ought to have known better."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think then, Aunt Randolph, that women don't admire pretty
+people?" It is to be feared that Lucy asked for the sake of making
+conversation, which it is sometimes necessary to do.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that men and women see differently&mdash;as they always do," said
+Lady Randolph. She was rather fond of discriminating between the ideas
+of the sexes, as many ladies of a reasonable age are. "There is a
+gentleman's beauty, you know, and there is a kind of beauty that women
+love. I could point out the difference to you better if the specimens
+were before us; but it is a little difficult to describe. I rather
+think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> we admire expression, you know. What men care for is flesh and
+blood. We like people that are good&mdash;that is to say, who have the air of
+being good, for the reality doesn't by any means follow. Perhaps I am
+taking too much credit to ourselves," said the old lady, "but that is
+the best description I can hit upon. We like the interesting kind&mdash;the
+pensive kind&mdash;which was the fashion when I was young. Your great, fat,
+golden-haired, red and white women are gentlemen's beauties; they don't
+commend themselves to us."</p>
+
+<p>"And is Madame di Forno-Populo," said Lucy, in her usual elaborate way,
+"of that kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! my dear, she is just a witch," Lady Randolph said. "It does not
+matter who it is, she can bring them to her feet if she pleases!" Then
+she seemed to think she had gone too far, and stopped herself: "I mean
+when she was young; she is young no longer, and I dare say all that has
+come to an end."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be sad to grow old when one is like that," said Lucy, with a
+look of sympathetic regret.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you are a great deal too charitable, Lucy!" said the old lady: and
+then she stopped short, putting a sudden restraint upon herself, as if
+it were possible that she might have said too much; then after a while
+she resumed: "As you are in such a heavenly frame of mind, my dear, and
+disposed to think so well of her, there is just one word of advice I
+will give you&mdash;don't allow yourself to get intimate with this lady. She
+is quite out of your way. If she liked, she could turn you round her
+little finger. But it is to be hoped she will not like; and, in any
+case, you must remember that I have warned you. Don't let her, my dear,
+make a catspaw of you."</p>
+
+<p>"A catspaw of me!" Lucy was amused by these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> words&mdash;not offended, as so
+many might have been&mdash;perhaps because she felt herself little likely to
+be so dominated; a fact that the much older and more experienced woman
+by her side was quite unaware of. "But," she said, "Tom would not have
+invited her, Aunt Randolph, if he had thought her likely to do
+that&mdash;indeed, how could he have been such great friends with her if she
+had not been nice as well as pretty? You forget there must always be
+that in her favour to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom!" cried Lady Randolph with indignation. "My dear Lucy," she
+added after a pause, with subdued exasperation, "men are the most
+unaccountable creatures! Knowing him as I do, I should have thought she
+was the very last person&mdash;but how can we tell? I dare say the idea
+amused him. Tom will do anything that amuses him&mdash;or tickles his vanity.
+I confess it is as you say, very, very difficult to account for it; but
+he has done it. He wants to show off a little to her, I suppose; or else
+he&mdash;&mdash; There is really no telling, Lucy. It is the last thing in the
+world I should have thought of; and you may be quite sure, my dear," she
+added with emphasis, "she never would have been invited at all if he had
+expected me to be here when she came."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy did not make any answer for some time. Her face, which had kept its
+gaiety and radiance, grew grave, and when they had driven back towards
+the hall for about ten minutes in silence, she said quietly "You do not
+mean it, I am sure; but do you know, Aunt Randolph, you are trying to
+make me think very badly of my husband; and no one has ever done that
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, your husband is just like other people's hus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>bands, Lucy," cried
+the elder lady impatiently. Then, however, she subdued herself, with an
+anxious look at her companion. "My dear, you know how fond I am of Tom:
+and I know he is fond of you; he would not do anything to harm you for
+the world. I suppose it is because he has such a prodigious confidence
+in you that he thinks it does not matter; and I don't suppose it does
+matter. The only thing is, don't be over intimate with her, Lucy; don't
+let her fix herself upon you when you go to town, and talk about young
+Lady Randolph as her dearest friend. She is quite capable of doing it.
+And as for Tom&mdash;well, he is just a man when all is said."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy did not ask any more questions. That she was greatly perplexed
+there is no doubt, and her first fervour of affectionate interest in
+Tom's friend was slightly damped, or at least changed. But she was more
+curious than ever; and there was in her mind the natural contradiction
+of youth against the warnings addressed to her. Lucy knew very well that
+she herself was not one to be twisted round anybody's little finger. She
+was not afraid of being subjugated; and she had a prejudice in favour of
+her husband which neither Lady Randolph nor any other witness could
+impair. The drive home was more silent than the outset. Naturally, the
+cold increased as the afternoon went on, and the Dowager shrunk into her
+furs, and declared that she was too much chilled to talk. "Oh how
+pleasant a cup of tea will be," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy longed for her part to get down from the carriage and walk home
+through the village, to see all the cottage fires burning, and quicken
+the blood in her veins, which is a better way than fur for keeping one's
+self warm. When they got in, it was exciting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> to think that perhaps the
+stranger was coming down to tea; though that, as has been already said,
+was a hope in which Lucy was disappointed. Everything was prepared for
+her reception, however&mdash;a sort of throne had been arranged for her, a
+special chair near the fire, shaded by a little screen, and with a
+little table placed close to it to hold her cup of tea. The room was all
+in a ruddy blaze of firelight, the atmosphere delightful after the cold
+air outside, and all the little party a little quiet, thinking that
+every sound that was heard must be the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"She must have been very tired," Lucy said sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say," said Lady Randolph, "she thinks a dinner dress will make a
+better effect."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked towards her husband almost with indignation, with eyes that
+asked why he did not defend his friend. But, to be sure, Sir Tom could
+not judge of their expression in the firelight, and instead of defending
+her he only laughed. "One general understands another's tactics," he
+said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VISITORS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sir Tom paid his wife a visit when she was in the midst of her toilette
+for dinner. He came in, and looked at her dress with an air of
+dissatisfaction. It was a white dress, of a kind which suited Lucy very
+well, and which she was in the habit of wearing for small home parties,
+at which full dress was unneces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>sary. He looked at her from head to
+foot, and gave a little pull to her skirt with a doubtful air. "It
+doesn't sit, does it?" he said; "can't you pin it, or something, to make
+it come better?"</p>
+
+<p>This, it need not be said, was a foolish piece of ignorance on Sir Tom's
+part, and as Miss Fletcher, Lucy's maid, thought, "just like a man."
+Fletcher was for the moment not well-disposed towards Sir Tom. She
+said&mdash;"Oh no, Sir Thomas, my lady don't hold with pins. Some ladies may
+that are all for effect; but my lady, that is not her way."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom felt that these words inclosed a dart as sharp as any pin, and
+directed at himself; but he took no notice. He walked round his wife,
+eyeing her on every side; and then he gave a little pull to her hair as
+he had done to her dress. "After all," he said, "it is some time since
+you left school, Lucy. Why this simplicity? I want you to look your best
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"But, dear Tom," said Lucy, "you always say that I am not to be
+over-dressed."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want you to be under-dressed; there is plenty of time. Don't
+you think you might do a little more in the way of toilette? Put on some
+lace or something; Fletcher will know. Look here, Fletcher, I want Lady
+Randolph to look very well to-night. Don't you think this get-up would
+stand improvement? I dare say you could do it with ribbons, or
+something. We must not have her look like my grandchild, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Upon which Fletcher, somewhat mollified and murmuring that Sir Thomas
+was a gentleman that would always have his joke, answered boldly that
+<i>that</i>  was not how she would have dressed her lady had she had the doing
+of it. "But I know my place," Fletcher said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> "though to see my lady
+like this always goes against me, Sir Thomas, and especially with
+foreigners in the house that are always dressed up to the nines and
+don't think of nothing else. But if Lady Randolph would wear her blue it
+could all be done in five minutes, and look far nicer and more like the
+lady of the house."</p>
+
+<p>This transfer was finally made, for Lucy had no small obstinacies and
+was glad to please her husband. The "blue" was of the lightest tint of
+shimmering silk, and gave a little background of colour, upon which
+Lucy's fairness and whiteness stood out. Sir Thomas always took an
+interest in his wife's dress; but it was seldom he occupied himself so
+much about it. It was he who went to the conservatory to get a flower
+for her hair. He took her downstairs upon his arm "as if they were out
+visiting," Lucy said, instead of at home in their own house. She was
+amused at all this form and ceremony, and came down to the drawing-room
+with a little flush of pleasure and merriment about her, quite different
+from the demure little Lady Randolph, half frightened and very serious,
+with the weight on her mind of a strange language to be spoken, who but
+for Sir Tom's intervention would have been standing by the fire awaiting
+her visitor. The Dowager was downstairs before her, looking grave
+enough, and Jock, slim and dark, supporting a corner of the mantelpiece,
+like a young Caryatides in black. Lucy's brightness, her pretty shimmer
+of blue, the flower in her hair, relieved these depressing influences.
+She stood in the firelight with the ruddy irregular glare playing on
+her, a pretty youthful figure; and her husband's assiduities, and the
+entire cessation of any apparent consciousness on his part that any
+question had ever arisen between them, made Lucy's heart light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> in her
+breast. She forgot even the possibility of having to talk French in the
+ease of her mind; and before she had time to remember her former alarm
+there came gliding through the subdued light of the greater drawing-room
+two figures. Sir Tom stepped forward to meet the stranger, who gave him
+her hand as if she saw him for the first time, and Lucy advanced with a
+little tremor. Here was the Contessa&mdash;the Forno-Populo&mdash;the foreign
+great lady and great beauty at last.</p>
+
+<p>She was tall&mdash;almost as tall as Sir Tom&mdash;and had the majestic grace
+which only height can give. She was clothed in dark velvet, which fell
+in long folds to her feet, and her hair, which seemed very abundant, was
+much dressed with puffs and curlings and frizzings, which filled Lucy
+with wonder, but furnished a delicate frame-work for her beautiful,
+clear, high features, and the wonderful tint of her complexion&mdash;a sort
+of warm ivory, which made all brighter colours look excessive. Her eyes
+were large and blue, with long but not very dark eyelashes; her throat
+was like a slender column out of a close circle of feathery lace. Lucy,
+who had a great deal of natural taste, felt on the moment a thrill of
+shame on account of her blue gown, and an almost disgust of Lady
+Randolph's old-fashioned openness about the shoulders. The stranger was
+one of those women whose dress always impresses other women with such a
+sense of fitness that fashion itself looks vulgar or insipid beside her.
+She gave Sir Tom her left hand in passing, and then she turned with both
+extended to Lucy. "So this is the little wife," she said. She did not
+pause for the modest little word of welcome which Lucy had prepared. She
+drew her into the light, and gazed at her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> with benignant but dauntless
+inspection, taking in, Lucy felt sure, every particular of her
+appearance&mdash;the something too much of the blue gown, the deficiency of
+dignity, the insignificance of the smooth fair locks, and open if
+somewhat anxious countenance. "<i>Bel enfant</i>," said the Contessa, "your
+husband and I are such old friends that I cannot meet you as a stranger.
+You must let me kiss you, and accept me as one of yours too." The
+salutation that followed made Lucy's heart jump with mingled pleasure
+and distaste. She was swallowed up altogether in that embrace. When it
+was over, the lady turned from her to Sir Tom without another word. "I
+congratulate you, <i>mon ami</i>. Candour itself, and sweetness, and every
+English quality"&mdash;upon which she proceeded to seat herself in the chair
+which Lucy had set for her in the afternoon with the screen and the
+footstool. "How thoughtful some one has been for my comfort," she said,
+sinking into it, and distributing a gracious smile all round. There was
+something in the way in which she seized the central place in the scene,
+and made all the others look like surroundings which bewildered Lucy,
+who did nothing but gaze, forgetting everything she meant to say, and
+even that it was she who was the mistress of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not see my aunt, Contessa," said Sir Tom, "and yet I think you
+ought to know each other."</p>
+
+<p>"Your aunt," said the Contessa, looking round, "that dear Lady
+Randolph&mdash;who is now Dowager. Chère dame!" she added, half rising,
+holding out again both hands.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Randolph the elder knew the world better than Lucy. She remained in
+the background into which the Contessa was looking with eyes which she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+called shortsighted. "How do you do, Madame di Forno-Populo!" she said.
+"It is a long time since we met. We have both grown older since that
+period. I hope you have recovered from your fatigue."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa sank back again into her chair. "Ah, <i>both</i>, yes!" she
+said, with an eloquent movement of her hands. At this Sir Tom gave vent
+to a faint chuckle, as if he could not contain himself any longer.</p>
+
+<p>"The passage of time is a myth," he said; "it is a fable; it goes the
+other way. To look at you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Both!" said the Contessa, with a soft, little laugh, spreading out her
+beautiful hands.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy hoped that Lady Randolph, who had kept behind, did not hear this
+last monosyllable, but she was angry with her husband for laughing, for
+abandoning his aunt's side, upon which she herself, astonished, ranged
+herself without delay. But what was still more surprising to Lucy, with
+her old-fashioned politeness, was to see the second stranger who had
+followed the Contessa into the room, but who had not been introduced or
+noticed. She had the air of being very young&mdash;a dependent probably, and
+looking for no attention&mdash;and with a little curtsey to the company,
+withdrew to the other side of the table on which the lamp was standing.
+Lucy had only time to see that there was a second figure, very slim and
+slight, and that the light of the lamp seemed to reflect itself in the
+soft oval of a youthful face as she passed behind it; but save for this
+noiseless movement the young lady gave not the smallest sign of
+existence, nor did any one notice her. And it was only when the summons
+came to dinner, and when Lucy called forth the bashful Jock to offer his
+awkward arm to Lady Randolph,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> that the unannounced and unconsidered
+guest came fully into sight.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no more gentlemen, and I think we must go in together," Lucy
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great honour for me," said the girl. She had a very slight
+foreign accent, but she was not in the least shy. She came forward at
+once with the utmost composure. Though she was a stranger and a
+dependent without a name, she was a great deal more at her ease than
+Lucy was, who was the mistress of everything. Lucy for her part was
+considerably embarrassed. She looked at the girl, who smiled at her, not
+without a little air of encouragement and almost patronage in return.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not heard your name," Lucy at last prevailed upon herself to
+say, as they went through the long drawing-room together. "It is very
+stupid of me; but I was occupied with Madame di Forno-Populo&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You could not hear it, for it was never mentioned," said the girl. "The
+Contessa does not think it worth while. I am at present in the cocoon.
+If I am pretty enough when I am quite grown up, then she will tell my
+name&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty enough? But what does that matter? one does not talk of such
+things," said the decorous little matron, startled and alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it means everything to me," said the anonymous. "It is doubtful
+what I shall be. If I am only a little pretty I shall be sent home; but
+if it should happen to me&mdash;ah! no such luck!&mdash;to be beautiful, then the
+Contessa will introduce me, and everybody says I may go far&mdash;farther,
+indeed, than even she has ever done. Where am I to sit? Beside you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Here, please," said Lucy, trembling a little, and confounded by the
+ease of this new actor on the scene, who spoke so frankly. She was
+dressed in a little black frock up to her throat; her hair in great
+shining bands coiled about her head, but not an ornament of any kind
+about her. A little charity girl could not have been dressed more
+plainly. But she showed no consciousness of this, nor, indeed, of
+anything that was embarrassing. She looked round the table with a free
+and fearless look. There was not about her any appearance of timidity,
+even in respect to the Contessa. She included that lady in her
+inspection as well as the others, and even made a momentary pause before
+she sat down, to complete her survey. Lucy, who had on ordinary
+occasions a great deal of gentle composure, and had sat with a Cabinet
+Minister by her side without feeling afraid, was more disconcerted than
+it would be easy to say by this young creature, of whom she did not know
+the name. It was so small a party that a separate little conversation
+with her neighbour was scarcely practicable, but the Contessa was
+talking to Sir Tom with the confidential air of one who has a great deal
+to say, and Lady Randolph on his other side was keeping a stern silence,
+so that Lucy was glad to make a little attempt at her end of the table.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have had a very fatiguing journey?" she said. "Travelling by
+night, when you are not used to it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But we are quite used to it," said the girl. "It is our usual way. By
+land it is so much easier: and even at sea one goes to bed, and one is
+at the other side before one knows."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are a good sailor, I suppose&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pas mal</i>," said the young lady. She began to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> look at Jock, and to
+turn round from time to time to the elder Lady Randolph, who sat on the
+other side of her. "They are not dumb, are they?" she asked. "Not once
+have I heard them speak. That is very English, so like what one reads in
+books."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak English very well, Mademoiselle," said the Dowager suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned round and examined her with a candid surprise. "I am so
+glad you do," she said calmly: a little <i>mot</i>  which brought the colour
+to Lady Randolph's cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"A pupil of the Contessa naturally knows a good many languages," she
+said, "and would be little at a loss wherever she went. You have come
+last from Florence, Rome, or perhaps some other capital. The Contessa
+has friends everywhere&mdash;still."</p>
+
+<p>This last little syllable caught the Contessa's fine ear, though it was
+not directed to her. She gave the Dowager a very gracious smile across
+the table. "Still," she repeated, "everywhere! People are so kind. My
+invitations are so many it was with difficulty I managed to accept that
+of our excellent Tom. But I had made up my mind not to disappoint him
+nor his dear young wife. I was not prepared for the pleasure of finding
+your ladyship here."</p>
+
+<p>"How fortunate that you were able to manage it! I have been
+complimenting Mademoiselle on her English. She does credit to her
+instructors. Tell me, is this your first visit," Lady Randolph said,
+turning to the young lady "to England?" Even in this innocent question
+there was more than met the eye. The girl, however, had begun to make a
+remark to Lucy, and thus evaded it in the most easy way.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you come home soon after our arrival," she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> said. "I was at my
+window. You came with&mdash;Monsieur&mdash;&mdash;" She cast a glance at Jock as she
+spoke, with a smile in her eyes that was not without its effect. There
+was a little provocation in it, which an older man would have known how
+to answer. But Jock, in the awkwardness of his youth, blushed fiery red,
+and turned away his gaze, which, indeed, had been dwelling upon her with
+an absorbed but shy attention. The boy had never seen anything at all
+like her before.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother," said Lucy, and the young lady gave him a beaming smile and
+bow which made Jock's head turn round. He did not know how to reply to
+it, whether he ought not to get up to answer her salutation; and being
+so uncertain and abashed and excited, he did nothing at all, but gazed
+again with an absorption which was not uncomplimentary. She gave him
+from time to time a little encouraging glance.</p>
+
+<p>"That was what I thought. You drive out always at that early hour in
+England, and always with&mdash;Monsieur?" The girl laughed now, looking at
+him, so that Jock longed to say something witty and clever. Oh, why was
+not MTutor here? He would have known the sort of thing to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh not, not always with Jock," Lucy answered, with honest
+matter-of-fact. "He is still at school, and we have him only for the
+holidays. Perhaps you don't know what that means?"</p>
+
+<p>"The holidays? yes, I know. Monsieur, no doubt, is at one of the great
+schools that are nowhere but in England, where they stay till they are
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"We stay," said Jock, making an almost convulsive effort, "till we are
+nineteen. We like to stay as long as we can."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How innocent," said the girl with a pretty elderly look of superiority
+and patronage; and then she burst into a laugh, which neither Lucy nor
+Jock knew how to take, and turned back again in the twinkling of an eye
+to Lady Randolph, who had relapsed into silence. "And you drive in the
+afternoon," she said. "I have already made my observations. And the baby
+in the middle, between. And Sir Tom always. He goes out and he goes in,
+and one sees him continually. I already know all the habits of the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"You were not so very tired, then, after all. Why did you not come down
+stairs and join us in what we were doing?"</p>
+
+<p>The young lady did not make any articulate reply, but her answer was
+clear enough. She cast a glance across the table to the Contessa, and
+laid her hand upon her own cheek. Lucy was a little mystified by this
+pantomime, but to Lady Randolph there was no difficulty about it. "That
+is easily understood," she said, "when one is <i>sur le retour</i>. But the
+same precautions are not necessary with all."</p>
+
+<p>A smile came upon the girl's lip. "I am sympathetic," she said. "Oh,
+troppo! I feel just like those that I am with. It is sometimes a
+trouble, and sometimes it is an advantage." This was to Lucy like the
+utterance of an oracle, and she understood it not.</p>
+
+<p>"Another time," she said kindly, "you must not only observe us from the
+window, but come down and share what we are doing. Jock will show you
+the park and the grounds, and I will take you to the village. It is
+quite a pretty village, and the cottages are very nice now."</p>
+
+<p>The young stranger's eyes blazed with intelligence. She seemed to
+perceive everything at a glance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know the village," she said, "it is at the park gates, and Milady
+takes a great deal of trouble that all is nice in the cottages. And
+there is an old woman that knows all about the family, and tells legends
+of it; and a school and a church, and many other <i>objets-de-piété</i>. I
+know it like that," she cried, holding out the pretty pink palm of her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"This information is preternatural," said Lady Randolph. "You are
+astonished, Lucy. Mademoiselle is a sorceress. I am sure that Jock
+thinks so. Nothing save an alliance with something diabolical could have
+made her so well instructed, she who has never been in England before."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ask how I know all that?" the girl said laughing. "Then I
+answer, novels. It is all Herr Tauchnitz and his pretty books."</p>
+
+<p>"And so you really never were in England before&mdash;not even as a baby?"
+Lady Randolph said.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's gaiety had attracted even the pair at the other end of the
+table, who had so much to say to each other. The Contessa and Sir Tom
+exchanged a look, which Lucy remarked with a little surprise, and
+remarked in spite of herself: and the great lady interfered to help her
+young dependent out.</p>
+
+<p>"How glad I am to give her that advantage, dear lady! It is the crown of
+the petite's education. In England she finds the most fine manners, as
+well as villages full of <i>objets-de-piété</i>. It is what is needful to
+form her," the Contessa said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Come and sit beside me and tell me everything," said the Contessa. She
+had appropriated the little sofa next the fire where Lady Randolph
+generally sat in the evening. She had taken Lucy's arm on the way from
+the dining-room, and drew her with her to this corner. Nothing could be
+more caressing or tender than her manner. She seemed to be conferring
+the most delightful of favours as she drew towards her the mistress of
+the house. "You have been married&mdash;how long? Six years! But it is
+impossible! And you have all the freshness of a child. And very happy?"
+she said smiling upon Lucy. She had not a fault in her pronunciation,
+but when she uttered these two words she gave a little roll of the "r"
+as if she meant to assume a defect which she had not, and smiled with a
+tender benevolence in which there was the faintest touch of derision.
+Lucy did not make out what it was, but she felt that something lay under
+the dazzling of that smile. She allowed the stranger to draw her to the
+sofa, and sat down by her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is six years," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"And ver&mdash;r&mdash;y happy?" the Contessa repeated. "I am sure that dear Tom
+is a model husband. I have known him a very long time. Has he told you
+about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you were an old friend," said Lucy, looking at her. "Oh yes! The
+only thing is, that we are so much afraid you will find the country
+dull."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Contessa replied only with an eloquent look and a pressure of the
+hand. Her eyes were quite capable of expressing their meaning without
+words; and Lucy felt that she had guessed her rightly.</p>
+
+<p>"We wished to have a party to meet you," Lucy said, "but the baby fell
+ill&mdash;and I thought as you had kindly come so far to see Tom, you would
+not mind if you found us alone."</p>
+
+<p>The lady still made no direct reply. She said after a little pause,</p>
+
+<p>"The country is very dull&mdash;&mdash;" still smiling upon Lucy, and allowed a
+full minute to pass without another word. Then she added, "And
+Milady?&mdash;is she always with you?"&mdash;with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
+She did not even lower her voice to prevent Lady Randolph from hearing,
+but gave Lucy's hand a special pressure, and fixed upon her a
+significant look.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Aunt Randolph?" cried Lucy. "Oh no; she is only paying her usual
+Christmas visit."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa drew a sigh of relief, and laid her other delicate hand
+upon her breast. "You take a load off my heart," she said; then gliding
+gracefully from the subject, "And that excellent Tom&mdash;&mdash;? you met
+him&mdash;in society?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy did not quite like the questioning, or those emphatic pressures of
+her hand. She said quickly, "We met at Lady Randolph's. I was living
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I see," the stranger said, and she gave vent to a little gentle
+laugh. "I see!" Her meaning was entirely unknown to Lucy; but she felt
+an indefinable offence. She made a slight effort to withdraw her hand;
+but this the Contessa would not permit. She pressed the imprisoned
+fingers more closely in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> her own. "You do not like this questioning.
+Pardon! I had forgotten English ways. It is because I hope you will let
+me be your friend too."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," cried Lucy, ashamed of her own hesitation, yet feeling every
+moment more reluctant. She subdued her rising distaste with an effort.
+"I hope," she said, sweetly, "that we shall be able to make you feel at
+home, Madame di Forno-Populo. If there is anything you do not like, will
+you tell me? Had I been at home I should have chosen other rooms for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"They are so pretty, those words, 'at home!' so English," the Contessa
+said, with smiles that were more and more sweet. "But it will fatigue
+you to call me all that long name."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" cried Lucy, with a vivid blush. She did not know what to say,
+whether this meant a little derision of her careful pronunciation, or
+what it was. She went on, after a little pause, "But if you are not
+quite comfortable the other rooms can be got ready directly. It was the
+housekeeper who thought the rooms you have would be the warmest."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa gave her another gentle pressure of the hand. "Everything
+is perfect," she said. "The house and the wife, and all. I may call you
+Lucy? You are so fresh and young. How do you keep that pretty bloom
+after six years&mdash;did you say six years? Ah! the English are always those
+that wear best. You are not afraid of a great deal of light&mdash;no? but it
+is trying sometimes. Shades are an advantage. And he has not spoken to
+you of me, that dear Tom? There was a time when he talked much of
+me&mdash;oh, much&mdash;constantly! He was young then&mdash;and," she said with a
+little sigh&mdash;"so was I. He was perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> not handsome, but he was
+distinguished. Many Englishmen are so who have no beauty, no
+handsomeness, as you say, and English women also, though that is more
+rare. And you are ver-r-y happy?" the Contessa asked again. She said it
+with a smile that was quite dazzling, but yet had just the faintest
+touch of ridicule in it, and rippled over into a little laugh. "When we
+know each other better I will betray all his little secrets to you," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>This was so very injudicious on the part of an old friend, that a wiser
+person than Lucy would have divined some malign meaning in it. But Lucy,
+though suppressing an instinctive distrust, took no notice, not even in
+her thoughts. It was not necessary for her to divine or try to divine
+what people meant; she took what they said, simply, without requiring
+interpretation. "He has told me a great deal," she said. "I think I
+almost know his journeys by heart." Then Lucy carried the war into the
+enemy's country without realising what she was doing. "You will think it
+very stupid of me," she said, "but I did not hear Mademoiselle,&mdash;the
+young lady's name?"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa's eyes dwelt meditatively upon Lucy: she patted her hand
+and smiled upon her, as if every other subject was irrelevant. "And he
+has taken you into society?" she said, continuing her examination. "How
+delightful is that English domesticity. You go everywhere together?" She
+had no appearance of having so much as heard Lucy's question. "And you
+do not fear that he will find it dull in the country? You have the
+confidence of being enough for him? How sweet for me to find the
+happiness of my friend so assured. And now I shall share it for a
+little. You will make us all happy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> Dear child!" said the lady with
+enthusiasm, drawing Lucy to her and kissing her forehead. Then she broke
+into a pretty laugh. "You will work for your poor, and I, who am good
+for nothing&mdash;I shall take out my <i>tapisserie</i>, and he will read to us
+while we work. What a tableau!" cried the Contessa. "Domestic happiness,
+which one only tastes in England. The Eden before the fall!"</p>
+
+<p>It was at this moment that the gentlemen, <i>i.e.</i>  Sir Tom and Jock,
+appeared out of the dining-room. They had not lingered long after the
+ladies. Sir Tom had been somewhat glum after they left. His look of
+amusement was not so lively. He said sententiously, not so much to Jock
+as to himself, "That woman is bent on mischief," and got up and walked
+about the room instead of taking his wine. Then he laughed and turned to
+Jock, who was musing over his orange skins. "When you get a fellow into
+your house that is not much good&mdash;I suppose it must happen
+sometimes&mdash;that knows too much and puts the young ones up to tricks,
+what do you do with him, most noble Captain? Come, you find out a lot of
+things for yourselves, you boys. Tell me what you do."</p>
+
+<p>Jock was a little startled by this demand, but he rose to the occasion.
+"It has happened," he said. "You know, unless a fellow's been awfully
+bad, you can't always keep him out."</p>
+
+<p>"And what then?" said Sir Tom. "MTutor sets his great wits to work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope, sir," cried Jock, "that you don't think I would trouble MTutor,
+who has enough on his hands without that. I made great friends with the
+fellow myself. You know," said the lad, looking up with splendid
+confidence, "he couldn't harm <i>me</i>&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom looked at him with a little drawing of his breath, such as the
+experienced sometimes feel as they look at the daring of the
+innocent&mdash;but with a smile, too.</p>
+
+<p>"When he tried it on with me, I just kicked him," said Jock, calmly;
+"once was enough; he didn't do it again; for naturally he stood a bit in
+awe of me. Then I kept him that he hadn't a moment to himself. It was
+the football half, when you've not got much time to spare all day. And
+in the evenings he had p&#339;nas and things. When he got with two or three
+of the others, one of us would just be loafing about, and call out
+'Hallo, what's up?' He never had any time to go wrong, and then he got
+to find out it didn't pay."</p>
+
+<p>"Philosopher! sage!" cried Sir Tom. "It is you that should teach us;
+but, alas, my boy, have you never found out that even that last argument
+fails to tell&mdash;and that they don't mind even if it doesn't pay?"</p>
+
+<p>He sighed as he spoke; then laughed out, and added, "I can at all events
+try the first part of your programme. Come along and let's cry, Hallo!
+what's up? It simplifies matters immensely, though," said Sir Tom, with
+a serious face, "when you can kick the fellow you disapprove of in that
+charming candid way. Guard the privilege; it is invaluable, Jock."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jock, "some fellows think it's brutal, you know. MTutor he
+always says try argument first. But I just want to know how are you to
+do your duty, captain of a big house, unless it's known that you will
+just kick 'em when they're beastly. When it's known, even <i>that</i>  does a
+deal of good."</p>
+
+<p>"Every thing you say confirms my opinion of your sense," said Sir Tom,
+taking the boy by the arm, "but also of your advantages, Jock, my boy.
+We cannot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> act, you see, in that straightforward manner, more's the
+pity, in the world; but I shall try the first part of your programme,
+and act on your advice," he said, as they walked into the room where the
+ladies were awaiting them. The smaller room looked very warm and bright
+after the large, dimly-lighted one through which they had passed. The
+Contessa, in her tender conference with Lucy, formed a charming group in
+the middle of the picture. Lady Randolph sat by, exiled out of her usual
+place, with an illustrated magazine in her hand, and an air of quick
+watchfulness about her, opposite to them. She was looking on like a
+spectator at a play. In the background behind the table, on which stood
+a large lamp, was the Contessa's companion, with her back turned to the
+rest, lightly flitting from picture to picture, examining everything.
+She had been entirely careless of the action of the piece, but she
+turned round at the voices of the new-comers, as if her attention was
+aroused.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to take somebody's advice?" said the Contessa. "That is
+something new; come here at once and explain. To do so is due to
+your&mdash;wife; yes, to your wife. An Englishman tells every thought to his
+wife; is it not so? Oh yes, <i>mon ami</i>, your sweet little wife and I are
+the best of friends. It is for life," she said, looking with
+inexpressible sentiment in Lucy's face, and pressing her hands. Then,
+was it possible? a flash of intelligence flew from her eyes to those of
+Sir Tom, and she burst into a laugh and clapped her beautiful hands
+together. "He is so ridiculous, he makes one laugh at everything," she
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy remained very serious, with a somewhat forced smile upon her face,
+between these two, looking from one to another.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nay, if you have come the length of swearing eternal friendship&mdash;&mdash;"
+said Sir Tom.</p>
+
+<p>Jock did not know what to do with himself. He began by stumbling over
+Lady Randolph's train, which though carefully coiled about her, was so
+long and so substantial that it got in his way. In getting out of its
+way he almost stumbled against the slim, straight figure of the girl,
+who stood behind surveying the company. She met his awkward apology with
+a smile. "It doesn't matter," she said, "I am so glad you are come. I
+had nobody to talk to." Then she made a little pause, regarding him with
+a bright, impartial look, as if weighing all his qualities. "Don't you
+talk?" she said. "Do you prefer not to say anything? because I know how
+to behave: I will not trouble you if it is so. In England there are some
+who do not say anything?" she added with an inquiring look. Jock, who
+was conscious of blushing all over from top to toe, ventured a glance at
+her, to which she replied by a peal of laughter, very merry but very
+subdued, in which, in spite of himself, he was obliged to join.</p>
+
+<p>"So you can laugh!" she said; "oh, that is well; for otherwise I should
+not know how to live. We must laugh low, not to make any noise and
+distract the old ones; but still, one must live. Tell me, you are the
+brother of Madame&mdash;Should I say Milady? In my novels they never do, but
+I do not know if the novels are just or not."</p>
+
+<p>"The servants say my lady, but no one else," said Jock.</p>
+
+<p>"How fine that is," the young lady said admiringly, "in a moment to have
+it all put right. I am glad we came to England; we say mi-ladi and
+mi-lord as if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> that was the name of every one here; but it is not so in
+the books. You are, perhaps Sir? like Sir Tom&mdash;or you are&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Trevor, that is all," said Jock with a blush; "I am nobody in
+particular: that is, here"&mdash;he added with a momentary gleam of natural
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried the young lady, "I understand&mdash;you are a great person at
+home."</p>
+
+<p>Jock had no wish to deceive, but he could not prevent a smile from
+creeping about the corners of his mouth. "Not a great person at all," he
+said, not wishing to boast.</p>
+
+<p>The young stranger, who was so curious about all her new surroundings,
+formed her own conclusion. She had been brought up in an atmosphere full
+of much knowledge, but also of theories which were but partially
+tenable. She interpreted Jock according to her own ideas, which were not
+at all suited to his case; but it was impossible that she could know
+that.</p>
+
+<p>"I am finding people out," she said to him. "You are the only one that
+is young like me. Let us form an alliance&mdash;while the old ones are
+working out all their plans and fighting it out among themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Fighting it out! I know some that are not likely to fight," cried Jock,
+bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"Was not that right?" said the girl, distressed. "I thought it was an
+<i>idiotisme</i>, as the French say. Ah! they are always fighting. Look at
+them now! The Contessa, she is on the war-path. That is an American
+word. I have a little of all languages. Madame, you will see&mdash;ah, that
+is what you meant!&mdash;does not understand, she looks from one to another.
+She is silent, but Sir Tom, he knows everything. And the old lady, she
+sees it too. I have gone through so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> many dramas, I am blasée. It
+wearies at last, but yet it is exciting too. I ask myself what is going
+to be done here? You have heard perhaps of the Contessa in England,
+Mr.&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Trevor," said Jock.</p>
+
+<p>"And you pronounce it just like this&mdash;Mis-ter? I want to know; for
+perhaps I shall have to stay here. There is not known very much about
+me. Nor do I know myself. But if the Contessa finds for me&mdash;&mdash; I am quite
+mad," said the girl suddenly. "I am telling you&mdash;and of course it is a
+secret. The old lady watches the Contessa to see what it is she intends.
+But I do not myself know what the Contessa intends&mdash;except in respect to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Jock was too shy to inquire what that was: and he was confused with this
+unusual confidence. Young ladies had not been in the habit of opening to
+him their secrets; indeed he had little experience of these kind of
+creatures at all. She looked at him as she spoke as if she wished to
+provoke him to inquiry&mdash;with a gaze that was very open and withal bold,
+yet innocent too. And Jock, on his side, was as entirely innocent as if
+he had been a Babe in the Wood.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want to know what she is going to do with me, and why she has
+brought me?" the girl said, talking so quickly that he could scarcely
+follow the stream of words. "I was not invited, and I am not introduced,
+and no one knows anything of me. Don't you want to know why I am here?"</p>
+
+<p>Jock followed the movements of her lips, the little gestures of her
+hands, which were almost as eloquent, with eyes that were confused by so
+great a call upon them. He could not make any reply, but only gazed at
+her, entranced, as he had never been in his life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> before, and so anxious
+not to lose the hurried words, the quick flash of the small white hands
+against her dark dress, that his mind had not time to make out what she
+meant.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy on her side sat between her husband and the Contessa for some time,
+listening to their conversation. That was more rapid, too, than she was
+used to, and it was full of allusions, understood when they were
+half-said by the others, which to her were all darkness. She tried to
+follow them with a wistful sort of smile, a kind of painful homage to
+the Contessa's soft laugh and the ready response of Sir Tom. She tried
+too, to follow, and share the brightening interest of his face, the
+amusement and eagerness of his listening; but by and by she got chilled,
+she knew not how&mdash;the smile grew frozen upon her face, her comprehension
+seemed to fail altogether. She got up softly after a while from her
+corner of the sofa, and neither her husband nor her guest took any
+particular notice. She came across the room to Lady Randolph, and drew a
+low chair beside her, and asked her about the pictures in the magazine
+which she was still holding in her hand.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ANXIOUS CRITIC.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In a few days after the arrival of Madame di Forno-Populo, there was
+almost an entire change of aspect at the Hall. Nobody could tell how
+this change had come about. It was involuntary, unconscious, yet
+complete. The Contessa came quietly into the fore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>ground. She made no
+demonstration of power, and claimed no sort of authority. She never
+accosted the mistress of the house without tender words and caresses.
+Her attitude towards Lucy, indeed, was that of an admiring relation to a
+delightful and promising child. She could not sufficiently praise and
+applaud her. When she spoke, her visitor turned towards her with the
+most tender of smiles. In whatsoever way the Contessa was occupied, she
+never failed when she heard Lucy's voice to turn round upon her, to
+bestow this smile, to murmur a word of affectionate approval. When they
+were near enough to each other, she would take her hand and press it
+with affectionate emotion. The other members of the household, except
+Sir Tom, she scarcely noticed at all. The Dowager Lady Randolph
+exchanged with her now and then a few words of polite defiance, but that
+was all. And she had not been long at the Hall before her position there
+was more commanding than that of Lady Randolph. Insensibly all the
+customs of the house changed for her. There was no question as to who
+was the centre of conversation in the evening. Sir Tom went to the sofa
+from which she had so cleverly ousted his aunt, as soon as he came in
+after dinner, and leaning over her with his arm on the mantelpiece, or
+drawing a chair beside her, would laugh and talk with endless spirit and
+amusement. When he talked of the people in the neighbourhood who
+afforded scope for satire, she would tap him with her fan and say, "Why
+do I not see these originals? bring them to see me," to Lucy's wonder
+and often dismay. "They would not amuse you at all," Sir Tom would
+reply, upon which the lady would turn and call Lucy to her. "My little
+angel! he pretends that it is he that is so clever, that he creates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+these characters. We do not believe him, my Lucy, do we? Ask them, ask
+them, <i>cara</i>, then we shall judge."</p>
+
+<p>In this way the house was filled evening after evening. A reign of
+boundless hospitality seemed to have begun. The other affairs of the
+house slipped aside, and to provide amusement for the Contessa became
+the chief object of life. She had everybody brought to see her, from the
+little magnates of Farafield to the Duchess herself, and the greatest
+people in the county. The nursery, which had been so much, perhaps too
+much, in the foreground, regulating the whole great household according
+as little Tom was better or worse, was thrust altogether into the
+shadow. If neglect was wholesome, then he had that advantage. Even his
+mother could do no more than run furtively to him, as she did about a
+hundred times a day in the intervals of her duties. His little mendings
+and fallings back ceased to be the chief things in the house. His
+father, indeed, would play with his child in the mornings when he was
+brought to Lucy's room; but the burden of his remarks was to point out
+to her how much better the little beggar got on when there was less fuss
+made about him. And Lucy's one grievance against her visitor, the only
+one which she permitted herself to perceive, was that she never took any
+notice of little Tom. She never asked for him, a thing which was
+unexampled in Lucy's experience. When he was produced she smiled,
+indeed, but contemplated him at a distance. The utmost stretch of
+kindness she had ever shown was to touch his cheek with a finger
+delicately when he was carried past her. Lucy made theories in her mind
+about this, feeling it necessary to account in some elaborate way for
+what was so entirely out of nature. "I know what it must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>&mdash;she must
+have lost her own," she said to her husband. Sir Tom's countenance was
+almost convulsed by one of those laughs, which he now found it expedient
+to suppress, but he only replied that he had never heard of such an
+event. "Ah! it must have been before you knew her; but she has never got
+it out of her mind," Lucy cried. That hypothesis explained everything.
+At this time it is scarcely necessary to say Lucy was with her whole
+soul trying to be "very fond," as she expressed it, of the Contessa.
+There were some things about her which startled young Lady Randolph. For
+one thing, she would go out shooting with Sir Tom, and was as good a
+shot as any of the gentlemen. This wounded Lucy terribly, and took her a
+great effort to swallow. It went against all her traditions. With her
+bourgeois education she hated sport, and even in her husband with
+difficulty made up her mind to it; but that a woman should go forth and
+slay was intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>There were other things besides which were a mystery to her. Lady
+Randolph's invariably defiant attitude for one, and the curious aspect
+of the Duchess when suddenly brought face to face with the stranger. It
+appeared that they were old friends, which astonished Lucy, but not so
+much as the great lady's bewildered look when Madame di Forno-Populo
+went up to her. It seemed for a moment as if the shock was too much for
+her. She stammered and shook through all her dignity and greatness, as
+she exclaimed. "<i>You</i>! here?" in two distinct outcries, gazing appalled
+into the smiling and beautiful face before her. But then the Duchess
+came to, after a while. She seemed to get over her surprise, which was
+more than surprise. All these things disturbed Lucy. She did not know
+what to make of them. She was uneasy at the change that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> had been
+wrought upon her own household, which she did not understand. Yet it was
+all perfectly simple, she said to herself. It was Tom's duty to devote
+himself to the stranger. It was the duty of both as hosts to procure for
+her such amusement as was to be found. These were things of which Lucy
+convinced herself by various half unconscious processes of argument. But
+it was necessary to renew these arguments from time to time, to keep
+possession of them in order to feel their force as she wished to do. She
+said nothing to her husband on the subject, with an instinctive sense
+that it would be very difficult to handle. And Sir Tom, too, avoided it.
+But it was impossible to pursue the same reticence with Lady Randolph,
+who now and then insisted on opening it up. When the end of her visit
+arrived she sent for Lucy into her own room, to speak to her seriously.
+She said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I am due to-morrow at the Maltravers', as you know. It is a
+visit I like to pay, they are always so nice; but I cannot bear the
+thought of going off, Lucy, to enjoy myself and leaving you alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Alone, Aunt Randolph!" cried Lucy, "when Tom is at home!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom! I have no patience with Tom," cried the Dowager. "I think he
+must be mad to let that woman come upon you so. Of course you know very
+well, my dear, it is of her that I want to speak. In the country it does
+not so much matter; but you must not let her identify herself with you,
+Lucy, in town."</p>
+
+<p>"In town!" Lucy said with a little dismay; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, it
+will be six weeks before we go to town; and, surely, long before
+that&mdash;&mdash;" She paused, and blushed with a sense of the inhospitality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+involved in her words, which made Lucy ashamed of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"You think so?" said Lady Randolph, smiling somewhat grimly. "Well, we
+shall see. For my part, I think she will find Park Lane a very desirable
+situation, and if you do not take the greatest care&mdash;&mdash; But why should I
+speak to you of taking care? Of course, if Tom wished it, you would take
+in all Bohemia, and never say a word&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," said Lucy, looking with serene eyes in the elder lady's face,
+"I do not know what you mean by Bohemia, Aunt Randolph; but if you think
+it possible that I should object when Tom asks his friends&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;his friends! I have no patience with you, either the one or the
+other," said the old lady. "When Sir Robert was living, do you think it
+was he who invited <i>my</i>  guests? I should think not indeed! especially
+the women. If that was to be the case, marriage would soon become an
+impossibility. And is it possible, Lucy, is it possible that you, with
+your good sense, can like all that petting and coaxing, and the way she
+talks to you as if you were a child?"</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact Lucy had not been able to school herself into liking
+it; but when the objection was stated so plainly, she coloured high with
+a vexation and annoyance which were very grievous and hard to bear. It
+seemed to her that it would be disloyal both to her husband and her
+guest if she complained, and at the same time Lady Randolph's shot went
+straight to the mark. She did her best to smile, but it was not a very
+easy task.</p>
+
+<p>"You have always taught me, Aunt Randolph," she said with great
+astuteness, "that I ought not to judge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> of the manners of strangers by
+my own little rules&mdash;especially of foreigners," she added, with a sense
+of her own cleverness which half comforted her amid other feelings not
+agreeable. It was seldom that Lucy felt any sense of triumph in her own
+powers.</p>
+
+<p>"Foreigners?" said Lady Randolph, with disdain. But then she stopped
+short with a pause of indignation. "That woman," she said, which was the
+only name she ever gave the visitor, "has some scheme in her head you
+may be sure. I do not know what it is. It would not do her any good that
+I can see to increase her hold upon Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon Tom!" cried Lucy. It was her turn now to be indignant. "I don't
+know what you mean, Aunt Randolph," she said. "I cannot think that you
+want to make me&mdash;uncomfortable. There are some things I do not like in
+Madame di Forno-Populo. She is&mdash;different; but she is my husband's
+friend. If you mean that they will become still greater friends seeing
+more of each other, that is natural. For why should you be friends at
+all unless you like each other? And that Tom likes her must be just a
+proof that I am wrong. It is my ignorance. Perhaps the wisest way would
+be to say nothing more about it," young Lady Randolph concluded,
+briskly, with a sudden smile.</p>
+
+<p>The Dowager looked at her as if she were some wonder in natural history,
+the nature of which it was impossible to divine. She thought she knew
+Lucy very well, but yet had never understood her, it being more
+difficult for a woman of the world to understand absolute
+straightforwardness and simplicity than it is even for the simple to
+understand the worldly. She was silent for a moment and stared at Lucy,
+not knowing what to make of her. At last she resumed as if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> going on
+without interruption. "But she has some scheme in hand, perhaps in
+respect to the girl. The girl is a very handsome creature, and might
+make a hit if she were properly managed. My belief is that this has been
+her scheme all through. But partly the presence of Tom&mdash;an old friend as
+you say of her own&mdash;and partly the want of opportunity, has kept it in
+abeyance. That is my idea, Lucy; you can take it for what it is worth.
+And your home will be the headquarters, the centre from which the
+adventuress will carry on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Randolph!" Lucy's voice was almost loud in the pain and
+indignation that possessed her. She put out her hands as if to stop the
+other's mouth. "You want to make me think she is a wicked woman," she
+said. "And that Tom&mdash;Tom&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had never permitted suspicion to enter her mind. She did not know
+now what it was that penetrated her innocent soul like an arrow. It was
+not jealousy. It was the wounding suggestion of a possibility which she
+would not and could not entertain.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, Tom has no excuse at all," said the Dowager solemnly. "You'll
+believe nothing against him, of course, and I can't possibly wish to
+turn you against him; but I don't suppose he meant all that is likely to
+come out of it. He thought it would be a joke&mdash;and in the country what
+could it matter? And then things have never gone so far as that people
+could refuse to receive her, you know. Oh no! the Contessa has her wits
+too much about her for that. But you saw for yourself that the Duchess
+was petrified; and I&mdash;not that I am an authority, like her Grace. One
+thing, Lucy, is quite clear, and that I must say; you must not take upon
+yourself to be answerable&mdash;you so young as you are and not accustomed to
+society&mdash;for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> <i>that</i> woman, before the world. You must just take your
+courage in both hands, and tell Tom that though you give in to him in
+the country, in town you will not have her. She means to take advantage
+of you, and bring forward her girl, and make a <i>grand coup</i>. That is
+what she means&mdash;I know that sort of person. It is just the greatest luck
+in the world for them to get hold of some one that is so unexceptionable
+and so unsuspicious as you."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Randolph insisted upon saying all this, notwithstanding the
+interruptions of Lucy. "Now I wash my hands of it," she said. "If you
+won't be advised, I can do no more." It was the day after the great
+dinner when the Duchess had met Madame di Forno-Populo with so much
+surprise. The elder lady had been in much excitement all the evening.
+She had conversed with her Grace apart on several occasions, and from
+the way in which they laid their heads together, and their gestures, it
+was clear enough that their feeling was the same upon the point they
+discussed. All the best people in the county had been collected
+together, and there could be no doubt that the Contessa had achieved a
+great success. She sang as no woman had ever been heard to sing for a
+hundred miles round, and her beauty and her grace and her diamonds had
+been enough to turn the heads of both men and women. It was remarked
+that the Duchess, though she received her with a gasp of astonishment,
+was evidently very well acquainted with the fascinating foreign lady,
+and though there was a little natural and national distrust of her at
+first, as a person too remarkable, and who sang too well for the common
+occasions of life, yet not to gaze at her, watch her, and admire, was
+impossible. Lucy had been gratified with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> the success of her visitor.
+Even though she was not sure that she was comfortable about her presence
+there at all, she was pleased with the effect she produced. When the
+Contessa sang there suddenly appeared out of the midst of the crowd a
+slim, straight figure in a black gown, which instantly sat down at the
+piano, played the accompaniments, and disappeared again without a word.
+The spectators thronging round the piano saw that this was a girl, as
+graceful and distinguished as the Contessa herself, who passed away
+without a word, and disappeared when her office was accomplished, with a
+smile on her face, but without lingering for a moment or speaking to any
+one; which was a pretty bit of mystery too.</p>
+
+<p>All this had happened on the night before Lady Randolph's summons to
+Lucy. It was in the air that the party at the Hall was to break up after
+the great entertainment; the Dowager was going, as she had said, to the
+Maltravers'; Jock was going back to school; and though no limit of
+Madame di Forno-Populo's visit had been mentioned, still it was natural
+that she should go when the other people did. She had been a fortnight
+at the Hall. That is long for a visit at a country house where generally
+people are coming and going continually. And Lucy had begun to look
+forward to the time when once more she would be mistress of her own
+house and actions, with all visitors and interruptions gone. She had
+been looking forward to the happy old evenings, the days in which baby
+should be set up again on his domestic throne. The idea that the
+Contessa might not be going away, the suggestion that she might still be
+there when it was time to make the yearly migration to town, chilled the
+very blood in her veins. But it was a thought that she would not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> dwell
+upon. She would not betray her feeling in this respect to any one. She
+returned the kiss which old Lady Randolph bestowed upon her at the end
+of their interview, very affectionately; for, though she did not always
+agree with her, she was attached to the lady who had been so kind to her
+when she was a friendless little girl. "Thank you, Aunt Randolph, for
+telling me," she said very sweetly, though, indeed, she had no intention
+of taking the Dowager's advice. Lady Randolph went off in the afternoon
+of the next day, for it was a very short journey to the Maltravers',
+where she was going. All the party came out into the hall to see her
+away, the Contessa herself as well as the others. Nothing, indeed, could
+be more cordial than the Contessa. She caught up a shawl and wound it
+round her, elaborately defending herself against the cold, and came out
+to the steps to share in the last farewells.</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Randolph was in the carriage with her maid by her side, and
+her hot-water footstool under her feet, and the coachman waiting his
+signal to drive away, she put out her hand amid her furs to Lucy. "Now
+remember!" Lady Randolph said. It was almost as solemn as the mysterious
+reminder of the dying king to the bishop. But unfortunately, what is
+solemn in certain circumstances may be ludicrous in others. The party in
+the Hall scarcely restrained its merriment till the carriage had driven
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"What awful compact is this between you, Lucy?" Sir Tom said. "Has she
+bound you by a vow to assassinate me in my sleep?"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa unwound herself out of her shawl, and putting her arm
+caressingly round Lucy, led her back to the drawing-room. "It has
+something to do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> with me," she said. "Come and tell me all about it."
+Lucy had been disconcerted by Lady Randolph's reminder. She was still
+more disconcerted now.</p>
+
+<p>"It is&mdash;something Aunt Randolph wishes me to do in the spring, when we
+go to town," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I know what that is," said the Contessa. "They see that you are too
+kind to your husband's friend. Milady would wish you to be more as she
+herself is. I understand her very well. I understand them all, these
+women. They cannot endure me. They see a meaning in everything I do. I
+have not a meaning in everything I do," she added, with a pathetic look,
+which went to Lucy's heart.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, indeed you are mistaken. It was not that. I am sure you have no
+meaning," said Lucy, vehement and confused.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa read her innocent <i>distraite</i>  countenance like a book, as
+she said&mdash;or at least she thought so. She linked her own delicate arm in
+hers, and clasped Lucy's hand. "One day I will tell you why all these
+ladies hate me, my little angel," she said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the meantime something had been going on behind-backs of which nobody
+took much notice. It had been discovered long before this, in the
+family, that the Contessa's young companion had a name like other
+people&mdash;that is to say, a Christian name. She was called by the
+Contessa, in the rare moments when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> addressed her, Bice&mdash;that is to
+say, according to English pronunciation, Beeshée (you would probably
+call it Beetchee if you learned to speak Italian in England, but the
+Contessa had the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth, according to the
+proverb), which, as everybody knows, is the contraction of Beatrice. She
+was called Miss Beachey in the household, a name which was received&mdash;by
+the servants at least&mdash;as a quite proper and natural name; a great deal
+more sensible than Forno-Populo. Her position, however, in the little
+party was a quite peculiar one. The Contessa took her for granted in a
+way which silenced all inquisitive researches. She gave no explanation
+who she was, or what she was, or why she carried this girl about with
+her. If she was related to herself, if she was a dependent, nobody knew;
+her manner gave no clue at all to the mystery. It was very seldom that
+the two had any conversation whatsoever in the presence of the others.
+Now and then the Contessa would send the girl upon an errand, telling
+her to bring something, with an absence of directions where to find it
+that suggested the most absolute confidence in her young companion. When
+the Contessa sang, Bice, as a matter of course, produced herself at the
+right moment to play her accompaniments, and got herself out of the way,
+noiselessly, instantly, the moment that duty was over. These
+accompaniments were played with an exquisite skill and judgment, an
+exact adaptation to the necessities of the voice, which could only have
+been attained by much and severe study; but she never, save on these
+occasions, was seen to look at a piano. For the greater part of the time
+the girl was invisible. She appeared in the Contessa's train, always in
+her closely-fitting, perfectly plain, black frock, without an ornament,
+at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> luncheon and dinner, and was present all the evening in the
+drawing-room. But for the rest of the day no one knew what became of
+this young creature, who nevertheless was not shy, nor showed any
+appearance of feeling herself out of place, or uncomfortable in her
+strange position. She looked out upon them all with frank eyes, in which
+it was evident there was no sort of mist, either of timidity or
+ignorance, understanding everything that was said, even allusions which
+puzzled Lucy; always intelligent and observant, though often with a
+shade of that benevolent contempt which the young with difficulty
+prevent themselves from feeling towards their elders. The littleness of
+their jokes and their philosophies was evidently quite apparent to this
+observer, who sat secure in the superiority of sixteen taking in
+everything; for she took in everything, even when she was not doing the
+elder people the honour of attending to what they were saying, with a
+faculty which belongs to that age. Opinions were divided as to Bice's
+beauty. The simpler members of the party, Lucy and Jock, admired her
+least; but such a competent critic as Lady Randolph, who understood what
+was effective, had a great opinion and even respect for her, as of one
+whose capabilities were very great indeed, and who might "go far," as
+she had herself said. As there was so much difference of opinion it is
+only right that the reader should be able to judge, as much as is
+possible, from a description. She was very slight and rather tall, with
+a great deal of the Contessa's grace, moving lightly as if she scarcely
+touched the ground, but like a bird rather than a cat. There was nothing
+in her of the feline grace of which we hear so much. Her movements were
+all direct and rapid; her feet seemed to skim, not to tread, the ground
+with an airy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> poise, which even when she stood still implied movement,
+always light, untiring, full of energy and impulse. Her eyes were
+gray&mdash;if it is possible to call by the name of the dullest of tints
+those two globes of light, now dark, now golden, now liquid with dew,
+and now with flame. Her hair was dusky, of no particular colour, with a
+crispness about the temples; but her complexion&mdash;ay, there was the rub.
+Bice had no complexion at all. By times in the evening, in artificial
+light, or when she was excited, there came a little flush to her cheeks,
+which miraculously chased away the shadows from her paleness, and made
+her radiant; but in daylight there could be no doubt that she was
+sallow, sometimes almost olive, though with a soft velvety texture which
+is more often seen on the dark-complexioned through all its gradations
+than on any but the most delicate of white skins. A black baby has a
+bloom upon its little dusky cheek like a purple peach, and this was the
+quality which gave to Bice's sallowness a certain charm. Her hands and
+arms were of the same indefinite tint&mdash;not white, whatever they might be
+called. Her throat was slender and beautifully-formed, but shared the
+same deficiency of colour. It is impossible to say how much disappointed
+Lucy was in the young stranger's appearance after the first evening. She
+had thought her very pretty, and she now thought her plain. To remember
+what the girl had said of her chances if she turned out beautiful filled
+her with a sort of pitying contempt.</p>
+
+<p>But the more experienced people were not of Lucy's opinion. They thought
+well, on the contrary, of Bice's prospects. Lady Randolph, as has been
+said, regarded her with a certain respectfulness. She was not offended
+by the saucy speeches which the girl might now and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> then make. She went
+so far as to say even that if introduced under other auspices than those
+of the Contessa, there was no telling what such a girl might do. "But
+the chances now are that she will end on the stage," Lady Randolph said.</p>
+
+<p>This strange girl unfolded herself very little in the family. When she
+spoke, she spoke with the utmost frankness, and was afraid of nobody.
+But in general she sat in the regions behind the table, with its big
+lamp, and said little or nothing. The others would all be collected
+about the fire, but Bice never approached the fire. Sometimes she read,
+sitting motionless, till the others forgot her presence altogether.
+Sometimes she worked at long strips of Berlin-wool work, the
+<i>tapisserie</i>  to which, by moments, the Contessa would have recourse. But
+she heard and saw everything, as has been said, whether she attended or
+not, in the keenness of her youthful faculties. When the Contessa rose
+to sing, she was at the piano without a word; and when anything was
+wanted she gave an alert mute obedience to the lady who was her relation
+or her patroness, nobody knew which, almost without being told what was
+wanted. Except in this way, however, they seldom approached or said a
+word to each other that any one saw. During the long morning, which the
+Contessa spent in her room, appearing only at luncheon, Bice too was
+invisible. Thus she lived the strangest life of retirement and
+seclusion, such as a crushed dependent would find intolerable in the
+midst of a family, but without the least appearance of anything but
+enjoyment, and a perfect and dauntless freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Bice, however, had one confidant in the house, and this, as is natural,
+was the very last person who would have seemed probable&mdash;it was Jock.
+Jock, it need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> scarcely be said, had no tendency at all to the society
+of girls. Deep as he was in MTutor's confidence, captain of his house,
+used to live in a little male community, and to despise (not unkindly)
+the rest of the world, it is not likely that he would care much for the
+antagonistic creatures who invariably interfered, he thought, with talk
+and enjoyment wherever they appeared. Making an exception in favour of
+Lucy and an older person now and then, who had been soothing to him when
+he was ill or out of sorts, Jock held that the feminine part of the
+creation was a mistake, and to be avoided in every practicable way. He
+had been startled by the young stranger's advances to him on the first
+evening, and her claim of fellowship on the score that he was young like
+herself. But when Bice first appeared suddenly in his way, far down in
+the depths of the winterly park, the boy's impulse would have been, had
+that been practicable, to turn and flee. She was skimming along, singing
+to herself, leaping lightly over fallen branches and the inequalities of
+the humid way, when he first perceived her; and Jock had a moment's
+controversy with himself as to what he ought to do. If he took to flight
+across the open park she would see him and understand the reason
+why&mdash;besides, it would be cowardly to fly from a girl, an inferior
+creature, who probably had lost her way, and would not know how to get
+back again. This reflection made him withdraw a little deeper into the
+covert, with the intention of keeping her in sight lest she should
+wander astray altogether, but yet keeping out of the way, that he might
+exercise this secret protecting charge of his, which Jock felt was his
+natural attitude even to a girl without the embarrassment of her
+society. He tried to persuade himself that she was a lower boy, of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+inferior kind no doubt, but yet possessing claims upon his care; for
+MTutor had a great idea of influence, and had imprinted deeply upon the
+minds of his leading pupils the importance of exercising it in the most
+beneficial way for those who were under them.</p>
+
+<p>Jock accordingly stayed among the brushwood watching where she went. How
+light she was! her feet scarcely made a dint upon the wet and spongy
+grass, in which his own had sunk. She went over everything like a bird.
+Now and then she would stop to gather a handful of brown rustling
+brambles, and the stiff yellow oak leaves, and here and there a rusty
+bough to which some rays of autumn colour still hung, which at first
+Jock supposed to mean botany, and was semi-respectful of, until she took
+off her hat and arranged them in it, when he was immediately
+contemptuous, saying to himself that it was just like a girl. All the
+same, it was interesting to watch her as she skipped and skimmed along
+with an air of enjoyment and delight in her freedom, which it was
+impossible not to sympathise with. She sang, not loudly, but almost
+under her breath, for pure pleasure, it seemed, but sometimes would
+break off and whistle, at which Jock was much shocked at first, but
+gradually got reconciled to, it was so clear and sweet. After awhile,
+however, he made an incautious step upon the brushwood, and the crashing
+of the branches betrayed him. She stopped suddenly with her head to the
+wind like a fine hound, and caught him with her keen eyes. Then there
+occurred a little incident which had a very strange effect&mdash;an effect he
+was too young to understand&mdash;upon Jock. She stood perfectly still, with
+her face towards the bushes in which he was, her head thrown high, her
+nostrils a little dilated, a flush of sudden energy and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> courage on her
+face. She did not know who he was or what he wanted watching her from
+behind the covert. He might be a tramp, a violent beggar, for anything
+she knew. These things are more tragic where Bice came from, and it was
+likely enough that she took him for a brigand. It was a quick sense of
+alarm that sprang over her, stringing all her nerves, and bringing the
+colour to her cheeks. She never flinched or attempted to flee, but stood
+at bay, with a high valour and proud scorn of her pursuer. Her attitude,
+the flush which made her fair in a moment, the expanded nostrils, the
+fulness which her panting breath of alarm gave to her breast, made an
+impression upon the boy which was ineffable and beyond words. It was his
+first consciousness that there was something in the world&mdash;not boy, or
+man, or sister, something which he did not understand, which feared yet
+confronted him, startled but defiant. He too paused for a moment, gazing
+at her, getting up his courage. Then he came slowly out from under the
+shade of the bushes and went towards her. There were a few yards of the
+open park to traverse before he reached her, so that he thought it
+necessary to relieve her anxiety before they met. He called out to her,
+"Don't be afraid, it is only me." For a moment more that fine poise
+lasted, and then she clapped her hands with a peal of laughter that
+seemed to fill the entire atmosphere and ring back from the clumps of
+wintry wood. "Oh," she cried, "it is you!" Jock did not know whether to
+be deeply affronted or to laugh too.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;&mdash;thought you might have lost your way," he said, knitting his brows
+and looking as forbidding as he knew how, by way of correcting the
+involuntary sentiment that had stolen into his boyish heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then why did not you come to me?" she said, "is not that what you call
+to spy&mdash;to watch when one does not know you are there?"</p>
+
+<p>Jock's countenance flushed at this word. "Spy! I never spied upon any
+one. I thought perhaps you might not be able to get back&mdash;so I would not
+go away out of reach."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she cried, "you meant to be kind but not friendly. Do I say it
+right? Why will not you be friendly? I have so many things I want to
+say, and no one, no one! to say them to. What harm would it do if you
+came out from yourself, and talked with me a little? You are too young
+to make it any&mdash;inconvenience," the girl said. She laughed a little and
+blushed a little as she said this, eyeing him all the time with frank,
+open eyes. "I am sixteen; how old are you?" she added, with a quick
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Sixteen past," said Jock, with a little emphasis, to show his
+superiority in age as well as in other things.</p>
+
+<p>"Sixteen in a boy means no more than nine or so," she said, with a light
+disdain, "so you need not have any fear. Oh, come and talk! I have a
+hundred and more of things to say. It is all so strange. How would you
+like to plunge in a new world like the sea, and never say what you think
+of it, or ask any questions, or tell when it makes you laugh or cry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should not mind much. I should neither laugh nor cry. It is only
+girls that do," said Jock, somewhat contemptuous too.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! But then I am a girl. I cannot change my nature to please you,"
+she said. "Sometimes I think I should have liked better to be a boy, for
+you have not to do the things we have to do&mdash;but then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> when I saw how
+awkward you were, and how clumsy, and not good for anything"&mdash;she
+pointed these very plain remarks with a laugh between each and a look at
+Jock, by which she very plainly applied what she said. He did not know
+at all how to take this. The instinct of a gentleman to betray no angry
+feeling towards a girl, who was at the same time a lady, contrasted in
+him with the instinct of a child, scarcely yet aware of the distinctions
+of sex, to fight fairly for itself; but the former prevailed. And then
+it was scarcely possible to resist the contagion of the laugh which the
+damp air seemed to hold suspended, and bring back in curls and wreaths
+of pleasant sound. So Jock commanded himself and replied with an
+effort&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We are just as good for things that we care about as you&mdash;but not for
+girls' things," he added, with another little fling of the mutual
+contempt which they felt for each other. Then after a pause: "I suppose
+we may as well go home, for it is getting late; and when it is dark you
+would be sure to lose your way&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" she said. "Then I will come, for I do not like to be
+lost. What should you do if we were lost? Build me a hut to take shelter
+in? or take off your coat to keep me warm and then go and look for the
+nearest village? That is what happens in some of the Contessa's old
+books&mdash;but, ah, not in the Tauchnitz now. But it would be nonsense, of
+course, for there are the red chimneys of the Hall staring us in the
+face, so how could we be lost?"</p>
+
+<p>"When it is dark," said Jock, "you can't see the red always; and then
+you go rambling and wandering about, and hit yourself against the trees,
+and get up to the ankles in the wet grass and&mdash;don't like it at all."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+He laughed himself a little, with a laugh that was somewhat like a growl
+at his own abrupt conclusion, to which Bice responded cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice it is to laugh," she said, "it gets the air into your lungs
+and then you can breathe. It is to breathe I want&mdash;large&mdash;a whole world
+full," she cried, throwing out her arms and opening her mouth. "Because
+you know the rooms are small here, and there is so much furniture, the
+windows closed with curtains, the floors all hot with carpets. Do they
+shut you up as if in a box at night, with the shutters shut and all so
+dark? They do me. But as soon as they are gone I open. I like far better
+our rooms with big walls, and marble that is cool, and large, large
+windows that you can lie and look out at, when you wake, all painted
+upon the sky."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think," said Jock, with the impulse of contradiction, "they
+would not be at all comfortable&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Comfortable," she cried in high disdain, "does one want to be
+comfortable? One wants to live, and feel the air, and everything that is
+round."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we do at school," said Jock, waking up to a sense of the
+affinities as he had already done to the diversities between them.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about school," she cried, with a pretty imperious air; and
+Jock, who never desired any better, obeyed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A PAIR OF FRIENDS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After this it came to be a very common occurrence that Jock and Bice
+should meet in the afternoon. He for one thing had lost his
+companionship with Lucy, and had been straying forth forlorn not knowing
+what to do with himself, taking long walks which he did not care for,
+and longing for the intellectual companionship of MTutor, or even of the
+other fellows who, if not intellectual, at least were acquainted with
+the same things, and accustomed to the same occupations as himself. It
+worked in him a tremor and commotion of a kind in which he was wholly
+inexperienced, when he saw the slim figure of the girl approaching him,
+through the paths of the shrubberies, or across the glades of the park.
+He said to himself once or twice, "What a bore;" but those words did not
+express his feelings. It was not a bore, it was something very
+different. He could not explain the mingled reluctance and pleasure of
+his own mood, the little tumult that arose in him when he saw her. He
+wanted to turn his back and rush away, and yet he wanted to be there
+waiting for her, seeing her approach step by step. He had no notion what
+his own mingled sentiments meant. But Bice to all appearance had neither
+the reluctance nor the excitement. She came running to her playmate
+whenever she saw him with frank satisfaction. "I was looking for you,"
+she would say, "Let us go out into the park where nobody can see us.
+Run, or some one will be coming," and then she would fly over stock and
+stone, summoning him after her. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> were many occasions when Jock did
+not approve, but he always followed her, though with internal
+grumblings, in which he indulged consciously, making out his own
+annoyance to be very great. "Why can't she let me alone?" he said to
+himself; but when it occurred that Bice did leave him alone, and made no
+appearance, his sense of injury was almost bitter. On such occasions he
+said cutting things within himself, and was very satirical as to the
+stupidity of girls who were afraid to wet their feet, and estimated the
+danger of catching a cold as greater than any natural advantage. For
+Jock had all that instinctive hostility to womankind, which is natural
+to the male bosom, except perhaps at one varying period of life. They
+had no place in the economy of his existence at school, and he knew
+nothing of them nor wanted to know. But Bice, though, when he was
+annoyed with her, she became to him the typical girl, the epitome of
+offending woman, had at other times a very different position. It
+stirred his entire being, he did not know how, when she roamed with him
+about the woods talking of everything, from a point of view which was
+certainly different from Jock's. Occasionally, even, he did not
+understand her any more than if she had been speaking a foreign
+language. She had never any difficulty in penetrating his meaning as he
+had in penetrating hers, but there were times when she did not
+understand him any more than he understood her. She was by far the
+easiest in morals, the least Puritanical. It was not easy to shock Bice,
+but it was not at all difficult to shock Jock, brought up as he was in
+the highest sentiments under the wing of MTutor, who believed in moral
+influence. But the fashion of the intercourse held between these two,
+was very remarkable in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> way. They were like brother and sister,
+without being brother and sister. They were strangers to each other, yet
+living in the most entire intimacy, and likely to be parted for ever
+to-morrow. They were of the same age, yet the girl was, in experience of
+life, a world in advance of the boy, who, notwithstanding, had the
+better of her in a thousand ways. In short, they were a paradox, such as
+youth, more or less, is always, and the careless close companionship
+that grew up between them was at once the most natural and the most
+strange alliance. They told each other everything by degrees, without
+being at all aware of the nature of their mutual confidence; Bice
+revealing to Jock the conditions on which she was to be brought out in
+England, and Jock to Bice the unusual features of his own and his
+sister's position, to the unbounded astonishment and scepticism of each.</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful?" said Jock, drawing a long breath. "But beautiful's not a
+thing you can go in for, like an exam: You're born so, or you're born
+not so; and you know you're not&mdash;I mean, you know you're&mdash;&mdash; Well, it
+isn't your fault. Are you going to be sent away for just being&mdash;not
+pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you," said the girl, with a little impatience. "Being pretty is
+of no consequence. I am pretty, of course," she added regretfully. "But
+it is only if I turn out beautiful that she will take the trouble. And
+at sixteen, I am told, one cannot yet know."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" cried Jock with a sort of consternation, "you don't mind, do
+you? I don't mean anything unkind, you know; I don't think it
+matters&mdash;and I am sure it isn't your fault; you are not
+even&mdash;good-looking," candour compelled the boy to say, as to an honest
+comrade with whom sincerity was best.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried Bice, with a little excitement. "Do you think so? Then
+perhaps there is more hope."</p>
+
+<p>Jock was confounded by this utterance, and he began to feel that he had
+been uncivil. "I don't mean," he said, "that you are not&mdash;I mean that it
+is not of the least consequence. What does it matter? I am sure you are
+clever, which is far better. I think you could get up anything faster
+than most fellows if you were to try."</p>
+
+<p>"Get up! What does that mean? And when I tell you that it does matter to
+me&mdash;oh much,&mdash;very much!" she cried. "When you are beautiful, everything
+is before you&mdash;you marry, you have whatever you wish, you become a great
+lady; only to be pretty&mdash;that does nothing for you. Ugly, however," said
+the girl reflectively; "if I am ugly, then there is some hope."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not say that," cried Jock, shocked at the suggestion. "I wouldn't
+be so uncivil. You are&mdash;just like other people," he added encouragingly,
+"not much either one way or another&mdash;like the rest of us," Jock said,
+with the intention of soothing her ruffled feelings. At sixteen decorum
+is not always the first thing we think of; and though Bice was not an
+English girl, she was very young. She threw out a vigorous arm and
+pushed him from her, so that the astonished critic, stumbling over some
+fallen branches, measured his length upon the dewy sod.</p>
+
+<p>"That was not I," she said demurely, as he picked himself up in great
+surprise&mdash;drawing a step away, and looking at him with wide-open eyes,
+to which the little fright of seeing him fall, and the spark of malice
+that took pleasure in it, had given sudden brilliancy. Jock was so much
+astonished that he uttered no reproach, but went on by her side, after a
+moment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> pondering. He could not see how any offence could have lurked
+in the encouraging and consolatory words he had said.</p>
+
+<p>But when they reached the other chapter, which concerned his fortunes,
+Bice was not more understanding. Her gray eyes absolutely flamed upon
+him when he told her of his father's will, and the conditions upon which
+Lucy's inheritance was held. "To give her money away! But that is
+impossible&mdash;it would be to prove one's self mad," the girl said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? You forget it's my father you're speaking of. He was not mad, he
+was just," said Jock, reddening. "What's mad in it? You've got a great
+fortune&mdash;far more than you want. It all came out of other people's
+pockets somehow. Oh, of course, not in a dishonest way. That is the
+worst of speaking to a girl that doesn't understand political economy
+and the laws of production. Of course it must come out of other people's
+pockets. If I sell anything and get a profit (and nobody would sell
+anything if they didn't get a profit), of course that comes out of your
+pocket. Well, now, I've got a great deal more than I want, and I say you
+shall have some of it back."</p>
+
+<p>"And I say," cried Bice, making him a curtsey, "Merci Monsieur! Grazia
+Signor! oh thank you, thank you very much&mdash;as much as you like, sir, as
+much as you like! but all the same I think you are mad. Your money! all
+that makes you happy and great&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Money," said Jock, loftily, "makes nobody happy. It may make you
+comfortable. It gives you fine houses, horses and carriages, and all
+that sort of thing. So it will do to the other people to whom it goes;
+so it is wisdom to divide it, for the more good you can get out of it
+the better. Lucy has money lying in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> bank&mdash;or somewhere&mdash;that she
+does not want, that does her no good; and there is some one else" (a
+fellow I know, Jock added in a parenthesis), "who has not got enough to
+live upon. So you see she just hands over what she doesn't want to him,
+and that's better for both. So far from being mad, it's"&mdash;Jock paused
+for a word&mdash;"it's philosophy, it's wisdom, it's statesmanship. It is
+just the grandest way that was ever invented for putting things
+straight."</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked at him with a sort of incredulous cynical gaze&mdash;as if asking
+whether he meant her to believe this fiction&mdash;whether perhaps he was
+such a fool as to think that she could be persuaded to believe it. It
+was evident that she did not for a moment suppose him to be serious. She
+laughed at last in ridicule and scorn. "You think," she said, "I know so
+little. Ah, I know a great deal more than that. What are you without
+money? You are nobody. The more you have, so much more have you
+everything at your command. Without money you are nobody. Yes, you may
+be a prince or an English milord, but that is nothing without money. Oh
+yes! I have known princes that had nothing and the people laughed at
+them. And a milord who is poor&mdash;the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can
+do nothing without money," the girl said with almost fierce derision,
+"and you tell me you will give it away!" She laughed again angrily, as
+if such a brag was offensive and insulting to her own poverty. The boy
+who had never in his life known what it was to want anything that money
+could procure for him, treated the whole question lightly, and
+undervalued its importance altogether. But the girl who knew by
+experience what was involved in the want of it, heard with a sort of
+wondering fury this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> slighting treatment of what was to her the
+universal panacea. Her cynicism and satirical unbelief grew into
+indignation. "And you tell me it is wise to give it away!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy has got to do it, whether it is wise or not," said Jock, almost
+overawed by this high moral disapproval. "We went to the lawyer about it
+the day you came. He is settling it now. She is giving away&mdash;well, a
+good many thousand pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Pounds are more than francs, eh?" said Bice quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"More than francs! just twenty-five times more," cried Jock, proud of
+his knowledge, "a thousand pounds is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I don't believe you!" cried the girl in an outburst of passion,
+and she fled from him across the park, catching up her dress and running
+at a pace which even Jock with his long legs knew he could not keep up
+with. He gazed with surprise, standing still and watching her with the
+words arrested on his lips. "But she can't keep it up long like that,"
+after a moment Jock said.</p>
+
+<p>The time, however, approached when the two friends had to part. Jock
+left the Hall a few days after Lady Randolph, and he was somehow not
+very glad to go. The family life had been less cheerful lately, and
+conversation languished when the domestic party were alone together.
+When the Contessa was present she kept up the ball, maintaining at least
+with Sir Tom an always animated and lively strain of talk; but at
+breakfast there was not much said, and of late a little restraint had
+crept even between the master and mistress of the house, no one could
+tell how. The names of the guests were scarcely mentioned between them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+Sir Tom was very attentive and kind to his wife, but he was more silent
+than he used to be, reading his letters and his newspapers. Lucy had
+been quite satisfied when he said, though it must be allowed with a
+laugh not devoid of embarrassment, that it was more important he should
+master all the papers and see how public opinion was running, now when
+it was so near the opening of Parliament. But a little veil of silence
+had fallen over Lucy too. It cost her an effort to speak even to Jock of
+common subjects and of his going away. She had thought him looking a
+little disturbed, however, on the last morning, and with the newspaper
+forming a sort of screen between them and Sir Tom, Lucy made an attempt
+to talk to her brother as of old.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall miss you very much, Jock. We have not had so much time together
+as we thought."</p>
+
+<p>"We have had no time together, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not say that, dear. Don't you recollect that drive to
+Farafield? We have not had so many walks, it is true; but then I have
+been&mdash;occupied."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it ever finished yet, that business?" Jock said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>It was all Lucy could do not to give him a warning look. "I have had
+some letters about it. A thing cannot be finished in a minute like
+that." Instinctively she spoke low to escape her husband's ear; he had
+never referred to the subject, and she avoided it religiously. It gave
+her a thrill of alarm to have it thus reintroduced. To escape it, she
+said, raising her voice a little: "The Contessa's letters have not been
+sent to her. You must ring the bell, Jock. There are a great many for
+her." The name of the Contessa always moved Sir Tom to a certain
+attention. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> seemed to be on the alert for what might be said of her.
+He looked round the corner of the paper with a short laugh, and said,
+jocularly, with mock gravity&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great thing to keep up your correspondence, Lucy. You never can
+know when it may prove serviceable. If it had not been for that, she
+most likely never would have come here."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy smiled, though with a little restraint. "Perhaps she is sorry now,"
+she said, "for it must be dull." Then she hurriedly changed the subject,
+afraid lest she might seem ill-natured. "Poor Miss Bice has never any
+letters," she said; "she must have very few friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she has nobody at all," said Jock, "She hasn't got a relation. She
+has always lived like this, in different places; and never been to
+school, or&mdash;anywhere; though she has been nearly round the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little thing! and she is fond of children too," said Lucy. "I
+found her one day with baby on her shoulder, a wet day when he could not
+get out, racing up and down the long gallery with him crowing and
+laughing. It was so pretty to see him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or to see her, Lucy, most people would say," said Sir Tom, interrupting
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Would they? Oh, yes. But I thought naturally of baby," said the young
+mother. Then she made a pause and added softly, "I hope&mdash;they&mdash;are
+always kind to her."</p>
+
+<p>There was a little silence. Sir Tom was behind his newspaper. He
+listened, but he did not say anything, and Jock was not aware that he
+was listening.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't think she minds," said Jock. "She is rather jolly when you
+come to know her. I say, Lucy, it will be awfully dull for her, you
+know, when&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"When what, Jock?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When I am gone," the boy intended to have said, but some gleam of
+consciousness came over him that made him pause. He did not say this,
+but grew a little red in the effort to think of something else that he
+could say.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I mean here," he said, "for she hasn't been used to it. She has
+been in places where there was always music playing and that sort of
+thing. She never was in the country. There's plenty of books, to be
+sure; but she's not very fond of reading. Few people, are, I think.
+<i>You</i>  never open a book&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, Jock! I read the books from Mudie's," Lucy said, with some
+spirit, "and I always send them upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>Jock had it on his lips to say something derogatory of the books from
+Mudie's; but he checked himself, for he remembered to have seen MTutor
+with one of those frivolous volumes, and he refrained from snubbing
+Lucy. "I believe she can't read," he said. "She can do nothing but laugh
+at one. And she thinks she's pretty," he added, with a little laugh yet
+sense of unfaithfulness to the trust reposed in him, which once more
+covered his face with crimson.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy laughed too, with hesitation and doubt. "I cannot see it," she
+said, "but that is what Lady Randolph thought. It is strange that she
+should talk of such things; but people are very funny who have been
+brought up abroad."</p>
+
+<p>"All girls are like that," said Jock, authoritatively. "They think so
+much of being pretty. But I tell her it doesn't matter. What difference
+could it make? Nobody will suppose it was her fault. She says&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo, young man," said Sir Tom. "It is time you went back to school, I
+think. What would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> MTutor say to all these confidences with young
+ladies, and knowledge of their ways!"</p>
+
+<p>Jock gave his brother-in-law a look, in which defiant virtue struggled
+with a certain consciousness; but he scorned to make any reply.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BREAKFAST TABLE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy found her life much changed when Jock had gone, and she was left
+alone to face the change of circumstances which had tacitly taken place.
+The Contessa said not a word of terminating her visit. The departure of
+Lady Randolph apparently suggested nothing to her. She could scarcely
+have filled up the foreground more entirely than she did before&mdash;but she
+was now uncriticised, unremarked upon. There seemed even to be no
+appropriation of more than her due, for it was very natural that a
+person of experience and powers of conversation like hers should take
+the leading place, and simple Lucy, so much younger and with so much
+less acquaintance with the world, fall into the background. And
+accordingly this was what happened. Madame di Forno-Populo knew
+everybody. She had a hundred mutual acquaintances to tell Sir Tom about,
+and they seemed to have an old habit of intercourse, which by this time
+had been fully resumed. The evenings were the time when this was most
+apparent. Then the Contessa was at her brightest. She had managed to
+introduce shades upon all the lamps, so as to diffuse round her a
+softened artificial illumination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> such as is favourable to beauty that
+has passed its prime: and in this ruddy gloom she sat half seen, Sir Tom
+sometimes standing by her, sometimes permitted to take the other corner
+of her sofa&mdash;and talked to him, sometimes sinking her voice low as her
+reminiscences took some special vein, sometimes calling sweetly to her
+pretty Lucy to listen to this or that. These extensions of confidence,
+generally, were brought in to make up for a long stretch of more private
+communications, and the aspect of the little domestic circle was on such
+occasions curious enough. By the table, in a low chair, with the full
+light of the lamp upon her, sat Lucy, generally with some work in her
+hands; she did not read or write (exercises to which, to tell the truth,
+she was not much addicted) out of politeness, lest she should seem to be
+withdrawing her attention from her guest, but sat there with her slight
+occupation, so as to be open to any appeal, and ready if she were
+wanted. On the other side of the table, the light making a sort of
+screen and division between them, sat Bice, generally with a book before
+her, which, as has been said, did not at all interfere with her power of
+giving a vivid attention to what was going on around her. These two said
+nothing to each other, and were often silent for the whole evening, like
+pieces of still life. Bice sat with her book upon the table, so that
+only the open page and the hands that held the book were within the
+brightness of the light, which on the other side streamed down upon
+Lucy's fair shoulders and soft young face, and upon the work in her
+hands. In the corner was the light continuous murmur of talk; the
+half-seen figure of the Contessa, generally leaning back, looking up to
+Sir Tom, who stood with his arm on the mantelpiece with much animation,
+gesticulation of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> hands and subdued laughter, the most lively
+current of sound, soft, intensified by little eloquent breaks, by
+emphatic gestures, by sentences left incomplete, but understood all the
+better for being half said. There were many evenings in which Lucy sat
+there with a little wonder, but no other active feeling in her mind. It
+is needless to say that it was not pleasant to her. She would sit and
+wonder wistfully whether her husband had forgotten she was there, but
+then reminded herself that of course it was his duty to think of the
+Contessa first, and consoled herself that by and by the stranger would
+go away, and all would be as it had been. As time went on, the desire
+that this should happen, and longing to have possession of her home
+again, grew so strong that she could scarcely subdue it, and it was with
+the greatest difficulty that she kept all expression of it from her
+lips. And by and by, the warmth of this restrained desire so absorbed
+Lucy that she scarcely dared allow herself to speak lest it should burst
+forth, and there seemed to herself to be continually going on in her
+mind a calculation of the chances, a scrutiny of everything the Contessa
+said which seemed to point at such a movement. But, indeed, the Contessa
+said very little upon which the most sanguine could build. She said
+nothing of her arrangements at all, nor spoke of what she was going to
+do, and answered none of Lucy's ardent and innocent fishings after
+information. The evenings became more and more intolerable to Lady
+Randolph as they went on. She was glad that anybody should come, however
+little she might care for their society, to break these private
+conferences up.</p>
+
+<p>And this was not all, nor even perhaps the worst, of the vague evils not
+yet defined in her mind, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> which she was so very reluctant to define,
+which Lucy had to go through. At breakfast, when she was alone with her
+husband, matters were almost worse. Sir Tom, it was evident, began to
+feel the <i>tête-à-tête</i>  embarrassing. He did not know what to say to his
+little wife when they were alone. The presence of the Dowager and Jock
+had freed him from any necessity of explanation, had kept him in his
+usual easy way; but now that Lucy alone sat opposite to him, he was more
+silent than his wont, and with no longer any of the little flow of
+simple observations which had once been so delightful to her. Sir Tom
+was more uneasy than if she had been a stern and jealous Eleanor, a
+clear-sighted critic seeing through and through him. The contest was so
+unequal, and the weaker creature so destitute of any intention or
+thought of resistance, that he felt himself a coward and traitor for
+thus deserting her and overclouding her home and her life. Then he took
+to asking himself, Did he overcloud her? Was she sensible of any
+difference? Did she know enough to know that this was not how she ought
+to be treated, or was she not quite contented with her secondary place?
+Such a simple creature, would she not cry&mdash;would she not show her anger
+if she was conscious of anything to be grieved or angry about? He took
+refuge in those newspapers which, he gave out, it was so necessary he
+should study, to understand the mind of the country before the opening
+of Parliament. And thus they would sit, Lucy dutifully filling out the
+tea, taking care that he had the dish he liked for breakfast, swallowing
+her own with difficulty yet lingering over it, always thinking that
+perhaps Tom might have something to say. While he, on the other hand,
+kept behind his newspaper, feeling himself guilty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> conscious that
+another sort of woman would make one of those "scenes" which men dread,
+yet despising Lucy a little in spite of himself for the very quality he
+most admired in her, and wondering if she were really capable of feeling
+at all. Sometimes little Tom would be brought downstairs to roll about
+the carpet and try his unsteady little limbs in a series of clutches at
+the chairs and table; and on these occasions the meal was got through
+more easily. But little Tom was not always well enough to come
+downstairs, and sometimes Lucy thought that her husband might have
+something to say to her which the baby's all-engrossing presence
+hindered. Thus it came about that the hours in which the Contessa was
+present and in the front of everything, were really less painful than
+those in which the pair were alone with the shadow of the intruder, more
+powerful even than her presence holding them apart.</p>
+
+<p>One of these mornings, however, Lucy's anticipations and hopes seemed
+about to be realised. Sir Tom laid down his paper, looked at her frankly
+without any shield, and said, as she had so often imagined him saying,
+"I want to talk to you, Lucy." How glad she was that little Tom was not
+downstairs that morning!</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him across the table with a brightening countenance, and
+said, "Yes, Tom!" with such warm eagerness and sudden pleasure that her
+look penetrated his very heart. It implied a great deal more than Sir
+Tom intended and thought, and he was a man of very quick intelligence.
+The expectation in her eyes touched him beyond a thousand complaints.</p>
+
+<p>"I had an interview yesterday, in which you were much concerned," he
+said; then made a pause, with such a revolution going on within him as
+seldom happens in a mature and self-collected mind. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> begun with
+totally different sentiments from those which suddenly came over him at
+the sight of her kindling face. When he said, "I want to talk to you,
+Lucy," he had meant to speak of her interview with Mr. Rushton, to point
+out to her the folly of what she was doing, and to show her how it was
+that he should be compelled to do everything that was in his power to
+oppose her. He did not mean to go to the root of the matter, as he had
+done before, when he was obliged to admit to himself that he had
+failed&mdash;but to address himself to the secondary view of the question, to
+the small prospect there was of doing any good. But when he caught her
+eager, questioning look, her eyes growing liquid and bright with
+emotion, her face full of restrained anxiety and hope, Sir Tom's heart
+smote him. What did she think he was going to say? Not anything about
+money, important as that subject was in their life&mdash;but something far
+more important, something that touched her to the quick, a revelation
+upon which her very soul hung. He was startled beyond measure by this
+disclosure. He had thought she did not feel, and that her heart
+unawakened had regarded calmly, with no pain to speak of, the new state
+of affairs of which he himself was guiltily conscious; but that eager
+look put an end in a moment to his delusion. He paused and swerved
+mentally as if an angel had suddenly stepped into his way.</p>
+
+<p>"It is about&mdash;that will of your father's," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy, gazing at him with such hope and expectation, suddenly sank, as it
+were, prostrate in the depth of a disappointment that almost took the
+life out of her. She did not indeed fall physically or faint, which
+people seldom do in moments of extreme mental suffering. It was only her
+countenance that fell. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> brightening, beaming, hopeful face grew
+blank in a moment, her eyes grew utterly dim, a kind of mist running
+over them: a sound&mdash;half a sob, half a sigh, came from her breast. She
+put up her hand trembling to support her head, which shook too with the
+quiver that went over her. It took her at least a minute to get over the
+shock of the disappointment. Then commanding herself painfully, but
+without looking at him, which, indeed, she dared not do, she said again,
+"Yes, Tom?" with a piteous quiver of her lip.</p>
+
+<p>It did not make Sir Tom any the less kind, and full of tender impulses,
+that he was wounding his wife in the profoundest sensibilities of her
+heart. In this point the greater does not include the lesser. He was
+cruel in the more important matter, without intending it indeed, and
+from what he considered a fatality, a painful combination of
+circumstances out of which he could not escape; but in the lesser
+particulars he was as kind as ever. He could not bear to see her
+suffering. The quiver in her lip, the failure of the colour in her
+cheeks affected him so that he could scarcely contain himself.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear love," he cried, "my little Lucy! you are not afraid of what I
+am going to say to you?" These words came to his lips naturally, by the
+affectionate impulse of his kind nature. But when he had said them, an
+impulse, which was perhaps more crafty than loving, followed. Quick as
+thought he changed his intention, his purpose altogether. He could not
+resist the appeal of Lucy's face; but he slipped instinctively from the
+more serious question that lay between them, and resolved to sacrifice
+the other, which was indeed very important, yet could be treated in an
+easier way and without involving any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>thing more painful. Sir Tom was at
+an age when money has a great value, and the mere sense of possession is
+pleasant; and there was a principle involved which he had determined a
+few weeks ago not to relinquish. But the position in which he found
+himself placed was one out of which some way of escape had to be
+invented at once. "Lucy," he said, "you are frightened; you think I am
+going to cross you in the matter that lies so near your heart. But you
+mistake me, my dear. I think I ought to be your chief adviser in that as
+in all matters. It is my duty: but I hope you never thought that I would
+exercise any force upon you to put a stop to&mdash;what you thought right."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had overcome herself, though with a painful effort. She followed
+with a quivering humility what he was saying. She acknowledged to
+herself that this was, indeed, the great thing in her life, and that it
+was only her childishness and foolishness which had made her place other
+matters in the chief place. Most likely, she said to herself, Tom was
+not aware of anything that required explanation; he would never think it
+possible that she could be so ungracious and unkind as to grudge his
+guests their place in his house. She gathered herself up hastily to meet
+him when he entered upon the great question which was far more
+important, which was indeed the only question between them. "I know,"
+she said, "that you were always kind, Tom. If I did not ask you first it
+was because&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We need not enter upon that, my dear. I was angry, and went too far. At
+the same time, Lucy, it is a mad affair altogether. Your father himself,
+had he realised the difficulty of carrying it out, would have seen this.
+I only say so to let you know my opinion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> is unchanged. And you know
+your trustees are of the same mind. But if you think this is your duty,
+as I am sure you do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Lucy that her duty had sailed far away from her on some sea
+of strange distance and dullness where she could scarcely keep it in
+sight. Her own very voice seemed strange and dull to her and far away,
+as she said almost mechanically: "I do think it is my duty&mdash;to my
+father&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware that you think so, my love. As you get older you will,
+perhaps, see as I do&mdash;that to carry out the spirit of your father's will
+would be better than to follow so closely the letter of it. But you are
+still very young, and Jock is younger; and, fortunately, you can afford
+to indulge a freak of this sort. I shall let Mr. Rushton know that I
+withdraw all opposition. And now, give me a kiss, and let us forget that
+there ever was any controversy between us&mdash;it never went further than a
+controversy, did it, darling?" Sir Tom said.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy could not speak for the moment. She looked up into his face with
+her eyes all liquid with tears, and a great confusion in her soul. Was
+this all? as he kissed her, and smiled, leaning over her in the old kind
+way, with a tenderness that was half-fatherly and indulgent to her
+weakness, she did not seem at all sure what it was that had moved like a
+ghost between him and her; was it in reality only this&mdash;this and no
+more? She almost thought so as she looked up into his kind face. Only
+this! How glad it would have made her three weeks ago to have his
+sanction for the thing she was so reluctant to attempt, which it was so
+much her duty to do, which Jock urged with so much pertinacity, and
+which her father from his grave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> enjoined. If it affected her but dully
+now, whose was the fault? Not Tom's, who was so generously ready to
+yield to her, although he disapproved. When he retired behind his
+newspaper once more with a kind smile at her, to end the matter, Lucy
+sat quite still in a curious stunned confusion trying to account for it
+all to herself. There could be no doubt, she thought, that it was she
+who was in the wrong. She it was who had created the embarrassment
+altogether. He was not even aware of any other cause. It had never
+occurred to his greater mind that she could be so petty as to fret under
+the interruption which their visitors had made in her life. He had
+thought that the other matter was the cause of her dullness and silence,
+and generously had put an end to it, not by requiring any sacrifice from
+her, but by making one in his own person. She sat silent trying to
+realise all this, but unable to get quite free from the confusion and
+dimness that had invaded her soul.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ORACLE SPEAKS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy went up to the nursery when breakfast was over. It was her habit to
+go and take counsel of little Tom when her heart was troubled or heavy.
+He was now eighteen months old, an age at which you will say the
+judicial faculties are small; but a young mother has superstitions, and
+there are many dilemmas in life in which it will do a woman, though the
+male critic may laugh, great good to go and con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>fide it all to her baby,
+and hold that little bundle of white against her heart to conquer the
+pain of it. When little Tom was lively and well, when he put his arms
+about her neck and dabbed his velvety mouth against her cheek, Lucy felt
+that she was approved of and her heart rose. When he was cross and cried
+and pushed her away from him, as sometimes happened, she ceased to be
+sure of anything, and felt dissatisfied with herself and all the world.
+It was with a great longing to consult this baby oracle and see what
+heaven might have to say to her through his means, that she ran
+upstairs, neglecting even Mrs. Freshwater, who advanced ceremoniously
+from her own retirement with her bill of fare in her hand, as Lucy
+darted past. "Wait a little and I will come to you," she cried. What was
+the dinner in comparison? She flew up to the nursery only to find it
+vacant. The morning was clingy and damp, no weather for the delicate
+child to go out, and Lucy was not alarmed but knew well enough where to
+find him. The long picture gallery which ran along the front of the
+house was his usual promenade on such occasions, and there she betook
+herself hurriedly. There could not be much doubt as to little Tom's
+whereabouts. Shrieks of baby fun were audible whenever she came within
+hearing, and the sound of a flying foot careering from end to end of the
+long space, which certainly was not the foot of Tom's nurse, whose voice
+could be heard in cries of caution, "Oh, take care, Miss! Oh, for
+goodness sake&mdash;oh, what will my lady say to me if you should trip with
+him!" Lucy paused suddenly, checked by the sound of this commotion. Once
+before she had surprised a scene of the kind, and she knew what it
+meant. She stopped short, and stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> still to get possession of herself.
+It was a circumstance which pulled her up sharply and changed the
+current of her mind. Her first feeling was one of disappointment and
+almost irritation. Could she not even have the baby to herself, she
+murmured? But there was in reality so little of the petty in Lucy's
+disposition that this was but a momentary sentiment. It changed,
+however, the manner of her entrance. She came in quietly, not rushing to
+seize her boy as she had intended, but still with her superstition
+strong in her heart, and as determined to resort to the <i>Sortes Tomian&aelig;</i>
+as ever. The sight she saw was one to make a picture of. Skimming along
+the long gallery with that free light step which scarcely seemed to
+touch the ground was Bice, a long stream of hair flying behind her, the
+child seated on her shoulder, supported by one raised arm, while the
+other held aloft the end of a red scarf which she had twisted round him.
+Little Tom had one hand twisted in her hair, and with his small feet
+beating upon her breast, and his little chest expanded with cries of
+delight, encouraged his steed in her wild career. The dark old pictures,
+some full-length Randolphs of an elder age, good for little but a
+background, threw up this airy group with all the perfection of
+contrast. They flew by as Lucy came in, so joyous, so careless, so
+delightful in pose and movement, that she could not utter the little cry
+of alarm that came to her lips. Bice had never in her life looked so
+near that beauty which she considered as so serious a necessity. She was
+flushed with the movement, her fine light figure, too light and slight
+as yet for the full perfection of feminine form, was the very
+impersonation of youth. She flew, she did not glide nor run&mdash;her elastic
+foot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> spurned the floor. She was like a runner in a Greek game. Lucy
+stood breathless between admiration and pleasure and alarm, as the
+animated figure turned and came fast towards her in its airy career.
+Little Tom perceived his mother as they came up. He was still more
+daring than his bearer. He detached himself suddenly from Bice's
+shoulder, and with a shout of pleasure threw himself upon Lucy. The
+oracle had spoken. It almost brought her to her knees indeed, descending
+upon her like a little thunderbolt, catching her round the throat and
+tearing off with a hurried clutch the lace upon her dress; while the
+flying steed, suddenly arrested, came to a dead stop in front of her,
+panting, blushing, and disconcerted. "There was no fear," she cried,
+with involuntary self-defence, "I held him fast." Bice forgot even in
+the surprise how wildly she stood with her hair floating, and the scarf
+in her hand still knotted round the baby's waist.</p>
+
+<p>"There was no danger, my lady. I was watching every step; and it do
+Master Tom a world of good," cried the nurse, coming to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you think I am afraid?" said Lucy. "Don't you know I am most
+grateful to you for being so kind to him? and it was pretty to see you.
+You looked so bright and strong, and my boy so happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss is just our salvation, my lady," said the nurse; "these wet days
+when we can't get out, I don't know what I should do without her. Master
+Tom, bless him, is always cross when he don't get no air; but once set
+on Miss' shoulder he crows till it do your heart good to hear him," the
+woman cried.</p>
+
+<p>Bice stood with the colour still in her face, her head thrown back a
+little, and her breath coming less quickly. She laughed at this
+applause. "I like it,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> she said. "I like him; he is my only little
+companion. He is pleased when he sees me."</p>
+
+<p>This went to Lucy's heart. "And so are we all," she said; "but you will
+not let me see you. I am often alone, too. If you will come and&mdash;and
+give me your company&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bice gave her a wistful look; then shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you do not wish for us here; and why should you?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear!" cried Lucy in alarm, with a glance at the woman who stood by,
+all ears. And now it was that little Tom at eighteen months showed that
+precocious judgment in which his mother had an instinctive belief. He
+had satisfied himself with the destruction of Lucy's lace, and with
+printing the impression of his mouth all over her cheeks. That little
+wet wide open mouth was delicious to Lucy. No trouble had befallen her
+yet that could not be wiped out by its touch. But now a new distraction
+was necessary for the little hero; and his eye caught the red sash which
+still was round his waist. He transferred all his thoughts to it with an
+instant revolution of idea, and holding on by it like a little sailor on
+a rope, drew Bice close till he could succeed in the arduous task, not
+unattended by danger, of flinging himself from one to another. This game
+enchanted Master Tom. Had he been a little older it would have been
+changed into that daring faltering hop from one eminence, say a
+footstool, to another, which flutters the baby soul. He was too insecure
+in possession of those aimless little legs to venture on any such daring
+feat now; but, with a valour more desperate still, he flung himself
+across the gulf from Lucy's arms to those of Bice and back again, with
+cries of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> delight. These cries, it must be allowed, were not very
+articulate, but they soon became urgent, with a demand which the little
+tyrant insisted upon with increasing vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my lady," cried the nurse, "it is as plain as if he said it, and he
+is saying of it, the pet, as pretty!&mdash;--He wants you to kiss Miss, he
+do. Ain't that it, my own? Nursey knows his little talk. Ain't that it,
+my darling lamb?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a momentary pause in the strange little group linked together
+by the baby's clutches. The young mother and the girl with their heads
+so near each other, looked in each other's faces. In Lucy's there was a
+kind of awe, in Bice's a sort of wondering wistfulness mingled with
+incipient defiance. They were not born to be each other's friends. They
+were different in everything; they were even on different sides in this
+house&mdash;the one an intruder, belonging to the party which was destroying
+the other's domestic peace. It would be vain to say that there was not a
+little reluctance in Lucy's soul as she gazed at the younger girl, come
+from she knew not where, established under her roof she knew not how.
+She hesitated for one moment, then she bent forward almost with
+solemnity and kissed Bice's cheek. She seemed to communicate her own
+agitation to the girl who stood straight up with her head a little back,
+half eager, half defiant. When Bice felt the touch of Lucy's lips,
+however, she melted in a moment. Her slight figure swayed, she took
+Lucy's disengaged hand with her own, and, stooping over it, kissed it
+with lips that quivered. There was not a word said between them; but a
+secret compact was thus made under little Tom's inspiration. The little
+oracle clambered up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> upon his mother afterwards, and laid down his head
+upon her shoulder and dropped off to sleep with that entire confiding
+and abandonment of the whole little being which is one of the deepest
+charms of childhood. Who is there with any semblance of a heart in his,
+much more her, bosom, who is not touched in the tenderest part when a
+child goes to sleep in his arms? The appeal conveyed in the act is one
+which scarcely a savage could withstand. The three women gathered round
+to see this common spectacle, so universal, so touching. Bice, who was
+almost too young for the maternal sentiment, and who was a stern young
+Stoic by nature, never shedding a tear, could not tell how it was that
+her eyes moistened. But Lucy's filled with an emotion which was sharp
+and sore with alarm. "Oh, nurse, don't call my boy a little angel!" she
+said, with a sentiment which a woman will understand.</p>
+
+<p>This baby scene upstairs was balanced by one of a very different
+character below. Sir Tom had gone into his own room a little disturbed
+and out of sorts. Circumstances had been hard upon him, he felt. The
+Contessa's letter offering her visit had been a jest to him. He was one
+of those who thought the best of the Contessa. He had seen a good deal
+of her one time and another in his life, and she held the clue to one or
+two matters which it would not have pleased him, at this mature period
+of his existence, to have published abroad. She was an adventuress, he
+knew, and her friends were not among the best of humanity. She had led a
+life which, without being positively evil, had shut her out from the
+sympathies of many good people. When a woman has to solve the problem
+how to obtain all the luxuries and amusements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> of life without money, it
+is to be expected that her attempts to do so should lead her into risky
+places, where the footing was far from sure. But she had never, as Lady
+Randolph acknowledged, gone so far as that society should refuse to
+receive her, and Sir Tom was always an indulgent critic. If she were
+coming to England, as she gave him to understand, he saw no reason why
+she should not come to the Hall. For himself, it would be rather amusing
+than otherwise, and Lucy would take no harm&mdash;even if there was harm in
+the Forno-Populo (which he did not believe), his wife was far too
+innocent even to suspect it. She would not know evil if she saw it, he
+said to himself proudly; and then there was no chance that the Contessa,
+who loved merriment and gaiety, could long be content with anything so
+humdrum as his quiet life in the country. Thus it will be seen that Sir
+Tom had got himself innocently enough into this imbroglio. He had meant
+no particular harm. He had meant to be kind to a poor woman, who after
+all needed kindness much; and if the comic character of the situation
+touched his sense of humour, and he was not unwilling in his own person
+to get a little amusement out of it, who could blame him? This was the
+worst that Sir Tom meant. To amuse himself partly by the sight of the
+conventional beauty and woman of the world in the midst of circumstances
+so incongruous, and partly by the fluttering of the dovecotes which the
+appearance of such an adventuress would cause. He liked her conversation
+too, and to hear all about the more noisy company, full of talk and
+diversion in which he had wasted so much of his youth. But there were
+two or three things which Sir Tom did not take into his calculations.
+The first was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> the sort of fascination which that talk, and all the
+associations of the old world, and the charms of the professional
+sorceress, would exercise upon himself after his settling down as the
+head of a family and pillar of the State. He had not thought how much
+amused he would be, how the contrast even would tickle his fancy and
+affect (for the moment) his life. He laughed within himself at the
+transparent way in which his old friend bade for his sympathy and
+society. She was the same as ever, living upon admiration, upon
+compliments whether fictitious or not, and demanding a show of devotion,
+somebody always at her feet. She thought, no doubt, he said to himself,
+that she had got him at her feet, and he laughed to himself when he was
+alone at the thought. But, nevertheless, it did amuse him to talk to the
+Contessa, and before long, what with skilful reminders of the past, what
+with hints and reference to a knowledge which he would not like extended
+to the world, he had begun by degrees to find himself in a confidential
+position with her. "We know each other's secrets," she would say to him
+with a meaning look. He was caught in her snare. On the other hand an
+indefinite visit prolonged and endless had never come within his
+calculation. He did not know how to put an end to the situation&mdash;perhaps
+as it was an amusement for his evenings to see the siren spread her
+snares, and even to be more or less caught in them, he did not sincerely
+wish to put an end to it as yet. He was caught in them more or less, but
+never so much as to be unaware of the skill with which the snares were
+laid, which would have amused him whatever had been the seriousness of
+the attendant circumstances. He did not, however, allow that he had no
+desire to make an end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> of these circumstances, but only said to himself,
+with a shrug of his shoulders, how could he do it? He could not send his
+old friend away. He could not but be civil and attentive to her so long
+as she was under his roof. It distressed him that Lucy should feel it,
+as this morning's experience proved her to do, but how could he help it?
+He made that other sacrifice to Lucy by way of reconciling her to the
+inevitable, but he could do no more. When you invite a friend to be your
+guest, he said to himself, you must be more or less at the mercy of that
+friend. If he (or she) stays too long, what can you do? Sir Tom was not
+the sort of man to be reduced to helplessness by such a difficulty. Yet
+this was what he said to himself.</p>
+
+<p>It vexed him, however, that Lucy should feel it so much. He could not
+throw off this uneasy feeling. He had stopped her mouth as one might
+stop a child's mouth with a sugar plum; but he could not escape from the
+consciousness that Lucy felt her domain invaded, and that her feeling
+was just. He had thrown himself into the great chair, and was pondering
+not what to do, but the impossibility of doing anything, when Williams,
+his confidential man, who knew all about the Contessa almost as well as
+he did, suddenly appeared before him. Williams had been all over the
+world with Sir Tom before he settled down as his butler at the Hall. He
+was, therefore, not one who could be dismissed summarily if he
+interfered in any matter out of his sphere. He appeared on the other
+side of Sir Tom's writing-table with a face as long as his arm, the face
+with which Sir Tom was so well acquainted&mdash;the same face with which he
+had a hundred times announced the failure of supplies, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> delay of
+carriages, the general hopelessness of the situation. There was tragedy
+in it of the most solemn kind, but there was a certain enjoyment too.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" said Sir Tom; and then he jumped to his feet.
+"Something is wrong with the baby," he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Sir Thomas; Mr. Randolph is pretty well, thank you, Sir Thomas. It
+is about something else that I made so bold. There is Antonio, sir, in
+the servants' hall; Madame the Countess' man."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the Countess," cried Sir Tom, and he seated himself again; then
+said, with the confidence of a man to the follower who has been his
+companion in many straits, "You gave me a fright, Williams. I thought
+that little shaver&mdash;&mdash; But what's the matter with Antonio? Can't you keep
+a fellow like that in order without bothering me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Thomas," said Williams, solemnly, "I am not one as troubles my
+master when things are straightforward. But them foreigners, you never
+know when you have 'em. And an idle man about an establishment, that is,
+so to speak, under nobody, and for ever a-kicking of his heels, and
+following the women servants about, and not a blessed hand's turn to
+do"&mdash;a tone of personal offence came into Williams' complaint; "there is
+a deal to do in this house," he added, "and neither me nor any of the
+men haven't got a moment to spare. Why, there's your hunting things, Sir
+Thomas, is just a man's work. And to see that fellow loafing, and
+a-hanging on about the women&mdash;I don't wonder, Sir Thomas, that it's more
+than any man can stand," said Williams, lighting up. He was a married
+man himself, with a very respectable family in the village, but he was
+not too old to be able to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> understand the feelings of John and Charles,
+whose hearts were lacerated by the success of the Italian fellow with
+his black eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, don't worry me," said Sir Tom, "take him by the collar and
+give him a shake. You're big enough." Then he laughed unfeelingly, which
+Williams did not expect. "Too big, eh, Will? Not so ready for a shindy
+as we used to be." This identification of himself with his factotum was
+mere irony, and Williams felt it; for Sir Tom, if perhaps less slim than
+in his young days, was still what Williams called a "fine figger of a
+man;" whereas the butler had widened much round the waist, and was apt
+to puff as he came upstairs, and no longer contemplated a shindy as a
+possibility at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Thomas," he said, with great gravity, "if I'm corpulent, which I
+don't deny, but never thought to have it made a reproach, it's neither
+over-feeding nor want of care, but constitootion, as derived from my
+parents, Sir Thomas. There is nothing," he added with a pensive
+superiority, "as is so gen'rally misunderstood." Then Williams drew
+himself up to still greater dignity, stimulated by Sir Tom's laugh. "If
+this fellow is to be long in the house, Sir Thomas, I won't answer for
+what may happen; for he's got the devil's own temper, like all of them,
+and carries a knife like all of them."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want of me, man? Say it out! Am I to represent to Madame di
+Forno-Populo that three great hulking fellows of you are afraid of her
+slim Neapolitan?" Sir Tom cried impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Not afraid, Sir Thomas, of nothing, but of breaking the law," said
+Williams, quickly. Then he added in an insinuating tone: "But I tell
+them, ladies don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> stop long in country visits, not at this time of the
+year. And a thing can be put up with for short that any man'd kick at
+for long. Madame the Countess will be moving on to pay her other visits,
+Sir Thomas, if I might make so bold? She is a lady as likes variety;
+leastways she was so in the old times."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas stared at the bold questioner, who thus went to the heart of
+the matter. Then he burst into a hearty laugh. "If you knew so much
+about Madame the Countess," he cried, "my good fellow, what need have
+you to come and consult me?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CONTESSA'S BOUDOIR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The east rooms in which Madame di Forno-Populo had been placed on her
+arrival at the Hall were handsome and comfortable, though they were not
+the best in the house, and they were furnished as English rooms
+generally are, the bed forming the principal object in each chamber. The
+Contessa had looked around her in dismay when first ushered into the
+spacious room with its huge couch, and wardrobes, and its unmistakable
+destination as a sleeping-room merely: and it was only the addition of a
+dressing-room of tolerable proportions which had made her quarters so
+agreeable to her as they proved. The transformation of this room from a
+severe male dressing-room into the boudoir of a fanciful and luxurious
+woman, was a work of art of which neither the master nor the mistress of
+the house had the faintest conception. The Contessa was never at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> home;
+so that she was&mdash;having that regard for her own comfort which is one of
+the leading features in such a life as hers&mdash;everywhere at home,
+carrying about with her wherever she went the materials for creating an
+individual centre (a <i>chez soi</i>, which is something far more intimate
+and personal than a home), in which everything was arranged according to
+her fancy. Had Lucy, or even had Sir Tom, who knew more about such
+matters, penetrated into that sacred retirement, they would not have
+recognised it for a room in their own house. Out of one of the
+Contessa's boxes there came a paraphernalia of decoration such as would
+turn the head of the &aelig;sthetic furnisher of the present day. As she had
+been everywhere, and had "taste," when it was not so usual to have taste
+as it is now, she had "picked up" priceless articles, in the shape of
+tapestries, embroideries, silken tissues no longer made, delicate bits
+of Eastern carpet, soft falling drapery of curtains, such as
+artistically arranged in almost any room, impressed upon it the
+Contessa's individuality, and made something dainty and luxurious among
+the meanest surroundings. The Contessa's maid, from long practice, had
+become almost an artist in the arrangement of these properties, without
+which her mistress could not live; and on the evening of the first day
+of their arrival at the Hall, when Madame di Forno-Populo emerged from
+the darkness of the chamber in which she had rested all day after her
+journey, she stepped into a little paradise of subdued colour and
+harmonious effect. Antonio and Marietta were the authors of these
+wonders. They took down Mrs. Freshwater's curtains, which were of a
+solid character adapted to the locality, and replaced them by draperies
+that veiled the light tenderly and hung with studied grace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> They took
+to pieces the small bed and made a divan covered with old brocade of the
+prosaic English mattress. They brought the finest of the furniture out
+of the bedchamber to add to the contents of this, and covered tables
+with Italian work, and veiled the bare wall with tapestry. This made
+such a magical change that the maids who penetrated by chance now and
+then into this little temple of the Graces could only stand aghast and
+gaze with open mouths; but no profane hand of theirs was ever permitted
+to touch those sacred things. There were even pictures on the wall,
+evolved out of the depths of that great coffer, which, more dear to the
+Contessa even than her wardrobe, went about with her everywhere&mdash;and
+precious pieces of porcelain: Madame di Forno-Populo, it need not be
+said, being quite above the mean and cheap decoration made with fans or
+unmeaning scraps of colour. The maids aforesaid, who obtained perilous
+and breathless glimpses from time to time of all these wonders, were at
+a loss to understand why so much trouble should be taken for a room that
+nobody but its inmate ever saw. The finer intelligence of the reader
+will no doubt set it down as something in the Contessa's favour that she
+could not live, even when in the strictest privacy, without her pretty
+things about her. To be sure it was not always so; in other regions,
+where other habits prevailed, this shrine so artistically prepared was
+open to worshippers; but the Contessa knew better than to make any such
+innovation here. She intended, indeed, nothing that was not entirely
+consistent with the strictest propriety. Her objects, no doubt, were her
+own interest and her own pleasure, which are more or less the objects of
+most people; but she intended no harm. She believed that she had a hold
+over Sir Tom which she could work for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> her advantage, but she did not
+mean to hurt Lucy. She thought that repose and a temporary absence from
+the usual scenes of her existence would be of use to her, and she
+thought also that a campaign in London under the warrant of the highest
+respectability would further her grand object. It amused her besides,
+perhaps, to flutter the susceptibilities of the innocent little
+<i>ingénue</i>  whom Sir Tom had married; but she meant no harm. As for
+seizing upon Sir Tom in the evenings, and occupying all his attention,
+that was the most natural and simple of proceedings. She did this as
+another woman played bezique. Some entertainment was a necessity, and
+everybody had something. There were people who insisted upon whist&mdash;she
+insisted only upon "some one to talk to." What could be more natural?
+The Contessa's "some one" had to be a man and one who could pay with
+sense and spirit the homage to which she was accustomed. It was her only
+stipulation&mdash;and surely it must be an ungracious hostess indeed who
+could object to that.</p>
+
+<p>She had just finished her breakfast on one of those gray
+mornings&mdash;seated before the fire in an easy-chair, which was covered
+with a shawl of soft but bright Indian colouring. She had her back to
+the light, but it was scarcely necessary even had there been any eyes to
+see her save those of Marietta, who naturally was familiar with her
+aspect at all times. Marietta made the Contessa's chocolate, as well as
+arranged and kept in order the Contessa's boudoir. To such a retainer
+nothing comes amiss. She would sit up till all hours, and perform
+marvels of waiting, of working, service of every kind. It never occurred
+to her that it "was not her place" to do anything that her mistress
+required. Antonio was her brother, which was insipid, but she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> generally
+managed to indemnify herself, one way or another, for the loss of this
+legitimate method of flirtation. She had not great wages, and she had a
+great deal of work, but Marietta felt her life amusing, and did not
+object to it. Here in England the excitement indeed flagged a little.
+Williams was stout and married, and the other men had ties of the heart
+with which, as has been seen, Antonio ruthlessly interfered. Marietta
+was not unwilling to give to Charles the footman, who was a handsome
+young fellow, the means of avenging himself, but as yet this expedient
+for a little amusement had not succeeded, and there had been a touch of
+peevishness in the tone with which she asked whether it was true that
+the Contessa intended remaining here. Madame di Forno-Populo was a woman
+who disliked the bondage of question and reply.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not amuse yourself, Marietta mia?" said the Contessa. She spoke
+Italian with her servants, and she was always caressing, fond of tender
+appellatives. "Patience! the country even in England is very good for
+the complexion, and in London there is a great deal that is amusing.
+Wheel this table away and give me the other with my writing things. The
+cushion for my elbow. Thanks! You forget nothing. My Marietta, you will
+have a happy life."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so, Signora Contessa?" said the girl, a little wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa smiled upon her and said "Cara!" with an air of tenderness
+that might have made any one happy. Then she addressed herself to her
+correspondence, while Marietta removed into the other room not only the
+tray but the table with the tray which her mistress had used. The
+Contessa did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> like to know or see anything of the processes of
+readjustment and restoration. She glanced over her morning's letters
+again with now and then a smile of satisfaction, and addressed herself
+to the task of answering them with apparent pleasure. Indeed, her own
+letters amused her even more than the others had done. When she had
+finished her task she took up a silver whistle and blew into it a long
+melodious note. She made the most charming picture, leaning back in her
+chair, in a white cashmere dressing-gown covered with lace, and a little
+cap upon her dark locks. All the accessories of her toilette were
+exquisite, as well as the draperies about her that relieved and set off
+her whiteness. Her shoes were of white plush with a cockade of lace to
+correspond. Her sleeves, a little more loose than common, showed her
+beautiful arms through a mist of lace. She was not more carefully nor
+more elegantly dressed when she went downstairs in all her panoply of
+conquest. What a pity there was no one to see it! but the Contessa did
+not even think of this. In other circumstances, no doubt, there might
+have been spectators, but in the meantime she pleased herself, which
+after all is the first object with every well-constituted mind. She
+leaned back in her chair pleased with herself and her surroundings, in a
+gentle languor after her occupation, and conscious of a yellow novel
+within reach should her young companion be slow of appearing. But Bice
+she knew had the ears of a savage, and would hear her summons wherever
+she might be.</p>
+
+<p>Bice at this moment was in a very different scene. She was in the large
+gallery, which was a little chill and dreary of a morning when all the
+windows were full of a gray, indefinable mist instead of light, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+ancestors were indistinguishable in their frames. She had just been
+going through her usual exercise with the baby, and had joined Lucy at
+the upper end of the gallery, that sport being over, and little Tom
+carried off to his mid-day sleep. There was a fire there, in the
+old-fashioned chimney, and Lucy had been sitting beside it watching the
+sport. Bice seated herself on a stool at a little distance. She had a
+half affection half dislike for this young woman, who was most near her
+in age of any one in the house. For one thing they were on different
+sides and representing different interests; and Bice had been trained to
+dislike the ordinary housekeeping woman. They had been brought together,
+indeed, in a moment of emotion by the instrumentality of the little
+delicate child, for whom Bice had conceived a compassionate affection.
+But the girl felt that they were antagonistic. She did not expect
+understanding or charity, but to be judged harshly and condemned
+summarily by this type of the conventional and proper. She believed that
+Lucy would be "shocked" by what she said, and horrified by her freedom
+and absence of prejudice. Yet, notwithstanding all this, there was an
+attraction in the candid eyes and countenance of little Lady Randolph
+which drew her in spite of herself. It was of her own will, though with
+a little appearance of reluctance, that she drew near, and soon plunged
+into talk&mdash;for to tell the truth, now that Jock was gone, Bice felt
+occasionally as if she must talk to the winds and trees, and could not
+at the hazard of her life keep silence any more. She could scarcely tell
+how it was that she was led into confessions of all kinds and
+descriptions of the details of her past life.</p>
+
+<p>"We are a little alike," said Lucy. "I was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> much older than you are
+when my father died, and afterwards we had no real home: to be sure, I
+had always Jock. Even when papa was living it was not very homelike, not
+what I should choose for a girl. I felt how different it was when I went
+to Lady Randolph, who thought of everything&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bice did not say anything for some time, and then she laughed. "The
+Contessa does not think of everything," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked at her with a question in her eyes. She wanted to ask if the
+Contessa was kind. But there was a certain domestic treachery involved
+in asking such a question.</p>
+
+<p>"People are different," she said, with a certain soothing tone. "We are
+not made alike, you know; one person is good in one way and one in
+another." This abstract deliverance was not at all in Lucy's way. She
+returned to the particular point before them with relief. "England," she
+said, "must seem strange to you after your own country. I suppose it is
+much colder and less bright?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no country" said Bice; "everywhere is my country. We have a
+house in Rome, but we travel; we go from one place to another&mdash;to all
+the places that are what you call for pleasure. We go in the season.
+Sometimes it is for the waters, sometimes for the sports or the
+games&mdash;always <i>festa</i>  wherever we go."</p>
+
+<p>"And you like that? To be sure, you are so very young; otherwise I
+should think it was rather tiresome," Lucy said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is not rather tiresome," said Bice, with a roll of her "r," "it
+is horrible! When we came here I did not know why it was, but I rejoiced
+myself that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> there was no band playing. I thought at first it was merely
+<i>jour de relâche</i>: but when morning after morning came and no band, that
+was heavenly," she said, drawing a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"A band playing!" Lucy's laugh at the absurdity of the idea rang out
+with all the gaiety of a child. It amused her beyond measure, and Bice,
+always encouraged by approbation, went on.</p>
+
+<p>"I expected it every morning. The house is so large. I thought the
+season, perhaps, was just beginning, and the people not arrived yet.
+Sometimes we go like that too soon. The rooms are cheaper. You can make
+your own arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked at her very compassionately. "That is why you pass the
+mornings in your own room," she said, "were you never then in a country
+house before?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know what is a country house. We have been in a great castle
+where there was the chase every day. No, that is not what <i>la chasse</i>
+means in England&mdash;to shoot I would say. And then in the evening the
+theatre, tableaux, or music. But to be quiet all day and all night too,
+that is what I have never seen. We have never known it. It is confusing.
+It makes you feel as if all went on without any division; all one day,
+all one night."</p>
+
+<p>Bice laughed, but Lucy looked somewhat grave. "This is our natural life
+in England," she said; "we like to be quiet; though I have not thought
+we were very quiet, we have had people almost every night."</p>
+
+<p>To this Bice made no reply. But at Lucy's next question she stared, not
+understanding what it meant. "You go everywhere with the Contessa," she
+said; "are you out?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Out!" Bice's eyes opened wide. She shook her head. "What is out?" she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is when a girl begins to go to parties&mdash;when she comes out of her
+home, out of the schoolroom, from being just a little girl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I know! From the Convent," said Bice; "but I never was there."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you always gone to parties&mdash;all your life?" asked Lucy, with
+wondering eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked at her, wondering too. "We do not go to parties. What is a
+party?" she said. "We go to the rooms&mdash;oh yes, and to the great
+receptions sometimes, and at hotels. Parties? I don't know what that
+means. Of course, I go with the Contessa to the rooms, and to the tables
+d'hôte. I give her my arm ever since I was tall enough. I carry her fan
+and her little things. When she sings I am always ready to play. They
+call me the shadow of the Contessa, for I always wear a black frock, and
+I never talk except when some one talks to me. It is most amusing how
+the English look at me. They say, Miss&mdash;&mdash;? and then stop that I may
+tell them my name."</p>
+
+<p>"And don't you?" said Lucy. "Do you know; though it is so strange to say
+it, I don't even know your name."</p>
+
+<p>Bice laughed, but she made no attempt to supply the omission. "The
+Contessa thinks it is more piquant," she said. "But nothing is decided
+about me, till it is known how I turn out. If I am beautiful the
+Contessa will marry me well, and all will be right."</p>
+
+<p>"And is that what you&mdash;wish?" said Lucy, in a tone of horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, your brother," said Bice, with a laugh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> "says I am not
+pretty, even. He says it does not matter. How ignorant men are, and
+stupid! And then suddenly they are old, old, and sour. I do not know
+which is the worst. I do not like men."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you think of being married, which it is not nice to speak of,"
+said Lucy, with disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>"Not&mdash;nice? Why is that? Must not girls be married? and if so, why not
+think of it?" said Bice, gravely. There was not the ghost of a blush
+upon her cheek. "If you might live without being married that would
+understand itself; but otherwise&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," cried Lucy, "you can, indeed you can! In England, at least. To
+marry for a living, that is terrible."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried Bice, with interest, drawing her chair nearer, "tell me how
+that is to be done."</p>
+
+<p>There was the seriousness of a practical interest in the girl's manner.
+The question was very vital to her. There was no other way of existence
+possible so far as she knew; but if there was it was well worth taking
+into consideration.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy felt the question embarrassing when it was put to her in this very
+decisive way. "Oh," she cried with an Englishwoman's usual monosyllabic
+appeal for help to heaven and earth: "there are now a great number of
+ways. There are so many things that girls can do; there are things open
+to them that never used to be&mdash;they can even be doctors when they are
+clever. There are many ways in which they can maintain themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"By trades?" cried Bice, "by work?" She laughed. "We hear of that
+sometimes, and the doctors; everybody laughs; the men make jokes, and
+say they will have one when they are ill. If that is all, I do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+think there is anything in it. I should not like to work even if I were
+a man, but a woman&mdash;&mdash;! that gets no money, that is <i>mal vu</i>. If that is
+all! Work," she said, with a little oracular air, "takes up all your
+time, and the money that one can earn is so small. A girl avoids saying
+much to men who are like this. She knows how little they can have to
+offer her; and to work herself, why, it is impossible. What time would
+you have for anything?" cried the girl, with an impatient sense of the
+fatuity of the suggestion. Lucy was so much startled by this view of the
+subject that she made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no question of working," said Bice with decision, "neither for
+women, neither for men. That is not in our world. But if I am only
+pretty, no more," she added, "what will become of me? It is not known. I
+shall follow the Contessa as before. I will be useful to her, and
+afterwards&mdash;&mdash; I prefer not to think of that. In the meantime I am young.
+I do not wish for anything. It is all amusing. I become weary of the
+band playing, that is true; but then sometimes it plays not badly, and
+there is something always to laugh at. Afterwards, if I marry, then I
+can do as I like," the girl said.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy gave her another look of surprised awe, for it was really with that
+feeling that she regarded this strange little philosopher. But she did
+not feel herself able to pursue the subject with so enlightened a
+person. She said: "How very well you speak English. You have scarcely
+any accent, and the Contessa has none at all. I was afraid she would
+speak only French, and my French is so bad."</p>
+
+<p>"I have always spoken English all my life. When the Contessa is angry
+she says I am English all over;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> and she&mdash;she is of no country&mdash;she is
+of all countries; we are what you call vagabonds," the girl cried, with
+a laugh. She said it so calmly, without the smallest shadow of shame or
+embarrassment, that Lucy could only gaze at her and could not find a
+word to say. Was it true? It was evident that Bice at least believed so,
+and was not at all afraid to say it. This conversation took place, as
+has been said, in the picture gallery, where Lady Randolph and her young
+visitor had first found a ground of amity. The rainy weather had
+continued, and this place had gradually become the scene of a great deal
+of intercourse between the young mistress of the house and her guest.
+They scarcely spoke to each other in the evening. But in the morning
+after the game of romps with little Tom, by which Bice indemnified
+herself for the absence of other society, Lucy would join the party, and
+after the child had been carried off for his mid-day sleep, the others
+left behind would have many a talk. To Lucy the revelations thus made
+were more wonderful than any romance&mdash;so wonderful that she did not half
+take in the strange life to which they gave a clue, nor realise how
+perfectly right was Bice's description of herself and her patroness.
+They were vagabonds, as she said; and like other vagabonds, they got a
+great deal of pleasure out of their life. But to Lucy it seemed the most
+terrible that mind could conceive. Without any home, without any
+retirement or quietness, with a noisy band always playing, and a series
+of migrations from one place to another&mdash;no work, no duties, nothing to
+represent home occupations but a piece of <i>tapisserie</i>. She put her hand
+very tenderly upon Bice's shoulder. There had been prejudices in her
+mind against this girl&mdash;but they all melted away in a womanly pity.
+"Oh," she said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> "Cannot I help you in any way? Cannot Sir Tom&mdash;" But
+here she paused. "I am afraid," she said, "that all we could think of
+would be an occupation for you; something to do, which would be far, far
+better, surely, than this wandering life."</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked at her for a moment with a doubtful air. "I don't know what
+you mean by occupation," she said.</p>
+
+<p>And this, to Lucy's discomfiture, she found to be true. Bice had no idea
+of occupation. Young Lady Randolph, who was herself not much instructed,
+made a conscientious effort at least to persuade the strange girl to
+read and improve her mind. But she flew off on all such occasions with a
+laugh that was half mocking and half merry. "To what good?" she said,
+with that simplicity of cynicism which is a quality of extreme youth.
+"If I turn out beautiful, if I can marry whom I will, I will then get
+all I want without any trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"But if not?" said Lucy, too careful of the other's feelings to express
+what her own opinions were on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>"If not it will be still less good," said Bice, "for I shall never then
+do anything or be of any importance at all; and why should I tr-rouble?"
+she said, with that rattle of the r's which was about the only sign that
+English was not her native speech. This was very distressing to Lucy,
+who wished the girl well, and altogether Lady Randolph was anxious to
+interfere on Bice's behalf, and put her on a more comprehensible
+footing.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be very strange when you go among other people in London," she
+said. "Madame di Forno-Populo does not know England. People will want
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> know who you are. And if you were to be married, since you will talk
+of that," Lucy added with a blush, "your name and who you are will have
+to be known. I will ask Sir Tom to talk to the Contessa&mdash;or," she said
+with reluctance, "I will speak to her if you think she will listen to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"I am called," said Bice, making a sweeping curtsey, and waving her hand
+as she darted suddenly away, leaving Lucy in much doubt and perplexity.
+Was she really called? Lucy heard nothing but a faint sound in the
+distance, as of a low whistle. Was this a signal between the strange
+pair who were not mother and daughter, nor mistress and servant, and yet
+were so linked together. It seemed to Lucy, with all her honest English
+prejudices, that to train so young a girl (and a girl so fond of
+children, and, therefore, a good girl at bottom, whatever her little
+faults might be) to such a wandering life, and to put her up as it were
+to auction for whoever would bid highest, was too terrible to be thought
+of. Better a thousand times to be a governess, or a sempstress, or any
+honest occupation by which she could earn her own bread. But then to
+Bice any such expedient was out of the question. Her incredulous look of
+wonder and mirth came back to Lucy with a sensation of dumb
+astonishment. She had no right feelings, no sense of the advantages of
+independence, no horror of being sold in marriage. Lady Randolph did not
+know what to think of a creature so utterly beyond all rules known to
+her. She was in such a condition of mind, unsettled, unhinged, feeling
+all her old landmarks breaking up, that a new interest was of great
+importance to her. It withdrew her thoughts from the Contessa, and the
+irksomeness of her sway, when she thought of Bice and what could be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+done for her. The strange thing was that the girl wanted nothing done
+for her. She was happy enough so far as could be seen. In her close
+confinement and subjection she was so fearless and free that she might
+have been thought the mistress of the situation. It was incomprehensible
+altogether. To state the circumstances from one side was to represent a
+victim of oppression. A poor girl stealing into a strange house and room
+in the shadow of her patroness; unnamed, unnoticed, made no more account
+of than the chair upon which she sat, held in a bondage which was almost
+slavery, and intended to be disposed of when the moment came without a
+reference to her own will and affections. Lucy felt her blood boil when
+she thought of all this, and determined that she would leave no
+expedient untried to free this white slave, this unfortunate thrall. But
+the other side was one which could not pass without consideration. The
+girl was careless and fearless and free, without an appearance of
+bondage about her. She scoffed at the thought of escaping, of somehow
+earning a personal independence&mdash;such was not for persons in her world,
+she said. She was not horrified by her own probable fate. She was not
+unhappy, but amused and interested in her life, and taking everything
+gaily, both the present quiet and the tumult of the many "seasons" in
+watering-places and other resorts of gaiety through which, young as she
+was, she had already gone. She had looked at Lucy with a smile, which
+was half cynical, and altogether decisive, when the anxious young matron
+had pointed out to her the way of escaping from such a sale and bargain.
+She did not want to escape. It seemed to her right and natural. She
+walked as lightly as a bird with this yoke upon her shoulders. Lucy had
+never met anything of this kind before, and it called forth a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> sort of
+panic in her mind. She did not know how to deal with it; but neither
+would she give it up. She had something else to think upon, when the
+Contessa, lying back on her sofa, almost going to sleep before Sir Tom
+entered, roused herself on the moment to occupy and amuse him all the
+evening. Instead of thinking of that and making herself unhappy, Lucy
+looked the other way at Bice reading a novel rapidly at the other side
+of the table, with all her young savage faculties about her to see and
+hear everything. How to get her delivered from her fate! To make her
+feel that deliverance was necessary, to save her before she should be
+sacrificed, and take her out of her present slavery. It was very strange
+that it never occurred to Lucy to free the girl by making her one of the
+recipients of the money she had to give away. She was very faithful to
+the letter of her father's will, and he had excluded foreigners. But
+even that was not the reason. The reason was that it did not occur to
+her. She thought of every way of relieving the too-contented thrall
+before her except that way. And in the meantime the time wore on, and
+everything fell into a routine, and not a word was said of the
+Contessa's plans. It was evident, for the time being at least, that she
+meant to make no change, but was fully minded, notwithstanding the
+dullness of the country, to remain where she was.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TWO STRANGERS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Contessa did not turn her head or change her position when Bice
+entered. She said, "You have not been out?" in a tone which was half
+question and half reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"It rained, and there is nothing to breathe but the damp and fog."</p>
+
+<p>"What does it matter? it is very good for the complexion, this damp; it
+softens the skin, it clears your colour. I see the improvement every
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" said Bice, going up to the long mirror which had been
+established in a sort of niche against the wall, and draped as
+everything was draped, with graceful hangings. She went up to it and put
+her face close, looking with some anxiety at the image which she found
+there. "I do not see it," she said. "You are too sanguine. I am no
+better than I was. I have been racing in the long gallery with the
+child; that makes one's blood flow."</p>
+
+<p>"You do well," said the Contessa, nodding her head. "I cannot take any
+notice of the child; it is too much for me. They are odious at that
+age."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! they are delightful," said Bice. "They are so good to play with,
+they ask no questions, and are always pleased. I put him on my shoulder
+and we fly. I wish that I might have a gymnastique, trapeze,
+what-you-call it, in that long gallery; it would be heaven."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa uttered an easy exclamation meaning nothing, which
+translated into English would have been a terrible oath. "Do not do it,
+in the name of&mdash;&mdash;they will be shocked, oh, beyond everything."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bice, still standing close to the glass, examining critically her cheek
+which she pinched, answered with a laugh. "She is shocked already. When
+I say that you will marry me well, if I turn out as I ought, she is full
+of horror. She says it is not necessary in England that a young girl
+should marry, that there are other ways."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa started to her feet. "Giove!" she cried, "Baccho! that
+insipidity, that puritan. And I who have kept you from every soil. <i>She</i>
+speak of other ways. Oh, it is too much!"</p>
+
+<p>Bice turned from the glass to address a look of surprise to her
+patroness. "Reassure yourself, Madama," she said. "What Milady said was
+this, that I might work if I willed, and escape from marrying&mdash;that to
+marry was not everything. It appears that in England one may make one's
+living as if (she says) one were a man."</p>
+
+<p>"As if one were a man!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what Milady said," Bice answered demurely. "I think she would
+help me to work, to get something to do. But she did not tell me what it
+would be; perhaps to teach children; perhaps to work with the needle. I
+know that is how it happens in the Tauchnitz. You do not read them, and,
+therefore, do not know; but I am instructed in all these things. The
+girl who is poor like me is always beautiful; but she never thinks of it
+as we do. She becomes a governess, or perhaps an artiste; or even she
+will make dresses, or at the worst <i>tapisserie</i> ."</p>
+
+<p>"And this she says to you&mdash;to you!" cried the Contessa, with flaming
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, restrain yourself, Madama! It does not matter at all. She makes the
+great marriage just the same. It is not Milady who says this, it is in
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Tauchnitz. It is the English way. Supposing," said Bice, "that I
+remain as I am? Something will have to be done with me. Put me, then, as
+a governess in a great family where there is a son who is a great
+nobleman, or very rich; and you shall see it will so happen, though I
+never should be beautiful at all."</p>
+
+<p>"My child," said the Contessa, "all this is foolishness. You will not
+remain as you are. I see a little difference every day. In a little time
+you will be dazzling; you will be ready to produce. A governess! It is
+more likely that you will be a duchess; and then you will laugh at
+everybody&mdash;except me," said Madame di Forno-Populo, tapping her breast
+with her delicate fingers, "except me."</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked at her with a searching, inquiring look. "I want to ask
+something," she said. "If I should be beautiful, you were so before
+me&mdash;oh, more, more!&mdash;you we&mdash;&mdash;are very lovely, Madama."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa smiled&mdash;who would not smile at such a speech? made with all
+the sincerity and simplicity possible&mdash;simplicity scarcely affected by
+the instinct which made Bice aware before she said it, that to use the
+past tense would spoil all. The Contessa smiled. "Well," she said, "and
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"They married you," said Bice with a curious tone between philosophical
+remark and interrogation.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" the Contessa said. She leaned back in her chair making herself
+very comfortable, and shook her head. "I understand. You think then it
+has been a&mdash;failure in my case? Yes, they married me&mdash;that is to say
+there was no they at all. I married myself, which makes a great
+difference. Ah, yes, I follow your reasoning very well. This woman you
+say was beautiful, was all that I hope to be, and married; and what has
+come of it? It is quite true. I speak to you as I speak to no one,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> Bice
+mia. The fact was we deceived each other. The Conte expected to make his
+fortune by me, and I by him. I was English, you perceive, though no one
+now remembers this. Poor Forno-Populo! He was very handsome; people were
+pleased to say we were a magnificent pair&mdash;but we had not the <i>sous</i>:
+and though we were fond of each other, he proceeded in one direction to
+repair his fortunes, and I&mdash;on another to&mdash;<i>enfin</i>  to do as best I
+could. But no such accident shall happen in your case. It is not only
+your interest I have in hand; it is my own. I want a home for my
+declining years."</p>
+
+<p>She said this with a smile at the absurdity of the expression in her
+case, but Bice at sixteen naturally took the words <i>au pied de la
+lettre</i>, and did not see any absurdity in them. To her forty was very
+much the same as seventy. She nodded her head very seriously in answer
+to this, and turning round to the glass surveyed herself once more, but
+not with that complacency which is supposed to be excited in the
+feminine bosom by the spectacle. She was far too serious for vanity&mdash;the
+gaze she cast upon her own youthful countenance was severely critical,
+and she ended by a shrug of her shoulders, as she turned away. "The only
+thing is," she said, "that perhaps the young brother is right, and at
+present I am not even pretty at all."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa had a great deal to think of during this somewhat dull
+interval. The days flowed on so regular, and with so little in them,
+that it was scarcely possible to take note of the time at all. Lucy was
+always scrupulously polite and sometimes had little movements of anxious
+civility, as if to make up for impulses that were less kind. And Sir
+Tom, though he enjoyed the evenings as much as ever, and felt this
+manner of passing the heavy hours to retain a great attraction, was at
+other times a little constrained, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> made furtive attempts to find out
+what the Contessa's intentions were for the future, which betrayed to a
+woman who had always her wits about her, a certain strain of the old
+bonds, and uneasiness in the indefinite length of her visit. She had
+many reasons, however, for determining to ignore this uneasiness, and to
+move on upon the steady tenor of her way as if unconscious of any reason
+for change, opposing a smiling insensibility to all suggestions as to
+the approaching removal of the household to London. It seemed to the
+Contessa that the association of her <i>débutante</i>  with so innocent and
+wealthy a person as Lady Randolph would do away with all the prejudices
+which her own dubious antecedents might have provoked; while the very
+dubiousness of those antecedents had procured her friends in high
+quarters and acquaintances everywhere, so that both God and Mammon were,
+so to speak, enlisted in her favour, and Bice would have all the
+advantage, without any of the disadvantage, of her patroness' position,
+such as it was. This was so important that she was quite fortified
+against any pricks of offence, or intrusive consciousness that she was
+less welcome than might have been desired. And in the end of January,
+when the entire household at the Hall had begun to be anxious to make
+sure of her departure, an event occurred which strengthened all her
+resolutions in this respect, and made her more and more determined,
+whatever might be the result, to cling to her present associations and
+shelter.</p>
+
+<p>This was the arrival of a visitor, very unexpected and unthought of, who
+came in one afternoon after the daily drive, often a somewhat dull
+performance, which Lucy, when there was nothing more amusing to do,
+dutifully took with her visitor. Madame di Forno-Populo was reclining in
+the easiest of chairs after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> fatigue of this expedition. There had
+been a fresh wind, and notwithstanding a number of veils, her delicate
+complexion had been caught by the keen touch of the breeze. Her cheeks
+burned, she declared, as she held up a screen to shield her from the
+glow of the fire. The waning afternoon light from the tall window behind
+threw her beautiful face into shadow, but she was undeniably the most
+important person in the tranquil domestic scene, occupying the central
+position, so that it was not wonderful that the new comer suddenly
+ushered in, who was somewhat timid and confused, and advanced with the
+hesitating step of a stranger, should without any doubt have addressed
+himself to her as the mistress of the house. Lucy, little and young, who
+was moving about the room, with her light step and in the simple dress
+of a girl, appeared to Mr. Churchill, who had many daughters of his own,
+to be (no doubt) the eldest, the mother's companion. He came in with a
+slightly embarrassed air and manner. He was a man beyond middle age,
+gray haired, stooping, with the deprecating look of one who had been
+obliged in many ways to propitiate fate in the shape of superiors,
+officials, creditors, all sorts of alien forces. He came up with his
+hesitating step to the Contessa's chair. "Madam," he said, with a voice
+which had a tremor in it, "my name will partly tell you the confused
+feelings that I don't know how to express. I am come in a kind of
+bewilderment, scarcely able to believe that what I have heard is
+true&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa gazed at him calmly from the depths of her chair. The
+figure before her, thin, gray haired, submissive, with the long clerical
+coat and deprecating air, did not promise very much, but she had no
+objection to hear what he had to say in the absolute dearth of subjects
+of interest. Lucy, to whom his name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> seemed vaguely familiar, without
+recalling any distinct idea, and who was a little startled by his
+immediate identification of the Contessa, came forward a little and put
+a chair for him, then withdrew again, supposing his business to be with
+her guest.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not sit down," Mr. Churchill said, faltering a little, "till I
+have said what I have no words to say. If what I am told is actually
+true, and your ladyship means to confer upon me a gift so&mdash;so
+magnificent&mdash;oh! pardon me&mdash;I cannot help thinking still that there must
+be some extraordinary mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Lucy began, hurriedly making a step forward again; but the
+Contessa, to her surprise, accepted the address with great calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Be seated, sir," Madame di Forno-Populo said, with a dignity which Lucy
+was far from being able to emulate. "And pray do not hesitate to say
+anything which occurs to you. I am already interested&mdash;&mdash;" She waved her
+hand to him with a sort of regal grace, without moving in any other way.
+She had the air of a princess not deeply concerned indeed, but
+benevolently willing to listen. It was evident that this reception of
+him confused the stranger more and more. He became more deeply
+embarrassed in sight of the perfect composure with which he was
+contemplated, and cleared his throat nervously three or four times.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said, "that there must be some mistake. It was, indeed,
+impossible that it should be true; but as I heard it from two quarters
+at once&mdash;and it was said to be something in the nature of a
+trust&mdash;&mdash; But," he added, looking with a nervous intentness at the
+unresponsive face which he could with difficulty see, "it must be, since
+your ladyship does not recognise my name, a&mdash;mistake. I felt it was so
+from the beginning. A lady of whom I know nothing!&mdash;to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> bestow what is
+really a fortune&mdash;upon a man with no claim&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little nervous laugh as he went on&mdash;the disappointment, after
+such a dazzling giddy hope, took away every vestige of colour from his
+face. "I will sit down for a moment, if you please," he said suddenly.
+"I&mdash;am a little tired with the walk&mdash;you will excuse me, Lady
+Randolph&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sir," cried Lucy, coming forward, "forgive me that I did not
+understand at once. It is no mistake at all. Oh, I am afraid you are
+very much fatigued, and I ought to have known at once when I heard your
+name."</p>
+
+<p>He put out his hand in his deprecating way as she came close to the
+chair into which he had dropped. "It is nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;my dear young
+lady: in a moment," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"My Lucy," said the Contessa, "this is one of your secret bounties. I am
+quite interested. But do not interrupt; let us hear it out."</p>
+
+<p>"It is something which is entirely between Mr. Churchill and me," cried
+Lucy. "Indeed, it would not interest you at all. But, pray, don't think
+it is a mistake," she said, earnestly turning to him. "It is quite
+right&mdash;it is a trust&mdash;there is nothing that need distress you. I am
+obliged to do it, and you need not mind. Indeed, you must not mind. I
+will tell you all about it afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear young lady!" the clergyman said. He was relieved, but he was
+perplexed; he turned still towards the stately lady in the chair&mdash;"If it
+is really so, which I scarcely can allow myself to believe, how can I
+express my obligation? It seems more than any man ought to take; it is
+like a fairy tale. I have not ventured to mention it to my children, in
+case,&mdash;&mdash; Thanks are nothing," he cried, with excitement; "thanks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> are
+for a trifle, a little every-day service; but this is a fortune; it is
+something beyond belief. I have been a poor man all my life, struggling
+to do my best for my children; and now, what I have never been able to
+do with all my exertions, you&mdash;put me in a position to do in a moment.
+What am I to say to you? Words can't reach such a case. It is simply
+unspeakable&mdash;incredible; and why out of all the world you should have
+chosen me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He had to stop, his emotion getting the better of him. Bice had come
+into the room while this strange scene was going on, and she stood in
+the shadow, unseen by the speaker, listening too.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray compose yourself," said the Contessa, in her most gracious voice.
+"Your expressions are full of feeling. To have a fortune given to one
+must be very delightful; it is an experience that does not often happen.
+Probably a little tea, as I hear tea is coming, will restore
+Mr.&mdash;&mdash; Pardon me, they are a little difficult to catch those, your
+English names."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa produced a curious idiom now and then like a work of art.
+It was almost the only sign of any uncertainty in her English; and while
+the poor clergyman, not quite understanding in his own emotion what she
+was saying, made an effort to gulp it down and bring himself to the
+level of ordinary life, the little stir of the bringing-in of tea
+suddenly converted everything into commonplace. He sat in a confusion
+that made all dull to him while this little stir went on. Then he rose
+up and said, faltering: "If your ladyship will permit me, I will go out
+into the air a little. I have got a sort of singing in my ears. I
+am&mdash;not very strong; I shall come back presently if you will allow me,
+and try to make my acknowledgments&mdash;in a less confused way."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucy followed him out of the room; he was not confused with her. "My
+dear young lady," he said, "my head is going round and round. Perhaps
+you will explain it all to me." He looked at her with a helpless,
+appealing air. Lucy had the appearance of a girl of his own. He was not
+afraid to ask her anything. But the great lady, his benefactress, who
+spoke so regally and responded so little to his emotion, alarmed him.
+Lucy, too, on her side, felt as if she had been a girl of his own. She
+put her arm within his, and led him to the library, where all was quiet,
+and where she felt by instinct&mdash;though she was not bookish&mdash;that the
+very backs of the books would console him and make him feel himself at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very easy to explain," she said. "It is all through my brother
+Jock and your son, who is at school with him. And it is I who am Lady
+Randolph," she said, smiling, supporting him with her arm through his.
+The shock would have been almost too much for poor Mr. Churchill if she
+had not been so like a child of his own.</p>
+
+<p>The moment this pair had left the room the Contessa raised herself
+eagerly from the chair. She looked round to Bice in the background with
+an imperative question. "What does this all mean?" she said, in a voice
+as different from the languor of her former address as night from day.
+"Who is it that gives away fortunes, that makes a poor man rich? Did you
+know all that? Is it that chit of a girl, that piece of
+simplicity&mdash;that&mdash;Giove! You have been her friend; you know her secrets.
+What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has no secrets," said Bice, coming slowly forward. "She is not like
+us, she is like the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Fool!" the Contessa said, stamping her foot&mdash;"don't you see there must
+be something in it. I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> thinking of you, though you are so ungrateful.
+One knows she is rich, all the money is hers; but I thought it had gone
+to Sir Tom. I thought it was he who could&mdash; ... Happily, I have always
+kept her in hand; and you, you have become her friend&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Madama," said Bice, with ironical politeness, "since it happens that
+Milady is gone, shall I pour out for you your cup of tea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tea! do I care for tea? when there are
+possibilities&mdash;possibilities!" said the Contessa. She got up from her
+chair and began to pace about the room, a grand figure in the gathering
+twilight. As for Bice, some demon of perversity possessed her. She began
+to move about the tea-table, making the china ring, and pouring out the
+tea as she had said, betook herself to the eating of cake with a relish
+which was certainly much intensified by the preoccupation of her
+patroness. She remembered well enough, very well, what Jock had told her,
+and her own incredulity; but she would have died rather than give a sign
+of this&mdash;and there was a tacit defiance in the way in which she
+munched her cake under the Contessa's excited eyes, but this was only a
+momentary perversity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ADVENTURESS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"When he told me first, I was angry like you, I would not believe it.
+Money! that is a thing to keep, I said, not to give away."</p>
+
+<p>"To give away!" Few things in all her life, at least in all her later
+life, had so moved the Contessa. She was walking about the pretty room
+in an excite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>ment which was like agitation, now sitting down in one
+place, now in another, turning over without knowing it the things on the
+table, arranging a drapery here and there instinctively. To how few
+people in the world would it be a matter of indifference that money, so
+to speak, was going begging, and might fall into their hands as well as
+another's! The best of us on this argument would prick up our ears.
+Nobody cared less for money in itself than Madame di Forno-Populo. She
+liked not to spend it only, but to squander&mdash;to make it fly on all
+hands. To be utterly extravagant one must be poor, and the money hunger
+which belongs to poverty is almost, one might say, a disinterested
+quality, so little is it concerned with the possession of the thing
+coveted. "Oh," she said, "this is too wonderful! and you are sure you
+have not been deceived by the language? You know English so well&mdash;are
+you sure that you were not deceived?"</p>
+
+<p>Bice did not deign any reply to this question. She gave her head a
+slight toss of scorn. The suggestion that she could be mistaken was
+unworthy of an answer, and indeed was not put in seriousness, nor did
+the Contessa wait for a reply. "What then," the Contessa went on, "is
+the position of Sir Tom? Has he no control? Does he permit this? To have
+it taken away from himself and his family, thrown into the sea, parted
+with&mdash;Oh, it is too much! But how can it be done? I was aware that
+settlements were very troublesome, but I had not thought it
+possible&mdash;Bice! Bice! this is very exciting, it makes one's heart beat!
+And you are her friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I am her&mdash;friend?" Bice turned one ear to her patroness with a startled
+look of interrogation.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried the Contessa once more; by which exclamation, naturally
+occurring when she was excited,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> she proved that she was of English
+race. "What difficulty is there in my meaning? You have English enough
+for that. What! do you feel no impatience when you hear of money running
+away?&mdash;going into a different channel&mdash;to strangers&mdash;to people that have
+nothing to do with it&mdash;that have no right to it&mdash;anybody&mdash;a clergyman,
+a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her feelings were too much for her. She threw herself into a chair, out
+of breath.</p>
+
+<p>"He looked a very good man," said Bice, with that absolute calm which is
+so exasperating to an excited woman, "and what does it matter, if it has
+to be given away, who gets it? I should give it to the beggars. I should
+fling it for them, as you do the <i>bajocchi</i>  when you are out driving."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a fool! you are a fool!" cried the Contessa, "or rather you are
+a child, and don't understand anything. Fling it to the beggars? Yes, if
+it was in shillings or even sovereigns. You don't understand what money
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, Madama, for I never had any," cried the girl, with a
+laugh. She was perfectly unmoved&mdash;the desire of money was not in her as
+yet, though she was far more enlightened as to its uses than most
+persons of her age. It amused her to see the excitement of her
+companion; and she knew very well what the Contessa meant, though she
+would not betray any consciousness of it. "If I marry," she said, "then
+perhaps I shall know."</p>
+
+<p>"Bice! you are not a fool&mdash;you are very sharp, though you choose not to
+see. Why should not you have this as well as another?&mdash;oh, much better
+than another! I can't stand by and see it all float into alien channels,
+while you&mdash;it would not be doing my duty while you&mdash;&mdash; Oh, don't look at
+me with that blank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> face, as if it did not move you in the least! Would
+it be nothing to have it in your power to dress as you like, to do as
+you like, to go into the world, to have a handsome house, to enjoy
+life?&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, yes!" said Bice, "is it necessary to ask?" She was still as calm
+as if the question they were discussing had been of the very smallest
+importance. "But we are not good poor people that will spend the money
+<i>comme il faut</i>. If we had it we should throw it away. Me also&mdash;I would
+throw it away. It would be for nothing good; why should it be given to
+us? Oh no, Madama. The good old clergyman had many children. He will not
+waste the money&mdash;which we should. What do you care for money, but to
+spend it fast, fast; and I too&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a child," said the Contessa. "No, perhaps I am not what people
+call good, though I am poor enough&mdash;but you are a child. If it was given
+to you it would be invested; you would have power over the income only.
+You could not throw it away, nor could I, which, perhaps, is what you
+are thinking of. You are just the person she wants, so far as I can see.
+She objects to my plan of putting you out in the world; she says it
+would be better if you were to work; but this is the best of all. Let
+her provide for you, and then it will not need that you should either
+marry or work. This is, beyond all description, the best way. And you
+are her friend. Tell me, was it before or after the boy informed you of
+this that you advised yourself to become her friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Contessa!" cried Bice, with a shock of angry feeling which brought the
+blood to her face. She was not sensitive in many matters which would
+have stung an English girl; but this suggestion, which was so
+undeserved, moved her to passion. She turned away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> with an almost tragic
+scorn, and seizing the <i>tapisserie</i>, which was part of the Contessa's
+<i>mise en scene</i>, flung a long strip of the many-coloured embroidery over
+her arm, and began to work with a sort of savage energy. The Contessa
+watched her movements with a sudden pause in her own excitement. She
+stopped short in the eagerness of her own thoughts, and looked with keen
+curiosity at the young creature upon whom she had built so many
+expectations. She was not an ungenerous or mercenary woman, though she
+had many faults, and as she gazed a certain compunction awoke within
+her, mingled with amusement. She was sorry for the unworthy suggestion
+she had made, but the sight of the girl in her indignation was like a
+scene in a play to this woman of the world. Her youthful dignity and
+wrath, her silent scorn, the manner in which she flung her needle
+through the canvas, working out her rage, were full of entertainment to
+the Contessa. She was not irritated by the girl's resentment; it even
+took off her thoughts from the primary matter to watch this exhibition
+of feeling. She gave vent to a little laugh as she noted how the needle
+flew.</p>
+
+<p>"Cara! I was nasty when I said that. I did not mean it. I suffered
+myself to talk as one talks in the world. You are not of the world&mdash;it
+is not applicable to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Madama, I am of the world," cried Bice. "What have I known else?
+But I did not mean to become Milady's friend, as you say. It was by
+accident. I was in the gallery only to amuse myself, and she came&mdash;it
+was not intention. I think that Milady is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here Bice stopped, looked up from the sudden fervour of her working,
+threw back her head, and said nothing more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That Milady is&mdash;what?" the Contessa cried.</p>
+
+<p>A laugh so joyous, so childish, that no one could have refused to be
+sympathetic, burst from Bice's lips. She gave her patroness a look of
+merriment and derision, in which there was something tender and sweet.
+"Milady is&mdash;sorry for me," she said.</p>
+
+<p>This speech had a strange effect upon the Contessa. She coloured, and
+the tears seemed to flood in a moment to her eyes. "Poor child!" she
+said&mdash;"poor child! She has reason. But that amuses you, Bice mia," she
+said, in a voice full of the softest caressing, looking at her through
+those sudden tears. The Contessa was an adventuress, and she had brought
+up this girl after her own traditions; but it was clear as they looked
+at each other that they loved each other. There was perfect confidence
+between them. Bice looked with fearless laughing eyes, and a sense of
+the absurdity of the fact that some one was sorry for her, into the face
+of her friend.</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks I would be happier if I worked. To give lessons to little
+children and be their slave would be better, she thinks. To know nothing
+and see nothing, but live far away from the world and be independent,
+and take no trouble about my looks, or, if I please&mdash;that is Milady's
+way of thinking," Bice said.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa's face softened more and more as she looked at the girl.
+There even dropped a tear from her full eyes. She shook her head. "I am
+not sure," she said, "dear child, that I am not of Milady's opinion.
+There are ways in which it is better. Sometimes I think I was most happy
+when I was like that&mdash;without money, without experience, with no
+wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"No wishes, Madama! Did you not wish to go out into the beautiful bright
+world, to see people, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> hear music, to talk, to please? It is
+impossible. Money, that is different, and experience that is different:
+but to wish, every one must do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Bice, you have a great deal of experience for so young a girl. You have
+seen so much. I ought to have brought you up otherwise, perhaps, but how
+could I? You have always shared with me, and what I had I gave you. And
+you know besides how little satisfaction there is in it&mdash;how sick one
+becomes of a crowd of faces that are nothing to you, and of music that
+goes on just the same whatever you are feeling&mdash;and this to please, as
+you call it! Whom do I please? Persons who do not care at all for me
+except that I amuse them sometimes&mdash;who like me to sing; who like to
+look at me; who find themselves less dull when I am there. That is all.
+And that will be all for you, unless you marry well, my Bice, which it
+is the object of my life to make you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I shall marry well," said the girl, composedly. "It would be
+very pleasant to find one's self above all shifts, Madama. Still that is
+not everything; and I would much rather have led the life I have led,
+and enjoyed myself and seen so much, than to have been the little
+governess of the English family&mdash;the little girl who is always so quiet,
+who walks out with the children, and will not accept the eldest son even
+when he makes love to her. I should have laughed at the eldest son. I
+know what they are like&mdash;they are so stupid; they have not a word to
+say; that would have amused me; but in the Tauchnitz books it is all
+honour and wretchedness. I am glad I know the world, and have seen all
+kinds of people, and wish for everything that is pleasant, instead of
+being so good and having no wishes as you say."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa laughed, having got rid of all her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> incipient tears. "There
+is more life in it," she said. "You see now what it is&mdash;this life in
+England; one day is like another, one does the same things. The
+newspaper comes in the morning, then luncheon, then to go out, then tea,
+dinner; there is no change. When we talk in the evening, and I remind
+Sir Tom of the past when I lived in Florence, and he was with me every
+day,"&mdash;the Contessa once more uttered that easy exclamation which would
+sound so profane in English. "<i>Quelle vie!</i>" she cried, "how much we got
+out of every day. There were no silences! They came in one after another
+with some new thing, something to see and to do. We separated to dress,
+to make ourselves beautiful for the evening, and then till the morning
+light came in through the curtains, never a pause or a weariness. Yes!
+sometimes one had a terrible pang. There would be a toilette, which was
+ravishing, which was far superior to mine&mdash;for I never had money to
+dress as I wished&mdash;or some one else would have a success, and attract
+all eyes. But what did that matter?" the Contessa cried, lighting up
+more and more. "One did not really grudge what lasted only for a time;
+for one knew next day one would have one's turn. Ah!" she said, with a
+sigh, "I knew what it was to be a queen, Bice, in those days."</p>
+
+<p>"And so you do still, Madama," said the girl, soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>Madama di Forno-Populo shook her head. "It is no longer the same," she
+said. "You have known only the worst side, my <i>poverina</i>. It is no
+longer one's own palace, one's own people, and the best of the
+strangers, the finest company. You saw the Duchess at Milady's party the
+other day. To see me made her lose her breath. She could not refuse to
+speak to me&mdash;to salute me&mdash;but it was with a consternation!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> But, Bice,
+that lady was only too happy to be invited to the Palazzo Populino. To
+make one of our expeditions was her pride. I believe in my soul," cried
+the Contessa, "that when she looks back she remembers those days as the
+most bright of her life."</p>
+
+<p>Bice's clear shining eyes rested upon her patroness with a light in them
+which was keen with indignation and wonder. She cried, "And why the
+change&mdash;and why the change, Madama?" with a high indignant tone, such as
+youth assumes in presence of ingratitude and meanness. Bice knew much
+that a young girl does not usually know; but the reason why her best
+friend should be thus slighted was not one of these things.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa shrank a little from her gaze. She rose up again and went
+to the window and looked out upon the wintry landscape, and standing
+there with her face averted, shrugged her shoulders a little and made
+answer in a tone of levity very different from the sincerer sound of her
+previous communications. "It is poverty, my child, poverty, always the
+easiest explanation! I was never rich, but then there had been no crash,
+no downfall. I was in my own palace. I had the means of entertaining. I
+was somebody. Ah! very different; it was not then at the baths, in the
+watering-places, that the Contessa di Forno-Populo was known. It is
+this, my Bice, that makes me say that sometimes I am of Milady's
+opinion; that to have no wishes, to know nothing, to desire
+nothing&mdash;that is best. When I knew the Duchess first I could be of
+service to her. Now that I meet her again it is she only that can be of
+service to me."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Bice began and stopped short. She was, as has been said, a
+girl of many experiences. When a very young creature is thus prematurely
+in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>troduced to a knowledge of human nature she approaches the subject
+with an impartiality scarcely possible at an older age. She had seen
+much. She had been acquainted with those vicissitudes that occur in the
+lives of the seekers of pleasure almost since ever she was born. She had
+been acquainted with persons of the most gay and cheerful appearance,
+who had enjoyed themselves highly, and called all their acquaintances
+round them to feast, and who had then suddenly collapsed and after an
+interval of tears and wailings had disappeared from the scene of their
+downfall. But Bice had not learnt the commonplace lesson so deeply
+impressed upon the world from the Athenian Timon downwards, that a
+downfall of this kind instantly cuts all ties. She was aware, on the
+contrary, that a great deal of kindness, sympathy, and attempts to aid
+were always called forth on such occasions; that the women used to form
+a sort of rampart around the ruined with tears and outcries, and that
+the men had anxious meetings and consultations and were constantly going
+to see some one or other upon the affairs of the downfallen. Bice had
+not seen in her experience that poverty was an argument for desertion.
+She was so worldly wise that she did not press her question as a simple
+girl might have done. She stopped short with an air of bewilderment and
+pain, which the Contessa, as her head was turned, did not see. She gave
+up the inquiry; but there arose in her mind a suspicion, a question,
+such as had not ever had admission there before.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried the Contessa, suddenly turning round, clasping her hands,
+"it was different indeed when my house was open to all these English,
+and they came as they pleased. But now I do not know, if I am turned out
+of this house, this dull house in which I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> taken refuge, where I
+shall go. I don't know where to go!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madama!" Bice sprang to her feet too, and clasped her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true&mdash;it is quite true. We have spent everything. I have not the
+means to go even to a third-rate place. As for Cannes it is impossible.
+I told you so before we came here. Rome is impossible&mdash;the apartment is
+let, and without that I could not live at all. Everything is gone. Here
+one may manage to exist a little while, for the house is good, and Sir
+Tom is rather amusing. But how to get to London unless they will take us
+I know not, and London is the place to produce you, Bice. It is for that
+I have been working. But Milady does not like me; she is jealous of me,
+and if she can she will send us away. Is it wonderful, then, that I am
+glad you are her friend? I am very glad of it, and I should wish you to
+let her know that to no one could she give her money more fitly. You
+see," said the Contessa, with a smile, resuming her seat and her easy
+tone, "I have come back to the point we started from. It is seldom one
+does that so naturally. If it is true (which seems so impossible) that
+there is money to give away, no one has a better right to it than you."</p>
+
+<p>Bice went away from this interview with a mind more disturbed than it
+had ever been in her life before. Naturally, the novel circumstances
+which surrounded her awakened deeper questions as her mind developed,
+and she began to find herself a distinct personage. They set her
+wondering. Madame di Forno-Populo had been of a tenderness unparalleled
+to this girl, and had sheltered her existence ever since she could
+remember. It had not occurred to her mind as yet to ask what the
+relations were between them, or why she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> had been the object of so much
+affection and thought. She had accepted this with all the composure of a
+child ever since she was a child. And the prospect of achieving a
+marriage should she turn out beautiful, and thus being in a position to
+return some of the kindness shown her, seemed to Bice the most natural
+thing in the world. But the change of atmosphere had done something, and
+Lucy's company, and the growth, perhaps, of her own young spirit. She
+went away troubled. There seemed to be more in the world and its
+philosophy than Bice's simple rules could explain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the very next day after this conversation took place a marked change
+occurred in the manner of the Contessa. She had been always caressing to
+Lucy, calling her by pretty names, and using a hundred tender
+expressions as if to a child; but had never pretended to talk to her
+otherwise than in a condescending way. On this occasion, however, she
+exerted herself to a most unusual extent during their drive to captivate
+and charm Lady Randolph; and as Lucy was very simple and accessible to
+everything that seemed kindness, and the Contessa very clever and with
+full command of her powers, it is not wonderful that her success was
+easy. She led her to talk of Mr. Churchill, who had been kept to dinner
+on the previous night, and to whom Sir Tom had been very polite, and
+Lucy anxiously kind, doing all that was possible to put the good man at
+his ease, though with but indifferent suc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>cess. For the thought of such
+an obligation was too great to be easily borne, and the agitation of his
+mind was scarcely settled, even by the commonplaces of the dinner, and
+the devotion which young Lady Randolph showed him. Perhaps the grave
+politeness of Sir Tom, which was not very encouraging, and the curiosity
+of the great lady, whom he had mistaken for his benefactress,
+counterbalanced Mr. Churchill's satisfaction, for he did not regain his
+confidence, and it was evidently with great relief of mind that he got
+up from his seat when the carriage was announced to take him away. The
+Contessa had given her attention to all he said and did, with a most
+lively and even anxious interest, and it was from this that she had
+mastered so many details which Bice had reluctantly confirmed by her
+report of the information she had derived from Jock. It was not long
+before Madame di Forno-Populo managed to extract everything from Lucy.
+Lady Randolph was not used to defend herself against such inquiries, nor
+was there any reason why she should do so. She was glad indeed when she
+saw how sweetly her companion looked, and how kind were her tones, to
+talk over her own difficult position with another woman, one who was
+interested, and who did not express her disapproval and horror as most
+people did. The Contessa, on the contrary, took a great deal of
+interest. She was astonished, indeed, but she did not represent to Lucy
+that what she had to do was impossible or even vicious, as most people
+seemed to suppose. She listened with the gravest attention; and she gave
+a soothing sense of sympathy to Lucy's troubled soul. She was so little
+prepared for sympathy from such a quarter that the unexpectedness of it
+made it more soothing still.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a great charge to be laid upon you," the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> Contessa said, with
+the most kind look. "Upon you so young and with so little experience.
+Your father must have been a man of very original mind, my Lucy. I have
+heard of a great many schemes of benevolence, but never one like this."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" said Lucy, anxiously watching the Contessa's eye, for it was so
+strange to her to have sympathy on this point, that she felt a sort of
+longing for it, and that this new critic, who treated the whole matter
+with more moderation and reasonableness than usual, should approve.</p>
+
+<p>"Generally one endows hospitals or builds churches; in my country there
+is a way which is a little like yours; it is to give marriage
+portions&mdash;that is very good I am told. It is done by finding out who is
+the most worthy. And it is said also that not the most worthy is always
+taken. Don't you remember there is a Rosiere in Barbe Bleue? Oh, I
+believe you have never heard of Barbe Bleue."</p>
+
+<p>"I know the story," said Lucy, with a smile, "of the many wives, and the
+key, and sister Anne&mdash;sister Anne."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that is not precisely what I mean; but it does not matter. So it is
+this which makes you so grave, my pretty Lucy. I do not wonder. What a
+charge for you! To encounter all the prejudices of the world which will
+think you mad. I know it. And now your husband&mdash;the excellent Tom&mdash;he,"
+said the Contessa, laying a caressing and significant touch upon Lucy's
+arm, "does not approve?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Madame di Forno-Populo, that is the worst of it," cried Lucy, whose
+heart was opened, and who had taken no precaution against assault on
+this side; "but how do you know? for I thought that nobody knew."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa this time took Lucy's hand between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> hers, and pressed it
+tenderly, looking at her all the time with a look full of meaning. "Dear
+child," she said, "I have been a great deal in the world. I see much
+that other people do not see. And I know his face, and yours, my little
+angel. It is much for you to carry upon those young shoulders. And all
+for the sake of goodness and charity."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," said Lucy, "that it is right to say that; for, had it
+been left to me, perhaps I should never have thought of it. I should
+have been content with doing just what I could for the poor. No one,"
+said Lucy, with a sigh, "objects to that. When people are quite poor it
+is natural to give them what they want; but the others&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, the others," said the Contessa. "Dear child, the others are the
+most to be pitied. It is a greater thing, and far more difficult to give
+to this good clergyman enough to make his children happy, than it is to
+supply what is wanted in a cottage. Ah yes, your father was wise, he was
+a person of character. The poor are always cared for. There are none of
+us, even when we are ourselves poor, who do not hold out a hand to them.
+There is a society in my Florence which is like you. It is for the
+<i>Poveri Vergognosi</i>. You don't understand Italian? That means those who
+are ashamed to beg. These are they," said the Contessa impressively,
+"who are to be the most pitied. They must starve and never cry out; they
+must conceal their misery and smile; they must put always a fair front
+to the world, and seem to want nothing, while they want everything. Oh!"
+The Contessa ended with a sigh, which said more than words. She pressed
+Lucy's hand, and turned her face away. Her feelings were too much for
+her, and on the delicate cheek, which Lucy could see, there was the
+trace of a tear. After<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> a moment she looked round again, and said, with
+a little quiver in her voice: "I respect your father, my Lucy. It was a
+noble thought, and it is original. No one I have ever heard of had such
+an intention before."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy, at this unlooked-for applause, brightened with pleasure; but at
+the same time was so moved that she could only look up into her
+companion's face and return the pressure of her hand. When she recovered
+a little she said: "You have known people like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Known them? In my country," said the Contessa (who was not an Italian
+at all), "they are as plentiful as in England&mdash;blackberries. People with
+noble names, with noble old houses, with children who must never learn
+anything, never be anything, because there is no money. Know them! dear
+child, who can know better? If I were to tell you my history! I have for
+my own part known&mdash;what I could not trouble your gentle spirit to hear."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Madame di Forno-Populo, oh! if you think me worthy of your
+confidence, tell me!" cried Lucy. "Indeed, I am not so insensible as you
+may think. I have known more than you suppose. You look as if no harm
+could ever have touched you," Lucy cried, with a look of genuine
+admiration. The Contessa had found the right way into her heart.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa smiled with mournful meaning and shook her head. "A great
+deal of harm has touched me," she said; "I am the very person to meet
+with harm in the world. A solitary woman without any one to take care of
+me, and also a very silly one, with many foolish tastes and
+inclinations. Not prudent, not careful, my Lucy, and with very little
+money; what could be more forlorn? You see," she said, with a smile "I
+do not put all this blame upon Providence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> but a great deal on myself.
+But to put me out of the question&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy put a hand upon the Contessa's arm. She was much moved by this
+revelation.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! don't do that," she said; "it is you I want to hear of."</p>
+
+<p>Madame di Forno-Populo had an object in every word she was saying, and
+knew exactly how much she meant to tell and how much to conceal. It was
+indeed a purely artificial appeal that she was making to her companion's
+feelings; and yet, when she looked upon the simple sympathy and generous
+interest in Lucy's face, her heart was touched.</p>
+
+<p>"How good you are," she said; "how generous! though I have come to you
+against your will, and am staying&mdash;when I am not wanted."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! do not say so," cried Lucy with eagerness; "do not think
+so&mdash;indeed, it was not against my will. I was glad, as glad as I could
+be, to receive my husband's friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Few women are so," said the Contessa gravely. "I knew it when I came.
+Few, very few, care for their husband's friend&mdash;especially when she is a
+woman&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy fixed her eyes upon her with earnest attention. Her look was not
+suspicious, yet there was investigation in it.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think I am like that," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you are not like that," said the Contessa. "You are the soul of
+candour and sweetness; but I have vexed you. Ah, my Lucy, I have vexed
+you. I know it&mdash;innocently, my love&mdash;but still I have done it. That is
+one of the curses of poverty. Now look," she said, after a momentary
+pause, "how truth brings truth! I did not intend to say this when I
+began"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> (and this was perfectly true), "but now I must open my heart to
+you. I came without caring much what you would think, meaning no
+harm&mdash;Oh, trust me, meaning no harm! but since I have come all the
+advantages of being here have appeared to me so strongly that I have set
+my heart upon remaining, though I knew it was disagreeable to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed:" cried Lucy, divided between sincerity and kindness: "if it was
+ever so for a moment, it was only because I did not understand."</p>
+
+<p>"My sweetest child! this I tell you is one of the curses of poverty. I
+knew it was disagreeable to you; but because of the great advantage of
+being in your house, not only for me, but for Bice, for whom I have
+sworn to do my best&mdash;Lucy, pardon me&mdash;I could not make up my mind to go
+away. Listen! I said to myself, I am poor, I cannot give her all the
+advantages; and they are rich; it is nothing to them&mdash;I will stay, I
+will continue, though they do not want me, not for my sake, for the sake
+of Bice. They will not be sorry afterwards to have made the fortune of
+Bice. Listen, dear one; hear me out. I had the intention of forcing
+myself upon you&mdash;oh no! the words are not too strong&mdash;in London, always
+for Bice's sake, for she has no one but me; and if her career is
+stopped&mdash;&mdash; I am not a woman," said the Contessa, with dignity, "who am
+used to find myself <i>de trop</i>. I have been in my life courted, I may say
+it, rather than disagreeable; yet this I was willing to bear&mdash;and impose
+myself upon you for Bice's sake&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy listened to this moving address with many differing emotions. It
+gave her a pang to think that her hopes of having her house to herself
+were thus permanently threatened. But at the same time her heart
+swelled, and all her generous feelings were stirred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> Was she indeed so
+poor a creature as to grudge to two lonely women the shelter and
+advantage of her wealth and position? If she did this, what did it
+matter if she gave money away? This would indeed be keeping to the
+letter of her father's will, and abjuring its meaning. She could not
+resist the pathos, the dignity, the sweetness of the Contessa's appeal,
+which was not for herself but for Bice, for the girl who was so good to
+baby, and whom that little oracle had bound her to with links of
+gratitude and tenderness. "Oh," Lucy said to herself, "if I should ever
+have to appeal to any one for kindness to him!" And Bice was the
+Contessa's child&mdash;the child of her heart, at least&mdash;the voluntary charge
+which she had taken upon her, and to which she was devoting herself. Was
+it possible that only because she wanted to have her husband to herself
+in the evenings, and objected to any interruption of their privacy, a
+woman should be made to suffer who was a good woman, and to whom Lucy
+could be of use? No, no, she cried within herself, the tears coming to
+her eyes; and yet there was a very real pang behind.</p>
+
+<p>"But reassure yourself, dear child," said the Contessa, "for now that I
+see what you are doing for others, I cannot be so selfish. No; I cannot
+do it any longer. In England you do not love society; you love your home
+unbroken; you do not like strangers. No, my Lucy, I will learn a lesson
+from your goodness. I too will sacrifice&mdash;oh, if it was only myself and
+not Bice!"</p>
+
+<p>"Contessa," said Lucy with an effort, looking up with a smile through some
+tears, "I am not like that. It never was that you were&mdash;disagreeable. How
+could you be disagreeable? And Bice is&mdash;oh, so kind, so good to my boy.
+You must never think of it more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> The town house is not so large as the
+Hall, but we shall find room in it. Oh, I am not so heartless, not so
+stupid, as you think! Do you suppose I would let you go away after you
+have been so kind as to open your heart to me, and let me know that we
+are really of use? Oh, no, no! And I am sure," she added, faltering
+slightly, "that Tom&mdash;will think the same."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not Tom&mdash;excellent, <i>cher</i>  Tom! that shall be consulted," cried
+the Contessa. "Lucy, my little angel! if it is really so that you will
+give my Bice the advantage of your protection for her <i>début</i>&mdash;&mdash; But
+that is to be an angel indeed, superior to all our little, petty,
+miserable&mdash;&mdash; Is it possible, then," cried the Contessa, "that there is
+some one so good, so noble in this low world?"</p>
+
+<p>This gratitude confused Lucy more than all the rest. She did her best to
+deprecate and subdue; but in her heart she felt that it was a great
+sacrifice she was making. "Indeed, it is nothing," she said faintly. "I
+am fond of her, and she has been so good to baby; and if we can be of
+any use&mdash;but oh, Madame di Forno-Populo," Lady Randolph cried, taking
+courage. "Her <i>début</i>? do you really mean what she says that she must
+marry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That I mean to marry her," said the Contessa, "that is how we express
+it," with a very concise ending to her transports of gratitude. "Sweet
+Lucy," she continued, "it is the usage of our country. The parents, or
+those who stand in their place, think it their duty. We marry our
+children as you clothe them in England. You do not wait till your little
+boy can choose. You find him what is necessary. Just so do we. We choose
+so much better than an inexperienced girl can choose. If she has an
+aversion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> if she says I cannot suffer him, we do not press it upon her.
+Many guardians will pay no attention, but me," said the Contessa,
+putting forth a little foreign accent, which she displayed very
+rarely&mdash;"I have lived among the English, and I am influenced by their
+ways. Neither do I think it right," she added, with an air of candour,
+"to offer an old person, or one who is hideous, or even very
+disagreeable. But, yes, she must marry well. What else is there that a
+girl of family can do?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was about to answer with enthusiasm that there were many things she
+could do; but stopped short, arrested by these last words. "A girl of
+family,"&mdash;that, no doubt, made a difference. She paused, and looked
+somewhat wistfully in her companion's face. "We think," she said, "in
+England that anything is better than a marriage without&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa put up her hand to stay the words. "Without love&mdash;&mdash; I know
+what you are going to say; but, my angel, that is a word which Bice has
+never heard spoken. She knows it not. She has not the habit of thinking
+it necessary&mdash;she is a good girl, and she has no sentiment. Besides, why
+should we go so fast? If she produces the effect I hope&mdash;&mdash; Why should
+not some one present himself whom she could also love? Oh yes; fall in
+love with, as you say in English&mdash;such an innocent phrase; let us hope
+that, when the proper person comes who satisfies my requirements,
+Bice&mdash;to whom not a word shall be said&mdash;will fall in love with him
+<i>comme il faut</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy did not make any reply. She was troubled by the light laugh with
+which the Contessa concluded, and with the slight change of tone which
+was perceptible. But she was still too much moved by her own emotion to
+have got beyond its spell, and she had committed herself beyond recall.
+While the Contessa talked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> on with&mdash;was it a little, little change?&mdash;a
+faint difference, a levity that had not been in her voice before? Lucy's
+thoughts went back upon what she had done with a little tremor. Not this
+time as to what Tom might say, but with a deeper wonder and pang as to
+what might come of it; was she going voluntarily into new danger, such
+as she had no clue to, and could not understand? After a little while
+she asked almost timidly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But if Bice should not see any one&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean if no one suitable should present himself?" The Contessa
+suddenly grew very grave. She put her hands together with a gesture of
+entreaty. "My sweet one, let us not think of that. When she is dressed
+as I shall dress her, and brought out&mdash;as you will enable me to bring
+her out. My Lucy, we do not know what is in her. She will shine, she
+will charm. Even now, if she is excited, there are moments in which she
+is beautiful. If she fails altogether&mdash;&mdash; Ah, my love, as I tell you,
+there is where the curse of poverty comes in. Had she even a moderate
+fortune, poor child; but alas, orphan, with no one but me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she an orphan?" said Lucy, feeling ashamed of the momentary failure
+of her interest, "and without relations&mdash;except&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Relations?" said the Contessa; there was something peculiar in her tone
+which attracted Lucy's attention, and came back to her mind in other
+days. "Ah, my Lucy, there are many things in this life which you have
+never thought of. She has relations who think nothing of her, who would
+be angry, be grieved, if they knew that she existed. Yes, it is terrible
+to think of, but it is true. She is, on one side, of English parentage.
+But pardon me, my sweetest, I did not mean to tell you all this: only,
+my Lucy, you will one time be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> glad to think that you have been kind to
+Bice. It will be a pleasure to you. Now let us think of it no more.
+Marry; yes, she must marry. She has not even so much as your poor
+clergyman; she has nothing, not a penny. So I must marry her, there is
+nothing more to be said."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CONTESSA'S TRIUMPH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>And it was with very mingled sensations that Sir Tom heard from Lucy
+(for it was from her lips he heard it) the intimation that Madame di
+Forno-Populo was going to be so good as to remain at the Hall till they
+moved to London, and then to accompany them to Park Lane. Sir Tom was
+taken entirely by surprise. He was not a man who had much difficulty in
+commanding himself, or showing such an aspect as he pleased to the
+general world; but on this occasion he was so much surprised that his
+very jaw dropped with wonder and astonishment. It was at luncheon that
+the intimation was made, in the Contessa's presence, so that he did not
+venture to let loose any expression of his feelings. He gave a cry, only
+half uttered, of astonishment, restrained by politeness, turning his
+eyes, which grew twice their size in the bewilderment of the moment,
+from Lucy to the Contessa and back again. Then he burst into a
+breathless laugh&mdash;a twinkle of humour lighted in those eyes which were
+big with wonder, and he turned a look of amused admiration towards the
+Contessa. How had she done it? There was no fathoming the cleverness of
+women, he said to himself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> and for the rest of the day he kept bursting
+forth into little peals of laughter all by himself. How had she managed
+to do it? It was a task which he himself would not have ventured to
+undertake. He would not, he said to himself, have had the slightest idea
+how to bring forward such a proposition. On the contrary, had not his
+sense that Lucy had much to forgive in respect to this invasion of her
+home and privacy induced him to make a great sacrifice, to withdraw his
+opposition to those proceedings of hers of which he so much disapproved?
+And yet in an afternoon, in one interview, the Contessa had got the
+upper hand! Her cleverness was extraordinary. It tickled him so that he
+could not take time to think how very little satisfied he was with the
+result. He, too, had fallen under her enchantments in the country, in
+the stillness, if not dulness, of those long evenings, and he had been
+very willing to be good to her for the sake of old times, to make her as
+comfortable as possible, to give her time to settle her plans for her
+London campaign. But that she should begin that campaign under his own
+roof, and that Lucy, his innocent and simple wife, should be visible to
+the world as the friend and ally of a lady whose name was too well known
+to society, was by no means satisfactory to Sir Tom. When his first
+astonishment and amazement was over, he began to look grave; but what
+was he to do? He had so much respect for Lucy that when the idea
+occurred to him of warning her that the Contessa's antecedents were not
+of a comfortable kind, and that her generosity was mistaken, he rejected
+it again with a sort of panic, and did not dare, experienced and
+courageous as he was, to acknowledge to his little wife that he had
+ventured to bring to her house a woman of whom it could be said that she
+was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> not above suspicion. Sir Tom had dared a great many perils in his
+life, but he did not venture to face this. He recoiled from before it,
+as he would not have done from any lion in the way. He could not even
+suggest to her any reticence in her communications, any reserve in
+showing herself at the Contessa's side, or in inviting other people to
+meet her. If all his happiness depended upon it, he felt that he could
+not disturb Lucy's mind by any such warning. Confess to her that he had
+brought to her a woman with whom scandal had been busy, that he had
+introduced to her as his friend, and recommended to honour and kindness,
+one whose name had been in all men's mouths! Sir Tom ran away morally
+from this suggestion as if he had been the veriest coward; he could not
+breathe a word of it in Lucy's ear. How could he explain to her that
+mixture of amazement at the woman's boldness, and humorous sense of the
+incongruity of her appearance in the absolute quiet of an English home,
+without company, which, combined with ancient kindness and careless good
+humour, had made him sanction her first appearance? Still less, how
+could he explain the mingling of more subtle sensations, the
+recollections of a past which Sir Tom could not himself much approve of,
+yet which was full of interest still, and the formation of an
+intercourse which renewed that past, and brought a little tingling of
+agreeable excitement into life when it had fallen to too low an ebb to
+be agreeable in itself? He would not say a word of all this to Lucy. Her
+purity, her simplicity, even her want of imagination and experience, her
+incapacity to understand that debatable land between vice and virtue in
+which so many men find little harm, and which so many women regard with
+interest and curiosity, closed his mouth. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> then he comforted himself
+with the reflection that, as his aunt herself had admitted, the Contessa
+had never brought herself openly within the ban. Men might laugh when
+the name of La Forno-Populo was introduced, and women draw themselves up
+with indignation, or stare with astonishment not unmingled with
+consternation as the Duchess had done; but they could not refuse to
+recognise her, nor could any one assert that there was sufficient reason
+to exclude her from society. Not even when she was younger, and
+surrounded by worshippers, could this be said. And now when she was
+less&mdash;&mdash; But here Sir Tom paused to ask himself, was she less attractive
+than of old? When he came to consider the question he was obliged to
+allow that he did not think so; and if she really meant to bring out
+that girl&mdash;&mdash; Did she mean to bring out that girl? Could she make up her
+mind to exhibit beside her own waning (if they were waning) charms the
+first flush of this young beauty? Sir Tom, who thought he knew women (at
+least of the kind of La Forno-Populo), shook his head and felt it very
+doubtful whether the Contessa was sincere, or if she could indeed make
+up her mind to take a secondary place. He thought with a rueful
+anticipation of the sort of people who would flock to Park Lane to renew
+their acquaintance with La Forno-Populo. "By Jove! but shall they
+though? Not if I know it," said Sir Tom firmly to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Williams, the butler, was still more profoundly discomposed. He had
+opened his mind to Mrs. Freshwater on various occasions when his
+feelings were too many for him. Naturally, Williams gave the Contessa
+the benefit of no doubt as to her reputation. He was entirely convinced,
+as is the fashion of his class, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> all that could have been said of
+her was true, and that she was as unfit for the society of the
+respectable as any wretched creature could be. "That foreign madam" was
+what he called her, in the privacy of the housekeeper's room, with many
+opprobrious epithets. Mrs. Freshwater, who was, perhaps, more
+good-natured than was advantageous to the housekeeper and manager of a
+large establishment, was melted whenever she saw her, by the Contessa's
+gracious looks and ways, but Williams was immovable. "If you'd seen what
+I've seen," he said, shaking his head. The women, for Lucy's maid
+Fletcher sometimes shared these revelations, were deeply excited by
+this&mdash;longing, yet fearing to ask what it was that Williams had seen.
+"And when I think of my lady, that is as innocent as the babe unborn,"
+he said, "mixed up in all that&mdash;&mdash; You'll see such racketing as never was
+thought of," cried Williams. "I know just how things will go. Night
+turned into day, carriages driving up at all hours, suppers going on
+after the play all the night through, masks and dominoes
+arriving;&mdash;no&mdash;to be sure this is England. There will be no <i>veglionis</i>,
+at least&mdash;which in England, ladies, would be masked balls&mdash;with Madam
+the Countess and her gentlemen&mdash;and even ladies too, a sort of
+ladies&mdash;in all sorts of dresses."</p>
+
+<p>"O-oh!" the women cried.</p>
+
+<p>They were partially shocked, as they were intended to be, but partially
+their curiosity was excited, and a feeling that they would like to see
+all these gaieties and fine dresses moved their minds. The primitive
+intelligence always feel certain that "racketing" and orgies that go on
+all night, must be at least guiltily delightful, exciting, and amusing,
+if nothing else. They were not of those who "held with" such
+dissipation;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> still for once in a way to see it, the responsibility not
+being theirs, would be something. They held their breath, but it was not
+altogether in horror; there was in it a mixture of anticipation too.</p>
+
+<p>"And I know what will come of it," said Williams. "What has come afore:
+the money will have to come out o' some one's pocket; and master never
+knew how to keep his to himself, never, as long as I've known him. To be
+sure, he hadn't got a great deal in the old days. But I know what'll
+happen; he'll just have to pay up now&mdash;he's that soft," said Williams;
+"a man that can't say no to a woman. Not that I care for the money. I'd
+a deal sooner he gave her an allowance, or set her up in some other
+place, or just give her a good round sum&mdash;as he could afford to do&mdash;and
+get shut of her. That is what I should advise. Just a round sum and get
+shut of her."</p>
+
+<p>"I've always heard," said Miss Fletcher, "as the money was my lady's,
+and not from the Randolph side at all."</p>
+
+<p>"What's hers is his," said Williams; "what's my lady's is her husband's;
+and a good bargain too&mdash;on her side."</p>
+
+<p>"I declare," cried Fletcher energetically, stung with that sense of
+wrong to her own side which gives heat to party feeling&mdash;"I declare if
+any man took my money to keep up his&mdash;his&mdash;his old sweetheart, I'd
+murder him. I'd take his life, that's what I should do."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor dear," said Mrs. Freshwater, wiping her eyes with her apron. "Poor
+dear! She'll never murder no one, my lady. Bless her innocent face. I
+only hope as she'll never find it out."</p>
+
+<p>"Sooner than she don't find it out I'll tell her my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>self," cried
+Williams. "Now I don't understand you women. You'd let my lady be
+deceived and made game of, rather than tell her."</p>
+
+<p>"Made game of!" cried Fletcher, with a shriek of indignation. "I should
+like to see who dared to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they'll dare do it, soon enough, and take their fun out of
+her&mdash;it's just what them foreigners are fond of," said Williams, who
+knew them and all their tricks down to the ground, as he said. Still,
+however, notwithstanding his evil reports, good Mrs. Freshwater, who was
+as good-natured as she was fat, could scarcely make up her mind to
+believe all that of the Contessa. "She do look so sweet, and talk so
+pretty, not as if she was foreign at all," the housekeeper said.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, however, the Contessa herself took occasion to explain to
+Sir Tom what her intentions were. She had thought the subject all over
+while she dressed for dinner, with a certain elation in her success, yet
+keen clear-mindedness which never deserted her. And then, to be sure,
+her object had not been entirely the simple one of getting an invitation
+to Park Lane. She had intended something more than this. And she was not
+sure of success in that second and still more important point. She meant
+that Lady Randolph should endow Bice largely, liberally. She intended to
+bring every sort of motive to bear&mdash;even some that verged upon
+tragedy&mdash;to procure this. She had no compunction or faltering on the
+subject, for it was not for herself, she said within herself, that she
+was scheming, and she did not mean to be foiled. In considering the best
+means to attain this great and final object, she decided that it would
+be well to go softly, not to insist too much upon the advantages she had
+secured, or to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> give Lucy too much cause to regret her yielding. The
+Contessa had the soul of a strategist, the imagination of a great
+general. She did not ignore the feelings of the subject of her
+experiment. She even put herself in Lucy's place, and asked herself how
+she could bear this or that. She would not oppose or overwhelm the
+probable benefactress to whom she, or at least Bice, might afterwards
+owe so much. When Sir Tom approached her chair in the evening when he
+came in after dinner, as he always did, she made room for him on the
+sofa beside her. "I am going to make you my confidant," she said in her
+most charming way, with that air of smiling graciousness which made Sir
+Tom laugh, yet fascinated him in spite of himself. He knew that she put
+on the same air for whomsoever she chose to charm; but it had a power
+which he could not resist all the same. "But perhaps you don't care to
+be taken into my confidence," she added, smiling, too, as if willing to
+admit all he could allege as to her syren graces. She had a delightful
+air of being in the joke which entirely deceived Sir Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," he said. "But as we have just heard your plans from
+my wife&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa kissed her hand to Lucy, who occupied her usual place at
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," she said, "if you understand, being only a man, what there
+is in that child; for she is but a child. You and I, we are Methuselahs
+in comparison."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite so much as that," he said, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Methuselahs," she said reflectively. "Older, if that is possible;
+knowing everything, while she knows nothing. She is our good angel. It
+is what you would not have dared to offer, you who know me&mdash;&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>yes, I
+believe it&mdash;and like me. Oh no, I do not go beyond that English word,
+never! You like the Forno-Populo. I know how you men speak. You think
+that there is amusement to be got from her, and you will do me the
+honour to say, no harm. That is, no permanent harm. But you would not
+offer to befriend me, no, not the best of you. But she who by nature is
+against such women as I am&mdash;Sweet Lucy! Yes it is you I am talking of,"
+the Contessa said, who was skilful to break any lengthened speeches like
+this by all manner of interruptions, so that it should never tire the
+person to whom it was addressed. "She, who is not amused by me, who does
+not like me, whose prejudices are all against me, she it is who offers
+me her little hand to help me. It is a lovely little hand, though she is
+not a beauty&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My wife is very well," said Sir Tom, with a certain hauteur and
+abruptness, such as in all their lengthened conversations he had never
+shown before.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa gave him a look in which there was much of that feminine
+contempt at which men laugh as one of the pretences of women. "I am
+going to be good to her as she is to me," she said. "The Carnival will
+be short this year, and in England you have no Carnival. I will find
+myself a little house for the season. I will not too much impose upon
+that angel. There, now, is something good for you to relieve your mind.
+I can read you, <i>mon ami</i>, like a book. You are fond of me&mdash;oh yes!&mdash;but
+not too long; not too much. I can read you like a book."</p>
+
+<p>"Too long, too much, are not in my vocabulary," said Sir Tom; "have they
+a meaning? not certainly that has any connection with a certain charming
+Contessina. If that lady has a fault, which I doubt, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> that she
+gives too little of her gracious countenance to her friends."</p>
+
+<p>"She does not come down to breakfast," said the Contessa, with her soft
+laugh, which in itself was a work of art. "She is not so foolish as to
+put herself in competition with the lilies and the roses, the English
+flowers. Poverina! she keeps herself for the afternoon which is
+charitable, and the light of the lamps which is flattering. But she
+remembers other days&mdash;alas! in which she was not afraid of the sun
+himself, not even of the mid-day, nor of the dawn when it comes in above
+the lamps. There was a certain <i>bal costumé</i>  in Florence, a year when
+many English came to the Populino palace. But why do I talk of that? You
+will not remember&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was something apparently in the recollection that touched Sir Tom.
+His eye softened. An unaccustomed colour came to his middle-aged cheek.
+"I! not remember? I remember every hour, every moment," he said, and
+then their voices sank lower, and a murmur of reminiscences, one filling
+up another, ensued between the pair. Their tone softened, there were
+broken phrases, exclamations, a rapid interchange which was far too
+indistinct to be audible. Lucy sat by her table and worked, and was
+vaguely conscious of it all. She had said to herself that she would take
+no heed any more, that the poor Contessa was too open-hearted, too
+generous to harm her, that they were but two old friends talking of the
+past. And so it was; but there was a something forlorn in sitting by at
+a distance, out of it all, and knowing that it was to go on and last,
+alas! by her own doing, who could tell how many evenings, how many long
+hours to come!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>DIFFERENT VIEWS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The time after this seemed to fly in the great quiet, all the
+entertainments of the Christmas season being over, and the houses in the
+neighbourhood gradually emptying of guests. The only visitors at the
+Hall were the clergyman, the doctor, an odd man now and then whom Sir
+Tom would invite in the character of a "native," for the Contessa's
+amusement; and Mr. Rushton, who came from Farafield two or three times
+on business, at first with a very keen curiosity, to know how it was
+that Lucy had subdued her husband and got him to relinquish his
+objection to her alienation of her money. This had puzzled the lawyer
+very greatly. There had been no uncertainty about Sir Tom's opinion when
+the subject was mooted to him first. He had looked upon it with very
+proper sentiments. It had seemed to him ridiculous, incredible, that
+Lucy should set up her will against his, or take her own way, when she
+knew how he regarded the matter. He had told the lawyer that he had
+little doubt of being able to bring her to hear reason. And then he had
+written to say that he withdrew his objection! Mr. Rushton felt that
+there must be some reason here more than met the eye. He made a pretence
+of business that he might discover what it was, and he had done so
+triumphantly, as he thought. Sir Tom, as everybody knew, had been "a
+rover" in his youth, and the world was charitable enough to conclude
+that in that youth there must be many things which he would not care to
+expose to the eye of day. When Mr. Rushton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> beheld at luncheon the
+Contessa, followed by the young and slim figure of Bice, it seemed to
+him that everything was solved. And Lady Randolph, he thought, did not
+look with very favourable eyes upon the younger lady. What doubt that
+Sir Tom had bought the assent of his wife to the presence of the guests
+by giving up on his side some of his reasonable rights?</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear of an Italian lady that Sir Tom was thick with before
+he married?" he asked his wife when he came home.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you ask me such a question," said that virtuous woman, "when
+you know as well as I do that there were half-a-dozen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear the name of Forno-Populo?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rushton paused and did her best to look as if she was trying to
+recollect. As a matter of fact all Italian names sounded alike to her,
+as English names do to foreign ears. But after a moment she said boldly:
+"Of course I have heard it. That was the lady from Naples, or Venice, or
+some of those places, that ran away with him. You heard all about it at
+the time as well as I."</p>
+
+<p>And upon this Mr. Rushton smote upon his thigh, and made a mighty
+exclamation. "By George!" he said, "he's got her there, under his wife's
+very nose; and that's why he has given in about the money." Nothing
+could have been more clearly reasoned out&mdash;there could be no doubt upon
+that subject. And the presence of Bice decided the question. Bice must
+be&mdash;they said, to be sure! Dates and everything answered to this view of
+the question. There could be no doubt as to who Bice was. They were very
+respectable, good people themselves, and had never given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> any scandal to
+the world; but they never hesitated for a moment or thought there was
+anything unnatural in attributing the most shameful scandal and domestic
+treachery to Sir Tom. In fact it would be difficult to say that they
+thought much less of him in consequence. It was Lucy, rather, upon whom
+their censure fell. She ought to have known better. She ought never to
+have allowed it. To pretend to such simplicity was sickening, Mrs.
+Rushton thought.</p>
+
+<p>It was early in February when they all went to London&mdash;a time when
+society is in a sort of promissory state, full of hopes of dazzling
+delights to come, but for the present not dazzling, parliamentary,
+residential, a society made up of people who live in London, who are not
+merely gay birds of fashion, basking in the sunshine of the seasons.
+There was only a week or two of what the Contessa called Carnival, which
+indeed was not Carnival at all, but a sober time in which dinner parties
+began, and the men began to gather at the clubs. The Contessa did not
+object to this period of quiet. She acquainted Lucy with all she meant
+to do in the meantime, to the great confusion of that ingenious spirit.
+"Bice must be dressed," the Contessa said, "which of itself requires no
+little time and thought. Unhappily M. Worth is not in London. Even with
+M. Worth I exert my own faculties. He is excellent, but he has not the
+intuitions which come when one is very much interested in an object.
+Sweet Lucy! you have not thought upon that matter. Your dress is as your
+dressmaker sends it to you. Yes; but, my angel, Bice has her career
+before her. It is different."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Madame di Forno-Populo," said Lucy, "do you still think in that
+way&mdash;must it still be exhibiting her, marrying her?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Marriage is honourable," said the Contessa. "It is what all girls are
+thinking of; but me, I think it better that their parents should take it
+in hand instead of the young ladies. There is something in Bice that is
+difficult, oh, very difficult. If one chooses well for her, one will be
+richly repaid; but if, on the contrary, one leaves it to the
+conventional, the ordinary&mdash;My sweetest! your pretty white dresses, your
+blues are delightful for you; but Bice is different, quite different.
+And then she has no fortune. She must be piquant. She must be striking.
+She must please. In England you take no trouble for that. It is not
+<i>comme il faut</i>  here; but it is in our country. Each of us we like the
+ways of our country best."</p>
+
+<p>"I have often wondered," said Lucy, "to hear you speak such perfect
+English, and Bice too. It is, I suppose, because you are so musical and
+have such good ears&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Darling!" said the Contessa sweetly. She said this or a similar word
+when nothing else occurred to her. She had her room full of lovely
+stuffs, brought by obsequious shopmen, to whom Lady Randolph's name was
+sufficient warrant for any extravagance the Contessa might think of. But
+she said to herself that she was not at all extravagant; for Bice's
+wardrobe was her stock-in-trade, and if she did not take the opportunity
+of securing it while in her power, the Contessa thought she would be
+false to Bice's interests. The girl still wore nothing but her black
+frock. She went out in the park early in the morning when nobody was
+there, and sometimes had riding lessons at an unearthly hour, so that
+nobody should see her. The Contessa was very anxious on this point. When
+Lucy would have taken Bice out driving, when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> would have taken her
+to the theatre, her patroness instantly interfered. "All that will come
+in its time," she said. "Not now. She must not appear now. I cannot have
+her seen. Recollect, my Lucy, she has no fortune. She must depend upon
+herself for everything." This doctrine, at which Lucy stood aghast, was
+maintained in the most matter-of-fact way by the neophyte herself. "If I
+were seen," she said, "now, I should be quite stale when I appear. I
+must appear before I go anywhere. Oh yes, I love the theatre. I should
+like to go with you driving. But I should forestall myself. Some persons
+do and they are never successful. First of all, before anything, I must
+appear."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my child," Lucy cried, "I cannot bear to hear of all this. You
+should not calculate so at your age. And when you appear, as you call
+it, what then, Bice? Nobody will take any particular notice, perhaps,
+and you will be so disappointed you will not know what to do. Hundreds
+of girls appear every season and nobody minds."</p>
+
+<p>Bice took no notice of these subduing and moderating previsions. She
+smiled and repeated what the Contessa said. "I must do the best for
+myself, for I have no fortune."</p>
+
+<p>No fortune! and to think that Lucy, with her mind directed to other
+matters, never once realised that this was a state of affairs which she
+could put an end to in a moment. It never occurred to her&mdash;perhaps, as
+she certainly was matter of fact, the recollection that there was a sort
+of stipulation in the will against foreigners turned her thoughts into
+another channel.</p>
+
+<p>It was, however, during this time of preparation and quiet that the
+household in Park Lane one day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> received a visit from Jock, accompanied
+by no less a person than MTutor, the leader of intellectual life and
+light of the world to the boy. They came to luncheon by appointment, and
+after visiting some museum on which Jock's mind was set, came to remain
+to dinner and go to the theatre. MTutor had a condescending appreciation
+of the stage. He thought it was an educational influence, not perhaps of
+any great utility to the youths under such care as his own, but of no
+small importance to the less fortunate members of society; and he liked
+to encourage the efforts of conscientious actors who looked upon their
+own calling in this light. It was rather for this purpose than with the
+idea of amusement that he patronised the play, and Jock, as in duty
+bound, though there was in him a certain boyish excitement as to the
+pleasure itself, did his best to regard the performance in the same
+exalted light. MTutor was a young man of about thirty, slim and tall. He
+was a man who had taken honours at college, though his admirers said not
+such high honours as he might have taken; "For MTutor," said Jock,
+"never would go in for pot-hunting, you know. What he always wanted was
+to cultivate his own mind, not to get prizes." It was with heartfelt
+admiration that this feature in his character was dwelt upon by his
+disciples. Not a doubt that he could have got whatever he liked to go in
+for, had he not been so fastidious and high-minded. He was fellow of his
+college as it was, had got a poetry prize which, perhaps, was not the
+Newdigate; and smiled indulgently at those who were more warm in the
+arena of competition than himself. On other occasions when "men" came to
+luncheon, the Contessa, though quite ready to be amused by them in her
+own person, sternly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> forbade the appearance of Bice, the effect of whose
+future was not, she was determined, to be spoilt by any such preliminary
+peeps; but the Contessa's vigilance slackened when the visitors were of
+no greater importance than this. She was insensible to the greatness of
+MTutor. It did not seem to matter that he should be there sitting grave
+and dignified by Lucy's side, and talking somewhat over Lucy's head, any
+more than it mattered that Mr. Rushton should be there, or any other
+person of an inferior level. It was not upon such men that Bice's
+appearance was to tell. She took no precautions against such persons.
+Jock himself at sixteen was not more utterly out of the question. And
+the Contessa herself, as it happened, was much amused by MTutor; his
+great ideas of everything, the exalted ideal that showed in all he did
+or said, gave great pleasure to this woman of the world. And when they
+came to the question of the educational influence of the stage, and the
+conscientious character of the actors' work, she could not conceal her
+satisfaction. "I will go with you, too," she said, "this evening." "We
+shall all go," said Sir Tom, "even Bice. There is a big box, and behind
+the curtain nobody will see her." To this the Contessa demurred, but,
+after a little while, being in a yielding humour, gave way. "It is for
+the play alone," she said in an undertone, raising her finger in
+admonition, "You will remember, my child, for the play alone."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all going for the play alone," said Sir Tom, cheerfully. "Here
+is Lucy, who is a baby for a play. She likes melodrama best, disguises
+and trap-doors and long-lost sons, and all the rest of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a taste that is very general," said MTutor, indulgently; "but I
+am sure Lady Randolph appre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>ciates the efforts of a conscientious
+interpreter&mdash;one who calls all the resources of art to his aid&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care for the play alone," said Bice to Jock in an undertone. "I
+want to see the people. They are always the most amusing. I have seen
+nobody yet in London. And though I must not be seen, I may look, that
+will do no harm. Then there will be the people who come into the box."</p>
+
+<p>"The people who come into the box! but you know us all," said Jock,
+astonished, "before we go&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You all?" said Bice, with some disdain. "It is easy to see <i>you</i>; that
+is not what I mean; this will be the first time I put my foot into the
+world. The actors, that is nothing. Is it the custom in England to look
+much at the play? No, you go to see your friends."</p>
+
+<p>MTutor was on the other side of this strange girl in her black frock. He
+took it upon him to reply. He said: "That is the case in some countries,
+but not here. In England the play is actually thought of. English actors
+are not so good as the French, nor even the Italian. And the Germans are
+much better trained. Nevertheless, we do what perhaps no other nation
+does. We give them our attention. It is this which makes the position of
+the actors more important, more interesting in England."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop a little, stop a little!" cried Sir Tom; "don't let me interrupt
+you, Derwentwater, if you are instructing the young ones; but don't
+forget the <i>Comédie Française</i>  and the aristocracy of art."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not forget it," said Mr. Derwentwater; "in that point of view we
+are far behind France; still I uphold that nowhere else do people go to
+the theatre for the sake of the play as we do; and it is this," he
+said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> turning to Bice, "that makes it possible that the theatre may be
+an influence and a power."</p>
+
+<p>Bice lifted her eyes upon this man with a wondering gaze of contempt.
+She gave him a full look which abashed him, though he was so much more
+important, so much more intellectual, than she. Then, without deigning
+to take any notice, she turned to Jock at her other side. "If that is
+all I do not care for going," she said. "I have seen many plays&mdash;oh,
+many! I like quite as well to read at home. It is not for that I wish to
+go; but to see the world. The world, that is far more interesting. It is
+like a novel, but living. You look at the people and you read what they
+are thinking. You see their stories going on. That is what amuses
+me;&mdash;but a play on the stage, what is it? People dressed in clothes that
+do not belong to them, trying to make themselves look like somebody
+else&mdash;but they never do. One says&mdash;that is not I, but the people that
+know&mdash;Bravo, Got! Bravo Regnier! It does not matter what parts they are
+acting. You do not care for the part. Then why go and look at it?" said
+Bice with straightforward philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>All this she poured forth upon Jock in a low clear voice, as if there
+was no one else near. Jock, for his part, was carried away by the flood.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about Got and Regnier. But what we are going to see is
+Shakespeare," he said, with a little awe, "that is not just like a
+common play."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Derwentwater had been astonished by Bice's indifference to his own
+instructive remarks. It was this perhaps more than her beauty which had
+called his attention to her, and he had listened as well as he could to
+the low rapid stream of her conversation, not without wonder that she
+should have chosen Jock as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> recipient of her confidence. What she
+said, though he heard it but imperfectly, interested him still more. He
+wanted to make her out&mdash;it was a new kind of study. While Lucy, by his
+side, went on tranquilly with some soft talk about the theatre, of which
+she knew very little, he thought, he made her a civil response, but gave
+all his attention to what was going on at the other side; and there was
+suddenly a lull of the general commotion, in which he heard distinctly
+Bice's next words.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What</i>  is Shakespeare?" she said; then went on with her own
+reflections. "What I want to see is the world. I have never yet gone
+into the world; but I must know it, for it is there I have to live. If
+one could live in Shakespeare," cried the girl, "it would be easy; but I
+have not been brought up for that; and I want to see the world&mdash;just a
+little corner&mdash;because that is what concerns me, not a play. If it is
+only for the play, I think I shall not go."</p>
+
+<p>"You had much better come," said Jock; "after all it is fun, and some of
+the fellows will be good. The world is not to be seen at the theatre
+that I know of," continued the boy. "Rows of people sitting one behind
+another, most of them as stupid as possible&mdash;you don't call that the
+world? But come&mdash;I wish you would come. It is a change&mdash;it stirs you
+up."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to be stirred up. I am all living," cried Bice. There
+seemed to breathe out from her a sort of visible atmosphere of energy
+and impatient life. Looking across this thrill in the air, which somehow
+was like the vibration of heat in the atmosphere, Jock's eyes
+encountered those of his tutor, turned very curiously, and not without
+bewilderment, to the same point as his own. It gave the boy a curious
+sensation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> which he could not define. He had wished to exhibit to Mr.
+Derwentwater this strange phenomenon in the shape of a girl, with a
+sense that there was something very unusual in her, something in which
+he himself had a certain proprietorship. But when MTutor's eyes
+encountered Jock's with an astonished glance of discovery in them, which
+seemed to say that he had found out Bice for himself without the
+interposition of the original discoverer, Jock felt a thrill of
+displeasure, and almost pain, which he could not explain to himself.
+What did it mean? It seemed to bring with it a certain defiance of, and
+opposition to, this king of men.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>TWO FRIENDS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Who was that young lady?" Mr. Derwentwater said. "I did not catch the
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"What young lady?" To suppose for a moment that Jock did not know who
+was meant would be ridiculous, of course; but, for some reason which he
+did not explain even to himself, this was the reply he made.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Jock, there was but one," said MTutor, with much friendliness.
+"At your age you do not take much notice of the other sex, and that is
+very well and right; but still it would be wrong to imagine that there
+is not something interesting in girls occasionally. I did not make her
+out. She was quite a study to me at the theatre. I am afraid the greater
+part of the performance, and all the most meritorious portion of it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+was thrown away upon her; but still there were gleams of interest. She
+is not without intelligence, that is clear."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Bice," said Jock, with a certain dogged air which Mr.
+Derwentwater had seldom seen in him before, and did not understand. He
+spoke as if he intended to say as little as was practicable, and as if
+he resented being made to speak at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Bice&mdash;ah! like Dante's Bice," said MTutor. "That makes her more
+interesting still. Though it is not perhaps under that aspect that one
+represents to oneself the Bice of Dante&mdash;<i>ben son, ben son, Beatrice.</i>
+No, not exactly under that aspect. Dante's Bice must have been more
+grand, more imposing, in her dress of crimson or dazzling white."</p>
+
+<p>Jock made no response. It was usual for him to regard MTutor devoutly
+when he talked in this way, and to feel that no man on earth talked so
+well. Jock in his omnivorous reading knew perhaps Dante better than his
+instructor, but he had come to the age when the mind, confused in all
+its first awakening of emotions, cannot talk of what affects it most.
+The time had been at which he had discussed everything he read with
+whosoever would listen, and instructed the world in a child's
+straightforward way. At that period he had often improved Lucy's mind on
+the subject of Dante, telling her all the details of that wonderful
+pilgrimage through earth and heaven, to her great interest and wonder,
+as something that had happened the other day. Lucy had not in those days
+been quite able to understand how it was that the gentleman of Florence
+should have met everybody he knew in the unseen, but she had taken it
+all in respectfully, as was her wont. Jock, however, had passed beyond
+this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> stage, and no longer told Lucy, or any one, stories from his
+reading; and other sensations had begun to stir in him which he could
+not put into words. In this way it was a constant admiration to him to
+hear MTutor, who could always, he thought, say the right thing and never
+was at a loss. But this evening he was dissatisfied. They were returning
+from the theatre by a late train, and nothing but Jock's reputation and
+high character as a boy of boys, high up in everything intellectual, and
+without reproach in any way, besides the devoted friendship which
+subsisted between himself and his tutor, could have justified Mr.
+Derwentwater in permitting him in the middle of the half to go to London
+to the theatre, and return by the twelve o'clock train. This privilege
+came to him from the favour of his tutor, and yet for the first time his
+tutor did not seem the superhuman being he had always previously
+appeared to Jock. But Mr. Derwentwater was quite unsuspicious of this.</p>
+
+<p>"There is something very much out of the way in the young lady
+altogether," he said. "That little black dress, fitting her like a
+glove, and no ornament or finery of any description. It is not so with
+girls in general. It was very striking&mdash;tell me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't think," cried Jock, "that you paid any attention to what women
+wore."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Derwentwater yielded to a gentle smile. "Tell me," he said, as if he
+had not been interrupted, "who this young lady may be. Is she a daughter
+of the Italian lady, a handsome woman, too, in her way, who was with
+your people?" The railway carriage in which they were coursing through
+the blackness of the night was but dimly lighted, and it was not easy to
+see from one corner to another the expression of Jock's face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Jock, in a voice that sounded gruff, "I can't tell
+who she is&mdash;I never asked. It did not seem any business of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Old fellow," said MTutor, "don't cultivate those bearish ways. Some men
+do, but it's not good form. I don't like to see it in you."</p>
+
+<p>This silenced Jock, and made his face flame in the darkness. He did not
+know what excuse to make. He added reluctantly: "Of course I know that
+she came with the Contessa; but who she is I don't know, and I don't
+think Lucy knows. She is just&mdash;there."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my boy," said Mr. Derwentwater, "if there is any mystery, all
+right; I don't want to be prying;" but, as was natural, this only
+increased his curiosity. After an interval, he broke forth again. "A
+little mystery," he said, "suits them; a woman ought to be mysterious,
+with her long robes falling round her, and her mystery of long hair, and
+all the natural veils and mists that are about her. It is more poetic
+and in keeping that they should only have a lovely suggestive name, what
+we call a Christian name, instead of a commonplace patronymic, Miss
+So-and-so! Yes; I recognise your Bice as by far the most suitable
+symbol."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to say what an amount of unexpressed and inexpressible
+irritation arose in the mind of Jock with every word. "Your Bice!" The
+words excited him almost beyond his power of control. The mere fact of
+having somehow got into opposition to MTutor was in itself an irritation
+almost more than he could bear. How it was he could not explain to
+himself; but only felt that from the moment when they had got into their
+carriage together, Mr. Derwentwater, hitherto his god, had become almost
+odious to him. The evening altogether had been exciting, but
+uncom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>fortable. They had all gone to the theatre, where Jock had been
+prepared to look on not so much at a fine piece of acting as at a
+conscientious study, the laboriousness of which was one of its chief
+qualities. Neither the Contessa nor Bice had been much impressed by that
+fine view of the performance. Madame di Forno-Populo, indeed, had swept
+the audience with her opera-glass, and paid very little attention to the
+stage. She had yawned at the most important moments. When the curtain
+fell she had woke up, looking with interest for visitors, as it
+appeared, though very few visitors had come. Bice was put into the
+corner under shelter of the Contessa, and thence had taken furtive
+peeps, though without any opera-glass, with her own keen, intelligent
+young eyes, at the people sitting near, whom Jock had declared not to be
+in any sense of the word the world. Bice too looked up, when the box
+door opened, with great interest. She kept well in the shade, but it was
+evident that she was anxious to see whosoever might come. And very few
+people came; one or two men who came to pay their respects to Lucy, one
+or two who appeared with faces of excitement and surprise to ask if it
+was indeed Madame di Forno-Populo whom they had seen? At these Bice from
+out her corner gazed with large eyes; they were not persons of an
+interesting kind. One of them was a Lord Somebody, who was red-faced and
+had an air which somehow did not suit the place in which Lucy was, and
+towards whom Sir Tom, though he knew him, maintained an aspect of
+seriousness not at all usual to his cordial countenance. Bice, it was
+evident, was struck with a contemptuous amaze at the appearance of these
+visitors. There was a quick interchange of glances between her and the
+Contessa with shrugs of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> shoulders and much play of fans. Bice's
+raised eyebrows and curled lips perhaps meant&mdash;"Are those your famous
+friends? Is this all?" Whereas the Contessa answered deprecatingly, with
+a sort of "wait a little" look. Jock, who generally was pleased to
+stroll about the lobbies in a sort of mannish way in the intervals
+between the acts, sat still in his place to watch all this with a
+wondering sense that here was something going on in which there was a
+still closer interest, and to notice everything almost without knowing
+that he noted it, following in this respect, as in most others, the lead
+of his tutor, who likewise addressed himself to the supervision of
+everything that went on, discoursing in the meantime to Lucy about the
+actors' "interpretation" of the part, and how far he, Mr. Derwentwater,
+agreed with their view. To Lucy, indeed, the action of the play was
+everything, and the intervals between tedious. She laughed and cried,
+and followed every movement, and looked round, hushing the others when
+they whispered, almost with indignation. Lucy was far younger, Jock
+decided, than Bice or even himself. He, too, had learned already&mdash;how
+had he learned it?&mdash;that the play going on upon the stage was less
+interesting than that which was being performed outside. Even Jock had
+found this out, though he could not have told how. Shakespeare, indeed,
+was far greater, nobler; but the excitement of a living story, the
+progress of events of which nobody could tell what would come next, had
+an interest transcending even the poetry. That was what people said,
+Jock was aware, in novels and other productions; but until to-night he
+never believed it was true.</p>
+
+<p>And then there was the journey from town, with all the curious sensation
+of parting at the theatre doors,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> and returning from that shining world
+of gaslight, and ladies' dresses, into the dimness of the railway, the
+tedious though not very long journey, the plunging of the carriage
+through the blackness of the night; and along with these the questions
+of Mr. Derwentwater, so unlike him, so uncalled-for, as Jock could not
+help thinking. What had he to do with Bice? What had any one to do with
+her? So far as she belonged to any one, it was to himself, Jock; her
+first friend, her companion in her walks, he to whom she had spoken so
+freely, and who had told her his opinion with such simplicity. When Jock
+remembered that he had told her she was not pretty his cheeks burned.
+There had stolen into his mind, he could not tell how, a very different
+feeling now&mdash;not perhaps a different opinion. When he reflected it did
+not seem to him even now that pretty was the word to use&mdash;but the
+impression of Bice which was in his mind was something that made the boy
+thrill. He did not understand it, nor could he tell what it was. But it
+made him quiver with resentment when there was any question about
+her&mdash;anything like this cold-blooded investigation which Mr.
+Derwentwater had attempted to make. It troubled Jock all the more that
+it should be MTutor who made it. When our god, our model of excellence,
+comes down from his high state to anything that is petty, or less than
+perfect, how sore is the pang with which we acknowledge it. "To be wroth
+with those we love doth work like madness in the brain." Jock had both
+these pangs together. He was angry because MTutor had been interfering
+with matters in which he had no concern, and he was pained because
+MTutor had condescended to ask questions and invite gossip, like the
+smaller beings well enough known in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> the boy-world as in every other,
+who make gossip the chief object of their existence. Could there be
+anything in the idol of his youth akin to these? He felt sore and
+disappointed, without knowing why, with a dim consciousness that there
+were many other people whom Mr. Derwentwater might have inquired about
+without awakening any such feelings in him. When the train stopped, and
+they got out, it was strange to walk down the silent, midnight streets
+by MTutor's side, without the old sensation of pleasure with which the
+boy felt himself made into the man's companion. He was awakened out of
+his maze of dark and painful feelings by the voice of Derwentwater
+calling upon him to admire the effect of the moonlight upon the river as
+they crossed the bridge. For long after that scene remained in Jock's
+mind against a background of mysterious shadows and perplexity. The moon
+rode in the midst of a wide clearing of blue between two broken banks of
+clouds. She was almost full, and approaching her setting. She shone full
+upon the river, sweeping from side to side in one flood of silver,
+broken only by a few strange little blacknesses, the few boats, like
+houseless stragglers out by night and without shelter, which lay here
+and there by a wharf or at the water's edge. The scene was wonderfully
+still and solemn, not a motion to be seen either on street or stream.
+"How is it, do you think," said Mr. Derwentwater, "that we think so
+little of the sun when it is he that lights up a scene like this, and so
+much of the moon?"</p>
+
+<p>Jock was taken by surprise by this question, which was of a kind which
+his tutor was fond of putting, and which brought back their old
+relations instantaneously. Jock seemed to himself to wake up out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> a
+strange inarticulate dream of displeasure and embarrassment, and to feel
+himself with sudden remorse, a traitor to his friend. He said,
+faltering: "I don't know; it is always you that finds out the analogies.
+I don't think that my mind is poetical at all."</p>
+
+<p>"You do yourself injustice, Jock," said Derwentwater, his arm within
+that of his pupil in their old familiar way. And then he said: "The moon
+is the feminine influence which charms us by showing herself clearly as
+the source of the light she sheds. The sun we rarely think of at all,
+but only of what he gives us&mdash;the light and the heat that are our life.
+Her," he pointed to the sky, "we could dispense with, save for the
+beauty of her."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish," said Jock, "I could think of anything so fine. But do you
+think we could do without women like that?" said the inquiring young
+spirit, ready to follow with his bosom bare whithersoever this refined
+philosophy might lead.</p>
+
+<p>"You and I will," said the instructor. "There are grosser and there are
+tamer spirits to whom it might be different. I would not wrong you by
+supposing that you, my boy, could ever be tempted in the gross way; and
+I don't think you are of the butterfly dancing kind."</p>
+
+<p>"I should rather think not!" said Jock, with a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, except as a beautiful object, setting herself forth in conscious
+brightness, like that emblem of woman yonder," said MTutor with a wave
+of his hand, admiring, familiar, but somewhat contemptuous, towards the
+moon, "what do we want with that feminine influence? Our lives are set
+to higher uses, and occupied with other aims."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jock was perfectly satisfied with this profession of faith. He went
+along the street with his tutor's arm in his, and a vague elation as of
+something settled and concluded upon in his mind. Their footsteps rang
+upon the pavement with a manly tramp as they paced away from the light
+on the bridge into the shadow of the old houses with their red roofs.
+They had gone some way before, being above all things loyal, Jock
+thought it right to put in a proviso. "Not intellectually, perhaps," he
+said, "but I can't forget how much I owe to my sister. I should have
+been a most forlorn little wretch when I was a child, and I shouldn't be
+much now, but for Lucy standing by me. It's not well to forget that, is
+it, sir? though Lucy is not at all clever," he added in an undertone.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a loyal soul," said MTutor, with a pressure of his arm, "but
+Woman does not mean our mothers and sisters." Here he permitted himself
+a little laugh. "It shows me how much inferior is my position to that of
+your youth, my dear boy," he said, "when you give me such an answer.
+Believe me it is far finer than anything you suppose me to be able to
+say."</p>
+
+<p>Jock did not know how to respond to this speech. It half angered, half
+pleased him, but on the whole he was more ashamed of the supposed
+youthfulness than satisfied with the approbation. No one, however young,
+likes the imputation of innocence; and Jock had feelings rising within
+him of which he scarcely knew the meaning, but which made him still more
+sensible of the injustice of this view. He was too proud, however, to
+explain himself even if he had been able to do so, and the little way
+that remained was trodden in silence. The boy, however, could not help a
+curious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> sensation of superiority as he went to his room through the
+sleeping-house, feeling the stillness of the slumber into which he
+stole, treading very quietly that he might not disturb any one. He
+stopped for a moment with a candle in his hand and looked down the long
+passage with its line of closed doors on each side, holding his breath
+with a half smile of sympathy, respect for the hush of sleep, yet keen
+superiority of life and emotion over all the unconscious household. His
+own brain and heart seemed tingling with the activity and tumult of life
+in them. It seemed to him impossible to sleep, to still the commotion in
+his mind, and bring himself into harmony with that hushed atmosphere and
+childish calm.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>YOUTHFUL UNREST.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Easter was very early that year, about as early as Easter can be, and
+there was in Jock's mind a disturbing consciousness of the holidays, and
+the manner in which he was likely to spend them, which no doubt
+interfered to a certain extent with his work. He ought to have been
+first in the competition for a certain school prize, and he was not. It
+was carried off to the disappointment of Jock's house, and, indeed, of
+the greater part of the school, by a King's scholar, which was the fate
+of most of the prizes. Mr. Derwentwater was deeply cast down by this
+disappointment. He expressed himself on the subject indeed with all the
+fine feeling for which he was distinguished. "The loss of a
+distinction," he said, "is not in itself a matter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> to disturb us; but I
+own I should be sorry to think that you were failing at all in that
+intellectual energy which has already placed you so often at the head of
+the lists&mdash;that, my dear fellow, I should unfeignedly regret; but not a
+mere prize, which is nothing." This was a very handsome way of speaking
+of it; but that MTutor was disappointed there could be no doubt. To Jock
+himself it gave a keen momentary pang to see his own name only third in
+that beadroll of honour; but so it was. The holidays had all that to
+answer for; the holidays, or rather what they were to bring. When he
+thought of the Hall and the company there, Jock felt a certain high tide
+in his veins, an awakening of interest and anticipation which he did not
+understand. He did not say to himself that he was going to be happy. He
+only looked forward with an eager heart, with a sense of something to
+come, which was different from the routine of ordinary life. MTutor
+after many hindrances and hesitations was at last going to accept the
+invitation of Sir Tom, and accompany his pupil. This Jock had looked
+forward to as the greatest of pleasures. But somehow he did not feel so
+happy about it now. He did not seem to himself to want Mr. Derwentwater.
+In some ways, indeed, he had become impatient of Mr. Derwentwater. Since
+that visit to the theatre, involuntarily without any cause for it, there
+had commenced to be moments in which MTutor was tedious. This sacrilege
+was unconscious, and never yet had been put into words; but still the
+feeling was there; and the beginning of any such revolution in the soul
+must be accompanied with many uneasinesses. Jock was on the stroke, so
+to speak, of seventeen. He was old for his age, yet he had been almost
+childish too in his devotion to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> books, and the subjects of his
+school life. The last year had introduced many new thoughts to his mind
+by restoring him to the partial society of his sister and her house; but
+into these new subjects he had carried the devotion of his studious
+habits and the enthusiasm of his discipleship, transferring himself
+bodily with all his traditions into the new atmosphere. But a change
+somehow had begun in him, he could not tell how. He was stirred beyond
+the lines of his former being&mdash;sentiments, confusions of spirit quite
+new to him, were vaguely fermenting, he could not tell how; and school
+work, and prizes, and all the emulations of sixth form had somehow tamed
+and paled. The colour seemed to have gone out of them. And the library
+of MTutor, that paradise of thought, that home of conversation, where so
+many fine things used to be said&mdash;that too had palled upon the boy's
+uneasy soul. He felt as if he should prefer to leave everything behind
+him,&mdash;books and compositions and talk, and even MTutor himself. Such a
+state of mind is sure to occur some time or other in a boy's
+experiences; but in this case it was too early, and Mr. Derwentwater,
+who was very deeply devoted to his pupils, was much exercised on the
+subject. He had lost Jock's confidence, he thought. How had he lost his
+confidence? was it that some other less wholesome influence was coming
+in? Thus there were feelings of discomfort between them, hesitations as
+to what to say, instinctive avoidance of some subjects, concealed
+allusions to others. It might even be said that in a very refined and
+superior way, such as was alone possible to such a man, Mr. Derwentwater
+occasionally talked at Jock. He talked of the pain and grief of seeing a
+young heart closed to you which once had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> been open, and of the poignant
+disappointment which arises in an elder spirit when its spiritual
+child&mdash;its disciple&mdash;gets beyond its leading. Jock, occupied with his
+own thoughts, only partially understood.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this state of mind that they set out together, amid all the
+bustle of breaking up, to pay their promised visit. Jock, who up to this
+moment had hated London, and looked with alarm upon society, had eagerly
+accepted his tutor's proposal that after the ten days which they were to
+spend at the Hall they should go to Normandy together for the rest of
+the holidays, which was an arrangement very pleasant in anticipation.
+But by this time neither of the two was at all anxious to carry it out.
+Mr. Derwentwater had begun to talk of the expediency of giving a little
+attention to one's own country. "We are just as foolish as the ignorant
+masses," he said, "though we think ourselves so wise. Why not Devonshire
+instead of Normandy? it is finer in natural scenery. Why not London
+instead of Paris? there is no spell in mere going, as the ignorant say
+'abroad.'" When you come to think of it, in just the same proportion as
+one is superior to the common round of gaping British tourists, by going
+on a walking tour in Normandy, one is superior to the walkers in
+Normandy by choosing Devonshire.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks were preliminary to the intention of giving up the plan
+altogether, and by the time they set out it was tacitly understood that
+this was to be the case. It was to be given up&mdash;not for Devonshire. The
+pair of friends had become two&mdash;they were to do each what was good in
+his own eyes. Jock would remain "at home," whether that home meant the
+Hall or Park Lane, and Mr. Derwentwater, after his week's visit, should
+go on&mdash;where seemed to him good.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a considerable party gathered in the inner drawing-room when
+Jock and his companion presented themselves there. The scene was very
+different from that to which Jock had been accustomed, when the
+tea-table was a sort of fireside adjunct to the warmth and brightness
+centred there. Now the windows were full of a clear yellow sky, shining
+a little shrilly after rain, and promising in its too-clear and watery
+brightness more rain to come; and many people were about, some standing
+up against the light, some lounging in the comfortable chairs, some
+talking together in groups, some hanging about Lucy and her tea service.
+Lucy said, "Oh, is it you, Jock?" and kissed him, with a look of
+pleasure; but she had not run out to meet him as of old. Lucy, indeed,
+was changed, perhaps more evidently changed than any member of the
+family. She was far more self-possessed than she had ever been before.
+She did not now turn to her husband with that pretty look, half-smiling,
+half-wistful, to know how she had got through her domestic duties. There
+was a slight air of hurry and embarrassment about her eyes. The season
+had not begun, and she could not have been overdone by her social
+duties; but something had aged and changed her. Some old acquaintances
+came forward and shook hands with Jock; and Sir Tom, when he saw who it
+was, detached himself from the person he was talking to, and came
+forward and gave him a sufficiently cordial welcome. The person with
+whom he was talking was the Contessa. She was in her old place in the
+room, the comfortable sofa which she had taken from Lady Randolph, and
+where Sir Tom, leaning upon the mantelpiece, as an Englishman loves to
+do, could talk to her in the easiest of attitudes. Jock, though he was
+not dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>cerning, thought that Sir Tom looked aged and changed too. The
+people in general had a tired afternoon sort of look about them. They
+were not like people exulting to get out of town, and out of darkness
+and winter weather to the fresh air and April skies. Perhaps, however,
+this effect was produced by the fact that looking for one special person
+in the assembly Jock had not found her. He had never cared who was there
+before. Except Lucy, the whole world was much the same to him. To talk
+to her now and then, but by preference alone, when he could have her to
+himself and nobody else was by, and then to escape to the library, had
+been the height of his desire. Now he no longer thought of the library,
+or even, save in a secondary way, of Lucy. He looked about for some one
+else. There was the Contessa, sure enough, with one man on the sofa by
+her side and another seated in front of her, and Sir Tom against the
+mantelpiece lounging and talking. She was enchanting them all with her
+rapid talk, with the pretty, swift movements of her hands, her
+expressive looks and ways. But there was no shadow of Bice about the
+room. Jock looked at once behind the table, where she had been always
+visible when the Contessa was present. But Bice was not there. There was
+not a trace of her among the people whom Jock neither knew nor cared to
+know. But everything went on cheerfully, notwithstanding this omission,
+which nobody but Jock seemed to remark. Ladies chattered softly as they
+sipped their tea, men standing over them telling anecdotes of this
+person and that, with runs of soft laughter here and there. Lucy at the
+tea-table was the only one who was at all isolated. She was bending over
+her cups and saucers, supplying now one and now another, listening to a
+chance remark here and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> there, giving an abstracted smile to the person
+who might chance to be next to her. What was she thinking of? Not of
+Jock, who had only got a smile a little more animated than the others.
+Mr. Derwentwater did not know anybody in this company. He stood on the
+outskirts of it, with that look of mingled conciliation and defiance
+which is natural to a man who feels himself overlooked. He was more
+disappointed even than Jock, for he had anticipated a great deal of
+attention, and not to find himself nobody in a fashionable crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Things did not mend even at dinner. Then the people were more easily
+identified in their evening clothes, exposing themselves steadily to all
+observers on either side of the table; but they did not seem more
+interesting. There were two or three political men, friends of Sir Tom,
+and some of a very different type who were attached to the
+Contessa&mdash;indeed, the party consisted chiefly of men, with a few ladies
+thrown in. The ladies were not much more attractive. One of them, a Lady
+Anastasia something, was one of the most inveterate of gossip
+collectors, a lady who not only provided piquant tales for home
+consumption, but served them up to the general public afterwards in a
+newspaper&mdash;the only representatives of ordinary womankind being a mother
+and two daughters, who had no particular qualities, and who duly
+occupied a certain amount of space, without giving anything in return.
+But Bice was not visible. She who had been so little noticed, yet so far
+from insignificant, where was she? Could it be that the Contessa had
+left her behind, or that Lucy had objected to her, or that she was ill,
+or that&mdash;Jock did not know what to think. The company was a strange one.
+Those sedate, political friends of Sir Tom found themselves with a
+little dismay in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> the society of the lady who wrote for what she called
+the Press, and the gentlemen from the clubs. One of the guests was the
+young Marquis Montjoie, who had quite lately come into his title and the
+world. He had been at school with Jock a few years before, and he
+recognised Mr. Derwentwater with a curious mixture of awe and contempt.
+"Hallo!" he had cried when he perceived him first, and he had whispered
+something to the Contessa which made her laugh also. All this Jock
+remarked vaguely in his uneasiness and disappointment. What was the good
+of coming home, he said to himself, if&mdash;&mdash; What was the use of having so
+looked forward to the holidays and lost that prize, and disappointed
+everybody, if&mdash;&mdash; There rose such a ferment in Jock's veins as had never
+been there before. When the ladies left the room after dinner it was he
+that opened the door for them, and as Lucy looked up with a smile into
+her brother's face she met from him a scowl which took away her breath.
+Why did he scowl at Lucy? and why think that in all his life he had
+never seen so dull a company before? Their good things after dinner were
+odious to his ears; and to think, that even MTutor should be able to
+laugh at such miserable jokes and take an interest in such small talk!
+That fellow Montjoie, above all, was intolerable to Jock. He had been
+quite low down in the school when he left, a being of no account, a
+creature called by opprobrious names, and not worthy to tie the shoes of
+a member of Sixth Form. But when he rattled loudly on about nothing at
+all, even Sir Tom did not refuse to listen. What was Montjoie doing
+here? When the gentlemen streamed into the drawing-room, a procession of
+black coats, Jock, who came last, could not help being aware that he was
+scowling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> at everybody. He met the eyes of one of those inoffensive
+little girls in blue, and made her jump, looking at her as if he would
+eat her. And all the evening through he kept prowling about with his
+hands in his pockets, now looking at the books in the shelves, now
+frowning at Lucy, who could not think what was the matter with her
+brother. Was Jock ill? What had happened to him? The young ladies in
+blue sang an innocent little duet, and Jock stared at the Contessa,
+wondering if she was going to sing, and if the door would open and the
+slim figure in the black frock come in as by a signal and place herself
+at the piano. But the Contessa only laughed behind her fan, and made a
+little pretence at applause when the music ceased, having talked all
+through it, she and the gentlemen about her, of whom Montjoie was one
+and the loudest. No, she was not going to sing. When the door opened it
+was only to admit the servants with their trays and the tea which nobody
+wanted. What was the use of looking forward to the holidays if&mdash;&mdash; Mr.
+Derwentwater, perhaps, had similar thoughts. He came up to Jock behind
+the backs of the other people, and put an uneasy question to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you said that Madame di Forno-Populo sang?"</p>
+
+<p>"She used to," said Jock laconically.</p>
+
+<p>"The music here does not seem of a high class," said MTutor. "I hope she
+will sing. Italians, though their music is sensuous, generally know
+something about the art."</p>
+
+<p>To this Jock made no reply, but hunched his shoulders a little higher,
+and dug his hands down deeper into his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, is the&mdash;young lady who was with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> Madame di Forno-Populo
+here no longer?" said MTutor in a sort of accidental manner, as if that
+had for the first time occurred to him. He raised his eyes to Jock's
+face, which was foolish, and they both reddened in spite of themselves;
+Mr. Derwentwater with sudden confusion, and Jock with angry dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I know of," said the boy. "I haven't heard anything." Then he
+went on hurriedly: "No more than I know what Montjoie's doing here.
+What's he been asked here for I wonder? He can't amuse anybody much."
+These words, however, were contradicted practically as soon as they were
+said by a peal of laughter which rose from the Contessa's little corner,
+all caused as it was evident by some pleasantry of Montjoie's.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that he does, though," said Mr. Derwentwater; and then he
+added with a smile, "We are novices in society, you and I. We do best in
+our own class; not to know that Montjoie will be in the very front of
+society, the admired of all admirers at least for a season or two! Isn't
+he a favourite of fortune, the best <i>parti</i>, a golden youth in every
+sense of the word&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he was a scug!" cried Jock, with illimitable disdain. This
+mysterious and terrible monosyllable was applied at school to a youth
+hopelessly low down and destitute of any personal advantages to
+counterbalance his inferiority. Jock launched it at the Marquis,
+evidently now in a very different situation, as if it had been a stone.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" said MTutor blandly. "You will meet a great many such in
+society, and they will think themselves quite as good as you."</p>
+
+<p>Then the mother of the young ladies in blue approached and disturbed
+this <i>tête-à-tête</i> .<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I think you were talking of Lord Montjoie," she said. "I hear he is so
+clever; there are some comic songs he sings, which, I am told, are quite
+irresistible. Mr. Trevor, don't you think you could induce him to sing
+one?&mdash;as you were at school with him, and are a sort of son of the
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>At this Jock glowered with eyes that were alarming to see under the deep
+cover of his eyebrows, and MTutor laughed out. "We had not so exalted an
+opinion of Montjoie," he said; and then, with a politic diversion of
+which he was proud, "Would not your daughters favour us again? A comic
+song in the present state of our feelings would be more than we could
+bear."</p>
+
+<p>"What a clever fellow he is after all!" said Jock to himself admiringly,
+"how he can manage people and say the right thing at the right moment! I
+dare say Lucy will tell me if I ask her," he said, quite irrelevantly,
+as the lady, well pleased to hear her daughters appreciated, sailed
+away. There was something in the complete sympathy of Mr. Derwentwater's
+mind, even though it irritated, which touched him. He put the question
+point blank to Lucy when he found an opportunity of speaking to her. "I
+say, Lucy, where is Bice? You have got all the old fogeys about the
+place, and she is not here," the boy said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why you are glooming upon everybody so?" said the unfeeling
+Lucy. "You cannot call your friend Lord Montjoie an old fogey, Jock. He
+says you were such friends at school."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;friends!" cried Jock with disdain. "Why, he was nothing but a scug."</p>
+
+<p>Thus Lucy, too, avoided the question; but it was not because she had any
+real reluctance to speak of Bice, though this was what Jock could not
+know.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I never sing," said the Contessa, with that serene smile with which she
+was in the habit of accompanying a statement which her hearers knew to
+be quite untrue. "Oh never! It is one of my possibilities which are
+over&mdash;one of the things which you remember of me in&mdash;other days&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"So far back as March," said Sir Tom; "but we all recognise that in a
+lady's calendar that may mean a century."</p>
+
+<p>"Put it in the plural, <i>mon ami</i>&mdash;centuries, that is more correct," said
+the Contessa, with her dazzling smile.</p>
+
+<p>"And might one ask why this sudden acceleration of time?" asked one of
+the gentlemen who were always in attendance, belonging, so to speak, to
+the Contessa's side of the party. She opened out her lovely hands and
+gave a little shrug to her shoulders, and elevation of her eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"It is easy to tell: but whether I shall tell you is another
+question&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do, do, Countess," cried young Montjoie, who was somewhat rough in
+his attentions, and treated the lady with less ceremony than a less
+noble youth would have ventured upon. "Come, don't keep us all in
+suspense. I must hear you, don't you know; all the other fellows have
+heard you. So, please, get over the preliminaries, and let's come to the
+music. I'm awfully fond of music, especially singing. I'm a dab at that
+myself&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Contessa let her eyes dwell upon this illustrious young man. "Why,"
+she said, "have I been prevented from making acquaintance with the art
+in which my Lord Montjoie is&mdash;a dab&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this there was a laugh, in which the good-natured young nobleman did
+not refuse to join. "I say, you know! it's too bad to make fun of me
+like this," he cried; "but I'll tell you what, Countess, I'll make a
+bargain with you. I'll sing you three of mine if you'll sing me one of
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa smiled with that gracious response which so often answered
+instead of words. The other ladies had withdrawn, except Lucy, who
+waited somewhat uneasily till her guest was ready. Though Madame di
+Forno-Populo had never lost the ascendency which she had acquired over
+Lady Randolph by throwing herself upon her understanding and sympathy,
+there were still many things which Lucy could not acquiesce in without
+uneasiness, in the Contessa's ways. The group of men about her chair,
+when all the other ladies took their candles and made their way
+upstairs, wounded Lucy's instinctive sense of what was befitting. She
+waited, punctilious in her feeling of duty, though the Contessa had not
+hesitated to make her understand that the precaution was quite
+unnecessary&mdash;and though even Sir Tom had said something of a similar
+signification. "She is old enough to take care of herself. She doesn't
+want a chaperon," Sir Tom had said; but nevertheless Lucy would take up
+a book and sit down at the table and wait: which was the more
+troublesome that it was precisely at this moment that the Contessa was
+most amusing and enjoyed herself most. Sir Tom's parliamentary friends
+had disappeared to the smoking-room when the ladies left the room. It
+was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> the other kind of visitors, the gentlemen who had known the
+Contessa in former days, and were old friends likewise of Sir Tom, who
+gathered round her now&mdash;they and young Lord Montjoie, who was rather out
+of place in the party, but who admired the Contessa greatly, and thought
+her better fun than any one he knew.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa gave the young man one of those speaking smiles which were
+more eloquent than words. And then she said: "If I were to tell you why,
+you would not believe me. I am going to retire from the world."</p>
+
+<p>At this there was a little tumult of outcry and laughter. "The world
+cannot spare you, Contessa." "We can't permit any such sacrifice." And,
+"Retire! Till to-morrow?" her courtiers said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not till to-morrow. I do more than retire. I abdicate," said the
+Contessa, waving her beautiful hands as if in farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"This sounds very mysterious; for an abdication is different from a
+withdrawal; it suggests a successor."</p>
+
+<p>"Which is an impossibility," another said.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa distributed her smiles with gracious impartiality to all,
+but she kept a little watch upon young Montjoie, who was eager amid the
+ring of her worshippers. "Nevertheless, it is more than a successor,"
+she said, playing with them, with a strange pleasure. To be thus
+surrounded, flattered more openly than men ever venture to flatter a
+woman whom they respect, addressed with exaggerated admiration,
+contemplated with bold and unwavering eyes, had come by many descents to
+be delightful to the Contessa. It reminded her of her old triumphs&mdash;of
+the days when men of a different sort brought homage perhaps not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> much
+more real but far more delicate, to her feet. A long career of baths and
+watering-places, of Baden and Homburg, and every other conceivable
+resort of temporary gaiety and fashion, had brought her to this. Sir
+Tom, who was not taking much share in the conversation, stood with his
+arm on the mantelpiece, and watched her and her little court with
+compassionate eyes. He had laughed often before; but he did not laugh
+now. Perhaps the fact that he was himself no longer her first object
+helped to change the aspect of affairs. He had consented to invite these
+men as old acquaintances; but it was intolerable to him to see this
+scene going on in the room in which his wife was; and the Contessa's
+radiant satisfaction seemed almost horrible to him in Lucy's presence.
+Lucy was seated at some distance from the group, her face turned away,
+her head bent, to all appearance very intent upon the book she was
+reading. He looked at her with a sort of reverential impatience. She was
+not capable of understanding the degradation which her own pure and
+simple presence made apparent. He could not endure her to be there
+sanctioning the indecorum;&mdash;and yet the tenacity with which she held her
+place, and did what she thought her duty to her guest, filled him with a
+wondering pride. No other scene, perhaps, he thought, in all England,
+could have presented a contrast so curious.</p>
+
+<p>"The Contessa speaks in riddles," said one of the circle. "We want an
+&#338;dipus."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, Countess," said young Montjoie, "don't hang us up like this.
+We are all of us on pins and needles, don't you know? It all began about
+you singing. Why don't you sing? All the fellows say it's as good as
+Grisi. I never heard Grisi, but I know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> every note Patti's got in her
+voice; and I want to compare, don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa contemplated the young man with a sort of indulgent smile
+like a mother who withholds a toy.</p>
+
+<p>"When are you going away?" she said. "You will soon go back to your dear
+London, to your clubs and all your delights."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, Countess," repeated Montjoie, "that isn't kind. You talk as
+if you wanted to get rid of a fellow. I'm due at the Duke's on Friday,
+don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then it shall be on Thursday," said the Contessa, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall be on Thursday?"</p>
+
+<p>The others all came round her with eager questions.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going on Wednesday," said one. "What is this that is going to
+happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"And why am I to be excluded?"</p>
+
+<p>"And I? If there is to be anything new, tell us what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Inquisitors! and they say that curiosity belongs to women," said the
+Contessa. "Messieurs, if I were to tell you what it was, it would be no
+longer new."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but hang it all," cried young Montjoie, who was excited and had
+forgotten his manners, "do tell us what it is. Don't you see we don't
+even know what kind of thing you mean? If it's music&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Madame di Forno-Populo laughed once more. She loved to mystify and raise
+expectations. "It is not music," she said. "It is my reason for
+withdrawing. When you see that, you will understand. You will all say
+the Contessa is wise. She has foreseen exactly the right moment to
+retire."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And with this she rose from the sofa with a sudden movement which took
+her attendants by surprise. She was not given to shaking hands. She
+withdrew quickly from Montjoie's effort to seize her delicate fingers,
+which she waved to the company in general. "My Lucy," she said, "I have
+kept you waiting! to this extent does one forget one's self in your
+delightful house. But, my angel, you should not permit me to do it. You
+should hold up your finger, and I would obey."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo," said Montjoie's voice behind their backs in a murmur of
+delight. "Oh, by Jove, isn't that good? Fancy, a woman like her, and
+that simple&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>One of the elder men gave Montjoie something like a kick, inappropriate
+as the scene was for such a demonstration. "You little&mdash;&mdash;think what you
+are saying," he cried.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Tom was opening the door for the ladies, and did not hear. Lucy
+was tired and pale. She looked like a child beside the stately Contessa.
+She had taken no notice of Madame di Forno-Populo's profession of
+submission. In her heart she was longing to run to the nursery, to see
+her boy asleep, and make sure that all was well; and she was not only
+tired with her vigil, but uneasy, disapproving. She divined what the
+Contessa meant, though not even Sir Tom had made it out. Perhaps it was
+feminine instinct that instructed her on this point. Perhaps the strong
+repugnance she had, and sense of opposition to what was about to be
+done, quickened her powers of divination. She who had never suspected
+anybody in all her life fathomed the Contessa's intentions at a glance.
+"That boy!" she said to herself as she followed up the great staircase.
+Lucy divined the Contessa, and the Con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>tessa divined that she had
+divined her. She turned round when they reached the top of the stairs
+and paused for a moment looking at Lady Randolph's face, lit up with the
+light of her candle. "My sweetest," said the Contessa, "you do not
+approve. It breaks my heart to see it. But what can I do! This is my
+way, it is not yours; but to me it is the only way."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy could do nothing but shake her head as she turned the way of the
+nursery where her boy was sleeping. The contrast gave her a pang. Bice,
+too, was no doubt sleeping the deep and dreamless sleep of youth behind
+one of those closed doors; poor Bice! secluded there to increase the
+effect of her eventual appearance, and about whom her protectress was
+draping all those veils of mystery in order to tempt the fancy of a
+commonplace youth not much more than a schoolboy! And yet the Contessa
+loved her charge, and persuaded herself that she was acting for Bice's
+good. Poor Bice, who was so good to little Tom! Was there nothing to be
+done to save her?</p>
+
+<p>"What's going to happen on Thursday?" the men of the Contessa's train
+asked of Sir Tom, as they followed him to the smoking-room, where Mr.
+Derwentwater, in a velvet coat, was already seated smoking a mild
+cigarette, and conversing with one of the parliamentary gentlemen. Jock
+hung about in the background, turning over the books (for there were
+books everywhere in this well-provided house) rather with the intention
+of making it quite evident that he went to bed when he liked, and could
+stay up as late as any one, than from any hankering after that cigar
+which a Sixth Form fellow, so conscientious as Jock was, might not
+trifle with. "Oh, here are those two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> duffers; those saps, don't you
+know," Montjoie said, with a grimace, as he perceived them on entering
+the room; in which remark he was perhaps justified by the epithets which
+these two superior persons applied to him. The two parties did not
+amalgamate in the smoking-room any more than in other places. The new
+comers surrounded Sir Tom in a noisy little crowd, demanding of him an
+explanation of the Contessa's meaning. This, however, was subdued
+presently by a somewhat startling little incident. The gentlemen were
+discussing the Contessa with the greatest freedom. "It's rather
+astounding to meet her in a good house, just like any one else," one man
+forgot himself sufficiently to say, but he came to his recollection very
+quickly on meeting Sir Tom's eyes. "I beg your pardon, Randolph, of
+course that's not what I mean. I mean after all those years." "Then I
+hope you will remember to say exactly what you mean," said Sir Tom, "on
+other occasions. It will simplify matters."</p>
+
+<p>This momentary incident, though it was quiet enough, and expressed in
+tones rather less than more loud than the ordinary conversation, made a
+sensation in the room, and produced first an involuntary stillness, and
+then an eager access of talk. It had the effect, however, of making
+everybody aware that the Contessa intended to make, on Thursday, some
+revelation or other, an intimation which moved Jock and his tutor as
+much or even more than it moved the others. Mr. Derwentwater even made
+advances to Montjoie, whom he had steadily ignored, in order to
+ascertain what it was. "Something's coming off, that's all we can tell,"
+that young patrician said. "She is going to retire, so she says, from
+the world, don't you know? That's like a tradesman shutting up shop when
+he's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> made his fortune, or a <i>prima donna</i> going off the stage. It ain't
+so easy to make out, is it, how the Forno-Populo can retire from the
+world? She can't be going to take poison, like the great Sarah, and give
+us a grand dying seance in Lady Randolph's drawing-room. That would be
+going a bit too far, don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is going a bit too far to imagine such a thing," Derwentwater said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, you know, it isn't school-time," cried Montjoie, with a
+laugh. And though Mr. Derwentwater was as much superior to the little
+lordling as could be conceived, he retired disconcerted from this
+passage of arms. To be reminded that you are a pedagogue is difficult to
+bear, especially an unsuccessful pedagogue, attempting to exert
+authority which exists no longer. MTutor prided himself on being a man
+of the world, but he retired a little with an involuntary sense of
+offence from this easy setting down. He rose shortly after and took Jock
+by the arm and led him away. "You are not smoking, which I am glad to
+see&mdash;and shows your sense," he said. "Come out and have a breath of air
+before we go upstairs. Can you imagine anything more detestable than
+that little precocious <i>roué</i>, that washed-out little man-about-town,"
+he added with some energy, as they stepped out of the open windows of
+the library, left open in case the fine night should have seduced the
+gentlemen on to the terrace to smoke their cigars. It was a lovely
+spring night, soft and balmy, with a sensation of growth in the air, the
+sky very clear, with airy white clouds all lit up by the moon. The quiet
+and freshness gave to those who stepped into it a curious sensation of
+superiority to the men whom they left in the warm brightly-lit room,
+with its heavy atmosphere and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> artificial delights. It felt like a moral
+atmosphere in contrast with the air all laden with human emanations,
+smoke, and the careless talk of men. These two were perhaps somewhat
+inclined to feel a superiority in any circumstances. They did so doubly
+in these.</p>
+
+<p>"He was always a little cad," said Jock.</p>
+
+<p>"To hear a lady's name from his mouth is revolting," said Derwentwater.
+"We are all too careless in that respect. I admire Madame di
+Forno-Populo for keeping her&mdash;is it her daughter or niece?&mdash;out of the
+way while that little animal is here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Bice would soon make him know his place," said Jock; "she is not
+just like one of the girls that are civil, you know. She is not afraid
+of telling you what she thinks of you. I know exactly how she'd look at
+Montjoie." Jock permitted himself an abrupt laugh in the pleasure of
+feeling that he knew her ways far better than any one. "She would soon
+set him down&mdash;the little beast!&mdash;in his right place."</p>
+
+<p>As they walked up and down the terrace their steps and voices were very
+audible in the stillness of the night; and the windows were lighted in
+the east wing, showing that the inhabitants were still up there and
+about. While Jock spoke, one of these windows opened quite suddenly, and
+for a single moment a figure like a shadow appeared in it. The light
+movement, sudden as a bird's on the wing, would have betrayed her (she
+felt) to Jock, even if she had not spoken. But she waved her hand and
+called out "Good-night" in a voice full of laughter. "Don't talk
+secrets, for we can hear you," she said. "Good-night!" And so vanished
+again, with a little echo of laughter from within. The young men were
+both excited and disconcerted by this interruption. It gave them a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
+sensation of shame for the moment as if they had been caught in a
+discussion of a forbidden subject; and then a tingling ran through their
+veins. Even MTutor for the moment found no fine speech in which to
+express his sense of this sudden momentary tantalising appearance of the
+mystic woman standing half visible out of the background of the unknown.
+He did think some very fine things on the subject after a time, with a
+side glance of philosophical reflection that her light laugh of mockery
+as she momentarily revealed herself, was an outcome of this sceptical
+century, and that in a previous age her utterance would have been a song
+or a sigh. But at the moment even Mr. Derwentwater was subjugated by the
+thrill of sensation and feeling, and found nothing to say.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>IN SUSPENSE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was thus that Bice was engaged while Lucy imagined her asleep in her
+innocence, unaware of the net that was being spread for her unsuspecting
+feet. Bice was neither asleep nor unsuspecting. She was innocent in a
+way inconceivable to the ordinary home-keeping imagination, knowing no
+evil in the devices to which she was a party; but she was not innocent
+in the conventional sense. That any high feminine ideal should be
+affected by the design of the Contessa or by her own participation in it
+had not occurred to the girl. She had been accustomed to smile at the
+high virtue of those ladies in the novels who would not receive the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
+addresses of the eldest son of their patroness, and who preferred a
+humble village and the delights of self-sacrifice to all the grandeurs
+of an ambitious marriage. That might be well enough in a novel, Bice
+thought, but it was not so in life. In her own case there was no
+question about it. The other way it was which seemed to her the virtuous
+way. Had it been proposed to her to throw herself away upon a poor man
+whom she might be supposed to love, and so prove herself incapable of
+being of any use to the Contessa, and make all her previous training and
+teaching of no effect, Bice's moral indignation would have been as
+elevated as that of any English heroine at the idea of marrying for
+interest instead of love. The possibility did not occur to her at all;
+but it would have been rejected with disdain had it attempted to force
+its way across the threshold of her mind. She loved nobody&mdash;except the
+Contessa; which was a great defence and preservation to her thoughts.
+She accepted the suggestion that Montjoie should be the means of raising
+her to that position she was made for, with composure and without an
+objection. It was not arranged upon secretly, without her knowledge, but
+with her full concurrence. "He is not very much to look at. I wish he
+had been more handsome," the Contessa said; but Bice's indifference on
+this point was sublime. "What can it matter?" she said loftily. She was
+not even very deeply interested in his disposition or mental qualities.
+Everything else being so suitable, it would have been cowardly to shrink
+from any minor disadvantage. She silenced the Contessa in the attempt to
+make the best of him. "All these things are so secondary," the girl
+said. Her devotion to the career chosen for her was above all weakly
+arguments of this kind. She looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> upon them even with a certain scorn.
+And though there was in her mind some excitement as to her appearance
+"in the world," as she phrased it, and her skill "to please," which was
+as yet untried, it was, notwithstanding with the composure of a nature
+quite unaware of any higher questions involved, that she took her part
+in all the preparations. Her knowledge of the very doubtful world in
+which she had lived had been of a philosophical character. She was quite
+impartial. She had no prejudices. Those of whom she approved were those
+who had carried out their intentions, whatever they might be, as she
+should do by marrying an English Milord with a good title and much
+money. She meant, indeed, to spend his money, but legitimately. She
+meant to become a great lady by his means, but not to do him any harm.
+Bice had an almost savage purity of heart, and the thought that any of
+the stains she knew of should touch her was incredible, impossible;
+neither was it in her to be unkind, or unjust, or envious, or
+ungenerous. Nothing of all this was involved in the purely business
+operation in which she was engaged. According to her code no professions
+of attachment or pretence of feeling were necessary. She had indeed no
+theories in her mind about being a good wife; but she would not be a bad
+one. She would keep her part of the compact; there should be nothing to
+complain of, nothing to object to. She would do her best to amuse the
+man she had to live with and make his life agreeable to him, which is a
+thing not always taken into consideration in marriage-contracts much
+more ideal in character. He should not be allowed to be dull, that was
+one thing certain. Regarding the matter in this reasonable point of
+view, Bice prepared for the great event of Thursday with just excitement
+enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> to make it amusing. It might be that she should fail. Few
+succeed at the very first effort without difficulty, she said to
+herself; but if she failed there would be nothing tragical in the
+failure, and the season was all before her. It could scarcely be hoped
+that she would bring down her antagonist the first time she set lance in
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>She was carefully kept out of sight during the intervening days; no one
+saw her; no one had any acquaintance with the fact of her existence. The
+precautions taken were such that Bice was never even encountered on the
+staircase, never seen to flit in or out of a room, and indeed did not
+exist at all for the party in the house. Notwithstanding these
+precautions she had the needful exercise to keep her in health and good
+looks, and still romped with the baby and held conversations with the
+sympathetic Lucy, who did not know what to say to express her feeling of
+anxious disapproval and desire to succour, without, at the same time,
+injuring in Bice's mind her nearest friend and protectress. She might,
+indeed, have spared herself the trouble of any such anxiety, for Bice
+neither felt injured by the Contessa's scheme nor degraded by her
+precautions. It amused the girl highly to be made a secret of, to run
+all the risks of discovery and baffle the curious. The fun of it was
+delightful to her. Sometimes she would amuse herself by hanging till the
+last practicable moment in the gallery at the top of the staircase, on
+the balcony at the window, or at the door of the Contessa's room which
+was commanded by various other doors; but always vanished within in time
+to avoid all inquisitive eyes, with the laughter and delight of a child
+at the danger escaped, and the fun of the situation. In these cases the
+Contessa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> would sometimes take fright, but never, so light was the
+temper of this scheming woman, this deep plotter and conspirator,
+refused to join in the laughter when the flight was made and safety
+secured. They were like a couple of children with a mystification in
+hand, notwithstanding that they were planning an invasion so serious of
+all the proprieties, and meant to make so disreputable and revolting a
+bargain. But this was not in their ideas. Bice went out very early in
+the morning before any one was astir, to take needful exercise in the
+park, and gather early primroses and the catkins that hung upon the
+trees. On one of these occasions she met Mr. Derwentwater, of whom she
+was not afraid; and at another time, when skirting the shrubberies at a
+somewhat later hour to keep clear of any stragglers, Jock. Mr.
+Derwentwater talked to her in a tone which amused the girl. He spoke of
+Proserpina gathering flowers, herself a&mdash;&mdash;and then altered and grew
+confused under her eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Herself a&mdash;&mdash; What?" said Bice. "Have you forgotten what you were going
+to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not forgotten&mdash;herself a fairer flower. One does not forget such
+lovely words as these," he said, injured by the question. "But when one
+comes face to face with the impersonation of the poet's idea&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was poetry, then?" said Bice. "I know very little of that. It is not
+in Tauchnitz, perhaps? All I know of English is from the Tauchnitz. I
+read, chiefly, novels. You do not approve of that? But, yes, I like
+them; because it is life."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it life?" said Derwentwater, who was somewhat contemptuous of
+fiction.</p>
+
+<p>"At least it is England," said Bice. "The girls who will not make a good
+marriage because of some one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> else, or because it is their parents who
+arrange it. That is how Lady Randolph speaks. She says that nothing is
+right but to fall&mdash;how do you call it?&mdash;in love?&mdash;It is not <i>comme il
+faut</i> even to talk of that."</p>
+
+<p>Derwentwater blushed like a girl. He was more inexperienced in many ways
+than Bice. "And do you regard it in another point of view?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Bice laughed out with frank disdain. "Certainly, I regard it
+different&mdash;oh, quite different. That is not what happens in life."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you consider life is chiefly occupied with getting married?" he
+continued, feeling, along with a good deal of quite unnecessary
+excitement, a great desire to know what was her way of looking at this
+great subject. Visions had been flashing recently through his mind,
+which pointed a little this way too.</p>
+
+<p>"Altogether," said Bice, with great gravity, "how can you begin to live
+till you have settled that? Till then you do not know what is going to
+happen to you. When you get up in the morning you know not what may come
+before the night; when you walk out you know not who may be the next
+person you meet; perhaps your husband. But then you marry, and that is
+all settled; henceforward nothing can happen!" said Bice, throwing out
+her hands. "Then, after all is settled, you can begin to live."</p>
+
+<p>"This is very interesting," said Derwentwater, "I am so glad to get at a
+real and individual view. But this, perhaps, only applies to&mdash;ladies? It
+is, perhaps, not the same with men?"</p>
+
+<p>Bice gave him a careless, half-contemptuous glance. "I have never known
+anything," she said, "about men."</p>
+
+<p>There are many girls, much more innocent in outward matters than Bice,
+who would have said these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> words with an intention <i>agaçante</i>&mdash;the
+intention of leading to a great deal more badinage. But Bice spoke with
+a calm, almost scornful, composure. She had no desire to <i>agacer</i> She
+looked him in the face as tranquilly as if he had been an old woman. And
+so far as she was concerned he might have been an old woman; for he had
+virtually no existence in his capacity of young man. Had she possessed
+any clue to the thoughts that had taken rise in his mind, the new
+revelation which she had conveyed to him, Bice's amazement would have
+been without bounds. But instinct indicated to her that the interview
+should proceed no further. She waved her hand to him as she came to a
+cross road which led into the woods. "I am going this way," she cried,
+darting off round the corner of a great tree. He stood and looked after
+her bewildered, as her light figure skimmed along into the depths of the
+shadows. "Then, after all is settled, you can begin to live," he
+repeated to himself. Was it true? He had got up the morning on which he
+saw her first without any thought that everything might be changed for
+him that day. And now it was quite true that there lay before him an
+interval which must be somehow filled up before he could begin to live.
+How was it to be filled up? Would <i>she</i> have anything to do with the
+settling which must precede his recommencement of existence? He went on
+with his mind altogether absorbed in these thoughts, and with a thrill
+and tingling through all his veins. And that was the only time he
+encountered Bice, for whom in fact, though he had not hitherto allowed
+it even to himself, he had come to the Hall&mdash;till the great night.</p>
+
+<p>Jock encountered her the next day not so early, at the hour indeed when
+the great people were at break<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>fast. He had been one of the first to
+come downstairs, and he had not lingered at table as persons do who have
+letters to read, and the newspapers, and all that is going on to talk
+about. He met her coming from the park. She put out her hand when she
+saw him as if to keep him off.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish to speak to me," she said, "you must turn back and walk
+with me. I do not want any one to see me, and they will soon be coming
+out from breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you want any one to see you?" Jock said.</p>
+
+<p>Bice had learned the secret of the Contessa's smile; but this which she
+cast upon Jock had something mocking in it, and ended in a laugh. "Oh,
+don't you know?" she said, "it is so silly to be a boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are no older than I am," cried Jock, aggrieved; "and why don't you
+come down to dinner as you used to do? I always liked you to come. It is
+quite different when you are not there. If I had known I should not have
+come home at all this Easter," Jock cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Bice, "that means that you like me, then?&mdash;and so does
+Milady. If I should go away altogether&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going away altogether? Why should you? There is no other
+place you could be so well as here. The Contessa never says a word, but
+laughs at a fellow, which is scarcely civil; and she has those men about
+her that are&mdash;not&mdash;&mdash;; but you&mdash;&mdash;why should you go away?" cried Jock
+with angry vehemence. He looked at her with eyes lowering fiercely under
+his eyebrows; yet in his heart he was not angry but wretched, as if
+something were rending him. Jock did not understand how he felt.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, now, you look at me as if you would eat me," said Bice, "as if I
+were the little girl in the red hood and you the wolf&mdash;&mdash; But it is
+silly, for how should I stay here when Milady is going away? We are all
+going to London&mdash;and then! it will soon be decided, I suppose," said
+Bice, herself feeling a little sad for the first time at the idea, "what
+is going to be done with me."</p>
+
+<p>"What is going to be done with you?" cried Jock hoarsely, for he was
+angry and grieved, and full of impatient indignation, though he scarcely
+knew why.</p>
+
+<p>Bice turned upon him with that lingering smile which was like the
+Contessa's. But, unlike the Contessa's, it ended as usual in a laugh.
+She kissed her hand to him, and darted round the corner of the shrubbery
+just as some one appeared from breakfast. "Good-bye," she said, "do not
+be angry," and so vanished like lightning. This was one of the cases
+which made her heart beat with fun and exhilaration, when she was, as
+she told the Contessa, nearly caught. She got into the shelter of the
+east rooms, panting with the run she had made, her complexion brilliant,
+her eyes shining. "I thought I should certainly be seen this time," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa looked at the girl with admiring eyes. "I could almost have
+wished you had," she said. "You are superb like that." They talked
+without a shade of embarrassment on this subject, upon which English
+mothers and children would blush and hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>This was the day, the great day of the revelation which the Contessa had
+promised. There had been a great deal of discussion and speculation
+about it in the company. No one, even Sir Tom, knew what it was.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> Lucy,
+though she was not clever, had her wits sharpened in this respect, and
+she had divined; but no one else had any conception of what was coming.
+Two of the elder men had gone, very sorry to miss the great event,
+whatever it was. And young Montjoie had talked of nothing else since the
+promise had been made. The conversation in the drawing-room late in the
+afternoon chiefly turned on this subject, and the lady visitors too
+heard of it, and were not less curious. She who had the two daughters
+addressed herself to Lucy for information. She said: "I hear some
+novelty is expected to-night, Lady Randolph, something the Contessa has
+arranged. She is very clever, is she not? and sings delightfully, I
+know. There is so much more talent of that kind among foreigners than
+there is among us. Is it tableaux? The girls are so longing to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, we want so much to know," said the young ladies in blue.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it is tableaux," Lucy said; "but I have not been told
+what it is."</p>
+
+<p>This the ladies did not believe, but they asked no further questions.
+"It is clear that she does not wish us to know; so, girls, you must say
+nothing," was the conclusion of the mother.</p>
+
+<p>They said a great deal, notwithstanding this warning. The house
+altogether was excited on the subject, and even Mr. Derwentwater took
+part in the speculations. He looked upon the Contessa as one of those
+inscrutable women of the stage, the Sirens who beguile everybody. She
+had some design upon Montjoie, he felt, and it was only the youth's
+impertinence which prevented Mr. Derwentwater from interfering. He
+watched with the natural instinct of his profession and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> a strong
+impulse to write to the lad's parents and have him taken away. But
+Montjoie had no parents. He had attained his majority, and was supposed
+by the law capable of taking care of himself. What did that woman mean
+to do with the boy? She had some designs upon him. But there was nobody
+to whom Mr. Derwentwater could confide his suspicions, or whom he could
+ask what the Contessa meant. MTutor had not on the whole a pleasant
+visit. He was disappointed in that which had been his chief object&mdash;his
+favourite pupil was detached from him, he knew not how&mdash;and this other
+boy, whom, though he did not love him, he could not help feeling a sort
+of responsibility for, was in danger from a designing woman, a woman out
+of a French play, <i>L'Aventurière</i>, something of that sort. Mr.
+Derwentwater felt that he could not drag himself away, the attractions
+were so strong. He wanted to see the <i>dénoûement</i> still more he wanted
+to see Bice. No drama in the world had so powerful an interest. But
+though it was so impossible to go away, it was not pleasant to stay.
+Jock did not want him. Lucy, though she was always sweet and friendly,
+had a look of haste and over-occupation; her eyes wandered when she
+talked to him; her mind was occupied with other things. Most of the men
+of the party were more than indifferent; were disagreeable to him. He
+thought they were a danger for Jock. And Bice never was visible; that
+moment on the balcony&mdash;those few minutes in the park&mdash;the half dozen
+words which had been so "suggestive," he thought, which had woke so many
+echoes in his mind&mdash;these were all he had had of her. Had she intended
+them to awaken echoes? He asked himself this question a thousand times.
+Had she willingly cast this seed of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> thought into his mind to
+germinate&mdash;to produce&mdash;what result? If it was so, then, indeed, all the
+little annoyances of his stay would be a cheap price to pay. It did not
+occur to this judicious person, whose influence over his pupils was so
+great, and who had studied so deeply the mind of youth, that a girl of
+sixteen was but little likely to be consciously suggestive&mdash;to sow, with
+any intention in her mind, seeds of meaning to develop in his. To do him
+justice, he was as unconscious of the limits of sixteen in Bice's case
+as we all are in the case of Juliet. She was of no age. She was the
+ideal woman capable of comprehensions and intentions as far above
+anything possible to the genus boy as heaven was above earth. It would
+have been a profanation, a sacrilege too dreadful to be thought of, to
+compare that ethereal creature with the other things of her age with
+which he was so familiar. Of her age! Her age was the age of romance, of
+love, of poetry, of all ineffable things.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Countess," said Montjoie, "I hope you're not forgetting. This is
+the night, don't you know. And here we are all ready for dinner and
+nothing has happened. When is it coming? You are so awfully mysterious;
+it ain't fair upon a fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Is every one in the room?" said the Contessa, with an indulgent smile
+at the young man's eagerness. They all looked round, for everybody was
+curious. And all were there&mdash;the lady who wrote for the Press, and the
+lady with the two daughters, the girls in blue; and Sir Tom's
+parliamentary friends standing up against the mantelpiece, and Mr.
+Derwentwater by himself, more curious than any one, keeping one eye on
+Montjoie, as if he would have liked to send him to the pupil-room to do
+a <i>p&oelig;na</i>; and Jock indifferent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> with his back to the door. All the rest
+were expectant except Jock, who took no notice. The Contessa's special
+friends were about her chair, rubbing their hands, and ready to back the
+Forno-Populo for a new sensation. The Contessa looked round, her eye
+dwelling for a moment upon Lucy, who looked a little fluttered and
+uncomfortable, and upon Sir Tom, who evidently knew nothing, and was
+looking on with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you shall see," she said, "why I abdicate," and made a sign,
+clapping softly her beautiful hands.</p>
+
+<p>There was a momentary pause. Montjoie, who was standing out in the clear
+space in the centre of the room, turned round at the Contessa's call. He
+turned towards the open door, which was less lighted than the inner
+room. It was he who saw first what was coming. "Oh, by Jove!" the young
+Marquis said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DÉBUT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The door was open. The long drawing-room afforded a sort of processional
+path for the newcomer. Her dress was not white like that of the ordinary
+<i>débutante</i>. It had a yellow golden glow of colour, warm yet soft. She
+walked not with the confused air of a novice perceiving herself
+observed, but with a slow and serene gait like a young queen. She was
+not alarmed by the consciousness that everybody was looking at her. Not
+to have been looked at would have been more likely to embarrass Bice.
+Her beautiful throat and shoulders were uncovered, her hair dressed
+more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> elaborately than that of English girls in general. English
+girls&mdash;the two innocents in blue, who were nice girls enough, and stood
+with their mouths and eyes open in speechless wonder and
+admiration&mdash;seemed of an entirely different species from this dazzling
+creature. She made a momentary pause on the threshold, while all the
+beholders held their breath. Montjoie, for one, was struck dumb. His
+commonplace countenance changed altogether. He looked at her with his
+face growing longer, his jaw dropping. It was more than a sensation, it
+was such a climax of excitement and surprise as does not happen above
+once or twice in a lifetime. The whole company were moved by similar
+feelings, all except the Contessa, lying back in her chair, and Lucy,
+who stood rather troubled, moving from one foot to another, clasping and
+unclasping her hands. Jock, roused by the murmur, turned round with a
+start, and eyed her too with looks of wild astonishment. She stood for a
+moment looking at them all&mdash;with a smile which was half mischievous,
+half appealing&mdash;on the threshold, as Bice felt it, not only of Lady
+Randolph's drawing-room, but of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom had started at the sight of her as much as any one. He had not
+been in the secret. He cried out, "By Jove!" like Montjoie. But he had
+those instincts which are, perhaps, rather old-fashioned, of protection
+and service to women. He belonged to the school which thinks a girl
+should not walk across a room without some man's arm to sustain her, or
+open a door for herself. He started forward with a little sense of being
+to blame, and offered her his arm. "Why didn't you send for me to bring
+you in if you were late?" he cried, with a tone in which there was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> some
+tremor and vexation. The effectiveness of her appearance was terrible to
+Sir Tom. She looked up at him with a look of pleasure and kindness, and
+said, "I was not late," with a smile. She looked taller, more developed
+in a single day. But for that little pucker of vexation on Sir Tom's
+forehead they would have looked like a father and daughter, the father
+proudly bringing his young princess into the circle of her adorers. Bice
+swept him towards Lucy, and made a low obeisance to Lady Randolph, and
+took her hand and kissed it. "I must come to you first," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said the Contessa, turning round to her retainers with a quick
+movement. They were all gazing at the <i>débutante</i> so intently that they
+had no eyes for her. One of them at length replied, with something like
+solemnity: "Oh, I understand what you mean, Contessa; anybody but you
+would have to abdicate." "But not you," said another, who had some
+kindness in his heart. The Contessa rose up with an air of triumph. "I
+do not want to be compelled," she said, "I told you. I give up. I will
+take your arm Mr. St. John, as a private person, having relinquished my
+claims, and leave milord to the new <i>régime</i>."</p>
+
+<p>This was how it came about, in the slight scuffle caused by the sudden
+change of programme, that Bice, in all her splendour, found herself
+going in to the dining-room on Lord Montjoie's arm. Notwithstanding that
+he had been struck dumb by her beauty, little Montjoie was by no means
+happy when this wonderful good fortune fell upon him. He would have
+preferred to gaze at her from the other side of the table: on the whole,
+he would have been a great deal more at his ease with the Contessa. He
+would have asked her a hundred questions about this wonderful beauty;
+but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> the beauty herself rather frightened the young man. Presently,
+however, he regained his courage, and as lack of boldness was not his
+weak point, soon began to lose the sense of awe which had been so strong
+upon him. She smiled; she was as ready to talk as he was, as the
+overwhelming impression she had made upon him began to be modified by
+familiarity. "I suppose," he said, when he had reached this point, "that
+you arrived to-day?" And then, after a pause, "You speak English?" he
+added, in a hesitating tone. She received this question with so merry a
+laugh that he was quite encouraged.</p>
+
+<p>"Always," she said, "since I was a child. Was that why you were afraid
+of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Afraid?" he said; and then he looked at her almost with a recurrence of
+his first fright, till her laugh reassured him. "Yes I was frightened,"
+Lord Montjoie said; "you looked so&mdash;so&mdash;don't you know? I was struck all
+of a heap. I suppose you came to-day? We were all on the outlook from
+something the Contessa said. You must be clever to get in without
+anybody seeing you."</p>
+
+<p>"I was far more clever than that," said Bice; "you don't know how clever
+I am."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say," said Lord Montjoie, admiringly, "because you don't want
+it. That's always the way."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so clever that I have been here all the time," said Bice, with
+another laugh so joyous,&mdash;"so jolly," Montjoie said, that his terrors
+died away. But his surprise took another development at this
+extraordinary information.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" he cried, "you don't mean that, Miss&mdash;Mademoiselle&mdash;I am so
+awfully stupid I never heard&mdash;that is to say I ain't at all clever at
+foreign names."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, never mind," cried Bice; "neither am I. But yours is delightful; it
+is so easy, Milord. Ought I to say Milord?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Montjoie, a little confused. "No; I don't think so&mdash;people
+don't as a rule."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Montjoie, that is right? I like always to know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," said Montjoie; "it's always best to ask, ain't it, and then
+there can be no mistakes? But you don't mean to say <i>that</i>? You here
+yesterday and all the time? I shouldn't think you could have been hid.
+Not the kind of person, don't you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell about being the kind of person. It has been fun," said
+Bice; "sometimes I have seen you all coming, and waited till there was
+just time to fly. I like leaving it till the last moment, and then there
+is the excitement, don't you know."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, what fun!" said Montjoie. He was not clever enough, few people
+are, to perceive that she had mimicked himself in tone and expression.
+"And I might have caught you any day," he cried. "What a muff I have
+been."</p>
+
+<p>"If I had allowed myself to be caught I should have been a greater&mdash;what
+do you call it? You wear beautiful things to do your smoking in, Lord
+Montjoie; what is it? Velvet? And why don't you wear them to
+dinner?&mdash;you would look so much more handsome. I am very fond myself of
+beautiful clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by Jove!" cried Montjoie again, with something like a blush.
+"You've seen me in those things! I only wear them when I think nobody
+sees. They're something from the East," he added, with a tone of
+careless complacency; for, as a matter of fact, he piqued himself very
+much upon this smoking-suit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> which had not, at the Hall, received the
+applause it deserved.</p>
+
+<p>"You go and smoke like that among other men? Yes, I perceive," said
+Bice, "you are just like women, there is no difference. We put on our
+pretty things for other ladies, because you cannot understand them; and
+you do the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come now, Miss&mdash;&mdash;Forno-Populo! you don't mean to tell me that you
+got yourself up like that for the sake of the ladies?" cried the young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"For whom, then?" said Bice, throwing up her head; but afterwards, with
+the instinct of a young actress, she remembered her <i>rôle</i>, which it was
+fun to carry out thoroughly. She laughed. "You are the most clever," she
+said. "I see you are one that women cannot deceive."</p>
+
+<p>Montjoie laughed, too, with gratified vanity and superior knowledge.
+"You are about right there," he said. "I am not to be taken in, don't
+you know. It's no good trying it on with me. I see through ladies'
+little pretences. If there were no men you would not care what guys you
+were; and no more do we."</p>
+
+<p>Bice made no reply. She turned upon him that dazzling smile of which she
+had learned the secret from the Contessa, which was unfathomable to the
+observer but quite simple to the simple-minded; and then she said: "Do
+you amuse yourself very much in the evening? I used to hear the voices
+and think how pleasant it would have been to be there."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so pleasant as you think," said the young man. "The only fun was
+the Contessa's, don't you know. She's a fine woman for her age, but
+she's&mdash;&mdash; Goodness! I forgot. She's your&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She is <i>passée</i>," said the girl calmly. "You make me afraid, Lord
+Montjoie. How much of a critic you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> are, and see through women, through
+and through." At this the noble Marquis laughed with true enjoyment of
+his own gifts.</p>
+
+<p>"But you ain't offended?" he said. "There was no harm meant. Even a lady
+can't, don't you know, be always the same age."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think so?" said Bice. "Oh, I think you are wrong. The
+Contessa is of no age. She is the age she pleases&mdash;she has all the
+secrets. I see nobody more beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be," said Montjoie; "but you can't see everybody, don't you
+know. She's very handsome and all that&mdash;and when the real thing isn't
+there&mdash;but when it is, don't you know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"English is very perplexing," said Bice, shaking her head, but with a
+smile in her eyes which somewhat belied her air of simplicity. "What may
+that be&mdash;the real thing? Shall I find it in the dictionary?" she asked;
+and then their eyes met and there was another burst of laughter,
+somewhat boisterous on his part, but on hers with a ring of
+lightheartedness which quenched the malice. She was so young that she
+had a pleasure in playing her <i>rôle</i>, and did not feel any immorality
+involved.</p>
+
+<p>While this conversation was going on, which was much observed and
+commented on by all the company, Jock from one end of the table and Mr.
+Derwentwater from the other, looked on with an eager observation and
+breathless desire to make out what was being said which gave an
+expression of anxiety to the features of MTutor, and one of almost
+ferocity to the lowering countenance of Jock. Both of these gentlemen
+were eagerly questioned by the ladies next them as to who this young
+lady might be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Terribly theatrical, don't you think, to come into a room like that?"
+said the mother of the girls in blue. "If my Minnie or Edith had been
+asked to do it they would have died of shame."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not deny," said Mr. Derwentwater, "the advantage of conventional
+restraints. I like the little airs of seclusion, of retirement, that
+surround young ladies. But the&mdash;&mdash;" he paused a little for a name, and
+then with that acquaintance with foreign ways on which Mr. Derwentwater
+prided himself, added, "the Signorina was at home."</p>
+
+<p>"The Signorina! Is that what you call her&mdash;just like a person that is
+going on the stage. She will be the&mdash;niece, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>Jock's next neighbour was the lady who was engaged in literature. She
+said to Jock: "I must get you to tell me her name. She is lovely. She
+will make a great sensation. I must make a few notes of her dress after
+dinner&mdash;would you call that yellow or white? Whoever dressed her knew
+what they were about. Mademoiselle, I imagine, one ought to call her. I
+know that's French, and she's Italian, but still&mdash;&mdash; The new beauty!
+that's what she will be called. I am so glad to be the first to see her;
+but I must get you to tell me her name."</p>
+
+<p>Among the gentlemen there was no other subject of conversation, and but
+one opinion. A little hum of curiosity ran round the table. It was far
+more exciting than tableaux, which was what some of the guests had
+expected to be arranged by the Contessa. Tableaux! nothing could have
+been equal to the effect of that dramatic entry and sudden revelation.
+"As for Montjoie, all was up with him, but the Contessa knew what she
+was about. She was not going to throw away her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> effects," they said.
+"There could be no doubt for whose benefit it all was." The Contessa
+graciously baffled with her charming smile all the questions that were
+poured upon her. She received the compliments addressed to her with
+gracious bows, but she gave no reply to any one. As she swept out of the
+room after dinner she tapped Montjoie lightly on the arm with her fan.
+"I will sing for you to-night," she said.</p>
+
+<p>In the drawing-room the elements were a little heterogeneous without the
+gentlemen. The two girls in blue gazed at this wonderful new competitor
+with a curiosity which was almost alarm. They would have liked to make
+acquaintance, to draw her into their little party of youth outside the
+phalanx of the elders. But Bice took no more note of them than if they
+had been cabbages. She was in great excitement, all smiles and glory.
+"Do I please you like this?" she said, going up to Lucy, spreading out
+all her finery with the delight of a child. Lucy shrank a little. She
+had a troubled anxious look, which did not look like pleasure; but Lady
+Anastasia, who wrote for the newspapers, walked round and round the
+<i>débutante</i> and took notes frankly. "Of course I shall describe her
+dress. I never saw anything so lovely," the lady said. Bice, in the glow
+of her golden yellow, and of her smiles and delight, with the noble
+correspondent of the newspapers examining her, found the acutest
+interest in the position. The Contessa from her sofa smiled upon the
+scene, looking on with the air of a gratified exhibitor whose show had
+succeeded beyond her hopes. Lady Randolph, with an air of anxiety in her
+fair and simple countenance, stood behind, looking at Bice with
+protecting yet disturbed and troubled looks. The mother and daughters at
+the other side looked on, she all solid and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> speechless with
+disapproval, they in a flutter of interest and wonder and gentle envy
+and offence. More than a tableau; it was like an act out of a play. And
+when the gentlemen came in what a sudden quickening of the interest!
+Bice rose to the action like a heroine when the great scene has come,
+and the others all gathered round with a spectatorship that was almost
+breathless. The worst feature of the whole to those who were interested
+in Bice was her own evident enjoyment. She talked, she distributed her
+smiles right and left, she mimicked yet flattered Montjoie with a
+dazzling youthful assurance which confounded Mr. Derwentwater, and made
+Jock furious, and brought looks of pain not only to the face of Lucy but
+also to that of Sir Tom, who was less easily shocked. She was like a
+young actress in her first triumph, filling her <i>rôle</i> with a sort of
+enthusiasm, enjoying it with all her heart. And when the Contessa rose
+to sing, Bice followed her to the piano with an air as different as
+possible from the swift, noiseless self-effacement of her performance on
+previous occasions. She looked round upon the company with a sort of
+malicious triumph, a laugh on her lips as of some delightful
+mystification, some surprise of which she was in the secret. "Come and
+listen," she said to Jock, lightly touching him on the shoulder as she
+passed him. The Contessa's singing was already known. It was considered
+by some with a certain contempt, by others with admiration, as almost as
+good as professional. But when instead of one of her usual performances
+there arose in splendid fulness the harmony of two voices, that of Bice
+suddenly breaking forth in all the freshness of youth, unexpected,
+unprepared for, the climax of wonder and enthusiasm was reached. Lady
+Anastasia, after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> first start and thrill of wonder, rushed to the
+usual writing-table and dashed off a hurried note, which she fastened to
+her fan in her excitement. "Everybody must know of this!" she cried. One
+of the young ladies in the background wept with admiration, crying,
+"Mamma, she is heavenly," while even the virtuous mother was moved.
+"They must intend her for the stage," that lady said, wondering,
+withdrawing from her <i>rôle</i> of disapproval. As for the gentlemen, those
+of them who were not speechless with enthusiasm were almost noisy in
+their excitement. Montjoie pressed into the first rank, almost touching
+Bice's dress, which she drew away between two bars, turning half round
+with a slight shake of her head and a smile in her eyes, even while the
+loveliest notes were flowing forth from her melodious throat. The
+listeners could hear the noble lord's "by Jove," in the midst of the
+music, and even detect the slight quaver of laughter which followed in
+Bice's wonderful voice.</p>
+
+<p>The commotion of applause, enthusiasm, and wonder afterwards was
+indescribable. The gentlemen crowded round the singers&mdash;even the
+parliamentary gentlemen had lost their self-control, while the young
+lady who had wept forgot her timidity to make an eager approach to the
+<i>débutante</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"It was heavenly: it was a rapture: oh, sing again!" cried Miss Edith,
+which was much prettier than Lord Montjoie's broken exclamations, "Oh,
+by Jove! don't you know," to which Bice was listening with delighted
+mockery.</p>
+
+<p>Bice had been trained to pay very little attention to the opinions of
+other girls, but she gave the young lady in blue a friendly look, and
+launched over her shoulder an appeal to Jock. "Didn't you like it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+you?" she cried, with a slight clap together of her hands to call his
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>Jock glared at her over Miss Edith's shoulder. "I don't understand
+music," he said, in his most surly voice. These were the distinct
+utterances which enchanted Bice amid the murmurs of more ordinary
+applause. She was delighted with them. She clapped her hands once more
+with a delight which was contagious. "Ah, I know now, this is what it is
+to have <i>succès</i>," she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the Contessa, "it is the turn of Lord Montjoie, who is a
+dab&mdash;that is the word&mdash;at singing, and who promised me three for one."</p>
+
+<p>At this there rose a hubbub of laughter, in the midst of which, though
+with many protestations and remonstrances, "don't you know," that young
+nobleman was driven to the fulfilment of his promise. In the midst of
+this commotion, a sign as swift as lightning, but, unlike lightning,
+imperceptible, a lifting of the eyebrows, a movement of a finger, was
+given and noted. In such a musical assembly the performance of a young
+marquis, with nobody knows how many thousands a year and entirely his
+own master, is rarely without interest. Mr. Derwentwater turned his back
+with marked indifference, and Jock with a sort of snort went away
+altogether. But of the others, the majority, though some with laughter
+and some with sneers, were civil, and listened to the performance. Jock
+marched off with a disdain beyond expression; but he had scarcely issued
+forth into the hall before he heard a rustle behind him, and, looking
+back, to his amazement saw Bice in all the glory of her golden robes.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" she cried, smothering a laugh, and with a quick gesture of
+repression, "don't say any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>thing. It must not be discovered that I have
+run away!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you run away? I thought you thought no end of that little
+scug," cried savage Jock.</p>
+
+<p>Bice turned upon him that smile that said everything and nothing, and
+then flew like a bird upstairs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EVENING AFTER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The outcry that rose when, after Montjoie's comic song, a performance of
+the broadest and silliest description, was over, it was discovered that
+Bice had disappeared, and especially the blank look of the performer
+himself when turning round from the piano he surveyed the company in
+vain for her, gratified the Contessa beyond measure. She smiled
+radiantly upon the assembly in answer to all their indignant questions.
+"It has been for once an indulgence," she said; "but little girls must
+keep early hours." Montjoie was wounded and disappointed beyond measure
+that it should have been at the moment of his performance that she was
+spirited away. His reproaches were vehement, and there was something of
+the pettishness of a boy in their indignant tones. "I shouldn't have
+sung a note if I'd thought what was going on," he cried. "Contessa, I
+would not have believed you could have been so mean&mdash;and I singing only
+to please you."</p>
+
+<p>"But think how you have pleased me&mdash;and all these ladies!" cried the
+Contessa. "Does not that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> recompense you?" Montjoie guessed that she was
+laughing at him, but he did not, in fact, see anything to laugh about.
+It was natural enough that the other ladies should be pleased; still he
+did not care whether they were pleased or not, and he did care much that
+the object of his admiration had not waited to hear him. The Contessa
+found the greatest amusement in his boyish sulk and resentment, and the
+rest of the evening was passed in baffling the questions with which, now
+that Bice was gone, her friends overpowered her. She gave the smallest
+possible dole of reply to their interrogations, but smiled upon the
+questioners with sunshiny smiles. "You must come and see me in town,"
+she said to Montjoie. It was the only satisfaction she would give him.
+And she perceived at a much earlier hour than usual that Lucy was
+waiting for her to go to bed. She gave a little cry of distress when
+this seemed to flash upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Sweet Lucy! it is for me you wait!" she cried. "How could I keep you so
+late, my dear one?"</p>
+
+<p>Montjoie was the foremost of those who attended her to the door, and got
+her candle for her, that indispensable but unnecessary formula.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I shall look you up in town; but we'll talk of that
+to-morrow. I don't go till three&mdash;to-morrow," the young fellow said.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa gave him her hand with a smile, but without a word, in that
+inimitable way she had, leaving Montjoie a prey to such uncertainty as
+poisoned his night's rest. He was not humble-minded, and he knew that he
+was a prize which no lady he had met with as yet had disregarded; but
+for the first time his bosom was torn by disquietude. Of course he must
+see her to-morrow. Should he see her to-morrow? The Con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>tessa's smile,
+so radiant, so inexplainable, tormented him with a thousand doubts.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had looked on at all this with an uneasiness indescribable. She
+felt like an accomplice, watching this course of intrigue, of which she
+indeed disapproved entirely, but could not clear herself from a certain
+guilty knowledge of. That it should all be going on under her roof was
+terrible to her, though it was not for Montjoie but for Bice that her
+anxieties were awakened. She followed the Contessa upstairs, bearing her
+candle as if they formed part of a procession, with a countenance
+absolutely opposed in expression to the smiles of Madame di
+Forno-Populo. When they reached the Contessa's door, Lucy, by a sudden
+impulse, followed her in. It was not the first time that she had been
+allowed to cross the threshold of that little enchanted world which had
+filled her with wonder on her first entrance, but which by this time she
+regarded with composure, no longer bewildered to find it in her own
+house. Bice sprang up from a sofa on which she was lying on their
+entrance. She had taken off her beautiful dress, and her hair was
+streaming over her shoulders, her countenance radiant with delight. She
+threw herself upon the Contessa, without perceiving the presence of Lady
+Randolph.</p>
+
+<p>"But it is enchanting; it is ravishing. I have never been so happy," she
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>"My child," said the Contessa, "here is our dear lady who is of a
+different opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"Of what opinion?" Bice cried. She was startled by the sudden
+appearance, when she had no thought of such an apparition, of Lucy's
+face so grave and uneasy. It gave a contradiction which was painful to
+the girl's excitement and delight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I did not mean to find fault," said Lucy. "I was only
+sorry&mdash;&mdash;" and here she paused, feeling herself incapable of expressing
+her real meaning, and convicted of interference and unnecessary severity
+by the girl's astonished eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear one," said the Contessa, "it is only that we look from two
+different points of view. You will not object to little Bice that she
+finds society intoxicating when she first goes into it. The child has
+made what you call a sensation. She has had her little <i>succès</i>. That is
+nothing to object to. An English girl is perhaps more reticent. She is
+brought up to believe that she does not care for <i>succès</i>. But Bice is
+otherwise. She has been trained for that, and to please makes her
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"To please&mdash;whom?" cried Lady Randolph. "Oh, don't think I am finding
+fault. We are brought up to please our parents and people who&mdash;care for
+us&mdash;in England."</p>
+
+<p>Here Bice and the Contessa mutually looked at each other, and the girl
+laughed, putting her hands together. "<i>She</i> is pleased most of all," she
+cried; "she is all my parents. I please her first of all."</p>
+
+<p>"What you say is sweet," said the Contessa, smiling upon Lucy; "and she
+is right too. She pleases me most of all. To see her have her little
+triumph, looking really her very best, and her dress so successful, is
+to me a delight. I am nearly as much excited as the child herself!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked from one to another, and felt that it was impossible for her
+to say what she wished to say. The girl's pleasure seemed so innocent,
+and that of her protectress and guardian so generous, so tender. All
+that had offended Lucy's instincts, the dramatic effort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> of the
+Contessa, the careful preparation of all the effects, the singling out
+of young Montjoie as the object, all seemed to melt away in the girlish
+delight of Bice, and the sympathetic triumph of her guardian. She did
+not know what to say to them. It was she who was the culprit, putting
+thoughts of harm which had not found any entrance there into the girl's
+mind. She flushed with shame and an uneasy sense that the tables were
+thus turned upon her; and yet how could she depart without some warning?
+It was not only her own troubled uncomfortable feeling; but had she not
+read the same, still more serious and decided, in her husband's eyes?</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to say," said Lucy. "But Sir Tom thinks so too. He
+will tell you better, he knows better. Lord Montjoie is&mdash;I do not know
+why he was asked. I did not wish it. He is&mdash;dear Madame di Forno-Populo,
+you have seen so much more than I&mdash;he is vulgar&mdash;a little. And Bice is
+so young; she may be deceived."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment a cloud, more dark than had ever been seen there before,
+overshadowed the Contessa's face. But Bice burst forth into a peal of
+laughter, clapping her hands. "Is that vulgar?" the girl cried. "I am
+glad. Now I know how he is different. It is what you call fun, don't you
+know?" she cried with sudden mimicry, at which Lucy herself could not
+refuse to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I waited outside to hear a little of the song. It was so wonderful that
+I could not laugh; and to utter all that before you, Madama, after he
+had heard you&mdash;oh, what courage! what braveness!" cried Bice. "I did not
+think any one could be so brave!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean so simple, dear child," said the Con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>tessa, whose brow had
+cleared; "that is really what is so wonderful in these English men. They
+are so simple, they never see how it is different. It is brave if you
+please, but still more simple-minded. Little Montjoie is so. He knows no
+better; not to me only, but even to you, Bice, with that voice of yours,
+so pure, so fresh, he listens, then performs as you heard. It is
+wonderful, as you say. But you have not told me, Lucy, my sweetest, what
+you think of the little one's voice."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Lucy, with that disapproval which she could not
+altogether restrain, "that it is very wonderful, when it is so fine,
+that we never heard it before&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Bice," cried the Contessa, "our dear lady is determined that she
+will not be pleased to-night. We had prepared a little surprise, and it
+is a failure. She will not understand that we love to please. She will
+have us to be superior, as if we were English."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, indeed," cried Lucy, full of compunction, "I know you are
+always kind. And I know your ways are different&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;" with a sort of
+regretful reflectiveness, shaking her head.</p>
+
+<p>"All England is in that but," said the Contessa. "It is what has always
+been said to me. In our country we love to arrange these little effects,
+to have surprises, impromptus, events that are unexpected. Bice, go, my
+child, go to bed, after this excitement you must rest. You did well, and
+pleased me at least. My sweet Lucy," she said, when the girl with
+instant obedience had disappeared into the next room, "I know how you
+see it all from your point of view. But we are not as you, rich, secure.
+We must make while we can our <i>coup</i>. To succeed by one <i>coup</i>, that is
+my desire. And you will not interfere?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Contessa," cried Lucy, "will you not spare the child? It is like
+selling her. She is too good for such a man. He is scarcely a man; he is
+a boy. I am ashamed to think that you should care to please&mdash;&mdash;him, or
+any one like him. Oh, let it come naturally! Do not plan like this, and
+scheme and take trouble for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For an establishment that will make her at once safe and sure; that
+will give her so many of the things that people care for&mdash;beautiful
+houses, a good name, money&mdash;&mdash; I have schemed, as you say, for little
+things much of my life," said the Contessa, shaking her head with a
+mournful smile; "I have told you my history: for very, very little
+things&mdash;for a box at the opera, for a carriage, things which are
+nothing, sweetest Lucy. You have plenty; such things are nothing to you.
+You cannot understand it. But that is me, my dear one. I have not a
+higher mind like you; and shall I not scheme," cried the Contessa, with
+sudden energy, "for the child, to make her safe that she may never
+require scheming? Ah, my Lucy! I have the heart of a mother to her, and
+you know what a mother will do."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was silent, partly touched, partly resisting. If it ever could be
+right to do evil that good might come, perhaps this motive might justify
+it. And then came the question how much, in the Contessa's code, was
+evil, of these proceedings? She was silenced, if not satisfied. There is
+a certain casuistry involved in the most Christian charity: "thinketh no
+evil," sometimes even implies an effort to think that there is no harm
+in evil according to the intention in it. Lucy's intellect was confused,
+though not that unobtrusive faculty of judgment in her which was
+infallible, yet could be kept dumb.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My love," said the Contessa, suddenly kissing her as a sort of
+dismissal, "think that you are rich and we poor. If Bice had a
+provision, if she had even as much as you give away to your poor friends
+and never think of again, how different would all things be for her! But
+she has nothing; and therefore I prepare my little tableaux, and study
+all the effects I can think of, and produce her as in a theatre, and
+shut her up to <i>agacer</i> the audience, and keep her silent and make her
+sing, all for effect; yes, all for effect. But what can I do? She has
+not a penny, not a penny, not even like your poor friends."</p>
+
+<p>The sudden energy with which this was said was indescribable. The
+Contessa's countenance, usually so ivory-pale, shone with a sort of
+reflection as if of light within, her eyes blazed, her smile gave place
+to a seriousness which was almost indignation. She looked like a heroine
+maintaining her right to do all that human strength could do for the
+forlorn and oppressed; and there was, in fact, a certain <i>abandon</i> of
+feeling in her which made her half unconsciously open the door, and do
+what was tantamount to turning her visitor out, though her visitor was
+mistress of the house. Her feelings had, indeed, for the moment, got the
+better of the Contessa. She had worked herself up to the point of
+indignation, that Lucy who could, if she would, deliver Bice from all
+the snares of poverty, had not done so, and was not, so far as appeared,
+intending to do so. To find fault with the devices of the poor, and yet
+not to help them&mdash;is not that one of the things least easily supportable
+of all the spurns of patient merit? The Contessa was doing what she
+could, all she could in her own fashion, strenuously, anxiously. But
+Lucy was doing nothing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> though she could have done it so easily: and
+yet she found fault and criticised. Madame di Forno-Populo was swept by
+a great flood of instinctive resentment. She put her hostess to the door
+in the strength of it, tenderly with a kiss but not less hotly, and with
+full meaning. Such impulses had stood her instead of virtue on other
+occasions; she felt a certain virtue as of superior generosity and
+self-sacrifice in her proceedings now.</p>
+
+<p>As for Lucy, still much confused and scarcely recognising the full
+meaning of the Contessa's warmth, she made her way to her own room in a
+haze of disturbed and uneasy feeling. Somehow&mdash;she could not tell
+how&mdash;she felt herself in the wrong. What was it she had done? What was
+it she had left undone? To further the scheme by which young Montjoie
+was to be caught and trapped and made the means of fortune and endowment
+to Bice was not possible. In such cases it is usually of the possible
+victim, the man against whom such plots are formed, that the bystander
+thinks; but Lucy thought of young Montjoie only with an instinctive
+dislike, which would have been contempt in a less calm and tolerant
+mind. That Bice, with all her gifts, a creature so full of life and
+sweetness and strength, should be handed over to this trifling
+commonplace lad, was in itself terrible to think of. Lucy did not think
+of the girl's beauty, or of that newly-developed gift of song which had
+taken her by surprise, but only and simply of herself, the warm-hearted
+and smiling girl, the creature full of fun and frolic whom she had
+learned to be fond of, first, for the sake of little Tom, and then for
+her own. Little Tom's friend, his playmate, who had found him out in his
+infant weakness and made his life so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> brighter! And then Lucy asked
+herself what the Contessa could mean, what it was that made her own
+interference a sort of impertinence, why her protests had been received
+with so little of the usual caressing deference? Thoughts go fast, and
+Lucy had not yet reached the door of her own room, when it flashed upon
+her what it was. She put down her candle on a table in the corridor, and
+stood still to realise it. This gallery at the head of the great
+staircase was dimly lighted, and the hall below threw up a glimmer,
+reflected in the oaken balusters and doors of the closed rooms, and
+dying away in the half-lit gloom above. There were sounds below far off
+that betrayed the assembly still undispersed in the smoking-room, and
+some fainter still, above, of the ladies who had retired to their rooms,
+but were still discussing the strange events of the evening. In the
+centre of this partial darkness stood Lucy, with her candle, the only
+visible representative of all the hidden life around, suddenly pausing,
+asking herself&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Was this what it meant? Undoubtedly, this was what it meant. She had the
+power, and she had not used it. With a word she could make all their
+schemes unnecessary, and relieve the burden on the soul of the woman who
+had the heart of a mother for Bice. Tears sprang up into Lucy's eyes
+unawares as this recollection suddenly seized her. The Contessa was not
+perfect&mdash;there were many things in her which Lady Randolph could with
+difficulty excuse to herself: but she had the heart of a mother for
+Bice. Oh, yes, it was true, quite true. The heart of a mother! and how
+was it possible that another mother could look on at this and not
+sympathise; and how was it that the idea had never occurred to her
+before&mdash;that she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> never thought how changed in a moment might be
+Bice's position, if only&mdash;&mdash; Here she picked up her candle again, and
+went away hastily to her room. She said to herself that she was keeping
+Fletcher up, and that this was unkind. But, as a matter of fact, she was
+not thinking about Fletcher. There had sprung up in her soul a fear
+which was twofold and contradictory. If one of those alarms was
+justified, then the other would be fallacious; and yet the existence of
+the one doubled the force of the other. One of these elements of
+fear&mdash;the contradiction, the new terror&mdash;was wholly unthought of, and
+had never troubled her peace before. She thought&mdash;and this was her old
+burden, the anxiety which had already restrained her action and made her
+forego what she had never failed to feel as her duty, the carrying out
+of her father's will&mdash;of her husband's objection, of his opposition, of
+the terrible interview she had once had with him, when she had refused
+to acquiesce in his command. And then, with a sort of stealthy horror,
+she thought of his departure from that opposition, and asked herself,
+would he, for Bice's sake, consent to that which he had so much objected
+to in other cases? This it was that made her shrink from herself and her
+own thoughts, and hurry into her room for the solace of Fletcher's
+companionship, and to put off as long as she could the discussion of the
+question. Would Sir Tom agree to everything? Would he make no
+objections&mdash;for Bice's sake?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CONTESSA'S TACTICS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>That morning the whole party came down to breakfast expectant, for,
+notwithstanding the Contessa's habit of not appearing, it was supposed
+that the young lady whom most people supposed to have arrived very
+recently must be present at the morning meal. Young Montjoie, who was
+generally very late, appeared among the first; and there was a look of
+curiosity and anxiety in his face as he turned towards the door every
+time it was opened, which betrayed his motive. But this expectation was
+not destined to be repaid. Bice did not appear at breakfast. She did not
+even come downstairs, though the Contessa did, for luncheon. When Madame
+di Forno-Populo came in to this meal there was a general elevation of
+all heads and eager look towards her, to which she replied with her
+usual smile but no explanation of any kind; nor would she make any
+reply, even to direct questions. She did nothing but smile when Montjoie
+demanded to know if Miss Forno-Populo was not coming downstairs, if she
+had gone away, if she were ill, if she would appear before three
+o'clock&mdash;with which questions he assailed her in downright fashion. When
+the Contessa did not smile she put on a look of injured sweetness.
+"What!" she said, "Am I then so little thought of? You have no more
+pleasure, ficklest of young men, in seeing me?" "Oh, I assure you,
+Countess," he cried, "that's all right, don't you know; but a fellow may
+ask. And then it was your own doing to make us so excited."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a fellow may ask," said the Contessa, smiling;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> but this was all
+the response she would give, nothing that could really throw the least
+light upon the subject of his curiosity. The other men of her following
+looked on with undisguised admiration at this skilled and accomplished
+woman. To see how she held in hand the youth whom they all considered as
+her victim was beautiful they thought; and bets even were going amongst
+them as to the certainty that she would land her big fish. Sir Tom, at
+the head of the table, did not regard the matter so lightly. There was a
+curve of annoyance in his forehead. He did not understand what game she
+was playing. It was, without doubt, a game of some sort, and its object
+was transparent enough; and Sir Tom could not easily forgive the
+dramatic efforts of the previous night, or endure the thought that his
+house was the scene of tactics so little creditable. He was vexed with
+the Contessa, with Bice, even with Lucy, who, he could not keep from
+saying to himself, should have found some means of baulking such an
+intention. He was somewhat mollified by the absence of Bice now, which
+seemed to him, perhaps, a tribute to his own evident disapproval; but
+still he was uneasy. It was not a fit thing to take place in his house.
+He saw far more clearly than he had done before that a stop should have
+been put ere now to the Contessa's operations, and in the light of last
+night's proceedings perceived his own errors in judgment&mdash;those errors
+which he had, indeed, been sensible of, yet condoned in himself with
+that wonderful charity which we show towards our own mistakes and
+follies. He ought not to have asked her to the Hall; he ought not to
+have permitted himself to be flattered and amused by her society, or to
+have encouraged her to remain, or to have been so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> weak as to ask the
+people she wished, which was the crowning error of all. He had invited
+Montjoie, a trifling boy in whom he felt little or no interest, to
+please her, without any definite idea as to what she meant, but only
+with an amused sense that she had designs on the lad which Montjoie was
+quite knowing enough to deliver himself from. But the turn things had
+taken displeased Sir Tom. It was too barefaced, he said to himself. He,
+too, felt like his more innocent wife, as if he were an accomplice in a
+social crime.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been swindled, don't you know," Montjoie said; "I've been taken a
+mean advantage of. None of these other beggars are going away like me.
+They will get all the good of the music to-night, and I shall be far
+away. I could cry to think of it, I could, don't you know; but you don't
+care a bit, Countess."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa, as usual, smiled. "<i>Enfant</i>!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not an infant. I am just the same age as everybody, old enough to
+look after myself, don't you know, and pay for myself, and all that sort
+of thing. Besides, I haven't got any parents and guardians. Is that why
+you take such a base advantage of me?" cried the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"It is, perhaps, why&mdash;&mdash;" The Contessa was not much in the way of
+answering questions; and when she had said this she broke off with a
+laugh. Was she going to say that this was why she had taken any trouble
+about him, with a frankness which it is sometimes part of the astutest
+policy to employ.</p>
+
+<p>"Why what? why what? Oh, come, you must tell me now," the young man
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why one takes so much interest in you," said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> Contessa sweetly.
+"You shall come and see me, <i>cher petit Marquis</i>, in my little house
+that is to be, in Mayfair; for you have found me, <i>n'est ce pas</i>, a
+little house in Mayfair?" she said, turning to another of her train.</p>
+
+<p>"Hung with rose-coloured curtains and pink glass in the windows,
+according to your orders, Contessa," said the gentleman appealed to.</p>
+
+<p>"How good it is to have a friend! but those curtains will be terrible,"
+said the Contessa, with a shiver, "if it were not that I carry with me a
+few little things in a great box."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear Contessa, how many things you must have picked up!" cried
+Lady Anastasia. "That peep into your boudoir made me sick with envy;
+those Eastern embroideries, those Persian rugs! They have furnished me
+with a lovely paragraph for my paper, and it is such a delightful
+original idea to carry about one's pet furniture like one's dresses. It
+will become quite the fashion when it is known. And how I shall long to
+see that little house in Mayfair!"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa smiled upon Lady Anastasia as she smiled upon the male
+friends that surrounded her. Her paper and her paragraphs were not to be
+despised, and those little mysterious intimations about the new beauty
+which it delighted her to make. Madame di Forno-Populo turned to
+Montjoie afterwards with a little wave of the hand. "You are going?" she
+said; "how sad for us! we shall have no song to make us gay to-night.
+But come and you shall sing to us in Mayfair."</p>
+
+<p>"Countess, you are only laughing at me. But I shall come, don't you
+know," said Montjoie, "whether you mean it or not."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The company, who were so much interested in this conversation, did not
+observe the preoccupied looks of the master and mistress of the house,
+although to some of the gentlemen the gravity of Sir Tom was apparent
+enough. And not much wonder that he should be grave. Even the men who were
+most easy in their own code looked with a certain severity and
+astonishment upon him who had opened his door to the adventuress-Contessa,
+of whom they all judged the worst, without even the charitable
+acknowledgment which her enemy the Dowager had made, that there was
+nothing in her past history bad enough to procure her absolute expulsion
+from society. The men who crowded round her when she appeared, who
+flattered and paid their court to her, and even took a little credit to
+themselves as intimates of the siren, were one and all of opinion that to
+bring her into his house was discreditable to Sir Tom. They were even a
+little less respectful to Lucy for not knowing or finding out the quality
+of her guest. If Tom Randolph was beginning to find out that he had been a
+fool it was wonderful he had not made the discovery sooner. For he had
+been a fool, and no mistake! To bring that woman to England, to keep her
+in his house, to associate her in men's minds with his wife&mdash;the worst of
+his present guests found it most difficult to forgive him. But they were
+all the more interested in the situation from the fact that Sir Tom was
+beginning to feel the effects of his folly. He said very little during
+that meal. He took no notice of the badinage going on between the Contessa
+and her train. When he spoke at all it was to that virtuous mother at his
+other hand, who was not at all amusing, and talked of nothing but Edith
+and Minnie, and her successful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> treatment of them through all the nursery
+troubles of their life.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy, at the other end of the table, was scarcely more expansive. She
+had been relieved by the absence of Bice, which, in her innocence, she
+believed to be a concession to her own anxiety, feeling a certain
+gratitude to the Contessa for thus foregoing the chance of another
+interview with Montjoie. It could never have occurred to Lucy to suppose
+that this was policy on the Contessa's part, and that her refusal to
+satisfy Montjoie was in reality planned to strengthen her hold on him,
+and to increase the curiosity she pretended to baffle. Lucy had no such
+artificial idea in her mind. She accepted the girl's withdrawal as a
+tribute to her own powers of persuasion, and a proof that though the
+Contessa had been led astray by her foreign notions, she was yet ready
+to perceive and adopt the more excellent way. This touched Lucy's heart
+and made her feel that she was herself bound to reciprocate the
+generosity. They had done it without knowing anything about the
+intention in her mind, and it should be hers to carry out that intention
+liberally, generously, not like an unwilling giver. She cast many a
+glance at her husband while this was going through her mind. Would he
+object as before? or would he, because it was the Contessa who was to be
+benefited, make no objection? Lucy did not know which of the two it
+would be most painful to her to bear. She had read carefully the
+paragraph in her father's will about foreigners, and had found there was
+no distinct objection to foreigners, only a preference the other way.
+She knew indeed, but would not permit herself to think, that these were
+not persons who would have commended themselves to Mr. Trevor as objects
+of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> bounty. Mr. Churchill, with his large family, was very
+different. But to endow two frivolous and expensive women with a portion
+of his fortune was a thing to which he never would have consented. With
+a certain shiver she recognised this; and then she made a rush past the
+objection and turned her back upon it. It was quite a common form of
+beneficence in old times to provide a dower for a girl that she might
+marry. What could there be wrong in providing a poor girl with something
+to live upon that she might not be forced into a mercenary marriage?
+While all the talk was going on at the other end of the table she was
+turning this over in her mind&mdash;the manner of it, the amount of it, all
+the details. She did not hear the talk, it was immaterial to her, she
+cared not for it. Now and then she gave an anxious look at Sir Tom at
+the other end. He was serious. He did not laugh as usual. What was he
+thinking of? Would his objections be forgotten because it was the
+Contessa or would he oppose her and struggle against her? Her heart beat
+at the thought of the conflict which might be before her; or perhaps if
+there was no conflict, if he were too willing, might not that be the
+worst of all!</p>
+
+<p>Thus the background against which the Contessa wove her web of smiles
+and humorous schemes was both dark and serious. There were many shadows
+behind that frivolous central light. Herself the chief actor, the
+plotter, she to whom only it could be a matter of personal advantage,
+was perhaps the least serious of all the agents in it. The others
+thought of possibilities dark enough, of perhaps the destruction of
+family peace in this house which had been so hospitable to her, which
+had received her when no other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> house would; and some, of the success of
+a plan which did not deserve to succeed, and some of the danger of a
+youth to whom at present all the world was bright. All these things
+seemed to be involved in the present crisis. What more likely than that
+Lucy, at last enlightened, should turn upon her husband, who no doubt
+had forced this uncongenial companion upon her, should turn from Sir Tom
+altogether, and put her trust in him no longer! And the men who most
+admired the Contessa were those who looked with the greatest horror upon
+a marriage made by her, and called young Montjoie poor little beggar and
+poor devil, wondering much whether he ought not to be "spoken to." The
+men were not sorry for Bice, nor thought of her at all in the matter,
+save to conclude her a true pupil of the guardian whom most of them
+believed to be her mother. But in this point where the others were
+wanting Lucy came in, whose simple heart bled for the girl about to be
+sacrificed to a man whom she could not love. Thus tragical surmises
+floated in the air about Madame di Forno-Populo, that arch plotter whose
+heart was throbbing indeed with her success, and the hope of successes
+to come, but who had no tragical alarms in her breast. She was perfectly
+easy in her mind about Sir Tom and Lucy. Even if a matrimonial quarrel
+should be the result, what was that to an experienced woman of the
+world, who knew that such things are only for the minute? and neither
+Bice nor Montjoie caused her any alarm. Bice was perfectly pleased with
+the little Marquis. He amused her. She had not the slightest objection
+to him; and as for Montjoie, he was perfectly well able to take care of
+himself. So that while everybody else was more or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> less anxious, the
+Contessa in the centre of all her webs was perfectly tranquil. She was
+not aware that she wished harm to any man, or woman either. Her light
+heart and easy conscience carried her quite triumphantly through all.</p>
+
+<p>When Montjoie had gone away, carrying in his pocket-book the address of
+the little house in Mayfair, and when the party had dispersed to walk or
+ride or drive, as each thought fit, Lucy, who was doing neither, met her
+husband coming out of his den. Sir Tom was full of a remorseful sense
+that he had wronged Lucy. He took her by both hands, and drew her into
+his room. It was a long time since he had met her with the same
+effusion. "You are looking very serious," he said, "you are vexed, and I
+don't wonder; but I see land, Lucy. It will be over directly&mdash;only a
+week more&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were looking serious, Tom," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"So I was, my love. All that business last night was more than I could
+stand. You may think me callous enough, but I could not stand that."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom!" said Lucy, faltering. It seemed an opportunity she could not let
+slip&mdash;but how she trembled between her two terrors! "There is something
+that I want to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Say whatever you like, Lucy," he cried; "but for God's sake don't
+tremble, my little woman, when you speak to me. I've done nothing to
+deserve that."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not trembling," said Lucy, with the most innocent and transparent
+of falsehoods. "But oh, Tom, I am so sorry, so unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"For what?" he said. He did not know what accusation she might be going
+to bring against him; and how could he defend himself? Whatever she
+might say he was sure to be half guilty; and if she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> thought him wholly
+guilty, how could he prevent it? A hot colour came up upon his
+middle-aged face. To have to blush when you are past the age of blushing
+is a more terrible necessity than the young can conceive.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom!" cried Lucy again, "for Bice! Can we stand by and let her be
+sacrificed? She is not much more than a child; and she is always so good
+to little Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"For Bice!" he cried. In the relief of his mind he was ready to have
+done anything for Bice. He laughed with a somewhat nervous tremulous
+outburst. "Why, what is the matter with her?" he said. "She did her part
+last night with assurance enough. She is young indeed, but she ought to
+have known better than that."</p>
+
+<p>"She is very young, and it is the way she has been brought up&mdash;how
+should she know any better? But, Tom, if she had any fortune she would
+not be compelled to marry. How can we stand by and see her sacrificed to
+that odious young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"What odious young man?" said Sir Tom, astonished, and then with another
+burst of his old laughter such as had not been heard for weeks, he cried
+out: "Montjoie! Why, Lucy, are you crazy? Half the girls in England are
+in competition for him. Sacrificed to&mdash;&mdash;! She will be in the greatest
+luck if she ever has such a chance."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy gave him a reproachful look.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you say so? A little vulgar boy&mdash;a creature not worthy to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you are prejudiced. You are taking Jock's view. That worthy's
+opinion of a fellow who never rose above Lower Fourth is to be received
+with reservation. A fellow may be a scug, and yet not a bad fellow&mdash;that
+is what Jock has yet to learn."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom, I cannot laugh," said Lucy. "What can she do, the Contessa
+says? She must marry the first that offers, and in the meantime she
+attracts notice <i>like that</i>. It is dreadful to think of it. I think that
+some one&mdash;that we&mdash;I&mdash;ought to interfere."</p>
+
+<p>"My innocent Lucy," said Sir Tom, "how can you interfere? You know
+nothing about the tactics of such people. I am very penitent for my
+share in the matter. I ought not to have brought so much upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tom," cried Lucy again, drawing closer to him, eager to anticipate
+with her pardon any blame to which he might be liable. And then she
+added, returning to her own subject: "She is of English parentage&mdash;on
+one side."</p>
+
+<p>Why this fact, so simply stated, should have startled her husband so
+much, Lucy could not imagine. He almost gasped as he met her eyes, as if
+he had received or feared a sudden blow, and underneath the brownness of
+his complexion grew suddenly pale, all the ruddy colour forsaking his
+face. "Of English parentage!" he said, faltering, "do you mean?&mdash;what do
+you mean? Why&mdash;do you tell this to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was surprised, but saw no significance in his agitation. And her
+mind was full of her own purpose. "Because of the will which is against
+foreigners," she said simply. "But in that case she would not be a
+foreigner, Tom. I think a great deal of this. I want to do it. Oh, don't
+oppose me! It makes it so much harder when you go against me."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at her with a sort of awe. He did not seem able to speak. What
+she had said, though she was unconscious of any special meaning in it,
+seemed to have acted upon him like a spell. There was something tragic
+in his look which frightened Lucy. She came closer still and put her
+hand upon his arm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is not to trouble you, Tom; it is not that I want to go against
+you! But give me your consent this once. Baby is so fond of her, and she
+is so good to him. I want to give something to Bice. Let me make a
+provision for her?" she said, pleading. "Do not take all the pleasure
+out of it and oppose me. Oh, dear Tom, give me your free consent!" Lucy
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>He kept gazing at her with that look of awe. "Oppose you!" he said. What
+was the shock he had received which made him so unlike himself? His very
+lips quivered as he spoke. "God forgive me; what have I been doing?" he
+cried. "Lucy, I think I will never oppose you more."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>DISCOVERIES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>This interview had an agitating and painful effect upon Lucy, though she
+could not tell why. It was not what she expected or feared&mdash;neither in
+one sense nor the other. He had neither distressed her by opposing her
+proceedings, nor accepted her beneficence towards the Contessa with
+levity and satisfaction, both of which dangers she had been prepared
+for. Instead, however, of agitating her by the reception he gave to her
+proposal, it was he who was agitated by something which in entire
+unconsciousness she had said. But what that could be Lucy could not
+divine. She had said nothing that could affect him personally so far as
+she knew. She went over every word of the conver<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>sation without being
+able to discover what could have had this effect. But she could find
+nothing, there was no clue anywhere that her unconscious mind could
+discover. She concluded finally with much compunction that it was the
+implied reproach that he had taken away all pleasure in what she did by
+opposing her, that had so disturbed her husband. He was so kind. He had
+not been able to bear even the possibility that his opposition had been
+a source of pain. "I think I will never oppose you any more." In an
+answering burst of generosity Lucy said to herself that she did not
+desire this; that she preferred that he should find fault and object
+when he disapproved, not consent to everything. But the reflection of
+the disturbance she had seen in her husband's countenance was in her
+mind all day; she could not shake it off; and he was so grave that every
+look she cast at him strengthened the impression. He did not approach
+the circle in which the Contessa sat all the evening, but stood apart,
+silent, taking little notice of anybody until Mr. Derwentwater secured
+his ear, when Sir Tom, instead of his usual genial laugh at MTutor's
+solemnities, discharged little caustic criticisms which astonished his
+companion. Mr. Derwentwater was going away next day, and he, too, was
+preoccupied. After that conversation with Sir Tom, he betook himself to
+Lucy, who was very silent too, and doing little for the entertainment of
+her guests. He made her sundry pretty speeches, such as are appropriate
+from a departing guest.</p>
+
+<p>"Jock has made up his mind to stay behind," he said. "I am sorry, but I
+am not surprised. I shall lose a most agreeable travelling companion;
+but, perhaps, home influences are best for the young."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why Jock has changed his mind, Mr. Derwentwater. He wanted
+very much to go."</p>
+
+<p>"He would say that here's metal more attractive," said the tutor with an
+offended smile; and then he paused, and, clearing his throat, asked in a
+still more evident tone of offence&mdash;"Does not your young friend the
+Signorina appear again? I thought from her appearance last night that
+she was making her <i>début</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was like it," said Lucy. "The Contessa is not like one of us,"
+she added after a moment. "She has her own ways&mdash;and, perhaps, I don't
+know&mdash;that may be the Italian fashion."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," Mr. Derwentwater said promptly. He was an authority upon
+national usages. "But I am afraid it was very transparent what the
+Contessa meant," he said, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>To this Lucy made no reply, and the tutor, who was sensitive, especially
+as to bad taste, reddened at his inappropriate observation. He went on
+hastily; "The Signorina&mdash;or should I say Mademoiselle di
+Forno-Populo?&mdash;has a great deal of charm. I do not know if she is so
+beautiful as her mother&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not her mother," cried Lucy quickly, with a smile at the mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she not her mother? The young lady's face indeed is different. It is
+of a higher order&mdash;it is full of thought. It is noble in repose. She
+does not seem made for these scenes of festivity, if you will pardon me,
+Lady Randolph, but for the higher retirements&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she is very fond of seeing people," said Lucy. "You must not
+suppose she is too serious for her age. She enjoyed herself last night."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no age," said Mr. Derwentwater, "at which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> one can be too
+serious&mdash;and especially in youth, when all the world is before one, when
+one cannot tell what effect a careless step may have one way or another.
+It is just that sweet gravity that charms me. I think she was quite out
+of her element, excuse me for saying so, Lady Randolph, last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so? Oh, I am afraid not. I am afraid she liked it," said
+Lucy. "Jock, don't you think Bice liked it. I should much rather think
+not, but I am afraid&mdash;I am afraid&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She couldn't like that little cad," said Jock, who had drawn near with
+an instinctive sense that something was going on which concerned him.
+"But she's never solemn either," added the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that for me, Jock?" said MTutor, with a pensive gentleness of
+reproach. "Well, never mind. We must all put up with little
+misunderstandings from the younger generation. Some time or other you
+will judge differently. I should like to have had an opportunity again
+of such music as we heard last night; but I suppose I must not hope for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do you mean Lord Montjoie's song?" cried one of the young ladies in
+blue, who had drawn near. "Wasn't it fun? Of course I know it wasn't to
+be compared to the Contessa; but I've no musical taste. I always confess
+it&mdash;that's Edith's line. But Lord Montjoie <i>was</i> fun. Don't you think
+so, dear Lady Randolph," Miss Minnie said.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Derwentwater gave her one glance, and retired, Jock following.
+"Perhaps that's your opinion too," he said, "that Lord Montjoie's was
+fun?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a scug," said Jock, laconically, "that's all I think about him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Derwentwater took the lad's arm. "And yet,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> he said, "Jock, though
+you and I consider ourselves his superiors, that is the fellow that will
+carry off the prize. Beauty and genius are for him. He must have the
+best that humanity can produce. You ought to be too young to have any
+feeling on the subject; but it is a humiliating thought."</p>
+
+<p>"Bice will have nothing to say to him," said Jock, with straightforward
+application of the abstract description; but MTutor shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"How can we tell the persecutions to which Woman is subject?" he said.
+"You and I, Jock, are in a very different position. But we should try to
+realise, though it is difficult, those dangers to which she is subject.
+Kept indoors," said MTutor, with pathos in his voice, "debarred from all
+knowledge of the world, with all the authorities about her leading one
+way. How can we tell what is said to her? with a host of petty maxims
+preaching down a daughter's heart&mdash;strange!" cried Mr. Derwentwater,
+with a closer pressure of the boy's arm, "that the most lovely existence
+should thus continually be led to link itself with the basest. We must
+not blame Woman; we must keep her idea sacred, whatever happens in our
+own experience."</p>
+
+<p>"It always sets one right to talk to you," cried Jock, full of emotion.
+"I was a beast to say that."</p>
+
+<p>"My boy, don't you think I understand the disturbance in your mind?"
+with a sigh, MTutor said.</p>
+
+<p>They had left the drawing-room during the course of this conversation,
+and were crossing the hall on the way to the library, when some one
+suddenly drew back with a startled movement from the passage which led
+to Sir Tom's den. Then there followed a laugh, and "Oh, is it only you!"
+after which there came forth a slim shadow, as unlike as possible to the
+siren of the previous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> night. "We have met before, and I don't mind. Is
+there any one else coming?" Bice said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you hide and skulk in corners?" cried Jock. "Why shouldn't you
+meet any one? Have you done something wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>This made Bice laugh still more. "You don't understand," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Signorina," said Mr. Derwentwater (who was somewhat proud of having
+remembered this good abstract title to give to the mysterious girl), "I
+am going away to-morrow, and perhaps I shall never hear you again. Your
+voice seemed to open the heavenly gates. Why, since you are so good as
+to consider us different from the others, won't you sing to us once
+more?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sing?" said Bice, with a little surprise; "but by myself my voice is
+not much&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is like a voice out of heaven," Mr. Derwentwater said fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really, really think so?" she said with a wondering look. She
+was surprised, but pleased too. "I don't think you would care for it
+without the Contessa's; but, perhaps&mdash;&mdash;" Then she looked round her with
+a reflective look. "What can I do? There is no piano, and then these
+people would hear." After this a sudden idea struck her. She laughed
+aloud like a child with sudden glee. "I don't suppose it would be any
+harm! You belong to the house&mdash;and then there is Marietta. Yes! Come!"
+she cried suddenly, rushing up the great staircase and waving her hand
+impatiently, beckoning them to follow. "Come quick, quick," she cried;
+"I hear some one coming," and flew upstairs. They followed her, Mr.
+Derwentwater passing Jock, who hung back a little, and did not know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+what to think of this adventure. "Come quick," she cried, darting along
+the dimly-lighted corridor with a laugh that rang lightly along like the
+music to which her steps were set. "Oh, come in, come in. They will
+hear, but they will not know where it comes from." The young men
+stupefied, hesitating, followed her. They found themselves among all the
+curiosities and luxuries of the Contessa's boudoir. And in a moment Bice
+had placed herself at the little piano which was placed across one of
+the corners, its back covered with a wonderful piece of Eastern
+embroidery which would have invited Derwentwater's attention had he been
+able to fix that upon anything but Bice. As it was, he gave a half
+regard to these treasures. He would have examined them all with the
+devotion of a connoisseur but for her presence, which exercised a spell
+still more subtle than that of art.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the singing penetrated vaguely even into the drawing-room,
+where the Contessa, startled, rose from her seat much earlier than
+usual. Lucy, who attended her dutifully upstairs according to her usual
+custom, was dismayed beyond measure by seeing Jock and his tutor issue
+from that door. Bice came with them, with an air of excitement and
+triumphant satisfaction. She had been singing, and the inspiration and
+applause had gone to her head. She met the ladies not with the air of a
+culprit, but in all the boldness of innocence. "They like to hear me,
+even by myself," she cried; "they have listened, as if I had been an
+angel." And she clapped her hands with almost childish pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they think you are," said the Contessa, who shook her head, yet
+smiled with sympathy. "You must not say to these messieurs below that
+you have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> been in my room. Oh, I know the confidences of a smoking-room!
+You must not brag, <i>mes amis</i>. For Bice does not understand the
+<i>convenances</i>, nor remember that this is England, where people meet only
+in the drawing-room."</p>
+
+<p>"Divine forgetfulness!" murmured Derwentwater. Jock, for his part,
+turned his back with a certain sense of shame. He had liked it, but he
+had not thought it right. The room altogether, with its draperies and
+mysteries, had conveyed to him a certain intoxication as of wrong-doing.
+Something that was dangerous was in the air of it. It was seductive, it
+was fascinating; he had felt like a man banished when Bice had started
+from the piano and bidden them "Go away; go away!" in the same laughing
+tone in which she had bidden them come. But the moment he was outside
+the threshold his impulse was to escape&mdash;to rush out of sight&mdash;and
+obliterate even from his own mind the sense that he had been there. To
+meet the Contessa, and still more his sister, full in the face, was a
+shock to all his susceptibilities. He turned his back upon them, and but
+that his fellow-culprit made a momentary stand, would have fled away.
+Lucy partook of Jock's feeling. It wounded her to see him at that door.
+She gave him a glance of mingled reproach and pity; a vague sense that
+these were siren-women dangerous to all mankind stole into her heart.</p>
+
+<p>But Lucy was destined to a still greater shock. The party from the
+smoking-room was late in breaking up. The sound of their steps and
+voices as they came upstairs roused Lady Randolph, not from sleep&mdash;for
+she had been unable to sleep&mdash;but from the confused maze of
+recollections and efforts to think which distracted her placid soul. She
+was not made for these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> agitations. The constitution of her mind was
+overset altogether. The moment that suspicion and distrust came in there
+was no further strength in her. She was lying not thinking so much as
+remembering stray words and looks which drifted across her memory as
+across a dim mirror, with a meaning in them which she did not grasp. She
+was not clever. She could not put this and that together with the
+dolorous skill which some women possess. It is a skill which does not
+promote the happiness of the possessor, but perhaps it is scarcely more
+happy to stand in the midst of a vague mass of suggestions without being
+able to make out what they mean, which was Lucy's case. She did not
+understand her husband's sudden excitement; what it had to do with Bice,
+with the Contessa, with her own resolution and plans she could not tell,
+but felt vaguely that many things deeply concerning her were in the air,
+and was unhappy in the confusion of her thoughts. For a long time after
+the sounds of various persons coming upstairs had died away, Lucy lay
+silent waiting for her husband's appearance&mdash;but at last unable to bear
+the vague wretchedness of her thoughts any longer, got up and put on a
+dressing-gown and stole out into the dark gallery to go to the nursery
+to look at her boy asleep, which was her best anodyne. The lights were
+all extinguished except the faint ray that came from the nursery door,
+and Lucy went softly towards that, anxious to disturb little Tom by no
+sound. As she did so a door suddenly opened, sending a glare of light
+into the dark corridor. It was the door of the Contessa's room, and with
+the light came Sir Tom, the Contessa herself appearing after him on the
+threshold. She was still in her dinner dress, and her appearance
+remained long impressed upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> Lucy's imagination like a photograph
+without colour, in shadow and light. She gave Sir Tom a little packet
+apparently of letters, and then she held out both hands to him, which he
+took in his. Something seemed to flash through Lucy's heart like a
+knife, quivering like the "pale death" of the poet, in sight and sense.
+The sudden surprise and pang of it was such for a moment that she seemed
+turned into stone, and stood gazing like a spectre in her white flowing
+dress, her face more white, her eyes and mouth open in the misery and
+trouble of the moment. Then she stole back softly into her room&mdash;her
+head throbbing, her heart beating&mdash;and buried her face in her pillow and
+closed her eyes. Even baby could not soothe her in this unlooked-for
+pang. And then she heard his step come slowly along the gallery. How was
+she to look at him? how listen to him in the shock of such an
+extraordinary discovery? She took refuge in a semblance of sleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>LUCY'S DISCOVERY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When it happens to an innocent and simple soul to find out suddenly at a
+stroke the falsehood of some one upon whose truth the whole universe
+depends, the effect is such as perhaps has never been put forth by any
+attempt at psychological investigation. When it happens to a great mind,
+we have Hamlet with all the world in ruins round him&mdash;all other thoughts
+as of revenge or ambition are but secondary and spasmodic, since neither
+revenge nor advancement can put together<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> again the works of life or
+make man delight him, or woman either. But Lady Randolph was not a
+Hamlet. She had no genius, nor even a great intellect to be
+unhinged&mdash;scarcely mind enough to understand how it was that the glory
+had paled out of earth and sky, and all the world seemed different when
+she rose from her uneasy bed next morning, pale, after a night without
+sleep, in which she had not been able to have even the relief of
+restlessness, but had lain motionless, without even a sigh or tear, so
+crushed by the unexpected blow that she could neither fathom nor
+understand what had happened to her. She was too pure herself to jump at
+any thought of gross infidelity. She felt she knew not what&mdash;that the
+world had gone to pieces&mdash;that she did not know how to shape it again
+into anything&mdash;that she could not look into her husband's face, or
+command her voice to speak to him, for shame of the thought that he had
+failed in truth. Lucy felt somehow as if she were the culprit. She was
+ashamed to look him in the face. She made an early visit to the nursery,
+and stayed there pretending various little occupations until she heard
+Sir Tom go down stairs. He had returned so much to the old ways, and now
+that the house was full, and there were other people to occupy the
+Contessa, had shown so clearly (as Lucy had thought) that he was pleased
+to be liberated from his attendance upon her, that the cloud that had
+risen between them had melted away; and indeed, for some time back, it
+had been Lucy who was the Contessa's stay and support, a change at which
+Sir Tom had sometimes laughed. All had been well between the husband and
+wife during the early part of the season parliamentary, the beginning of
+their life in London. Sir Tom had been much engrossed with the cares of
+public life,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> but he had been delightful to Lucy, whose faith in him and
+his new occupations was great. And it was exhilarating to think that the
+Contessa had secured that little house in Mayfair for her own campaign,
+and that something like a new honeymoon was about to begin for the pair,
+whose happiness had seemed for a moment to tremble in the balance. Lucy
+had been looking forward to the return to London with a more bright and
+conscious anticipation of well-being than she had ever experienced. In
+the first outset of life happiness seems a necessary of existence. It is
+calculated upon without misgiving; it is simple nature, beyond question.
+But when the natural "of course" has once been broken, it is with a
+warmer glow of content that we see the prospect once more stretching
+before us bright as at first and more assured. This is how Lucy had been
+regarding her life. It was not so simple, so easy as it once had been,
+but the happiness to which she was looking forward, and which she had
+already partially entered into possession of, was all the more sweet and
+dear, that she had known, or fancied herself about to know, the loss and
+absence of it. Now, in a moment, all that fair prospect, that blessed
+certainty, was gone. The earth was cut away from under her feet; she
+felt everything to be tottering, falling round her, and nothing in all
+the universe to lay hold of to prop herself up; for when the pillars of
+the world are thus unrooted the heaving of the earthquake and the
+falling of the ruins impart a certain vertigo and giddy instability even
+to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Fletcher, Lucy's maid, who was usually discreet enough, waited upon her
+mistress that morning with a certain air of importance, and of knowing
+something which she was bursting with eagerness to tell, such as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> must
+have attracted Lady Randolph's attention in any other circumstances. But
+Lucy was far too much occupied with what was in her own mind to observe
+the perturbation of the maid, who consequently had no resource, since
+her mistress would not question her, than to introduce herself the
+subject on which she was so anxious to utter her mind. She began by
+inquiring if her ladyship had heard the music last night. "The music?"
+Lucy said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my lady, haven't you heard what a singer Miss Beachy has turned
+out?" Fletcher cried.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy, to whom all this seemed dim and far away as if it had happened
+years ago, answered with a faint smile&mdash;"Yes, she has a lovely voice."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not my place," said Fletcher, "being only a servant, to make
+remarks; but, my lady, if I might make so bold, it do seem to the like
+of us an 'orrible thing to take advantage of a young lady like your
+ladyship that thinks no harm."</p>
+
+<p>"You should not make such remarks," said Lucy, roused a little.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my lady; but still a woman is a woman, even though but a servant. I
+said to Mrs. Freshwater I was sure your ladyship would never sanction
+it. I never thought that of Miss Beachy, I will allow. I always said she
+was a nice young lady; but evil communications, my lady&mdash;we all know
+what the Bible says. Gentlemen upstairs in her room and her singing to
+them, and laughing and talking like as no housemaid in the house as
+valued her character would do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Fletcher," said Lucy, "you must say no more about this. It was Mr. Jock
+and Mr. Derwentwater only who were with Miss Bice&mdash;and with my
+permission," she added after a moment, "as he is going away to-morrow."
+Such deceits are so easy to learn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh-oh!" Miss Fletcher cried, with a quaver in her voice. "I beg your
+pardon, my lady; I'm sure&mdash;I thought&mdash;there must be something
+underneath, and that Miss Beachy would never&mdash;&mdash; And when she was down
+with Sir Thomas in the study it would be the same, my lady?" the woman
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"With Sir Thomas in the study!" The words went vaguely into Lucy's mind.
+It had not seemed possible to increase the confusion and misery in her
+brain, but this produced a heightening of it, a sort of wave of
+bewilderment and pain greater than before, a sense of additional
+giddiness and failing. She gave a wave of her hand and said something,
+she scarcely knew what, which silenced Fletcher; and then she went down
+stairs to the new world. She did not go to the nursery even, as was her
+wont; her heart turned from little Tom. She felt that to look at him
+would be more than she could bear. There was no deceit in him, no
+falsehood&mdash;as yet; but perhaps when he grew up he would cheat her too.
+He would pretend to love her and betray her trust; he would kiss her,
+and then go away and scoff at her; he would smile, and smile, and be a
+villain. Such words were not in Lucy's mind, and it was altogether out
+of nature that she should even receive the thought: which made it all
+the more terrible when it was poured into her soul. And it cannot be
+told what discoveries she seemed to make even in the course of that
+morning in this strange condition of her mind. There was a haze over
+everything, but yet there was an enlightenment even in the haze. She saw
+in her little way, as Hamlet saw the falsehood of his courtiers, his
+gallant young companions, and the schemes of Polonius, and even Ophelia
+in the plot to trap him. She saw how false all these people were in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
+their civilities, in their extravagant thanks and compliments to her as
+they went away; for the Easter recess was just over, and everybody was
+going. The mother and her daughters said to her, "Such a delightful
+visit, dear Lady Randolph!" with kisses of farewell and wreathed smiles;
+and she perceived, somehow by a sort of second sight, that they added to
+each other, "Oh, what a bore it has been; nobody worth meeting," and
+"how thankful I am it's over!" which was indeed what Miss Minnie and
+Miss Edith said. If Lucy had seen a little deeper she would have known
+that this too was a sort of conventional falsity which the young ladies
+said to each other, according to the fashion of the day, without any
+meaning to speak of; but one must have learned a great many lessons
+before one comes to that.</p>
+
+<p>Then Jock, who had been woke up in quite a different way, took leave of
+MTutor, that god of his old idolatry, without being able to refrain from
+some semblance of the old absorbing affection.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry you are not coming with me, old fellow," Mr. Derwentwater
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Jock replied, "So am I," with an effort, as if firing a parting volley
+in honour of his friend: but then turned gloomily with an expression of
+relief. "I'm glad he's gone, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you did not want to go with him, Jock?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have gone for anything. I've just got to that&mdash;that I can't
+bear him," cried Jock.</p>
+
+<p>And Lucy, in the midst of the ruins, felt her head go round: though here
+too it was the falsehood that was fictitious, had she but known. It is
+not, however, in the nature of such a shock that any of those
+alleviating circumstances which modify the character of human sentiment
+can be taken into account. Lucy had taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> everything for gospel in the
+first chapter of existence; she had believed what everybody said; and
+like every other human soul, after such a discovery as she had made, she
+went to the opposite extremity now&mdash;not wittingly, not voluntarily&mdash;but
+the pillars of the earth were shaken, and nothing stood fast.</p>
+
+<p>They went up to town next day. In the meantime she had little or no
+intercourse with the Contessa, who was preparing for the journey and
+absorbed in letter-writing, making known to everybody whom she could
+think of, the existence of the little house in Mayfair. It is doubtful
+whether she so much as observed any difference in the demeanour of her
+hostess, having in fact the most unbounded confidence in Lucy, whom she
+did not believe capable of any such revulsion of feeling. Bice was more
+clear-sighted, but she thought Milady was displeased with her own
+proceedings, and sought no further for a cause. And the only thing the
+girl could do was to endeavour by all the little devices she could think
+of to show the warm affection she really felt for Lucy&mdash;a method which
+made the heart of Lucy more and more sick with that sense of falsehood
+which sometimes rose in her, almost to the height of passion. A woman
+who had ever learned to use harsh words, or to whose mind it had ever
+been possible to do or say anything to hurt another, would no doubt have
+burst forth upon the girl with some reproach or intimation of doubt
+which might have cleared the matter so far as Bice went. But Lucy had no
+such words at her command. She could not say anything unkind. It was not
+in her. She could be silent, indeed, but not even that, so far as to
+"hurt the feelings" of her companion. The effect, therefore, was only
+that Lucy laboured to maintain a little artificial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> conversation, which
+in its turn reacted upon her mind, showing that even in herself there
+was the same disposition to insincerity which she had begun to discover
+in the world. She could say nothing to Bice about the matters which a
+little while before, when all was well, she had grieved over and
+objected to. Now she had nothing to say on such subjects. That the girl
+should be set up to auction, that she should put forth all those arts in
+which she had been trained, to attract and secure young Montjoie, or any
+like him, were things which had passed beyond her sphere. To think of
+them rendered her heart more sick, her head more giddy. But if Bice
+married some one whom she did not love, that was not so bad as to think
+that perhaps she herself all this time had been living with, and loving,
+in sacred trust and faith, a man who even by her side was full of
+thoughts unknown to her, given to another. Sometimes Lucy closed her
+eyes in a sort of sick despair, feeling everything about her go round
+and round. But she said nothing to throw any light upon the state of her
+being. Sir Tom felt a little gravity&mdash;a little distance in his wife; but
+he himself was much occupied with a new and painful subject of thought.
+And Jock observed nothing at all, being at a stage when man (or boy) is
+wholly possessed with affairs of his own. He had his troubles, too. He
+was not easy about that breach with his master now that they were
+separated. When Bice was kind to him a gleam of triumph, mingled with
+pity, made him remorseful towards that earlier friend; and when she was
+unkind a bitter sense of fellowship turned Jock's thoughts towards that
+sublime ideal of masculine friendship which is above the lighter loves
+of women. How can a boy think of his sister when absorbed in such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>
+mystery of his own?&mdash;even if he considered his sister at all as a person
+whom it was needful to think about&mdash;which he did not, Lucy being herself
+one of the pillars of the earth to his unopened eyes.</p>
+
+<p>All this, however, made no difference in Lucy's determination. She wrote
+to Mr. Rushton that very morning, after this revolution in her soul, to
+instruct him as to her intentions in respect to Bice, and to her other
+trustee in London to request him to see her immediately on her arrival
+in Park Lane. Nothing should be changed in that matter, for why, she
+said to herself, should Bice suffer because Sir Tom was untrue? It
+seemed to her that there was more reason than ever why she should rouse
+herself and throw off her inaction. No doubt there were many people whom
+she could make, if not happy, yet comfortable. It was comfortable
+(everybody said) to have enough of money&mdash;to be well off. Lucy had no
+experience of what it was to be without it. She thought to herself she
+would like to try, to have only what she actually wanted, to cook the
+food for her little family, to nurse little Tom all by herself, to live
+as the cottagers lived. There was in her mind no repugnance to any of
+the details of poverty. Her wealth was an accident; it was the habit of
+her race to be poor, and it seemed to Lucy that she would be happier
+could she shake off now all those external circumstances which had
+grown, like everything else, into falsehoods, giving an appearance of
+well-being which did not exist. But other people thought it well to have
+money, and it was her duty to give it. A kind of contempt rose within
+her for all that withheld her previously. To avoid her duty because it
+would displease Sir Tom&mdash;what was that but falsehood too? All was
+falsehood, only she had never seen it before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They reached town in the afternoon of a sweet April day, the sky aglow
+with a golden sunset, against which the trees in the park stood out with
+their half-developed buds: and all the freshness of the spring was in
+the long stretches of green, and the softened jubilee of sound to which
+somehow, as the air warms towards summer, the voices of the world
+outside tune themselves. The Contessa and Bice in great spirits and
+happiness, like two children home from school, had left the Randolph
+party at the railway, to take possession of the little house in Mayfair.
+They had both waved their hands from the carriage window and called out,
+"Be sure you come and see us," as they drove away. "You will come
+to-night," they had stipulated with Sir Tom and Jock. It was like a new
+toy which filled them with glee. Could it be possible that those two
+adventurers going off to their little temporary home with smiles so
+genuine, with so simple a delight in their new beginning, were not, in
+their strange way, innocent, full of guile and shifts as one was, and
+the other so apt a scholar? Lucy would have joined in all this pleasure
+two days ago, but she could not now. She went home to her luxurious
+house, where all was ready, as if she had not been absent an hour. How
+wonderfully wealth smooths away the inconveniences of change! and how
+little it has to do, Lucy thought, with the comfort of the soul! No need
+for any exertion on her part, any scuffling for the first arrival, any
+trouble of novelty. She came from the Hall to London without any sense
+of change. Had she been compelled to superintend the arrangement of her
+house, to make it habitable, to make it pretty, that would have done her
+good. But the only thing for her to do was to see Mr. Chervil, her
+trustee, who waited upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> her according to her request, and who, after
+the usual remonstrances, took her instructions about the gift to Bice
+very unwillingly, but still with a forced submission. "If I cannot make
+you see the folly of it, Lady Randolph, and if Sir Thomas does not
+object, I don't know what more is to be said." "There is nothing more to
+be said," Lucy said, with a smile; but there was this difficulty in the
+proceeding which she had not thought of, that Bice's name all this time
+was unknown to her&mdash;Beatrice di Forno-Populo, she supposed, but the
+Contessa had never called her so, and it was necessary to be exact, Mr.
+Chervil said. He hailed this as an occasion of delay. He was not so
+violent as he had been on previous occasions when Lucy was young; and he
+did not, like Mr. Rushton, assume the necessity of speaking to Sir Tom.
+Mr. Chervil was a London solicitor, and knew very little about Sir Tom.
+But he was glad to seize upon anything that was good for a little delay.</p>
+
+<p>After this interview was over it was a mingled vexation and relief to
+Lucy to see the Dowager drive up to the door. Lady Randolph the elder
+was always in London from the first moment possible. She preferred the
+first bursting of the spring in the squares and parks. She liked to see
+her friends arrive by degrees, and to feel that she had so far the
+better of them. She came in, full as she always was of matter, with a
+thousand things to say. "I have come to stay to dinner, if you will have
+me," she said, "for of course Tom will be going out in the evening. They
+are always so glad to get back to their life." And it was, perhaps, a
+relief to have Lady Randolph to dinner, to be saved from the purely
+domestic party, to which Jock scarcely added any new element; but it was
+hard for Lucy to encounter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> even the brief questionings which were
+addressed to her in the short interval before dinner. "So you have got
+rid of that woman at last," Lady Randolph said; "I hear she has got a
+house in Mayfair."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Aunt Randolph, if you mean the Contessa," said Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"And that she intends to make a bold <i>coup</i> to get the girl off her
+hands. These sort of people so often succeed: I shouldn't wonder if she
+were to succeed. I always said the girl would be handsome, but I think
+she might have waited another year."</p>
+
+<p>To this Lucy made no reply, and it was necessary for the Dowager to
+carry on the conversation, so to speak, at her own cost.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope most earnestly, Lucy," she said, "that now you have got clear of
+them you will not mix yourself up with them again. You were placed in an
+uneasy position, very difficult to get out of, I will allow; but now
+that you have shaken them off, and they have proved they can get on
+without you, don't, I entreat you, mix yourself up with them again."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy could not keep the blood from mounting, and colouring her face. She
+had always spoken of the Contessa calmly before. She tried to keep her
+composure now. "Dear Aunt Randolph, I have not shaken them off. They
+have gone away of themselves, and how can I refuse to see them? There is
+to be a party here for them on the 26th."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear, my dear, that was very imprudent! I had hoped you would
+keep clear of them in London. It is one thing showing kindness to an old
+friend in the country, and it is quite another&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here Lucy made an imperative gesture, almost commanding silence. Sir Tom
+was coming into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> room. She was seated in the great bay window
+against the early twilight, the soft radiance of which dazzled the eyes
+of the elder lady, and prevented her from perceiving her nephew's
+approach. But Lady Randolph, before she rose to meet him, gave a
+startled look at Lucy. "Have you found it out, then?" she said
+involuntarily, in her great surprise.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Dowager was a woman far more clever than Lucy, who knew the world.
+And she was apt perhaps, instead of missing the meaning of the facts
+around her, to put too much significance in them. Now, when the little
+party met at dinner, Lady Randolph saw in the faces of both husband and
+wife more than was there, though much was there. Sir Tom was more grave
+than became a man who had returned into life, as his aunt said, and was
+looking forward to resuming the better part of existence&mdash;the House, the
+clubs, the quick throb of living which is in London. His countenance was
+full of thought, and there was both trouble and perplexity in it, but
+not the excitement which the Dowager supposed she found there, and those
+signs of having yielded to an evil influence which eyes accustomed to
+the world are so ready to discover. Lucy for her part was pale and
+silent. She had little to say, and scarcely addressed her husband at
+all. Lady Randolph, and that was very natural, took those signs of heart
+sickness for tokens of complete enlighten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>ment, for the passion of a
+woman who had entered upon that struggle with another woman for a man's
+love which, even when the man is her husband, has something degrading in
+it. There had been a disclosure, a terrible scene, no doubt, a stirring
+up of all the passions, Lady Randolph thought. No doubt that was the
+reason why the Contessa had loosed her clutches, and left the house free
+of her presence; but Lucy was still trembling after the tempest, and had
+not learned to take any pleasure in her victory. This was the conclusion
+of the woman of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was not a lengthy one, and the ladies went upstairs again,
+with a suppressed constraint, each anxious to know what the other was on
+her guard not to tell. They sat alone expectant for some time, making
+conversation, taking their coffee, listening, and watching each how the
+other listened, for the coming of the gentlemen, or rather for Sir Tom;
+for Jock, in his boyish insignificance, counted for little. The trivial
+little words that passed between them during this interval were charged
+with a sort of moral electricity, and stung and tingled in the too
+conscious silence. At length, after some time had elapsed: "I am glad I
+came," said Lady Randolph, "to sit with you, Lucy, this first evening;
+for of course Tom cannot resist, the first evening in town, the charms
+of his club."</p>
+
+<p>"His club! Oh, I think he has gone to see the house," Lucy said. "He
+promised&mdash;&mdash;; it is not very far off."</p>
+
+<p>"The house? You mean that woman's house. Lucy, I have no patience with
+you any more than I have with Tom. Why don't you put a stop to it? why
+don't you&mdash;for I suppose you have found out what sort of a woman she is
+by this time, and why she came here?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She came&mdash;&mdash;to introduce Bice and establish her in the world," Lucy
+said, in a faint tone. "Oh! Aunt Randolph, please do not let us discuss
+it! It is not what I like to think of. Bice will be sacrificed to the
+first rich man who asks her; or at least that is what the Contessa
+means."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Lucy," said the Dowager, calmly, "that is reasonable enough. I
+wish the Contessa meant no worse than that. Most girls are persuaded to
+marry a rich man if he asks them. I don't think so much of that. But it
+will not be so easy as she thinks," the Dowager added. "It is true that
+beauty does much&mdash;but not everything; and a girl in that position, with
+no connections, or, at least, none that she would not be better
+without&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's attention strayed from this question, which once had been so
+important, and which now seemed so secondary; but the conversation must
+be maintained. She said at random: "She has a beautiful voice."</p>
+
+<p>"Has she? And the Contessa herself sings very well. That will no doubt
+be another attraction," said Lady Randolph, in her impartial way. "But
+the end of it all is, who will she get to go, and who will invite them?
+It is vain to lay snares if there is nothing to be caught."</p>
+
+<p>"They will be invited&mdash;here," said Lucy, faltering a little. "I told you
+I am to have a great gathering on the 26th."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not believe my ears. You!&mdash;and she is to appear here for the
+first time to make her <i>début</i>. Good heavens, Lucy! What can I say to
+you&mdash;<i>that</i> girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, Aunt Randolph?" said Lucy (oh, what does it matter&mdash;what does
+it matter, that she should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> make so much fuss about it? she was saying
+in herself); "I have always liked Bice, and she has been very good to
+little Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," cried the angry lady, forgetting herself, and smiling the fierce
+smile of wrath, "there is no doubt that it is perfectly appropriate&mdash;the
+very thing that ought to happen if we lived according to the rules of
+nature, without thought of conventionalities and decorums, and so
+forth&mdash;oh, perfectly appropriate! If you don't object I know no one who
+has any right to say a word."</p>
+
+<p>Even now Lucy was scarcely roused enough to be surprised by the
+vehemence of these words. "Why should I object?" she said; "or why
+should any one say a word?" Her calm, which was almost indifference,
+excited Lady Randolph more and more.</p>
+
+<p>"You are either superhuman," she said, with exasperation, "or you
+are&mdash;&mdash; Lucy, I don't know what words to use. You put one out of every
+reckoning. You are like nobody I ever knew before. Why should you
+object? Why, good heavens! you are the only person that has any
+right&mdash;&mdash; Who should object if not you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Randolph," said Lucy, rousing herself with an effort, "would you
+please tell me plainly what you mean? I am not clever. I can't make
+things out. I have always liked Bice. To save her from being made a
+victim I am going to give her some of the money under my father's
+will&mdash;and if I could give her&mdash;&mdash; What is the matter?" she cried,
+stopping short suddenly, and in spite of herself growing pale.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Randolph flung up her hands in dismay. She gave something like a
+shriek as she exclaimed: "And Tom is letting you do this?" with horror
+in her tone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He has promised that he will not oppose," Lucy said; "but why do you
+speak so, and look so? Bice&mdash;has done no harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; Bice has done no harm," cried Lady Randolph bitterly; "nothing,
+except being born, which is harm enough, I think. But do you mean to
+tell me, Lucy, that Tom&mdash;a man of honour, notwithstanding all his
+vagaries&mdash;Tom&mdash;&mdash;lets you do this and never says a word? Oh, it is too
+much. I have always stood by him. I have been his support when every one
+else failed. But this is too much, that he should put the burden upon
+you&mdash;that he should make <i>you</i> responsible for this girl of his&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Randolph!" cried Lucy, rising up quickly and confronting the angry
+woman. She put up her hand with a serious dignity that was doubly
+impressive from her usual simpleness. "What is it you mean? This girl of
+his! I do not understand. She is not much more than a child. You cannot,
+cannot suppose that Bice&mdash;that it is she&mdash;that she is&mdash;&mdash;" Here she
+suddenly covered her face with her hands. "Oh, you put things in my mind
+that I am ashamed to think of," Lucy cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," said Lady Randolph, who in the heat of this discussion had got
+beyond her own power of self-restraint, "what everybody but yourself
+must have seen long ago. That woman is a shameless woman, but even she
+would not have had the effrontery to bring any other girl to your house.
+It was more shameless, I think, to bring that one than any other; but
+she would not think so. Oh, cannot you see it even now? Why, the
+likeness might have told you; that was enough. The girl is Tom's girl.
+She is your husband's&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucy uncovered her face, which was perfectly colourless, with eyes
+dilated and wide open. "What?" she whispered, looking intently into Lady
+Randolph's face.</p>
+
+<p>"His own child&mdash;his&mdash;daughter&mdash;though I am bitterly ashamed to say it,"
+the Dowager said.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment everything seemed to waver and turn round in Lucy's eyes,
+as if the walls were making a circuit with her in giddy space. Then she
+came to her feet with the sensation of a shock, and found herself
+standing erect, with the most amazing incomprehensible sense of relief.
+Why should she have felt relieved by this communication which filled her
+companion with horror? A softer air seemed to breathe about Lucy, she
+felt solid ground under her feet. For the first moment there seemed
+nothing but ease and sweet soothing and refreshment in what she heard.</p>
+
+<p>"His&mdash;daughter?" she said. Her mind went back with a sudden flash upon
+the past, gathering up instantaneously pieces of corroborative evidence,
+things which she had not noted at the moment, which she had forgotten,
+yet which came back nevertheless when they were needed: the Contessa's
+mysterious words about Bice's parentage, her intimation that Lucy would
+one day be glad to have befriended her: Sir Tom's sudden agitation when
+she had told him of Bice's English descent: finally, and most conclusive
+of all, touching Lucy with a most unreasonable conviction and bringing a
+rush of warm feeling to her heart, Baby's adoption of the girl and
+recommendation of her to his mother. Was it not the voice of nature, the
+voice of God? Lucy had no instinctive sense of recoil, no horror of the
+discovery. She did not realise the guilt involved, nor was she painfully
+struck, as some women might have been, by this evidence of her husband's
+previous life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> "If it is so," she said quietly, "there is more reason
+than ever, Aunt Randolph, that I should do everything I can for Bice. It
+never came into my mind before. I see now&mdash;various things: but I do not
+see why it should&mdash;make me unhappy," she added with a faint smile which
+brought the water to her eyes; "it must have been&mdash;long before I knew
+him. Will you tell me who was her mother? Was she a foreigner? Did she
+die long ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lucy, Lucy," cried Lady Randolph, "is it possible you don't see?
+Who would take all that trouble about her? Who would burden themselves
+with another woman's girl that was no concern of theirs? Who
+would&mdash;can't you see? can't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>There came over Lucy's face a hot and feverish flush. She grew red to
+her hair, agitation and shame took possession of her; something seemed
+to throb and swell as if it would burst in her forehead. She could not
+speak. She could not look at her informant for shame of the revelation
+that had been made. All the bewildered sensations which for the moment
+had been stilled in her breast sprang up again with a feverish whirl and
+tumult. She tottered back to the chair on which she had been sitting and
+dropped down upon it, holding by it as if that were the only thing in
+the world secure and steadfast. It was only now that Lady Randolph
+seemed to awake to the risks and dangers of this bold step she had
+taken. She had roused the placid soul at last. To what strange agony, to
+what revenge might she have roused it? She had looked for tears and
+misery, and fleeting rage and mad jealousy. But Lucy's look of utter
+giddiness and overthrow alarmed her more than she could say.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy! Oh, my love, you must recollect, as you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> say, that it was all
+long before he knew you&mdash;that there was no injury to you!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy made a movement with her hand to bar further discussion, but she
+could not say anything. She pointed Lady Randolph to her chair, and made
+that mute prayer for silence, for no more. But in such a moment of
+excitement there is nothing that is more difficult to grant than this.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lucy," the Dowager cried, "forgive me! Perhaps I ought not to have
+said anything. Oh, my dear, if you will but think what a painful
+position it was for me. To see you so unsuspicious, ready to do
+anything, and even Tom taking advantage of you. It is not more than a
+week since I found it all out, and how could I keep silence? Think what
+a painful position it was for me."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy made no reply. There seemed nothing but darkness round her. She put
+out her hand imploring that no more might be said; and though there was
+a great deal more said, she scarcely made out what it was. Her brain
+refused to take in any more. She suffered herself to be kissed and
+blessed, and said good-night to, almost mechanically. And when the elder
+lady at last went away, Lucy sat where Lady Randolph had left her, she
+did not know how long, gazing woefully at the ruins of that crumbled
+world which had all fallen to pieces about her. All was to pieces now.
+What was she and what was the other? Why should she be here and not the
+other? Two, were there?&mdash;two with an equal claim upon him? Was
+everything false, even the law, even the external facts which made her
+Tom's wife. He had another wife and a child. He was two, he was not one
+true man; one for baby and her, another for Bice and the Contessa. When
+she heard her husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> coming in Lucy fled upstairs like a hunted thing,
+and took refuge in the nursery where little Tom was sleeping. Even her
+bourgeoise horror of betraying herself, of letting the servants suspect
+that anything was wrong, had no effect upon her to-night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2>
+
+<h3>SEVERED.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sir Tom came home later, so much later than he intended that he entered
+the house with such a sense of compunction as had not visited him since
+the days when the alarm of being caught was a part of the pleasure. He
+had no fear of a lecture from Lucy, whose gifts were not of that kind;
+but he was partially conscious of having neglected her on her first
+night in town, as well as having sinned against her in matters more
+serious. And he did not know how to explain his detention at the
+Contessa's new house, or the matters which he had been discussing there.
+It was a sensible relief to him not to find her in any of the
+sitting-rooms, all dark and closed up, except his own room, in which
+there was no trace of her. She had gone to bed, which was so sensible,
+like Lucy's unexaggerated natural good sense: he smiled to
+himself&mdash;though, at the same time, a wondering question within himself,
+whether she felt at all, passed through his mind&mdash;a reflection full of
+mingled disappointment and satisfaction. But when, a full hour after his
+return, after a tranquil period of reflection, he went leisurely
+upstairs, expecting to find her peacefully asleep, and found her not,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>
+nor any evidence that she had ever been there, a great wave of alarm
+passed over the mind of Sir Tom. He paused confounded, looking at her
+vacant place, startled beyond expression. "Lucy!" he cried, looking in
+his dismay into every corner, into his own dressing-room, and even into
+the large wardrobe where her dresses hung, like shells and husks, which
+she had laid aside. And then he made an agitated pause, standing in the
+middle of the room, not knowing what to think. It was by this time about
+two in the morning; the middle of the night, according to Lucy. Where
+could she have gone? Then he bethought himself with an immediate relief,
+which was soon replaced by poignant anxiety, of the only possible reason
+for her absence&mdash;a reason which would explain everything&mdash;little Tom.
+When this thought occurred to him all the excitement that had been in
+Sir Tom's mind disappeared in a moment, and he thought of nothing but
+that baby lying, perhaps tossing uneasily, upon his little bed, his
+mother watching over him; most sacred group on earth to him, who,
+whatever his faults might be, loved them both dearly. He took a candle
+in his hand and, stepping lightly, went up the stairs to the nursery
+door. There was no sound of wailing within, no pitiful little cry to
+tell the tale; all was still and dark. He tried the door softly, but it
+would not open. Then another terror awoke, and for the moment took his
+breath from him. What had happened to the child? Sir Tom suffered enough
+at this moment to have expiated many sins. There came upon him a vision
+of the child extended motionless upon his bed, and his mother by him
+refusing to be comforted. What could it mean? The door looked as if hope
+had departed. He knocked softly, yet imperatively, divided between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> the
+horror of these thoughts and the gentle every-day sentiment which
+forbade any noise at little Tom's door. It was some time before he got
+any reply&mdash;a time which seemed to him interminable. Then he suddenly
+heard Lucy's voice close to the door whispering. There had been no sound
+of any footsteps. Had she been there all the time listening to all his
+appeals and taking no notice?</p>
+
+<p>"Open the door," he said anxiously. "Speak to me. What is the matter? Is
+he ill? Have you sent for the doctor? Let me in."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all shut up and settled for the night," said Lucy, through the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up for the night? Has he been very ill?" Sir Tom cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush, you will wake him; no, not very ill: but I am going to stay
+with him," said the voice inside with a quiver in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, what does this mean? You are concealing something from me. Have
+you had the doctor? Good God, tell me. What is the matter? Can't I see
+my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing&mdash;nothing to be alarmed about," said Lucy from within.
+"He is asleep&mdash;he is&mdash;doing well. Oh! go to bed and don't mind us. I am
+going to stay with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mind you? that is so easy," he cried, with a broken laugh; then
+the silence stealing to his heart, he cried out, "Is the child&mdash;&mdash;?" But
+Sir Tom could not say the word. He shivered, standing outside the closed
+door. The mystery seemed incomprehensible, save on the score of some
+great calamity. The bitterness of death went over him; but then he asked
+himself what reason there could be to conceal from him any terrible
+sudden blow. Lucy would have wanted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> him in such a case, not kept him
+from her. In this dread moment of sudden panic he thought of everything
+but the real cause, which made a more effectual barrier between them
+than that closed door.</p>
+
+<p>"He is well enough now," said Lucy's voice, coming faintly out of the
+darkness. "Oh, indeed, there is nothing the matter. Please go away; go
+to bed. It is so late. I am going to stay with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy," said Sir Tom, "I have never been shut out before. There is
+something you are concealing from me. Let me see him and then you shall
+do as you please."</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause, and then slowly, reluctantly, Lucy opened the
+door. She was still fully dressed as she had been for dinner. There was
+not a particle of colour in her face. Her eyes had a scared look and
+were surrounded by wide circles, as if the orbit had been hollowed out.
+She stood aside to let him pass without a word. The room in which little
+Tom slept was an inner room. There was scarcely any light in either,
+nothing but the faint glimmer of the night-lamp. The sleeping-room was
+hushed and full of the most tranquil quiet, the regular soft breathing
+of the sleeping child in his little bed, and of his nurse by him, who
+was as completely unaware as he of any intrusion. Sir Tom stole in and
+looked at his boy, in the pretty baby attitude of perfect repose, his
+little arms thrown up over his head. The anxiety vanished from his
+heart, but not the troubled sense of something wrong, a mystery which
+altogether baffled him. Mystery had no place here in this little
+sanctuary of innocence. But what did it mean? He stole out again to
+where Lucy stood, scared and silent in her white dress, with a jewelled
+pendant at her neck which gleamed strangely in the half light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He seems quite well now. What was it, and why are you so anxious?" he
+asked. "Did the doctor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There was no need for a doctor. It is only&mdash;myself. I must stay with
+him, he might want me&mdash;&mdash;" And nobody else does, Lucy was about to say,
+but pride and modesty restrained her. Her husband looked at her
+earnestly. He perceived with a curious pang of astonishment that she
+drew away from him, standing as far off as the limited space permitted
+and avoiding his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand it," he said; "there is something underneath; either
+he has been more ill than you will let me know, or&mdash;there is something
+else&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She gave him no answering look, made no wondering exclamation what could
+there be else? as he had hoped; but replied hurriedly, as she had done
+before, "I want to stay with him. I must stay with him for to-night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It was with the most extraordinary sense of some change, which he could
+not fathom or divine, that Sir Tom consented at last to leave his wife
+in the child's room and go to his own. What did it mean? What had
+happened to him, or was about to happen? He could not explain to himself
+the aspect of the slight little youthful figure in her airy white dress,
+with the diamonds still at her throat, careless of the hour and time,
+standing there in the middle of the night, shrinking away from him,
+forlorn and wakeful with her scared eyes. At this hour on ordinary
+occasions Lucy was fast asleep. When she came to see her boy, if society
+had kept her up late, it was in the ease of a dressing-gown, not with
+any cold glitter of ornaments. And to see her shrink and draw herself
+away in that strange repugnance from his touch and shadow confounded
+him. He was not angry, as he might have been in another case, but
+pitiful to the bottom of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> heart. What could have come to Lucy? Half
+a dozen times he turned back on his way to his room. What meaning could
+she have in it? What could have happened to her? Her manifest shrinking
+from him had terrified him, and filled his mind with confusion. But
+controversy of any kind in the child's room at the risk of waking him in
+the middle of the night was impossible, and no doubt, he tried to say to
+himself, it must be some panic she had taken, some sudden alarm for the
+child, justified by reasons which she did not like to explain to him
+till the morning light restored her confidence. Women were so, he had
+often heard: and the women he had known in his youth had certainly been
+so&mdash;unreasoning creatures, subject to their imagination, taking fright
+when no occasion for fright was, incapable of explaining. Lucy had never
+been like this; but yet Lucy, though sensible, was a woman too, and if
+it is not permitted to a woman to take an unreasoning panic about her
+only child, she must be hardly judged indeed. Sir Tom was not a hard
+judge. When he got over the painful sense that there must be something
+more in this than met the eye, he was half glad to find that Lucy was
+like other women&mdash;a dear little fool, not always sensible. He thought
+almost the better of her for it, he said to himself. She would laugh
+herself at her panic, whatever it was, when little Tom woke up fresh and
+fair in the morning light.</p>
+
+<p>With this idea he did what he could to satisfy himself. The situation
+was strange, unprecedented in his experience; but he had many subjects
+of thought on his own part which returned to his mind as the surprise of
+the moment calmed down. He had a great deal to think about. Old
+difficulties which seemed to have passed away for long years were now
+coming back again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> to embarrass and confuse him. "Our pleasant vices are
+made the whips to scourge us," he said to himself. The past had come
+back to him like the opening of a book, no longer merely frivolous and
+amusing, as in the Contessa's talk, touched with all manner of light
+emotions, but bitter, with tragedy in it, and death and desolation.
+Death and life: he had heard enough of the dead to make them seem alive
+again, and of the living to confuse their identity altogether; but he
+had not yet succeeded in clearing up the doubt which had been thrown
+into his mind. That question about Bice's parentage, "English on one
+side," tormented him still. He had made again an attempt to discover the
+truth, and he had been foiled. The probabilities seemed all in favour of
+the solution which at the first word had presented itself to him; but
+still there was a chance that it might not be so.</p>
+
+<p>His mind had been full and troubled enough, when he returned to the
+still house, and thought with compunction how many thoughts which he
+could not share with her he was bringing back to Lucy's side. He could
+not trust them to her, or confide in her, and secure her help, as in
+many other circumstances he would have done without hesitation. But he
+could not do that in this case,&mdash;not so much because she was his wife,
+as because she was so young, so innocent, so unaware of the
+complications of existence. How could she understand the temptations
+that assail a young man in the heyday of life, to whom many indulgences
+appear permissible or venial, which to her limited and innocent soul
+would seem unpardonable sins? To live even for a few years with a
+stainless nature like that of Lucy, in whom there was not even so much
+knowledge as would make the approaches of vice comprehensible, is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> new
+kind of education to the most experienced of men. He had not believed it
+to be possible to be so altogether ignorant of evil as he had found her;
+and how could he explain to her and gain her indulgent consideration of
+the circumstances which had led him into what in her vocabulary would be
+branded with the name of vice? Sir Tom even now did not feel it to be
+vice. It was unfortunate that it had so happened. He had been a fool. It
+was almost inconceivable to him now how for the indulgence of a
+momentary passion he could have placed himself in a position that might
+one day be so embarrassing and disagreeable. He had not behaved ill at
+the moment; it was the woman who had behaved ill. But how in the name of
+wonder to explain all this to Lucy? Lucy, who was not conscious of any
+reason why a man's code of morals should be different from that of a
+woman! When Sir Tom returned to this painful and difficult subject, the
+immediate question as to Lucy's strange conduct died from his mind. It
+became more easy, by dint of repeating it, to believe that a mere
+unreasonable panic about little Tom was the cause of her withdrawal. It
+was foolish, but a loving and lovely foolishness which a man might do
+more than forgive, which he might adore and smile at, as men love to do,
+feeling that for a woman to be thus silly is desirable, a counterpoise
+to the selfishness and want of feeling which are so common in the world.
+But how to make this spotless creature understand that a man might slip
+aside and yet not be a dissolute man, that he might be betrayed into
+certain proceedings which would not perhaps bear the inspection of
+severe judges, and yet be neither vicious nor heartless. This problem,
+after he had considered it in every possible way, Sir Tom finally gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>
+up with a sort of despair. He must keep his secret within his own bosom.
+He must contrive some means of doing what, in case his hypothesis was
+right, would now be clearly a duty, without exciting any suspicion on
+Lucy's part. That, he thought with a compunction, would be easy enough.
+There was no one whom it would cost less trouble to deceive. With these
+thoughts he went to sleep in the room which seemed strangely lonely
+without her presence. Perhaps, however, it was not ungrateful to him to
+be alone to think all those thoughts without the additional sense of
+treachery which must have ensued had he thought them in her presence.
+There was no treachery. He had been all along, he thought to himself, a
+man somewhat sinned against in the matter. To be sure it was
+wrong&mdash;according to all rules of morals, it was necessary to admit this;
+but not more wrong, not so much wrong, as most other men had been. And,
+granting the impropriety of that first step, he had nothing to reproach
+himself with afterwards. In that respect he knew he had behaved both
+liberally and honourably, though he had been deceived. But
+how&mdash;how&mdash;good heavens!&mdash;explain this to Lucy? In the silence of her
+room, where she was not, he actually laughed out to himself at the
+thought; laughed with a sense of all impossibility beyond all laws or
+power of reasoning. What miracle would make her understand? It would be
+easier to move the solid earth than to make her understand.</p>
+
+<p>But it was altogether a very strange night&mdash;such a night as never had
+been passed in that house before; and fearful things were about in the
+darkness, ill dreams, strange shadows of trouble. When Sir Tom woke in
+the morning and found no sign that his wife had been in the room or any
+trace of her, there arose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> once more a painful apprehension in his mind.
+He hurried half-dressed to the nursery to ask for news of the child, but
+was met by the nurse with the most cheerful countenance, with little Tom
+holding by her skirts, in high spirits, and fun of babble and glee.</p>
+
+<p>"He has had a good night, then?" the father said aloud, lifting the
+little fellow to his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"An excellent night, Sir Thomas," the woman said, "and not a bit tired
+with his journey, and so pleased to see all the carriages and the folks
+passing."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom put the boy down with a cloud upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>"What was the cause, then, of Lady Randolph's anxiety last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anxiety, Sir Thomas! Oh no; her ladyship was quite pleased. She do
+always say he is a regular little town-bird, and always better in
+London. And so she said when I was putting of him to sleep. And he never
+stirred, not from the moment he went off till six o'clock this morning,
+the darling. I do think now, Sir Thomas, as we may hope he's taken hold
+of his strength."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom turned away with a blank countenance. What did it mean, then? He
+went back to his dressing-room, and completed his toilette without
+seeing anything of Lucy. The nurse seemed quite unconscious of her
+mistress's vigil by the baby's side. Where, then, had Lucy passed the
+night, and why taken refuge in that nursery? Sir Tom grew pale, and saw
+his own countenance white and full of trouble, as if it had been a
+stranger's, in the glass. He hurried downstairs to the breakfast-room,
+into which the sun was shining. There could not have been a more
+cheerful sight. Some of the flowers brought up from the Hall were on the
+table; there was a merry little fire burning; the usual pile of
+newspapers were arranged for him by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> Williams's care, who felt himself a
+political character too, and understood the necessity of seeing what the
+country was thinking. Jock stood at the window with a book, reading and
+watching the changeful movements outside. But the chair at the head of
+the table was vacant. "Have you seen Lucy?" he said to Jock, with an
+anxiety which he could scarcely disguise. At this moment she came in,
+very guilty, very pale, like a ghost. She gave him no greeting, save a
+sort of attempt at a smile and warning look, calling his attention to
+Williams, who had followed her into the room with that one special dish
+which the butler always condescended to place on the table. Sir Tom sat
+down to his newspapers confounded, not knowing what to think or to say.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2>
+
+<h3>LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy contrived somehow to elude all private intercourse with her husband
+that morning. She was not alone with him for a moment. To his question
+about little Tom and her anxiety of last night she made as slight an
+answer as possible. "Nurse tells me he is all right." "He is quite well
+this morning," Lucy replied with quiet dignity, as if she did not limit
+herself to nurse's observations. She talked a little to Jock about his
+school and how long the holidays lasted, while Sir Tom retired behind
+the shield of his newspapers. He did not get much benefit from them that
+morning, or instruction as to what the country was thinking. He was so
+much more curious to know what his wife<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> was thinking, that simple
+little girl who knew no evil. The most astute of men could not have
+perplexed Sir Tom so much. It seemed to him that something must have
+happened, but what? What was there that any one could betray to her? not
+the discovery that he himself thought he had made. That was impossible.
+If any one else had known it he surely must have known it. It could not
+be anything so unlikely as that.</p>
+
+<p>But Lucy gave him no opportunity of inquiring. She went away to see the
+housekeeper, to look after her domestic affairs; and then Sir Tom made
+sure he should find her in the nursery, whither he took his way, when he
+thought he had left sufficient time for her other occupations. But Lady
+Randolph was not there. He heard from Fletcher, whose disturbed
+countenance seemed to reflect his own, that her mistress had gone out.
+She was the only one of the household who shared his certainty that
+something had happened out of the ordinary routine. Fletcher knew that
+her mistress had not undressed in the usual way; that she had not gone
+to bed. Her own services had not been required either in the morning or
+evening, and she had a strong suspicion that Lady Randolph had passed
+the night on a sofa in the little morning-room upstairs. To Fletcher's
+mind it was not very difficult to account for this. Quarrels between
+husband and wife are common enough. But her consciousness and
+sympathetic significance of look struck Sir Tom with a troubled sense of
+the humour of the situation which broke the spell of his increasing
+agitation, if but for a moment. It was droll to think that Fletcher
+should be in a manner his confidant, the only participator in his woes.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had gone out half to avoid her husband, half with a determination
+to expedite the business which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> she had begun, with very different
+feelings the day before. The streets were very gay and bright on that
+April morning, with all the quickening of life which many arrivals and
+the approach of the season, with all its excitements, brings. Houses
+were opening up, carriages coming out, even the groups of children and
+nurse-maids in the Park making a sensible difference on the other side
+of the great railing. It was very unusual for her to find herself in the
+streets alone, and this increased the curious dazed sensation with which
+she went out among all these real people, so lively and energetic, while
+she was still little more than a dream-woman, possessed by one thought,
+moving along, she knew not how, with a sense of helplessness and
+unprotectedness, which made the novelty all the more sensible to her.
+She went on for what seemed to be a long time, following mechanically
+the line of the pavement, without knowing what she was doing, along the
+long course of Park Lane, and then into the cheerful bustle of
+Piccadilly, where, with a sense of morning ease and leisure, not like
+the artificiality of the afternoon, so many people were coming and
+going, all occupied in business of their own, though so different from
+the bustle of more absorbing business, the haste and obstruction of the
+city. Lucy was not beautiful enough or splendid enough to attract much
+attention from the passers-by in the streets, though one or two
+sympathetic and observant wayfarers were caught by the look of trouble
+in her face. She had never walked about London, and she did not know
+where she was going. But she did not think of this. She thought only on
+one subject,&mdash;about her husband and that other life which he had, of
+which she knew nothing, which might, for anything she could tell, have
+been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> going on side by side with the life she knew and shared. This was
+the point upon which Lucy's mind had given way. The revelation as to
+Bice had startled and shaken her soul to its foundations; but after the
+shock things had fallen into their place again, and she had felt no
+anger, though much pain and pity. Her mind had thrown itself back into
+the unknown past almost tenderly towards the mother who had died long
+ago, to whom perhaps Bice had been what little Tom was now to herself.
+But when the further statement reached her ears all that softening which
+seemed to have swept over her disappeared in a moment. A horrible
+bewilderment had seized her. Was he two men, with two wives, two lives,
+two children dear to him?</p>
+
+<p>It is usual to talk of women as being the most severe judges of each
+other's failures in one particular at least, an accusation which no
+doubt is true of both sexes, though generally applied, like so many
+universal truths, to one. And an injured wife is a raging fury in those
+primitive characterisations which are so common in the world. But the
+ideas which circled like the flakes in a snowstorm through the mind of
+Lucy were of a kind incomprehensible to the vulgar critic who judges
+humanity in the general. Her ways of thinking, her modes of judging were
+as different as possible from those of minds accustomed to
+generalisation and lightly acquainted with the vices of the world. Lucy
+knew no general; she knew three persons involved in an imbroglio so
+terrible that she saw no way out of it. Herself, her husband, another
+woman. Her mind was the mind almost of a child. It had resisted all that
+dismal information which the chatter of society conveys. She knew that
+married people were "not happy" sometimes. She knew that there were
+wretched stories<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> of which she held that they could not be true. She was
+of Desdemona's mind, and did not believe that there was any such woman.
+And when she was suddenly strangely brought face to face with a tragedy
+of her own, that was not enough to turn this innocent and modest girl
+into a raging Eleanor. She was profoundly reasonable in her simple way,
+unapt to blame; thinking no evil, and full of those prepossessions and
+fixed canons of innocence which the world-instructed are incapable not
+only of understanding, but of believing in the existence of. A
+connection between a man and a woman was to her, in one way or other, a
+marriage. Into the reasons, whatever they might have been, that could
+have brought about any such connection without the rites that made it
+sacred, she could not penetrate or inquire. It was a subject too
+terrible, from which her mind retreated with awe and incomprehension.
+Never could it, she felt, have been intended so, at least on the woman's
+side. The mock marriage of romance, the deceits practised on the stage
+and in novels upon the innocent, she believed in without hesitation,
+everything in the world being more comprehensible than impurity. There
+might be villainous men, betrayers, seducers, Lucy could not tell; there
+might be monsters, griffins, fiery dragons, for anything she knew; but a
+woman abandoned by all her natural guard of modesties and reluctances,
+moved by passion, capable of being seduced, she could not understand.
+And still more impossible was it to imagine such sins as the outcome of
+mere levity, without any tragic circumstances; or to conceive of the
+mysteries of life as outraged and intruded upon by folly, or for the
+darker bait of interest. Her heart sickened at such suggestions. She
+knew there were poor women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> in the streets, victims of want and vice,
+poor degraded creatures for whom her heart bled, whom she could not
+think of for the intolerable pang of pity and shame. But all these
+questions had nothing to do with the sudden revelation in which she
+herself had so painful a part. These broken reflections were in her mind
+like the falling of snow. They whirled through the vague world of her
+troubled soul without consequence or coherence; all that had nothing to
+do with her. Her husband was no villain, and the woman&mdash;the beautiful,
+smiling woman, so much fairer, greater, more important than Lucy, she
+was no wretched, degraded creature. What was she then? His wife&mdash;his
+true wife? And if so, what was Lucy? Her brain reeled and the world went
+round her in a sickening whirl. The circumstances were too terrible for
+resentment. What could anger do, or any other quick-springing
+short-lived emotion? What did it matter even what Lucy felt, what any
+one felt? It was far beyond that. Here was fact which no emotion could
+undo. A wife and a child on either side, and what was to come of it; and
+how could life go on with this to think of, never to be forgotten, not
+to be put aside for a moment? It brought existence to a stand-still. She
+did not know what was the next step she must take, or how she could go
+back, or what she must say to the man who, perhaps, was not her husband,
+or how she could continue under that roof, or arrange the commonest
+details of life. There was but one thing clear before her, the business
+which she was bent on hurrying to a conclusion now.</p>
+
+<p>She found herself in the bustle of the streets that converge upon the
+circus at the end of Piccadilly as she thus went on thinking, and there
+Lucy looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> about her in some dismay, finding that she had reached the
+limit of the little world she knew. She was afraid of plunging alone
+into those bustling ways, and almost afraid of the only other
+alternative, which, however, she adopted, of calling a cab and giving
+the driver the address of Mr. Chervil in the city. To do this, and to
+mount into the uneasy jingling cab, gave her a little shock of the
+unaccustomed, which was like a breach of morals to Lucy. It seemed,
+though she had been independent enough in more important matters, the
+most daring step she had ever taken on her own responsibility. But the
+matter of the cab, and the aspect of this unknown world into which it
+conveyed her, occupied her mind a little, and stopped the tumult of her
+thoughts. She seemed scarcely to know what she had come about when she
+found herself set down at the door of Mr. Chervil's office, and
+ascending the grimy staircase, meeting people who stared at her, and
+wondered what a lady could be doing there. Mr. Chervil himself was
+scarcely less surprised. He said, "Lady Randolph!" with a cry of
+astonishment when she was shown in. And she found some difficulty, which
+she had not thought of, in explaining her business. He reminded her that
+she had given him the same instructions yesterday when he had the honour
+of waiting upon her in Park Lane. He was far more respectful to Lady
+Randolph than he had been to Lucy Trevor in her first attempts to carry
+out her father's will.</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you," he said, "I have not neglected your wishes. I have
+written to Rushton on the subject. We both know by this time, Lady
+Randolph, that when you have made up your mind&mdash;and you have the most
+perfect right to do so&mdash;though we may not like it, nor think it anything
+but a squandering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> of money, still we are aware we have no right to
+oppose&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not that," said Lucy faintly. "It is that the circumstances have
+changed since yesterday. I want to&mdash;I should like to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Give up your intention? I am delighted to hear it. For you must allow
+me to say, as a man of business&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not that," Lucy repeated. "I want to increase the sum. I find the
+young lady has a claim&mdash;and I want it to be done immediately, without
+the loss of a day. Oh, I am more, much more in earnest about it than I
+was yesterday. I want it settled at once. If it is not settled at once
+difficulties might arise. I want to double the amount. Could you not
+telegraph to Mr. Rushton instead of writing? I have heard that people
+telegraph about business."</p>
+
+<p>"Double the amount! Have you thought over this? Have you had Sir
+Thomas's advice? It is a very important matter to decide so suddenly.
+Pardon me, Lady Randolph, but you must know that if you bestow at this
+rate you will soon not have very much left to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that would be a comfort!" cried Lucy; and then there came over her
+the miserable thought that all the circumstances were changed, and to
+have a subject of disagreement between her husband and herself removed
+would not matter now. Once it had been the only subject, now&mdash;&mdash; The
+suddenness of this realisation of the change filled her eyes with tears.
+But she restrained herself with a great effort. "Yes," she said, "I
+should be glad, very glad, to have done all my father wished&mdash;for many
+things might happen. I might die&mdash;and then who would do it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We need not discuss that very unlikely contingency," said Mr. Chervil.
+(He said to himself: Sir Tom wouldn't, that is certain.) "But even under
+Mr. Trevor's will," he added, "this will be a very large sum to
+give&mdash;larger, don't you think, than he intended; unless there is some
+very special claim?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a special claim," cried Lucy, "and papa made no conditions. I was
+to be free in doing it. He left me quite free."</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt," the lawyer said. "I need not repeat my opinion on the
+subject, but you are certainly quite free. And you have brought me the
+young lady's name, no doubt, Lady Randolph? Yesterday, you recollect you
+were uncertain about her name. It is important to be quite accurate in
+an affair of so much importance. She is a lucky young lady. A great many
+would like to learn the secret of pleasing you to this extent."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy looked at him with a gasp. She did not understand the rest of his
+speech or care to hear it. Her name? What was her name? If she had not
+known it before, still less did she know it now.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried, "what does it matter about a name? People, girls,
+change their names. She is Beatrice. You might leave a blank and it
+could be filled up after. She is going to&mdash;marry. She is&mdash;must
+everything be delayed for that?&mdash;and yet it is of no importance&mdash;no
+importance that I can see," Lucy said, wringing her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Lady Randolph! Let me say that to give a very large sum of
+money to a person with whose very name you are unacquainted&mdash;forgive me,
+but in your own interests I must speak. Let me consult with Sir
+Thomas."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I do not wish my husband to be consulted. He has promised me not to
+interfere, and it is my business, not his," Lucy said, with a flush of
+excitement. And though there was much further conversation, and the
+lawyer did all he could to move her, it need not be said that Lucy was
+immovable. He went down to the door with her to put her into her
+carriage, as he supposed, not unwilling even in that centre of practical
+life to have the surrounding population see on what confidential terms
+he was with this fine young lady. But when he perceived that no carriage
+was there, and Lucy, not without a tremor, as of a very strange request,
+and one which might shock the nerves of her companion, asked him to get
+a cab for her, Mr. Chervil's astonishment knew no bounds.</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought how far it was," Lucy said, faltering and apologetic.
+"I thought I might perhaps have been able to walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Walk!" he cried, "from Park Lane?" with consternation. He stood looking
+after her as she drove away, saying to himself that the old man had
+undoubtedly been mad, and that this poor young thing was evidently
+cracked too. He thought it would be best to write to Sir Thomas, who was
+not Sir Tom to Mr. Chervil; but if it was going to happen that the poor
+young lady should show what he had no doubt was the hereditary weakness,
+Mr. Chervil could not restrain a devout wish that it might show itself
+decisively before half her fortune was alienated. No Sir Thomas in
+existence would carry out a father-in-law's will of such an insane
+character as that.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Lucy jingled home in her cab, feeling more giddy, more
+heartsick than ever. There now came upon her with more potency than ever,
+since<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> now it was the matter immediately before her, the question what was
+she to do? What was she to do? She had eluded Sir Tom on the night before,
+and obliged him to accept, without any demand for explanation, her strange
+retirement. But now what was she to do? Little Tom would not answer for a
+pretext again. She must either resume the former habits of her life,
+subdue herself entirely, meet him with a cheerful face, ignore the sudden
+chasm that had been made between them&mdash;or&mdash;&mdash; She looked with terrified
+eyes at this blank wall of impossibility, and could see no way through it.
+Live with him as of old, in a pretence of union where no union could be,
+or explain how it was that she could not do so. Both these things were
+impossible&mdash;impossible!&mdash;and what, then, was she to do?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The little house in Mayfair was very bright and gay. What conventional
+words are those! It was nothing of the kind. It was dim and poetical. No
+light that could be kept out of it was permitted to come in. The quality
+of light in London, even in April, is not exquisite, and perhaps the
+Contessa's long curtains and all the delicate draperies which she loved
+to hang about her were more desirable to see than that very poor thing
+in the way of daylight which exists in Mayfair. Bice, who was a child of
+light, objected a little to this shutting out, and she would have
+objected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> strongly, being young enough to love the sunshine for itself,
+but for the exquisite reason which the Contessa gave for the interdict
+she had put upon it. "Cara," she said, "if you were all white and red
+like those English girls (it is <i>tant soit peu</i> vulgar between
+ourselves, and not half so effective as your <i>blanc mat</i>), then you
+might have as much light as you pleased; but to put yourself in
+competition with them on their own ground&mdash;no, Bice mia. But in this
+light there is nothing to desire."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think, then, Madama," said Bice, piqued, "that no light at
+all would be better still, and not to be seen the best&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Darling!" said the Contessa, with that smile which embodied so many
+things. It answered for encouragement and applause and gentle reproof,
+and many other matters which words could but indifferently say, and it
+was one of her favourite ways of turning aside a question to which she
+did not think fit to give any reply. And Bice swallowed her pique and
+asked no more. The lamps were all shaded like the windows in this bower
+of beauty. There was scarcely a corner that was not draped with some
+softly-falling, richly-tinted tissue. A delicate perfume breathed
+through this half-lighted world. Thus, though neither gay nor bright, it
+realised the effect which in our day, in the time when everything was
+different, was meant by these words. It was a place for pleasure, for
+intimate society, and conversation, and laughter, and wit; for music and
+soft words; and, above all, for the setting off of beauty, and the
+expression of admiration. The chairs were soft, the carpets like moss;
+there were flowers everywhere betraying themselves by their odour, even
+when you could not see them. The Con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>tessa had spared no expense in
+making the little place&mdash;which she laughed at softly, calling it her
+doll's house&mdash;as perfect as it could be made.</p>
+
+<p>And here the two ladies began to live a life very different from that of
+the Randolphs' simple dwelling. Bice, it need scarcely be said, had
+fulfilled all the hopes of her patroness, else had she never been
+produced with such bewildering mystery, yet deftness, to dazzle the eyes
+of young Montjoie at the Hall. She had realised all the Contessa's
+expectations, and justified the bills which Madame di Forno-Populo
+looked upon with a certain complacency as they came in, as something
+creditable to her, as proof of her magnificence of mind and devotion to
+the best interests of her <i>protégée</i>. And now they had entered upon
+their campaign. It had annoyed her in this new beginning, amid all its
+excitements and hopes, to be called upon by Sir Tom for explanations
+which it was not to her interest to give; which she had, indeed, when
+she deliberately sowed the seed of mystery, resolved not to give. To
+allow herself to be brought to book was not in her mind at all, and she
+was clever enough to mystify even Sir Tom, and keep his mind in a
+suspense and uncertainty very painful to him. But she had managed to
+elude his inquiries, and though it had changed the demeanour of Sir Tom,
+and entirely done away with the careless good humour which had been so
+pleasant, still she felt herself now independent of the Randolphs, and
+had begun her life very cheerfully and with every promise of great
+enjoyment. The Contessa "received" every day and all day long, from the
+time when she was visible, which was not, however, at a very early hour.
+About four the day of the ladies began. Sometimes, indeed, before that
+hour two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> favoured persons, not always the same, who had accompanied
+them home from the Park, would be admitted to share a dainty little
+luncheon. Bice now rode at the hour when everybody rides, with the
+Contessa, who was a graceful horsewoman, and never looked to greater
+advantage than in the saddle. The two beautiful Italians, as they were
+called, had in this way, within a week of their arrival, caused a
+sensation in the Row, and already their days overflowed with amusement
+and society. Few ladies visited the little house in Mayfair, but then
+they were not much wanted there. The Contessa was not one of those
+vulgar practitioners who profess in words their preference for men's
+society. But she said, so sweetly that it was barbarous to laugh (though
+many of her friends did so), that, having one close companion of her own
+sex, her dearest Bice, who was everything to her, she was independent of
+the feminine element. "And then they are so busy, these ladies of
+fashion; they have no leisure; they have so many things to do. It is a
+thraldom, a heavy thraldom, though the chains are gilded." "Shall we see
+you at Lady Blank Blank's to-night? You must be going to the Duchess's?
+Of course we shall meet at the Highton Grandmodes!" "Ah!" cried the
+Contessa, spreading out her white hands, "it is fatiguing even only to
+hear of it. We love our ease, Bice and I; we go nowhere where we are
+expected to go."</p>
+
+<p>The gentlemen to whom this speech was made laughed "consumedly." They
+even made little signs to each other behind back, and exploded again.
+When she looked round at them they said the Contessa was a perfect
+mimic, better than anything on the stage, and that she had perfectly
+caught the tone of that old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> Lady Barbe Montfichet, who went everywhere
+(whom, indeed, the Contessa did not know), and laughed again. But it was
+not at the Contessa's power of mimicry that they laughed. It was at the
+delicious falsehood of her pretensions, and the thought that if she
+pleased she might appear at the Highton Grandmodes, or meet the best
+society at Lady Blank Blank's. These gentlemen knew better; and it was a
+joke of which they never tired. They were not, perhaps, the most
+desirable class of people in society who had the <i>entrée</i> in the
+Contessa's little house; they were old acquaintances who had known her
+in her progress through the world, mingled with a few young men whom
+they brought with them, partly because the boys admired these two lovely
+foreign women; partly because, with a certain easy benevolence that cost
+them nothing, they wanted the Contessa's little girl, whoever she was,
+to have her chance. But few, if any, of these astute gentlemen, young or
+old, was in any doubt as to the position she held.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was she altogether without female visitors. Lady Anastasia, that
+authority of the press, who made the public acquainted with the
+movements of distinguished strangers and was not afraid of compromising
+herself, sometimes made one at the little parties and enjoyed them much.
+The Dowager Lady Randolph's card was left at the Contessa's door, as was
+that of the Duchess, who had looked upon her with such consternation at
+Lucy's party in the country. What these ladies meant it would be curious
+to know. Perhaps it was a lingering touch of kindness, perhaps a wish to
+save their credit in case it should happen by some bewildering turn of
+fortune that La Forno-Populo might come uppermost again. Would she dare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>
+to have herself put forward at the Drawing-room was what these ladies
+asked each other with bated breath. It was possible, nay, quite likely,
+that she might succeed in doing so, for there were plenty of
+good-natured people who would not refuse if she asked them, and of
+course so close a scrutiny was not kept upon foreigners as upon native
+subjects; while, as a matter of fact, the Dowager Lady Randolph was
+right in her assertion that, so far as could be proved, there was
+nothing absolutely fatal to a woman's reputation in the history of the
+Contessa. Would she have the courage to dare that ordeal, or would she
+set up a standard of revolt, and declare herself superior to that
+hall-mark of fashion? She was clever enough, all the people who knew her
+allowed, for either <i>rôle</i>; either to persuade some good woman, innocent
+and ignorant enough, to be responsible for her, and elude the researches
+of the Lord Chamberlain, or else to retreat bravely in gay rebellion and
+declare that she was not rich enough, nor her diamonds good enough, for
+that noonday display. For either part the Contessa was clever enough.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Bice had all the enjoyment, without any of the drawbacks of
+this new life. It was far more luxurious, splendid, and even amusing,
+than the old existence of the watering-places. To ride in the Park and
+feel herself one of that brilliant crowd, to be surrounded by a
+succession of lively companions, to have always "something going on,"
+that delight of youth, and a continual incense of admiration rising
+around her enough to have turned a less steady head, filled Bice's cup
+with happiness. But perhaps the most penetrating pleasure of all was
+that of having carried out the Contessa's expectations and fulfilled her
+hopes. Had not Madame di Forno-Populo been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> satisfied with the beauty of
+her charge, none of these expenses would have been incurred, and this
+life of many delights would never have been; so that the soothing and
+exhilarating consciousness of having indeed deserved and earned her
+present well-being was in Bice's mind. The future, too, opened before
+her a horizon of boundless hope. To have everything she now had and
+more, along with that one element of happiness which had always been
+wanting, the certainty that it would last, was the happy prospect within
+her grasp. Her head was so steady, and the practical sense of the
+advantage so great, that the excitement and pleasure did not intoxicate
+her; but everything was delightful, novel, breathing confidence and
+hope. The guests at the table, where she now took her place, equal in
+importance to the Contessa herself, all flattered and did their best to
+please her. They amused her, either because they were clever or because
+they were ridiculous&mdash;Bice, with youthful cynicism, did not much mind
+which it was. When they went to the opera, a similar crowd would flutter
+in and out of the box, and appear afterwards to share the gay little
+supper and declare that no <i>prime-donne</i> on the stage could equal the
+two lovely blending voices of the Contessa and her ward. To sit late
+talking, laughing, singing, surrounded by all this worship, and to wake
+up again to a dozen plans and the same routine of pleasure next day,
+what heart of seventeen (and she was not quite seventeen) could resist
+it? One thing, however, Bice missed amid all this. It was the long
+gallery at the Hall, the nursery in Park Lane, little Tom crowing upon
+her shoulder, digging his hands into her hair, and Lucy looking on&mdash;many
+things, yet one. She missed this, and laughed at her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>self, and said she
+was a fool&mdash;but missed it all the same. Lucy had come, as in duty bound,
+and paid her call. She had been very grave&mdash;not like herself. And Sir
+Tom was very grave; looking at her she could not tell how; no longer
+with his old easy good humour, with a look of criticism and anxiety&mdash;an
+uneasy look, as if he had something to say to her and could not. Bice
+felt instinctively that if he ever said that something it would be
+disagreeable, and avoided his presence. But it troubled her to lose this
+side of her landscape, so to speak. The new was entrancing, but the old
+was a loss. She missed it, and thought herself a fool for missing it,
+and laughed, but felt it the more.</p>
+
+<p>The only member of the household with whom she remained on the same easy
+terms as before was Jock, who came to the house in Mayfair at hours when
+nobody else was admitted, though he was quite unaware of the privilege
+he possessed. He came in the morning when Bice, too young to want the
+renewal which the Contessa sought in bed and in the mysteries of the
+toilette, sometimes fretted a little indoors at the impossibility of
+getting the air into her lungs, and feeling the warmth of the morning
+light. She was so glad to see him that Jock was deeply flattered, and
+sweet thoughts of the most boundless foolishness got in to his head.
+Bice ran to her room, and found one of her old hats which she had worn
+in the country, and tied a veil over her face, and came flying
+downstairs like a bird.</p>
+
+<p>"We may go out and run in the Park so long as no one sees us," she
+cried. "Oh, come; nobody can see me through this veil."</p>
+
+<p>"And what good will the air do you through that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> veil?" said Jock
+contemptuously. "You can't see the sun through it; it makes the whole
+world black. I would not go out if I were you with that thing over my
+face, the only chance I had for a walk. I'd rather stay at home; but
+perhaps you like it. Girls are such&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What? You are going to swear, and if you swear I will simply turn my
+back. Well, perhaps you didn't mean it. But I mean it. Boys are
+such&mdash;&mdash; What? little prudes, like the old duennas in the books, and that
+is what you are. You think things are wrong that are not wrong. But it
+is to an Englishman the right thing to grumble," Bice said, with a smile
+of reconciliation as they stepped into the street. On that sweet morning
+even the street was delightful. It restored them to perfect satisfaction
+with each other as they made their way to the Park, which stretched its
+long lines of waving grass almost within sight.</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose," said Jock, after a pause, "that you like being here?"</p>
+
+<p>Bice gave him a look half friendly, half disdainful. "I like living,"
+she said. "In the country in what you call the quiet, it is only to be
+half alive: we are always living here. But you never come to see us
+ride, to be among the crowd. You are never at the opera. You don't talk
+as those others do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Montjoie, for instance," said Jock, with a strange sense of jealousy
+and pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Montjoie. He is what you call fun; he has always something
+to say, <i>bêtises</i> perhaps, but what does that matter? He makes me
+laugh."</p>
+
+<p>"Makes you laugh! at his wit perhaps?" cried Jock. "Oh, what things
+girls are! Laugh at what a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> duffer like that, an ass, a fellow that has
+not two ideas, says."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a great many ideas," said Bice; "you are clever&mdash;you know a
+number of things; but you are not so amusing, and you are not so
+good-natured. You scold me; and you say another, a friend, is an
+ass&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He was never any friend of mine," said Jock, with a hot flush of anger.
+"That fellow! I never had anything to say to him."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Bice, with a smiling disdain which cut poor Jock like a
+knife. "I made a mistake, that was not possible, for he is a man and you
+are only a boy."</p>
+
+<p>To describe Jock's feelings under this blow would be beyond the power of
+words. He inferior to Montjoie! he only a boy while the other was a man!
+Rage was nothing in such an emergency. He looked at her with eyes that
+were almost pathetic in their sense of unappreciated merit, and, deeper
+sting still, of folly preferred. In spite of himself, Locksley Hall and
+those musings which have become, by no fault of the poet's, the
+expression of a despair which is half ridiculous, came into his mind. He
+did not see the ridicule. "Having known me to decline"&mdash;his eyes became
+moist with a dew of pain&mdash;"If you think that," he said slowly,
+"Bice&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bice answered only with a laugh. "Let us make haste; let us run," she
+cried. "It is so early, no one will see us. Why don't you ride, it is
+like flying? And to run is next best." She stopped after a flight, swift
+as a bird, along an unfrequented path which lay still in the April
+sunshine, the lilac bushes standing up on each side all athrill and
+rustling with the spring, with eyes that shone like stars, and that
+unusual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> colour which made her radiant. Jock, though he could have gone
+on much faster, was behind her for the moment, and came up after her,
+more occupied by the shame of being outrun and laughed at than by
+admiration of the girl and her beauty. She was more conscious of her own
+splendour of bloom than he was: though Bice was not vain, and he was
+more occupied by the thought of her than by any other thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Girls never think of being able to stay," he said, "you do only what
+can be done with a rush; but that's not running. If you had ever seen
+the School Mile&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, I want to see no miles," cried Bice; "this is what I like, to
+have all my fingers tingle." Then she suddenly calmed down in a moment,
+and walked along demurely as the paths widened out to a more frequented
+thoroughfare. "What I want," she said, "is little Tom upon my shoulder,
+and to hear him scream and hold by my hair. Milady does not look as if I
+pleased her now. She has come once only and looked&mdash;not as she once
+looked. But she is still kind. She has made this ball for me&mdash;for me
+only. Did you know? do you dance then, if nothing else? Oh, you shall
+dance since the ball is for me. I love dancing&mdash;to distraction; but not
+once have I had a single turn, not once, since we came to England," Bice
+said with a sigh, which rose into a laugh in another moment, as she
+added, "It will be for me to come out, as you say, to be introduced into
+society, and after that we shall go everywhere, the Contessa says."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SIEGE OF LONDON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Contessa, but perhaps not more than half, believed what she said.
+Everything was on the cards in this capricious society of England, which
+is not governed by the same absolute laws as in other places. It seemed
+to be quite possible that she and her charge might be asked everywhere
+after their appearance at the ball which, she should take care to tell
+everybody, Lucy was giving for Bice. It was always possible in England
+that some leader of fashion, some great lady whose nod gave distinction,
+might take pity upon Bice's youth and think it hard that she should
+suffer, even if without any relentings towards the Contessa. And Madame
+di Forno-Populo was very strong on the point, already mentioned, that
+there was nothing against her which could give any one a right to shut
+her out. The mere suggestion that the doors of society might or could be
+closed in her face would have driven another woman into frantic
+indignation, but the Contessa had passed that stage. She took the matter
+quite reasonably, philosophically. There was no reason. She had been
+poor and put to many shifts. Sometimes she had been compelled to permit
+herself to be indebted to a man in a way no woman should allow herself
+to be. She was quite aware of this, and was not, therefore, angry with
+society for its reluctance to receive her; but she said to herself, with
+great energy, that there was no cause. She was not hopeless even of the
+drawing-room, nor of getting the Duchess herself, a model of all the
+virtues,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> to present her, if the ball went off well at Park Lane. She
+said to herself that there was nothing on her mind which would make her
+shrink from seeking admission to the presence of the Queen. She was not
+afraid even of that royal lady's penetrating eye. Shiftiness, poverty,
+debts, modes of getting money that were, perhaps, equivocal, help too
+lightly accepted, all these are bad enough; but they are not in a woman
+the unpardonable sin. And a caprice in English society was always
+possible. The young beauty of Bice might attract the eye of some one
+whose notice would throw down all obstacles; or it might touch the heart
+of some woman who was so high placed as to be able to defy prejudice.
+And after that, of course, they would go everywhere, and every
+prognostication of success and triumph would come true.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, if things did not go on so well as this, the Contessa had
+furnished herself with what to say. She would tell Bice that the women
+were jealous, that she had been pursued by their hostility wherever she
+went, that a woman who secured the homage of men was always an object of
+their spite and malice, that it was a sort of persecution which the
+lovely had to bear from the unlovely in all regions. Knowing that it was
+fully more likely that she should fail than succeed, the Contessa had
+carefully provided herself with this ancient plea and would not hesitate
+to use it if necessary; but these were <i>grands moyens</i>, not to be
+resorted to save in case of necessity. She would herself have been
+willing enough to dispense with recognition and live as she was doing
+now, among the old and new admirers who had never failed her, enjoying
+everything except those dull drawing-rooms and heavy parties for which
+her soul longed, yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> which she despised heartily, which she would have
+undergone any humiliation to get admission to, and turned to ridicule
+afterwards with the best grace in the world. She despised them, but
+there was nothing that could make up for absence from them; they alone
+had in their power the <i>cachet</i>, the symbol of universal acceptance. All
+these things depended upon the ball at Park Lane. Something had been
+going on there since she separated herself from that household which the
+Contessa did not understand. Sir Tom, indeed, was comprehensible. The
+discovery which he thought he had made, the things which she had allowed
+him to divine, and even permitted him to prove for himself without
+making a single assertion on her own part, were quite sufficient to
+account for his changed looks. But Lucy, what had she found out? It was
+not likely that Sir Tom had communicated his discovery to her. Lucy's
+demeanour confused the Contessa more than words can say. The simple
+creature had grown into a strange dignity, which nothing could explain.
+Instead of the sweet compliance and almost obedience of former days, the
+deference of the younger to the older woman, Lucy looked at her with
+grave composure, as of an equal or superior. What had happened to the
+girl? And it was so important that she should be friendly now and kept
+in good humour! Madame di Forno-Populo put forth all her attractions,
+gave her dear Lucy her sweetest looks and words, but made very little
+impression. This gave her a little tremor when she thought of it; for
+all her plans for the future were connected with the ball on the 26th at
+Park Lane.</p>
+
+<p>This ball appeared to Lucy, too, the most important crisis in her life.
+She had made a sacrifice which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> was heroic that nothing might go wrong
+upon that day. Somehow or other, she could not tell how, for the
+struggle had been desperate within her, she had subdued the emotion in
+her own heart and schooled herself to an acceptance of the old routine
+of her life until that event should be over. All her calculations went
+to that date, but not beyond. Life seemed to stop short there. It had
+been arranged and settled with a light heart in the pleasure of knowing
+that the Contessa had taken a house for herself, and that, consequently,
+Lucy was henceforward to be once more mistress of her own. She had been
+so ashamed of her own pleasure in this prospect, so full of compunctions
+in respect to her guest, whose departure made her happy, that she had
+thrown herself with enthusiasm into this expedient for making it up to
+them. She had said it was to be Bice's ball. When the Dowager's
+revelation came upon her like a thunderbolt, as soon as she was able to
+think at all, she had thought of this ball with a depth of emotion which
+was strange to be excited by so frivolous a matter. It was a pledge of
+the warmest friendship, but those for whom it was to be, had turned out
+the enemies of her peace, the destroyers of her happiness: and it was
+high festival and gaiety, but her heart was breaking. Lady Randolph,
+afraid of what she had done, yet virulent against the Contessa, had
+suggested that it should be given up. It was easy to do such a thing&mdash;a
+few notes, a paragraph in the newspaper, a report of a cousin dead, or a
+sudden illness; any excuse would do. But Lucy was not to be so moved.
+There was in her soft bosom a sense of justice which was almost stern,
+and through all her troubles she remembered that Bice, at least, had a
+claim upon all Sir Thomas Randolph could do for her, such as nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span>
+else could have. Under what roof but his should she make her first
+appearance in the world? Lucy held sternly with a mixture of bitterness
+and tenderness to Bice's rights. In all this misery Bice was without
+blame, the only innocent person, the one most wronged, more wronged even
+than was Lucy herself. She it was who would have to bear the deepest
+stigma, without any fault of hers. Whatever could be done to advance her
+(as she counted advancement), to make her happy (as she reckoned
+happiness) it was right she should have it done. Lucy suppressed her own
+wretchedness heroically for this cause. She bore the confusion that had
+come into her life without saying a word for the sake of the other young
+creature who was her fellow-sufferer. How hard it was to do she could
+not have told, nor did any one suspect, except, vaguely, Sir Tom
+himself, who perceived some tragic mischief that was at work without
+knowing how it had come there or what it was. He tried to come to some
+explanation, but Lucy would have no explanation. She avoided him as much
+as it was possible to do. She had nothing to say when he questioned her.
+Till the 26th! Nothing, she was resolved, should interfere with that.
+And then&mdash;but not the baby in the nursery knew less than Lucy what was
+to happen then.</p>
+
+<p>They had come to London on the 2d, so that this day of fate was three
+weeks off, and during that time the Contessa had made no small progress
+in her affairs. Three weeks is a long time in a house which is open to
+visitors, even if only from four o'clock in the afternoon, every day,
+and without intermission; and indeed that was not the whole, for the
+ladies were accessible elsewhere than in the house in Mayfair. It had
+pleased the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> Contessa not to be visible when Lord Montjoie called at a
+somewhat early hour on the very earliest day. He was a young man who
+knew the world, and not one to have things made too easy for him. He was
+all aflame accordingly to gain the <i>entrée</i> thus withheld, and when the
+Contessa appeared for the first time in the Park, with her lovely
+companion, Montjoie was eagerly on the watch, and lost no time in
+claiming acquaintance, and joining himself to her train. He was one of
+the two who were received to luncheon two or three days afterwards. When
+the ladies went to the opera he was on thorns till he could join them.
+He was allowed to go home with them for one song, and to come in next
+afternoon for a little music. And from that time forward there was no
+more question of shutting him out. He came and went almost when he
+pleased, as a young man may be permitted to do when he has become one of
+the intimates in an easy-going, pleasure-loving household, where there
+is always "something going on." He was so little flattered that never
+during all these days and nights had he once been allowed to repeat the
+performance upon which he prided himself, and with which he had followed
+up the singing of the Contessa and Bice at the Hall. The admirable lady
+whom they had met there, with her two daughters, had been eager that
+Lord Montjoie should display this accomplishment of his, and the girls
+had been enchanted by his singing; but the Contessa, though not so
+irreproachable, would have none of it. And Bice laughed freely at the
+young nobleman who had so much to bestow, and they both threw at him
+delicate little shafts of wit, which never pierced his stolid
+complacency, though he was quite quick withal to see the fun when other
+gentlemen looked at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> each other over the Contessa's shoulder, and burst
+into little peals of laughter at her little speeches about the Highton
+Grandmodes and other such exclusive houses. Montjoie knew all about La
+Forno-Populo. "But yet that little Bice," he said, "don't you know?" No
+one like her had come within Montjoie's ken. He knew all about the girls
+in blue or in pink or in white, who asked him to sing. But Bice, who
+laughed at his accomplishment and at himself, and was so saucy to him,
+and made fun of him, he allowed, to his face, that was very different.
+He described her in terms that were not chivalrous, and his own emotions
+in words still less ornate; but before the fortnight was over the best
+judges declared among themselves that, by Jove, the Forno-Populo had
+done it this time, that the little one knew how to play her cards, that
+it was all up with Montjoie, poor little beggar, with other elegances of
+a similar kind. The man who had taken the Contessa's house for her, and
+a great deal of trouble about all her arrangements, whom she described
+as a very old friend, and whose rueful sense that house-agents and
+livery stables might eventually look to him if she had no success in her
+enterprise did not impair his fidelity, went so far as to speak
+seriously to Montjoie on the subject. "Look here, Mont," he said, "don't
+you think you are going it rather too strong? There is not a thing
+against the girl, who is as nice as a girl can be, but then the aunt,
+you know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad she is the aunt," said Montjoie. "I thought she was the
+mother: and I always heard you were devoted to her."</p>
+
+<p>"We are very old friends," said this disinterested adviser. "There's
+nothing I would not do for her. She is the best soul out, and was the
+loveliest woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> I can tell you&mdash;the girl is nothing to what she was.
+Aunt or cousin, I am not sure what is the relationship; but that's not
+the question. Don't you think you are coming it rather strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I've got my wits about me," said Montjoie; and then he added,
+rather reluctantly&mdash;for it is the fashion of his kind to be vulgar and
+to keep what generosity or nobleness there is in them carefully out of
+sight&mdash;"and I've no relations, don't you know? I've got nobody to please
+but myself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is a piece of luck anyhow," the Mentor said; and he told the
+Contessa the gist of the conversation next morning, who was highly
+pleased by the news.</p>
+
+<p>The curious point in all this was that Bice had not the least objection
+to Montjoie. She was a clever girl and he was a stupid young man, but
+whether it was that her entirely unawakened heart had no share at all in
+the matter, or that her clear practical view of affairs influenced her
+sentiments as well as her mind, it is certain that she was quite pleased
+with her fate, and ready to embrace it without the least sense that it
+was a sacrifice or anything but the happiest thing possible. He amused
+her, as she had said to Jock. He made her laugh, most frequently at
+himself; but what did that matter? He had a kind of good looks, and that
+good nature which is the product of prosperity and well-being, and a
+sense of general superiority to the world. Perhaps the girl saw no man
+of a superior order to compare him with; but, as a matter of fact, she
+was perfectly satisfied with Montjoie. Mr. Derwentwater and Jock were
+more ridiculous to her than he was, and were less in harmony with
+everything she had previously known. Their work, their intellectual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>
+occupations, their cleverness and aspirations were out of her world
+altogether. The young man-about-town who had nothing to do but amuse
+himself, who was always "knocking about," as he said, whose business was
+pleasure, was the kind of being with whom she was acquainted. She had no
+understanding of the other kind. He who had been her comrade in the
+country, whose society had amused her there, and for whom she had a sort
+of half-condescending affection, was droll to her beyond measure, with
+his ambitions and great ideas as to what he was to do. He, too, made her
+laugh; but not as Montjoie did. She laughed, though this would have
+immeasurably surprised Jock, with much less sympathy than she had with
+the other, upon whom he looked with so much contempt. They were both
+silly to Bice,&mdash;silly as, in her strange experience, she thought it
+usual and natural for men to be,&mdash;but Montjoie's manner of being silly
+was more congenial to her than the other. He was more in tune with the
+life she had known. Hamburg, Baden, Wiesbaden, and all the other Bads,
+even Monaco, would have suited Montjoie well enough. The trade of
+pleasure-making has its affinities like every other, and a tramp on his
+way from fair to fair is more <i>en rapport</i> with a duke than the world
+dreams of. Thus Bice found that the young English marquis, with more
+money than he knew how to spend, was far more like the elegant
+adventurer living on his wits, than all those intervening classes of
+society, to whom life is a more serious, and certainly a much less
+festive and costly affair. She understood him far better. And instead of
+being, as Lucy thought, a sacrifice, an unfortunate victim sold to a
+loveless marriage for the money and the advantages it would bring, Bice
+went on very gaily, her heart as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> unmoved as possible, to what she felt
+to be a most congenial fate.</p>
+
+<p>And they all waited for the 26th and the ball with growing excitement.
+It would decide many matters. It would settle what was to be the
+character of the Contessa's campaign. It might reintroduce her into
+society under better auspices than ever, or it might&mdash;but there was no
+need to foretell anything unpleasant. And very likely it would conclude
+at the same source as it began, Bice's triumph&mdash;a <i>débutante</i> who was
+already the affianced bride of the young Marquis of Montjoie, the
+greatest <i>parti</i> in the kingdom. The idea was like wine, and went to the
+Contessa's head.</p>
+
+<p>She had in this interval of excitement a brief little note from Lucy,
+which startled her beyond measure for the moment. It was to ask the
+exact names of Bice. "You shall know in a few days why I ask, but it is
+necessary they should be written down in full and exactly," Lucy said.
+The Contessa had half forgotten, in the new flood of life about her,
+what was in Lucy's power, and the further advantage that might come of
+their relations, and she did not think of this even now, but felt with
+momentary tremor as if some snare lay concealed under these simple
+words. After a moment's consideration, however, she wrote with a bold
+and flowing hand:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"SWEET LUCY&mdash;The child's name is Beatrice Ersilia. You cannot, I am
+sure, mean her anything but good by such a question. She has not been
+properly introduced, I know&mdash;I am fantastic, I loved the Bice, and no
+more.<br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="citation">"<span class="smcap">Darling, A Te.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>This was signed with a cipher, which it was not very easy to make out&mdash;a
+little mystery which pleased the Contessa. She thus involved in a
+pleasant little uncertainty her own name, which nobody knew.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BALL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lady Randolph's ball was one of the first of the season, and as it was
+the first ball she had ever given, and both Lucy and her husband were
+favourites in society, it was looked forward to as the forerunner of
+much excitement and pleasure, and with a freshness of interest and
+anticipation which, unless in April, is scarcely to be expected in town.
+The rooms in Park Lane, though there was nothing specially exquisite or
+remarkable in their equipment, were handsome and convenient. They formed
+a good background for the people assembled under their many lights
+without withdrawing the attention of any one from the looks, the
+dresses, the bright eyes, and jewels collected within, which, perhaps,
+after all, is an advantage in its way. And everybody who was in town was
+there, from the Duchess, upon whom the Contessa had designs of so
+momentous a character, down to those wandering young men-about-town who
+form the rank and file of the great world and fill up all the corners.
+There was, it is true, not much room to dance, but a bewildering amount
+of people, great names, fine toilettes, and beautiful persons.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa timed her arrival at the most effective moment, when the
+rooms were almost full, but not yet crowded, and most of the more
+important guests had already arrived. It was just after the first
+greetings of people seeing each other for the first time were over, and
+an event of some kind was wanted. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> such a moment princes and
+princesses are timed to arrive and bring the glory of the assembly to a
+climax. Lucy had no princess to honour her. But when out of the crowd
+round the doorway there were seen to emerge two beautiful and stately
+women unknown, the sensation was almost as great. One of them, who had
+the air of a Queen-Mother, was in dark dress studiously arranged to be a
+little older, a little more massive and magnificent than a woman of the
+Contessa's age required to wear (and which, accordingly, threw up all
+the more, though this, to do her justice, was a coquetry more or less
+unintentional, her unfaded beauty); and the other, an impersonation of
+youth, contemplated the world by her side with that open-eyed and
+sovereign gaze, proud and modest, but without any of the shyness or
+timidity of a <i>débutante</i> which becomes a young princess in her own
+right. There was a general thrill of wonder and admiration wherever they
+were seen. Who were they, everybody asked? Though the name of the
+Forno-Populo was too familiarly known to a section of society, that is
+not to say that the ladies of Lucy's party, or even all the men had
+heard it bandied from mouth to mouth, or were aware that it had ever
+been received with less than respect: and the universal interest was
+spoiled only here and there in a corner by the laugh of the male
+gossips, who made little signs to each other, in token of knowing more
+than their neighbours. It was said among the more innocent that this was
+an Italian lady of distinction with her daughter or niece, and her
+appearance, if a little more marked and effective than an English lady's
+might have been, was thus fully explained and accounted for by the
+difference in manners and that inalienable dramatic gift, which it is
+common to believe in England,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> foreigners possess. No doubt their
+entrance was very dramatic. The way in which they contrasted and
+harmonised with each other was too studied for English traditions,
+which, in all circumstances, cling to something of the impromptu, an air
+of accidentalism. They were a spectacle in themselves as they advanced
+through the open central space, from which the ordinary guests
+instinctively withdrew to leave room for them. "Is it the Princess?"
+people asked, and craned their necks to see. It must at least be a
+German Serenity&mdash;the Margravine of Pimpernik&#275;l, the Hereditary Princess
+of Weissnichtwo&mdash;but more beautiful and graceful than English prejudice
+expects German ladies to be. Ah, Italian! that explained
+everything&mdash;their height, their grace, their dark beauty, their
+effective pose. The Latin races alone know how to arrange a spectacle in
+that easy way, how to produce themselves so that nobody could be
+unimpressed. There was a dramatic pause before them, a hum of excitement
+after they had passed. Who were they? Evidently the most distinguished
+persons present&mdash;the guests of the evening. Sir Tom, uneasy enough, and
+looking grave and preoccupied, which was so far from being his usual
+aspect, led them into the great drawing-room, where the Duchess, who had
+daughters who danced, had taken her place. He did not look as if he
+liked it, but the Contessa, for her part, looked round her with a
+radiant smile, and bowed very much as the Queen does in a state
+ceremonial to the people she knew. She performed a magnificent curtsey,
+half irony, half defiance, before the Dowager Lady Randolph, who looked
+on at this progress speechless. How Lucy could permit it; how Tom could
+have the assurance to do it; occupied the Dowager's thoughts. She had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>
+scarcely self-command to make a stiff sweep of recognition as the
+procession passed.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess was at the upper end of the room, with all her daughters
+about her. Besides the younger ones who danced, there were two
+countesses supporting their mother. She was the greatest lady present,
+and she felt the dignity. But when she perceived the little opening that
+took place among the groups about, and, looking up, perceived the
+Contessa sweeping along in that regal separation, you might have blown
+her Grace away with a breath. Not only was the Duchess the most
+important person in the room, but her reception of the newcomer would be
+final, a sort of social life or death for the Contessa. But the
+supplicant approached with the air of a queen, while the arbiter of fate
+grew pale and trembled at the sight. If there was a tremor in her
+Grace's breast there was no less a tremor under the Contessa's velvet.
+But Madame di Forno-Populo had this great advantage, that she knew
+precisely what to do, and the Duchess did not know: she was fully
+prepared, and the Duchess taken by surprise: and still more that her
+Grace was a shy woman, whose intellect, such as it was, moved slowly,
+while the Contessa was very clever, and as prompt as lightning. She
+perceived at a glance that the less time the great lady had to think the
+better, and hastened forward for a step or two, hurrying her stately
+pace, "Ah, Duchess!" she said, "how glad I am to meet so old an
+acquaintance. And I want, above all things, to have your patronage for
+my little one. Bice&mdash;the Duchess, an old friend of my prosperous days,
+permits me to present you to her." She drew her young companion forward
+as she spoke, while the Duchess faltered and stammered a "How d'ye do?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>
+and looked in vain for succour to her daughters, who were looking on.
+Then Bice showed her blood. It had not been set down in the Contessa's
+programme what she was to do, so that the action took her patroness by
+surprise, as well as the great lady whom it was so important to
+captivate. While the Duchess stood stiff and awkward, making a
+conventional curtsey against her will, and with a conventional smile on
+her mouth, Bice, with the air of a young princess, innocently, yet
+consciously superior to all her surroundings, suddenly stepped forward,
+and taking the Duchess's hand, bent her stately young head to kiss it.
+There was in the sudden movement that air of accident, of impulse, which
+we all love. It overcame all the tremors of the great lady. She said,
+"My dear!" in the excitement of the moment, and bent forward to kiss the
+cheek of this beautiful young creature, who was so deferential, so
+reverent in her young pride. And the Duchess's daughters did not
+disapprove! Still more wonderful than the effect on the Duchess was the
+effect upon these ladies, of whose criticisms their mother stood in
+dread. They drew close about the lovely stranger, and it immediately
+became apparent to the less important guests that the Italian ladies,
+the heroines of the evening, had amalgamated with the ducal party&mdash;as it
+was natural they should.</p>
+
+<p>Never had there been a more complete triumph. The Contessa stepped in
+and made hay while the sun shone. She waved off with a scarcely
+perceptible movement of her hand several of her intimates who would have
+gathered round her, and vouchsafed only a careless word to Montjoie, who
+had hastened to present himself. The work to which she devoted herself
+was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> the amusement of the Duchess, who was not, to tell the truth, very
+easily amused. But Madame di Forno-Populo had infinite resources, and
+she succeeded. She selected the Dowager Lady Randolph for her butt, and
+made fun of her so completely that her Grace almost exceeded the bounds
+of decorum in her laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not, really; you must not&mdash;she is a great friend of mine," the
+Duchess said. But perhaps there was not much love between the two
+ladies. And thus by degrees the conversation was brought round to the
+Populina palace and the gay scenes so long ago.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have heard of our ruin," the Contessa said, looking full into
+the Duchess's face; "everybody has heard of that. I have been too poor
+to live in my own house. We have wandered everywhere, Bice and I. When
+one is proud it is more easy to be poor away from home. But we are in
+very high spirits to-day, the child and I," she added. "All can be put
+right again. My little niece has come into a fortune. She has made an
+inheritance. We received the news to-night only. That is how I have
+recovered my spirits&mdash;and to see you, Duchess, and renew the beautiful
+old times."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, indeed!" the Duchess said, which was not much; but then she was a
+woman of few words.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we came to London very poor," said the Contessa. "What could I do?
+It was the moment to produce the little one. We have no Court. Could I
+seek for her the favour of the Piedmontese? Oh no! that was impossible.
+I said to myself she shall come to that generous England, and my old
+friends there will not refuse to take my Bice by the hand."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh no; I am sure not," said the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>As for Bice she had long ere now set off with Montjoie, who had hung
+round her from the moment of her entrance into the room, and whose
+admiration had grown to such a height by the cumulative force of
+everybody else's admiration swelling into it, that he could scarcely
+keep within those bounds of compliment which are permitted to an adorer
+who has not yet acquired the right to be hyperbolical.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, it's pretty enough: but you don't see half how pretty it is,
+for you can't see yourself, don't you know?" said this not altogether
+maladroit young practitioner. Bice gave him a smile like one of the
+Contessa's smiles, which said everything that was needful without giving
+her any trouble. But now that the effect of her entrance was attained,
+and all that dramatic business done with, the girl's soul was set upon
+enjoyment. She loved dancing as she loved every other form of rapid
+movement. The only drawback was that there was so little room. "Why do
+they make the rooms so small?" she said pathetically; a speech which was
+repeated from mouth to mouth like a witticism, as something so
+characteristic of the young Italian, whose marble halls would never be
+overcrowded: though, as a matter of fact, Bice knew very little of
+marble halls.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever in the gallery at the Hall?" she asked. "To go from one
+end to the other, that was worth the while. It was as if one flew."</p>
+
+<p>"I never knew they danced down there," said Montjoie. "I thought it very
+dull, don't you know, till you appeared. If I had known you had dances,
+and fun going on, and other fellows cutting one out&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There was but one other fellow," said Bice gravely. "I have seen in
+this country no one like him. Ah, why is he not here? He is more fun
+than any one, but better than fun. He is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Montjoie's countenance was like a thunder-cloud big with fire and flame.</p>
+
+<p>"Trevor, I suppose you mean. I never thought that duffer could dance. He
+was a great sap at school, and a hideous little prig, giving himself
+such airs! But if you think all that of him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not Mr. Trevor," said Bice. Then catching sight of Lady Randolph
+at a little distance, she made a dart towards her on her partner's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I am telling Lord Montjoie of my partner at the Hall," she said. "Ah,
+Milady, let him come and look! How he would clap his hands to see the
+lights and the flowers. But we could not have our gymnastique with all
+the people here."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was very pale; standing alone, abstracted amid the gay crowd, as if
+she did not very well know where she was.</p>
+
+<p>"Baby? Oh, he is quite well, he is fast asleep," she said, looking up
+with dim eyes. And then there broke forth a little faint smile on her
+face. "You were always good to him," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"So it was the baby," said Montjoie, delighted. "What a one you are to
+frighten a fellow. If it had been Trevor I think I'd have killed him.
+How jolly of you to do gymnastics with that little beggar; he's
+dreadfully delicate, ain't he, not likely to live? But you're awfully
+cruel to me. You think no more of giving a wring to my heart than if it
+was a bit of rag. I think you'd like to see the blood come."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Let us dance," said Bice with great composure. She was bent upon
+enjoyment. She had not calculated upon any conversation. Indeed she
+objected to conversation on this point even when it did not interfere
+with the waltz. All could be settled much more easily by the Contessa,
+and if marriage was to be the end, that was a matter of business not
+adapted for a ballroom. She would not allow herself to be led away to
+the conservatory or any other retired nook such as Montjoie felt he must
+find for this affecting purpose. Bice did not want to be proposed to.
+She wanted to dance. She abandoned him for other partners without the
+slightest evidence of regret. She even accepted, when he was just about
+to seize upon her at the end of a dance, Mr. Derwentwater, preferring to
+dance the Lancers with him to the bliss of sitting out with Lord
+Montjoie. That forsaken one gazed at her with a consternation beyond
+words. To leave him and the proposal that was on his very lips for a
+square dance with a tutor! The young Marquis gazed after her as she
+disappeared with a certain awe. It could not be that she preferred
+Derwentwater. It must be her cleverness which he could not fathom, and
+some wonderful new system of Italian subtlety to draw a fellow on.</p>
+
+<p>"I like it better than standing still&mdash;I like it&mdash;enough," said Bice.
+"To dance, that is always something." Mr. Derwentwater also felt, like
+Lord Montjoie, that the young lady gave but little importance to her
+partner.</p>
+
+<p>"You like the rhythm, the measure, the woven paces and the waving
+hands," her companion said.</p>
+
+<p>Bice stared at him a little, not comprehending. "But you prefer," he
+continued, "like most ladies, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> modern Bacchic dance, the whirl, the
+round, though what the old Puritans call promiscuous dancing of men and
+women together was not, I fear, Greek&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing of the Greeks," said Bice. "Vienna is the best place for
+the valse, but Greek&mdash;no, we never were there."</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking of classic terms," said MTutor with a smile, but he liked
+her all the better for not knowing. "We have in vases and in sculpture
+the most exquisite examples. You have never perhaps given your attention
+to ancient art? I cannot quite agree with Mr. Alma Tadema on that point.
+He is a great artist, but I don't think the wild leap of his dances is
+sanctioned by anything we possess."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not take wild leaps," said Bice, "but keep time. That is all you
+require in a quadrille. Why does every one laugh and go wrong. But it is
+a shame! One should not dance if one will not take the trouble. And why
+does <i>he</i> not do anything?" she said, in the pause between two figures,
+suddenly coming in sight of Jock, who stood against the wall in their
+sight, following her about with eyes over which his brows were curved
+heavily; "he does not dance nor ride; he only looks on."</p>
+
+<p>"He reads," said Mr. Derwentwater. "The boy will be a great scholar if
+he keeps it up."</p>
+
+<p>"One cannot read in society," said Bice. "Now, you must remember, you go
+<i>that</i> way; you do not come after me."</p>
+
+<p>"I should prefer to come after you. That is the heavenly way when one
+can follow such a leader. You remember what your own Dante&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" murmured Bice, with a long sigh of impatience, "I have no Dante. I
+have a partner who will not give himself the pains&mdash;Now," she said, with
+an emphatic little pat of her foot and movement of her hands. Her soul
+was in the dance, though it was only the Lancers. With a slight line of
+annoyance upon her forehead she watched his performance, taking upon
+herself the responsibility, pushing him by his elbow when he went wrong,
+or leading him in the right way. Mr. Derwentwater had thought to carry
+off his mistakes with a laugh, but this was not Bice's way of thinking.
+She made him a little speech when the dance was over.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are a great scholar too," she said; "but it will be well
+that you should not come forward again with a lady to dance the Lancers,
+for you cannot do it. And that will sometimes make a girl to have the
+air of being also awkward, which is not just."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Derwentwater grew very red while this speech was making to him. He
+was a man of great and varied attainments, and had any one told him that
+he would blush about so trivial a matter as a Lancers&mdash;&mdash;! But he grew
+very red and almost stammered as he said with humility, "I am afraid I
+am very deficient, but with you to guide me&mdash;Signorina, there is one
+divine hour which I never forget&mdash;when you sang that evening. May I
+call? May I see you for half an hour to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Bice, with a deep-drawn breath, "here is some one else coming
+who does not dance very well! Talk to him about the Greek, and Lord
+Montjoie will take me. To-morrow! oh yes, with pleasure," she said as
+she took Montjoie's arm and darted away into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> crowd. Montjoie was
+all glowing and radiant with pride and joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I'd hang off and on and take my chance, don't you know? I
+thought you'd soon get sick of that sort. You and I go together like two
+birds. I have been watching you all this time, you and old Derwentwater.
+What was that he said about to-morrow? I want to talk about to-morrow
+too&mdash;unless, indeed to-night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord Montjoie," cried Bice, "dance! It was not to talk you came
+here, and you can dance better than you talk," she added, with that
+candour which distinguished her. And Montjoie flew away with her rushing
+and whirling. He could dance. It was almost his only accomplishment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BALL CONTINUED.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Other eyes than those of her lovers followed Bice through this brilliant
+scene. Sir Tom had been living a strange stagnant life since that day
+before he left the Hall, when Lucy, innocently talking of Bice's English
+parentage, had suddenly roused him to the question&mdash;Who was Bice, and
+who her parents, English or otherwise? The suggestion was very sudden
+and very simple, conveying in it no intended hint or innuendo. But it
+came upon Sir Tom like a sudden thunderbolt, or rather like the firing
+of some train that had been laid and prepared for explosion. The tenor
+of his fears and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> suspicions has already been indicated. Nor has it ever
+been concealed from the reader of this history that there were incidents
+in Sir Tom's life upon which he did not look back with satisfaction, and
+which it would have grieved him much to have revealed to his wife in her
+simplicity and unsuspecting trust in him. One of these was a chapter of
+existence so long past as to be almost forgotten, yet unforgettable,
+which gave, when he thought of it, an instant meaning to the fact that a
+half-Italian girl of English parentage on one side should have been
+brought mysteriously, without warning or formal introduction, to his
+house by the Contessa. From that time, as has been already said, the
+disturbance in his mind was great. He could get no satisfaction one way
+or another. But to-night his uneasiness had taken a new and unexpected
+form. Should it so happen that Bice's identity with a certain poor baby,
+born in Tuscany seventeen years before, might some day be proved, what
+new cares, what new charge might it not place upon his shoulders? At
+such a thought Sir Tom held his very breath.</p>
+
+<p>The first result of such a possibility was, that he might find himself
+to stand in a relationship to the girl for whom he had hitherto had a
+careless liking and no more, which would change both his life and hers;
+and already he watched her with uneasy eyes and with a desire to
+interfere which bewildered him like a new light upon his own character.
+He could scarcely understand how he had taken it all so lightly before
+and interested himself so little in the fate of a young creature for
+whom it would not be well to be brought up according to the Contessa's
+canons, and follow her example in the world. He remembered, in the light
+of this new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> possibility, the levity with which he had received his
+wife's distress about Bice, and how lightly he had laughed at Lucy's
+horror as to the Contessa's ideas of marriage, and of what her
+<i>protégée</i> was to do. He had said if they could catch any decent fellow
+with money enough it was the best thing that could happen to the girl,
+and that Bice would be no worse off than others, and that she herself,
+after the training she had gone through, was very little likely to have
+any delicacy on the subject. But when it had once occurred to him that
+the girl of whom he spoke so lightly might be his own child, an
+extraordinary change came over Sir Tom's views. He laughed no longer&mdash;he
+became so uneasy lest something should be done or said to affect Bice's
+good name, or throw her into evil hands, that his thoughts had circled
+unquietly round the house in Mayfair, and he had spent far more of his
+time there on the watch than he himself thought right. He knew very well
+the explanation that would be given of those visits of his, and he did
+not feel sure that some good-natured friends might not have already
+suggested suspicion to Lucy, who had certainly been very strange since
+their arrival in town. But he would not give up his watch, which was in
+a way, he said to himself, his duty, if&mdash;&mdash; He followed the girl's
+movements with disturbed attention, and would hurry into the Park to
+ride by her, to shut out an unsuitable cavalier, and make little
+lectures to her as to her behaviour with an embarrassed anxiety which
+Bice could not understand but which amused more than it benefited the
+Contessa, to whom this result of her mystification was the best fun in
+the world. But it was not amusing to Sir Tom. He regarded the society of
+men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> who gathered about the ladies with disgust. Montjoie was about the
+best&mdash;he was not old enough to be much more than silly&mdash;but even
+Montjoie was not a person whom he would himself choose to be closely
+connected with. Then came the question: If it should turn out that she
+was <i>that</i> child, was it expedient that any one should know of it? Would
+it be better for her to be known as Sir Thomas Randolph's daughter, even
+illegitimate, or as the relative and dependent of the Forno-Populo? In
+the one case, her interests would have no guardian at all; in the other,
+what a shock it would give to his now-established respectability and the
+confidence all men had in him, to make such a connection known. Turning
+over everything in his thoughts, it even occurred to Sir Tom that it
+would be better for him to confess an early secret marriage, and thus
+save his own reputation and give to Bice a lawful standing ground. The
+poor young mother was dead long ago; there could be no harm in such an
+invention. Lucy could not be wounded by anything which happened so long
+before he ever saw her. And Bice would be saved from all stigma; if only
+it was Bice! if only he could be sure!</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Tom, whose countenance had not the habit of expressing anything
+but a large and humorous content, the careless philosophy of a happy
+temper and easy mind, was changed beyond description by the surging up
+of such thoughts. He became jealous and suspicious, watching Bice with a
+constant impulse to interfere, and even&mdash;while disregarding all the
+safeguards of his own domestic happiness for this reason&mdash;in his heart
+condemned the girl because she was not like Lucy, and followed her
+movements with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> criticism which was as severe as that of the harshest
+moralist.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody in that lighthearted house could understand what had come over
+the good Sir Tom, not even the Contessa, who after a manner knew the
+reason, yet never imagined that the idea, which gave her a sort of
+malicious pleasure, would have led to such a result. Sir Tom had always
+been the most genial of hosts, but in his present state of mind even in
+this respect he was not himself. He kept his eye on Bice with a
+sternness of regard quite out of keeping with his character. If she
+should flirt unduly, if she began to show any of those arts which made
+the Contessa so fascinating, he felt, with a mingling of self-ridicule
+which tickled him in spite of his seriousness, that nothing could keep
+him from interposing. He had been charmed in spite of himself, even
+while he saw through and laughed at the Contessa's cunning ways; but to
+see them in a girl who might, for all he knew, have his own blood in her
+veins was a very different matter. He felt it was in him to interpose
+roughly, imperiously&mdash;and if he did so, would Bice care? She would turn
+upon him with smiling defiance, or perhaps ask what right had he to
+meddle in her affairs. Thus Sir Tom was so preoccupied that the change
+in Lucy, the effort she made to go through her necessary duties, the
+blotting out of all her simple kindness and brightness, affected him
+only dully as an element of the general confusion, and nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>But the Contessa, for her part, was radiant. She was victorious all
+along the line. She had received Lucy's note informing her of the
+provision she meant to make for Bice only that afternoon, and her heart
+was dancing with the sense of wealth, of money to spend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> and endless
+capability of pleasure. Whatever happened this was secure, and she had
+already in the first hour planned new outlays which would make Lucy's
+beneficence very little of a permanent advantage. But she said nothing
+of it to Bice, who might (who could tell, girls being at all times
+capricious) take into her little head that it was no longer necessary to
+encourage Montjoie, on whom at present she looked complacently enough as
+the probable giver of all that was best in life. This was almost enough
+for one day; but the Contessa fully believed in the proverb that there
+is nothing that succeeds like success, and had faith in her own
+fortunate star for the other events of the evening. And she had been
+splendidly successful. She had altogether vanquished the timid spirit of
+the Duchess, that model of propriety. Her entry upon the London world
+had been triumphant, and she had all but achieved the honours of the
+drawing-room. Unless the Lord Chamberlain should interfere, and why
+should he interfere? her appearance in the larger world of society would
+be as triumphant as in Park Lane. Her beautiful eyes were swimming in
+light, the glow of satisfaction and triumph. It fatigued her a little
+indeed to play the part of a virtuous chaperon, and stand or sit in one
+place all the evening, awaiting her <i>débutante</i> between the dances,
+talking with the other virtuous ladies in the same exercise of patience,
+and smilingly keeping aloof from all participation at first hand in the
+scene which would have helped to amuse her indeed, but interfered with
+the fulfilment of her <i>rôle</i>. But she had internal happiness enough to
+make up to her for her self-denial. She would order that set of pearls
+for Bice and the emerald pendant for herself which had tempted her so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>
+much, to-morrow. And the Duchess was to present her, and probably this
+evening Montjoie would propose. Was it possible to expect in this world
+a more perfect combination of successes?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Derwentwater went off somewhat discomfited to make a tour of the
+rooms after the remorseless address of Bice. He tried to smile at the
+mock severity of her judgment. He, no more than Montjoie, would believe
+that she meant only what she said. This accomplished man of letters and
+parts agreed, if in nothing else, in this, with the young fool of
+quality, that such extreme candour and plain speaking was some subtle
+Italian way of drawing an admirer on. He put it into finer words than
+Montjoie could command, and said to himself that it was that mysterious
+adorable feminine instinct which attracted by seeming to repel. And even
+on a more simple explanation it was comprehensible enough. A girl who
+attached so much importance to the accomplishments of society would
+naturally be annoyed by the failure in these of one to whom she looked
+up. A regret even moved his mind that he had not given more attention to
+them in earlier days. It was perhaps foolish to neglect our
+acquirements, which after all would not take very much trouble, and need
+only be brought forward, as Dogberry says, when there was no need for
+such vanities. He determined with a little blush at himself to note
+closely how other men did, and so be able another time to acquit himself
+to her satisfaction. And even her severity was sweet; it implied that he
+was not to her what other men were, that even in the more trifling
+accessories of knowledge she would have him to excel. If he had been
+quite indifferent to her, why should she have taken this trouble? And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span>
+then that "To-morrow; with pleasure." What did it mean? That though she
+would not give him her attention to-night, being devoted to her dancing
+(which is what girls are brought up to in this strangely imperfect
+system), she would do so on the earliest possible occasion. He went
+about the room like a man in a dream, following everywhere with his eyes
+that vision of beauty, and looking forward to the next step in his
+life-drama with an intoxication of hope which he did not attempt to
+subdue. He was indeed pleased to experience a <i>grande passion</i>. It was a
+thing which completed the mental equipment of a man. Love&mdash;not humdrum
+household affection, such as is all that is looked for when the
+exigencies of life make a wife expedient, and with full calculation of
+all he requires the man sets out to look for her and marry her. This was
+very different, an all-mastering passion, disdainful of every obstacle.
+To-morrow! He felt an internal conviction that, though Montjoie might
+dance and answer for the amusement of an evening, that bright and
+peerless creature would not hesitate as to who should be her guide for
+life.</p>
+
+<p>It was while he was thus roaming about in a state of great excitement
+and a subdued ecstasy of anticipation, that he encountered Jock, who had
+not been enjoying himself at all. At this great entertainment Jock had
+been considered a boy, and no more. Even as a boy, had he danced there
+might have been some notice taken of him, but he was incapable in this
+way, and in no other could he secure any attention. At a party of a
+graver kind there were often people who were well enough pleased to talk
+to Jock, and from men who owed allegiance to his school a boy who had
+dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>tinguished himself and done credit to the old place was always sure
+of notice. But then, though high up in Sixth Form, and capable of any
+eminence in Greek verse, he was nobody; while a fellow like Montjoie,
+who had never got beyond the rank of lower boy, was in the front of
+affairs, the admired of all admirers, Bice's chosen partner and
+companion. The mind develops with a bound when it has gone through such
+an experience. Jock stood with his back against the wall, and watched
+everything from under his eyebrows. Sometimes there was a glimmer as of
+moisture in those eyes, half veiled under eyelids heavily curved and
+puckered with wrath and pain, for he was very young, not much more than
+a child, notwithstanding his manhood. But what with a keenness of
+natural sight, and what with the bitter enlightening medium of that
+moisture, Jock saw the reality of the scene more clearly than Mr.
+Derwentwater, roaming about in his dream of anticipation, self-deceived,
+was capable of doing. He caught sight of Jock in his progress, and,
+though it was this sentiment which had separated them, its natural
+effect was also to throw them together. MTutor paused and took up a
+position by his pupil's side. "What a foolish scene considered
+philosophically," he said; "and yet how many human interests in
+solution, and floating adumbrations of human fate! I have been dancing,"
+Mr. Derwentwater continued, with some solemnity and a full sense of the
+superior position involved, "with, I verily believe, the most beautiful
+creature in the world."</p>
+
+<p>Jock looked up, fixing him with a critical, slightly cynical regard. He
+had been well aware of Mr. Derwentwater's very ineffective performance,
+and divined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> too clearly the sentiments of Bice not to feel all a
+spectator's derision for this uncalled-for self-complacency; but he made
+no remark.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing trivial in the exercise in such a combination. I
+incline to think that beauty is almost the greatest of all the
+spectacles that Nature sets before us. The effect she has upon us is
+greater than that produced by any other influence. You are perhaps too
+young to have your mind awakened on such a subject&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>To hear this foolish wisdom pouring forth, while the listener felt at
+every breath how his own bosom thrilled with an emotion too deep to be
+put into words, with a passion, hopeless, ridiculous, to which no one
+would accord any sympathy or comment but a laugh! Heaven and earth! and
+all because a fellow was some dozen years older, thinking himself a man,
+and you only a boy!</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash;but you have a fine intelligence, and it can never be amiss for you
+to approach a great subject on its most elevated side. She is not much
+older than you are, Jock."</p>
+
+<p>"She is not so old as I am. She is three months younger than I am,"
+cried Jock, in his gruffest voice.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet she is a revelation," said Mr. Derwentwater. "I feel that I am
+on the eve of a great crisis in my being. You have always been my
+favourite, my friend, though you are so much younger; and in this I feel
+we are more than ever sympathetic. Jock, to-morrow&mdash;to-morrow I am to
+see her, to tell her&mdash;&mdash; Come out on the balcony, there is no one there,
+and the moonlight and the pure air of night are more fit for such heart
+opening than this crowded scene."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to tell her?" said Jock, with his eyebrows meeting
+over his eyes and his back against the wall. "If you think she'll listen
+to what you tell her! She likes Montjoie. It is not that he's rich and
+that, but she likes him, don't you know, better than any of us. Oh, talk
+about mysteries," cried Jock, turning his head away, conscious of that
+moisture which half-blinded him, but which he could not get rid of, "how
+can you account for that? She likes him, that fellow, better than either
+you or me!"</p>
+
+<p>Better than Jock; far better than this man, his impersonation of noble
+manhood, whom the most levelling of all emotions, the more than Red
+Republican Love, had suddenly brought down to, nay, below, Jock's
+level&mdash;for not only was he a fool like Jock, but a hopeful fool, while
+Jock had penetrated the fulness of despair, and dismissed all illusion
+from his youthful bosom. The boy turned his head away, and the voice
+which he had made so gruff quavered at the end. He felt in himself at
+that moment all the depths of profound and visionary passion, something
+more than any man ever was conscious of who had an object and a hope.
+The boy had neither; he neither hoped to marry her nor to get a hearing,
+nor even to be taken seriously. Not even the remorse of a serious
+passion rejected, the pain of self-reproach, the afterthought of pity
+and tenderness would be his. He would get a laugh, nothing more. That
+schoolboy, that brother of Lady Randolph's, who does not leave school
+for a year! He knew what everybody would say. And yet he loved her
+better than any one of them! MTutor startled, touched, went after him as
+Jock turned away, and linking his arm in his, said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> something of the
+kind which one would naturally say to a boy. "My dear fellow, you don't
+mean to tell me&mdash;&mdash;? Come, Jock! This is but your imagination that
+beguiles you. The heart has not learned to speak so soon," MTutor said,
+leaning upon Jock's shoulder. The boy turned upon him with a fiery glow
+in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you saying about dancing?" he said. "They seem to be making
+up that Lancers business again."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>NEXT MORNING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"You have news to tell me, Bice mia?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a faint daylight in the streets, a blueness of dawn as the
+ladies drove home.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I? I have amused myself very much. I am not fatigued, no. I could
+continue as long&mdash;as long as you please," Bice answered, who was sitting
+up in her corner with more bloom than at the beginning of the evening,
+her eyes shining, a creature incapable of fatigue. The Contessa lay back
+in hers, with a languor which was rather adapted to her <i>rôle</i> as a
+chaperon than rendered necessary by the fatigue she felt. If she had not
+been amused, she was triumphant, and this supplied a still more
+intoxicating exhilaration than that of mere pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Darling!" she said, in her most expressive tone. She added a few
+moments after, "But Lord Montjoie! He has spoken? I read it in his
+face&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Spoken? He said a great deal&mdash;some things that made me laugh, some
+things that were not amusing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> After all he is perhaps a little stupid,
+but to dance there is no one like him!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you go together&mdash;to perfection&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Bice, with a long breath of pleasure, "when the people began
+to go away, when there was room! Certainly we deserted our other
+partners, both he and I. Does that matter in London? He says No."</p>
+
+<p>"Not, my angel, if you are to marry."</p>
+
+<p>"That was what he said," said Bice, with superb calm. "Now, I remember
+that was what he said; but I answered that I knew nothing of
+affairs&mdash;that it was to dance I wanted, not to talk; and that it was
+you, Madama, who disposed of me. It seemed to amuse him," the girl said
+reflectively. "Is it for that reason you kiss me? But it was he that
+spoke, as you call it, not I."</p>
+
+<p>"You are like a little savage," cried the Contessa. "Don't you care then
+to make the greatest marriage, to win the prize, to settle everything
+with no trouble, before you are presented or anything has been done at
+all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it settled then?" said Bice. She shrugged her shoulders a little
+within her white cloak. "Is that all?&mdash;no more excitement, nothing to
+look forward to, no tr-rouble? But it would have been more amusing if
+there had been a great deal of tr-rouble," the girl said.</p>
+
+<p>This was in the blue dawn, when the better portion of the world which
+does not go to balls was fast asleep, the first pioneers of day only
+beginning to stir about the silent streets, through which now and then
+the carriage of late revellers like themselves darted abrupt with a
+clang that had in it something of almost guilt. Twelve hours after, the
+Contessa in her boudoir&mdash;with not much more than light enough to see the
+flushed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> and happy countenance of young Montjoie, who had been on thorns
+all the night and morning with a horrible doubt in his mind lest, after
+all, Bice's careless reply might mean nothing more than that fine system
+of drawing a fellow on&mdash;settled everything in the most delightful way.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor is she without a sou, as perhaps you think. She has something that
+will not bear comparison with your wealth, yet something&mdash;which has been
+settled upon her by a relation. The Forno-Populi are not rich&mdash;but
+neither are they without friends."</p>
+
+<p>Montjoie listened to this with a little surprise and impatience. He
+scarcely believed it, for one thing; and when he was assured that all
+was right as to Bice herself, he cared but little for the Forno-Populi.
+"I don't know anything about the sous. I have plenty for both," he said,
+"that had a great deal better go to you, don't you know. She is all I
+want. Bice! oh that's too foreign. I shall call her Bee, for she must be
+English, don't you know, Countess, none of your Bohem&mdash;Oh, I don't mean
+that; none of your foreign ways. They draw a fellow on, but when it's
+all settled and we're married and that sort of thing, she'll have to be
+out and out English, don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"But that is reasonable," said the Contessa, who could when it was
+necessary reply very distinctly. "When one has a great English name and
+a position to keep up, one must be English. You shall call her what you
+please."</p>
+
+<p>"There's one thing more," Montjoie said with a little redness and
+hesitation, but a certain dogged air, with which the Contessa had not as
+yet made acquaintance. "It's best to understand each other, don't you
+know; it's sort of hard-hearted to take her right away. But,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> Countess,
+you're a woman of the world, and you know a fellow must start fair. You
+keep all those sous you were talking of, and just let us knock along our
+own way. I don't want the money, and I dare say you'll find a use for
+it. And let's start fair; it'll be better for all parties, don't you
+know," the young man said. He reddened, but he met the Contessa's eye
+unflinchingly, though the effort to respond to this distinct statement
+in the spirit in which it was made cost her a struggle. She stared at
+him for a moment across the dainty little table laden with knick-knacks.
+It was strange in the moment of victory to receive such a sudden
+decisive defeat. There was just a possibility for a moment that this
+brave spirit should own itself mere woman, and break down and cry. For
+one second there was a quiver on her lip; then she smiled, which for
+every purpose was the better way.</p>
+
+<p>"You would like," she said, "to see Bice. She is in the little
+drawing-room. The lawyers will settle the rest; but I understand your
+suggestion, Lord Montjoie." She rose with all her natural stately grace,
+which made the ordinary young fellow feel very small in spite of
+himself. The smile she gave him had something in it that made his knees
+knock together.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," he said, faltering, "you don't mind, Countess. My people,
+though I've not got any people to speak of, might make themselves
+disagreeable about&mdash;don't you know? you&mdash;you're a woman of the world."</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa smiled upon him once more with dazzling sweetness. "She is
+in the little drawing-room," she said.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was concluded, the excitement, the tr-rouble, as Bice said; it
+would have been far more amusing if there had been a great deal more
+tr-rouble.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> The Contessa dropped down in the corner of the sofa from
+which she had risen. She closed her eyes for the moment, and swallowed
+the affront that had been put upon her, and what was worse than the
+affront, the blow at her heart which this trifling little lord had
+delivered without flinching. This was to be the end of her schemes, that
+she was to be separated summarily and remorselessly from the child she
+had brought up. The Contessa knew, being of the same order of being,
+that, already somewhat disappointed to find the ardour of the chase over
+and all the excitement of bringing down the quarry, Bice, who cared
+little more about Montjoie than about any other likely person, would be
+as ready as not to throw him off if she were to communicate rashly the
+conditions on which he insisted. But, though she was of the same order
+of being, the Contessa was older and wiser. She had gone through a great
+many experiences. She knew that rich young English peers, marquises,
+uncontrolled by any parent or guardians, were fruit that did not grow on
+every bush, and that if this tide of fortune was not taken at its flood
+there was no telling when another might come. Now, though Bice was so
+dear, the Contessa had still a great many resources of her own, and was
+neither old nor tired of life. She would make herself a new career even
+without Bice, in which there might still be much interest&mdash;especially
+with the aid of a settled income. The careless speech about the sous was
+not without an eloquence of its own. Sous make everything that is
+disagreeable less disagreeable, and everything that is pleasant more
+pleasant. And she had got her triumph. She had secured for her Bice a
+splendid lot. She had accomplished what she had vowed to do, which many
+scoffers had thought she would never do. She was about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> to be presented
+at the English Court, and all her soils and spots from the world cleared
+from her, and herself rehabilitated wherever she might go. Was it
+reasonable then to break her heart over Montjoie and his miserable
+conditions? He could not separate Bice's love from her, though he might
+separate their lives&mdash;and that about the sous was generous. She was not
+one who would have sold her affections or given up anybody whom she
+loved for money. But still there were many things to be said, and for
+Bice's advantage what would she not do? The Contessa ended by a
+resolution which many a better woman would not have had the courage to
+make. She buried Montjoie's condition in her own heart&mdash;never to hint
+its existence&mdash;to ignore it as if it had not been. Many a more
+satisfactory person would have flinched at this. Most of us would at
+least have allowed the object of our sacrifice to be aware what we were
+doing for them. The Contessa did not even, so far as this, yield to the
+temptation of fate.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Bice had gone through her own little episode. Mr.
+Derwentwater came about noon, before the Contessa was up; but he did not
+know the Contessa's habits, and he was admitted, which neither Montjoie
+nor any of the Contessa's friends would have been. He was overjoyed to
+find the lady of his affections alone. This made everything, he thought,
+simple and easy for him, and filled him with a delightful confidence
+that she was prepared for the object of his visit and had contrived to
+keep the Contessa out of the way. His heart was beating high, his mind
+full of excitement. He took the chair she pointed him to, and then got
+up again, poising his hat between his hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Signorina," he said, "they say that a woman always knows the impression
+she has made."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you call me Signorina?" said Bice. "Yes, it is quite right. But
+then it is so long that I have not heard it, and it is only you that
+call me so."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said Mr. Derwentwater, with a little natural complacency,
+"others are not so well acquainted with your beautiful country and
+language. What should I call you? Ah, I know what I should like to call
+you. <i>Beatrice, loda di deo vera</i>. You are like the supreme and sovran
+lady whom every one must think of who hears your name."</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked at him with a half-comic attention. "You are a very learned
+man," she said, "one can see that. You always say something that is
+pretty, that one does not understand."</p>
+
+<p>This piqued the suitor a little and brought the colour to his cheek.
+"Teach me," he said, "to make you understand me. If I could show you my
+heart, you would see that from the first moment I saw you the name of
+Bice has been written&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know it already," cried Bice, "that you have a great devotion for
+poetry. Unhappily I have no education. I know it so very little. But I
+have found out what you mean about Bice. It is more soft than you say
+it. There is no sound of <i>tch</i> in it at all. Beeshè, like that. Your
+Italian is very good," she added, "but it is Tuscan, and the <i>bocca
+romana</i> is the best."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Derwentwater was more put out than it became a philosopher to be. "I
+came," he cried, with a kind of asperity, "for a very different purpose,
+not to be corrected in my Italian. I came&mdash;&mdash;" but here his feelings
+were too strong for him, "to lay my life and my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> heart at your feet. Do
+you understand me now? To tell you that I love you&mdash;no, that is not
+enough, it is not love, it is adoration," he said. "I have never known
+what it meant before. However fair women might be, I have passed them
+by; my heart has never spoken. But now! Since the first moment I saw
+you, Bice&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The girl rose up; she became a little alarmed. Emotion was strange to
+her, and she shrank from it. "I have given," she said, "to nobody
+permission to call me by my name."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will give it to me! to your true lover," he cried. "No one can
+admire and adore you as much as I do. It was from the first moment.
+Bice, oh, listen! I have nothing to offer you but love, the devotion of
+a life. What could a king give more? A true man cannot think of anything
+else when he is speaking to the woman he loves. Nothing else is worthy
+to offer you. Bice, I love you! I love you! Have you nothing, nothing in
+return to say to me?"</p>
+
+<p>All his self-importance and intellectual superiority had abandoned him.
+He was so much agitated that he saw her but dimly through the mists of
+excitement and passion. He stretched out his hands appealing to her. He
+might have been on his knees for anything he knew. It seemed incredible
+to him that his strong passion should have no return.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you nothing, nothing to say to me?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Bice had been frightened, but she had regained her composure. She looked
+on at this strange exhibition of feeling with the wondering calm of
+extreme youth. She was touched a little, but more surprised than
+anything else. She said, with a slight tremor, "I think it must be all a
+mistake. One is never so serious&mdash;oh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> never so serious! It is not
+something of&mdash;gravity like that. Did not you know? I am intended to make
+a marriage&mdash;to marry well, very well&mdash;what you call a great marriage. It
+is for that I am brought here. The Contessa would never listen&mdash;Oh, it
+is a mistake altogether&mdash;a mistake! You do not know what is my career.
+It has all been thought of since I was born. Pray, pray, go away, and do
+not say any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Bice," he cried, more earnestly than ever, "I know. I heard that you
+were to be sacrificed. Who is the lady who is going to sacrifice you to
+Mammon? she is not your mother; you owe her no obedience. It is your
+happiness, not hers, that is at stake. And I will preserve you from her.
+I will guard you like my own soul; the winds of heaven shall not visit
+your cheek roughly. I will cherish you; I will adore you. Come, only
+come to me."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was husky with emotion; his last words were scarcely audible,
+said within his breath in a high strain of passion which had got beyond
+his control. The contrast between this tremendous force of feeling and
+her absolute youthful calm was beyond description. It was more wonderful
+than anything ever represented on the tragic stage. Only in the depth
+and mystery of human experience could such a wonderful juxtaposition be.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Derwentwater," she said, trembling a little, "I cannot understand
+you. Go away, oh, go away!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bice!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go away, oh, go away! I am not able to bear it; no one is ever so
+serious. I am not great enough, nor old enough. Don't you know," cried
+Bice, with a little stamp of her foot, "I like the other way best? Oh,
+go away, go away!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He stood quiet, silently gazing at her till he had regained his power of
+speech, which was not for a moment or two. Then he said hoarsely, "You
+like&mdash;the other way best?"</p>
+
+<p>She clasped her hands together with a mingling of impatience and wonder
+and rising anger. "I am made like that," she cried. "I don't know how to
+be so serious. Oh, go away from me. You tr-rouble me. I like the other
+best."</p>
+
+<p>He never knew how he got out of the strange, unnatural atmosphere of the
+house in which he seemed to leave his heart behind him. The perfumes,
+the curtains, the half lights, the blending draperies, were round him
+one moment; the next he found himself in the greenness of the Park, with
+the breeze blowing in his face, and his dream ended and done with.</p>
+
+<p>He had a kind of vision of having touched the girl's reluctant hand, and
+even of having seen a frightened look in her eyes as if he had awakened
+some echo or touched some string whose sound was new to her. But if that
+were so, it was not he, but only some discovery of unknown feeling that
+moved her. When he came to himself, he felt that all the innocent
+morning people in the Park, the children with their maids, the sick
+ladies and old men sunning themselves on the benches, the people going
+about their honest business, cast wondering looks at his pale face and
+the agitation of his aspect. He took a long walk, he did not know how
+long, with that strange sense that something capital had happened to
+him, something never to be got over or altered, which follows such an
+incident in life. He was even conscious by and by, habit coming to his
+aid, of a curious question in his mind if this was how people usually
+felt after such a wonderful incident&mdash;a thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> that had happened quite
+without demonstration, which nobody could ever know of, yet which made
+as much change in him as if he had been sentenced to death. Sentenced to
+death! that was what it felt like more or less. It had happened, and
+could never be undone, and he walked away and away, but never got beyond
+it, with the chain always round his neck. When he got into the streets
+where nobody took any notice of him, it struck him with surprise, almost
+offence. Was it possible that they did not see that something had
+happened&mdash;a mystery, something that would never be shaken off but with
+life?</p>
+
+<p>He met Jock as he walked, and without stopping gave him a sort of
+ghastly smile, and said, "You were right; she likes that best," and went
+on again, with a sense that he might go on for ever like the wandering
+Jew, and never get beyond the wonder and the pain.</p>
+
+<p>And there is no doubt that Bice was glad to hear Montjoie's laugh, and
+the nonsense he talked, and to throw off that sudden impression which
+had frightened her. What was it? Something which was in life, but which
+she had not met with before. "We are to have it all our own way, don't
+you know?" Montjoie said. "I have no people, to call people, and she is
+not going to interfere. We shall have it all our own way, and have a
+good time, as the Yankees say. And I am not going to call you Bice,
+which is a silly sort of name, and spells quite different from its
+pronunciation. What are you holding back for? You have no call to be shy
+with me now. Bee, you belong to me now, don't you know?" the young
+fellow said, with demonstrations from which Bice shrunk a little. She
+liked, yes, his way; but, but yet&mdash;she was perhaps a little savage, as
+the Contessa said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST BLOW.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lucy stood out stoutly to the last gasp. She did not betray herself,
+except by the paleness, the seriousness which she could not banish from
+her countenance. Her guests thought that Lady Randolph must be ill, that
+she was disguising a bad headache, or even something more serious, under
+the smile with which she received them. "I am sure you ought to be in
+bed," the older ladies said, and when they took their leave of her,
+after their congratulations as to the success of the evening, they all
+repeated this in various tones. "I am sure you are quite worn out; I
+shall send in the morning to ask how you are," the Duchess said. Lucy
+listened to everything with a smile which was somewhat set and painful.
+She was so worn out with emotion and pain that at last neither words nor
+looks made much impression upon her. She saw the Contessa and Bice
+stream by to their carriage with a circle of attendants, still in all
+the dazzle and flash of their triumph; and after that the less important
+crowd, the insignificant people who lingered to the last, the girls who
+would not give up a last waltz, and the men who returned for a final
+supper, swam in her dazed eyes. She stood at the door mechanically
+shaking hands and saying "Good-night." The Dowager, moved by curiosity,
+anxiety, perhaps by pity, kept by her till a late hour, though Lucy was
+scarcely aware of it. When she went away at last, she repeated with
+earnestness and a certain compunction the advice of the other ladies.
+"You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> don't look fit to stand," she said. "If you will go to bed I will
+wait till all these tiresome people are gone. You have been doing too
+much, far too much." "It does not matter," Lucy said, in her
+semi-consciousness hearing her own voice like something in a dream. "Oh,
+my dear, I am quite unhappy about you!" Lady Randolph cried. "If you are
+thinking of what I told you, Lucy, perhaps it may not be true." There
+was a bevy of people going away at that moment, and she had to shake
+hands with them. She waited till they were gone and then turned, with a
+laugh that frightened the old lady, towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"You should have thought of that before," she said. Perhaps it might not
+be true! Can heaven be veiled and the pillars of the earth pulled down
+by a perhaps? The laugh sounded even to herself unnatural, and the elder
+Lady Randolph was frightened by it, and stole away almost without
+another word. When everybody was gone Sir Tom stood by her in the
+deserted rooms, with all the lights blazing and the blue day coming in
+through the curtains, as grave and as pale as she was. They did not look
+like the exhausted yet happy entertainers of the (as yet) most
+successful party of the season. Lucy could scarcely stand and could not
+speak at all, and he seemed little more fit for those mutual
+congratulations, even the "Thank heaven it is well over," with which the
+master and the mistress of the house usually salute each other in such
+circumstances. They stood at different ends of the room, and made no
+remark. At last, "I suppose you are going to bed," Sir Tom said. He came
+up to her in a preoccupied way. "I shall go and smoke a cigar first, and
+it does not seem much good lighting a candle for you." They both looked
+somewhat drearily at the daylight, now no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> longer blue, but rosy. Then
+he laid his hand upon her shoulder. "You are dreadfully tired, Lucy, and
+I think there has been something the matter with you these few days. I'd
+ask you what it was, but I'm dead beat, and you are dreadfully tired
+too." He stopped and kissed her forehead, and took her hand in his in a
+sort of languid way. "Good-night; go to bed my poor little woman," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>It is terrible to be wroth with those we love. Anger against them is
+deadly to ourselves. It "works like madness in the brain;" it involves
+heaven and earth in a gloom that nothing can lighten. But when that
+anger being just, and such as we must not depart from, is crossed by
+those unspeakable relentings, those quick revivals of love, those sudden
+touches of tenderness that carry all before them, what anguish is equal
+to those bitter sweetnesses? Lucy felt this as she stood there with her
+husband's hand upon her shoulder, in utter fatigue, and broken down in
+all her faculties. Through all those dark and bitter mists which rose
+about her, his voice broke like a ray of light: her timid heart sprang
+up in her bosom and went out to him with an <i>abandon</i> which, but for the
+extreme physical fatigue which produces a sort of apathy, must have
+broken down everything. For a moment she swayed towards him as if she
+would have thrown herself upon his breast.</p>
+
+<p>When this movement comes to both the estranged persons, there follows a
+clearing away of difficulties, a revolution of the heart, a
+reconciliation when that is possible, and sometimes when it is not
+possible. But it very seldom happens that this comes to both at the same
+time. Sir Tom remained unmoved while his wife had that sudden access of
+reawakened tenderness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> He was scarcely aware even how far she had been
+from him, and now was quite unaware how near. His mind was full of cares
+and doubts, and an embarrassing situation which he could not see how to
+manage. He was not even aware that she was moved beyond the common. He
+took his hand from her shoulder, and without another word let her go
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, those other words that are never spoken! They are counterbalanced in
+the record of human misfortune by the many other words which are too
+much, which should never have been spoken at all. Thus all explanation,
+all ending of the desperate situation, was staved off for another night.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy woke next morning in a kind of desperation. No new event had
+happened, but she could not rest. She felt that she must do something or
+die, and what could she do? She spent the early morning in the nursery,
+and then went out. This time she was reasonable, not like that former
+time when she went out to the city. She knew very well now that nothing
+was to be gained by walking or by jolting in a disagreeable cab. On the
+former occasion that had been something of a relief to her; but not now.
+It is scarcely so bad when some out-of-the-way proceeding like this,
+some strange thing to be done, gives the hurt and wounded spirit a
+little relief. She had come to the further stage now when she knew that
+nothing of the sort could give any relief; nothing but mere dull
+endurance, going on, and no more. She drove to Mr. Chervil's office
+quietly, as she might have gone anywhere, and thus, though it seems
+strange to say so, betrayed a deeper despair than before. She took with
+her a list of names with sums written opposite. There was enough there
+put down to make away with a large<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> fortune. This one so much, that one
+so much. This too was an impulse of the despair in her mind. She was
+carrying out her father's will in a lump. It meant no exercise of
+discrimination, no careful choice of persons to be benefited, such as he
+had intended, but only a hurried rush at a duty which she had neglected,
+a desire to be done with it. Lucy was on the eve, she felt, of some
+great change in her life. She could not tell what she might be able to
+do after; whether she should live through it or bring her mind and
+memory unimpaired through it, or think any longer of anything that had
+once been her duty. She would get it done while she could. She was very
+sensible that the money she had given to Bice was not in accordance with
+what her father would have wished: neither were these perhaps. She could
+not tell, she did not care. At least it would be done with, and could
+not be done over again.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Randolph," said Mr. Chervil, in dismay, "have you any idea of the
+sum you are&mdash;throwing away?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no idea of any sum," said Lucy, gently, "except just the money I
+spend, so much in my purse. But you have taught me how to calculate, and
+that so much would&mdash;make people comfortable. Is not that what you said?
+Well, if it was not you, it was&mdash;I do not remember. When I first got the
+charge of this into my hands&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Randolph, you cannot surely think what you are doing. At the
+worst," said the distressed trustee, "this was meant to be a fund
+for&mdash;beneficence all your life: not to be squandered away, thousands and
+thousands in a day&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it squandered when it gives comfort&mdash;perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> even happiness? And
+how do you know how long my life may last? It may be over&mdash;in a day&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are ill," said the lawyer. "I thought so the moment I saw you. I
+felt sure you were not up to business to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I am ill," said Lucy; "a little tired, for I was late
+last night&mdash;did not you know we had a ball, a very pretty ball?" she
+added, with a curious smile, half of gratification, half of mockery. "It
+was a strange thing to have, perhaps, just&mdash;at this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"A very natural thing," said Mr. Chervil. "I am glad to know it; you are
+so young, Lady Randolph, pardon me for saying so."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not for me," said Lucy; "it was for a young lady&mdash;my
+husband's&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Was she going out of her senses? What was she about to say?</p>
+
+<p>"A relation?" said Mr. Chervil. "Perhaps the young lady for whom you
+interested yourself so much in a more important way? They are fortunate,
+Lady Randolph, who have you for a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so? I don't know that any one thinks so." She recovered
+herself a little and pointed to the papers. "You will carry that out,
+please. I may be going away. I am not quite sure of my movements. As
+soon as you can you will carry this out."</p>
+
+<p>"Going away&mdash;at the beginning of the season!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is nothing settled; and besides you know life&mdash;life is very
+insecure."</p>
+
+<p>"At your age it is very seldom one thinks so," said the lawyer, at which
+she smiled only, then rose up, and without any further remark went away.
+He saw her to her carriage, not now with any recollection of the
+pleasant show and the exhibition of so fine a client<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> to the admiration
+of his neighbours. He had a heart after all, and daughters of his own;
+and he was troubled more than he could say. He stood bare-headed and saw
+her drive away, with a look of anxiety upon his face. Was it the same
+bee in her bonnet which old Trevor had shown so conspicuously? was it
+eccentricity verging upon madness? He went back to his office and wrote
+to Sir Tom, enclosing a copy of Lucy's list. "I must ask your advice in
+the matter instead of offering you mine," he wrote. "Lady Randolph has a
+right, of course, if she chooses to press matters to an extremity, but I
+can't fancy that this is right."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy went home still in the same strange excitement of mind. All had
+been executed that was in her programme. She had gone through it without
+flinching. The ball&mdash;that strange, frivolous-tragic effort of
+despair&mdash;it was over, thank heaven! and Bice had got full justice in
+her&mdash;was it in her&mdash;father's house? She could not have been introduced
+to greater advantage, Lucy thought, with a certain forlorn, simple
+pride, had she been Sir Tom's acknowledged daughter. Oh, not to so much
+advantage! for the Contessa, her guardian, her&mdash;&mdash;was far more skilful
+than Lucy ever could have been. Bice had got her triumph; nothing had
+been neglected. And the other business was in train&mdash;the disposing of
+the money. She had made her wishes fully known, and even taken great
+trouble, calculating and transcribing to prevent any possibility of a
+mistake. And now, now the moment had come, the crisis of life when she
+must tell her husband what she had heard, and say to him that this
+existence could not go on any longer. A man could not have two lives.
+She did not mean to upbraid him. What good would it do to upbraid? none,
+none at all; that would not make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> things as they were again, or return
+to her him whom she had lost. She had not a word to say to him, except
+that it was impossible&mdash;that it could not go on any more.</p>
+
+<p>To think that she should have this to say to him made everything dark
+about her as Lucy went home. She felt as if the world must come to an
+end to-night. All was straightforward, now that the need of
+self-restraint was over. She contemplated no delay or withdrawal from
+her position. She went in to accomplish this dark and miserable
+necessity like a martyr going to the cross. She would go and see baby
+first, who was his boy as well as hers. Sir Tom no doubt would be in his
+library, and would come out for luncheon after a while, but not until
+she had spoken. But first she would go, just for a little needful
+strength, and kiss her boy.</p>
+
+<p>Fletcher met her at the head of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if you please, my lady&mdash;not to hurry you or frighten you&mdash;but nurse
+says please would you step in and look at baby."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, in a moment, Lucy's whole being changed. She forgot
+everything. Her languor disappeared and her fatigue. She sprang up to
+where the woman was standing. "What is it? is he ill? Is it the old&mdash;&mdash;"
+She hurried along towards the nursery as she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my lady, nothing he has had before; but nurse thinks he looks&mdash;oh,
+my lady, there will be nothing to be frightened about&mdash;we have sent for
+the doctor."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was in the room where little Tom was, before Fletcher had finished
+what she was saying. The child was seated on his nurse's knee. His eyes
+were heavy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> yet blazing with fever. He was plucking with his little hot
+hands at the woman's dress, flinging himself about her, from one arm,
+from one side to the other. When he saw his mother he stretched out
+towards her. Just eighteen months old; not able to express a thought;
+not much, you will say, perhaps, to change to a woman the aspect of
+heaven and earth. She took him into her arms without a word, and laid
+her cheek&mdash;which was so cool, fresh with the morning air, though her
+heart was so fevered and sick&mdash;against the little cheek, which burned
+and glowed. "What is it? Can you tell what it is?" she said in a whisper
+of awe. Was it God Himself who had stepped in&mdash;who had come to
+interfere?</p>
+
+<p>Then the baby began to wail with that cry of inarticulate suffering
+which is the most pitiful of all the utterances of humanity. He could
+not tell what ailed him. He looked with his great dazed eyes pitifully
+from one to another as if asking them to help him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the fever, my lady," said the nurse. "We have sent for the
+doctor. It may not be a bad attack."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy sat down, her limbs failing her, her heart failing her still more,
+her bonnet and out-door dress cumbering her movements, the child tossing
+and restless in her arms. This was not the form his ailments had ever
+taken before. "Do you know what is to be done? Tell me what to do for
+him," she said.</p>
+
+<p>There was a kind of hush over all the house. The servants would not
+admit that anything was wrong until their mistress should come home. As
+soon as she was in the nursery and fully aware of the state of affairs,
+they left off their precautions. The maids appeared on the staircases
+clandestinely as they ought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> not to have done. Mrs. Freshwater herself
+abandoned her cosy closet, and declared in an impressive voice that no
+bell must be rung for luncheon&mdash;nor anything done that could possibly
+disturb the blessed baby, she said as she gave the order. And Williams
+desired to know what was preparing for Mr. Randolph's dinner, and
+announced his intention of taking it up himself. The other meal, the
+lunch, in the dining-room, was of no importance to any one. If he could
+take his beef-tea it would do him good, they all said.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if a long time passed before the doctor came; from Sir Tom
+to the youngest kitchen-wench, the scullery-maid, all were in suspense.
+There was but one breath, long drawn and stifled, when he came into the
+house. He was a long time in the nursery, and when he came out he went
+on talking to those who accompanied him. "You had better shut off this
+part of the house altogether," he was saying, "hang a sheet over this
+doorway, and let it be always kept wet. I will send in a person I can
+rely upon to take the night. You must not let Lady Randolph sit up." He
+repeated the same caution to Sir Tom, who came out with a bewildered air
+to hear what he had said. Sir Tom was the only one who had taken no
+fright. "Highly infectious," the Doctor said. "I advise you to send away
+every one who is not wanted. If Lady Randolph could be kept out of the
+room so much the better, but I don't suppose that is possible; anyhow,
+don't let her sit up. She is just in the condition to take it. It would
+be better if you did not go near the child yourself; but, of course, I
+understand how difficult that is. Parents are a nuisance in such cases,"
+the Doctor said, with a smile which Sir Tom thought heartless, though it
+was intended to cheer him. "It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> far better to give the little patient
+over to scientific unemotional care."</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't mean to say that there is danger, Doctor," cried Sir Tom.
+"Why, the little beggar was as jolly as possible only this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we'll pull him through, we'll pull him through," the good-natured
+Doctor said. He preferred to talk all the time, not to be asked
+questions, for what could he say? Nurse looked very awful as she went
+upstairs, charged with private information almost too important for any
+woman to contain. She stopped at the head of the stairs to whisper to
+Fletcher, shaking her head the while, and Fletcher, too, shook her head
+and whispered to Mrs. Freshwater that the doctor had a very bad opinion
+of the case. Poor little Tom had got to be "the case" all in a moment.
+And "no constitution" they said to each other under their breath.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the door closed upon Lucy and all her trouble. She forgot it clean,
+as if it never had existed. Everything in the world in one moment became
+utterly unimportant to her, except the fever in those heavy eyes. She
+reflected dimly, with an awful sense of having forestalled fate, that
+she had made a pretence that he was ill to shield herself that night,
+the first night after their arrival. She had said he was ill when all
+was well. And lo! sudden punishment scathing and terrible had come to
+her out of the angry skies.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sir Tom was concerned and anxious, but not alarmed like the women. After
+all it was a complaint of which children recovered every day. It had
+nothing to do with the child's lungs, which had been enfeebled by his
+former illness. He had as good a chance as any other in the present
+malady. Sir Tom was much depressed for an hour or two, but when
+everything was done that could be done, and an experienced woman arrived
+to whom the "case," though "anxious," as she said, did not appear
+immediately alarming, he forced his mind to check that depression, and
+to return to the cares which, if less grave, harassed and worried him
+more. Lucy was invisible all day. She spoke to him through the closed
+door from behind the curtain, but in a voice which he could scarcely
+hear and which had no tone of individuality in it, but only a faint
+human sound of distress. "He is no better. They say we cannot expect him
+to be better," she said. "Come down, dear, and have some dinner," said
+the round and large voice of Sir Tom, which even into that stillness
+brought a certain cheer. But as it sounded into the shut-up room, where
+nobody ventured to speak above their breath, it was like a bell pealing
+or a discharge of artillery, something that broke up the quiet, and
+made, or so the poor mother thought, the little patient start in his
+uneasy bed. Dinner! oh how could he ask it, how could he think of it?
+Sir Tom went away with a sigh of mingled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span> uneasiness and impatience. He
+had always thought Lucy a happy exception to the caprices and vagaries
+of womankind. He had hoped that she was without nerves, as she had
+certainly been without those whims that amuse a man in other people's
+wives, but disgust him in his own. Was she going to turn out just like
+the rest, with extravagant terrors, humours, fancies&mdash;like all of them?
+Why should not she come to dinner, and why speak to him only from behind
+the closed door? He was annoyed and almost angry with Lucy. There had
+been something the matter, he reflected, for some time. She had taken
+offence at something; but surely the appearance of a real trouble might,
+at least, have made an end of that. He felt vexed and impatient as he
+sat down with Jock alone. "You will have to get out of this, my boy," he
+said, "or they won't let you go back to school; don't you know it's
+catching?" To have infection in one's house, and to be considered
+dangerous by one's friends, is always irritating. Sir Tom spoke with a
+laugh, but it was a laugh of offence. "I ought to have thought of it
+sooner," he said; "you can't go straight to school, you know, from a
+house with fever in it. You must pack up and get off at once."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid," cried Jock. "Do you think I am such a cad as to leave
+Lucy when she's in trouble? or&mdash;or&mdash;the little one either?" Jock added,
+in a husky voice.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all cads in that respect nowadays," said Sir Tom. "It is the
+right thing. It is high principle. Men will elbow off and keep me at a
+distance, and not a soul will come near Lucy. Well, I suppose, it's all
+right. But there is some reason in it, so far as you are concerned.
+Come, you must be off to-night. Get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> hold of MTutor, he's still in town,
+and ask him what you must do."</p>
+
+<p>After dinner Sir Tom strolled forth. He did not mean to go out, but the
+house was intolerable, and he was very uneasy on the subject of Bice. It
+felt, indeed, something like a treason to Lucy, shut up in the child's
+sick-room, to go to the house which somehow or other was felt to be in
+opposition, and dimly suspected as the occasion of her changed looks and
+ways. He did not even say to himself that he meant to go there. And it
+was not any charm in the Contessa that drew him. It was that uneasy
+sense of a possibility which involved responsibility, and which,
+probably, he would never either make sure of or get rid of. The little
+house in Mayfair was lighted from garret to basement. If the lights were
+dim inside they looked bright without. It had the air of a house
+overflowing with life, every room with its sign of occupation. When he
+got in, the first sight he saw was Montjoie striding across the doorway
+of the small dining-room. Montjoie was very much at home, puffing his
+cigarette at the new comer. "Hallo, St. John!" he cried, then added with
+a tone of disappointment, "Oh! it's you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is I, I'm sorry to say, as you don't seem to like it," said Sir Tom.</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow looked a little abashed. "I expected another fellow.
+That's not to say I ain't glad to see you. Come in and have a glass of
+wine."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Sir Tom. "I suppose as you are smoking the ladies are
+upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they don't mind," said Montjoie; "at least the Contessa, don't you
+know? She's up to a cigarette herself. I shouldn't stand it," he added,
+after a moment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> "in&mdash;Mademoiselle. Oh, perhaps you haven't heard. She
+and I&mdash;have fixed it all up, don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fixed it all up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Engaged, and that sort of thing. I'm a kind of boss in this house now.
+I thought, perhaps, that was why you were coming, to hear all about it,
+don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Engaged!" cried Sir Tom, with a surprise in which there was no
+qualification. He felt disposed to catch the young fellow by the throat
+and pitch him out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't seem over and above pleased," said Montjoie, throwing away
+his cigarette, and confronting Sir Tom with a flush of defiance. They
+stood looking at each other for a moment, while Antonio, in the
+background, watched at the foot of the stairs, not without hopes of a
+disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose that my pleasure or displeasure matters much: but you
+will pardon me if I pass, for my visit was to the Contessa," Sir Tom
+said, going on quickly. He was in an irritable state of mind to begin
+with. He thought he ought to have been consulted, even as an old friend,
+much more as&mdash;&mdash; And the young ass was offensive. If it turned out that
+Sir Tom had anything to do with it Montjoie should find that to be the
+best <i>parti</i> of the season was not a thing that would infallibly
+recommend him to a father at least. The Contessa had risen from her
+chair at the sound of the voices. She came forward to Sir Tom with both
+her hands extended as he entered the drawing-room. "Dear old friend!
+congratulate me. I have accomplished all I wished," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"That was Montjoie," said Sir Tom. He laughed, but not with his usual
+laugh. "No great ambition, I am afraid. But," he said, pressing those
+delicate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> hands not as they were used to be pressed, with a hard
+seriousness and imperativeness, "you must tell me! I must have an
+explanation. There can be no delay or quibbling longer."</p>
+
+<p>"You hurt me, sir," she said with a little cry, and looked at her hands,
+"body and mind," she added, with one of her smiles. "Quibbling&mdash;that is
+one of your English words a woman cannot be expected to understand. Come
+then with me, barbarian, into my boudoir."</p>
+
+<p>Bice sat alone somewhat pensively with one of those favourite Tauchnitz
+volumes from which she had obtained her knowledge of English life in her
+hand. It was contraband, which made it all the dearer to her. She was
+not reading, but leaning her chin against it lost in thought. She was
+not pining for the presence of Montjoie, but rather glad after a long
+afternoon of him that he should prefer a cigarette to her company. She
+felt that this was precisely her own case, the cigarette being
+represented by the book or any other expedient that answered to cover
+the process of thought.</p>
+
+<p>Bice was not used to these processes. Keen observation of the ways of
+mankind in all the strange exhibitions of them which she had seen in her
+life had been the chief exercise of her lively intelligence. To Mr.
+Derwentwater, perhaps, may be given the credit of having roused the
+girl's mind, not indeed to sympathy with himself, but into a kind of
+perturbation and general commotion of spirit. Events were crowding
+quickly upon her. She had accepted one suitor and refused another within
+the course of a few hours. Such incidents develop the being; not,
+perhaps, the first in any great degree&mdash;but the second was not in the
+programme,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> and it had perplexed and roused her. There had come into her
+mind glimmerings, reflections, she could not tell what. Montjoie was
+occupied in something of the same manner downstairs, thinking it all
+over with his cigarette, wondering what Society and what his uncle would
+say, for whom he had a certain respect. He said to himself on the whole
+that he did not care that for Society! She suited him down to the
+ground. She was the jolliest girl he had ever met, besides being so
+awfully handsome. It was worth while going out riding with her just to
+see how the fellows stared and the women grew green with envy; or coming
+into a room with her, Jove! what a sensation she would make, and how
+everybody would open their eyes when she appeared blazing in the
+Montjoie diamonds! His satisfaction went a little deeper than this, to
+do him justice. He was, in his way, very much in love with the beautiful
+creature whom he had made up his mind to secure from the first moment he
+saw her. But, perhaps, if it had not been for the triumph of her
+appearance at Park Lane, and the hum of admiration and wonder that rose
+around her, he would not have so early fixed his fate; and the shadow of
+the uncle now and then came like a cloud over his glee. After the sudden
+gravity with which he remembered this, there suddenly gleamed upon him a
+vision of all his plain cousins gathering round his bride to scowl her
+down, and blast her with criticism and disapproval, which made him burst
+into a fit of laughter. Bice would hold her own; she would give as good
+as she got. She was not one to be cowed or put down, wasn't Bee! He felt
+himself clapping his hands and urging her on to the combat, and
+celebrated in advance with a shout of laughter the discomfiture of all
+those young ladies. But she should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> have nothing more to do with the
+Forno-Populo. No; his wife should have none of that sort about her. What
+did old Randolph mean always hanging about that old woman, and all the
+rest of the old fogeys? It was fun enough so long as you had nothing to
+do with them, but, by Jove, not for Lady Montjoie. Then he rushed
+upstairs to shower a few rough caresses upon Bice and take his leave of
+her, for he had an evening engagement formed before he was aware of the
+change which was coming in his life. He had been about her all the
+afternoon, and Bice, disturbed in her musings by this onslaught and
+somewhat impatient of the caresses, beheld his departure with
+satisfaction. It was the first evening since their arrival in town,
+which the ladies had planned to spend alone.</p>
+
+<p>And then she recommenced these thinkings which were not so easy as those
+of her lover: but she was soon subject to another inroad of a very
+different kind. Jock, who had never before come in the evening, appeared
+suddenly unannounced at the door of the room with a pale and heavy
+countenance. Though Bice had objected to be disturbed by her lover, she
+did not object to Jock; he harmonised with the state of her mind, which
+Montjoie did not. It seemed even to relieve her of the necessity of
+thinking when he appeared&mdash;he who did thinking enough, she felt, with
+half-conscious humour, for any number of people. He came in with a sort
+of eagerness, yet weariness, and explained that he had come to say
+good-bye, for he was going off&mdash;at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Going off! but it is not time yet," Bice said.</p>
+
+<p>"Because of the fever. But that is not altogether why I have come
+either," he said, looking at her from under his curved eyebrows. "I have
+got something to say."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What fever?" she said, sitting upright in her chair.</p>
+
+<p>Jock took no notice of the question; his mind was full of his own
+purpose. "Look here," he said huskily, "I know you'll never speak to me
+again. But there's something I want to say. We've been friends&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," she said, raising her head with a gleam of frank and cordial
+pleasure, "good friends&mdash;<i>camarades</i>&mdash;and I shall always, always speak
+to you. You were my first friend."</p>
+
+<p>"That is" said Jock, taking no notice, "you were&mdash;friends. I can't tell
+what I was. I don't know. It's something very droll. You would laugh, I
+suppose. But that's not to the purpose either. You wouldn't have
+Derwentwater to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked up with a half laugh. She began to consider him closely with
+her clear-sighted penetrating eyes, and the agitation under which Jock
+was labouring impressed the girl's quick mind. She watched every change
+of his face with a surprised interest, but she did not make any reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I never expected you would. I could have told him so. I did tell him
+you liked the other best. They say that's common with women," Jock said
+with a little awe, "when they have the choice offered, that it is always
+the worst they take."</p>
+
+<p>But still Bice did not reply. It was a sort of carrying out without any
+responsibility of hers, the vague wonder and questionings of her own
+mind. She had no responsibility in what Jock said. She could even
+question and combat it cheerfully now that it was presented to her from
+outside, but for the moment she said nothing to help him on, and he did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span>
+not seem to require it, though he paused from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>"This is what I've got to say," Jock went on almost fiercely. "If you
+take Montjoie it's a mistake. He looks good-natured and all that; he
+looks easy to get on with. You hear me out, and then I'll go away and
+never trouble you again. He is not&mdash;a nice fellow. If you were to go and
+do such a thing as&mdash;marry him, and then find it out! I want you to know.
+Perhaps you think it's mean of me to say so, like sneaking, and perhaps
+it is. But, look here, I can't help it. Of course you would laugh at
+me&mdash;any one would. I'm a boy at school. I know that as well as you
+do&mdash;&mdash;" Something got into Jock's voice so that he paused, and made a
+gulp before he could go on. "But, Bice, don't have that fellow. There
+are such lots; don't have <i>him</i>. I don't think I could stand it," Jock
+cried. "And look here, if it's because the Contessa wants money, I have
+some myself. What do I want with money? When I am older I shall work.
+There it is for you, if you like. But don't&mdash;have that fellow. Have a
+good fellow, there are plenty&mdash;there are fellows like Sir Tom. He is a
+good man. I should not," said Jock, with a sort of sob, which came in
+spite of himself, and which he did not remark even, so strong was the
+passion in him. "I should not&mdash;mind. I could put up with it then. So
+would Derwentwater. But, Bice&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She had risen up, and so had he. They were neither of them aware of it.
+Jock had lost consciousness, perception, all thought of anything but her
+and this that he was urging upon her. While as for Bice the tide had
+gone too high over her head. She felt giddy in the presence of something
+so much more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> powerful than any feeling she had ever known, and yet
+gazed at him half alarmed, half troubled as she was, with a perception
+that could not be anything but humorous of the boy's voice sounding so
+bass and deep, sometimes bursting into childish, womanish treble, and
+the boy's aspect which contrasted so strongly with the passion in which
+he spoke. When Sir Tom's voice made itself audible, coming from the
+boudoir in conversation with the Contessa, the effect upon the two thus
+standing in a sort of mortal encounter was extraordinary. Bice straining
+up to the mark which he was setting before her, bewildered with the
+flood on which she was rising, sank into ease again and a mastery of the
+situation, while Jock, worn out and with a sense that all was over, sat
+down abruptly, and left, as it were, the stage clear.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor little man is rather bad, I fear," said Sir Tom, coming
+through the dim room. There was something in his voice, an easier tone,
+a sound of relief. How had the Contessa succeeded in cheering him? "And
+what is worse (for he will do well I hope) is the scattering of all her
+friends from about Lucy. I am kept out of it, and it does not matter,
+you see; but she, poor little woman,"&mdash;his voice softened as he named
+her with a tone of tenderness&mdash;"nobody will go near her," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa gave a little shiver, and drew about her the loose shawl
+she wore. "What can we say in such a case? It is not for us, it is for
+those around us. It is a risk for so many&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My aunt," said Sir Tom, "would be her natural ally; but I know Lady
+Randolph too well to think of that. And there is Jock, whom we are
+compelled to send away. We shall be like two crows all alone in the
+house."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is it this you told me of, fever?" cried Bice, turning to Jock. "But it
+is I that will go&mdash;oh, this moment! It is no tr-rouble. I can sit up. I
+never am sleepy. I am so strong nothing hurts me. I will go directly,
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"You!" they all cried, but the Contessa's tones were most high. She made
+a protest full of indignant virtue.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think," she said, "if I had but myself to think of that I would
+not fly to her? But, child in your position! <i>fiancée</i> only to-day&mdash;with
+all to do, all to think of, how could I leave you? Oh, it is impossible;
+my good Lucy, who is never unreasonable, she will know it, she will
+understand. Besides, to what use, my Bice? She has nurses for day and
+night. She has her dear husband, her good husband, to be with her. What
+does a woman want more? You would be <i>de trop</i>. You would be out of
+place. It would be a trouble to them. It would be a blame to me. And you
+would take it, and bring it back and spread it, Bice&mdash;and perhaps Lord
+Montjoie&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked round her bewildered from one to another.</p>
+
+<p>"Should I be <i>de trop</i>?" she said, turning to Sir Tom with anxious eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom looked at her with an air of singular emotion. He laid his hand
+caressingly on her shoulder: "<i>De trop</i>? no; never in my house. But that
+is not the question. Lucy will be cheered when she knows that you wanted
+to come. But what the Contessa says is true; there are plenty of
+nurses&mdash;and my wife&mdash;has me, if I am any good; and we would not have you
+run any risk&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In her position!" cried the Contessa; "<i>fiancée</i> only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> to-day. She owes
+herself already to Lord Montjoie, who would never consent, never; it is
+against every rule. Speak to her, <i>mon ami</i>, speak to her; she is a girl
+who is capable of all. Tell her that now it is thought criminal, that
+one does not risk one's self and others. She might bring it here, if not
+to herself, to me, Montjoie, the domestics." The Contessa sank into a
+chair and began fanning herself; then got up again and went towards the
+girl clasping her hands. "My sweetest," she cried, "you will not be
+<i>entétée</i>, and risk everything. We shall have news, good news, every
+morning, three, four times a day."</p>
+
+<p>"And Milady," said Bice, "who has done everything, will be alone and in
+tr-rouble. Sir Tom, he must leave her, he must attend to his affairs. He
+is a man; he must take the air; he must go out in the world. And
+she&mdash;she will be alone: when we have lived with her, when she has been
+more good, more good than any one could deserve. Risk! The doctor does
+not take it, who is everywhere, who will, perhaps, come to you next,
+Madama; and the nurses do not take it. It is a shame," cried the girl,
+throwing up her fine head, "if Love is not as good as the servants, if
+to have gratitude in your heart is nothing! And the risk, what is it? An
+illness, a fever. I have had a fever&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bice, you might bring&mdash;what is dreadful to think of," cried the
+Contessa, with a shiver. "You might die."</p>
+
+<p>"Die!" the girl cried, in a voice like a silver trumpet with a keen
+sweetness of scorn and tenderness combined. "<i>Après</i>?" she said,
+throwing back her head. She was not capable of those questions which Mr.
+Derwentwater and his pupil had set before her. But here she was upon
+different ground.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she is capable of all! she is a girl that is capable of all," cried
+the Contessa, sinking once more into a chair.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EVE OF SORROW.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sir Tom stepped out into the night some time after, holding Jock by the
+arm. The boy had a sort of thrill and tremble in him as if he had been
+reading poetry or witnessing some great tragic scene, which the elder
+man partially understood without being at all aware that Jock had
+himself been an actor in this drama. He himself had been dismissed out
+of it, so to speak. His mind was relieved, and yet he was not so
+satisfied as he expected to be. It had been proved to him that he had no
+responsibility for Bice, and his anxiety relieved on that subject;
+relieved, oh yes: and yet was he a little disappointed too. It would
+have been endless embarrassment, and Lucy would not have liked it. Still
+he had been accustoming himself to the idea, and, now that it was broken
+clean off, he was not so much pleased as he had expected. Poor little
+Bice! her little burst of generous gratitude and affection had gone to
+his heart. If that little thing who (it appeared) had died in Florence
+so many years ago had survived and grown a woman, as an hour ago he had
+believed her to have done, that is how he should have liked her to feel
+and to express herself. Such a sense of approval and admiration was in
+him that he felt the disappointment the more. Yes, he supposed it was a
+disappointment. He had begun to get used<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> to the idea, and he had always
+liked the girl; but of course it was a relief&mdash;the greatest relief&mdash;to
+have no explanation to make to Lucy, instead of the painful one which
+perhaps she would only partially believe. He had felt that it would be
+most difficult to make her understand that, though this was so, he had
+not been in any plot, and had not known of it any more than she did when
+Bice was brought to his house. This would have been the difficult point
+in the matter, and now, heaven be praised! all that was over, and there
+was no mystery, nothing to explain. But so strange is human sentiment
+that the world felt quite impoverished to Sir Tom, though he was much
+relieved. Life became for the moment a more commonplace affair
+altogether. He was free from the annoyance. It mattered nothing to him
+now who she married&mdash;the best <i>parti</i> in society, or Jock's tutor, or
+anybody the girl pleased. If it had not been for that exhibition of
+feeling Sir Tom would probably have said to himself, satirically, that
+there could be little doubt which the Contessa's ward and pupil would
+choose. But after that little scene he came out very much shaken,
+touched to the heart, thinking that perhaps life would have been more
+full and sweet had his apprehensions been true. She had been overcome by
+the united pressure of himself and the Contessa, and for the moment
+subdued, though the fire in her eye and swelling of her young bosom
+seemed to say that the victory was very incomplete. He would have liked
+the little one that died to have looked like that, and felt like that,
+had she lived to grow a woman like Bice. Great heaven, the little one
+that died! The words as they went through his mind sent a chill to Sir
+Tom's breast. Might it be that they would be said again&mdash;once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> more&mdash;and
+that far-back sin bring thus a punishment all the more bitter for being
+so long delayed. Human nature will never get to believe that God is not
+lying in wait somewhere to exact payment of every account.</p>
+
+<p>"She understands that," said Jock suddenly. "She don't know the meaning
+of other things."</p>
+
+<p>"What may be the other things?" said Sir Tom, feeling a half jealousy of
+anything that could be said to Bice's disadvantage. "I don't think she
+is wanting in understanding. Ah, I see. You don't know how any one could
+resist the influence of MTutor, Jock."</p>
+
+<p>Through the darkness under the feeble lamp Jock shot a glance at his
+elder of that immeasurable contempt which youth feels for the absence of
+all penetration shown by its seniors, and their limited powers of
+observation. But he said nothing. Perhaps he could not trust himself to
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think I'm a scoffer, my boy," said Sir Tom. "MTutor's a very
+decent fellow. Let us go and look him up. He would be better, to my
+thinking, if he were not quite so fine, you know. But that's a trifle,
+and I'm an old fogey. You are not going back to Park Lane to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"After what you heard her say? Do you think I've got no heart either? If
+I could have it instead of him!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't, my boy," Sir Tom said with a pressure of Jock's arm.
+"And you must not make Lucy more wretched by hanging about. There's the
+mystery," he broke out suddenly. "You can't&mdash;none of us can. What might
+be nothing to you or me may be death to that little thing, but it is he
+that has to go through with it; life is a horrible sort of pleasure,
+Jock."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is it a pleasure?" the boy said under his breath. Life in him at that
+moment was one big heavy throbbing through all his being, full of
+mysterious powers unknown, of which Death was the least&mdash;yet, coming as
+he did a great shadow upon the feeblest, a terrible and awe-striking
+power beyond the strength of man to understand.</p>
+
+<p>After this night, so full of emotion, there came certain days which
+passed without sign or mark in the dim great house looking out upon all
+the lively sights and sounds of the great park. The sun rose and
+reddened the windows, the noon blazed, the gray twilight touched
+everything into colour. In the chamber which was the centre of all
+interest no one knew or cared how the hours went, and whether it was
+morning or noon or night. Instead of these common ways of reckoning,
+they counted by the hours when the doctor came, when the child must have
+his medicine, when it was time to refresh the little cot with cool clean
+linen, or sponge the little hot hands. The other attendants took their
+turns and rested, but Lucy was capable of no rest. She dozed sometimes
+with her eyes half opened, hearing every movement and little cry.
+Perhaps as the time went on and the watch continued her faculties were a
+little blunted by this, so that she was scarcely full awake at any time,
+since she never slept. She moved mechanically about, and was conscious
+of nothing but a dazed and confused misery, without anticipation or
+recollection. Something there was in her mind besides, which perhaps
+made it worse; she could not tell. Could anything make it worse? The
+heart, like any other vessel, can hold but what it is capable of, and no
+more.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to estimate what is the greatest sor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span>row of human life.
+It is that which has us in its grip, whatever it may be. Bereavement is
+terrible until there comes to you a pang more bitter from living than
+from dying: and one grief is supreme until another tops it, and the sea
+comes on and on in mountain waves. But perhaps of all the endurances of
+nature there is none which the general consent would agree upon as the
+greatest, like that of a mother watching death approach, with noiseless,
+awful step, to the bed of her only child. If humanity can approach more
+near the infinite in capacity of suffering, it is hard to know how. We
+must all bow down before this extremity of anguish, humbly begging the
+pardon of that sufferer, that in our lesser griefs, we dare to bemoan
+ourselves in her presence. And whether it is the dear companion&mdash;man or
+woman grown&mdash;or the infant out of her clasping arms, would seem to
+matter very little. According as it happens, so is the blow the most
+terrible. To Lucy, enveloped by that woe, there could have been no
+change that would not have lightened something (or so she felt) of her
+intolerable burden. Could he have breathed his fever and pain into
+words, could he have told what ailed him, could he have said to her only
+one little phrase of love, to be laid up in her heart! But the pitiful
+looks of those baby eyes, now bright with fever, now dull as dead
+violets, the little inarticulate murmurings, the appeals that could not
+be comprehended, added such a misery as was almost too much for flesh
+and blood to bear. This terrible ordeal was what Lucy had to go through.
+The child, though he had, as the maids said, no constitution, and though
+he had been enfeebled by illness for half his little lifetime, fought on
+hour after hour and day after day. Sometimes there was a look in his
+little face as of a conscious intelligence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span> fighting a brave battle for
+life. His young mother beside him rose and fell with his breath, lived
+only in him, knew nothing but the vicissitudes of the sick room, taking
+her momentary broken rest when he slept, only to start up when, with a
+louder breath, a little cry, the struggle was resumed. The nurses could
+not, it would be unreasonable to expect it, be as entirely absorbed in
+their charge as was his mother. They got to talk at last, not minding
+her presence, quite freely in half whispers about other "cases," of
+patients and circumstances they had known. Stories of children who had
+died, and of some who had been miraculously raised from the brink of the
+grave, and of families swept away and houses desolated, seemed to get
+into the air of the room and float about Lucy, catching her confused
+ear, which was always on the watch for other sounds. Three or four times
+a day Sir Tom came to the door for news, but was not admitted, as the
+doctor's orders were stringent. There was no one admitted except the
+doctor; no cheer or comfort from without came into the sick room. Sir
+Tom did his best to speak a cheerful word, and would fain have persuaded
+Lucy to come out into the corridor, or to breathe the fresh air from a
+balcony. But Lucy, had she been capable of leaving the child, had a dim
+recollection in her mind that there was something, she could not tell
+what, interposing between her and her husband, and turned away from him
+with a sinking at her heart. She remembered vaguely that he had
+something else&mdash;some other possessions to comfort him&mdash;not this child
+alone as she had. He had something that he could perhaps love as
+well&mdash;but she had nothing; and she turned away from him with an
+instinctive sense of the difference, feeling it to be a wrong to her
+boy. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> for this they might have comforted each other, and consulted
+each other over the fever and its symptoms. And she might have stolen a
+few moments from her child's bed and thrown herself on her husband's
+bosom and been consoled. But after all what did it matter? Could
+anything have made it more easy to bear? When sorrow and pain occupy the
+whole being, what room is there for consolation, what importance in the
+lessening by an infinitesimal shred of sorrow!</p>
+
+<p>This had gone on for&mdash;Lucy could not tell how many days (though not in
+reality for very many), when there came one afternoon in which
+everything seemed to draw towards the close. It is the time when the
+heart fails most easily and the tide of being runs most low. The light
+was beginning to wane in those dim rooms, though a great golden sunset
+was being enacted in purple and flame on the other side of the house.
+The child's eyes were dull and glazed; they seemed to turn inward with
+that awful blank which is like the soul's withdrawal; its little powers
+seemed all exhausted. The little moan, the struggle, had fallen into
+quiet. The little lips were parched and dry. Those pathetic looks that
+seemed to plead for help and understanding came no more. The baby was
+too much worn out for such painful indications of life. The women had
+drawn aside, all their talk hushed, only a faint whisper now and then of
+directions from the most experienced of the two to the subordinates
+aiding the solemn watch. Lucy sat by the side of the little bed on the
+floor, sometimes raising herself on her knees to see better. She had
+fallen into the chill and apathy of despair.</p>
+
+<p>At this time a door opened, not loudly or with any breach of the decorum
+of such a crisis, but with a dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span>tinct soft sound, which denoted some
+one not bound by the habits of a sick room. A step equally distinct,
+though soft, not the noiseless step of a watcher, came in through the
+outer room and to the bed. The women, who were standing a little apart,
+gave a low, involuntary cry. It looked like health and youthful vigour
+embodied which came sweeping into the dim room to the bedside of the
+dying child. It was Bice, who had asked no leave, who fell on her knees
+beside Lucy and stooped down her beautiful head, and kissed the hand
+which lay on the baby's coverlet. "Oh, pardon me," she said, "I could
+not keep away any longer. They kept me by force, or I would have come
+long, long since. I have come to stay, that you may have some rest, for
+I can nurse him&mdash;oh, with all my heart!"</p>
+
+<p>She had said all this hurriedly in a breath before she looked at the
+child. Now she turned her head to the little bed. Her countenance
+underwent a sudden change. The colour forsook her cheeks, her lips
+dropped apart. She turned round to the nurse with a low cry, with a
+terrified question in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said Lucy, speaking with a gasp as if in answer to some
+previous argument, "she thinks so, too&mdash;&mdash;" Then there was a terrible
+pause. There seemed to come another "change," as the women said, over
+the little face, out of which life ebbed at every breath. Lucy started
+to her feet; she seized Bice's arm and raised her, which would have been
+impossible in a less terrible crisis. "Go," she said; "Go, Bice, to your
+father, and tell him to come, for my boy is dying Go&mdash;go!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST CRISIS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Go to your father." Bice did not know what Lucy meant. The words
+bewildered her beyond description, but she did not hesitate what to do.
+She went downstairs to Sir Tom, who sat with his door opened and his
+heart sinking in his bosom waiting to hear. There was no need for any
+words. He followed her at once, almost as softly and as noiselessly as
+she had come. And when they entered the dim room, where by this time
+there was scarcely light enough for unaccustomed eyes to see, he went up
+to Lucy and put his arms round her as she stood leaning on the little
+bed. "My love," he said, "my love; we must be all in all to each other
+now." His voice was choked and broken, but it did not reach Lucy's
+heart. She put him away from her with an almost imperceptible movement.
+"You have others," she said hoarsely; "I have nothing, nothing but him."
+Just then the child stirred faintly in his bed, and first extending her
+arms to put them all away from her, Lucy bent over him and lifted him to
+her bosom. The nurse made a step forward to interfere, but then stepped
+back again wringing her hands. The mother had risen into a sort of
+sublimity, irresponsible in her great woe&mdash;if she had killed him to
+forestall her agony a little, as is the instinct of desperation, they
+could not have interfered. She sat down, and gathered the child close,
+close in her embrace, his head upon her breast, holding him as if to
+communicate life to him with the contact of hers. Her breath, her arms,
+her whole being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> enveloped the little dying creature with a fulness of
+passionate existence expanded to its highest. It was like taking back
+the half-extinguished germ into the very bosom and core of life. They
+stood round her with an awe of her, which would permit no intrusion
+either of word or act. Even the experienced nurse who believed that the
+little spark of life would be shaken out by this movement, only wrung
+her hands and said nothing. The rest were but as spectators, gathering
+round to see the tragedy accomplished and the woman's heart shattered
+before their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Which was unjust too&mdash;for the husband who stood behind was as great a
+sufferer. He was struck in everything a man can feel most, the instincts
+of paternal love awakened late, the pride a man has in his heir, all
+were crushed in him by a blow that seemed to wring his very heart out of
+his breast; but neither did any one think of him, nor did he think of
+himself. The mother that bare him!&mdash;that mysterious tie that goes beyond
+and before all, was acknowledged by them all without a word. It was hers
+to do as she pleased. The moments are long at such a time. They seemed
+to stand still on that strange scene. The light remained the same; the
+darkness seemed arrested, perhaps because it had come on too early on
+account of clouds overhead; perhaps because time was standing still to
+witness the easy parting of a soul not yet accustomed to this earth; the
+far more terrible rending of the woman's heart.</p>
+
+<p>Presently a sensation of great calm fell, no one could tell how, into
+the room. The terror seemed to leave the hearts of the watchers. Was it
+the angel who had arrived and shed a soothing from his very presence
+though he had come to accomplish the end?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another little change, almost imperceptible, Lucy beginning to rock her
+child softly, as if lulling him to sleep. No one moved, or even
+breathed, it seemed, for how long? some minutes, half a lifetime. Then
+another sound. Oh, God in heaven! had she gone distracted, the innocent
+creature, the young mother, in her anguish? She began to sing&mdash;a few low
+notes, a little lullaby, in a voice ineffable, indescribable, not like
+any mortal voice. One of the women burst out into a wail&mdash;it was the
+child's nurse&mdash;and tried to take him from the mother's arms. The other
+took her by the shoulders and turned her away. "What does it matter, a
+few minutes more or less; she'll come to herself soon enough, poor
+dear," said the attendant with a sob. Thus the group was diminished. Sir
+Tom stood with one hand on his wife's chair, his face covered with the
+other, and in his heart the bitterness of death; Bice had dropped down
+on her knees by the side of that pathetic group; and in the midst sat
+the mother bent over, almost enfolding the child, cradling him in her
+own life. Bice was herself not much more than a child; to her all things
+were possible&mdash;miracles, restorations from the dead. Her eyes were full
+of tears, but there was a smile upon her quivering mouth. It was at her
+Lucy looked, with eyes full of something like that "awful rose of dawn"
+of which the poet speaks. They were dilated to twice their natural size.
+She made a slight movement, opening to Bice the little face upon her
+bosom, bidding her look as at a breathless secret to be kept from all
+else. Was it a reflection or a faint glow of warmth upon the little worn
+cheek? The eyes were no longer open, showing the white, but closed, with
+the eyelashes shadowing against the cheek. There came into Lucy's eyes a
+sort of warning look to keep the secret, and the won<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span>derful spectacle
+was, as it were, closed again, hidden with her arms and bending head.
+And the soft coo of the lullaby went on.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the women stole back, awed and silenced, but full of a
+reviving thrill of curiosity. The elder one, who was from the hospital
+and prepared for everything, drew nearer, and regarded with a
+scientific, but not unsympathetic eye, the mother and the child. She
+withdrew a little the shawl in which the infant was wrapped, and put her
+too-experienced, instructed hands upon his little limbs, without taking
+any notice of Lucy, who remained passive through this examination. "He's
+beautiful and warm," said the woman, in a wondering tone. Then Bice rose
+to her feet with a quick sudden movement, and went to Sir Tom and drew
+his hand from his face. "He is not dying, he is sleeping," she said.
+"And I think, miss, you're right. He has taken a turn for the better,"
+said the experienced woman from the hospital. "Don't move, my lady,
+don't move; we'll prop you with cushions&mdash;we'll pull him through still,
+please God," the nurse said, with a few genuine tears.</p>
+
+<p>When the doctor came some time after, instead of watching the child's
+last moments, he had only to confirm their certainty of this favourable
+change, and give his sanction to it; and the cloud that had seemed to
+hang over it all day lifted from the house. The servants began to move
+about again and bustle. The lamps were lighted. The household resumed
+their occupations, and Williams himself in token of sympathy carried up
+Mr. Randolph's beef-tea. When Lucy, after a long interval, was liberated
+from her confined attitude and the child restored to his bed, the
+improvement was so evident that she allowed herself to be persuaded to
+lie down and rest. "Milady," said Bice, "I am not good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> for anything,
+but I love him. I will not interfere, but neither will I ever take away
+my eyes from him till you are again here." There was no use in this, but
+it was something to the young mother. She lay down and slept, for the
+first time since the illness began; slept not in broken, painful
+dozings, but a real sleep. She was not in a condition to think; but
+there was a vague feeling in her mind that here was some one, not as
+others were, to whom little Tom was something more than to the rest.
+Consciously she ought to have shrunk from Bice's presence; unconsciously
+it soothed her and warmed her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom went back to his room, shaken as with a long illness, but
+feeling that the world had begun again, and life was once more liveable.
+He sat down and thought over every incident, and thanked God with such
+tears as men too, like women, are often fain to indulge in, though they
+do it chiefly in private. Then, as the effect of this great crisis began
+to go off a little, and the common round to come back, there recurred to
+his mind Lucy's strange speech, "You have others&mdash;&mdash;" What others was he
+supposed to have? She had drawn herself away from him. She had made no
+appeal to his sympathy. "You have&mdash;others. I have nothing but him." What
+did Lucy mean? And then he remembered how little intercourse there had
+been of late between them, how she had kept aloof from him. They might
+have been separated and living in different houses for all the union
+there had been between them. "You have others&mdash;&mdash;" What did Lucy mean?</p>
+
+<p>He got up, moved by the uneasiness of this question, and began to pace
+about the floor. He had no others; never had a man been more devoted to
+his own house. She had not been exacting, nor he uxorious.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> He had lived
+a man's life in the world, and had not neglected his duties for his
+wife; but he reminded himself, with a sort of indignant satisfaction,
+that he had found Lucy far more interesting than he expected, and that
+her fresh curiosity, her interest in everything, and the just enough of
+receptive intelligence, which is more agreeable than cleverness, had
+made her the most pleasant companion he had ever known. It was not an
+exercise of self-denial, of virtue on his part, as the Dowager and
+indeed many other of his friends had attempted to make out, but a real
+pleasure in her society. He had liked to talk to her, to tell her his
+own past history (selections from it), to like, yet laugh at her simple
+comments. He never despised anything she said, though he had laughed at
+some of it with a genial and placid amusement. And that little beggar!
+about whom Sir Tom could not even think to-day without a rush of water
+to his eyes&mdash;could any man have considered the little fellow more, or
+been more proud of him or fond? He could not live in the nursery, it was
+true, like Lucy, but short of that&mdash;"Others." What could she mean? There
+were no others. He was content to live and die, if but they might be
+spared to him, with her and the boy. A sort of chill doubt that somebody
+might have breathed into her ear that suggestion about Bice's parentage
+did indeed cross his mind; but ever since he had ascertained that this
+fear was a delusion, it had seemed to him the most ridiculous idea in
+the world. It had not seemed so before; it had appeared probable enough,
+nay, with many coincidences in its favour. And he had even been
+conscious of something like disappointment to find that it was not true.
+But now it seemed to him too absurd for credence; and what creature in
+the world, except<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> himself, could have known the circumstances that made
+it possible? No one but Williams, and Williams was true.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till next morning that the ordinary habits of the household
+could be said to be in any measure resumed. On that day Bice came down
+to breakfast with Sir Tom with a smiling brightness which cheered his
+solitary heart. She had gone back out of all her finery to the simple
+black frock, which she told him had been the easiest thing to carry.
+This was in answer to his question, "How had she come? Had the Contessa
+sent her?" Bice clapped her hands with pleasure, and recounted how she
+had run away.</p>
+
+<p>"The news were always bad, more bad; and Milady all alone. At length the
+time came when I could bear it no longer. I love him, my little Tom; and
+Milady has always been kind, so kind, more kind than any one. Nobody has
+been kind to me like her, and also you, Sir Tom; and baby that was my
+darling," the girl said.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, my dear," said Sir Tom; "but," he added, "you should not
+have done it. You should have remembered the infection."</p>
+
+<p>Bice made a little face of merry disdain and laughed aloud. "Do I care
+for infection? Love is more strong than a fever. And then," she added,
+"I had a purpose too."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Tom was delighted with her girlish confidences about her frock and
+her purpose. "Something very grave, I should imagine, from those looks."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is very grave," said Bice, her countenance changing. "You know I
+am <i>fiancée</i>. There has been a good deal said to me of Lord Montjoie;
+sometimes that he was not wise, what you call silly, not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> clever, not
+good to have to do with. That he is not clever one can see; but what
+then? The clever they do not always please. Others say that he is a
+great <i>parti</i>, and all that is desirable. Myself," she added with an air
+of judicial impartiality, "I like him well enough; even when he does not
+please me, he amuses. The clever they are not always amusing. I am
+willing to marry him since it is wished, otherwise I do not care much.
+For there is, you know, plenty of time, and to marry so soon&mdash;it is a
+disappointment, it is no longer exciting. So it is not easy to know
+distinctly what to do. That is what you call a dilemma," Bice said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a serious dilemma," said Sir Tom, much amused and flattered too.
+"You want me then to give you my advice&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Bice, which made his countenance suddenly blank, "not advice.
+I have thought of a way. All say that it is almost wicked, at least very
+wrong to come here (in the Tauchnitz it would be miserable to be afraid,
+and so I think), and that the fever is more than everything. Now for me
+it is not so. If Lord Montjoie is of my opinion, and if he thinks I am
+right to come, then I shall know that, though he is not clever&mdash;&mdash; Yes;
+that is my purpose. Do you think I shall be right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Sir Tom, though he looked somewhat crestfallen. "You have
+come not so much for us, though you are kindly disposed towards us, but
+to put your future husband to the test. There is only this drawback,
+that he might be an excellent fellow and yet object to the step you have
+taken. Also that these sort of tests are very risky, and that it is
+scarcely worth while for this, to run the risk of a bad illness, perhaps
+of your life."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That is unjust," said Bice with tears in her eyes. "I should have come
+to Milady had there been no Montjoie at all. It is first and above all
+for her sake. I will have a fever for her, oh willingly!" cried the
+girl. Then she added after a little pause: "Why did she bid me 'go to
+your father and tell him&mdash;&mdash;?' What does that mean, go to my father? I
+have never had any father."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she say that?" Sir Tom cried. "When? and why?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was when all seemed without hope. She was kneeling by the bed, and
+he, my little boy, my little darling! Ah," cried Bice, with a shiver.
+"To think it should have been so near! when God put that into her mind
+to save him. She said 'Go to your father, and tell him my boy is dying.'
+What did she mean? I came to you; but you are not my father."</p>
+
+<p>He had risen up in great agitation and was walking about the room. When
+she said these words he came up to her and laid his hand for a moment on
+her head. "No," he said, with a sense of loss which was painful; "No,
+the more's the pity, Bice. God bless you, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was tremulous, his hand shook a little. The girl took it in
+her pretty way and kissed it. "You have been as good to me as if it were
+so. But tell me what Milady means? for at that moment she would say
+nothing but what was at the bottom of her heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell you, Bice," said Sir Tom, almost with tears. "If I have
+made her unhappy, my Lucy, who is better than any of us, what do I
+deserve? what should be done to me? And she has been unhappy, she has
+lost her faith in me. I see it all now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Bice sat and looked at him with her eyes full of thought. She was not a
+novice in life though she was so young. She had heard many a tale not
+adapted for youthful ears. That a child might have a father whose name
+she did not bear and who had never been disclosed to her was not
+incomprehensible, as it would have been to an English girl. She looked
+him severely in the face, like a young Daniel come to judgment. Had she
+been indeed his child to what a terrible ordeal would Sir Tom have been
+exposed under the light of those steady eyes. "Is it true that you have
+made her unhappy?" she said, as if she had the power of death in her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he said, with a sudden outburst of feeling. "No! there are things
+in my life that I would not have raked up; but since I have known her,
+nothing; there is no offence to her in any record of my life&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bice looked at him still unfaltering. "You forget us&mdash;the Contessa and
+me. You brought us, though she did not know. We are not like her, but
+you brought us to her house. Nevertheless," said the young judge
+gravely, "that might be unthoughtful, but not a wrong to her. Is it
+perhaps a mistake?"</p>
+
+<p>"A mistake or a slander, or&mdash;some evil tongue," he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Bice rose up from the chair which had been her bench of justice, and
+walked to the door with a stately step, befitting her office, full of
+thought. Then she paused again for a moment and looked back and waved
+her hand. "I think it is a pity," she said with great gravity. She
+recognised the visionary fitness as he had done. They would have suited
+each other, when it was thus suggested to them, for father and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span>
+daughter; and that it was not so, by some spite of fate, was a pity. She
+found Lucy dressed and refreshed sitting by the bed of the child, who
+had already begun to smile faintly. "Milady," said Bice, "will you go
+downstairs? There is a long time that you have not spoken to Sir Tom. Is
+he afraid of your fever? No more than me! But his heart is breaking for
+you. Go to him, Milady, and I will stay with the boy."</p>
+
+<p>It was not for some time that Lucy could be persuaded to go. He
+had&mdash;others. What was she to him but a portion of his life? and the
+child was all of hers: a small portion of his life only a few years,
+while the others had a far older and stronger claim. There was no anger
+in her mind, all hushed in the exhaustion of great suffering past, but a
+great reluctance to enter upon the question once more. Lucy wished only
+to be left in quiet. She went slowly, reluctantly, downstairs. Unhappy?
+No. He had not made her unhappy. Nothing could make her unhappy now that
+her child was saved. It seemed to Lucy that it was she who had been ill
+and was getting better, and she longed to be left alone. Sir Tom was
+standing against the window with his head upon his hand. He did not hear
+her light step till she was close to him. Then he turned round, but not
+with the eagerness for her which Bice had represented. He took her hand
+gently and drew it within his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"All is going well?" he said, "and you have had a little rest, my dear?
+Bice has told me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She withdrew a little the hand which lay on his arm. "He is much
+better," she said; "more than one would have thought possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" Sir Tom cried; and they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> silent for a moment, united
+in thanksgiving, yet so divided, with a sickening gulf between them.
+Lucy felt her heart begin to stir and ache that had been so quiet. "And
+you," he said, "have had a little rest? Thank God for that too. Anything
+that had happened to him would have been bad enough; but to you,
+Lucy&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush, hush," she cried, "that is over; let us not speak of anything
+happening to him."</p>
+
+<p>"But all is not over," he said. "Something has happened&mdash;to us. What did
+you mean when you spoke to me of others? 'You have others.' I scarcely
+noticed it at that dreadful moment; but now&mdash;&mdash; Who are those others,
+Lucy? Whom have I but him and you?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not say anything, but withdrew her hand altogether from his arm,
+and looked at him. A look scarcely reproachful, wistful, sorrowful,
+saying, but not in words, in its steady gaze&mdash;You know.</p>
+
+<p>He answered as if it had been speech.</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't know. What is it, Lucy? Bice too has something she asked me
+to explain, and I cannot explain it. You said to her, 'Go to your
+father.' What is this? You must tell what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Bice?" she said, faltering; "it was at a moment when I did not think
+what I was saying."</p>
+
+<p>"No, when you spoke out that perilous stuff you have got in your heart.
+Oh, my Lucy, what is it, and who has put it there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tom," she said, trembling very much. "It is not Bice; she&mdash;that&mdash;is
+long ago&mdash;if her mother had been dead. But a man cannot have two lives.
+There cannot be two in the same place. It is not jealousy. I am not
+finding fault. It has been perhaps without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> intention; but it is not
+befitting&mdash;oh, not befitting. It cannot&mdash;oh, it is impossible! it must
+not be."</p>
+
+<p>"What must not be? Of what in the name of heaven are you speaking?" he
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>Once more she fixed on him that look, more reproachful this time, full
+of meaning and grieved surprise. She drew away a little from his side.
+"I did not want to speak," she said. "I was so thankful; I want to say
+nothing. You thought you had left that other life behind; perhaps you
+forgot altogether. They say that people do. And now it is here at your
+side, and on the other side my little boy and me. Ah! no, no, it is not
+befitting, it cannot be&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand dimly," he said; "they have told you Bice was my child. I
+wish it were so. I had a child, Lucy, it is true, who is dead in
+Florence long ago. The mother is dead too, long ago. It is so long past
+that, if you can believe it, I had&mdash;forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" she said. And there came into her mild eyes a scared and
+frightened look. "And&mdash;the Contessa?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Contessa!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>They were standing apart gazing at each other with something more like
+the heat of a passionate debate than had ever arisen between them, or
+indeed seemed possible to Lucy's tranquil nature, when the door was
+suddenly opened and the voice of Williams saying, "Sir Thomas is here,
+my lady," reduced them both in an instant to silence. Then there was a
+bustle and a movement, and of all wonderful sights to meet their eyes,
+the Contessa herself came with hesitation into the room. She had her
+handkerchief pressed against the lower part of her face, from above
+which her eyes looked out watchfully. She gave a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> shriek at the
+sight of Lucy. "I thought," she said, "Sir Tom was alone. Lucy, my
+angel, my sweetest, do not come near me!" She recoiled to the door which
+Williams had just closed. "I will say what I have to say here. Dearest
+people, I love you, but you are charged with pestilence. My Lucy, how
+glad I am for your little boy&mdash;but every moment they tell me increases
+the danger. Where is Bice? Bice! I have come to bring her away."</p>
+
+<p>"Contessa," said Sir Tom, "you have come at a fortunate moment. Tell
+Lady Randolph who Bice is. I think she has a right to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Who Bice is? But what has that to do with it? She is <i>fiancée</i>, she
+belongs to more than herself. And there is the drawing-room in a
+week&mdash;imagine, only in a week!&mdash;and how can she go into the presence of
+the Queen full of infection? I acknowledge, I acknowledge," cried the
+Contessa, through her handkerchief, "you have been very kind&mdash;oh, more
+than kind. But why then now will you spoil all? It might make a
+revolution&mdash;it might convey to Majesty herself&mdash;&mdash; Ah! it might spoil all
+the child's prospects. Who is she? Why should you reproach me with my
+little mystery now? She is all that is most natural; Guido's child, whom
+you remember well enough, Sir Tom, who married my poor little sister, my
+little girl who followed me, who would do as I did. You know all this,
+for I have told you. They are all dead, all dead&mdash;how can you make me
+talk of them? And Bice perhaps with the fever in her veins, ready to
+communicate it&mdash;to Majesty herself, to me, to every one!"</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa sank down on a chair by the door. She drew forth her fan,
+which hung by her side, and fanned away from her this air of pestilence.
+"The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span> child must come back at once," she said, with little cries and
+sobs&mdash;an <i>accès de nerfs</i>, if these simple people had known&mdash;through her
+handkerchief. "Let her come at once, and we may conceal it still. She
+shall have baths. She shall be fumigated. I will not see her or let her
+be seen. She shall have a succession of headaches. This is what I have
+said to Montjoie. Imagine me out in the air, that is so bad for the
+complexion, at this hour! But I think of nothing in comparison with the
+interests of Bice. Send for her. Lucy, sweet one, you would not spoil
+her prospects. Send for her&mdash;before it is known." Then she laughed with
+a hysterical vehemence. "I see; some one has been telling her it was the
+poor little child whom you left with me, whom I watched over&mdash;yes, I was
+good to the little one. I am not a hard-hearted woman. Lucy: it was I
+who put this thought into your mind. I said&mdash;of English parentage. I
+meant you to believe so&mdash;that you might give something, when you were
+giving so much, to my poor Bice. What was wrong? I said you would be
+glad one day that you had helped her:&mdash;yes&mdash;and I allowed also my enemy
+the Dowager, to believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"To believe <i>that</i>." Lucy stood out alone in the middle of the room,
+notwithstanding the shrinking back to the wall of the visitor, whose
+alarm was far more visible than any other emotion. "To believe
+<i>that</i>&mdash;that she was your child, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Something stopped Lucy's mouth. She drew back, her pale face dyed with
+crimson, her whole form quivering with remorse and pain as of one who
+has given a cowardly and cruel blow.</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa rose. She stood up against the wall. It did not seem to
+occur to her what kind of terrible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> accusation this was, but only that
+it was something strange, incomprehensible. She withdrew for a moment
+the handkerchief from her mouth. "My child? But I have never had a
+child!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy," cried Sir Tom in a terrible voice.</p>
+
+<p>And then Lucy stood aghast between them, looking from one to another.
+The scales seemed to fall from her eyes. The perfectly innocent when
+they fall under the power of suspicion go farthest in that bitter way.
+They take no limit of possibility into their doubts and fears. They do
+not think of character or nature. Now, in a moment the scales fell from
+Lucy's eyes. Was her husband a man to treat her with such unimaginable
+insult? Was the Contessa, with all her triumphant designs, her
+mendacities, her mendicities, her thirst for pleasure, such a woman?
+Whoever said it, could this be true?</p>
+
+<p>The Contessa perceived with a start that her hand had dropped from her
+mouth. She put back the handkerchief again with tremulous eagerness. "If
+I take it, all will go wrong&mdash;all will fall to pieces," she said
+pathetically. "Lucy, dear one, do not come near me, but send me Bice, if
+you love me," the Contessa cried. She smiled with her eyes, though her
+mouth was covered. She had not so much as understood, she, so
+experienced, so acquainted with the wicked world, so <i>connaisseuse</i> in
+evil tales&mdash;she had not even so much as divined what innocent Lucy meant
+to say.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"/><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Bice was taken away in the cab, there being no reason why she should
+remain in a house where Lucy was no longer lonely or heartbroken&mdash;but
+not by her patroness, who was doubly her aunt, but did not love that
+old-fashioned title, and did love a mystery. The Contessa would not
+trust herself in the same vehicle with the girl who had come out of
+little Tom's nursery, and was no doubt charged with pestilence. She
+walked, marvel of marvels, with a thick veil over her face, and Sir Tom,
+in amused attendance, looking with some curiosity through the gauze at
+this wonder of a spring morning which she had not seen for years. Bice,
+for her part, was conveyed by the old woman who waited in the cab, the
+mother of one of the servants in the Mayfair house, to her humble home,
+where the girl was fumigated and disinfected to the Contessa's desire.
+She was presented a week after, the strictest secrecy being kept about
+these proceedings; and mercifully, as a matter of fact, did not convey
+infection either to the Contessa or to the still more distinguished
+ladies with whom she came in contact. What a day for Madame di
+Forno-Populo! There was nothing against her. The Duchess had spent an
+anxious week, inquiring everywhere. She had pledged herself in a weak
+hour; but though the men laughed, that was all. Not even in the clubs
+was there any story to be got hold of. The Duchess had a son-in-law who
+was clever in gossip. He said there was nothing, and the Lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span>
+Chamberlain made no objection. The Contessa di Forno-Populo had not
+indeed, she said loftily, ever desired to make her appearance before the
+Piedmontese; but she had the stamp upon her, though partially worn out,
+of the old Grand Ducal Court of Tuscany&mdash;which many people think more
+of&mdash;and these two stately Italian ladies made as great a sensation by
+their beauty and their stately air as had been made at any drawing-room
+in the present reign. The most august and discriminating of critics
+remarked them above all others. And a Lady, whose knowledge of family
+history is unrivalled, like her place in the world, condescended to
+remember that the Conte di Forno-Populo had married an English lady.
+Their dresses were specially described by Lady Anastasia in her
+favourite paper; and their portraits were almost recognisable in the
+<i>Graphic</i>, which gave a special (fancy) picture of the drawing-room in
+question. Triumph could not farther go.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till after this event that Bice revealed the purpose which
+was one of her inducements for that visit to little Tom's sick bed. On
+the evening of that great day, just before going out in all her
+splendour to the Duchess's reception held on that occasion, she took her
+lover aside, whose pride in her magnificence and all the applause that
+had been lavished on her knew no bounds.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," she said, "I have something to tell you. Perhaps, when you
+hear it, all will be over. I have not allowed you to come near me nor
+touch me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, by Jove! It has been stand off, indeed! I don't know what you mean
+by it," cried Montjoie ruefully; "that wasn't what I bargained for,
+don't you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to explain," said Bice. "You shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> know, then, that when I
+had those headaches&mdash;you remember&mdash;and you could not see me, I had no
+headaches, <i>mon ami</i>. I was with Milady Randolph in Park Lane, in the
+middle of the fever, nursing the boy."</p>
+
+<p>Montjoie gazed at her with round eyes. He recoiled a step, then rushing
+at his betrothed, notwithstanding her Court plumes and flounces, got
+Bice in his arms. "By Jove!" he cried, "and that was why! You thought I
+was frightened of the fever; that is the best joke I have heard for
+ages, don't you know? What a pluck you've got, Bee! And what a beauty
+you are, my pretty dear! I am going to pay myself all the arrears."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," said Bice, plaintively; the caresses were not much to her mind,
+but she endured them to a certain limit. "I wondered," she said with a
+faint sigh, "what you would say."</p>
+
+<p>"It was awfully silly," said Montjoie. "I couldn't have believed you
+were so soft, Bee, with your training, don't you know? And how did you
+come over <i>her</i> to let you go? She was in a dead funk all the time. It
+was awfully silly; you might have caught it, or given it to me, or a
+hundred things, and lost all your fun; but it was awfully plucky," cried
+Montjoie, "by Jove! I knew you were a plucky one;" and he added, after a
+moment's reflection, in a softened tone, "a good little girl too."</p>
+
+<p>It was thus that Bice's fate was sealed.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon Lucy received a note from Lady Randolph in the following
+words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"DEAREST LUCY&mdash;I am more glad than I can tell you to hear the good
+news of the dear boy. Probably he will be stronger now than he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span>
+ever been, having got over this so well.<br /><br />
+
+"I want to tell you not to think any more of what I said <i>that</i>
+day. I hope it has not vexed you. I find that my informant was
+entirely mistaken, and acted upon a misconception all the time. I
+can't tell how sorry I am ever to have mentioned such a thing; but
+it seemed to be on the very best authority. I do hope it has not
+made any coolness between Tom and you.<br /><br />
+
+"Don't take the trouble to answer this. There is nothing that
+carries infection like letters, and I inquire after the boy every
+day.&mdash;Your loving<br /></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">M. Randolph</span>."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not her fault," said Lucy, sobbing upon her husband's shoulder.
+"I should have known you better, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, my dear," he said quietly, "though I have been more foolish
+than a man of my age ought to be; but there is no harm in the Contessa,
+Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Lucy said, yet with a grave face. "But Bice will be made a
+sacrifice: Bice, and&mdash;&mdash;" she added with a guilty look, "I shall have
+thrown away that money, for it has not saved her."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a great deal of money," said Sir Tom, drawing a letter from his
+pocket, "which seems also in a fair way of being thrown away."</p>
+
+<p>He took out the list which Lucy had given to her trustee, which Mr.
+Chervil had returned to her husband, and held it out before her. It was
+a very curious document, an experiment in the way of making poor people
+rich. The names were of people of whom Lucy knew very little personally;
+and yet it had not been done without thought. There was nobody there to
+whom such a gift might not mean deliverance from many cares. In the
+abstract it was not throwing anything away. Perhaps, had there been some
+public commission to reward with good incomes the struggling and
+honourable, these might not have been the chosen names; but yet it was
+all legitimate, honest, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> light of Lucy's exceptional position.
+The husband and wife stood and looked at it together in this moment of
+their reunion, when both had escaped from the deadliest perils that
+could threaten life&mdash;the loss of their child, the loss of their union.
+It was hard to tell which would have been the most mortal blow.</p>
+
+<p>"He says I must prevent you; that you cannot have thought what you were
+doing; that it is madness, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I was nearly mad," said Lucy simply. "I thought to get rid of
+it whatever might happen to me&mdash;that was best."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us look at it now in our full senses," said Sir Tom.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy grasped his arm with both her hands. "Tom," she said in a hurried
+tone, "this is the only thing in which I ever set myself against you. It
+was the beginning of all our trouble; and I might have to do that again.
+What does it matter if perhaps we might do it more wisely now? All these
+people are poor, and there is the money to make them well off; that is
+what my father meant. He meant it to be scattered again, like seed given
+back to the reaper. He used to say so. Shall not we let it go as it is,
+and be done with it and avoid trouble any more?"</p>
+
+<p>He stood holding her in his arms, looking over the paper. It was a great
+deal of money. To sacrifice a great deal of money does not affect a
+young woman who has never known any need of it in her life, but a man in
+middle age who knows all about it, that makes a great difference. Many
+thoughts passed through the mind of Sir Tom. It was a moment in which
+Lucy's heart was very soft. She was ready to do anything for the husband
+to whom, she thought,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> she had been unjust. And it was hard upon him to
+diminish his own importance and cut off at a stroke by such a sacrifice
+half the power and importance of the wealth which was his, though Lucy
+might be the source of it. Was he to consent to this loss, not even
+wisely, carefully arranged, but which might do little good to any one,
+and to him harm unquestionable? He stood silent for some time thinking,
+almost disposed to tear up the paper and throw it away. But then he
+began to reflect of other things more important than money; of unbroken
+peace and happiness; of Lucy's faithful, loyal spirit that would never
+be satisfied with less than the entire discharge of her trust, of the
+full accord, never so entirely comprehensive and understanding as now,
+that had been restored between them; and of the boy given back from the
+gates of hell, from the jaws of death. It was no small struggle. He had
+to conquer a hundred hesitations, the disapproval, the resistance of his
+own mind. It was with a hand that shook a little that he put it back.
+"That little beggar," he said, with his old laugh&mdash;though not his old
+laugh, for in this one there was a sound of tears&mdash;"will be a hundred
+thousand or so the poorer. Do you think he'd mind, if we were to ask
+him? Come, here is a kiss upon the bargain. The money shall go, and a
+good riddance, Lucy. There is now nothing between you and me."</p>
+
+<p>Bice was married at the end of the season, in the most fashionable
+church, in the most correct way. Montjoie's plain cousins had
+asked&mdash;asked! without a sign of enmity!&mdash;to be bridesmaids, "as she had
+no sisters of her own, poor thing!" Montjoie declared that he was "ready
+to split" at their cheek in asking, and in calling Bice "poor thing,"
+she who was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span> most fortunate girl in the world. The Contessa took the
+good the gods provided her, without grumbling at the fate which
+transferred to her the little fortune which had been given to Bice to
+keep her from a mercenary marriage. It was not a mercenary marriage, in
+the ordinary sense of the word. To Bice's mind it was simply fulfilling
+her natural career; and she had no dislike to Montjoie. She liked him
+well enough. He had answered well to her test. He was not clever, to be
+sure; but what then? She was well enough content, if not rapturous, when
+she walked out of the church Marchioness of Montjoie on her husband's
+arm. There was a large and fashionable assembly, it need not be said.
+Lucy, in a first place, looking very wistful, wondering if the girl was
+happy, and Sir Tom saying to himself it was very well that he had no
+more to do with it than as a friend. There were two other spectators who
+looked upon the ceremony with still more serious countenances, a man and
+a boy, restored to each other as dearest friends. They watched all the
+details of the service with unfailing interest, but when the beautiful
+bride came down the aisle on her husband's arm, they turned with one
+accord and looked at each other. They had been quite still until that
+point, making no remark. She passed them by, walking as if on air, as
+she always walked, though ballasted now for ever by that duller being at
+her side. She was not subdued under her falling veil, like so many
+brides, but saw everything, them among the rest, as she passed, and
+showed by a half smile her recognition of their presence. There was no
+mystic veil of sentiment about her; no consciousness of any mystery. She
+walked forth bravely, smiling, to meet life and the world. What was
+there in that beautiful,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span> beaming creature to suggest a thought of
+future necessity, trouble, or the most distant occasion for help or
+succour? Perhaps it is a kind of revenge we take upon too great
+prosperity to say to ourselves: "There may come a time!"</p>
+
+<p>These two spectators made their way out slowly among the crowd. They
+walked a long way towards their after destination without a word. Then
+Mr. Derwentwater spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"If there should ever come a time when we can help her, or be of use to
+her, you and I&mdash;for the time must come when she will find out she has
+chosen evil instead of good&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, humbug!" cried Jock roughly, with a sharpness in his tone which was
+its apology. "She has done what she always meant to do&mdash;and that is what
+she likes best."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless&mdash;&mdash;" said MTutor with a sigh.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="tnote">
+
+<h3>Transcriber's Note</h3>
+
+<p>The following printers spelling errors have been corrected:-<br /><br />
+
+Page 66<br />
+'direst' to 'divest'<br />
+'could not yet divest himself'<br /><br />
+
+Page 278<br />
+'down' to 'done'<br />
+'as a simple girl might have done'<br /><br />
+
+Page 397<br />
+'pyschological' to 'psychological'<br />
+'any attempt at psychological investigation'<br /><br />
+
+Page 470<br />
+'unforgetable' to 'unforgettable'<br />
+'almost forgotten, yet unforgettable'<br /><br />
+
+The following word has been changed on page 138:-<br /><br />
+
+'uncle' to 'father'<br />
+There is no previous mention of an uncle and the title<br />
+'father' makes more sense in the context of the story.<br />
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>THE END.</h4>
+
+<h5><i>Printed by</i> R. &amp; R. CLARK, <i>Edinburgh</i>.<br /><br /><br /><br /></h5>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>MESSRS. MACMILLAN &amp; CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.<br /></h2>
+
+<h3><i>POPULAR NOVELS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</i><br /></h3>
+
+<h4>Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each.<br /></h4>
+
+<p><b>NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN</b>.<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>KIRSTEEN.</b><br />
+
+  <i>SCOTSMAN</i>&mdash;"One of the most powerful stories Mrs. Oliphant has ever<br />
+written."<br />
+
+  <i>MURRAY'S MAGAZINE</i>&mdash;"One of the best books which Mrs. Oliphant's<br />
+fertile pen has within recent years produced."<br />
+
+  <i>WORLD</i>&mdash;"Mrs. Oliphant has written many novels, and many good ones; but<br />
+if she has hitherto written one so good as <i>Kirsteen</i>, we have not read<br />
+it.... It is the highest praise we can give, when we say that there are<br />
+passages in it which, as pictures of Scottish life and character, it<br />
+would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to match out of Sir Walter's<br />
+pages."<br />
+
+  <i>NATIONAL OBSERVER</i>&mdash;"Seldom, if ever, has Mrs. Oliphant done better<br />
+than in <i>Kirsteen</i>.... There is humour, there is pathos, there is<br />
+tragedy, there is even crime&mdash;in short, there is human life."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>JOYCE</b>.<br />
+
+  <i>GUARDIAN</i>&mdash;"It has seldom been our lot to fall in with so engrossing a<br />
+story."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>A BELEAGUERED CITY.</b><br />
+
+  <i>TIMES</i>&mdash;"The story is a powerful one and very original to boot."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>HESTER.</b><br />
+
+  <i>ACADEMY</i>&mdash;"At her best, she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of<br />
+living English novelists. She is at her best in <i>Hester</i>."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY</b>.<br />
+
+  <i>SCOTSMAN</i>&mdash;"The workmanship of the book is simply admirable."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.</b><br />
+
+  <i>ANTI-JACOBIN</i>&mdash;"An extremely interesting story, and a perfectly<br />
+satisfactory achievement of literary art."<br />
+
+  <i>MORNING POST</i>&mdash;"Mrs. Oliphant has never written a simpler, and at the<br />
+same time a better conceived story. An excellent example of pure and<br />
+simple fiction, which is also of the deepest interest."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.</b><br />
+
+  <i>NATIONAL OBSERVER</i>&mdash;"In spite of yourself and of them, you become<br />
+interested in uninteresting people, annoyed at their follies, and<br />
+sympathetic with their trifling sorrows and joys. This is Mrs.<br />
+Oliphant's secret."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>SIR TOM</b>.<br />
+
+  <i>SATURDAY REVIEW</i>&mdash;"Has the charm of style, the literary quality and<br />
+flavour that never fail to please."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4>Globe 8vo. 2s. each.<br /></h4>
+
+<p><b>A SON OF THE SOIL</b>.<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE CURATE IN CHARGE</b>.<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>YOUNG MUSGRAV</b>E.<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE WIZARD'S SON</b>.<br />
+
+  <i>SPECTATOR</i>&mdash;"We have read it twice, once in snippets, and once as a<br />
+whole, and our interest has never flagged."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AND HIS FAMILY</b>.<br />
+
+  <i>ACADEMY</i>&mdash;"Never has her workmanship been surer, steadier, or more<br />
+masterly."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE SECOND SON</b>.<br />
+
+  <i>MORNING POST</i>&mdash;"Mrs. Oliphant has never shown herself more completely<br />
+mistress of her art.... The entire story is clever and powerful."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>JERUSALEM, THE HOLY CITY: ITS HISTORY AND HOPE</b>.<br />
+
+With 50 Illustrations. Medium 8vo. 21s.<br />
+
+<i>Also a limited Edition on Large Paper</i>. 50s. net.<br />
+
+  <i>GRAPHIC</i>&mdash;"An eloquent monograph on Jerusalem, written with all the<br />
+picturesqueness and force of style which distinguishes the writer."<br />
+
+  <i>SPECTATOR</i>&mdash;"Mrs. Oliphant has successfully accomplished the difficult<br />
+achievement of recasting the familiar old Hebrew stories into the<br />
+language of our own land and century without losing their charm."<br />
+
+  <i>SCOTSMAN</i>&mdash;"One of the most attractive books of the year."<br />
+
+  <i>RECORD</i>&mdash;"It is entitled to yet higher praise than that which is due to<br />
+it for its charm as an expression of the highest literary skill."<br />
+
+  <i>OBSERVER</i>&mdash;"Mrs. Oliphant has written no better literature than this.<br />
+It is a history; but it is one of more than human interest."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE MAKERS OF VENICE: DOGES, CONQUERORS, PAINTERS, AND MEN OF LETTERS</b>.<br />
+With numerous Illustrations.<br />
+
+Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.<br />
+
+<i>Edition de Luxe</i>, with additional Plates. 8vo. 20s. net.<br />
+
+  <i>BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE</i>&mdash;"Even more delightful than the <i>Makers of</i><br />
+<i>Florence</i>. The writing is bright and animated, the research thorough,<br />
+the presentation of Venetian life brilliantly vivid. It is an entirely<br />
+workmanlike piece of work."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE: DANTE, GIOTTO, SAVONAROLA, AND THEIR CITY.</b> With<br />
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.<br />
+
+  <i>Edition de Luxe</i>, with 20 additional Plates, reproduced from line<br />
+engravings after pictures by Florentine artists. Medium 8vo. 20s. net.<br />
+
+  <i>EDINBURGH REVIEW</i>&mdash;"One of the most elegant and interesting books which<br />
+has been inspired in our times by the arts and annals of that celebrated<br />
+republic."<br />
+
+  <i>WESTMINSTER REVIEW</i>&mdash;"No one visiting Florence can better prepare for a<br />
+just appreciation of the temper and spirit of the place, than by<br />
+studying Mrs. Oliphant's capital treatise."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>ROYAL EDINBURGH: HER SAINTS, KINGS, AND SCHOLARS</b>. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">George<br />
+Reid</span>, R.S.A. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.<br />
+
+  <i>PALL MALL GAZETTE</i>&mdash;"Is fascinating and full of interest throughout.<br />
+Mr. Reid has long occupied a place in the very front rank of Scottish<br />
+artists, and we have seen nothing finer from his pencil than the<br />
+illustrations in the present volume."<br />
+
+  <i>SPECTATOR</i>&mdash;"Between letterpress and illustrations, <i>Royal Edinburgh</i><br />
+reproduces the tragedy, the glory, and the picturesqueness of Scotch<br />
+history as no other work has done."<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>AGNES HOPETOUN'S SCHOOLS AND HOLIDAYS</b>. Illustrated.<br />
+Globe 8vo. 2s. 6d.<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>S. FRANCIS OF ASSISI.</b> Crown 8vo. 6s.<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>THE LITERARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE END<br />
+OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH<br />
+CENTURY</b>. 3 vols. 8vo. 21s.<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>SHERIDAN</b>. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.; sewed, 1s.<br />
+[<i>English Men of Letters.</i>]<br /></p>
+
+<p><b>SELECTIONS FROM COWPER'S POEMS</b>. 18mo. 2s. 6d. net.<br />
+[<i>Golden Treasury Series.</i>]<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<h2>MACMILLAN'S THREE-AND-SIXPENNY SERIES<br /></h2>
+
+<h5>OF<br /></h5>
+
+<h4>WORKS BY POPULAR AUTHORS.<br /></h4>
+
+<h4>In Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d. each.<br /><br /></h4>
+
+<h4>By Sir SAMUEL BAKER.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>TRUE TALES FOR MY GRANDSONS.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By ROLF BOLDREWOOD<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>SATURDAY REVIEW</i>&mdash;"Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great<br />
+point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous<br />
+parts of his books."<br />
+
+  <i>PALL MALL GAZETTE</i>&mdash;"The volumes are brimful of adventure, in which<br />
+gold, gold-diggers, prospectors, claim-holders, take an active part."<br /><br />
+
+ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.<br />
+THE MINERS RIGHT.<br />
+A COLONIAL REFORMER.<br />
+THE SQUATTER'S DREAM.<br />
+A SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON.<br />
+NEVERMORE.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>LOUISIANA; <span class="smcap">and</span> THAT LASS O' LOWRIE'S.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By HUGH CONWAY.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>MORNING POST</i>&mdash;"Life-like and full of individuality."<br />
+
+  <i>DAILY NEWS</i>&mdash;"Throughout written with spirit, good feeling, and<br />
+ability, and a certain dash of humour."<br /><br />
+
+LIVING OR DEAD?<br />
+A FAMILY AFFAIR.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By Mrs. CRAIK.<br /></h4>
+
+<h4>(The Author of "<span class="smcap">John Halifax, Gentleman</span>.")<br /></h4>
+
+<p>OLIVE. With Illustrations by G. BOWERS.<br />
+THE OGILVIES. With Illustrations.<br />
+AGATHA'S HUSBAND. With Illustrations.<br />
+HEAD OF THE FAMILY. With Illustrations.<br />
+TWO MARRIAGES.<br />
+THE LAUREL BUSH.<br />
+MY MOTHER AND I. With Illustrations.<br />
+MISS TOMMY: A Medi&aelig;val Romance. Illustrated.<br />
+KING ARTHUR: Not a Love Story.<br />
+SERMONS OUT OF CHURCH.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By F. MARION CRAWFORD.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>SPECTATOR</i>&mdash;"With the solitary exception of Mrs. Oliphant we have no<br />
+living novelist more distinguished for variety of theme and range of<br />
+imaginative outlook than Mr. Marion Crawford."<br /><br />
+
+MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India. Portrait of Author.<br />
+DR. CLAUDIUS: A True Story.<br />
+A ROMAN SINGER.<br />
+ZOROASTER.<br />
+MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX.<br />
+A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.<br />
+PAUL PATOFF.<br />
+WITH THE IMMORTALS.<br />
+GREIFENSTEIN.<br />
+SANT' ILARIO.<br />
+A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By Sir HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE</i>&mdash;"Interesting as specimens of romance, the style<br />
+of writing is so excellent&mdash;scholarly and at the same time easy and<br />
+natural&mdash;that the volumes are worth reading on that account alone. But<br />
+there is also masterly description of persons, places, and things;<br />
+skilful analysis of character; a constant play of wit and humour; and a<br />
+happy gift of instantaneous portraiture."<br />
+
+THE C&OElig;RULEANS.<br />
+THE HERIOTS.<br />
+WHEAT AND TARES.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By CHARLES DICKENS<br /></h4>
+
+<p>THE PICKWICK PAPERS. With 50 Illustrations.<br />
+OLIVER TWIST. With 27 Illustrations.<br />
+NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. With 44 Illustrations.<br />
+MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. With 41 Illustrations.<br />
+THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. With 97 Illustrations.<br />
+BARNABY RUDGE. With 76 Illustrations.<br />
+DOMBEY AND SON. With 40 Illustrations.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <i>September 26.</i><br />
+CHRISTMAS BOOKS. With 65 Illustrations.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <i>October 26.</i><br />
+SKETCHES BY BOZ. With 44 Illustrations.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <i>November 21.</i><br />
+DAVID COPPERFIELD. With 41 Illustrations.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <i>December 21.</i><br />
+AMERICAN NOTES AND PICTURES FROM ITALY. With 4 Illustrations.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <i>January 26.</i><br />
+THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By LANOE FALCONER.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>CECILIA DE NOEL.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By W. WARDE FOWLER.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Bryan Hook</span>.<br />
+TALES OF THE BIRDS. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Bryan Hook</span>.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By the Rev. JOHN GILMORE<br /></h4>
+
+<p>STORM WARRIORS.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By THOMAS HARDY<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>TIMES</i>&mdash;"There is hardly a novelist, dead or living, who so skilfully<br />
+harmonises the poetry of moral life with its penury. Just as Millet<br />
+could in the figure of a solitary peasant toiling on a plain convey a<br />
+world of pathetic meaning, so Mr. Hardy with his yeomen and villagers.<br />
+Their occupations in his hands wear a pathetic dignity, which not even<br />
+the encomiums of a Ruskin could heighten."<br /><br />
+
+THE WOODLANDERS.<br />
+WESSEX TALES.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By BRET HARTE.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>SPEAKER</i>&mdash;"The best work of Mr. Bret Harte stands entirely alone ...<br />
+marked on every page by distinction and quality.... Strength and<br />
+delicacy, spirit and tenderness, go together in his best work."<br /><br />
+
+CRESSY.<br />
+THE HERITAGE <span class="smcap">of</span> DEDLOW MARSH.<br />
+A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By the Author of "Hogan, M.P."<br /></h4>
+
+<p>HOGAN, M.P.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By THOMAS HUGHES.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">A. Hughes and S. P. Hall</span>.<br />
+TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">S. P. Hall</span>.<br />
+THE SCOURING OF THE WHITE HORSE, <span class="smcap">and</span> THE ASHEN FAGGOT. <br />
+With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Richard Doyle</span>.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By HENRY JAMES.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>SATURDAY REVIEW</i>&mdash;"He has the power of seeing with the artistic<br />
+perception of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that<br />
+the many can understand and feel with him."<br />
+
+  <i>WORLD</i>&mdash;"His touch is so light, and his humour, while shrewd and keen,<br />
+so free from bitterness."<br /><br />
+
+A LONDON LIFE.<br />
+THE ASPERN PAPERS.<br />
+THE TRAGIC MUSE.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By ANNIE KEARY.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>SPECTATOR</i>&mdash;"In our opinion there have not been many novels published<br />
+better worth reading. The literary workmanship is excellent, and all the<br />
+windings of the stories are worked with patient fulness and a skill not<br />
+often found."<br /><br />
+
+CASTLE DALY.<br />
+A YORK AND A LANCASTER ROSE.<br />
+A DOUBTING HEART.<br />
+JANET'S HOME.<br />
+OLDBURY.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By PATRICK KENNEDY.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>LEGENDARY FICTIONS OF THE IRISH CELTS.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By CHARLES KINGSLEY.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>WESTWARD HO!<br />
+HYPATIA.<br />
+YEAST.<br />
+ALTON LOCKE.<br />
+TWO YEARS AGO.<br />
+HEREWARD THE WAKE.<br />
+POEMS.<br />
+THE HEROES.<br />
+THE WATER BABIES.<br />
+MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY.<br />
+AT LAST.<br />
+PROSE IDYLLS.<br />
+PLAYS AND PURITANS, &amp;c.<br />
+THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON.<br />
+SANITARY AND SOCIAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS.<br />
+HISTORICAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS.<br />
+SCIENTIFIC LECTURES AND ESSAYS.<br />
+LITERARY AND GENERAL LECTURES.<br />
+THE HERMITS.<br />
+GLAUCUS; <span class="smcap">or, The Wonders of the Sea-shore</span>. With Coloured Illustrations.<br />
+VILLAGE AND TOWN AND COUNTRY SERMONS.<br />
+THE WATER OF LIFE, AND OTHER SERMONS.<br />
+SERMONS ON NATIONAL SUBJECTS, AND THE KING OF THE EARTH.<br />
+SERMONS FOR THE TIMES.<br />
+GOOD NEWS OF GOD.<br />
+THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH, AND DAVID.<br />
+DISCIPLINE, AND OTHER SERMONS.<br />
+WESTMINSTER SERMONS.<br />
+ALL SAINTS' DAY, AND OTHER SERMONS.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By HENRY KINGSLEY.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>TALES OF OLD TRAVEL.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By MARGARET LEE.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>FAITHFUL AND UNFAITHFUL.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By AMY LEVY.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>REUBEN SACHS.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By the EARL OF LYTTON.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>THE RING OF AMASIS.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By MALCOLM M'LENNAN.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>MUCKLE JOCK, AND OTHER STORIES OF PEASANT LIFE.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By LUCAS MALET.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>MRS. LORIMER.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By A. B. MITFORD.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>TALES OF OLD JAPAN. Illustrated.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>SPECTATOR</i>&mdash;"Mr. Christie Murray has more power and genius for the<br />
+delineation of English rustic life than any half-dozen of our surviving<br />
+novelists put together."<br />
+
+  <i>SATURDAY REVIEW</i>&mdash;"Few modern novelists can tell a story of English<br />
+country life better than Mr. D. Christie Murray."<br /><br />
+
+AUNT RACHEL.<br />
+JOHN VALE'S GUARDIAN.<br />
+SCHWARTZ.<br />
+THE WEAKER VESSEL.<br />
+HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. By <span class="smcap">D. C. Murray And H. Herman</span>.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By Mrs. OLIPHANT.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>ACADEMY</i>&mdash;"At her best she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of<br />
+living English novelists."<br />
+
+  <i>SATURDAY REVIEW</i>&mdash;"Has the charm of style, the literary quality and<br />
+flavour that never fails to please."<br /><br />
+
+A BELEAGUERED CITY.<br />
+JOYCE.<br />
+NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.<br />
+KIRSTEEN.<br />
+HESTER.<br />
+HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.<br />
+THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.<br />
+THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By W. CLARK RUSSELL.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>TIMES</i>&mdash;"Mr. Clark Russell is one of those writers who have set<br />
+themselves to revive the British sea story in all its glorious<br />
+excitement. Mr. Russell has made a considerable reputation in this line.<br />
+His plots are well conceived, and that of <i>Marooned</i> is no exception to<br />
+this rule."<br /><br />
+
+MAROONED.<br />
+A STRANGE ELOPEMENT.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By J. H. SHORTHOUSE.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>  <i>ANTI-JACOBIN</i>&mdash;"Powerful, striking, and fascinating romances."<br /><br />
+
+JOHN INGLESANT.<br />
+SIR PERCIVAL.<br />
+THE LITTLE SCHOOLMASTER MARK.<br />
+THE COUNTESS EVE.<br />
+A TEACHER OF THE VIOLIN.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>MISS BRETHERTON.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By MONTAGU WILLIAMS, Q.C.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>LEAVES OF A LIFE.<br />
+LATER LEAVES.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By Miss CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.<br />
+HEARTSEASE.<br />
+HOPES AND FEARS.<br />
+DYNEVOR TERRACE.<br />
+THE DAISY CHAIN.<br />
+THE TRIAL: <span class="smcap">More Links of the Daisy Chain</span>.<br />
+PILLARS OF THE HOUSE. Vol. I.<br />
+PILLARS OF THE HOUSE. Vol. II.<br />
+THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER.<br />
+THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY.<br />
+THE THREE BRIDES.<br />
+MY YOUNG ALCIDES.<br />
+THE CAGED LION.<br />
+THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.<br />
+THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS.<br />
+LADY HESTER, AND THE DANVERS PAPERS.<br />
+MAGNUM BONUM.<br />
+LOVE AND LIFE.<br />
+UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.<br />
+STRAY PEARLS.<br />
+THE ARMOURER'S 'PRENTICES.<br />
+THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD.<br />
+NUTTIE'S FATHER.<br />
+SCENES AND CHARACTERS.<br />
+CHANTRY HOUSE.<br />
+A MODERN TELEMACHUS.<br />
+BYE-WORDS.<br />
+BEECHCROFT AT ROCKSTONE.<br />
+MORE BYWORDS.<br />
+A REPUTED CHANGELING.<br />
+THE LITTLE DUKE.<br />
+THE LANCES OF LYNWOOD.<br />
+THE PRINCE AND THE PAGE.<br />
+P's AND Q's <span class="smcap">and</span> LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE.<br />
+THE TWO PENNILESS PRINCESSES.<br />
+THAT STICK.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By ARCHDEACON FARRAR.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>SEEKERS AFTER GOD.<br />
+ETERNAL HOPE.<br />
+THE FALL OF MAN.<br />
+THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO CHRIST.<br />
+THE SILENCE AND VOICES OF GOD.<br />
+IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH.<br />
+SAINTLY WORKERS.<br />
+EPHPHATHA.<br />
+MERCY AND JUDGMENT.<br />
+SERMONS AND ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN AMERICA.<br /></p>
+
+<h4>By FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE.<br /></h4>
+
+<p>SERMONS PREACHED IN LINCOLN'S INN CHAPEL. <i>In 6 vols.</i><br /></p>
+
+<h4>Collected Works.<br /></h4>
+
+<h5>In Monthly Volumes from October 1892. 3s. 6d. per vol.<br /></h5>
+
+<p>1. CHRISTMAS DAY AND OTHER SERMONS.<br />
+2. THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.<br />
+3. PROPHETS AND KINGS.<br />
+4. PATRIARCHS AND LAWGIVERS.<br />
+5. THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.<br />
+6. GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.<br />
+7. EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.<br />
+8. LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE.<br />
+9. FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS.<br />
+10. SOCIAL MORALITY.<br />
+11. PRAYER BOOK AND LORD'S PRAYER.<br />
+12. THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE.<br /></p>
+
+<h2>MACMILLAN &amp; CO., BEDFORD STREET,<br /></h2>
+
+<h3>STRAND, LONDON.<br /></h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Tom, by Mrs. Oliphant
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR TOM ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Tom, by Mrs. Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sir Tom
+
+Author: Mrs. Oliphant
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2009 [EBook #30692]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR TOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brenda Lewis, woodie4 and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  SIR TOM
+
+
+  BY
+
+  MRS. OLIPHANT
+
+  AUTHOR OF "THE WIZARD'S SON," "HESTER," ETC.
+
+
+  London
+
+  MACMILLAN AND CO.
+
+  AND NEW YORK
+
+  1893
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+
+  _First Edition (3 Vols. Crown 8vo) Sept. 1884_
+
+  _Second Edition (1 Vol. Crown 8vo) 1884_
+
+  _Reprinted (Globe 8vo) 1888, (Crown 8vo) 1893_
+
+
+
+
+                           CONTENTS.
+
+                                                  PAGE
+
+                           CHAPTER I.
+
+  HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE              1
+
+
+                           CHAPTER II.
+
+  HIS WIFE                                          9
+
+
+                           CHAPTER III.
+
+  OLD MR. TREVOR'S WILL                            20
+
+
+                           CHAPTER IV.
+
+  YOUNG MR. TREVOR                                 29
+
+
+                           CHAPTER V.
+
+  CONSULTATIONS                                    39
+
+
+                           CHAPTER VI.
+
+  A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS                        48
+
+
+                           CHAPTER VII.
+
+  A WARNING                                        58
+
+
+                           CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  THE SHADOW OF DEATH                              67
+
+
+                           CHAPTER IX.
+
+  A CHRISTMAS VISIT                                77
+
+
+                           CHAPTER X.
+
+  LUCY'S ADVISERS                                  86
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XI.
+
+  AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY                           96
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XII.
+
+  THE FIRST STRUGGLE                              105
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  AN IDLE MORNING                                 115
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  AN UNWILLING MARTYR                             126
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XV.
+
+  ON BUSINESS                                     135
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL                           146
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  FOREWARNED                                      157
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  THE VISITORS                                    167
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA                        179
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XX.
+
+  AN ANXIOUS CRITIC                               189
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER                         200
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXII.
+
+  A PAIR OF FRIENDS                               211
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+  THE BREAKFAST TABLE                             221
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+  THE ORACLE SPEAKS                               230
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXV.
+
+  THE CONTESSA'S BOUDOIR                          242
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+  THE TWO STRANGERS                               259
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+  AN ADVENTURESS                                  269
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+  THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE                        280
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+  THE CONTESSA'S TRIUMPH                          291
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXX.
+
+  DIFFERENT VIEWS                                 301
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+  TWO FRIENDS                                     311
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+  YOUTHFUL UNREST                                 321
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+  THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY                   332
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+  IN SUSPENSE                                     342
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+  THE DEBUT                                       354
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+  THE EVENING AFTER                               366
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+  THE CONTESSA'S TACTICS                          377
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+  DISCOVERIES                                     388
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+  LUCY'S DISCOVERY                                397
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XL.
+
+  THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION                       409
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLI.
+
+  SEVERED                                         417
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLII.
+
+  LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS              427
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+  THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR                     437
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+  THE SIEGE OF LONDON                             448
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLV.
+
+  THE BALL                                        458
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+  THE BALL CONTINUED                              469
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+  NEXT MORNING                                    480
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+  THE LAST BLOW                                   491
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+  THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE                         502
+
+
+                           CHAPTER L.
+
+  THE EVE OF SORROW                               514
+
+
+                           CHAPTER LI.
+
+  THE LAST CRISIS                                 522
+
+
+                           CHAPTER LII.
+
+  THE END                                         538
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+HOW SIR TOM BECAME A GREAT PERSONAGE.
+
+
+Sir Thomas Randolph had lived a somewhat stormy life during the earliest
+half of his career. He had gone through what the French called a
+_jeunesse orageuse_; nothing very bad had ever been laid to his charge;
+but he had been adventurous, unsettled, a roamer about the world even
+after the period at which youthful extravagances cease. Nobody ever knew
+when or where he might appear. He set off to the farthest parts of the
+earth at a day's notice, sometimes on pretext of sport, sometimes on no
+pretext at all, and re-appeared again as unexpectedly as he had gone
+away. He had run out his fortune by these and other extravagances, and
+was at forty in one of the most uncomfortable positions in which a man
+can find himself, with the external appearance of large estates and an
+established and important position, but in reality with scarcely any
+income at all, just enough to satisfy the mortgagees, and leave himself
+a pittance not much more than the wages of a gamekeeper. If his aunt,
+Lady Randolph, had not been so good to him it was uncertain whether he
+could have existed at all, and when the heiress, whom an eccentric will
+had consigned to her charge, fell in his way, all her friends concluded
+as a matter of certainty that Sir Tom would jump at this extraordinary
+windfall, this gift of a too kind Providence, which sometimes will care
+for a prodigal in a way which he is quite unworthy of, while leaving the
+righteous man to struggle on unaided. But for some time it appeared as
+if society for once was out in its reckoning. Sir Tom did not pounce
+upon the heiress. He was a person of very independent mind, and there
+were some who thought he was happier in his untrammelled poverty, doing
+what he pleased, than he ever had been as a great proprietor. Even when
+it became apparent to the wise and far-seeing that little Miss Trevor
+was only waiting till his handkerchief was thrown at her to become the
+happiest of women, still he did nothing. He exasperated his kind aunt,
+he made all his friends indignant, and what was more, he exposed the
+young heiress hourly to many attempts on the part of the inferior class,
+from which as a matter of fact she herself sprang; and it was not until
+she was driven nearly desperate by those attempts that Sir Tom suddenly
+appeared upon the scene, and moved, it was thought, more by a
+half-fatherly kindness and sympathy for her, than either by love or
+desire of wealth, took her to himself, and made her his wife, to the
+great and grateful satisfaction of the girl herself, whose strange
+upbringing and brief introduction into a higher sphere had spoiled her
+for that homely country-town existence in which every woman flattered
+and every man made love to her.
+
+Whether Lucy Trevor was in love with him was as uncertain as whether he
+was in love with her. So far as any one knew neither one nor the other
+had asked themselves this question. She had, as it were, thrown herself
+into his arms in sudden delight and relief of mind when he appeared and
+saved her from her suitors; while he had received her tenderly when she
+did this, out of kindness and pleasure in her genuine, half-childish
+appreciation of him. There were, of course, people who said that Lucy
+had been violently in love with Sir Tom, and that he had made up his
+mind to marry her money from the first moment he saw her; but neither of
+these things was true. They married with a great deal more pleasure and
+ease of mind than many people do who are very much in love, for they had
+mutual faith in each other, and felt a mutual repose and satisfaction in
+their union. Each supplied something the other wanted. Lucy obtained a
+secure and settled home, a protector and ever kind and genial guardian,
+while Sir Tom got not only a good and dutiful and pleasant companion,
+with a great deal of sense, and good-nature and good looks,--all of
+which gifts he prized highly,--but at the same time the control of a
+great fortune, and money enough at once to clear his estates and restore
+him to his position as a great landowner.
+
+There were very peculiar conditions attached to the great fortune, but
+to these for the moment he paid very little heed, considering them as
+fantastic follies not worth thinking about, which were never likely to
+become difficulties in his way. The advantage he derived from the
+marriage was enormous. All at once, at a bound, it restored him to what
+he had lost, to the possession of his own property, which had been not
+more than nominally his for so many years, and to the position of a man
+of weight and importance, whose opinion told with all his neighbours and
+the county generally, as did those of few others in the district.
+
+Sir Tom, the wanderer, had not been thought very highly of in his
+younger days. He had been called wild. He had been thought
+untrustworthy, a fellow here to-day and gone to-morrow, who had no
+solidity in him. But when the mortgages were all paid off, and the old
+hall restored, and Sir Thomas Randolph came to settle down at home, with
+his pretty little wife, and an establishment quite worthy of his name,
+the county discovered in a day, almost in a moment, that he was very
+much improved. He had always been clever enough, they said, for
+anything, and now that he had sown his wild oats and learned how to
+conduct himself, and attained an age when follies are naturally over,
+there was no reason why he should not be received with open arms. Such a
+man had a great many more experiences, the county thought with a certain
+pride, than other men who had sown no wild oats, and had never gone
+farther afield than the recognised round of European cities. Sir Tom had
+been in all the four quarters of the globe; he had travelled in America
+long before it became fashionable to do so, and even had been in Africa
+while it was as yet untrod by any white foot but that of a missionary.
+And it was whispered that in the days when he was "wild" he had
+penetrated into regions nearer at hand, but more obscure and mysterious
+even than Africa. All this made the county think more of him now when he
+appeared staid yet genial, in the fulness of manhood, with a crisp brown
+beard and a few gray hairs about his temples mingled with his abundant
+locks, and that capability of paying his way which is dear to every
+well-regulated community. But for this last particular the county would
+not have been so tolerant, nay almost pleased, with the fact that he had
+been "wild." They saw all his qualities in the halo that surrounded the
+newly-decorated hall, the liberated farms, the lands upon which no
+creditor had now any claim. He was the most popular man in the district
+when Parliament was dissolved, and he was elected for the county almost
+without opposition, he, at whom all the sober people had shaken their
+heads only a few years before. The very name of "Sir Tom," which had
+been given rather contemptuously to denote a somewhat careless fellow,
+who minded nothing, became all at once the sign of popular amity and
+kindness. And if it had been necessary to gain votes for him by any
+canvassing tricks, this name of his would have carried away all
+objections. "Sir Tom!" it established a sort of affectionate
+relationship at once between him and his constituency. The people felt
+that they had known him all his life, and had always called him by his
+Christian name.
+
+Lady Randolph was much excited and delighted with her husband's success.
+She canvassed for him in a modest way, making herself pleasant to the
+wives of his supporters in a unique manner of her own which was not
+perhaps quite dignified considering her position, but yet was found very
+captivating by those good women. She did not condescend to them as other
+titled ladies do, but she took their advice about her baby, and how he
+was to be managed, with a pretty humility which made her irresistible.
+They all felt an individual interest thenceforward in the heir of the
+Randolphs, as if they had some personal concern in him; and Lady
+Randolph's gentle accost, and the pretty blush upon her cheeks, and her
+way of speaking to them all, "as if they were just as good as she was,"
+had a wonderful effect. When she received him in the hotel which was the
+headquarters of his party, as soon as the result of the election was
+known, Sir Tom, coming in flushed with applauses and victory, took his
+wife into his arms and kissed her. "I owe this to you, as well as so
+much else, Lucy," he said.
+
+"Oh, don't say that! when you know I don't understand much, and never
+can do anything; but I am so glad, nobody could be more glad," said
+Lucy. Little Tom had been brought in, too, in his nurse's arms, and
+crowed and clapped his fat little baby hands for his father; and when
+his mother took him and stepped out upon the balcony, from which her
+husband was speaking an impromptu address to his new constituents, with
+the child in her arms, not suspecting that she would be seen, the cheers
+and outcries ran into an uproar of applause. "Three cheers for my lady
+and the baby," the crowd shouted at the top of its many voices; and
+Lucy, blushing and smiling and crying with pleasure, instead of
+shrinking away as everybody feared she would do, stood up in her modest,
+pretty youthfulness, shy, but full of sense and courage, and held up the
+child, who stared at them all solemnly with big blue eyes, and, after a
+moment's consideration, again patted his fat little hands together, an
+action which put the multitude beside itself with delight. Sir Tom's
+speech did not make nearly so much impression as the baby's
+"patti-cake." Every man in the crowd, not to say every woman, and with
+still more reason every child, clapped his or her hands too, and shouted
+and laughed and hurrahed.
+
+The incident of the baby's appearance before the public, and the early
+success he had gained--the earliest on record, the newspapers said--made
+quite a sensation throughout the county, and made Farafield famous for
+a week. It was mentioned in a leading article in the first newspaper in
+the world. It appeared in large headlines in the placards under such
+titles as "Baby in Politics," "The Nursery and the Hustings," and such
+like. As for the little hero of the moment, he was handed down to his
+anxious nurse just as symptoms of a whimper of fear at the alarming
+tumult outside began to appear about the corners of his mouth. "For
+heaven's sake take him away; he mustn't cry, or he will spoil all," said
+the chairman of Sir Tom's committee. And the young mother, disappearing
+too into the room behind, sat down in a great chair behind their backs,
+and cried to relieve her feelings. Never had there been such a day. If
+Sir Tom had not been the thoroughly good-humoured man he was, it is
+possible that he might have objected to the interruption thus made in
+his speech, which was altogether lost in the tumult of delight which
+followed his son's appearance. But as a matter of fact he was as much
+delighted as any one, and proud as man could be of his pretty little
+wife and his splendid boy. He took "the little beggar," as he called
+him, in his arms, and kissed the mother again, soothing and laughing at
+her in the tender, kindly, fatherly way which had won Lucy.
+
+"It is you who have got the seat," he said; "I vote that you go and sit
+in it, Lady Randolph. You are a born legislator, and your son is a
+favourite of the public, whereas I am only an old fogey."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" Lucy said, lifting her simple eyes to his with a mist of
+happiness in them. She was accustomed to his nonsense. She never said
+anything more than "Oh, Tom!" and indeed it was not very long since she
+had given up the title and ceased to say "Oh, Sir Tom!" which seemed
+somehow to come more natural. It was what she had said when he came
+suddenly to see her in the midst of her early embarrassments and
+troubles; when the cry of relief and delight with which she turned to
+him, uttering in her surprise that title of familiarity, "Oh, Sir Tom!"
+had signified first to her middle-aged hero, with the most flattering
+simplicity and completeness, that he had won the girl's pure and
+inexperienced heart.
+
+There was no happier evening in their lives than this, when, after all
+the commotion, threatenings of the ecstatic crowd to take the horses
+from their carriage, and other follies, they got off at last together
+and drove home through roads that wound among the autumn fields, on some
+of which the golden sheaves were still standing in the sunshine. Sir Tom
+held Lucy's hand in his own. He had told her a dozen times over that he
+owed it all to her.
+
+"You have made me rich, and you have made me happy," he said, "though I
+am old enough to be your father, and you are only a little girl. If
+there is any good to come out of me, it will all be to your credit,
+Lucy. They say in story books that a man should be ashamed to own so
+much to his wife, but I am not the least ashamed."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" she said, "how can you talk so much nonsense," with a laugh,
+and the tears in her eyes.
+
+"I always did talk nonsense," he said; "that was why you got to like me.
+But this is excellent sense and quite true. And that little beggar; I am
+owing you for him, too. There is no end to my indebtedness. When they
+put the return in the papers it should be Sir Thomas Randolph, etc.,
+returned as representative of his wife, Lucy, a little woman worth as
+much as any county in England."
+
+"O, Sir Tom," Lucy cried.
+
+"Well, so you are, my dear," he said, composedly. "That is a mere matter
+of fact, you know, and there can be no question about it at all."
+
+For the truth was that she was so rich as to have been called the
+greatest heiress in England in her day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+HIS WIFE.
+
+
+Young Lady Randolph had herself been much changed by the progress of
+these years. Marriage is always the great touchstone of character at
+least with women; but in her case the change from a troubled and
+premature independence, full of responsibilities and an extremely
+difficult and arduous duty, to the protection and calm of early married
+life, in which everything was done for her, and all her burdens taken
+from her shoulders, rather arrested than aided in the development of her
+character. She had lived six months with the Dowager Lady Randolph after
+her father's death; but those six months had been all she knew of the
+larger existence of the wealthy and great. All she knew--and even in
+that short period she had learned less than she might have been expected
+to learn; for Lucy had not been introduced into society, partly on
+account of her very youthful age, and partly because she was still in
+mourning, so that her acquaintance with life on the higher line
+consisted merely in a knowledge of certain simple luxuries, of larger
+rooms and prettier furniture, and more careful service than in her
+natural condition. And by birth she belonged to the class of small
+townsfolk who are nobody, and whose gentility is more appalling than
+their homeliness. So that when she came to be Sir Thomas Randolph's wife
+and a great lady, not merely the ward of an important personage, but
+herself occupying that position, the change was so wonderful that it
+required all Lucy's mental resources to encounter and accustom herself
+to it.
+
+Sir Tom was the kindest of middle-aged husbands. If he did not adore his
+young wife with the fervour of passion, he had a sincere affection for
+her, and the warmest desire to make her happy. She had done a great deal
+for him, she had changed his position unspeakably, and he was fully
+determined that no lady in England should have more observance, more
+honour and luxury, and what was better, more happiness, than the little
+girl who had made a man of him. There had always been a sweet and
+serious simplicity about her, an air of good sense and reasonableness,
+which had attracted everybody whose opinion was worth having to Lucy;
+but she was neither beautiful nor clever. She had been so brought up
+that, though she was not badly educated, she had no accomplishments, and
+not more knowledge than falls to the lot of an ordinary schoolgirl. The
+farthest extent of her mild experiences was Sloane Street and Cadogan
+Place: and there were people who thought it impossible that Sir Tom, who
+had been everywhere, and run through the entire gamut of pleasures and
+adventures, should find anything interesting in this bread-and-butter
+girl, whom, of course, it was his duty to marry, and having married to
+be kind to. But when he found himself set down in an English country
+house with this little piece of simplicity opposite to him, what would
+he do, the sympathising spectators said? Even his kind aunt, who felt
+that she had brought about the marriage, and who, as a matter of fact,
+had fully intended it from the first, though she herself liked Lucy, had
+a little terror in her soul as she asked herself the same question. He
+would fill the house with company and get over it in that way, was what
+the most kind and moderate people thought. But Sir Tom laughed at all
+their prognostications. He said afterwards that he had never known
+before how pretty it was to know nothing, and to have seen nothing, when
+these defects were conjoined with intelligence and delightful curiosity
+and never-failing interest. He declared that he had never truly enjoyed
+his own adventures and experiences as he did when he told them over to
+his young wife. You may be sure there were some of them which were not
+adapted for Lucy's ears: but these Sir Tom left religiously away in the
+background. He had been a careless liver no doubt, like so many men, but
+he would rather have cut off his right hand, as the Scripture bids, than
+have soiled Lucy's white soul with an idea, or an image, that was
+unworthy of her. She knew him under all sorts of aspects, but not one
+that was evil. Their solitary evenings together were to her more
+delightful than any play, and to him nearly as delightful. When the
+dinner was over and the cold shut out, she would wait his appearance in
+the inner drawing-room, which she had chosen for her special abode, with
+some of the homely cares that had been natural to her former condition,
+drawing his chair to the fire, taking pride in making his coffee for
+him, and a hundred little attentions. "Now begin," she would say,
+recalling with a child's eager interest and earnest recollection the
+point at which he had left off. This was the greater part of Lucy's
+education. She travelled with him through very distant regions, and went
+through all kinds of adventure.
+
+And in the season they went to London, where she made her appearance in
+society, not perhaps with _eclat_, but with a modest composure which
+delighted him. She understood then, for the first time, what it was to
+be rich, and was amused and pleased--amused above all by the position
+which she occupied with the utmost simplicity. People said it would turn
+the little creature's head, but it never even disturbed her imagination.
+She took it with a calm that was extraordinary. Thus her education
+progressed, and Lucy was so fully occupied with it, with learning her
+husband and her life and the world, that she had no time to think of the
+responsibilities which once had weighed so heavily upon her. When now
+and then they occurred to her and she made some passing reference to
+them, there were so many other things to do that she forgot
+again--forgot everything except to be happy and learn and see, as she
+had now so many ways of doing. She forgot herself altogether, and
+everything that had been hers, not in excitement, but in the soft
+absorbing influence of her new life, which drew her away into endless
+novelties and occupations, such as were, indeed, duties and necessities
+of her altered sphere.
+
+If this was the case in the first three or four years of her marriage,
+when she had only Sir Tom to think of, you may suppose what it was when
+the baby came, to add a hundredfold to the interests of her existence.
+Everything else in life, it may be believed, dwindled into nothing in
+comparison with this boy of boys--this wonderful infant. There had
+never been one in the world like him it is unnecessary to say: and
+everything was so novel to her, and she felt the importance of being
+little Tom's mother so deeply, that her mind was quite carried away from
+all other thoughts. She grew almost beautiful in the light of this new
+addition to her happiness. And how happy she was! The child grew and
+throve. He was a splendid boy. His mother did not sing litanies in his
+praise in public, for her good sense never forsook her: but his little
+being seemed to fill up her life like a new stream flowing into it, and
+she expanded in life, in thought, and in understanding. She began to see
+a reason for her own position, and to believe in it, and take it
+seriously. She was a great lady, the first in the neighbourhood, and she
+felt that, as little Tom's mother, it was natural and befitting that she
+should be so. She began to be sensible of ambition within herself, as
+well as something that felt like pride. It was so little like ordinary
+pride, however, that Lucy was sorry for everybody who had not all the
+noble surroundings which she began to enjoy. She would have liked that
+every child should have a nursery like little Tom's, and every mother
+the same prospects for her infant, and was charitable and tender beyond
+measure to all the mothers and children within reach on little Tom's
+account, which was an extravagance which her husband did not grudge, but
+liked and encouraged, knowing the sentiment from which it sprang. It was
+with no view to popularity that the pair thus endeavoured to diffuse
+happiness about them, being so happy themselves; but it answered the
+same purpose, and their popularity was great.
+
+When the county conferred the highest honour in its power upon Sir Tom,
+his immediate neighbours in the villages about took the honour as their
+own, and rejoiced as, even at a majority or a marriage, they had never
+rejoiced before, for so kind a landlord, so universal a friend, had
+never been.
+
+The villages were model villages on the Randolph lands. Sir Tom and his
+young wife had gone into every detail about the labourers' cottages with
+as much interest as if they had themselves meant to live in one of them.
+There were no such trim gardens or bright flower-beds to be seen
+anywhere, and it was well for the people that the Rector of the parish
+was judicious, and kept Lady Randolph's charities within bounds. There
+had been no small amount of poverty and distress among these rustics
+when the Squire was poor and absent, when they lived in tumbledown old
+houses, which nobody took any interest in, and where neither decency nor
+comfort was considered; but now little industries sprang up and
+prospered, and the whole landscape smiled. A wise landlord with
+unlimited sway over his neighbourhood and no rivals in the field can do
+so much to increase the comfort of everybody about him; and such a small
+matter can make a poor household comfortable. Political economists, no
+doubt, say it is demoralising: but when it made Lucy happy and the poor
+women happy, how could Sir Tom step in and arrest the genial bounty? He
+gave the Rector a hint to see that she did not go too far, and walked
+about with his hands in his pockets and looked on. All this amused him
+greatly; even the little ingratitudes she met with, which went to Lucy's
+heart, made her husband laugh. It pleased his satirical vein to see how
+human nature displayed itself, and the black sheep appeared among the
+white even in a model village. But as for Lucy, though she would
+sometimes cry over these spots upon the general goodness, it satisfied
+every wish of her heart to be able to do so much for the cottagers. They
+did not, perhaps, stand so much in awe of her as they ought to have
+done, but they brought all their troubles to her with the most perfect
+and undoubting confidence.
+
+All this time, however, Lucy, following the dictates of her own heart,
+and using what after all was only a little running over of her great
+wealth to secure the comfort of the people round, was neglecting what
+she had once thought the great duty of her life as entirely as if she
+had been the most selfish of worldly women. Her life had been so
+entirely changed--swung, as one might say, out of one orbit into
+another--that the burdens of the former existence seemed to have been
+taken from her shoulders along with its habits and external
+circumstances. Her husband thought of these as little as herself; yet
+even he was somewhat surprised to find that he had no trouble in weaning
+Lucy from the extravagances of her earlier independence. He had not
+expected much trouble, but still it had seemed likely enough that she
+would at least propose things that his stronger sense condemned, and
+would have to be convinced and persuaded that they were impracticable;
+but nothing of the kind occurred, and when he thought of it Sir Tom
+himself was surprised, as also were various other people who knew what
+Lucy's obstinacy on the subject before her marriage had been, and
+especially the Dowager Lady Randolph, who paid her nephew a yearly
+visit, and never failed to question him on the subject.
+
+"And Lucy?" she would say. "Lucy never makes any allusion? She has
+dismissed everything from her mind? I really think you must be a
+magician, Tom. I could not have believed it, after all the trouble she
+gave us, and all the money she threw away. Those Russells, you know,
+that she was so ridiculously liberal to, they are as bad as ever. That
+sort of extravagant giving of money is never successful. But I never
+thought you would have got it out of her mind."
+
+"Don't flatter me," he said; "it is not I that have got it out of her
+mind. It is life and all the novelties in it--and small Tom, who is more
+of a magician than I am----"
+
+"Oh, the baby!" said the dowager, with the indifference of a woman who
+has never had a child, and cannot conceive why a little sprawling
+tadpole in long clothes should make such a difference. "Yes, I suppose
+that's a novelty," she said, "to be mother of a bit of a thing like that
+naturally turns a girl's head. It is inconceivable the airs they give
+themselves, as if there was nothing so wonderful in creation. And so far
+as I can see you are just as bad, though you ought to know better, Tom."
+
+"Oh, just as bad," he said, with his large laugh. "I never had a share
+in anything so wonderful. If you only could see the superiority of this
+bit of a thing to all other things about him----"
+
+"Oh! spare me," cried Lady Randolph the elder, holding up her hands. "Of
+course I don't undervalue the importance of an heir to the property,"
+she said in a different tone. "I have heard enough about it to be pretty
+sensible of that."
+
+This the Dowager said with a slight tone of bitterness, which indeed was
+comprehensible enough: for she had suffered much in her day from the
+fact that no such production had been possible to her. Had it been so,
+her nephew who stood by her would not (she could scarcely help
+reflecting with some grudge against Providence) have been the great man
+he now was, and no child of his would have mattered to the family. Lady
+Randolph was a very sensible woman, and had long been reconciled to the
+state of affairs, and liked her nephew, whom she had been the means of
+providing for so nobly; and she was glad there was a baby; still, for
+the sake of her own who had never existed, she resented the
+self-exaltation of father and mother over this very common and in no way
+extraordinary phenomenon of a child.
+
+Sir Tom laughed again with a sense of superiority, which was in itself
+somewhat ludicrous; but as nobody is clear-sighted in their own
+concerns, he was quite unconscious of this. His laugh nettled Lady
+Randolph still more. She said, with a certain disdain in her tone,--
+
+"And so you think you have sailed triumphantly over all that
+difficulty--thanks to your charms and the baby's, and are going to hear
+nothing of it any more?"
+
+Sir Tom felt that he was suddenly pulled up, and was a little resentful
+in return.
+
+"I hope," he said, "that is, I do more than hope, I feel convinced, that
+my wife, who has great sense, has outgrown that nonsense, and that she
+has sufficient confidence in me to leave her business matters in my
+hands."
+
+Lady Randolph shook her head.
+
+"Outgrown nonsense--at three and twenty?" she said. "Don't you think
+that's premature? and, my dear boy, take my word for it, a woman when
+she has the power, likes to keep the control of her own business just as
+well as a man does. I advise you not to holloa till you are out of the
+wood."
+
+"I don't expect to have any occasion to holloa; there is no wood for
+that matter; Lucy, though perhaps you may not think it, is one of the
+most reasonable of creatures."
+
+"She is everything that is nice and good," said the Dowager, "but how
+about the will? Lucy may be reasonable, but that is not. And she cannot
+forget it always."
+
+"Pshaw! The will is a piece of folly," cried Sir Tom. He grew red at the
+very thought with irritation and opposition. "I believe the old man was
+mad. Nothing else could excuse such imbecility. Happily there is no
+question of the will."
+
+"But there must be, some time or other."
+
+"I see no occasion for it," said Sir Tom coldly; and as his aunt was a
+reasonable woman, she did not push the matter any farther. But if the
+truth must be told this sensible old lady contemplated the great
+happiness of these young people with a sort of interested and alarmed
+spectatorship (for she wished them nothing but good), watching and
+wondering when the explosion would come which might in all probability
+shatter it to ruins. For she felt thoroughly convinced in her own mind
+that Lucy would not always forget the conditions by which she held her
+fortune, and that all the reason and good sense in the world would not
+convince her that it was right to ignore and baulk her father's
+intentions, as conveyed with great solemnity in his will. And when the
+question should come to be raised, Lady Randolph felt that it would be
+no trifling one. Lucy was very simple and sweet, but when her conscience
+spoke even the influence of Sir Tom would not suffice to silence it. She
+was a girl who would stand to what she felt to be right if all the world
+and even her husband were against her--and the Dowager, who wished them
+no harm, felt a little alarmed as to the issue. Sir Tom was not a man
+easy to manage, and the reddening of his usually smiling countenance at
+the mere suggestion of the subject was very ominous. It would be better,
+far better, for Lucy if she would yield at once and say nothing about
+it. But that was not what it was natural for her to do. She would stand
+by her duty to her father, just as, were it assailed, she would stand by
+her duty to her husband; but she would never be got to understand that
+the second cancelled the first. The Dowager Lady Randolph watched the
+young household with something of the interest with which a playgoer
+watches the stage. She felt sure that the explosion would come, and that
+a breath, a touch, might bring it on at any moment; and then what was to
+be the issue? Would Lucy yield? would Lucy conquer? or would the easy
+temper with which everybody credited Sir Tom support this trial? The old
+lady, who knew him so well, believed that there was a certain fiery
+element below, and she trembled for the peace of the household which was
+so happy and triumphant, and had no fear whatever for itself. She
+thought of "the torrent's smoothness ere it dash below," of the calm
+that precedes a storm, and many other such images, and so frightened did
+she become at the dangers she had conjured up that she put the will
+hurriedly out of her thoughts, as Sir Tom had done, and would think no
+more of it. "Sufficient," she said to herself, "is the evil to the day."
+
+In the meantime, the married pair smiled serenely at any doubts of their
+perfect union, and Lucy felt a great satisfaction in showing her
+husband's aunt (who had not thought her good enough for Sir Tom,
+notwithstanding that she so warmly promoted the match) how satisfied he
+was with his home, and how exultant in his heir.
+
+In the following chapters the reader will discover what was the cause
+which made the Dowager shake her head when she got into the carriage to
+drive to the railway at the termination of her visit. It was all very
+pretty and very delightful, and thoroughly satisfactory; but still Lady
+Randolph, the elder, shook her experienced head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+OLD MR. TREVOR'S WILL.
+
+
+Lucy Trevor, when she married Sir Thomas Randolph, was the heiress of so
+great a fortune that no one ventured to state it in words or figures.
+She was not old enough, indeed, to have the entire control of it in her
+hands, but she had unlimited control over a portion of it in a certain
+sense, not for her own advantage, but for the aggrandisement of others.
+Her father, who was eccentric and full of notions, had so settled it
+that a large portion of the money should eventually return, as he
+phrased it, to the people from whom it had come, and this not in the way
+of public charities and institutions, as is the common idea in such
+cases, but by private and individual aid to struggling persons and
+families. Lucy, who was then all conscience and devotion to the
+difficult yet exciting duty which her father had left to her to do, had
+made a beginning of this extraordinary work before her marriage,
+resisting all the arguments that were brought to bear upon her as to
+the folly of the will, and the impossibility of carrying it out. It is
+likely, indeed, that the trustees and guardians would have taken steps
+at once to have old Trevor's will set aside but for the fact that Lucy
+had a brother, who in that case would divide the inheritance with her,
+but who was specially excluded by the will, as being a son of Mr.
+Trevor's second wife, and entirely unconnected with the source from
+which the fortune came. It was Lucy's mother who had brought it into the
+family, although she was not herself aware of its magnitude, and did not
+live long enough to have any enjoyment of it. Neither did old Trevor
+himself have any enjoyment of it, save in the making of the will by
+which he laid down exactly his regulations for its final disposal. In
+any case Lucy was to retain the half, which was of itself a great sum;
+but the condition of her inheritance, and indeed the occupation of her
+life, according to her father's intention, was that she should select
+suitable persons to whom to distribute the other half of her fortune. It
+is needless to say that this commission had seriously occupied the
+thoughts of the serious girl who, without any sense of personal
+importance, found herself thus placed in the position of an official
+bestower of fortune, having it in her power to confer comfort,
+independence, and even wealth; for she was left almost entirely
+unrestricted as to her disposition of the money, and might at her
+pleasure confer a very large sum upon a favourite. Everybody who had
+ever heard of old Trevor's will considered it the very maddest upon
+record, and there were many who congratulated themselves that Lucy's
+husband, if she was so lucky as to marry a man of sense, would certainly
+put a stop to it--or even that Lucy herself, when she came to years of
+serious judgment, would see the folly; for there was no stipulation as
+to the time at which the distributions should be made, these, as well as
+the selection of the objects of her bounty, being left to herself. She
+had been very full of this strange duty before her marriage, and had
+selected several persons who, as it turned out, did but little credit to
+her choice, almost forcing her will upon the reluctant trustees, who had
+no power to hinder her from carrying it out, and whose efforts at
+reasoning with her had been totally unsuccessful. In these early
+proceedings Sir Tom, who was intensely amused by the oddity of the
+business altogether, and who had then formed no idea of appropriating
+her and her money to himself, gave her a delighted support.
+
+He had never in his life encountered anything which amused him so much,
+and his only regret was that he had not known the absurd but high-minded
+old English Quixote who, wiser in his generation than that noble knight,
+left it to his heir to redress the wrongs of the world, while he himself
+had the pleasure of the anticipation only, not perhaps unmixed with a
+malicious sense of all the confusions and exhibitions of the weakness of
+humanity it would produce. Sir Tom himself had humour enough to
+appreciate the philosophy of the old humorist, and the droll spectator
+position which he had evidently chosen for himself, as though he could
+somehow see and enjoy all the struggles of self-interest raised by his
+will, with one of those curious self-delusions which so often seem to
+actuate the dying. Sir Tom, however, had thought it little more than a
+folly even at the moment when it had amused him the most. He had thought
+that in time Lucy would come to see how ridiculous it was, and would
+tacitly, without saying anything, give it up, so sensible a girl being
+sure in the long run to see how entirely unsuited to modern times and
+habits such a disposition was. And had she done so, there was nobody who
+was likely to awaken her to a sense of her duty. Her trustees, who
+considered old Trevor mad, and Lucy a fool to humour him, would
+certainly make no objection; and little Jock, the little brother to whom
+Lucy was everything in the world, was still less likely to interfere.
+When it came about that Lucy herself, and her fortune, and all her
+right, were in Sir Tom's own hands, he was naturally more and more sure
+that this foolish will (after giving him a great deal of amusement, and
+perhaps producing a supernatural chuckle, if such an expression of
+feeling is possible in the spiritual region where old Trevor might be
+supposed to be) would be henceforward like a testament in black letter,
+voided by good sense and better knowledge and time, the most certain
+agency of all. And his conviction had been more than carried out in the
+first years of his married life. Lucy forgot what was required of her.
+She thought no more of her father's will. It glided away into the unseen
+along with so many other things, extravagances, or if not extravagances,
+still phantasies of youth. She found enough in her new life--in her
+husband, her baby, and the humble community which looked up to her and
+claimed everything from her--to occupy both her mind and her hands. Life
+seemed to be so full that there was no time for more.
+
+It had been no doing of Sir Tom's that little Jock, the brother who had
+been Lucy's child, her Mentor, her counsellor and guide, had been
+separated from her for so long. Jock had been sent to school with his
+own entire concurrence and control. He was a little philosopher with a
+mind beyond his years, and he had seemed to understand fully, without
+any childish objection, the reason why he should be separated from her,
+and even why it was necessary to give up the hope of visiting his
+sister. The first year it was because she was absent on her prolonged
+wedding tour: the next because Jock was himself away on a long and
+delightful expedition with a tutor, who had taken a special fancy to
+him. Afterwards the baby was expected, and all exciting visits and
+visitors were given up. They had met in the interval. Lucy had visited
+Jock at his school, and he had been with them in London on several
+ occasions. But there had been little possibility of anything like their
+old intercourse. Perhaps they could never again be to each other what
+they had been when these two young creatures, strangely separated from
+all about them, had been alone in the world, having entire and perfect
+confidence in each other. They both looked back upon these bygone times
+with a sort of regretful consciousness of the difference; but Lucy was
+very happy in her new life, and Jock was a perfectly natural boy, given
+to no sentimentalities, not jealous, and enjoying his existence too
+completely to sigh for the time when he was a quaint old-fashioned
+child, and knew no life apart from his sister.
+
+Their intercourse then had been so pretty, so tender and touching; the
+child being at once his sister's charge and her superior in his
+old-fashioned reflectiveness, her pupil and her teacher, the little
+judge of whose opinions she stood in awe, while at the same time quite
+subject and submissive to her--that it was a pity it should ever come to
+an end; but it is a pity, too, when children grow up, when they grow out
+of all the softness and keen impressions of youth into the harder stuff
+of man and woman. To their parents it is a change which has often
+little to recommend it--but it is inevitable, as we all know; and so it
+was a pity that Lucy and Jock were no longer all in all to each other;
+but the change was in their case, too, inevitable, and accepted by both.
+When, however, the time came that Jock was to arrive really on his first
+long visit at the Hall, Lucy prepared for this event with a little
+excitement, with a lighting up of her eyes and countenance, and a
+pleasant warmth of anticipation in which even little Tom was for the
+moment set aside. She asked her husband a dozen times in the previous
+day if he thought the boy would be altered. "I know he must be taller
+and all that," Lucy said. "I do not mean the outside of him. But do you
+think he will be changed?"
+
+"It is to be hoped so," said Sir Tom, serenely. "He is sixteen. I trust
+he is not what he was at ten. That would be a sad business, indeed----"
+
+"Oh, Tom, you know that's not what I mean!--of course he has grown
+older; but he always was very old for his age. He has become a real boy
+now. Perhaps in some things he will seem younger too."
+
+"I always said you were very reasonable," said her husband, admiringly.
+"That is just what I wanted you to be prepared for--not a wise little
+old man as he was when he had the charge of your soul, Lucy."
+
+She smiled at him, shaking her head. "What ridiculous things you say.
+But Jock was always the wise one. He knew much better than I did. He did
+take care of me whatever you may think, though he was such a child."
+
+"Perhaps it was as well that he did not continue to take care of you. On
+the whole, though I have no such lofty views, I am a better guide."
+
+Lucy looked at him once more without replying for a moment. Was her mind
+ever crossed by the idea that there were perhaps certain particulars in
+which little Jock was the best guide? If so the blasphemy was
+involuntary. She shook it off with a little movement of her head, and
+met his glance with her usual serene confidence. "You ought to be," she
+said, "Tom; but you liked him always. Didn't you like him? I always
+thought so; and you will like him now?"
+
+"I hope so," said Sir Tom.
+
+Then a slight gleam of anxiety came into Lucy's eyes. This seemed the
+only shape in which evil could come to her, and with one of those
+forewarnings of Nature always prone to alarm, which come when we are
+most happy, she looked wistfully at her husband, saying nothing, but
+with an anxious question and prayer combined in her look. He smiled at
+her, laying his hand upon her head, which was one of his caressing ways,
+for Lucy, not an imposing person in any particular, was short, and Sir
+Tom was tall.
+
+"Does that frighten you, Lucy? I shall like him for your sake, if not
+for his own, never fear."
+
+"That is kind," she said, "but I want you to like him for his own sake.
+Indeed, I should like you if you would, Tom," she added almost timidly,
+"to like him for your own. Perhaps you think that is presuming, as if
+he, a little boy, could be anything to you; but I almost think that is
+the only real way--if you know what I mean."
+
+"Now this is humbling," said Sir Tom, "that one's wife should consider
+one too dull to know what she means. You are quite right, and a complete
+philosopher, Lucy. I will like the boy for my own sake. I always did
+like him, as you say. He was the quaintest little beggar, an old man
+and a child in one. But it would have been bad for him had you kept on
+cultivating him in that sort of hot-house atmosphere. It was well for
+Jock, whatever it might be for you, that I arrived in time."
+
+Lucy pondered for a little without answering; and then she said, "Why
+should it be considered so necessary for a boy to be sent away from
+home?"
+
+"Why!" cried Sir Tom, in astonishment; and then he added, laughingly,
+"It shows your ignorance, Lucy, to ask such a question. He must be sent
+to school, and there is an end of it. There are some things that are
+like axioms in Euclid, though you don't know very much about that--they
+are made to be acted upon, not to be discussed. A boy must go to
+school."
+
+"But why?" said Lucy undaunted. "That is no answer." She was
+untrammelled by any respect for Euclid, and would have freely questioned
+the infallibility of an axiom, with a courage such as only ignorance
+possesses. She was thinking not only of Jock, but had an eye to distant
+contingencies, when there might be question of a still more precious
+boy. "God," she said, reverentially, "must have meant surely that the
+father and mother should have something to do in bringing them up."
+
+"In the holidays, my dear," said Sir Tom; "that is what we are made for.
+Have you never found that out?"
+
+Lucy never felt perfectly sure whether he was in jest or earnest. She
+looked at him again to see what he meant--which was not very easy, for
+Sir Tom meant two things directly opposed to each other. He meant what
+he said, and yet said what he knew was nonsense, and laughed at himself
+inwardly with a keen recognition of this fact. Notwithstanding, he was
+as much determined to act upon it as if it had been the most certain
+truth, and in a way pinned his faith to it as such.
+
+"I suppose you are laughing," said Lucy, "and I wish you would not,
+because it is so important. I am sure we are not meant only for the
+holidays, and you don't really think so, Tom; and to take a child away
+from his natural teachers, and those that love him best in the world, to
+throw him among strangers! Oh, I cannot think that is the best way,
+whatever Euclid may make you think."
+
+At this Sir Tom laughed, as he generally did, though never
+disrespectfully, at Lucy's decisions. He said, "That is a very just
+expression, my dear, though Euclid never made us think so much as he
+ought to have done. You are thinking of that little beggar. Wait till he
+is out of long clothes."
+
+"Which shows all you know about it. He was shortcoated at the proper
+time, I hope," said Lucy, with some indignation, "do you call these long
+clothes?"
+
+_These_ were garments which showed when he sprawled, as he always did, a
+great deal of little Tom's person, and as his mother was at that time
+holding him by them, while he "felt his feet," upon the carpet, the
+spectacle of two little dimpled knees without any covering at all
+triumphantly proved her right. Sir Tom threw himself upon the carpet to
+kiss those sturdy, yet wavering little limbs, which were not quite under
+the guidance of Tommy's will as yet, and taking the child from his
+mother, propped it up against his own person. "For the present, I allow
+that fathers and mothers are the best," he said.
+
+Lucy stood and gazed at them in that ecstasy of love and pleasure with
+which a young mother beholds her husband's adoration for their child.
+Though she feels it to be the highest pride and crown of their joint
+existence, yet there is always in her mind a sense of admiration and
+gratitude for his devotion. She looked down upon them at her feet, with
+eyes running over with happiness. It is to be feared that at such a
+moment Lucy forgot even Jock, the little brother who had been as a child
+to her in her earlier days; and yet there was no want of love for Jock
+in her warm and constant heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+YOUNG MR. TREVOR.
+
+
+John Trevor, otherwise Jock, arrived at the Hall in a state of
+considerable though suppressed excitement. It was not in his nature to
+show the feelings which were most profound and strongest in his nature,
+even if the religion of an English public school boy had not forbidden
+demonstration. But he had very strong feelings underneath his calm
+exterior, and the approach to Lucy's home gave him many thoughts. The
+sense of separation which had once affected him with a deep though
+unspoken sentiment had passed away long ago into a faint grudge, a
+feeling of something lost--but between ten and sixteen one does not
+brood upon a grievance, especially when one is surrounded by everything
+that can make one happy; and there was a certain innate philosophy in
+the mind of Jock which enabled him to see the justice and necessity of
+the separation. He it was who in very early day, had ordained his own
+going to school with a realisation of the need of it which is not
+usually given to his age--and he had understood without any explanation
+and without any complaint that Lucy must live her own life, and that
+their constant brother and sister fellowship became impossible when she
+married. The curious little solemn boy, who had made so many shrewd
+guesses at the ways of life while he was still only a child, accepted
+this without a word, working it out in his own silent soul; but
+nevertheless it had affected him deeply. And when the time came at last
+for a real meeting, not a week's visit in town where she was fully
+occupied, and he did not well know what to do with himself--or a hurried
+rapid meeting at school, where Jock's pride in introducing his tutor to
+his sister was a somewhat imperfect set-off to the loss of personal
+advantage to himself in thus seeing Lucy always in the company of other
+people--his being was greatly moved with diverse thoughts. Lucy was all
+he had in the world to represent the homes, the fathers and mothers and
+sisters and brothers of his companions. The old time when they had been
+all in all to each other had a more delicate beauty than the ordinary
+glow of childhood. He thought there was nobody like her, with that
+mingled adoration and affectionate contempt which make up a boy's love
+for the women belonging to him. She was not clever: but he regarded the
+simplicity of her mind with pride. This seemed to give her her crowning
+charm. "Any fellow can be clever," Jock said to himself. It was part of
+Lucy's superiority that she was not so. He arrived at the railway
+station at Farafield with much excitement in his mind, though his looks
+were quiet enough. The place, though it was the first he had ever known,
+did not attract a thought from the other and more important meeting. It
+was a wet day in August, and the coachman who had been sent for him gave
+him a note to say that Lucy would have come to meet him but for the
+rain. He was rather glad of the rain, this being the case. He did not
+want to meet her on a railway platform--he even regretted the long
+stretches of the stubble fields as he whirled past, and wished that the
+way had been longer, though he was so anxious to see her. And when he
+jumped down at the great door of the hall and found himself in the
+embrace of his sister, the youth was thrilling with excitement, hope,
+and pleasure. Lucy had changed much less than he had. Jock, who had been
+the smallest of pale-faced boys, was now long and weedy, with limbs and
+fingers of portentous length. His hair was light and limp; his large
+eyes, well set in his head, had a vague and often dreamy look. It was
+impossible to call him a handsome boy. There was an entire want of
+colour about him, as there had been about Lucy in her first youth, and
+his gray morning clothes, like the little gray dress she had worn as a
+young girl were not very becoming to him. They had been so long apart
+that he met her very shyly, with an awkwardness that almost looked like
+reluctance, and for the first hour scarcely knew what to say to her, so
+full was he of the wonder and pleasure of being by her, and the
+impossibility of expressing this. She asked him about his journey, and
+he made the usual replies, scarcely knowing what he said, but looking at
+her with a suppressed beatitude which made Jock dull in the very
+intensity of his feeling. The rain came steadily down outside, shutting
+them in as with veils of falling water. Sir Tom, in order to leave them
+entirely free to have their first meeting over, had taken himself off
+for the day. Lucy took her young brother into the inner drawing-room,
+the centre of her own life. She made him sit down in a luxurious chair,
+and stood over him gazing at the boy, who was abashed and did not know
+what to say. "You are different, Jock. It is not that you are taller and
+bigger altogether, but you are different. I suppose so am I."
+
+"Not much," he said, looking shyly at her. "You couldn't change."
+
+"How so?" she asked with a laugh. "I am such a great deal older I ought
+to look wiser. Let me see what it is. Your eyes have grown darker, I
+think, and your face is longer, Jock; and what is that? a little down,
+actually, upon your upper lip. Jock, not a moustache!"
+
+Jock blushed with pleasure and embarrassment, and put up his hand fondly
+to feel those few soft hairs. "There isn't very much of it," he said.
+
+"Oh, there is enough to swear by; and you like school as well as ever?
+and MTutor, how is he? Are you as fond of him as you used to be, Jock?"
+
+"You don't say you're fond of him," said Jock, "but he's just as jolly
+as ever, if that is what you mean."
+
+"That is what I mean, I suppose. You must tell me when I say anything
+wrong," said Lucy. She took his head between her hands and gave him a
+kiss upon his forehead. "I am so glad to see you here at last," she
+said.
+
+And then there was a pause. Her first little overflow of questions had
+come to an end, and she did not exactly know what to say, while Jock sat
+silent, staring at her with an earnest gaze. It was all so strange, the
+scene and surroundings, and Lucy in the midst, who was a great lady,
+instead of being merely his sister--all these confused the boy's
+faculties. He wanted time to realise it all. But Lucy, for her part,
+felt the faintest little touch of disappointment. It seemed to her as if
+they ought to have had so much to say to each other, such a rush of
+questions and answers, and full-hearted confidence. Jock's heart would
+be at his lips, she thought, ready to rush forth--and her own also, with
+all the many things of which she had said to herself: "I must tell that
+to Jock." But as a matter of fact, many of these things had been told by
+letter, and the rest would have been quite out of place in the moment of
+reunion, in which indeed it seemed inappropriate to introduce any
+subject other than their pleasure in seeing each other again, and those
+personal inquiries which we all so long to make face to face when we are
+separated from those near to us, yet which are so little capable of
+filling all the needs of the situation when that moment comes. Jock was
+indeed showing his happiness much more by his expressive silence and shy
+eager gaze at her than if he had plunged into immediate talk; but Lucy
+felt a little disappointed, and as if the meeting had not come up to her
+hopes. She said, after a pause which was almost awkward, "You would like
+to see baby, Jock? How strange that you should not know baby! I wonder
+what you will think of him." She rose and rang the bell while she was
+speaking in a pleasant stir of fresh expectation. No doubt it would stir
+Jock to the depths of his heart, and bring out all his latent feeling,
+when he saw Lucy's boy. Little Tom was brought in state to see "his
+uncle," a title of dignity which the nurse felt indignantly disappointed
+to have bestowed upon the lanky, colourless boy who got up with great
+embarrassment and came forward reluctantly to see the creature quite
+unknown and unrealised, of whom Lucy spoke with so much exultation. Jock
+was not jealous, but he thought it rather odd that "a little thing like
+that" should excite so much attention. It seemed to him that it was a
+thing all legs and arms, sprawling in every direction, and when it
+seized Lucy by the hair, pulling it about her face with the most riotous
+freedom, Jock felt deeply disposed to box its ears. But Lucy was
+delighted. "Oh, naughty baby!" she said, with a voice of such admiration
+and ecstasy as the finest poetry, Jock reflected, would never have awoke
+in her; and when the thing "loved" her, at its nurse's bidding, clasping
+its fat arms round her neck, and applying a wide-open wet mouth to her
+cheek, the tears were in her eyes for very pleasure. "Baby, darling,
+that is your uncle; won't you go to your uncle? Take him, Jock. If he is
+a little shy at first he will soon get used to you," Lucy cried. To see
+Jock holding back on one side, and the baby on the other, which
+strenuously refused to go to its uncle, was as good as a play.
+
+"I'm afraid I should let it fall," said Jock, "I don't know anything
+about babies."
+
+"Then sit down, dear, and I will put him upon your lap," said the young
+mother. There never was a more complete picture of wretchedness than
+poor Jock, as he placed himself unwillingly on the sofa with his knees
+put firmly together and his feet slanting outwards to support them. "I
+sha'n't know what to do with it," he said. It is to be feared that he
+resented its existence altogether. It was to him a quite unnecessary
+addition. Was he never to see Lucy any more without that thing clinging
+to her? Little Tom, for his part, was equally decided in his
+sentiments. He put his little fists, which were by no means without
+force, against his uncle's face, and pushed him away, with squalls that
+would have exasperated Job; and then, instead of consoling Jock, Lucy
+took the little demon to her arms and soothed him. "Did they want it to
+make friends against its will," Lucy was so ridiculous as to say, like
+one of the women in _Punch_, petting and smoothing down that odious
+little creature. Both she and the nurse seemed to think that it was the
+baby who wanted consoling for the appearance of Jock, and not Jock who
+had been insulted; for one does not like even a baby to consider one as
+repulsive and disagreeable. The incident was scarcely at an end when Sir
+Tom came in, fresh, smiling, and damp from the farm, where he had been
+inspecting the cattle and enjoying himself. Mature age and settled life
+and a sense of property had converted Sir Tom to the pleasure of
+farming. He shook Jock heartily by the hand, and clapped him on the
+back, and bade him welcome with great kindness. Then he took "the little
+beggar" on his shoulder and carried him, shrieking with delight, about
+the room. It seemed a very strange thing to Jock to see how entirely
+these two full-grown people gave themselves up to the deification of
+this child. It was not bringing themselves to his level, it was looking
+up to him as their superior. If he had been a king his careless favours
+could not have been more keenly contended for. Jock, who was fond of
+poetry and philosophy and many other fine things, looked on at this new
+mystery with wondering and indignant contempt. After dinner there was
+the baby again. It was allowed to stay out of bed longer than usual in
+honour of its uncle, and dinner was hurried over, Jock thought, in
+order that it might be produced, decked out in a sash almost as broad as
+its person. When it appeared rational conversation was at an end, Sir
+Tom, whom Jock had always respected highly, stopped the inquiries he was
+making, with all the knowledge and pleasure, of an old schoolboy, into
+school life, comparing his own experiences with those of the present
+generation--to play bo-peep behind Lucy's shoulder with the baby.
+Bo-peep! a Member of Parliament, a fellow who had been at the
+University, who had travelled, who had seen America and gone through the
+Desert! There was consternation in the astonishment with which Jock
+looked on at this unlooked-for, almost incredible, exhibition. It was
+ridiculous in Lucy, but in Sir Tom!
+
+"I suppose we were all like that one time?" he said, trying to be
+philosophical, as little Tom at last, half smothered with kisses, was
+carried away.
+
+"Like _that_--do you mean like baby? You were a little darling, dear,
+and I was always very, very fond of you," said Lucy, giving him the
+kindest look of her soft eyes. "But you were not a beauty, like my boy."
+
+Sir Tom had laughed, with something of the same sentiment very evident
+in his mirth, when Lucy spoke. He put out his hand and patted his young
+brother-in-law on the shoulder. "It is absurd," he said, "to put that
+little beggar in the foreground when we have somebody here who is in
+Sixth form at sixteen, and is captain of his house, and has got a school
+prize already. If Lucy does not appreciate all that, I do, Jock, and the
+best I can wish for Tommy is that he should have done as much at your
+age."
+
+"Oh, I was not thinking of that," said Jock with a violent blush.
+
+"Of course he was not," said Lucy calmly, "for he always had the kindest
+heart though he was so clever. If you think I don't appreciate it as you
+say, Tom, it is only because I knew it all the time. Do you think I am
+surprised that Jock has beaten everybody? He was like that when he was
+six, before he had any education. And he will be just as proud of baby
+as we are when he knows him. He is a little strange at first," said
+Lucy, beaming upon her brother; "but as soon as he is used to you, he
+will go to you just as he does to me."
+
+To this Jock could not reply by betraying the shiver that went over him
+at the thought, but it gave great occupation to his mind to make out how
+a little thing like that could attain, as it had done, such empire over
+the minds of two sensible people. He consulted MTutor on the subject by
+letter, who was his great referee on difficult subjects, and he could
+not help betraying his wonder to the household as he grew more familiar
+and the days went on. "He can't do anything for you," Jock said. "He
+can't talk; he doesn't know anything about--well, about books: I know
+that's more my line than yours, Lucy--but about anything. Oh! you
+needn't flare up. When he dabs his mouth at you all wet----"
+
+"Oh! you little wretch, you infidel, you savage," Lucy cried; "his sweet
+mouth! and a dear big wet kiss that lets you know he means it."
+
+Jock looked at her as he had done often in the old days, with mingled
+admiration and contempt. It was like Lucy, and yet how odd it was. "I
+suppose, then," he said, "I was rather worse than _that_ when you took
+me up and were good to me. What for, I wonder? and you were fond of me,
+too, although you are fonder of _it_----"
+
+"If you talk of It again I will never speak to you more," Lucy said, "as
+if my beautiful boy was a thing and not a person. He is not It: he is
+Tom, he is Mr. Randolph: that is what Williams calls him." Williams was
+the butler who had been all over the world with Sir Tom, and who was
+respectful of the heir, but a little impatient and surprised, as Jock
+was, of the fuss that was made about Tommy for his own small sake.
+
+By this time, however, Jock had recovered from his shyness--his
+difficulty in talking, all the little mist that absence had made--and
+roamed about after Lucy, hanging upon her, putting his arm through hers,
+though he was much the taller, wherever she went. He held her back a
+little now as they walked through the park in a sort of procession, Mrs.
+Richens, the nurse, going first with the boy. "When I was a little
+slobbering beast, like----" he stopped himself in time, "like the
+t'other kind of baby, and nobody wanted me, you were the only one that
+took any trouble."
+
+"How do you know?" said Lucy; "you don't remember and I don't remember."
+
+"Ah! but I remember the time in the Terrace, when I lay on the rug, and
+heard papa making his will over my head. I was listening for you all the
+time. I was thinking of nothing but your step coming to take me out."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Lucy, "you were deep in your books, and thinking of
+them only; of that--gentleman with the windmills--or Shakspeare, or some
+other nonsense. Oh, I don't mean Shakspeare is nonsense. I mean you were
+thinking of nothing but your books, and nobody would believe you
+understood all that at your age."
+
+"I did not understand," said Jock with a blush. "I was a little prig.
+Lucy, how strange it all is, like a picture one has seen somewhere, or a
+scene in a play or a dream! Sometimes I can remember little bits of it,
+just as he used to read it out to old Ford. Bits of it are all in and
+out of _As You Like It_, as if Touchstone had said them, or Jaques. Poor
+old papa! how particular he was about it all. Are you doing everything
+he told you, Lucy, in the will?"
+
+He did not in the least mean it as an alarming question, as he stooped
+over, in his awkward way holding her arm, and looked into her face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+CONSULTATIONS.
+
+
+Lucy was much startled by her brother's demand. It struck, however, not
+her conscience so much as her recollection, bringing back that past
+which was still so near, yet which seemed a world away, in which she had
+made so many anxious efforts to carry out her father's will and
+considered it the main object of her life. A young wife who is happy,
+and upon whom life smiles, can scarcely help looking back upon the time
+when she was a girl with a sense of superiority, an amused and
+affectionate contempt for herself. "How could I be so silly?" she will
+say, and laugh, not without a passing blush. This was not exactly Lucy's
+feeling; but in three years she had, even in her sheltered and happy
+position, attained a certain acquaintance with life, and she saw
+difficulties which in those former days had not been apparent to her.
+When Jock began to recall these reminiscences it seemed to her as if she
+saw once more the white commonplace walls of her father's sitting-room
+rising about her, and heard him laying down the law which she had
+accepted with such calm. She had seen no difficulty then. She had not
+even been surprised by the burden laid upon her. It had appeared as
+natural to obey him in matters which concerned large external interests,
+and the well-being of strangers, as it was to fill him out a cup of tea.
+But the interval of time, and the change of position, had made a great
+difference; and when Jock asked, "Are you doing all he told you?" the
+question brought a sudden surging of the blood to her head, which made a
+singing in her ears and a giddiness in her brain. It seemed to place her
+in front of something which must interrupt all her life and put a stop
+to the even flow of her existence. She caught her breath. "Doing all he
+told me!"
+
+Jock, though he did not mean it, though he was no longer her
+self-appointed guardian and guide, became to Lucy a monitor, recalling
+her as to another world.
+
+But the effect though startling was not permanent. They began to talk it
+all over, and by dint of familiarity the impression wore away. The
+impression, but not the talk. It gave the brother and sister just what
+they wanted to bring back all the habits of their old affectionate
+confidential intercourse, a subject upon which they could carry on
+endless discussions and consultations, which was all their own, like one
+of those innocent secrets which children delight in, and which, with
+arms entwined and heads close together, they can carry on endlessly for
+days together. They ceased the discussion when Sir Tom appeared, not
+with any fear of him as a disturbing influence, but with a tacit
+understanding that this subject was for themselves alone. It involved
+everything; the past with all those scenes of their strange childhood,
+the homely living, the fantastic possibilities always in the air, the
+old dear tender relationship between the two young creatures who alone
+belonged to each other. Lucy almost forgot her present self as she
+talked, and they moved about together, the tall boy clinging to her arm
+as the little urchin had done, altogether dependent, yet always with a
+curious leadership, suggesting a thousand things that would not have
+occurred to her.
+
+Lucy had no occasion now for the advice which Jock at eight years old
+had so freely given her. She had her husband to lead and advise her. But
+in this one matter Sir Tom was put tacitly out of court, and Jock had
+his old place. "It does not matter at all that you have not done
+anything lately," Jock said; "there is plenty of time--and now that I am
+to spend all my holidays here, it will be far easier. It was better not
+to do things so hastily as you began."
+
+"But, Jock," said Lucy, "We must not deceive ourselves; it will be very
+hard. People who are very nice do not like to take the money; and those
+who are willing to take it----"
+
+"Does the will say the people are to be nice?" asked Jock. "Then what
+does that matter? The will is all against reason, Lucy. It is wrong, you
+know. Fellows who know political economy would think we are all mad; for
+it just goes against it, straight."
+
+"That is strange, Jock; for papa was very economical. He never could
+bear waste: he used to say----"
+
+"Yes, yes; but political economy means something different. It is a
+science. It means that you should sell everything as dear as you can,
+and buy it as cheap as you can--and never give anything away----"
+
+"That is dreadful, Jock," said Lucy. "It is all very well to be a
+science, but nobody like ourselves could be expected to act upon
+it--private people, you know."
+
+"There is something in that," Jock allowed; "there are always
+exceptions. I only want to show you that the will being all against
+rule, it _must_ be hard to carry it out. Don't you do anything by
+yourself, Lucy. When you come across any case that is promising, just
+you wait till I come, and we'll talk it all over. I don't quite
+understand about nice people not taking it. Fellows I know are always
+pleased with presents--or a tip, nobody refuses a tip. And that is just
+the same sort of thing, you know."
+
+"Not just the same," said Lucy, "for a tip--that means a sovereign,
+doesn't it?"
+
+"It sometimes means--paper," said Jock, with some solemnity. "Last time
+you came to see me at school Sir Tom gave me a fiver----"
+
+"A what?"
+
+"Oh, a five-pound note," said Jock, with momentary impatience; "the
+other's shorter to say and less fuss. MTutor thought he had better not;
+but I didn't mind. I don't see why anybody should mind. There's a fellow
+I know--his father is a curate, and there are no end of them, and
+they've no money. Fellow himself is on the foundation, so he doesn't
+cost much. Why they shouldn't take a big tip from you, who have too
+much, I'm sure I can't tell; and I don't believe they would mind," Jock
+added, after a pause.
+
+This, which would have inspired Lucy in the days of her dauntless
+maidenhood to calculate at once how much it would take to make this
+family happy, gave her a little shudder now.
+
+"I don't feel as if I could do it," she said. "I wish papa had found an
+easier way. People don't like you afterwards when you do _that_ for
+them. They are angry--they think, why should I have all that to give
+away, a little thing like me?"
+
+"The easiest way would be an exam.," said Jock. "Everybody now goes in
+for exams.; and if they passed, they would think they had won the money
+all right."
+
+"Perhaps there is something in that, Jock; but then it is not for young
+men. It is for ladies, perhaps, or old people, or----"
+
+"You might let them choose their own subjects," said the boy. "A lady
+might do a good paper about--servants, or sewing, or that sort of thing;
+or housekeeping--that would be all right. MTutor might look over the
+papers----"
+
+"Does he know about housekeeping?"
+
+"He knows about most things," cried Jock, "I should like to see the
+thing he didn't know. He is the best scholar we have got; and he's what
+you call an all-round man besides," the boy said with pride.
+
+"What is an all-round man?" Lucy asked, diffidently. "He is tall and
+slight, so it cannot mean his appearance."
+
+"Oh, what a muff you are, Lucy; you're awfully nice, but you are a muff.
+It means a man who knows a little of everything. MTutor is more than
+that, he knows a great deal of everything; indeed, as I was saying,"
+Jock added defiantly, "I should just like to see the thing he didn't
+know."
+
+"And yet he is so nice," said Lucy, with a gentle air of astonishment.
+
+MTutor was a subject which was endless with Jock, so that the original
+topic here glided out of sight as the exalted gifts of that model of all
+the virtues became the theme. This conversation, however, was but one of
+many. It was their meeting ground, the matter upon which they found each
+other as of old, two beings separated from the world, which wondered at
+and did not understand them. What a curious office it was for them, two
+favourites of fortune as they seemed, to disperse and give away the
+foundation of their own importance! for Jock owed everything to Lucy,
+and Lucy, when she had accomplished this object of her existence, and
+carried out her father's will, would no doubt still be a wealthy woman,
+but not in any respect the great personage she was now. This was a view
+of the matter which never crossed the minds of these two. Their strange
+training had made Lucy less conscious of the immense personal advantage
+which her money was to her than any other could have done. She knew,
+indeed, that there was a great difference between her early home in
+Farafield and the house in London where she had lived with Lady
+Randolph, and still more, the Hall which was her home--but she had been
+not less but more courted and worshipped in her lowly estate than in her
+high one, and her father's curious philosophy had affected her mind and
+coloured her perceptions. She had learned, indeed, to know that there
+are difficulties in attempting to enact the part of Providence, and
+taking upon herself the task of providing for her fellow-creatures; but
+these difficulties had nothing to do with the fact that she would
+herself suffer by such a dispersion. Perhaps her imagination was not
+lively enough to realise this part of the situation. Jock and she
+ignored it altogether. As for Jock, the delight of giving away was
+strong in him, and the position was so strange that it fascinated his
+boyish imagination. To act such a part as that of Haroun-al-Raschid in
+real life, and change the whole life of whatsoever poor cobbler or
+fruit-seller attracted him, was a vision of fairyland such as Jock had
+not yet outgrown. But the chief thing that he impressed on his sister
+was the necessity of doing nothing by herself. "Just wait till we can
+talk it over," he said, "two are always better than one: and a fellow
+learns a lot at school. You wouldn't think it, perhaps, but there's all
+sorts there, and you learn a lot when you have your eyes well open. We
+can talk it all over and settle if it's good enough; but don't go and be
+rash, Lucy, and do anything by yourself."
+
+"I sha'n't, dear; I should be too frightened," Lucy said.
+
+This was on one of his last days, when they were walking together
+through the shrubbery. It was September by this time, and he might have
+been shooting partridges with Sir Tom, but Jock was not so much an
+out-door boy as he ought to have been, and he preferred walking with his
+sister, his arm thrust through hers, his head stooping over her. It was
+perhaps the last opportunity they would have of discussing their family
+secrets, a matter (they thought) which really concerned nobody else,
+which no one else would care to be troubled with. Perhaps in Lucy's mind
+there was a sense of unreality in the whole matter; but Jock was
+entirely in earnest, and quite convinced that in such an important
+business he was his sister's natural adviser, and might be of a great
+deal of use. It was towards evening when they went out, and a red
+autumnal sunset was accomplishing itself in the west, throwing a gleam
+as of the brilliant tints which were yet to come, on the still green and
+luxuriant foliage. The light was low, and came into Lucy's eyes, who
+shaded them with her hand. And the paths had a touch of autumnal damp,
+and a certain mistiness, mellow and golden by reason of the sunshine,
+was rising among the trees.
+
+"We will not be hasty," said Jock; "we will take everything into
+consideration: and I don't think you will find so much difficulty, Lucy,
+when you have me."
+
+"I hope not, dear," Lucy said; and she began to talk to him about his
+flannels and other precautions he was to take; for Jock was supposed not
+to be very strong. He had grown fast, and he was rather weedy and long,
+without strength to support it. "We have been so happy together," she
+said. "We always were happy together, Jock. Remember, dear, no wet feet,
+and as little football as you can help, for my sake."
+
+"Oh, yes," he said, with a wave of his hand; "all right, Lucy. There is
+no fear about that. The first thing to think of is poor old father's
+will, and what you are going to do about it. I mean to think out all
+that about the examinations, and I suppose I may speak to MTutor----"
+
+"It is too private, don't you think, Jock? Nobody knows about it. It is
+better to keep it between you and me."
+
+"I can put it as a supposed case," said Jock, "and ask what he would
+advise; for you see, Lucy, you and even I are not very experienced, and
+MTutor, he knows such a lot. It would always be a good thing to have his
+advice, you know; he----"
+
+There was no telling how long Jock might have gone on on this subject.
+But just at this moment a quick step came round the corner of a clump of
+wood, and a hand was laid on the shoulder of each. "What are you
+plotting about?" asked the voice of Sir Tom in their ears. It was a
+curious sign of her mental condition which Lucy remembered with shame
+afterwards, without being very well able to account for it, that she
+suddenly dropped Jock's arm and turned round upon her husband with a
+quick blush and access of breathing, as if somehow--she could not tell
+how--she had been found out. It had never occurred to her before,
+through all those long drawn out consultations, that she was concealing
+anything from Sir Tom. She dropped Jock's arm as if it hurt her, and
+turned to her husband in the twinkling of an eye.
+
+"Jock," she said quickly, "and I--were talking about MTutor, Tom."
+
+"Ah! once landed on that subject, and there is no telling when we may
+come to an end," Sir Tom said, with a laugh, "but never mind, I like you
+all the better for it, my boy."
+
+Jock gave an astonished look at Lucy, a half-defiant one at her husband.
+
+"That was only by the way," he said, lifting up his shoulders with a
+little air of offence. He did not condescend to any further explanation,
+but walked along by their side with a lofty abstraction, looking at them
+now and then from the corner of his eye. Lucy had taken Sir Tom's arm,
+and was hanging upon her tall husband, looking up in his face. The
+little blush of surprise--or was it of guilt?--with which she had
+received him was still upon her cheek. She was far more animated than
+usual, almost a little agitated. She asked about the shooting, about the
+bag, and how many brace was to Sir Tom's own gun, with that conciliating
+interest which is one of the signs of a conscious fault; while Sir Tom,
+on his side bending down to his little wife, received all her flatteries
+with so complacent a smile, and such a beatific belief in her perfect
+sincerity and devotion, that Jock, looking on from his superiority of
+passionless youth, regarded them both with a wondering disdain. Why did
+she "make up" in that way to her husband, dropping her brother as if she
+had been plotting harm? Jock was amazed, he could not understand it.
+Perhaps it was only because he thus fell in a moment from being the
+chief object of interest to the position of nobody at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS.
+
+
+Lucy's mind had sustained a certain shock when her husband appeared.
+During her short married life there had not been a cloud, or a shadow of
+a cloud, between them. But then there had been no question between them,
+nothing to cause any question, no difference of opinion. Sir Tom had
+taken all her business naturally into his hands. Whatever she wished she
+had got--nay, before she expressed a wish it had been satisfied. He had
+talked to her about everything, and she had listened with docile
+attention, but without concealing the fact that she neither understood
+nor wished to understand; and he had not only never chided her, but had
+accepted her indifference with a smile of pleasure as the most natural
+thing in the world. He had encouraged her in all her liberal charities,
+shaking his head and declaring with a radiant face that she would ruin
+herself, and that not even her fortune would stand it. But the one
+matter which had given Lucy so much trouble before her marriage, and
+which Jock had now brought back to her mind, was one that had never been
+mentioned between them. He had known all about it, and her eccentric
+proceedings and conflict with her guardians, backing her up, indeed,
+with much laughter, and showing every symptom of amiable amusement; but
+he had never given any opinion on the subject, nor made the slightest
+allusion since to this grand condition of her father's will. In the
+sunny years that were past Lucy had taken no notice of this omission.
+She had not thought much on the subject herself. She had withdrawn from
+it tacitly, as one is apt to do from a matter which has been productive
+of pain and disappointment, and had been content to ignore that portion
+of her responsibilities. Even when Jock forcibly revived the subject it
+continued without any practical importance, and its existence was a
+question between themselves to afford material for endless conversation
+which had been pleasant and harmless. But when Sir Tom's hand was laid
+on her shoulder, and his cheerful voice sounded in her ear, a sudden
+shock was given to Lucy's being. It flashed upon her in a moment that
+this question which she had been discussing with Jock had never been
+mentioned between her and her husband, and with a sudden instinctive
+perception she became aware that Sir Tom would look upon it with very
+different eyes from theirs. She felt that she had been disloyal to him
+in having a secret subject of consultation even with her brother. If he
+heard he would be displeased, he would be taken by surprise, perhaps
+wounded, perhaps made angry. In any wise it would introduce a new
+element into their life. Lucy saw, with a sudden sensation of fright and
+pain, an unknown crowd of possibilities which might pour down upon her,
+were it to be communicated to Sir Tom that his wife and her brother were
+debating as to a course of action on her part, unknown to him. All this
+occurred in a moment, and it was not any lucid and real perception of
+difficulties, but only a sudden alarmed compunctious consciousness that
+filled her mind. She fled, as it were, from the circumstances which made
+these horrors possible, hurrying back into her former attitude with a
+penitential urgency. Jock, indeed, was very dear to her, but he was no
+more than second, nay he was but third, in Lady Randolph's heart. Her
+husband's supremacy he could not touch, and though he had been almost
+her child in the old days, yet he was not, nor ever would be, her child
+in the same ineffable sense as little Tom was, who was her very own, the
+centre of her life. So she ran away (so to speak) from Jock with a real
+panic, and clung to her husband, conciliating, nay almost wheedling him,
+if we may use the word, with a curious feminine instinct, to make up to
+him for the momentary wrong she had done, and which he was not aware of.
+Sir Tom himself was a little surprised by the warmth of the reception
+she gave him. Her interest in his shooting was usually very mild, for
+she had never been able to get over a little horror she had, due,
+perhaps, to her bourgeois training, of the slaughter of the birds. He
+glanced at the pair with an unusual perception that there was something
+here more than met the eye. "You have been egging her up to some
+rebellion," he said; "Jock, you villain; you have been hatching treason
+behind my back!" He said this with one of those cordial laughs which
+nobody could refrain from joining--full of good humour and fun, and a
+pleased consciousness that to teach Lucy to rebel would be beyond any
+one's power. At any other moment she would have taken the accusation
+with the tranquil smile which was Lucy's usual reply to her husband's
+pleasantries; but this time her laugh was a little strained, and the
+warmth of her denial, "No, no! there has been no treason," gave the
+slightest jar of surprise to Sir Tom. It sounded like a false note in
+the air; he did not understand what it could mean.
+
+Jock went away the next day. He went with a basket of game for MTutor
+and many nice things for himself, and all the attention and care which
+might have been his had he been the heir instead of only the young
+brother and dependent. Lucy herself drove in with him to Farafield to
+see him off, and Sir Tom, who had business in the little town and meant
+to drive back with his wife, appeared on the railway platform just in
+time to say good-bye. "Now, Lucy, you will not forget," were Jock's last
+words as he looked out of the window when the train was already in
+motion. Lucy nodded and smiled, and waved her hand, but she did not make
+any other reply. Sir Tom said nothing until they were driving along the
+stubble fields in the afternoon sunshine. Lucy lay back in her corner
+with that mingled sense of regret and relief with which, when we are
+very happy at home, we see a guest go away--a gentle sorrow to part, a
+soft pleasure in being once more restored to the more intimate circle.
+She had not shaken off that impression of guiltiness, but now it was
+over, and nothing further could be said on the subject for a long time
+to come.
+
+"What is it, Lucy, that you are not to forget?"
+
+She roused herself up, and a warm flush of colour came to her face. "Oh,
+nothing, Tom, a little thing we were consulting about. It was Jock that
+brought it to my mind."
+
+"I think it must be more than just a little thing. Mayn't I hear what
+this secret is?"
+
+"Oh, it is nothing, Tom," Lady Randolph repeated; and then she sat up
+erect and said, "I must not deceive you. It is not merely a small
+matter. Still it is just between Jock and me. It was about--papa's will,
+Tom."
+
+"Ah! that is a large matter. I don't quite see how that can be between
+you and Jock, Lucy. Jock has very little to do with it. I don't want to
+find fault, my dear, but I think as an adviser you will find me better
+than Jock."
+
+"I know you are far better, Tom. You know more than both of us put
+together."
+
+"That would not be very difficult," he said, with a smile.
+
+Perhaps this calm acceptance of the fact nettled Lucy. At least she
+said, with a little touch of spirit, "And yet I know something about our
+kind of people better than you will ever do, Tom."
+
+"Lucy, this is a wonderful new tone. Perhaps you may know better, but I
+am doubtful if you understand the relation of things as well. What is
+it, my dear?--that is to say, if you like to tell me, for I am not going
+to force your confidence."
+
+"Tom--oh dear Tom! It is not that. It is rather that it was something to
+talk to Jock about. He remembers everything. When papa was making that
+will----" here Lucy stopped and sighed. It had not been doing her a good
+service to make her recollect that will, which had enough in it to make
+her life wretched, though that as yet nobody knew. "He recollects it
+all," she said. "He used to hear it read out. He remembers everything."
+
+"I suppose, then," said Sir Tom, with a peculiar smile, "there is
+something in particular which he thought you were likely to forget?"
+
+Here Lucy sighed again. "I am afraid I had forgotten it. No, not
+forgotten, but--I never knew very well what to do. Perhaps you don't
+remember either. It is about giving the money away."
+
+Sir Tom was a far more considerable person in every way than the little
+girl who was his wife, and who was not clever nor of any great account
+apart from her wealth; and she was devoted to him, so that he could have
+very little fear how any conflict should end when he was on one side, if
+all the world were on the other. But perhaps he had been spoiled by
+Lucy's entire agreement and consent to whatever he pleased to wish, so
+that his tone was a little sharp, not so good-humoured as usual, but
+with almost a sneer in it when he replied quickly, not leaving her a
+moment to get her breath, "I see; Jock having inspiration from the
+fountain head, was to be your guide in that."
+
+She looked at him alarmed and penitent, but reproachful. "I would have
+done nothing, I could have done nothing, oh Tom! without you."
+
+"It is very obliging of you Lucy to say so; nevertheless, Jock thought
+himself entitled to remind you of what you had forgotten, and to offer
+himself as your adviser. Perhaps MTutor was to come in, too," he said,
+with a laugh.
+
+Sir Tom was not immaculate in point of temper any more than other men,
+but Lucy had never suffered from it before. She was frightened, but she
+did not give way. The colour went out of her cheeks, but there was more
+in her than mere insipid submission. She looked at her husband with a
+certain courage, though she was so pale, and felt so profoundly the
+displeasure which she had never encountered before.
+
+"I don't think you should speak like that, Tom. I have done nothing
+wrong. I have only been talking to my brother of--of--a thing that
+nobody cares about but him and me in all the world."
+
+"And that is----"
+
+"Doing what papa wished," Lucy said in a low voice. A little moisture
+stole into her eyes. Whether it came because of her father, or because
+her husband spoke sharply to her, it perhaps would have been difficult
+to say.
+
+This made Sir Tom ashamed of his ill-humour. It was cruel to be unkind
+to a creature so gentle, who was not used to be found fault with; and
+yet he felt that for Lucy to set up an independence of any kind was a
+thing to be crushed in the bud. A man may have the most liberal
+principles about women, and yet feel a natural indignation when his own
+wife shows signs of desiring to act for herself; and besides, it was not
+to be endured that a boy and girl conspiracy should be hatched under his
+very nose to take the disposal of an important sum of money out of his
+hands. Such an idea was not only ridiculous in itself, but apt to make
+him ridiculous, a man who ought to be strong enough to keep the young
+ones in order. "My dear," he said, "I have no wish to speak in any way
+that vexes you; but I see no reason you can have--at least I hope there
+has been nothing in my conduct to give you any reason--to withdraw your
+confidence from me and give it to Jock."
+
+Lucy did not make him any reply. She looked at him pathetically through
+the water in her eyes. If she had spoken she would have cried, and this
+in an open carriage, with a village close at hand, and people coming and
+going upon the road, was not to be thought of. By the time she had
+mastered herself Sir Tom had cooled down, and he was ashamed of having
+made Lucy's lips to quiver and taken away her voice.
+
+"That was a very nasty thing to say," he said, "wasn't it, Lucy? I ought
+to be ashamed of myself. Still, my little woman must remember that I am
+too fond of her to let her have secrets with anybody but me."
+
+And with this he took the hand that was nearest to him into both of his
+and held it close, and throwing a temptation in her way which she could
+not resist, led her to talk of the baby and forget everything else
+except that precious little morsel of humanity. He was far cleverer than
+Lucy; he could make her do whatever he pleased. No fear of any
+opposition, any setting up of her own will against his. When they got
+home he gave her a kiss, and then the momentary trouble was all over. So
+he thought at least. Lucy was so little and gentle and fair, that she
+appeared to her husband even younger than she was; and she was a great
+deal younger than himself. He thought her a sort of child-wife, whom a
+little scolding or a kiss would altogether sway. The kiss had been
+quite enough hitherto. Perhaps, since Jock had come upon the scene, a
+few words of admonition might prove now and then necessary, but it would
+be cruel to be hard upon her, or do more than let her see what his
+pleasure was.
+
+But Lucy was not what Sir Tom thought. She could not endure that there
+should be any shadow between her husband and herself, but her mind was
+not satisfied with this way of settling an important question. She took
+his kiss and his apology gratefully, but if anything had been wanted to
+impress more deeply upon her mind the sense of a duty before her, of
+which her husband did not approve, and in doing which she could not have
+his help, it would have been this little episode altogether. Even little
+Tom did not efface the impression from her mind. At dinner she met her
+husband with her usual smile, and even assented when he remarked upon
+the pleasantness of finding themselves again alone together. There had
+been other guests besides Jock, so that the remark did not offend her;
+but yet Lucy was not quite like herself. She felt it vaguely, and he
+felt it vaguely, and neither was entirely aware what it was.
+
+In the morning, at breakfast, Sir Tom received a foreign letter, which
+made him start a little. He started and cried, "Hollo!" then, opening
+it, and finding two or three closely-scribbled sheets, gave way to a
+laugh. "Here's literature!" he said. Lucy, who had no jealousy of his
+correspondents, read her own calm little letters, and poured out the
+tea, with no particular notice of her husband's interjections. It did
+not even move her curiosity that the letter was in a feminine hand, and
+gave forth a faint perfume. She reminded him that his tea was getting
+cold, but otherwise took no notice. One of her own letters was from the
+Dowager Lady Randolph, full of advice about the baby. "Mrs. Russell
+tells me that Katie's children are the most lovely babies that ever were
+seen; but she is very fantastic about them; will not let them wear shoes
+to spoil their feet, and other vagaries of that kind. I hope, my dear
+Lucy, that you are not fanciful about little Tom," Lady Randolph wrote.
+Lucy read this very composedly, and smiled at the suggestion. Fanciful!
+Oh, no, she was not fanciful about him--she was not even silly, Lucy
+thought. She was capable of allowing that other babies might be lovely,
+though why the feet of Katie's children should be of so much importance
+she allowed to herself she could not see. She was roused from these
+tranquil thoughts by a little commotion on the other side of the table,
+where Sir Tom had just thrown down his letter. He was laughing and
+talking to himself. "Why shouldn't she come if she likes it?" he was
+saying. "Lucy, look here, since you have set up a confidant, I shall
+have one too," and with that Sir Tom went off into an immoderate fit of
+laughing. The letter scattered upon the table all opened out, two large
+foreign sheets, looked endless. Nobody had ever written so much to Lucy
+in all her life. She could see it was largely underlined and full of
+notes of admiration and interrogation, altogether an out-of-the-way
+epistle. Was it possible that Sir Tom was a little excited as well as
+amused? He put his roll upon a hot plate, and began to cut it with his
+knife and fork in an absence of mind, which was not usual with him, and
+at intervals of a minute or two would burst out with his long "Ha, ha,"
+again. "That will serve you out, Lucy," he said, with a shout, "if I set
+up a confidant too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A WARNING.
+
+
+"I wonder if I shall like her," Lucy said to herself.
+
+She had been hearing from her husband about the Contessa di
+Forno-Populo, who had promised to pay them a visit at Christmas. He had
+laughed a great deal while he described this lady. "What she will do
+here in a country-house in the depth of winter, I cannot tell," he said,
+"but if she wants to come why shouldn't she? She and I are old friends.
+One time and another we have seen a great deal of each other. She will
+not understand me in the character of a Benedick, but that will be all
+the greater fun," he said with a laugh. Lucy looked at him with a little
+surprise. She could not quite make him out.
+
+"If she is a friend she will not mind the country and the winter," said
+Lucy; "it will be you she will want to see----"
+
+"That is all very well, my dear," said Sir Tom, "but she wants something
+more than me. She wants a little amusement. We must have a party to meet
+her, Lucy. We have never yet had the house full for Christmas. Don't you
+think it will be better to furnish the Contessa with other objects
+instead of letting her loose upon your husband. You don't know what it
+is you are treating so lightly."
+
+"I--treat any one lightly that you care for, Tom! Oh, no; I was only
+thinking. I thought she would come to see you, not a number of strange
+people----"
+
+"And you would not mind, Lucy?"
+
+"Mind?" Lucy lifted her innocent eyes upon him with the greatest
+surprise. "To be sure it is most nice of all when there is nobody with
+us," she said--as if that had been what he meant. Enlightenment on this
+subject had not entered her mind. She did not understand him; nor did he
+understand her. He gave her a sort of friendly hug as he passed, still
+with that laugh in which there was no doubt a great perception of
+something comic, yet--an enlightened observer might have thought--a
+little uneasiness, a tremor which was almost agitation too. Lucy too had
+a perception of something a little out of the way which she did not
+understand, but she offered to herself no explanation of it. She said to
+herself, when he was gone, "I wonder if I shall like her?" and she did
+not make herself any reply. She had been in society, and held her little
+place with a simple composure which was natural to her, whoever might
+come in her way. If she was indeed a little frightened of the great
+ladies, that was only at the first moment before she became used to
+them; and afterwards all had gone well--but there was something in the
+suggestion of a foreign great lady, who perhaps might not speak English,
+and who would be used to very different "ways," which alarmed her a
+little; and then it occurred to her with some disappointment that this
+would be the time of Jock's holidays, and that it would disappoint him
+sadly to find her in the midst of a crowd of visitors. She said to
+herself, however, quickly, that it was not to be expected that
+everything should always go exactly as one wished it, and that no doubt
+the Countess of ---- what was it she was the Countess of?--would be very
+nice, and everything go well; and so Lady Randolph went away to her
+baby and her household business, and put it aside for the moment. She
+found other things far more important to occupy her, however, before
+Christmas came.
+
+For that winter was very severe and cold, and there was a great deal of
+sickness in the neighbourhood. Measles and colds and feverish attacks
+were prevalent in the village, and there were heartrending "cases," in
+which young Lady Randolph at the Hall took so close an interest that her
+whole life was disturbed by them. One of the babies, who was little
+Tom's age, died. When it became evident that there was danger in this
+case it is impossible to describe the sensations with which Lucy's brain
+was filled. She could not keep away from the house in which the child
+was. She sent to Farafield for the best doctor there, and everything
+that money could procure was got for the suffering infant, whose
+belongings looked on with wonder and even dismay, with a secret question
+like that of him who was a thief and kept the bag--to what purpose was
+this waste? for they were all persuaded that the baby was going to die.
+
+"And the best thing for him, my lady," the grandmother said. "He'll be
+better done by where he's agoing than he ever could have been here."
+
+"Oh, don't say so," said Lucy. The young mother, who was as young as
+herself, cried; yet if Lucy had been absent would have been consoled by
+that terrible philosophy of poverty that it was "for the best." But Lady
+Randolph, in such a tumult of all her being as she had never known
+before, with unspeakable yearning over the dying baby, and a panic
+beyond all reckoning for her own, would not listen to any such easy
+consolation. She shut her ears to it with a gleam of anger such as had
+never been seen in her gentle face before, and would have sat up all
+night with the poor little thing in her lap if death had not ended its
+little plaints and suffering. Sir Tom, in this moment of trial, came out
+in all his true goodness and kindness. He went with her himself to the
+cottage, and when the vigil was over appeared again to take her home. It
+was a wintry night, frosty and clear, the stars all twinkling with that
+mysterious life and motion which makes them appear to so many wistful
+eyes like persons rather than worlds, and as if there was knowledge and
+sympathy in those far-shining lights of heaven. Sir Thomas was alarmed
+by Lucy's colourless face, and the dumb passion of misery and awe that
+was about her. He was very tender-hearted himself at sight of the dead
+baby which was the same age as his lovely boy. He clasped the trembling
+hand with which his wife held his arm, and tried to comfort her. "Look
+at the stars, my darling," he said, "the angels must have carried the
+poor little soul that way." He was not ashamed to let fall a tear for
+the little dead child. But Lucy could neither weep nor think of the
+angels. She hurried him on through the long avenue, clinging to his arm
+but not leaning upon it, hastening home. Now and then a sob escaped her,
+but no tears. She flew upstairs to her own boy's nursery, and fell down
+on her knees by the side of his little crib. He was lying in rosy sleep,
+his little dimpled arms thrown up over his head, a model of baby beauty.
+But even that sight did not restore her. She buried her wan face in her
+hands and so gasped for breath that Sir Tom, who had followed her, took
+her in his arms and carrying her to her own room laid her down on the
+sofa by the fire and did all that man could to soothe her.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy! we must thank God that all is well with our own," he said,
+half terrified by the gasping and the paleness; and then she burst
+forth:
+
+"Oh, why should it be well with him, and little Willie gone? Why should
+we be happy and the others miserable? My baby safe and warm in my arms,
+and poor Ellen's--poor Ellen's----"
+
+This name, and the recollection of the poor young mother, whom she had
+left in her desolation, made Lucy's tears pour forth like a summer
+storm. She flung her arms round her husband's neck, and called out to
+him in an agony of anxiety and excitement:
+
+"Oh, what shall we do to save him? Oh, Tom, pray, pray! Little Willie
+was well on Saturday--and now--How can we tell what a day may bring
+forth?" Lucy cried, wildly pushing him away from her, and rising from
+the sofa.
+
+Then she began to pace about the room as we all do in trouble, clasping
+her hands in a wild and inarticulate appeal to heaven. Death had never
+come across her path before save in the case of her father, an old man
+whose course was run, and his end a thing necessary and to be looked
+for. She could not get out of her eyes the vision of that little solemn
+figure, so motionless, so marble white. The thought would not leave her.
+To see the calm Lucy pacing up and down in this passion of terror and
+agony made Sir Tom almost as miserable as herself. He tried to take her
+into his arms, to draw her back to the sofa.
+
+"My darling, you are over-excited. It has been too much for you," he
+said.
+
+"Oh, what does it matter about me?" cried Lucy; "think--oh, God! oh, God
+I--if we should have _that_ to bear."
+
+"My dear love--my Lucy, you that have always been so reasonable--the
+child is quite well; come and see him again and satisfy yourself."
+
+"Little Willie was quite well on Saturday," she cried again. "Oh, I
+cannot bear it, I cannot bear it! and why should it be poor Ellen and
+not me?"
+
+When a person of composed mind and quiet disposition is thus carried
+beyond all the bounds of reason and self-restraint, it is natural that
+everybody round her should be doubly alarmed. Lucy's maid hung about the
+door, and the nurse, wrapped in a shawl, stole out of little Tom's room.
+They thought their mistress had the hysterics, and almost forced their
+way into the room to help her. It did Sir Tom good to send these
+busybodies away. But he was more anxious himself than words could say.
+He drew her arms within his, and walked up and down with her. "You know,
+my darling, what the Bible says, 'that one shall be taken and another
+left; and that the wind bloweth where it listeth,'" he said, with a
+pardonable mingling of texts. "We must just take care of him, dear, and
+hope the best."
+
+Here Lucy stopped, and looked him in the face with an air of solemnity
+that startled him.
+
+"I have been thinking," she said; "God has tried us with happiness
+first. That is how He always does--and if we abuse _that_ then there
+comes--the other. We have been so happy. Oh, so happy!" Her face, which
+had been stilled by this profounder wave of feeling, began to quiver
+again. "I did not think any one could be so happy," she said.
+
+"Well, my darling! and you have been very thankful and good----"
+
+"Oh, no, no, no," she cried. "I have forgotten my trust. I have let the
+poor suffer, and put aside what was laid upon me--and now, now----" Lucy
+caught her husband's arm with both her hands, and drew him close to her.
+"Tom, God has sent his angel to warn us," she said, in a broken voice.
+
+"Lucy, Lucy, this is not like you. Do you think that poor little woman
+has lost her baby for our sake? Are we of so much more importance than
+she is, in the sight of God, do you think? Come, come, that is not like
+you."
+
+Lucy gazed at him for a moment with a sudden opening of her eyes, which
+were contracted with misery. She was subdued by the words, though she
+only partially comprehended them.
+
+"Don't you think," he said, "that to deprive another woman of her child
+in order to warn you, would be unjust, Lucy? Come and sit down and warm
+your poor little hands, and take back your reason, and do not accuse God
+of wrong, for that is not possible. Poor Ellen I don't doubt is composed
+and submissive, while you, who have so little cause----"
+
+She gave him a wild look. "With her it is over, it is over!" she cried,
+"but with us----"
+
+Lucy had never been fanciful, but love quickens the imagination and
+gives it tenfold power; and no poet could have felt with such a
+breathless and agonised realisation the difference between the
+accomplished and the possible, the past which nothing can alter, and the
+pain and sickening terror with which we anticipate what may come. Ellen
+had entered into the calm of the one. She herself stood facing wildly
+the unspeakable terror of the other. "Oh, Tom, I could not bear it, I
+could not bear it!" she cried.
+
+It was almost morning before he had succeeded in soothing her, in
+making her lie down and compose herself. But by that time nature had
+begun to take the task in hand, wrapping her in the calm of exhaustion.
+Sir Tom had the kindest heart, though he had not been without reproach
+in his life. He sat by her till she had fallen into a deep and quiet
+sleep, and then he stole into the nursery and cast a glance at little
+Tom by the dim light of the night lamp. His heart leaped to see the
+child with its fair locks all tumbled upon the pillow, a dimpled hand
+laid under a dimpled cheek, ease and comfort and well-being in every
+lovely curve; and then there came a momentary spasm across his face, and
+he murmured "Poor little beggar!" under his breath. He was not
+panic-stricken like Lucy. He was a man made robust by much experience of
+the world, and a child more or less was not a thing to affect him as it
+would a young mother; but the pathos of the contrast touched him with a
+keen momentary pang. He stole away again quite subdued, and went to bed
+thankfully, saying an uncustomary prayer in the emotion that possessed
+him: Good God, to think of it; if that poor little beggar had been
+little Tom!
+
+Lucy woke to the sound of her boy's little babbling of happiness in the
+morning, and found him blooming on her bed, brought there by his father,
+that she might see him and how well he was, even before she was awake.
+It was thus not till the first minute of delight was over that her
+recollections came back to her and she remembered the anguish of the
+previous night; and then with a softened pang, as was natural, and warm
+flood of thankfulness, which carried away harsher thoughts. But her mind
+was in a highly susceptible and tender state, open to every impression.
+And when she knelt down to make her morning supplications, Lucy made a
+dedication of herself and solemn vow. She said, like the little princess
+when she first knew that she was to be made queen, "I will be good." She
+put forth this promise trembling, not with any sense that she was making
+a bargain with God, as more rigid minds might suppose, but with all the
+remorseful loving consciousness of a child which feels that it has not
+made the return it ought for the good things showered upon it, and
+confronts for the first time the awful possibility that these tender
+privileges might be taken away. There was a trembling all over her, body
+and soul. She was shaken by the ordeal through which she had come--the
+ordeal which was not hers but another's: and with the artlessness of the
+child was mingled that supreme human instinct which struggles to disarm
+Fate by immediate prostration and submission. She laid herself down at
+the feet of the Sovereign greatness which could mar all her happiness in
+a moment, with a feeling that was not much more than half Christian.
+Lucy tried to remind herself that He to whom she knelt was love as well
+as power. But nature, which still "trembles like a guilty thing
+surprised" in that great Presence, made her heart beat once more with
+passion and sickening terror. God knew, if no one else did, that she had
+abandoned her father's trust and neglected her duty. "Sell all thou hast
+and give to the poor." Lucy rose from her knees with anxious haste,
+feeling as if she must do this, come what might and whoever should
+oppose; or at least since it was not needful for her to sell all she
+had, that she must hurry forth, and forestall any further discipline by
+beginning at once to fulfil the duty she had neglected. She could not
+yet divest herself of the thought that the baby who was dead was a
+little warning messenger to recall her to a sense of the punishments
+that might be hanging over her. A messenger to her of mercy, for what,
+oh! what would she have done if the blow had fallen upon little Tom?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
+
+
+After this it may perhaps be surprising to hear that Lucy did nothing to
+carry out that great trust with which she had been charged. She had
+felt, and did feel at intervals, for a long time afterwards, as if God
+Himself had warned her what might come upon her if she neglected her
+duty. But if you will reflect how very difficult that duty was, and how
+far she was from any opportunity of being able to discharge it! In early
+days, when she was fresh from her father's teaching, and deeply
+impressed with the instant necessity of carrying it out, Providence
+itself had sent the Russell family, poor and helpless people, who had
+not the faculty of getting on by themselves, into her way, and Lucy had
+promptly, or at least as promptly as indignant guardians would permit,
+provided for them in the modest way which was all her ideas reached to
+at the time. But around the Hall there was nobody to whom the same
+summary process could be applied. The people about were either working
+people, whom it is always easy to help, or well-off people, who had no
+wants which Lucy could supply. And this continued to be so even after
+her fright and determination to return to the work that had been
+allotted to her. No doubt, could she have come down to the hearts and
+lives of the neighbours who visited Lady Randolph on the externally
+equal footing which society pretends to allot to all gentlefolks, she
+would have found several of them who would have been glad to free her
+from her money; but then she could not see into their hearts. She did
+not know what a difficult thing it was for Mr. Routledge of Newby to pay
+the debts of his son when he had left college, or how hardly hit was
+young Archer of Fordham in the matter of the last joint-stock bank that
+stopped payment. If they had not all been so determined to hold up their
+heads with the best, and keep up appearances, Lucy might have managed
+somehow to transfer to them a little of the money which she wanted to
+get rid of, and of which they stood so much in need. But this was not to
+be thought of; and when she cast her eyes around her it was with a
+certain despair that Lucy saw no outlet whatever for those bounties
+which it had seemed to her heaven itself was concerned about, and had
+warned her not to neglect. Many an anxious thought occupied her mind on
+this subject. She thought of calling her cousin Philip Rainy, who was
+established and thriving at Farafield, and whose fortune had been
+founded upon her liberality, to her counsels. But if Sir Tom had
+disliked the confidences between her and her brother, what would he
+think of Philip Rainy as her adviser? Then Lucy in her perplexity turned
+again to the thought of Jock. Jock had a great deal more sense in him
+than anybody knew. He had been the wisest child, respected by everybody;
+and now he was almost a man, and had learned, as he said, a great deal
+at school. She thought wistfully of the poor curate of whom Jock had
+told her. Very likely that poor clergyman would do very well for what
+Lucy wanted. Surely there could be no better use for money than to endow
+such a man, with a whole family growing up, all the better for it, and a
+son on the foundation! And then she remembered that Jock had entreated
+her to do nothing till he came. Thus the time went on, and her
+passionate resolution, her sense that heaven itself was calling upon
+her, menacing her with judgment even, seemed to come to nothing--not out
+of forgetfulness or sloth, or want of will--but because she saw no way
+open before her, and could not tell what to do. And after that miserable
+night when Ellen Bailey's baby died, and death seemed to enter in, as
+novel and terrible as if he had never been known before, for the first
+time into Lucy's Paradise, she had never said anything to Sir Tom. Day
+after day she had meant to do it, to throw herself upon his guidance, to
+appeal to him to help her; but day after day she had put it off,
+shrinking from the possible contest of which some instinct warned her.
+She knew, without knowing how, that in this he would not stand by her.
+Impossible to have been kinder in that crisis, more tender, more
+indulgent, even more understanding than her husband was; but she felt
+instinctively the limits of his sympathy. He would not go that length.
+When she got to that point he would change. But she could not have him
+change; she could not anticipate the idea of a cloud upon his face, or
+any shadow between them. And then Lucy made up her mind that she would
+wait for Jock, and that he and she together, when there were two to talk
+it over, would make out a way.
+
+All was going on well again, the grass above little Willie's grave was
+green, his mother consoled and smiling as before, and at the Hall the
+idea of the Christmas party had been resumed, and the invitations,
+indeed, were sent off, when one morning the visitor whom Lucy had
+anticipated with such dread came out of the village, where infantile
+diseases always lingered, and entered the carefully-kept nursery. Little
+Tom awoke crying and fretful, hot with fever, his poor little eyes heavy
+with acrid tears. His mother had not been among the huts where poor men
+lie for nought, and she saw at a glance what it was. Well! not anything
+so very dreadful--measles, which almost all children have. There was no
+reason in the world why she should be alarmed. She acknowledged as much,
+with a tremor that went to her heart. There were no bad symptoms. The
+baby was no more ill than it was necessary he should be. "He was having
+them beautiful," the nurse said, and Lucy scarcely allowed even her
+husband to see the deep, harrowing dread that was in her. By and by,
+however, this dread was justified; she had been very anxious about all
+the little patients in the village that they should not catch cold,
+which in the careless ignorance of their attendants, and in the limited
+accommodation of the cottages, was so usual, so likely, almost
+inevitable. A door would be left open, a sudden blast of cold would come
+upon the little sufferer; how could any one help it? Lucy had given the
+poor women no peace on this subject. She had "worrited them out o' their
+lives." And now, wonder above all finding out, it was in little Tom's
+luxurious nursery, where everything was arranged for his safety, where
+one careful nurse succeeded another by night and by day, and Lady
+Randolph herself was never absent for an hour, where the ventilation was
+anxiously watched and regulated, and no incautious intruder ever
+entered--it was there that the evil came. When the child had shaken off
+his little complaint and all was going well, he took cold, and in a few
+hours more his little lungs were labouring heavily, and the fever of
+inflammation consuming his strength. Little Tom, the heir, the only
+child! A cloud fell over the house; from Sir Tom himself to the lowest
+servant, all became partakers, unawares, of Lucy's dumb terror. It was
+because the little life was so important, because so much hung upon it,
+that everybody jumped to the conclusion that the worst issue might be
+looked for. Humanity has an instinctive, heathenish feeling that God
+will take advantage of all the special circumstances that aggravate a
+blow.
+
+Lucy, for her part, received the stroke into her very soul. She was
+outwardly more calm than when her heart had first been roused to terror
+by the death of the little child in the village. That which she had
+dreaded was come, and all her powers were collected to support her. The
+moment had arrived--the time of trial--and she would not fail. Her hand
+was steady and her head clear, as is the case with finer natures when
+confronted with deadly danger. This simple girl suddenly became like one
+of the women of tragedy, fighting, still and strong, with a desperation
+beyond all symbols--the fight with death. But Sir Tom took it
+differently. A woman can nurse her child, can do something for him; but
+a man is helpless. At first he got rid of his anxieties by putting a
+cheerful face upon the matter, and denying the possibility of danger.
+"The measles! every child had the measles. If no fuss was made the
+little chap," he declared, "would soon be all right. It was always a
+mistake to exaggerate." But when there could no longer be any doubt on
+the subject, a curious struggle took place in Sir Tom's mind. That
+baby--die? That crowing, babbling creature pass away into the solemnity
+of death! It had not seemed possible, and when he tried to get it into
+his mind his brain whirled. Wonder for the moment seemed to silence even
+the possibility of grief. He had himself gone through labours and
+adventures that would have killed a dozen men, and had never been
+conscious even of alarm about himself; and the idea of a life quenched
+in its beginning by so accidental a matter as a draught in a nursery
+seemed to him something incomprehensible. When he had heard of a child's
+death he had been used to say that the mother would feel it, no doubt,
+poor thing; but it was a small event, that scarcely counted in human
+history to Sir Tom. When, however, his own boy was threatened, after the
+first incredulity, Sir Tom felt a pang of anger and wretchedness which
+he could not understand. It was not that the family misfortune of the
+loss of the heir overwhelmed him, for it was very improbable that poor
+little Tom would be his only child; it was a more intimate and personal
+sensation. A sort of terrified rage came over him which he dared not
+express; for if indeed his child was to be taken from him, who was it
+but God that would do this? and he did not venture to turn his rage to
+that quarter. And then a confusion of miserable feelings rose within
+him. One night he did not go to bed. It was impossible in the midst of
+the anxiety that filled the house, he said to himself. He spent the
+weary hours in going softly up and down stairs, now listening at the
+door of the nursery and waiting for his wife, who came out now and then
+to bring him a bulletin, now dozing drearily in his library downstairs.
+When the first gleams of the dawn stole in at the window he went out
+upon the terrace in the misty chill morning, all damp and miserable,
+with the trees standing about like ghosts. There was a dripping thaw
+after a frost, and the air was raw and the prospect dismal; but even
+that was less wretched than the glimmer of the shaded lights, the
+muffled whispering and stealthy footsteps indoors. He took a few turns
+up and down the terrace, trying to reason himself out of this misery.
+How was it, after all, that the little figure of this infant should
+overshadow earth and heaven to a man, a reasonable being, whose mind and
+life were full of interests far more important? Love, yes! but love must
+have some foundation. The feeling which clung so strongly to a child
+with no power of returning it, and no personal qualities to excite it,
+must be mere instinct not much above that of the animals. He would not
+say this before Lucy, but there could be no doubt it was the truth. He
+shook himself up mentally, and recalled himself to what he attempted to
+represent as the true aspect of affairs. He was a man who had obtained
+most things that this world can give. He had sounded life to its depths
+(as he thought), and tasted both the bitter and the sweet; and after
+having indulged in all these varied experiences it had been given to
+him, as it is not given to many men, to come back from all wanderings
+and secure the satisfactions of mature life, wealth, and social
+importance, and the power of acting in the largest imperial concerns.
+Round about him everything was his; the noble woods that swept away into
+the mist on every side; the fields and farms which began to appear in
+the misty paleness of the morning through the openings in the trees. And
+if he had not by his side such a companion as he had once dreamed of,
+the beautiful, high-minded ideal woman of romance, yet he had got one
+of the best of gentle souls to tread the path of life along with him,
+and sympathise even when she did not understand. For a man who had not
+perhaps deserved very much, how unusual was this happiness. And was it
+possible that all these things should be obscured, cast into the shade,
+by so small a matter as the sickness of a child? What had the baby ever
+done to make itself of so much importance? Nothing. It did not even
+understand the love it excited, and was incapable of making any
+response. Its very life was little more than a mechanical life. The
+woman who fed it was far more to it than its father, and there was
+nothing excellent or noble in the world to which it would not prefer a
+glittering tinsel or a hideous doll. If the little thing had grown up,
+indeed, if it had developed human tastes and sympathies, and become a
+companion, an intelligence, a creature with affections and
+thoughts,--but that the whole house should thus be overwhelmed with
+miserable anxiety and pain because of a being in the embryo state of
+existence, who could neither respond nor understand, what a strange
+thing it was! No doubt this instinct had been implanted in order to
+preserve the germ and keep the race going; but that it should thus
+develop into an absorbing passion and overshadow everything else in life
+was a proof how the natural gets exaggerated, and, if we do not take
+care, changes its character altogether, mastering us instead of being
+kept in its fit place, and in check, as it ought to be by sense and
+reason. From time to time, as Sir Tom made these reflections, there
+would flit across his mind, as across a mirror, something which was not
+thought, which was like a picture momentarily presented before him. One
+of the most persistent of these, which flashed out and in upon his
+senses like a view in a magic lantern, was of that moment in the midst
+of the flurry of the election when little Tom, held up in his mother's
+arms, had clapped his baby hands for his father. This for a second would
+confound all his thoughts, and give his heart a pang as if some one had
+seized and pressed it with an iron grasp; but the next moment he would
+pick up the thread of his reflections again, and go on with them. That,
+too, was merely mechanical, like all the little chap's existence up to
+this point. Poor little chap! here Sir Tom stopped in his course of
+thought, impeded by a weight at his heart which he could not shake off;
+nor could he see the blurred and vague landscape round him--something
+more blinding even than the fog had got into his eyes.
+
+Then Sir Tom started and his heart sprang up to his throat beating
+loudly. It was not anything of much importance, it was only the opening
+of the window by which he himself had come out upon the terrace. He
+turned round quickly, too anxious even to ask a question. If it had been
+a king's messenger bringing him news that affected the whole kingdom, he
+would have turned away with an impatient "Pshaw!" or struck the intruder
+out of his way. But it was his wife, wrapped in a dressing-gown, pale
+with watching, her hair pushed back upon her forehead, her eyes
+unnaturally bright. "How is he?" cried Sir Tom, as if the question was
+one of life or death.
+
+Lucy told him, catching at his arm to support herself, that she thought
+there was a little improvement. "I have been thinking so for the last
+hour, not daring to think it, and yet I felt sure; and now nurse says so
+too. His breathing is easier. I have been on thorns to come and tell
+you, but I would not till I was quite sure."
+
+"Thank God! God be praised!" said Sir Tom. He did not pretend to be a
+religious man on ordinary occasions, but at the present moment he had no
+time to think, and spoke from the bottom of his heart. He supported his
+little wife tenderly on one arm, and put back the disordered hair on her
+forehead. "Now you will go and take a little rest, my darling," he said.
+
+"Not yet, not till the doctor comes. But you want it as much as I."
+
+"No; I had a long sleep on the sofa. We are all making fools of
+ourselves, Lucy. The poor little chap will be all right. We are queer
+creatures. To think that you and I should make ourselves so miserable
+over a little thing like that, that knows nothing about it, that has no
+feelings, that does not care a button for you and me."
+
+"Tom, what are you talking of? Not of my boy, surely--not my boy!"
+
+"Hush, my sweet. Well," said Sir Tom, with a tremulous laugh, "what is
+it but a little polypus after all? that can do nothing but eat and
+sleep, and crow perhaps--and clap its little fat hands," he said, with
+the tears somehow getting into his voice, and mingling with the
+laughter. "I allow that I am confusing my metaphors."
+
+At this moment the window opening upon the terrace jarred again, and
+another figure in a dressing-gown, dark and ghost-like, appeared
+beckoning to Lucy, "My lady! my lady!"
+
+Lucy let go her husband's arm, thrust him away from her with passion,
+gave him one wild look of reproach, and flew noiselessly like a spirit
+after the nurse to her child. Sir Tom, with his laugh still wavering
+about his mouth, half hysterically, though he was no weakling, tottered
+along the terrace to the open window, and stood there leaning against
+it, scarcely breathing, the light gone out of his eyes, his whole soul
+suspended, and every part of his strong body, waiting for what another
+moment might bring to pass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A CHRISTMAS VISIT.
+
+
+Little Tom did not die, but he became "delicate,"--and fathers and
+mothers know what that means. The entire household was possessed by one
+pervading terror lest he should catch cold, and Lucy's life became
+absorbed in this constant watchfulness. Naturally the Christmas guests
+were put off, and it was understood in respect to the Contessa di
+Forno-Populo, that she was to come at Easter. Sir Tom himself thought
+this a better arrangement. The Parliamentary recess was not a long one,
+and the Contessa would naturally prefer, after a short visit to her old
+friend, to go to town, where she would find so many people she knew.
+
+"And even in the country the weather is more tolerable in April," said
+Sir Tom.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes. The doctor says if we keep clear of the east winds that
+he may begin to go out again and get up his strength," said Lucy.
+
+"My love, I am thinking of your visitors, and you are thinking of your
+baby," Sir Tom said.
+
+"Oh, Tom, what do you suppose I could be thinking of?" his wife cried.
+
+Sir Tom himself was very solicitous about the baby, but to hear of
+nothing else worried him. He was glad when old Lady Randolph, who was an
+invariable visitor, arrived.
+
+"How is the baby?" was her first question when he met her at the train.
+
+"The baby would be a great deal better if there was less fuss made about
+him," he said. "You must give Lucy a hint on that subject, aunt."
+
+Lady Randolph was a good woman, and it was her conviction that she had
+made this match. But it is so pleasant to feel that you have been right,
+that she was half pleased, though very sorry, to think that Sir Tom (as
+she had always known) was getting a little tired of sweet simplicity.
+She met Lucy with an affectionate determination to be very plain with
+her, and warn her of the dangers in her path. Jock had arrived the day
+before. He rose up in all the lanky length of sixteen from the side of
+the fire in the little drawing-room when the Dowager came in. It was
+just the room into which one likes to come after a cold journey at
+Christmas; the fire shining brightly in the midst of the reflectors of
+burnished steel and brass, shining like gold and silver, of the most
+luxurious fireplace that skill could contrive (the day of tiled stoves
+was not as yet), and sending a delicious glow on the soft mossy carpets
+into which the foot sank; a table with tea, reflecting the firelight in
+all the polished surfaces of the china and silver, stood near; and
+chairs invitingly drawn towards the fire. The only drawback was that
+there was no one to welcome the visitor. On ordinary occasions Lucy was
+at the door, if not at the station, to receive the kind lady whom she
+loved. Lady Randolph was somewhat surprised at the difference, and when
+she saw the lengthy boy raising himself up from the fireside, turned
+round to her nephew and asked, "Do I know this young gentleman? There is
+not light enough to see him," with a voice in which Jock, shy and
+awkward, felt all the old objection to his presence as a burden upon
+Lucy, which in his precocious toleration he had accepted as reasonable,
+but did not like much the better for that. And then she sat down
+somewhat sullenly at the fire. The next minute Lucy came hastily in with
+many apologies: "I did not hear the carriage, aunt. I was in the
+nursery----"
+
+"And how is the child?" Lady Randolph said.
+
+"Oh, he is a great deal better--don't you think he is much better, Tom?
+Only a little delicate, and that, we hope, will pass away."
+
+"Then, Lucy, my dear, though I don't want to blame you, I think you
+should have heard the carriage," said Aunt Randolph. "The tea-table does
+not look cheerful when the mistress of the house is away."
+
+"Oh, but little Tom----" Lucy said, and then stopped herself, with a
+vague sense that there was not so much sympathy around her as usual. Her
+husband had gone out again, and Jock stood dumb, an awkward shadow
+against the mantelpiece.
+
+"My dear, I only speak for your good," the elder lady said. "Big Tom
+wants a little attention too. I thought you were going to have quite a
+merry Christmas and a great many people here."
+
+"But, Aunt Randolph, baby----"
+
+"Oh, my dear, you must think of something else besides baby. Take my
+word for it, baby would be a great deal stronger if you left him a
+little to himself. You have your husband, you know, to think of, and
+what harm would it have done baby if there had been a little cheerful
+company for his father? But you will think I have come to scold, and I
+don't in the least mean that. Give me a cup of tea, Lucy. Tom tells me
+that this tall person is Jock."
+
+"You would not have known him?" said Lucy, much subdued in tone.
+
+She occupied herself with the tea, arranging the cups and saucers with
+hands that trembled a little at the unexpected and unaccustomed
+sensation of a repulse.
+
+"Well, I cannot even see him. But he has certainly grown out of
+knowledge--I never thought he would have been so tall; he was quite a
+little pinched creature as a child. I daresay you took too much care of
+him, my dear. I remember I used to think so; and then when he was tossed
+into the world or sent to school--it comes to much the same thing, I
+suppose--he flourished and grew."
+
+"I wonder," said Lucy, somewhat wistfully, "if that is really so?
+Certainly it is since he has been at school that he has grown so much."
+Jock all this time fidgeted about from one leg to another with
+unutterable darkness upon his brow, could any one have seen it. There
+are few things so irritating, especially at his age, as to be thus
+discussed over one's own head.
+
+"My dear Lucy," said Lady Randolph, "don't you remember some one
+says--who was it, I wonder? it sounds like one of those dreadfully
+clever French sayings that are always so much to the point--about the
+advantages of a little wholesome neglect?"
+
+"Can neglect ever be wholesome? Oh, I don't think so--I can't think
+so--at least with children."
+
+"It is precisely children that are meant," said the elder Lady
+Randolph. But as she talked, sitting in the warm light of the fire, with
+her cup in her hand, feeling extremely comfortable, discoursing at her
+ease, and putting sharp arrows as if they had been pins into the heart
+of Lucy, Sir Tom's large footsteps became audible coming through the
+great drawing-room, which was dark. The very sound of him was cheerful
+as he came in, and he brought the scent of fresh night air, cold but
+delightful, with him. He passed by Lucy's chair and said, "How is the
+little 'un?" laying a kind hand upon her head.
+
+"Oh, better. I am sure he is better. Aunt Randolph thinks----"
+
+"I am giving Lucy a lecture," said Lady Randolph, "and telling her she
+must not shut herself up with that child. He'll get on all the better if
+he is not coddled too much."
+
+Sir Tom made no reply, but came to the fire, and drew a chair into the
+cheerful glow. "You are all in the dark," he said, "but the fire is
+pleasant this cold night. Well, now that you are thawed, what news have
+you brought us out of the world? We are two hermits, Lucy and I. We
+forget what kind of language you speak. We have a little sort of talk of
+our own which answers common needs about babies and so forth, but we
+should like to hear what you are discoursing about, just for a change."
+
+"There is no such thing as a world just now," said Lady Randolph, "there
+are nothing but country-houses. Society is all broken up into little
+bits, as you know as well as I do. One gleans a little here and a little
+there, and one carries it about like a basket of eggs."
+
+"Jock has a world, and it is quite entire," said Sir Tom, with his
+cordial laugh. "No breaking up into little bits there. If you want a
+society that knows its own opinions, and will stick to them through
+thick and thin, I can tell you where to find it; and to see how it holds
+together and sits square whatever happens----"
+
+Here there came a sort of falsetto growl from Jock's corner, where he
+was blushing in the firelight. "It's because you were once a fellow
+yourself, and know all about it."
+
+"So it is, Jock; you are right, as usual," said Sir Tom; "I was once a
+fellow myself, and now I'm an old fellow, and growing duller. Turn out
+your basket of eggs, Aunt Randolph, and let us know what is going on.
+Where did you come from last--the Mulberrys? Come; there must have been
+some pretty pickings of gossip there."
+
+"You shall have it all in good time. I am not going to run myself dry
+the first hour. I want to know about yourselves, and when you are going
+to give up this honeymooning. I expected to have met all sorts of people
+here."
+
+"Yes," said Sir Tom, and then he burst forth in a laugh, "La
+Forno-Populo and a few others; but as little Tom is not quite up to
+visitors, we have put them off till Easter."
+
+"La Forno-Populo!" said Lady Randolph, in a voice of dismay.
+
+"Why not?" said Sir Tom. "She wrote and offered herself. I thought she
+might find it a doubtful pleasure, but if she likes it---- However, you
+may make yourself easy, nobody is coming," he added, with a certain jar
+of impatience in his tone.
+
+"Well, Tom, I must say I am very glad of that," Lady Randolph said
+gravely--and then there was a pause. "I doubt whether Lucy would have
+liked her," she added, after a moment. Then with another interval, "I
+think, Lucy, my love, after that nice cup of tea, and my first sight of
+you, that I will go to my own room. I like a little rest before
+dinner--you know my lazy way."
+
+"And it's getting ridiculously dark in this room," Sir Tom said, kicking
+a footstool out of the way. This little impatient movement was like one
+of those expletives that seem to relieve a man's mind, and both the
+ladies understood it as such, and knew that he was angry. Lucy, as she
+rose from her tea-table to attend upon her visitor, herself in a
+confused and painful mood, and vexed with what had been said to her,
+thought her husband was irritated by his aunt, and felt much sympathy
+with him, and anxiety to conduct Lady Randolph to her room before it
+should go any farther. But the elder lady understood it very
+differently. She went away, followed by Lucy through the great
+drawing-room, where a solitary lamp had been placed on a table to show
+the way. It had been the Dowager's own house in her day, and she did not
+require any guidance to her room. Nor did she detain Lucy after the
+conventional visit to see that all was comfortable.
+
+"That I haven't the least doubt of," Lady Randolph said, "and I am at
+home, you know, and will ask for anything I want; but I must have my nap
+before dinner; and do you go and talk to your husband."
+
+Lucy could not resist one glance into the nursery, where little Tom, a
+little languid but so much better, was sitting on his nurse's knee
+before the fire, amused by those little fables about his fingers and
+toes which are the earliest of all dramatic performances. The sight of
+him thus content, and the sound of his laugh, was sweet to her in her
+anxiety. She ran downstairs again without disturbing him, closing so
+carefully the double doors that shut him out from all draughts, not
+without a wondering doubt as she did so, whether it was true, perhaps,
+that she was "coddling" him, and if there was such a thing as wholesome
+neglect. She went quickly through the dim drawing-room to the warm ruddy
+flush of firelight that shone between the curtains from the smaller
+room, thinking nothing less than to find her husband, who was fond of an
+hour's repose in that kindly light before dinner. She had got to her old
+place in front of the fire before she perceived that Sir Tom's tall
+shadow was no longer there. Lucy uttered a little exclamation of
+disappointment, and then she perceived remorsefully another shadow, not
+like Sir Tom's, the long weedy boyish figure of her brother against the
+warm light.
+
+"But you are here, Jock," she said, advancing to him. Jock took hold of
+her arm, as he was so fond of doing.
+
+"I shall never have you, now _she_ has come," Jock said.
+
+"Why not, dear? You were never fond of Lady Randolph--you don't know how
+good and kind she is. It is only when you like people that you know how
+nice they are," Lucy said, all unconscious that a deeper voice than hers
+had announced that truth.
+
+"Then I shall never know, for I don't like her," said Jock
+uncompromising. "You'll have to sit and gossip with her when you're not
+in the nursery, and I shall have no time to tell you, for the holidays
+last only a month."
+
+"But you can tell me everything in a month, you silly boy; and if we
+can't have our walks, Jock (for it's cold), there is one place where
+she will never come," said Lucy, upon which Jock turned away with an
+exclamation of impatience.
+
+His sister put her hand on his shoulder and looked reproachfully in his
+face.
+
+"You too! You used to like it. You used to come and toss him up and make
+him laugh----"
+
+"Oh, don't, Lucy! can't you see? So I would again, if he were like that.
+How you can bear it!" said the boy, bursting away from her. And then
+Jock returned very much ashamed and horror-stricken, and took the hand
+that dropped by her side, and clumsily patted and kissed it, and held it
+between his own, looking penitently, wistfully, in her face all the
+while: but not knowing what to say.
+
+Lucy stood looking down into the glowing fire, with her head drooping
+and an air of utter dejection in her little gentle figure. "Do you think
+he looks so bad as that?" she said, in a broken voice.
+
+"Oh, no, no; that is not what I mean," the boy cried. "It's--the little
+chap is not so jolly; he's--a little cross; or else he's forgotten me. I
+suppose it's that. He wouldn't look at me when I ran up. He's so little
+one oughtn't to mind, but it made me----your baby, Lucy! and the little
+beggar cried and wouldn't look at me."
+
+"Is that all?" said Lucy. She only half believed him, but she pretended
+to be deceived. She gave a little trembling laugh, and laid her head for
+a moment upon Jock's boyish breast, where his heart was beating high
+with a passion of sorrow and tender love. "Sometimes," she said, leaning
+against him, "sometimes I think I shall die. I can't live to see
+anything happen to him: and sometimes---- But he is ever so much better;
+don't you think he looks almost himself?" she said, raising her head
+hurriedly, and interrogating the scarcely visible face with her eyes.
+
+"Looks! I don't see much difference in his looks, if he wouldn't be so
+cross," said Jock, lying boldly, but with a tremor, for he was not used
+to it. And then he said hurriedly, "But there's that clergyman, the
+father of the fellow on the foundation. I've found out all about him. I
+must tell you, Lucy. He is the very man. There is no call to think about
+it or put off any longer. What a thing it would be if he could have it
+by Christmas! I have got all the particulars--they look as if they were
+just made for us," Jock cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+LUCY'S ADVISERS.
+
+
+Lady Randolph found her visit dull. It is true that there had been no
+guests to speak of on previous Christmases since Sir Tom's marriage; but
+the house had been more cheerful, and Lucy had been ready to drive, or
+walk, or call, or go out to the festivities around. But now she was
+absorbed by the nursing, and never liked to be an hour out of call. The
+Dowager put up with it as long as she was able. She did not say anything
+more on the subject for some days. It was not, indeed, until she had
+been a week at the Hall that, being disturbed by the appeals of Lucy as
+to whether she did not think baby was looking better than when she came,
+she burst forth at last. They were sitting by themselves in the hour
+after dinner when ladies have the drawing-room all to themselves. It is
+supposed by young persons in novels to be a very dreary interval, but to
+the great majority of women it is a pleasant moment. The two ladies sat
+before the pleasant fire; Lucy with some fleecy white wool in her lap
+with which she was knitting something for her child, Lady Randolph with
+a screen interposed between her and the fire, doing nothing, an
+operation which she always performed gracefully and comfortably. It
+could not be said that the gentlemen were lingering over their wine.
+Jock had retired to the library, where he was working through all the
+long-collected literary stores of the Randolph family, with an
+instinctive sense that his presence in the drawing-room was not desired.
+Sir Tom had business to do, or else he was tired of the domestic calm.
+The ladies had been sitting for some time in silence when Lady Randolph
+suddenly broke forth--
+
+"You know what I said to you the first evening, Lucy? I have not said a
+word on the subject since--of course I didn't come down here to enjoy
+your hospitality and then to find fault."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Randolph! don't speak of hospitality; it is your own house."
+
+"My dear, it is very pretty of you to say so. I hope I am not the sort
+of person to take advantage of it. But I feel a sort of responsibility,
+seeing it was I that brought you together first. Lucy, I must tell you.
+You are not doing what you ought by Tom. Here he is, a middle-aged man,
+you know, and one of the first in the county. People look to him for a
+great many things: he is the member: he is a great landowner: he is
+(thanks to you) very well off. And here is Christmas, and not a visitor
+in the house but myself. Oh, there's Jock! a schoolboy home for his
+holidays--that does not count; not a single dinner that I can hear
+of----"
+
+"Yes, aunt, on the 6th," said Lucy, with humility.
+
+"On the 6th, and it is now the 27th! and no fuss at all made about
+Christmas. My dear, you needn't tell me it's a bore. I know it is a
+bore--everywhere wherever one goes; still, everybody does it. It is just
+a part of one's responsibilities. You don't go to balls in Lent, and you
+stand on your heads, so to speak, at Christmas. The country expects it
+of you; and it is always a mistake to take one's own way in such
+matters. You should have had, in the first place," said Lady Randolph,
+counting on her fingers, "your house full; in the second, a ball, to
+which everybody should have been asked. On these occasions no one that
+could possibly be imagined to be gentlefolk should be left out. I would
+even stretch a point--doctors and lawyers, and so forth, go without
+saying, and those big brewers, you know, I always took in; and some
+people go as far as the 'vet.,' as they call him. He was a very
+objectionable person in my day, and that was where I drew the line; then
+three or four dinners at the least."
+
+"But, Aunt Randolph, how could we when baby is so poorly----"
+
+"What has baby to do with it, Lucy? You don't have the child down to
+receive your guests. With the door of his nursery shut to keep out the
+noise (if you think it necessary: I shouldn't think it would matter)
+what harm would it do him? He would never be a bit the wiser, poor
+little dear. Yes, I dare say your heart would be with him many a time
+when you were elsewhere; but you must not think of yourself."
+
+"I did not mean to do so, aunt. I thought little Tom was my first duty."
+
+"Now, I should have thought, my dear," said the Dowager, smiling
+blandly, "that it would have been big Tom who answered to that
+description."
+
+"But, Tom----" Lucy paused, not knowing in what shape to put so obvious
+a truth, "he is like me," she said. "He is far, far more anxious than he
+lets you see. It is his--duty too."
+
+"A great many other things are his duty as well; besides, there is so
+much, especially in a social point of view, which the man never sees
+till his wife points it out. That's one of the uses of a woman. She must
+keep up her husband's popularity, don't you see? You must never let it
+be said: 'Oh, Sir Tom! he is all very well in Parliament, but he does
+nothing for the county.'"
+
+"I never thought of that," said Lucy, with dismay.
+
+"But you must learn to think of it, my love. Never mind, this is the
+first Christmas since the election. But one dinner, and nothing else
+done, not so much as a magic lantern in the village! I do assure you, my
+dearest girl, you are very much to blame."
+
+"I am very sorry," said Lucy, with a startled look, "but, dear aunt,
+little Tom----"
+
+"My dear Lucy! I am sure you don't wish everybody to get sick of that
+poor child's very name."
+
+Lucy sprang up from her chair at this outrage; she could not bear any
+more. A flush of almost fury came upon her face. She went up to the
+mantelpiece, which was a very fine one of carved wood, and leant her
+head upon it. She did not trust herself to reply.
+
+"Now, I know what you are thinking," said Lady Randolph blandly. "You
+are saying to yourself, that horrid old woman, who never had a child,
+how can she know?--and I don't suppose I do," said the clever Dowager
+pathetically. "All that sweetness has been denied to me. I have never
+had a little creature that was all mine. But when I was your age, Lucy,
+and far older than you, I would have given anything--almost my life--to
+have had a child."
+
+Lucy melted in a moment, threw herself down upon the hearth-rug upon her
+knees, and took Lady Randolph's hands in her own and kissed them.
+
+"Oh, dear aunt, dear aunt!" she cried, "to think I should have gone on
+so about little Tom and never remembered that you---- But we are all your
+children," she said, in the innocence and fervour of her heart.
+
+"Yes, my love." Lady Randolph freed one of her hands and put it up with
+her handkerchief to her cheek. As a matter of fact she did not regret it
+now, but felt that a woman when she is growing old is really much more
+able to look after her own comforts when she has no children; and yet,
+when she remembered how she had been bullied on the subject, and all the
+reproaches that had been addressed to her as if it were her fault,
+perhaps there was something like a tear. "That is why I venture to say
+many things to you that I would not otherwise. Tom, indeed, is too old
+to have been my son; but I have felt, Lucy, as if I had a daughter in
+you." Then shaking off this little bit of sentiment with a laugh, the
+Dowager raised Lucy and kissed her and put her into a chair by her own
+side.
+
+"Since we are about it," she said, "there is one other thing I should
+like to talk to you about. Of course your husband knows a great deal
+more of the world than you do, Lucy; but it is perhaps better that he
+should not decide altogether who is to be asked. Men have such strange
+notions. If people are amusing it is all they think of. Well, now, there
+is that Contessa di Forno-Populo. I would not have her, Lucy, if I were
+you."
+
+"But it was she who was the special person," said Lucy, in amaze. "The
+others were to come to meet her. She is an old friend."
+
+"Oh, I know all about the old friendship," said Lady Randolph. "I think
+Tom should be ashamed of himself. He knows that in other houses where
+the mistress knows more about the world. Yes, yes, she is an old friend.
+All the more reason, my dear, why you should have as little to say to
+her as possible; they are never to be reckoned upon. Didn't you hear
+what he called her. _La_ Forno-Populo? Englishmen never talk of a lady
+like that if they have any great respect for her; but it can't be denied
+that this lady has a great deal of charm. And I would just keep her at
+arm's length, Lucy, if I were you."
+
+"Dear Aunt Randolph, why should I do that?" said Lucy, gravely. "If she
+is Tom's friend, she must always be welcome here. I do not know her,
+therefore I can only welcome her for my husband's sake; but that is
+reason enough. You must not ask me to do anything that is against Tom."
+
+"Against Tom! I think you are a little goose, Lucy, though you are so
+sensible. Is it not all for his sake that I am talking? I want you to
+see more of the world, not to shut yourself up here in the nursery
+entirely on his account. If you don't understand that, then words have
+no meaning."
+
+"I do understand it, aunt," said Lucy meekly. "Don't be angry; but why
+should I be disagreeable to Tom's friend? The only thing I am afraid of
+is, should she not speak English. My French is so bad----"
+
+"Oh, your French will do very well; and you will take your own way, my
+dear," said the elder lady, getting up. "You all do, you young people.
+The opinion of others never does any good; and as Tom does not seem to
+be coming, I think I shall take my way to bed. Good-night, Lucy.
+Remember what I said, at all events, about the magic lantern. And if you
+are wise you will have as little to do as possible with La Forno-Populo
+as you can--and there you have my two pieces of advice."
+
+Lucy was disturbed a little by her elder's counsel, both in respect to
+the foreign lady, whom, however, she simply supposed Lady Randolph did
+not like--and in regard to her own nursery tastes and avoidance of
+society;--could that be why Tom sat so much longer in the dining-room
+and did not come in to talk to his aunt? She began to think with a
+little ache in her heart, and to remember that in her great
+preoccupation with the child he had been left to spend many evenings
+alone, and that he no longer complained of this. She stood up in front
+of the fire and pressed her hot forehead to the mantel-shelf. How was a
+woman to know what to do? Was not he that was most helpless and had most
+need of her the one to devote her time to? There was not a thought in
+her that was disloyal to Sir Tom. But what if he were to form the habit
+of doing without her society? This was an idea that filled her with a
+vague dread. Some one came in through the great drawing-room as she
+stood thinking, and she turned round eagerly, supposing that it was her
+husband; but it was only Jock, who had been on the watch to hear Lady
+Randolph go upstairs.
+
+"I never see you at all now, Lucy," cried Jock. "I never have a chance
+but in the holidays, and now they're half over, and we have not had one
+good talk. And what about poor Mr. Churchill, Lucy? I thought he was the
+very man for you. He has got about a dozen children and no money.
+Somebody else pays for Churchill, that's the fellow I told you of that's
+on the foundation. I shouldn't have found out all that, and gone and
+asked questions and got myself thought an inquisitive beggar, if it
+hadn't been for your sake."
+
+"Oh, Jock, I'm sure I am much obliged to you," said Lucy, dolefully;
+"and I am so sorry for the poor gentleman. It must be dreadful to have
+so many children and not to be able to give them everything they
+require."
+
+At this speech, which was uttered with something between impatience and
+despair, and which made no promise of any help or succour, her brother
+regarded her with a mixture of anger and disappointment.
+
+"Is that all about it, Lucy?" he said.
+
+"Oh, no, Jock! I am sure you are right, dear. I know I ought to bestir
+myself and do something, but only---- How much do you think it would take
+to make them comfortable? Oh, Jock, I wish that papa had put it all into
+somebody's hands, to be done like business--somebody that had nothing
+else to think of!"
+
+"What have you to think of, Lucy?" said the boy, seriously, in the
+superiority of his youth. "I suppose, you know, you are just too well
+off. You can't understand what it is to be like that. You get angry at
+people for not being happy, you don't want to be disturbed." He paused
+remorsefully, and cast a glance at her, melting in spite of himself, for
+Lucy did not look too well off. Her soft brow was contracted a little;
+there was a faint quiver upon her lip. "If you really want to know,"
+Jock said, "people can live and get along when they have about five
+hundred a year. That is, as far as I can make out. If you gave them
+that, they would think it awful luck."
+
+"I wish I could give them all of it, and be done with it!"
+
+"I don't see much good that would do. It would be two rich people in
+place of one, and the two would not be so grand as you. That would not
+have done for father at all. He liked you to be a great heiress, and
+everybody to wonder at you, and then to give your money away like a
+queen. I like it too," said Jock, throwing up his head; "it satisfies
+the imagination: it is a kind of a fairy tale."
+
+Lucy shook her head.
+
+"He never thought how hard it would be upon me. A woman is never so well
+off as a man. Oh, if it had been you, Jock, and I only just your
+sister."
+
+"Talking does not bring us any nearer a settlement," said Jock, with
+some impatience. "When will you do it, Lucy? Have you got to speak to
+old Rushton, or write to old Chervil, or what? or can't you just draw
+them a cheque? I suppose about ten thousand or so would be enough. And
+it is as easy to do it at one time as another. Why not to-morrow, Lucy?
+and then you would have it off your mind."
+
+This proposal took away Lucy's breath. She thought with a gasp of Sir
+Tom and the look with which he would regard her--the laugh, the amused
+incredulity. He would not be unkind, and her right to do it was quite
+well established and certain. But she shrank within herself when she
+thought how he would look at her, and her heart jumped into her throat
+as she realised that perhaps he might not laugh only. How could she
+stand before him and carry her own war in opposition to his? Her whole
+being trembled even with the idea of conflict. "Oh, Jock, it is not just
+so easily managed as that," she said faltering; "there are several
+things to think of. I will have to let the trustees know, and it must
+all be calculated."
+
+"There is not much need for calculation," said Jock, "that is just about
+it. Five per cent is what you get for money. You had better send the
+cheque for it, Lucy, and then let the old duffers know of it afterwards.
+One would think you were afraid!"
+
+"Oh, no," said Lucy, with a slight shiver, "I am not afraid." And then
+she added, with growing hesitation, "I must--speak to---- Oh! Is it you,
+Tom?" She made a sudden start from Jock's side, who was standing close
+by her, argumentative and eager, and whose bewildered spectatorship of
+her guilty surprise and embarrassment she was conscious of through all.
+
+"Yes, it is I," said Sir Tom, putting his hand upon her shoulders; "you
+must have been up to some mischief, Jock and you, or you would not look
+so frightened. What is the secret?" he said, with his genial laugh. But
+when he looked from Jock, astonished but resentful and lowering, to
+Lucy, all trembling and pale with guilt, even Sir Tom, who was not
+suspicious, was startled. His little Lucy! What had she been plotting
+that made her look so scared at his appearance? Or was it something that
+had been told to her, some secret accusation against himself? This
+startled Sir Tom also a little, and it was with a sudden gravity, not
+unmingled with resentment, that he added, "Come! I mean to know what it
+is."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AN INNOCENT CONSPIRACY.
+
+
+"It was only something that Jock was saying," said Lucy, "but, Tom, I
+will tell you another time. I wish you had come in before Lady Randolph
+went upstairs. I think she was a little disappointed to have only me."
+
+"Did she share Jock's secret?" Sir Tom said with a keen look of inquiry.
+It is perhaps one advantage in the dim light which fashion delights in,
+that it is less easy to scrutinise the secrets of a face.
+
+"We are all a little put wrong when you do not come in," said Lucy. The
+cunning which weakness finds refuge in when it has to defend itself came
+to her aid. "Jock is shy when you are not here. He thinks he bores Lady
+Randolph; and so we ladies are left to our own devices."
+
+"Jock must not be so sensitive," Sir Tom said; but he was not satisfied.
+It occurred to him suddenly (for schoolboys are terrible gossips) that
+the boy might have heard something which he had been repeating to Lucy.
+Nothing could have been more unlikely, had he thought of it, than that
+Jock should carry tales on such a subject. But we do not stop to argue
+out matters when our own self-regard is in question. He looked at the
+two with a doubtful and suspicious eye.
+
+"He will get over it as he grows older," said Lucy; but she gave her
+brother a look which to Sir Tom seemed one of warning, and he was
+irritated by it; he looked from one to another and he laughed; but not
+with the genial laugh which was his best known utterance.
+
+"You are prodigiously on your guard," he said. "I suppose you have your
+reasons for it. Have you been confiding the Masons' secret or something
+of that awful character to her, Jock?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I tell him?" cried Jock with great impatience. "What is
+the use of making all those signs? It's nothing of the sort. It's only
+I've heard of somebody that is poor--somebody she ought to know of--the
+sort of thing that is meant in father's will."
+
+"Oh!" said Sir Tom. It was the simplest of exclamations, but it meant
+much. He was partially relieved that it was not gossip, but yet more
+gravely annoyed than if it had been.
+
+Lucy made haste to interpose.
+
+"I will tell you afterwards," she said. "If I made signs, as Jock said,
+it was only that I might tell it you, Tom, myself, when there was more
+time."
+
+"I am at no loss for time," said Sir Tom, placing himself in the vacant
+chair. The others were both standing, as became this accidental moment
+before bed-time. And Lucy had been on thorns to get away, even before
+her husband appeared. She had wanted to escape from the discussion even
+with Jock. She had wanted to steal into the nursery, and see that her
+boy was asleep, to feel his little forehead with her soft hand, and make
+sure there was no fever. To be betrayed into a prolonged and agitating
+discussion now was very provoking, very undesirable; and Lucy had grown
+rather cowardly and anxious to push away from her, as far as she could,
+everything that did not belong to the moment.
+
+"Tom," she said, a little tremulously, "I wish you would put it off till
+to-morrow. I am--rather sleepy; it is nearly eleven o'clock, and I
+always run in to see how little Tom is going on. Besides," she added,
+with a little anxiety which was quite fictitious, "it is keeping
+Fletcher up----"
+
+"I am not afraid of Fletcher, Lucy."
+
+"Oh! but I am," she said. "I will tell you about it to-morrow. There is
+nothing in the least settled, only Jock thought----"
+
+"Settled!" Sir Tom said, with a curious look. "No, I hope not."
+
+"Oh! nothing at all settled," said Lucy. She stood restlessly, now on
+one foot now on the other, eager for flight. She did not even observe
+the implied authority in this remark, at which Jock pricked up his ears
+with incipient offence. "And Jock ought to be in bed--oh, yes, Jock, you
+ought. I am sure you are not allowed to sit up so late at school. Come
+now, there's a good boy--and I will just run and see how baby is."
+
+She put her hand on her brother's arm to take him away with her, but
+Jock hung back, and Sir Tom interposed, "Now that I have just settled
+myself for a chat, you had better leave Jock with me at least, Lucy. Run
+away to your baby, that is all right. Jock and I will entertain each
+other. I respect his youth, you see, and don't try to seduce him into a
+cigar--you should be thankful to me for that."
+
+"If I was not in sixth form," said Jock sharply, nettled by this
+indignity, "I should smoke; but it is bad form when you are high up in
+school. In the holidays I don't mind," he added, with careless
+grandeur, upon which Sir Tom, mollified, laughed as Lucy felt like
+himself.
+
+"Off duty, eh?" he said, "that's a very fine sentiment, Jock. You may be
+sure it's bad form to do anything you have promised not to do. You will
+say that sounds like a copy-book. Come now, Lucy, are not you going,
+little woman? Do you want to have your share in the moralities?"
+
+For this sudden change had somehow quenched Lucy's desire both to
+inspect the baby and get to bed. But what could she do? She looked very
+earnestly at Jock as she bade him good-night, but neither could she
+shake his respect for her husband by giving him any warning, nor offend
+her husband by any appearance of secret intelligence with Jock. Poor
+little Lucy went away after this through the stately rooms and up the
+grand staircase with a great tremor in her heart. There could not be a
+life more guarded and happy than hers had been--full of wealth, full of
+love, not a crumpled rose-leaf to disturb her comfort. But as she stole
+along the dim corridor to the nursery her heart was beating full of all
+the terrors that make other hearts to ache. She was afraid for the
+child's life, which was the worst of all, and looked with a suppressed
+yet terrible panic into the dark future which contained she knew not
+what for him. And she was afraid of her husband, the kindest man in the
+world, not knowing how he might take the discovery he had just made,
+fearing to disclose her mind to him, finding herself guilty in the mere
+idea of hiding anything from him. And she was afraid of Jock, that he
+would irritate Sir Tom, or be irritated by him, or that some wretched
+breach or quarrel might arise between these two. Jock was not an
+ordinary boy; there was no telling how he might take any reproof that
+might be addressed to him--perhaps with the utmost reasonableness,
+perhaps with a rapid defiance. Lady Randolph thus, though no harm had
+befallen her, had come into the usual heritage of humanity, and was as
+anxious and troubled as most of us are; though she was so happy and well
+off. She was on thorns to know what was passing in the room she had just
+left.
+
+This was all that passed. Jock, standing up against the mantelpiece,
+looked down somewhat lowering upon Sir Tom in the easy chair. He
+expected to be questioned, and had made up his mind, though with great
+indignation at the idea that any one should find fault with Lucy, to
+take the whole blame upon himself. That Lucy should not be free to carry
+out her duty as seemed to her best was to Jock intolerable. He had put
+his boyish faith in her all his life. Even since the time, a very early
+one, when Jock had felt himself much cleverer than Lucy; even when he
+had been obliged to make up his mind that Lucy was not clever at all--he
+had still believed in her. She had a mission in the world which
+separated her from other women. Nobody else had ever had the same thing
+to do. Many people had dispensed charities and founded hospitals, but
+Lucy's office in the world was of a different description--and Jock had
+faith in her power to do it. To see her wavering was trouble to him, and
+the discovery he had just made of something beneath the surface, a
+latent opposition in her husband which she plainly shrank from
+encountering, gave the boy a shock from which it was not easy to
+recover. He had always liked Sir Tom; but if---- One thing, however, was
+apparent, if there was any blame, anything to find fault with, it was
+he, Jock, and not Lucy, that must bear that blame.
+
+"So, Jock, Lucy thinks you should be in bed. When do they put out your
+lights at school? In my time we were up to all manner of tricks. I
+remember a certain dark lantern that was my joy; but that was in old
+Keate's time, you know, who never trusted the fellows. You are under a
+better rule now."
+
+This took away Jock's breath, who had been prepared for a sterner
+interrogation. He answered with a sudden blush, but with the rallying of
+all his forces: "I light them again sometimes. It's hard on a fellow,
+don't you think, sir, when he's not sleepy and has a lot to do?"
+
+"I never had much experience of that," said Sir Tom. "We were always
+sleepy, and never did anything in my time. It was for larking, I'm
+afraid, that we wanted light. And so it is seen on me, Jock. You will be
+a fellow of your college, whereas I----"
+
+"I don't think so," said Jock generously. "That construe you gave me,
+don't you remember, last half? MTutor says it is capital. He says he
+couldn't have done it so well. Of course, that is his modest way," the
+boy added, "for everybody knows there isn't such another scholar! but
+that's what he says."
+
+Sir Tom laughed, and a slight suffusion of colour appeared on his face.
+He was pleased with this unexpected applause. At five-and-forty, after
+knocking about the world for years, and "never opening a book," as
+people say, to have given a good "construe" is a feather in one's cap.
+"To be second to your tutor is all a man has to hope for," he said, with
+that mellow laugh which it was so pleasant to hear. "I hope I know my
+place, Jock. We had no such godlike beings in my time. Old Puck, as we
+used to call him, was my tutor. He had a red nose, which was the chief
+feature in his character. He looked upon us all as his natural enemies,
+and we paid him back with interest. Did I ever tell of that time when we
+were going to Ascot in a cab, four of us, and he caught sight of the
+turn-out?"
+
+"I don't think so," said Jock, with a little hesitation. He remembered
+every detail of this story, which indeed Sir Tom had told him perhaps
+more than once; for in respect to such legends the best of us repeat
+ourselves. Many were the thoughts in the boy's mind as he stood against
+the mantelpiece and looked down upon the man before him, going over with
+much relish the tale of boyish mischief, the delight of the urchins and
+the pedagogue's discomfiture. Sir Tom threw himself back in his chair
+with a peal of joyous laughter.
+
+"Jove! I think I can see him now with the corners of his mouth all
+dropped, and his nose like a beacon," he cried. Jock meanwhile looked
+down upon him very gravely, though he smiled in courtesy. He was a
+different manner of boy from anything Sir Tom could ever have been, and
+he wondered, as young creatures will, over the little world of mystery
+and knowledge which was shut up within the elder man. What things he had
+done in his life--what places he had seen! He had lived among savages,
+and fought his way, and seen death and life. Jock, only on the
+threshold, gazed at him with a curious mixture of awe and wonder and
+kind contempt. He would himself rather look down upon a fellow (he
+thought) who did that sort of practical joke now. MTutor would regard
+such an individual as a natural curiosity. And yet here was this man who
+had seen so much, and done so much, who ought to have profited by the
+long results of time, and grown to such superiority and mental
+elevation--here was he, turning back with delight to the schoolboy's
+trick. It filled Jock with a great and compassionate wonder. But he was
+a very civil boy. He was one who could not bear to hurt a
+fellow-creature's feelings, even those of an old duffer whose
+recollections were all of the bygone ages. So he did his best to laugh.
+And Sir Tom enjoyed his own joke so much that he did not know that it
+was from the lips only that his young companion's laugh came. He got up
+and patted Jock on the shoulders with the utmost benevolence when this
+pastime was done.
+
+"They don't indulge in that sort of fooling nowadays," he said. "So much
+the better--though I don't know that it did us much harm. Now come
+along, let us go to bed, according to my lady's orders. We must all, you
+know, do what Lucy tells us in this house."
+
+Jock obeyed, feeling somewhat "shut up," as he called it, in a sort of
+blank of confused discomfiture. Sir Tom had the best of it, by whatever
+means he attained that end. The boy had intended to offer himself a
+sacrifice, to brave anything that an angry man could say to him for
+Lucy's sake, and at the same time to die if necessary for Lucy's right
+to carry out her father's will, and accomplish her mission uninterrupted
+and untrammelled. When lo, Sir Tom had taken to telling him schoolboy
+stories, and sent him to bed with good-humoured kindness, without
+leaving him the slightest opening either to defend Lucy or take blame
+upon himself. He was half angry, and humbled in his own esteem, but
+there was nothing for it but to submit. Sir Tom for his part, did not go
+to bed. He went and smoked a lonely cigar, and his face lost its genial
+smile. The light of it, indeed, disappeared altogether under a cloud, as
+he sat gravely over his fire and puffed the smoke away. He had the air
+of a man who had a task to do which was not congenial to him. "Poor
+little soul," he said to himself. He could not bear to vex her. There
+was nothing in the world that he would have grudged to his wife. Any
+luxury, any adornment that he could have procured for her he would have
+jumped at. But it was his fate to be compelled to oppose and subdue her
+instead. The only thing was to do it quickly and decisively, since done
+it must be. If she had been a warrior worthy of his steel, a woman who
+would have defended herself and held her own, it would have been so much
+more easy; but it was not without a compunction that Sir Tom thought of
+the disproportion of their forces, of the soft and compliant creature
+who had never raised her will against his or done other than accept his
+suggestions and respond to his guidance. He remembered how Lucy had
+stuck to her colours before her marriage, and how she had vanquished the
+unwilling guardians who regarded what they thought the squandering of
+her money with a consternation and fury that were beyond bounds. He had
+thought it highly comic at the time, and even now there passed a gleam
+of humour over his face at the recollection. He could not deny himself a
+smile when he thought it all over. She had worsted her guardians, and
+thrown away her money triumphantly, and Sir Tom had regarded the whole
+as an excellent joke. But the recollection of this did not discourage
+him now. He had no thought that Lucy would stand out against him. It
+might vex her, however, dear little woman. No doubt she and Jock had
+been making up some fine Quixotic plans between them, and probably it
+would be a shock to her when her husband interfered. He had got to be so
+fond of his little wife, and his heart was so kind, that he could not
+bear the idea of vexing Lucy. But still it would have to be done. He
+rose up at last, and threw away the end of his cigar with a look of
+vexation and trouble. It was necessary, but it was a nuisance, however.
+"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly,"
+he said to himself; then laughed again, as he took his way upstairs, at
+the over-significance of the words. He was not going to murder anybody;
+only when the moment proved favourable, for once and only once, seeing
+it was inevitable, he had to bring under lawful authority--an easy
+task--the gentle little feminine creature who was his wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE FIRST STRUGGLE.
+
+
+Lucy knew nothing of this till the next forenoon after breakfast, and
+after the many morning occupations which a lady has in her own house.
+She looked wistfully at both her brother and her husband when they met
+at table, and it was a great consolation to her, and lightening of her
+heart, when she perceived that they were quite at ease with each other;
+but still she was burning with curiosity to know what had passed. Sir
+Tom had not said a word. He had been just as usual, not even looking a
+consciousness of the unexplained question between them. She was glad and
+yet half sorry that all was about to blow over, and to be as if it had
+not been. After going so far, perhaps it would have been better that it
+had gone farther and that the matter had been settled. This she said to
+herself in the security of a respite, believing that it had passed away
+from Sir Tom's mind. She wanted to know, and yet she was afraid to ask,
+for her heart revolted against asking questions of Jock which might
+betray to him the fear of a possible quarrel. After she had
+superintended little Tom's toilet, and watched him go out for his walk
+(for the weather was very mild for the time of the year), and seen Mrs.
+Freshwater, the housekeeper, and settled about the dinner, always with a
+little quiver of anxiety in her heart, she met Jock by a happy chance,
+just as she was about to join Lady Randolph in the drawing-room. She
+seized his arm with energy, and drew him within the door of the library;
+but after she had done this with an eagerness not to be disguised, Lucy
+suddenly remembered all that it was inexpedient for her to betray to
+Jock. Accordingly she stopped short, as it were, on the threshold, and
+instead of saying as she had intended, "What did he say to you?" dropped
+down into the routine question, "Where are you going--were you going
+out?"
+
+"I shall some time, I suppose. What do you grip a fellow's arm for like
+that? and then when I thought you had something important to say to me,
+only asking am I going out?"
+
+"Yes, clear," said Lucy, recovering herself with an effort. "You don't
+take enough exercise. I wish you would not be always among the books."
+
+"Stuff, Lucy!" said Jock.
+
+"I am sure Tom thinks the same. He was telling me--now didn't he say
+something to you about it last night?"
+
+"That's all bosh," said the boy. "And if you want to know what he said
+to me last night, he just said nothing at all, but told me old stories
+of school that I've heard a hundred times. These old d---- fellows,"
+(Jock did not swear; he was going to say duffers, that was all) "always
+talk like that. One would think they had not had much fun in their life
+when they are always turning back upon school," Jock added, with fine
+sarcasm.
+
+"Oh, only stories about school!" said Lucy with extreme relief. But the
+next moment she was not quite so sure that she was comfortable about
+this entire ignoring of a matter which Sir Tom had seemed to think so
+grave. "What sort of stories?" she said dreamily, pursuing her own
+thoughts without much attention to the answer.
+
+"Oh, that old stuff about Ascot and about the old master that stopped
+them. It isn't much. I know it," said Jock, disrespectfully, "as well as
+I know my a, b, c."
+
+"It is very rude of you to say so, Jock."
+
+"Perhaps it is rude," the boy replied, with candour; but he did not
+further explain himself, and Lucy, to veil her mingled relief and
+disquietude, dismissed him with an exhortation to go out.
+
+"You read and read," she cried, glad to throw off a little excitement in
+this manner, though she really felt very little anxiety on the subject,
+"till you will be all brains and nothing else. I wish you would use your
+legs a little too." And then, with a little affectionate push away from
+her, she left him in undisturbed possession of his books, and the
+morning, which, fine as it was, was not bright enough to tempt him away
+from them.
+
+Then Lucy pursued her way to the drawing-room: but she had not gone many
+steps before she met her husband, who stopped and asked her a question
+or two. Had the boy gone out? It was so fine it would do him good, poor
+little beggar; and where was her ladyship going? When he heard she was
+going to join the Dowager, Sir Tom smilingly took her hand and drew it
+within his own. "Then come here with me for a minute first," he said.
+And strange to say, Lucy had no fear. She allowed him to have his way,
+thinking it was to show her something, perhaps to ask her advice on some
+small matter. He took her into a little room he had, full of trophies of
+his travels, a place more distinctively his own than any other in the
+house. When he had closed the door a faint little thrill of alarm came
+over her. She looked up at him wondering, inquiring. Sir Tom took her by
+her arms and drew her towards him in the full light of the window. "Come
+and let me look at you, Lucy," he said. "I want to see in your eyes what
+it is that makes you afraid of me."
+
+She met his eyes with great bravery and self-command, but nothing could
+save her from the nervous quiver which he felt as he held her, or from
+the tell-tale ebb and flow of the blood from her face. "I--I am not
+afraid of you, Tom."
+
+"Then have you ceased to trust me, Lucy? How is it that you discuss the
+most important matters with Jock, who is only a boy, and leave me out?
+You do not think that can be agreeable to me."
+
+"Tom," she said; then stopped short, her voice being interrupted by the
+fluttering of her heart.
+
+"I told you: you are afraid. What have I ever done to make my wife
+afraid of me?" he said.
+
+"Oh, Tom, it is not that! it is only that I felt--there has never been
+anything said, and you have always done all, and more than all, that I
+wished; but I have felt that you were opposed to me in one thing. I may
+be wrong, perhaps," she added, looking up at him suddenly with a
+catching of her breath.
+
+Sir Tom did not say she was wrong. He was very kind, but very grave. "In
+that case," he said, "Lucy, my love, don't you think it would have been
+better to speak to me about it, and ascertain what were my objections,
+and why I was opposed to you--rather than turn without a word to another
+instead of me?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Lucy, "I could not. I was a coward. I could not bear to make
+sure. To stand against you, how could I do it? But if you will hear me
+out, Tom, I never, never turned to another. Oh! what strange words to
+say. It was not another. It was Jock, only Jock; but I did not turn even
+to him. It was he who brought it forward, and I---- Now that we have
+begun to talk about it, and it cannot be escaped," cried Lucy, with
+sudden nervous boldness, freeing herself from his hold, "I will own
+everything to you, Tom. Yes, I was afraid. I would not, I could not do
+it, for I could feel that you were against it. You never said anything;
+is it necessary that you should speak for me to understand you? but I
+knew it all through. And to go against you and do something you did not
+like was more than I could face. I should have gone on for years,
+perhaps, and never had courage for it," she cried. She was tingling all
+over with excitement and desperate daring now.
+
+"My darling," said Sir Tom, "it makes me happier to think that it was
+not me you were afraid of, but only of putting yourself in opposition to
+me; but still, Lucy, even that is not right, you know. Don't you think
+that it would be better that we should talk it over, and that I should
+show you my objections to this strange scheme you have in your head, and
+convince you----"
+
+"Oh!" cried Lucy, stepping back a little and putting up her hands as if
+in self-defence, "that was what I was most frightened for."
+
+"What, to be convinced?" he laughed: but his laugh jarred upon her in
+her excited state. "Well, that is not at all uncommon; but few people
+avow it so frankly," he said.
+
+She looked up at him with appealing eyes. "Oh, Tom," she cried, "I fear
+you will not understand me now. I am not afraid to be convinced. I am
+afraid of what you will think when you know that I cannot be convinced.
+Now," she said, with a certain calm of despair, "I have said it all."
+
+To her astonishment her husband replied by a sudden hug and a laugh.
+"Whether you are accessible to reason or not, you are always my dear
+little woman," he said. "I like best to have it out. Do you know, Lucy,
+that it is supposed your sex are all of that mind? You believe what you
+like, and the reason for your faith does not trouble you. You must not
+suppose that you are singular in that respect."
+
+To this she listened without any response at all either in words or
+look, except, perhaps, a little lifting of her eyelids in faint
+surprise; for Lucy was not concerned about what was common to her sex.
+Nor did she take such questions at all into consideration. Therefore,
+this speech sounded to her irrelevant; and so quick was Sir Tom's
+intelligence that, though he made it as a sort of conventional
+necessity, he saw that it was irrelevant too. It might have been all
+very well to address a clever woman who could have given him back his
+reply in such words. But to Lucy's straightforward, simple, limited
+intellect such dialectics were altogether out of place. Her very want of
+capacity to understand them made them a disrespect to her which she had
+done nothing to deserve. He coloured in his quick sense of this, and
+sudden perception that his wife in the limitation of her intellect and
+fine perfection of her moral nature was such an antagonist as a man
+might well be alarmed to meet, more alarmed even than she generously was
+to displease him.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Lucy," he said, "I was talking to you as if you were
+one of the ordinary people. All this must be treated between you and me
+on a different footing. I have a great deal more experience than you
+have, and I ought to know better. You must let me show you how it
+appears to me. You see I don't pretend not to know what the point was. I
+have felt for a long time that it was one that must be cleared up
+between you and me. I never thought of Jock coming in," he said with a
+laugh. "That is quite a new and unlooked-for feature; but begging his
+pardon, though he is a clever fellow, we will leave Jock out of the
+question. He can't be supposed to have much knowledge of the world."
+
+"No," said Lucy, with a little suspicion. She did not quite see what
+this had to do with it, nor what course her husband was going to adopt,
+nor indeed at all what was to follow.
+
+"Your father's will was a very absurd one," he said.
+
+At this Lucy was slightly startled, but she said after a moment, "He did
+not think what hard things he was leaving me to do."
+
+"He did not think at all, it seems to me," said Sir Tom; "so far as I
+can see he merely amused himself by arranging the world after his
+fashion, and trying how much confusion he could make. I don't mean to
+say anything unkind of him. I should like to have known him: he must
+have been a character. But he has left us a great deal of botheration.
+This particular thing, you know, that you are driving yourself crazy
+about is sheer absurdity, Lucy. Solomon himself could not do it,--and
+who are you, a little girl without any knowledge of the world, to see
+into people's hearts, and decide whom it is safe to trust?"
+
+"You are putting more upon me than poor papa did, Tom," said Lucy, a
+little more cheerfully. "He never said, as we do in charities, that it
+was to go to deserving people. I was never intended to see into their
+hearts. So long as they required it and got the money, that was all he
+wanted."
+
+"Well, then, my dear," said Sir Tom, "if your father in his great sense
+and judgment wanted nothing but to get rid of the money, I wonder he did
+not tell you to stand upon Beachy Head or Dover Cliff on a certain day
+in every year and throw so much of it into the sea--to be sure," he
+added with a laugh, "that would come to very much the same thing--for
+you can't annihilate money, you can only make it change hands--and the
+London roughs would soon have found out your days for this wise purpose
+and interrupted it somehow. But it would have been just as sensible.
+Poor little woman! Here I am beginning to argue, and abusing your poor
+father, whom, of course, you were fond of, and never so much as offering
+you a chair! There is something on every one of them, I believe. Here,
+my love, here is a seat for you," he said, displacing a box of
+curiosities and clearing a corner for her by the fire. But Lucy resisted
+quietly.
+
+"Wouldn't it do another time, Tom?" she said with a little anxiety, "for
+Aunt Randolph is all by herself, and she will wonder what has become of
+me; and baby will be coming back from his walk." Then she made a little
+pause, and resumed again, folding her hands, and raising her mild eyes
+to his face. "I am very sorry to go against you, Tom. I think I would
+rather lose all the money altogether. But there is just one thing, and
+oh, do not be angry! I must carry out papa's will if I were to die!"
+
+Her husband, who had begun to enter smilingly upon this discussion, with
+a certainty of having the best of it, and who had listened to her
+smilingly in her simple pleas for deferring the conversation, pleas
+which he was very willing to yield to, was so utterly taken by surprise
+at this sudden and most earnest statement, that he could do nothing but
+stare at her, with a loud alarmed exclamation, "Lucy!" and a look of
+utter bewilderment in his face. But she stood this without flinching,
+not nervous as many a woman might have been after delivering such a
+blow, but quite still, clasping her hands in each other, facing him with
+a desperate quietness. Lucy was not insensible to the tremendous nature
+of the utterance she had just made.
+
+"This is surprising, indeed, Lucy," cried Sir Tom. He grew quite pale in
+that sensation of being disobeyed, which is one of the most disagreeable
+that human nature is subject to. He scarcely knew what to reply to a
+rebellion so complete and determined. To see her attitude, the look of
+her soft girlish face (for she looked still younger than her actual
+years), the firm pose of her little figure, was enough to show that it
+was no rash utterance, such as many a combatant makes, to withdraw from
+it one hour after. Sir Tom, in his amazement, felt his very words come
+back to him; he did not know what to say. "Do you mean to tell me," he
+said, almost stammering in his consternation, "that whatever I may think
+or advise, and however mad this proceeding may be, you have made up your
+mind to carry it out whether I will or not?"
+
+"Tom! in every other thing I will do what you tell me. I have always
+done what you told me. You know a great deal better than I do, and never
+more will I go against you; but I knew papa before I knew you. He is
+dead; I cannot go to him to ask him to let me off, to tell him you don't
+like it, or to say it is more than I can do. If I could I would do that.
+But he is dead: all that he can have is just that I should be faithful
+to him. And it is not only that he put it in his will, but I gave him my
+promise that I would do it. How could I break my promise to one that is
+dead, that trusted in me? Oh, no, no! It will kill me if you are angry;
+but even then, even then, I must do what I promised to papa."
+
+The tears had risen to her eyes as she spoke: they filled her eyelids
+full, till she saw her husband only through two blinding seas: then they
+fell slowly one after another upon her dress: her face was raised to
+him, her features all moving with the earnestness of her plea. The
+anguish of the struggle against her heart, and desire to please him, was
+such that Lucy felt what it was to be faithful till death. As for Sir
+Tom, it was impossible for such a man to remain unmoved by emotion so
+great. But it had never occurred to him as possible that Lucy could
+resist his will, or, indeed, stand for a moment against his injunction;
+he had believed that he had only to say to her, "You must not do it,"
+and that she would have cried, but given way. He felt himself utterly
+defeated, silenced, put out of consideration. He did nothing but stare
+and gasp at her in his consternation; and, more still, he was betrayed.
+Her gentleness had deceived him and made him a fool; his pride was
+touched, he who was supposed to have no pride. He stood silent for a
+time, and then he burst out with a sort of roar of astonished and angry
+dismay.
+
+"Lucy, do you mean to tell me that you will disobey me?" he cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+AN IDLE MORNING.
+
+
+The Dowager Lady Randolph had never found the Hall so dull. There was
+nothing going on, nothing even to look forward to: one formal
+dinner-party was the only thing to represent that large and cordial
+hospitality which she was glad to think had in her own time
+characterised the period when the Hall was open. She had never pretended
+to be fond of the county society. In the late Sir Robert's time she had
+not concealed the fact that the less time she spent in it the better she
+was pleased. But when she was there, all the county had known it. She
+was a woman who loved to live a large and liberal life. It was not so
+much that she liked gaiety, or what is called pleasure, as that she
+loved to have people about her, to be the dispenser of enjoyment, to
+live a life in which there was always something going on. This is a
+temperament which meets much censure from the world, and is stigmatised
+as a love of excitement, and by many other unlovely names; but that is
+hard upon the people who are born with it, and who are in many cases
+benefactors to mankind. Lady Randolph's desire was that there should
+always be something doing--"a magic lantern at the least," she had said.
+Indeed, there can be no doubt that in managing that magic lantern she
+would have given as much satisfaction to everybody, and perhaps managed
+to enjoy herself as much, as if it had been the first entertainment in
+Mayfair. She could not stagnate comfortably, she said; and as so much of
+an ordinary woman's life must be stagnation more or less gracefully
+veiled, it may be supposed that Lady Randolph had learned the useful
+lesson of putting up with what she could get when what she liked was not
+procurable. And it was seldom that she had been set down to so languid a
+feast as the present. On former occasions a great deal more had been
+going on, except the last year, which was that of the baby's birth, on
+which occasion Lucy was, of course, out of the way of entertainment
+altogether. Lady Randolph had, indeed, found her visits to the Hall
+amusing, which was delightful, seeing they were duty visits as well. She
+had stayed only a day or two at that time--just long enough to kiss the
+baby and talk for half an hour at a time, on two or three distinct
+opportunities, to the young mother in very subdued and caressing tones.
+And she had been glad to get away again when she had performed this
+duty, but yet did not grudge in the least the sacrifice she had made for
+her family. The case, however, was quite different now: there was no
+reason in the world why they should be quiet. The baby was
+delicate!--could there be a more absurd reason for closing your house to
+your friends, putting off your Christmas visits, entertaining not at
+all, ignoring altogether the natural expectations of the county, which
+did not elect a man to be its member in order that he might shut himself
+up and superintend his nursery? It was ridiculous, his aunt felt; it
+went to her nerves, and made her quite uncomfortable, to see all the
+resources of the house, with which she was so well acquainted, wasted
+upon four people. It was preposterous--an excellent cook, the best cook
+almost she had ever come across, and only four to dine! People have
+different ideas of what waste is--there are some who consider all large
+expenditure, especially in the entertainment of guests, to be subject to
+this censure. But Lady Randolph took a completely different view. The
+wickedness of having such a cook and only a family party of four persons
+to dine was that which offended her. It was scandalous, it was wicked.
+If Lucy meant to live in this way let her return to her bourgeois
+existence, and the small vulgar life in Farafield. It was ridiculous
+living the life of a nobody here, and in Sir Tom's case was plainly
+suicidal. How was he to hold up his face at another election, with the
+consciousness that he had done nothing at all for his county, not even
+given them a ball, nor so much as a magic lantern, she repeated,
+bursting with a reprobation which could scarcely find words?
+
+All this went through her mind with double force when she found herself
+left alone in Lucy's morning-room, which was a bright room opening out
+upon the flower garden, getting all the morning sun, and the full
+advantage of the flowers when there were any. There were none, it is
+true, at this moment, except a few snow-drops forcing their way through
+the smooth turf under a tree which stood at the corner of a little bit
+of lawn. Lady Randolph was not very fond of flowers, except in their
+proper place, which meant when employed in the decoration of rooms in
+the proper artistic way, and after the most approved fashion. Thus she
+liked sunflowers when they were approved by society, and modest violets
+and pansies in other developments of popular taste, but did not for her
+own individual part care much which she had, so long as they looked well
+in her vases, and "came well" against her draperies and furniture. She
+had come down on this bright morning with her work, as it is the proper
+thing for a lady to do, but she had no more idea of being left here
+calmly and undisturbed to do that work than she had of attempting a
+flight into the inviting and brilliant, if cold and frosty, skies. She
+sat down with it between the fire and the sunny window, enjoying both
+without being quite within the range of either. It was an ideal picture
+of a lady no longer young or capable of much out-door life, or personal
+emotion; a pretty room; a sunny, soft winter morning, almost as warm as
+summer, the sunshine pouring in, a cheerful fire in the background to
+make up what was lacking in respect of warmth; the softest of easiest
+chairs, yet not too low or demoralising; a subdued sound breaking in now
+and then from a distance, which pleasantly betrayed the existence of a
+household; and in the midst of all, in a velvet gown, which was very
+pretty to look at, and very comfortable to wear, and with a lace cap on
+her head that had the same characteristics, a lady of sixty, in perfect
+health, rich enough for all her requirements, without even the thought
+of a dentist to trouble her. She had a piece of very pretty work in her
+hand, the newspapers on the table, books within reach. And yet she was
+not content! What a delightful ideal sketch might not be made of such a
+moment! How she might have been thinking of her past, sweetly, with a
+sigh, yet with a thankful thought of all the good things that had been
+hers; of those whom she had loved, and who were gone from earth, as only
+awaiting her a little farther on, and of those about her, with such a
+tender commendation of them to God's blessing, and cordial desire for
+their happiness, as would have reached the height of a prayer. And she
+might have been feeling a tranquil pleasure in the material things about
+her: the stillness, the warmth, the dreamy quiet, even the pretty work,
+and the exemption from care which she had arrived at in the peaceful
+concluding chapter of existence. This is what we all like to think of as
+the condition of mind and circumstances in which age is best met. But we
+are grieved to say that this was not in the least Lady Randolph's pose.
+Anything more distasteful to her than this quiet could not be. It was
+her principle and philosophy to live in the present. She drew many
+experiences from the past, and a vast knowledge of the constitutions and
+changes of society; but personally it did not amuse her to think of it,
+and the future she declined to contemplate. It had disagreeable things
+in it, of that there could be no doubt; and why go out and meet the
+disagreeable? It was time enough when it arrived. There was probably
+illness, and certainly dying, in it; things which she was brave enough
+to face when they came, and no doubt would encounter in quite a
+collected and courageous way. But why anticipate them? She lived
+philosophically in the day as it came. After all whatever you do or
+think, you cannot do much more. Your one day, your hour, is your world.
+Acquit yourself fitly in that, and you will be able to encounter
+whatever occurs.
+
+This was the conviction on which Lady Randolph acted. But her pursuit
+for the moment was not entertaining; she very quickly tired of her work.
+Work is, on the whole, tiresome when there is no particular use in it,
+when it is done solely for the sake of occupation, as ladies' work so
+often is. It wants a meaning and a necessity to give it interest, and
+Lady Randolph's had neither. She worked about ten minutes, and then she
+paused and wondered what could have become of Lucy. Lucy was not a very
+amusing companion, but she was somebody; and then Sir Tom would come in
+occasionally to consult her, to give her some little piece of
+information, and for a few minutes would talk and give his relative a
+real pleasure. But even Lucy did not come; and soon Lady Randolph became
+tired of looking out of the window and then walking to the fire, of
+taking up the newspaper and throwing it down again, of doing a few
+stitches, then letting the work fall on her lap; and above all, of
+thinking, as she was forced to do, from sheer want of occupation. She
+listened, and nobody came. Two or three times she thought she heard
+steps approaching, but nobody came. She had thought of perhaps going out
+since the morning was so fine, walking down to the village, which was
+quite within her powers, and of planning several calls which might be
+made in the afternoon to take advantage of the fine day. But she became
+really fretted and annoyed as the morning crept along. Lucy was losing
+even her politeness, the Dowager thought. This is what comes of what
+people call happiness! They get so absorbed in themselves, there is no
+possibility of paying ordinary attention to other people. At last, after
+completely tiring herself out, Lady Randolph got up and put down her
+work altogether, throwing it away with anger. She had not lived so long
+in its sole company for years, and there is no describing how tired she
+was of it. She got up and went out into the other rooms in search of
+something to amuse her. Little Tom had just come in, but she did not go
+to the nursery. She took care not to expose herself to that. She was
+willing to allow that she did not understand babies; and then to see
+such a pale little thing the heir of the Randolphs worried her. He ought
+to have been a little Hercules; it wounded her that he was so puny and
+pale. She went through the great drawing-room, and looked at all the
+additions to the furniture and decorations that Tom and Lucy had made.
+They had kept a number of the old things; but naturally they had added a
+good deal of _bric-a-brac_, of old things that here were new. Then Lady
+Randolph turned into the library. She had gone up to one of the
+bookcases, and was leisurely contemplating the books, with a keen eye,
+too, to the additions which had been made, when she heard a sound near
+her, the unmistakable sound of turning over the leaves of a book. Lady
+Randolph turned round with a start, and there was Jock, sunk into the
+depths of a large chair with a tall folio supported on the arms of it.
+She had not seen him when she came in, and, indeed, many people might
+have come and gone without perceiving him, buried in his corner. Lady
+Randolph was thankful for anybody to talk to, even a boy.
+
+"Is it you?" she said. "I might have known it could be nobody but you.
+Do you never do anything but read?"
+
+"Sometimes," said Jock, who had done nothing but watch her since she
+came into the room. She gave him a sort of half smile.
+
+"It is more reasonable now than when you were a child," she said; "for I
+hear you are doing extremely well at school, and gaining golden
+opinions. That is quite as it should be. It is the only way you can
+repay Lucy for all she has done for you."
+
+"I don't think," said Jock, looking at her over his book, "that Lucy
+wants to be repaid."
+
+"Probably not," said Lady Randolph. Then she made a pause, and looked
+from him to the book he held, and then to him again. "Perhaps you don't
+think," she said, "there is anything to be repaid."
+
+They were old antagonists; when he was a child and Lucy had insisted on
+carrying him with her wherever she went, Lady Randolph had made no
+objections, but she had not looked upon Jock with a friendly eye. And
+afterwards, when he had interposed with his precocious wisdom, and
+worsted her now and then, she had come to have a holy dread of him. But
+now things had righted themselves, and Jock had attained an age of which
+nobody could be afraid. The Dowager thought, as people are so apt to
+think, that Jock was not grateful enough. He was very fond of Lucy, but
+he took things as a matter of course, seldom or never remembering that
+whereas Lucy was rich, he was poor, and all his luxuries and well-being
+came from her. She was glad to take an opportunity of reminding him of
+it, all the more as she was of opinion that Sir Tom did not sufficiently
+impress this upon the boy, to whom she thought he was unnecessarily
+kind. "I suppose," she resumed, after a pause, "that you come here
+always in the holidays, and quite consider it as your home?"
+
+Jock still sat and looked at her across his great folio. He made her no
+reply. He was not so ready in the small interchanges of talk as he had
+been at eight, and, besides, it was new to him to have the subject
+introduced in this way. It is not amusing to plant arrows of this sort
+in any one's flesh if they show no sign of any wound, and accordingly
+Lady Randolph grew angry as Jock made no reply. "Is it considered good
+manners," she said, "at school--when a lady speaks to you that you
+should make no answer?"
+
+"I was thinking," Jock said. "A fellow, whether he is at school, or not,
+can't answer all that at once."
+
+"I hope you do not mean to be impertinent. In that case I should be
+obliged to speak to my nephew," said Lady Randolph. She had not intended
+to quarrel with Jock. It was only the vacancy of the morning, and her
+desire for movement of some sort, that had brought her to this; and now
+she grew angry with Lucy as well as with Jock, having gone so much
+farther than she had intended to go. She turned from him to the books
+which she had been languidly examining, and began to take them out one
+after another, impatiently, as if searching for something. Jock sat and
+looked at her for some time, with the same sort of deliberate
+observation with which he used to regard her when he was a child, seeing
+(as she had always felt) through and through her. But presently another
+impulse swayed him. He got himself out behind his book, and suddenly
+appeared by her side, startling her nerves, which were usually so firm.
+
+"If you will tell me what you want," he said, "I'll get it for you. I
+know where they all are. If it is French you want, they are up there. I
+like going up the ladder," he added, half to himself.
+
+Perhaps it was this confession of childishness, perhaps the unlooked-for
+civility, that touched her. She turned round with a subdued half
+frightened air, feeling that there was no telling how to take this
+strange creature, and said, half apologetically, "I think I should like
+a French--novel. They are not--so--long, you know, as the English," and
+sat down in the chair he rolled towards her. Jock was at the top of the
+ladder in a moment. She watched him, making a little comment in her own
+mind about Tom's motive in placing books of this description in such a
+place--in order to keep them out of Lucy's way, she said to herself.
+Jock brought her down half a dozen to choose from, and even the eye of
+Jock, who doubtless knew nothing about them, made Lady Randolph a little
+more scrupulous than usual in choosing her book. She was one of those
+women who like the piquancy and freedom of French fiction. She would say
+to persons of like tastes that the English proprieties were tame beside
+the other, and she thought herself old enough to be altogether beyond
+any risk of harm. Perhaps this was why she divined Sir Tom's motive in
+placing them at the top of the shelves; divined and approved, for though
+she read all that came in her way, she would not have liked Lucy to
+share that privilege. She said to Jock as he brought them to her,
+
+"They are shorter than the English. I can't carry three volumes about,
+you know; all these are in one; but I should not advise you to take to
+this sort of reading, Jock."
+
+"I don't want to," said Jock, briefly; then he added more gravely, "I
+can't construe French like you. I suppose you just open it and go
+straight on?"
+
+"I do," said Lady Randolph, with a smile.
+
+She was mollified, for her French was excellent, and she liked a little
+compliment, of whatever kind.
+
+"You should give your mind to it; it is the most useful of all
+languages," she said.
+
+"And Lucy is not great at it either," said Jock.
+
+"That is true, and it is a pity," said Lady Randolph, quite restored to
+good-humour. "I would take her in hand myself, but I have so many things
+to do. Do you know where she is, for I have not seen her all this
+morning?"
+
+"No more have I," said Jock. "I think they have just gone off somewhere
+together. Lucy never minds. She ought to pay a little attention when
+there are people in the house."
+
+"That is just what I have been thinking," Lady Randolph said. "I am at
+home, of course, here; it does not matter for me, and you are her
+brother--but she really ought; I think I must speak seriously to her."
+
+"To whom are you going to speak seriously? I hope not to me, my dear
+aunt," said Sir Tom, coming in. He did not look quite his usual self. He
+was a little pale, and he had an air about him as of some disagreeable
+surprise. He had the post-bag in his hand--for there was a post twice a
+day--and opened it as he spoke. Lady Randolph, with her quick
+perception, saw at once that something had happened, and jumped at the
+idea of a first quarrel. It was generally the butler Williams who opened
+the letter-bag; but he was out of the way, and Sir Tom had taken the
+office on himself. He took out the contents with a little impatience,
+throwing across to her her share of the correspondence. "Hallo," he
+said. "Here is a letter for Lucy from your tutor, Jock. What have you
+been doing, my young man?"
+
+"Oh, I know what it's about," Jock said in a tone of satisfaction. Sir
+Tom turned round and looked at him with the letter in his hand, as if he
+would have liked to throw it at his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+AN UNWILLING MARTYR.
+
+
+Lucy came into the morning-room shortly after, a little paler than
+usual, but with none of the agitation about her which Lady Randolph
+expected from Sir Tom's aspect to see. Lucy was not one to bear any
+outward traces of emotion. When she wept her eyes recovered rapidly, and
+after half an hour were no longer red. She had a quiet respect for other
+people, and a determination not to betray anything which she could not
+explain, which had the effect of that "proper pride" which is inculcated
+upon every woman, and yet was something different. Lucy would have died
+rather than give Lady Randolph ground to suppose that she had quarrelled
+with her husband, and as she could not explain the matter to her, it was
+necessary to efface all signs of perturbation as far as that was
+possible. The elder lady was reading her letters when Lucy came in, but
+she raised her eyes at once with the keenest watchfulness. Young Lady
+Randolph was pale--but at no time had she much colour. She came in
+quite simply, without any explanation or giving of reasons, and sat down
+in her usual place near the window, from which the sunshine, as it was
+now afternoon, was beginning to die away. Then Lucy gave a slight start
+to see a letter placed for her on the little table beside her work. She
+had few correspondents at any time, and when Jock and Lady Randolph were
+both at the Hall received scarcely any letters. She took it up and
+looked at its outside with a little surprise.
+
+"I forgot to tell you, Lucy," the Dowager said at this point, "that
+there was a letter for you. Tom placed it there. He said it was from
+Jock's tutor, and I hope sincerely, my dear, it does not mean that Jock
+has got into any scrape----"
+
+"A scrape," said Lucy, "why should he have got into a scrape?" in
+unbounded surprise; for this was a thing that never had happened
+throughout Jock's career.
+
+"Oh, boys are so often in trouble," Lady Randolph said, while Lucy
+opened her letter in some trepidation. But the first words of the letter
+disturbed her more than any story about Jock was likely to do. It
+brought the crisis nearer, and made immediate action almost
+indispensable. It ran as follows:--
+
+     "Dear Lady Randolph--In accordance with Jock's request, which he
+     assured me was also yours, I have made all the inquiries you wished
+     about the Churchill family. It was not very difficult to do, as
+     there is but one voice in respect to them. Mr. Churchill himself is
+     represented to me as a model of all that a clergyman ought to be.
+     Whatever we may think of his functions, that he should have all the
+     virtues supposed to be attached to them is desirable in every point
+     of view; and he is a gentleman of good sense and intelligence
+     besides, which is not always implied even in the character of a
+     saint. It seems that the failure of an inheritance, which he had
+     every reason to expect, was the cause of his first disadvantage in
+     the world; and since then, in consonance with that curious natural
+     law which seems so contrary to justice, yet constantly consonant
+     with fact, this evil has been cumulative, and he has had nothing
+     but disappointments ever since. He has a very small living now, and
+     is never likely to get a better, for he is getting old, and
+     patrons, I am told, scarcely venture to give a cure to a man of his
+     age lest it should be said they were gratifying their personal
+     likings at the expense of the people. This seems contrary to
+     abstract justice in such a case; but it is a doctrine of our time
+     to which we must all bow.
+
+     "The young people, so far as I know, are all promising and good.
+     Young Churchill, whom Jock knows, is a boy for whom I have the
+     greatest regard. He is one whom Goethe would have described as a
+     beautiful soul. His sisters are engaged in educational work, and
+     are, I am told, in their way equally high-minded and interesting;
+     but naturally I know little of the female portion of the family.
+
+     "It is extremely kind of you and Sir Thomas to repeat your
+     invitation. I hope, perhaps at Easter, if convenient, to be able to
+     take advantage of it. I hear with the greatest pleasure from Jock
+     how much he enjoys his renewed intercourse with his home circle. It
+     will do him good, for his mind is full of the ideal, and it will be
+     of endless advantage to him to be brought back to the more ordinary
+     and practical interests. There are very few boys of whom it can be
+     said that their intellectual aspirations over-balance their
+     material impulses. As usual he has not only done his work this half
+     entirely to my satisfaction, but has more than repaid any services
+     I can render him by the precious companionship of a fresh and
+     elevated spirit.
+
+                        "Believe me, dear Lady Randolph,
+                                    "Most faithfully yours,
+                                              "MAXIMUS D. DERWENTWATER."
+
+A long-drawn breath, which sounded like a sigh, burst from Lucy's breast
+as she closed this letter. She had, with humility and shrinking, yet
+with a certain resolution, disclosed to her husband that when the
+occasion occurred she must do her duty according to her father's will,
+whether it pleased him or not. She had steeled herself to do this; but
+she had prayed that the occasion might be slow to come. Nobody but Jock
+knew anything about these Churchills, and Jock was going back to school,
+and he was young and perhaps he might forget! But here was another who
+would not forget. She read all the recommendations of the family and
+their excellences with a sort of despair. Money, it was evident, could
+not be better bestowed than in this way. There seemed no opening by
+which she could escape; no way of thrusting this act away from her. She
+felt a panic seize her. How was she to disobey Tom, how to do a thing of
+so much importance, contrary to his will, against his advice? The whole
+world around her, the solid walls, and the sky that shone in through the
+great window, swam in Lucy's eyes. She drew her breath hard like a
+hunted creature; there was a singing in her ears, and a dimness in her
+sight. Lady Randolph's voice asking with a certain satisfaction, yet
+sympathy, "What is the matter? I hope it is not anything very bad,"
+seemed to come to her from a distance as from a different world; and
+when she added, after a moment, soothingly, "You must not vex yourself
+about it, Lucy, if it is just a piece of folly. Boys are constantly in
+that way coming to grief:" it was with difficulty that Lucy remembered
+to what she could refer. Jock! Ah, if it had been but a boyish folly,
+Sir Tom would have been the first to forgive that; he would have opened
+his kind heart and taken the offender in, and laughed and persuaded him
+out of his folly. He would have been like a father to the boy. To feel
+all that, and how good he was; and yet determinedly to contradict his
+will and go against him! Oh, how could she do it? and yet what else was
+there to do?
+
+"It is not about Jock," she answered with a faint voice.
+
+"I beg your pardon, my dear. I was not aware that you knew Jock's tutor
+well enough for general correspondence. These gentlemen seem to make a
+great deal of themselves now-a-days, but in my time, Lucy----"
+
+"I do not know him very well, Aunt Randolph. He is only sending me some
+information. I wish I might ask you a question," she cried suddenly,
+looking into the Dowager's face with earnest eyes. This lady had perhaps
+not all the qualities that make a perfect woman, but she had always been
+very kind to Lucy. She was not unkind to anybody, although there were
+persons, of whom Jock was one, whom she did not like. And in all
+circumstances to Lucy, even when there was no immediate prospect that
+the Randolph family would be any the better for her, she had always been
+kind.
+
+"As many as you like, my love," she answered, cordially.
+
+"Yes," said Lucy; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, what I want is that you
+should let me ask, without asking anything in return. I want to know
+what you think, but I don't want to explain----"
+
+"It is a strange condition," said Lady Randolph; but then she thought in
+her superior experience that she was very sure to find out what this
+simple girl meant without explanations. "But I am not inquisitive," she
+added, with a smile, "and I am quite willing, dear, to tell you anything
+I know----"
+
+"It is this," said Lucy, leaning forward in her great earnestness; "do
+you think a woman is ever justified in doing anything which her husband
+disapproves?"
+
+"Lucy!" cried Lady Randolph, in great dismay, "when her husband is my
+Tom, and the thing she wants to do is connected with Jock's tutor----"
+
+Lucy's gaze of astonishment, and her wondering repetition of the words,
+"connected with Jock's tutor!" brought Lady Randolph to herself. In
+society, such a suspicion being fostered by all the gossips, comes
+naturally; but though she was a society-woman, and had not much faith in
+holy ignorance, she paused here, horrified by her own suggestion, and
+blushed at herself.
+
+"No, no," she said, "that was not what I meant; but perhaps I could not
+quite advise, Lucy, where I am so closely concerned."
+
+At which Lucy looked at her somewhat wistfully. "I thought you would
+perhaps remember," she said, "when you were like me, Aunt Randolph, and
+perhaps did not know so well as you know now----"
+
+This touched the elder lady's heart. "Lucy," she said, "my dear, if you
+were not as innocent as I know you are, you would not ask your husband's
+nearest relation such a question. But I will answer you as one woman to
+another, and let Tom take care of himself. I never was one that was very
+strong upon a husband's rights. I always thought that to obey meant
+something different from the common meaning of the word. A child must
+obey; but even a grown-up child's obedience is very different from what
+is natural and proper in youth; and a full-grown woman, you know, never
+could be supposed to obey like a child. No wise man, for that matter,
+would ever ask it or think of it."
+
+This did not give Lucy any help. She was very willing, for her part, to
+accept his light yoke without any restriction, except in the great and
+momentous exception which she did not want to specify.
+
+"I think," Lady Randolph went on, "that to obey means rather--keep in
+harmony with your husband, pay attention to his opinions, don't take up
+an opposite course, or thwart him, be united--instead of the obedience
+of a servant, you know: still less of a slave."
+
+She was a great deal cleverer than Lucy, who was not thinking of the
+general question at all. And this answer did the perplexed mind little
+good. Lucy followed every word with curious attention, but at the end
+slowly shook her head.
+
+"It is not that. Lady Randolph, if there was something that was your
+duty before you were married, and that is still and always your duty, a
+sacred promise you had made; and your husband said no, you must not do
+it--tell me what you would have done? The rest is all so easy," cried
+Lucy, "one likes what he likes, one prefers to please him. But this is
+difficult. What would you have done?"
+
+Here Lady Randolph all at once, after giving forth the philosophical
+view which was so much above her companion, found herself beyond her
+depth altogether, and incapable of the fathom of that simple soul.
+
+"I don't understand you, Lucy. Lucy, for heaven's sake, take care what
+you are doing! If it is anything about Jock, I implore of you give way
+to your husband. You may be sure in dealing with a boy that he knows
+best."
+
+Lucy sighed. "It is nothing about Jock," she said; but she did not
+repeat her demand. Lady Randolph gave her a lecture upon the subject of
+relations which was very wide of the question; and, with a sigh, owning
+to herself that there was no light to be got from this, Lucy listened
+very patiently to the irrelevant discourse. The clever dowager cut it
+short when it was but half over, perceiving the same, and asked herself
+not without excitement what it was possible Lucy's difficulty could be?
+If it was not Jock (and a young brother hanging on to her, with no home
+but hers, an inquisitive young intelligence, always in the way, was a
+difficulty which anybody could perceive at a glance) what was it? But
+Lucy baffled altogether this much experienced woman of the world.
+
+And Jock watched all the day for an opportunity to get possession of
+her, and assail her on the other side of the question. She avoided him
+as persistently as he sought her, and with a panic which was very
+different from her usual happy confidence in him. But the moment came
+when she could elude him no longer. Lady Randolph had gone to her own
+room after her cup of tea, for that little nap before dinner which was
+essential to her good looks and pleasantness in the evening. Sir Tom,
+who was too much disturbed for the usual rules of domestic life, had not
+come in for that twilight talk which he usually enjoyed; and as Lucy
+found herself thus plunged into the danger she dreaded, she was hurrying
+after Lady Randolph, declaring that she heard baby cry, when Jock
+stepped into her way, and detained her, if not by physical, at least by
+moral force--
+
+"Lucy," he said, "are you not going to tell me anything? I know you have
+got the letter, but you won't look at me, or speak a word."
+
+"Oh, Jock, how silly! why shouldn't I look at you? but I have so many
+things to do, and baby--I am sure I heard baby cry."
+
+"He is no more crying than I am. I saw him, and he was as jolly as
+possible. I want awfully to know about the Churchills, and what MTutor
+says."
+
+"Jock, I think Mr. Derwentwater is rather grand in his writing. It looks
+as if he thought a great deal of himself."
+
+"No, he doesn't," said Jock, hotly, "not half enough. He's the best man
+we've got, and yet he can't see it. You needn't give me any information
+about MTutor," added the young gentleman, "for naturally I know all that
+much better than you. But I want to know about the Churchills. Lucy, is
+it all right?"
+
+Lucy gave a little shiver though she was in front of the fire. She said,
+reluctantly, "I think they seem very nice people, Jock."
+
+"I know they are," said Jock, exultantly. "Churchill in college is the
+nicest fellow I know. He read such a paper at the Poetical Society. It
+was on the Method of Sophocles; but of course you would not understand
+that."
+
+"No, dear," said Lucy, mildly; and again she murmured something about
+the baby crying, "I think indeed, Jock, I must go."
+
+"Just a moment," said the boy, "Now you are satisfied couldn't we drive
+into Farafield to-morrow and settle about it? I want to go with you, you
+and I together, and if old Rushton makes a row you can just call me."
+
+"But I can't leave Lady Randolph, Jock," cried Lucy, driven to her wits'
+end. "It would be unkind to leave her, and a few days cannot do much
+harm. When she has gone away----"
+
+"I shall be back at school. Let Sir Tom take her out for once. He might
+as well drive her in his new phaeton that he is so proud of. If it is
+fine she'll like that, and we can say we have some business."
+
+"Oh! Jock, don't press me so; a few days can't make much difference."
+
+"Lucy," said Jock, sternly, "do you think it makes no difference to keep
+a set of good people unhappy, just to save you a little trouble? I
+thought you had more heart than that."
+
+"Oh, let me go, Jock; let me go--that is little Tom, and he wants me,"
+Lucy cried. She had no answer to make him--the only thing she could do
+was to fly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ON BUSINESS.
+
+
+Ten thousand pounds! These words have very different meanings to
+different people. Many of us can form little idea of what those simple
+syllables contain. They enclose as in a golden casket, rest, freedom
+from care, bounty, kindness, an easy existence, and an ending free of
+anxiety to many. To others they are nothing more than a cipher on paper,
+a symbol without any connection with themselves. To some it is great
+fortune, to others a drop in the ocean. A merchant will risk it any day,
+and think but little if the speculation is a failure. A prodigal will
+throw it away in a month, perhaps in a night. But the proportion of
+people to whom its possession would make all the difference between
+poverty and wealth far transcends the number of those who are careless
+of it. It is a pleasure to deal with such a sum of money even on paper.
+To be concerned in giving it away, makes even the historian, who has
+nothing to do with it, feel magnificent and all-bounteous. Jock, who had
+as little experience to back him as any other boy of his age, felt a
+vague elation as he drove in by Lucy's side to Farafield. To confer a
+great benefit is always sweet. Perhaps if we analyse it, as is the
+fashion of the day, we will find that the pleasure of giving has a
+_fond_ of gratified vanity and self-consideration in it; but this
+weakness is at least supposed to be generous, and Jock was generous to
+his own consciousness, and full of delight at what was going to be done,
+and satisfaction with his own share in it. But Lucy's sensations were
+very different. She went with him with no goodwill of her own, like a
+culprit being dragged to execution. Duty is not always willing, even
+when we see it most clearly. Young Lady Randolph had a clear conviction
+of what she was bound to do, but she had no wish to do it, though she
+was so thoroughly convinced that it was incumbent upon her. Could she
+have pushed it out of her own recollection, banished it from her mind,
+she would have gladly done so. She had succeeded for a long time in
+doing this--excluding the consideration of it, and forgetting the burden
+bound upon her shoulders. But now she could forget it no longer--the
+thongs which secured it seemed to cut into her flesh. Her heart was sick
+with thoughts of the thing she must do, yet revolted against doing. "Oh,
+papa, papa!" she said to herself, shaking her head at the grim,
+respectable house in which her early days had been passed, as they drove
+past it to Mr. Rushton's office. Why had the old man put such a burden
+upon her? Why had not he distributed his money himself and left her
+poor if he pleased, with at least no unnatural charge upon her heart and
+life?
+
+"Why do you shake your head?" said Jock, who was full of the keenest
+observation, and lost nothing.
+
+He had an instinctive feeling that she was by no means so much
+interested in her duty as he was, and that it was his business to keep
+her up to the mark.
+
+"Don't you remember the old house?" Lucy said, "where we used to live
+when you were a child? Where poor papa died--where----"
+
+"Of course I remember it. I always look at it when I pass, and think
+what a little ass I used to be. But why did you shake your head? That's
+what I want to know."
+
+"Oh, Jock!" Lucy cried; and said no more.
+
+"That throws very little light on the question," said Jock. "You are
+thinking of the difference, I suppose. Well, there is no doubt it's a
+great difference. I was a little idiot in those days. I recollect I
+thought the circus boy was a sort of little prince, and that it was
+grand to ride along like that with all the people staring--the grandest
+thing in the world----"
+
+"Poor little circus boy! What a pretty child he was," said Lucy. And
+then she sighed to relieve the oppression on her breast, and said, "Do
+you ever wonder, Jock, why people should have such different lots? You
+and I driving along here in what we once would have thought such state,
+and look, these people that are crossing the road in the mud are just as
+good as we are----"
+
+Jock looked at his sister with a philosophical eye, in which for the
+moment there was some contempt. "It is as easy as a, b, c," said Jock;
+"it's your money. You might set me a much harder one. Of course, in the
+way of horses and carriages and so forth, there is nothing that money
+cannot buy."
+
+This matter-of-fact reply silenced Lucy. She would have asked, perhaps,
+why did I have all this money? being in a questioning frame of mind; but
+she knew that he would answer shortly because her father made it, and this
+was not any more satisfactory. So she only looked at him with wistful eyes
+that set many much harder ones, and was silent. Jock himself was too
+philosophical to be satisfied with his own reply.
+
+"You see," he said condescendingly, "Money is the easiest explanation.
+If you were to ask me why Sir Tom should be Sir Tom, and that man sweep
+a crossing, I could not tell you."
+
+"Oh," cried Lucy, "I don't see any difficulty about that at all, for Tom
+was born to it. You might as well say why should baby be born to be the
+heir."
+
+Jock did not know whether to be indignant or to laugh at this feminine
+begging of the question. He stared at her for a moment uncertain, and
+then went on as if she had not spoken. "But money is always
+intelligible. That's political economy. If you have money, as a matter
+of course you have everything that money can buy; and I suppose it can
+buy almost everything?" Jock said, reflectively.
+
+"It cannot buy a moment's happiness," cried Lucy, "nor one of those
+things one wishes most for. Oh Jock, at your age don't be deceived like
+that. For my part," she cried, "I think it is just the trouble of life.
+If it was not for this horrible money----"
+
+She stopped short, the tears were in her eyes, but she would not betray
+to Jock how great was the difficulty in which she found herself. She
+turned her head away and was glad to wave her hand to a well known face
+that was passing, an acquaintance of old times, who was greatly elated
+to find that Lady Randolph in her grandeur still remembered her. Jock
+looked on upon all this with a partial comprehension, mingled with
+disapproval. He did not quite understand what she meant, but he
+disapproved of her for meaning it all the same.
+
+"Money can't be horrible," he said, "unless it's badly spent: and to say
+you can't buy happiness with it is nonsense. If it don't make _you_
+happy to save people from poverty it will make them happy, so somebody
+will always get the advantage. What are you so silly about, Lucy? I
+don't say money is so very fine a thing. I only say it's intelligible.
+If you ask me why a man should be a great deal better than you or me,
+only because he took the trouble to be born----"
+
+"I am not so silly, though you think me so silly, as to ask that," said
+Lucy; "that is so easy to understand. Of course you can only be who you
+are. You can't make yourself into another person; I hope I understand
+that."
+
+She looked him so sweetly and seriously in the face as she spoke, and
+was so completely unaware of any flaw in her reply, that Jock,
+argumentative as he was, only gasped and said nothing more. And it was
+in this pause of their conversation that they swept up to Mr. Rushton's
+door. Mr. Rushton was the town-clerk of Farafield, the most important
+representative of legal knowledge in the place. He had been the late Mr.
+Trevor's man of business, and had still the greater part of Lucy's
+affairs in his hands. He had known her from her childhood, and in the
+disturbed chapter of her life before her marriage, his wife had taken a
+great deal of notice, as she expressed it, of Lucy: and young Raymond,
+who had now settled down in the office as his father's partner (but
+never half such a man as his father, in the opinion of the community),
+had done her the honour of paying her his addresses. But all that had
+passed from everybody's mind. Mrs. Rushton, never very resentful, was
+delighted now to receive Lady Randolph's invitation, and proud of the
+character of an old friend. And if Raymond occasionally showed a little
+embarrassment in Lucy's presence, that was only because he was by nature
+awkward in the society of ladies, and according to his own description
+never knew what to say.
+
+"And what can I do for your ladyship this morning?" Mr. Rushton said,
+rising from his chair. His private room was very warm and comfortable,
+too warm, the visitors thought, as an office always is to people going
+in from the fresh air. The fire burned with concentrated heat, and Lucy,
+in her furs and suppressed agitation, felt her very brain confused. As
+for Jock, he lounged in the background with his hands in his pockets,
+reading the names upon the boxes that lined the walls, and now that it
+had come to the crisis, feeling truly helpless to aid his sister, and
+considerably in the way.
+
+"It is a very serious business," said Lucy, drawing her breath hard. "It
+is a thing you have never liked or approved of, Mr. Rushton, nor any
+one," she added, in a faint voice.
+
+"Dear me, that is very unfortunate," said the lawyer, cheerfully; "but I
+don't think you have ever been much disapproved of, Lady Randolph. Come,
+there is nothing you can't talk to me about--an old friend. I was in
+all your good father's secrets, and I never saw a better head for
+business. Why, this is Jock, I believe, grown into a man almost! I
+wonder if he has any of his father's talent? Is it about him you want to
+consult me? Why, that's perfectly natural, now he's coming to an age to
+look to the future," Mr. Rushton said.
+
+"Oh, no! it is not about Jock. He is only sixteen, and, besides, it is
+something that is much more difficult," said Lucy. And then she paused,
+and cleared her throat, and put down her muff among Mr. Rushton's
+papers, that she might have her hands free for this tremendous piece of
+business. Then she said, with a sort of desperation, looking him in the
+face: "I have come to get you to--settle some money for me in obedience
+to papa's will."
+
+Mr. Rushton started as if he had been shot. "You don't mean----" he
+cried, "You don't mean---- Come, I dare say I am making a mountain out of
+a mole-hill, and that what you are thinking of is quite innocent. If not
+about our young friend here, some of your charities or improvements? You
+are a most extravagant little lady in your improvements, Lady Randolph.
+Those last cottages you know--but I don't doubt the estate will reap the
+advantage, and it's an outlay that pays; oh, yes, I don't deny it's an
+outlay that pays."
+
+Lucy's countenance betrayed the futility of this supposition long before
+he had finished speaking. He had been standing with his back to the
+fire, in a cheerful and easy way. Now his countenance grew grave. He
+drew his chair to the table and sat down facing her. "If it is not that,
+what is it?" he said.
+
+"Mr. Rushton," said Lucy, and she cleared her throat. She looked back
+to Jock for support, but he had his back turned to her, and was still
+reading the names on the lawyer's boxes. She turned round again with a
+little sigh. "Mr. Rushton, I want to carry out papa's will. You know all
+about it. It is codicil F. I have heard of some one who is the right
+kind of person. I want you to transfer ten thousand pounds----"
+
+The lawyer gave a sort of shriek; he bolted out of his chair, pushing it
+so far from him that the substantial mahogany shivered and tottered upon
+its four legs.
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, "Nonsense!" increasing the firmness of his tone
+until the word thundered forth in capitals, "NONSENSE!--you are going
+out of your senses; you don't know what you are saying. I made sure we
+had done with all this folly----"
+
+When it had happened to Lucy to propose such an operation as she now
+proposed, for the first time, to her other trustee, she had been spoken
+to in a way which young ladies rarely experience. That excellent man of
+business had tried to put this young lady--then a very young lady--down,
+and he had not succeeded. It may be supposed that at her present age of
+twenty-three, a wife, a mother, and with a modest consciousness of her
+own place and position, she was not a less difficult antagonist. She was
+still a little frightened, and grew somewhat pale, but she looked
+steadfastly at Mr. Rushton with a nervous smile.
+
+"I think you must not speak to me so," she said. "I am not a child, and
+I know my father's will and what it meant. It is not nonsense, nor
+folly--it may perhaps have been," she said with a little sigh--"not
+wise."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Lady Randolph," Mr. Rushton said precipitately,
+with a blush upon his middle-aged countenance, for to be sure, when you
+think of it, to tell a gracious young lady with a title, one of your
+chief clients, that she is talking nonsense, even if you have known her
+all her life, is going perhaps a little too far. "I am sure you will
+understand _that_ is what I meant," he cried, "unwise--the very word I
+meant. In the heat of the moment other words slip out, but no offence
+was intended."
+
+She made him a little bow; she was trembling, though she would not have
+him see it. "We are not here," she said, "to criticise my father." Lucy
+was scarcely half aware how much she had gained in composure and the art
+of self-command. "I think he would have been more wise and more kind to
+have done himself what he thought to be his duty; but what does that
+matter? You must not try to convince me, please, but take the
+directions, which are very simple. I have written them all down in this
+paper. If you think you ought to make independent inquiries, you have
+the right to do that; but you will spare the poor gentleman's feelings,
+Mr. Rushton. It is all put down here."
+
+Mr. Rushton took the paper from her hand. He smiled inwardly to himself,
+subduing his fret of impatience. "You will not object to let me talk it
+over," he said, "first with Sir Tom?"
+
+Lucy coloured, and then she grew pale. "You will remember," she said,
+"that it has nothing to do with my husband, Mr. Rushton."
+
+"My dear lady," said the lawyer, "I never expected to hear you, who I
+have always known as the best of wives, say of anything that it has
+nothing to do with your husband. Surely that is not how ladies speak of
+their lords?"
+
+Lucy heard a sound behind her which seemed to imply to her quick ear
+that Jock was losing patience. She had brought him with her, with the
+idea of deriving some support from his presence; but if Sir Tom had
+nothing to do with it, clearly on much stronger grounds neither had her
+brother. She turned round and cast a hurried warning glance at him. She
+had herself no words ready to reply to the lawyer's gibe. She would
+neither defend herself as from a grave accusation, nor reply in the same
+tone. "Mr. Rushton," she said faltering, "I don't think we need argue,
+need we? I have put down all the particulars. You know about it as well
+as I do. It is not for pleasure. If you think it is right, you will
+inquire about the gentleman--otherwise--I don't think there need be any
+more to say."
+
+"I will talk it over with Sir Tom," said Mr. Rushton, feeling that he
+had found the only argument by which to manage this young woman. He even
+chuckled a little to himself at the thought. "Evidently," he said to
+himself, "she is afraid of Sir Tom, and he knows nothing about this. He
+will soon put a stop to it." He added aloud, "My dear Lady Randolph,
+this is far too serious a matter to be dismissed so summarily. You are
+young and very inexperienced. Of course I know all about it, and so does
+Sir Thomas. We will talk it over between us, and no doubt we will manage
+to decide upon some course that will harmonise everything."
+
+Lucy looked at him with grave suspicion. "I don't know," she said, "what
+there is to be harmonised, Mr. Rushton. There is a thing which I have to
+do, and I have shrunk from it for a long time; but I cannot do so any
+longer."
+
+"Look here," said Jock, "it's Lucy's affair, it's nobody else's. Just
+you look at her paper and do what she says."
+
+"My young friend," said the lawyer blandly, "that is capital advice for
+yourself: I hope you always do what your sister says."
+
+"Most times I do," said Jock; "not that it's your business to tell me.
+But you know very well you'll have to do it. No one has got any right to
+interfere with her. She has more sense than a dozen. She has got the
+right on her side. You may do what you please, but you know very well
+you can't stop her--neither you, nor Sir Tom, nor the old lady, nor one
+single living creature; and you know it," said Jock. He confronted Mr.
+Rushton with lowering brows, and with an angry sparkle in his deep-set
+eyes. Lucy was half proud of and half alarmed by her champion.
+
+"Oh hush, Jock!" she cried. "You must not speak; you are only a boy. You
+must beg Mr. Rushton's pardon for speaking to him so. But, indeed, what
+he says is quite true; it is no one's duty but mine. My husband will not
+interfere with what he knows I must do," she said, with a little chill
+of apprehension. Would he indeed be so considerate for her? It made her
+heart sick to think that she was not on this point quite certain about
+Sir Tom.
+
+"In that case there will be no harm in talking it over with him," said
+the lawyer briefly. "I thought you were far too sensible not to see that
+was the right way. Oh, never mind about his asking my pardon. I forgive
+him without that. He has a high idea of his sister's authority, which is
+quite right; and so have I--and so have all of us. Certainly, certainly,
+Master Jock, she has the right; and she will arrange it judiciously, of
+that there is no fear. But first, as a couple of business men, more
+experienced in the world than you young philanthropists, I will just,
+the first time I see him, talk it over with Sir Tom. My dear Lady
+Randolph, no trouble at all. Is that all I can do for you? Then I will
+not detain you any longer this fine morning," the lawyer said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.
+
+
+They drove away again with scarcely a word to each other. It was a
+bright, breezy, wintry day. The roads about Farafield were wet with
+recent rains, and gleamed in the sunshine. The river was as blue as
+steel, and gave forth a dazzling reflection; the bare trees stood up
+against the sky without a pretence of affording any shadow. The cold to
+these two young people, warmly dressed and prosperous, was nothing to
+object to--indeed, it was not very cold. But they both had a slight
+sense of discomfiture--a feeling of having suffered in their own
+opinion. Jock, who was much regarded at school as a fellow high up, and
+a great friend of his tutor, was not used to such unceremonious
+treatment, and he was wroth to see that even Lucy was supposed to
+require the sanction of Sir Tom for what it was clearly her own business
+to do. He said nothing, however, until they had quite cleared the town,
+and were skimming along the more open country roads; then he said
+suddenly--
+
+"That old Rushton has a great deal of cheek. I should have another
+fellow to manage my affairs, Lucy, if I were you."
+
+"Don't you know, Jock, that I can't? Papa appointed him. He is my
+trustee; he has always to be consulted. Papa did not mind," said Lucy
+with a little sigh. "He said it would be good for me to be contradicted,
+and not to have my own way."
+
+"Don't you have your own way?" said Jock, opening his eyes. "Lucy, who
+contradicts you? I should like to know who it was, and tell him my mind
+a bit. I thought you did whatever you pleased. Do you mean to say there
+is any truth in all that about Sir Tom?"
+
+"In what about Sir Tom?" cried Lucy, instantly on her defence; and then
+she changed her tone with a little laugh. "Of course I do whatever I
+please. It is not good for anybody, Jock. Don't you know we must be
+crossed sometimes, or we should never do any good at all?"
+
+"Now I wonder which she means?" said Jock. "If she does have her own way
+or if she don't? I begin to think you speak something else than English,
+Lucy. I know it is the thing to say that women must do what their
+husbands tell them; but do you mean that it's true like _that_? and that
+a fellow may order you to do this or not to do that, with what is your
+own and not his at all?"
+
+"I don't think I understand you, dear," said Lucy sweetly.
+
+"Oh! you can't be such a stupid as that," said the boy; "you understand
+right enough. What did he mean by talking it over with Sir Tom? He
+thought Sir Tom would put a stop to it, Lucy."
+
+"If Mr. Rushton forms such false ideas, dear, what does it matter? That
+is not of any consequence either to you or me."
+
+"I wish you would give me a plain answer," said Jock, impatiently. "I
+ask you one thing, and you say another; you never give me any
+satisfaction."
+
+She smiled upon him with a look which, clever as Jock was, he did not
+understand. "Isn't that conversation?" she said.
+
+"Conversation!" The boy repeated the word almost with a shriek of
+disdain: "You don't know very much about that, down here in the country,
+Lucy. You should hear MTutor; when he's got two or three fellows from
+Cambridge with him, and they go at it! That's something like talk."
+
+"It is very nice for you, Jock, that you get on so well with Mr.
+Derwentwater," said Lucy, catching with some eagerness at this way of
+escape from embarrassing questions. "I hope he will come and see us at
+Easter, as he promised."
+
+"He may," said Jock, with great gravity, "but the thing is, everybody
+wants to have him; and then, you see, whenever he has an opportunity he
+likes to go abroad. He says it freshens one up more than anything. After
+working his brain all the half, as he does, and taking the interest he
+does in everything, he has got to pay attention, you know, and not to
+overdo it; he must have change, and he must have rest."
+
+Lucy was much impressed by this, as she was by all she heard of MTutor.
+She was quite satisfied that such immense intellectual exertions as his
+did indeed merit compensation. She said, "I am sure he would get rest
+with us, Jock. There would be nothing to tire him, and whatever I could
+do for him, dear, or Sir Tom either, we should be glad, as he is so good
+to you."
+
+"I don't know that he's what you call fond of the country--I mean the
+English country. Of course it is different abroad," said Jock
+doubtfully. Then he came back to the original subject with a bound,
+scattering all Lucy's hopes. "But we didn't begin about MTutor. It was
+the other business we were talking of. Is it true that Sir Tom----"
+
+"Jock," said Lucy seriously. Her mild eyes got a look he had never seen
+in them before. It was a sort of dilation of unshed tears, and yet they
+were not wet. "If you know any time when Sir Tom was ever unkind or
+untrue, I don't know it. He has always, always been good. I don't think
+he will change now. I have always done what he told me, and I always
+will. But he never told me anything. He knows a great deal better than
+all of us put together. Of course, to obey him, that is my first duty.
+And I always shall. But he never asks it--he is too good. What is his
+will, is my will," she said. She fixed her eyes very seriously on Jock,
+all the time she spoke, and he followed every movement of her lips with
+a sort of astonished confusion, which it is difficult to describe. When
+she had ceased Jock drew a long breath, and seemed to come to the
+surface again, after much tossing in darker waters.
+
+"I think that it must be true," he said slowly, after a pause, "as
+people say--that women are very queer, Lucy. I didn't understand one
+word you said."
+
+"Didn't you, then?" she said, with a smile of gentle benignity; "but
+what does it matter, when it will all come right in the end? Is that our
+omnibus, Jock, that is going along with all that luggage? How curious
+that is, for nobody was coming to-day that I know of. Don't you see it
+just turning in to the avenue? Now that is very strange indeed," said
+Lucy, raising herself very erect upon her cushions with a little
+quickened and eager look. An arrival is always exciting in the country,
+and an arrival which was quite unexpected, and of which she could form
+no surmise as to who it could be, stirred up all her faculties. "I
+wonder if Mrs. Freshwater will know what rooms are best?" she said, "and
+if Sir Tom will be at home to receive them; or perhaps it may be some
+friends of Aunt Randolph's, or perhaps--I wonder very much who it can
+be."
+
+Jock's countenance covered itself quickly with a tinge of gloom.
+
+"Whoever it is, I know it will be disgusting," cried the boy. "Just when
+we have got so much to talk about! and now I shall never see you any
+more. Lady Randolph was bad enough, and now here's more of them! I
+should just as soon go back to school at once," he said, with premature
+indignation. The servants on the box perceived the other carriage in
+advance with equal curiosity and excitement. They were still more
+startled, perhaps, for a profound wonder as to what horses had been sent
+out, and who was driving them, agitated their minds. The horses,
+solicited by a private token between them and their driver which both
+understood, quickened their pace with a slight dash, and the carriage
+swept along as if in pursuit of the larger and heavier vehicle, which,
+however, had so much the advance of them, that it had deposited its
+passengers, and turned round to the servants' entrance with the luggage,
+before Lady Randolph could reach the door. Williams the butler wore a
+startled look upon his dignified countenance, as he came out on the
+steps to receive his mistress.
+
+"Some one has arrived," said Lucy with a little eagerness. "We saw the
+omnibus."
+
+"Yes, my lady. A telegram came for Sir Thomas soon after your ladyship
+left; there was just time to put in the horses----"
+
+"But who is it, Williams?"
+
+Williams had a curious apologetic air. "I heard say, my lady, that it
+was some of the party that were invited before Mr. Randolph fell ill.
+There had been a mistake about the letters, and the lady has come all
+the same--a lady with a foreign title, my lady----"
+
+"Oh!" said Lucy, with English brevity. She stood startled, in the hall,
+lingering a little, changing colour, not with any of the deep emotions
+which Williams from his own superior knowledge suspected, but with
+shyness and excitement. "It will be the lady from Italy, the
+Contessa---- Oh, I hope they have attended to her properly! Was Sir
+Thomas at home when she came?"
+
+"Sir Thomas, my lady, went to meet them at the station," Williams said.
+
+"Oh, that is all right," cried Lucy, relieved. "I am so glad she did not
+arrive and find nobody. And I hope Mrs. Freshwater----"
+
+"Mrs. Freshwater put the party into the east wing, my lady. There are
+two ladies besides the man and the maid. We thought it would be the
+warmest for them, as they came from the South."
+
+"It may be the warmest, but it is not the prettiest," said Lucy. "The
+lady is a great friend of Sir Thomas', Williams."
+
+The man gave her a curious look.
+
+"Yes, my lady, I was aware of that," he said.
+
+This surprised Lucy a little, but for the moment she took no notice of
+it. "And therefore," she went on, "the best rooms should have been got
+ready. Mrs. Freshwater ought to have known that. However, perhaps she
+will change afterwards. Jock, I will just run upstairs and see that
+everything is right."
+
+As she turned towards the great staircase, so saying, she ran almost
+into her husband's arms. Sir Tom had appeared from a side door, where he
+had been on the watch, and it was certain that his face bore some traces
+of the new event that had happened. He was not at his ease as usual. He
+laughed a little uncomfortable laugh, and put his hand on Lucy's
+shoulder as she brushed against him. "There," he said, "that will do;
+don't be in such a hurry," arresting her in full career.
+
+"Oh, Tom!" Lucy for her part looked at her husband with the greatest
+relief and happiness. There had been a cloud between them which had been
+more grievous to her than anything else in the world. She had felt
+hourly compelled to stand up before him and tell him that she must do
+what he desired her not to do. The consternation and pain and wrath that
+had risen over his face after that painful interview had not passed away
+through all the intervening time. There had been a sort of desperation
+in her mind when she went to Mr. Rushton, a feeling that she so hated
+the duty which had risen like a ghost between her husband and herself,
+that she must do it at all hazards and without delay. But this cloud had
+now departed from Sir Tom's countenance. There was a little suffusion of
+colour upon it which was unusual to him. Had it been anybody but Sir
+Tom, it would have looked like embarrassment, shyness mingled with a
+certain self-ridicule and sense of the ludicrous in the position
+altogether. He caught his wife in his arms and met her eyes with a
+certain laughing shamefacedness, "Don't," he said, "be in such a hurry,
+Lucy. _Ces dames_ have gone to their rooms; they have been travelling
+all night, and they are not fit to be seen. It is only silly little
+English girls like you that can bear to be looked at at all times and
+seasons." And with this he stooped over her and gave her a kiss on her
+forehead, to Lucy's delight, yet horror--before Williams, who looked on
+approving, and the footman with the traps, and Jock and all! But what a
+load it took off her breast! He was not any longer vexed or disturbed or
+angry. He was indeed conciliatory and apologetic, but Lucy only saw that
+he was kind.
+
+"Poor lady," cried Lucy, "has she been travelling all night? And I am so
+sorry she has been put into the east wing. If I had been at home I
+should have said the blue rooms, Tom, which you know are the nicest----"
+
+"I think they are quite comfortable, my dear," said Sir Tom, with his
+usual laugh, which was half-mocking half-serious, "you may be sure they
+will ask for anything they want. They are quite accustomed to making
+themselves at home."
+
+"Oh, I hope so, Tom," said Lucy, "but don't you think it would be more
+polite, more respectful, if I were to go and ask if they have
+everything? Mrs. Freshwater is very well you know, Tom, but the mistress
+of the house----"
+
+He gave her another little hug, and laughed again. "No," he said, "you
+may be sure Madame Forno-Populo is not going to let you see her till she
+has repaired all ravages. It was extremely indiscreet of me to go to the
+station," he continued, still with that chuckle, leading Lucy away. "I
+had forgotten all these precautions after a few years of you, Lucy. I
+was received with a shriek of horror and a double veil."
+
+Lucy looked at him with great surprise, asking: "Why? wasn't she glad to
+see you?" with incipient indignation and a sense of grievance.
+
+"Not at all," cried Sir Tom, "indeed I heard her mutter something about
+English savagery. The Contessa expresses herself strongly sometimes.
+Freshwater and the maid, and the excellent breakfast Williams has
+ordered, knowing her ways----"
+
+"Does Williams know her ways?" asked Lucy, wondering. There was not the
+faintest gleam of suspicion in her mind; but she was surprised, and her
+husband bit his lip for a moment, yet laughed still.
+
+"He knows those sort of people," he said. "I was very much about in
+society at one time you must know, Lucy, though I am such a steady old
+fellow now. We knew something of most countries in these days. We were
+_bien vu_, he and I, in various places. Don't tell Mrs. Williams, my
+love." He laughed almost violently at this mild joke, and Lucy looked
+surprised. But still no shadow came upon her simple countenance. Lucy
+was like Desdemona, and did not believe that there were such women. She
+thought it was "fun," such fun as she sometimes saw in the newspapers,
+and considered as vulgar as it was foolish. Such words could not be used
+in respect to anything Sir Tom said, but even in her husband it was not
+good taste, Lucy thought. She smiled at the reference to Mrs. Williams
+with a kind of quiet disdain, but it never occurred to her that she too
+might require to be kept in the dark.
+
+"I dare say most of what you are talking is nonsense," she said; "but if
+Madame Forno ----"--Lucy was not very sure of the name, and
+hesitated--"is really very tired, perhaps it may be kindness not to
+disturb her. I hope she will go to bed, and get a thorough rest. Did she
+not get your second letter, Tom? and what a thing it is that dear baby
+is so much better, and that we can really pay a little attention to
+her."
+
+"Either she did not get my letter, or I didn't write, I cannot say which
+it was, Lucy. But now we have got her we must pay attention to her, as
+you say. You will have to get up a few dinner parties, and ask some
+people to stay. She will like to see the humours of the wilderness while
+she is in it."
+
+"The wilderness--but, Tom, everybody says society is so good in the
+county."
+
+"Everybody does not know the Forno-Populo," cried Sir Tom; and then he
+burst out into a great laugh. "I wonder what her Grace will say to the
+Contessa; they have met before now."
+
+"Must we ask the Duchess?" cried Lucy, with awe and alarm, coming a
+little nearer to her husband's side.
+
+But Sir Tom did nothing but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms,"
+he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two ---- at
+it tooth and nail. Two--what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no
+mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as for
+the Forno-Populo herself----"
+
+"Dear Tom" said Lucy with gentle gravity, "Is it nice to speak of ladies
+so? If any one called me the Randolph, I should be, oh, so----"
+
+"You," cried her husband with a hot and angry colour rising to his very
+hair, and then he perceived that he was betraying himself, and paused.
+"You see, my love, that's different," he said. "Madame di Forno-Populo
+is--an old stager: and you are very young, and nobody ever thought of
+you but with--reverence, my dear. Yes, that's the word, Lucy, though you
+are only a bit of a girl."
+
+"Tom," said Lucy with great dignity, "I have you to take care of me, and
+I have never been known in the world. But, dear, if this poor lady has
+no one--and I suppose she is a widow, is she not, Tom?"
+
+He had been listening to her almost with emotion--with a half-abashed
+look, full of fondness and admiration. But at this question he drew back
+a little, with a sort of stagger, and burst into a wild fit of laughter.
+When he came to himself wiping his eyes, he was, there could be no
+doubt, ashamed of himself. "I beg you ten thousand pardons," he cried.
+"Lucy, my darling! Yes, yes--I suppose she is a widow, as you say."
+
+Lucy looked at him while he laughed, with profound gravity, without the
+slightest inclination to join in his merriment, which is a thing which
+has a very uncomfortable effect. She waited till he was done, with a
+mixture of wonder and disapproval in her seriousness, looking at his
+laughter as if at some phenomenon which she did not understand. "I have
+often heard gentlemen," she said, "talk about widows as if it were a
+sort of laughable name, and as if they might make their jokes as they
+pleased. But I did not think you would have done it, Tom. I should feel
+all the other way," said Lucy. "I should think I could never do enough
+to make it up, if that were possible, and to make them forget. Is it
+their fault that they are left desolate, that a man should laugh?" She
+turned away from her husband with a soft superiority of innocence and
+true feeling which struck him dumb.
+
+He begged her pardon in the most abject way; and then he left her for a
+moment quietly, and had his laugh out. But he was ashamed of himself all
+the same. "I wonder what she will say when she sees the Forno-Populo,"
+he said to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FOREWARNED.
+
+
+Lucy did not see her visitors till the hour of dinner. She had expected
+them to appear in the afternoon at the mystic hour of tea, which calls
+an English household together, but when it was represented to her that
+afternoon tea was not the same interesting institution in Italy, her
+surprise ceased, and though her expectations were still more warmly
+excited by this delay, she bore it with becoming patience. There was no
+doubt, however, that the arrival had made a great commotion in the
+house, and Lucy perceived without in the least understanding it, a
+peculiarity in the looks which various of the people around her cast
+upon her during the course of the day. Her own maid was one of these
+people, and Mrs. Freshwater, the housekeeper, who explained in a
+semi-apologetic tone all the preparations she had made for the comfort
+of the guests, was another. And Williams, though he was always so
+dignified, thought Lucy could not help feeling an eye upon her. He was
+almost compassionately attentive to his young mistress. There was a
+certain pathos in the way in which he handed her the potatoes at lunch.
+He pressed a little more claret upon her with a fatherly anxiety, and an
+air that seemed to say, "It will do you good." Lucy was conscious of all
+this additional attention without realising the cause of it. But it
+found its culmination in Lady Randolph, in whom a slightly-injured and
+aggrieved air towards Sir Tom was enhanced by the extreme tenderness of
+her aspect to Lucy, for whom she could not do too much. "Williams is
+quite right in giving you a little more wine. You take nothing," she
+said, "and I am sure you want support. After your long drive, too, my
+dear: and how cold it has been this morning!"
+
+"Yes, it was cold; but we did not mind, we rather liked it, Jock and I.
+Poor Madame di Forno-Populo! She must have felt it travelling all
+night."
+
+"Bravo, Lucy, that is right! you have tackled the name at last, and got
+through with it beautifully," said Sir Tom with a laugh.
+
+Lucy was pleased to be praised. "I hope I shan't forget," she said, "it
+is so long: and oh, Tom, I do hope she can talk English, for you know my
+French."
+
+"I should think she could talk English!" said Lady Randolph, with a
+little scorn. And what was very extraordinary was that Williams showed a
+distinct but suppressed consciousness, putting his lips tight as if to
+keep in what he knew about the matter. "And I don't think you need be so
+sorry for the lady, Lucy," said the dowager. "No doubt she didn't mean
+to travel by night. It arose from some mistake or other in Tom's letter.
+But she does not mind that, you may be sure, now that she has made out
+her point."
+
+"What point?" said Sir Tom, with some heat. But Lady Randolph made no
+reply, and he did not press the question. They were both aware that it
+is sometimes better to hold one's tongue. And the curious thing to all
+of those well-informed persons was that Lucy took no notice of all their
+hints and innuendoes. She was in the greatest spirits, not only
+interested about her unknown visitors and anxious to secure their
+comfort, but in herself more gay than she had been for some time past.
+In fact this arrival was a godsend to Lucy. The cloud had disappeared
+entirely from her husband's brow. Instead of making any inquiries about
+her visit to Farafield, or resuming the agitating discussion which had
+ended in what was really a refusal on her part to do what he wished, he
+was full of a desire to conciliate and please her. The matter which had
+brought so stern a look to his face, and occasioned her an anxiety and
+pain far more severe than anything that had occurred before in her
+married life, seemed to have dropped out of his mind altogether. Instead
+of that opposition and disapproval, mingled with angry suspicion, which
+had been in his manner and looks, he was now on the watch to propitiate
+Lucy; to show a gratitude for which she knew no reason, and a pride in
+her which was still less comprehensible. What did it all mean, the
+compassion on one side, the satisfaction on the other? But Lucy scarcely
+asked herself the question. In her relief at having no new discussion
+with her husband, and at his apparent forgetfulness of all displeasure
+and of any question between them, her heart rose with all the glee of a
+child's. It seemed to her that she had surmounted the difficulties of
+her position by an intervention which was providential. It even occurred
+to her innocent mind to make reflections as to the advantage of doing
+what was right in the face of all difficulties. God, she said to
+herself, evidently was protecting her. It was known in heaven what an
+effort it had cost her to do her duty to fulfil her father's will, and
+now heavenly succour was coming, and the difficulties disappearing out
+of her way. Lucy would have been ready in any case with the most
+unhesitating readiness to receive and do any kindness to her husband's
+friend. No idea of jealousy had come into her unsuspicious soul. She had
+taken it as a matter of course that this unknown lady should have the
+best that the Hall could offer her, and that her old alliance with Sir
+Tom should throw open his doors and his wife's heart. Perhaps it was
+because Lucy's warm and simple-minded attachment to her husband had
+little in it of the character of passion that it was thus entirely
+without any impulse of jealousy. And what was so natural in common
+circumstances became still more so in the exhilaration and rebound of
+her troubled heart. Sir Tom was so kind to her in departing from his
+opposition, in letting her have her way without a word. It was certain
+that Lucy would not have relinquished her duty for any opposition he had
+made. But with what a bleeding heart she would have done it, and how
+hateful would have been the necessity which separated her from his
+goodwill and assistance! Now she felt that terrible danger was over.
+Probably he would not ask her what she had been about. He would not give
+it his approval, which would have been most sweet of all, but if he did
+not interfere, if he permitted it to be done without opposition, without
+even demanding of his wife an account of her action, how much that would
+be, and how cordially, with what a genuine impulse of the heart would
+she set to work to carry out his wishes--he who had been so generous, so
+kind to her! This was how it was that her gaiety, the ease and
+happiness of her look, startled them all so much. That she should have
+been amiable to the new comers was comprehensible. She was so amiable by
+nature, and so ignorant and unsuspicious: but that their coming should
+give her pleasure, this was the thing that confounded the spectators:
+they could not understand how any other subject should withdraw her from
+what is supposed to be a wife's master emotion--nay, they could not
+understand how it was that mere instinct had not enlightened Lucy, and
+pointed out to her what elements were coming together that would be
+obnoxious to her peace. Even Sir Tom felt this, with a deepened
+tenderness for his pure-minded little wife, and pride in her
+unconsciousness. Was there another woman in England who would have been
+so entirely generous, so unaware even of the possibility of evil? He
+admired her for it, and wondered--if it was a little silly (which he had
+a kind of undisclosed suspicion that it was), yet what a heavenly
+silliness. There was nobody else who would have been so magnanimous, so
+confident in his perfect honour and truth.
+
+The only other element that could have added to Lucy's satisfaction was
+also present. Little Tom was better than usual. Notwithstanding the cold
+he had been able to go out, and was all the brighter for it, not chilled
+and coughing as he sometimes was. His mother had found him careering
+about his nursery in wild glee, and flinging his toys about, in
+perfectly boyish, almost mannish, altogether wicked, indifference to the
+danger of destroying them. It was this that brought her downstairs
+radiant to the luncheon table, where Lady Randolph and Williams were so
+anxious to be good to her. Lucy was much surprised by the solicitude
+which she felt to be so unnecessary. She was disposed to laugh at the
+care they took of her; feeling in her own mind, more triumphant, more
+happy and fortunate, than she had ever been before.
+
+As for Jock, he took no notice at all of the incident of the day. He
+perceived with satisfaction, a point on which for the moment he was
+unusually observant, that Sir Tom showed no intention of questioning
+them as to their morning's expedition or opposing Lucy. This being the
+case, what was it to the boy who went or came? A couple of ladies were
+quite indifferent to him. He did not expect anything or fear anything.
+His own doings interested him much more. The conversation about this new
+subject floated over his head. He did not take the trouble to pay any
+attention to it. As for Williams' significant looks or Lady Randolph's
+anxieties, Jock was totally unconscious of their existence. He did not
+pay any attention. When the party was not interesting he had plenty of
+other thoughts to retire into, and the coming of new people, except in
+so far as it might be a bore, did not affect him at all.
+
+Lucy went out dutifully for a drive with Lady Randolph after luncheon.
+It was still very bright, though it was cold, and after a little demur
+as to the propriety of going out when it was possible her guests might
+be coming downstairs, Lucy took her place beside the fur-enveloped
+Dowager with her hot water footstool and mountain of wrappings. They
+talked about ordinary matters for a little, about the landscape and the
+improvements, and about little Tom, whose improvement was the most
+important of all. But it was not possible to continue long upon
+indifferent matters in face of the remarkable events which had disturbed
+the family calm.
+
+"I hope," said Lucy, "that Madame di Forno-Populo" (she was very
+careful about all the syllables) "may not be more active than you think,
+and come down while we are away."
+
+"Oh, there is not the least fear," said Lady Randolph, somewhat
+scornfully. "She was always a candle-light beauty. She is not very fond
+of the eye of day."
+
+"She is a beauty, then?" said Lucy. "I am very glad. There are so few.
+You know I have always been--rather--disappointed. There are many pretty
+people: but to be beautiful is quite different."
+
+"That is because you are so unsophisticated, my dear. You don't
+understand that beauty in society means a fashion, and not much more. I
+have seen a quantity of beauties in my day. How they came to be so,
+nobody knew; but there they were, and we all bowed down to them. This
+woman, however, was very pretty, there was no doubt about it," said Lady
+Randolph, with reluctant candour. "I don't know what she may be now. She
+was enough to turn any man's head when she was young--or even a
+woman's--who ought to have known better."
+
+"Do you think then, Aunt Randolph, that women don't admire pretty
+people?" It is to be feared that Lucy asked for the sake of making
+conversation, which it is sometimes necessary to do.
+
+"I think that men and women see differently--as they always do," said
+Lady Randolph. She was rather fond of discriminating between the ideas
+of the sexes, as many ladies of a reasonable age are. "There is a
+gentleman's beauty, you know, and there is a kind of beauty that women
+love. I could point out the difference to you better if the specimens
+were before us; but it is a little difficult to describe. I rather
+think we admire expression, you know. What men care for is flesh and
+blood. We like people that are good--that is to say, who have the air of
+being good, for the reality doesn't by any means follow. Perhaps I am
+taking too much credit to ourselves," said the old lady, "but that is
+the best description I can hit upon. We like the interesting kind--the
+pensive kind--which was the fashion when I was young. Your great, fat,
+golden-haired, red and white women are gentlemen's beauties; they don't
+commend themselves to us."
+
+"And is Madame di Forno-Populo," said Lucy, in her usual elaborate way,
+"of that kind?"
+
+"Oh! my dear, she is just a witch," Lady Randolph said. "It does not
+matter who it is, she can bring them to her feet if she pleases!" Then
+she seemed to think she had gone too far, and stopped herself: "I mean
+when she was young; she is young no longer, and I dare say all that has
+come to an end."
+
+"It must be sad to grow old when one is like that," said Lucy, with a
+look of sympathetic regret.
+
+"Oh, you are a great deal too charitable, Lucy!" said the old lady: and
+then she stopped short, putting a sudden restraint upon herself, as if
+it were possible that she might have said too much; then after a while
+she resumed: "As you are in such a heavenly frame of mind, my dear, and
+disposed to think so well of her, there is just one word of advice I
+will give you--don't allow yourself to get intimate with this lady. She
+is quite out of your way. If she liked, she could turn you round her
+little finger. But it is to be hoped she will not like; and, in any
+case, you must remember that I have warned you. Don't let her, my dear,
+make a catspaw of you."
+
+"A catspaw of me!" Lucy was amused by these words--not offended, as so
+many might have been--perhaps because she felt herself little likely to
+be so dominated; a fact that the much older and more experienced woman
+by her side was quite unaware of. "But," she said, "Tom would not have
+invited her, Aunt Randolph, if he had thought her likely to do
+that--indeed, how could he have been such great friends with her if she
+had not been nice as well as pretty? You forget there must always be
+that in her favour to me."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" cried Lady Randolph with indignation. "My dear Lucy," she
+added after a pause, with subdued exasperation, "men are the most
+unaccountable creatures! Knowing him as I do, I should have thought she
+was the very last person--but how can we tell? I dare say the idea
+amused him. Tom will do anything that amuses him--or tickles his vanity.
+I confess it is as you say, very, very difficult to account for it; but
+he has done it. He wants to show off a little to her, I suppose; or else
+he---- There is really no telling, Lucy. It is the last thing in the
+world I should have thought of; and you may be quite sure, my dear," she
+added with emphasis, "she never would have been invited at all if he had
+expected me to be here when she came."
+
+Lucy did not make any answer for some time. Her face, which had kept its
+gaiety and radiance, grew grave, and when they had driven back towards
+the hall for about ten minutes in silence, she said quietly "You do not
+mean it, I am sure; but do you know, Aunt Randolph, you are trying to
+make me think very badly of my husband; and no one has ever done that
+before."
+
+"Oh, your husband is just like other people's husbands, Lucy," cried
+the elder lady impatiently. Then, however, she subdued herself, with an
+anxious look at her companion. "My dear, you know how fond I am of Tom:
+and I know he is fond of you; he would not do anything to harm you for
+the world. I suppose it is because he has such a prodigious confidence
+in you that he thinks it does not matter; and I don't suppose it does
+matter. The only thing is, don't be over intimate with her, Lucy; don't
+let her fix herself upon you when you go to town, and talk about young
+Lady Randolph as her dearest friend. She is quite capable of doing it.
+And as for Tom--well, he is just a man when all is said."
+
+Lucy did not ask any more questions. That she was greatly perplexed
+there is no doubt, and her first fervour of affectionate interest in
+Tom's friend was slightly damped, or at least changed. But she was more
+curious than ever; and there was in her mind the natural contradiction
+of youth against the warnings addressed to her. Lucy knew very well that
+she herself was not one to be twisted round anybody's little finger. She
+was not afraid of being subjugated; and she had a prejudice in favour of
+her husband which neither Lady Randolph nor any other witness could
+impair. The drive home was more silent than the outset. Naturally, the
+cold increased as the afternoon went on, and the Dowager shrunk into her
+furs, and declared that she was too much chilled to talk. "Oh how
+pleasant a cup of tea will be," she said.
+
+Lucy longed for her part to get down from the carriage and walk home
+through the village, to see all the cottage fires burning, and quicken
+the blood in her veins, which is a better way than fur for keeping one's
+self warm. When they got in, it was exciting to think that perhaps the
+stranger was coming down to tea; though that, as has been already said,
+was a hope in which Lucy was disappointed. Everything was prepared for
+her reception, however--a sort of throne had been arranged for her, a
+special chair near the fire, shaded by a little screen, and with a
+little table placed close to it to hold her cup of tea. The room was all
+in a ruddy blaze of firelight, the atmosphere delightful after the cold
+air outside, and all the little party a little quiet, thinking that
+every sound that was heard must be the stranger.
+
+"She must have been very tired," Lucy said sympathetically.
+
+"I dare say," said Lady Randolph, "she thinks a dinner dress will make a
+better effect."
+
+Lucy looked towards her husband almost with indignation, with eyes that
+asked why he did not defend his friend. But, to be sure, Sir Tom could
+not judge of their expression in the firelight, and instead of defending
+her he only laughed. "One general understands another's tactics," he
+said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE VISITORS.
+
+
+Sir Tom paid his wife a visit when she was in the midst of her toilette
+for dinner. He came in, and looked at her dress with an air of
+dissatisfaction. It was a white dress, of a kind which suited Lucy very
+well, and which she was in the habit of wearing for small home parties,
+at which full dress was unnecessary. He looked at her from head to
+foot, and gave a little pull to her skirt with a doubtful air. "It
+doesn't sit, does it?" he said; "can't you pin it, or something, to make
+it come better?"
+
+This, it need not be said, was a foolish piece of ignorance on Sir Tom's
+part, and as Miss Fletcher, Lucy's maid, thought, "just like a man."
+Fletcher was for the moment not well-disposed towards Sir Tom. She
+said--"Oh no, Sir Thomas, my lady don't hold with pins. Some ladies may
+that are all for effect; but my lady, that is not her way."
+
+Sir Tom felt that these words inclosed a dart as sharp as any pin, and
+directed at himself; but he took no notice. He walked round his wife,
+eyeing her on every side; and then he gave a little pull to her hair as
+he had done to her dress. "After all," he said, "it is some time since
+you left school, Lucy. Why this simplicity? I want you to look your best
+to-night."
+
+"But, dear Tom," said Lucy, "you always say that I am not to be
+over-dressed."
+
+"I don't want you to be under-dressed; there is plenty of time. Don't
+you think you might do a little more in the way of toilette? Put on some
+lace or something; Fletcher will know. Look here, Fletcher, I want Lady
+Randolph to look very well to-night. Don't you think this get-up would
+stand improvement? I dare say you could do it with ribbons, or
+something. We must not have her look like my grandchild, you know."
+
+Upon which Fletcher, somewhat mollified and murmuring that Sir Thomas
+was a gentleman that would always have his joke, answered boldly that
+_that_ was not how she would have dressed her lady had she had the doing
+of it. "But I know my place," Fletcher said, "though to see my lady
+like this always goes against me, Sir Thomas, and especially with
+foreigners in the house that are always dressed up to the nines and
+don't think of nothing else. But if Lady Randolph would wear her blue it
+could all be done in five minutes, and look far nicer and more like the
+lady of the house."
+
+This transfer was finally made, for Lucy had no small obstinacies and
+was glad to please her husband. The "blue" was of the lightest tint of
+shimmering silk, and gave a little background of colour, upon which
+Lucy's fairness and whiteness stood out. Sir Thomas always took an
+interest in his wife's dress; but it was seldom he occupied himself so
+much about it. It was he who went to the conservatory to get a flower
+for her hair. He took her downstairs upon his arm "as if they were out
+visiting," Lucy said, instead of at home in their own house. She was
+amused at all this form and ceremony, and came down to the drawing-room
+with a little flush of pleasure and merriment about her, quite different
+from the demure little Lady Randolph, half frightened and very serious,
+with the weight on her mind of a strange language to be spoken, who but
+for Sir Tom's intervention would have been standing by the fire awaiting
+her visitor. The Dowager was downstairs before her, looking grave
+enough, and Jock, slim and dark, supporting a corner of the mantelpiece,
+like a young Caryatides in black. Lucy's brightness, her pretty shimmer
+of blue, the flower in her hair, relieved these depressing influences.
+She stood in the firelight with the ruddy irregular glare playing on
+her, a pretty youthful figure; and her husband's assiduities, and the
+entire cessation of any apparent consciousness on his part that any
+question had ever arisen between them, made Lucy's heart light in her
+breast. She forgot even the possibility of having to talk French in the
+ease of her mind; and before she had time to remember her former alarm
+there came gliding through the subdued light of the greater drawing-room
+two figures. Sir Tom stepped forward to meet the stranger, who gave him
+her hand as if she saw him for the first time, and Lucy advanced with a
+little tremor. Here was the Contessa--the Forno-Populo--the foreign
+great lady and great beauty at last.
+
+She was tall--almost as tall as Sir Tom--and had the majestic grace
+which only height can give. She was clothed in dark velvet, which fell
+in long folds to her feet, and her hair, which seemed very abundant, was
+much dressed with puffs and curlings and frizzings, which filled Lucy
+with wonder, but furnished a delicate frame-work for her beautiful,
+clear, high features, and the wonderful tint of her complexion--a sort
+of warm ivory, which made all brighter colours look excessive. Her eyes
+were large and blue, with long but not very dark eyelashes; her throat
+was like a slender column out of a close circle of feathery lace. Lucy,
+who had a great deal of natural taste, felt on the moment a thrill of
+shame on account of her blue gown, and an almost disgust of Lady
+Randolph's old-fashioned openness about the shoulders. The stranger was
+one of those women whose dress always impresses other women with such a
+sense of fitness that fashion itself looks vulgar or insipid beside her.
+She gave Sir Tom her left hand in passing, and then she turned with both
+extended to Lucy. "So this is the little wife," she said. She did not
+pause for the modest little word of welcome which Lucy had prepared. She
+drew her into the light, and gazed at her with benignant but dauntless
+inspection, taking in, Lucy felt sure, every particular of her
+appearance--the something too much of the blue gown, the deficiency of
+dignity, the insignificance of the smooth fair locks, and open if
+somewhat anxious countenance. "_Bel enfant_," said the Contessa, "your
+husband and I are such old friends that I cannot meet you as a stranger.
+You must let me kiss you, and accept me as one of yours too." The
+salutation that followed made Lucy's heart jump with mingled pleasure
+and distaste. She was swallowed up altogether in that embrace. When it
+was over, the lady turned from her to Sir Tom without another word. "I
+congratulate you, _mon ami_. Candour itself, and sweetness, and every
+English quality"--upon which she proceeded to seat herself in the chair
+which Lucy had set for her in the afternoon with the screen and the
+footstool. "How thoughtful some one has been for my comfort," she said,
+sinking into it, and distributing a gracious smile all round. There was
+something in the way in which she seized the central place in the scene,
+and made all the others look like surroundings which bewildered Lucy,
+who did nothing but gaze, forgetting everything she meant to say, and
+even that it was she who was the mistress of the house.
+
+"You do not see my aunt, Contessa," said Sir Tom, "and yet I think you
+ought to know each other."
+
+"Your aunt," said the Contessa, looking round, "that dear Lady
+Randolph--who is now Dowager. Chere dame!" she added, half rising,
+holding out again both hands.
+
+Lady Randolph the elder knew the world better than Lucy. She remained in
+the background into which the Contessa was looking with eyes which she
+called shortsighted. "How do you do, Madame di Forno-Populo!" she said.
+"It is a long time since we met. We have both grown older since that
+period. I hope you have recovered from your fatigue."
+
+The Contessa sank back again into her chair. "Ah, _both_, yes!" she
+said, with an eloquent movement of her hands. At this Sir Tom gave vent
+to a faint chuckle, as if he could not contain himself any longer.
+
+"The passage of time is a myth," he said; "it is a fable; it goes the
+other way. To look at you----"
+
+"Both!" said the Contessa, with a soft, little laugh, spreading out her
+beautiful hands.
+
+Lucy hoped that Lady Randolph, who had kept behind, did not hear this
+last monosyllable, but she was angry with her husband for laughing, for
+abandoning his aunt's side, upon which she herself, astonished, ranged
+herself without delay. But what was still more surprising to Lucy, with
+her old-fashioned politeness, was to see the second stranger who had
+followed the Contessa into the room, but who had not been introduced or
+noticed. She had the air of being very young--a dependent probably, and
+looking for no attention--and with a little curtsey to the company,
+withdrew to the other side of the table on which the lamp was standing.
+Lucy had only time to see that there was a second figure, very slim and
+slight, and that the light of the lamp seemed to reflect itself in the
+soft oval of a youthful face as she passed behind it; but save for this
+noiseless movement the young lady gave not the smallest sign of
+existence, nor did any one notice her. And it was only when the summons
+came to dinner, and when Lucy called forth the bashful Jock to offer his
+awkward arm to Lady Randolph, that the unannounced and unconsidered
+guest came fully into sight.
+
+"There are no more gentlemen, and I think we must go in together," Lucy
+said.
+
+"It is a great honour for me," said the girl. She had a very slight
+foreign accent, but she was not in the least shy. She came forward at
+once with the utmost composure. Though she was a stranger and a
+dependent without a name, she was a great deal more at her ease than
+Lucy was, who was the mistress of everything. Lucy for her part was
+considerably embarrassed. She looked at the girl, who smiled at her, not
+without a little air of encouragement and almost patronage in return.
+
+"I have not heard your name," Lucy at last prevailed upon herself to
+say, as they went through the long drawing-room together. "It is very
+stupid of me; but I was occupied with Madame di Forno-Populo----"
+
+"You could not hear it, for it was never mentioned," said the girl. "The
+Contessa does not think it worth while. I am at present in the cocoon.
+If I am pretty enough when I am quite grown up, then she will tell my
+name----"
+
+"Pretty enough? But what does that matter? one does not talk of such
+things," said the decorous little matron, startled and alarmed.
+
+"Oh, it means everything to me," said the anonymous. "It is doubtful
+what I shall be. If I am only a little pretty I shall be sent home; but
+if it should happen to me--ah! no such luck!--to be beautiful, then the
+Contessa will introduce me, and everybody says I may go far--farther,
+indeed, than even she has ever done. Where am I to sit? Beside you?"
+
+"Here, please," said Lucy, trembling a little, and confounded by the
+ease of this new actor on the scene, who spoke so frankly. She was
+dressed in a little black frock up to her throat; her hair in great
+shining bands coiled about her head, but not an ornament of any kind
+about her. A little charity girl could not have been dressed more
+plainly. But she showed no consciousness of this, nor, indeed, of
+anything that was embarrassing. She looked round the table with a free
+and fearless look. There was not about her any appearance of timidity,
+even in respect to the Contessa. She included that lady in her
+inspection as well as the others, and even made a momentary pause before
+she sat down, to complete her survey. Lucy, who had on ordinary
+occasions a great deal of gentle composure, and had sat with a Cabinet
+Minister by her side without feeling afraid, was more disconcerted than
+it would be easy to say by this young creature, of whom she did not know
+the name. It was so small a party that a separate little conversation
+with her neighbour was scarcely practicable, but the Contessa was
+talking to Sir Tom with the confidential air of one who has a great deal
+to say, and Lady Randolph on his other side was keeping a stern silence,
+so that Lucy was glad to make a little attempt at her end of the table.
+
+"You must have had a very fatiguing journey?" she said. "Travelling by
+night, when you are not used to it----"
+
+"But we are quite used to it," said the girl. "It is our usual way. By
+land it is so much easier: and even at sea one goes to bed, and one is
+at the other side before one knows."
+
+"Then you are a good sailor, I suppose----"
+
+"_Pas mal_," said the young lady. She began to look at Jock, and to
+turn round from time to time to the elder Lady Randolph, who sat on the
+other side of her. "They are not dumb, are they?" she asked. "Not once
+have I heard them speak. That is very English, so like what one reads in
+books."
+
+"You speak English very well, Mademoiselle," said the Dowager suddenly.
+
+The girl turned round and examined her with a candid surprise. "I am so
+glad you do," she said calmly: a little _mot_ which brought the colour
+to Lady Randolph's cheeks.
+
+"A pupil of the Contessa naturally knows a good many languages," she
+said, "and would be little at a loss wherever she went. You have come
+last from Florence, Rome, or perhaps some other capital. The Contessa
+has friends everywhere--still."
+
+This last little syllable caught the Contessa's fine ear, though it was
+not directed to her. She gave the Dowager a very gracious smile across
+the table. "Still," she repeated, "everywhere! People are so kind. My
+invitations are so many it was with difficulty I managed to accept that
+of our excellent Tom. But I had made up my mind not to disappoint him
+nor his dear young wife. I was not prepared for the pleasure of finding
+your ladyship here."
+
+"How fortunate that you were able to manage it! I have been
+complimenting Mademoiselle on her English. She does credit to her
+instructors. Tell me, is this your first visit," Lady Randolph said,
+turning to the young lady "to England?" Even in this innocent question
+there was more than met the eye. The girl, however, had begun to make a
+remark to Lucy, and thus evaded it in the most easy way.
+
+"I saw you come home soon after our arrival," she said. "I was at my
+window. You came with--Monsieur----" She cast a glance at Jock as she
+spoke, with a smile in her eyes that was not without its effect. There
+was a little provocation in it, which an older man would have known how
+to answer. But Jock, in the awkwardness of his youth, blushed fiery red,
+and turned away his gaze, which, indeed, had been dwelling upon her with
+an absorbed but shy attention. The boy had never seen anything at all
+like her before.
+
+"My brother," said Lucy, and the young lady gave him a beaming smile and
+bow which made Jock's head turn round. He did not know how to reply to
+it, whether he ought not to get up to answer her salutation; and being
+so uncertain and abashed and excited, he did nothing at all, but gazed
+again with an absorption which was not uncomplimentary. She gave him
+from time to time a little encouraging glance.
+
+"That was what I thought. You drive out always at that early hour in
+England, and always with--Monsieur?" The girl laughed now, looking at
+him, so that Jock longed to say something witty and clever. Oh, why was
+not MTutor here? He would have known the sort of thing to say.
+
+"Oh not, not always with Jock," Lucy answered, with honest
+matter-of-fact. "He is still at school, and we have him only for the
+holidays. Perhaps you don't know what that means?"
+
+"The holidays? yes, I know. Monsieur, no doubt, is at one of the great
+schools that are nowhere but in England, where they stay till they are
+men."
+
+"We stay," said Jock, making an almost convulsive effort, "till we are
+nineteen. We like to stay as long as we can."
+
+"How innocent," said the girl with a pretty elderly look of superiority
+and patronage; and then she burst into a laugh, which neither Lucy nor
+Jock knew how to take, and turned back again in the twinkling of an eye
+to Lady Randolph, who had relapsed into silence. "And you drive in the
+afternoon," she said. "I have already made my observations. And the baby
+in the middle, between. And Sir Tom always. He goes out and he goes in,
+and one sees him continually. I already know all the habits of the
+house."
+
+"You were not so very tired, then, after all. Why did you not come down
+stairs and join us in what we were doing?"
+
+The young lady did not make any articulate reply, but her answer was
+clear enough. She cast a glance across the table to the Contessa, and
+laid her hand upon her own cheek. Lucy was a little mystified by this
+pantomime, but to Lady Randolph there was no difficulty about it. "That
+is easily understood," she said, "when one is _sur le retour_. But the
+same precautions are not necessary with all."
+
+A smile came upon the girl's lip. "I am sympathetic," she said. "Oh,
+troppo! I feel just like those that I am with. It is sometimes a
+trouble, and sometimes it is an advantage." This was to Lucy like the
+utterance of an oracle, and she understood it not.
+
+"Another time," she said kindly, "you must not only observe us from the
+window, but come down and share what we are doing. Jock will show you
+the park and the grounds, and I will take you to the village. It is
+quite a pretty village, and the cottages are very nice now."
+
+The young stranger's eyes blazed with intelligence. She seemed to
+perceive everything at a glance.
+
+"I know the village," she said, "it is at the park gates, and Milady
+takes a great deal of trouble that all is nice in the cottages. And
+there is an old woman that knows all about the family, and tells legends
+of it; and a school and a church, and many other _objets-de-piete_. I
+know it like that," she cried, holding out the pretty pink palm of her
+hand.
+
+"This information is preternatural," said Lady Randolph. "You are
+astonished, Lucy. Mademoiselle is a sorceress. I am sure that Jock
+thinks so. Nothing save an alliance with something diabolical could have
+made her so well instructed, she who has never been in England before."
+
+"Do you ask how I know all that?" the girl said laughing. "Then I
+answer, novels. It is all Herr Tauchnitz and his pretty books."
+
+"And so you really never were in England before--not even as a baby?"
+Lady Randolph said.
+
+The girl's gaiety had attracted even the pair at the other end of the
+table, who had so much to say to each other. The Contessa and Sir Tom
+exchanged a look, which Lucy remarked with a little surprise, and
+remarked in spite of herself: and the great lady interfered to help her
+young dependent out.
+
+"How glad I am to give her that advantage, dear lady! It is the crown of
+the petite's education. In England she finds the most fine manners, as
+well as villages full of _objets-de-piete_. It is what is needful to
+form her," the Contessa said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA.
+
+
+"Come and sit beside me and tell me everything," said the Contessa. She
+had appropriated the little sofa next the fire where Lady Randolph
+generally sat in the evening. She had taken Lucy's arm on the way from
+the dining-room, and drew her with her to this corner. Nothing could be
+more caressing or tender than her manner. She seemed to be conferring
+the most delightful of favours as she drew towards her the mistress of
+the house. "You have been married--how long? Six years! But it is
+impossible! And you have all the freshness of a child. And very happy?"
+she said smiling upon Lucy. She had not a fault in her pronunciation,
+but when she uttered these two words she gave a little roll of the "r"
+as if she meant to assume a defect which she had not, and smiled with a
+tender benevolence in which there was the faintest touch of derision.
+Lucy did not make out what it was, but she felt that something lay under
+the dazzling of that smile. She allowed the stranger to draw her to the
+sofa, and sat down by her.
+
+"Yes, it is six years," she said.
+
+"And ver--r--y happy?" the Contessa repeated. "I am sure that dear Tom
+is a model husband. I have known him a very long time. Has he told you
+about me?"
+
+"That you were an old friend," said Lucy, looking at her. "Oh yes! The
+only thing is, that we are so much afraid you will find the country
+dull."
+
+The Contessa replied only with an eloquent look and a pressure of the
+hand. Her eyes were quite capable of expressing their meaning without
+words; and Lucy felt that she had guessed her rightly.
+
+"We wished to have a party to meet you," Lucy said, "but the baby fell
+ill--and I thought as you had kindly come so far to see Tom, you would
+not mind if you found us alone."
+
+The lady still made no direct reply. She said after a little pause,
+
+"The country is very dull----" still smiling upon Lucy, and allowed a
+full minute to pass without another word. Then she added, "And
+Milady?--is she always with you?"--with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
+She did not even lower her voice to prevent Lady Randolph from hearing,
+but gave Lucy's hand a special pressure, and fixed upon her a
+significant look.
+
+"Oh! Aunt Randolph?" cried Lucy. "Oh no; she is only paying her usual
+Christmas visit."
+
+The Contessa drew a sigh of relief, and laid her other delicate hand
+upon her breast. "You take a load off my heart," she said; then gliding
+gracefully from the subject, "And that excellent Tom----? you met
+him--in society?"
+
+Lucy did not quite like the questioning, or those emphatic pressures of
+her hand. She said quickly, "We met at Lady Randolph's. I was living
+there."
+
+"Oh--I see," the stranger said, and she gave vent to a little gentle
+laugh. "I see!" Her meaning was entirely unknown to Lucy; but she felt
+an indefinable offence. She made a slight effort to withdraw her hand;
+but this the Contessa would not permit. She pressed the imprisoned
+fingers more closely in her own. "You do not like this questioning.
+Pardon! I had forgotten English ways. It is because I hope you will let
+me be your friend too."
+
+"Oh yes," cried Lucy, ashamed of her own hesitation, yet feeling every
+moment more reluctant. She subdued her rising distaste with an effort.
+"I hope," she said, sweetly, "that we shall be able to make you feel at
+home, Madame di Forno-Populo. If there is anything you do not like, will
+you tell me? Had I been at home I should have chosen other rooms for
+you."
+
+"They are so pretty, those words, 'at home!' so English," the Contessa
+said, with smiles that were more and more sweet. "But it will fatigue
+you to call me all that long name."
+
+"Oh no!" cried Lucy, with a vivid blush. She did not know what to say,
+whether this meant a little derision of her careful pronunciation, or
+what it was. She went on, after a little pause, "But if you are not
+quite comfortable the other rooms can be got ready directly. It was the
+housekeeper who thought the rooms you have would be the warmest."
+
+The Contessa gave her another gentle pressure of the hand. "Everything
+is perfect," she said. "The house and the wife, and all. I may call you
+Lucy? You are so fresh and young. How do you keep that pretty bloom
+after six years--did you say six years? Ah! the English are always those
+that wear best. You are not afraid of a great deal of light--no? but it
+is trying sometimes. Shades are an advantage. And he has not spoken to
+you of me, that dear Tom? There was a time when he talked much of
+me--oh, much--constantly! He was young then--and," she said with a
+little sigh--"so was I. He was perhaps not handsome, but he was
+distinguished. Many Englishmen are so who have no beauty, no
+handsomeness, as you say, and English women also, though that is more
+rare. And you are ver-r-y happy?" the Contessa asked again. She said it
+with a smile that was quite dazzling, but yet had just the faintest
+touch of ridicule in it, and rippled over into a little laugh. "When we
+know each other better I will betray all his little secrets to you," she
+said.
+
+This was so very injudicious on the part of an old friend, that a wiser
+person than Lucy would have divined some malign meaning in it. But Lucy,
+though suppressing an instinctive distrust, took no notice, not even in
+her thoughts. It was not necessary for her to divine or try to divine
+what people meant; she took what they said, simply, without requiring
+interpretation. "He has told me a great deal," she said. "I think I
+almost know his journeys by heart." Then Lucy carried the war into the
+enemy's country without realising what she was doing. "You will think it
+very stupid of me," she said, "but I did not hear Mademoiselle,--the
+young lady's name?"
+
+The Contessa's eyes dwelt meditatively upon Lucy: she patted her hand
+and smiled upon her, as if every other subject was irrelevant. "And he
+has taken you into society?" she said, continuing her examination. "How
+delightful is that English domesticity. You go everywhere together?" She
+had no appearance of having so much as heard Lucy's question. "And you
+do not fear that he will find it dull in the country? You have the
+confidence of being enough for him? How sweet for me to find the
+happiness of my friend so assured. And now I shall share it for a
+little. You will make us all happy. Dear child!" said the lady with
+enthusiasm, drawing Lucy to her and kissing her forehead. Then she broke
+into a pretty laugh. "You will work for your poor, and I, who am good
+for nothing--I shall take out my _tapisserie_, and he will read to us
+while we work. What a tableau!" cried the Contessa. "Domestic happiness,
+which one only tastes in England. The Eden before the fall!"
+
+It was at this moment that the gentlemen, _i.e._ Sir Tom and Jock,
+appeared out of the dining-room. They had not lingered long after the
+ladies. Sir Tom had been somewhat glum after they left. His look of
+amusement was not so lively. He said sententiously, not so much to Jock
+as to himself, "That woman is bent on mischief," and got up and walked
+about the room instead of taking his wine. Then he laughed and turned to
+Jock, who was musing over his orange skins. "When you get a fellow into
+your house that is not much good--I suppose it must happen
+sometimes--that knows too much and puts the young ones up to tricks,
+what do you do with him, most noble Captain? Come, you find out a lot of
+things for yourselves, you boys. Tell me what you do."
+
+Jock was a little startled by this demand, but he rose to the occasion.
+"It has happened," he said. "You know, unless a fellow's been awfully
+bad, you can't always keep him out."
+
+"And what then?" said Sir Tom. "MTutor sets his great wits to work?"
+
+"I hope, sir," cried Jock, "that you don't think I would trouble MTutor,
+who has enough on his hands without that. I made great friends with the
+fellow myself. You know," said the lad, looking up with splendid
+confidence, "he couldn't harm _me_----"
+
+Sir Tom looked at him with a little drawing of his breath, such as the
+experienced sometimes feel as they look at the daring of the
+innocent--but with a smile, too.
+
+"When he tried it on with me, I just kicked him," said Jock, calmly;
+"once was enough; he didn't do it again; for naturally he stood a bit in
+awe of me. Then I kept him that he hadn't a moment to himself. It was
+the football half, when you've not got much time to spare all day. And
+in the evenings he had poenas and things. When he got with two or three
+of the others, one of us would just be loafing about, and call out
+'Hallo, what's up?' He never had any time to go wrong, and then he got
+to find out it didn't pay."
+
+"Philosopher! sage!" cried Sir Tom. "It is you that should teach us;
+but, alas, my boy, have you never found out that even that last argument
+fails to tell--and that they don't mind even if it doesn't pay?"
+
+He sighed as he spoke; then laughed out, and added, "I can at all events
+try the first part of your programme. Come along and let's cry, Hallo!
+what's up? It simplifies matters immensely, though," said Sir Tom, with
+a serious face, "when you can kick the fellow you disapprove of in that
+charming candid way. Guard the privilege; it is invaluable, Jock."
+
+"Well," said Jock, "some fellows think it's brutal, you know. MTutor he
+always says try argument first. But I just want to know how are you to
+do your duty, captain of a big house, unless it's known that you will
+just kick 'em when they're beastly. When it's known, even _that_ does a
+deal of good."
+
+"Every thing you say confirms my opinion of your sense," said Sir Tom,
+taking the boy by the arm, "but also of your advantages, Jock, my boy.
+We cannot act, you see, in that straightforward manner, more's the
+pity, in the world; but I shall try the first part of your programme,
+and act on your advice," he said, as they walked into the room where the
+ladies were awaiting them. The smaller room looked very warm and bright
+after the large, dimly-lighted one through which they had passed. The
+Contessa, in her tender conference with Lucy, formed a charming group in
+the middle of the picture. Lady Randolph sat by, exiled out of her usual
+place, with an illustrated magazine in her hand, and an air of quick
+watchfulness about her, opposite to them. She was looking on like a
+spectator at a play. In the background behind the table, on which stood
+a large lamp, was the Contessa's companion, with her back turned to the
+rest, lightly flitting from picture to picture, examining everything.
+She had been entirely careless of the action of the piece, but she
+turned round at the voices of the new-comers, as if her attention was
+aroused.
+
+"You are going to take somebody's advice?" said the Contessa. "That is
+something new; come here at once and explain. To do so is due to
+your--wife; yes, to your wife. An Englishman tells every thought to his
+wife; is it not so? Oh yes, _mon ami_, your sweet little wife and I are
+the best of friends. It is for life," she said, looking with
+inexpressible sentiment in Lucy's face, and pressing her hands. Then,
+was it possible? a flash of intelligence flew from her eyes to those of
+Sir Tom, and she burst into a laugh and clapped her beautiful hands
+together. "He is so ridiculous, he makes one laugh at everything," she
+cried.
+
+Lucy remained very serious, with a somewhat forced smile upon her face,
+between these two, looking from one to another.
+
+"Nay, if you have come the length of swearing eternal friendship----"
+said Sir Tom.
+
+Jock did not know what to do with himself. He began by stumbling over
+Lady Randolph's train, which though carefully coiled about her, was so
+long and so substantial that it got in his way. In getting out of its
+way he almost stumbled against the slim, straight figure of the girl,
+who stood behind surveying the company. She met his awkward apology with
+a smile. "It doesn't matter," she said, "I am so glad you are come. I
+had nobody to talk to." Then she made a little pause, regarding him with
+a bright, impartial look, as if weighing all his qualities. "Don't you
+talk?" she said. "Do you prefer not to say anything? because I know how
+to behave: I will not trouble you if it is so. In England there are some
+who do not say anything?" she added with an inquiring look. Jock, who
+was conscious of blushing all over from top to toe, ventured a glance at
+her, to which she replied by a peal of laughter, very merry but very
+subdued, in which, in spite of himself, he was obliged to join.
+
+"So you can laugh!" she said; "oh, that is well; for otherwise I should
+not know how to live. We must laugh low, not to make any noise and
+distract the old ones; but still, one must live. Tell me, you are the
+brother of Madame--Should I say Milady? In my novels they never do, but
+I do not know if the novels are just or not."
+
+"The servants say my lady, but no one else," said Jock.
+
+"How fine that is," the young lady said admiringly, "in a moment to have
+it all put right. I am glad we came to England; we say mi-ladi and
+mi-lord as if that was the name of every one here; but it is not so in
+the books. You are, perhaps Sir? like Sir Tom--or you are----"
+
+"I am Trevor, that is all," said Jock with a blush; "I am nobody in
+particular: that is, here"--he added with a momentary gleam of natural
+importance.
+
+"Ah!" cried the young lady, "I understand--you are a great person at
+home."
+
+Jock had no wish to deceive, but he could not prevent a smile from
+creeping about the corners of his mouth. "Not a great person at all," he
+said, not wishing to boast.
+
+The young stranger, who was so curious about all her new surroundings,
+formed her own conclusion. She had been brought up in an atmosphere full
+of much knowledge, but also of theories which were but partially
+tenable. She interpreted Jock according to her own ideas, which were not
+at all suited to his case; but it was impossible that she could know
+that.
+
+"I am finding people out," she said to him. "You are the only one that
+is young like me. Let us form an alliance--while the old ones are
+working out all their plans and fighting it out among themselves."
+
+"Fighting it out! I know some that are not likely to fight," cried Jock,
+bewildered.
+
+"Was not that right?" said the girl, distressed. "I thought it was an
+_idiotisme_, as the French say. Ah! they are always fighting. Look at
+them now! The Contessa, she is on the war-path. That is an American
+word. I have a little of all languages. Madame, you will see--ah, that
+is what you meant!--does not understand, she looks from one to another.
+She is silent, but Sir Tom, he knows everything. And the old lady, she
+sees it too. I have gone through so many dramas, I am blasee. It
+wearies at last, but yet it is exciting too. I ask myself what is going
+to be done here? You have heard perhaps of the Contessa in England,
+Mr.----"
+
+"Trevor," said Jock.
+
+"And you pronounce it just like this--Mis-ter? I want to know; for
+perhaps I shall have to stay here. There is not known very much about
+me. Nor do I know myself. But if the Contessa finds for me---- I am quite
+mad," said the girl suddenly. "I am telling you--and of course it is a
+secret. The old lady watches the Contessa to see what it is she intends.
+But I do not myself know what the Contessa intends--except in respect to
+me."
+
+Jock was too shy to inquire what that was: and he was confused with this
+unusual confidence. Young ladies had not been in the habit of opening to
+him their secrets; indeed he had little experience of these kind of
+creatures at all. She looked at him as she spoke as if she wished to
+provoke him to inquiry--with a gaze that was very open and withal bold,
+yet innocent too. And Jock, on his side, was as entirely innocent as if
+he had been a Babe in the Wood.
+
+"Don't you want to know what she is going to do with me, and why she has
+brought me?" the girl said, talking so quickly that he could scarcely
+follow the stream of words. "I was not invited, and I am not introduced,
+and no one knows anything of me. Don't you want to know why I am here?"
+
+Jock followed the movements of her lips, the little gestures of her
+hands, which were almost as eloquent, with eyes that were confused by so
+great a call upon them. He could not make any reply, but only gazed at
+her, entranced, as he had never been in his life before, and so anxious
+not to lose the hurried words, the quick flash of the small white hands
+against her dark dress, that his mind had not time to make out what she
+meant.
+
+Lucy on her side sat between her husband and the Contessa for some time,
+listening to their conversation. That was more rapid, too, than she was
+used to, and it was full of allusions, understood when they were
+half-said by the others, which to her were all darkness. She tried to
+follow them with a wistful sort of smile, a kind of painful homage to
+the Contessa's soft laugh and the ready response of Sir Tom. She tried
+too, to follow, and share the brightening interest of his face, the
+amusement and eagerness of his listening; but by and by she got chilled,
+she knew not how--the smile grew frozen upon her face, her comprehension
+seemed to fail altogether. She got up softly after a while from her
+corner of the sofa, and neither her husband nor her guest took any
+particular notice. She came across the room to Lady Randolph, and drew a
+low chair beside her, and asked her about the pictures in the magazine
+which she was still holding in her hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+AN ANXIOUS CRITIC.
+
+
+In a few days after the arrival of Madame di Forno-Populo, there was
+almost an entire change of aspect at the Hall. Nobody could tell how
+this change had come about. It was involuntary, unconscious, yet
+complete. The Contessa came quietly into the foreground. She made no
+demonstration of power, and claimed no sort of authority. She never
+accosted the mistress of the house without tender words and caresses.
+Her attitude towards Lucy, indeed, was that of an admiring relation to a
+delightful and promising child. She could not sufficiently praise and
+applaud her. When she spoke, her visitor turned towards her with the
+most tender of smiles. In whatsoever way the Contessa was occupied, she
+never failed when she heard Lucy's voice to turn round upon her, to
+bestow this smile, to murmur a word of affectionate approval. When they
+were near enough to each other, she would take her hand and press it
+with affectionate emotion. The other members of the household, except
+Sir Tom, she scarcely noticed at all. The Dowager Lady Randolph
+exchanged with her now and then a few words of polite defiance, but that
+was all. And she had not been long at the Hall before her position there
+was more commanding than that of Lady Randolph. Insensibly all the
+customs of the house changed for her. There was no question as to who
+was the centre of conversation in the evening. Sir Tom went to the sofa
+from which she had so cleverly ousted his aunt, as soon as he came in
+after dinner, and leaning over her with his arm on the mantelpiece, or
+drawing a chair beside her, would laugh and talk with endless spirit and
+amusement. When he talked of the people in the neighbourhood who
+afforded scope for satire, she would tap him with her fan and say, "Why
+do I not see these originals? bring them to see me," to Lucy's wonder
+and often dismay. "They would not amuse you at all," Sir Tom would
+reply, upon which the lady would turn and call Lucy to her. "My little
+angel! he pretends that it is he that is so clever, that he creates
+these characters. We do not believe him, my Lucy, do we? Ask them, ask
+them, _cara_, then we shall judge."
+
+In this way the house was filled evening after evening. A reign of
+boundless hospitality seemed to have begun. The other affairs of the
+house slipped aside, and to provide amusement for the Contessa became
+the chief object of life. She had everybody brought to see her, from the
+little magnates of Farafield to the Duchess herself, and the greatest
+people in the county. The nursery, which had been so much, perhaps too
+much, in the foreground, regulating the whole great household according
+as little Tom was better or worse, was thrust altogether into the
+shadow. If neglect was wholesome, then he had that advantage. Even his
+mother could do no more than run furtively to him, as she did about a
+hundred times a day in the intervals of her duties. His little mendings
+and fallings back ceased to be the chief things in the house. His
+father, indeed, would play with his child in the mornings when he was
+brought to Lucy's room; but the burden of his remarks was to point out
+to her how much better the little beggar got on when there was less fuss
+made about him. And Lucy's one grievance against her visitor, the only
+one which she permitted herself to perceive, was that she never took any
+notice of little Tom. She never asked for him, a thing which was
+unexampled in Lucy's experience. When he was produced she smiled,
+indeed, but contemplated him at a distance. The utmost stretch of
+kindness she had ever shown was to touch his cheek with a finger
+delicately when he was carried past her. Lucy made theories in her mind
+about this, feeling it necessary to account in some elaborate way for
+what was so entirely out of nature. "I know what it must be--she must
+have lost her own," she said to her husband. Sir Tom's countenance was
+almost convulsed by one of those laughs, which he now found it expedient
+to suppress, but he only replied that he had never heard of such an
+event. "Ah! it must have been before you knew her; but she has never got
+it out of her mind," Lucy cried. That hypothesis explained everything.
+At this time it is scarcely necessary to say Lucy was with her whole
+soul trying to be "very fond," as she expressed it, of the Contessa.
+There were some things about her which startled young Lady Randolph. For
+one thing, she would go out shooting with Sir Tom, and was as good a
+shot as any of the gentlemen. This wounded Lucy terribly, and took her a
+great effort to swallow. It went against all her traditions. With her
+bourgeois education she hated sport, and even in her husband with
+difficulty made up her mind to it; but that a woman should go forth and
+slay was intolerable.
+
+There were other things besides which were a mystery to her. Lady
+Randolph's invariably defiant attitude for one, and the curious aspect
+of the Duchess when suddenly brought face to face with the stranger. It
+appeared that they were old friends, which astonished Lucy, but not so
+much as the great lady's bewildered look when Madame di Forno-Populo
+went up to her. It seemed for a moment as if the shock was too much for
+her. She stammered and shook through all her dignity and greatness, as
+she exclaimed. "_You_! here?" in two distinct outcries, gazing appalled
+into the smiling and beautiful face before her. But then the Duchess
+came to, after a while. She seemed to get over her surprise, which was
+more than surprise. All these things disturbed Lucy. She did not know
+what to make of them. She was uneasy at the change that had been
+wrought upon her own household, which she did not understand. Yet it was
+all perfectly simple, she said to herself. It was Tom's duty to devote
+himself to the stranger. It was the duty of both as hosts to procure for
+her such amusement as was to be found. These were things of which Lucy
+convinced herself by various half unconscious processes of argument. But
+it was necessary to renew these arguments from time to time, to keep
+possession of them in order to feel their force as she wished to do. She
+said nothing to her husband on the subject, with an instinctive sense
+that it would be very difficult to handle. And Sir Tom, too, avoided it.
+But it was impossible to pursue the same reticence with Lady Randolph,
+who now and then insisted on opening it up. When the end of her visit
+arrived she sent for Lucy into her own room, to speak to her seriously.
+She said--
+
+"My dear, I am due to-morrow at the Maltravers', as you know. It is a
+visit I like to pay, they are always so nice; but I cannot bear the
+thought of going off, Lucy, to enjoy myself and leaving you alone."
+
+"Alone, Aunt Randolph!" cried Lucy, "when Tom is at home!"
+
+"Oh, Tom! I have no patience with Tom," cried the Dowager. "I think he
+must be mad to let that woman come upon you so. Of course you know very
+well, my dear, it is of her that I want to speak. In the country it does
+not so much matter; but you must not let her identify herself with you,
+Lucy, in town."
+
+"In town!" Lucy said with a little dismay; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, it
+will be six weeks before we go to town; and, surely, long before
+that----" She paused, and blushed with a sense of the inhospitality
+involved in her words, which made Lucy ashamed of herself.
+
+"You think so?" said Lady Randolph, smiling somewhat grimly. "Well, we
+shall see. For my part, I think she will find Park Lane a very desirable
+situation, and if you do not take the greatest care---- But why should I
+speak to you of taking care? Of course, if Tom wished it, you would take
+in all Bohemia, and never say a word----"
+
+"Surely," said Lucy, looking with serene eyes in the elder lady's face,
+"I do not know what you mean by Bohemia, Aunt Randolph; but if you think
+it possible that I should object when Tom asks his friends----"
+
+"Oh--his friends! I have no patience with you, either the one or the
+other," said the old lady. "When Sir Robert was living, do you think it
+was he who invited _my_ guests? I should think not indeed! especially
+the women. If that was to be the case, marriage would soon become an
+impossibility. And is it possible, Lucy, is it possible that you, with
+your good sense, can like all that petting and coaxing, and the way she
+talks to you as if you were a child?"
+
+As a matter of fact Lucy had not been able to school herself into liking
+it; but when the objection was stated so plainly, she coloured high with
+a vexation and annoyance which were very grievous and hard to bear. It
+seemed to her that it would be disloyal both to her husband and her
+guest if she complained, and at the same time Lady Randolph's shot went
+straight to the mark. She did her best to smile, but it was not a very
+easy task.
+
+"You have always taught me, Aunt Randolph," she said with great
+astuteness, "that I ought not to judge of the manners of strangers by
+my own little rules--especially of foreigners," she added, with a sense
+of her own cleverness which half comforted her amid other feelings not
+agreeable. It was seldom that Lucy felt any sense of triumph in her own
+powers.
+
+"Foreigners?" said Lady Randolph, with disdain. But then she stopped
+short with a pause of indignation. "That woman," she said, which was the
+only name she ever gave the visitor, "has some scheme in her head you
+may be sure. I do not know what it is. It would not do her any good that
+I can see to increase her hold upon Tom."
+
+"Upon Tom!" cried Lucy. It was her turn now to be indignant. "I don't
+know what you mean, Aunt Randolph," she said. "I cannot think that you
+want to make me--uncomfortable. There are some things I do not like in
+Madame di Forno-Populo. She is--different; but she is my husband's
+friend. If you mean that they will become still greater friends seeing
+more of each other, that is natural. For why should you be friends at
+all unless you like each other? And that Tom likes her must be just a
+proof that I am wrong. It is my ignorance. Perhaps the wisest way would
+be to say nothing more about it," young Lady Randolph concluded,
+briskly, with a sudden smile.
+
+The Dowager looked at her as if she were some wonder in natural history,
+the nature of which it was impossible to divine. She thought she knew
+Lucy very well, but yet had never understood her, it being more
+difficult for a woman of the world to understand absolute
+straightforwardness and simplicity than it is even for the simple to
+understand the worldly. She was silent for a moment and stared at Lucy,
+not knowing what to make of her. At last she resumed as if going on
+without interruption. "But she has some scheme in hand, perhaps in
+respect to the girl. The girl is a very handsome creature, and might
+make a hit if she were properly managed. My belief is that this has been
+her scheme all through. But partly the presence of Tom--an old friend as
+you say of her own--and partly the want of opportunity, has kept it in
+abeyance. That is my idea, Lucy; you can take it for what it is worth.
+And your home will be the headquarters, the centre from which the
+adventuress will carry on----"
+
+"Aunt Randolph!" Lucy's voice was almost loud in the pain and
+indignation that possessed her. She put out her hands as if to stop the
+other's mouth. "You want to make me think she is a wicked woman," she
+said. "And that Tom--Tom----"
+
+Lucy had never permitted suspicion to enter her mind. She did not know
+now what it was that penetrated her innocent soul like an arrow. It was
+not jealousy. It was the wounding suggestion of a possibility which she
+would not and could not entertain.
+
+"Lucy, Tom has no excuse at all," said the Dowager solemnly. "You'll
+believe nothing against him, of course, and I can't possibly wish to
+turn you against him; but I don't suppose he meant all that is likely to
+come out of it. He thought it would be a joke--and in the country what
+could it matter? And then things have never gone so far as that people
+could refuse to receive her, you know. Oh no! the Contessa has her wits
+too much about her for that. But you saw for yourself that the Duchess
+was petrified; and I--not that I am an authority, like her Grace. One
+thing, Lucy, is quite clear, and that I must say; you must not take upon
+yourself to be answerable--you so young as you are and not accustomed to
+society--for _that_ woman, before the world. You must just take your
+courage in both hands, and tell Tom that though you give in to him in
+the country, in town you will not have her. She means to take advantage
+of you, and bring forward her girl, and make a _grand coup_. That is
+what she means--I know that sort of person. It is just the greatest luck
+in the world for them to get hold of some one that is so unexceptionable
+and so unsuspicious as you."
+
+Lady Randolph insisted upon saying all this, notwithstanding the
+interruptions of Lucy. "Now I wash my hands of it," she said. "If you
+won't be advised, I can do no more." It was the day after the great
+dinner when the Duchess had met Madame di Forno-Populo with so much
+surprise. The elder lady had been in much excitement all the evening.
+She had conversed with her Grace apart on several occasions, and from
+the way in which they laid their heads together, and their gestures, it
+was clear enough that their feeling was the same upon the point they
+discussed. All the best people in the county had been collected
+together, and there could be no doubt that the Contessa had achieved a
+great success. She sang as no woman had ever been heard to sing for a
+hundred miles round, and her beauty and her grace and her diamonds had
+been enough to turn the heads of both men and women. It was remarked
+that the Duchess, though she received her with a gasp of astonishment,
+was evidently very well acquainted with the fascinating foreign lady,
+and though there was a little natural and national distrust of her at
+first, as a person too remarkable, and who sang too well for the common
+occasions of life, yet not to gaze at her, watch her, and admire, was
+impossible. Lucy had been gratified with the success of her visitor.
+Even though she was not sure that she was comfortable about her presence
+there at all, she was pleased with the effect she produced. When the
+Contessa sang there suddenly appeared out of the midst of the crowd a
+slim, straight figure in a black gown, which instantly sat down at the
+piano, played the accompaniments, and disappeared again without a word.
+The spectators thronging round the piano saw that this was a girl, as
+graceful and distinguished as the Contessa herself, who passed away
+without a word, and disappeared when her office was accomplished, with a
+smile on her face, but without lingering for a moment or speaking to any
+one; which was a pretty bit of mystery too.
+
+All this had happened on the night before Lady Randolph's summons to
+Lucy. It was in the air that the party at the Hall was to break up after
+the great entertainment; the Dowager was going, as she had said, to the
+Maltravers'; Jock was going back to school; and though no limit of
+Madame di Forno-Populo's visit had been mentioned, still it was natural
+that she should go when the other people did. She had been a fortnight
+at the Hall. That is long for a visit at a country house where generally
+people are coming and going continually. And Lucy had begun to look
+forward to the time when once more she would be mistress of her own
+house and actions, with all visitors and interruptions gone. She had
+been looking forward to the happy old evenings, the days in which baby
+should be set up again on his domestic throne. The idea that the
+Contessa might not be going away, the suggestion that she might still be
+there when it was time to make the yearly migration to town, chilled the
+very blood in her veins. But it was a thought that she would not dwell
+upon. She would not betray her feeling in this respect to any one. She
+returned the kiss which old Lady Randolph bestowed upon her at the end
+of their interview, very affectionately; for, though she did not always
+agree with her, she was attached to the lady who had been so kind to her
+when she was a friendless little girl. "Thank you, Aunt Randolph, for
+telling me," she said very sweetly, though, indeed, she had no intention
+of taking the Dowager's advice. Lady Randolph went off in the afternoon
+of the next day, for it was a very short journey to the Maltravers',
+where she was going. All the party came out into the hall to see her
+away, the Contessa herself as well as the others. Nothing, indeed, could
+be more cordial than the Contessa. She caught up a shawl and wound it
+round her, elaborately defending herself against the cold, and came out
+to the steps to share in the last farewells.
+
+When Lady Randolph was in the carriage with her maid by her side, and
+her hot-water footstool under her feet, and the coachman waiting his
+signal to drive away, she put out her hand amid her furs to Lucy. "Now
+remember!" Lady Randolph said. It was almost as solemn as the mysterious
+reminder of the dying king to the bishop. But unfortunately, what is
+solemn in certain circumstances may be ludicrous in others. The party in
+the Hall scarcely restrained its merriment till the carriage had driven
+away.
+
+"What awful compact is this between you, Lucy?" Sir Tom said. "Has she
+bound you by a vow to assassinate me in my sleep?"
+
+The Contessa unwound herself out of her shawl, and putting her arm
+caressingly round Lucy, led her back to the drawing-room. "It has
+something to do with me," she said. "Come and tell me all about it."
+Lucy had been disconcerted by Lady Randolph's reminder. She was still
+more disconcerted now.
+
+"It is--something Aunt Randolph wishes me to do in the spring, when we
+go to town," she said.
+
+"Ah! I know what that is," said the Contessa. "They see that you are too
+kind to your husband's friend. Milady would wish you to be more as she
+herself is. I understand her very well. I understand them all, these
+women. They cannot endure me. They see a meaning in everything I do. I
+have not a meaning in everything I do," she added, with a pathetic look,
+which went to Lucy's heart.
+
+"No, no, indeed you are mistaken. It was not that. I am sure you have no
+meaning," said Lucy, vehement and confused.
+
+The Contessa read her innocent _distraite_ countenance like a book, as
+she said--or at least she thought so. She linked her own delicate arm in
+hers, and clasped Lucy's hand. "One day I will tell you why all these
+ladies hate me, my little angel," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.
+
+
+In the meantime something had been going on behind-backs of which nobody
+took much notice. It had been discovered long before this, in the
+family, that the Contessa's young companion had a name like other
+people--that is to say, a Christian name. She was called by the
+Contessa, in the rare moments when she addressed her, Bice--that is to
+say, according to English pronunciation, Beeshee (you would probably
+call it Beetchee if you learned to speak Italian in England, but the
+Contessa had the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth, according to the
+proverb), which, as everybody knows, is the contraction of Beatrice. She
+was called Miss Beachey in the household, a name which was received--by
+the servants at least--as a quite proper and natural name; a great deal
+more sensible than Forno-Populo. Her position, however, in the little
+party was a quite peculiar one. The Contessa took her for granted in a
+way which silenced all inquisitive researches. She gave no explanation
+who she was, or what she was, or why she carried this girl about with
+her. If she was related to herself, if she was a dependent, nobody knew;
+her manner gave no clue at all to the mystery. It was very seldom that
+the two had any conversation whatsoever in the presence of the others.
+Now and then the Contessa would send the girl upon an errand, telling
+her to bring something, with an absence of directions where to find it
+that suggested the most absolute confidence in her young companion. When
+the Contessa sang, Bice, as a matter of course, produced herself at the
+right moment to play her accompaniments, and got herself out of the way,
+noiselessly, instantly, the moment that duty was over. These
+accompaniments were played with an exquisite skill and judgment, an
+exact adaptation to the necessities of the voice, which could only have
+been attained by much and severe study; but she never, save on these
+occasions, was seen to look at a piano. For the greater part of the time
+the girl was invisible. She appeared in the Contessa's train, always in
+her closely-fitting, perfectly plain, black frock, without an ornament,
+at luncheon and dinner, and was present all the evening in the
+drawing-room. But for the rest of the day no one knew what became of
+this young creature, who nevertheless was not shy, nor showed any
+appearance of feeling herself out of place, or uncomfortable in her
+strange position. She looked out upon them all with frank eyes, in which
+it was evident there was no sort of mist, either of timidity or
+ignorance, understanding everything that was said, even allusions which
+puzzled Lucy; always intelligent and observant, though often with a
+shade of that benevolent contempt which the young with difficulty
+prevent themselves from feeling towards their elders. The littleness of
+their jokes and their philosophies was evidently quite apparent to this
+observer, who sat secure in the superiority of sixteen taking in
+everything; for she took in everything, even when she was not doing the
+elder people the honour of attending to what they were saying, with a
+faculty which belongs to that age. Opinions were divided as to Bice's
+beauty. The simpler members of the party, Lucy and Jock, admired her
+least; but such a competent critic as Lady Randolph, who understood what
+was effective, had a great opinion and even respect for her, as of one
+whose capabilities were very great indeed, and who might "go far," as
+she had herself said. As there was so much difference of opinion it is
+only right that the reader should be able to judge, as much as is
+possible, from a description. She was very slight and rather tall, with
+a great deal of the Contessa's grace, moving lightly as if she scarcely
+touched the ground, but like a bird rather than a cat. There was nothing
+in her of the feline grace of which we hear so much. Her movements were
+all direct and rapid; her feet seemed to skim, not to tread, the ground
+with an airy poise, which even when she stood still implied movement,
+always light, untiring, full of energy and impulse. Her eyes were
+gray--if it is possible to call by the name of the dullest of tints
+those two globes of light, now dark, now golden, now liquid with dew,
+and now with flame. Her hair was dusky, of no particular colour, with a
+crispness about the temples; but her complexion--ay, there was the rub.
+Bice had no complexion at all. By times in the evening, in artificial
+light, or when she was excited, there came a little flush to her cheeks,
+which miraculously chased away the shadows from her paleness, and made
+her radiant; but in daylight there could be no doubt that she was
+sallow, sometimes almost olive, though with a soft velvety texture which
+is more often seen on the dark-complexioned through all its gradations
+than on any but the most delicate of white skins. A black baby has a
+bloom upon its little dusky cheek like a purple peach, and this was the
+quality which gave to Bice's sallowness a certain charm. Her hands and
+arms were of the same indefinite tint--not white, whatever they might be
+called. Her throat was slender and beautifully-formed, but shared the
+same deficiency of colour. It is impossible to say how much disappointed
+Lucy was in the young stranger's appearance after the first evening. She
+had thought her very pretty, and she now thought her plain. To remember
+what the girl had said of her chances if she turned out beautiful filled
+her with a sort of pitying contempt.
+
+But the more experienced people were not of Lucy's opinion. They thought
+well, on the contrary, of Bice's prospects. Lady Randolph, as has been
+said, regarded her with a certain respectfulness. She was not offended
+by the saucy speeches which the girl might now and then make. She went
+so far as to say even that if introduced under other auspices than those
+of the Contessa, there was no telling what such a girl might do. "But
+the chances now are that she will end on the stage," Lady Randolph said.
+
+This strange girl unfolded herself very little in the family. When she
+spoke, she spoke with the utmost frankness, and was afraid of nobody.
+But in general she sat in the regions behind the table, with its big
+lamp, and said little or nothing. The others would all be collected
+about the fire, but Bice never approached the fire. Sometimes she read,
+sitting motionless, till the others forgot her presence altogether.
+Sometimes she worked at long strips of Berlin-wool work, the
+_tapisserie_ to which, by moments, the Contessa would have recourse. But
+she heard and saw everything, as has been said, whether she attended or
+not, in the keenness of her youthful faculties. When the Contessa rose
+to sing, she was at the piano without a word; and when anything was
+wanted she gave an alert mute obedience to the lady who was her relation
+or her patroness, nobody knew which, almost without being told what was
+wanted. Except in this way, however, they seldom approached or said a
+word to each other that any one saw. During the long morning, which the
+Contessa spent in her room, appearing only at luncheon, Bice too was
+invisible. Thus she lived the strangest life of retirement and
+seclusion, such as a crushed dependent would find intolerable in the
+midst of a family, but without the least appearance of anything but
+enjoyment, and a perfect and dauntless freedom.
+
+Bice, however, had one confidant in the house, and this, as is natural,
+was the very last person who would have seemed probable--it was Jock.
+Jock, it need scarcely be said, had no tendency at all to the society
+of girls. Deep as he was in MTutor's confidence, captain of his house,
+used to live in a little male community, and to despise (not unkindly)
+the rest of the world, it is not likely that he would care much for the
+antagonistic creatures who invariably interfered, he thought, with talk
+and enjoyment wherever they appeared. Making an exception in favour of
+Lucy and an older person now and then, who had been soothing to him when
+he was ill or out of sorts, Jock held that the feminine part of the
+creation was a mistake, and to be avoided in every practicable way. He
+had been startled by the young stranger's advances to him on the first
+evening, and her claim of fellowship on the score that he was young like
+herself. But when Bice first appeared suddenly in his way, far down in
+the depths of the winterly park, the boy's impulse would have been, had
+that been practicable, to turn and flee. She was skimming along, singing
+to herself, leaping lightly over fallen branches and the inequalities of
+the humid way, when he first perceived her; and Jock had a moment's
+controversy with himself as to what he ought to do. If he took to flight
+across the open park she would see him and understand the reason
+why--besides, it would be cowardly to fly from a girl, an inferior
+creature, who probably had lost her way, and would not know how to get
+back again. This reflection made him withdraw a little deeper into the
+covert, with the intention of keeping her in sight lest she should
+wander astray altogether, but yet keeping out of the way, that he might
+exercise this secret protecting charge of his, which Jock felt was his
+natural attitude even to a girl without the embarrassment of her
+society. He tried to persuade himself that she was a lower boy, of an
+inferior kind no doubt, but yet possessing claims upon his care; for
+MTutor had a great idea of influence, and had imprinted deeply upon the
+minds of his leading pupils the importance of exercising it in the most
+beneficial way for those who were under them.
+
+Jock accordingly stayed among the brushwood watching where she went. How
+light she was! her feet scarcely made a dint upon the wet and spongy
+grass, in which his own had sunk. She went over everything like a bird.
+Now and then she would stop to gather a handful of brown rustling
+brambles, and the stiff yellow oak leaves, and here and there a rusty
+bough to which some rays of autumn colour still hung, which at first
+Jock supposed to mean botany, and was semi-respectful of, until she took
+off her hat and arranged them in it, when he was immediately
+contemptuous, saying to himself that it was just like a girl. All the
+same, it was interesting to watch her as she skipped and skimmed along
+with an air of enjoyment and delight in her freedom, which it was
+impossible not to sympathise with. She sang, not loudly, but almost
+under her breath, for pure pleasure, it seemed, but sometimes would
+break off and whistle, at which Jock was much shocked at first, but
+gradually got reconciled to, it was so clear and sweet. After awhile,
+however, he made an incautious step upon the brushwood, and the crashing
+of the branches betrayed him. She stopped suddenly with her head to the
+wind like a fine hound, and caught him with her keen eyes. Then there
+occurred a little incident which had a very strange effect--an effect he
+was too young to understand--upon Jock. She stood perfectly still, with
+her face towards the bushes in which he was, her head thrown high, her
+nostrils a little dilated, a flush of sudden energy and courage on her
+face. She did not know who he was or what he wanted watching her from
+behind the covert. He might be a tramp, a violent beggar, for anything
+she knew. These things are more tragic where Bice came from, and it was
+likely enough that she took him for a brigand. It was a quick sense of
+alarm that sprang over her, stringing all her nerves, and bringing the
+colour to her cheeks. She never flinched or attempted to flee, but stood
+at bay, with a high valour and proud scorn of her pursuer. Her attitude,
+the flush which made her fair in a moment, the expanded nostrils, the
+fulness which her panting breath of alarm gave to her breast, made an
+impression upon the boy which was ineffable and beyond words. It was his
+first consciousness that there was something in the world--not boy, or
+man, or sister, something which he did not understand, which feared yet
+confronted him, startled but defiant. He too paused for a moment, gazing
+at her, getting up his courage. Then he came slowly out from under the
+shade of the bushes and went towards her. There were a few yards of the
+open park to traverse before he reached her, so that he thought it
+necessary to relieve her anxiety before they met. He called out to her,
+"Don't be afraid, it is only me." For a moment more that fine poise
+lasted, and then she clapped her hands with a peal of laughter that
+seemed to fill the entire atmosphere and ring back from the clumps of
+wintry wood. "Oh," she cried, "it is you!" Jock did not know whether to
+be deeply affronted or to laugh too.
+
+"I----thought you might have lost your way," he said, knitting his brows
+and looking as forbidding as he knew how, by way of correcting the
+involuntary sentiment that had stolen into his boyish heart.
+
+"Then why did not you come to me?" she said, "is not that what you call
+to spy--to watch when one does not know you are there?"
+
+Jock's countenance flushed at this word. "Spy! I never spied upon any
+one. I thought perhaps you might not be able to get back--so I would not
+go away out of reach."
+
+"I see," she cried, "you meant to be kind but not friendly. Do I say it
+right? Why will not you be friendly? I have so many things I want to
+say, and no one, no one! to say them to. What harm would it do if you
+came out from yourself, and talked with me a little? You are too young
+to make it any--inconvenience," the girl said. She laughed a little and
+blushed a little as she said this, eyeing him all the time with frank,
+open eyes. "I am sixteen; how old are you?" she added, with a quick
+breath.
+
+"Sixteen past," said Jock, with a little emphasis, to show his
+superiority in age as well as in other things.
+
+"Sixteen in a boy means no more than nine or so," she said, with a light
+disdain, "so you need not have any fear. Oh, come and talk! I have a
+hundred and more of things to say. It is all so strange. How would you
+like to plunge in a new world like the sea, and never say what you think
+of it, or ask any questions, or tell when it makes you laugh or cry?"
+
+"I should not mind much. I should neither laugh nor cry. It is only
+girls that do," said Jock, somewhat contemptuous too.
+
+"Well! But then I am a girl. I cannot change my nature to please you,"
+she said. "Sometimes I think I should have liked better to be a boy, for
+you have not to do the things we have to do--but then when I saw how
+awkward you were, and how clumsy, and not good for anything"--she
+pointed these very plain remarks with a laugh between each and a look at
+Jock, by which she very plainly applied what she said. He did not know
+at all how to take this. The instinct of a gentleman to betray no angry
+feeling towards a girl, who was at the same time a lady, contrasted in
+him with the instinct of a child, scarcely yet aware of the distinctions
+of sex, to fight fairly for itself; but the former prevailed. And then
+it was scarcely possible to resist the contagion of the laugh which the
+damp air seemed to hold suspended, and bring back in curls and wreaths
+of pleasant sound. So Jock commanded himself and replied with an
+effort--
+
+"We are just as good for things that we care about as you--but not for
+girls' things," he added, with another little fling of the mutual
+contempt which they felt for each other. Then after a pause: "I suppose
+we may as well go home, for it is getting late; and when it is dark you
+would be sure to lose your way----"
+
+"Do you think so?" she said. "Then I will come, for I do not like to be
+lost. What should you do if we were lost? Build me a hut to take shelter
+in? or take off your coat to keep me warm and then go and look for the
+nearest village? That is what happens in some of the Contessa's old
+books--but, ah, not in the Tauchnitz now. But it would be nonsense, of
+course, for there are the red chimneys of the Hall staring us in the
+face, so how could we be lost?"
+
+"When it is dark," said Jock, "you can't see the red always; and then
+you go rambling and wandering about, and hit yourself against the trees,
+and get up to the ankles in the wet grass and--don't like it at all."
+He laughed himself a little, with a laugh that was somewhat like a growl
+at his own abrupt conclusion, to which Bice responded cordially.
+
+"How nice it is to laugh," she said, "it gets the air into your lungs
+and then you can breathe. It is to breathe I want--large--a whole world
+full," she cried, throwing out her arms and opening her mouth. "Because
+you know the rooms are small here, and there is so much furniture, the
+windows closed with curtains, the floors all hot with carpets. Do they
+shut you up as if in a box at night, with the shutters shut and all so
+dark? They do me. But as soon as they are gone I open. I like far better
+our rooms with big walls, and marble that is cool, and large, large
+windows that you can lie and look out at, when you wake, all painted
+upon the sky."
+
+"I should think," said Jock, with the impulse of contradiction, "they
+would not be at all comfortable----"
+
+"Comfortable," she cried in high disdain, "does one want to be
+comfortable? One wants to live, and feel the air, and everything that is
+round."
+
+"That's what we do at school," said Jock, waking up to a sense of the
+affinities as he had already done to the diversities between them.
+
+"Tell me about school," she cried, with a pretty imperious air; and
+Jock, who never desired any better, obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A PAIR OF FRIENDS.
+
+
+After this it came to be a very common occurrence that Jock and Bice
+should meet in the afternoon. He for one thing had lost his
+companionship with Lucy, and had been straying forth forlorn not knowing
+what to do with himself, taking long walks which he did not care for,
+and longing for the intellectual companionship of MTutor, or even of the
+other fellows who, if not intellectual, at least were acquainted with
+the same things, and accustomed to the same occupations as himself. It
+worked in him a tremor and commotion of a kind in which he was wholly
+inexperienced, when he saw the slim figure of the girl approaching him,
+through the paths of the shrubberies, or across the glades of the park.
+He said to himself once or twice, "What a bore;" but those words did not
+express his feelings. It was not a bore, it was something very
+different. He could not explain the mingled reluctance and pleasure of
+his own mood, the little tumult that arose in him when he saw her. He
+wanted to turn his back and rush away, and yet he wanted to be there
+waiting for her, seeing her approach step by step. He had no notion what
+his own mingled sentiments meant. But Bice to all appearance had neither
+the reluctance nor the excitement. She came running to her playmate
+whenever she saw him with frank satisfaction. "I was looking for you,"
+she would say, "Let us go out into the park where nobody can see us.
+Run, or some one will be coming," and then she would fly over stock and
+stone, summoning him after her. There were many occasions when Jock did
+not approve, but he always followed her, though with internal
+grumblings, in which he indulged consciously, making out his own
+annoyance to be very great. "Why can't she let me alone?" he said to
+himself; but when it occurred that Bice did leave him alone, and made no
+appearance, his sense of injury was almost bitter. On such occasions he
+said cutting things within himself, and was very satirical as to the
+stupidity of girls who were afraid to wet their feet, and estimated the
+danger of catching a cold as greater than any natural advantage. For
+Jock had all that instinctive hostility to womankind, which is natural
+to the male bosom, except perhaps at one varying period of life. They
+had no place in the economy of his existence at school, and he knew
+nothing of them nor wanted to know. But Bice, though, when he was
+annoyed with her, she became to him the typical girl, the epitome of
+offending woman, had at other times a very different position. It
+stirred his entire being, he did not know how, when she roamed with him
+about the woods talking of everything, from a point of view which was
+certainly different from Jock's. Occasionally, even, he did not
+understand her any more than if she had been speaking a foreign
+language. She had never any difficulty in penetrating his meaning as he
+had in penetrating hers, but there were times when she did not
+understand him any more than he understood her. She was by far the
+easiest in morals, the least Puritanical. It was not easy to shock Bice,
+but it was not at all difficult to shock Jock, brought up as he was in
+the highest sentiments under the wing of MTutor, who believed in moral
+influence. But the fashion of the intercourse held between these two,
+was very remarkable in its way. They were like brother and sister,
+without being brother and sister. They were strangers to each other, yet
+living in the most entire intimacy, and likely to be parted for ever
+to-morrow. They were of the same age, yet the girl was, in experience of
+life, a world in advance of the boy, who, notwithstanding, had the
+better of her in a thousand ways. In short, they were a paradox, such as
+youth, more or less, is always, and the careless close companionship
+that grew up between them was at once the most natural and the most
+strange alliance. They told each other everything by degrees, without
+being at all aware of the nature of their mutual confidence; Bice
+revealing to Jock the conditions on which she was to be brought out in
+England, and Jock to Bice the unusual features of his own and his
+sister's position, to the unbounded astonishment and scepticism of each.
+
+"Beautiful?" said Jock, drawing a long breath. "But beautiful's not a
+thing you can go in for, like an exam: You're born so, or you're born
+not so; and you know you're not--I mean, you know you're---- Well, it
+isn't your fault. Are you going to be sent away for just being--not
+pretty?"
+
+"I told you," said the girl, with a little impatience. "Being pretty is
+of no consequence. I am pretty, of course," she added regretfully. "But
+it is only if I turn out beautiful that she will take the trouble. And
+at sixteen, I am told, one cannot yet know."
+
+"But--" cried Jock with a sort of consternation, "you don't mind, do
+you? I don't mean anything unkind, you know; I don't think it
+matters--and I am sure it isn't your fault; you are not
+even--good-looking," candour compelled the boy to say, as to an honest
+comrade with whom sincerity was best.
+
+"Ah!" cried Bice, with a little excitement. "Do you think so? Then
+perhaps there is more hope."
+
+Jock was confounded by this utterance, and he began to feel that he had
+been uncivil. "I don't mean," he said, "that you are not--I mean that it
+is not of the least consequence. What does it matter? I am sure you are
+clever, which is far better. I think you could get up anything faster
+than most fellows if you were to try."
+
+"Get up! What does that mean? And when I tell you that it does matter to
+me--oh much,--very much!" she cried. "When you are beautiful, everything
+is before you--you marry, you have whatever you wish, you become a great
+lady; only to be pretty--that does nothing for you. Ugly, however," said
+the girl reflectively; "if I am ugly, then there is some hope."
+
+"I did not say that," cried Jock, shocked at the suggestion. "I wouldn't
+be so uncivil. You are--just like other people," he added encouragingly,
+"not much either one way or another--like the rest of us," Jock said,
+with the intention of soothing her ruffled feelings. At sixteen decorum
+is not always the first thing we think of; and though Bice was not an
+English girl, she was very young. She threw out a vigorous arm and
+pushed him from her, so that the astonished critic, stumbling over some
+fallen branches, measured his length upon the dewy sod.
+
+"That was not I," she said demurely, as he picked himself up in great
+surprise--drawing a step away, and looking at him with wide-open eyes,
+to which the little fright of seeing him fall, and the spark of malice
+that took pleasure in it, had given sudden brilliancy. Jock was so much
+astonished that he uttered no reproach, but went on by her side, after a
+moment, pondering. He could not see how any offence could have lurked
+in the encouraging and consolatory words he had said.
+
+But when they reached the other chapter, which concerned his fortunes,
+Bice was not more understanding. Her gray eyes absolutely flamed upon
+him when he told her of his father's will, and the conditions upon which
+Lucy's inheritance was held. "To give her money away! But that is
+impossible--it would be to prove one's self mad," the girl said.
+
+"Why? You forget it's my father you're speaking of. He was not mad, he
+was just," said Jock, reddening. "What's mad in it? You've got a great
+fortune--far more than you want. It all came out of other people's
+pockets somehow. Oh, of course, not in a dishonest way. That is the
+worst of speaking to a girl that doesn't understand political economy
+and the laws of production. Of course it must come out of other people's
+pockets. If I sell anything and get a profit (and nobody would sell
+anything if they didn't get a profit), of course that comes out of your
+pocket. Well, now, I've got a great deal more than I want, and I say you
+shall have some of it back."
+
+"And I say," cried Bice, making him a curtsey, "Merci Monsieur! Grazia
+Signor! oh thank you, thank you very much--as much as you like, sir, as
+much as you like! but all the same I think you are mad. Your money! all
+that makes you happy and great----"
+
+"Money," said Jock, loftily, "makes nobody happy. It may make you
+comfortable. It gives you fine houses, horses and carriages, and all
+that sort of thing. So it will do to the other people to whom it goes;
+so it is wisdom to divide it, for the more good you can get out of it
+the better. Lucy has money lying in the bank--or somewhere--that she
+does not want, that does her no good; and there is some one else" (a
+fellow I know, Jock added in a parenthesis), "who has not got enough to
+live upon. So you see she just hands over what she doesn't want to him,
+and that's better for both. So far from being mad, it's"--Jock paused
+for a word--"it's philosophy, it's wisdom, it's statesmanship. It is
+just the grandest way that was ever invented for putting things
+straight."
+
+Bice looked at him with a sort of incredulous cynical gaze--as if asking
+whether he meant her to believe this fiction--whether perhaps he was
+such a fool as to think that she could be persuaded to believe it. It
+was evident that she did not for a moment suppose him to be serious. She
+laughed at last in ridicule and scorn. "You think," she said, "I know so
+little. Ah, I know a great deal more than that. What are you without
+money? You are nobody. The more you have, so much more have you
+everything at your command. Without money you are nobody. Yes, you may
+be a prince or an English milord, but that is nothing without money. Oh
+yes! I have known princes that had nothing and the people laughed at
+them. And a milord who is poor--the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can
+do nothing without money," the girl said with almost fierce derision,
+"and you tell me you will give it away!" She laughed again angrily, as
+if such a brag was offensive and insulting to her own poverty. The boy
+who had never in his life known what it was to want anything that money
+could procure for him, treated the whole question lightly, and
+undervalued its importance altogether. But the girl who knew by
+experience what was involved in the want of it, heard with a sort of
+wondering fury this slighting treatment of what was to her the
+universal panacea. Her cynicism and satirical unbelief grew into
+indignation. "And you tell me it is wise to give it away!"
+
+"Lucy has got to do it, whether it is wise or not," said Jock, almost
+overawed by this high moral disapproval. "We went to the lawyer about it
+the day you came. He is settling it now. She is giving away--well, a
+good many thousand pounds."
+
+"Pounds are more than francs, eh?" said Bice quickly.
+
+"More than francs! just twenty-five times more," cried Jock, proud of
+his knowledge, "a thousand pounds is----"
+
+"Then I don't believe you!" cried the girl in an outburst of passion,
+and she fled from him across the park, catching up her dress and running
+at a pace which even Jock with his long legs knew he could not keep up
+with. He gazed with surprise, standing still and watching her with the
+words arrested on his lips. "But she can't keep it up long like that,"
+after a moment Jock said.
+
+The time, however, approached when the two friends had to part. Jock
+left the Hall a few days after Lady Randolph, and he was somehow not
+very glad to go. The family life had been less cheerful lately, and
+conversation languished when the domestic party were alone together.
+When the Contessa was present she kept up the ball, maintaining at least
+with Sir Tom an always animated and lively strain of talk; but at
+breakfast there was not much said, and of late a little restraint had
+crept even between the master and mistress of the house, no one could
+tell how. The names of the guests were scarcely mentioned between them.
+Sir Tom was very attentive and kind to his wife, but he was more silent
+than he used to be, reading his letters and his newspapers. Lucy had
+been quite satisfied when he said, though it must be allowed with a
+laugh not devoid of embarrassment, that it was more important he should
+master all the papers and see how public opinion was running, now when
+it was so near the opening of Parliament. But a little veil of silence
+had fallen over Lucy too. It cost her an effort to speak even to Jock of
+common subjects and of his going away. She had thought him looking a
+little disturbed, however, on the last morning, and with the newspaper
+forming a sort of screen between them and Sir Tom, Lucy made an attempt
+to talk to her brother as of old.
+
+"I shall miss you very much, Jock. We have not had so much time together
+as we thought."
+
+"We have had no time together, Lucy."
+
+"You must not say that, dear. Don't you recollect that drive to
+Farafield? We have not had so many walks, it is true; but then I have
+been--occupied."
+
+"Is it ever finished yet, that business?" Jock said suddenly.
+
+It was all Lucy could do not to give him a warning look. "I have had
+some letters about it. A thing cannot be finished in a minute like
+that." Instinctively she spoke low to escape her husband's ear; he had
+never referred to the subject, and she avoided it religiously. It gave
+her a thrill of alarm to have it thus reintroduced. To escape it, she
+said, raising her voice a little: "The Contessa's letters have not been
+sent to her. You must ring the bell, Jock. There are a great many for
+her." The name of the Contessa always moved Sir Tom to a certain
+attention. He seemed to be on the alert for what might be said of her.
+He looked round the corner of the paper with a short laugh, and said,
+jocularly, with mock gravity--
+
+"It is a great thing to keep up your correspondence, Lucy. You never can
+know when it may prove serviceable. If it had not been for that, she
+most likely never would have come here."
+
+Lucy smiled, though with a little restraint. "Perhaps she is sorry now,"
+she said, "for it must be dull." Then she hurriedly changed the subject,
+afraid lest she might seem ill-natured. "Poor Miss Bice has never any
+letters," she said; "she must have very few friends."
+
+"Oh, she has nobody at all," said Jock, "She hasn't got a relation. She
+has always lived like this, in different places; and never been to
+school, or--anywhere; though she has been nearly round the world."
+
+"Poor little thing! and she is fond of children too," said Lucy. "I
+found her one day with baby on her shoulder, a wet day when he could not
+get out, racing up and down the long gallery with him crowing and
+laughing. It was so pretty to see him----"
+
+"Or to see her, Lucy, most people would say," said Sir Tom, interrupting
+again.
+
+"Would they? Oh, yes. But I thought naturally of baby," said the young
+mother. Then she made a pause and added softly, "I hope--they--are
+always kind to her."
+
+There was a little silence. Sir Tom was behind his newspaper. He
+listened, but he did not say anything, and Jock was not aware that he
+was listening.
+
+"Oh, I don't think she minds," said Jock. "She is rather jolly when you
+come to know her. I say, Lucy, it will be awfully dull for her, you
+know, when----"
+
+"When what, Jock?"
+
+"When I am gone," the boy intended to have said, but some gleam of
+consciousness came over him that made him pause. He did not say this,
+but grew a little red in the effort to think of something else that he
+could say.
+
+"Well, I mean here," he said, "for she hasn't been used to it. She has
+been in places where there was always music playing and that sort of
+thing. She never was in the country. There's plenty of books, to be
+sure; but she's not very fond of reading. Few people, are, I think.
+_You_ never open a book----"
+
+"Oh yes, Jock! I read the books from Mudie's," Lucy said, with some
+spirit, "and I always send them upstairs."
+
+Jock had it on his lips to say something derogatory of the books from
+Mudie's; but he checked himself, for he remembered to have seen MTutor
+with one of those frivolous volumes, and he refrained from snubbing
+Lucy. "I believe she can't read," he said. "She can do nothing but laugh
+at one. And she thinks she's pretty," he added, with a little laugh yet
+sense of unfaithfulness to the trust reposed in him, which once more
+covered his face with crimson.
+
+Lucy laughed too, with hesitation and doubt. "I cannot see it," she
+said, "but that is what Lady Randolph thought. It is strange that she
+should talk of such things; but people are very funny who have been
+brought up abroad."
+
+"All girls are like that," said Jock, authoritatively. "They think so
+much of being pretty. But I tell her it doesn't matter. What difference
+could it make? Nobody will suppose it was her fault. She says----"
+
+"Hallo, young man," said Sir Tom. "It is time you went back to school, I
+think. What would MTutor say to all these confidences with young
+ladies, and knowledge of their ways!"
+
+Jock gave his brother-in-law a look, in which defiant virtue struggled
+with a certain consciousness; but he scorned to make any reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE BREAKFAST TABLE.
+
+
+Lucy found her life much changed when Jock had gone, and she was left
+alone to face the change of circumstances which had tacitly taken place.
+The Contessa said not a word of terminating her visit. The departure of
+Lady Randolph apparently suggested nothing to her. She could scarcely
+have filled up the foreground more entirely than she did before--but she
+was now uncriticised, unremarked upon. There seemed even to be no
+appropriation of more than her due, for it was very natural that a
+person of experience and powers of conversation like hers should take
+the leading place, and simple Lucy, so much younger and with so much
+less acquaintance with the world, fall into the background. And
+accordingly this was what happened. Madame di Forno-Populo knew
+everybody. She had a hundred mutual acquaintances to tell Sir Tom about,
+and they seemed to have an old habit of intercourse, which by this time
+had been fully resumed. The evenings were the time when this was most
+apparent. Then the Contessa was at her brightest. She had managed to
+introduce shades upon all the lamps, so as to diffuse round her a
+softened artificial illumination such as is favourable to beauty that
+has passed its prime: and in this ruddy gloom she sat half seen, Sir Tom
+sometimes standing by her, sometimes permitted to take the other corner
+of her sofa--and talked to him, sometimes sinking her voice low as her
+reminiscences took some special vein, sometimes calling sweetly to her
+pretty Lucy to listen to this or that. These extensions of confidence,
+generally, were brought in to make up for a long stretch of more private
+communications, and the aspect of the little domestic circle was on such
+occasions curious enough. By the table, in a low chair, with the full
+light of the lamp upon her, sat Lucy, generally with some work in her
+hands; she did not read or write (exercises to which, to tell the truth,
+she was not much addicted) out of politeness, lest she should seem to be
+withdrawing her attention from her guest, but sat there with her slight
+occupation, so as to be open to any appeal, and ready if she were
+wanted. On the other side of the table, the light making a sort of
+screen and division between them, sat Bice, generally with a book before
+her, which, as has been said, did not at all interfere with her power of
+giving a vivid attention to what was going on around her. These two said
+nothing to each other, and were often silent for the whole evening, like
+pieces of still life. Bice sat with her book upon the table, so that
+only the open page and the hands that held the book were within the
+brightness of the light, which on the other side streamed down upon
+Lucy's fair shoulders and soft young face, and upon the work in her
+hands. In the corner was the light continuous murmur of talk; the
+half-seen figure of the Contessa, generally leaning back, looking up to
+Sir Tom, who stood with his arm on the mantelpiece with much animation,
+gesticulation of her hands and subdued laughter, the most lively
+current of sound, soft, intensified by little eloquent breaks, by
+emphatic gestures, by sentences left incomplete, but understood all the
+better for being half said. There were many evenings in which Lucy sat
+there with a little wonder, but no other active feeling in her mind. It
+is needless to say that it was not pleasant to her. She would sit and
+wonder wistfully whether her husband had forgotten she was there, but
+then reminded herself that of course it was his duty to think of the
+Contessa first, and consoled herself that by and by the stranger would
+go away, and all would be as it had been. As time went on, the desire
+that this should happen, and longing to have possession of her home
+again, grew so strong that she could scarcely subdue it, and it was with
+the greatest difficulty that she kept all expression of it from her
+lips. And by and by, the warmth of this restrained desire so absorbed
+Lucy that she scarcely dared allow herself to speak lest it should burst
+forth, and there seemed to herself to be continually going on in her
+mind a calculation of the chances, a scrutiny of everything the Contessa
+said which seemed to point at such a movement. But, indeed, the Contessa
+said very little upon which the most sanguine could build. She said
+nothing of her arrangements at all, nor spoke of what she was going to
+do, and answered none of Lucy's ardent and innocent fishings after
+information. The evenings became more and more intolerable to Lady
+Randolph as they went on. She was glad that anybody should come, however
+little she might care for their society, to break these private
+conferences up.
+
+And this was not all, nor even perhaps the worst, of the vague evils not
+yet defined in her mind, and which she was so very reluctant to define,
+which Lucy had to go through. At breakfast, when she was alone with her
+husband, matters were almost worse. Sir Tom, it was evident, began to
+feel the _tete-a-tete_ embarrassing. He did not know what to say to his
+little wife when they were alone. The presence of the Dowager and Jock
+had freed him from any necessity of explanation, had kept him in his
+usual easy way; but now that Lucy alone sat opposite to him, he was more
+silent than his wont, and with no longer any of the little flow of
+simple observations which had once been so delightful to her. Sir Tom
+was more uneasy than if she had been a stern and jealous Eleanor, a
+clear-sighted critic seeing through and through him. The contest was so
+unequal, and the weaker creature so destitute of any intention or
+thought of resistance, that he felt himself a coward and traitor for
+thus deserting her and overclouding her home and her life. Then he took
+to asking himself, Did he overcloud her? Was she sensible of any
+difference? Did she know enough to know that this was not how she ought
+to be treated, or was she not quite contented with her secondary place?
+Such a simple creature, would she not cry--would she not show her anger
+if she was conscious of anything to be grieved or angry about? He took
+refuge in those newspapers which, he gave out, it was so necessary he
+should study, to understand the mind of the country before the opening
+of Parliament. And thus they would sit, Lucy dutifully filling out the
+tea, taking care that he had the dish he liked for breakfast, swallowing
+her own with difficulty yet lingering over it, always thinking that
+perhaps Tom might have something to say. While he, on the other hand,
+kept behind his newspaper, feeling himself guilty, conscious that
+another sort of woman would make one of those "scenes" which men dread,
+yet despising Lucy a little in spite of himself for the very quality he
+most admired in her, and wondering if she were really capable of feeling
+at all. Sometimes little Tom would be brought downstairs to roll about
+the carpet and try his unsteady little limbs in a series of clutches at
+the chairs and table; and on these occasions the meal was got through
+more easily. But little Tom was not always well enough to come
+downstairs, and sometimes Lucy thought that her husband might have
+something to say to her which the baby's all-engrossing presence
+hindered. Thus it came about that the hours in which the Contessa was
+present and in the front of everything, were really less painful than
+those in which the pair were alone with the shadow of the intruder, more
+powerful even than her presence holding them apart.
+
+One of these mornings, however, Lucy's anticipations and hopes seemed
+about to be realised. Sir Tom laid down his paper, looked at her frankly
+without any shield, and said, as she had so often imagined him saying,
+"I want to talk to you, Lucy." How glad she was that little Tom was not
+downstairs that morning!
+
+She looked at him across the table with a brightening countenance, and
+said, "Yes, Tom!" with such warm eagerness and sudden pleasure that her
+look penetrated his very heart. It implied a great deal more than Sir
+Tom intended and thought, and he was a man of very quick intelligence.
+The expectation in her eyes touched him beyond a thousand complaints.
+
+"I had an interview yesterday, in which you were much concerned," he
+said; then made a pause, with such a revolution going on within him as
+seldom happens in a mature and self-collected mind. He had begun with
+totally different sentiments from those which suddenly came over him at
+the sight of her kindling face. When he said, "I want to talk to you,
+Lucy," he had meant to speak of her interview with Mr. Rushton, to point
+out to her the folly of what she was doing, and to show her how it was
+that he should be compelled to do everything that was in his power to
+oppose her. He did not mean to go to the root of the matter, as he had
+done before, when he was obliged to admit to himself that he had
+failed--but to address himself to the secondary view of the question, to
+the small prospect there was of doing any good. But when he caught her
+eager, questioning look, her eyes growing liquid and bright with
+emotion, her face full of restrained anxiety and hope, Sir Tom's heart
+smote him. What did she think he was going to say? Not anything about
+money, important as that subject was in their life--but something far
+more important, something that touched her to the quick, a revelation
+upon which her very soul hung. He was startled beyond measure by this
+disclosure. He had thought she did not feel, and that her heart
+unawakened had regarded calmly, with no pain to speak of, the new state
+of affairs of which he himself was guiltily conscious; but that eager
+look put an end in a moment to his delusion. He paused and swerved
+mentally as if an angel had suddenly stepped into his way.
+
+"It is about--that will of your father's," he said.
+
+Lucy, gazing at him with such hope and expectation, suddenly sank, as it
+were, prostrate in the depth of a disappointment that almost took the
+life out of her. She did not indeed fall physically or faint, which
+people seldom do in moments of extreme mental suffering. It was only her
+countenance that fell. Her brightening, beaming, hopeful face grew
+blank in a moment, her eyes grew utterly dim, a kind of mist running
+over them: a sound--half a sob, half a sigh, came from her breast. She
+put up her hand trembling to support her head, which shook too with the
+quiver that went over her. It took her at least a minute to get over the
+shock of the disappointment. Then commanding herself painfully, but
+without looking at him, which, indeed, she dared not do, she said again,
+"Yes, Tom?" with a piteous quiver of her lip.
+
+It did not make Sir Tom any the less kind, and full of tender impulses,
+that he was wounding his wife in the profoundest sensibilities of her
+heart. In this point the greater does not include the lesser. He was
+cruel in the more important matter, without intending it indeed, and
+from what he considered a fatality, a painful combination of
+circumstances out of which he could not escape; but in the lesser
+particulars he was as kind as ever. He could not bear to see her
+suffering. The quiver in her lip, the failure of the colour in her
+cheeks affected him so that he could scarcely contain himself.
+
+"My dear love," he cried, "my little Lucy! you are not afraid of what I
+am going to say to you?" These words came to his lips naturally, by the
+affectionate impulse of his kind nature. But when he had said them, an
+impulse, which was perhaps more crafty than loving, followed. Quick as
+thought he changed his intention, his purpose altogether. He could not
+resist the appeal of Lucy's face; but he slipped instinctively from the
+more serious question that lay between them, and resolved to sacrifice
+the other, which was indeed very important, yet could be treated in an
+easier way and without involving anything more painful. Sir Tom was at
+an age when money has a great value, and the mere sense of possession is
+pleasant; and there was a principle involved which he had determined a
+few weeks ago not to relinquish. But the position in which he found
+himself placed was one out of which some way of escape had to be
+invented at once. "Lucy," he said, "you are frightened; you think I am
+going to cross you in the matter that lies so near your heart. But you
+mistake me, my dear. I think I ought to be your chief adviser in that as
+in all matters. It is my duty: but I hope you never thought that I would
+exercise any force upon you to put a stop to--what you thought right."
+
+Lucy had overcome herself, though with a painful effort. She followed
+with a quivering humility what he was saying. She acknowledged to
+herself that this was, indeed, the great thing in her life, and that it
+was only her childishness and foolishness which had made her place other
+matters in the chief place. Most likely, she said to herself, Tom was
+not aware of anything that required explanation; he would never think it
+possible that she could be so ungracious and unkind as to grudge his
+guests their place in his house. She gathered herself up hastily to meet
+him when he entered upon the great question which was far more
+important, which was indeed the only question between them. "I know,"
+she said, "that you were always kind, Tom. If I did not ask you first it
+was because----"
+
+"We need not enter upon that, my dear. I was angry, and went too far. At
+the same time, Lucy, it is a mad affair altogether. Your father himself,
+had he realised the difficulty of carrying it out, would have seen this.
+I only say so to let you know my opinion is unchanged. And you know
+your trustees are of the same mind. But if you think this is your duty,
+as I am sure you do----"
+
+It seemed to Lucy that her duty had sailed far away from her on some sea
+of strange distance and dullness where she could scarcely keep it in
+sight. Her own very voice seemed strange and dull to her and far away,
+as she said almost mechanically: "I do think it is my duty--to my
+father----"
+
+"I am aware that you think so, my love. As you get older you will,
+perhaps, see as I do--that to carry out the spirit of your father's will
+would be better than to follow so closely the letter of it. But you are
+still very young, and Jock is younger; and, fortunately, you can afford
+to indulge a freak of this sort. I shall let Mr. Rushton know that I
+withdraw all opposition. And now, give me a kiss, and let us forget that
+there ever was any controversy between us--it never went further than a
+controversy, did it, darling?" Sir Tom said.
+
+Lucy could not speak for the moment. She looked up into his face with
+her eyes all liquid with tears, and a great confusion in her soul. Was
+this all? as he kissed her, and smiled, leaning over her in the old kind
+way, with a tenderness that was half-fatherly and indulgent to her
+weakness, she did not seem at all sure what it was that had moved like a
+ghost between him and her; was it in reality only this--this and no
+more? She almost thought so as she looked up into his kind face. Only
+this! How glad it would have made her three weeks ago to have his
+sanction for the thing she was so reluctant to attempt, which it was so
+much her duty to do, which Jock urged with so much pertinacity, and
+which her father from his grave enjoined. If it affected her but dully
+now, whose was the fault? Not Tom's, who was so generously ready to
+yield to her, although he disapproved. When he retired behind his
+newspaper once more with a kind smile at her, to end the matter, Lucy
+sat quite still in a curious stunned confusion trying to account for it
+all to herself. There could be no doubt, she thought, that it was she
+who was in the wrong. She it was who had created the embarrassment
+altogether. He was not even aware of any other cause. It had never
+occurred to his greater mind that she could be so petty as to fret under
+the interruption which their visitors had made in her life. He had
+thought that the other matter was the cause of her dullness and silence,
+and generously had put an end to it, not by requiring any sacrifice from
+her, but by making one in his own person. She sat silent trying to
+realise all this, but unable to get quite free from the confusion and
+dimness that had invaded her soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE ORACLE SPEAKS.
+
+
+Lucy went up to the nursery when breakfast was over. It was her habit to
+go and take counsel of little Tom when her heart was troubled or heavy.
+He was now eighteen months old, an age at which you will say the
+judicial faculties are small; but a young mother has superstitions, and
+there are many dilemmas in life in which it will do a woman, though the
+male critic may laugh, great good to go and confide it all to her baby,
+and hold that little bundle of white against her heart to conquer the
+pain of it. When little Tom was lively and well, when he put his arms
+about her neck and dabbed his velvety mouth against her cheek, Lucy felt
+that she was approved of and her heart rose. When he was cross and cried
+and pushed her away from him, as sometimes happened, she ceased to be
+sure of anything, and felt dissatisfied with herself and all the world.
+It was with a great longing to consult this baby oracle and see what
+heaven might have to say to her through his means, that she ran
+upstairs, neglecting even Mrs. Freshwater, who advanced ceremoniously
+from her own retirement with her bill of fare in her hand, as Lucy
+darted past. "Wait a little and I will come to you," she cried. What was
+the dinner in comparison? She flew up to the nursery only to find it
+vacant. The morning was clingy and damp, no weather for the delicate
+child to go out, and Lucy was not alarmed but knew well enough where to
+find him. The long picture gallery which ran along the front of the
+house was his usual promenade on such occasions, and there she betook
+herself hurriedly. There could not be much doubt as to little Tom's
+whereabouts. Shrieks of baby fun were audible whenever she came within
+hearing, and the sound of a flying foot careering from end to end of the
+long space, which certainly was not the foot of Tom's nurse, whose voice
+could be heard in cries of caution, "Oh, take care, Miss! Oh, for
+goodness sake--oh, what will my lady say to me if you should trip with
+him!" Lucy paused suddenly, checked by the sound of this commotion. Once
+before she had surprised a scene of the kind, and she knew what it
+meant. She stopped short, and stood still to get possession of herself.
+It was a circumstance which pulled her up sharply and changed the
+current of her mind. Her first feeling was one of disappointment and
+almost irritation. Could she not even have the baby to herself, she
+murmured? But there was in reality so little of the petty in Lucy's
+disposition that this was but a momentary sentiment. It changed,
+however, the manner of her entrance. She came in quietly, not rushing to
+seize her boy as she had intended, but still with her superstition
+strong in her heart, and as determined to resort to the _Sortes Tomianae_
+as ever. The sight she saw was one to make a picture of. Skimming along
+the long gallery with that free light step which scarcely seemed to
+touch the ground was Bice, a long stream of hair flying behind her, the
+child seated on her shoulder, supported by one raised arm, while the
+other held aloft the end of a red scarf which she had twisted round him.
+Little Tom had one hand twisted in her hair, and with his small feet
+beating upon her breast, and his little chest expanded with cries of
+delight, encouraged his steed in her wild career. The dark old pictures,
+some full-length Randolphs of an elder age, good for little but a
+background, threw up this airy group with all the perfection of
+contrast. They flew by as Lucy came in, so joyous, so careless, so
+delightful in pose and movement, that she could not utter the little cry
+of alarm that came to her lips. Bice had never in her life looked so
+near that beauty which she considered as so serious a necessity. She was
+flushed with the movement, her fine light figure, too light and slight
+as yet for the full perfection of feminine form, was the very
+impersonation of youth. She flew, she did not glide nor run--her elastic
+foot spurned the floor. She was like a runner in a Greek game. Lucy
+stood breathless between admiration and pleasure and alarm, as the
+animated figure turned and came fast towards her in its airy career.
+Little Tom perceived his mother as they came up. He was still more
+daring than his bearer. He detached himself suddenly from Bice's
+shoulder, and with a shout of pleasure threw himself upon Lucy. The
+oracle had spoken. It almost brought her to her knees indeed, descending
+upon her like a little thunderbolt, catching her round the throat and
+tearing off with a hurried clutch the lace upon her dress; while the
+flying steed, suddenly arrested, came to a dead stop in front of her,
+panting, blushing, and disconcerted. "There was no fear," she cried,
+with involuntary self-defence, "I held him fast." Bice forgot even in
+the surprise how wildly she stood with her hair floating, and the scarf
+in her hand still knotted round the baby's waist.
+
+"There was no danger, my lady. I was watching every step; and it do
+Master Tom a world of good," cried the nurse, coming to the rescue.
+
+"Why should you think I am afraid?" said Lucy. "Don't you know I am most
+grateful to you for being so kind to him? and it was pretty to see you.
+You looked so bright and strong, and my boy so happy."
+
+"Miss is just our salvation, my lady," said the nurse; "these wet days
+when we can't get out, I don't know what I should do without her. Master
+Tom, bless him, is always cross when he don't get no air; but once set
+on Miss' shoulder he crows till it do your heart good to hear him," the
+woman cried.
+
+Bice stood with the colour still in her face, her head thrown back a
+little, and her breath coming less quickly. She laughed at this
+applause. "I like it," she said. "I like him; he is my only little
+companion. He is pleased when he sees me."
+
+This went to Lucy's heart. "And so are we all," she said; "but you will
+not let me see you. I am often alone, too. If you will come and--and
+give me your company----"
+
+Bice gave her a wistful look; then shook her head.
+
+"I know you do not wish for us here; and why should you?" she said.
+
+"My dear!" cried Lucy in alarm, with a glance at the woman who stood by,
+all ears. And now it was that little Tom at eighteen months showed that
+precocious judgment in which his mother had an instinctive belief. He
+had satisfied himself with the destruction of Lucy's lace, and with
+printing the impression of his mouth all over her cheeks. That little
+wet wide open mouth was delicious to Lucy. No trouble had befallen her
+yet that could not be wiped out by its touch. But now a new distraction
+was necessary for the little hero; and his eye caught the red sash which
+still was round his waist. He transferred all his thoughts to it with an
+instant revolution of idea, and holding on by it like a little sailor on
+a rope, drew Bice close till he could succeed in the arduous task, not
+unattended by danger, of flinging himself from one to another. This game
+enchanted Master Tom. Had he been a little older it would have been
+changed into that daring faltering hop from one eminence, say a
+footstool, to another, which flutters the baby soul. He was too insecure
+in possession of those aimless little legs to venture on any such daring
+feat now; but, with a valour more desperate still, he flung himself
+across the gulf from Lucy's arms to those of Bice and back again, with
+cries of delight. These cries, it must be allowed, were not very
+articulate, but they soon became urgent, with a demand which the little
+tyrant insisted upon with increasing vehemence.
+
+"Oh, my lady," cried the nurse, "it is as plain as if he said it, and he
+is saying of it, the pet, as pretty!---- He wants you to kiss Miss, he
+do. Ain't that it, my own? Nursey knows his little talk. Ain't that it,
+my darling lamb?"
+
+There was a momentary pause in the strange little group linked together
+by the baby's clutches. The young mother and the girl with their heads
+so near each other, looked in each other's faces. In Lucy's there was a
+kind of awe, in Bice's a sort of wondering wistfulness mingled with
+incipient defiance. They were not born to be each other's friends. They
+were different in everything; they were even on different sides in this
+house--the one an intruder, belonging to the party which was destroying
+the other's domestic peace. It would be vain to say that there was not a
+little reluctance in Lucy's soul as she gazed at the younger girl, come
+from she knew not where, established under her roof she knew not how.
+She hesitated for one moment, then she bent forward almost with
+solemnity and kissed Bice's cheek. She seemed to communicate her own
+agitation to the girl who stood straight up with her head a little back,
+half eager, half defiant. When Bice felt the touch of Lucy's lips,
+however, she melted in a moment. Her slight figure swayed, she took
+Lucy's disengaged hand with her own, and, stooping over it, kissed it
+with lips that quivered. There was not a word said between them; but a
+secret compact was thus made under little Tom's inspiration. The little
+oracle clambered up upon his mother afterwards, and laid down his head
+upon her shoulder and dropped off to sleep with that entire confiding
+and abandonment of the whole little being which is one of the deepest
+charms of childhood. Who is there with any semblance of a heart in his,
+much more her, bosom, who is not touched in the tenderest part when a
+child goes to sleep in his arms? The appeal conveyed in the act is one
+which scarcely a savage could withstand. The three women gathered round
+to see this common spectacle, so universal, so touching. Bice, who was
+almost too young for the maternal sentiment, and who was a stern young
+Stoic by nature, never shedding a tear, could not tell how it was that
+her eyes moistened. But Lucy's filled with an emotion which was sharp
+and sore with alarm. "Oh, nurse, don't call my boy a little angel!" she
+said, with a sentiment which a woman will understand.
+
+This baby scene upstairs was balanced by one of a very different
+character below. Sir Tom had gone into his own room a little disturbed
+and out of sorts. Circumstances had been hard upon him, he felt. The
+Contessa's letter offering her visit had been a jest to him. He was one
+of those who thought the best of the Contessa. He had seen a good deal
+of her one time and another in his life, and she held the clue to one or
+two matters which it would not have pleased him, at this mature period
+of his existence, to have published abroad. She was an adventuress, he
+knew, and her friends were not among the best of humanity. She had led a
+life which, without being positively evil, had shut her out from the
+sympathies of many good people. When a woman has to solve the problem
+how to obtain all the luxuries and amusements of life without money, it
+is to be expected that her attempts to do so should lead her into risky
+places, where the footing was far from sure. But she had never, as Lady
+Randolph acknowledged, gone so far as that society should refuse to
+receive her, and Sir Tom was always an indulgent critic. If she were
+coming to England, as she gave him to understand, he saw no reason why
+she should not come to the Hall. For himself, it would be rather amusing
+than otherwise, and Lucy would take no harm--even if there was harm in
+the Forno-Populo (which he did not believe), his wife was far too
+innocent even to suspect it. She would not know evil if she saw it, he
+said to himself proudly; and then there was no chance that the Contessa,
+who loved merriment and gaiety, could long be content with anything so
+humdrum as his quiet life in the country. Thus it will be seen that Sir
+Tom had got himself innocently enough into this imbroglio. He had meant
+no particular harm. He had meant to be kind to a poor woman, who after
+all needed kindness much; and if the comic character of the situation
+touched his sense of humour, and he was not unwilling in his own person
+to get a little amusement out of it, who could blame him? This was the
+worst that Sir Tom meant. To amuse himself partly by the sight of the
+conventional beauty and woman of the world in the midst of circumstances
+so incongruous, and partly by the fluttering of the dovecotes which the
+appearance of such an adventuress would cause. He liked her conversation
+too, and to hear all about the more noisy company, full of talk and
+diversion in which he had wasted so much of his youth. But there were
+two or three things which Sir Tom did not take into his calculations.
+The first was the sort of fascination which that talk, and all the
+associations of the old world, and the charms of the professional
+sorceress, would exercise upon himself after his settling down as the
+head of a family and pillar of the State. He had not thought how much
+amused he would be, how the contrast even would tickle his fancy and
+affect (for the moment) his life. He laughed within himself at the
+transparent way in which his old friend bade for his sympathy and
+society. She was the same as ever, living upon admiration, upon
+compliments whether fictitious or not, and demanding a show of devotion,
+somebody always at her feet. She thought, no doubt, he said to himself,
+that she had got him at her feet, and he laughed to himself when he was
+alone at the thought. But, nevertheless, it did amuse him to talk to the
+Contessa, and before long, what with skilful reminders of the past, what
+with hints and reference to a knowledge which he would not like extended
+to the world, he had begun by degrees to find himself in a confidential
+position with her. "We know each other's secrets," she would say to him
+with a meaning look. He was caught in her snare. On the other hand an
+indefinite visit prolonged and endless had never come within his
+calculation. He did not know how to put an end to the situation--perhaps
+as it was an amusement for his evenings to see the siren spread her
+snares, and even to be more or less caught in them, he did not sincerely
+wish to put an end to it as yet. He was caught in them more or less, but
+never so much as to be unaware of the skill with which the snares were
+laid, which would have amused him whatever had been the seriousness of
+the attendant circumstances. He did not, however, allow that he had no
+desire to make an end of these circumstances, but only said to himself,
+with a shrug of his shoulders, how could he do it? He could not send his
+old friend away. He could not but be civil and attentive to her so long
+as she was under his roof. It distressed him that Lucy should feel it,
+as this morning's experience proved her to do, but how could he help it?
+He made that other sacrifice to Lucy by way of reconciling her to the
+inevitable, but he could do no more. When you invite a friend to be your
+guest, he said to himself, you must be more or less at the mercy of that
+friend. If he (or she) stays too long, what can you do? Sir Tom was not
+the sort of man to be reduced to helplessness by such a difficulty. Yet
+this was what he said to himself.
+
+It vexed him, however, that Lucy should feel it so much. He could not
+throw off this uneasy feeling. He had stopped her mouth as one might
+stop a child's mouth with a sugar plum; but he could not escape from the
+consciousness that Lucy felt her domain invaded, and that her feeling
+was just. He had thrown himself into the great chair, and was pondering
+not what to do, but the impossibility of doing anything, when Williams,
+his confidential man, who knew all about the Contessa almost as well as
+he did, suddenly appeared before him. Williams had been all over the
+world with Sir Tom before he settled down as his butler at the Hall. He
+was, therefore, not one who could be dismissed summarily if he
+interfered in any matter out of his sphere. He appeared on the other
+side of Sir Tom's writing-table with a face as long as his arm, the face
+with which Sir Tom was so well acquainted--the same face with which he
+had a hundred times announced the failure of supplies, the delay of
+carriages, the general hopelessness of the situation. There was tragedy
+in it of the most solemn kind, but there was a certain enjoyment too.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Sir Tom; and then he jumped to his feet.
+"Something is wrong with the baby," he cried.
+
+"No, Sir Thomas; Mr. Randolph is pretty well, thank you, Sir Thomas. It
+is about something else that I made so bold. There is Antonio, sir, in
+the servants' hall; Madame the Countess' man."
+
+"Oh, the Countess," cried Sir Tom, and he seated himself again; then
+said, with the confidence of a man to the follower who has been his
+companion in many straits, "You gave me a fright, Williams. I thought
+that little shaver---- But what's the matter with Antonio? Can't you keep
+a fellow like that in order without bothering me?"
+
+"Sir Thomas," said Williams, solemnly, "I am not one as troubles my
+master when things are straightforward. But them foreigners, you never
+know when you have 'em. And an idle man about an establishment, that is,
+so to speak, under nobody, and for ever a-kicking of his heels, and
+following the women servants about, and not a blessed hand's turn to
+do"--a tone of personal offence came into Williams' complaint; "there is
+a deal to do in this house," he added, "and neither me nor any of the
+men haven't got a moment to spare. Why, there's your hunting things, Sir
+Thomas, is just a man's work. And to see that fellow loafing, and
+a-hanging on about the women--I don't wonder, Sir Thomas, that it's more
+than any man can stand," said Williams, lighting up. He was a married
+man himself, with a very respectable family in the village, but he was
+not too old to be able to understand the feelings of John and Charles,
+whose hearts were lacerated by the success of the Italian fellow with
+his black eyes.
+
+"Well, well, don't worry me," said Sir Tom, "take him by the collar and
+give him a shake. You're big enough." Then he laughed unfeelingly, which
+Williams did not expect. "Too big, eh, Will? Not so ready for a shindy
+as we used to be." This identification of himself with his factotum was
+mere irony, and Williams felt it; for Sir Tom, if perhaps less slim than
+in his young days, was still what Williams called a "fine figger of a
+man;" whereas the butler had widened much round the waist, and was apt
+to puff as he came upstairs, and no longer contemplated a shindy as a
+possibility at all.
+
+"Sir Thomas," he said, with great gravity, "if I'm corpulent, which I
+don't deny, but never thought to have it made a reproach, it's neither
+over-feeding nor want of care, but constitootion, as derived from my
+parents, Sir Thomas. There is nothing," he added with a pensive
+superiority, "as is so gen'rally misunderstood." Then Williams drew
+himself up to still greater dignity, stimulated by Sir Tom's laugh. "If
+this fellow is to be long in the house, Sir Thomas, I won't answer for
+what may happen; for he's got the devil's own temper, like all of them,
+and carries a knife like all of them."
+
+"What do you want of me, man? Say it out! Am I to represent to Madame di
+Forno-Populo that three great hulking fellows of you are afraid of her
+slim Neapolitan?" Sir Tom cried impatiently.
+
+"Not afraid, Sir Thomas, of nothing, but of breaking the law," said
+Williams, quickly. Then he added in an insinuating tone: "But I tell
+them, ladies don't stop long in country visits, not at this time of the
+year. And a thing can be put up with for short that any man'd kick at
+for long. Madame the Countess will be moving on to pay her other visits,
+Sir Thomas, if I might make so bold? She is a lady as likes variety;
+leastways she was so in the old times."
+
+Sir Thomas stared at the bold questioner, who thus went to the heart of
+the matter. Then he burst into a hearty laugh. "If you knew so much
+about Madame the Countess," he cried, "my good fellow, what need have
+you to come and consult me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE CONTESSA'S BOUDOIR.
+
+
+The east rooms in which Madame di Forno-Populo had been placed on her
+arrival at the Hall were handsome and comfortable, though they were not
+the best in the house, and they were furnished as English rooms
+generally are, the bed forming the principal object in each chamber. The
+Contessa had looked around her in dismay when first ushered into the
+spacious room with its huge couch, and wardrobes, and its unmistakable
+destination as a sleeping-room merely: and it was only the addition of a
+dressing-room of tolerable proportions which had made her quarters so
+agreeable to her as they proved. The transformation of this room from a
+severe male dressing-room into the boudoir of a fanciful and luxurious
+woman, was a work of art of which neither the master nor the mistress of
+the house had the faintest conception. The Contessa was never at home;
+so that she was--having that regard for her own comfort which is one of
+the leading features in such a life as hers--everywhere at home,
+carrying about with her wherever she went the materials for creating an
+individual centre (a _chez soi_, which is something far more intimate
+and personal than a home), in which everything was arranged according to
+her fancy. Had Lucy, or even had Sir Tom, who knew more about such
+matters, penetrated into that sacred retirement, they would not have
+recognised it for a room in their own house. Out of one of the
+Contessa's boxes there came a paraphernalia of decoration such as would
+turn the head of the aesthetic furnisher of the present day. As she had
+been everywhere, and had "taste," when it was not so usual to have taste
+as it is now, she had "picked up" priceless articles, in the shape of
+tapestries, embroideries, silken tissues no longer made, delicate bits
+of Eastern carpet, soft falling drapery of curtains, such as
+artistically arranged in almost any room, impressed upon it the
+Contessa's individuality, and made something dainty and luxurious among
+the meanest surroundings. The Contessa's maid, from long practice, had
+become almost an artist in the arrangement of these properties, without
+which her mistress could not live; and on the evening of the first day
+of their arrival at the Hall, when Madame di Forno-Populo emerged from
+the darkness of the chamber in which she had rested all day after her
+journey, she stepped into a little paradise of subdued colour and
+harmonious effect. Antonio and Marietta were the authors of these
+wonders. They took down Mrs. Freshwater's curtains, which were of a
+solid character adapted to the locality, and replaced them by draperies
+that veiled the light tenderly and hung with studied grace. They took
+to pieces the small bed and made a divan covered with old brocade of the
+prosaic English mattress. They brought the finest of the furniture out
+of the bedchamber to add to the contents of this, and covered tables
+with Italian work, and veiled the bare wall with tapestry. This made
+such a magical change that the maids who penetrated by chance now and
+then into this little temple of the Graces could only stand aghast and
+gaze with open mouths; but no profane hand of theirs was ever permitted
+to touch those sacred things. There were even pictures on the wall,
+evolved out of the depths of that great coffer, which, more dear to the
+Contessa even than her wardrobe, went about with her everywhere--and
+precious pieces of porcelain: Madame di Forno-Populo, it need not be
+said, being quite above the mean and cheap decoration made with fans or
+unmeaning scraps of colour. The maids aforesaid, who obtained perilous
+and breathless glimpses from time to time of all these wonders, were at
+a loss to understand why so much trouble should be taken for a room that
+nobody but its inmate ever saw. The finer intelligence of the reader
+will no doubt set it down as something in the Contessa's favour that she
+could not live, even when in the strictest privacy, without her pretty
+things about her. To be sure it was not always so; in other regions,
+where other habits prevailed, this shrine so artistically prepared was
+open to worshippers; but the Contessa knew better than to make any such
+innovation here. She intended, indeed, nothing that was not entirely
+consistent with the strictest propriety. Her objects, no doubt, were her
+own interest and her own pleasure, which are more or less the objects of
+most people; but she intended no harm. She believed that she had a hold
+over Sir Tom which she could work for her advantage, but she did not
+mean to hurt Lucy. She thought that repose and a temporary absence from
+the usual scenes of her existence would be of use to her, and she
+thought also that a campaign in London under the warrant of the highest
+respectability would further her grand object. It amused her besides,
+perhaps, to flutter the susceptibilities of the innocent little
+_ingenue_ whom Sir Tom had married; but she meant no harm. As for
+seizing upon Sir Tom in the evenings, and occupying all his attention,
+that was the most natural and simple of proceedings. She did this as
+another woman played bezique. Some entertainment was a necessity, and
+everybody had something. There were people who insisted upon whist--she
+insisted only upon "some one to talk to." What could be more natural?
+The Contessa's "some one" had to be a man and one who could pay with
+sense and spirit the homage to which she was accustomed. It was her only
+stipulation--and surely it must be an ungracious hostess indeed who
+could object to that.
+
+She had just finished her breakfast on one of those gray
+mornings--seated before the fire in an easy-chair, which was covered
+with a shawl of soft but bright Indian colouring. She had her back to
+the light, but it was scarcely necessary even had there been any eyes to
+see her save those of Marietta, who naturally was familiar with her
+aspect at all times. Marietta made the Contessa's chocolate, as well as
+arranged and kept in order the Contessa's boudoir. To such a retainer
+nothing comes amiss. She would sit up till all hours, and perform
+marvels of waiting, of working, service of every kind. It never occurred
+to her that it "was not her place" to do anything that her mistress
+required. Antonio was her brother, which was insipid, but she generally
+managed to indemnify herself, one way or another, for the loss of this
+legitimate method of flirtation. She had not great wages, and she had a
+great deal of work, but Marietta felt her life amusing, and did not
+object to it. Here in England the excitement indeed flagged a little.
+Williams was stout and married, and the other men had ties of the heart
+with which, as has been seen, Antonio ruthlessly interfered. Marietta
+was not unwilling to give to Charles the footman, who was a handsome
+young fellow, the means of avenging himself, but as yet this expedient
+for a little amusement had not succeeded, and there had been a touch of
+peevishness in the tone with which she asked whether it was true that
+the Contessa intended remaining here. Madame di Forno-Populo was a woman
+who disliked the bondage of question and reply.
+
+"You do not amuse yourself, Marietta mia?" said the Contessa. She spoke
+Italian with her servants, and she was always caressing, fond of tender
+appellatives. "Patience! the country even in England is very good for
+the complexion, and in London there is a great deal that is amusing.
+Wheel this table away and give me the other with my writing things. The
+cushion for my elbow. Thanks! You forget nothing. My Marietta, you will
+have a happy life."
+
+"Do you think so, Signora Contessa?" said the girl, a little wistfully.
+
+The Contessa smiled upon her and said "Cara!" with an air of tenderness
+that might have made any one happy. Then she addressed herself to her
+correspondence, while Marietta removed into the other room not only the
+tray but the table with the tray which her mistress had used. The
+Contessa did not like to know or see anything of the processes of
+readjustment and restoration. She glanced over her morning's letters
+again with now and then a smile of satisfaction, and addressed herself
+to the task of answering them with apparent pleasure. Indeed, her own
+letters amused her even more than the others had done. When she had
+finished her task she took up a silver whistle and blew into it a long
+melodious note. She made the most charming picture, leaning back in her
+chair, in a white cashmere dressing-gown covered with lace, and a little
+cap upon her dark locks. All the accessories of her toilette were
+exquisite, as well as the draperies about her that relieved and set off
+her whiteness. Her shoes were of white plush with a cockade of lace to
+correspond. Her sleeves, a little more loose than common, showed her
+beautiful arms through a mist of lace. She was not more carefully nor
+more elegantly dressed when she went downstairs in all her panoply of
+conquest. What a pity there was no one to see it! but the Contessa did
+not even think of this. In other circumstances, no doubt, there might
+have been spectators, but in the meantime she pleased herself, which
+after all is the first object with every well-constituted mind. She
+leaned back in her chair pleased with herself and her surroundings, in a
+gentle languor after her occupation, and conscious of a yellow novel
+within reach should her young companion be slow of appearing. But Bice
+she knew had the ears of a savage, and would hear her summons wherever
+she might be.
+
+Bice at this moment was in a very different scene. She was in the large
+gallery, which was a little chill and dreary of a morning when all the
+windows were full of a gray, indefinable mist instead of light, and the
+ancestors were indistinguishable in their frames. She had just been
+going through her usual exercise with the baby, and had joined Lucy at
+the upper end of the gallery, that sport being over, and little Tom
+carried off to his mid-day sleep. There was a fire there, in the
+old-fashioned chimney, and Lucy had been sitting beside it watching the
+sport. Bice seated herself on a stool at a little distance. She had a
+half affection half dislike for this young woman, who was most near her
+in age of any one in the house. For one thing they were on different
+sides and representing different interests; and Bice had been trained to
+dislike the ordinary housekeeping woman. They had been brought together,
+indeed, in a moment of emotion by the instrumentality of the little
+delicate child, for whom Bice had conceived a compassionate affection.
+But the girl felt that they were antagonistic. She did not expect
+understanding or charity, but to be judged harshly and condemned
+summarily by this type of the conventional and proper. She believed that
+Lucy would be "shocked" by what she said, and horrified by her freedom
+and absence of prejudice. Yet, notwithstanding all this, there was an
+attraction in the candid eyes and countenance of little Lady Randolph
+which drew her in spite of herself. It was of her own will, though with
+a little appearance of reluctance, that she drew near, and soon plunged
+into talk--for to tell the truth, now that Jock was gone, Bice felt
+occasionally as if she must talk to the winds and trees, and could not
+at the hazard of her life keep silence any more. She could scarcely tell
+how it was that she was led into confessions of all kinds and
+descriptions of the details of her past life.
+
+"We are a little alike," said Lucy. "I was not much older than you are
+when my father died, and afterwards we had no real home: to be sure, I
+had always Jock. Even when papa was living it was not very homelike, not
+what I should choose for a girl. I felt how different it was when I went
+to Lady Randolph, who thought of everything----"
+
+Bice did not say anything for some time, and then she laughed. "The
+Contessa does not think of everything," she said.
+
+Lucy looked at her with a question in her eyes. She wanted to ask if the
+Contessa was kind. But there was a certain domestic treachery involved
+in asking such a question.
+
+"People are different," she said, with a certain soothing tone. "We are
+not made alike, you know; one person is good in one way and one in
+another." This abstract deliverance was not at all in Lucy's way. She
+returned to the particular point before them with relief. "England," she
+said, "must seem strange to you after your own country. I suppose it is
+much colder and less bright?"
+
+"I have no country" said Bice; "everywhere is my country. We have a
+house in Rome, but we travel; we go from one place to another--to all
+the places that are what you call for pleasure. We go in the season.
+Sometimes it is for the waters, sometimes for the sports or the
+games--always _festa_ wherever we go."
+
+"And you like that? To be sure, you are so very young; otherwise I
+should think it was rather tiresome," Lucy said.
+
+"No, it is not rather tiresome," said Bice, with a roll of her "r," "it
+is horrible! When we came here I did not know why it was, but I rejoiced
+myself that there was no band playing. I thought at first it was merely
+_jour de relache_: but when morning after morning came and no band, that
+was heavenly," she said, drawing a long breath.
+
+"A band playing!" Lucy's laugh at the absurdity of the idea rang out
+with all the gaiety of a child. It amused her beyond measure, and Bice,
+always encouraged by approbation, went on.
+
+"I expected it every morning. The house is so large. I thought the
+season, perhaps, was just beginning, and the people not arrived yet.
+Sometimes we go like that too soon. The rooms are cheaper. You can make
+your own arrangement."
+
+Lucy looked at her very compassionately. "That is why you pass the
+mornings in your own room," she said, "were you never then in a country
+house before?"
+
+"I do not know what is a country house. We have been in a great castle
+where there was the chase every day. No, that is not what _la chasse_
+means in England--to shoot I would say. And then in the evening the
+theatre, tableaux, or music. But to be quiet all day and all night too,
+that is what I have never seen. We have never known it. It is confusing.
+It makes you feel as if all went on without any division; all one day,
+all one night."
+
+Bice laughed, but Lucy looked somewhat grave. "This is our natural life
+in England," she said; "we like to be quiet; though I have not thought
+we were very quiet, we have had people almost every night."
+
+To this Bice made no reply. But at Lucy's next question she stared, not
+understanding what it meant. "You go everywhere with the Contessa," she
+said; "are you out?"
+
+"Out!" Bice's eyes opened wide. She shook her head. "What is out?" she
+said.
+
+"It is when a girl begins to go to parties--when she comes out of her
+home, out of the schoolroom, from being just a little girl----"
+
+"Ah, I know! From the Convent," said Bice; "but I never was there."
+
+"And have you always gone to parties--all your life?" asked Lucy, with
+wondering eyes.
+
+Bice looked at her, wondering too. "We do not go to parties. What is a
+party?" she said. "We go to the rooms--oh yes, and to the great
+receptions sometimes, and at hotels. Parties? I don't know what that
+means. Of course, I go with the Contessa to the rooms, and to the tables
+d'hote. I give her my arm ever since I was tall enough. I carry her fan
+and her little things. When she sings I am always ready to play. They
+call me the shadow of the Contessa, for I always wear a black frock, and
+I never talk except when some one talks to me. It is most amusing how
+the English look at me. They say, Miss----? and then stop that I may
+tell them my name."
+
+"And don't you?" said Lucy. "Do you know; though it is so strange to say
+it, I don't even know your name."
+
+Bice laughed, but she made no attempt to supply the omission. "The
+Contessa thinks it is more piquant," she said. "But nothing is decided
+about me, till it is known how I turn out. If I am beautiful the
+Contessa will marry me well, and all will be right."
+
+"And is that what you--wish?" said Lucy, in a tone of horror.
+
+"Monsieur, your brother," said Bice, with a laugh, "says I am not
+pretty, even. He says it does not matter. How ignorant men are, and
+stupid! And then suddenly they are old, old, and sour. I do not know
+which is the worst. I do not like men."
+
+"And yet you think of being married, which it is not nice to speak of,"
+said Lucy, with disapproval.
+
+"Not--nice? Why is that? Must not girls be married? and if so, why not
+think of it?" said Bice, gravely. There was not the ghost of a blush
+upon her cheek. "If you might live without being married that would
+understand itself; but otherwise----"
+
+"Indeed," cried Lucy, "you can, indeed you can! In England, at least. To
+marry for a living, that is terrible."
+
+"Ah!" cried Bice, with interest, drawing her chair nearer, "tell me how
+that is to be done."
+
+There was the seriousness of a practical interest in the girl's manner.
+The question was very vital to her. There was no other way of existence
+possible so far as she knew; but if there was it was well worth taking
+into consideration.
+
+Lucy felt the question embarrassing when it was put to her in this very
+decisive way. "Oh," she cried with an Englishwoman's usual monosyllabic
+appeal for help to heaven and earth: "there are now a great number of
+ways. There are so many things that girls can do; there are things open
+to them that never used to be--they can even be doctors when they are
+clever. There are many ways in which they can maintain themselves."
+
+"By trades?" cried Bice, "by work?" She laughed. "We hear of that
+sometimes, and the doctors; everybody laughs; the men make jokes, and
+say they will have one when they are ill. If that is all, I do not
+think there is anything in it. I should not like to work even if I were
+a man, but a woman----! that gets no money, that is _mal vu_. If that is
+all! Work," she said, with a little oracular air, "takes up all your
+time, and the money that one can earn is so small. A girl avoids saying
+much to men who are like this. She knows how little they can have to
+offer her; and to work herself, why, it is impossible. What time would
+you have for anything?" cried the girl, with an impatient sense of the
+fatuity of the suggestion. Lucy was so much startled by this view of the
+subject that she made no reply.
+
+"There is no question of working," said Bice with decision, "neither for
+women, neither for men. That is not in our world. But if I am only
+pretty, no more," she added, "what will become of me? It is not known. I
+shall follow the Contessa as before. I will be useful to her, and
+afterwards---- I prefer not to think of that. In the meantime I am young.
+I do not wish for anything. It is all amusing. I become weary of the
+band playing, that is true; but then sometimes it plays not badly, and
+there is something always to laugh at. Afterwards, if I marry, then I
+can do as I like," the girl said.
+
+Lucy gave her another look of surprised awe, for it was really with that
+feeling that she regarded this strange little philosopher. But she did
+not feel herself able to pursue the subject with so enlightened a
+person. She said: "How very well you speak English. You have scarcely
+any accent, and the Contessa has none at all. I was afraid she would
+speak only French, and my French is so bad."
+
+"I have always spoken English all my life. When the Contessa is angry
+she says I am English all over; and she--she is of no country--she is
+of all countries; we are what you call vagabonds," the girl cried, with
+a laugh. She said it so calmly, without the smallest shadow of shame or
+embarrassment, that Lucy could only gaze at her and could not find a
+word to say. Was it true? It was evident that Bice at least believed so,
+and was not at all afraid to say it. This conversation took place, as
+has been said, in the picture gallery, where Lady Randolph and her young
+visitor had first found a ground of amity. The rainy weather had
+continued, and this place had gradually become the scene of a great deal
+of intercourse between the young mistress of the house and her guest.
+They scarcely spoke to each other in the evening. But in the morning
+after the game of romps with little Tom, by which Bice indemnified
+herself for the absence of other society, Lucy would join the party, and
+after the child had been carried off for his mid-day sleep, the others
+left behind would have many a talk. To Lucy the revelations thus made
+were more wonderful than any romance--so wonderful that she did not half
+take in the strange life to which they gave a clue, nor realise how
+perfectly right was Bice's description of herself and her patroness.
+They were vagabonds, as she said; and like other vagabonds, they got a
+great deal of pleasure out of their life. But to Lucy it seemed the most
+terrible that mind could conceive. Without any home, without any
+retirement or quietness, with a noisy band always playing, and a series
+of migrations from one place to another--no work, no duties, nothing to
+represent home occupations but a piece of _tapisserie_. She put her hand
+very tenderly upon Bice's shoulder. There had been prejudices in her
+mind against this girl--but they all melted away in a womanly pity.
+"Oh," she said, "Cannot I help you in any way? Cannot Sir Tom--" But
+here she paused. "I am afraid," she said, "that all we could think of
+would be an occupation for you; something to do, which would be far, far
+better, surely, than this wandering life."
+
+Bice looked at her for a moment with a doubtful air. "I don't know what
+you mean by occupation," she said.
+
+And this, to Lucy's discomfiture, she found to be true. Bice had no idea
+of occupation. Young Lady Randolph, who was herself not much instructed,
+made a conscientious effort at least to persuade the strange girl to
+read and improve her mind. But she flew off on all such occasions with a
+laugh that was half mocking and half merry. "To what good?" she said,
+with that simplicity of cynicism which is a quality of extreme youth.
+"If I turn out beautiful, if I can marry whom I will, I will then get
+all I want without any trouble."
+
+"But if not?" said Lucy, too careful of the other's feelings to express
+what her own opinions were on this subject.
+
+"If not it will be still less good," said Bice, "for I shall never then
+do anything or be of any importance at all; and why should I tr-rouble?"
+she said, with that rattle of the r's which was about the only sign that
+English was not her native speech. This was very distressing to Lucy,
+who wished the girl well, and altogether Lady Randolph was anxious to
+interfere on Bice's behalf, and put her on a more comprehensible
+footing.
+
+"It will be very strange when you go among other people in London," she
+said. "Madame di Forno-Populo does not know England. People will want
+to know who you are. And if you were to be married, since you will talk
+of that," Lucy added with a blush, "your name and who you are will have
+to be known. I will ask Sir Tom to talk to the Contessa--or," she said
+with reluctance, "I will speak to her if you think she will listen to
+me."
+
+"I am called," said Bice, making a sweeping curtsey, and waving her hand
+as she darted suddenly away, leaving Lucy in much doubt and perplexity.
+Was she really called? Lucy heard nothing but a faint sound in the
+distance, as of a low whistle. Was this a signal between the strange
+pair who were not mother and daughter, nor mistress and servant, and yet
+were so linked together. It seemed to Lucy, with all her honest English
+prejudices, that to train so young a girl (and a girl so fond of
+children, and, therefore, a good girl at bottom, whatever her little
+faults might be) to such a wandering life, and to put her up as it were
+to auction for whoever would bid highest, was too terrible to be thought
+of. Better a thousand times to be a governess, or a sempstress, or any
+honest occupation by which she could earn her own bread. But then to
+Bice any such expedient was out of the question. Her incredulous look of
+wonder and mirth came back to Lucy with a sensation of dumb
+astonishment. She had no right feelings, no sense of the advantages of
+independence, no horror of being sold in marriage. Lady Randolph did not
+know what to think of a creature so utterly beyond all rules known to
+her. She was in such a condition of mind, unsettled, unhinged, feeling
+all her old landmarks breaking up, that a new interest was of great
+importance to her. It withdrew her thoughts from the Contessa, and the
+irksomeness of her sway, when she thought of Bice and what could be
+done for her. The strange thing was that the girl wanted nothing done
+for her. She was happy enough so far as could be seen. In her close
+confinement and subjection she was so fearless and free that she might
+have been thought the mistress of the situation. It was incomprehensible
+altogether. To state the circumstances from one side was to represent a
+victim of oppression. A poor girl stealing into a strange house and room
+in the shadow of her patroness; unnamed, unnoticed, made no more account
+of than the chair upon which she sat, held in a bondage which was almost
+slavery, and intended to be disposed of when the moment came without a
+reference to her own will and affections. Lucy felt her blood boil when
+she thought of all this, and determined that she would leave no
+expedient untried to free this white slave, this unfortunate thrall. But
+the other side was one which could not pass without consideration. The
+girl was careless and fearless and free, without an appearance of
+bondage about her. She scoffed at the thought of escaping, of somehow
+earning a personal independence--such was not for persons in her world,
+she said. She was not horrified by her own probable fate. She was not
+unhappy, but amused and interested in her life, and taking everything
+gaily, both the present quiet and the tumult of the many "seasons" in
+watering-places and other resorts of gaiety through which, young as she
+was, she had already gone. She had looked at Lucy with a smile, which
+was half cynical, and altogether decisive, when the anxious young matron
+had pointed out to her the way of escaping from such a sale and bargain.
+She did not want to escape. It seemed to her right and natural. She
+walked as lightly as a bird with this yoke upon her shoulders. Lucy had
+never met anything of this kind before, and it called forth a sort of
+panic in her mind. She did not know how to deal with it; but neither
+would she give it up. She had something else to think upon, when the
+Contessa, lying back on her sofa, almost going to sleep before Sir Tom
+entered, roused herself on the moment to occupy and amuse him all the
+evening. Instead of thinking of that and making herself unhappy, Lucy
+looked the other way at Bice reading a novel rapidly at the other side
+of the table, with all her young savage faculties about her to see and
+hear everything. How to get her delivered from her fate! To make her
+feel that deliverance was necessary, to save her before she should be
+sacrificed, and take her out of her present slavery. It was very strange
+that it never occurred to Lucy to free the girl by making her one of the
+recipients of the money she had to give away. She was very faithful to
+the letter of her father's will, and he had excluded foreigners. But
+even that was not the reason. The reason was that it did not occur to
+her. She thought of every way of relieving the too-contented thrall
+before her except that way. And in the meantime the time wore on, and
+everything fell into a routine, and not a word was said of the
+Contessa's plans. It was evident, for the time being at least, that she
+meant to make no change, but was fully minded, notwithstanding the
+dullness of the country, to remain where she was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE TWO STRANGERS.
+
+
+The Contessa did not turn her head or change her position when Bice
+entered. She said, "You have not been out?" in a tone which was half
+question and half reproof.
+
+"It rained, and there is nothing to breathe but the damp and fog."
+
+"What does it matter? it is very good for the complexion, this damp; it
+softens the skin, it clears your colour. I see the improvement every
+day."
+
+"Do you think so?" said Bice, going up to the long mirror which had been
+established in a sort of niche against the wall, and draped as
+everything was draped, with graceful hangings. She went up to it and put
+her face close, looking with some anxiety at the image which she found
+there. "I do not see it," she said. "You are too sanguine. I am no
+better than I was. I have been racing in the long gallery with the
+child; that makes one's blood flow."
+
+"You do well," said the Contessa, nodding her head. "I cannot take any
+notice of the child; it is too much for me. They are odious at that
+age."
+
+"Ah! they are delightful," said Bice. "They are so good to play with,
+they ask no questions, and are always pleased. I put him on my shoulder
+and we fly. I wish that I might have a gymnastique, trapeze,
+what-you-call it, in that long gallery; it would be heaven."
+
+The Contessa uttered an easy exclamation meaning nothing, which
+translated into English would have been a terrible oath. "Do not do it,
+in the name of----they will be shocked, oh, beyond everything."
+
+Bice, still standing close to the glass, examining critically her cheek
+which she pinched, answered with a laugh. "She is shocked already. When
+I say that you will marry me well, if I turn out as I ought, she is full
+of horror. She says it is not necessary in England that a young girl
+should marry, that there are other ways."
+
+The Contessa started to her feet. "Giove!" she cried, "Baccho! that
+insipidity, that puritan. And I who have kept you from every soil. _She_
+speak of other ways. Oh, it is too much!"
+
+Bice turned from the glass to address a look of surprise to her
+patroness. "Reassure yourself, Madama," she said. "What Milady said was
+this, that I might work if I willed, and escape from marrying--that to
+marry was not everything. It appears that in England one may make one's
+living as if (she says) one were a man."
+
+"As if one were a man!"
+
+"That is what Milady said," Bice answered demurely. "I think she would
+help me to work, to get something to do. But she did not tell me what it
+would be; perhaps to teach children; perhaps to work with the needle. I
+know that is how it happens in the Tauchnitz. You do not read them, and,
+therefore, do not know; but I am instructed in all these things. The
+girl who is poor like me is always beautiful; but she never thinks of it
+as we do. She becomes a governess, or perhaps an artiste; or even she
+will make dresses, or at the worst _tapisserie_."
+
+"And this she says to you--to you!" cried the Contessa, with flaming
+eyes.
+
+"Oh, restrain yourself, Madama! It does not matter at all. She makes the
+great marriage just the same. It is not Milady who says this, it is in
+the Tauchnitz. It is the English way. Supposing," said Bice, "that I
+remain as I am? Something will have to be done with me. Put me, then, as
+a governess in a great family where there is a son who is a great
+nobleman, or very rich; and you shall see it will so happen, though I
+never should be beautiful at all."
+
+"My child," said the Contessa, "all this is foolishness. You will not
+remain as you are. I see a little difference every day. In a little time
+you will be dazzling; you will be ready to produce. A governess! It is
+more likely that you will be a duchess; and then you will laugh at
+everybody--except me," said Madame di Forno-Populo, tapping her breast
+with her delicate fingers, "except me."
+
+Bice looked at her with a searching, inquiring look. "I want to ask
+something," she said. "If I should be beautiful, you were so before
+me--oh, more, more!--you we----are very lovely, Madama."
+
+The Contessa smiled--who would not smile at such a speech? made with all
+the sincerity and simplicity possible--simplicity scarcely affected by
+the instinct which made Bice aware before she said it, that to use the
+past tense would spoil all. The Contessa smiled. "Well," she said, "and
+then?"
+
+"They married you," said Bice with a curious tone between philosophical
+remark and interrogation.
+
+"Ah!" the Contessa said. She leaned back in her chair making herself
+very comfortable, and shook her head. "I understand. You think then it
+has been a--failure in my case? Yes, they married me--that is to say
+there was no they at all. I married myself, which makes a great
+difference. Ah, yes, I follow your reasoning very well. This woman you
+say was beautiful, was all that I hope to be, and married; and what has
+come of it? It is quite true. I speak to you as I speak to no one, Bice
+mia. The fact was we deceived each other. The Conte expected to make his
+fortune by me, and I by him. I was English, you perceive, though no one
+now remembers this. Poor Forno-Populo! He was very handsome; people were
+pleased to say we were a magnificent pair--but we had not the _sous_:
+and though we were fond of each other, he proceeded in one direction to
+repair his fortunes, and I--on another to--_enfin_ to do as best I
+could. But no such accident shall happen in your case. It is not only
+your interest I have in hand; it is my own. I want a home for my
+declining years."
+
+She said this with a smile at the absurdity of the expression in her
+case, but Bice at sixteen naturally took the words _au pied de la
+lettre_, and did not see any absurdity in them. To her forty was very
+much the same as seventy. She nodded her head very seriously in answer
+to this, and turning round to the glass surveyed herself once more, but
+not with that complacency which is supposed to be excited in the
+feminine bosom by the spectacle. She was far too serious for vanity--the
+gaze she cast upon her own youthful countenance was severely critical,
+and she ended by a shrug of her shoulders, as she turned away. "The only
+thing is," she said, "that perhaps the young brother is right, and at
+present I am not even pretty at all."
+
+The Contessa had a great deal to think of during this somewhat dull
+interval. The days flowed on so regular, and with so little in them,
+that it was scarcely possible to take note of the time at all. Lucy was
+always scrupulously polite and sometimes had little movements of anxious
+civility, as if to make up for impulses that were less kind. And Sir
+Tom, though he enjoyed the evenings as much as ever, and felt this
+manner of passing the heavy hours to retain a great attraction, was at
+other times a little constrained, and made furtive attempts to find out
+what the Contessa's intentions were for the future, which betrayed to a
+woman who had always her wits about her, a certain strain of the old
+bonds, and uneasiness in the indefinite length of her visit. She had
+many reasons, however, for determining to ignore this uneasiness, and to
+move on upon the steady tenor of her way as if unconscious of any reason
+for change, opposing a smiling insensibility to all suggestions as to
+the approaching removal of the household to London. It seemed to the
+Contessa that the association of her _debutante_ with so innocent and
+wealthy a person as Lady Randolph would do away with all the prejudices
+which her own dubious antecedents might have provoked; while the very
+dubiousness of those antecedents had procured her friends in high
+quarters and acquaintances everywhere, so that both God and Mammon were,
+so to speak, enlisted in her favour, and Bice would have all the
+advantage, without any of the disadvantage, of her patroness' position,
+such as it was. This was so important that she was quite fortified
+against any pricks of offence, or intrusive consciousness that she was
+less welcome than might have been desired. And in the end of January,
+when the entire household at the Hall had begun to be anxious to make
+sure of her departure, an event occurred which strengthened all her
+resolutions in this respect, and made her more and more determined,
+whatever might be the result, to cling to her present associations and
+shelter.
+
+This was the arrival of a visitor, very unexpected and unthought of, who
+came in one afternoon after the daily drive, often a somewhat dull
+performance, which Lucy, when there was nothing more amusing to do,
+dutifully took with her visitor. Madame di Forno-Populo was reclining in
+the easiest of chairs after the fatigue of this expedition. There had
+been a fresh wind, and notwithstanding a number of veils, her delicate
+complexion had been caught by the keen touch of the breeze. Her cheeks
+burned, she declared, as she held up a screen to shield her from the
+glow of the fire. The waning afternoon light from the tall window behind
+threw her beautiful face into shadow, but she was undeniably the most
+important person in the tranquil domestic scene, occupying the central
+position, so that it was not wonderful that the new comer suddenly
+ushered in, who was somewhat timid and confused, and advanced with the
+hesitating step of a stranger, should without any doubt have addressed
+himself to her as the mistress of the house. Lucy, little and young, who
+was moving about the room, with her light step and in the simple dress
+of a girl, appeared to Mr. Churchill, who had many daughters of his own,
+to be (no doubt) the eldest, the mother's companion. He came in with a
+slightly embarrassed air and manner. He was a man beyond middle age,
+gray haired, stooping, with the deprecating look of one who had been
+obliged in many ways to propitiate fate in the shape of superiors,
+officials, creditors, all sorts of alien forces. He came up with his
+hesitating step to the Contessa's chair. "Madam," he said, with a voice
+which had a tremor in it, "my name will partly tell you the confused
+feelings that I don't know how to express. I am come in a kind of
+bewilderment, scarcely able to believe that what I have heard is
+true----"
+
+The Contessa gazed at him calmly from the depths of her chair. The
+figure before her, thin, gray haired, submissive, with the long clerical
+coat and deprecating air, did not promise very much, but she had no
+objection to hear what he had to say in the absolute dearth of subjects
+of interest. Lucy, to whom his name seemed vaguely familiar, without
+recalling any distinct idea, and who was a little startled by his
+immediate identification of the Contessa, came forward a little and put
+a chair for him, then withdrew again, supposing his business to be with
+her guest.
+
+"I will not sit down," Mr. Churchill said, faltering a little, "till I
+have said what I have no words to say. If what I am told is actually
+true, and your ladyship means to confer upon me a gift so--so
+magnificent--oh! pardon me--I cannot help thinking still that there must
+be some extraordinary mistake."
+
+"Oh!" Lucy began, hurriedly making a step forward again; but the
+Contessa, to her surprise, accepted the address with great calm.
+
+"Be seated, sir," Madame di Forno-Populo said, with a dignity which Lucy
+was far from being able to emulate. "And pray do not hesitate to say
+anything which occurs to you. I am already interested----" She waved her
+hand to him with a sort of regal grace, without moving in any other way.
+She had the air of a princess not deeply concerned indeed, but
+benevolently willing to listen. It was evident that this reception of
+him confused the stranger more and more. He became more deeply
+embarrassed in sight of the perfect composure with which he was
+contemplated, and cleared his throat nervously three or four times.
+
+"I think," he said, "that there must be some mistake. It was, indeed,
+impossible that it should be true; but as I heard it from two quarters
+at once--and it was said to be something in the nature of a
+trust---- But," he added, looking with a nervous intentness at the
+unresponsive face which he could with difficulty see, "it must be, since
+your ladyship does not recognise my name, a--mistake. I felt it was so
+from the beginning. A lady of whom I know nothing!--to bestow what is
+really a fortune--upon a man with no claim----"
+
+He gave a little nervous laugh as he went on--the disappointment, after
+such a dazzling giddy hope, took away every vestige of colour from his
+face. "I will sit down for a moment, if you please," he said suddenly.
+"I--am a little tired with the walk--you will excuse me, Lady
+Randolph----"
+
+"Oh, sir," cried Lucy, coming forward, "forgive me that I did not
+understand at once. It is no mistake at all. Oh, I am afraid you are
+very much fatigued, and I ought to have known at once when I heard your
+name."
+
+He put out his hand in his deprecating way as she came close to the
+chair into which he had dropped. "It is nothing--nothing--my dear young
+lady: in a moment," he said.
+
+"My Lucy," said the Contessa, "this is one of your secret bounties. I am
+quite interested. But do not interrupt; let us hear it out."
+
+"It is something which is entirely between Mr. Churchill and me," cried
+Lucy. "Indeed, it would not interest you at all. But, pray, don't think
+it is a mistake," she said, earnestly turning to him. "It is quite
+right--it is a trust--there is nothing that need distress you. I am
+obliged to do it, and you need not mind. Indeed, you must not mind. I
+will tell you all about it afterwards."
+
+"My dear young lady!" the clergyman said. He was relieved, but he was
+perplexed; he turned still towards the stately lady in the chair--"If it
+is really so, which I scarcely can allow myself to believe, how can I
+express my obligation? It seems more than any man ought to take; it is
+like a fairy tale. I have not ventured to mention it to my children, in
+case,---- Thanks are nothing," he cried, with excitement; "thanks are
+for a trifle, a little every-day service; but this is a fortune; it is
+something beyond belief. I have been a poor man all my life, struggling
+to do my best for my children; and now, what I have never been able to
+do with all my exertions, you--put me in a position to do in a moment.
+What am I to say to you? Words can't reach such a case. It is simply
+unspeakable--incredible; and why out of all the world you should have
+chosen me----"
+
+He had to stop, his emotion getting the better of him. Bice had come
+into the room while this strange scene was going on, and she stood in
+the shadow, unseen by the speaker, listening too.
+
+"Pray compose yourself," said the Contessa, in her most gracious voice.
+"Your expressions are full of feeling. To have a fortune given to one
+must be very delightful; it is an experience that does not often happen.
+Probably a little tea, as I hear tea is coming, will restore
+Mr. ---- Pardon me, they are a little difficult to catch those, your
+English names."
+
+The Contessa produced a curious idiom now and then like a work of art.
+It was almost the only sign of any uncertainty in her English; and while
+the poor clergyman, not quite understanding in his own emotion what she
+was saying, made an effort to gulp it down and bring himself to the
+level of ordinary life, the little stir of the bringing-in of tea
+suddenly converted everything into commonplace. He sat in a confusion
+that made all dull to him while this little stir went on. Then he rose
+up and said, faltering: "If your ladyship will permit me, I will go out
+into the air a little. I have got a sort of singing in my ears. I
+am--not very strong; I shall come back presently if you will allow me,
+and try to make my acknowledgments--in a less confused way."
+
+Lucy followed him out of the room; he was not confused with her. "My
+dear young lady," he said, "my head is going round and round. Perhaps
+you will explain it all to me." He looked at her with a helpless,
+appealing air. Lucy had the appearance of a girl of his own. He was not
+afraid to ask her anything. But the great lady, his benefactress, who
+spoke so regally and responded so little to his emotion, alarmed him.
+Lucy, too, on her side, felt as if she had been a girl of his own. She
+put her arm within his, and led him to the library, where all was quiet,
+and where she felt by instinct--though she was not bookish--that the
+very backs of the books would console him and make him feel himself at
+home.
+
+"It is very easy to explain," she said. "It is all through my brother
+Jock and your son, who is at school with him. And it is I who am Lady
+Randolph," she said, smiling, supporting him with her arm through his.
+The shock would have been almost too much for poor Mr. Churchill if she
+had not been so like a child of his own.
+
+The moment this pair had left the room the Contessa raised herself
+eagerly from the chair. She looked round to Bice in the background with
+an imperative question. "What does this all mean?" she said, in a voice
+as different from the languor of her former address as night from day.
+"Who is it that gives away fortunes, that makes a poor man rich? Did you
+know all that? Is it that chit of a girl, that piece of
+simplicity--that--Giove! You have been her friend; you know her secrets.
+What does it mean?"
+
+"She has no secrets," said Bice, coming slowly forward. "She is not like
+us, she is like the day."
+
+"Fool!" the Contessa said, stamping her foot--"don't you see there must
+be something in it. I am thinking of you, though you are so ungrateful.
+One knows she is rich, all the money is hers; but I thought it had gone
+to Sir Tom. I thought it was he who could-- ... Happily, I have always
+kept her in hand; and you, you have become her friend----"
+
+"Madama," said Bice, with ironical politeness, "since it happens that
+Milady is gone, shall I pour out for you your cup of tea?"
+
+"Oh, tea! do I care for tea? when there are possibilities--possibilities!"
+said the Contessa. She got up from her chair and began to pace about the
+room, a grand figure in the gathering twilight. As for Bice, some demon of
+perversity possessed her. She began to move about the tea-table, making
+the china ring, and pouring out the tea as she had said, betook herself to
+the eating of cake with a relish which was certainly much intensified by
+the preoccupation of her patroness. She remembered well enough, very well,
+what Jock had told her, and her own incredulity; but she would have died
+rather than give a sign of this--and there was a tacit defiance in the way
+in which she munched her cake under the Contessa's excited eyes, but this
+was only a momentary perversity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+AN ADVENTURESS.
+
+
+"When he told me first, I was angry like you, I would not believe it.
+Money! that is a thing to keep, I said, not to give away."
+
+"To give away!" Few things in all her life, at least in all her later
+life, had so moved the Contessa. She was walking about the pretty room
+in an excitement which was like agitation, now sitting down in one
+place, now in another, turning over without knowing it the things on the
+table, arranging a drapery here and there instinctively. To how few
+people in the world would it be a matter of indifference that money, so
+to speak, was going begging, and might fall into their hands as well as
+another's! The best of us on this argument would prick up our ears.
+Nobody cared less for money in itself than Madame di Forno-Populo. She
+liked not to spend it only, but to squander--to make it fly on all
+hands. To be utterly extravagant one must be poor, and the money hunger
+which belongs to poverty is almost, one might say, a disinterested
+quality, so little is it concerned with the possession of the thing
+coveted. "Oh," she said, "this is too wonderful! and you are sure you
+have not been deceived by the language? You know English so well--are
+you sure that you were not deceived?"
+
+Bice did not deign any reply to this question. She gave her head a
+slight toss of scorn. The suggestion that she could be mistaken was
+unworthy of an answer, and indeed was not put in seriousness, nor did
+the Contessa wait for a reply. "What then," the Contessa went on, "is
+the position of Sir Tom? Has he no control? Does he permit this? To have
+it taken away from himself and his family, thrown into the sea, parted
+with--Oh, it is too much! But how can it be done? I was aware that
+settlements were very troublesome, but I had not thought it
+possible--Bice! Bice! this is very exciting, it makes one's heart beat!
+And you are her friend."
+
+"I am her--friend?" Bice turned one ear to her patroness with a startled
+look of interrogation.
+
+"Oh!" cried the Contessa once more; by which exclamation, naturally
+occurring when she was excited, she proved that she was of English
+race. "What difficulty is there in my meaning? You have English enough
+for that. What! do you feel no impatience when you hear of money running
+away?--going into a different channel--to strangers--to people that have
+nothing to do with it--that have no right to it--anybody--a clergyman,
+a----"
+
+Her feelings were too much for her. She threw herself into a chair, out
+of breath.
+
+"He looked a very good man," said Bice, with that absolute calm which is
+so exasperating to an excited woman, "and what does it matter, if it has
+to be given away, who gets it? I should give it to the beggars. I should
+fling it for them, as you do the _bajocchi_ when you are out driving."
+
+"You are a fool! you are a fool!" cried the Contessa, "or rather you are
+a child, and don't understand anything. Fling it to the beggars? Yes, if
+it was in shillings or even sovereigns. You don't understand what money
+is."
+
+"That is true, Madama, for I never had any," cried the girl, with a
+laugh. She was perfectly unmoved--the desire of money was not in her as
+yet, though she was far more enlightened as to its uses than most
+persons of her age. It amused her to see the excitement of her
+companion; and she knew very well what the Contessa meant, though she
+would not betray any consciousness of it. "If I marry," she said, "then
+perhaps I shall know."
+
+"Bice! you are not a fool--you are very sharp, though you choose not to
+see. Why should not you have this as well as another?--oh, much better
+than another! I can't stand by and see it all float into alien channels,
+while you--it would not be doing my duty while you---- Oh, don't look at
+me with that blank face, as if it did not move you in the least! Would
+it be nothing to have it in your power to dress as you like, to do as
+you like, to go into the world, to have a handsome house, to enjoy
+life?----"
+
+"But, yes!" said Bice, "is it necessary to ask?" She was still as calm
+as if the question they were discussing had been of the very smallest
+importance. "But we are not good poor people that will spend the money
+_comme il faut_. If we had it we should throw it away. Me also--I would
+throw it away. It would be for nothing good; why should it be given to
+us? Oh no, Madama. The good old clergyman had many children. He will not
+waste the money--which we should. What do you care for money, but to
+spend it fast, fast; and I too----"
+
+"You are a child," said the Contessa. "No, perhaps I am not what people
+call good, though I am poor enough--but you are a child. If it was given
+to you it would be invested; you would have power over the income only.
+You could not throw it away, nor could I, which, perhaps, is what you
+are thinking of. You are just the person she wants, so far as I can see.
+She objects to my plan of putting you out in the world; she says it
+would be better if you were to work; but this is the best of all. Let
+her provide for you, and then it will not need that you should either
+marry or work. This is, beyond all description, the best way. And you
+are her friend. Tell me, was it before or after the boy informed you of
+this that you advised yourself to become her friend?"
+
+"Contessa!" cried Bice, with a shock of angry feeling which brought the
+blood to her face. She was not sensitive in many matters which would
+have stung an English girl; but this suggestion, which was so
+undeserved, moved her to passion. She turned away with an almost tragic
+scorn, and seizing the _tapisserie_, which was part of the Contessa's
+_mise en scene_, flung a long strip of the many-coloured embroidery over
+her arm, and began to work with a sort of savage energy. The Contessa
+watched her movements with a sudden pause in her own excitement. She
+stopped short in the eagerness of her own thoughts, and looked with keen
+curiosity at the young creature upon whom she had built so many
+expectations. She was not an ungenerous or mercenary woman, though she
+had many faults, and as she gazed a certain compunction awoke within
+her, mingled with amusement. She was sorry for the unworthy suggestion
+she had made, but the sight of the girl in her indignation was like a
+scene in a play to this woman of the world. Her youthful dignity and
+wrath, her silent scorn, the manner in which she flung her needle
+through the canvas, working out her rage, were full of entertainment to
+the Contessa. She was not irritated by the girl's resentment; it even
+took off her thoughts from the primary matter to watch this exhibition
+of feeling. She gave vent to a little laugh as she noted how the needle
+flew.
+
+"Cara! I was nasty when I said that. I did not mean it. I suffered
+myself to talk as one talks in the world. You are not of the world--it
+is not applicable to you."
+
+"Yes, Madama, I am of the world," cried Bice. "What have I known else?
+But I did not mean to become Milady's friend, as you say. It was by
+accident. I was in the gallery only to amuse myself, and she came--it
+was not intention. I think that Milady is----"
+
+Here Bice stopped, looked up from the sudden fervour of her working,
+threw back her head, and said nothing more.
+
+"That Milady is--what?" the Contessa cried.
+
+A laugh so joyous, so childish, that no one could have refused to be
+sympathetic, burst from Bice's lips. She gave her patroness a look of
+merriment and derision, in which there was something tender and sweet.
+"Milady is--sorry for me," she said.
+
+This speech had a strange effect upon the Contessa. She coloured, and
+the tears seemed to flood in a moment to her eyes. "Poor child!" she
+said--"poor child! She has reason. But that amuses you, Bice mia," she
+said, in a voice full of the softest caressing, looking at her through
+those sudden tears. The Contessa was an adventuress, and she had brought
+up this girl after her own traditions; but it was clear as they looked
+at each other that they loved each other. There was perfect confidence
+between them. Bice looked with fearless laughing eyes, and a sense of
+the absurdity of the fact that some one was sorry for her, into the face
+of her friend.
+
+"She thinks I would be happier if I worked. To give lessons to little
+children and be their slave would be better, she thinks. To know nothing
+and see nothing, but live far away from the world and be independent,
+and take no trouble about my looks, or, if I please--that is Milady's
+way of thinking," Bice said.
+
+The Contessa's face softened more and more as she looked at the girl.
+There even dropped a tear from her full eyes. She shook her head. "I am
+not sure," she said, "dear child, that I am not of Milady's opinion.
+There are ways in which it is better. Sometimes I think I was most happy
+when I was like that--without money, without experience, with no
+wishes."
+
+"No wishes, Madama! Did you not wish to go out into the beautiful bright
+world, to see people, to hear music, to talk, to please? It is
+impossible. Money, that is different, and experience that is different:
+but to wish, every one must do that."
+
+"Bice, you have a great deal of experience for so young a girl. You have
+seen so much. I ought to have brought you up otherwise, perhaps, but how
+could I? You have always shared with me, and what I had I gave you. And
+you know besides how little satisfaction there is in it--how sick one
+becomes of a crowd of faces that are nothing to you, and of music that
+goes on just the same whatever you are feeling--and this to please, as
+you call it! Whom do I please? Persons who do not care at all for me
+except that I amuse them sometimes--who like me to sing; who like to
+look at me; who find themselves less dull when I am there. That is all.
+And that will be all for you, unless you marry well, my Bice, which it
+is the object of my life to make you do."
+
+"I hope I shall marry well," said the girl, composedly. "It would be
+very pleasant to find one's self above all shifts, Madama. Still that is
+not everything; and I would much rather have led the life I have led,
+and enjoyed myself and seen so much, than to have been the little
+governess of the English family--the little girl who is always so quiet,
+who walks out with the children, and will not accept the eldest son even
+when he makes love to her. I should have laughed at the eldest son. I
+know what they are like--they are so stupid; they have not a word to
+say; that would have amused me; but in the Tauchnitz books it is all
+honour and wretchedness. I am glad I know the world, and have seen all
+kinds of people, and wish for everything that is pleasant, instead of
+being so good and having no wishes as you say."
+
+The Contessa laughed, having got rid of all her incipient tears. "There
+is more life in it," she said. "You see now what it is--this life in
+England; one day is like another, one does the same things. The
+newspaper comes in the morning, then luncheon, then to go out, then tea,
+dinner; there is no change. When we talk in the evening, and I remind
+Sir Tom of the past when I lived in Florence, and he was with me every
+day,"--the Contessa once more uttered that easy exclamation which would
+sound so profane in English. "_Quelle vie!_" she cried, "how much we got
+out of every day. There were no silences! They came in one after another
+with some new thing, something to see and to do. We separated to dress,
+to make ourselves beautiful for the evening, and then till the morning
+light came in through the curtains, never a pause or a weariness. Yes!
+sometimes one had a terrible pang. There would be a toilette, which was
+ravishing, which was far superior to mine--for I never had money to
+dress as I wished--or some one else would have a success, and attract
+all eyes. But what did that matter?" the Contessa cried, lighting up
+more and more. "One did not really grudge what lasted only for a time;
+for one knew next day one would have one's turn. Ah!" she said, with a
+sigh, "I knew what it was to be a queen, Bice, in those days."
+
+"And so you do still, Madama," said the girl, soothingly.
+
+Madama di Forno-Populo shook her head. "It is no longer the same," she
+said. "You have known only the worst side, my _poverina_. It is no
+longer one's own palace, one's own people, and the best of the
+strangers, the finest company. You saw the Duchess at Milady's party the
+other day. To see me made her lose her breath. She could not refuse to
+speak to me--to salute me--but it was with a consternation! But, Bice,
+that lady was only too happy to be invited to the Palazzo Populino. To
+make one of our expeditions was her pride. I believe in my soul," cried
+the Contessa, "that when she looks back she remembers those days as the
+most bright of her life."
+
+Bice's clear shining eyes rested upon her patroness with a light in them
+which was keen with indignation and wonder. She cried, "And why the
+change--and why the change, Madama?" with a high indignant tone, such as
+youth assumes in presence of ingratitude and meanness. Bice knew much
+that a young girl does not usually know; but the reason why her best
+friend should be thus slighted was not one of these things.
+
+The Contessa shrank a little from her gaze. She rose up again and went
+to the window and looked out upon the wintry landscape, and standing
+there with her face averted, shrugged her shoulders a little and made
+answer in a tone of levity very different from the sincerer sound of her
+previous communications. "It is poverty, my child, poverty, always the
+easiest explanation! I was never rich, but then there had been no crash,
+no downfall. I was in my own palace. I had the means of entertaining. I
+was somebody. Ah! very different; it was not then at the baths, in the
+watering-places, that the Contessa di Forno-Populo was known. It is
+this, my Bice, that makes me say that sometimes I am of Milady's
+opinion; that to have no wishes, to know nothing, to desire
+nothing--that is best. When I knew the Duchess first I could be of
+service to her. Now that I meet her again it is she only that can be of
+service to me."
+
+"But----" Bice began and stopped short. She was, as has been said, a
+girl of many experiences. When a very young creature is thus prematurely
+introduced to a knowledge of human nature she approaches the subject
+with an impartiality scarcely possible at an older age. She had seen
+much. She had been acquainted with those vicissitudes that occur in the
+lives of the seekers of pleasure almost since ever she was born. She had
+been acquainted with persons of the most gay and cheerful appearance,
+who had enjoyed themselves highly, and called all their acquaintances
+round them to feast, and who had then suddenly collapsed and after an
+interval of tears and wailings had disappeared from the scene of their
+downfall. But Bice had not learnt the commonplace lesson so deeply
+impressed upon the world from the Athenian Timon downwards, that a
+downfall of this kind instantly cuts all ties. She was aware, on the
+contrary, that a great deal of kindness, sympathy, and attempts to aid
+were always called forth on such occasions; that the women used to form
+a sort of rampart around the ruined with tears and outcries, and that
+the men had anxious meetings and consultations and were constantly going
+to see some one or other upon the affairs of the downfallen. Bice had
+not seen in her experience that poverty was an argument for desertion.
+She was so worldly wise that she did not press her question as a simple
+girl might have done. She stopped short with an air of bewilderment and
+pain, which the Contessa, as her head was turned, did not see. She gave
+up the inquiry; but there arose in her mind a suspicion, a question,
+such as had not ever had admission there before.
+
+"Ah!" cried the Contessa, suddenly turning round, clasping her hands,
+"it was different indeed when my house was open to all these English,
+and they came as they pleased. But now I do not know, if I am turned out
+of this house, this dull house in which I have taken refuge, where I
+shall go. I don't know where to go!"
+
+"Madama!" Bice sprang to her feet too, and clasped her hands.
+
+"It is true--it is quite true. We have spent everything. I have not the
+means to go even to a third-rate place. As for Cannes it is impossible.
+I told you so before we came here. Rome is impossible--the apartment is
+let, and without that I could not live at all. Everything is gone. Here
+one may manage to exist a little while, for the house is good, and Sir
+Tom is rather amusing. But how to get to London unless they will take us
+I know not, and London is the place to produce you, Bice. It is for that
+I have been working. But Milady does not like me; she is jealous of me,
+and if she can she will send us away. Is it wonderful, then, that I am
+glad you are her friend? I am very glad of it, and I should wish you to
+let her know that to no one could she give her money more fitly. You
+see," said the Contessa, with a smile, resuming her seat and her easy
+tone, "I have come back to the point we started from. It is seldom one
+does that so naturally. If it is true (which seems so impossible) that
+there is money to give away, no one has a better right to it than you."
+
+Bice went away from this interview with a mind more disturbed than it
+had ever been in her life before. Naturally, the novel circumstances
+which surrounded her awakened deeper questions as her mind developed,
+and she began to find herself a distinct personage. They set her
+wondering. Madame di Forno-Populo had been of a tenderness unparalleled
+to this girl, and had sheltered her existence ever since she could
+remember. It had not occurred to her mind as yet to ask what the
+relations were between them, or why she had been the object of so much
+affection and thought. She had accepted this with all the composure of a
+child ever since she was a child. And the prospect of achieving a
+marriage should she turn out beautiful, and thus being in a position to
+return some of the kindness shown her, seemed to Bice the most natural
+thing in the world. But the change of atmosphere had done something, and
+Lucy's company, and the growth, perhaps, of her own young spirit. She
+went away troubled. There seemed to be more in the world and its
+philosophy than Bice's simple rules could explain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE SERPENT AND THE DOVE.
+
+
+On the very next day after this conversation took place a marked change
+occurred in the manner of the Contessa. She had been always caressing to
+Lucy, calling her by pretty names, and using a hundred tender
+expressions as if to a child; but had never pretended to talk to her
+otherwise than in a condescending way. On this occasion, however, she
+exerted herself to a most unusual extent during their drive to captivate
+and charm Lady Randolph; and as Lucy was very simple and accessible to
+everything that seemed kindness, and the Contessa very clever and with
+full command of her powers, it is not wonderful that her success was
+easy. She led her to talk of Mr. Churchill, who had been kept to dinner
+on the previous night, and to whom Sir Tom had been very polite, and
+Lucy anxiously kind, doing all that was possible to put the good man at
+his ease, though with but indifferent success. For the thought of such
+an obligation was too great to be easily borne, and the agitation of his
+mind was scarcely settled, even by the commonplaces of the dinner, and
+the devotion which young Lady Randolph showed him. Perhaps the grave
+politeness of Sir Tom, which was not very encouraging, and the curiosity
+of the great lady, whom he had mistaken for his benefactress,
+counterbalanced Mr. Churchill's satisfaction, for he did not regain his
+confidence, and it was evidently with great relief of mind that he got
+up from his seat when the carriage was announced to take him away. The
+Contessa had given her attention to all he said and did, with a most
+lively and even anxious interest, and it was from this that she had
+mastered so many details which Bice had reluctantly confirmed by her
+report of the information she had derived from Jock. It was not long
+before Madame di Forno-Populo managed to extract everything from Lucy.
+Lady Randolph was not used to defend herself against such inquiries, nor
+was there any reason why she should do so. She was glad indeed when she
+saw how sweetly her companion looked, and how kind were her tones, to
+talk over her own difficult position with another woman, one who was
+interested, and who did not express her disapproval and horror as most
+people did. The Contessa, on the contrary, took a great deal of
+interest. She was astonished, indeed, but she did not represent to Lucy
+that what she had to do was impossible or even vicious, as most people
+seemed to suppose. She listened with the gravest attention; and she gave
+a soothing sense of sympathy to Lucy's troubled soul. She was so little
+prepared for sympathy from such a quarter that the unexpectedness of it
+made it more soothing still.
+
+"This is a great charge to be laid upon you," the Contessa said, with
+the most kind look. "Upon you so young and with so little experience.
+Your father must have been a man of very original mind, my Lucy. I have
+heard of a great many schemes of benevolence, but never one like this."
+
+"No?" said Lucy, anxiously watching the Contessa's eye, for it was so
+strange to her to have sympathy on this point, that she felt a sort of
+longing for it, and that this new critic, who treated the whole matter
+with more moderation and reasonableness than usual, should approve.
+
+"Generally one endows hospitals or builds churches; in my country there
+is a way which is a little like yours; it is to give marriage
+portions--that is very good I am told. It is done by finding out who is
+the most worthy. And it is said also that not the most worthy is always
+taken. Don't you remember there is a Rosiere in Barbe Bleue? Oh, I
+believe you have never heard of Barbe Bleue."
+
+"I know the story," said Lucy, with a smile, "of the many wives, and the
+key, and sister Anne--sister Anne."
+
+"Ah! that is not precisely what I mean; but it does not matter. So it is
+this which makes you so grave, my pretty Lucy. I do not wonder. What a
+charge for you! To encounter all the prejudices of the world which will
+think you mad. I know it. And now your husband--the excellent Tom--he,"
+said the Contessa, laying a caressing and significant touch upon Lucy's
+arm, "does not approve?"
+
+"Oh, Madame di Forno-Populo, that is the worst of it," cried Lucy, whose
+heart was opened, and who had taken no precaution against assault on
+this side; "but how do you know? for I thought that nobody knew."
+
+The Contessa this time took Lucy's hand between hers, and pressed it
+tenderly, looking at her all the time with a look full of meaning. "Dear
+child," she said, "I have been a great deal in the world. I see much
+that other people do not see. And I know his face, and yours, my little
+angel. It is much for you to carry upon those young shoulders. And all
+for the sake of goodness and charity."
+
+"I do not know," said Lucy, "that it is right to say that; for, had it
+been left to me, perhaps I should never have thought of it. I should
+have been content with doing just what I could for the poor. No one,"
+said Lucy, with a sigh, "objects to that. When people are quite poor it
+is natural to give them what they want; but the others----"
+
+"Ah, the others," said the Contessa. "Dear child, the others are the
+most to be pitied. It is a greater thing, and far more difficult to give
+to this good clergyman enough to make his children happy, than it is to
+supply what is wanted in a cottage. Ah yes, your father was wise, he was
+a person of character. The poor are always cared for. There are none of
+us, even when we are ourselves poor, who do not hold out a hand to them.
+There is a society in my Florence which is like you. It is for the
+_Poveri Vergognosi_. You don't understand Italian? That means those who
+are ashamed to beg. These are they," said the Contessa impressively,
+"who are to be the most pitied. They must starve and never cry out; they
+must conceal their misery and smile; they must put always a fair front
+to the world, and seem to want nothing, while they want everything. Oh!"
+The Contessa ended with a sigh, which said more than words. She pressed
+Lucy's hand, and turned her face away. Her feelings were too much for
+her, and on the delicate cheek, which Lucy could see, there was the
+trace of a tear. After a moment she looked round again, and said, with
+a little quiver in her voice: "I respect your father, my Lucy. It was a
+noble thought, and it is original. No one I have ever heard of had such
+an intention before."
+
+Lucy, at this unlooked-for applause, brightened with pleasure; but at
+the same time was so moved that she could only look up into her
+companion's face and return the pressure of her hand. When she recovered
+a little she said: "You have known people like that?"
+
+"Known them? In my country," said the Contessa (who was not an Italian
+at all), "they are as plentiful as in England--blackberries. People with
+noble names, with noble old houses, with children who must never learn
+anything, never be anything, because there is no money. Know them! dear
+child, who can know better? If I were to tell you my history! I have for
+my own part known--what I could not trouble your gentle spirit to hear."
+
+"But, Madame di Forno-Populo, oh! if you think me worthy of your
+confidence, tell me!" cried Lucy. "Indeed, I am not so insensible as you
+may think. I have known more than you suppose. You look as if no harm
+could ever have touched you," Lucy cried, with a look of genuine
+admiration. The Contessa had found the right way into her heart.
+
+The Contessa smiled with mournful meaning and shook her head. "A great
+deal of harm has touched me," she said; "I am the very person to meet
+with harm in the world. A solitary woman without any one to take care of
+me, and also a very silly one, with many foolish tastes and
+inclinations. Not prudent, not careful, my Lucy, and with very little
+money; what could be more forlorn? You see," she said, with a smile "I
+do not put all this blame upon Providence, but a great deal on myself.
+But to put me out of the question----"
+
+Lucy put a hand upon the Contessa's arm. She was much moved by this
+revelation.
+
+"Oh! don't do that," she said; "it is you I want to hear of."
+
+Madame di Forno-Populo had an object in every word she was saying, and
+knew exactly how much she meant to tell and how much to conceal. It was
+indeed a purely artificial appeal that she was making to her companion's
+feelings; and yet, when she looked upon the simple sympathy and generous
+interest in Lucy's face, her heart was touched.
+
+"How good you are," she said; "how generous! though I have come to you
+against your will, and am staying--when I am not wanted."
+
+"Oh! do not say so," cried Lucy with eagerness; "do not think
+so--indeed, it was not against my will. I was glad, as glad as I could
+be, to receive my husband's friend."
+
+"Few women are so," said the Contessa gravely. "I knew it when I came.
+Few, very few, care for their husband's friend--especially when she is a
+woman----"
+
+Lucy fixed her eyes upon her with earnest attention. Her look was not
+suspicious, yet there was investigation in it.
+
+"I do not think I am like that," she said simply.
+
+"No, you are not like that," said the Contessa. "You are the soul of
+candour and sweetness; but I have vexed you. Ah, my Lucy, I have vexed
+you. I know it--innocently, my love--but still I have done it. That is
+one of the curses of poverty. Now look," she said, after a momentary
+pause, "how truth brings truth! I did not intend to say this when I
+began" (and this was perfectly true), "but now I must open my heart to
+you. I came without caring much what you would think, meaning no
+harm--Oh, trust me, meaning no harm! but since I have come all the
+advantages of being here have appeared to me so strongly that I have set
+my heart upon remaining, though I knew it was disagreeable to you."
+
+"Indeed:" cried Lucy, divided between sincerity and kindness: "if it was
+ever so for a moment, it was only because I did not understand."
+
+"My sweetest child! this I tell you is one of the curses of poverty. I
+knew it was disagreeable to you; but because of the great advantage of
+being in your house, not only for me, but for Bice, for whom I have
+sworn to do my best--Lucy, pardon me--I could not make up my mind to go
+away. Listen! I said to myself, I am poor, I cannot give her all the
+advantages; and they are rich; it is nothing to them--I will stay, I
+will continue, though they do not want me, not for my sake, for the sake
+of Bice. They will not be sorry afterwards to have made the fortune of
+Bice. Listen, dear one; hear me out. I had the intention of forcing
+myself upon you--oh no! the words are not too strong--in London, always
+for Bice's sake, for she has no one but me; and if her career is
+stopped---- I am not a woman," said the Contessa, with dignity, "who am
+used to find myself _de trop_. I have been in my life courted, I may say
+it, rather than disagreeable; yet this I was willing to bear--and impose
+myself upon you for Bice's sake----"
+
+Lucy listened to this moving address with many differing emotions. It
+gave her a pang to think that her hopes of having her house to herself
+were thus permanently threatened. But at the same time her heart
+swelled, and all her generous feelings were stirred. Was she indeed so
+poor a creature as to grudge to two lonely women the shelter and
+advantage of her wealth and position? If she did this, what did it
+matter if she gave money away? This would indeed be keeping to the
+letter of her father's will, and abjuring its meaning. She could not
+resist the pathos, the dignity, the sweetness of the Contessa's appeal,
+which was not for herself but for Bice, for the girl who was so good to
+baby, and whom that little oracle had bound her to with links of
+gratitude and tenderness. "Oh," Lucy said to herself, "if I should ever
+have to appeal to any one for kindness to him!" And Bice was the
+Contessa's child--the child of her heart, at least--the voluntary charge
+which she had taken upon her, and to which she was devoting herself. Was
+it possible that only because she wanted to have her husband to herself
+in the evenings, and objected to any interruption of their privacy, a
+woman should be made to suffer who was a good woman, and to whom Lucy
+could be of use? No, no, she cried within herself, the tears coming to
+her eyes; and yet there was a very real pang behind.
+
+"But reassure yourself, dear child," said the Contessa, "for now that I
+see what you are doing for others, I cannot be so selfish. No; I cannot
+do it any longer. In England you do not love society; you love your home
+unbroken; you do not like strangers. No, my Lucy, I will learn a lesson
+from your goodness. I too will sacrifice--oh, if it was only myself and
+not Bice!"
+
+"Contessa," said Lucy with an effort, looking up with a smile through some
+tears, "I am not like that. It never was that you were--disagreeable. How
+could you be disagreeable? And Bice is--oh, so kind, so good to my boy.
+You must never think of it more. The town house is not so large as the
+Hall, but we shall find room in it. Oh, I am not so heartless, not so
+stupid, as you think! Do you suppose I would let you go away after you
+have been so kind as to open your heart to me, and let me know that we
+are really of use? Oh, no, no! And I am sure," she added, faltering
+slightly, "that Tom--will think the same."
+
+"It is not Tom--excellent, _cher_ Tom! that shall be consulted," cried
+the Contessa. "Lucy, my little angel! if it is really so that you will
+give my Bice the advantage of your protection for her _debut_---- But
+that is to be an angel indeed, superior to all our little, petty,
+miserable---- Is it possible, then," cried the Contessa, "that there is
+some one so good, so noble in this low world?"
+
+This gratitude confused Lucy more than all the rest. She did her best to
+deprecate and subdue; but in her heart she felt that it was a great
+sacrifice she was making. "Indeed, it is nothing," she said faintly. "I
+am fond of her, and she has been so good to baby; and if we can be of
+any use--but oh, Madame di Forno-Populo," Lady Randolph cried, taking
+courage. "Her _debut_? do you really mean what she says that she must
+marry----"
+
+"That I mean to marry her," said the Contessa, "that is how we express
+it," with a very concise ending to her transports of gratitude. "Sweet
+Lucy," she continued, "it is the usage of our country. The parents, or
+those who stand in their place, think it their duty. We marry our
+children as you clothe them in England. You do not wait till your little
+boy can choose. You find him what is necessary. Just so do we. We choose
+so much better than an inexperienced girl can choose. If she has an
+aversion, if she says I cannot suffer him, we do not press it upon her.
+Many guardians will pay no attention, but me," said the Contessa,
+putting forth a little foreign accent, which she displayed very
+rarely--"I have lived among the English, and I am influenced by their
+ways. Neither do I think it right," she added, with an air of candour,
+"to offer an old person, or one who is hideous, or even very
+disagreeable. But, yes, she must marry well. What else is there that a
+girl of family can do?"
+
+Lucy was about to answer with enthusiasm that there were many things she
+could do; but stopped short, arrested by these last words. "A girl of
+family,"--that, no doubt, made a difference. She paused, and looked
+somewhat wistfully in her companion's face. "We think," she said, "in
+England that anything is better than a marriage without----"
+
+The Contessa put up her hand to stay the words. "Without love---- I know
+what you are going to say; but, my angel, that is a word which Bice has
+never heard spoken. She knows it not. She has not the habit of thinking
+it necessary--she is a good girl, and she has no sentiment. Besides, why
+should we go so fast? If she produces the effect I hope---- Why should
+not some one present himself whom she could also love? Oh yes; fall in
+love with, as you say in English--such an innocent phrase; let us hope
+that, when the proper person comes who satisfies my requirements,
+Bice--to whom not a word shall be said--will fall in love with him
+_comme il faut_!"
+
+Lucy did not make any reply. She was troubled by the light laugh with
+which the Contessa concluded, and with the slight change of tone which
+was perceptible. But she was still too much moved by her own emotion to
+have got beyond its spell, and she had committed herself beyond recall.
+While the Contessa talked on with--was it a little, little change?--a
+faint difference, a levity that had not been in her voice before? Lucy's
+thoughts went back upon what she had done with a little tremor. Not this
+time as to what Tom might say, but with a deeper wonder and pang as to
+what might come of it; was she going voluntarily into new danger, such
+as she had no clue to, and could not understand? After a little while
+she asked almost timidly--
+
+"But if Bice should not see any one----"
+
+"You mean if no one suitable should present himself?" The Contessa
+suddenly grew very grave. She put her hands together with a gesture of
+entreaty. "My sweet one, let us not think of that. When she is dressed
+as I shall dress her, and brought out--as you will enable me to bring
+her out. My Lucy, we do not know what is in her. She will shine, she
+will charm. Even now, if she is excited, there are moments in which she
+is beautiful. If she fails altogether---- Ah, my love, as I tell you,
+there is where the curse of poverty comes in. Had she even a moderate
+fortune, poor child; but alas, orphan, with no one but me----"
+
+"Is she an orphan?" said Lucy, feeling ashamed of the momentary failure
+of her interest, "and without relations--except----"
+
+"Relations?" said the Contessa; there was something peculiar in her tone
+which attracted Lucy's attention, and came back to her mind in other
+days. "Ah, my Lucy, there are many things in this life which you have
+never thought of. She has relations who think nothing of her, who would
+be angry, be grieved, if they knew that she existed. Yes, it is terrible
+to think of, but it is true. She is, on one side, of English parentage.
+But pardon me, my sweetest, I did not mean to tell you all this: only,
+my Lucy, you will one time be glad to think that you have been kind to
+Bice. It will be a pleasure to you. Now let us think of it no more.
+Marry; yes, she must marry. She has not even so much as your poor
+clergyman; she has nothing, not a penny. So I must marry her, there is
+nothing more to be said."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE CONTESSA'S TRIUMPH.
+
+
+And it was with very mingled sensations that Sir Tom heard from Lucy
+(for it was from her lips he heard it) the intimation that Madame di
+Forno-Populo was going to be so good as to remain at the Hall till they
+moved to London, and then to accompany them to Park Lane. Sir Tom was
+taken entirely by surprise. He was not a man who had much difficulty in
+commanding himself, or showing such an aspect as he pleased to the
+general world; but on this occasion he was so much surprised that his
+very jaw dropped with wonder and astonishment. It was at luncheon that
+the intimation was made, in the Contessa's presence, so that he did not
+venture to let loose any expression of his feelings. He gave a cry, only
+half uttered, of astonishment, restrained by politeness, turning his
+eyes, which grew twice their size in the bewilderment of the moment,
+from Lucy to the Contessa and back again. Then he burst into a
+breathless laugh--a twinkle of humour lighted in those eyes which were
+big with wonder, and he turned a look of amused admiration towards the
+Contessa. How had she done it? There was no fathoming the cleverness of
+women, he said to himself, and for the rest of the day he kept bursting
+forth into little peals of laughter all by himself. How had she managed
+to do it? It was a task which he himself would not have ventured to
+undertake. He would not, he said to himself, have had the slightest idea
+how to bring forward such a proposition. On the contrary, had not his
+sense that Lucy had much to forgive in respect to this invasion of her
+home and privacy induced him to make a great sacrifice, to withdraw his
+opposition to those proceedings of hers of which he so much disapproved?
+And yet in an afternoon, in one interview, the Contessa had got the
+upper hand! Her cleverness was extraordinary. It tickled him so that he
+could not take time to think how very little satisfied he was with the
+result. He, too, had fallen under her enchantments in the country, in
+the stillness, if not dulness, of those long evenings, and he had been
+very willing to be good to her for the sake of old times, to make her as
+comfortable as possible, to give her time to settle her plans for her
+London campaign. But that she should begin that campaign under his own
+roof, and that Lucy, his innocent and simple wife, should be visible to
+the world as the friend and ally of a lady whose name was too well known
+to society, was by no means satisfactory to Sir Tom. When his first
+astonishment and amazement was over, he began to look grave; but what
+was he to do? He had so much respect for Lucy that when the idea
+occurred to him of warning her that the Contessa's antecedents were not
+of a comfortable kind, and that her generosity was mistaken, he rejected
+it again with a sort of panic, and did not dare, experienced and
+courageous as he was, to acknowledge to his little wife that he had
+ventured to bring to her house a woman of whom it could be said that she
+was not above suspicion. Sir Tom had dared a great many perils in his
+life, but he did not venture to face this. He recoiled from before it,
+as he would not have done from any lion in the way. He could not even
+suggest to her any reticence in her communications, any reserve in
+showing herself at the Contessa's side, or in inviting other people to
+meet her. If all his happiness depended upon it, he felt that he could
+not disturb Lucy's mind by any such warning. Confess to her that he had
+brought to her a woman with whom scandal had been busy, that he had
+introduced to her as his friend, and recommended to honour and kindness,
+one whose name had been in all men's mouths! Sir Tom ran away morally
+from this suggestion as if he had been the veriest coward; he could not
+breathe a word of it in Lucy's ear. How could he explain to her that
+mixture of amazement at the woman's boldness, and humorous sense of the
+incongruity of her appearance in the absolute quiet of an English home,
+without company, which, combined with ancient kindness and careless good
+humour, had made him sanction her first appearance? Still less, how
+could he explain the mingling of more subtle sensations, the
+recollections of a past which Sir Tom could not himself much approve of,
+yet which was full of interest still, and the formation of an
+intercourse which renewed that past, and brought a little tingling of
+agreeable excitement into life when it had fallen to too low an ebb to
+be agreeable in itself? He would not say a word of all this to Lucy. Her
+purity, her simplicity, even her want of imagination and experience, her
+incapacity to understand that debatable land between vice and virtue in
+which so many men find little harm, and which so many women regard with
+interest and curiosity, closed his mouth. And then he comforted himself
+with the reflection that, as his aunt herself had admitted, the Contessa
+had never brought herself openly within the ban. Men might laugh when
+the name of La Forno-Populo was introduced, and women draw themselves up
+with indignation, or stare with astonishment not unmingled with
+consternation as the Duchess had done; but they could not refuse to
+recognise her, nor could any one assert that there was sufficient reason
+to exclude her from society. Not even when she was younger, and
+surrounded by worshippers, could this be said. And now when she was
+less---- But here Sir Tom paused to ask himself, was she less attractive
+than of old? When he came to consider the question he was obliged to
+allow that he did not think so; and if she really meant to bring out
+that girl---- Did she mean to bring out that girl? Could she make up her
+mind to exhibit beside her own waning (if they were waning) charms the
+first flush of this young beauty? Sir Tom, who thought he knew women (at
+least of the kind of La Forno-Populo), shook his head and felt it very
+doubtful whether the Contessa was sincere, or if she could indeed make
+up her mind to take a secondary place. He thought with a rueful
+anticipation of the sort of people who would flock to Park Lane to renew
+their acquaintance with La Forno-Populo. "By Jove! but shall they
+though? Not if I know it," said Sir Tom firmly to himself.
+
+Williams, the butler, was still more profoundly discomposed. He had
+opened his mind to Mrs. Freshwater on various occasions when his
+feelings were too many for him. Naturally, Williams gave the Contessa
+the benefit of no doubt as to her reputation. He was entirely convinced,
+as is the fashion of his class, that all that could have been said of
+her was true, and that she was as unfit for the society of the
+respectable as any wretched creature could be. "That foreign madam" was
+what he called her, in the privacy of the housekeeper's room, with many
+opprobrious epithets. Mrs. Freshwater, who was, perhaps, more
+good-natured than was advantageous to the housekeeper and manager of a
+large establishment, was melted whenever she saw her, by the Contessa's
+gracious looks and ways, but Williams was immovable. "If you'd seen what
+I've seen," he said, shaking his head. The women, for Lucy's maid
+Fletcher sometimes shared these revelations, were deeply excited by
+this--longing, yet fearing to ask what it was that Williams had seen.
+"And when I think of my lady, that is as innocent as the babe unborn,"
+he said, "mixed up in all that---- You'll see such racketing as never was
+thought of," cried Williams. "I know just how things will go. Night
+turned into day, carriages driving up at all hours, suppers going on
+after the play all the night through, masks and dominoes
+arriving;--no--to be sure this is England. There will be no _veglionis_,
+at least--which in England, ladies, would be masked balls--with Madam
+the Countess and her gentlemen--and even ladies too, a sort of
+ladies--in all sorts of dresses."
+
+"O-oh!" the women cried.
+
+They were partially shocked, as they were intended to be, but partially
+their curiosity was excited, and a feeling that they would like to see
+all these gaieties and fine dresses moved their minds. The primitive
+intelligence always feel certain that "racketing" and orgies that go on
+all night, must be at least guiltily delightful, exciting, and amusing,
+if nothing else. They were not of those who "held with" such
+dissipation; still for once in a way to see it, the responsibility not
+being theirs, would be something. They held their breath, but it was not
+altogether in horror; there was in it a mixture of anticipation too.
+
+"And I know what will come of it," said Williams. "What has come afore:
+the money will have to come out o' some one's pocket; and master never
+knew how to keep his to himself, never, as long as I've known him. To be
+sure, he hadn't got a great deal in the old days. But I know what'll
+happen; he'll just have to pay up now--he's that soft," said Williams;
+"a man that can't say no to a woman. Not that I care for the money. I'd
+a deal sooner he gave her an allowance, or set her up in some other
+place, or just give her a good round sum--as he could afford to do--and
+get shut of her. That is what I should advise. Just a round sum and get
+shut of her."
+
+"I've always heard," said Miss Fletcher, "as the money was my lady's,
+and not from the Randolph side at all."
+
+"What's hers is his," said Williams; "what's my lady's is her husband's;
+and a good bargain too--on her side."
+
+"I declare," cried Fletcher energetically, stung with that sense of
+wrong to her own side which gives heat to party feeling--"I declare if
+any man took my money to keep up his--his--his old sweetheart, I'd
+murder him. I'd take his life, that's what I should do."
+
+"Poor dear," said Mrs. Freshwater, wiping her eyes with her apron. "Poor
+dear! She'll never murder no one, my lady. Bless her innocent face. I
+only hope as she'll never find it out."
+
+"Sooner than she don't find it out I'll tell her myself," cried
+Williams. "Now I don't understand you women. You'd let my lady be
+deceived and made game of, rather than tell her."
+
+"Made game of!" cried Fletcher, with a shriek of indignation. "I should
+like to see who dared to do that."
+
+"Oh, they'll dare do it, soon enough, and take their fun out of
+her--it's just what them foreigners are fond of," said Williams, who
+knew them and all their tricks down to the ground, as he said. Still,
+however, notwithstanding his evil reports, good Mrs. Freshwater, who was
+as good-natured as she was fat, could scarcely make up her mind to
+believe all that of the Contessa. "She do look so sweet, and talk so
+pretty, not as if she was foreign at all," the housekeeper said.
+
+That evening, however, the Contessa herself took occasion to explain to
+Sir Tom what her intentions were. She had thought the subject all over
+while she dressed for dinner, with a certain elation in her success, yet
+keen clear-mindedness which never deserted her. And then, to be sure,
+her object had not been entirely the simple one of getting an invitation
+to Park Lane. She had intended something more than this. And she was not
+sure of success in that second and still more important point. She meant
+that Lady Randolph should endow Bice largely, liberally. She intended to
+bring every sort of motive to bear--even some that verged upon
+tragedy--to procure this. She had no compunction or faltering on the
+subject, for it was not for herself, she said within herself, that she
+was scheming, and she did not mean to be foiled. In considering the best
+means to attain this great and final object, she decided that it would
+be well to go softly, not to insist too much upon the advantages she had
+secured, or to give Lucy too much cause to regret her yielding. The
+Contessa had the soul of a strategist, the imagination of a great
+general. She did not ignore the feelings of the subject of her
+experiment. She even put herself in Lucy's place, and asked herself how
+she could bear this or that. She would not oppose or overwhelm the
+probable benefactress to whom she, or at least Bice, might afterwards
+owe so much. When Sir Tom approached her chair in the evening when he
+came in after dinner, as he always did, she made room for him on the
+sofa beside her. "I am going to make you my confidant," she said in her
+most charming way, with that air of smiling graciousness which made Sir
+Tom laugh, yet fascinated him in spite of himself. He knew that she put
+on the same air for whomsoever she chose to charm; but it had a power
+which he could not resist all the same. "But perhaps you don't care to
+be taken into my confidence," she added, smiling, too, as if willing to
+admit all he could allege as to her syren graces. She had a delightful
+air of being in the joke which entirely deceived Sir Tom.
+
+"On the contrary," he said. "But as we have just heard your plans from
+my wife----"
+
+The Contessa kissed her hand to Lucy, who occupied her usual place at
+the table.
+
+"I wonder," she said, "if you understand, being only a man, what there
+is in that child; for she is but a child. You and I, we are Methuselahs
+in comparison."
+
+"Not quite so much as that," he said, with a laugh.
+
+"Methuselahs," she said reflectively. "Older, if that is possible;
+knowing everything, while she knows nothing. She is our good angel. It
+is what you would not have dared to offer, you who know me--yes, I
+believe it--and like me. Oh no, I do not go beyond that English word,
+never! You like the Forno-Populo. I know how you men speak. You think
+that there is amusement to be got from her, and you will do me the
+honour to say, no harm. That is, no permanent harm. But you would not
+offer to befriend me, no, not the best of you. But she who by nature is
+against such women as I am--Sweet Lucy! Yes it is you I am talking of,"
+the Contessa said, who was skilful to break any lengthened speeches like
+this by all manner of interruptions, so that it should never tire the
+person to whom it was addressed. "She, who is not amused by me, who does
+not like me, whose prejudices are all against me, she it is who offers
+me her little hand to help me. It is a lovely little hand, though she is
+not a beauty----"
+
+"My wife is very well," said Sir Tom, with a certain hauteur and
+abruptness, such as in all their lengthened conversations he had never
+shown before.
+
+The Contessa gave him a look in which there was much of that feminine
+contempt at which men laugh as one of the pretences of women. "I am
+going to be good to her as she is to me," she said. "The Carnival will
+be short this year, and in England you have no Carnival. I will find
+myself a little house for the season. I will not too much impose upon
+that angel. There, now, is something good for you to relieve your mind.
+I can read you, _mon ami_, like a book. You are fond of me--oh yes!--but
+not too long; not too much. I can read you like a book."
+
+"Too long, too much, are not in my vocabulary," said Sir Tom; "have they
+a meaning? not certainly that has any connection with a certain charming
+Contessina. If that lady has a fault, which I doubt, it is that she
+gives too little of her gracious countenance to her friends."
+
+"She does not come down to breakfast," said the Contessa, with her soft
+laugh, which in itself was a work of art. "She is not so foolish as to
+put herself in competition with the lilies and the roses, the English
+flowers. Poverina! she keeps herself for the afternoon which is
+charitable, and the light of the lamps which is flattering. But she
+remembers other days--alas! in which she was not afraid of the sun
+himself, not even of the mid-day, nor of the dawn when it comes in above
+the lamps. There was a certain _bal costume_ in Florence, a year when
+many English came to the Populino palace. But why do I talk of that? You
+will not remember----"
+
+There was something apparently in the recollection that touched Sir Tom.
+His eye softened. An unaccustomed colour came to his middle-aged cheek.
+"I! not remember? I remember every hour, every moment," he said, and
+then their voices sank lower, and a murmur of reminiscences, one filling
+up another, ensued between the pair. Their tone softened, there were
+broken phrases, exclamations, a rapid interchange which was far too
+indistinct to be audible. Lucy sat by her table and worked, and was
+vaguely conscious of it all. She had said to herself that she would take
+no heed any more, that the poor Contessa was too open-hearted, too
+generous to harm her, that they were but two old friends talking of the
+past. And so it was; but there was a something forlorn in sitting by at
+a distance, out of it all, and knowing that it was to go on and last,
+alas! by her own doing, who could tell how many evenings, how many long
+hours to come!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+DIFFERENT VIEWS.
+
+
+The time after this seemed to fly in the great quiet, all the
+entertainments of the Christmas season being over, and the houses in the
+neighbourhood gradually emptying of guests. The only visitors at the
+Hall were the clergyman, the doctor, an odd man now and then whom Sir
+Tom would invite in the character of a "native," for the Contessa's
+amusement; and Mr. Rushton, who came from Farafield two or three times
+on business, at first with a very keen curiosity, to know how it was
+that Lucy had subdued her husband and got him to relinquish his
+objection to her alienation of her money. This had puzzled the lawyer
+very greatly. There had been no uncertainty about Sir Tom's opinion when
+the subject was mooted to him first. He had looked upon it with very
+proper sentiments. It had seemed to him ridiculous, incredible, that
+Lucy should set up her will against his, or take her own way, when she
+knew how he regarded the matter. He had told the lawyer that he had
+little doubt of being able to bring her to hear reason. And then he had
+written to say that he withdrew his objection! Mr. Rushton felt that
+there must be some reason here more than met the eye. He made a pretence
+of business that he might discover what it was, and he had done so
+triumphantly, as he thought. Sir Tom, as everybody knew, had been "a
+rover" in his youth, and the world was charitable enough to conclude
+that in that youth there must be many things which he would not care to
+expose to the eye of day. When Mr. Rushton beheld at luncheon the
+Contessa, followed by the young and slim figure of Bice, it seemed to
+him that everything was solved. And Lady Randolph, he thought, did not
+look with very favourable eyes upon the younger lady. What doubt that
+Sir Tom had bought the assent of his wife to the presence of the guests
+by giving up on his side some of his reasonable rights?
+
+"Did you ever hear of an Italian lady that Sir Tom was thick with before
+he married?" he asked his wife when he came home.
+
+"How can you ask me such a question," said that virtuous woman, "when
+you know as well as I do that there were half-a-dozen?"
+
+"Did you ever hear the name of Forno-Populo?" he asked.
+
+Mrs. Rushton paused and did her best to look as if she was trying to
+recollect. As a matter of fact all Italian names sounded alike to her,
+as English names do to foreign ears. But after a moment she said boldly:
+"Of course I have heard it. That was the lady from Naples, or Venice, or
+some of those places, that ran away with him. You heard all about it at
+the time as well as I."
+
+And upon this Mr. Rushton smote upon his thigh, and made a mighty
+exclamation. "By George!" he said, "he's got her there, under his wife's
+very nose; and that's why he has given in about the money." Nothing
+could have been more clearly reasoned out--there could be no doubt upon
+that subject. And the presence of Bice decided the question. Bice must
+be--they said, to be sure! Dates and everything answered to this view of
+the question. There could be no doubt as to who Bice was. They were very
+respectable, good people themselves, and had never given any scandal to
+the world; but they never hesitated for a moment or thought there was
+anything unnatural in attributing the most shameful scandal and domestic
+treachery to Sir Tom. In fact it would be difficult to say that they
+thought much less of him in consequence. It was Lucy, rather, upon whom
+their censure fell. She ought to have known better. She ought never to
+have allowed it. To pretend to such simplicity was sickening, Mrs.
+Rushton thought.
+
+It was early in February when they all went to London--a time when
+society is in a sort of promissory state, full of hopes of dazzling
+delights to come, but for the present not dazzling, parliamentary,
+residential, a society made up of people who live in London, who are not
+merely gay birds of fashion, basking in the sunshine of the seasons.
+There was only a week or two of what the Contessa called Carnival, which
+indeed was not Carnival at all, but a sober time in which dinner parties
+began, and the men began to gather at the clubs. The Contessa did not
+object to this period of quiet. She acquainted Lucy with all she meant
+to do in the meantime, to the great confusion of that ingenious spirit.
+"Bice must be dressed," the Contessa said, "which of itself requires no
+little time and thought. Unhappily M. Worth is not in London. Even with
+M. Worth I exert my own faculties. He is excellent, but he has not the
+intuitions which come when one is very much interested in an object.
+Sweet Lucy! you have not thought upon that matter. Your dress is as your
+dressmaker sends it to you. Yes; but, my angel, Bice has her career
+before her. It is different."
+
+"Oh, Madame di Forno-Populo," said Lucy, "do you still think in that
+way--must it still be exhibiting her, marrying her?"
+
+"Marriage is honourable," said the Contessa. "It is what all girls are
+thinking of; but me, I think it better that their parents should take it
+in hand instead of the young ladies. There is something in Bice that is
+difficult, oh, very difficult. If one chooses well for her, one will be
+richly repaid; but if, on the contrary, one leaves it to the
+conventional, the ordinary--My sweetest! your pretty white dresses, your
+blues are delightful for you; but Bice is different, quite different.
+And then she has no fortune. She must be piquant. She must be striking.
+She must please. In England you take no trouble for that. It is not
+_comme il faut_ here; but it is in our country. Each of us we like the
+ways of our country best."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Lucy, "to hear you speak such perfect
+English, and Bice too. It is, I suppose, because you are so musical and
+have such good ears----"
+
+"Darling!" said the Contessa sweetly. She said this or a similar word
+when nothing else occurred to her. She had her room full of lovely
+stuffs, brought by obsequious shopmen, to whom Lady Randolph's name was
+sufficient warrant for any extravagance the Contessa might think of. But
+she said to herself that she was not at all extravagant; for Bice's
+wardrobe was her stock-in-trade, and if she did not take the opportunity
+of securing it while in her power, the Contessa thought she would be
+false to Bice's interests. The girl still wore nothing but her black
+frock. She went out in the park early in the morning when nobody was
+there, and sometimes had riding lessons at an unearthly hour, so that
+nobody should see her. The Contessa was very anxious on this point. When
+Lucy would have taken Bice out driving, when she would have taken her
+to the theatre, her patroness instantly interfered. "All that will come
+in its time," she said. "Not now. She must not appear now. I cannot have
+her seen. Recollect, my Lucy, she has no fortune. She must depend upon
+herself for everything." This doctrine, at which Lucy stood aghast, was
+maintained in the most matter-of-fact way by the neophyte herself. "If I
+were seen," she said, "now, I should be quite stale when I appear. I
+must appear before I go anywhere. Oh yes, I love the theatre. I should
+like to go with you driving. But I should forestall myself. Some persons
+do and they are never successful. First of all, before anything, I must
+appear."
+
+"Oh my child," Lucy cried, "I cannot bear to hear of all this. You
+should not calculate so at your age. And when you appear, as you call
+it, what then, Bice? Nobody will take any particular notice, perhaps,
+and you will be so disappointed you will not know what to do. Hundreds
+of girls appear every season and nobody minds."
+
+Bice took no notice of these subduing and moderating previsions. She
+smiled and repeated what the Contessa said. "I must do the best for
+myself, for I have no fortune."
+
+No fortune! and to think that Lucy, with her mind directed to other
+matters, never once realised that this was a state of affairs which she
+could put an end to in a moment. It never occurred to her--perhaps, as
+she certainly was matter of fact, the recollection that there was a sort
+of stipulation in the will against foreigners turned her thoughts into
+another channel.
+
+It was, however, during this time of preparation and quiet that the
+household in Park Lane one day received a visit from Jock, accompanied
+by no less a person than MTutor, the leader of intellectual life and
+light of the world to the boy. They came to luncheon by appointment, and
+after visiting some museum on which Jock's mind was set, came to remain
+to dinner and go to the theatre. MTutor had a condescending appreciation
+of the stage. He thought it was an educational influence, not perhaps of
+any great utility to the youths under such care as his own, but of no
+small importance to the less fortunate members of society; and he liked
+to encourage the efforts of conscientious actors who looked upon their
+own calling in this light. It was rather for this purpose than with the
+idea of amusement that he patronised the play, and Jock, as in duty
+bound, though there was in him a certain boyish excitement as to the
+pleasure itself, did his best to regard the performance in the same
+exalted light. MTutor was a young man of about thirty, slim and tall. He
+was a man who had taken honours at college, though his admirers said not
+such high honours as he might have taken; "For MTutor," said Jock,
+"never would go in for pot-hunting, you know. What he always wanted was
+to cultivate his own mind, not to get prizes." It was with heartfelt
+admiration that this feature in his character was dwelt upon by his
+disciples. Not a doubt that he could have got whatever he liked to go in
+for, had he not been so fastidious and high-minded. He was fellow of his
+college as it was, had got a poetry prize which, perhaps, was not the
+Newdigate; and smiled indulgently at those who were more warm in the
+arena of competition than himself. On other occasions when "men" came to
+luncheon, the Contessa, though quite ready to be amused by them in her
+own person, sternly forbade the appearance of Bice, the effect of whose
+future was not, she was determined, to be spoilt by any such preliminary
+peeps; but the Contessa's vigilance slackened when the visitors were of
+no greater importance than this. She was insensible to the greatness of
+MTutor. It did not seem to matter that he should be there sitting grave
+and dignified by Lucy's side, and talking somewhat over Lucy's head, any
+more than it mattered that Mr. Rushton should be there, or any other
+person of an inferior level. It was not upon such men that Bice's
+appearance was to tell. She took no precautions against such persons.
+Jock himself at sixteen was not more utterly out of the question. And
+the Contessa herself, as it happened, was much amused by MTutor; his
+great ideas of everything, the exalted ideal that showed in all he did
+or said, gave great pleasure to this woman of the world. And when they
+came to the question of the educational influence of the stage, and the
+conscientious character of the actors' work, she could not conceal her
+satisfaction. "I will go with you, too," she said, "this evening." "We
+shall all go," said Sir Tom, "even Bice. There is a big box, and behind
+the curtain nobody will see her." To this the Contessa demurred, but,
+after a little while, being in a yielding humour, gave way. "It is for
+the play alone," she said in an undertone, raising her finger in
+admonition, "You will remember, my child, for the play alone."
+
+"We are all going for the play alone," said Sir Tom, cheerfully. "Here
+is Lucy, who is a baby for a play. She likes melodrama best, disguises
+and trap-doors and long-lost sons, and all the rest of it."
+
+"It is a taste that is very general," said MTutor, indulgently; "but I
+am sure Lady Randolph appreciates the efforts of a conscientious
+interpreter--one who calls all the resources of art to his aid----"
+
+"I don't care for the play alone," said Bice to Jock in an undertone. "I
+want to see the people. They are always the most amusing. I have seen
+nobody yet in London. And though I must not be seen, I may look, that
+will do no harm. Then there will be the people who come into the box."
+
+"The people who come into the box! but you know us all," said Jock,
+astonished, "before we go----"
+
+"You all?" said Bice, with some disdain. "It is easy to see _you_; that
+is not what I mean; this will be the first time I put my foot into the
+world. The actors, that is nothing. Is it the custom in England to look
+much at the play? No, you go to see your friends."
+
+MTutor was on the other side of this strange girl in her black frock. He
+took it upon him to reply. He said: "That is the case in some countries,
+but not here. In England the play is actually thought of. English actors
+are not so good as the French, nor even the Italian. And the Germans are
+much better trained. Nevertheless, we do what perhaps no other nation
+does. We give them our attention. It is this which makes the position of
+the actors more important, more interesting in England."
+
+"Stop a little, stop a little!" cried Sir Tom; "don't let me interrupt
+you, Derwentwater, if you are instructing the young ones; but don't
+forget the _Comedie Francaise_ and the aristocracy of art."
+
+"I do not forget it," said Mr. Derwentwater; "in that point of view we
+are far behind France; still I uphold that nowhere else do people go to
+the theatre for the sake of the play as we do; and it is this," he
+said, turning to Bice, "that makes it possible that the theatre may be
+an influence and a power."
+
+Bice lifted her eyes upon this man with a wondering gaze of contempt.
+She gave him a full look which abashed him, though he was so much more
+important, so much more intellectual, than she. Then, without deigning
+to take any notice, she turned to Jock at her other side. "If that is
+all I do not care for going," she said. "I have seen many plays--oh,
+many! I like quite as well to read at home. It is not for that I wish to
+go; but to see the world. The world, that is far more interesting. It is
+like a novel, but living. You look at the people and you read what they
+are thinking. You see their stories going on. That is what amuses
+me;--but a play on the stage, what is it? People dressed in clothes that
+do not belong to them, trying to make themselves look like somebody
+else--but they never do. One says--that is not I, but the people that
+know--Bravo, Got! Bravo Regnier! It does not matter what parts they are
+acting. You do not care for the part. Then why go and look at it?" said
+Bice with straightforward philosophy.
+
+All this she poured forth upon Jock in a low clear voice, as if there
+was no one else near. Jock, for his part, was carried away by the flood.
+
+"I don't know about Got and Regnier. But what we are going to see is
+Shakespeare," he said, with a little awe, "that is not just like a
+common play."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater had been astonished by Bice's indifference to his own
+instructive remarks. It was this perhaps more than her beauty which had
+called his attention to her, and he had listened as well as he could to
+the low rapid stream of her conversation, not without wonder that she
+should have chosen Jock as the recipient of her confidence. What she
+said, though he heard it but imperfectly, interested him still more. He
+wanted to make her out--it was a new kind of study. While Lucy, by his
+side, went on tranquilly with some soft talk about the theatre, of which
+she knew very little, he thought, he made her a civil response, but gave
+all his attention to what was going on at the other side; and there was
+suddenly a lull of the general commotion, in which he heard distinctly
+Bice's next words.
+
+"_What_ is Shakespeare?" she said; then went on with her own
+reflections. "What I want to see is the world. I have never yet gone
+into the world; but I must know it, for it is there I have to live. If
+one could live in Shakespeare," cried the girl, "it would be easy; but I
+have not been brought up for that; and I want to see the world--just a
+little corner--because that is what concerns me, not a play. If it is
+only for the play, I think I shall not go."
+
+"You had much better come," said Jock; "after all it is fun, and some of
+the fellows will be good. The world is not to be seen at the theatre
+that I know of," continued the boy. "Rows of people sitting one behind
+another, most of them as stupid as possible--you don't call that the
+world? But come--I wish you would come. It is a change--it stirs you
+up."
+
+"I don't want to be stirred up. I am all living," cried Bice. There
+seemed to breathe out from her a sort of visible atmosphere of energy
+and impatient life. Looking across this thrill in the air, which somehow
+was like the vibration of heat in the atmosphere, Jock's eyes
+encountered those of his tutor, turned very curiously, and not without
+bewilderment, to the same point as his own. It gave the boy a curious
+sensation which he could not define. He had wished to exhibit to Mr.
+Derwentwater this strange phenomenon in the shape of a girl, with a
+sense that there was something very unusual in her, something in which
+he himself had a certain proprietorship. But when MTutor's eyes
+encountered Jock's with an astonished glance of discovery in them, which
+seemed to say that he had found out Bice for himself without the
+interposition of the original discoverer, Jock felt a thrill of
+displeasure, and almost pain, which he could not explain to himself.
+What did it mean? It seemed to bring with it a certain defiance of, and
+opposition to, this king of men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+TWO FRIENDS.
+
+
+"Who was that young lady?" Mr. Derwentwater said. "I did not catch the
+name."
+
+"What young lady?" To suppose for a moment that Jock did not know who
+was meant would be ridiculous, of course; but, for some reason which he
+did not explain even to himself, this was the reply he made.
+
+"My dear Jock, there was but one," said MTutor, with much friendliness.
+"At your age you do not take much notice of the other sex, and that is
+very well and right; but still it would be wrong to imagine that there
+is not something interesting in girls occasionally. I did not make her
+out. She was quite a study to me at the theatre. I am afraid the greater
+part of the performance, and all the most meritorious portion of it,
+was thrown away upon her; but still there were gleams of interest. She
+is not without intelligence, that is clear."
+
+"You mean Bice," said Jock, with a certain dogged air which Mr.
+Derwentwater had seldom seen in him before, and did not understand. He
+spoke as if he intended to say as little as was practicable, and as if
+he resented being made to speak at all.
+
+"Bice--ah! like Dante's Bice," said MTutor. "That makes her more
+interesting still. Though it is not perhaps under that aspect that one
+represents to oneself the Bice of Dante--_ben son, ben son, Beatrice._
+No, not exactly under that aspect. Dante's Bice must have been more
+grand, more imposing, in her dress of crimson or dazzling white."
+
+Jock made no response. It was usual for him to regard MTutor devoutly
+when he talked in this way, and to feel that no man on earth talked so
+well. Jock in his omnivorous reading knew perhaps Dante better than his
+instructor, but he had come to the age when the mind, confused in all
+its first awakening of emotions, cannot talk of what affects it most.
+The time had been at which he had discussed everything he read with
+whosoever would listen, and instructed the world in a child's
+straightforward way. At that period he had often improved Lucy's mind on
+the subject of Dante, telling her all the details of that wonderful
+pilgrimage through earth and heaven, to her great interest and wonder,
+as something that had happened the other day. Lucy had not in those days
+been quite able to understand how it was that the gentleman of Florence
+should have met everybody he knew in the unseen, but she had taken it
+all in respectfully, as was her wont. Jock, however, had passed beyond
+this stage, and no longer told Lucy, or any one, stories from his
+reading; and other sensations had begun to stir in him which he could
+not put into words. In this way it was a constant admiration to him to
+hear MTutor, who could always, he thought, say the right thing and never
+was at a loss. But this evening he was dissatisfied. They were returning
+from the theatre by a late train, and nothing but Jock's reputation and
+high character as a boy of boys, high up in everything intellectual, and
+without reproach in any way, besides the devoted friendship which
+subsisted between himself and his tutor, could have justified Mr.
+Derwentwater in permitting him in the middle of the half to go to London
+to the theatre, and return by the twelve o'clock train. This privilege
+came to him from the favour of his tutor, and yet for the first time his
+tutor did not seem the superhuman being he had always previously
+appeared to Jock. But Mr. Derwentwater was quite unsuspicious of this.
+
+"There is something very much out of the way in the young lady
+altogether," he said. "That little black dress, fitting her like a
+glove, and no ornament or finery of any description. It is not so with
+girls in general. It was very striking--tell me----"
+
+"I didn't think," cried Jock, "that you paid any attention to what women
+wore."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater yielded to a gentle smile. "Tell me," he said, as if he
+had not been interrupted, "who this young lady may be. Is she a daughter
+of the Italian lady, a handsome woman, too, in her way, who was with
+your people?" The railway carriage in which they were coursing through
+the blackness of the night was but dimly lighted, and it was not easy to
+see from one corner to another the expression of Jock's face.
+
+"I don't know," said Jock, in a voice that sounded gruff, "I can't tell
+who she is--I never asked. It did not seem any business of mine."
+
+"Old fellow," said MTutor, "don't cultivate those bearish ways. Some men
+do, but it's not good form. I don't like to see it in you."
+
+This silenced Jock, and made his face flame in the darkness. He did not
+know what excuse to make. He added reluctantly: "Of course I know that
+she came with the Contessa; but who she is I don't know, and I don't
+think Lucy knows. She is just--there."
+
+"Well, my boy," said Mr. Derwentwater, "if there is any mystery, all
+right; I don't want to be prying;" but, as was natural, this only
+increased his curiosity. After an interval, he broke forth again. "A
+little mystery," he said, "suits them; a woman ought to be mysterious,
+with her long robes falling round her, and her mystery of long hair, and
+all the natural veils and mists that are about her. It is more poetic
+and in keeping that they should only have a lovely suggestive name, what
+we call a Christian name, instead of a commonplace patronymic, Miss
+So-and-so! Yes; I recognise your Bice as by far the most suitable
+symbol."
+
+It is impossible to say what an amount of unexpressed and inexpressible
+irritation arose in the mind of Jock with every word. "Your Bice!" The
+words excited him almost beyond his power of control. The mere fact of
+having somehow got into opposition to MTutor was in itself an irritation
+almost more than he could bear. How it was he could not explain to
+himself; but only felt that from the moment when they had got into their
+carriage together, Mr. Derwentwater, hitherto his god, had become almost
+odious to him. The evening altogether had been exciting, but
+uncomfortable. They had all gone to the theatre, where Jock had been
+prepared to look on not so much at a fine piece of acting as at a
+conscientious study, the laboriousness of which was one of its chief
+qualities. Neither the Contessa nor Bice had been much impressed by that
+fine view of the performance. Madame di Forno-Populo, indeed, had swept
+the audience with her opera-glass, and paid very little attention to the
+stage. She had yawned at the most important moments. When the curtain
+fell she had woke up, looking with interest for visitors, as it
+appeared, though very few visitors had come. Bice was put into the
+corner under shelter of the Contessa, and thence had taken furtive
+peeps, though without any opera-glass, with her own keen, intelligent
+young eyes, at the people sitting near, whom Jock had declared not to be
+in any sense of the word the world. Bice too looked up, when the box
+door opened, with great interest. She kept well in the shade, but it was
+evident that she was anxious to see whosoever might come. And very few
+people came; one or two men who came to pay their respects to Lucy, one
+or two who appeared with faces of excitement and surprise to ask if it
+was indeed Madame di Forno-Populo whom they had seen? At these Bice from
+out her corner gazed with large eyes; they were not persons of an
+interesting kind. One of them was a Lord Somebody, who was red-faced and
+had an air which somehow did not suit the place in which Lucy was, and
+towards whom Sir Tom, though he knew him, maintained an aspect of
+seriousness not at all usual to his cordial countenance. Bice, it was
+evident, was struck with a contemptuous amaze at the appearance of these
+visitors. There was a quick interchange of glances between her and the
+Contessa with shrugs of the shoulders and much play of fans. Bice's
+raised eyebrows and curled lips perhaps meant--"Are those your famous
+friends? Is this all?" Whereas the Contessa answered deprecatingly, with
+a sort of "wait a little" look. Jock, who generally was pleased to
+stroll about the lobbies in a sort of mannish way in the intervals
+between the acts, sat still in his place to watch all this with a
+wondering sense that here was something going on in which there was a
+still closer interest, and to notice everything almost without knowing
+that he noted it, following in this respect, as in most others, the lead
+of his tutor, who likewise addressed himself to the supervision of
+everything that went on, discoursing in the meantime to Lucy about the
+actors' "interpretation" of the part, and how far he, Mr. Derwentwater,
+agreed with their view. To Lucy, indeed, the action of the play was
+everything, and the intervals between tedious. She laughed and cried,
+and followed every movement, and looked round, hushing the others when
+they whispered, almost with indignation. Lucy was far younger, Jock
+decided, than Bice or even himself. He, too, had learned already--how
+had he learned it?--that the play going on upon the stage was less
+interesting than that which was being performed outside. Even Jock had
+found this out, though he could not have told how. Shakespeare, indeed,
+was far greater, nobler; but the excitement of a living story, the
+progress of events of which nobody could tell what would come next, had
+an interest transcending even the poetry. That was what people said,
+Jock was aware, in novels and other productions; but until to-night he
+never believed it was true.
+
+And then there was the journey from town, with all the curious sensation
+of parting at the theatre doors, and returning from that shining world
+of gaslight, and ladies' dresses, into the dimness of the railway, the
+tedious though not very long journey, the plunging of the carriage
+through the blackness of the night; and along with these the questions
+of Mr. Derwentwater, so unlike him, so uncalled-for, as Jock could not
+help thinking. What had he to do with Bice? What had any one to do with
+her? So far as she belonged to any one, it was to himself, Jock; her
+first friend, her companion in her walks, he to whom she had spoken so
+freely, and who had told her his opinion with such simplicity. When Jock
+remembered that he had told her she was not pretty his cheeks burned.
+There had stolen into his mind, he could not tell how, a very different
+feeling now--not perhaps a different opinion. When he reflected it did
+not seem to him even now that pretty was the word to use--but the
+impression of Bice which was in his mind was something that made the boy
+thrill. He did not understand it, nor could he tell what it was. But it
+made him quiver with resentment when there was any question about
+her--anything like this cold-blooded investigation which Mr.
+Derwentwater had attempted to make. It troubled Jock all the more that
+it should be MTutor who made it. When our god, our model of excellence,
+comes down from his high state to anything that is petty, or less than
+perfect, how sore is the pang with which we acknowledge it. "To be wroth
+with those we love doth work like madness in the brain." Jock had both
+these pangs together. He was angry because MTutor had been interfering
+with matters in which he had no concern, and he was pained because
+MTutor had condescended to ask questions and invite gossip, like the
+smaller beings well enough known in the boy-world as in every other,
+who make gossip the chief object of their existence. Could there be
+anything in the idol of his youth akin to these? He felt sore and
+disappointed, without knowing why, with a dim consciousness that there
+were many other people whom Mr. Derwentwater might have inquired about
+without awakening any such feelings in him. When the train stopped, and
+they got out, it was strange to walk down the silent, midnight streets
+by MTutor's side, without the old sensation of pleasure with which the
+boy felt himself made into the man's companion. He was awakened out of
+his maze of dark and painful feelings by the voice of Derwentwater
+calling upon him to admire the effect of the moonlight upon the river as
+they crossed the bridge. For long after that scene remained in Jock's
+mind against a background of mysterious shadows and perplexity. The moon
+rode in the midst of a wide clearing of blue between two broken banks of
+clouds. She was almost full, and approaching her setting. She shone full
+upon the river, sweeping from side to side in one flood of silver,
+broken only by a few strange little blacknesses, the few boats, like
+houseless stragglers out by night and without shelter, which lay here
+and there by a wharf or at the water's edge. The scene was wonderfully
+still and solemn, not a motion to be seen either on street or stream.
+"How is it, do you think," said Mr. Derwentwater, "that we think so
+little of the sun when it is he that lights up a scene like this, and so
+much of the moon?"
+
+Jock was taken by surprise by this question, which was of a kind which
+his tutor was fond of putting, and which brought back their old
+relations instantaneously. Jock seemed to himself to wake up out of a
+strange inarticulate dream of displeasure and embarrassment, and to feel
+himself with sudden remorse, a traitor to his friend. He said,
+faltering: "I don't know; it is always you that finds out the analogies.
+I don't think that my mind is poetical at all."
+
+"You do yourself injustice, Jock," said Derwentwater, his arm within
+that of his pupil in their old familiar way. And then he said: "The moon
+is the feminine influence which charms us by showing herself clearly as
+the source of the light she sheds. The sun we rarely think of at all,
+but only of what he gives us--the light and the heat that are our life.
+Her," he pointed to the sky, "we could dispense with, save for the
+beauty of her."
+
+"I wish," said Jock, "I could think of anything so fine. But do you
+think we could do without women like that?" said the inquiring young
+spirit, ready to follow with his bosom bare whithersoever this refined
+philosophy might lead.
+
+"You and I will," said the instructor. "There are grosser and there are
+tamer spirits to whom it might be different. I would not wrong you by
+supposing that you, my boy, could ever be tempted in the gross way; and
+I don't think you are of the butterfly dancing kind."
+
+"I should rather think not!" said Jock, with a short laugh.
+
+"Then, except as a beautiful object, setting herself forth in conscious
+brightness, like that emblem of woman yonder," said MTutor with a wave
+of his hand, admiring, familiar, but somewhat contemptuous, towards the
+moon, "what do we want with that feminine influence? Our lives are set
+to higher uses, and occupied with other aims."
+
+Jock was perfectly satisfied with this profession of faith. He went
+along the street with his tutor's arm in his, and a vague elation as of
+something settled and concluded upon in his mind. Their footsteps rang
+upon the pavement with a manly tramp as they paced away from the light
+on the bridge into the shadow of the old houses with their red roofs.
+They had gone some way before, being above all things loyal, Jock
+thought it right to put in a proviso. "Not intellectually, perhaps," he
+said, "but I can't forget how much I owe to my sister. I should have
+been a most forlorn little wretch when I was a child, and I shouldn't be
+much now, but for Lucy standing by me. It's not well to forget that, is
+it, sir? though Lucy is not at all clever," he added in an undertone.
+
+"You are a loyal soul," said MTutor, with a pressure of his arm, "but
+Woman does not mean our mothers and sisters." Here he permitted himself
+a little laugh. "It shows me how much inferior is my position to that of
+your youth, my dear boy," he said, "when you give me such an answer.
+Believe me it is far finer than anything you suppose me to be able to
+say."
+
+Jock did not know how to respond to this speech. It half angered, half
+pleased him, but on the whole he was more ashamed of the supposed
+youthfulness than satisfied with the approbation. No one, however young,
+likes the imputation of innocence; and Jock had feelings rising within
+him of which he scarcely knew the meaning, but which made him still more
+sensible of the injustice of this view. He was too proud, however, to
+explain himself even if he had been able to do so, and the little way
+that remained was trodden in silence. The boy, however, could not help a
+curious sensation of superiority as he went to his room through the
+sleeping-house, feeling the stillness of the slumber into which he
+stole, treading very quietly that he might not disturb any one. He
+stopped for a moment with a candle in his hand and looked down the long
+passage with its line of closed doors on each side, holding his breath
+with a half smile of sympathy, respect for the hush of sleep, yet keen
+superiority of life and emotion over all the unconscious household. His
+own brain and heart seemed tingling with the activity and tumult of life
+in them. It seemed to him impossible to sleep, to still the commotion in
+his mind, and bring himself into harmony with that hushed atmosphere and
+childish calm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+YOUTHFUL UNREST.
+
+
+Easter was very early that year, about as early as Easter can be, and
+there was in Jock's mind a disturbing consciousness of the holidays, and
+the manner in which he was likely to spend them, which no doubt
+interfered to a certain extent with his work. He ought to have been
+first in the competition for a certain school prize, and he was not. It
+was carried off to the disappointment of Jock's house, and, indeed, of
+the greater part of the school, by a King's scholar, which was the fate
+of most of the prizes. Mr. Derwentwater was deeply cast down by this
+disappointment. He expressed himself on the subject indeed with all the
+fine feeling for which he was distinguished. "The loss of a
+distinction," he said, "is not in itself a matter to disturb us; but I
+own I should be sorry to think that you were failing at all in that
+intellectual energy which has already placed you so often at the head of
+the lists--that, my dear fellow, I should unfeignedly regret; but not a
+mere prize, which is nothing." This was a very handsome way of speaking
+of it; but that MTutor was disappointed there could be no doubt. To Jock
+himself it gave a keen momentary pang to see his own name only third in
+that beadroll of honour; but so it was. The holidays had all that to
+answer for; the holidays, or rather what they were to bring. When he
+thought of the Hall and the company there, Jock felt a certain high tide
+in his veins, an awakening of interest and anticipation which he did not
+understand. He did not say to himself that he was going to be happy. He
+only looked forward with an eager heart, with a sense of something to
+come, which was different from the routine of ordinary life. MTutor
+after many hindrances and hesitations was at last going to accept the
+invitation of Sir Tom, and accompany his pupil. This Jock had looked
+forward to as the greatest of pleasures. But somehow he did not feel so
+happy about it now. He did not seem to himself to want Mr. Derwentwater.
+In some ways, indeed, he had become impatient of Mr. Derwentwater. Since
+that visit to the theatre, involuntarily without any cause for it, there
+had commenced to be moments in which MTutor was tedious. This sacrilege
+was unconscious, and never yet had been put into words; but still the
+feeling was there; and the beginning of any such revolution in the soul
+must be accompanied with many uneasinesses. Jock was on the stroke, so
+to speak, of seventeen. He was old for his age, yet he had been almost
+childish too in his devotion to his books, and the subjects of his
+school life. The last year had introduced many new thoughts to his mind
+by restoring him to the partial society of his sister and her house; but
+into these new subjects he had carried the devotion of his studious
+habits and the enthusiasm of his discipleship, transferring himself
+bodily with all his traditions into the new atmosphere. But a change
+somehow had begun in him, he could not tell how. He was stirred beyond
+the lines of his former being--sentiments, confusions of spirit quite
+new to him, were vaguely fermenting, he could not tell how; and school
+work, and prizes, and all the emulations of sixth form had somehow tamed
+and paled. The colour seemed to have gone out of them. And the library
+of MTutor, that paradise of thought, that home of conversation, where so
+many fine things used to be said--that too had palled upon the boy's
+uneasy soul. He felt as if he should prefer to leave everything behind
+him,--books and compositions and talk, and even MTutor himself. Such a
+state of mind is sure to occur some time or other in a boy's
+experiences; but in this case it was too early, and Mr. Derwentwater,
+who was very deeply devoted to his pupils, was much exercised on the
+subject. He had lost Jock's confidence, he thought. How had he lost his
+confidence? was it that some other less wholesome influence was coming
+in? Thus there were feelings of discomfort between them, hesitations as
+to what to say, instinctive avoidance of some subjects, concealed
+allusions to others. It might even be said that in a very refined and
+superior way, such as was alone possible to such a man, Mr. Derwentwater
+occasionally talked at Jock. He talked of the pain and grief of seeing a
+young heart closed to you which once had been open, and of the poignant
+disappointment which arises in an elder spirit when its spiritual
+child--its disciple--gets beyond its leading. Jock, occupied with his
+own thoughts, only partially understood.
+
+It was in this state of mind that they set out together, amid all the
+bustle of breaking up, to pay their promised visit. Jock, who up to this
+moment had hated London, and looked with alarm upon society, had eagerly
+accepted his tutor's proposal that after the ten days which they were to
+spend at the Hall they should go to Normandy together for the rest of
+the holidays, which was an arrangement very pleasant in anticipation.
+But by this time neither of the two was at all anxious to carry it out.
+Mr. Derwentwater had begun to talk of the expediency of giving a little
+attention to one's own country. "We are just as foolish as the ignorant
+masses," he said, "though we think ourselves so wise. Why not Devonshire
+instead of Normandy? it is finer in natural scenery. Why not London
+instead of Paris? there is no spell in mere going, as the ignorant say
+'abroad.'" When you come to think of it, in just the same proportion as
+one is superior to the common round of gaping British tourists, by going
+on a walking tour in Normandy, one is superior to the walkers in
+Normandy by choosing Devonshire.
+
+These remarks were preliminary to the intention of giving up the plan
+altogether, and by the time they set out it was tacitly understood that
+this was to be the case. It was to be given up--not for Devonshire. The
+pair of friends had become two--they were to do each what was good in
+his own eyes. Jock would remain "at home," whether that home meant the
+Hall or Park Lane, and Mr. Derwentwater, after his week's visit, should
+go on--where seemed to him good.
+
+There was a considerable party gathered in the inner drawing-room when
+Jock and his companion presented themselves there. The scene was very
+different from that to which Jock had been accustomed, when the
+tea-table was a sort of fireside adjunct to the warmth and brightness
+centred there. Now the windows were full of a clear yellow sky, shining
+a little shrilly after rain, and promising in its too-clear and watery
+brightness more rain to come; and many people were about, some standing
+up against the light, some lounging in the comfortable chairs, some
+talking together in groups, some hanging about Lucy and her tea service.
+Lucy said, "Oh, is it you, Jock?" and kissed him, with a look of
+pleasure; but she had not run out to meet him as of old. Lucy, indeed,
+was changed, perhaps more evidently changed than any member of the
+family. She was far more self-possessed than she had ever been before.
+She did not now turn to her husband with that pretty look, half-smiling,
+half-wistful, to know how she had got through her domestic duties. There
+was a slight air of hurry and embarrassment about her eyes. The season
+had not begun, and she could not have been overdone by her social
+duties; but something had aged and changed her. Some old acquaintances
+came forward and shook hands with Jock; and Sir Tom, when he saw who it
+was, detached himself from the person he was talking to, and came
+forward and gave him a sufficiently cordial welcome. The person with
+whom he was talking was the Contessa. She was in her old place in the
+room, the comfortable sofa which she had taken from Lady Randolph, and
+where Sir Tom, leaning upon the mantelpiece, as an Englishman loves to
+do, could talk to her in the easiest of attitudes. Jock, though he was
+not discerning, thought that Sir Tom looked aged and changed too. The
+people in general had a tired afternoon sort of look about them. They
+were not like people exulting to get out of town, and out of darkness
+and winter weather to the fresh air and April skies. Perhaps, however,
+this effect was produced by the fact that looking for one special person
+in the assembly Jock had not found her. He had never cared who was there
+before. Except Lucy, the whole world was much the same to him. To talk
+to her now and then, but by preference alone, when he could have her to
+himself and nobody else was by, and then to escape to the library, had
+been the height of his desire. Now he no longer thought of the library,
+or even, save in a secondary way, of Lucy. He looked about for some one
+else. There was the Contessa, sure enough, with one man on the sofa by
+her side and another seated in front of her, and Sir Tom against the
+mantelpiece lounging and talking. She was enchanting them all with her
+rapid talk, with the pretty, swift movements of her hands, her
+expressive looks and ways. But there was no shadow of Bice about the
+room. Jock looked at once behind the table, where she had been always
+visible when the Contessa was present. But Bice was not there. There was
+not a trace of her among the people whom Jock neither knew nor cared to
+know. But everything went on cheerfully, notwithstanding this omission,
+which nobody but Jock seemed to remark. Ladies chattered softly as they
+sipped their tea, men standing over them telling anecdotes of this
+person and that, with runs of soft laughter here and there. Lucy at the
+tea-table was the only one who was at all isolated. She was bending over
+her cups and saucers, supplying now one and now another, listening to a
+chance remark here and there, giving an abstracted smile to the person
+who might chance to be next to her. What was she thinking of? Not of
+Jock, who had only got a smile a little more animated than the others.
+Mr. Derwentwater did not know anybody in this company. He stood on the
+outskirts of it, with that look of mingled conciliation and defiance
+which is natural to a man who feels himself overlooked. He was more
+disappointed even than Jock, for he had anticipated a great deal of
+attention, and not to find himself nobody in a fashionable crowd.
+
+Things did not mend even at dinner. Then the people were more easily
+identified in their evening clothes, exposing themselves steadily to all
+observers on either side of the table; but they did not seem more
+interesting. There were two or three political men, friends of Sir Tom,
+and some of a very different type who were attached to the
+Contessa--indeed, the party consisted chiefly of men, with a few ladies
+thrown in. The ladies were not much more attractive. One of them, a Lady
+Anastasia something, was one of the most inveterate of gossip
+collectors, a lady who not only provided piquant tales for home
+consumption, but served them up to the general public afterwards in a
+newspaper--the only representatives of ordinary womankind being a mother
+and two daughters, who had no particular qualities, and who duly
+occupied a certain amount of space, without giving anything in return.
+But Bice was not visible. She who had been so little noticed, yet so far
+from insignificant, where was she? Could it be that the Contessa had
+left her behind, or that Lucy had objected to her, or that she was ill,
+or that--Jock did not know what to think. The company was a strange one.
+Those sedate, political friends of Sir Tom found themselves with a
+little dismay in the society of the lady who wrote for what she called
+the Press, and the gentlemen from the clubs. One of the guests was the
+young Marquis Montjoie, who had quite lately come into his title and the
+world. He had been at school with Jock a few years before, and he
+recognised Mr. Derwentwater with a curious mixture of awe and contempt.
+"Hallo!" he had cried when he perceived him first, and he had whispered
+something to the Contessa which made her laugh also. All this Jock
+remarked vaguely in his uneasiness and disappointment. What was the good
+of coming home, he said to himself, if---- What was the use of having so
+looked forward to the holidays and lost that prize, and disappointed
+everybody, if---- There rose such a ferment in Jock's veins as had never
+been there before. When the ladies left the room after dinner it was he
+that opened the door for them, and as Lucy looked up with a smile into
+her brother's face she met from him a scowl which took away her breath.
+Why did he scowl at Lucy? and why think that in all his life he had
+never seen so dull a company before? Their good things after dinner were
+odious to his ears; and to think, that even MTutor should be able to
+laugh at such miserable jokes and take an interest in such small talk!
+That fellow Montjoie, above all, was intolerable to Jock. He had been
+quite low down in the school when he left, a being of no account, a
+creature called by opprobrious names, and not worthy to tie the shoes of
+a member of Sixth Form. But when he rattled loudly on about nothing at
+all, even Sir Tom did not refuse to listen. What was Montjoie doing
+here? When the gentlemen streamed into the drawing-room, a procession of
+black coats, Jock, who came last, could not help being aware that he was
+scowling at everybody. He met the eyes of one of those inoffensive
+little girls in blue, and made her jump, looking at her as if he would
+eat her. And all the evening through he kept prowling about with his
+hands in his pockets, now looking at the books in the shelves, now
+frowning at Lucy, who could not think what was the matter with her
+brother. Was Jock ill? What had happened to him? The young ladies in
+blue sang an innocent little duet, and Jock stared at the Contessa,
+wondering if she was going to sing, and if the door would open and the
+slim figure in the black frock come in as by a signal and place herself
+at the piano. But the Contessa only laughed behind her fan, and made a
+little pretence at applause when the music ceased, having talked all
+through it, she and the gentlemen about her, of whom Montjoie was one
+and the loudest. No, she was not going to sing. When the door opened it
+was only to admit the servants with their trays and the tea which nobody
+wanted. What was the use of looking forward to the holidays if---- Mr.
+Derwentwater, perhaps, had similar thoughts. He came up to Jock behind
+the backs of the other people, and put an uneasy question to him.
+
+"I thought you said that Madame di Forno-Populo sang?"
+
+"She used to," said Jock laconically.
+
+"The music here does not seem of a high class," said MTutor. "I hope she
+will sing. Italians, though their music is sensuous, generally know
+something about the art."
+
+To this Jock made no reply, but hunched his shoulders a little higher,
+and dug his hands down deeper into his pockets.
+
+"By the way, is the--young lady who was with Madame di Forno-Populo
+here no longer?" said MTutor in a sort of accidental manner, as if that
+had for the first time occurred to him. He raised his eyes to Jock's
+face, which was foolish, and they both reddened in spite of themselves;
+Mr. Derwentwater with sudden confusion, and Jock with angry dismay.
+
+"Not that I know of," said the boy. "I haven't heard anything." Then he
+went on hurriedly: "No more than I know what Montjoie's doing here.
+What's he been asked here for I wonder? He can't amuse anybody much."
+These words, however, were contradicted practically as soon as they were
+said by a peal of laughter which rose from the Contessa's little corner,
+all caused as it was evident by some pleasantry of Montjoie's.
+
+"It seems that he does, though," said Mr. Derwentwater; and then he
+added with a smile, "We are novices in society, you and I. We do best in
+our own class; not to know that Montjoie will be in the very front of
+society, the admired of all admirers at least for a season or two! Isn't
+he a favourite of fortune, the best _parti_, a golden youth in every
+sense of the word----"
+
+"Why, he was a scug!" cried Jock, with illimitable disdain. This
+mysterious and terrible monosyllable was applied at school to a youth
+hopelessly low down and destitute of any personal advantages to
+counterbalance his inferiority. Jock launched it at the Marquis,
+evidently now in a very different situation, as if it had been a stone.
+
+"Hush!" said MTutor blandly. "You will meet a great many such in
+society, and they will think themselves quite as good as you."
+
+Then the mother of the young ladies in blue approached and disturbed
+this _tete-a-tete_.
+
+"I think you were talking of Lord Montjoie," she said. "I hear he is so
+clever; there are some comic songs he sings, which, I am told, are quite
+irresistible. Mr. Trevor, don't you think you could induce him to sing
+one?--as you were at school with him, and are a sort of son of the
+house?"
+
+At this Jock glowered with eyes that were alarming to see under the deep
+cover of his eyebrows, and MTutor laughed out. "We had not so exalted an
+opinion of Montjoie," he said; and then, with a politic diversion of
+which he was proud, "Would not your daughters favour us again? A comic
+song in the present state of our feelings would be more than we could
+bear."
+
+"What a clever fellow he is after all!" said Jock to himself admiringly,
+"how he can manage people and say the right thing at the right moment! I
+dare say Lucy will tell me if I ask her," he said, quite irrelevantly,
+as the lady, well pleased to hear her daughters appreciated, sailed
+away. There was something in the complete sympathy of Mr. Derwentwater's
+mind, even though it irritated, which touched him. He put the question
+point blank to Lucy when he found an opportunity of speaking to her. "I
+say, Lucy, where is Bice? You have got all the old fogeys about the
+place, and she is not here," the boy said.
+
+"Is that why you are glooming upon everybody so?" said the unfeeling
+Lucy. "You cannot call your friend Lord Montjoie an old fogey, Jock. He
+says you were such friends at school."
+
+"I--friends!" cried Jock with disdain. "Why, he was nothing but a scug."
+
+Thus Lucy, too, avoided the question; but it was not because she had any
+real reluctance to speak of Bice, though this was what Jock could not
+know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE CONTESSA PREPARES THE WAY.
+
+
+"I never sing," said the Contessa, with that serene smile with which she
+was in the habit of accompanying a statement which her hearers knew to
+be quite untrue. "Oh never! It is one of my possibilities which are
+over--one of the things which you remember of me in--other days----"
+
+"So far back as March," said Sir Tom; "but we all recognise that in a
+lady's calendar that may mean a century."
+
+"Put it in the plural, _mon ami_--centuries, that is more correct," said
+the Contessa, with her dazzling smile.
+
+"And might one ask why this sudden acceleration of time?" asked one of
+the gentlemen who were always in attendance, belonging, so to speak, to
+the Contessa's side of the party. She opened out her lovely hands and
+gave a little shrug to her shoulders, and elevation of her eyebrows.
+
+"It is easy to tell: but whether I shall tell you is another
+question----"
+
+"Oh, do, do, Countess," cried young Montjoie, who was somewhat rough in
+his attentions, and treated the lady with less ceremony than a less
+noble youth would have ventured upon. "Come, don't keep us all in
+suspense. I must hear you, don't you know; all the other fellows have
+heard you. So, please, get over the preliminaries, and let's come to the
+music. I'm awfully fond of music, especially singing. I'm a dab at that
+myself----"
+
+The Contessa let her eyes dwell upon this illustrious young man. "Why,"
+she said, "have I been prevented from making acquaintance with the art
+in which my Lord Montjoie is--a dab----"
+
+At this there was a laugh, in which the good-natured young nobleman did
+not refuse to join. "I say, you know! it's too bad to make fun of me
+like this," he cried; "but I'll tell you what, Countess, I'll make a
+bargain with you. I'll sing you three of mine if you'll sing me one of
+yours."
+
+The Contessa smiled with that gracious response which so often answered
+instead of words. The other ladies had withdrawn, except Lucy, who
+waited somewhat uneasily till her guest was ready. Though Madame di
+Forno-Populo had never lost the ascendency which she had acquired over
+Lady Randolph by throwing herself upon her understanding and sympathy,
+there were still many things which Lucy could not acquiesce in without
+uneasiness, in the Contessa's ways. The group of men about her chair,
+when all the other ladies took their candles and made their way
+upstairs, wounded Lucy's instinctive sense of what was befitting. She
+waited, punctilious in her feeling of duty, though the Contessa had not
+hesitated to make her understand that the precaution was quite
+unnecessary--and though even Sir Tom had said something of a similar
+signification. "She is old enough to take care of herself. She doesn't
+want a chaperon," Sir Tom had said; but nevertheless Lucy would take up
+a book and sit down at the table and wait: which was the more
+troublesome that it was precisely at this moment that the Contessa was
+most amusing and enjoyed herself most. Sir Tom's parliamentary friends
+had disappeared to the smoking-room when the ladies left the room. It
+was the other kind of visitors, the gentlemen who had known the
+Contessa in former days, and were old friends likewise of Sir Tom, who
+gathered round her now--they and young Lord Montjoie, who was rather out
+of place in the party, but who admired the Contessa greatly, and thought
+her better fun than any one he knew.
+
+The Contessa gave the young man one of those speaking smiles which were
+more eloquent than words. And then she said: "If I were to tell you why,
+you would not believe me. I am going to retire from the world."
+
+At this there was a little tumult of outcry and laughter. "The world
+cannot spare you, Contessa." "We can't permit any such sacrifice." And,
+"Retire! Till to-morrow?" her courtiers said.
+
+"Not till to-morrow. I do more than retire. I abdicate," said the
+Contessa, waving her beautiful hands as if in farewell.
+
+"This sounds very mysterious; for an abdication is different from a
+withdrawal; it suggests a successor."
+
+"Which is an impossibility," another said.
+
+The Contessa distributed her smiles with gracious impartiality to all,
+but she kept a little watch upon young Montjoie, who was eager amid the
+ring of her worshippers. "Nevertheless, it is more than a successor,"
+she said, playing with them, with a strange pleasure. To be thus
+surrounded, flattered more openly than men ever venture to flatter a
+woman whom they respect, addressed with exaggerated admiration,
+contemplated with bold and unwavering eyes, had come by many descents to
+be delightful to the Contessa. It reminded her of her old triumphs--of
+the days when men of a different sort brought homage perhaps not much
+more real but far more delicate, to her feet. A long career of baths and
+watering-places, of Baden and Homburg, and every other conceivable
+resort of temporary gaiety and fashion, had brought her to this. Sir
+Tom, who was not taking much share in the conversation, stood with his
+arm on the mantelpiece, and watched her and her little court with
+compassionate eyes. He had laughed often before; but he did not laugh
+now. Perhaps the fact that he was himself no longer her first object
+helped to change the aspect of affairs. He had consented to invite these
+men as old acquaintances; but it was intolerable to him to see this
+scene going on in the room in which his wife was; and the Contessa's
+radiant satisfaction seemed almost horrible to him in Lucy's presence.
+Lucy was seated at some distance from the group, her face turned away,
+her head bent, to all appearance very intent upon the book she was
+reading. He looked at her with a sort of reverential impatience. She was
+not capable of understanding the degradation which her own pure and
+simple presence made apparent. He could not endure her to be there
+sanctioning the indecorum;--and yet the tenacity with which she held her
+place, and did what she thought her duty to her guest, filled him with a
+wondering pride. No other scene, perhaps, he thought, in all England,
+could have presented a contrast so curious.
+
+"The Contessa speaks in riddles," said one of the circle. "We want an
+OEdipus."
+
+"Oh, come, Countess," said young Montjoie, "don't hang us up like this.
+We are all of us on pins and needles, don't you know? It all began about
+you singing. Why don't you sing? All the fellows say it's as good as
+Grisi. I never heard Grisi, but I know every note Patti's got in her
+voice; and I want to compare, don't you know?"
+
+The Contessa contemplated the young man with a sort of indulgent smile
+like a mother who withholds a toy.
+
+"When are you going away?" she said. "You will soon go back to your dear
+London, to your clubs and all your delights."
+
+"Oh, come, Countess," repeated Montjoie, "that isn't kind. You talk as
+if you wanted to get rid of a fellow. I'm due at the Duke's on Friday,
+don't you know?"
+
+"Then it shall be on Thursday," said the Contessa, with a laugh.
+
+"What shall be on Thursday?"
+
+The others all came round her with eager questions.
+
+"I am going on Wednesday," said one. "What is this that is going to
+happen?"
+
+"And why am I to be excluded?"
+
+"And I? If there is to be anything new, tell us what it is."
+
+"Inquisitors! and they say that curiosity belongs to women," said the
+Contessa. "Messieurs, if I were to tell you what it was, it would be no
+longer new."
+
+"Well, but hang it all," cried young Montjoie, who was excited and had
+forgotten his manners, "do tell us what it is. Don't you see we don't
+even know what kind of thing you mean? If it's music----"
+
+Madame di Forno-Populo laughed once more. She loved to mystify and raise
+expectations. "It is not music," she said. "It is my reason for
+withdrawing. When you see that, you will understand. You will all say
+the Contessa is wise. She has foreseen exactly the right moment to
+retire."
+
+And with this she rose from the sofa with a sudden movement which took
+her attendants by surprise. She was not given to shaking hands. She
+withdrew quickly from Montjoie's effort to seize her delicate fingers,
+which she waved to the company in general. "My Lucy," she said, "I have
+kept you waiting! to this extent does one forget one's self in your
+delightful house. But, my angel, you should not permit me to do it. You
+should hold up your finger, and I would obey."
+
+"Bravo," said Montjoie's voice behind their backs in a murmur of
+delight. "Oh, by Jove, isn't that good? Fancy, a woman like her, and
+that simple----"
+
+One of the elder men gave Montjoie something like a kick, inappropriate
+as the scene was for such a demonstration. "You little----think what you
+are saying," he cried.
+
+But Sir Tom was opening the door for the ladies, and did not hear. Lucy
+was tired and pale. She looked like a child beside the stately Contessa.
+She had taken no notice of Madame di Forno-Populo's profession of
+submission. In her heart she was longing to run to the nursery, to see
+her boy asleep, and make sure that all was well; and she was not only
+tired with her vigil, but uneasy, disapproving. She divined what the
+Contessa meant, though not even Sir Tom had made it out. Perhaps it was
+feminine instinct that instructed her on this point. Perhaps the strong
+repugnance she had, and sense of opposition to what was about to be
+done, quickened her powers of divination. She who had never suspected
+anybody in all her life fathomed the Contessa's intentions at a glance.
+"That boy!" she said to herself as she followed up the great staircase.
+Lucy divined the Contessa, and the Contessa divined that she had
+divined her. She turned round when they reached the top of the stairs
+and paused for a moment looking at Lady Randolph's face, lit up with the
+light of her candle. "My sweetest," said the Contessa, "you do not
+approve. It breaks my heart to see it. But what can I do! This is my
+way, it is not yours; but to me it is the only way."
+
+Lucy could do nothing but shake her head as she turned the way of the
+nursery where her boy was sleeping. The contrast gave her a pang. Bice,
+too, was no doubt sleeping the deep and dreamless sleep of youth behind
+one of those closed doors; poor Bice! secluded there to increase the
+effect of her eventual appearance, and about whom her protectress was
+draping all those veils of mystery in order to tempt the fancy of a
+commonplace youth not much more than a schoolboy! And yet the Contessa
+loved her charge, and persuaded herself that she was acting for Bice's
+good. Poor Bice, who was so good to little Tom! Was there nothing to be
+done to save her?
+
+"What's going to happen on Thursday?" the men of the Contessa's train
+asked of Sir Tom, as they followed him to the smoking-room, where Mr.
+Derwentwater, in a velvet coat, was already seated smoking a mild
+cigarette, and conversing with one of the parliamentary gentlemen. Jock
+hung about in the background, turning over the books (for there were
+books everywhere in this well-provided house) rather with the intention
+of making it quite evident that he went to bed when he liked, and could
+stay up as late as any one, than from any hankering after that cigar
+which a Sixth Form fellow, so conscientious as Jock was, might not
+trifle with. "Oh, here are those two duffers; those saps, don't you
+know," Montjoie said, with a grimace, as he perceived them on entering
+the room; in which remark he was perhaps justified by the epithets which
+these two superior persons applied to him. The two parties did not
+amalgamate in the smoking-room any more than in other places. The new
+comers surrounded Sir Tom in a noisy little crowd, demanding of him an
+explanation of the Contessa's meaning. This, however, was subdued
+presently by a somewhat startling little incident. The gentlemen were
+discussing the Contessa with the greatest freedom. "It's rather
+astounding to meet her in a good house, just like any one else," one man
+forgot himself sufficiently to say, but he came to his recollection very
+quickly on meeting Sir Tom's eyes. "I beg your pardon, Randolph, of
+course that's not what I mean. I mean after all those years." "Then I
+hope you will remember to say exactly what you mean," said Sir Tom, "on
+other occasions. It will simplify matters."
+
+This momentary incident, though it was quiet enough, and expressed in
+tones rather less than more loud than the ordinary conversation, made a
+sensation in the room, and produced first an involuntary stillness, and
+then an eager access of talk. It had the effect, however, of making
+everybody aware that the Contessa intended to make, on Thursday, some
+revelation or other, an intimation which moved Jock and his tutor as
+much or even more than it moved the others. Mr. Derwentwater even made
+advances to Montjoie, whom he had steadily ignored, in order to
+ascertain what it was. "Something's coming off, that's all we can tell,"
+that young patrician said. "She is going to retire, so she says, from
+the world, don't you know? That's like a tradesman shutting up shop when
+he's made his fortune, or a _prima donna_ going off the stage. It ain't
+so easy to make out, is it, how the Forno-Populo can retire from the
+world? She can't be going to take poison, like the great Sarah, and give
+us a grand dying seance in Lady Randolph's drawing-room. That would be
+going a bit too far, don't you know?"
+
+"It is going a bit too far to imagine such a thing," Derwentwater said.
+
+"Oh, come, you know, it isn't school-time," cried Montjoie, with a
+laugh. And though Mr. Derwentwater was as much superior to the little
+lordling as could be conceived, he retired disconcerted from this
+passage of arms. To be reminded that you are a pedagogue is difficult to
+bear, especially an unsuccessful pedagogue, attempting to exert
+authority which exists no longer. MTutor prided himself on being a man
+of the world, but he retired a little with an involuntary sense of
+offence from this easy setting down. He rose shortly after and took Jock
+by the arm and led him away. "You are not smoking, which I am glad to
+see--and shows your sense," he said. "Come out and have a breath of air
+before we go upstairs. Can you imagine anything more detestable than
+that little precocious _roue_, that washed-out little man-about-town,"
+he added with some energy, as they stepped out of the open windows of
+the library, left open in case the fine night should have seduced the
+gentlemen on to the terrace to smoke their cigars. It was a lovely
+spring night, soft and balmy, with a sensation of growth in the air, the
+sky very clear, with airy white clouds all lit up by the moon. The quiet
+and freshness gave to those who stepped into it a curious sensation of
+superiority to the men whom they left in the warm brightly-lit room,
+with its heavy atmosphere and artificial delights. It felt like a moral
+atmosphere in contrast with the air all laden with human emanations,
+smoke, and the careless talk of men. These two were perhaps somewhat
+inclined to feel a superiority in any circumstances. They did so doubly
+in these.
+
+"He was always a little cad," said Jock.
+
+"To hear a lady's name from his mouth is revolting," said Derwentwater.
+"We are all too careless in that respect. I admire Madame di
+Forno-Populo for keeping her--is it her daughter or niece?--out of the
+way while that little animal is here."
+
+"Oh, Bice would soon make him know his place," said Jock; "she is not
+just like one of the girls that are civil, you know. She is not afraid
+of telling you what she thinks of you. I know exactly how she'd look at
+Montjoie." Jock permitted himself an abrupt laugh in the pleasure of
+feeling that he knew her ways far better than any one. "She would soon
+set him down--the little beast!--in his right place."
+
+As they walked up and down the terrace their steps and voices were very
+audible in the stillness of the night; and the windows were lighted in
+the east wing, showing that the inhabitants were still up there and
+about. While Jock spoke, one of these windows opened quite suddenly, and
+for a single moment a figure like a shadow appeared in it. The light
+movement, sudden as a bird's on the wing, would have betrayed her (she
+felt) to Jock, even if she had not spoken. But she waved her hand and
+called out "Good-night" in a voice full of laughter. "Don't talk
+secrets, for we can hear you," she said. "Good-night!" And so vanished
+again, with a little echo of laughter from within. The young men were
+both excited and disconcerted by this interruption. It gave them a
+sensation of shame for the moment as if they had been caught in a
+discussion of a forbidden subject; and then a tingling ran through their
+veins. Even MTutor for the moment found no fine speech in which to
+express his sense of this sudden momentary tantalising appearance of the
+mystic woman standing half visible out of the background of the unknown.
+He did think some very fine things on the subject after a time, with a
+side glance of philosophical reflection that her light laugh of mockery
+as she momentarily revealed herself, was an outcome of this sceptical
+century, and that in a previous age her utterance would have been a song
+or a sigh. But at the moment even Mr. Derwentwater was subjugated by the
+thrill of sensation and feeling, and found nothing to say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+IN SUSPENSE.
+
+
+It was thus that Bice was engaged while Lucy imagined her asleep in her
+innocence, unaware of the net that was being spread for her unsuspecting
+feet. Bice was neither asleep nor unsuspecting. She was innocent in a
+way inconceivable to the ordinary home-keeping imagination, knowing no
+evil in the devices to which she was a party; but she was not innocent
+in the conventional sense. That any high feminine ideal should be
+affected by the design of the Contessa or by her own participation in it
+had not occurred to the girl. She had been accustomed to smile at the
+high virtue of those ladies in the novels who would not receive the
+addresses of the eldest son of their patroness, and who preferred a
+humble village and the delights of self-sacrifice to all the grandeurs
+of an ambitious marriage. That might be well enough in a novel, Bice
+thought, but it was not so in life. In her own case there was no
+question about it. The other way it was which seemed to her the virtuous
+way. Had it been proposed to her to throw herself away upon a poor man
+whom she might be supposed to love, and so prove herself incapable of
+being of any use to the Contessa, and make all her previous training and
+teaching of no effect, Bice's moral indignation would have been as
+elevated as that of any English heroine at the idea of marrying for
+interest instead of love. The possibility did not occur to her at all;
+but it would have been rejected with disdain had it attempted to force
+its way across the threshold of her mind. She loved nobody--except the
+Contessa; which was a great defence and preservation to her thoughts.
+She accepted the suggestion that Montjoie should be the means of raising
+her to that position she was made for, with composure and without an
+objection. It was not arranged upon secretly, without her knowledge, but
+with her full concurrence. "He is not very much to look at. I wish he
+had been more handsome," the Contessa said; but Bice's indifference on
+this point was sublime. "What can it matter?" she said loftily. She was
+not even very deeply interested in his disposition or mental qualities.
+Everything else being so suitable, it would have been cowardly to shrink
+from any minor disadvantage. She silenced the Contessa in the attempt to
+make the best of him. "All these things are so secondary," the girl
+said. Her devotion to the career chosen for her was above all weakly
+arguments of this kind. She looked upon them even with a certain scorn.
+And though there was in her mind some excitement as to her appearance
+"in the world," as she phrased it, and her skill "to please," which was
+as yet untried, it was, notwithstanding with the composure of a nature
+quite unaware of any higher questions involved, that she took her part
+in all the preparations. Her knowledge of the very doubtful world in
+which she had lived had been of a philosophical character. She was quite
+impartial. She had no prejudices. Those of whom she approved were those
+who had carried out their intentions, whatever they might be, as she
+should do by marrying an English Milord with a good title and much
+money. She meant, indeed, to spend his money, but legitimately. She
+meant to become a great lady by his means, but not to do him any harm.
+Bice had an almost savage purity of heart, and the thought that any of
+the stains she knew of should touch her was incredible, impossible;
+neither was it in her to be unkind, or unjust, or envious, or
+ungenerous. Nothing of all this was involved in the purely business
+operation in which she was engaged. According to her code no professions
+of attachment or pretence of feeling were necessary. She had indeed no
+theories in her mind about being a good wife; but she would not be a bad
+one. She would keep her part of the compact; there should be nothing to
+complain of, nothing to object to. She would do her best to amuse the
+man she had to live with and make his life agreeable to him, which is a
+thing not always taken into consideration in marriage-contracts much
+more ideal in character. He should not be allowed to be dull, that was
+one thing certain. Regarding the matter in this reasonable point of
+view, Bice prepared for the great event of Thursday with just excitement
+enough to make it amusing. It might be that she should fail. Few
+succeed at the very first effort without difficulty, she said to
+herself; but if she failed there would be nothing tragical in the
+failure, and the season was all before her. It could scarcely be hoped
+that she would bring down her antagonist the first time she set lance in
+rest.
+
+She was carefully kept out of sight during the intervening days; no one
+saw her; no one had any acquaintance with the fact of her existence. The
+precautions taken were such that Bice was never even encountered on the
+staircase, never seen to flit in or out of a room, and indeed did not
+exist at all for the party in the house. Notwithstanding these
+precautions she had the needful exercise to keep her in health and good
+looks, and still romped with the baby and held conversations with the
+sympathetic Lucy, who did not know what to say to express her feeling of
+anxious disapproval and desire to succour, without, at the same time,
+injuring in Bice's mind her nearest friend and protectress. She might,
+indeed, have spared herself the trouble of any such anxiety, for Bice
+neither felt injured by the Contessa's scheme nor degraded by her
+precautions. It amused the girl highly to be made a secret of, to run
+all the risks of discovery and baffle the curious. The fun of it was
+delightful to her. Sometimes she would amuse herself by hanging till the
+last practicable moment in the gallery at the top of the staircase, on
+the balcony at the window, or at the door of the Contessa's room which
+was commanded by various other doors; but always vanished within in time
+to avoid all inquisitive eyes, with the laughter and delight of a child
+at the danger escaped, and the fun of the situation. In these cases the
+Contessa would sometimes take fright, but never, so light was the
+temper of this scheming woman, this deep plotter and conspirator,
+refused to join in the laughter when the flight was made and safety
+secured. They were like a couple of children with a mystification in
+hand, notwithstanding that they were planning an invasion so serious of
+all the proprieties, and meant to make so disreputable and revolting a
+bargain. But this was not in their ideas. Bice went out very early in
+the morning before any one was astir, to take needful exercise in the
+park, and gather early primroses and the catkins that hung upon the
+trees. On one of these occasions she met Mr. Derwentwater, of whom she
+was not afraid; and at another time, when skirting the shrubberies at a
+somewhat later hour to keep clear of any stragglers, Jock. Mr.
+Derwentwater talked to her in a tone which amused the girl. He spoke of
+Proserpina gathering flowers, herself a----and then altered and grew
+confused under her eye.
+
+"Herself a---- What?" said Bice. "Have you forgotten what you were going
+to say?"
+
+"I have not forgotten--herself a fairer flower. One does not forget such
+lovely words as these," he said, injured by the question. "But when one
+comes face to face with the impersonation of the poet's idea----"
+
+"It was poetry, then?" said Bice. "I know very little of that. It is not
+in Tauchnitz, perhaps? All I know of English is from the Tauchnitz. I
+read, chiefly, novels. You do not approve of that? But, yes, I like
+them; because it is life."
+
+"Is it life?" said Derwentwater, who was somewhat contemptuous of
+fiction.
+
+"At least it is England," said Bice. "The girls who will not make a good
+marriage because of some one else, or because it is their parents who
+arrange it. That is how Lady Randolph speaks. She says that nothing is
+right but to fall--how do you call it?--in love?--It is not _comme il
+faut_ even to talk of that."
+
+Derwentwater blushed like a girl. He was more inexperienced in many ways
+than Bice. "And do you regard it in another point of view?" he said.
+
+Bice laughed out with frank disdain. "Certainly, I regard it
+different--oh, quite different. That is not what happens in life."
+
+"And do you consider life is chiefly occupied with getting married?" he
+continued, feeling, along with a good deal of quite unnecessary
+excitement, a great desire to know what was her way of looking at this
+great subject. Visions had been flashing recently through his mind,
+which pointed a little this way too.
+
+"Altogether," said Bice, with great gravity, "how can you begin to live
+till you have settled that? Till then you do not know what is going to
+happen to you. When you get up in the morning you know not what may come
+before the night; when you walk out you know not who may be the next
+person you meet; perhaps your husband. But then you marry, and that is
+all settled; henceforward nothing can happen!" said Bice, throwing out
+her hands. "Then, after all is settled, you can begin to live."
+
+"This is very interesting," said Derwentwater, "I am so glad to get at a
+real and individual view. But this, perhaps, only applies to--ladies? It
+is, perhaps, not the same with men?"
+
+Bice gave him a careless, half-contemptuous glance. "I have never known
+anything," she said, "about men."
+
+There are many girls, much more innocent in outward matters than Bice,
+who would have said these words with an intention _agacante_--the
+intention of leading to a great deal more badinage. But Bice spoke with
+a calm, almost scornful, composure. She had no desire to _agacer_. She
+looked him in the face as tranquilly as if he had been an old woman. And
+so far as she was concerned he might have been an old woman; for he had
+virtually no existence in his capacity of young man. Had she possessed
+any clue to the thoughts that had taken rise in his mind, the new
+revelation which she had conveyed to him, Bice's amazement would have
+been without bounds. But instinct indicated to her that the interview
+should proceed no further. She waved her hand to him as she came to a
+cross road which led into the woods. "I am going this way," she cried,
+darting off round the corner of a great tree. He stood and looked after
+her bewildered, as her light figure skimmed along into the depths of the
+shadows. "Then, after all is settled, you can begin to live," he
+repeated to himself. Was it true? He had got up the morning on which he
+saw her first without any thought that everything might be changed for
+him that day. And now it was quite true that there lay before him an
+interval which must be somehow filled up before he could begin to live.
+How was it to be filled up? Would _she_ have anything to do with the
+settling which must precede his recommencement of existence? He went on
+with his mind altogether absorbed in these thoughts, and with a thrill
+and tingling through all his veins. And that was the only time he
+encountered Bice, for whom in fact, though he had not hitherto allowed
+it even to himself, he had come to the Hall--till the great night.
+
+Jock encountered her the next day not so early, at the hour indeed when
+the great people were at breakfast. He had been one of the first to
+come downstairs, and he had not lingered at table as persons do who have
+letters to read, and the newspapers, and all that is going on to talk
+about. He met her coming from the park. She put out her hand when she
+saw him as if to keep him off.
+
+"If you wish to speak to me," she said, "you must turn back and walk
+with me. I do not want any one to see me, and they will soon be coming
+out from breakfast."
+
+"Why don't you want any one to see you?" Jock said.
+
+Bice had learned the secret of the Contessa's smile; but this which she
+cast upon Jock had something mocking in it, and ended in a laugh. "Oh,
+don't you know?" she said, "it is so silly to be a boy!"
+
+"You are no older than I am," cried Jock, aggrieved; "and why don't you
+come down to dinner as you used to do? I always liked you to come. It is
+quite different when you are not there. If I had known I should not have
+come home at all this Easter," Jock cried.
+
+"Oh!" cried Bice, "that means that you like me, then?--and so does
+Milady. If I should go away altogether----"
+
+"You are not going away altogether? Why should you? There is no other
+place you could be so well as here. The Contessa never says a word, but
+laughs at a fellow, which is scarcely civil; and she has those men about
+her that are--not----; but you----why should you go away?" cried Jock
+with angry vehemence. He looked at her with eyes lowering fiercely under
+his eyebrows; yet in his heart he was not angry but wretched, as if
+something were rending him. Jock did not understand how he felt.
+
+"Oh, now, you look at me as if you would eat me," said Bice, "as if I
+were the little girl in the red hood and you the wolf---- But it is
+silly, for how should I stay here when Milady is going away? We are all
+going to London--and then! it will soon be decided, I suppose," said
+Bice, herself feeling a little sad for the first time at the idea, "what
+is going to be done with me."
+
+"What is going to be done with you?" cried Jock hoarsely, for he was
+angry and grieved, and full of impatient indignation, though he scarcely
+knew why.
+
+Bice turned upon him with that lingering smile which was like the
+Contessa's. But, unlike the Contessa's, it ended as usual in a laugh.
+She kissed her hand to him, and darted round the corner of the shrubbery
+just as some one appeared from breakfast. "Good-bye," she said, "do not
+be angry," and so vanished like lightning. This was one of the cases
+which made her heart beat with fun and exhilaration, when she was, as
+she told the Contessa, nearly caught. She got into the shelter of the
+east rooms, panting with the run she had made, her complexion brilliant,
+her eyes shining. "I thought I should certainly be seen this time," she
+said.
+
+The Contessa looked at the girl with admiring eyes. "I could almost have
+wished you had," she said. "You are superb like that." They talked
+without a shade of embarrassment on this subject, upon which English
+mothers and children would blush and hesitate.
+
+This was the day, the great day of the revelation which the Contessa had
+promised. There had been a great deal of discussion and speculation
+about it in the company. No one, even Sir Tom, knew what it was. Lucy,
+though she was not clever, had her wits sharpened in this respect, and
+she had divined; but no one else had any conception of what was coming.
+Two of the elder men had gone, very sorry to miss the great event,
+whatever it was. And young Montjoie had talked of nothing else since the
+promise had been made. The conversation in the drawing-room late in the
+afternoon chiefly turned on this subject, and the lady visitors too
+heard of it, and were not less curious. She who had the two daughters
+addressed herself to Lucy for information. She said: "I hear some
+novelty is expected to-night, Lady Randolph, something the Contessa has
+arranged. She is very clever, is she not? and sings delightfully, I
+know. There is so much more talent of that kind among foreigners than
+there is among us. Is it tableaux? The girls are so longing to know."
+
+"Oh, yes, we want so much to know," said the young ladies in blue.
+
+"I don't think it is tableaux," Lucy said; "but I have not been told
+what it is."
+
+This the ladies did not believe, but they asked no further questions.
+"It is clear that she does not wish us to know; so, girls, you must say
+nothing," was the conclusion of the mother.
+
+They said a great deal, notwithstanding this warning. The house
+altogether was excited on the subject, and even Mr. Derwentwater took
+part in the speculations. He looked upon the Contessa as one of those
+inscrutable women of the stage, the Sirens who beguile everybody. She
+had some design upon Montjoie, he felt, and it was only the youth's
+impertinence which prevented Mr. Derwentwater from interfering. He
+watched with the natural instinct of his profession and a strong
+impulse to write to the lad's parents and have him taken away. But
+Montjoie had no parents. He had attained his majority, and was supposed
+by the law capable of taking care of himself. What did that woman mean
+to do with the boy? She had some designs upon him. But there was nobody
+to whom Mr. Derwentwater could confide his suspicions, or whom he could
+ask what the Contessa meant. MTutor had not on the whole a pleasant
+visit. He was disappointed in that which had been his chief object--his
+favourite pupil was detached from him, he knew not how--and this other
+boy, whom, though he did not love him, he could not help feeling a sort
+of responsibility for, was in danger from a designing woman, a woman out
+of a French play, _L'Aventuriere_, something of that sort. Mr.
+Derwentwater felt that he could not drag himself away, the attractions
+were so strong. He wanted to see the _denouement_; still more he wanted
+to see Bice. No drama in the world had so powerful an interest. But
+though it was so impossible to go away, it was not pleasant to stay.
+Jock did not want him. Lucy, though she was always sweet and friendly,
+had a look of haste and over-occupation; her eyes wandered when she
+talked to him; her mind was occupied with other things. Most of the men
+of the party were more than indifferent; were disagreeable to him. He
+thought they were a danger for Jock. And Bice never was visible; that
+moment on the balcony--those few minutes in the park--the half dozen
+words which had been so "suggestive," he thought, which had woke so many
+echoes in his mind--these were all he had had of her. Had she intended
+them to awaken echoes? He asked himself this question a thousand times.
+Had she willingly cast this seed of thought into his mind to
+germinate--to produce--what result? If it was so, then, indeed, all the
+little annoyances of his stay would be a cheap price to pay. It did not
+occur to this judicious person, whose influence over his pupils was so
+great, and who had studied so deeply the mind of youth, that a girl of
+sixteen was but little likely to be consciously suggestive--to sow, with
+any intention in her mind, seeds of meaning to develop in his. To do him
+justice, he was as unconscious of the limits of sixteen in Bice's case
+as we all are in the case of Juliet. She was of no age. She was the
+ideal woman capable of comprehensions and intentions as far above
+anything possible to the genus boy as heaven was above earth. It would
+have been a profanation, a sacrilege too dreadful to be thought of, to
+compare that ethereal creature with the other things of her age with
+which he was so familiar. Of her age! Her age was the age of romance, of
+love, of poetry, of all ineffable things.
+
+"I say, Countess," said Montjoie, "I hope you're not forgetting. This is
+the night, don't you know. And here we are all ready for dinner and
+nothing has happened. When is it coming? You are so awfully mysterious;
+it ain't fair upon a fellow."
+
+"Is every one in the room?" said the Contessa, with an indulgent smile
+at the young man's eagerness. They all looked round, for everybody was
+curious. And all were there--the lady who wrote for the Press, and the
+lady with the two daughters, the girls in blue; and Sir Tom's
+parliamentary friends standing up against the mantelpiece, and Mr.
+Derwentwater by himself, more curious than any one, keeping one eye on
+Montjoie, as if he would have liked to send him to the pupil-room to do
+a _poena_; and Jock indifferent, with his back to the door. All the rest
+were expectant except Jock, who took no notice. The Contessa's special
+friends were about her chair, rubbing their hands, and ready to back the
+Forno-Populo for a new sensation. The Contessa looked round, her eye
+dwelling for a moment upon Lucy, who looked a little fluttered and
+uncomfortable, and upon Sir Tom, who evidently knew nothing, and was
+looking on with a smile.
+
+"Now you shall see," she said, "why I abdicate," and made a sign,
+clapping softly her beautiful hands.
+
+There was a momentary pause. Montjoie, who was standing out in the clear
+space in the centre of the room, turned round at the Contessa's call. He
+turned towards the open door, which was less lighted than the inner
+room. It was he who saw first what was coming. "Oh, by Jove!" the young
+Marquis said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE DEBUT.
+
+
+The door was open. The long drawing-room afforded a sort of processional
+path for the newcomer. Her dress was not white like that of the ordinary
+_debutante_. It had a yellow golden glow of colour, warm yet soft. She
+walked not with the confused air of a novice perceiving herself
+observed, but with a slow and serene gait like a young queen. She was
+not alarmed by the consciousness that everybody was looking at her. Not
+to have been looked at would have been more likely to embarrass Bice.
+Her beautiful throat and shoulders were uncovered, her hair dressed
+more elaborately than that of English girls in general. English
+girls--the two innocents in blue, who were nice girls enough, and stood
+with their mouths and eyes open in speechless wonder and
+admiration--seemed of an entirely different species from this dazzling
+creature. She made a momentary pause on the threshold, while all the
+beholders held their breath. Montjoie, for one, was struck dumb. His
+commonplace countenance changed altogether. He looked at her with his
+face growing longer, his jaw dropping. It was more than a sensation, it
+was such a climax of excitement and surprise as does not happen above
+once or twice in a lifetime. The whole company were moved by similar
+feelings, all except the Contessa, lying back in her chair, and Lucy,
+who stood rather troubled, moving from one foot to another, clasping and
+unclasping her hands. Jock, roused by the murmur, turned round with a
+start, and eyed her too with looks of wild astonishment. She stood for a
+moment looking at them all--with a smile which was half mischievous,
+half appealing--on the threshold, as Bice felt it, not only of Lady
+Randolph's drawing-room, but of the world.
+
+Sir Tom had started at the sight of her as much as any one. He had not
+been in the secret. He cried out, "By Jove!" like Montjoie. But he had
+those instincts which are, perhaps, rather old-fashioned, of protection
+and service to women. He belonged to the school which thinks a girl
+should not walk across a room without some man's arm to sustain her, or
+open a door for herself. He started forward with a little sense of being
+to blame, and offered her his arm. "Why didn't you send for me to bring
+you in if you were late?" he cried, with a tone in which there was some
+tremor and vexation. The effectiveness of her appearance was terrible to
+Sir Tom. She looked up at him with a look of pleasure and kindness, and
+said, "I was not late," with a smile. She looked taller, more developed
+in a single day. But for that little pucker of vexation on Sir Tom's
+forehead they would have looked like a father and daughter, the father
+proudly bringing his young princess into the circle of her adorers. Bice
+swept him towards Lucy, and made a low obeisance to Lady Randolph, and
+took her hand and kissed it. "I must come to you first," she said.
+
+"Well?" said the Contessa, turning round to her retainers with a quick
+movement. They were all gazing at the _debutante_ so intently that they
+had no eyes for her. One of them at length replied, with something like
+solemnity: "Oh, I understand what you mean, Contessa; anybody but you
+would have to abdicate." "But not you," said another, who had some
+kindness in his heart. The Contessa rose up with an air of triumph. "I
+do not want to be compelled," she said, "I told you. I give up. I will
+take your arm Mr. St. John, as a private person, having relinquished my
+claims, and leave milord to the new _regime_."
+
+This was how it came about, in the slight scuffle caused by the sudden
+change of programme, that Bice, in all her splendour, found herself
+going in to the dining-room on Lord Montjoie's arm. Notwithstanding that
+he had been struck dumb by her beauty, little Montjoie was by no means
+happy when this wonderful good fortune fell upon him. He would have
+preferred to gaze at her from the other side of the table: on the whole,
+he would have been a great deal more at his ease with the Contessa. He
+would have asked her a hundred questions about this wonderful beauty;
+but the beauty herself rather frightened the young man. Presently,
+however, he regained his courage, and as lack of boldness was not his
+weak point, soon began to lose the sense of awe which had been so strong
+upon him. She smiled; she was as ready to talk as he was, as the
+overwhelming impression she had made upon him began to be modified by
+familiarity. "I suppose," he said, when he had reached this point, "that
+you arrived to-day?" And then, after a pause, "You speak English?" he
+added, in a hesitating tone. She received this question with so merry a
+laugh that he was quite encouraged.
+
+"Always," she said, "since I was a child. Was that why you were afraid
+of me?"
+
+"Afraid?" he said; and then he looked at her almost with a recurrence of
+his first fright, till her laugh reassured him. "Yes I was frightened,"
+Lord Montjoie said; "you looked so--so--don't you know? I was struck all
+of a heap. I suppose you came to-day? We were all on the outlook from
+something the Contessa said. You must be clever to get in without
+anybody seeing you."
+
+"I was far more clever than that," said Bice; "you don't know how clever
+I am."
+
+"I dare say," said Lord Montjoie, admiringly, "because you don't want
+it. That's always the way."
+
+"I am so clever that I have been here all the time," said Bice, with
+another laugh so joyous,--"so jolly," Montjoie said, that his terrors
+died away. But his surprise took another development at this
+extraordinary information.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried, "you don't mean that, Miss--Mademoiselle--I am so
+awfully stupid I never heard--that is to say I ain't at all clever at
+foreign names."
+
+"Oh, never mind," cried Bice; "neither am I. But yours is delightful; it
+is so easy, Milord. Ought I to say Milord?"
+
+"Oh," cried Montjoie, a little confused. "No; I don't think so--people
+don't as a rule."
+
+"Lord Montjoie, that is right? I like always to know----"
+
+"So do I," said Montjoie; "it's always best to ask, ain't it, and then
+there can be no mistakes? But you don't mean to say _that_? You here
+yesterday and all the time? I shouldn't think you could have been hid.
+Not the kind of person, don't you know."
+
+"I can't tell about being the kind of person. It has been fun," said
+Bice; "sometimes I have seen you all coming, and waited till there was
+just time to fly. I like leaving it till the last moment, and then there
+is the excitement, don't you know."
+
+"By Jove, what fun!" said Montjoie. He was not clever enough, few people
+are, to perceive that she had mimicked himself in tone and expression.
+"And I might have caught you any day," he cried. "What a muff I have
+been."
+
+"If I had allowed myself to be caught I should have been a greater--what
+do you call it? You wear beautiful things to do your smoking in, Lord
+Montjoie; what is it? Velvet? And why don't you wear them to
+dinner?--you would look so much more handsome. I am very fond myself of
+beautiful clothes."
+
+"Oh, by Jove!" cried Montjoie again, with something like a blush.
+"You've seen me in those things! I only wear them when I think nobody
+sees. They're something from the East," he added, with a tone of
+careless complacency; for, as a matter of fact, he piqued himself very
+much upon this smoking-suit which had not, at the Hall, received the
+applause it deserved.
+
+"You go and smoke like that among other men? Yes, I perceive," said
+Bice, "you are just like women, there is no difference. We put on our
+pretty things for other ladies, because you cannot understand them; and
+you do the same."
+
+"Oh, come now, Miss---- Forno-Populo! you don't mean to tell me that you
+got yourself up like that for the sake of the ladies?" cried the young
+man.
+
+"For whom, then?" said Bice, throwing up her head; but afterwards, with
+the instinct of a young actress, she remembered her _role_, which it was
+fun to carry out thoroughly. She laughed. "You are the most clever," she
+said. "I see you are one that women cannot deceive."
+
+Montjoie laughed, too, with gratified vanity and superior knowledge.
+"You are about right there," he said. "I am not to be taken in, don't
+you know. It's no good trying it on with me. I see through ladies'
+little pretences. If there were no men you would not care what guys you
+were; and no more do we."
+
+Bice made no reply. She turned upon him that dazzling smile of which she
+had learned the secret from the Contessa, which was unfathomable to the
+observer but quite simple to the simple-minded; and then she said: "Do
+you amuse yourself very much in the evening? I used to hear the voices
+and think how pleasant it would have been to be there."
+
+"Not so pleasant as you think," said the young man. "The only fun was
+the Contessa's, don't you know. She's a fine woman for her age, but
+she's---- Goodness! I forgot. She's your----"
+
+"She is _passee_," said the girl calmly. "You make me afraid, Lord
+Montjoie. How much of a critic you are, and see through women, through
+and through." At this the noble Marquis laughed with true enjoyment of
+his own gifts.
+
+"But you ain't offended?" he said. "There was no harm meant. Even a lady
+can't, don't you know, be always the same age."
+
+"Don't you think so?" said Bice. "Oh, I think you are wrong. The
+Contessa is of no age. She is the age she pleases--she has all the
+secrets. I see nobody more beautiful."
+
+"That may be," said Montjoie; "but you can't see everybody, don't you
+know. She's very handsome and all that--and when the real thing isn't
+there--but when it is, don't you know----"
+
+"English is very perplexing," said Bice, shaking her head, but with a
+smile in her eyes which somewhat belied her air of simplicity. "What may
+that be--the real thing? Shall I find it in the dictionary?" she asked;
+and then their eyes met and there was another burst of laughter,
+somewhat boisterous on his part, but on hers with a ring of
+lightheartedness which quenched the malice. She was so young that she
+had a pleasure in playing her _role_, and did not feel any immorality
+involved.
+
+While this conversation was going on, which was much observed and
+commented on by all the company, Jock from one end of the table and Mr.
+Derwentwater from the other, looked on with an eager observation and
+breathless desire to make out what was being said which gave an
+expression of anxiety to the features of MTutor, and one of almost
+ferocity to the lowering countenance of Jock. Both of these gentlemen
+were eagerly questioned by the ladies next them as to who this young
+lady might be.
+
+"Terribly theatrical, don't you think, to come into a room like that?"
+said the mother of the girls in blue. "If my Minnie or Edith had been
+asked to do it they would have died of shame."
+
+"I do not deny," said Mr. Derwentwater, "the advantage of conventional
+restraints. I like the little airs of seclusion, of retirement, that
+surround young ladies. But the----" he paused a little for a name, and
+then with that acquaintance with foreign ways on which Mr. Derwentwater
+prided himself, added, "the Signorina was at home."
+
+"The Signorina! Is that what you call her--just like a person that is
+going on the stage. She will be the--niece, I suppose?"
+
+Jock's next neighbour was the lady who was engaged in literature. She
+said to Jock: "I must get you to tell me her name. She is lovely. She
+will make a great sensation. I must make a few notes of her dress after
+dinner--would you call that yellow or white? Whoever dressed her knew
+what they were about. Mademoiselle, I imagine, one ought to call her. I
+know that's French, and she's Italian, but still---- The new beauty!
+that's what she will be called. I am so glad to be the first to see her;
+but I must get you to tell me her name."
+
+Among the gentlemen there was no other subject of conversation, and but
+one opinion. A little hum of curiosity ran round the table. It was far
+more exciting than tableaux, which was what some of the guests had
+expected to be arranged by the Contessa. Tableaux! nothing could have
+been equal to the effect of that dramatic entry and sudden revelation.
+"As for Montjoie, all was up with him, but the Contessa knew what she
+was about. She was not going to throw away her effects," they said.
+"There could be no doubt for whose benefit it all was." The Contessa
+graciously baffled with her charming smile all the questions that were
+poured upon her. She received the compliments addressed to her with
+gracious bows, but she gave no reply to any one. As she swept out of the
+room after dinner she tapped Montjoie lightly on the arm with her fan.
+"I will sing for you to-night," she said.
+
+In the drawing-room the elements were a little heterogeneous without the
+gentlemen. The two girls in blue gazed at this wonderful new competitor
+with a curiosity which was almost alarm. They would have liked to make
+acquaintance, to draw her into their little party of youth outside the
+phalanx of the elders. But Bice took no more note of them than if they
+had been cabbages. She was in great excitement, all smiles and glory.
+"Do I please you like this?" she said, going up to Lucy, spreading out
+all her finery with the delight of a child. Lucy shrank a little. She
+had a troubled anxious look, which did not look like pleasure; but Lady
+Anastasia, who wrote for the newspapers, walked round and round the
+_debutante_ and took notes frankly. "Of course I shall describe her
+dress. I never saw anything so lovely," the lady said. Bice, in the glow
+of her golden yellow, and of her smiles and delight, with the noble
+correspondent of the newspapers examining her, found the acutest
+interest in the position. The Contessa from her sofa smiled upon the
+scene, looking on with the air of a gratified exhibitor whose show had
+succeeded beyond her hopes. Lady Randolph, with an air of anxiety in her
+fair and simple countenance, stood behind, looking at Bice with
+protecting yet disturbed and troubled looks. The mother and daughters at
+the other side looked on, she all solid and speechless with
+disapproval, they in a flutter of interest and wonder and gentle envy
+and offence. More than a tableau; it was like an act out of a play. And
+when the gentlemen came in what a sudden quickening of the interest!
+Bice rose to the action like a heroine when the great scene has come,
+and the others all gathered round with a spectatorship that was almost
+breathless. The worst feature of the whole to those who were interested
+in Bice was her own evident enjoyment. She talked, she distributed her
+smiles right and left, she mimicked yet flattered Montjoie with a
+dazzling youthful assurance which confounded Mr. Derwentwater, and made
+Jock furious, and brought looks of pain not only to the face of Lucy but
+also to that of Sir Tom, who was less easily shocked. She was like a
+young actress in her first triumph, filling her _role_ with a sort of
+enthusiasm, enjoying it with all her heart. And when the Contessa rose
+to sing, Bice followed her to the piano with an air as different as
+possible from the swift, noiseless self-effacement of her performance on
+previous occasions. She looked round upon the company with a sort of
+malicious triumph, a laugh on her lips as of some delightful
+mystification, some surprise of which she was in the secret. "Come and
+listen," she said to Jock, lightly touching him on the shoulder as she
+passed him. The Contessa's singing was already known. It was considered
+by some with a certain contempt, by others with admiration, as almost as
+good as professional. But when instead of one of her usual performances
+there arose in splendid fulness the harmony of two voices, that of Bice
+suddenly breaking forth in all the freshness of youth, unexpected,
+unprepared for, the climax of wonder and enthusiasm was reached. Lady
+Anastasia, after the first start and thrill of wonder, rushed to the
+usual writing-table and dashed off a hurried note, which she fastened to
+her fan in her excitement. "Everybody must know of this!" she cried. One
+of the young ladies in the background wept with admiration, crying,
+"Mamma, she is heavenly," while even the virtuous mother was moved.
+"They must intend her for the stage," that lady said, wondering,
+withdrawing from her _role_ of disapproval. As for the gentlemen, those
+of them who were not speechless with enthusiasm were almost noisy in
+their excitement. Montjoie pressed into the first rank, almost touching
+Bice's dress, which she drew away between two bars, turning half round
+with a slight shake of her head and a smile in her eyes, even while the
+loveliest notes were flowing forth from her melodious throat. The
+listeners could hear the noble lord's "by Jove," in the midst of the
+music, and even detect the slight quaver of laughter which followed in
+Bice's wonderful voice.
+
+The commotion of applause, enthusiasm, and wonder afterwards was
+indescribable. The gentlemen crowded round the singers--even the
+parliamentary gentlemen had lost their self-control, while the young
+lady who had wept forgot her timidity to make an eager approach to the
+_debutante_.
+
+"It was heavenly: it was a rapture: oh, sing again!" cried Miss Edith,
+which was much prettier than Lord Montjoie's broken exclamations, "Oh,
+by Jove! don't you know," to which Bice was listening with delighted
+mockery.
+
+Bice had been trained to pay very little attention to the opinions of
+other girls, but she gave the young lady in blue a friendly look, and
+launched over her shoulder an appeal to Jock. "Didn't you like it,
+you?" she cried, with a slight clap together of her hands to call his
+attention.
+
+Jock glared at her over Miss Edith's shoulder. "I don't understand
+music," he said, in his most surly voice. These were the distinct
+utterances which enchanted Bice amid the murmurs of more ordinary
+applause. She was delighted with them. She clapped her hands once more
+with a delight which was contagious. "Ah, I know now, this is what it is
+to have _succes_," she cried.
+
+"Now," said the Contessa, "it is the turn of Lord Montjoie, who is a
+dab--that is the word--at singing, and who promised me three for one."
+
+At this there rose a hubbub of laughter, in the midst of which, though
+with many protestations and remonstrances, "don't you know," that young
+nobleman was driven to the fulfilment of his promise. In the midst of
+this commotion, a sign as swift as lightning, but, unlike lightning,
+imperceptible, a lifting of the eyebrows, a movement of a finger, was
+given and noted. In such a musical assembly the performance of a young
+marquis, with nobody knows how many thousands a year and entirely his
+own master, is rarely without interest. Mr. Derwentwater turned his back
+with marked indifference, and Jock with a sort of snort went away
+altogether. But of the others, the majority, though some with laughter
+and some with sneers, were civil, and listened to the performance. Jock
+marched off with a disdain beyond expression; but he had scarcely issued
+forth into the hall before he heard a rustle behind him, and, looking
+back, to his amazement saw Bice in all the glory of her golden robes.
+
+"Hush!" she cried, smothering a laugh, and with a quick gesture of
+repression, "don't say anything. It must not be discovered that I have
+run away!"
+
+"Why have you run away? I thought you thought no end of that little
+scug," cried savage Jock.
+
+Bice turned upon him that smile that said everything and nothing, and
+then flew like a bird upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+THE EVENING AFTER.
+
+
+The outcry that rose when, after Montjoie's comic song, a performance of
+the broadest and silliest description, was over, it was discovered that
+Bice had disappeared, and especially the blank look of the performer
+himself when turning round from the piano he surveyed the company in
+vain for her, gratified the Contessa beyond measure. She smiled
+radiantly upon the assembly in answer to all their indignant questions.
+"It has been for once an indulgence," she said; "but little girls must
+keep early hours." Montjoie was wounded and disappointed beyond measure
+that it should have been at the moment of his performance that she was
+spirited away. His reproaches were vehement, and there was something of
+the pettishness of a boy in their indignant tones. "I shouldn't have
+sung a note if I'd thought what was going on," he cried. "Contessa, I
+would not have believed you could have been so mean--and I singing only
+to please you."
+
+"But think how you have pleased me--and all these ladies!" cried the
+Contessa. "Does not that recompense you?" Montjoie guessed that she was
+laughing at him, but he did not, in fact, see anything to laugh about.
+It was natural enough that the other ladies should be pleased; still he
+did not care whether they were pleased or not, and he did care much that
+the object of his admiration had not waited to hear him. The Contessa
+found the greatest amusement in his boyish sulk and resentment, and the
+rest of the evening was passed in baffling the questions with which, now
+that Bice was gone, her friends overpowered her. She gave the smallest
+possible dole of reply to their interrogations, but smiled upon the
+questioners with sunshiny smiles. "You must come and see me in town,"
+she said to Montjoie. It was the only satisfaction she would give him.
+And she perceived at a much earlier hour than usual that Lucy was
+waiting for her to go to bed. She gave a little cry of distress when
+this seemed to flash upon her.
+
+"Sweet Lucy! it is for me you wait!" she cried. "How could I keep you so
+late, my dear one?"
+
+Montjoie was the foremost of those who attended her to the door, and got
+her candle for her, that indispensable but unnecessary formula.
+
+"Of course I shall look you up in town; but we'll talk of that
+to-morrow. I don't go till three--to-morrow," the young fellow said.
+
+The Contessa gave him her hand with a smile, but without a word, in that
+inimitable way she had, leaving Montjoie a prey to such uncertainty as
+poisoned his night's rest. He was not humble-minded, and he knew that he
+was a prize which no lady he had met with as yet had disregarded; but
+for the first time his bosom was torn by disquietude. Of course he must
+see her to-morrow. Should he see her to-morrow? The Contessa's smile,
+so radiant, so inexplainable, tormented him with a thousand doubts.
+
+Lucy had looked on at all this with an uneasiness indescribable. She
+felt like an accomplice, watching this course of intrigue, of which she
+indeed disapproved entirely, but could not clear herself from a certain
+guilty knowledge of. That it should all be going on under her roof was
+terrible to her, though it was not for Montjoie but for Bice that her
+anxieties were awakened. She followed the Contessa upstairs, bearing her
+candle as if they formed part of a procession, with a countenance
+absolutely opposed in expression to the smiles of Madame di
+Forno-Populo. When they reached the Contessa's door, Lucy, by a sudden
+impulse, followed her in. It was not the first time that she had been
+allowed to cross the threshold of that little enchanted world which had
+filled her with wonder on her first entrance, but which by this time she
+regarded with composure, no longer bewildered to find it in her own
+house. Bice sprang up from a sofa on which she was lying on their
+entrance. She had taken off her beautiful dress, and her hair was
+streaming over her shoulders, her countenance radiant with delight. She
+threw herself upon the Contessa, without perceiving the presence of Lady
+Randolph.
+
+"But it is enchanting; it is ravishing. I have never been so happy," she
+cried.
+
+"My child," said the Contessa, "here is our dear lady who is of a
+different opinion."
+
+"Of what opinion?" Bice cried. She was startled by the sudden
+appearance, when she had no thought of such an apparition, of Lucy's
+face so grave and uneasy. It gave a contradiction which was painful to
+the girl's excitement and delight.
+
+"Indeed, I did not mean to find fault," said Lucy. "I was only
+sorry----" and here she paused, feeling herself incapable of expressing
+her real meaning, and convicted of interference and unnecessary severity
+by the girl's astonished eyes.
+
+"My dear one," said the Contessa, "it is only that we look from two
+different points of view. You will not object to little Bice that she
+finds society intoxicating when she first goes into it. The child has
+made what you call a sensation. She has had her little _succes_. That is
+nothing to object to. An English girl is perhaps more reticent. She is
+brought up to believe that she does not care for _succes_. But Bice is
+otherwise. She has been trained for that, and to please makes her
+happy."
+
+"To please--whom?" cried Lady Randolph. "Oh, don't think I am finding
+fault. We are brought up to please our parents and people who--care for
+us--in England."
+
+Here Bice and the Contessa mutually looked at each other, and the girl
+laughed, putting her hands together. "_She_ is pleased most of all," she
+cried; "she is all my parents. I please her first of all."
+
+"What you say is sweet," said the Contessa, smiling upon Lucy; "and she
+is right too. She pleases me most of all. To see her have her little
+triumph, looking really her very best, and her dress so successful, is
+to me a delight. I am nearly as much excited as the child herself!"
+
+Lucy looked from one to another, and felt that it was impossible for her
+to say what she wished to say. The girl's pleasure seemed so innocent,
+and that of her protectress and guardian so generous, so tender. All
+that had offended Lucy's instincts, the dramatic effort of the
+Contessa, the careful preparation of all the effects, the singling out
+of young Montjoie as the object, all seemed to melt away in the girlish
+delight of Bice, and the sympathetic triumph of her guardian. She did
+not know what to say to them. It was she who was the culprit, putting
+thoughts of harm which had not found any entrance there into the girl's
+mind. She flushed with shame and an uneasy sense that the tables were
+thus turned upon her; and yet how could she depart without some warning?
+It was not only her own troubled uncomfortable feeling; but had she not
+read the same, still more serious and decided, in her husband's eyes?
+
+"I don't know what to say," said Lucy. "But Sir Tom thinks so too. He
+will tell you better, he knows better. Lord Montjoie is--I do not know
+why he was asked. I did not wish it. He is--dear Madame di Forno-Populo,
+you have seen so much more than I--he is vulgar--a little. And Bice is
+so young; she may be deceived."
+
+For a moment a cloud, more dark than had ever been seen there before,
+overshadowed the Contessa's face. But Bice burst forth into a peal of
+laughter, clapping her hands. "Is that vulgar?" the girl cried. "I am
+glad. Now I know how he is different. It is what you call fun, don't you
+know?" she cried with sudden mimicry, at which Lucy herself could not
+refuse to laugh.
+
+"I waited outside to hear a little of the song. It was so wonderful that
+I could not laugh; and to utter all that before you, Madama, after he
+had heard you--oh, what courage! what braveness!" cried Bice. "I did not
+think any one could be so brave!"
+
+"You mean so simple, dear child," said the Contessa, whose brow had
+cleared; "that is really what is so wonderful in these English men. They
+are so simple, they never see how it is different. It is brave if you
+please, but still more simple-minded. Little Montjoie is so. He knows no
+better; not to me only, but even to you, Bice, with that voice of yours,
+so pure, so fresh, he listens, then performs as you heard. It is
+wonderful, as you say. But you have not told me, Lucy, my sweetest, what
+you think of the little one's voice."
+
+"I think," said Lucy, with that disapproval which she could not
+altogether restrain, "that it is very wonderful, when it is so fine,
+that we never heard it before----"
+
+"Ah, Bice," cried the Contessa, "our dear lady is determined that she
+will not be pleased to-night. We had prepared a little surprise, and it
+is a failure. She will not understand that we love to please. She will
+have us to be superior, as if we were English."
+
+"Indeed, indeed," cried Lucy, full of compunction, "I know you are
+always kind. And I know your ways are different--but----" with a sort of
+regretful reflectiveness, shaking her head.
+
+"All England is in that but," said the Contessa. "It is what has always
+been said to me. In our country we love to arrange these little effects,
+to have surprises, impromptus, events that are unexpected. Bice, go, my
+child, go to bed, after this excitement you must rest. You did well, and
+pleased me at least. My sweet Lucy," she said, when the girl with
+instant obedience had disappeared into the next room, "I know how you
+see it all from your point of view. But we are not as you, rich, secure.
+We must make while we can our _coup_. To succeed by one _coup_, that is
+my desire. And you will not interfere?"
+
+"Oh, Contessa," cried Lucy, "will you not spare the child? It is like
+selling her. She is too good for such a man. He is scarcely a man; he is
+a boy. I am ashamed to think that you should care to please----him, or
+any one like him. Oh, let it come naturally! Do not plan like this, and
+scheme and take trouble for----"
+
+"For an establishment that will make her at once safe and sure; that
+will give her so many of the things that people care for--beautiful
+houses, a good name, money---- I have schemed, as you say, for little
+things much of my life," said the Contessa, shaking her head with a
+mournful smile; "I have told you my history: for very, very little
+things--for a box at the opera, for a carriage, things which are
+nothing, sweetest Lucy. You have plenty; such things are nothing to you.
+You cannot understand it. But that is me, my dear one. I have not a
+higher mind like you; and shall I not scheme," cried the Contessa, with
+sudden energy, "for the child, to make her safe that she may never
+require scheming? Ah, my Lucy! I have the heart of a mother to her, and
+you know what a mother will do."
+
+Lucy was silent, partly touched, partly resisting. If it ever could be
+right to do evil that good might come, perhaps this motive might justify
+it. And then came the question how much, in the Contessa's code, was
+evil, of these proceedings? She was silenced, if not satisfied. There is
+a certain casuistry involved in the most Christian charity: "thinketh no
+evil," sometimes even implies an effort to think that there is no harm
+in evil according to the intention in it. Lucy's intellect was confused,
+though not that unobtrusive faculty of judgment in her which was
+infallible, yet could be kept dumb.
+
+"My love," said the Contessa, suddenly kissing her as a sort of
+dismissal, "think that you are rich and we poor. If Bice had a
+provision, if she had even as much as you give away to your poor friends
+and never think of again, how different would all things be for her! But
+she has nothing; and therefore I prepare my little tableaux, and study
+all the effects I can think of, and produce her as in a theatre, and
+shut her up to _agacer_ the audience, and keep her silent and make her
+sing, all for effect; yes, all for effect. But what can I do? She has
+not a penny, not a penny, not even like your poor friends."
+
+The sudden energy with which this was said was indescribable. The
+Contessa's countenance, usually so ivory-pale, shone with a sort of
+reflection as if of light within, her eyes blazed, her smile gave place
+to a seriousness which was almost indignation. She looked like a heroine
+maintaining her right to do all that human strength could do for the
+forlorn and oppressed; and there was, in fact, a certain _abandon_ of
+feeling in her which made her half unconsciously open the door, and do
+what was tantamount to turning her visitor out, though her visitor was
+mistress of the house. Her feelings had, indeed, for the moment, got the
+better of the Contessa. She had worked herself up to the point of
+indignation, that Lucy who could, if she would, deliver Bice from all
+the snares of poverty, had not done so, and was not, so far as appeared,
+intending to do so. To find fault with the devices of the poor, and yet
+not to help them--is not that one of the things least easily supportable
+of all the spurns of patient merit? The Contessa was doing what she
+could, all she could in her own fashion, strenuously, anxiously. But
+Lucy was doing nothing, though she could have done it so easily: and
+yet she found fault and criticised. Madame di Forno-Populo was swept by
+a great flood of instinctive resentment. She put her hostess to the door
+in the strength of it, tenderly with a kiss but not less hotly, and with
+full meaning. Such impulses had stood her instead of virtue on other
+occasions; she felt a certain virtue as of superior generosity and
+self-sacrifice in her proceedings now.
+
+As for Lucy, still much confused and scarcely recognising the full
+meaning of the Contessa's warmth, she made her way to her own room in a
+haze of disturbed and uneasy feeling. Somehow--she could not tell
+how--she felt herself in the wrong. What was it she had done? What was
+it she had left undone? To further the scheme by which young Montjoie
+was to be caught and trapped and made the means of fortune and endowment
+to Bice was not possible. In such cases it is usually of the possible
+victim, the man against whom such plots are formed, that the bystander
+thinks; but Lucy thought of young Montjoie only with an instinctive
+dislike, which would have been contempt in a less calm and tolerant
+mind. That Bice, with all her gifts, a creature so full of life and
+sweetness and strength, should be handed over to this trifling
+commonplace lad, was in itself terrible to think of. Lucy did not think
+of the girl's beauty, or of that newly-developed gift of song which had
+taken her by surprise, but only and simply of herself, the warm-hearted
+and smiling girl, the creature full of fun and frolic whom she had
+learned to be fond of, first, for the sake of little Tom, and then for
+her own. Little Tom's friend, his playmate, who had found him out in his
+infant weakness and made his life so much brighter! And then Lucy asked
+herself what the Contessa could mean, what it was that made her own
+interference a sort of impertinence, why her protests had been received
+with so little of the usual caressing deference? Thoughts go fast, and
+Lucy had not yet reached the door of her own room, when it flashed upon
+her what it was. She put down her candle on a table in the corridor, and
+stood still to realise it. This gallery at the head of the great
+staircase was dimly lighted, and the hall below threw up a glimmer,
+reflected in the oaken balusters and doors of the closed rooms, and
+dying away in the half-lit gloom above. There were sounds below far off
+that betrayed the assembly still undispersed in the smoking-room, and
+some fainter still, above, of the ladies who had retired to their rooms,
+but were still discussing the strange events of the evening. In the
+centre of this partial darkness stood Lucy, with her candle, the only
+visible representative of all the hidden life around, suddenly pausing,
+asking herself--
+
+Was this what it meant? Undoubtedly, this was what it meant. She had the
+power, and she had not used it. With a word she could make all their
+schemes unnecessary, and relieve the burden on the soul of the woman who
+had the heart of a mother for Bice. Tears sprang up into Lucy's eyes
+unawares as this recollection suddenly seized her. The Contessa was not
+perfect--there were many things in her which Lady Randolph could with
+difficulty excuse to herself: but she had the heart of a mother for
+Bice. Oh, yes, it was true, quite true. The heart of a mother! and how
+was it possible that another mother could look on at this and not
+sympathise; and how was it that the idea had never occurred to her
+before--that she had never thought how changed in a moment might be
+Bice's position, if only---- Here she picked up her candle again, and
+went away hastily to her room. She said to herself that she was keeping
+Fletcher up, and that this was unkind. But, as a matter of fact, she was
+not thinking about Fletcher. There had sprung up in her soul a fear
+which was twofold and contradictory. If one of those alarms was
+justified, then the other would be fallacious; and yet the existence of
+the one doubled the force of the other. One of these elements of
+fear--the contradiction, the new terror--was wholly unthought of, and
+had never troubled her peace before. She thought--and this was her old
+burden, the anxiety which had already restrained her action and made her
+forego what she had never failed to feel as her duty, the carrying out
+of her father's will--of her husband's objection, of his opposition, of
+the terrible interview she had once had with him, when she had refused
+to acquiesce in his command. And then, with a sort of stealthy horror,
+she thought of his departure from that opposition, and asked herself,
+would he, for Bice's sake, consent to that which he had so much objected
+to in other cases? This it was that made her shrink from herself and her
+own thoughts, and hurry into her room for the solace of Fletcher's
+companionship, and to put off as long as she could the discussion of the
+question. Would Sir Tom agree to everything? Would he make no
+objections--for Bice's sake?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE CONTESSA'S TACTICS.
+
+
+That morning the whole party came down to breakfast expectant, for,
+notwithstanding the Contessa's habit of not appearing, it was supposed
+that the young lady whom most people supposed to have arrived very
+recently must be present at the morning meal. Young Montjoie, who was
+generally very late, appeared among the first; and there was a look of
+curiosity and anxiety in his face as he turned towards the door every
+time it was opened, which betrayed his motive. But this expectation was
+not destined to be repaid. Bice did not appear at breakfast. She did not
+even come downstairs, though the Contessa did, for luncheon. When Madame
+di Forno-Populo came in to this meal there was a general elevation of
+all heads and eager look towards her, to which she replied with her
+usual smile but no explanation of any kind; nor would she make any
+reply, even to direct questions. She did nothing but smile when Montjoie
+demanded to know if Miss Forno-Populo was not coming downstairs, if she
+had gone away, if she were ill, if she would appear before three
+o'clock--with which questions he assailed her in downright fashion. When
+the Contessa did not smile she put on a look of injured sweetness.
+"What!" she said, "Am I then so little thought of? You have no more
+pleasure, ficklest of young men, in seeing me?" "Oh, I assure you,
+Countess," he cried, "that's all right, don't you know; but a fellow may
+ask. And then it was your own doing to make us so excited."
+
+"Yes, a fellow may ask," said the Contessa, smiling; but this was all
+the response she would give, nothing that could really throw the least
+light upon the subject of his curiosity. The other men of her following
+looked on with undisguised admiration at this skilled and accomplished
+woman. To see how she held in hand the youth whom they all considered as
+her victim was beautiful they thought; and bets even were going amongst
+them as to the certainty that she would land her big fish. Sir Tom, at
+the head of the table, did not regard the matter so lightly. There was a
+curve of annoyance in his forehead. He did not understand what game she
+was playing. It was, without doubt, a game of some sort, and its object
+was transparent enough; and Sir Tom could not easily forgive the
+dramatic efforts of the previous night, or endure the thought that his
+house was the scene of tactics so little creditable. He was vexed with
+the Contessa, with Bice, even with Lucy, who, he could not keep from
+saying to himself, should have found some means of baulking such an
+intention. He was somewhat mollified by the absence of Bice now, which
+seemed to him, perhaps, a tribute to his own evident disapproval; but
+still he was uneasy. It was not a fit thing to take place in his house.
+He saw far more clearly than he had done before that a stop should have
+been put ere now to the Contessa's operations, and in the light of last
+night's proceedings perceived his own errors in judgment--those errors
+which he had, indeed, been sensible of, yet condoned in himself with
+that wonderful charity which we show towards our own mistakes and
+follies. He ought not to have asked her to the Hall; he ought not to
+have permitted himself to be flattered and amused by her society, or to
+have encouraged her to remain, or to have been so weak as to ask the
+people she wished, which was the crowning error of all. He had invited
+Montjoie, a trifling boy in whom he felt little or no interest, to
+please her, without any definite idea as to what she meant, but only
+with an amused sense that she had designs on the lad which Montjoie was
+quite knowing enough to deliver himself from. But the turn things had
+taken displeased Sir Tom. It was too barefaced, he said to himself. He,
+too, felt like his more innocent wife, as if he were an accomplice in a
+social crime.
+
+"I've been swindled, don't you know," Montjoie said; "I've been taken a
+mean advantage of. None of these other beggars are going away like me.
+They will get all the good of the music to-night, and I shall be far
+away. I could cry to think of it, I could, don't you know; but you don't
+care a bit, Countess."
+
+The Contessa, as usual, smiled. "_Enfant_!" she said.
+
+"I am not an infant. I am just the same age as everybody, old enough to
+look after myself, don't you know, and pay for myself, and all that sort
+of thing. Besides, I haven't got any parents and guardians. Is that why
+you take such a base advantage of me?" cried the young man.
+
+"It is, perhaps, why----" The Contessa was not much in the way of
+answering questions; and when she had said this she broke off with a
+laugh. Was she going to say that this was why she had taken any trouble
+about him, with a frankness which it is sometimes part of the astutest
+policy to employ.
+
+"Why what? why what? Oh, come, you must tell me now," the young man
+said.
+
+"Why one takes so much interest in you," said the Contessa sweetly.
+"You shall come and see me, _cher petit Marquis_, in my little house
+that is to be, in Mayfair; for you have found me, _n'est ce pas_, a
+little house in Mayfair?" she said, turning to another of her train.
+
+"Hung with rose-coloured curtains and pink glass in the windows,
+according to your orders, Contessa," said the gentleman appealed to.
+
+"How good it is to have a friend! but those curtains will be terrible,"
+said the Contessa, with a shiver, "if it were not that I carry with me a
+few little things in a great box."
+
+"Oh, my dear Contessa, how many things you must have picked up!" cried
+Lady Anastasia. "That peep into your boudoir made me sick with envy;
+those Eastern embroideries, those Persian rugs! They have furnished me
+with a lovely paragraph for my paper, and it is such a delightful
+original idea to carry about one's pet furniture like one's dresses. It
+will become quite the fashion when it is known. And how I shall long to
+see that little house in Mayfair!"
+
+The Contessa smiled upon Lady Anastasia as she smiled upon the male
+friends that surrounded her. Her paper and her paragraphs were not to be
+despised, and those little mysterious intimations about the new beauty
+which it delighted her to make. Madame di Forno-Populo turned to
+Montjoie afterwards with a little wave of the hand. "You are going?" she
+said; "how sad for us! we shall have no song to make us gay to-night.
+But come and you shall sing to us in Mayfair."
+
+"Countess, you are only laughing at me. But I shall come, don't you
+know," said Montjoie, "whether you mean it or not."
+
+The company, who were so much interested in this conversation, did not
+observe the preoccupied looks of the master and mistress of the house,
+although to some of the gentlemen the gravity of Sir Tom was apparent
+enough. And not much wonder that he should be grave. Even the men who were
+most easy in their own code looked with a certain severity and
+astonishment upon him who had opened his door to the adventuress-Contessa,
+of whom they all judged the worst, without even the charitable
+acknowledgment which her enemy the Dowager had made, that there was
+nothing in her past history bad enough to procure her absolute expulsion
+from society. The men who crowded round her when she appeared, who
+flattered and paid their court to her, and even took a little credit to
+themselves as intimates of the siren, were one and all of opinion that to
+bring her into his house was discreditable to Sir Tom. They were even a
+little less respectful to Lucy for not knowing or finding out the quality
+of her guest. If Tom Randolph was beginning to find out that he had been a
+fool it was wonderful he had not made the discovery sooner. For he had
+been a fool, and no mistake! To bring that woman to England, to keep her
+in his house, to associate her in men's minds with his wife--the worst of
+his present guests found it most difficult to forgive him. But they were
+all the more interested in the situation from the fact that Sir Tom was
+beginning to feel the effects of his folly. He said very little during
+that meal. He took no notice of the badinage going on between the Contessa
+and her train. When he spoke at all it was to that virtuous mother at his
+other hand, who was not at all amusing, and talked of nothing but Edith
+and Minnie, and her successful treatment of them through all the nursery
+troubles of their life.
+
+Lucy, at the other end of the table, was scarcely more expansive. She
+had been relieved by the absence of Bice, which, in her innocence, she
+believed to be a concession to her own anxiety, feeling a certain
+gratitude to the Contessa for thus foregoing the chance of another
+interview with Montjoie. It could never have occurred to Lucy to suppose
+that this was policy on the Contessa's part, and that her refusal to
+satisfy Montjoie was in reality planned to strengthen her hold on him,
+and to increase the curiosity she pretended to baffle. Lucy had no such
+artificial idea in her mind. She accepted the girl's withdrawal as a
+tribute to her own powers of persuasion, and a proof that though the
+Contessa had been led astray by her foreign notions, she was yet ready
+to perceive and adopt the more excellent way. This touched Lucy's heart
+and made her feel that she was herself bound to reciprocate the
+generosity. They had done it without knowing anything about the
+intention in her mind, and it should be hers to carry out that intention
+liberally, generously, not like an unwilling giver. She cast many a
+glance at her husband while this was going through her mind. Would he
+object as before? or would he, because it was the Contessa who was to be
+benefited, make no objection? Lucy did not know which of the two it
+would be most painful to her to bear. She had read carefully the
+paragraph in her father's will about foreigners, and had found there was
+no distinct objection to foreigners, only a preference the other way.
+She knew indeed, but would not permit herself to think, that these were
+not persons who would have commended themselves to Mr. Trevor as objects
+of his bounty. Mr. Churchill, with his large family, was very
+different. But to endow two frivolous and expensive women with a portion
+of his fortune was a thing to which he never would have consented. With
+a certain shiver she recognised this; and then she made a rush past the
+objection and turned her back upon it. It was quite a common form of
+beneficence in old times to provide a dower for a girl that she might
+marry. What could there be wrong in providing a poor girl with something
+to live upon that she might not be forced into a mercenary marriage?
+While all the talk was going on at the other end of the table she was
+turning this over in her mind--the manner of it, the amount of it, all
+the details. She did not hear the talk, it was immaterial to her, she
+cared not for it. Now and then she gave an anxious look at Sir Tom at
+the other end. He was serious. He did not laugh as usual. What was he
+thinking of? Would his objections be forgotten because it was the
+Contessa or would he oppose her and struggle against her? Her heart beat
+at the thought of the conflict which might be before her; or perhaps if
+there was no conflict, if he were too willing, might not that be the
+worst of all!
+
+Thus the background against which the Contessa wove her web of smiles
+and humorous schemes was both dark and serious. There were many shadows
+behind that frivolous central light. Herself the chief actor, the
+plotter, she to whom only it could be a matter of personal advantage,
+was perhaps the least serious of all the agents in it. The others
+thought of possibilities dark enough, of perhaps the destruction of
+family peace in this house which had been so hospitable to her, which
+had received her when no other house would; and some, of the success of
+a plan which did not deserve to succeed, and some of the danger of a
+youth to whom at present all the world was bright. All these things
+seemed to be involved in the present crisis. What more likely than that
+Lucy, at last enlightened, should turn upon her husband, who no doubt
+had forced this uncongenial companion upon her, should turn from Sir Tom
+altogether, and put her trust in him no longer! And the men who most
+admired the Contessa were those who looked with the greatest horror upon
+a marriage made by her, and called young Montjoie poor little beggar and
+poor devil, wondering much whether he ought not to be "spoken to." The
+men were not sorry for Bice, nor thought of her at all in the matter,
+save to conclude her a true pupil of the guardian whom most of them
+believed to be her mother. But in this point where the others were
+wanting Lucy came in, whose simple heart bled for the girl about to be
+sacrificed to a man whom she could not love. Thus tragical surmises
+floated in the air about Madame di Forno-Populo, that arch plotter whose
+heart was throbbing indeed with her success, and the hope of successes
+to come, but who had no tragical alarms in her breast. She was perfectly
+easy in her mind about Sir Tom and Lucy. Even if a matrimonial quarrel
+should be the result, what was that to an experienced woman of the
+world, who knew that such things are only for the minute? and neither
+Bice nor Montjoie caused her any alarm. Bice was perfectly pleased with
+the little Marquis. He amused her. She had not the slightest objection
+to him; and as for Montjoie, he was perfectly well able to take care of
+himself. So that while everybody else was more or less anxious, the
+Contessa in the centre of all her webs was perfectly tranquil. She was
+not aware that she wished harm to any man, or woman either. Her light
+heart and easy conscience carried her quite triumphantly through all.
+
+When Montjoie had gone away, carrying in his pocket-book the address of
+the little house in Mayfair, and when the party had dispersed to walk or
+ride or drive, as each thought fit, Lucy, who was doing neither, met her
+husband coming out of his den. Sir Tom was full of a remorseful sense
+that he had wronged Lucy. He took her by both hands, and drew her into
+his room. It was a long time since he had met her with the same
+effusion. "You are looking very serious," he said, "you are vexed, and I
+don't wonder; but I see land, Lucy. It will be over directly--only a
+week more----"
+
+"I thought you were looking serious, Tom," she said.
+
+"So I was, my love. All that business last night was more than I could
+stand. You may think me callous enough, but I could not stand that."
+
+"Tom!" said Lucy, faltering. It seemed an opportunity she could not let
+slip--but how she trembled between her two terrors! "There is something
+that I want to say to you."
+
+"Say whatever you like, Lucy," he cried; "but for God's sake don't
+tremble, my little woman, when you speak to me. I've done nothing to
+deserve that."
+
+"I am not trembling," said Lucy, with the most innocent and transparent
+of falsehoods. "But oh, Tom, I am so sorry, so unhappy."
+
+"For what?" he said. He did not know what accusation she might be going
+to bring against him; and how could he defend himself? Whatever she
+might say he was sure to be half guilty; and if she thought him wholly
+guilty, how could he prevent it? A hot colour came up upon his
+middle-aged face. To have to blush when you are past the age of blushing
+is a more terrible necessity than the young can conceive.
+
+"Oh, Tom!" cried Lucy again, "for Bice! Can we stand by and let her be
+sacrificed? She is not much more than a child; and she is always so good
+to little Tom."
+
+"For Bice!" he cried. In the relief of his mind he was ready to have
+done anything for Bice. He laughed with a somewhat nervous tremulous
+outburst. "Why, what is the matter with her?" he said. "She did her part
+last night with assurance enough. She is young indeed, but she ought to
+have known better than that."
+
+"She is very young, and it is the way she has been brought up--how
+should she know any better? But, Tom, if she had any fortune she would
+not be compelled to marry. How can we stand by and see her sacrificed to
+that odious young man?"
+
+"What odious young man?" said Sir Tom, astonished, and then with another
+burst of his old laughter such as had not been heard for weeks, he cried
+out: "Montjoie! Why, Lucy, are you crazy? Half the girls in England are
+in competition for him. Sacrificed to----! She will be in the greatest
+luck if she ever has such a chance."
+
+Lucy gave him a reproachful look.
+
+"How can you say so? A little vulgar boy--a creature not worthy to----"
+
+"My dear, you are prejudiced. You are taking Jock's view. That worthy's
+opinion of a fellow who never rose above Lower Fourth is to be received
+with reservation. A fellow may be a scug, and yet not a bad fellow--that
+is what Jock has yet to learn."
+
+"Oh, Tom, I cannot laugh," said Lucy. "What can she do, the Contessa
+says? She must marry the first that offers, and in the meantime she
+attracts notice _like that_. It is dreadful to think of it. I think that
+some one--that we--I--ought to interfere."
+
+"My innocent Lucy," said Sir Tom, "how can you interfere? You know
+nothing about the tactics of such people. I am very penitent for my
+share in the matter. I ought not to have brought so much upon you."
+
+"Oh, Tom," cried Lucy again, drawing closer to him, eager to anticipate
+with her pardon any blame to which he might be liable. And then she
+added, returning to her own subject: "She is of English parentage--on
+one side."
+
+Why this fact, so simply stated, should have startled her husband so
+much, Lucy could not imagine. He almost gasped as he met her eyes, as if
+he had received or feared a sudden blow, and underneath the brownness of
+his complexion grew suddenly pale, all the ruddy colour forsaking his
+face. "Of English parentage!" he said, faltering, "do you mean?--what do
+you mean? Why--do you tell this to me?"
+
+Lucy was surprised, but saw no significance in his agitation. And her
+mind was full of her own purpose. "Because of the will which is against
+foreigners," she said simply. "But in that case she would not be a
+foreigner, Tom. I think a great deal of this. I want to do it. Oh, don't
+oppose me! It makes it so much harder when you go against me."
+
+He gazed at her with a sort of awe. He did not seem able to speak. What
+she had said, though she was unconscious of any special meaning in it,
+seemed to have acted upon him like a spell. There was something tragic
+in his look which frightened Lucy. She came closer still and put her
+hand upon his arm.
+
+"Oh, it is not to trouble you, Tom; it is not that I want to go against
+you! But give me your consent this once. Baby is so fond of her, and she
+is so good to him. I want to give something to Bice. Let me make a
+provision for her?" she said, pleading. "Do not take all the pleasure
+out of it and oppose me. Oh, dear Tom, give me your free consent!" Lucy
+cried.
+
+He kept gazing at her with that look of awe. "Oppose you!" he said. What
+was the shock he had received which made him so unlike himself? His very
+lips quivered as he spoke. "God forgive me; what have I been doing?" he
+cried. "Lucy, I think I will never oppose you more."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+DISCOVERIES.
+
+
+This interview had an agitating and painful effect upon Lucy, though she
+could not tell why. It was not what she expected or feared--neither in
+one sense nor the other. He had neither distressed her by opposing her
+proceedings, nor accepted her beneficence towards the Contessa with
+levity and satisfaction, both of which dangers she had been prepared
+for. Instead, however, of agitating her by the reception he gave to her
+proposal, it was he who was agitated by something which in entire
+unconsciousness she had said. But what that could be Lucy could not
+divine. She had said nothing that could affect him personally so far as
+she knew. She went over every word of the conversation without being
+able to discover what could have had this effect. But she could find
+nothing, there was no clue anywhere that her unconscious mind could
+discover. She concluded finally with much compunction that it was the
+implied reproach that he had taken away all pleasure in what she did by
+opposing her, that had so disturbed her husband. He was so kind. He had
+not been able to bear even the possibility that his opposition had been
+a source of pain. "I think I will never oppose you any more." In an
+answering burst of generosity Lucy said to herself that she did not
+desire this; that she preferred that he should find fault and object
+when he disapproved, not consent to everything. But the reflection of
+the disturbance she had seen in her husband's countenance was in her
+mind all day; she could not shake it off; and he was so grave that every
+look she cast at him strengthened the impression. He did not approach
+the circle in which the Contessa sat all the evening, but stood apart,
+silent, taking little notice of anybody until Mr. Derwentwater secured
+his ear, when Sir Tom, instead of his usual genial laugh at MTutor's
+solemnities, discharged little caustic criticisms which astonished his
+companion. Mr. Derwentwater was going away next day, and he, too, was
+preoccupied. After that conversation with Sir Tom, he betook himself to
+Lucy, who was very silent too, and doing little for the entertainment of
+her guests. He made her sundry pretty speeches, such as are appropriate
+from a departing guest.
+
+"Jock has made up his mind to stay behind," he said. "I am sorry, but I
+am not surprised. I shall lose a most agreeable travelling companion;
+but, perhaps, home influences are best for the young."
+
+"I don't know why Jock has changed his mind, Mr. Derwentwater. He wanted
+very much to go."
+
+"He would say that here's metal more attractive," said the tutor with an
+offended smile; and then he paused, and, clearing his throat, asked in a
+still more evident tone of offence--"Does not your young friend the
+Signorina appear again? I thought from her appearance last night that
+she was making her _debut_."
+
+"Yes, it was like it," said Lucy. "The Contessa is not like one of us,"
+she added after a moment. "She has her own ways--and, perhaps, I don't
+know--that may be the Italian fashion."
+
+"Not at all," Mr. Derwentwater said promptly. He was an authority upon
+national usages. "But I am afraid it was very transparent what the
+Contessa meant," he said, after a pause.
+
+To this Lucy made no reply, and the tutor, who was sensitive, especially
+as to bad taste, reddened at his inappropriate observation. He went on
+hastily; "The Signorina--or should I say Mademoiselle di
+Forno-Populo?--has a great deal of charm. I do not know if she is so
+beautiful as her mother----"
+
+"Oh, not her mother," cried Lucy quickly, with a smile at the mistake.
+
+"Is she not her mother? The young lady's face indeed is different. It is
+of a higher order--it is full of thought. It is noble in repose. She
+does not seem made for these scenes of festivity, if you will pardon me,
+Lady Randolph, but for the higher retirements----"
+
+"Oh, she is very fond of seeing people," said Lucy. "You must not
+suppose she is too serious for her age. She enjoyed herself last night."
+
+"There is no age," said Mr. Derwentwater, "at which one can be too
+serious--and especially in youth, when all the world is before one, when
+one cannot tell what effect a careless step may have one way or another.
+It is just that sweet gravity that charms me. I think she was quite out
+of her element, excuse me for saying so, Lady Randolph, last night."
+
+"Do you think so? Oh, I am afraid not. I am afraid she liked it," said
+Lucy. "Jock, don't you think Bice liked it. I should much rather think
+not, but I am afraid--I am afraid----"
+
+"She couldn't like that little cad," said Jock, who had drawn near with
+an instinctive sense that something was going on which concerned him.
+"But she's never solemn either," added the boy.
+
+"Is that for me, Jock?" said MTutor, with a pensive gentleness of
+reproach. "Well, never mind. We must all put up with little
+misunderstandings from the younger generation. Some time or other you
+will judge differently. I should like to have had an opportunity again
+of such music as we heard last night; but I suppose I must not hope for
+it."
+
+"Oh, do you mean Lord Montjoie's song?" cried one of the young ladies in
+blue, who had drawn near. "Wasn't it fun? Of course I know it wasn't to
+be compared to the Contessa; but I've no musical taste. I always confess
+it--that's Edith's line. But Lord Montjoie _was_ fun. Don't you think
+so, dear Lady Randolph," Miss Minnie said.
+
+Mr. Derwentwater gave her one glance, and retired, Jock following.
+"Perhaps that's your opinion too," he said, "that Lord Montjoie's was
+fun?"
+
+"He's a scug," said Jock, laconically, "that's all I think about him."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater took the lad's arm. "And yet," he said, "Jock, though
+you and I consider ourselves his superiors, that is the fellow that will
+carry off the prize. Beauty and genius are for him. He must have the
+best that humanity can produce. You ought to be too young to have any
+feeling on the subject; but it is a humiliating thought."
+
+"Bice will have nothing to say to him," said Jock, with straightforward
+application of the abstract description; but MTutor shook his head.
+
+"How can we tell the persecutions to which Woman is subject?" he said.
+"You and I, Jock, are in a very different position. But we should try to
+realise, though it is difficult, those dangers to which she is subject.
+Kept indoors," said MTutor, with pathos in his voice, "debarred from all
+knowledge of the world, with all the authorities about her leading one
+way. How can we tell what is said to her? with a host of petty maxims
+preaching down a daughter's heart--strange!" cried Mr. Derwentwater,
+with a closer pressure of the boy's arm, "that the most lovely existence
+should thus continually be led to link itself with the basest. We must
+not blame Woman; we must keep her idea sacred, whatever happens in our
+own experience."
+
+"It always sets one right to talk to you," cried Jock, full of emotion.
+"I was a beast to say that."
+
+"My boy, don't you think I understand the disturbance in your mind?"
+with a sigh, MTutor said.
+
+They had left the drawing-room during the course of this conversation,
+and were crossing the hall on the way to the library, when some one
+suddenly drew back with a startled movement from the passage which led
+to Sir Tom's den. Then there followed a laugh, and "Oh, is it only you!"
+after which there came forth a slim shadow, as unlike as possible to the
+siren of the previous night. "We have met before, and I don't mind. Is
+there any one else coming?" Bice said.
+
+"Why do you hide and skulk in corners?" cried Jock. "Why shouldn't you
+meet any one? Have you done something wrong?"
+
+This made Bice laugh still more. "You don't understand," she said.
+
+"Signorina," said Mr. Derwentwater (who was somewhat proud of having
+remembered this good abstract title to give to the mysterious girl), "I
+am going away to-morrow, and perhaps I shall never hear you again. Your
+voice seemed to open the heavenly gates. Why, since you are so good as
+to consider us different from the others, won't you sing to us once
+more?"
+
+"Sing?" said Bice, with a little surprise; "but by myself my voice is
+not much----"
+
+"It is like a voice out of heaven," Mr. Derwentwater said fervently.
+
+"Do you really, really think so?" she said with a wondering look. She
+was surprised, but pleased too. "I don't think you would care for it
+without the Contessa's; but, perhaps----" Then she looked round her with
+a reflective look. "What can I do? There is no piano, and then these
+people would hear." After this a sudden idea struck her. She laughed
+aloud like a child with sudden glee. "I don't suppose it would be any
+harm! You belong to the house--and then there is Marietta. Yes! Come!"
+she cried suddenly, rushing up the great staircase and waving her hand
+impatiently, beckoning them to follow. "Come quick, quick," she cried;
+"I hear some one coming," and flew upstairs. They followed her, Mr.
+Derwentwater passing Jock, who hung back a little, and did not know
+what to think of this adventure. "Come quick," she cried, darting along
+the dimly-lighted corridor with a laugh that rang lightly along like the
+music to which her steps were set. "Oh, come in, come in. They will
+hear, but they will not know where it comes from." The young men
+stupefied, hesitating, followed her. They found themselves among all the
+curiosities and luxuries of the Contessa's boudoir. And in a moment Bice
+had placed herself at the little piano which was placed across one of
+the corners, its back covered with a wonderful piece of Eastern
+embroidery which would have invited Derwentwater's attention had he been
+able to fix that upon anything but Bice. As it was, he gave a half
+regard to these treasures. He would have examined them all with the
+devotion of a connoisseur but for her presence, which exercised a spell
+still more subtle than that of art.
+
+The sound of the singing penetrated vaguely even into the drawing-room,
+where the Contessa, startled, rose from her seat much earlier than
+usual. Lucy, who attended her dutifully upstairs according to her usual
+custom, was dismayed beyond measure by seeing Jock and his tutor issue
+from that door. Bice came with them, with an air of excitement and
+triumphant satisfaction. She had been singing, and the inspiration and
+applause had gone to her head. She met the ladies not with the air of a
+culprit, but in all the boldness of innocence. "They like to hear me,
+even by myself," she cried; "they have listened, as if I had been an
+angel." And she clapped her hands with almost childish pleasure.
+
+"Perhaps they think you are," said the Contessa, who shook her head, yet
+smiled with sympathy. "You must not say to these messieurs below that
+you have been in my room. Oh, I know the confidences of a smoking-room!
+You must not brag, _mes amis_. For Bice does not understand the
+_convenances_, nor remember that this is England, where people meet only
+in the drawing-room."
+
+"Divine forgetfulness!" murmured Derwentwater. Jock, for his part,
+turned his back with a certain sense of shame. He had liked it, but he
+had not thought it right. The room altogether, with its draperies and
+mysteries, had conveyed to him a certain intoxication as of wrong-doing.
+Something that was dangerous was in the air of it. It was seductive, it
+was fascinating; he had felt like a man banished when Bice had started
+from the piano and bidden them "Go away; go away!" in the same laughing
+tone in which she had bidden them come. But the moment he was outside
+the threshold his impulse was to escape--to rush out of sight--and
+obliterate even from his own mind the sense that he had been there. To
+meet the Contessa, and still more his sister, full in the face, was a
+shock to all his susceptibilities. He turned his back upon them, and but
+that his fellow-culprit made a momentary stand, would have fled away.
+Lucy partook of Jock's feeling. It wounded her to see him at that door.
+She gave him a glance of mingled reproach and pity; a vague sense that
+these were siren-women dangerous to all mankind stole into her heart.
+
+But Lucy was destined to a still greater shock. The party from the
+smoking-room was late in breaking up. The sound of their steps and
+voices as they came upstairs roused Lady Randolph, not from sleep--for
+she had been unable to sleep--but from the confused maze of
+recollections and efforts to think which distracted her placid soul. She
+was not made for these agitations. The constitution of her mind was
+overset altogether. The moment that suspicion and distrust came in there
+was no further strength in her. She was lying not thinking so much as
+remembering stray words and looks which drifted across her memory as
+across a dim mirror, with a meaning in them which she did not grasp. She
+was not clever. She could not put this and that together with the
+dolorous skill which some women possess. It is a skill which does not
+promote the happiness of the possessor, but perhaps it is scarcely more
+happy to stand in the midst of a vague mass of suggestions without being
+able to make out what they mean, which was Lucy's case. She did not
+understand her husband's sudden excitement; what it had to do with Bice,
+with the Contessa, with her own resolution and plans she could not tell,
+but felt vaguely that many things deeply concerning her were in the air,
+and was unhappy in the confusion of her thoughts. For a long time after
+the sounds of various persons coming upstairs had died away, Lucy lay
+silent waiting for her husband's appearance--but at last unable to bear
+the vague wretchedness of her thoughts any longer, got up and put on a
+dressing-gown and stole out into the dark gallery to go to the nursery
+to look at her boy asleep, which was her best anodyne. The lights were
+all extinguished except the faint ray that came from the nursery door,
+and Lucy went softly towards that, anxious to disturb little Tom by no
+sound. As she did so a door suddenly opened, sending a glare of light
+into the dark corridor. It was the door of the Contessa's room, and with
+the light came Sir Tom, the Contessa herself appearing after him on the
+threshold. She was still in her dinner dress, and her appearance
+remained long impressed upon Lucy's imagination like a photograph
+without colour, in shadow and light. She gave Sir Tom a little packet
+apparently of letters, and then she held out both hands to him, which he
+took in his. Something seemed to flash through Lucy's heart like a
+knife, quivering like the "pale death" of the poet, in sight and sense.
+The sudden surprise and pang of it was such for a moment that she seemed
+turned into stone, and stood gazing like a spectre in her white flowing
+dress, her face more white, her eyes and mouth open in the misery and
+trouble of the moment. Then she stole back softly into her room--her
+head throbbing, her heart beating--and buried her face in her pillow and
+closed her eyes. Even baby could not soothe her in this unlooked-for
+pang. And then she heard his step come slowly along the gallery. How was
+she to look at him? how listen to him in the shock of such an
+extraordinary discovery? She took refuge in a semblance of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+LUCY'S DISCOVERY.
+
+
+When it happens to an innocent and simple soul to find out suddenly at a
+stroke the falsehood of some one upon whose truth the whole universe
+depends, the effect is such as perhaps has never been put forth by any
+attempt at psychological investigation. When it happens to a great mind,
+we have Hamlet with all the world in ruins round him--all other thoughts
+as of revenge or ambition are but secondary and spasmodic, since neither
+revenge nor advancement can put together again the works of life or
+make man delight him, or woman either. But Lady Randolph was not a
+Hamlet. She had no genius, nor even a great intellect to be
+unhinged--scarcely mind enough to understand how it was that the glory
+had paled out of earth and sky, and all the world seemed different when
+she rose from her uneasy bed next morning, pale, after a night without
+sleep, in which she had not been able to have even the relief of
+restlessness, but had lain motionless, without even a sigh or tear, so
+crushed by the unexpected blow that she could neither fathom nor
+understand what had happened to her. She was too pure herself to jump at
+any thought of gross infidelity. She felt she knew not what--that the
+world had gone to pieces--that she did not know how to shape it again
+into anything--that she could not look into her husband's face, or
+command her voice to speak to him, for shame of the thought that he had
+failed in truth. Lucy felt somehow as if she were the culprit. She was
+ashamed to look him in the face. She made an early visit to the nursery,
+and stayed there pretending various little occupations until she heard
+Sir Tom go down stairs. He had returned so much to the old ways, and now
+that the house was full, and there were other people to occupy the
+Contessa, had shown so clearly (as Lucy had thought) that he was pleased
+to be liberated from his attendance upon her, that the cloud that had
+risen between them had melted away; and indeed, for some time back, it
+had been Lucy who was the Contessa's stay and support, a change at which
+Sir Tom had sometimes laughed. All had been well between the husband and
+wife during the early part of the season parliamentary, the beginning of
+their life in London. Sir Tom had been much engrossed with the cares of
+public life, but he had been delightful to Lucy, whose faith in him and
+his new occupations was great. And it was exhilarating to think that the
+Contessa had secured that little house in Mayfair for her own campaign,
+and that something like a new honeymoon was about to begin for the pair,
+whose happiness had seemed for a moment to tremble in the balance. Lucy
+had been looking forward to the return to London with a more bright and
+conscious anticipation of well-being than she had ever experienced. In
+the first outset of life happiness seems a necessary of existence. It is
+calculated upon without misgiving; it is simple nature, beyond question.
+But when the natural "of course" has once been broken, it is with a
+warmer glow of content that we see the prospect once more stretching
+before us bright as at first and more assured. This is how Lucy had been
+regarding her life. It was not so simple, so easy as it once had been,
+but the happiness to which she was looking forward, and which she had
+already partially entered into possession of, was all the more sweet and
+dear, that she had known, or fancied herself about to know, the loss and
+absence of it. Now, in a moment, all that fair prospect, that blessed
+certainty, was gone. The earth was cut away from under her feet; she
+felt everything to be tottering, falling round her, and nothing in all
+the universe to lay hold of to prop herself up; for when the pillars of
+the world are thus unrooted the heaving of the earthquake and the
+falling of the ruins impart a certain vertigo and giddy instability even
+to heaven.
+
+Fletcher, Lucy's maid, who was usually discreet enough, waited upon her
+mistress that morning with a certain air of importance, and of knowing
+something which she was bursting with eagerness to tell, such as must
+have attracted Lady Randolph's attention in any other circumstances. But
+Lucy was far too much occupied with what was in her own mind to observe
+the perturbation of the maid, who consequently had no resource, since
+her mistress would not question her, than to introduce herself the
+subject on which she was so anxious to utter her mind. She began by
+inquiring if her ladyship had heard the music last night. "The music?"
+Lucy said.
+
+"Oh, my lady, haven't you heard what a singer Miss Beachy has turned
+out?" Fletcher cried.
+
+Lucy, to whom all this seemed dim and far away as if it had happened
+years ago, answered with a faint smile--"Yes, she has a lovely voice."
+
+"It is not my place," said Fletcher, "being only a servant, to make
+remarks; but, my lady, if I might make so bold, it do seem to the like
+of us an 'orrible thing to take advantage of a young lady like your
+ladyship that thinks no harm."
+
+"You should not make such remarks," said Lucy, roused a little.
+
+"No, my lady; but still a woman is a woman, even though but a servant. I
+said to Mrs. Freshwater I was sure your ladyship would never sanction
+it. I never thought that of Miss Beachy, I will allow. I always said she
+was a nice young lady; but evil communications, my lady--we all know
+what the Bible says. Gentlemen upstairs in her room and her singing to
+them, and laughing and talking like as no housemaid in the house as
+valued her character would do----"
+
+"Fletcher," said Lucy, "you must say no more about this. It was Mr. Jock
+and Mr. Derwentwater only who were with Miss Bice--and with my
+permission," she added after a moment, "as he is going away to-morrow."
+Such deceits are so easy to learn.
+
+"Oh-oh!" Miss Fletcher cried, with a quaver in her voice. "I beg your
+pardon, my lady; I'm sure--I thought--there must be something
+underneath, and that Miss Beachy would never---- And when she was down
+with Sir Thomas in the study it would be the same, my lady?" the woman
+said.
+
+"With Sir Thomas in the study!" The words went vaguely into Lucy's mind.
+It had not seemed possible to increase the confusion and misery in her
+brain, but this produced a heightening of it, a sort of wave of
+bewilderment and pain greater than before, a sense of additional
+giddiness and failing. She gave a wave of her hand and said something,
+she scarcely knew what, which silenced Fletcher; and then she went down
+stairs to the new world. She did not go to the nursery even, as was her
+wont; her heart turned from little Tom. She felt that to look at him
+would be more than she could bear. There was no deceit in him, no
+falsehood--as yet; but perhaps when he grew up he would cheat her too.
+He would pretend to love her and betray her trust; he would kiss her,
+and then go away and scoff at her; he would smile, and smile, and be a
+villain. Such words were not in Lucy's mind, and it was altogether out
+of nature that she should even receive the thought: which made it all
+the more terrible when it was poured into her soul. And it cannot be
+told what discoveries she seemed to make even in the course of that
+morning in this strange condition of her mind. There was a haze over
+everything, but yet there was an enlightenment even in the haze. She saw
+in her little way, as Hamlet saw the falsehood of his courtiers, his
+gallant young companions, and the schemes of Polonius, and even Ophelia
+in the plot to trap him. She saw how false all these people were in
+their civilities, in their extravagant thanks and compliments to her as
+they went away; for the Easter recess was just over, and everybody was
+going. The mother and her daughters said to her, "Such a delightful
+visit, dear Lady Randolph!" with kisses of farewell and wreathed smiles;
+and she perceived, somehow by a sort of second sight, that they added to
+each other, "Oh, what a bore it has been; nobody worth meeting," and
+"how thankful I am it's over!" which was indeed what Miss Minnie and
+Miss Edith said. If Lucy had seen a little deeper she would have known
+that this too was a sort of conventional falsity which the young ladies
+said to each other, according to the fashion of the day, without any
+meaning to speak of; but one must have learned a great many lessons
+before one comes to that.
+
+Then Jock, who had been woke up in quite a different way, took leave of
+MTutor, that god of his old idolatry, without being able to refrain from
+some semblance of the old absorbing affection.
+
+"I am so sorry you are not coming with me, old fellow," Mr. Derwentwater
+said.
+
+Jock replied, "So am I," with an effort, as if firing a parting volley
+in honour of his friend: but then turned gloomily with an expression of
+relief. "I'm glad he's gone, Lucy."
+
+"Then you did not want to go with him, Jock?"
+
+"I wouldn't have gone for anything. I've just got to that--that I can't
+bear him," cried Jock.
+
+And Lucy, in the midst of the ruins, felt her head go round: though here
+too it was the falsehood that was fictitious, had she but known. It is
+not, however, in the nature of such a shock that any of those
+alleviating circumstances which modify the character of human sentiment
+can be taken into account. Lucy had taken everything for gospel in the
+first chapter of existence; she had believed what everybody said; and
+like every other human soul, after such a discovery as she had made, she
+went to the opposite extremity now--not wittingly, not voluntarily--but
+the pillars of the earth were shaken, and nothing stood fast.
+
+They went up to town next day. In the meantime she had little or no
+intercourse with the Contessa, who was preparing for the journey and
+absorbed in letter-writing, making known to everybody whom she could
+think of, the existence of the little house in Mayfair. It is doubtful
+whether she so much as observed any difference in the demeanour of her
+hostess, having in fact the most unbounded confidence in Lucy, whom she
+did not believe capable of any such revulsion of feeling. Bice was more
+clear-sighted, but she thought Milady was displeased with her own
+proceedings, and sought no further for a cause. And the only thing the
+girl could do was to endeavour by all the little devices she could think
+of to show the warm affection she really felt for Lucy--a method which
+made the heart of Lucy more and more sick with that sense of falsehood
+which sometimes rose in her, almost to the height of passion. A woman
+who had ever learned to use harsh words, or to whose mind it had ever
+been possible to do or say anything to hurt another, would no doubt have
+burst forth upon the girl with some reproach or intimation of doubt
+which might have cleared the matter so far as Bice went. But Lucy had no
+such words at her command. She could not say anything unkind. It was not
+in her. She could be silent, indeed, but not even that, so far as to
+"hurt the feelings" of her companion. The effect, therefore, was only
+that Lucy laboured to maintain a little artificial conversation, which
+in its turn reacted upon her mind, showing that even in herself there
+was the same disposition to insincerity which she had begun to discover
+in the world. She could say nothing to Bice about the matters which a
+little while before, when all was well, she had grieved over and
+objected to. Now she had nothing to say on such subjects. That the girl
+should be set up to auction, that she should put forth all those arts in
+which she had been trained, to attract and secure young Montjoie, or any
+like him, were things which had passed beyond her sphere. To think of
+them rendered her heart more sick, her head more giddy. But if Bice
+married some one whom she did not love, that was not so bad as to think
+that perhaps she herself all this time had been living with, and loving,
+in sacred trust and faith, a man who even by her side was full of
+thoughts unknown to her, given to another. Sometimes Lucy closed her
+eyes in a sort of sick despair, feeling everything about her go round
+and round. But she said nothing to throw any light upon the state of her
+being. Sir Tom felt a little gravity--a little distance in his wife; but
+he himself was much occupied with a new and painful subject of thought.
+And Jock observed nothing at all, being at a stage when man (or boy) is
+wholly possessed with affairs of his own. He had his troubles, too. He
+was not easy about that breach with his master now that they were
+separated. When Bice was kind to him a gleam of triumph, mingled with
+pity, made him remorseful towards that earlier friend; and when she was
+unkind a bitter sense of fellowship turned Jock's thoughts towards that
+sublime ideal of masculine friendship which is above the lighter loves
+of women. How can a boy think of his sister when absorbed in such a
+mystery of his own?--even if he considered his sister at all as a person
+whom it was needful to think about--which he did not, Lucy being herself
+one of the pillars of the earth to his unopened eyes.
+
+All this, however, made no difference in Lucy's determination. She wrote
+to Mr. Rushton that very morning, after this revolution in her soul, to
+instruct him as to her intentions in respect to Bice, and to her other
+trustee in London to request him to see her immediately on her arrival
+in Park Lane. Nothing should be changed in that matter, for why, she
+said to herself, should Bice suffer because Sir Tom was untrue? It
+seemed to her that there was more reason than ever why she should rouse
+herself and throw off her inaction. No doubt there were many people whom
+she could make, if not happy, yet comfortable. It was comfortable
+(everybody said) to have enough of money--to be well off. Lucy had no
+experience of what it was to be without it. She thought to herself she
+would like to try, to have only what she actually wanted, to cook the
+food for her little family, to nurse little Tom all by herself, to live
+as the cottagers lived. There was in her mind no repugnance to any of
+the details of poverty. Her wealth was an accident; it was the habit of
+her race to be poor, and it seemed to Lucy that she would be happier
+could she shake off now all those external circumstances which had
+grown, like everything else, into falsehoods, giving an appearance of
+well-being which did not exist. But other people thought it well to have
+money, and it was her duty to give it. A kind of contempt rose within
+her for all that withheld her previously. To avoid her duty because it
+would displease Sir Tom--what was that but falsehood too? All was
+falsehood, only she had never seen it before.
+
+They reached town in the afternoon of a sweet April day, the sky aglow
+with a golden sunset, against which the trees in the park stood out with
+their half-developed buds: and all the freshness of the spring was in
+the long stretches of green, and the softened jubilee of sound to which
+somehow, as the air warms towards summer, the voices of the world
+outside tune themselves. The Contessa and Bice in great spirits and
+happiness, like two children home from school, had left the Randolph
+party at the railway, to take possession of the little house in Mayfair.
+They had both waved their hands from the carriage window and called out,
+"Be sure you come and see us," as they drove away. "You will come
+to-night," they had stipulated with Sir Tom and Jock. It was like a new
+toy which filled them with glee. Could it be possible that those two
+adventurers going off to their little temporary home with smiles so
+genuine, with so simple a delight in their new beginning, were not, in
+their strange way, innocent, full of guile and shifts as one was, and
+the other so apt a scholar? Lucy would have joined in all this pleasure
+two days ago, but she could not now. She went home to her luxurious
+house, where all was ready, as if she had not been absent an hour. How
+wonderfully wealth smooths away the inconveniences of change! and how
+little it has to do, Lucy thought, with the comfort of the soul! No need
+for any exertion on her part, any scuffling for the first arrival, any
+trouble of novelty. She came from the Hall to London without any sense
+of change. Had she been compelled to superintend the arrangement of her
+house, to make it habitable, to make it pretty, that would have done her
+good. But the only thing for her to do was to see Mr. Chervil, her
+trustee, who waited upon her according to her request, and who, after
+the usual remonstrances, took her instructions about the gift to Bice
+very unwillingly, but still with a forced submission. "If I cannot make
+you see the folly of it, Lady Randolph, and if Sir Thomas does not
+object, I don't know what more is to be said." "There is nothing more to
+be said," Lucy said, with a smile; but there was this difficulty in the
+proceeding which she had not thought of, that Bice's name all this time
+was unknown to her--Beatrice di Forno-Populo, she supposed, but the
+Contessa had never called her so, and it was necessary to be exact, Mr.
+Chervil said. He hailed this as an occasion of delay. He was not so
+violent as he had been on previous occasions when Lucy was young; and he
+did not, like Mr. Rushton, assume the necessity of speaking to Sir Tom.
+Mr. Chervil was a London solicitor, and knew very little about Sir Tom.
+But he was glad to seize upon anything that was good for a little delay.
+
+After this interview was over it was a mingled vexation and relief to
+Lucy to see the Dowager drive up to the door. Lady Randolph the elder
+was always in London from the first moment possible. She preferred the
+first bursting of the spring in the squares and parks. She liked to see
+her friends arrive by degrees, and to feel that she had so far the
+better of them. She came in, full as she always was of matter, with a
+thousand things to say. "I have come to stay to dinner, if you will have
+me," she said, "for of course Tom will be going out in the evening. They
+are always so glad to get back to their life." And it was, perhaps, a
+relief to have Lady Randolph to dinner, to be saved from the purely
+domestic party, to which Jock scarcely added any new element; but it was
+hard for Lucy to encounter even the brief questionings which were
+addressed to her in the short interval before dinner. "So you have got
+rid of that woman at last," Lady Randolph said; "I hear she has got a
+house in Mayfair."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Randolph, if you mean the Contessa," said Lucy.
+
+"And that she intends to make a bold _coup_ to get the girl off her
+hands. These sort of people so often succeed: I shouldn't wonder if she
+were to succeed. I always said the girl would be handsome, but I think
+she might have waited another year."
+
+To this Lucy made no reply, and it was necessary for the Dowager to
+carry on the conversation, so to speak, at her own cost.
+
+"I hope most earnestly, Lucy," she said, "that now you have got clear of
+them you will not mix yourself up with them again. You were placed in an
+uneasy position, very difficult to get out of, I will allow; but now
+that you have shaken them off, and they have proved they can get on
+without you, don't, I entreat you, mix yourself up with them again."
+
+Lucy could not keep the blood from mounting, and colouring her face. She
+had always spoken of the Contessa calmly before. She tried to keep her
+composure now. "Dear Aunt Randolph, I have not shaken them off. They
+have gone away of themselves, and how can I refuse to see them? There is
+to be a party here for them on the 26th."
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear, that was very imprudent! I had hoped you would
+keep clear of them in London. It is one thing showing kindness to an old
+friend in the country, and it is quite another----"
+
+Here Lucy made an imperative gesture, almost commanding silence. Sir Tom
+was coming into the room. She was seated in the great bay window
+against the early twilight, the soft radiance of which dazzled the eyes
+of the elder lady, and prevented her from perceiving her nephew's
+approach. But Lady Randolph, before she rose to meet him, gave a
+startled look at Lucy. "Have you found it out, then?" she said
+involuntarily, in her great surprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE DOWAGER'S EXPLANATION.
+
+
+The Dowager was a woman far more clever than Lucy, who knew the world.
+And she was apt perhaps, instead of missing the meaning of the facts
+around her, to put too much significance in them. Now, when the little
+party met at dinner, Lady Randolph saw in the faces of both husband and
+wife more than was there, though much was there. Sir Tom was more grave
+than became a man who had returned into life, as his aunt said, and was
+looking forward to resuming the better part of existence--the House, the
+clubs, the quick throb of living which is in London. His countenance was
+full of thought, and there was both trouble and perplexity in it, but
+not the excitement which the Dowager supposed she found there, and those
+signs of having yielded to an evil influence which eyes accustomed to
+the world are so ready to discover. Lucy for her part was pale and
+silent. She had little to say, and scarcely addressed her husband at
+all. Lady Randolph, and that was very natural, took those signs of heart
+sickness for tokens of complete enlightenment, for the passion of a
+woman who had entered upon that struggle with another woman for a man's
+love which, even when the man is her husband, has something degrading in
+it. There had been a disclosure, a terrible scene, no doubt, a stirring
+up of all the passions, Lady Randolph thought. No doubt that was the
+reason why the Contessa had loosed her clutches, and left the house free
+of her presence; but Lucy was still trembling after the tempest, and had
+not learned to take any pleasure in her victory. This was the conclusion
+of the woman of the world.
+
+The dinner was not a lengthy one, and the ladies went upstairs again,
+with a suppressed constraint, each anxious to know what the other was on
+her guard not to tell. They sat alone expectant for some time, making
+conversation, taking their coffee, listening, and watching each how the
+other listened, for the coming of the gentlemen, or rather for Sir Tom;
+for Jock, in his boyish insignificance, counted for little. The trivial
+little words that passed between them during this interval were charged
+with a sort of moral electricity, and stung and tingled in the too
+conscious silence. At length, after some time had elapsed: "I am glad I
+came," said Lady Randolph, "to sit with you, Lucy, this first evening;
+for of course Tom cannot resist, the first evening in town, the charms
+of his club."
+
+"His club! Oh, I think he has gone to see the house," Lucy said. "He
+promised----; it is not very far off."
+
+"The house? You mean that woman's house. Lucy, I have no patience with
+you any more than I have with Tom. Why don't you put a stop to it? why
+don't you--for I suppose you have found out what sort of a woman she is
+by this time, and why she came here?"
+
+"She came----to introduce Bice and establish her in the world," Lucy
+said, in a faint tone. "Oh! Aunt Randolph, please do not let us discuss
+it! It is not what I like to think of. Bice will be sacrificed to the
+first rich man who asks her; or at least that is what the Contessa
+means."
+
+"My dear Lucy," said the Dowager, calmly, "that is reasonable enough. I
+wish the Contessa meant no worse than that. Most girls are persuaded to
+marry a rich man if he asks them. I don't think so much of that. But it
+will not be so easy as she thinks," the Dowager added. "It is true that
+beauty does much--but not everything; and a girl in that position, with
+no connections, or, at least, none that she would not be better
+without----"
+
+Lucy's attention strayed from this question, which once had been so
+important, and which now seemed so secondary; but the conversation must
+be maintained. She said at random: "She has a beautiful voice."
+
+"Has she? And the Contessa herself sings very well. That will no doubt
+be another attraction," said Lady Randolph, in her impartial way. "But
+the end of it all is, who will she get to go, and who will invite them?
+It is vain to lay snares if there is nothing to be caught."
+
+"They will be invited--here," said Lucy, faltering a little. "I told you
+I am to have a great gathering on the 26th."
+
+"I could not believe my ears. You!--and she is to appear here for the
+first time to make her _debut_. Good heavens, Lucy! What can I say to
+you--_that_ girl!"
+
+"Why not, Aunt Randolph?" said Lucy (oh, what does it matter--what does
+it matter, that she should make so much fuss about it? she was saying
+in herself); "I have always liked Bice, and she has been very good to
+little Tom."
+
+"Well," cried the angry lady, forgetting herself, and smiling the fierce
+smile of wrath, "there is no doubt that it is perfectly appropriate--the
+very thing that ought to happen if we lived according to the rules of
+nature, without thought of conventionalities and decorums, and so
+forth--oh, perfectly appropriate! If you don't object I know no one who
+has any right to say a word."
+
+Even now Lucy was scarcely roused enough to be surprised by the
+vehemence of these words. "Why should I object?" she said; "or why
+should any one say a word?" Her calm, which was almost indifference,
+excited Lady Randolph more and more.
+
+"You are either superhuman," she said, with exasperation, "or you
+are---- Lucy, I don't know what words to use. You put one out of every
+reckoning. You are like nobody I ever knew before. Why should you
+object? Why, good heavens! you are the only person that has any
+right---- Who should object if not you?"
+
+"Aunt Randolph," said Lucy, rousing herself with an effort, "would you
+please tell me plainly what you mean? I am not clever. I can't make
+things out. I have always liked Bice. To save her from being made a
+victim I am going to give her some of the money under my father's
+will--and if I could give her---- What is the matter?" she cried,
+stopping short suddenly, and in spite of herself growing pale.
+
+Lady Randolph flung up her hands in dismay. She gave something like a
+shriek as she exclaimed: "And Tom is letting you do this?" with horror
+in her tone.
+
+"He has promised that he will not oppose," Lucy said; "but why do you
+speak so, and look so? Bice--has done no harm."
+
+"Oh, no; Bice has done no harm," cried Lady Randolph bitterly; "nothing,
+except being born, which is harm enough, I think. But do you mean to
+tell me, Lucy, that Tom--a man of honour, notwithstanding all his
+vagaries--Tom----lets you do this and never says a word? Oh, it is too
+much. I have always stood by him. I have been his support when every one
+else failed. But this is too much, that he should put the burden upon
+you--that he should make _you_ responsible for this girl of his----"
+
+"Aunt Randolph!" cried Lucy, rising up quickly and confronting the angry
+woman. She put up her hand with a serious dignity that was doubly
+impressive from her usual simpleness. "What is it you mean? This girl of
+his! I do not understand. She is not much more than a child. You cannot,
+cannot suppose that Bice--that it is she--that she is----" Here she
+suddenly covered her face with her hands. "Oh, you put things in my mind
+that I am ashamed to think of," Lucy cried.
+
+"I mean," said Lady Randolph, who in the heat of this discussion had got
+beyond her own power of self-restraint, "what everybody but yourself
+must have seen long ago. That woman is a shameless woman, but even she
+would not have had the effrontery to bring any other girl to your house.
+It was more shameless, I think, to bring that one than any other; but
+she would not think so. Oh, cannot you see it even now? Why, the
+likeness might have told you; that was enough. The girl is Tom's girl.
+She is your husband's----"
+
+Lucy uncovered her face, which was perfectly colourless, with eyes
+dilated and wide open. "What?" she whispered, looking intently into Lady
+Randolph's face.
+
+"His own child--his--daughter--though I am bitterly ashamed to say it,"
+the Dowager said.
+
+For a moment everything seemed to waver and turn round in Lucy's eyes,
+as if the walls were making a circuit with her in giddy space. Then she
+came to her feet with the sensation of a shock, and found herself
+standing erect, with the most amazing incomprehensible sense of relief.
+Why should she have felt relieved by this communication which filled her
+companion with horror? A softer air seemed to breathe about Lucy, she
+felt solid ground under her feet. For the first moment there seemed
+nothing but ease and sweet soothing and refreshment in what she heard.
+
+"His--daughter?" she said. Her mind went back with a sudden flash upon
+the past, gathering up instantaneously pieces of corroborative evidence,
+things which she had not noted at the moment, which she had forgotten,
+yet which came back nevertheless when they were needed: the Contessa's
+mysterious words about Bice's parentage, her intimation that Lucy would
+one day be glad to have befriended her: Sir Tom's sudden agitation when
+she had told him of Bice's English descent: finally, and most conclusive
+of all, touching Lucy with a most unreasonable conviction and bringing a
+rush of warm feeling to her heart, Baby's adoption of the girl and
+recommendation of her to his mother. Was it not the voice of nature, the
+voice of God? Lucy had no instinctive sense of recoil, no horror of the
+discovery. She did not realise the guilt involved, nor was she painfully
+struck, as some women might have been, by this evidence of her husband's
+previous life "If it is so," she said quietly, "there is more reason
+than ever, Aunt Randolph, that I should do everything I can for Bice. It
+never came into my mind before. I see now--various things: but I do not
+see why it should--make me unhappy," she added with a faint smile which
+brought the water to her eyes; "it must have been--long before I knew
+him. Will you tell me who was her mother? Was she a foreigner? Did she
+die long ago?"
+
+"Oh, Lucy, Lucy," cried Lady Randolph, "is it possible you don't see?
+Who would take all that trouble about her? Who would burden themselves
+with another woman's girl that was no concern of theirs? Who
+would--can't you see? can't you see?"
+
+There came over Lucy's face a hot and feverish flush. She grew red to
+her hair, agitation and shame took possession of her; something seemed
+to throb and swell as if it would burst in her forehead. She could not
+speak. She could not look at her informant for shame of the revelation
+that had been made. All the bewildered sensations which for the moment
+had been stilled in her breast sprang up again with a feverish whirl and
+tumult. She tottered back to the chair on which she had been sitting and
+dropped down upon it, holding by it as if that were the only thing in
+the world secure and steadfast. It was only now that Lady Randolph
+seemed to awake to the risks and dangers of this bold step she had
+taken. She had roused the placid soul at last. To what strange agony, to
+what revenge might she have roused it? She had looked for tears and
+misery, and fleeting rage and mad jealousy. But Lucy's look of utter
+giddiness and overthrow alarmed her more than she could say.
+
+"Lucy! Oh, my love, you must recollect, as you say, that it was all
+long before he knew you--that there was no injury to you!"
+
+Lucy made a movement with her hand to bar further discussion, but she
+could not say anything. She pointed Lady Randolph to her chair, and made
+that mute prayer for silence, for no more. But in such a moment of
+excitement there is nothing that is more difficult to grant than this.
+
+"Oh, Lucy," the Dowager cried, "forgive me! Perhaps I ought not to have
+said anything. Oh, my dear, if you will but think what a painful
+position it was for me. To see you so unsuspicious, ready to do
+anything, and even Tom taking advantage of you. It is not more than a
+week since I found it all out, and how could I keep silence? Think what
+a painful position it was for me."
+
+Lucy made no reply. There seemed nothing but darkness round her. She put
+out her hand imploring that no more might be said; and though there was
+a great deal more said, she scarcely made out what it was. Her brain
+refused to take in any more. She suffered herself to be kissed and
+blessed, and said good-night to, almost mechanically. And when the elder
+lady at last went away, Lucy sat where Lady Randolph had left her, she
+did not know how long, gazing woefully at the ruins of that crumbled
+world which had all fallen to pieces about her. All was to pieces now.
+What was she and what was the other? Why should she be here and not the
+other? Two, were there?--two with an equal claim upon him? Was
+everything false, even the law, even the external facts which made her
+Tom's wife. He had another wife and a child. He was two, he was not one
+true man; one for baby and her, another for Bice and the Contessa. When
+she heard her husband coming in Lucy fled upstairs like a hunted thing,
+and took refuge in the nursery where little Tom was sleeping. Even her
+bourgeoise horror of betraying herself, of letting the servants suspect
+that anything was wrong, had no effect upon her to-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+SEVERED.
+
+
+Sir Tom came home later, so much later than he intended that he entered
+the house with such a sense of compunction as had not visited him since
+the days when the alarm of being caught was a part of the pleasure. He
+had no fear of a lecture from Lucy, whose gifts were not of that kind;
+but he was partially conscious of having neglected her on her first
+night in town, as well as having sinned against her in matters more
+serious. And he did not know how to explain his detention at the
+Contessa's new house, or the matters which he had been discussing there.
+It was a sensible relief to him not to find her in any of the
+sitting-rooms, all dark and closed up, except his own room, in which
+there was no trace of her. She had gone to bed, which was so sensible,
+like Lucy's unexaggerated natural good sense: he smiled to
+himself--though, at the same time, a wondering question within himself,
+whether she felt at all, passed through his mind--a reflection full of
+mingled disappointment and satisfaction. But when, a full hour after his
+return, after a tranquil period of reflection, he went leisurely
+upstairs, expecting to find her peacefully asleep, and found her not,
+nor any evidence that she had ever been there, a great wave of alarm
+passed over the mind of Sir Tom. He paused confounded, looking at her
+vacant place, startled beyond expression. "Lucy!" he cried, looking in
+his dismay into every corner, into his own dressing-room, and even into
+the large wardrobe where her dresses hung, like shells and husks, which
+she had laid aside. And then he made an agitated pause, standing in the
+middle of the room, not knowing what to think. It was by this time about
+two in the morning; the middle of the night, according to Lucy. Where
+could she have gone? Then he bethought himself with an immediate relief,
+which was soon replaced by poignant anxiety, of the only possible reason
+for her absence--a reason which would explain everything--little Tom.
+When this thought occurred to him all the excitement that had been in
+Sir Tom's mind disappeared in a moment, and he thought of nothing but
+that baby lying, perhaps tossing uneasily, upon his little bed, his
+mother watching over him; most sacred group on earth to him, who,
+whatever his faults might be, loved them both dearly. He took a candle
+in his hand and, stepping lightly, went up the stairs to the nursery
+door. There was no sound of wailing within, no pitiful little cry to
+tell the tale; all was still and dark. He tried the door softly, but it
+would not open. Then another terror awoke, and for the moment took his
+breath from him. What had happened to the child? Sir Tom suffered enough
+at this moment to have expiated many sins. There came upon him a vision
+of the child extended motionless upon his bed, and his mother by him
+refusing to be comforted. What could it mean? The door looked as if hope
+had departed. He knocked softly, yet imperatively, divided between the
+horror of these thoughts and the gentle every-day sentiment which
+forbade any noise at little Tom's door. It was some time before he got
+any reply--a time which seemed to him interminable. Then he suddenly
+heard Lucy's voice close to the door whispering. There had been no sound
+of any footsteps. Had she been there all the time listening to all his
+appeals and taking no notice?
+
+"Open the door," he said anxiously. "Speak to me. What is the matter? Is
+he ill? Have you sent for the doctor? Let me in."
+
+"We are all shut up and settled for the night," said Lucy, through the
+door.
+
+"Shut up for the night? Has he been very ill?" Sir Tom cried.
+
+"Oh, hush, you will wake him; no, not very ill: but I am going to stay
+with him," said the voice inside with a quiver in it.
+
+"Lucy, what does this mean? You are concealing something from me. Have
+you had the doctor? Good God, tell me. What is the matter? Can't I see
+my boy?"
+
+"There is nothing--nothing to be alarmed about," said Lucy from within.
+"He is asleep--he is--doing well. Oh! go to bed and don't mind us. I am
+going to stay with him."
+
+"Don't mind you? that is so easy," he cried, with a broken laugh; then
+the silence stealing to his heart, he cried out, "Is the child----?" But
+Sir Tom could not say the word. He shivered, standing outside the closed
+door. The mystery seemed incomprehensible, save on the score of some
+great calamity. The bitterness of death went over him; but then he asked
+himself what reason there could be to conceal from him any terrible
+sudden blow. Lucy would have wanted him in such a case, not kept him
+from her. In this dread moment of sudden panic he thought of everything
+but the real cause, which made a more effectual barrier between them
+than that closed door.
+
+"He is well enough now," said Lucy's voice, coming faintly out of the
+darkness. "Oh, indeed, there is nothing the matter. Please go away; go
+to bed. It is so late. I am going to stay with him."
+
+"Lucy," said Sir Tom, "I have never been shut out before. There is
+something you are concealing from me. Let me see him and then you shall
+do as you please."
+
+There was a little pause, and then slowly, reluctantly, Lucy opened the
+door. She was still fully dressed as she had been for dinner. There was
+not a particle of colour in her face. Her eyes had a scared look and
+were surrounded by wide circles, as if the orbit had been hollowed out.
+She stood aside to let him pass without a word. The room in which little
+Tom slept was an inner room. There was scarcely any light in either,
+nothing but the faint glimmer of the night-lamp. The sleeping-room was
+hushed and full of the most tranquil quiet, the regular soft breathing
+of the sleeping child in his little bed, and of his nurse by him, who
+was as completely unaware as he of any intrusion. Sir Tom stole in and
+looked at his boy, in the pretty baby attitude of perfect repose, his
+little arms thrown up over his head. The anxiety vanished from his
+heart, but not the troubled sense of something wrong, a mystery which
+altogether baffled him. Mystery had no place here in this little
+sanctuary of innocence. But what did it mean? He stole out again to
+where Lucy stood, scared and silent in her white dress, with a jewelled
+pendant at her neck which gleamed strangely in the half light.
+
+"He seems quite well now. What was it, and why are you so anxious?" he
+asked. "Did the doctor----"
+
+"There was no need for a doctor. It is only--myself. I must stay with
+him, he might want me----" And nobody else does, Lucy was about to say,
+but pride and modesty restrained her. Her husband looked at her
+earnestly. He perceived with a curious pang of astonishment that she
+drew away from him, standing as far off as the limited space permitted
+and avoiding his eye.
+
+"I don't understand it," he said; "there is something underneath; either
+he has been more ill than you will let me know, or--there is something
+else----"
+
+She gave him no answering look, made no wondering exclamation what could
+there be else? as he had hoped; but replied hurriedly, as she had done
+before, "I want to stay with him. I must stay with him for to-night----"
+
+It was with the most extraordinary sense of some change, which he could
+not fathom or divine, that Sir Tom consented at last to leave his wife
+in the child's room and go to his own. What did it mean? What had
+happened to him, or was about to happen? He could not explain to himself
+the aspect of the slight little youthful figure in her airy white dress,
+with the diamonds still at her throat, careless of the hour and time,
+standing there in the middle of the night, shrinking away from him,
+forlorn and wakeful with her scared eyes. At this hour on ordinary
+occasions Lucy was fast asleep. When she came to see her boy, if society
+had kept her up late, it was in the ease of a dressing-gown, not with
+any cold glitter of ornaments. And to see her shrink and draw herself
+away in that strange repugnance from his touch and shadow confounded
+him. He was not angry, as he might have been in another case, but
+pitiful to the bottom of his heart. What could have come to Lucy? Half
+a dozen times he turned back on his way to his room. What meaning could
+she have in it? What could have happened to her? Her manifest shrinking
+from him had terrified him, and filled his mind with confusion. But
+controversy of any kind in the child's room at the risk of waking him in
+the middle of the night was impossible, and no doubt, he tried to say to
+himself, it must be some panic she had taken, some sudden alarm for the
+child, justified by reasons which she did not like to explain to him
+till the morning light restored her confidence. Women were so, he had
+often heard: and the women he had known in his youth had certainly been
+so--unreasoning creatures, subject to their imagination, taking fright
+when no occasion for fright was, incapable of explaining. Lucy had never
+been like this; but yet Lucy, though sensible, was a woman too, and if
+it is not permitted to a woman to take an unreasoning panic about her
+only child, she must be hardly judged indeed. Sir Tom was not a hard
+judge. When he got over the painful sense that there must be something
+more in this than met the eye, he was half glad to find that Lucy was
+like other women--a dear little fool, not always sensible. He thought
+almost the better of her for it, he said to himself. She would laugh
+herself at her panic, whatever it was, when little Tom woke up fresh and
+fair in the morning light.
+
+With this idea he did what he could to satisfy himself. The situation
+was strange, unprecedented in his experience; but he had many subjects
+of thought on his own part which returned to his mind as the surprise of
+the moment calmed down. He had a great deal to think about. Old
+difficulties which seemed to have passed away for long years were now
+coming back again to embarrass and confuse him. "Our pleasant vices are
+made the whips to scourge us," he said to himself. The past had come
+back to him like the opening of a book, no longer merely frivolous and
+amusing, as in the Contessa's talk, touched with all manner of light
+emotions, but bitter, with tragedy in it, and death and desolation.
+Death and life: he had heard enough of the dead to make them seem alive
+again, and of the living to confuse their identity altogether; but he
+had not yet succeeded in clearing up the doubt which had been thrown
+into his mind. That question about Bice's parentage, "English on one
+side," tormented him still. He had made again an attempt to discover the
+truth, and he had been foiled. The probabilities seemed all in favour of
+the solution which at the first word had presented itself to him; but
+still there was a chance that it might not be so.
+
+His mind had been full and troubled enough, when he returned to the
+still house, and thought with compunction how many thoughts which he
+could not share with her he was bringing back to Lucy's side. He could
+not trust them to her, or confide in her, and secure her help, as in
+many other circumstances he would have done without hesitation. But he
+could not do that in this case,--not so much because she was his wife,
+as because she was so young, so innocent, so unaware of the
+complications of existence. How could she understand the temptations
+that assail a young man in the heyday of life, to whom many indulgences
+appear permissible or venial, which to her limited and innocent soul
+would seem unpardonable sins? To live even for a few years with a
+stainless nature like that of Lucy, in whom there was not even so much
+knowledge as would make the approaches of vice comprehensible, is a new
+kind of education to the most experienced of men. He had not believed it
+to be possible to be so altogether ignorant of evil as he had found her;
+and how could he explain to her and gain her indulgent consideration of
+the circumstances which had led him into what in her vocabulary would be
+branded with the name of vice? Sir Tom even now did not feel it to be
+vice. It was unfortunate that it had so happened. He had been a fool. It
+was almost inconceivable to him now how for the indulgence of a
+momentary passion he could have placed himself in a position that might
+one day be so embarrassing and disagreeable. He had not behaved ill at
+the moment; it was the woman who had behaved ill. But how in the name of
+wonder to explain all this to Lucy? Lucy, who was not conscious of any
+reason why a man's code of morals should be different from that of a
+woman! When Sir Tom returned to this painful and difficult subject, the
+immediate question as to Lucy's strange conduct died from his mind. It
+became more easy, by dint of repeating it, to believe that a mere
+unreasonable panic about little Tom was the cause of her withdrawal. It
+was foolish, but a loving and lovely foolishness which a man might do
+more than forgive, which he might adore and smile at, as men love to do,
+feeling that for a woman to be thus silly is desirable, a counterpoise
+to the selfishness and want of feeling which are so common in the world.
+But how to make this spotless creature understand that a man might slip
+aside and yet not be a dissolute man, that he might be betrayed into
+certain proceedings which would not perhaps bear the inspection of
+severe judges, and yet be neither vicious nor heartless. This problem,
+after he had considered it in every possible way, Sir Tom finally gave
+up with a sort of despair. He must keep his secret within his own bosom.
+He must contrive some means of doing what, in case his hypothesis was
+right, would now be clearly a duty, without exciting any suspicion on
+Lucy's part. That, he thought with a compunction, would be easy enough.
+There was no one whom it would cost less trouble to deceive. With these
+thoughts he went to sleep in the room which seemed strangely lonely
+without her presence. Perhaps, however, it was not ungrateful to him to
+be alone to think all those thoughts without the additional sense of
+treachery which must have ensued had he thought them in her presence.
+There was no treachery. He had been all along, he thought to himself, a
+man somewhat sinned against in the matter. To be sure it was
+wrong--according to all rules of morals, it was necessary to admit this;
+but not more wrong, not so much wrong, as most other men had been. And,
+granting the impropriety of that first step, he had nothing to reproach
+himself with afterwards. In that respect he knew he had behaved both
+liberally and honourably, though he had been deceived. But
+how--how--good heavens!--explain this to Lucy? In the silence of her
+room, where she was not, he actually laughed out to himself at the
+thought; laughed with a sense of all impossibility beyond all laws or
+power of reasoning. What miracle would make her understand? It would be
+easier to move the solid earth than to make her understand.
+
+But it was altogether a very strange night--such a night as never had
+been passed in that house before; and fearful things were about in the
+darkness, ill dreams, strange shadows of trouble. When Sir Tom woke in
+the morning and found no sign that his wife had been in the room or any
+trace of her, there arose once more a painful apprehension in his mind.
+He hurried half-dressed to the nursery to ask for news of the child, but
+was met by the nurse with the most cheerful countenance, with little Tom
+holding by her skirts, in high spirits, and fun of babble and glee.
+
+"He has had a good night, then?" the father said aloud, lifting the
+little fellow to his shoulder.
+
+"An excellent night, Sir Thomas," the woman said, "and not a bit tired
+with his journey, and so pleased to see all the carriages and the folks
+passing."
+
+Sir Tom put the boy down with a cloud upon his face.
+
+"What was the cause, then, of Lady Randolph's anxiety last night?"
+
+"Anxiety, Sir Thomas! Oh no; her ladyship was quite pleased. She do
+always say he is a regular little town-bird, and always better in
+London. And so she said when I was putting of him to sleep. And he never
+stirred, not from the moment he went off till six o'clock this morning,
+the darling. I do think now, Sir Thomas, as we may hope he's taken hold
+of his strength."
+
+Sir Tom turned away with a blank countenance. What did it mean, then? He
+went back to his dressing-room, and completed his toilette without
+seeing anything of Lucy. The nurse seemed quite unconscious of her
+mistress's vigil by the baby's side. Where, then, had Lucy passed the
+night, and why taken refuge in that nursery? Sir Tom grew pale, and saw
+his own countenance white and full of trouble, as if it had been a
+stranger's, in the glass. He hurried downstairs to the breakfast-room,
+into which the sun was shining. There could not have been a more
+cheerful sight. Some of the flowers brought up from the Hall were on the
+table; there was a merry little fire burning; the usual pile of
+newspapers were arranged for him by Williams's care, who felt himself a
+political character too, and understood the necessity of seeing what the
+country was thinking. Jock stood at the window with a book, reading and
+watching the changeful movements outside. But the chair at the head of
+the table was vacant. "Have you seen Lucy?" he said to Jock, with an
+anxiety which he could scarcely disguise. At this moment she came in,
+very guilty, very pale, like a ghost. She gave him no greeting, save a
+sort of attempt at a smile and warning look, calling his attention to
+Williams, who had followed her into the room with that one special dish
+which the butler always condescended to place on the table. Sir Tom sat
+down to his newspapers confounded, not knowing what to think or to say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+LADY RANDOLPH WINDS UP HER AFFAIRS.
+
+
+Lucy contrived somehow to elude all private intercourse with her husband
+that morning. She was not alone with him for a moment. To his question
+about little Tom and her anxiety of last night she made as slight an
+answer as possible. "Nurse tells me he is all right." "He is quite well
+this morning," Lucy replied with quiet dignity, as if she did not limit
+herself to nurse's observations. She talked a little to Jock about his
+school and how long the holidays lasted, while Sir Tom retired behind
+the shield of his newspapers. He did not get much benefit from them that
+morning, or instruction as to what the country was thinking. He was so
+much more curious to know what his wife was thinking, that simple
+little girl who knew no evil. The most astute of men could not have
+perplexed Sir Tom so much. It seemed to him that something must have
+happened, but what? What was there that any one could betray to her? not
+the discovery that he himself thought he had made. That was impossible.
+If any one else had known it he surely must have known it. It could not
+be anything so unlikely as that.
+
+But Lucy gave him no opportunity of inquiring. She went away to see the
+housekeeper, to look after her domestic affairs; and then Sir Tom made
+sure he should find her in the nursery, whither he took his way, when he
+thought he had left sufficient time for her other occupations. But Lady
+Randolph was not there. He heard from Fletcher, whose disturbed
+countenance seemed to reflect his own, that her mistress had gone out.
+She was the only one of the household who shared his certainty that
+something had happened out of the ordinary routine. Fletcher knew that
+her mistress had not undressed in the usual way; that she had not gone
+to bed. Her own services had not been required either in the morning or
+evening, and she had a strong suspicion that Lady Randolph had passed
+the night on a sofa in the little morning-room upstairs. To Fletcher's
+mind it was not very difficult to account for this. Quarrels between
+husband and wife are common enough. But her consciousness and
+sympathetic significance of look struck Sir Tom with a troubled sense of
+the humour of the situation which broke the spell of his increasing
+agitation, if but for a moment. It was droll to think that Fletcher
+should be in a manner his confidant, the only participator in his woes.
+
+Lucy had gone out half to avoid her husband, half with a determination
+to expedite the business which she had begun, with very different
+feelings the day before. The streets were very gay and bright on that
+April morning, with all the quickening of life which many arrivals and
+the approach of the season, with all its excitements, brings. Houses
+were opening up, carriages coming out, even the groups of children and
+nurse-maids in the Park making a sensible difference on the other side
+of the great railing. It was very unusual for her to find herself in the
+streets alone, and this increased the curious dazed sensation with which
+she went out among all these real people, so lively and energetic, while
+she was still little more than a dream-woman, possessed by one thought,
+moving along, she knew not how, with a sense of helplessness and
+unprotectedness, which made the novelty all the more sensible to her.
+She went on for what seemed to be a long time, following mechanically
+the line of the pavement, without knowing what she was doing, along the
+long course of Park Lane, and then into the cheerful bustle of
+Piccadilly, where, with a sense of morning ease and leisure, not like
+the artificiality of the afternoon, so many people were coming and
+going, all occupied in business of their own, though so different from
+the bustle of more absorbing business, the haste and obstruction of the
+city. Lucy was not beautiful enough or splendid enough to attract much
+attention from the passers-by in the streets, though one or two
+sympathetic and observant wayfarers were caught by the look of trouble
+in her face. She had never walked about London, and she did not know
+where she was going. But she did not think of this. She thought only on
+one subject,--about her husband and that other life which he had, of
+which she knew nothing, which might, for anything she could tell, have
+been going on side by side with the life she knew and shared. This was
+the point upon which Lucy's mind had given way. The revelation as to
+Bice had startled and shaken her soul to its foundations; but after the
+shock things had fallen into their place again, and she had felt no
+anger, though much pain and pity. Her mind had thrown itself back into
+the unknown past almost tenderly towards the mother who had died long
+ago, to whom perhaps Bice had been what little Tom was now to herself.
+But when the further statement reached her ears all that softening which
+seemed to have swept over her disappeared in a moment. A horrible
+bewilderment had seized her. Was he two men, with two wives, two lives,
+two children dear to him?
+
+It is usual to talk of women as being the most severe judges of each
+other's failures in one particular at least, an accusation which no
+doubt is true of both sexes, though generally applied, like so many
+universal truths, to one. And an injured wife is a raging fury in those
+primitive characterisations which are so common in the world. But the
+ideas which circled like the flakes in a snowstorm through the mind of
+Lucy were of a kind incomprehensible to the vulgar critic who judges
+humanity in the general. Her ways of thinking, her modes of judging were
+as different as possible from those of minds accustomed to
+generalisation and lightly acquainted with the vices of the world. Lucy
+knew no general; she knew three persons involved in an imbroglio so
+terrible that she saw no way out of it. Herself, her husband, another
+woman. Her mind was the mind almost of a child. It had resisted all that
+dismal information which the chatter of society conveys. She knew that
+married people were "not happy" sometimes. She knew that there were
+wretched stories of which she held that they could not be true. She was
+of Desdemona's mind, and did not believe that there was any such woman.
+And when she was suddenly strangely brought face to face with a tragedy
+of her own, that was not enough to turn this innocent and modest girl
+into a raging Eleanor. She was profoundly reasonable in her simple way,
+unapt to blame; thinking no evil, and full of those prepossessions and
+fixed canons of innocence which the world-instructed are incapable not
+only of understanding, but of believing in the existence of. A
+connection between a man and a woman was to her, in one way or other, a
+marriage. Into the reasons, whatever they might have been, that could
+have brought about any such connection without the rites that made it
+sacred, she could not penetrate or inquire. It was a subject too
+terrible, from which her mind retreated with awe and incomprehension.
+Never could it, she felt, have been intended so, at least on the woman's
+side. The mock marriage of romance, the deceits practised on the stage
+and in novels upon the innocent, she believed in without hesitation,
+everything in the world being more comprehensible than impurity. There
+might be villainous men, betrayers, seducers, Lucy could not tell; there
+might be monsters, griffins, fiery dragons, for anything she knew; but a
+woman abandoned by all her natural guard of modesties and reluctances,
+moved by passion, capable of being seduced, she could not understand.
+And still more impossible was it to imagine such sins as the outcome of
+mere levity, without any tragic circumstances; or to conceive of the
+mysteries of life as outraged and intruded upon by folly, or for the
+darker bait of interest. Her heart sickened at such suggestions. She
+knew there were poor women in the streets, victims of want and vice,
+poor degraded creatures for whom her heart bled, whom she could not
+think of for the intolerable pang of pity and shame. But all these
+questions had nothing to do with the sudden revelation in which she
+herself had so painful a part. These broken reflections were in her mind
+like the falling of snow. They whirled through the vague world of her
+troubled soul without consequence or coherence; all that had nothing to
+do with her. Her husband was no villain, and the woman--the beautiful,
+smiling woman, so much fairer, greater, more important than Lucy, she
+was no wretched, degraded creature. What was she then? His wife--his
+true wife? And if so, what was Lucy? Her brain reeled and the world went
+round her in a sickening whirl. The circumstances were too terrible for
+resentment. What could anger do, or any other quick-springing
+short-lived emotion? What did it matter even what Lucy felt, what any
+one felt? It was far beyond that. Here was fact which no emotion could
+undo. A wife and a child on either side, and what was to come of it; and
+how could life go on with this to think of, never to be forgotten, not
+to be put aside for a moment? It brought existence to a stand-still. She
+did not know what was the next step she must take, or how she could go
+back, or what she must say to the man who, perhaps, was not her husband,
+or how she could continue under that roof, or arrange the commonest
+details of life. There was but one thing clear before her, the business
+which she was bent on hurrying to a conclusion now.
+
+She found herself in the bustle of the streets that converge upon the
+circus at the end of Piccadilly as she thus went on thinking, and there
+Lucy looked about her in some dismay, finding that she had reached the
+limit of the little world she knew. She was afraid of plunging alone
+into those bustling ways, and almost afraid of the only other
+alternative, which, however, she adopted, of calling a cab and giving
+the driver the address of Mr. Chervil in the city. To do this, and to
+mount into the uneasy jingling cab, gave her a little shock of the
+unaccustomed, which was like a breach of morals to Lucy. It seemed,
+though she had been independent enough in more important matters, the
+most daring step she had ever taken on her own responsibility. But the
+matter of the cab, and the aspect of this unknown world into which it
+conveyed her, occupied her mind a little, and stopped the tumult of her
+thoughts. She seemed scarcely to know what she had come about when she
+found herself set down at the door of Mr. Chervil's office, and
+ascending the grimy staircase, meeting people who stared at her, and
+wondered what a lady could be doing there. Mr. Chervil himself was
+scarcely less surprised. He said, "Lady Randolph!" with a cry of
+astonishment when she was shown in. And she found some difficulty, which
+she had not thought of, in explaining her business. He reminded her that
+she had given him the same instructions yesterday when he had the honour
+of waiting upon her in Park Lane. He was far more respectful to Lady
+Randolph than he had been to Lucy Trevor in her first attempts to carry
+out her father's will.
+
+"I assure you," he said, "I have not neglected your wishes. I have
+written to Rushton on the subject. We both know by this time, Lady
+Randolph, that when you have made up your mind--and you have the most
+perfect right to do so--though we may not like it, nor think it anything
+but a squandering of money, still we are aware we have no right to
+oppose----"
+
+"It is not that," said Lucy faintly. "It is that the circumstances have
+changed since yesterday. I want to--I should like to----"
+
+"Give up your intention? I am delighted to hear it. For you must allow
+me to say, as a man of business----"
+
+"It is not that," Lucy repeated. "I want to increase the sum. I find the
+young lady has a claim--and I want it to be done immediately, without
+the loss of a day. Oh, I am more, much more in earnest about it than I
+was yesterday. I want it settled at once. If it is not settled at once
+difficulties might arise. I want to double the amount. Could you not
+telegraph to Mr. Rushton instead of writing? I have heard that people
+telegraph about business."
+
+"Double the amount! Have you thought over this? Have you had Sir
+Thomas's advice? It is a very important matter to decide so suddenly.
+Pardon me, Lady Randolph, but you must know that if you bestow at this
+rate you will soon not have very much left to you."
+
+"Ah, that would be a comfort!" cried Lucy; and then there came over her
+the miserable thought that all the circumstances were changed, and to
+have a subject of disagreement between her husband and herself removed
+would not matter now. Once it had been the only subject, now---- The
+suddenness of this realisation of the change filled her eyes with tears.
+But she restrained herself with a great effort. "Yes," she said, "I
+should be glad, very glad, to have done all my father wished--for many
+things might happen. I might die--and then who would do it?"
+
+"We need not discuss that very unlikely contingency," said Mr. Chervil.
+(He said to himself: Sir Tom wouldn't, that is certain.) "But even under
+Mr. Trevor's will," he added, "this will be a very large sum to
+give--larger, don't you think, than he intended; unless there is some
+very special claim?"
+
+"It is a special claim," cried Lucy, "and papa made no conditions. I was
+to be free in doing it. He left me quite free."
+
+"Without doubt," the lawyer said. "I need not repeat my opinion on the
+subject, but you are certainly quite free. And you have brought me the
+young lady's name, no doubt, Lady Randolph? Yesterday, you recollect you
+were uncertain about her name. It is important to be quite accurate in
+an affair of so much importance. She is a lucky young lady. A great many
+would like to learn the secret of pleasing you to this extent."
+
+Lucy looked at him with a gasp. She did not understand the rest of his
+speech or care to hear it. Her name? What was her name? If she had not
+known it before, still less did she know it now.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "what does it matter about a name? People, girls,
+change their names. She is Beatrice. You might leave a blank and it
+could be filled up after. She is going to--marry. She is--must
+everything be delayed for that?--and yet it is of no importance--no
+importance that I can see," Lucy said, wringing her hands.
+
+"My dear Lady Randolph! Let me say that to give a very large sum of
+money to a person with whose very name you are unacquainted--forgive me,
+but in your own interests I must speak. Let me consult with Sir
+Thomas."
+
+"I do not wish my husband to be consulted. He has promised me not to
+interfere, and it is my business, not his," Lucy said, with a flush of
+excitement. And though there was much further conversation, and the
+lawyer did all he could to move her, it need not be said that Lucy was
+immovable. He went down to the door with her to put her into her
+carriage, as he supposed, not unwilling even in that centre of practical
+life to have the surrounding population see on what confidential terms
+he was with this fine young lady. But when he perceived that no carriage
+was there, and Lucy, not without a tremor, as of a very strange request,
+and one which might shock the nerves of her companion, asked him to get
+a cab for her, Mr. Chervil's astonishment knew no bounds.
+
+"I never thought how far it was," Lucy said, faltering and apologetic.
+"I thought I might perhaps have been able to walk."
+
+"Walk!" he cried, "from Park Lane?" with consternation. He stood looking
+after her as she drove away, saying to himself that the old man had
+undoubtedly been mad, and that this poor young thing was evidently
+cracked too. He thought it would be best to write to Sir Thomas, who was
+not Sir Tom to Mr. Chervil; but if it was going to happen that the poor
+young lady should show what he had no doubt was the hereditary weakness,
+Mr. Chervil could not restrain a devout wish that it might show itself
+decisively before half her fortune was alienated. No Sir Thomas in
+existence would carry out a father-in-law's will of such an insane
+character as that.
+
+In the meanwhile Lucy jingled home in her cab, feeling more giddy, more
+heartsick than ever. There now came upon her with more potency than ever,
+since now it was the matter immediately before her, the question what was
+she to do? What was she to do? She had eluded Sir Tom on the night before,
+and obliged him to accept, without any demand for explanation, her strange
+retirement. But now what was she to do? Little Tom would not answer for a
+pretext again. She must either resume the former habits of her life,
+subdue herself entirely, meet him with a cheerful face, ignore the sudden
+chasm that had been made between them--or---- She looked with terrified
+eyes at this blank wall of impossibility, and could see no way through it.
+Live with him as of old, in a pretence of union where no union could be,
+or explain how it was that she could not do so. Both these things were
+impossible--impossible!--and what, then, was she to do?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR.
+
+
+The little house in Mayfair was very bright and gay. What conventional
+words are those! It was nothing of the kind. It was dim and poetical. No
+light that could be kept out of it was permitted to come in. The quality
+of light in London, even in April, is not exquisite, and perhaps the
+Contessa's long curtains and all the delicate draperies which she loved
+to hang about her were more desirable to see than that very poor thing
+in the way of daylight which exists in Mayfair. Bice, who was a child of
+light, objected a little to this shutting out, and she would have
+objected strongly, being young enough to love the sunshine for itself,
+but for the exquisite reason which the Contessa gave for the interdict
+she had put upon it. "Cara," she said, "if you were all white and red
+like those English girls (it is _tant soit peu_ vulgar between
+ourselves, and not half so effective as your _blanc mat_), then you
+might have as much light as you pleased; but to put yourself in
+competition with them on their own ground--no, Bice mia. But in this
+light there is nothing to desire."
+
+"Don't you think, then, Madama," said Bice, piqued, "that no light at
+all would be better still, and not to be seen the best----"
+
+"Darling!" said the Contessa, with that smile which embodied so many
+things. It answered for encouragement and applause and gentle reproof,
+and many other matters which words could but indifferently say, and it
+was one of her favourite ways of turning aside a question to which she
+did not think fit to give any reply. And Bice swallowed her pique and
+asked no more. The lamps were all shaded like the windows in this bower
+of beauty. There was scarcely a corner that was not draped with some
+softly-falling, richly-tinted tissue. A delicate perfume breathed
+through this half-lighted world. Thus, though neither gay nor bright, it
+realised the effect which in our day, in the time when everything was
+different, was meant by these words. It was a place for pleasure, for
+intimate society, and conversation, and laughter, and wit; for music and
+soft words; and, above all, for the setting off of beauty, and the
+expression of admiration. The chairs were soft, the carpets like moss;
+there were flowers everywhere betraying themselves by their odour, even
+when you could not see them. The Contessa had spared no expense in
+making the little place--which she laughed at softly, calling it her
+doll's house--as perfect as it could be made.
+
+And here the two ladies began to live a life very different from that of
+the Randolphs' simple dwelling. Bice, it need scarcely be said, had
+fulfilled all the hopes of her patroness, else had she never been
+produced with such bewildering mystery, yet deftness, to dazzle the eyes
+of young Montjoie at the Hall. She had realised all the Contessa's
+expectations, and justified the bills which Madame di Forno-Populo
+looked upon with a certain complacency as they came in, as something
+creditable to her, as proof of her magnificence of mind and devotion to
+the best interests of her _protegee_. And now they had entered upon
+their campaign. It had annoyed her in this new beginning, amid all its
+excitements and hopes, to be called upon by Sir Tom for explanations
+which it was not to her interest to give; which she had, indeed, when
+she deliberately sowed the seed of mystery, resolved not to give. To
+allow herself to be brought to book was not in her mind at all, and she
+was clever enough to mystify even Sir Tom, and keep his mind in a
+suspense and uncertainty very painful to him. But she had managed to
+elude his inquiries, and though it had changed the demeanour of Sir Tom,
+and entirely done away with the careless good humour which had been so
+pleasant, still she felt herself now independent of the Randolphs, and
+had begun her life very cheerfully and with every promise of great
+enjoyment. The Contessa "received" every day and all day long, from the
+time when she was visible, which was not, however, at a very early hour.
+About four the day of the ladies began. Sometimes, indeed, before that
+hour two favoured persons, not always the same, who had accompanied
+them home from the Park, would be admitted to share a dainty little
+luncheon. Bice now rode at the hour when everybody rides, with the
+Contessa, who was a graceful horsewoman, and never looked to greater
+advantage than in the saddle. The two beautiful Italians, as they were
+called, had in this way, within a week of their arrival, caused a
+sensation in the Row, and already their days overflowed with amusement
+and society. Few ladies visited the little house in Mayfair, but then
+they were not much wanted there. The Contessa was not one of those
+vulgar practitioners who profess in words their preference for men's
+society. But she said, so sweetly that it was barbarous to laugh (though
+many of her friends did so), that, having one close companion of her own
+sex, her dearest Bice, who was everything to her, she was independent of
+the feminine element. "And then they are so busy, these ladies of
+fashion; they have no leisure; they have so many things to do. It is a
+thraldom, a heavy thraldom, though the chains are gilded." "Shall we see
+you at Lady Blank Blank's to-night? You must be going to the Duchess's?
+Of course we shall meet at the Highton Grandmodes!" "Ah!" cried the
+Contessa, spreading out her white hands, "it is fatiguing even only to
+hear of it. We love our ease, Bice and I; we go nowhere where we are
+expected to go."
+
+The gentlemen to whom this speech was made laughed "consumedly." They
+even made little signs to each other behind back, and exploded again.
+When she looked round at them they said the Contessa was a perfect
+mimic, better than anything on the stage, and that she had perfectly
+caught the tone of that old Lady Barbe Montfichet, who went everywhere
+(whom, indeed, the Contessa did not know), and laughed again. But it was
+not at the Contessa's power of mimicry that they laughed. It was at the
+delicious falsehood of her pretensions, and the thought that if she
+pleased she might appear at the Highton Grandmodes, or meet the best
+society at Lady Blank Blank's. These gentlemen knew better; and it was a
+joke of which they never tired. They were not, perhaps, the most
+desirable class of people in society who had the _entree_ in the
+Contessa's little house; they were old acquaintances who had known her
+in her progress through the world, mingled with a few young men whom
+they brought with them, partly because the boys admired these two lovely
+foreign women; partly because, with a certain easy benevolence that cost
+them nothing, they wanted the Contessa's little girl, whoever she was,
+to have her chance. But few, if any, of these astute gentlemen, young or
+old, was in any doubt as to the position she held.
+
+Nor was she altogether without female visitors. Lady Anastasia, that
+authority of the press, who made the public acquainted with the
+movements of distinguished strangers and was not afraid of compromising
+herself, sometimes made one at the little parties and enjoyed them much.
+The Dowager Lady Randolph's card was left at the Contessa's door, as was
+that of the Duchess, who had looked upon her with such consternation at
+Lucy's party in the country. What these ladies meant it would be curious
+to know. Perhaps it was a lingering touch of kindness, perhaps a wish to
+save their credit in case it should happen by some bewildering turn of
+fortune that La Forno-Populo might come uppermost again. Would she dare
+to have herself put forward at the Drawing-room was what these ladies
+asked each other with bated breath. It was possible, nay, quite likely,
+that she might succeed in doing so, for there were plenty of
+good-natured people who would not refuse if she asked them, and of
+course so close a scrutiny was not kept upon foreigners as upon native
+subjects; while, as a matter of fact, the Dowager Lady Randolph was
+right in her assertion that, so far as could be proved, there was
+nothing absolutely fatal to a woman's reputation in the history of the
+Contessa. Would she have the courage to dare that ordeal, or would she
+set up a standard of revolt, and declare herself superior to that
+hall-mark of fashion? She was clever enough, all the people who knew her
+allowed, for either _role_; either to persuade some good woman, innocent
+and ignorant enough, to be responsible for her, and elude the researches
+of the Lord Chamberlain, or else to retreat bravely in gay rebellion and
+declare that she was not rich enough, nor her diamonds good enough, for
+that noonday display. For either part the Contessa was clever enough.
+
+Meanwhile Bice had all the enjoyment, without any of the drawbacks of
+this new life. It was far more luxurious, splendid, and even amusing,
+than the old existence of the watering-places. To ride in the Park and
+feel herself one of that brilliant crowd, to be surrounded by a
+succession of lively companions, to have always "something going on,"
+that delight of youth, and a continual incense of admiration rising
+around her enough to have turned a less steady head, filled Bice's cup
+with happiness. But perhaps the most penetrating pleasure of all was
+that of having carried out the Contessa's expectations and fulfilled her
+hopes. Had not Madame di Forno-Populo been satisfied with the beauty of
+her charge, none of these expenses would have been incurred, and this
+life of many delights would never have been; so that the soothing and
+exhilarating consciousness of having indeed deserved and earned her
+present well-being was in Bice's mind. The future, too, opened before
+her a horizon of boundless hope. To have everything she now had and
+more, along with that one element of happiness which had always been
+wanting, the certainty that it would last, was the happy prospect within
+her grasp. Her head was so steady, and the practical sense of the
+advantage so great, that the excitement and pleasure did not intoxicate
+her; but everything was delightful, novel, breathing confidence and
+hope. The guests at the table, where she now took her place, equal in
+importance to the Contessa herself, all flattered and did their best to
+please her. They amused her, either because they were clever or because
+they were ridiculous--Bice, with youthful cynicism, did not much mind
+which it was. When they went to the opera, a similar crowd would flutter
+in and out of the box, and appear afterwards to share the gay little
+supper and declare that no _prime-donne_ on the stage could equal the
+two lovely blending voices of the Contessa and her ward. To sit late
+talking, laughing, singing, surrounded by all this worship, and to wake
+up again to a dozen plans and the same routine of pleasure next day,
+what heart of seventeen (and she was not quite seventeen) could resist
+it? One thing, however, Bice missed amid all this. It was the long
+gallery at the Hall, the nursery in Park Lane, little Tom crowing upon
+her shoulder, digging his hands into her hair, and Lucy looking on--many
+things, yet one. She missed this, and laughed at herself, and said she
+was a fool--but missed it all the same. Lucy had come, as in duty bound,
+and paid her call. She had been very grave--not like herself. And Sir
+Tom was very grave; looking at her she could not tell how; no longer
+with his old easy good humour, with a look of criticism and anxiety--an
+uneasy look, as if he had something to say to her and could not. Bice
+felt instinctively that if he ever said that something it would be
+disagreeable, and avoided his presence. But it troubled her to lose this
+side of her landscape, so to speak. The new was entrancing, but the old
+was a loss. She missed it, and thought herself a fool for missing it,
+and laughed, but felt it the more.
+
+The only member of the household with whom she remained on the same easy
+terms as before was Jock, who came to the house in Mayfair at hours when
+nobody else was admitted, though he was quite unaware of the privilege
+he possessed. He came in the morning when Bice, too young to want the
+renewal which the Contessa sought in bed and in the mysteries of the
+toilette, sometimes fretted a little indoors at the impossibility of
+getting the air into her lungs, and feeling the warmth of the morning
+light. She was so glad to see him that Jock was deeply flattered, and
+sweet thoughts of the most boundless foolishness got in to his head.
+Bice ran to her room, and found one of her old hats which she had worn
+in the country, and tied a veil over her face, and came flying
+downstairs like a bird.
+
+"We may go out and run in the Park so long as no one sees us," she
+cried. "Oh, come; nobody can see me through this veil."
+
+"And what good will the air do you through that veil?" said Jock
+contemptuously. "You can't see the sun through it; it makes the whole
+world black. I would not go out if I were you with that thing over my
+face, the only chance I had for a walk. I'd rather stay at home; but
+perhaps you like it. Girls are such----"
+
+"What? You are going to swear, and if you swear I will simply turn my
+back. Well, perhaps you didn't mean it. But I mean it. Boys are
+such---- What? little prudes, like the old duennas in the books, and that
+is what you are. You think things are wrong that are not wrong. But it
+is to an Englishman the right thing to grumble," Bice said, with a smile
+of reconciliation as they stepped into the street. On that sweet morning
+even the street was delightful. It restored them to perfect satisfaction
+with each other as they made their way to the Park, which stretched its
+long lines of waving grass almost within sight.
+
+"And I suppose," said Jock, after a pause, "that you like being here?"
+
+Bice gave him a look half friendly, half disdainful. "I like living,"
+she said. "In the country in what you call the quiet, it is only to be
+half alive: we are always living here. But you never come to see us
+ride, to be among the crowd. You are never at the opera. You don't talk
+as those others do----"
+
+"Montjoie, for instance," said Jock, with a strange sense of jealousy
+and pain.
+
+"Very well, Montjoie. He is what you call fun; he has always something
+to say, _betises_ perhaps, but what does that matter? He makes me
+laugh."
+
+"Makes you laugh! at his wit perhaps?" cried Jock. "Oh, what things
+girls are! Laugh at what a duffer like that, an ass, a fellow that has
+not two ideas, says."
+
+"You have a great many ideas," said Bice; "you are clever--you know a
+number of things; but you are not so amusing, and you are not so
+good-natured. You scold me; and you say another, a friend, is an
+ass----"
+
+"He was never any friend of mine," said Jock, with a hot flush of anger.
+"That fellow! I never had anything to say to him."
+
+"No," said Bice, with a smiling disdain which cut poor Jock like a
+knife. "I made a mistake, that was not possible, for he is a man and you
+are only a boy."
+
+To describe Jock's feelings under this blow would be beyond the power of
+words. He inferior to Montjoie! he only a boy while the other was a man!
+Rage was nothing in such an emergency. He looked at her with eyes that
+were almost pathetic in their sense of unappreciated merit, and, deeper
+sting still, of folly preferred. In spite of himself, Locksley Hall and
+those musings which have become, by no fault of the poet's, the
+expression of a despair which is half ridiculous, came into his mind. He
+did not see the ridicule. "Having known me to decline"--his eyes became
+moist with a dew of pain--"If you think that," he said slowly,
+"Bice----"
+
+Bice answered only with a laugh. "Let us make haste; let us run," she
+cried. "It is so early, no one will see us. Why don't you ride, it is
+like flying? And to run is next best." She stopped after a flight, swift
+as a bird, along an unfrequented path which lay still in the April
+sunshine, the lilac bushes standing up on each side all athrill and
+rustling with the spring, with eyes that shone like stars, and that
+unusual colour which made her radiant. Jock, though he could have gone
+on much faster, was behind her for the moment, and came up after her,
+more occupied by the shame of being outrun and laughed at than by
+admiration of the girl and her beauty. She was more conscious of her own
+splendour of bloom than he was: though Bice was not vain, and he was
+more occupied by the thought of her than by any other thought.
+
+"Girls never think of being able to stay," he said, "you do only what
+can be done with a rush; but that's not running. If you had ever seen
+the School Mile----"
+
+"Oh no, I want to see no miles," cried Bice; "this is what I like, to
+have all my fingers tingle." Then she suddenly calmed down in a moment,
+and walked along demurely as the paths widened out to a more frequented
+thoroughfare. "What I want," she said, "is little Tom upon my shoulder,
+and to hear him scream and hold by my hair. Milady does not look as if I
+pleased her now. She has come once only and looked--not as she once
+looked. But she is still kind. She has made this ball for me--for me
+only. Did you know? do you dance then, if nothing else? Oh, you shall
+dance since the ball is for me. I love dancing--to distraction; but not
+once have I had a single turn, not once, since we came to England," Bice
+said with a sigh, which rose into a laugh in another moment, as she
+added, "It will be for me to come out, as you say, to be introduced into
+society, and after that we shall go everywhere, the Contessa says."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE SIEGE OF LONDON.
+
+
+The Contessa, but perhaps not more than half, believed what she said.
+Everything was on the cards in this capricious society of England, which
+is not governed by the same absolute laws as in other places. It seemed
+to be quite possible that she and her charge might be asked everywhere
+after their appearance at the ball which, she should take care to tell
+everybody, Lucy was giving for Bice. It was always possible in England
+that some leader of fashion, some great lady whose nod gave distinction,
+might take pity upon Bice's youth and think it hard that she should
+suffer, even if without any relentings towards the Contessa. And Madame
+di Forno-Populo was very strong on the point, already mentioned, that
+there was nothing against her which could give any one a right to shut
+her out. The mere suggestion that the doors of society might or could be
+closed in her face would have driven another woman into frantic
+indignation, but the Contessa had passed that stage. She took the matter
+quite reasonably, philosophically. There was no reason. She had been
+poor and put to many shifts. Sometimes she had been compelled to permit
+herself to be indebted to a man in a way no woman should allow herself
+to be. She was quite aware of this, and was not, therefore, angry with
+society for its reluctance to receive her; but she said to herself, with
+great energy, that there was no cause. She was not hopeless even of the
+drawing-room, nor of getting the Duchess herself, a model of all the
+virtues, to present her, if the ball went off well at Park Lane. She
+said to herself that there was nothing on her mind which would make her
+shrink from seeking admission to the presence of the Queen. She was not
+afraid even of that royal lady's penetrating eye. Shiftiness, poverty,
+debts, modes of getting money that were, perhaps, equivocal, help too
+lightly accepted, all these are bad enough; but they are not in a woman
+the unpardonable sin. And a caprice in English society was always
+possible. The young beauty of Bice might attract the eye of some one
+whose notice would throw down all obstacles; or it might touch the heart
+of some woman who was so high placed as to be able to defy prejudice.
+And after that, of course, they would go everywhere, and every
+prognostication of success and triumph would come true.
+
+Nevertheless, if things did not go on so well as this, the Contessa had
+furnished herself with what to say. She would tell Bice that the women
+were jealous, that she had been pursued by their hostility wherever she
+went, that a woman who secured the homage of men was always an object of
+their spite and malice, that it was a sort of persecution which the
+lovely had to bear from the unlovely in all regions. Knowing that it was
+fully more likely that she should fail than succeed, the Contessa had
+carefully provided herself with this ancient plea and would not hesitate
+to use it if necessary; but these were _grands moyens_, not to be
+resorted to save in case of necessity. She would herself have been
+willing enough to dispense with recognition and live as she was doing
+now, among the old and new admirers who had never failed her, enjoying
+everything except those dull drawing-rooms and heavy parties for which
+her soul longed, yet which she despised heartily, which she would have
+undergone any humiliation to get admission to, and turned to ridicule
+afterwards with the best grace in the world. She despised them, but
+there was nothing that could make up for absence from them; they alone
+had in their power the _cachet_, the symbol of universal acceptance. All
+these things depended upon the ball at Park Lane. Something had been
+going on there since she separated herself from that household which the
+Contessa did not understand. Sir Tom, indeed, was comprehensible. The
+discovery which he thought he had made, the things which she had allowed
+him to divine, and even permitted him to prove for himself without
+making a single assertion on her own part, were quite sufficient to
+account for his changed looks. But Lucy, what had she found out? It was
+not likely that Sir Tom had communicated his discovery to her. Lucy's
+demeanour confused the Contessa more than words can say. The simple
+creature had grown into a strange dignity, which nothing could explain.
+Instead of the sweet compliance and almost obedience of former days, the
+deference of the younger to the older woman, Lucy looked at her with
+grave composure, as of an equal or superior. What had happened to the
+girl? And it was so important that she should be friendly now and kept
+in good humour! Madame di Forno-Populo put forth all her attractions,
+gave her dear Lucy her sweetest looks and words, but made very little
+impression. This gave her a little tremor when she thought of it; for
+all her plans for the future were connected with the ball on the 26th at
+Park Lane.
+
+This ball appeared to Lucy, too, the most important crisis in her life.
+She had made a sacrifice which was heroic that nothing might go wrong
+upon that day. Somehow or other, she could not tell how, for the
+struggle had been desperate within her, she had subdued the emotion in
+her own heart and schooled herself to an acceptance of the old routine
+of her life until that event should be over. All her calculations went
+to that date, but not beyond. Life seemed to stop short there. It had
+been arranged and settled with a light heart in the pleasure of knowing
+that the Contessa had taken a house for herself, and that, consequently,
+Lucy was henceforward to be once more mistress of her own. She had been
+so ashamed of her own pleasure in this prospect, so full of compunctions
+in respect to her guest, whose departure made her happy, that she had
+thrown herself with enthusiasm into this expedient for making it up to
+them. She had said it was to be Bice's ball. When the Dowager's
+revelation came upon her like a thunderbolt, as soon as she was able to
+think at all, she had thought of this ball with a depth of emotion which
+was strange to be excited by so frivolous a matter. It was a pledge of
+the warmest friendship, but those for whom it was to be, had turned out
+the enemies of her peace, the destroyers of her happiness: and it was
+high festival and gaiety, but her heart was breaking. Lady Randolph,
+afraid of what she had done, yet virulent against the Contessa, had
+suggested that it should be given up. It was easy to do such a thing--a
+few notes, a paragraph in the newspaper, a report of a cousin dead, or a
+sudden illness; any excuse would do. But Lucy was not to be so moved.
+There was in her soft bosom a sense of justice which was almost stern,
+and through all her troubles she remembered that Bice, at least, had a
+claim upon all Sir Thomas Randolph could do for her, such as nobody
+else could have. Under what roof but his should she make her first
+appearance in the world? Lucy held sternly with a mixture of bitterness
+and tenderness to Bice's rights. In all this misery Bice was without
+blame, the only innocent person, the one most wronged, more wronged even
+than was Lucy herself. She it was who would have to bear the deepest
+stigma, without any fault of hers. Whatever could be done to advance her
+(as she counted advancement), to make her happy (as she reckoned
+happiness) it was right she should have it done. Lucy suppressed her own
+wretchedness heroically for this cause. She bore the confusion that had
+come into her life without saying a word for the sake of the other young
+creature who was her fellow-sufferer. How hard it was to do she could
+not have told, nor did any one suspect, except, vaguely, Sir Tom
+himself, who perceived some tragic mischief that was at work without
+knowing how it had come there or what it was. He tried to come to some
+explanation, but Lucy would have no explanation. She avoided him as much
+as it was possible to do. She had nothing to say when he questioned her.
+Till the 26th! Nothing, she was resolved, should interfere with that.
+And then--but not the baby in the nursery knew less than Lucy what was
+to happen then.
+
+They had come to London on the 2d, so that this day of fate was three
+weeks off, and during that time the Contessa had made no small progress
+in her affairs. Three weeks is a long time in a house which is open to
+visitors, even if only from four o'clock in the afternoon, every day,
+and without intermission; and indeed that was not the whole, for the
+ladies were accessible elsewhere than in the house in Mayfair. It had
+pleased the Contessa not to be visible when Lord Montjoie called at a
+somewhat early hour on the very earliest day. He was a young man who
+knew the world, and not one to have things made too easy for him. He was
+all aflame accordingly to gain the _entree_ thus withheld, and when the
+Contessa appeared for the first time in the Park, with her lovely
+companion, Montjoie was eagerly on the watch, and lost no time in
+claiming acquaintance, and joining himself to her train. He was one of
+the two who were received to luncheon two or three days afterwards. When
+the ladies went to the opera he was on thorns till he could join them.
+He was allowed to go home with them for one song, and to come in next
+afternoon for a little music. And from that time forward there was no
+more question of shutting him out. He came and went almost when he
+pleased, as a young man may be permitted to do when he has become one of
+the intimates in an easy-going, pleasure-loving household, where there
+is always "something going on." He was so little flattered that never
+during all these days and nights had he once been allowed to repeat the
+performance upon which he prided himself, and with which he had followed
+up the singing of the Contessa and Bice at the Hall. The admirable lady
+whom they had met there, with her two daughters, had been eager that
+Lord Montjoie should display this accomplishment of his, and the girls
+had been enchanted by his singing; but the Contessa, though not so
+irreproachable, would have none of it. And Bice laughed freely at the
+young nobleman who had so much to bestow, and they both threw at him
+delicate little shafts of wit, which never pierced his stolid
+complacency, though he was quite quick withal to see the fun when other
+gentlemen looked at each other over the Contessa's shoulder, and burst
+into little peals of laughter at her little speeches about the Highton
+Grandmodes and other such exclusive houses. Montjoie knew all about La
+Forno-Populo. "But yet that little Bice," he said, "don't you know?" No
+one like her had come within Montjoie's ken. He knew all about the girls
+in blue or in pink or in white, who asked him to sing. But Bice, who
+laughed at his accomplishment and at himself, and was so saucy to him,
+and made fun of him, he allowed, to his face, that was very different.
+He described her in terms that were not chivalrous, and his own emotions
+in words still less ornate; but before the fortnight was over the best
+judges declared among themselves that, by Jove, the Forno-Populo had
+done it this time, that the little one knew how to play her cards, that
+it was all up with Montjoie, poor little beggar, with other elegances of
+a similar kind. The man who had taken the Contessa's house for her, and
+a great deal of trouble about all her arrangements, whom she described
+as a very old friend, and whose rueful sense that house-agents and
+livery stables might eventually look to him if she had no success in her
+enterprise did not impair his fidelity, went so far as to speak
+seriously to Montjoie on the subject. "Look here, Mont," he said, "don't
+you think you are going it rather too strong? There is not a thing
+against the girl, who is as nice as a girl can be, but then the aunt,
+you know----"
+
+"I'm glad she is the aunt," said Montjoie. "I thought she was the
+mother: and I always heard you were devoted to her."
+
+"We are very old friends," said this disinterested adviser. "There's
+nothing I would not do for her. She is the best soul out, and was the
+loveliest woman I can tell you--the girl is nothing to what she was.
+Aunt or cousin, I am not sure what is the relationship; but that's not
+the question. Don't you think you are coming it rather strong?"
+
+"Oh, I've got my wits about me," said Montjoie; and then he added,
+rather reluctantly--for it is the fashion of his kind to be vulgar and
+to keep what generosity or nobleness there is in them carefully out of
+sight--"and I've no relations, don't you know? I've got nobody to please
+but myself----"
+
+"Well, that is a piece of luck anyhow," the Mentor said; and he told the
+Contessa the gist of the conversation next morning, who was highly
+pleased by the news.
+
+The curious point in all this was that Bice had not the least objection
+to Montjoie. She was a clever girl and he was a stupid young man, but
+whether it was that her entirely unawakened heart had no share at all in
+the matter, or that her clear practical view of affairs influenced her
+sentiments as well as her mind, it is certain that she was quite pleased
+with her fate, and ready to embrace it without the least sense that it
+was a sacrifice or anything but the happiest thing possible. He amused
+her, as she had said to Jock. He made her laugh, most frequently at
+himself; but what did that matter? He had a kind of good looks, and that
+good nature which is the product of prosperity and well-being, and a
+sense of general superiority to the world. Perhaps the girl saw no man
+of a superior order to compare him with; but, as a matter of fact, she
+was perfectly satisfied with Montjoie. Mr. Derwentwater and Jock were
+more ridiculous to her than he was, and were less in harmony with
+everything she had previously known. Their work, their intellectual
+occupations, their cleverness and aspirations were out of her world
+altogether. The young man-about-town who had nothing to do but amuse
+himself, who was always "knocking about," as he said, whose business was
+pleasure, was the kind of being with whom she was acquainted. She had no
+understanding of the other kind. He who had been her comrade in the
+country, whose society had amused her there, and for whom she had a sort
+of half-condescending affection, was droll to her beyond measure, with
+his ambitions and great ideas as to what he was to do. He, too, made her
+laugh; but not as Montjoie did. She laughed, though this would have
+immeasurably surprised Jock, with much less sympathy than she had with
+the other, upon whom he looked with so much contempt. They were both
+silly to Bice,--silly as, in her strange experience, she thought it
+usual and natural for men to be,--but Montjoie's manner of being silly
+was more congenial to her than the other. He was more in tune with the
+life she had known. Hamburg, Baden, Wiesbaden, and all the other Bads,
+even Monaco, would have suited Montjoie well enough. The trade of
+pleasure-making has its affinities like every other, and a tramp on his
+way from fair to fair is more _en rapport_ with a duke than the world
+dreams of. Thus Bice found that the young English marquis, with more
+money than he knew how to spend, was far more like the elegant
+adventurer living on his wits, than all those intervening classes of
+society, to whom life is a more serious, and certainly a much less
+festive and costly affair. She understood him far better. And instead of
+being, as Lucy thought, a sacrifice, an unfortunate victim sold to a
+loveless marriage for the money and the advantages it would bring, Bice
+went on very gaily, her heart as unmoved as possible, to what she felt
+to be a most congenial fate.
+
+And they all waited for the 26th and the ball with growing excitement.
+It would decide many matters. It would settle what was to be the
+character of the Contessa's campaign. It might reintroduce her into
+society under better auspices than ever, or it might--but there was no
+need to foretell anything unpleasant. And very likely it would conclude
+at the same source as it began, Bice's triumph--a _debutante_ who was
+already the affianced bride of the young Marquis of Montjoie, the
+greatest _parti_ in the kingdom. The idea was like wine, and went to the
+Contessa's head.
+
+She had in this interval of excitement a brief little note from Lucy,
+which startled her beyond measure for the moment. It was to ask the
+exact names of Bice. "You shall know in a few days why I ask, but it is
+necessary they should be written down in full and exactly," Lucy said.
+The Contessa had half forgotten, in the new flood of life about her,
+what was in Lucy's power, and the further advantage that might come of
+their relations, and she did not think of this even now, but felt with
+momentary tremor as if some snare lay concealed under these simple
+words. After a moment's consideration, however, she wrote with a bold
+and flowing hand:
+
+     "SWEET LUCY--The child's name is Beatrice Ersilia. You cannot, I am
+     sure, mean her anything but good by such a question. She has not
+     been properly introduced, I know--I am fantastic, I loved the Bice,
+     and no more.
+
+                                                        "DARLING, A TE."
+
+This was signed with a cipher, which it was not very easy to make out--a
+little mystery which pleased the Contessa. She thus involved in a
+pleasant little uncertainty her own name, which nobody knew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE BALL.
+
+
+Lady Randolph's ball was one of the first of the season, and as it was
+the first ball she had ever given, and both Lucy and her husband were
+favourites in society, it was looked forward to as the forerunner of
+much excitement and pleasure, and with a freshness of interest and
+anticipation which, unless in April, is scarcely to be expected in town.
+The rooms in Park Lane, though there was nothing specially exquisite or
+remarkable in their equipment, were handsome and convenient. They formed
+a good background for the people assembled under their many lights
+without withdrawing the attention of any one from the looks, the
+dresses, the bright eyes, and jewels collected within, which, perhaps,
+after all, is an advantage in its way. And everybody who was in town was
+there, from the Duchess, upon whom the Contessa had designs of so
+momentous a character, down to those wandering young men-about-town who
+form the rank and file of the great world and fill up all the corners.
+There was, it is true, not much room to dance, but a bewildering amount
+of people, great names, fine toilettes, and beautiful persons.
+
+The Contessa timed her arrival at the most effective moment, when the
+rooms were almost full, but not yet crowded, and most of the more
+important guests had already arrived. It was just after the first
+greetings of people seeing each other for the first time were over, and
+an event of some kind was wanted. At such a moment princes and
+princesses are timed to arrive and bring the glory of the assembly to a
+climax. Lucy had no princess to honour her. But when out of the crowd
+round the doorway there were seen to emerge two beautiful and stately
+women unknown, the sensation was almost as great. One of them, who had
+the air of a Queen-Mother, was in dark dress studiously arranged to be a
+little older, a little more massive and magnificent than a woman of the
+Contessa's age required to wear (and which, accordingly, threw up all
+the more, though this, to do her justice, was a coquetry more or less
+unintentional, her unfaded beauty); and the other, an impersonation of
+youth, contemplated the world by her side with that open-eyed and
+sovereign gaze, proud and modest, but without any of the shyness or
+timidity of a _debutante_ which becomes a young princess in her own
+right. There was a general thrill of wonder and admiration wherever they
+were seen. Who were they, everybody asked? Though the name of the
+Forno-Populo was too familiarly known to a section of society, that is
+not to say that the ladies of Lucy's party, or even all the men had
+heard it bandied from mouth to mouth, or were aware that it had ever
+been received with less than respect: and the universal interest was
+spoiled only here and there in a corner by the laugh of the male
+gossips, who made little signs to each other, in token of knowing more
+than their neighbours. It was said among the more innocent that this was
+an Italian lady of distinction with her daughter or niece, and her
+appearance, if a little more marked and effective than an English lady's
+might have been, was thus fully explained and accounted for by the
+difference in manners and that inalienable dramatic gift, which it is
+common to believe in England, foreigners possess. No doubt their
+entrance was very dramatic. The way in which they contrasted and
+harmonised with each other was too studied for English traditions,
+which, in all circumstances, cling to something of the impromptu, an air
+of accidentalism. They were a spectacle in themselves as they advanced
+through the open central space, from which the ordinary guests
+instinctively withdrew to leave room for them. "Is it the Princess?"
+people asked, and craned their necks to see. It must at least be a
+German Serenity--the Margravine of Pimpernikel, the Hereditary Princess
+of Weissnichtwo--but more beautiful and graceful than English prejudice
+expects German ladies to be. Ah, Italian! that explained
+everything--their height, their grace, their dark beauty, their
+effective pose. The Latin races alone know how to arrange a spectacle in
+that easy way, how to produce themselves so that nobody could be
+unimpressed. There was a dramatic pause before them, a hum of excitement
+after they had passed. Who were they? Evidently the most distinguished
+persons present--the guests of the evening. Sir Tom, uneasy enough, and
+looking grave and preoccupied, which was so far from being his usual
+aspect, led them into the great drawing-room, where the Duchess, who had
+daughters who danced, had taken her place. He did not look as if he
+liked it, but the Contessa, for her part, looked round her with a
+radiant smile, and bowed very much as the Queen does in a state
+ceremonial to the people she knew. She performed a magnificent curtsey,
+half irony, half defiance, before the Dowager Lady Randolph, who looked
+on at this progress speechless. How Lucy could permit it; how Tom could
+have the assurance to do it; occupied the Dowager's thoughts. She had
+scarcely self-command to make a stiff sweep of recognition as the
+procession passed.
+
+The Duchess was at the upper end of the room, with all her daughters
+about her. Besides the younger ones who danced, there were two
+countesses supporting their mother. She was the greatest lady present,
+and she felt the dignity. But when she perceived the little opening that
+took place among the groups about, and, looking up, perceived the
+Contessa sweeping along in that regal separation, you might have blown
+her Grace away with a breath. Not only was the Duchess the most
+important person in the room, but her reception of the newcomer would be
+final, a sort of social life or death for the Contessa. But the
+supplicant approached with the air of a queen, while the arbiter of fate
+grew pale and trembled at the sight. If there was a tremor in her
+Grace's breast there was no less a tremor under the Contessa's velvet.
+But Madame di Forno-Populo had this great advantage, that she knew
+precisely what to do, and the Duchess did not know: she was fully
+prepared, and the Duchess taken by surprise: and still more that her
+Grace was a shy woman, whose intellect, such as it was, moved slowly,
+while the Contessa was very clever, and as prompt as lightning. She
+perceived at a glance that the less time the great lady had to think the
+better, and hastened forward for a step or two, hurrying her stately
+pace, "Ah, Duchess!" she said, "how glad I am to meet so old an
+acquaintance. And I want, above all things, to have your patronage for
+my little one. Bice--the Duchess, an old friend of my prosperous days,
+permits me to present you to her." She drew her young companion forward
+as she spoke, while the Duchess faltered and stammered a "How d'ye do?"
+and looked in vain for succour to her daughters, who were looking on.
+Then Bice showed her blood. It had not been set down in the Contessa's
+programme what she was to do, so that the action took her patroness by
+surprise, as well as the great lady whom it was so important to
+captivate. While the Duchess stood stiff and awkward, making a
+conventional curtsey against her will, and with a conventional smile on
+her mouth, Bice, with the air of a young princess, innocently, yet
+consciously superior to all her surroundings, suddenly stepped forward,
+and taking the Duchess's hand, bent her stately young head to kiss it.
+There was in the sudden movement that air of accident, of impulse, which
+we all love. It overcame all the tremors of the great lady. She said,
+"My dear!" in the excitement of the moment, and bent forward to kiss the
+cheek of this beautiful young creature, who was so deferential, so
+reverent in her young pride. And the Duchess's daughters did not
+disapprove! Still more wonderful than the effect on the Duchess was the
+effect upon these ladies, of whose criticisms their mother stood in
+dread. They drew close about the lovely stranger, and it immediately
+became apparent to the less important guests that the Italian ladies,
+the heroines of the evening, had amalgamated with the ducal party--as it
+was natural they should.
+
+Never had there been a more complete triumph. The Contessa stepped in
+and made hay while the sun shone. She waved off with a scarcely
+perceptible movement of her hand several of her intimates who would have
+gathered round her, and vouchsafed only a careless word to Montjoie, who
+had hastened to present himself. The work to which she devoted herself
+was the amusement of the Duchess, who was not, to tell the truth, very
+easily amused. But Madame di Forno-Populo had infinite resources, and
+she succeeded. She selected the Dowager Lady Randolph for her butt, and
+made fun of her so completely that her Grace almost exceeded the bounds
+of decorum in her laughter.
+
+"You must not, really; you must not--she is a great friend of mine," the
+Duchess said. But perhaps there was not much love between the two
+ladies. And thus by degrees the conversation was brought round to the
+Populina palace and the gay scenes so long ago.
+
+"You must have heard of our ruin," the Contessa said, looking full into
+the Duchess's face; "everybody has heard of that. I have been too poor
+to live in my own house. We have wandered everywhere, Bice and I. When
+one is proud it is more easy to be poor away from home. But we are in
+very high spirits to-day, the child and I," she added. "All can be put
+right again. My little niece has come into a fortune. She has made an
+inheritance. We received the news to-night only. That is how I have
+recovered my spirits--and to see you, Duchess, and renew the beautiful
+old times."
+
+"Oh, indeed!" the Duchess said, which was not much; but then she was a
+woman of few words.
+
+"Yes, we came to London very poor," said the Contessa. "What could I do?
+It was the moment to produce the little one. We have no Court. Could I
+seek for her the favour of the Piedmontese? Oh no! that was impossible.
+I said to myself she shall come to that generous England, and my old
+friends there will not refuse to take my Bice by the hand."
+
+"Oh no; I am sure not," said the Duchess.
+
+As for Bice she had long ere now set off with Montjoie, who had hung
+round her from the moment of her entrance into the room, and whose
+admiration had grown to such a height by the cumulative force of
+everybody else's admiration swelling into it, that he could scarcely
+keep within those bounds of compliment which are permitted to an adorer
+who has not yet acquired the right to be hyperbolical.
+
+"Oh yes, it's pretty enough: but you don't see half how pretty it is,
+for you can't see yourself, don't you know?" said this not altogether
+maladroit young practitioner. Bice gave him a smile like one of the
+Contessa's smiles, which said everything that was needful without giving
+her any trouble. But now that the effect of her entrance was attained,
+and all that dramatic business done with, the girl's soul was set upon
+enjoyment. She loved dancing as she loved every other form of rapid
+movement. The only drawback was that there was so little room. "Why do
+they make the rooms so small?" she said pathetically; a speech which was
+repeated from mouth to mouth like a witticism, as something so
+characteristic of the young Italian, w hose marble halls would never be
+overcrowded: though, as a matter of fact, Bice knew very little of
+marble halls.
+
+"Were you ever in the gallery at the Hall?" she asked. "To go from one
+end to the other, that was worth the while. It was as if one flew."
+
+"I never knew they danced down there," said Montjoie. "I thought it very
+dull, don't you know, till you appeared. If I had known you had dances,
+and fun going on, and other fellows cutting one out----"
+
+"There was but one other fellow," said Bice gravely. "I have seen in
+this country no one like him. Ah, why is he not here? He is more fun
+than any one, but better than fun. He is----"
+
+Montjoie's countenance was like a thunder-cloud big with fire and flame.
+
+"Trevor, I suppose you mean. I never thought that duffer could dance. He
+was a great sap at school, and a hideous little prig, giving himself
+such airs! But if you think all that of him----"
+
+"It was not Mr. Trevor," said Bice. Then catching sight of Lady Randolph
+at a little distance, she made a dart towards her on her partner's arm.
+
+"I am telling Lord Montjoie of my partner at the Hall," she said. "Ah,
+Milady, let him come and look! How he would clap his hands to see the
+lights and the flowers. But we could not have our gymnastique with all
+the people here."
+
+Lucy was very pale; standing alone, abstracted amid the gay crowd, as if
+she did not very well know where she was.
+
+"Baby? Oh, he is quite well, he is fast asleep," she said, looking up
+with dim eyes. And then there broke forth a little faint smile on her
+face. "You were always good to him," she said.
+
+"So it was the baby," said Montjoie, delighted. "What a one you are to
+frighten a fellow. If it had been Trevor I think I'd have killed him.
+How jolly of you to do gymnastics with that little beggar; he's
+dreadfully delicate, ain't he, not likely to live? But you're awfully
+cruel to me. You think no more of giving a wring to my heart than if it
+was a bit of rag. I think you'd like to see the blood come."
+
+"Let us dance," said Bice with great composure. She was bent upon
+enjoyment. She had not calculated upon any conversation. Indeed she
+objected to conversation on this point even when it did not interfere
+with the waltz. All could be settled much more easily by the Contessa,
+and if marriage was to be the end, that was a matter of business not
+adapted for a ballroom. She would not allow herself to be led away to
+the conservatory or any other retired nook such as Montjoie felt he must
+find for this affecting purpose. Bice did not want to be proposed to.
+She wanted to dance. She abandoned him for other partners without the
+slightest evidence of regret. She even accepted, when he was just about
+to seize upon her at the end of a dance, Mr. Derwentwater, preferring to
+dance the Lancers with him to the bliss of sitting out with Lord
+Montjoie. That forsaken one gazed at her with a consternation beyond
+words. To leave him and the proposal that was on his very lips for a
+square dance with a tutor! The young Marquis gazed after her as she
+disappeared with a certain awe. It could not be that she preferred
+Derwentwater. It must be her cleverness which he could not fathom, and
+some wonderful new system of Italian subtlety to draw a fellow on.
+
+"I like it better than standing still--I like it--enough," said Bice.
+"To dance, that is always something." Mr. Derwentwater also felt, like
+Lord Montjoie, that the young lady gave but little importance to her
+partner.
+
+"You like the rhythm, the measure, the woven paces and the waving
+hands," her companion said.
+
+Bice stared at him a little, not comprehending. "But you prefer," he
+continued, "like most ladies, the modern Bacchic dance, the whirl, the
+round, though what the old Puritans call promiscuous dancing of men and
+women together was not, I fear, Greek----"
+
+"I know nothing of the Greeks," said Bice. "Vienna is the best place for
+the valse, but Greek--no, we never were there."
+
+"I am thinking of classic terms," said MTutor with a smile, but he liked
+her all the better for not knowing. "We have in vases and in sculpture
+the most exquisite examples. You have never perhaps given your attention
+to ancient art? I cannot quite agree with Mr. Alma Tadema on that point.
+He is a great artist, but I don't think the wild leap of his dances is
+sanctioned by anything we possess."
+
+"Do not take wild leaps," said Bice, "but keep time. That is all you
+require in a quadrille. Why does every one laugh and go wrong. But it is
+a shame! One should not dance if one will not take the trouble. And why
+does _he_ not do anything?" she said, in the pause between two figures,
+suddenly coming in sight of Jock, who stood against the wall in their
+sight, following her about with eyes over which his brows were curved
+heavily; "he does not dance nor ride; he only looks on."
+
+"He reads," said Mr. Derwentwater. "The boy will be a great scholar if
+he keeps it up."
+
+"One cannot read in society," said Bice. "Now, you must remember, you go
+_that_ way; you do not come after me."
+
+"I should prefer to come after you. That is the heavenly way when one
+can follow such a leader. You remember what your own Dante----"
+
+"Oh!" murmured Bice, with a long sigh of impatience, "I have no Dante. I
+have a partner who will not give himself the pains--Now," she said, with
+an emphatic little pat of her foot and movement of her hands. Her soul
+was in the dance, though it was only the Lancers. With a slight line of
+annoyance upon her forehead she watched his performance, taking upon
+herself the responsibility, pushing him by his elbow when he went wrong,
+or leading him in the right way. Mr. Derwentwater had thought to carry
+off his mistakes with a laugh, but this was not Bice's way of thinking.
+She made him a little speech when the dance was over.
+
+"I think you are a great scholar too," she said; "but it will be well
+that you should not come forward again with a lady to dance the Lancers,
+for you cannot do it. And that will sometimes make a girl to have the
+air of being also awkward, which is not just."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater grew very red while this speech was making to him. He
+was a man of great and varied attainments, and had any one told him that
+he would blush about so trivial a matter as a Lancers----! But he grew
+very red and almost stammered as he said with humility, "I am afraid I
+am very deficient, but with you to guide me--Signorina, there is one
+divine hour which I never forget--when you sang that evening. May I
+call? May I see you for half an hour to-morrow?"
+
+"Oh," said Bice, with a deep-drawn breath, "here is some one else coming
+who does not dance very well! Talk to him about the Greek, and Lord
+Montjoie will take me. To-morrow! oh yes, with pleasure," she said as
+she took Montjoie's arm and darted away into the crowd. Montjoie was
+all glowing and radiant with pride and joy.
+
+"I thought I'd hang off and on and take my chance, don't you know? I
+thought you'd soon get sick of that sort. You and I go together like two
+birds. I have been watching you all this time, you and old Derwentwater.
+What was that he said about to-morrow? I want to talk about to-morrow
+too--unless, indeed to-night----"
+
+"Oh, Lord Montjoie," cried Bice, "dance! It was not to talk you came
+here, and you can dance better than you talk," she added, with that
+candour which distinguished her. And Montjoie flew away with her rushing
+and whirling. He could dance. It was almost his only accomplishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE BALL CONTINUED.
+
+
+Other eyes than those of her lovers followed Bice through this brilliant
+scene. Sir Tom had been living a strange stagnant life since that day
+before he left the Hall, when Lucy, innocently talking of Bice's English
+parentage, had suddenly roused him to the question--Who was Bice, and
+who her parents, English or otherwise? The suggestion was very sudden
+and very simple, conveying in it no intended hint or innuendo. But it
+came upon Sir Tom like a sudden thunderbolt, or rather like the firing
+of some train that had been laid and prepared for explosion. The tenor
+of his fears and suspicions has already been indicated. Nor has it ever
+been concealed from the reader of this history that there were incidents
+in Sir Tom's life upon which he did not look back with satisfaction, and
+which it would have grieved him much to have revealed to his wife in her
+simplicity and unsuspecting trust in him. One of these was a chapter of
+existence so long past as to be almost forgotten, yet unforgettable,
+which gave, when he thought of it, an instant meaning to the fact that a
+half-Italian girl of English parentage on one side should have been
+brought mysteriously, without warning or formal introduction, to his
+house by the Contessa. From that time, as has been already said, the
+disturbance in his mind was great. He could get no satisfaction one way
+or another. But to-night his uneasiness had taken a new and unexpected
+form. Should it so happen that Bice's identity with a certain poor baby,
+born in Tuscany seventeen years before, might some day be proved, what
+new cares, what new charge might it not place upon his shoulders? At
+such a thought Sir Tom held his very breath.
+
+The first result of such a possibility was, that he might find himself
+to stand in a relationship to the girl for whom he had hitherto had a
+careless liking and no more, which would change both his life and hers;
+and already he watched her with uneasy eyes and with a desire to
+interfere which bewildered him like a new light upon his own character.
+He could scarcely understand how he had taken it all so lightly before
+and interested himself so little in the fate of a young creature for
+whom it would not be well to be brought up according to the Contessa's
+canons, and follow her example in the world. He remembered, in the light
+of this new possibility, the levity with which he had received his
+wife's distress about Bice, and how lightly he had laughed at Lucy's
+horror as to the Contessa's ideas of marriage, and of what her
+_protegee_ was to do. He had said if they could catch any decent fellow
+with money enough it was the best thing that could happen to the girl,
+and that Bice would be no worse off than others, and that she herself,
+after the training she had gone through, was very little likely to have
+any delicacy on the subject. But when it had once occurred to him that
+the girl of whom he spoke so lightly might be his own child, an
+extraordinary change came over Sir Tom's views. He laughed no longer--he
+became so uneasy lest something should be done or said to affect Bice's
+good name, or throw her into evil hands, that his thoughts had circled
+unquietly round the house in Mayfair, and he had spent far more of his
+time there on the watch than he himself thought right. He knew very well
+the explanation that would be given of those visits of his, and he did
+not feel sure that some good-natured friends might not have already
+suggested suspicion to Lucy, who had certainly been very strange since
+their arrival in town. But he would not give up his watch, which was in
+a way, he said to himself, his duty, if---- He followed the girl's
+movements with disturbed attention, and would hurry into the Park to
+ride by her, to shut out an unsuitable cavalier, and make little
+lectures to her as to her behaviour with an embarrassed anxiety which
+Bice could not understand but which amused more than it benefited the
+Contessa, to whom this result of her mystification was the best fun in
+the world. But it was not amusing to Sir Tom. He regarded the society of
+men who gathered about the ladies with disgust. Montjoie was about the
+best--he was not old enough to be much more than silly--but even
+Montjoie was not a person whom he would himself choose to be closely
+connected with. Then came the question: If it should turn out that she
+was _that_ child, was it expedient that any one should know of it? Would
+it be better for her to be known as Sir Thomas Randolph's daughter, even
+illegitimate, or as the relative and dependent of the Forno-Populo? In
+the one case, her interests would have no guardian at all; in the other,
+what a shock it would give to his now-established respectability and the
+confidence all men had in him, to make such a connection known. Turning
+over everything in his thoughts, it even occurred to Sir Tom that it
+would be better for him to confess an early secret marriage, and thus
+save his own reputation and give to Bice a lawful standing ground. The
+poor young mother was dead long ago; there could be no harm in such an
+invention. Lucy could not be wounded by anything which happened so long
+before he ever saw her. And Bice would be saved from all stigma; if only
+it was Bice! if only he could be sure!
+
+But Sir Tom, whose countenance had not the habit of expressing anything
+but a large and humorous content, the careless philosophy of a happy
+temper and easy mind, was changed beyond description by the surging up
+of such thoughts. He became jealous and suspicious, watching Bice with a
+constant impulse to interfere, and even--while disregarding all the
+safeguards of his own domestic happiness for this reason--in his heart
+condemned the girl because she was not like Lucy, and followed her
+movements with a criticism which was as severe as that of the harshest
+moralist.
+
+Nobody in that lighthearted house could understand what had come over
+the good Sir Tom, not even the Contessa, who after a manner knew the
+reason, yet never imagined that the idea, which gave her a sort of
+malicious pleasure, would have led to such a result. Sir Tom had always
+been the most genial of hosts, but in his present state of mind even in
+this respect he was not himself. He kept his eye on Bice with a
+sternness of regard quite out of keeping with his character. If she
+should flirt unduly, if she began to show any of those arts which made
+the Contessa so fascinating, he felt, with a mingling of self-ridicule
+which tickled him in spite of his seriousness, that nothing could keep
+him from interposing. He had been charmed in spite of himself, even
+while he saw through and laughed at the Contessa's cunning ways; but to
+see them in a girl who might, for all he knew, have his own blood in her
+veins was a very different matter. He felt it was in him to interpose
+roughly, imperiously--and if he did so, would Bice care? She would turn
+upon him with smiling defiance, or perhaps ask what right had he to
+meddle in her affairs. Thus Sir Tom was so preoccupied that the change
+in Lucy, the effort she made to go through her necessary duties, the
+blotting out of all her simple kindness and brightness, affected him
+only dully as an element of the general confusion, and nothing more.
+
+But the Contessa, for her part, was radiant. She was victorious all
+along the line. She had received Lucy's note informing her of the
+provision she meant to make for Bice only that afternoon, and her heart
+was dancing with the sense of wealth, of money to spend and endless
+capability of pleasure. Whatever happened this was secure, and she had
+already in the first hour planned new outlays which would make Lucy's
+beneficence very little of a permanent advantage. But she said nothing
+of it to Bice, who might (who could tell, girls being at all times
+capricious) take into her little head that it was no longer necessary to
+encourage Montjoie, on whom at present she looked complacently enough as
+the probable giver of all that was best in life. This was almost enough
+for one day; but the Contessa fully believed in the proverb that there
+is nothing that succeeds like success, and had faith in her own
+fortunate star for the other events of the evening. And she had been
+splendidly successful. She had altogether vanquished the timid spirit of
+the Duchess, that model of propriety. Her entry upon the London world
+had been triumphant, and she had all but achieved the honours of the
+drawing-room. Unless the Lord Chamberlain should interfere, and why
+should he interfere? her appearance in the larger world of society would
+be as triumphant as in Park Lane. Her beautiful eyes were swimming in
+light, the glow of satisfaction and triumph. It fatigued her a little
+indeed to play the part of a virtuous chaperon, and stand or sit in one
+place all the evening, awaiting her _debutante_ between the dances,
+talking with the other virtuous ladies in the same exercise of patience,
+and smilingly keeping aloof from all participation at first hand in the
+scene which would have helped to amuse her indeed, but interfered with
+the fulfilment of her _role_. But she had internal happiness enough to
+make up to her for her self-denial. She would order that set of pearls
+for Bice and the emerald pendant for herself which had tempted her so
+much, to-morrow. And the Duchess was to present her, and probably this
+evening Montjoie would propose. Was it possible to expect in this world
+a more perfect combination of successes?
+
+Mr. Derwentwater went off somewhat discomfited to make a tour of the
+rooms after the remorseless address of Bice. He tried to smile at the
+mock severity of her judgment. He, no more than Montjoie, would believe
+that she meant only what she said. This accomplished man of letters and
+parts agreed, if in nothing else, in this, with the young fool of
+quality, that such extreme candour and plain speaking was some subtle
+Italian way of drawing an admirer on. He put it into finer words than
+Montjoie could command, and said to himself that it was that mysterious
+adorable feminine instinct which attracted by seeming to repel. And even
+on a more simple explanation it was comprehensible enough. A girl who
+attached so much importance to the accomplishments of society would
+naturally be annoyed by the failure in these of one to whom she looked
+up. A regret even moved his mind that he had not given more attention to
+them in earlier days. It was perhaps foolish to neglect our
+acquirements, which after all would not take very much trouble, and need
+only be brought forward, as Dogberry says, when there was no need for
+such vanities. He determined with a little blush at himself to note
+closely how other men did, and so be able another time to acquit himself
+to her satisfaction. And even her severity was sweet; it implied that he
+was not to her what other men were, that even in the more trifling
+accessories of knowledge she would have him to excel. If he had been
+quite indifferent to her, why should she have taken this trouble? And
+then that "To-morrow; with pleasure." What did it mean? That though she
+would not give him her attention to-night, being devoted to her dancing
+(which is what girls are brought up to in this strangely imperfect
+system), she would do so on the earliest possible occasion. He went
+about the room like a man in a dream, following everywhere with his eyes
+that vision of beauty, and looking forward to the next step in his
+life-drama with an intoxication of hope which he did not attempt to
+subdue. He was indeed pleased to experience a _grande passion_. It was a
+thing which completed the mental equipment of a man. Love--not humdrum
+household affection, such as is all that is looked for when the
+exigencies of life make a wife expedient, and with full calculation of
+all he requires the man sets out to look for her and marry her. This was
+very different, an all-mastering passion, disdainful of every obstacle.
+To-morrow! He felt an internal conviction that, though Montjoie might
+dance and answer for the amusement of an evening, that bright and
+peerless creature would not hesitate as to who should be her guide for
+life.
+
+It was while he was thus roaming about in a state of great excitement
+and a subdued ecstasy of anticipation, that he encountered Jock, who had
+not been enjoying himself at all. At this great entertainment Jock had
+been considered a boy, and no more. Even as a boy, had he danced there
+might have been some notice taken of him, but he was incapable in this
+way, and in no other could he secure any attention. At a party of a
+graver kind there were often people who were well enough pleased to talk
+to Jock, and from men who owed allegiance to his school a boy who had
+distinguished himself and done credit to the old place was always sure
+of notice. But then, though high up in Sixth Form, and capable of any
+eminence in Greek verse, he was nobody; while a fellow like Montjoie,
+who had never got beyond the rank of lower boy, was in the front of
+affairs, the admired of all admirers, Bice's chosen partner and
+companion. The mind develops with a bound when it has gone through such
+an experience. Jock stood with his back against the wall, and watched
+everything from under his eyebrows. Sometimes there was a glimmer as of
+moisture in those eyes, half veiled under eyelids heavily curved and
+puckered with wrath and pain, for he was very young, not much more than
+a child, notwithstanding his manhood. But what with a keenness of
+natural sight, and what with the bitter enlightening medium of that
+moisture, Jock saw the reality of the scene more clearly than Mr.
+Derwentwater, roaming about in his dream of anticipation, self-deceived,
+was capable of doing. He caught sight of Jock in his progress, and,
+though it was this sentiment which had separated them, its natural
+effect was also to throw them together. MTutor paused and took up a
+position by his pupil's side. "What a foolish scene considered
+philosophically," he said; "and yet how many human interests in
+solution, and floating adumbrations of human fate! I have been dancing,"
+Mr. Derwentwater continued, with some solemnity and a full sense of the
+superior position involved, "with, I verily believe, the most beautiful
+creature in the world."
+
+Jock looked up, fixing him with a critical, slightly cynical regard. He
+had been well aware of Mr. Derwentwater's very ineffective performance,
+and divined too clearly the sentiments of Bice not to feel all a
+spectator's derision for this uncalled-for self-complacency; but he made
+no remark.
+
+"There is nothing trivial in the exercise in such a combination. I
+incline to think that beauty is almost the greatest of all the
+spectacles that Nature sets before us. The effect she has upon us is
+greater than that produced by any other influence. You are perhaps too
+young to have your mind awakened on such a subject----"
+
+To hear this foolish wisdom pouring forth, while the listener felt at
+every breath how his own bosom thrilled with an emotion too deep to be
+put into words, with a passion, hopeless, ridiculous, to which no one
+would accord any sympathy or comment but a laugh! Heaven and earth! and
+all because a fellow was some dozen years older, thinking himself a man,
+and you only a boy!
+
+"----but you have a fine intelligence, and it can never be amiss for you
+to approach a great subject on its most elevated side. She is not much
+older than you are, Jock."
+
+"She is not so old as I am. She is three months younger than I am,"
+cried Jock, in his gruffest voice.
+
+"And yet she is a revelation," said Mr. Derwentwater. "I feel that I am
+on the eve of a great crisis in my being. You have always been my
+favourite, my friend, though you are so much younger; and in this I feel
+we are more than ever sympathetic. Jock, to-morrow--to-morrow I am to
+see her, to tell her---- Come out on the balcony, there is no one there,
+and the moonlight and the pure air of night are more fit for such heart
+opening than this crowded scene."
+
+"What are you going to tell her?" said Jock, with his eyebrows meeting
+over his eyes and his back against the wall. "If you think she'll listen
+to what you tell her! She likes Montjoie. It is not that he's rich and
+that, but she likes him, don't you know, better than any of us. Oh, talk
+about mysteries," cried Jock, turning his head away, conscious of that
+moisture which half-blinded him, but which he could not get rid of, "how
+can you account for that? She likes him, that fellow, better than either
+you or me!"
+
+Better than Jock; far better than this man, his impersonation of noble
+manhood, whom the most levelling of all emotions, the more than Red
+Republican Love, had suddenly brought down to, nay, below, Jock's
+level--for not only was he a fool like Jock, but a hopeful fool, while
+Jock had penetrated the fulness of despair, and dismissed all illusion
+from his youthful bosom. The boy turned his head away, and the voice
+which he had made so gruff quavered at the end. He felt in himself at
+that moment all the depths of profound and visionary passion, something
+more than any man ever was conscious of who had an object and a hope.
+The boy had neither; he neither hoped to marry her nor to get a hearing,
+nor even to be taken seriously. Not even the remorse of a serious
+passion rejected, the pain of self-reproach, the afterthought of pity
+and tenderness would be his. He would get a laugh, nothing more. That
+schoolboy, that brother of Lady Randolph's, who does not leave school
+for a year! He knew what everybody would say. And yet he loved her
+better than any one of them! MTutor startled, touched, went after him as
+Jock turned away, and linking his arm in his, said something of the
+kind which one would naturally say to a boy. "My dear fellow, you don't
+mean to tell me----? Come, Jock! This is but your imagination that
+beguiles you. The heart has not learned to speak so soon," MTutor said,
+leaning upon Jock's shoulder. The boy turned upon him with a fiery glow
+in his eyes.
+
+"What were you saying about dancing?" he said. "They seem to be making
+up that Lancers business again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+NEXT MORNING.
+
+
+"You have news to tell me, Bice mia?"
+
+There was a faint daylight in the streets, a blueness of dawn as the
+ladies drove home.
+
+"Have I? I have amused myself very much. I am not fatigued, no. I could
+continue as long--as long as you please," Bice answered, who was sitting
+up in her corner with more bloom than at the beginning of the evening,
+her eyes shining, a creature incapable of fatigue. The Contessa lay back
+in hers, with a languor which was rather adapted to her _role_ as a
+chaperon than rendered necessary by the fatigue she felt. If she had not
+been amused, she was triumphant, and this supplied a still more
+intoxicating exhilaration than that of mere pleasure.
+
+"Darling!" she said, in her most expressive tone. She added a few
+moments after, "But Lord Montjoie! He has spoken? I read it in his
+face----"
+
+"Spoken? He said a great deal--some things that made me laugh, some
+things that were not amusing. After all he is perhaps a little stupid,
+but to dance there is no one like him!"
+
+"And you go together--to perfection----"
+
+"Ah!" said Bice, with a long breath of pleasure, "when the people began
+to go away, when there was room! Certainly we deserted our other
+partners, both he and I. Does that matter in London? He says No."
+
+"Not, my angel, if you are to marry."
+
+"That was what he said," said Bice, with superb calm. "Now, I remember
+that was what he said; but I answered that I knew nothing of
+affairs--that it was to dance I wanted, not to talk; and that it was
+you, Madama, who disposed of me. It seemed to amuse him," the girl said
+reflectively. "Is it for that reason you kiss me? But it was he that
+spoke, as you call it, not I."
+
+"You are like a little savage," cried the Contessa. "Don't you care then
+to make the greatest marriage, to win the prize, to settle everything
+with no trouble, before you are presented or anything has been done at
+all?"
+
+"Is it settled then?" said Bice. She shrugged her shoulders a little
+within her white cloak. "Is that all?--no more excitement, nothing to
+look forward to, no tr-rouble? But it would have been more amusing if
+there had been a great deal of tr-rouble," the girl said.
+
+This was in the blue dawn, when the better portion of the world which
+does not go to balls was fast asleep, the first pioneers of day only
+beginning to stir about the silent streets, through which now and then
+the carriage of late revellers like themselves darted abrupt with a
+clang that had in it something of almost guilt. Twelve hours after, the
+Contessa in her boudoir--with not much more than light enough to see the
+flushed and happy countenance of young Montjoie, who had been on thorns
+all the night and morning with a horrible doubt in his mind lest, after
+all, Bice's careless reply might mean nothing more than that fine system
+of drawing a fellow on--settled everything in the most delightful way.
+
+"Nor is she without a sou, as perhaps you think. She has something that
+will not bear comparison with your wealth, yet something--which has been
+settled upon her by a relation. The Forno-Populi are not rich--but
+neither are they without friends."
+
+Montjoie listened to this with a little surprise and impatience. He
+scarcely believed it, for one thing; and when he was assured that all
+was right as to Bice herself, he cared but little for the Forno-Populi.
+"I don't know anything about the sous. I have plenty for both," he said,
+"that had a great deal better go to you, don't you know. She is all I
+want. Bice! oh that's too foreign. I shall call her Bee, for she must be
+English, don't you know, Countess, none of your Bohem--Oh, I don't mean
+that; none of your foreign ways. They draw a fellow on, but when it's
+all settled and we're married and that sort of thing, she'll have to be
+out and out English, don't you know?"
+
+"But that is reasonable," said the Contessa, who could when it was
+necessary reply very distinctly. "When one has a great English name and
+a position to keep up, one must be English. You shall call her what you
+please."
+
+"There's one thing more," Montjoie said with a little redness and
+hesitation, but a certain dogged air, with which the Contessa had not as
+yet made acquaintance. "It's best to understand each other, don't you
+know; it's sort of hard-hearted to take her right away. But, Countess,
+you're a woman of the world, and you know a fellow must start fair. You
+keep all those sous you were talking of, and just let us knock along our
+own way. I don't want the money, and I dare say you'll find a use for
+it. And let's start fair; it'll be better for all parties, don't you
+know," the young man said. He reddened, but he met the Contessa's eye
+unflinchingly, though the effort to respond to this distinct statement
+in the spirit in which it was made cost her a struggle. She stared at
+him for a moment across the dainty little table laden with knick-knacks.
+It was strange in the moment of victory to receive such a sudden
+decisive defeat. There was just a possibility for a moment that this
+brave spirit should own itself mere woman, and break down and cry. For
+one second there was a quiver on her lip; then she smiled, which for
+every purpose was the better way.
+
+"You would like," she said, "to see Bice. She is in the little
+drawing-room. The lawyers will settle the rest; but I understand your
+suggestion, Lord Montjoie." She rose with all her natural stately grace,
+which made the ordinary young fellow feel very small in spite of
+himself. The smile she gave him had something in it that made his knees
+knock together.
+
+"I hope," he said, faltering, "you don't mind, Countess. My people,
+though I've not got any people to speak of, might make themselves
+disagreeable about--don't you know? you--you're a woman of the world."
+
+The Contessa smiled upon him once more with dazzling sweetness. "She is
+in the little drawing-room," she said.
+
+And so it was concluded, the excitement, the tr-rouble, as Bice said; it
+would have been far more amusing if there had been a great deal more
+tr-rouble. The Contessa dropped down in the corner of the sofa from
+which she had risen. She closed her eyes for the moment, and swallowed
+the affront that had been put upon her, and what was worse than the
+affront, the blow at her heart which this trifling little lord had
+delivered without flinching. This was to be the end of her schemes, that
+she was to be separated summarily and remorselessly from the child she
+had brought up. The Contessa knew, being of the same order of being,
+that, already somewhat disappointed to find the ardour of the chase over
+and all the excitement of bringing down the quarry, Bice, who cared
+little more about Montjoie than about any other likely person, would be
+as ready as not to throw him off if she were to communicate rashly the
+conditions on which he insisted. But, though she was of the same order
+of being, the Contessa was older and wiser. She had gone through a great
+many experiences. She knew that rich young English peers, marquises,
+uncontrolled by any parent or guardians, were fruit that did not grow on
+every bush, and that if this tide of fortune was not taken at its flood
+there was no telling when another might come. Now, though Bice was so
+dear, the Contessa had still a great many resources of her own, and was
+neither old nor tired of life. She would make herself a new career even
+without Bice, in which there might still be much interest--especially
+with the aid of a settled income. The careless speech about the sous was
+not without an eloquence of its own. Sous make everything that is
+disagreeable less disagreeable, and everything that is pleasant more
+pleasant. And she had got her triumph. She had secured for her Bice a
+splendid lot. She had accomplished what she had vowed to do, which many
+scoffers had thought she would never do. She was about to be presented
+at the English Court, and all her soils and spots from the world cleared
+from her, and herself rehabilitated wherever she might go. Was it
+reasonable then to break her heart over Montjoie and his miserable
+conditions? He could not separate Bice's love from her, though he might
+separate their lives--and that about the sous was generous. She was not
+one who would have sold her affections or given up anybody whom she
+loved for money. But still there were many things to be said, and for
+Bice's advantage what would she not do? The Contessa ended by a
+resolution which many a better woman would not have had the courage to
+make. She buried Montjoie's condition in her own heart--never to hint
+its existence--to ignore it as if it had not been. Many a more
+satisfactory person would have flinched at this. Most of us would at
+least have allowed the object of our sacrifice to be aware what we were
+doing for them. The Contessa did not even, so far as this, yield to the
+temptation of fate.
+
+In the meantime Bice had gone through her own little episode. Mr.
+Derwentwater came about noon, before the Contessa was up; but he did not
+know the Contessa's habits, and he was admitted, which neither Montjoie
+nor any of the Contessa's friends would have been. He was overjoyed to
+find the lady of his affections alone. This made everything, he thought,
+simple and easy for him, and filled him with a delightful confidence
+that she was prepared for the object of his visit and had contrived to
+keep the Contessa out of the way. His heart was beating high, his mind
+full of excitement. He took the chair she pointed him to, and then got
+up again, poising his hat between his hands.
+
+"Signorina," he said, "they say that a woman always knows the impression
+she has made."
+
+"Why do you call me Signorina?" said Bice. "Yes, it is quite right. But
+then it is so long that I have not heard it, and it is only you that
+call me so."
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Derwentwater, with a little natural complacency,
+"others are not so well acquainted with your beautiful country and
+language. What should I call you? Ah, I know what I should like to call
+you. _Beatrice, loda di deo vera._ You are like the supreme and sovran
+lady whom every one must think of who hears your name."
+
+Bice looked at him with a half-comic attention. "You are a very learned
+man," she said, "one can see that. You always say something that is
+pretty, that one does not understand."
+
+This piqued the suitor a little and brought the colour to his cheek.
+"Teach me," he said, "to make you understand me. If I could show you my
+heart, you would see that from the first moment I saw you the name of
+Bice has been written----"
+
+"Oh, I know it already," cried Bice, "that you have a great devotion for
+poetry. Unhappily I have no education. I know it so very little. But I
+have found out what you mean about Bice. It is more soft than you say
+it. There is no sound of _tch_ in it at all. Beeshe, like that. Your
+Italian is very good," she added, "but it is Tuscan, and the _bocca
+romana_ is the best."
+
+Mr. Derwentwater was more put out than it became a philosopher to be. "I
+came," he cried, with a kind of asperity, "for a very different purpose,
+not to be corrected in my Italian. I came----" but here his feelings
+were too strong for him, "to lay my life and my heart at your feet. Do
+you understand me now? To tell you that I love you--no, that is not
+enough, it is not love, it is adoration," he said. "I have never known
+what it meant before. However fair women might be, I have passed them
+by; my heart has never spoken. But now! Since the first moment I saw
+you, Bice----"
+
+The girl rose up; she became a little alarmed. Emotion was strange to
+her, and she shrank from it. "I have given," she said, "to nobody
+permission to call me by my name."
+
+"But you will give it to me! to your true lover," he cried. "No one can
+admire and adore you as much as I do. It was from the first moment.
+Bice, oh, listen! I have nothing to offer you but love, the devotion of
+a life. What could a king give more? A true man cannot think of anything
+else when he is speaking to the woman he loves. Nothing else is worthy
+to offer you. Bice, I love you! I love you! Have you nothing, nothing in
+return to say to me?"
+
+All his self-importance and intellectual superiority had abandoned him.
+He was so much agitated that he saw her but dimly through the mists of
+excitement and passion. He stretched out his hands appealing to her. He
+might have been on his knees for anything he knew. It seemed incredible
+to him that his strong passion should have no return.
+
+"Have you nothing, nothing to say to me?" he cried.
+
+Bice had been frightened, but she had regained her composure. She looked
+on at this strange exhibition of feeling with the wondering calm of
+extreme youth. She was touched a little, but more surprised than
+anything else. She said, with a slight tremor, "I think it must be all a
+mistake. One is never so serious--oh, never so serious! It is not
+something of--gravity like that. Did not you know? I am intended to make
+a marriage--to marry well, very well--what you call a great marriage. It
+is for that I am brought here. The Contessa would never listen--Oh, it
+is a mistake altogether--a mistake! You do not know what is my career.
+It has all been thought of since I was born. Pray, pray, go away, and do
+not say any more."
+
+"Bice," he cried, more earnestly than ever, "I know. I heard that you
+were to be sacrificed. Who is the lady who is going to sacrifice you to
+Mammon? she is not your mother; you owe her no obedience. It is your
+happiness, not hers, that is at stake. And I will preserve you from her.
+I will guard you like my own soul; the winds of heaven shall not visit
+your cheek roughly. I will cherish you; I will adore you. Come, only
+come to me."
+
+His voice was husky with emotion; his last words were scarcely audible,
+said within his breath in a high strain of passion which had got beyond
+his control. The contrast between this tremendous force of feeling and
+her absolute youthful calm was beyond description. It was more wonderful
+than anything ever represented on the tragic stage. Only in the depth
+and mystery of human experience could such a wonderful juxtaposition be.
+
+"Mr. Derwentwater," she said, trembling a little, "I cannot understand
+you. Go away, oh, go away!"
+
+"Bice!"
+
+"Go away, oh, go away! I am not able to bear it; no one is ever so
+serious. I am not great enough, nor old enough. Don't you know," cried
+Bice, with a little stamp of her foot, "I like the other way best? Oh,
+go away, go away!"
+
+He stood quiet, silently gazing at her till he had regained his power of
+speech, which was not for a moment or two. Then he said hoarsely, "You
+like--the other way best?"
+
+She clasped her hands together with a mingling of impatience and wonder
+and rising anger. "I am made like that," she cried. "I don't know how to
+be so serious. Oh, go away from me. You tr-rouble me. I like the other
+best."
+
+He never knew how he got out of the strange, unnatural atmosphere of the
+house in which he seemed to leave his heart behind him. The perfumes,
+the curtains, the half lights, the blending draperies, were round him
+one moment; the next he found himself in the greenness of the Park, with
+the breeze blowing in his face, and his dream ended and done with.
+
+He had a kind of vision of having touched the girl's reluctant hand, and
+even of having seen a frightened look in her eyes as if he had awakened
+some echo or touched some string whose sound was new to her. But if that
+were so, it was not he, but only some discovery of unknown feeling that
+moved her. When he came to himself, he felt that all the innocent
+morning people in the Park, the children with their maids, the sick
+ladies and old men sunning themselves on the benches, the people going
+about their honest business, cast wondering looks at his pale face and
+the agitation of his aspect. He took a long walk, he did not know how
+long, with that strange sense that something capital had happened to
+him, something never to be got over or altered, which follows such an
+incident in life. He was even conscious by and by, habit coming to his
+aid, of a curious question in his mind if this was how people usually
+felt after such a wonderful incident--a thing that had happened quite
+without demonstration, which nobody could ever know of, yet which made
+as much change in him as if he had been sentenced to death. Sentenced to
+death! that was what it felt like more or less. It had happened, and
+could never be undone, and he walked away and away, but never got beyond
+it, with the chain always round his neck. When he got into the streets
+where nobody took any notice of him, it struck him with surprise, almost
+offence. Was it possible that they did not see that something had
+happened--a mystery, something that would never be shaken off but with
+life?
+
+He met Jock as he walked, and without stopping gave him a sort of
+ghastly smile, and said, "You were right; she likes that best," and went
+on again, with a sense that he might go on for ever like the wandering
+Jew, and never get beyond the wonder and the pain.
+
+And there is no doubt that Bice was glad to hear Montjoie's laugh, and
+the nonsense he talked, and to throw off that sudden impression which
+had frightened her. What was it? Something which was in life, but which
+she had not met with before. "We are to have it all our own way, don't
+you know?" Montjoie said. "I have no people, to call people, and she is
+not going to interfere. We shall have it all our own way, and have a
+good time, as the Yankees say. And I am not going to call you Bice,
+which is a silly sort of name, and spells quite different from its
+pronunciation. What are you holding back for? You have no call to be shy
+with me now. Bee, you belong to me now, don't you know?" the young
+fellow said, with demonstrations from which Bice shrunk a little. She
+liked, yes, his way; but, but yet--she was perhaps a little savage, as
+the Contessa said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+THE LAST BLOW.
+
+
+Lucy stood out stoutly to the last gasp. She did not betray herself,
+except by the paleness, the seriousness which she could not banish from
+her countenance. Her guests thought that Lady Randolph must be ill, that
+she was disguising a bad headache, or even something more serious, under
+the smile with which she received them. "I am sure you ought to be in
+bed," the older ladies said, and when they took their leave of her,
+after their congratulations as to the success of the evening, they all
+repeated this in various tones. "I am sure you are quite worn out; I
+shall send in the morning to ask how you are," the Duchess said. Lucy
+listened to everything with a smile which was somewhat set and painful.
+She was so worn out with emotion and pain that at last neither words nor
+looks made much impression upon her. She saw the Contessa and Bice
+stream by to their carriage with a circle of attendants, still in all
+the dazzle and flash of their triumph; and after that the less important
+crowd, the insignificant people who lingered to the last, the girls who
+would not give up a last waltz, and the men who returned for a final
+supper, swam in her dazed eyes. She stood at the door mechanically
+shaking hands and saying "Good-night." The Dowager, moved by curiosity,
+anxiety, perhaps by pity, kept by her till a late hour, though Lucy was
+scarcely aware of it. When she went away at last, she repeated with
+earnestness and a certain compunction the advice of the other ladies.
+"You don't look fit to stand," she said. "If you will go to bed I will
+wait till all these tiresome people are gone. You have been doing too
+much, far too much." "It does not matter," Lucy said, in her
+semi-consciousness hearing her own voice like something in a dream. "Oh,
+my dear, I am quite unhappy about you!" Lady Randolph cried. "If you are
+thinking of what I told you, Lucy, perhaps it may not be true." There
+was a bevy of people going away at that moment, and she had to shake
+hands with them. She waited till they were gone and then turned, with a
+laugh that frightened the old lady, towards her.
+
+"You should have thought of that before," she said. Perhaps it might not
+be true! Can heaven be veiled and the pillars of the earth pulled down
+by a perhaps? The laugh sounded even to herself unnatural, and the elder
+Lady Randolph was frightened by it, and stole away almost without
+another word. When everybody was gone Sir Tom stood by her in the
+deserted rooms, with all the lights blazing and the blue day coming in
+through the curtains, as grave and as pale as she was. They did not look
+like the exhausted yet happy entertainers of the (as yet) most
+successful party of the season. Lucy could scarcely stand and could not
+speak at all, and he seemed little more fit for those mutual
+congratulations, even the "Thank heaven it is well over," with which the
+master and the mistress of the house usually salute each other in such
+circumstances. They stood at different ends of the room, and made no
+remark. At last, "I suppose you are going to bed," Sir Tom said. He came
+up to her in a preoccupied way. "I shall go and smoke a cigar first, and
+it does not seem much good lighting a candle for you." They both looked
+somewhat drearily at the daylight, now no longer blue, but rosy. Then
+he laid his hand upon her shoulder. "You are dreadfully tired, Lucy, and
+I think there has been something the matter with you these few days. I'd
+ask you what it was, but I'm dead beat, and you are dreadfully tired
+too." He stopped and kissed her forehead, and took her hand in his in a
+sort of languid way. "Good-night; go to bed my poor little woman," he
+said.
+
+It is terrible to be wroth with those we love. Anger against them is
+deadly to ourselves. It "works like madness in the brain;" it involves
+heaven and earth in a gloom that nothing can lighten. But when that
+anger being just, and such as we must not depart from, is crossed by
+those unspeakable relentings, those quick revivals of love, those sudden
+touches of tenderness that carry all before them, what anguish is equal
+to those bitter sweetnesses? Lucy felt this as she stood there with her
+husband's hand upon her shoulder, in utter fatigue, and broken down in
+all her faculties. Through all those dark and bitter mists which rose
+about her, his voice broke like a ray of light: her timid heart sprang
+up in her bosom and went out to him with an _abandon_ which, but for the
+extreme physical fatigue which produces a sort of apathy, must have
+broken down everything. For a moment she swayed towards him as if she
+would have thrown herself upon his breast.
+
+When this movement comes to both the estranged persons, there follows a
+clearing away of difficulties, a revolution of the heart, a
+reconciliation when that is possible, and sometimes when it is not
+possible. But it very seldom happens that this comes to both at the same
+time. Sir Tom remained unmoved while his wife had that sudden access of
+reawakened tenderness. He was scarcely aware even how far she had been
+from him, and now was quite unaware how near. His mind was full of cares
+and doubts, and an embarrassing situation which he could not see how to
+manage. He was not even aware that she was moved beyond the common. He
+took his hand from her shoulder, and without another word let her go
+away.
+
+Oh, those other words that are never spoken! They are counterbalanced in
+the record of human misfortune by the many other words which are too
+much, which should never have been spoken at all. Thus all explanation,
+all ending of the desperate situation, was staved off for another night.
+
+Lucy woke next morning in a kind of desperation. No new event had
+happened, but she could not rest. She felt that she must do something or
+die, and what could she do? She spent the early morning in the nursery,
+and then went out. This time she was reasonable, not like that former
+time when she went out to the city. She knew very well now that nothing
+was to be gained by walking or by jolting in a disagreeable cab. On the
+former occasion that had been something of a relief to her; but not now.
+It is scarcely so bad when some out-of-the-way proceeding like this,
+some strange thing to be done, gives the hurt and wounded spirit a
+little relief. She had come to the further stage now when she knew that
+nothing of the sort could give any relief; nothing but mere dull
+endurance, going on, and no more. She drove to Mr. Chervil's office
+quietly, as she might have gone anywhere, and thus, though it seems
+strange to say so, betrayed a deeper despair than before. She took with
+her a list of names with sums written opposite. There was enough there
+put down to make away with a large fortune. This one so much, that one
+so much. This too was an impulse of the despair in her mind. She was
+carrying out her father's will in a lump. It meant no exercise of
+discrimination, no careful choice of persons to be benefited, such as he
+had intended, but only a hurried rush at a duty which she had neglected,
+a desire to be done with it. Lucy was on the eve, she felt, of some
+great change in her life. She could not tell what she might be able to
+do after; whether she should live through it or bring her mind and
+memory unimpaired through it, or think any longer of anything that had
+once been her duty. She would get it done while she could. She was very
+sensible that the money she had given to Bice was not in accordance with
+what her father would have wished: neither were these perhaps. She could
+not tell, she did not care. At least it would be done with, and could
+not be done over again.
+
+"Lady Randolph," said Mr. Chervil, in dismay, "have you any idea of the
+sum you are--throwing away?"
+
+"I have no idea of any sum," said Lucy, gently, "except just the money I
+spend, so much in my purse. But you have taught me how to calculate, and
+that so much would--make people comfortable. Is not that what you said?
+Well, if it was not you, it was--I do not remember. When I first got the
+charge of this into my hands----"
+
+"Lady Randolph, you cannot surely think what you are doing. At the
+worst," said the distressed trustee, "this was meant to be a fund
+for--beneficence all your life: not to be squandered away, thousands and
+thousands in a day----"
+
+"Is it squandered when it gives comfort--perhaps even happiness? And
+how do you know how long my life may last? It may be over--in a day----"
+
+"You are ill," said the lawyer. "I thought so the moment I saw you. I
+felt sure you were not up to business to-day."
+
+"I don't think I am ill," said Lucy; "a little tired, for I was late
+last night--did not you know we had a ball, a very pretty ball?" she
+added, with a curious smile, half of gratification, half of mockery. "It
+was a strange thing to have, perhaps, just--at this moment."
+
+"A very natural thing," said Mr. Chervil. "I am glad to know it; you are
+so young, Lady Randolph, pardon me for saying so."
+
+"It was not for me," said Lucy; "it was for a young lady--my
+husband's----"
+
+Was she going out of her senses? What was she about to say?
+
+"A relation?" said Mr. Chervil. "Perhaps the young lady for whom you
+interested yourself so much in a more important way? They are fortunate,
+Lady Randolph, who have you for a friend."
+
+"Do you think so? I don't know that any one thinks so." She recovered
+herself a little and pointed to the papers. "You will carry that out,
+please. I may be going away. I am not quite sure of my movements. As
+soon as you can you will carry this out."
+
+"Going away--at the beginning of the season!"
+
+"Oh, there is nothing settled; and besides you know life--life is very
+insecure."
+
+"At your age it is very seldom one thinks so," said the lawyer, at which
+she smiled only, then rose up, and without any further remark went away.
+He saw her to her carriage, not now with any recollection of the
+pleasant show and the exhibition of so fine a client to the admiration
+of his neighbours. He had a heart after all, and daughters of his own;
+and he was troubled more than he could say. He stood bare-headed and saw
+her drive away, with a look of anxiety upon his face. Was it the same
+bee in her bonnet which old Trevor had shown so conspicuously? was it
+eccentricity verging upon madness? He went back to his office and wrote
+to Sir Tom, enclosing a copy of Lucy's list. "I must ask your advice in
+the matter instead of offering you mine," he wrote. "Lady Randolph has a
+right, of course, if she chooses to press matters to an extremity, but I
+can't fancy that this is right."
+
+Lucy went home still in the same strange excitement of mind. All had
+been executed that was in her programme. She had gone through it without
+flinching. The ball--that strange, frivolous-tragic effort of
+despair--it was over, thank heaven! and Bice had got full justice in
+her--was it in her--father's house? She could not have been introduced
+to greater advantage, Lucy thought, with a certain forlorn, simple
+pride, had she been Sir Tom's acknowledged daughter. Oh, not to so much
+advantage! for the Contessa, her guardian, her----was far more skilful
+than Lucy ever could have been. Bice had got her triumph; nothing had
+been neglected. And the other business was in train--the disposing of
+the money. She had made her wishes fully known, and even taken great
+trouble, calculating and transcribing to prevent any possibility of a
+mistake. And now, now the moment had come, the crisis of life when she
+must tell her husband what she had heard, and say to him that this
+existence could not go on any longer. A man could not have two lives.
+She did not mean to upbraid him. What good would it do to upbraid? none,
+none at all; that would not make things as they were again, or return
+to her him whom she had lost. She had not a word to say to him, except
+that it was impossible--that it could not go on any more.
+
+To think that she should have this to say to him made everything dark
+about her as Lucy went home. She felt as if the world must come to an
+end to-night. All was straightforward, now that the need of
+self-restraint was over. She contemplated no delay or withdrawal from
+her position. She went in to accomplish this dark and miserable
+necessity like a martyr going to the cross. She would go and see baby
+first, who was his boy as well as hers. Sir Tom no doubt would be in his
+library, and would come out for luncheon after a while, but not until
+she had spoken. But first she would go, just for a little needful
+strength, and kiss her boy.
+
+Fletcher met her at the head of the stairs.
+
+"Oh, if you please, my lady--not to hurry you or frighten you--but nurse
+says please would you step in and look at baby."
+
+Suddenly, in a moment, Lucy's whole being changed. She forgot
+everything. Her languor disappeared and her fatigue. She sprang up to
+where the woman was standing. "What is it? is he ill? Is it the old----"
+She hurried along towards the nursery as she spoke.
+
+"No, my lady, nothing he has had before; but nurse thinks he looks--oh,
+my lady, there will be nothing to be frightened about--we have sent for
+the doctor."
+
+Lucy was in the room where little Tom was, before Fletcher had finished
+what she was saying. The child was seated on his nurse's knee. His eyes
+were heavy, yet blazing with fever. He was plucking with his little hot
+hands at the woman's dress, flinging himself about her, from one arm,
+from one side to the other. When he saw his mother he stretched out
+towards her. Just eighteen months old; not able to express a thought;
+not much, you will say, perhaps, to change to a woman the aspect of
+heaven and earth. She took him into her arms without a word, and laid
+her cheek--which was so cool, fresh with the morning air, though her
+heart was so fevered and sick--against the little cheek, which burned
+and glowed. "What is it? Can you tell what it is?" she said in a whisper
+of awe. Was it God Himself who had stepped in--who had come to
+interfere?
+
+Then the baby began to wail with that cry of inarticulate suffering
+which is the most pitiful of all the utterances of humanity. He could
+not tell what ailed him. He looked with his great dazed eyes pitifully
+from one to another as if asking them to help him.
+
+"It is the fever, my lady," said the nurse. "We have sent for the
+doctor. It may not be a bad attack."
+
+Lucy sat down, her limbs failing her, her heart failing her still more,
+her bonnet and out-door dress cumbering her movements, the child tossing
+and restless in her arms. This was not the form his ailments had ever
+taken before. "Do you know what is to be done? Tell me what to do for
+him," she said.
+
+There was a kind of hush over all the house. The servants would not
+admit that anything was wrong until their mistress should come home. As
+soon as she was in the nursery and fully aware of the state of affairs,
+they left off their precautions. The maids appeared on the staircases
+clandestinely as they ought not to have done. Mrs. Freshwater herself
+abandoned her cosy closet, and declared in an impressive voice that no
+bell must be rung for luncheon--nor anything done that could possibly
+disturb the blessed baby, she said as she gave the order. And Williams
+desired to know what was preparing for Mr. Randolph's dinner, and
+announced his intention of taking it up himself. The other meal, the
+lunch, in the dining-room, was of no importance to any one. If he could
+take his beef-tea it would do him good, they all said.
+
+It seemed as if a long time passed before the doctor came; from Sir Tom
+to the youngest kitchen-wench, the scullery-maid, all were in suspense.
+There was but one breath, long drawn and stifled, when he came into the
+house. He was a long time in the nursery, and when he came out he went
+on talking to those who accompanied him. "You had better shut off this
+part of the house altogether," he was saying, "hang a sheet over this
+doorway, and let it be always kept wet. I will send in a person I can
+rely upon to take the night. You must not let Lady Randolph sit up." He
+repeated the same caution to Sir Tom, who came out with a bewildered air
+to hear what he had said. Sir Tom was the only one who had taken no
+fright. "Highly infectious," the Doctor said. "I advise you to send away
+every one who is not wanted. If Lady Randolph could be kept out of the
+room so much the better, but I don't suppose that is possible; anyhow,
+don't let her sit up. She is just in the condition to take it. It would
+be better if you did not go near the child yourself; but, of course, I
+understand how difficult that is. Parents are a nuisance in such cases,"
+the Doctor said, with a smile which Sir Tom thought heartless, though it
+was intended to cheer him. "It is far better to give the little patient
+over to scientific unemotional care."
+
+"But you don't mean to say that there is danger, Doctor," cried Sir Tom.
+"Why, the little beggar was as jolly as possible only this morning."
+
+"Oh, we'll pull him through, we'll pull him through," the good-natured
+Doctor said. He preferred to talk all the time, not to be asked
+questions, for what could he say? Nurse looked very awful as she went
+upstairs, charged with private information almost too important for any
+woman to contain. She stopped at the head of the stairs to whisper to
+Fletcher, shaking her head the while, and Fletcher, too, shook her head
+and whispered to Mrs. Freshwater that the doctor had a very bad opinion
+of the case. Poor little Tom had got to be "the case" all in a moment.
+And "no constitution" they said to each other under their breath.
+
+Thus the door closed upon Lucy and all her trouble. She forgot it clean,
+as if it never had existed. Everything in the world in one moment became
+utterly unimportant to her, except the fever in those heavy eyes. She
+reflected dimly, with an awful sense of having forestalled fate, that
+she had made a pretence that he was ill to shield herself that night,
+the first night after their arrival. She had said he was ill when all
+was well. And lo! sudden punishment scathing and terrible had come to
+her out of the angry skies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+THE EXPERIENCES OF BICE.
+
+
+Sir Tom was concerned and anxious, but not alarmed like the women. After
+all it was a complaint of which children recovered every day. It had
+nothing to do with the child's lungs, which had been enfeebled by his
+former illness. He had as good a chance as any other in the present
+malady. Sir Tom was much depressed for an hour or two, but when
+everything was done that could be done, and an experienced woman arrived
+to whom the "case," though "anxious," as she said, did not appear
+immediately alarming, he forced his mind to check that depression, and
+to return to the cares which, if less grave, harassed and worried him
+more. Lucy was invisible all day. She spoke to him through the closed
+door from behind the curtain, but in a voice which he could scarcely
+hear and which had no tone of individuality in it, but only a faint
+human sound of distress. "He is no better. They say we cannot expect him
+to be better," she said. "Come down, dear, and have some dinner," said
+the round and large voice of Sir Tom, which even into that stillness
+brought a certain cheer. But as it sounded into the shut-up room, where
+nobody ventured to speak above their breath, it was like a bell pealing
+or a discharge of artillery, something that broke up the quiet, and
+made, or so the poor mother thought, the little patient start in his
+uneasy bed. Dinner! oh how could he ask it, how could he think of it?
+Sir Tom went away with a sigh of mingled uneasiness and impatience. He
+had always thought Lucy a happy exception to the caprices and vagaries
+of womankind. He had hoped that she was without nerves, as she had
+certainly been without those whims that amuse a man in other people's
+wives, but disgust him in his own. Was she going to turn out just like
+the rest, with extravagant terrors, humours, fancies--like all of them?
+Why should not she come to dinner, and why speak to him only from behind
+the closed door? He was annoyed and almost angry with Lucy. There had
+been something the matter, he reflected, for some time. She had taken
+offence at something; but surely the appearance of a real trouble might,
+at least, have made an end of that. He felt vexed and impatient as he
+sat down with Jock alone. "You will have to get out of this, my boy," he
+said, "or they won't let you go back to school; don't you know it's
+catching?" To have infection in one's house, and to be considered
+dangerous by one's friends, is always irritating. Sir Tom spoke with a
+laugh, but it was a laugh of offence. "I ought to have thought of it
+sooner," he said; "you can't go straight to school, you know, from a
+house with fever in it. You must pack up and get off at once."
+
+"I am not afraid," cried Jock. "Do you think I am such a cad as to leave
+Lucy when she's in trouble? or--or--the little one either?" Jock added,
+in a husky voice.
+
+"We are all cads in that respect nowadays," said Sir Tom. "It is the
+right thing. It is high principle. Men will elbow off and keep me at a
+distance, and not a soul will come near Lucy. Well, I suppose, it's all
+right. But there is some reason in it, so far as you are concerned.
+Come, you must be off to-night. Get hold of MTutor, he's still in town,
+and ask him what you must do."
+
+After dinner Sir Tom strolled forth. He did not mean to go out, but the
+house was intolerable, and he was very uneasy on the subject of Bice. It
+felt, indeed, something like a treason to Lucy, shut up in the child's
+sick-room, to go to the house which somehow or other was felt to be in
+opposition, and dimly suspected as the occasion of her changed looks and
+ways. He did not even say to himself that he meant to go there. And it
+was not any charm in the Contessa that drew him. It was that uneasy
+sense of a possibility which involved responsibility, and which,
+probably, he would never either make sure of or get rid of. The little
+house in Mayfair was lighted from garret to basement. If the lights were
+dim inside they looked bright without. It had the air of a house
+overflowing with life, every room with its sign of occupation. When he
+got in, the first sight he saw was Montjoie striding across the doorway
+of the small dining-room. Montjoie was very much at home, puffing his
+cigarette at the new comer. "Hallo, St. John!" he cried, then added with
+a tone of disappointment, "Oh! it's you."
+
+"It is I, I'm sorry to say, as you don't seem to like it," said Sir Tom.
+
+The young fellow looked a little abashed. "I expected another fellow.
+That's not to say I ain't glad to see you. Come in and have a glass of
+wine."
+
+"Thank you," said Sir Tom. "I suppose as you are smoking the ladies are
+upstairs."
+
+"Oh, they don't mind," said Montjoie; "at least the Contessa, don't you
+know? She's up to a cigarette herself. I shouldn't stand it," he added,
+after a moment, "in--Mademoiselle. Oh, perhaps you haven't heard. She
+and I--have fixed it all up, don't you know?"
+
+"Fixed it all up?"
+
+"Engaged, and that sort of thing. I'm a kind of boss in this house now.
+I thought, perhaps, that was why you were coming, to hear all about it,
+don't you know?"
+
+"Engaged!" cried Sir Tom, with a surprise in which there was no
+qualification. He felt disposed to catch the young fellow by the throat
+and pitch him out of doors.
+
+"You don't seem over and above pleased," said Montjoie, throwing away
+his cigarette, and confronting Sir Tom with a flush of defiance. They
+stood looking at each other for a moment, while Antonio, in the
+background, watched at the foot of the stairs, not without hopes of a
+disturbance.
+
+"I don't suppose that my pleasure or displeasure matters much: but you
+will pardon me if I pass, for my visit was to the Contessa," Sir Tom
+said, going on quickly. He was in an irritable state of mind to begin
+with. He thought he ought to have been consulted, even as an old friend,
+much more as---- And the young ass was offensive. If it turned out that
+Sir Tom had anything to do with it Montjoie should find that to be the
+best _parti_ of the season was not a thing that would infallibly
+recommend him to a father at least. The Contessa had risen from her
+chair at the sound of the voices. She came forward to Sir Tom with both
+her hands extended as he entered the drawing-room. "Dear old friend!
+congratulate me. I have accomplished all I wished," she said.
+
+"That was Montjoie," said Sir Tom. He laughed, but not with his usual
+laugh. "No great ambition, I am afraid. But," he said, pressing those
+delicate hands not as they were used to be pressed, with a hard
+seriousness and imperativeness, "you must tell me! I must have an
+explanation. There can be no delay or quibbling longer."
+
+"You hurt me, sir," she said with a little cry, and looked at her hands,
+"body and mind," she added, with one of her smiles. "Quibbling--that is
+one of your English words a woman cannot be expected to understand. Come
+then with me, barbarian, into my boudoir."
+
+Bice sat alone somewhat pensively with one of those favourite Tauchnitz
+volumes from which she had obtained her knowledge of English life in her
+hand. It was contraband, which made it all the dearer to her. She was
+not reading, but leaning her chin against it lost in thought. She was
+not pining for the presence of Montjoie, but rather glad after a long
+afternoon of him that he should prefer a cigarette to her company. She
+felt that this was precisely her own case, the cigarette being
+represented by the book or any other expedient that answered to cover
+the process of thought.
+
+Bice was not used to these processes. Keen observation of the ways of
+mankind in all the strange exhibitions of them which she had seen in her
+life had been the chief exercise of her lively intelligence. To Mr.
+Derwentwater, perhaps, may be given the credit of having roused the
+girl's mind, not indeed to sympathy with himself, but into a kind of
+perturbation and general commotion of spirit. Events were crowding
+quickly upon her. She had accepted one suitor and refused another within
+the course of a few hours. Such incidents develop the being; not,
+perhaps, the first in any great degree--but the second was not in the
+programme, and it had perplexed and roused her. There had come into her
+mind glimmerings, reflections, she could not tell what. Montjoie was
+occupied in something of the same manner downstairs, thinking it all
+over with his cigarette, wondering what Society and what his uncle would
+say, for whom he had a certain respect. He said to himself on the whole
+that he did not care that for Society! She suited him down to the
+ground. She was the jolliest girl he had ever met, besides being so
+awfully handsome. It was worth while going out riding with her just to
+see how the fellows stared and the women grew green with envy; or coming
+into a room with her, Jove! what a sensation she would make, and how
+everybody would open their eyes when she appeared blazing in the
+Montjoie diamonds! His satisfaction went a little deeper than this, to
+do him justice. He was, in his way, very much in love with the beautiful
+creature whom he had made up his mind to secure from the first moment he
+saw her. But, perhaps, if it had not been for the triumph of her
+appearance at Park Lane, and the hum of admiration and wonder that rose
+around her, he would not have so early fixed his fate; and the shadow of
+the uncle now and then came like a cloud over his glee. After the sudden
+gravity with which he remembered this, there suddenly gleamed upon him a
+vision of all his plain cousins gathering round his bride to scowl her
+down, and blast her with criticism and disapproval, which made him burst
+into a fit of laughter. Bice would hold her own; she would give as good
+as she got. She was not one to be cowed or put down, wasn't Bee! He felt
+himself clapping his hands and urging her on to the combat, and
+celebrated in advance with a shout of laughter the discomfiture of all
+those young ladies. But she should have nothing more to do with the
+Forno-Populo. No; his wife should have none of that sort about her. What
+did old Randolph mean always hanging about that old woman, and all the
+rest of the old fogeys? It was fun enough so long as you had nothing to
+do with them, but, by Jove, not for Lady Montjoie. Then he rushed
+upstairs to shower a few rough caresses upon Bice and take his leave of
+her, for he had an evening engagement formed before he was aware of the
+change which was coming in his life. He had been about her all the
+afternoon, and Bice, disturbed in her musings by this onslaught and
+somewhat impatient of the caresses, beheld his departure with
+satisfaction. It was the first evening since their arrival in town,
+which the ladies had planned to spend alone.
+
+And then she recommenced these thinkings which were not so easy as those
+of her lover: but she was soon subject to another inroad of a very
+different kind. Jock, who had never before come in the evening, appeared
+suddenly unannounced at the door of the room with a pale and heavy
+countenance. Though Bice had objected to be disturbed by her lover, she
+did not object to Jock; he harmonised with the state of her mind, which
+Montjoie did not. It seemed even to relieve her of the necessity of
+thinking when he appeared--he who did thinking enough, she felt, with
+half-conscious humour, for any number of people. He came in with a sort
+of eagerness, yet weariness, and explained that he had come to say
+good-bye, for he was going off--at once.
+
+"Going off! but it is not time yet," Bice said.
+
+"Because of the fever. But that is not altogether why I have come
+either," he said, looking at her from under his curved eyebrows. "I have
+got something to say."
+
+"What fever?" she said, sitting upright in her chair.
+
+Jock took no notice of the question; his mind was full of his own
+purpose. "Look here," he said huskily, "I know you'll never speak to me
+again. But there's something I want to say. We've been friends----"
+
+"Oh yes," she said, raising her head with a gleam of frank and cordial
+pleasure, "good friends--_camarades_--and I shall always, always speak
+to you. You were my first friend."
+
+"That is" said Jock, taking no notice, "you were--friends. I can't tell
+what I was. I don't know. It's something very droll. You would laugh, I
+suppose. But that's not to the purpose either. You wouldn't have
+Derwentwater to-day."
+
+Bice looked up with a half laugh. She began to consider him closely with
+her clear-sighted penetrating eyes, and the agitation under which Jock
+was labouring impressed the girl's quick mind. She watched every change
+of his face with a surprised interest, but she did not make any reply.
+
+"I never expected you would. I could have told him so. I did tell him
+you liked the other best. They say that's common with women," Jock said
+with a little awe, "when they have the choice offered, that it is always
+the worst they take."
+
+But still Bice did not reply. It was a sort of carrying out without any
+responsibility of hers, the vague wonder and questionings of her own
+mind. She had no responsibility in what Jock said. She could even
+question and combat it cheerfully now that it was presented to her from
+outside, but for the moment she said nothing to help him on, and he did
+not seem to require it, though he paused from time to time.
+
+"This is what I've got to say," Jock went on almost fiercely. "If you
+take Montjoie it's a mistake. He looks good-natured and all that; he
+looks easy to get on with. You hear me out, and then I'll go away and
+never trouble you again. He is not--a nice fellow. If you were to go and
+do such a thing as--marry him, and then find it out! I want you to know.
+Perhaps you think it's mean of me to say so, like sneaking, and perhaps
+it is. But, look here, I can't help it. Of course you would laugh at
+me--any one would. I'm a boy at school. I know that as well as you
+do----" Something got into Jock's voice so that he paused, and made a
+gulp before he could go on. "But, Bice, don't have that fellow. There
+are such lots; don't have _him_. I don't think I could stand it," Jock
+cried. "And look here, if it's because the Contessa wants money, I have
+some myself. What do I want with money? When I am older I shall work.
+There it is for you, if you like. But don't--have that fellow. Have a
+good fellow, there are plenty--there are fellows like Sir Tom. He is a
+good man. I should not," said Jock, with a sort of sob, which came in
+spite of himself, and which he did not remark even, so strong was the
+passion in him. "I should not--mind. I could put up with it then. So
+would Derwentwater. But, Bice----"
+
+She had risen up, and so had he. They were neither of them aware of it.
+Jock had lost consciousness, perception, all thought of anything but her
+and this that he was urging upon her. While as for Bice the tide had
+gone too high over her head. She felt giddy in the presence of something
+so much more powerful than any feeling she had ever known, and yet
+gazed at him half alarmed, half troubled as she was, with a perception
+that could not be anything but humorous of the boy's voice sounding so
+bass and deep, sometimes bursting into childish, womanish treble, and
+the boy's aspect which contrasted so strongly with the passion in which
+he spoke. When Sir Tom's voice made itself audible, coming from the
+boudoir in conversation with the Contessa, the effect upon the two thus
+standing in a sort of mortal encounter was extraordinary. Bice straining
+up to the mark which he was setting before her, bewildered with the
+flood on which she was rising, sank into ease again and a mastery of the
+situation, while Jock, worn out and with a sense that all was over, sat
+down abruptly, and left, as it were, the stage clear.
+
+"The poor little man is rather bad, I fear," said Sir Tom, coming
+through the dim room. There was something in his voice, an easier tone,
+a sound of relief. How had the Contessa succeeded in cheering him? "And
+what is worse (for he will do well I hope) is the scattering of all her
+friends from about Lucy. I am kept out of it, and it does not matter,
+you see; but she, poor little woman,"--his voice softened as he named
+her with a tone of tenderness--"nobody will go near her," he said.
+
+The Contessa gave a little shiver, and drew about her the loose shawl
+she wore. "What can we say in such a case? It is not for us, it is for
+those around us. It is a risk for so many----"
+
+"My aunt," said Sir Tom, "would be her natural ally; but I know Lady
+Randolph too well to think of that. And there is Jock, whom we are
+compelled to send away. We shall be like two crows all alone in the
+house."
+
+"Is it this you told me of, fever?" cried Bice, turning to Jock. "But it
+is I that will go--oh, this moment! It is no tr-rouble. I can sit up. I
+never am sleepy. I am so strong nothing hurts me. I will go directly,
+now."
+
+"You!" they all cried, but the Contessa's tones were most high. She made
+a protest full of indignant virtue.
+
+"Do you think," she said, "if I had but myself to think of that I would
+not fly to her? But, child in your position! _fiancee_ only to-day--with
+all to do, all to think of, how could I leave you? Oh, it is impossible;
+my good Lucy, who is never unreasonable, she will know it, she will
+understand. Besides, to what use, my Bice? She has nurses for day and
+night. She has her dear husband, her good husband, to be with her. What
+does a woman want more? You would be _de trop_. You would be out of
+place. It would be a trouble to them. It would be a blame to me. And you
+would take it, and bring it back and spread it, Bice--and perhaps Lord
+Montjoie----"
+
+Bice looked round her bewildered from one to another.
+
+"Should I be _de trop_?" she said, turning to Sir Tom with anxious eyes.
+
+Sir Tom looked at her with an air of singular emotion. He laid his hand
+caressingly on her shoulder: "_De trop_? no; never in my house. But that
+is not the question. Lucy will be cheered when she knows that you wanted
+to come. But what the Contessa says is true; there are plenty of
+nurses--and my wife--has me, if I am any good; and we would not have you
+run any risk----"
+
+"In her position!" cried the Contessa; "_fiancee_ only to-day. She owes
+herself already to Lord Montjoie, who would never consent, never; it is
+against every rule. Speak to her, _mon ami_, speak to her; she is a girl
+who is capable of all. Tell her that now it is thought criminal, that
+one does not risk one's self and others. She might bring it here, if not
+to herself, to me, Montjoie, the domestics." The Contessa sank into a
+chair and began fanning herself; then got up again and went towards the
+girl clasping her hands. "My sweetest," she cried, "you will not be
+_entetee_, and risk everything. We shall have news, good news, every
+morning, three, four times a day."
+
+"And Milady," said Bice, "who has done everything, will be alone and in
+tr-rouble. Sir Tom, he must leave her, he must attend to his affairs. He
+is a man; he must take the air; he must go out in the world. And
+she--she will be alone: when we have lived with her, when she has been
+more good, more good than any one could deserve. Risk! The doctor does
+not take it, who is everywhere, who will, perhaps, come to you next,
+Madama; and the nurses do not take it. It is a shame," cried the girl,
+throwing up her fine head, "if Love is not as good as the servants, if
+to have gratitude in your heart is nothing! And the risk, what is it? An
+illness, a fever. I have had a fever----"
+
+"Bice, you might bring--what is dreadful to think of," cried the
+Contessa, with a shiver. "You might die."
+
+"Die!" the girl cried, in a voice like a silver trumpet with a keen
+sweetness of scorn and tenderness combined. "_Apres_?" she said,
+throwing back her head. She was not capable of those questions which Mr.
+Derwentwater and his pupil had set before her. But here she was upon
+different ground.
+
+"Oh, she is capable of all! she is a girl that is capable of all," cried
+the Contessa, sinking once more into a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+THE EVE OF SORROW.
+
+
+Sir Tom stepped out into the night some time after, holding Jock by the
+arm. The boy had a sort of thrill and tremble in him as if he had been
+reading poetry or witnessing some great tragic scene, which the elder
+man partially understood without being at all aware that Jock had
+himself been an actor in this drama. He himself had been dismissed out
+of it, so to speak. His mind was relieved, and yet he was not so
+satisfied as he expected to be. It had been proved to him that he had no
+responsibility for Bice, and his anxiety relieved on that subject;
+relieved, oh yes: and yet was he a little disappointed too. It would
+have been endless embarrassment, and Lucy would not have liked it. Still
+he had been accustoming himself to the idea, and, now that it was broken
+clean off, he was not so much pleased as he had expected. Poor little
+Bice! her little burst of generous gratitude and affection had gone to
+his heart. If that little thing who (it appeared) had died in Florence
+so many years ago had survived and grown a woman, as an hour ago he had
+believed her to have done, that is how he should have liked her to feel
+and to express herself. Such a sense of approval and admiration was in
+him that he felt the disappointment the more. Yes, he supposed it was a
+disappointment. He had begun to get used to the idea, and he had always
+liked the girl; but of course it was a relief--the greatest relief--to
+have no explanation to make to Lucy, instead of the painful one which
+perhaps she would only partially believe. He had felt that it would be
+most difficult to make her understand that, though this was so, he had
+not been in any plot, and had not known of it any more than she did when
+Bice was brought to his house. This would have been the difficult point
+in the matter, and now, heaven be praised! all that was over, and there
+was no mystery, nothing to explain. But so strange is human sentiment
+that the world felt quite impoverished to Sir Tom, though he was much
+relieved. Life became for the moment a more commonplace affair
+altogether. He was free from the annoyance. It mattered nothing to him
+now who she married--the best _parti_ in society, or Jock's tutor, or
+anybody the girl pleased. If it had not been for that exhibition of
+feeling Sir Tom would probably have said to himself, satirically, that
+there could be little doubt which the Contessa's ward and pupil would
+choose. But after that little scene he came out very much shaken,
+touched to the heart, thinking that perhaps life would have been more
+full and sweet had his apprehensions been true. She had been overcome by
+the united pressure of himself and the Contessa, and for the moment
+subdued, though the fire in her eye and swelling of her young bosom
+seemed to say that the victory was very incomplete. He would have liked
+the little one that died to have looked like that, and felt like that,
+had she lived to grow a woman like Bice. Great heaven, the little one
+that died! The words as they went through his mind sent a chill to Sir
+Tom's breast. Might it be that they would be said again--once more--and
+that far-back sin bring thus a punishment all the more bitter for being
+so long delayed. Human nature will never get to believe that God is not
+lying in wait somewhere to exact payment of every account.
+
+"She understands that," said Jock suddenly. "She don't know the meaning
+of other things."
+
+"What may be the other things?" said Sir Tom, feeling a half jealousy of
+anything that could be said to Bice's disadvantage. "I don't think she
+is wanting in understanding. Ah, I see. You don't know how any one could
+resist the influence of MTutor, Jock."
+
+Through the darkness under the feeble lamp Jock shot a glance at his
+elder of that immeasurable contempt which youth feels for the absence of
+all penetration shown by its seniors, and their limited powers of
+observation. But he said nothing. Perhaps he could not trust himself to
+speak.
+
+"Don't think I'm a scoffer, my boy," said Sir Tom. "MTutor's a very
+decent fellow. Let us go and look him up. He would be better, to my
+thinking, if he were not quite so fine, you know. But that's a trifle,
+and I'm an old fogey. You are not going back to Park Lane to-night."
+
+"After what you heard her say? Do you think I've got no heart either? If
+I could have it instead of him!"
+
+"But you can't, my boy," Sir Tom said with a pressure of Jock's arm.
+"And you must not make Lucy more wretched by hanging about. There's the
+mystery," he broke out suddenly. "You can't--none of us can. What might
+be nothing to you or me may be death to that little thing, but it is he
+that has to go through with it; life is a horrible sort of pleasure,
+Jock."
+
+"Is it a pleasure?" the boy said under his breath. Life in him at that
+moment was one big heavy throbbing through all his being, full of
+mysterious powers unknown, of which Death was the least--yet, coming as
+he did a great shadow upon the feeblest, a terrible and awe-striking
+power beyond the strength of man to understand.
+
+After this night, so full of emotion, there came certain days which
+passed without sign or mark in the dim great house looking out upon all
+the lively sights and sounds of the great park. The sun rose and
+reddened the windows, the noon blazed, the gray twilight touched
+everything into colour. In the chamber which was the centre of all
+interest no one knew or cared how the hours went, and whether it was
+morning or noon or night. Instead of these common ways of reckoning,
+they counted by the hours when the doctor came, when the child must have
+his medicine, when it was time to refresh the little cot with cool clean
+linen, or sponge the little hot hands. The other attendants took their
+turns and rested, but Lucy was capable of no rest. She dozed sometimes
+with her eyes half opened, hearing every movement and little cry.
+Perhaps as the time went on and the watch continued her faculties were a
+little blunted by this, so that she was scarcely full awake at any time,
+since she never slept. She moved mechanically about, and was conscious
+of nothing but a dazed and confused misery, without anticipation or
+recollection. Something there was in her mind besides, which perhaps
+made it worse; she could not tell. Could anything make it worse? The
+heart, like any other vessel, can hold but what it is capable of, and no
+more.
+
+It is not easy to estimate what is the greatest sorrow of human life.
+It is that which has us in its grip, whatever it may be. Bereavement is
+terrible until there comes to you a pang more bitter from living than
+from dying: and one grief is supreme until another tops it, and the sea
+comes on and on in mountain waves. But perhaps of all the endurances of
+nature there is none which the general consent would agree upon as the
+greatest, like that of a mother watching death approach, with noiseless,
+awful step, to the bed of her only child. If humanity can approach more
+near the infinite in capacity of suffering, it is hard to know how. We
+must all bow down before this extremity of anguish, humbly begging the
+pardon of that sufferer, that in our lesser griefs, we dare to bemoan
+ourselves in her presence. And whether it is the dear companion--man or
+woman grown--or the infant out of her clasping arms, would seem to
+matter very little. According as it happens, so is the blow the most
+terrible. To Lucy, enveloped by that woe, there could have been no
+change that would not have lightened something (or so she felt) of her
+intolerable burden. Could he have breathed his fever and pain into
+words, could he have told what ailed him, could he have said to her only
+one little phrase of love, to be laid up in her heart! But the pitiful
+looks of those baby eyes, now bright with fever, now dull as dead
+violets, the little inarticulate murmurings, the appeals that could not
+be comprehended, added such a misery as was almost too much for flesh
+and blood to bear. This terrible ordeal was what Lucy had to go through.
+The child, though he had, as the maids said, no constitution, and though
+he had been enfeebled by illness for half his little lifetime, fought on
+hour after hour and day after day. Sometimes there was a look in his
+little face as of a conscious intelligence fighting a brave battle for
+life. His young mother beside him rose and fell with his breath, lived
+only in him, knew nothing but the vicissitudes of the sick room, taking
+her momentary broken rest when he slept, only to start up when, with a
+louder breath, a little cry, the struggle was resumed. The nurses could
+not, it would be unreasonable to expect it, be as entirely absorbed in
+their charge as was his mother. They got to talk at last, not minding
+her presence, quite freely in half whispers about other "cases," of
+patients and circumstances they had known. Stories of children who had
+died, and of some who had been miraculously raised from the brink of the
+grave, and of families swept away and houses desolated, seemed to get
+into the air of the room and float about Lucy, catching her confused
+ear, which was always on the watch for other sounds. Three or four times
+a day Sir Tom came to the door for news, but was not admitted, as the
+doctor's orders were stringent. There was no one admitted except the
+doctor; no cheer or comfort from without came into the sick room. Sir
+Tom did his best to speak a cheerful word, and would fain have persuaded
+Lucy to come out into the corridor, or to breathe the fresh air from a
+balcony. But Lucy, had she been capable of leaving the child, had a dim
+recollection in her mind that there was something, she could not tell
+what, interposing between her and her husband, and turned away from him
+with a sinking at her heart. She remembered vaguely that he had
+something else--some other possessions to comfort him--not this child
+alone as she had. He had something that he could perhaps love as
+well--but she had nothing; and she turned away from him with an
+instinctive sense of the difference, feeling it to be a wrong to her
+boy. But for this they might have comforted each other, and consulted
+each other over the fever and its symptoms. And she might have stolen a
+few moments from her child's bed and thrown herself on her husband's
+bosom and been consoled. But after all what did it matter? Could
+anything have made it more easy to bear? When sorrow and pain occupy the
+whole being, what room is there for consolation, what importance in the
+lessening by an infinitesimal shred of sorrow!
+
+This had gone on for--Lucy could not tell how many days (though not in
+reality for very many), when there came one afternoon in which
+everything seemed to draw towards the close. It is the time when the
+heart fails most easily and the tide of being runs most low. The light
+was beginning to wane in those dim rooms, though a great golden sunset
+was being enacted in purple and flame on the other side of the house.
+The child's eyes were dull and glazed; they seemed to turn inward with
+that awful blank which is like the soul's withdrawal; its little powers
+seemed all exhausted. The little moan, the struggle, had fallen into
+quiet. The little lips were parched and dry. Those pathetic looks that
+seemed to plead for help and understanding came no more. The baby was
+too much worn out for such painful indications of life. The women had
+drawn aside, all their talk hushed, only a faint whisper now and then of
+directions from the most experienced of the two to the subordinates
+aiding the solemn watch. Lucy sat by the side of the little bed on the
+floor, sometimes raising herself on her knees to see better. She had
+fallen into the chill and apathy of despair.
+
+At this time a door opened, not loudly or with any breach of the decorum
+of such a crisis, but with a distinct soft sound, which denoted some
+one not bound by the habits of a sick room. A step equally distinct,
+though soft, not the noiseless step of a watcher, came in through the
+outer room and to the bed. The women, who were standing a little apart,
+gave a low, involuntary cry. It looked like health and youthful vigour
+embodied which came sweeping into the dim room to the bedside of the
+dying child. It was Bice, who had asked no leave, who fell on her knees
+beside Lucy and stooped down her beautiful head, and kissed the hand
+which lay on the baby's coverlet. "Oh, pardon me," she said, "I could
+not keep away any longer. They kept me by force, or I would have come
+long, long since. I have come to stay, that you may have some rest, for
+I can nurse him--oh, with all my heart!"
+
+She had said all this hurriedly in a breath before she looked at the
+child. Now she turned her head to the little bed. Her countenance
+underwent a sudden change. The colour forsook her cheeks, her lips
+dropped apart. She turned round to the nurse with a low cry, with a
+terrified question in her eyes.
+
+"You see," said Lucy, speaking with a gasp as if in answer to some
+previous argument, "she thinks so, too----" Then there was a terrible
+pause. There seemed to come another "change," as the women said, over
+the little face, out of which life ebbed at every breath. Lucy started
+to her feet; she seized Bice's arm and raised her, which would have been
+impossible in a less terrible crisis. "Go," she said; "Go, Bice, to your
+father, and tell him to come, for my boy is dying Go--go!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+THE LAST CRISIS.
+
+
+"Go to your father." Bice did not know what Lucy meant. The words
+bewildered her beyond description, but she did not hesitate what to do.
+She went downstairs to Sir Tom, who sat with his door opened and his
+heart sinking in his bosom waiting to hear. There was no need for any
+words. He followed her at once, almost as softly and as noiselessly as
+she had come. And when they entered the dim room, where by this time
+there was scarcely light enough for unaccustomed eyes to see, he went up
+to Lucy and put his arms round her as she stood leaning on the little
+bed. "My love," he said, "my love; we must be all in all to each other
+now." His voice was choked and broken, but it did not reach Lucy's
+heart. She put him away from her with an almost imperceptible movement.
+"You have others," she said hoarsely; "I have nothing, nothing but him."
+Just then the child stirred faintly in his bed, and first extending her
+arms to put them all away from her, Lucy bent over him and lifted him to
+her bosom. The nurse made a step forward to interfere, but then stepped
+back again wringing her hands. The mother had risen into a sort of
+sublimity, irresponsible in her great woe--if she had killed him to
+forestall her agony a little, as is the instinct of desperation, they
+could not have interfered. She sat down, and gathered the child close,
+close in her embrace, his head upon her breast, holding him as if to
+communicate life to him with the contact of hers. Her breath, her arms,
+her whole being enveloped the little dying creature with a fulness of
+passionate existence expanded to its highest. It was like taking back
+the half-extinguished germ into the very bosom and core of life. They
+stood round her with an awe of her, which would permit no intrusion
+either of word or act. Even the experienced nurse who believed that the
+little spark of life would be shaken out by this movement, only wrung
+her hands and said nothing. The rest were but as spectators, gathering
+round to see the tragedy accomplished and the woman's heart shattered
+before their eyes.
+
+Which was unjust too--for the husband who stood behind was as great a
+sufferer. He was struck in everything a man can feel most, the instincts
+of paternal love awakened late, the pride a man has in his heir, all
+were crushed in him by a blow that seemed to wring his very heart out of
+his breast; but neither did any one think of him, nor did he think of
+himself. The mother that bare him!--that mysterious tie that goes beyond
+and before all, was acknowledged by them all without a word. It was hers
+to do as she pleased. The moments are long at such a time. They seemed
+to stand still on that strange scene. The light remained the same; the
+darkness seemed arrested, perhaps because it had come on too early on
+account of clouds overhead; perhaps because time was standing still to
+witness the easy parting of a soul not yet accustomed to this earth; the
+far more terrible rending of the woman's heart.
+
+Presently a sensation of great calm fell, no one could tell how, into
+the room. The terror seemed to leave the hearts of the watchers. Was it
+the angel who had arrived and shed a soothing from his very presence
+though he had come to accomplish the end?
+
+Another little change, almost imperceptible, Lucy beginning to rock her
+child softly, as if lulling him to sleep. No one moved, or even
+breathed, it seemed, for how long? some minutes, half a lifetime. Then
+another sound. Oh, God in heaven! had she gone distracted, the innocent
+creature, the young mother, in her anguish? She began to sing--a few low
+notes, a little lullaby, in a voice ineffable, indescribable, not like
+any mortal voice. One of the women burst out into a wail--it was the
+child's nurse--and tried to take him from the mother's arms. The other
+took her by the shoulders and turned her away. "What does it matter, a
+few minutes more or less; she'll come to herself soon enough, poor
+dear," said the attendant with a sob. Thus the group was diminished. Sir
+Tom stood with one hand on his wife's chair, his face covered with the
+other, and in his heart the bitterness of death; Bice had dropped down
+on her knees by the side of that pathetic group; and in the midst sat
+the mother bent over, almost enfolding the child, cradling him in her
+own life. Bice was herself not much more than a child; to her all things
+were possible--miracles, restorations from the dead. Her eyes were full
+of tears, but there was a smile upon her quivering mouth. It was at her
+Lucy looked, with eyes full of something like that "awful rose of dawn"
+of which the poet speaks. They were dilated to twice their natural size.
+She made a slight movement, opening to Bice the little face upon her
+bosom, bidding her look as at a breathless secret to be kept from all
+else. Was it a reflection or a faint glow of warmth upon the little worn
+cheek? The eyes were no longer open, showing the white, but closed, with
+the eyelashes shadowing against the cheek. There came into Lucy's eyes a
+sort of warning look to keep the secret, and the wonderful spectacle
+was, as it were, closed again, hidden with her arms and bending head.
+And the soft coo of the lullaby went on.
+
+Presently the women stole back, awed and silenced, but full of a
+reviving thrill of curiosity. The elder one, who was from the hospital
+and prepared for everything, drew nearer, and regarded with a
+scientific, but not unsympathetic eye, the mother and the child. She
+withdrew a little the shawl in which the infant was wrapped, and put her
+too-experienced, instructed hands upon his little limbs, without taking
+any notice of Lucy, who remained passive through this examination. "He's
+beautiful and warm," said the woman, in a wondering tone. Then Bice rose
+to her feet with a quick sudden movement, and went to Sir Tom and drew
+his hand from his face. "He is not dying, he is sleeping," she said.
+"And I think, miss, you're right. He has taken a turn for the better,"
+said the experienced woman from the hospital. "Don't move, my lady,
+don't move; we'll prop you with cushions--we'll pull him through still,
+please God," the nurse said, with a few genuine tears.
+
+When the doctor came some time after, instead of watching the child's
+last moments, he had only to confirm their certainty of this favourable
+change, and give his sanction to it; and the cloud that had seemed to
+hang over it all day lifted from the house. The servants began to move
+about again and bustle. The lamps were lighted. The household resumed
+their occupations, and Williams himself in token of sympathy carried up
+Mr. Randolph's beef-tea. When Lucy, after a long interval, was liberated
+from her confined attitude and the child restored to his bed, the
+improvement was so evident that she allowed herself to be persuaded to
+lie down and rest. "Milady," said Bice, "I am not good for anything,
+but I love him. I will not interfere, but neither will I ever take away
+my eyes from him till you are again here." There was no use in this, but
+it was something to the young mother. She lay down and slept, for the
+first time since the illness began; slept not in broken, painful
+dozings, but a real sleep. She was not in a condition to think; but
+there was a vague feeling in her mind that here was some one, not as
+others were, to whom little Tom was something more than to the rest.
+Consciously she ought to have shrunk from Bice's presence; unconsciously
+it soothed her and warmed her heart.
+
+Sir Tom went back to his room, shaken as with a long illness, but
+feeling that the world had begun again, and life was once more liveable.
+He sat down and thought over every incident, and thanked God with such
+tears as men too, like women, are often fain to indulge in, though they
+do it chiefly in private. Then, as the effect of this great crisis began
+to go off a little, and the common round to come back, there recurred to
+his mind Lucy's strange speech, "You have others----" What others was he
+supposed to have? She had drawn herself away from him. She had made no
+appeal to his sympathy. "You have--others. I have nothing but him." What
+did Lucy mean? And then he remembered how little intercourse there had
+been of late between them, how she had kept aloof from him. They might
+have been separated and living in different houses for all the union
+there had been between them. "You have others----" What did Lucy mean?
+
+He got up, moved by the uneasiness of this question, and began to pace
+about the floor. He had no others; never had a man been more devoted to
+his own house. She had not been exacting, nor he uxorious. He had lived
+a man's life in the world, and had not neglected his duties for his
+wife; but he reminded himself, with a sort of indignant satisfaction,
+that he had found Lucy far more interesting than he expected, and that
+her fresh curiosity, her interest in everything, and the just enough of
+receptive intelligence, which is more agreeable than cleverness, had
+made her the most pleasant companion he had ever known. It was not an
+exercise of self-denial, of virtue on his part, as the Dowager and
+indeed many other of his friends had attempted to make out, but a real
+pleasure in her society. He had liked to talk to her, to tell her his
+own past history (selections from it), to like, yet laugh at her simple
+comments. He never despised anything she said, though he had laughed at
+some of it with a genial and placid amusement. And that little beggar!
+about whom Sir Tom could not even think to-day without a rush of water
+to his eyes--could any man have considered the little fellow more, or
+been more proud of him or fond? He could not live in the nursery, it was
+true, like Lucy, but short of that--"Others." What could she mean? There
+were no others. He was content to live and die, if but they might be
+spared to him, with her and the boy. A sort of chill doubt that somebody
+might have breathed into her ear that suggestion about Bice's parentage
+did indeed cross his mind; but ever since he had ascertained that this
+fear was a delusion, it had seemed to him the most ridiculous idea in
+the world. It had not seemed so before; it had appeared probable enough,
+nay, with many coincidences in its favour. And he had even been
+conscious of something like disappointment to find that it was not true.
+But now it seemed to him too absurd for credence; and what creature in
+the world, except himself, could have known the circumstances that made
+it possible? No one but Williams, and Williams was true.
+
+It was not till next morning that the ordinary habits of the household
+could be said to be in any measure resumed. On that day Bice came down
+to breakfast with Sir Tom with a smiling brightness which cheered his
+solitary heart. She had gone back out of all her finery to the simple
+black frock, which she told him had been the easiest thing to carry.
+This was in answer to his question, "How had she come? Had the Contessa
+sent her?" Bice clapped her hands with pleasure, and recounted how she
+had run away.
+
+"The news were always bad, more bad; and Milady all alone. At length the
+time came when I could bear it no longer. I love him, my little Tom; and
+Milady has always been kind, so kind, more kind than any one. Nobody has
+been kind to me like her, and also you, Sir Tom; and baby that was my
+darling," the girl said.
+
+"God bless you, my dear," said Sir Tom; "but," he added, "you should not
+have done it. You should have remembered the infection."
+
+Bice made a little face of merry disdain and laughed aloud. "Do I care
+for infection? Love is more strong than a fever. And then," she added,
+"I had a purpose too."
+
+Sir Tom was delighted with her girlish confidences about her frock and
+her purpose. "Something very grave, I should imagine, from those looks."
+
+"Oh, it is very grave," said Bice, her countenance changing. "You know I
+am _fiancee_. There has been a good deal said to me of Lord Montjoie;
+sometimes that he was not wise, what you call silly, not clever, not
+good to have to do with. That he is not clever one can see; but what
+then? The clever they do not always please. Others say that he is a
+great _parti_, and all that is desirable. Myself," she added with an air
+of judicial impartiality, "I like him well enough; even when he does not
+please me, he amuses. The clever they are not always amusing. I am
+willing to marry him since it is wished, otherwise I do not care much.
+For there is, you know, plenty of time, and to marry so soon--it is a
+disappointment, it is no longer exciting. So it is not easy to know
+distinctly what to do. That is what you call a dilemma," Bice said.
+
+"It is a serious dilemma," said Sir Tom, much amused and flattered too.
+"You want me then to give you my advice----"
+
+"No," said Bice, which made his countenance suddenly blank, "not advice.
+I have thought of a way. All say that it is almost wicked, at least very
+wrong to come here (in the Tauchnitz it would be miserable to be afraid,
+and so I think), and that the fever is more than everything. Now for me
+it is not so. If Lord Montjoie is of my opinion, and if he thinks I am
+right to come, then I shall know that, though he is not clever---- Yes;
+that is my purpose. Do you think I shall be right?"
+
+"I see," said Sir Tom, though he looked somewhat crestfallen. "You have
+come not so much for us, though you are kindly disposed towards us, but
+to put your future husband to the test. There is only this drawback,
+that he might be an excellent fellow and yet object to the step you have
+taken. Also that these sort of tests are very risky, and that it is
+scarcely worth while for this, to run the risk of a bad illness, perhaps
+of your life."
+
+"That is unjust," said Bice with tears in her eyes. "I should have come
+to Milady had there been no Montjoie at all. It is first and above all
+for her sake. I will have a fever for her, oh willingly!" cried the
+girl. Then she added after a little pause: "Why did she bid me 'go to
+your father and tell him----?' What does that mean, go to my father? I
+have never had any father."
+
+"Did she say that?" Sir Tom cried. "When? and why?"
+
+"It was when all seemed without hope. She was kneeling by the bed, and
+he, my little boy, my little darling! Ah," cried Bice, with a shiver.
+"To think it should have been so near! when God put that into her mind
+to save him. She said 'Go to your father, and tell him my boy is dying.'
+What did she mean? I came to you; but you are not my father."
+
+He had risen up in great agitation and was walking about the room. When
+she said these words he came up to her and laid his hand for a moment on
+her head. "No," he said, with a sense of loss which was painful; "No,
+the more's the pity, Bice. God bless you, my dear."
+
+His voice was tremulous, his hand shook a little. The girl took it in
+her pretty way and kissed it. "You have been as good to me as if it were
+so. But tell me what Milady means? for at that moment she would say
+nothing but what was at the bottom of her heart."
+
+"I cannot tell you, Bice," said Sir Tom, almost with tears. "If I have
+made her unhappy, my Lucy, who is better than any of us, what do I
+deserve? what should be done to me? And she has been unhappy, she has
+lost her faith in me. I see it all now."
+
+Bice sat and looked at him with her eyes full of thought. She was not a
+novice in life though she was so young. She had heard many a tale not
+adapted for youthful ears. That a child might have a father whose name
+she did not bear and who had never been disclosed to her was not
+incomprehensible, as it would have been to an English girl. She looked
+him severely in the face, like a young Daniel come to judgment. Had she
+been indeed his child to what a terrible ordeal would Sir Tom have been
+exposed under the light of those steady eyes. "Is it true that you have
+made her unhappy?" she said, as if she had the power of death in her
+hands.
+
+"No!" he said, with a sudden outburst of feeling. "No! there are things
+in my life that I would not have raked up; but since I have known her,
+nothing; there is no offence to her in any record of my life----"
+
+Bice looked at him still unfaltering. "You forget us--the Contessa and
+me. You brought us, though she did not know. We are not like her, but
+you brought us to her house. Nevertheless," said the young judge
+gravely, "that might be unthoughtful, but not a wrong to her. Is it
+perhaps a mistake?"
+
+"A mistake or a slander, or--some evil tongue," he cried.
+
+Bice rose up from the chair which had been her bench of justice, and
+walked to the door with a stately step, befitting her office, full of
+thought. Then she paused again for a moment and looked back and waved
+her hand. "I think it is a pity," she said with great gravity. She
+recognised the visionary fitness as he had done. They would have suited
+each other, when it was thus suggested to them, for father and
+daughter; and that it was not so, by some spite of fate, was a pity. She
+found Lucy dressed and refreshed sitting by the bed of the child, who
+had already begun to smile faintly. "Milady," said Bice, "will you go
+downstairs? There is a long time that you have not spoken to Sir Tom. Is
+he afraid of your fever? No more than me! But his heart is breaking for
+you. Go to him, Milady, and I will stay with the boy."
+
+It was not for some time that Lucy could be persuaded to go. He
+had--others. What was she to him but a portion of his life? and the
+child was all of hers: a small portion of his life only a few years,
+while the others had a far older and stronger claim. There was no anger
+in her mind, all hushed in the exhaustion of great suffering past, but a
+great reluctance to enter upon the question once more. Lucy wished only
+to be left in quiet. She went slowly, reluctantly, downstairs. Unhappy?
+No. He had not made her unhappy. Nothing could make her unhappy now that
+her child was saved. It seemed to Lucy that it was she who had been ill
+and was getting better, and she longed to be left alone. Sir Tom was
+standing against the window with his head upon his hand. He did not hear
+her light step till she was close to him. Then he turned round, but not
+with the eagerness for her which Bice had represented. He took her hand
+gently and drew it within his arm.
+
+"All is going well?" he said, "and you have had a little rest, my dear?
+Bice has told me----"
+
+She withdrew a little the hand which lay on his arm. "He is much
+better," she said; "more than one would have thought possible."
+
+"Thank God!" Sir Tom cried; and they were silent for a moment, united
+in thanksgiving, yet so divided, with a sickening gulf between them.
+Lucy felt her heart begin to stir and ache that had been so quiet. "And
+you," he said, "have had a little rest? Thank God for that too. Anything
+that had happened to him would have been bad enough; but to you,
+Lucy----"
+
+"Oh, hush, hush," she cried, "that is over; let us not speak of anything
+happening to him."
+
+"But all is not over," he said. "Something has happened--to us. What did
+you mean when you spoke to me of others? 'You have others.' I scarcely
+noticed it at that dreadful moment; but now---- Who are those others,
+Lucy? Whom have I but him and you?"
+
+She did not say anything, but withdrew her hand altogether from his arm,
+and looked at him. A look scarcely reproachful, wistful, sorrowful,
+saying, but not in words, in its steady gaze--You know.
+
+He answered as if it had been speech.
+
+"But I don't know. What is it, Lucy? Bice too has something she asked me
+to explain, and I cannot explain it. You said to her, 'Go to your
+father.' What is this? You must tell what you mean."
+
+"Bice?" she said, faltering; "it was at a moment when I did not think
+what I was saying."
+
+"No, when you spoke out that perilous stuff you have got in your heart.
+Oh, my Lucy, what is it, and who has put it there?"
+
+"Tom," she said, trembling very much. "It is not Bice; she--that--is
+long ago--if her mother had been dead. But a man cannot have two lives.
+There cannot be two in the same place. It is not jealousy. I am not
+finding fault. It has been perhaps without intention; but it is not
+befitting--oh, not befitting. It cannot--oh, it is impossible! it must
+not be."
+
+"What must not be? Of what in the name of heaven are you speaking?" he
+cried.
+
+Once more she fixed on him that look, more reproachful this time, full
+of meaning and grieved surprise. She drew away a little from his side.
+"I did not want to speak," she said. "I was so thankful; I want to say
+nothing. You thought you had left that other life behind; perhaps you
+forgot altogether. They say that people do. And now it is here at your
+side, and on the other side my little boy and me. Ah! no, no, it is not
+befitting, it cannot be----"
+
+"I understand dimly," he said; "they have told you Bice was my child. I
+wish it were so. I had a child, Lucy, it is true, who is dead in
+Florence long ago. The mother is dead too, long ago. It is so long past
+that, if you can believe it, I had--forgotten."
+
+"Dead!" she said. And there came into her mild eyes a scared and
+frightened look. "And--the Contessa?"
+
+"The Contessa!" he cried.
+
+They were standing apart gazing at each other with something more like
+the heat of a passionate debate than had ever arisen between them, or
+indeed seemed possible to Lucy's tranquil nature, when the door was
+suddenly opened and the voice of Williams saying, "Sir Thomas is here,
+my lady," reduced them both in an instant to silence. Then there was a
+bustle and a movement, and of all wonderful sights to meet their eyes,
+the Contessa herself came with hesitation into the room. She had her
+handkerchief pressed against the lower part of her face, from above
+which her eyes looked out watchfully. She gave a little shriek at the
+sight of Lucy. "I thought," she said, "Sir Tom was alone. Lucy, my
+angel, my sweetest, do not come near me!" She recoiled to the door which
+Williams had just closed. "I will say what I have to say here. Dearest
+people, I love you, but you are charged with pestilence. My Lucy, how
+glad I am for your little boy--but every moment they tell me increases
+the danger. Where is Bice? Bice! I have come to bring her away."
+
+"Contessa," said Sir Tom, "you have come at a fortunate moment. Tell
+Lady Randolph who Bice is. I think she has a right to know."
+
+"Who Bice is? But what has that to do with it? She is _fiancee_, she
+belongs to more than herself. And there is the drawing-room in a
+week--imagine, only in a week!--and how can she go into the presence of
+the Queen full of infection? I acknowledge, I acknowledge," cried the
+Contessa, through her handkerchief, "you have been very kind--oh, more
+than kind. But why then now will you spoil all? It might make a
+revolution--it might convey to Majesty herself---- Ah! it might spoil all
+the child's prospects. Who is she? Why should you reproach me with my
+little mystery now? She is all that is most natural; Guido's child, whom
+you remember well enough, Sir Tom, who married my poor little sister, my
+little girl who followed me, who would do as I did. You know all this,
+for I have told you. They are all dead, all dead--how can you make me
+talk of them? And Bice perhaps with the fever in her veins, ready to
+communicate it--to Majesty herself, to me, to every one!"
+
+The Contessa sank down on a chair by the door. She drew forth her fan,
+which hung by her side, and fanned away from her this air of pestilence.
+"The child must come back at once," she said, with little cries and
+sobs--an _acces de nerfs_, if these simple people had known--through her
+handkerchief. "Let her come at once, and we may conceal it still. She
+shall have baths. She shall be fumigated. I will not see her or let her
+be seen. She shall have a succession of headaches. This is what I have
+said to Montjoie. Imagine me out in the air, that is so bad for the
+complexion, at this hour! But I think of nothing in comparison with the
+interests of Bice. Send for her. Lucy, sweet one, you would not spoil
+her prospects. Send for her--before it is known." Then she laughed with
+a hysterical vehemence. "I see; some one has been telling her it was the
+poor little child whom you left with me, whom I watched over--yes, I was
+good to the little one. I am not a hard-hearted woman. Lucy: it was I
+who put this thought into your mind. I said--of English parentage. I
+meant you to believe so--that you might give something, when you were
+giving so much, to my poor Bice. What was wrong? I said you would be
+glad one day that you had helped her:--yes--and I allowed also my enemy
+the Dowager, to believe it."
+
+"To believe _that_." Lucy stood out alone in the middle of the room,
+notwithstanding the shrinking back to the wall of the visitor, whose
+alarm was far more visible than any other emotion. "To believe
+_that_--that she was your child, and----"
+
+Something stopped Lucy's mouth. She drew back, her pale face dyed with
+crimson, her whole form quivering with remorse and pain as of one who
+has given a cowardly and cruel blow.
+
+The Contessa rose. She stood up against the wall. It did not seem to
+occur to her what kind of terrible accusation this was, but only that
+it was something strange, incomprehensible. She withdrew for a moment
+the handkerchief from her mouth. "My child? But I have never had a
+child!" she said.
+
+"Lucy," cried Sir Tom in a terrible voice.
+
+And then Lucy stood aghast between them, looking from one to another.
+The scales seemed to fall from her eyes. The perfectly innocent when
+they fall under the power of suspicion go farthest in that bitter way.
+They take no limit of possibility into their doubts and fears. They do
+not think of character or nature. Now, in a moment the scales fell from
+Lucy's eyes. Was her husband a man to treat her with such unimaginable
+insult? Was the Contessa, with all her triumphant designs, her
+mendacities, her mendicities, her thirst for pleasure, such a woman?
+Whoever said it, could this be true?
+
+The Contessa perceived with a start that her hand had dropped from her
+mouth. She put back the handkerchief again with tremulous eagerness. "If
+I take it, all will go wrong--all will fall to pieces," she said
+pathetically. "Lucy, dear one, do not come near me, but send me Bice, if
+you love me," the Contessa cried. She smiled with her eyes, though her
+mouth was covered. She had not so much as understood, she, so
+experienced, so acquainted with the wicked world, so _connaisseuse_ in
+evil tales--she had not even so much as divined what innocent Lucy meant
+to say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+Bice was taken away in the cab, there being no reason why she should
+remain in a house where Lucy was no longer lonely or heartbroken--but
+not by her patroness, who was doubly her aunt, but did not love that
+old-fashioned title, and did love a mystery. The Contessa would not
+trust herself in the same vehicle with the girl who had come out of
+little Tom's nursery, and was no doubt charged with pestilence. She
+walked, marvel of marvels, with a thick veil over her face, and Sir Tom,
+in amused attendance, looking with some curiosity through the gauze at
+this wonder of a spring morning which she had not seen for years. Bice,
+for her part, was conveyed by the old woman who waited in the cab, the
+mother of one of the servants in the Mayfair house, to her humble home,
+where the girl was fumigated and disinfected to the Contessa's desire.
+She was presented a week after, the strictest secrecy being kept about
+these proceedings; and mercifully, as a matter of fact, did not convey
+infection either to the Contessa or to the still more distinguished
+ladies with whom she came in contact. What a day for Madame di
+Forno-Populo! There was nothing against her. The Duchess had spent an
+anxious week, inquiring everywhere. She had pledged herself in a weak
+hour; but though the men laughed, that was all. Not even in the clubs
+was there any story to be got hold of. The Duchess had a son-in-law who
+was clever in gossip. He said there was nothing, and the Lord
+Chamberlain made no objection. The Contessa di Forno-Populo had not
+indeed, she said loftily, ever desired to make her appearance before the
+Piedmontese; but she had the stamp upon her, though partially worn out,
+of the old Grand Ducal Court of Tuscany--which many people think more
+of--and these two stately Italian ladies made as great a sensation by
+their beauty and their stately air as had been made at any drawing-room
+in the present reign. The most august and discriminating of critics
+remarked them above all others. And a Lady, whose knowledge of family
+history is unrivalled, like her place in the world, condescended to
+remember that the Conte di Forno-Populo had married an English lady.
+Their dresses were specially described by Lady Anastasia in her
+favourite paper; and their portraits were almost recognisable in the
+_Graphic_, which gave a special (fancy) picture of the drawing-room in
+question. Triumph could not farther go.
+
+It was not till after this event that Bice revealed the purpose which
+was one of her inducements for that visit to little Tom's sick bed. On
+the evening of that great day, just before going out in all her
+splendour to the Duchess's reception held on that occasion, she took her
+lover aside, whose pride in her magnificence and all the applause that
+had been lavished on her knew no bounds.
+
+"Listen," she said, "I have something to tell you. Perhaps, when you
+hear it, all will be over. I have not allowed you to come near me nor
+touch me----"
+
+"No, by Jove! It has been stand off, indeed! I don't know what you mean
+by it," cried Montjoie ruefully; "that wasn't what I bargained for,
+don't you know?"
+
+"I am going to explain," said Bice. "You shall know, then, that when I
+had those headaches--you remember--and you could not see me, I had no
+headaches, _mon ami_. I was with Milady Randolph in Park Lane, in the
+middle of the fever, nursing the boy."
+
+Montjoie gazed at her with round eyes. He recoiled a step, then rushing
+at his betrothed, notwithstanding her Court plumes and flounces, got
+Bice in his arms. "By Jove!" he cried, "and that was why! You thought I
+was frightened of the fever; that is the best joke I have heard for
+ages, don't you know? What a pluck you've got, Bee! And what a beauty
+you are, my pretty dear! I am going to pay myself all the arrears."
+
+"Don't," said Bice, plaintively; the caresses were not much to her mind,
+but she endured them to a certain limit. "I wondered," she said with a
+faint sigh, "what you would say."
+
+"It was awfully silly," said Montjoie. "I couldn't have believed you
+were so soft, Bee, with your training, don't you know? And how did you
+come over _her_ to let you go? She was in a dead funk all the time. It
+was awfully silly; you might have caught it, or given it to me, or a
+hundred things, and lost all your fun; but it was awfully plucky," cried
+Montjoie, "by Jove! I knew you were a plucky one;" and he added, after a
+moment's reflection, in a softened tone, "a good little girl too."
+
+It was thus that Bice's fate was sealed.
+
+That afternoon Lucy received a note from Lady Randolph in the following
+words:--
+
+     "DEAREST LUCY--I am more glad than I can tell you to hear the good
+     news of the dear boy. Probably he will be stronger now than he has
+     ever been, having got over this so well.
+
+     "I want to tell you not to think any more of what I said _that_
+     day. I hope it has not vexed you. I find that my informant was
+     entirely mistaken, and acted upon a misconception all the time. I
+     can't tell how sorry I am ever to have mentioned such a thing; but
+     it seemed to be on the very best authority. I do hope it has not
+     made any coolness between Tom and you.
+
+     "Don't take the trouble to answer this. There is nothing that
+     carries infection like letters, and I inquire after the boy every
+     day.--Your loving
+
+                                                           M. RANDOLPH."
+
+"It was not her fault," said Lucy, sobbing upon her husband's shoulder.
+"I should have known you better, Tom."
+
+"I think so, my dear," he said quietly, "though I have been more foolish
+than a man of my age ought to be; but there is no harm in the Contessa,
+Lucy."
+
+"No," Lucy said, yet with a grave face. "But Bice will be made a
+sacrifice: Bice, and----" she added with a guilty look, "I shall have
+thrown away that money, for it has not saved her."
+
+"Here is a great deal of money," said Sir Tom, drawing a letter from his
+pocket, "which seems also in a fair way of being thrown away."
+
+He took out the list which Lucy had given to her trustee, which Mr.
+Chervil had returned to her husband, and held it out before her. It was
+a very curious document, an experiment in the way of making poor people
+rich. The names were of people of whom Lucy knew very little personally;
+and yet it had not been done without thought. There was nobody there to
+whom such a gift might not mean deliverance from many cares. In the
+abstract it was not throwing anything away. Perhaps, had there been some
+public commission to reward with good incomes the struggling and
+honourable, these might not have been the chosen names; but yet it was
+all legitimate, honest, in the light of Lucy's exceptional position.
+The husband and wife stood and looked at it together in this moment of
+their reunion, when both had escaped from the deadliest perils that
+could threaten life--the loss of their child, the loss of their union.
+It was hard to tell which would have been the most mortal blow.
+
+"He says I must prevent you; that you cannot have thought what you were
+doing; that it is madness, Lucy."
+
+"I think I was nearly mad," said Lucy simply. "I thought to get rid of
+it whatever might happen to me--that was best."
+
+"Let us look at it now in our full senses," said Sir Tom.
+
+Lucy grasped his arm with both her hands. "Tom," she said in a hurried
+tone, "this is the only thing in which I ever set myself against you. It
+was the beginning of all our trouble; and I might have to do that again.
+What does it matter if perhaps we might do it more wisely now? All these
+people are poor, and there is the money to make them well off; that is
+what my father meant. He meant it to be scattered again, like seed given
+back to the reaper. He used to say so. Shall not we let it go as it is,
+and be done with it and avoid trouble any more?"
+
+He stood holding her in his arms, looking over the paper. It was a great
+deal of money. To sacrifice a great deal of money does not affect a
+young woman who has never known any need of it in her life, but a man in
+middle age who knows all about it, that makes a great difference. Many
+thoughts passed through the mind of Sir Tom. It was a moment in which
+Lucy's heart was very soft. She was ready to do anything for the husband
+to whom, she thought, she had been unjust. And it was hard upon him to
+diminish his own importance and cut off at a stroke by such a sacrifice
+half the power and importance of the wealth which was his, though Lucy
+might be the source of it. Was he to consent to this loss, not even
+wisely, carefully arranged, but which might do little good to any one,
+and to him harm unquestionable? He stood silent for some time thinking,
+almost disposed to tear up the paper and throw it away. But then he
+began to reflect of other things more important than money; of unbroken
+peace and happiness; of Lucy's faithful, loyal spirit that would never
+be satisfied with less than the entire discharge of her trust, of the
+full accord, never so entirely comprehensive and understanding as now,
+that had been restored between them; and of the boy given back from the
+gates of hell, from the jaws of death. It was no small struggle. He had
+to conquer a hundred hesitations, the disapproval, the resistance of his
+own mind. It was with a hand that shook a little that he put it back.
+"That little beggar," he said, with his old laugh--though not his old
+laugh, for in this one there was a sound of tears--"will be a hundred
+thousand or so the poorer. Do you think he'd mind, if we were to ask
+him? Come, here is a kiss upon the bargain. The money shall go, and a
+good riddance, Lucy. There is now nothing between you and me."
+
+Bice was married at the end of the season, in the most fashionable
+church, in the most correct way. Montjoie's plain cousins had
+asked--asked! without a sign of enmity!--to be bridesmaids, "as she had
+no sisters of her own, poor thing!" Montjoie declared that he was "ready
+to split" at their cheek in asking, and in calling Bice "poor thing,"
+she who was the most fortunate girl in the world. The Contessa took the
+good the gods provided her, without grumbling at the fate which
+transferred to her the little fortune which had been given to Bice to
+keep her from a mercenary marriage. It was not a mercenary marriage, in
+the ordinary sense of the word. To Bice's mind it was simply fulfilling
+her natural career; and she had no dislike to Montjoie. She liked him
+well enough. He had answered well to her test. He was not clever, to be
+sure; but what then? She was well enough content, if not rapturous, when
+she walked out of the church Marchioness of Montjoie on her husband's
+arm. There was a large and fashionable assembly, it need not be said.
+Lucy, in a first place, looking very wistful, wondering if the girl was
+happy, and Sir Tom saying to himself it was very well that he had no
+more to do with it than as a friend. There were two other spectators who
+looked upon the ceremony with still more serious countenances, a man and
+a boy, restored to each other as dearest friends. They watched all the
+details of the service with unfailing interest, but when the beautiful
+bride came down the aisle on her husband's arm, they turned with one
+accord and looked at each other. They had been quite still until that
+point, making no remark. She passed them by, walking as if on air, as
+she always walked, though ballasted now for ever by that duller being at
+her side. She was not subdued under her falling veil, like so many
+brides, but saw everything, them among the rest, as she passed, and
+showed by a half smile her recognition of their presence. There was no
+mystic veil of sentiment about her; no consciousness of any mystery. She
+walked forth bravely, smiling, to meet life and the world. What was
+there in that beautiful, beaming creature to suggest a thought of
+future necessity, trouble, or the most distant occasion for help or
+succour? Perhaps it is a kind of revenge we take upon too great
+prosperity to say to ourselves: "There may come a time!"
+
+These two spectators made their way out slowly among the crowd. They
+walked a long way towards their after destination without a word. Then
+Mr. Derwentwater spoke:
+
+"If there should ever come a time when we can help her, or be of use to
+her, you and I--for the time must come when she will find out she has
+chosen evil instead of good----"
+
+"Oh, humbug!" cried Jock roughly, with a sharpness in his tone which was
+its apology. "She has done what she always meant to do--and that is what
+she likes best."
+
+"Nevertheless----" said MTutor with a sigh.
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:-                                         |
+  |                                                              |
+  | The following printers spelling errors have been corrected:- |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 66                                                      |
+  | 'direst' to 'divest'                                         |
+  | 'could not yet divest himself'                               |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 278                                                     |
+  | 'down' to 'done'                                             |
+  | 'as a simple girl might have done'                           |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 397                                                     |
+  | 'pyschological' to 'psychological'                           |
+  | 'any attempt at psychological investigation'                 |
+  |                                                              |
+  | Page 470                                                     |
+  | 'unforgetable' to 'unforgettable'                            |
+  | 'almost forgotten, yet unforgettable'                        |
+  |                                                              |
+  | The following word has been changed on page 138:-            |
+  |                                                              |
+  | 'uncle' to 'father'                                          |
+  | There is no previous mention of an uncle and the title       |
+  | 'father' makes more sense in the context of the story.       |
+  |                                                              |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+                 _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
+
+
+  MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
+
+  _POPULAR NOVELS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
+
+  Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each.
+
+  NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.
+
+  KIRSTEEN.
+
+  _SCOTSMAN_--"One of the most powerful stories Mrs. Oliphant has ever
+  written."
+
+  _MURRAY'S MAGAZINE_--"One of the best books which Mrs. Oliphant's
+  fertile pen has within recent years produced."
+
+  _WORLD_--"Mrs. Oliphant has written many novels, and many good ones; but
+  if she has hitherto written one so good as _Kirsteen_, we have not read
+  it.... It is the highest praise we can give, when we say that there are
+  passages in it which, as pictures of Scottish life and character, it
+  would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to match out of Sir Walter's
+  pages."
+
+  _NATIONAL OBSERVER_--"Seldom, if ever, has Mrs. Oliphant done better
+  than in _Kirsteen_.... There is humour, there is pathos, there is
+  tragedy, there is even crime--in short, there is human life."
+
+  JOYCE.
+
+  _GUARDIAN_--"It has seldom been our lot to fall in with so engrossing a
+  story."
+
+  A BELEAGUERED CITY.
+
+  _TIMES_--"The story is a powerful one and very original to boot."
+
+  HESTER.
+
+  _ACADEMY_--"At her best, she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of
+  living English novelists. She is at her best in _Hester_."
+
+  HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.
+
+  _SCOTSMAN_--"The workmanship of the book is simply admirable."
+
+  THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.
+
+  _ANTI-JACOBIN_--"An extremely interesting story, and a perfectly
+  satisfactory achievement of literary art."
+
+  _MORNING POST_--"Mrs. Oliphant has never written a simpler, and at the
+  same time a better conceived story. An excellent example of pure and
+  simple fiction, which is also of the deepest interest."
+
+  THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.
+
+  _NATIONAL OBSERVER_--"In spite of yourself and of them, you become
+  interested in uninteresting people, annoyed at their follies, and
+  sympathetic with their trifling sorrows and joys. This is Mrs.
+  Oliphant's secret."
+
+  SIR TOM.
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Has the charm of style, the literary quality and
+  flavour that never fail to please."
+
+  Globe 8vo. 2s. each.
+
+  A SON OF THE SOIL.
+
+  THE CURATE IN CHARGE.
+
+  YOUNG MUSGRAVE.
+
+  THE WIZARD'S SON.
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"We have read it twice, once in snippets, and once as a
+  whole, and our interest has never flagged."
+
+  A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AND HIS FAMILY.
+
+  _ACADEMY_--"Never has her workmanship been surer, steadier, or more
+  masterly."
+
+  THE SECOND SON.
+
+  _MORNING POST_--"Mrs. Oliphant has never shown herself more completely
+  mistress of her art.... The entire story is clever and powerful."
+
+  _WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
+
+  JERUSALEM, THE HOLY CITY: ITS HISTORY AND HOPE.
+
+  With 50 Illustrations. Medium 8vo. 21s.
+
+  _Also a limited Edition on Large Paper._ 50s. net.
+
+  _GRAPHIC_--"An eloquent monograph on Jerusalem, written with all the
+  picturesqueness and force of style which distinguishes the writer."
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"Mrs. Oliphant has successfully accomplished the difficult
+  achievement of recasting the familiar old Hebrew stories into the
+  language of our own land and century without losing their charm."
+
+  _SCOTSMAN_--"One of the most attractive books of the year."
+
+  _RECORD_--"It is entitled to yet higher praise than that which is due to
+  it for its charm as an expression of the highest literary skill."
+
+  _OBSERVER_--"Mrs. Oliphant has written no better literature than this.
+  It is a history; but it is one of more than human interest."
+
+  THE MAKERS OF VENICE: DOGES, CONQUERORS, PAINTERS, AND MEN OF LETTERS.
+  With numerous Illustrations.
+
+  Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.
+
+  _Edition de Luxe_, with additional Plates. 8vo. 20s. net.
+
+  _BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE_--"Even more delightful than the _Makers of
+  Florence_. The writing is bright and animated, the research thorough,
+  the presentation of Venetian life brilliantly vivid. It is an entirely
+  workmanlike piece of work."
+
+  THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE: DANTE, GIOTTO, SAVONAROLA, AND THEIR CITY. With
+  Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.
+
+  _Edition de Luxe_, with 20 additional Plates, reproduced from line
+  engravings after pictures by Florentine artists. Medium 8vo. 20s. net.
+
+  _EDINBURGH REVIEW_--"One of the most elegant and interesting books which
+  has been inspired in our times by the arts and annals of that celebrated
+  republic."
+
+  _WESTMINSTER REVIEW_--"No one visiting Florence can better prepare for a
+  just appreciation of the temper and spirit of the place, than by
+  studying Mrs. Oliphant's capital treatise."
+
+  ROYAL EDINBURGH: HER SAINTS, KINGS, AND SCHOLARS. Illustrated by GEORGE
+  REID, R.S.A. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 10s. 6d.
+
+  _PALL MALL GAZETTE_--"Is fascinating and full of interest throughout.
+  Mr. Reid has long occupied a place in the very front rank of Scottish
+  artists, and we have seen nothing finer from his pencil than the
+  illustrations in the present volume."
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"Between letterpress and illustrations, _Royal Edinburgh_
+  reproduces the tragedy, the glory, and the picturesqueness of Scotch
+  history as no other work has done."
+
+  AGNES HOPETOUN'S SCHOOLS AND HOLIDAYS. Illustrated.
+  Globe 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+
+  S. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. Crown 8vo. 6s.
+
+  THE LITERARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE END
+  OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH
+  CENTURY. 3 vols. 8vo. 21s.
+
+  SHERIDAN. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d.; sewed, 1s. [_English Men of Letters._]
+
+  SELECTIONS FROM COWPER'S POEMS. 18mo. 2s. 6d. net.
+    [_Golden Treasury Series._]
+
+
+  MACMILLAN'S THREE-AND-SIXPENNY SERIES
+
+  OF
+
+  =WORKS BY POPULAR AUTHORS.=
+
+  In Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. Price 3s. 6d. each.
+
+  =By Sir SAMUEL BAKER.=
+
+  TRUE TALES FOR MY GRANDSONS.
+
+  =By ROLF BOLDREWOOD=
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great
+  point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the adventurous
+  parts of his books."
+
+  _PALL MALL GAZETTE_--"The volumes are brimful of adventure, in which
+  gold, gold-diggers, prospectors, claim-holders, take an active part."
+
+  ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.
+  THE MINERS RIGHT.
+  A COLONIAL REFORMER.
+  THE SQUATTER'S DREAM.
+  A SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON.
+  NEVERMORE.
+
+  =By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT.=
+  LOUISIANA; AND THAT LASS O' LOWRIE'S.
+
+  =By HUGH CONWAY.=
+
+  _MORNING POST_--"Life-like and full of individuality."
+
+  _DAILY NEWS_--"Throughout written with spirit, good feeling, and
+  ability, and a certain dash of humour."
+
+  LIVING OR DEAD?
+  A FAMILY AFFAIR.
+
+  =By Mrs. CRAIK.=
+  (The Author of "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.")
+
+  OLIVE. With Illustrations by G. BOWERS.
+  THE OGILVIES. With Illustrations.
+  AGATHA'S HUSBAND. With Illustrations.
+  HEAD OF THE FAMILY. With Illustrations.
+  TWO MARRIAGES.
+  THE LAUREL BUSH.
+  MY MOTHER AND I. With Illustrations.
+  MISS TOMMY: A Mediaeval Romance. Illustrated.
+  KING ARTHUR: Not a Love Story.
+  SERMONS OUT OF CHURCH.
+
+  =By F. MARION CRAWFORD.=
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"With the solitary exception of Mrs. Oliphant we have no
+  living novelist more distinguished for variety of theme and range of
+  imaginative outlook than Mr. Marion Crawford."
+
+  MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India. Portrait of Author.
+  DR. CLAUDIUS: A True Story.
+  A ROMAN SINGER.
+  ZOROASTER.
+  MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX.
+  A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.
+  PAUL PATOFF.
+  WITH THE IMMORTALS.
+  GREIFENSTEIN.
+  SANT' ILARIO.
+  A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE.
+
+  =By Sir HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E.=
+
+  _ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE_--"Interesting as specimens of romance, the style
+  of writing is so excellent--scholarly and at the same time easy and
+  natural--that the volumes are worth reading on that account alone. But
+  there is also masterly description of persons, places, and things;
+  skilful analysis of character; a constant play of wit and humour; and a
+  happy gift of instantaneous portraiture."
+
+  THE COERULEANS.
+  THE HERIOTS.
+  WHEAT AND TARES.
+
+  =By CHARLES DICKENS=
+
+  THE PICKWICK PAPERS. With 50 Illustrations.
+  OLIVER TWIST. With 27 Illustrations.
+  NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. With 44 Illustrations.
+  MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. With 41 Illustrations.
+  THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. With 97 Illustrations.
+  BARNABY RUDGE. With 76 Illustrations.
+  DOMBEY AND SON. With 40 Illustrations.      _September 26._
+  CHRISTMAS BOOKS. With 65 Illustrations.      _October 26._
+  SKETCHES BY BOZ. With 44 Illustrations.      _November 21._
+  DAVID COPPERFIELD. With 41 Illustrations.      _December 21._
+  AMERICAN NOTES AND PICTURES FROM ITALY. With 4 Illustrations.
+  _January 26._
+  THE LETTERS OF CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+  =By LANOE FALCONER.=
+
+  CECILIA DE NOEL.
+
+  =By W. WARDE FOWLER.=
+
+  A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS. Illustrated by BRYAN HOOK.
+  TALES OF THE BIRDS. Illustrated by BRYAN HOOK.
+
+  =By the Rev. JOHN GILMORE=
+
+  STORM WARRIORS.
+
+  =By THOMAS HARDY=
+
+  _TIMES_--"There is hardly a novelist, dead or living, who so skilfully
+  harmonises the poetry of moral life with its penury. Just as Millet
+  could in the figure of a solitary peasant toiling on a plain convey a
+  world of pathetic meaning, so Mr. Hardy with his yeomen and villagers.
+  Their occupations in his hands wear a pathetic dignity, which not even
+  the encomiums of a Ruskin could heighten."
+
+  THE WOODLANDERS.
+  WESSEX TALES.
+
+  =By BRET HARTE.=
+
+  _SPEAKER_--"The best work of Mr. Bret Harte stands entirely alone ...
+  marked on every page by distinction and quality.... Strength and
+  delicacy, spirit and tenderness, go together in his best work."
+
+  CRESSY.
+  THE HERITAGE of DEDLOW MARSH.
+  A FIRST FAMILY OF TASAJARA.
+
+  By the Author of "Hogan, M.P."
+
+  HOGAN, M.P.
+
+  =By THOMAS HUGHES.=
+
+  TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS. With Illustrations by A. HUGHES and S. P. HALL.
+  TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. With Illustrations by S. P. HALL.
+  THE SCOURING OF THE WHITE HORSE, AND THE ASHEN FAGGOT.
+    With Illustrations by RICHARD DOYLE.
+
+  =By HENRY JAMES.=
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"He has the power of seeing with the artistic
+  perception of the few, and of writing about what he has seen, so that
+  the many can understand and feel with him."
+
+  _WORLD_--"His touch is so light, and his humour, while shrewd and keen,
+  so free from bitterness."
+
+  A LONDON LIFE.
+  THE ASPERN PAPERS.
+  THE TRAGIC MUSE.
+
+  =By ANNIE KEARY.=
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"In our opinion there have not been many novels published
+  better worth reading. The literary workmanship is excellent, and all the
+  windings of the stories are worked with patient fulness and a skill not
+  often found."
+
+  CASTLE DALY.
+  A YORK AND A LANCASTER ROSE.
+  A DOUBTING HEART.
+  JANET'S HOME.
+  OLDBURY.
+
+  =By PATRICK KENNEDY.=
+
+  LEGENDARY FICTIONS OF THE IRISH CELTS.
+
+  =CHARLES KINGSLEY.=
+
+  WESTWARD HO!
+  HYPATIA.
+  YEAST.
+  ALTON LOCKE.
+  TWO YEARS AGO.
+  HEREWARD THE WAKE.
+  POEMS.
+  THE HEROES.
+  THE WATER BABIES.
+  MADAM HOW AND LADY WHY.
+  AT LAST.
+  PROSE IDYLLS.
+  PLAYS AND PURITANS, &c.
+  THE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON.
+  SANITARY AND SOCIAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
+  HISTORICAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
+  SCIENTIFIC LECTURES AND ESSAYS.
+  LITERARY AND GENERAL LECTURES.
+  THE HERMITS.
+  GLAUCUS; OR, THE WONDERS OF THE SEA-SHORE.
+  With Coloured Illustrations.
+  VILLAGE AND TOWN AND COUNTRY SERMONS.
+  THE WATER OF LIFE, AND OTHER SERMONS.
+  SERMONS ON NATIONAL SUBJECTS, AND THE KING OF THE EARTH.
+  SERMONS FOR THE TIMES.
+  GOOD NEWS OF GOD.
+  THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH, AND DAVID.
+  DISCIPLINE, AND OTHER SERMONS.
+  WESTMINSTER SERMONS.
+  ALL SAINTS' DAY, AND OTHER SERMONS.
+
+  =By HENRY KINGSLEY.=
+
+  TALES OF OLD TRAVEL.
+
+  =By MARGARET LEE.=
+
+  FAITHFUL AND UNFAITHFUL.
+
+  =By AMY LEVY.=
+
+  REUBEN SACHS.
+
+  =By the EARL OF LYTTON.=
+
+  THE RING OF AMASIS.
+
+  =By MALCOLM M'LENNAN.=
+
+  MUCKLE JOCK, AND OTHER STORIES OF PEASANT LIFE.
+
+  =By LUCAS MALET.=
+
+  MRS. LORIMER.
+
+  =By A. B. MITFORD.=
+
+  TALES OF OLD JAPAN. Illustrated.
+
+  =By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.=
+
+  _SPECTATOR_--"Mr. Christie Murray has more power and genius for the
+  delineation of English rustic life than any half-dozen of our surviving
+  novelists put together."
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Few modern novelists can tell a story of English
+  country life better than Mr. D. Christie Murray."
+
+  AUNT RACHEL.
+  JOHN VALE'S GUARDIAN.
+  SCHWARTZ.
+  THE WEAKER VESSEL.
+  HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. By D. C. MURRAY and H. HERMAN.
+
+  =By Mrs. OLIPHANT.=
+
+  _ACADEMY_--"At her best she is, with one or two exceptions, the best of
+  living English novelists."
+
+  _SATURDAY REVIEW_--"Has the charm of style, the literary quality and
+  flavour that never fails to please."
+
+  A BELEAGUERED CITY.
+  JOYCE.
+  NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.
+  KIRSTEEN.
+  HESTER.
+  HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.
+  THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN.
+  THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.
+
+  =By W. CLARK RUSSELL.=
+
+  _TIMES_--"Mr. Clark Russell is one of those writers who have set
+  themselves to revive the British sea story in all its glorious
+  excitement. Mr. Russell has made a considerable reputation in this line.
+  His plots are well conceived, and that of _Marooned_ is no exception to
+  this rule."
+
+  MAROONED.
+  A STRANGE ELOPEMENT.
+
+  =By J. H. SHORTHOUSE.=
+
+  _ANTI-JACOBIN_--"Powerful, striking, and fascinating romances."
+
+  JOHN INGLESANT.
+  SIR PERCIVAL.
+  THE LITTLE SCHOOLMASTER MARK.
+  THE COUNTESS EVE.
+  A TEACHER OF THE VIOLIN.
+
+  =By Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD.=
+
+  MISS BRETHERTON.
+
+  =By MONTAGU WILLIAMS, Q.C.=
+
+  LEAVES OF A LIFE.
+  LATER LEAVES.
+
+  =By Miss CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.=
+
+  THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.
+  HEARTSEASE.
+  HOPES AND FEARS.
+  DYNEVOR TERRACE.
+  THE DAISY CHAIN.
+  THE TRIAL: MORE LINKS OF THE DAISY CHAIN.
+  PILLARS OF THE HOUSE. Vol. I.
+  PILLARS OF THE HOUSE. Vol. II.
+  THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER.
+  THE CLEVER WOMAN OF THE FAMILY.
+  THE THREE BRIDES.
+  MY YOUNG ALCIDES.
+  THE CAGED LION.
+  THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST.
+  THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS.
+  LADY HESTER, AND THE DANVERS PAPERS.
+  MAGNUM BONUM.
+  LOVE AND LIFE.
+  UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.
+  STRAY PEARLS.
+  THE ARMOURER'S 'PRENTICES.
+  THE TWO SIDES OF THE SHIELD.
+  NUTTIE'S FATHER.
+  SCENES AND CHARACTERS.
+  CHANTRY HOUSE.
+  A MODERN TELEMACHUS.
+  BYE-WORDS.
+  BEECHCROFT AT ROCKSTONE.
+  MORE BYWORDS.
+  A REPUTED CHANGELING.
+  THE LITTLE DUKE.
+  THE LANCES OF LYNWOOD.
+  THE PRINCE AND THE PAGE.
+  P's AND Q's AND LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE.
+  THE TWO PENNILESS PRINCESSES.
+  THAT STICK.
+
+  =By ARCHDEACON FARRAR.=
+
+  SEEKERS AFTER GOD.
+  ETERNAL HOPE.
+  THE FALL OF MAN.
+  THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO CHRIST.
+  THE SILENCE AND VOICES OF GOD.
+  IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH.
+  SAINTLY WORKERS.
+  EPHPHATHA.
+  MERCY AND JUDGMENT.
+  SERMONS AND ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN AMERICA.
+
+  =By FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE.=
+
+  SERMONS PREACHED IN LINCOLN'S INN CHAPEL. _In 6 vols._
+
+  =Collected Works.=
+
+  In Monthly Volumes from October 1892. 3s. 6d. per vol.
+
+  1. CHRISTMAS DAY AND OTHER SERMONS.
+  2. THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.
+  3. PROPHETS AND KINGS.
+  4. PATRIARCHS AND LAWGIVERS.
+  5. THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
+  6. GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
+  7. EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
+  8. LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE.
+  9. FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS.
+  10. SOCIAL MORALITY.
+  11. PRAYER BOOK AND LORD'S PRAYER.
+  12. THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE.
+
+
+  MACMILLAN & CO., BEDFORD STREET,
+
+  STRAND, LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Tom, by Mrs. Oliphant
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