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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36497-8.txt b/36497-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..127b721 --- /dev/null +++ b/36497-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1717 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Hypocrite, by Max Beerbohm + +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: The Happy Hypocrite + A Fairy Tale For Tired Men + +Author: Max Beerbohm + +Release Date: June 22, 2011 [EBook #36497] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE + + A FAIRY TALE FOR TIRED MEN + + BY MAX BEERBOHM + + JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD. + + + _Published Sq. 16mo April 1897_ + _Reprinted December 1897_ + _Reprinted February 1904_ + _Reprinted May 1908_ + _Reprinted May 1913_ + _Cr. 4to Illus. Edition October 1918_ + _Cr. 8vo Edition December 1919_ + _Reprinted February 1922_ + _Reprinted August 1924_ + _Reprinted July 1928_ + + _Made and Printed in Great Britain_ + _by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +The Happy Hypocrite + + + + +I + + +None, it is said, of all who revelled with the Regent, was half so +wicked as Lord George Hell. I will not trouble my little readers with a +long recital of his great naughtiness. But it were well they should know +that he was greedy, destructive, and disobedient. I am afraid there is +no doubt that he often sat up at Carlton House until long after bedtime, +playing at games, and that he generally ate and drank far more than was +good for him. His fondness for fine clothes was such that he used to +dress on week-days quite as gorgeously as good people dress on Sundays. +He was thirty-five years old and a great grief to his parents. + +And the worst of it was that he set such a bad example to others. Never, +never did he try to conceal his wrong-doing; so that, in time, every +one knew how horrid he was. In fact, I think he was proud of being +horrid. Captain Tarleton, in his account of _Contemporary Bucks_, +suggested that his Lordship's great Candour was a virtue and should +incline us to forgive some of his abominable faults. But, painful as it +is to me to dissent from any opinion expressed by one who is now dead, I +hold that Candour is good only when it reveals good actions or good +sentiments, and that when it reveals evil, itself is evil, even also. + +Lord George Hell did, at last, atone for all his faults, in a way that +was never revealed to the world during his life-time. The reason of his +strange and sudden disappearance from that social sphere in which he had +so long moved, and never moved again, I will unfold. My little readers +will then, I think, acknowledge that any angry judgment they may have +passed upon him must be reconsidered and, maybe, withdrawn. I will leave +his Lordship in their hands. But my plea for him will not be based upon +that Candour of his, which some of his friends so much admired. There +were, yes! some so weak and so wayward as to think it a fine thing to +have an historic title and no scruples. "Here comes George Hell," they +would say. "How wicked my Lord is looking!" _Noblesse oblige_, you see, +and so an aristocrat should be very careful of his good name. Anonymous +naughtiness does little harm. + +It is pleasant to record that many persons were inobnoxious to the magic +of his title and disapproved of him so strongly that, whenever he +entered a room where they happened to be, they would make straight for +the door and watch him very severely through the key-hole. Every +morning, when he strolled up Piccadilly, they crossed over to the other +side in a compact body, leaving him to the companionship of his bad +companions on that which is still called the "shady" side. Lord +George--[Greek: schetlios]--was quite indifferent to this demonstration. +Indeed, he seemed wholly hardened, and when ladies gathered up their +skirts as they passed him, he would lightly appraise their ankles. + +I am glad I never saw his Lordship. They say he was rather like +Caligula, with a dash of Sir John Falstaff, and that sometimes on wintry +mornings in St. James's Street young children would hush their prattle +and cling in disconsolate terror to their nurses' skirts, as they saw +him come (that vast and fearful gentleman!) with the east wind ruffling +the rotund surface of his beaver, ruffling the fur about his neck and +wrists, and striking the purple complexion of his cheeks to a still +deeper purple. "King Bogey" they called him in the nurseries. In the +hours when they too were naughty, their nurses would predict his advent +down the chimney or from the linen-press, and then they always +"behaved." So that, you see, even the unrighteous are a power for good, +in the hands of nurses. + +It is true that his Lordship was a non-smoker--a negative virtue, +certainly, and due, even that, I fear, to the fashion of the day--but +there the list of his good qualities comes to an abrupt conclusion. He +loved with an insatiable love the town and the pleasures of the town, +whilst the ennobling influences of our English lakes were quite unknown +to him. He used to boast that he had not seen a buttercup for twenty +years, and once he called the country "a Fool's Paradise." London was +the only place marked on the map of his mind. London gave him all he +wished for. Is it not extraordinary to think that he had never spent a +happy day nor a day of any kind in Follard Chase, that desirable mansion +in Herts, which he had won from Sir Follard Follard, by a chuck of the +dice, at Boodle's, on his seventeenth birthday? Always cynical and +unkind, he had refused to give the broken baronet his "revenge." Always +unkind and insolent, he had offered to instal him in the lodge--an offer +which was, after a little hesitation, accepted. "On my soul, the man's +place is a sinecure," Lord George would say; "he never has to open the +gate to me."[1] So rust has covered the great iron gates of Follard +Chase, and moss had covered its paths. The deer browsed upon its +terraces. There were only wild flowers anywhere. Deep down among the +weeds and water-lilies of the little stone-rimmed pond he had looked +down upon, lay the marble faun, as he had fallen. + +[Footnote 1: _Lord Coleraine's Correspondence_, page 101.] + +Of all the sins of his Lordship's life surely not one was more wanton +than his neglect of Follard Chase. Some whispered (nor did he ever +trouble to deny) that he had won it by foul means, by loaded dice. +Indeed no card-player in St. James's cheated more persistently than he. +As he was rich and had no wife and family to support, and as his luck +was always capital, I can offer no excuse for his conduct. At Carlton +House, in the presence of many bishops and cabinet ministers, he once +dunned the Regent most arrogantly for 5000 guineas out of which he had +cheated him some months before, and went so far as to declare that he +would not leave the house till he got it; whereupon His Royal Highness, +with that unfailing tact for which he was ever famous, invited him to +stay there as a guest; which, in fact, Lord George did, for several +months. After this, we can hardly be surprised when we read that he +"seldom sat down to the fashionable game of Limbo with less than four, +and sometimes with _as many as seven_ aces up his sleeve."[2] We can +only wonder that he was tolerated at all. + +[Footnote 2: _Contemporary Bucks_, vol. i, page 73.] + +At Garble's, that nightly resort of titled rips and roysterers, he +usually spent the early hours of his evenings. Round the illuminated +garden, with La Gambogi, the dancer, on his arm, and a Bacchic retinue +at his heels, he would amble leisurely, clad in Georgian costume, which +was not then, of course, fancy dress, as it is now.[3] Now and again, +in the midst of his noisy talk, he would crack a joke of the period, or +break into a sentimental ballad, dance a little, or pick a quarrel. When +he tired of such fooling, he would proceed to his box in the tiny _al +fresco_ theatre and patronize the jugglers, pugilists, play-actors and +whatever eccentric persons happened to be performing there. + +[Footnote 3: It would seem, however, that, on special occasions, his +Lordship indulged in odd costumes. "I have seen him," says Captain +Tarleton (vol. i, p. 69), "attired as a French clown, as a sailor, or in +the crimson hose of a Sicilian grandee--_peu beau spectacle_. He never +disguised his face, whatever his costume, however."] + + * * * * * + +The stars were splendid and the moon as beautiful as a great camelia, +one night in May, as his Lordship laid his arms upon the cushioned ledge +of his box and watched the antics of the Merry Dwarf, a little, +curly-headed creature, whose _début_ it was. Certainly Garble had found +a novelty. Lord George led the applause, and the Dwarf finished his +frisking with a pretty song about lovers. Nor was this all. Feats of +archery were to follow. In a moment the Dwarf reappeared with a small, +gilded bow in his hand and a quiverful of arrows slung at his shoulder. +Hither and thither he shot these vibrant arrows, very precisely, several +into the bark of the acacias that grew about the overt stage, several +into the fluted columns of the boxes, two or three to the stars. The +audience was delighted. "_Bravo! Bravo Sagittaro!_" murmured Lord +George, in the language of La Gambogi, who was at his side. Finally, the +waxen figure of a man was carried on by an assistant and propped against +the trunk of a tree. A scarf was tied across the eyes of the Merry +Dwarf, who stood in a remote corner of the stage. _Bravo_ indeed! For +the shaft had pierced the waxen figure through the heart, or just where +the heart would have been if the figure had been human and not waxen. + +Lord George called for port and champagne and beckoned the bowing +homuncule to his box, that he might compliment him on his skill and +pledge him in a bumper of the grape. + +"On my soul, you have a genius for the bow," his Lordship cried with +florid condescension. "Come and sit by me; but first let me present you +to my divine companion the Signora Gambogi--Virgo and Sagittarius, egad! +You may have met on the Zodiac." + +"Indeed, I met the Signora many years ago," the Dwarf replied, with a +low bow. "But not on the Zodiac, and the Signora perhaps forgets me." + +At this speech the Signora flushed angrily, for she was indeed no longer +young, and the Dwarf had a childish face. She thought he mocked her; her +eyes flashed. Lord George's twinkled rather maliciously. + +"Great is the experience of youth," he laughed. "Pray, are you stricken +with more than twenty summers?" + +"With more than I can count," said the Dwarf. "To the health of your +Lordship!" and he drained his long glass of wine. Lord George +replenished it, and asked by what means or miracle he had acquired his +mastery of the bow. + +"By long practice," the little thing rejoined; "long practice on human +creatures." And he nodded his curls mysteriously. + +"On my heart, you are a dangerous box-mate." + +"Your Lordship were certainly a good target." + +Little liking this joke at his bulk, which really rivalled the Regent's, +Lord George turned brusquely in his chair and fixed his eyes upon the +stage. This time it was the Gambogi who laughed. + +A new operette, _The Fair Captive of Samarcand_, was being enacted, and +the frequenters of Garble's were all curious to behold the _débutante_, +Jenny Mere, who was said to be both pretty and talented. These +predictions were surely fulfilled, when the captive peeped from the +window of her wooden turret. She looked so pale under her blue turban. +Her eyes were dark with fear; her parted lips did not seem capable of +speech. "Is it that she is frightened of us?" the audience wondered. "Or +of the flashing scimitar of Aphoschaz, the cruel father who holds her +captive?" So they gave her loud applause, and when at length she jumped +down, to be caught in the arms of her gallant lover, Nissarah, and, +throwing aside her Eastern draperies, did a simple dance in the +convention of Columbine, their delight was quite unbounded. She was very +young and did not dance very well, it is true, but they forgave her +that. And when she turned in the dance and saw her father with his +scimitar, their hearts beat swiftly for her. Nor were all eyes tearless +when she pleaded with him for her life. + +Strangely absorbed, quite callous of his two companions, Lord George +gazed over the footlights. He seemed as one who is in a trance. Of a +sudden, something shot sharp into his heart. In pain he sprang to his +feet and, as he turned, he seemed to see a winged and laughing child, in +whose hand was a bow, fly swiftly away into the darkness. At his side, +was the Dwarf's chair. It was empty. Only La Gambogi was with him, and +her dark face was like the face of a fury. + +Presently he sank back into his chair, holding one hand to his heart, +that still throbbed from the strange transfixion. He breathed very +painfully and seemed scarce conscious of his surroundings. But La +Gambogi knew he would pay no more homage to her now, for that the love +of Jenny Mere had come into his heart. + +When the operette was over, his lovesick Lordship snatched up his cloak +and went away without one word to the lady at his side. Rudely he +brushed aside Count Karoloff and Mr. FitzClarence, with whom he had +arranged to play hazard. Of his comrades, his cynicism, his reckless +scorn--of all the material of his existence--he was oblivious now. He +had no time for penitence or diffident delay. He only knew that he must +kneel at the feet of Jenny Mere and ask her to be his wife. + +"Miss Mere," said Garble, "is in her room, resuming her ordinary attire. +If your Lordship deign to await the conclusion of her humble toilet, it +shall be my privilege to present her to your Lordship. Even now, +indeed, I hear her footfall on the stair." + +Lord George uncovered his head and with one hand nervously smoothed his +rebellious wig. + +"Miss Mere, come hither," said Garble. "This is my Lord George Hell, +that you have pleased whom by your poor efforts this night will ever be +the prime gratification of your passage through the roseate realms of +art." + +Little Miss Mere, who had never seen a lord, except in fancy or in +dreams, curtseyed shyly and hung her head. With a loud crash, Lord +George fell on his knees. The manager was greatly surprised, the girl +greatly embarrassed. Yet neither of them laughed, for sincerity +dignified his posture and sent eloquence from its lips. + +"Miss Mere," he cried, "give ear, I pray you, to my poor words, nor +spurn me in misprision from the pedestal of your Beauty, Genius, and +Virtue. All too conscious, alas! of my presumption in the same, I yet +abase myself before you as a suitor for your adorable Hand. I grope +under the shadow of your raven Locks. I am dazzled in the light of those +translucent Orbs, your Eyes. In the intolerable Whirlwind of your Fame I +faint and am afraid." + +"Sir----" the girl began, simply. + +"Say 'My Lord,'" said Garble, solemnly. + +"My Lord, I thank you for your words. They are beautiful. But indeed, +indeed, I can never be your bride." + +Lord George hid his face in his hands. + +"Child," said Mr. Garble, "let not the sun rise ere you have retracted +those wicked words." + +"My wealth, my rank, my irremeable love for you, I throw them at your +feet," Lord George cried piteously. "I would wait an hour, a week, a +lustre, even a decade, did you but bid me hope!" + +"I can never be your wife," she said, slowly. "I can never be the wife +of any man whose face is not saintly. Your face, my Lord, mirrors, it +may be, true love for me, but it is even as a mirror long tarnished by +the reflexion of this world's vanity. It is even as a tarnished mirror. +Do not kneel to me, for I am poor and humble. I was not made for such +impetuous wooing. Kneel, if you please, to some greater, gayer lady. As +for my love, it is my own, nor can it be ever torn from me, but given, +as true love must needs be given, freely. Ah, rise from your knees. That +man, whose face is wonderful as are the faces of the saints, to him I +will give my true love." + +Miss Mere, though visibly affected, had spoken this speech with a +gesture and elocution so superb, that Mr. Garble could not help +applauding, deeply though he regretted her attitude towards his honoured +patron. As for Lord George, he was immobile as a stricken oak. With a +sweet look of pity, Miss Mere went her way, and Mr. Garble, with some +solicitude, helped his Lordship to rise from his knees. Out into the +night, without a word, his Lordship went. Above him the stars were still +splendid. They seemed to mock the festoons of little lamps, dim now and +guttering, in the garden of Garble's. What should he do? No thoughts +came; only his heart burnt hotly. He stood on the brim of Garble's lake, +shallow and artificial as his past life had been. Two swans slept on its +surface. The moon shone strangely upon their white, twisted necks. +Should he drown himself? There was no one in the garden to prevent him, +and in the morning they would find him floating there, one of the +noblest of love's victims. The garden would be closed in the evening. +There would be no performance in the little theatre. It might be that +Jenny Mere would mourn him. "Life is a prison, without bars," he +murmured, as he walked away. + +All night long he strode, knowing not whither, through the mysterious +streets and squares of London. The watchmen, to whom his figure was +familiar, gripped their staves at his approach, for they had old reason +to fear his wild and riotous habits. He did not heed them. Through that +dim conflict between darkness and day, which is ever waged silently over +our sleep, Lord George strode on in the deep absorption of his love and +of his despair. At dawn he found himself on the outskirts of a little +wood in Kensington. A rabbit rushed past him through the dew. Birds were +fluttering in the branches. The leaves were tremulous with the presage +of day, and the air was full of the sweet scent of hyacinths. + +How cool the country was! It seemed to cool the feverish maladies of his +soul and consecrate his love. In the fair light of the dawn he began to +shape the means of winning Jenny Mere, that he had conceived in the +desperate hours of the night. Soon an old woodman passed by, and, with +rough courtesy, showed him the path that would lead him quickest to the +town. He was loth to leave the wood. With Jenny, he thought, he would +live always in the country. And he picked a posy of wild flowers for +her. + +His _rentrée_ into the still silent town strengthened his Arcadian +resolves. He, who had seen the town so often in its hours of sleep, had +never noticed how sinister its whole aspect was. In its narrow streets +the white houses rose on either side of him like cliffs of chalk. He +hurried swiftly along the unswept pavement. How had he loved this city +of evil secrets? + +At last he came to St. James's Square, to the hateful door of his own +house. Shadows lay like memories in every corner of the dim hall. +Through the window of his room, a sunbeam slanted across his smooth +white bed, and fell ghastly on the ashen grate. + + + + +II + + +It was a bright morning in Old Bond Street, and fat little Mr. Aeneas, +the fashionable mask-maker, was sunning himself at the door of his shop. +His window was lined as usual with all kinds of masks--beautiful masks +with pink cheeks, and absurd masks with protuberant chins; curious +Trpocrctiira [Greek: prosopa] copied from old tragic models; masks of +paper for children, of fine silk for ladies, and of leather for working +men; bearded or beardless, gilded or waxen (most of them, indeed, were +waxen), big or little masks. And in the middle of this vain galaxy hung +the presentment of a Cyclops' face, carved cunningly of gold, with a +great sapphire in its brow. + +The sun gleamed brightly on the window and on the bald head and +varnished shoes of fat little Mr. Aeneas. It was too early for any +customers to come, and Mr. Aeneas seemed to be greatly enjoying his +leisure in the fresh air. He smiled complacently as he stood there, and +well he might, for he was a great artist and was patronized by several +crowned heads and not a few of the nobility. Only the evening before, +Mr. Brummell had come into his shop and ordered a light summer mask, +wishing to evade for a time the jealous vigilance of Lady Otterton. It +pleased Mr. Aeneas to think that his art made him the recipient of so +many high secrets. He smiled as he thought of the titled spendthrifts +who, at this moment, _perdus_ behind his masterpieces, passed unscathed +among their creditors. He was the secular confessor of his day, always +able to give absolution. A unique position! + +The street was as quiet as a village street. At an open window over the +way, a handsome lady, wrapped in a muslin _peignoir_, sat sipping her +cup of chocolate. It was La Signora Gambogi, and Mr. Aeneas made her +many elaborate bows. This morning, however, her thoughts seemed far +away, and she did not notice the little man's polite efforts. Nettled at +her negligence, Mr. Aeneas was on the point of retiring into his shop, +when he saw Lord George Hell hastening up the street, with a posy of +wild flowers in his hand. + +"His Lordship is up betimes!" he said to himself. "An early visit to La +Signora, I suppose." + +Not so, however. His Lordship came straight towards the mask-shop. Once +he glanced up at Signora's window and looked deeply annoyed when he saw +her sitting there. He came quickly into the shop. + +"I want the mask of a saint," he said. + +"Mask of a saint, my Lord? Certainly!" said Mr. Aeneas, briskly. "With +or without halo? His Grace the Bishop of St. Aldred's always wears his +with a halo? Your Lordship does not wish for a halo? Certainly! If your +Lordship will allow me to take his measurement----" + +"I must have the mask to-day," Lord George said. "Have you none +ready-made?" + +"Ah, I see. Required for immediate wear," murmured Mr. Aeneas, +dubiously. "You see, your Lordship takes a rather large size." And he +looked at the floor. + +"Julius!" he cried suddenly to his assistant, who was putting the +finishing touches to a mask of Barbarossa which the young king of +Zürremburg was to wear at his coronation the following week. "Julius! Do +you remember the saint's mask we made for Mr. Ripsby, a couple of years +ago?" + +"Yes, sir," said the boy. "It's stored upstairs." + +"I thought so," replied Mr. Aeneas. "Mr. Ripsby only had it on hire. +Step upstairs, Julius, and bring it down. I fancy it is just what your +Lordship would wish. Spiritual, yet handsome." + +"Is it a mask that is even as a mirror of true love?" Lord George asked, +gravely. + +"It was made precisely as such," the mask-maker answered. "In fact it +was made for Mr. Ripsby to wear at his silver wedding, and was very +highly praised by the relatives of Mrs. Ripsby. Will your Lordship step +into my little room?" + +So Mr. Aeneas led the way to his parlour behind the shop. He was elated +by the distinguished acquisition to his _clientèle_, for hitherto Lord +George had never patronized his business. He bustled round his parlour +and insisted that his Lordship should take a chair and a pinch from his +snuff-box, while the saint's mask was being found. + +Lord George's eye travelled along the rows of framed letters from great +personages, which lined the walls. He did not see them though, for he +was calculating the chances that La Gambogi had not observed him as he +entered the mask-shop. He had come down so early that he had thought she +would still be abed. That sinister old proverb, _La jalouse se lève de +bonne heure_, rose in his memory. His eye fell unconsciously on a large, +round mask made of dull silver, with the features of a human face traced +over its surface in faint filigree. + +"Your Lordship wonders what mask that is?" chirped Mr. Aeneas, tapping +the thing with one of his little finger nails. + +"What is that mask?" Lord George murmured, absently. + +"I ought not to divulge, my Lord," said the mask-maker. "But I know your +Lordship would respect a professional secret, a secret of which I am +pardonable proud. This," he said, "is a mask for the sun-god, Apollo, +whom heaven bless!" + +"You astound me," said Lord George. + +"Of no less a person, I do assure you. When Jupiter, his father, made +him lord of the day, Apollo craved that he might sometimes see the +doings of mankind in the hours of night time. Jupiter granted so +reasonable a request, and when next Apollo had passed over the sky and +hidden in the sea, and darkness had fallen on all the world, he raised +his head above the waters that he might watch the doings of mankind in +the hours of night time. But," Mr. Aeneas added, with a smile, "his +bright countenance made light all the darkness. Men rose from their +couches or from their revels, wondering that day was so soon come, and +went to their work. And Apollo sank weeping into the sea. 'Surely,' he +cried, 'it is a bitter thing that I alone, of all the gods, may not +watch the world in the hours of night time. For in those hours, as I am +told, men are even as gods are. They spill the wine and are wreathed +with roses. Their daughters dance in the light of torches. They laugh to +the sound of flutes. On their long couches they lie down at last, and +sleep comes to kiss their eyelids. None of these things may I see. +Wherefore the brightness of my beauty is even as a curse to me, and I +would put it from me.' And as he wept, Vulcan said to him, 'I am not the +least cunning of the gods, nor the least pitiful. Do not weep, for I +will give you that which shall end your sorrow. Nor need you put from +you the brightness of your beauty.' And Vulcan made a mask of dull +silver and fastened it across his brother's face. And that night, thus +masked, the sun-god rose from the sea and watched the doings of mankind +in the night time. Nor any longer were men abashed by his bright beauty, +for it was hidden by the mask of silver. Those whom he had so often seen +haggard over their daily tasks, he saw feasting now and wreathed with +red roses. He heard them laugh to the sound of flutes, as their +daughters danced in the red light of torches. And when at length they +lay down upon their soft couches and sleep kissed their eyelids, he sank +back into the sea and hid his mask under a little rock in the bed of the +sea. Nor have men ever known that Apollo watches them often in the night +time, but fancied it to be some pale goddess." + +"I myself have always thought it was Diana," said Lord George Hell. + +"An error, my Lord!" said Mr. Aeneas, with a smile. "_Ecce signum!_" And +he tapped the mask of dull silver. + +"Strange!" said his Lordship. "And pray how comes it that Apollo has +ordered of _you_ this new mask?" + +"He has always worn twelve new masks every year, inasmuch as no mask can +endure for many nights the near brightness of his face, before which +even a mask of the best and purest silver soon tarnishes and wears away. +Centuries ago, Vulcan tired of making so very many masks. And so Apollo +sent Mercury down to Athens, to the shop of Phoron, a Phoenician +mask-maker of great skill. Phoron made Apollo's masks for many years, +and every month Mercury came to his shop for a new one. When Phoron +died, another artist was chosen, and, when _he_ died, another, and so on +through all the ages of the world. Conceive, my Lord, my pride and +pleasure when Mercury flew into my shop, one night last year, and made +me Apollo's warrant-holder. It is the highest privilege that any +mask-maker can desire. And when I die," said Mr. Aeneas, with some +emotion, "Mercury will confer my post upon another." + +"And do they pay you for your labour?" Lord George asked. + +Mr. Aeneas drew himself up to his full height, such as it was. "In +Olympus, my Lord," he said, "they have no currency. For any mask-maker, +so high a privilege is its own reward. Yet the sun-god is generous. He +shines more brightly into my shop than into any other. Nor does he +suffer his rays to melt any waxen mask made by me, until its wearer doff +it and it be done with." + +At this moment Julius came in with the Ripsby mask. "I must ask your +Lordship's pardon, for having kept you so long," pleaded Mr. Aeneas. +"But I have a large store of old masks and they are imperfectly +catalogued." + +It certainly was a beautiful mask, with its smooth pink cheeks and +devotional brows. It was made of the finest wax. Lord George took it +gingerly in his hands and tried it on his face. It fitted _à merveille_. + +"Is the expression exactly as your Lordship would wish?" asked Mr. +Aeneas. + +Lord George laid it on the table and studied it intently. "I wish it +were more as a perfect mirror of true love," he said at length. "It is +too calm, too contemplative." + +"Easily remedied!" said Mr. Aeneas. Selecting a fine pencil, he deftly +drew the eyebrows closer to each other. With a brush steeped in some +scarlet pigment, he put a fuller curve upon the lips. And behold! it +was the mask of a saint who loves dearly. Lord George's heart throbbed +with pleasure. + +"And for how long does your Lordship wish to wear it?" asked Mr. Aeneas. + +"I must wear it until I die," replied Lord George. + +"Kindly be seated then, I pray," rejoined the little man. "For I must +apply the mask with great care. Julius, you will assist me!" + +So, while Julius heated the inner side of the waxen mask over a little +lamp, Mr. Aeneas stood over Lord George gently smearing his features +with some sweet-scented pomade. Then he took the mask and powdered its +inner side, quite soft and warm now, with a fluffy puff. "Keep quite +still, for one instant," he said, and clapped the mask firmly on his +Lordship's upturned face. So soon as he was sure of its perfect +adhesion, he took from his assistant's hand a silver file and a little +wooden spatula, with which he proceeded to pare down the edge of the +mask, where it joined the neck and ears. At length, all traces of the +"join" were obliterated. It remained only to arrange the curls of the +lordly wig over the waxen brow. + +The disguise was done. When Lord George looked through the eyelets of +his mask into the mirror that was placed in his hand, he saw a face that +was saintly, itself a mirror of true love. How wonderful it was! He felt +his past was a dream. He felt he was a new man indeed. His voice went +strangely through the mask's parted lips, as he thanked Mr. Aeneas. + +"Proud to have served your Lordship," said that little worthy, pocketing +his fee of fifty guineas, while he bowed his customer out. + +When he reached the street, Lord George nearly uttered a curse through +those sainted lips of his. For there, right in his way, stood La +Gambogi, with a small pink parasol. She laid her hand upon his sleeve +and called him softly by his name. He passed her by without a word. +Again she confronted him. + +"I cannot let go so handsome a lover," she laughed, "even though he +spurn me! Do not spurn me, George. Give me your posy of wild flowers. +Why, you never looked so lovingly at me in all your life!" + +"Madam," said Lord George, sternly, "I have not the honour to know you." +And he passed on. + +The lady gazed after her lost lover with the blackest hatred in her +eyes. Presently she beckoned across the road to a certain spy. + +And the spy followed him. + + + + +III + + +Lord George, greatly agitated, had turned into Piccadilly. It was +horrible to have met this garish embodiment of his past on the very +threshold of his fair future. The mask-maker's elevating talk about the +gods, followed by the initiative ceremony of his saintly mask, had +driven all discordant memories from his love-thoughts of Jenny Mere. And +then to be met by La Gambogi! It might be that, after his stern words, +she would not seek to cross his path again. Surely she would not seek to +mar his sacred love. Yet, he knew her dark Italian nature, her passion +of revenge. What was the line in Virgil? _Spretaeque_--something. Who +knew but that somehow, sooner or later, she might come between him and +his love? + +He was about to pass Lord Barrymore's mansion. Count Karoloff and Mr. +FitzClarence were lounging in one of the lower windows. Would they know +him behind his mask? Thank God! they did not. They merely laughed as he +went by, and Mr. FitzClarence cried in a mocking voice, "Sing us a hymn, +Mr. Whatever-your-saint's-name is!" The mask, then, at least, was +perfect. Jenny Mere would not know him. He need fear no one but La +Gambogi. But would not she betray his secret? He sighed. + +That night he was going to visit Garble's and to declare his love to the +little actress. He never doubted that she would love him for his saintly +face. Had she not said, "That man whose face is wonderful as are the +faces of the saints, to him I will give my true love"? She could not +say now that his face was as a tarnished mirror of love. She would smile +on him. She would be his bride. But would La Gambogi be at Garble's? + +The operette would not be over before ten that night. The clock in Hyde +Park Gate told him it was not yet ten--ten of the morning. Twelve whole +hours to wait before he could fall at Jenny's feet! "I cannot spend that +time in this place of memories," he thought. So he hailed a yellow +cabriolet and bade the jarvey drive him out to the village of +Kensington. + +When they came to the little wood where he had been but a few hours ago, +Lord George dismissed the jarvey. The sun, that had risen as he stood +there thinking of Jenny, shone down on his altered face, but, though it +shone very fiercely, it did not melt his waxen features. The old +woodman, who had shown him his way, passed by under a load of faggots +and did not know him. He wandered among the trees. It was a lovely wood. + +Presently he came to the bank of that tiny stream, the Ken, which still +flowed there in those days. On the moss of its bank he lay down and let +its water ripple over his hand. Some bright pebble glistened under the +surface, and, as he peered down at it, he saw in the stream the +reflection of his mask. A great shame filled him that he should so cheat +the girl he loved. Behind that fair mask there would still be the evil +face that had repelled her. Could he be so base as to decoy her into +love of that most ingenious deception? He was filled with a great pity +for her, with a hatred of himself. And yet, he argued, was the mask +indeed a mean trick? Surely it was a secret symbol of his true +repentance and of his true love. His face was evil, because his life had +been evil. He had seen a gracious girl, and of a sudden his very soul +had changed. His face alone was the same as it had been. It was not just +that his face should be evil still. + +There was the faint sound of some one sighing, Lord George looked up, +and there, on the further bank, stood Jenny Mere, watching him. As their +eyes met, she blushed and hung her head. She looked like nothing but a +tall child as she stood there, with her straight limp frock of lilac +cotton and her sunburnt straw bonnet. He dared not speak; he could only +gaze at her. + +Suddenly there perched astride the bough of a tree, at her side, that +winged and laughing child in whose hand was a bow. Before Lord George +could warn her, an arrow had flashed down and vanished in her heart, and +Cupid had flown away. + +No cry of pain did she utter, but stretched out her arms to her lover, +with a glad smile. He leapt quite lightly over the little stream and +knelt at her feet. It seemed more fitting that he should kneel before +the gracious thing he was unworthy of. But she, knowing only that his +face was as the face of a great saint, bent over him and touched him +with her hand. + +"Surely," she said, "you are that good man for whom I have waited. +Therefore do not kneel to me, but rise and suffer me to kiss your hand. +For my love of you is lowly, and my heart is all yours." + +But he answered, looking up into her fond eyes, "Nay, you are a queen, +and I must needs kneel in your presence." + +But she shook her head wistfully, and she knelt down, also, in her +tremulous ecstasy, before him. And as they knelt, the one to the other, +the tears came into her eyes, and he kissed her. Though the lips that +he pressed to her lips were only waxen, he thrilled with happiness, in +that mimic kiss. He held her close to him in his arms, and they were +silent in the sacredness of their love. + +From his breast he took the posy of wild flowers that he had gathered. + +"They are for you," he whispered. "I gathered them for you hours ago, in +this wood. See! They are not withered." + +But she was perplexed by his words and said to him, blushing, "How was +it for me that you gathered them, though you had never seen me?" + +"I gathered them for you," he answered, "knowing I should soon see you. +How was it that you, who had never seen me, yet waited for me?" + +"I waited, knowing I should see you at last." And she kissed the posy +and put it at her breast. + +And they rose from their knees and went into the wood, walking hand in +hand. As they went, he asked the names of the flowers that grew under +their feet. "These are primroses," she would say. "Did you not know? And +these are ladies'-feet, and these forget-me-nots. And that white flower, +climbing up the trunks of the trees and trailing down so prettily from +the branches, is called Astyanax. These little yellow things are +buttercups. Did you not know?" And she laughed. + +"I know the names of none of the flowers," he said. + +She looked up into his face and said timidly, "Is it worldly and wrong +of me to have loved the flowers? Ought I to have thought more of those +higher things that are unseen?" + +His heart smote him. He could not answer her simplicity. + +"Surely the flowers are good, and did you not gather this posy for me?" +she pleaded. "But if you do not love them, I must not. And I will try to +forget their names. For I must try to be like you in all things." + +"Love the flowers always," he said. "And teach me to love them." + +So she told him all about the flowers, how some grew very slowly and +others bloomed in a night; how clever the convolvulus was at climbing, +and how shy violets were, and why honeycups had folded petals. She told +him of the birds, too, that sang in the wood, how she knew them all by +their voices. "That is a chaffinch singing. Listen!" she said. And she +tried to imitate its note, that her lover might remember. All the birds, +according to her, were good, except the cuckoo, and whenever she heard +him sing she would stop her ears, lest she should forgive him for +robbing the nests. "Every day," she said, "I have come to the wood, +because I was lonely, and it seemed to pity me. But now I have you. And +it is glad!" + +She clung closer to his arm, and he kissed her. She pushed back her +straw bonnet, so that it dangled from her neck by its ribands, and laid +her little head against his shoulder. For a while he forgot his +treachery to her, thinking only of his love and her love. Suddenly she +said to him, "Will you try not to be angry with me, if I tell you +something? It is something that will seem dreadful to you." + +"_Pauvrette_," he answered, "you cannot have anything very dreadful to +tell." + +"I am very poor," she said, "and every night I dance in a theatre. It is +the only thing I can do to earn my bread. Do you despise me because I +dance?" She looked up shyly at him and saw that his face was full of +love for her and not angry. + +"Do you like dancing?" he asked. + +"I hate it," she answered, quickly. "I hate it indeed. Yet--to-night, +alas! I must dance again in the theatre." + +"You need never dance again," said her lover. "I am rich and I will pay +them to release you. You shall dance only for me. Sweetheart, it cannot +be much more than noon. Let us go into the town, while there is time, +and you shall be made my bride, and I your bridegroom, this very day. +Why should you and I be lonely?" + +"I do not know," she said. + +So they walked back through the wood, taking a narrow path which Jenny +said would lead them quickest to the village. And, as they went, they +came to a tiny cottage, with a garden that was full of flowers. The old +woodman was leaning over its paling, and he nodded to them as they +passed. + +"I often used to envy the woodman," said Jenny, "living in that dear +little cottage." + +"Let us live there, then," said Lord George. And he went back and asked +the old man if he were not unhappy, living there alone. + +"'Tis a poor life here for me," the old man answered. "No folk come to +the wood, except little children, now and again, to play, or lovers like +you. But they seldom notice me. And in winter I am alone with Jack +Frost! Old men love merrier company than that. Oh! I shall die in the +snow with my faggots on my back. A poor life here!" + +"I will give you gold for your cottage and whatever is in it, and then +you can go and live happily in the town," Lord George said. And he took +from his coat a note for two hundred guineas, and held it across the +palings. + +"Lovers are poor foolish derry-docks," the old man muttered. "But I +thank you kindly, Sir. This little sum will keep me cosy, as long as I +last. Come into the cottage as soon as can be. It's a lonely place and +does my heart good to depart from it." + +"We are going to be married this afternoon, in the town," said Lord +George. "We will come straight back to our home." + +"May you be happy!" replied the woodman. "You'll find me gone when you +come." + +And the lovers thanked him and went their way. + +"Are you very rich?" Jenny asked. "Ought you to have bought the cottage +for that great price?" + +"Would you love me as much if I were quite poor, little Jenny?" he asked +her after a pause. + +"I did not know you were rich when I saw you across the stream," she +said. + +And in his heart Lord George made a good resolve. He would put away from +him all his worldly possessions. All the money that he had won at the +clubs, fairly or foully, all that hideous accretion of gold guineas, he +would distribute among the comrades he had impoverished. As he walked, +with the sweet and trustful girl at his side, the vague record of his +infamy assailed him, and a look of pain shot behind his smooth mask. He +would atone. He would shun no sacrifice that might cleanse his soul. All +his fortune he would put from him. Follard Chase he would give back to +Sir Follard. He would sell his house in St. James's Square. He would +keep some little part of his patrimony, enough for him in the wood with +Jenny, but no more. + +"I shall be quite poor, Jenny!" he said. + +And they talked of the things that lovers love to talk of, how happy +they would be together and how economical. As they were passing +Herbert's pastry shop, which as my little readers know, still stands in +Kensington, Jenny looked up rather wistfully into her lover's ascetic +face. + +"Should you think me greedy," she asked him, "if I wanted a bun? They +have beautiful buns here!" + +Buns! The simple word started latent memories of his childhood. Jenny +was only a child after all. Buns! He had forgotten what they were like. +And as they looked at the piles of variegated cakes in the window, he +said to her, "Which are buns, Jenny? I should like to have one, too." + +"I am almost afraid of you," she said. "You must despise me so. Are you +so good that you deny yourself all the vanity and pleasure that most +people love? It is wonderful not to know what buns are! The round, +brown, shiny cakes, with little raisins in them, are buns." + +So he bought two beautiful buns, and they sat together in the shop, +eating them. Jenny bit hers rather diffidently, but was reassured when +he said that they must have buns very often in the cottage. Yes! he, the +famous toper and _gourmet_ of St. James's, relished this homely fare, as +it passed through the insensible lips of his mask to the palate. He +seemed to rise, from the consumption of his bun, a better man. + +But there was no time to lose now. It was already past two o'clock. So +he got a chaise from the inn opposite the pastry-shop, and they were +swiftly driven to Doctors' Commons. There he purchased a special +licence. When the clerk asked him to write his name upon it, he +hesitated. What name should he assume? Under a mask he had wooed this +girl, under an unreal name he must make her his bride. He loathed +himself for a trickster. He had vilely stolen from her the love she +would not give him. Even now, should he not confess himself the man +whose face had frightened her, and go his way? And yet, surely, it was +not just that he, whose soul was transfigured, should bear his old name. +Surely George Hell was dead, and his name had died with him. So he +dipped a pen in the ink and wrote "George Heaven," for want of a better +name. And Jenny wrote "Jenny Mere" beneath it. + +An hour later they were married according to the simple rites of a dear +little registry-office in Covent Garden. + +And in the cool evening they went home. + + + + +IV + + +In the cottage that had been the woodman's they had a wonderful +honeymoon. No king and queen in any palace of gold were happier than +they. For them their tiny cottage was a palace, and the flowers that +filled the garden were their courtiers. Long and careless and full of +kisses were the days of their reign. + +Sometimes, indeed, strange dreams troubled Lord George's sleep. Once he +dreamed that he stood knocking and knocking at the great door of a +castle. It was a bitter night. The frost enveloped him. No one came. +Presently he heard a footstep in the hall beyond, and a pair of +frightened eyes peered at him through the grill. Jenny was scanning his +face. She would not open to him. With tears and wild words he besought +her, but she would not open to him. Then, very stealthily he crept round +the castle and found a small casement in the wall. It was open. He +climbed swiftly, quietly, through it. In the darkness of the room some +one ran to him and kissed him gladly. It was Jenny. With a cry of joy +and shame he awoke. By his side lay Jenny, sleeping like a little child. + +After all, what was a dream to him? It could not mar the reality of his +daily happiness. He cherished his true penitence for the evil he had +done in the past. The past! That was indeed the only unreal thing that +lingered in his life. Every day its substance dwindled, grew fainter +yet, as he lived his rustic honeymoon. Had he not utterly put it from +him? Had he not, a few hours after his marriage, written to his lawyer, +declaring solemnly that he, Lord George Hell, had forsworn the world, +that he was where no man would find him, that he desired all his +worldly goods to be distributed, thus and thus, among these and those of +his companions? By this testament he had verily atoned for the wrong he +had done, had made himself dead indeed to the world. + +No address had he written upon this document. Though its injunctions +were final and binding, it could betray no clue of his hiding-place. For +the rest, no one would care to seek him out. He, who had done no good to +human creature, would pass unmourned out of memory. The clubs, +doubtless, would laugh and puzzle over his strange recantations, envious +of whomever he had enriched. They would say 'twas a good riddance of a +rogue, and soon forget him.[4] But she, whose prime patron he had been, +who had loved him in her vile fashion, La Gambogi, would she forget him +easily, like the rest? As the sweet days went by, her spectre, also, +grew fainter and less formidable. She knew his mask indeed, but how +should she find him in the cottage near Kensington? _Devia dulcedo +latebrarum!_ He was safe-hidden with his bride. As for the Italian, she +might search and search--or had forgotten him, in the arms of another +lover. + +[Footnote 4: I would refer my little readers once more to the pages of +_Contemporary Bucks_, where Captain Tarleton speculates upon the sudden +disappearance of Lord George Hell and describes its effect on the town. +"Not even the shrewdest," says he, "even gave a guess that would throw a +ray of revealing light on the _disparition_ of this profligate man. It +was supposed that he carried off with him a little dancer from Garble's, +at which _haunt of pleasantry_ he was certainly on the night he +vanished, and whither the young lady never returned again. Garble +declared he had been compensated for her perfidy, but that he was sure +she had not succumbed to his Lordship, having in fact rejected him +soundly. Did his Lordship, say the cronies, take his life--and hers? _Il +n'y a pas d'épreuve._ The _most astonishing_ matter is that the runaway +should have written out a complete will, restoring all money he had won +at cards, etc. etc. This certainly corroborates the opinion that he was +seized with a sudden repentance and fled over the seas to a foreign +monastery, where he died at last in _religious silence_. That's as it +may, but many a spendthrift found his pocket clinking with guineas, a +not unpleasant sound, I declare. The Regent himself was benefited by the +odd will, and old Sir Follard Follard found himself once more in the +ancestral home he had forfeited. As for Lord George's mansion in St. +James's Square, that was sold with all its appurtenances, and the money +fetched by the sale, no bagatelle, was given to various good objects, +according to my Lord's stated wishes. Well, many of us blessed his +name--we had cursed it often enough. Peace to his ashes, in whatever urn +they may be resting, on the billows of whatever ocean they float!"] + +Yes! Few and faint became the blemishes of his honeymoon. At first he +had felt that his waxen mask, though it had been the means of his +happiness, was rather a barrier 'twixt him and his bride. Though it was +sweet to kiss her through it, to look at her through it with loving +eyes, yet there were times when it incommoded him with its mockery. +Could he put it from him! Yet that, of course, could not be. He must +wear it all his life. And so, as days went by, he grew reconciled to his +mask. No longer did he feel it jarring on his face. It seemed to become +a very part of him, and, for all its rigid material, it did forsooth +express the one emotion that filled him, true love. The face for whose +sake Jenny gave him her heart could not but be dear to this George +Heaven, also. + +Every day chastened him with its joy. They lived a very simple life, he +and Jenny. They rose betimes, like the birds, for whose goodness they +both had so sincere a love. Bread and honey and little strawberries were +their morning fare, and in the evening they had seed-cake and dewberry +wine. Jenny herself made the wine, and her husband drank it, in strict +moderation, never more than two glasses. He thought it tasted far better +than the Regent's cherry brandy, or the Tokay at Brooks's. Of these +treasured topes he had indeed, nearly forgotten the taste. The wine made +from wild berries by his little bride was august enough for his palate. +Sometimes, after they had dined thus, he would play the flute to her +upon the moonlit lawn, or tell her of the great daisy-chain he was going +to make for her on the morrow, or sit silently by her side, listening to +the nightingale, till bedtime. So admirably simple were their days. + + + + +V + + +One morning, as he was helping Jenny to water the flowers, he said to +her suddenly, "Sweetheart, we had forgotten!" + +"What was there we should forget?" asked Jenny, looking up from her +task. + +"'Tis the mensiversary of our wedding," her husband answered gravely. +"We must not let it pass without some celebration." + +"No indeed," she said, "we must not. What shall we do?" + +Between them they decided upon an unusual feast. They would go into the +village and buy a bag of beautiful buns and eat them in the afternoon. +So soon, then, as all the flowers were watered, they set forth to +Herbert's shop, bought the buns and returned home in very high spirits, +George bearing a paper bag that held no less than twelve of the +wholesome delicacies. Under the plane-tree on the lawn Jenny sat her +down, and George stretched himself at her feet. They were loth to enjoy +their feast too soon. They dallied in childish anticipation. On the +little rustic table Jenny built up the buns, one above another, till +they looked like a tall pagoda. When, very gingerly, she had crowned the +structure with the twelfth bun, her husband looking on with admiration, +she clapped her hands and danced about it. She laughed so loudly (for, +though she was only sixteen years old, she had a great sense of humour) +that the table shook, and alas! the pagoda tottered and fell to the +lawn. Swift as a kitten, Jenny chased the buns, as they rolled, hither +and thither, over the grass, catching them deftly with her hand. Then +she came back, flushed and merry under her tumbled hair, with her arm +full of buns. She began to put them back in the paper bag. + +"Dear husband," she said, looking down to him, "Why do not you too smile +at my folly? Your grave face rebukes me. Smile, or I shall think I vex +you. Please smile a little." + +But the mask could not smile, of course. It was made for a mirror of +true love, and it was grave and immobile. "I am very much amused, dear," +he said, "at the fall of the buns, but my lips will not curve to a +smile. Love of you has bound them in spell." + +"But I can laugh, though I love you. I do not understand." And she +wondered. He took her hand in his and stroked it gently, wishing it were +possible to smile. Some day, perhaps, she would tire of this monotonous +gravity, this rigid sweetness. It was not strange that she should long +for a little facial expression. They sat silently. + +"Jenny, what is it?" he whispered suddenly. For Jenny, with wide-open +eyes, was gazing over his head, across the lawn. "Why do you look +frightened?" + +"There is a strange woman smiling at me across the palings," she said. +"I do not know her." + +Her husband's heart sank. Somehow, he dared not turn his head to the +intruder. + +"She is nodding to me," said Jenny. "I think she is foreign, for she has +an evil face." + +"Do not notice her," he whispered. "Does she look evil?" + +"Very evil and very dark. She has a pink parasol. Her teeth are like +ivory." + +"Do not notice her. Think! It is the mensiversary of our wedding, +dear!" + +"I wish she would not smile at me. Her eyes are like bright blots of +ink." + +"Let us eat our beautiful buns!" + +"Oh, she is coming in!" George heard the latch of the gate jar. "Forbid +her to come in!" whispered Jenny, "I am afraid!" He heard the jar of +heels on the gravel path. Yet he dared not turn. Only he clasped Jenny's +hand more tightly, as he waited for the voice. It was La Gambogi's. + +"Pray, pray, pardon me! I could not mistake the back of so old a +friend." + +With the courage of despair, George turned and faced the woman. + +"Even," she smiled, "though his face has changed marvellously." + +"Madam," he said, rising to his full height and stepping between her and +his bride, "begone, I command you, from this garden. I do not see what +good is to be served by the renewal of our acquaintance." + +"Acquaintance!" murmured La Gambogi, with an arch of her beetle-brows. +"Surely we were friends, rather, nor is my esteem for you so dead that I +would crave estrangement." + +"Madam," rejoined Lord George, with a tremor in his voice, "you see me +happy, living very peacefully with my bride----" + +"To whom, I beseech you, old friend, present me." + +"I would not," he said hotly, "desecrate her sweet name by speaking it +with so infamous a name as yours." + +"Your choler hurts me, old friend," said La Gambogi, sinking composedly +upon the garden-seat and smoothing the silk of her skirts. + +"Jenny," said George, "then do you retire, pending this lady's +departure, to the cottage." But Jenny clung to his arm. "I were less +frightened at your side," she whispered. "Do not send me away!" + +"Suffer her pretty presence," said La Gambogi. "Indeed I am come this +long way from the heart of the town, that I may see her, no less than +you, George. My wish is only to befriend her. Why should she not set you +a mannerly example, giving me welcome? Come and sit by me, little bride, +for I have things to tell you. Though you reject my friendship, give me, +at least, the slight courtesy of audience. I will not detain you +overlong, will be gone very soon. Are you expecting guests, George? _On +dirait une masque champêtre!_" She eyed the couple critically. "Your +wife's mask," she said, "is even better than yours." + +"What does she mean?" whispered Jenny. "Oh, send her away!" + +"Serpent," was all George could say, "crawl from our Eden, ere you +poison with your venom its fairest denizen." + +La Gambogi rose. "Even _my_ pride," she cried passionately, "knows +certain bounds. I have been forbearing, but even in _my_ zeal for +friendship I will not be called 'serpent.' I will indeed be gone from +this rude place. Yet, ere I go, there is a boon I will deign to beg. +Show me, oh, show me but once again, the dear face I have so often +caressed, the lips that were dear to me!" + +George started back. + +"What does she mean?" whispered Jenny. + +"In memory of our old friendship," continued La Gambogi, "grant me this +piteous favour. Show me your own face but for one instant, and I vow +that I will never again remind you that I live. Intercede for me, little +bride. Bid him unmask for me. You have more authority over him than I. +Doff his mask with your own uxorious fingers." + +"What does she mean?" was the refrain of poor Jenny. + +"If," said George, gazing sternly at his traitress, "you do not go now, +of your own will, I must drive you, man though I am, violently from the +garden." + +"Doff your mask and I am gone." + +George made a step of menace towards her. + +"False saint!" she shrieked, "then _I_ will unmask you." + +Like a panther she sprang upon him and clawed at his waxen cheeks. Jenny +fell back, mute with terror. Vainly did George try to free himself from +his assailant, who writhed round and round him, clawing, clawing at what +Jenny fancied to be his face. With a wild cry, Jenny fell upon the +furious creature and tried, with all her childish strength, to release +her dear one. The combatives swayed to and fro, a revulsive trinity. +There was a loud pop, as though some great cork had been withdrawn, and +La Gambogi recoiled. She had torn away the mask. It lay before her upon +the lawn, upturned to the sky. + +George stood motionless. La Gambogi stared up into his face, and her +dark flush died swiftly away. For there, staring back at her, was the +man she had unmasked, but lo! his face was even as his mask had been. +Line for line, feature for feature, it was the same. 'Twas a saint's +face. + +"Madam," he said, in the calm voice of despair, "your cheek may well +blanch, when you regard the ruin you have brought upon me. Nevertheless +do I pardon you. The gods have avenged, through you, the imposture I +wrought upon one who was dear to me. For that unpardonable sin I am +punished. As for my poor bride, whose love I stole by the means of that +waxen semblance, of her I cannot ask pardon. Ah, Jenny, Jenny, do not +look at me. Turn your eyes from the foul reality that I dissembled." He +shuddered and hid his face in his hands. "Do not look at me. I will go +from the garden. Nor will I ever curse you with the odious spectacle of +my face. Forget me, forget me." + +But, as he turned to go, Jenny laid her hands upon his wrists and +besought him that he would look at her. "For indeed," she said, "I am +bewildered by your strange words. Why did you woo me under a mask? And +why do you imagine I could love you less dearly, seeing your own face?" + +He looked into her eyes. On their violet surface he saw the tiny +reflection of his own face. He was filled with joy and wonder. + +"Surely," said Jenny, "your face is even dearer to me, even fairer, than +the semblance that hid it and deceived me. I am not angry. 'Twas well +that you veiled from me the full glory of your face, for indeed I was +not worthy to behold it too soon. But I am your wife now. Let me look +always at your own face. Let the time of my probation be over. Kiss me +with your own lips." + +So he took her in his arms, as though she had been a little child, and +kissed her with his own lips. She put her arms round his neck, and he +was happier than he had ever been. They were alone in the garden now. +Nor lay the mask any longer upon the lawn, for the sun had melted it. + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + +A BEAUTIFUL EDITION OF + +THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE + +Illustrated in Colour by GEORGE SHERINGHAM + + _Daily Graphic._--"A superb edition of a modern classic." + + _Scotsman._--"Gracefully illustrated in colour, 'The Happy + Hypocrite' makes an exquisite gift book.... For old or young + the book is full of a fanciful beauty." + + _Country Life._--"Mr Sheringham's delightful drawings printed + in colour make this volume as fascinating a 'colour book' as + has been seen for some time." + + _Times._--"Illustrated by Mr George Sheringham, this edition is + one which any parent who duly respects himself will steal from + the schoolroom shelves and keep upon his own.... The variety of + Mr Sheringham's illustrations is wide.... Delicious ornament, + subtle appreciation of the author's spirit, gracious fantasy, a + fruitful joy in the coxcombry and style of the period--these + help to produce a work which gives in an unusual degree the + impression that the artist liked doing it." + + * * * * * + +THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY BY JOHN LANE + + + MORE + + YET AGAIN + + A CHRISTMAS GARLAND + + ZULEIKA DOBSON + + CARICATURES OF TWENTY-FIVE GENTLEMEN + + THE POET'S CORNER + + A BOOK OF CARICATURES + + FIFTY CARICATURES + + + _Daily Telegraph._--"It is very seldom that a writer can treat + with such wit and humour, blended with the most delicate fancy, + such unpromising subjects as are included in this collection. + In the ordinary events of the moment, in the most prosaic + institutions, he finds something wonderful or something + bizarre: from the dreariest of subjects he draws matter for + quiet laughter." + + _Pall Mall._--"A pretty wit.... Mr Beerbohm has clear vision, + discrimination, and like the best of paradox makers, always a + fund of good sense." + + _Illustrated London News._--"He is altogether delightful in his + whimsical moods.... 'More' is a book to buy and to turn to at + odd moments." + + _Scotsman._--"Readers who have grappled with 'The Works of Max + Beerbohm' will stagger beneath the announcement that 'More' has + come from the same hand.... It is not so much what he is + talking about that matters in the case of this author, as what + he says. He writes oddly, but is always amusing: a pleasant and + readable exposition of the London way of looking at life." + + _Referee._--"Not long ago 'The Works of Max Beerbohm' were + published in one slim volume. Polite literature has now been + enriched by the same author's 'More.' ... _Maximum Superbus_." + + _Daily Telegraph._--"When some three years ago the public were + informed that they could buy 'The Works of Max Beerbohm' for a + small sum, those who had not followed contemporary letters very + closely imagined that the long-forgotten volumes of some bygone + author were offered for sale in the lump, and scented a bargain + with which to fill the gaps in their bookshelves. In the small + book which comprised 'the works' they got their bargain. They + have now a chance of acquiring 'More.'" + + _Academy._--"Mr Beerbohm can think and observe and write. He + has the uncommon gift of seeing clearly the other side of + things. He can stand aside impartially and watch contemporary + life with the eye of the historian: his fastidiousness, when + disciplined, is exquisite; his appreciation of the best is + sound." + + * * * * * + +_BOOKS BY RICHARD KING_ + + +OVER THE FIRESIDE (WITH SILENT FRIENDS) + +With an Introduction by Sir ARTHUR PEARSON. + + +WITH SILENT FRIENDS + +Essay in Everyday Philosophy. Seventeenth Edition. + +SECOND BOOK OF SILENT FRIENDS + +Third Edition. + +PASSION AND POT-POURRI + +Third Edition. + +BELOW THE SURFACE + +Footnotes to the Everyday. + +SOME CONFESSIONS OF AN AVERAGE MAN + + _The Times._--"Mr King is one of the Masters of the causerie, + as those who have read his books well know." + + _Evening Standard._--"You will enjoy many pleasant hours with + one of our most intimate essayists." + + _Daily Express._--"Mr King's easy, intimate, sympathetic style + has made for him thousands of friends." + + C. K. SHORTER in _The Sphere_.--"Richard King is a man of + genius." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Hypocrite, by Max Beerbohm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE *** + +***** This file should be named 36497-8.txt or 36497-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/9/36497/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Happy Hypocrite + A Fairy Tale For Tired Men + +Author: Max Beerbohm + +Release Date: June 22, 2011 [EBook #36497] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE</h1> + +<h3>A FAIRY TALE FOR TIRED MEN</h3> + +<h2>BY MAX BEERBOHM</h2> + +<h3>JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD.</h3> + +<table width="50%"> +<tr><td>Published Sq. 16mo </td><td align="right">April 1897</td></tr> +<tr><td>Reprinted </td><td align="right">December 1897</td></tr> +<tr><td>Reprinted </td><td align="right">February 1904</td></tr> +<tr><td>Reprinted </td><td align="right">May 1908</td></tr> +<tr><td>Reprinted </td><td align="right">May 1913</td></tr> +<tr><td>Cr. 4to Illus. Edition </td><td align="right">October 1918</td></tr> +<tr><td>Cr. 8vo Edition </td><td align="right">December 1919</td></tr> +<tr><td>Reprinted </td><td align="right">February 1922</td></tr> +<tr><td>Reprinted </td><td align="right">August 1924</td></tr> +<tr><td>Reprinted </td><td align="right">July 1928</td></tr> +</table> + +<h3><i>Made and Printed in Great Britain</i><br /> +<i>by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh</i></h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#I">I</a><br /> +<a href="#II">II</a><br /> +<a href="#III">III</a><br /> +<a href="#IV">IV</a><br /> +<a href="#V">V</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>The Happy Hypocrite</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + + +<p>None, it is said, of all who revelled with the Regent, was half so +wicked as Lord George Hell. I will not trouble my little readers with a +long recital of his great naughtiness. But it were well they should know +that he was greedy, destructive, and disobedient. I am afraid there is +no doubt that he often sat up at Carlton House until long after bedtime, +playing at games, and that he generally ate and drank far more than was +good for him. His fondness for fine clothes was such that he used to +dress on week-days quite as gorgeously as good people dress on Sundays. +He was thirty-five years old and a great grief to his parents.</p> + +<p>And the worst of it was that he set such a bad example to others. Never, +never did he try to conceal his wrong-doing; so that, in time, every +one knew how horrid he was. In fact, I think he was proud of being +horrid. Captain Tarleton, in his account of <i>Contemporary Bucks</i>, +suggested that his Lordship's great Candour was a virtue and should +incline us to forgive some of his abominable faults. But, painful as it +is to me to dissent from any opinion expressed by one who is now dead, I +hold that Candour is good only when it reveals good actions or good +sentiments, and that when it reveals evil, itself is evil, even also.</p> + +<p>Lord George Hell did, at last, atone for all his faults, in a way that +was never revealed to the world during his life-time. The reason of his +strange and sudden disappearance from that social sphere in which he had +so long moved, and never moved again, I will unfold. My little readers +will then, I think, acknowledge that any angry judgment they may have +passed upon him must be reconsidered and, maybe, withdrawn. I will leave +his Lordship in their hands. But my plea for him will not be based upon +that Candour of his, which some of his friends so much admired. There +were, yes! some so weak and so wayward as to think it a fine thing to +have an historic title and no scruples. "Here comes George Hell," they +would say. "How wicked my Lord is looking!" <i>Noblesse oblige</i>, you see, +and so an aristocrat should be very careful of his good name. Anonymous +naughtiness does little harm.</p> + +<p>It is pleasant to record that many persons were inobnoxious to the magic +of his title and disapproved of him so strongly that, whenever he +entered a room where they happened to be, they would make straight for +the door and watch him very severely through the key-hole. Every +morning, when he strolled up Piccadilly, they crossed over to the other +side in a compact body, leaving him to the companionship of his bad +companions on that which is still called the "shady" side. Lord +George—[Greek: schetlios]—was quite indifferent to this demonstration. +Indeed, he seemed wholly hardened, and when ladies gathered up their +skirts as they passed him, he would lightly appraise their ankles.</p> + +<p>I am glad I never saw his Lordship. They say he was rather like +Caligula, with a dash of Sir John Falstaff, and that sometimes on wintry +mornings in St. James's Street young children would hush their prattle +and cling in disconsolate terror to their nurses' skirts, as they saw +him come (that vast and fearful gentleman!) with the east wind ruffling +the rotund surface of his beaver, ruffling the fur about his neck and +wrists, and striking the purple complexion of his cheeks to a still +deeper purple. "King Bogey" they called him in the nurseries. In the +hours when they too were naughty, their nurses would predict his advent +down the chimney or from the linen-press, and then they always +"behaved." So that, you see, even the unrighteous are a power for good, +in the hands of nurses.</p> + +<p>It is true that his Lordship was a non-smoker—a negative virtue, +certainly, and due, even that, I fear, to the fashion of the day—but +there the list of his good qualities comes to an abrupt conclusion. He +loved with an insatiable love the town and the pleasures of the town, +whilst the ennobling influences of our English lakes were quite unknown +to him. He used to boast that he had not seen a buttercup for twenty +years, and once he called the country "a Fool's Paradise." London was +the only place marked on the map of his mind. London gave him all he +wished for. Is it not extraordinary to think that he had never spent a +happy day nor a day of any kind in Follard Chase, that desirable mansion +in Herts, which he had won from Sir Follard Follard, by a chuck of the +dice, at Boodle's, on his seventeenth birthday? Always cynical and +unkind, he had refused to give the broken baronet his "revenge." Always +unkind and insolent, he had offered to instal him in the lodge—an offer +which was, after a little hesitation, accepted. "On my soul, the man's +place is a sinecure," Lord George would say; "he never has to open the +gate to me."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> So rust has covered the great iron gates of Follard +Chase, and moss had covered its paths. The deer browsed upon its +terraces. There were only wild flowers anywhere. Deep down among the +weeds and water-lilies of the little stone-rimmed pond he had looked +down upon, lay the marble faun, as he had fallen.</p> + +<p>Of all the sins of his Lordship's life surely not one was more wanton +than his neglect of Follard Chase. Some whispered (nor did he ever +trouble to deny) that he had won it by foul means, by loaded dice. +Indeed no card-player in St. James's cheated more persistently than he. +As he was rich and had no wife and family to support, and as his luck +was always capital, I can offer no excuse for his conduct. At Carlton +House, in the presence of many bishops and cabinet ministers, he once +dunned the Regent most arrogantly for 5000 guineas out of which he had +cheated him some months before, and went so far as to declare that he +would not leave the house till he got it; whereupon His Royal Highness, +with that unfailing tact for which he was ever famous, invited him to +stay there as a guest; which, in fact, Lord George did, for several +months. After this, we can hardly be surprised when we read that he +"seldom sat down to the fashionable game of Limbo with less than four, +and sometimes with <i>as many as seven</i> aces up his sleeve."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> We can +only wonder that he was tolerated at all.</p> + +<p>At Garble's, that nightly resort of titled rips and roysterers, he +usually spent the early hours of his evenings. Round the illuminated +garden, with La Gambogi, the dancer, on his arm, and a Bacchic retinue +at his heels, he would amble leisurely, clad in Georgian costume, which +was not then, of course, fancy dress, as it is now.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Now and again, +in the midst of his noisy talk, he would crack a joke of the period, or +break into a sentimental ballad, dance a little, or pick a quarrel. When +he tired of such fooling, he would proceed to his box in the tiny <i>al +fresco</i> theatre and patronize the jugglers, pugilists, play-actors and +whatever eccentric persons happened to be performing there.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The stars were splendid and the moon as beautiful as a great camelia, +one night in May, as his Lordship laid his arms upon the cushioned ledge +of his box and watched the antics of the Merry Dwarf, a little, +curly-headed creature, whose <i>début</i> it was. Certainly Garble had found +a novelty. Lord George led the applause, and the Dwarf finished his +frisking with a pretty song about lovers. Nor was this all. Feats of +archery were to follow. In a moment the Dwarf reappeared with a small, +gilded bow in his hand and a quiverful of arrows slung at his shoulder. +Hither and thither he shot these vibrant arrows, very precisely, several +into the bark of the acacias that grew about the overt stage, several +into the fluted columns of the boxes, two or three to the stars. The +audience was delighted. "<i>Bravo! Bravo Sagittaro!</i>" murmured Lord +George, in the language of La Gambogi, who was at his side. Finally, the +waxen figure of a man was carried on by an assistant and propped against +the trunk of a tree. A scarf was tied across the eyes of the Merry +Dwarf, who stood in a remote corner of the stage. <i>Bravo</i> indeed! For +the shaft had pierced the waxen figure through the heart, or just where +the heart would have been if the figure had been human and not waxen.</p> + +<p>Lord George called for port and champagne and beckoned the bowing +homuncule to his box, that he might compliment him on his skill and +pledge him in a bumper of the grape.</p> + +<p>"On my soul, you have a genius for the bow," his Lordship cried with +florid condescension. "Come and sit by me; but first let me present you +to my divine companion the Signora Gambogi—Virgo and Sagittarius, egad! +You may have met on the Zodiac."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I met the Signora many years ago," the Dwarf replied, with a +low bow. "But not on the Zodiac, and the Signora perhaps forgets me."</p> + +<p>At this speech the Signora flushed angrily, for she was indeed no longer +young, and the Dwarf had a childish face. She thought he mocked her; her +eyes flashed. Lord George's twinkled rather maliciously.</p> + +<p>"Great is the experience of youth," he laughed. "Pray, are you stricken +with more than twenty summers?"</p> + +<p>"With more than I can count," said the Dwarf. "To the health of your +Lordship!" and he drained his long glass of wine. Lord George +replenished it, and asked by what means or miracle he had acquired his +mastery of the bow.</p> + +<p>"By long practice," the little thing rejoined; "long practice on human +creatures." And he nodded his curls mysteriously.</p> + +<p>"On my heart, you are a dangerous box-mate."</p> + +<p>"Your Lordship were certainly a good target."</p> + +<p>Little liking this joke at his bulk, which really rivalled the Regent's, +Lord George turned brusquely in his chair and fixed his eyes upon the +stage. This time it was the Gambogi who laughed.</p> + +<p>A new operette, <i>The Fair Captive of Samarcand</i>, was being enacted, and +the frequenters of Garble's were all curious to behold the <i>débutante</i>, +Jenny Mere, who was said to be both pretty and talented. These +predictions were surely fulfilled, when the captive peeped from the +window of her wooden turret. She looked so pale under her blue turban. +Her eyes were dark with fear; her parted lips did not seem capable of +speech. "Is it that she is frightened of us?" the audience wondered. "Or +of the flashing scimitar of Aphoschaz, the cruel father who holds her +captive?" So they gave her loud applause, and when at length she jumped +down, to be caught in the arms of her gallant lover, Nissarah, and, +throwing aside her Eastern draperies, did a simple dance in the +convention of Columbine, their delight was quite unbounded. She was very +young and did not dance very well, it is true, but they forgave her +that. And when she turned in the dance and saw her father with his +scimitar, their hearts beat swiftly for her. Nor were all eyes tearless +when she pleaded with him for her life.</p> + +<p>Strangely absorbed, quite callous of his two companions, Lord George +gazed over the footlights. He seemed as one who is in a trance. Of a +sudden, something shot sharp into his heart. In pain he sprang to his +feet and, as he turned, he seemed to see a winged and laughing child, in +whose hand was a bow, fly swiftly away into the darkness. At his side, +was the Dwarf's chair. It was empty. Only La Gambogi was with him, and +her dark face was like the face of a fury.</p> + +<p>Presently he sank back into his chair, holding one hand to his heart, +that still throbbed from the strange transfixion. He breathed very +painfully and seemed scarce conscious of his surroundings. But La +Gambogi knew he would pay no more homage to her now, for that the love +of Jenny Mere had come into his heart.</p> + +<p>When the operette was over, his lovesick Lordship snatched up his cloak +and went away without one word to the lady at his side. Rudely he +brushed aside Count Karoloff and Mr. FitzClarence, with whom he had +arranged to play hazard. Of his comrades, his cynicism, his reckless +scorn—of all the material of his existence—he was oblivious now. He +had no time for penitence or diffident delay. He only knew that he must +kneel at the feet of Jenny Mere and ask her to be his wife.</p> + +<p>"Miss Mere," said Garble, "is in her room, resuming her ordinary attire. +If your Lordship deign to await the conclusion of her humble toilet, it +shall be my privilege to present her to your Lordship. Even now, +indeed, I hear her footfall on the stair."</p> + +<p>Lord George uncovered his head and with one hand nervously smoothed his +rebellious wig.</p> + +<p>"Miss Mere, come hither," said Garble. "This is my Lord George Hell, +that you have pleased whom by your poor efforts this night will ever be +the prime gratification of your passage through the roseate realms of +art."</p> + +<p>Little Miss Mere, who had never seen a lord, except in fancy or in +dreams, curtseyed shyly and hung her head. With a loud crash, Lord +George fell on his knees. The manager was greatly surprised, the girl +greatly embarrassed. Yet neither of them laughed, for sincerity +dignified his posture and sent eloquence from its lips.</p> + +<p>"Miss Mere," he cried, "give ear, I pray you, to my poor words, nor +spurn me in misprision from the pedestal of your Beauty, Genius, and +Virtue. All too conscious, alas! of my presumption in the same, I yet +abase myself before you as a suitor for your adorable Hand. I grope +under the shadow of your raven Locks. I am dazzled in the light of those +translucent Orbs, your Eyes. In the intolerable Whirlwind of your Fame I +faint and am afraid."</p> + +<p>"Sir——" the girl began, simply.</p> + +<p>"Say 'My Lord,'" said Garble, solemnly.</p> + +<p>"My Lord, I thank you for your words. They are beautiful. But indeed, +indeed, I can never be your bride."</p> + +<p>Lord George hid his face in his hands.</p> + +<p>"Child," said Mr. Garble, "let not the sun rise ere you have retracted +those wicked words."</p> + +<p>"My wealth, my rank, my irremeable love for you, I throw them at your +feet," Lord George cried piteously. "I would wait an hour, a week, a +lustre, even a decade, did you but bid me hope!"</p> + +<p>"I can never be your wife," she said, slowly. "I can never be the wife +of any man whose face is not saintly. Your face, my Lord, mirrors, it +may be, true love for me, but it is even as a mirror long tarnished by +the reflexion of this world's vanity. It is even as a tarnished mirror. +Do not kneel to me, for I am poor and humble. I was not made for such +impetuous wooing. Kneel, if you please, to some greater, gayer lady. As +for my love, it is my own, nor can it be ever torn from me, but given, +as true love must needs be given, freely. Ah, rise from your knees. That +man, whose face is wonderful as are the faces of the saints, to him I +will give my true love."</p> + +<p>Miss Mere, though visibly affected, had spoken this speech with a +gesture and elocution so superb, that Mr. Garble could not help +applauding, deeply though he regretted her attitude towards his honoured +patron. As for Lord George, he was immobile as a stricken oak. With a +sweet look of pity, Miss Mere went her way, and Mr. Garble, with some +solicitude, helped his Lordship to rise from his knees. Out into the +night, without a word, his Lordship went. Above him the stars were still +splendid. They seemed to mock the festoons of little lamps, dim now and +guttering, in the garden of Garble's. What should he do? No thoughts +came; only his heart burnt hotly. He stood on the brim of Garble's lake, +shallow and artificial as his past life had been. Two swans slept on its +surface. The moon shone strangely upon their white, twisted necks. +Should he drown himself? There was no one in the garden to prevent him, +and in the morning they would find him floating there, one of the +noblest of love's victims. The garden would be closed in the evening. +There would be no performance in the little theatre. It might be that +Jenny Mere would mourn him. "Life is a prison, without bars," he +murmured, as he walked away.</p> + +<p>All night long he strode, knowing not whither, through the mysterious +streets and squares of London. The watchmen, to whom his figure was +familiar, gripped their staves at his approach, for they had old reason +to fear his wild and riotous habits. He did not heed them. Through that +dim conflict between darkness and day, which is ever waged silently over +our sleep, Lord George strode on in the deep absorption of his love and +of his despair. At dawn he found himself on the outskirts of a little +wood in Kensington. A rabbit rushed past him through the dew. Birds were +fluttering in the branches. The leaves were tremulous with the presage +of day, and the air was full of the sweet scent of hyacinths.</p> + +<p>How cool the country was! It seemed to cool the feverish maladies of his +soul and consecrate his love. In the fair light of the dawn he began to +shape the means of winning Jenny Mere, that he had conceived in the +desperate hours of the night. Soon an old woodman passed by, and, with +rough courtesy, showed him the path that would lead him quickest to the +town. He was loth to leave the wood. With Jenny, he thought, he would +live always in the country. And he picked a posy of wild flowers for +her.</p> + +<p>His <i>rentrée</i> into the still silent town strengthened his Arcadian +resolves. He, who had seen the town so often in its hours of sleep, had +never noticed how sinister its whole aspect was. In its narrow streets +the white houses rose on either side of him like cliffs of chalk. He +hurried swiftly along the unswept pavement. How had he loved this city +of evil secrets?</p> + +<p>At last he came to St. James's Square, to the hateful door of his own +house. Shadows lay like memories in every corner of the dim hall. +Through the window of his room, a sunbeam slanted across his smooth +white bed, and fell ghastly on the ashen grate.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + + +<p>It was a bright morning in Old Bond Street, and fat little Mr. Aeneas, +the fashionable mask-maker, was sunning himself at the door of his shop. +His window was lined as usual with all kinds of masks—beautiful masks +with pink cheeks, and absurd masks with protuberant chins; curious +Trpocrctiira [Greek: prosopa] copied from old tragic models; masks of +paper for children, of fine silk for ladies, and of leather for working +men; bearded or beardless, gilded or waxen (most of them, indeed, were +waxen), big or little masks. And in the middle of this vain galaxy hung +the presentment of a Cyclops' face, carved cunningly of gold, with a +great sapphire in its brow.</p> + +<p>The sun gleamed brightly on the window and on the bald head and +varnished shoes of fat little Mr. Aeneas. It was too early for any +customers to come, and Mr. Aeneas seemed to be greatly enjoying his +leisure in the fresh air. He smiled complacently as he stood there, and +well he might, for he was a great artist and was patronized by several +crowned heads and not a few of the nobility. Only the evening before, +Mr. Brummell had come into his shop and ordered a light summer mask, +wishing to evade for a time the jealous vigilance of Lady Otterton. It +pleased Mr. Aeneas to think that his art made him the recipient of so +many high secrets. He smiled as he thought of the titled spendthrifts +who, at this moment, <i>perdus</i> behind his masterpieces, passed unscathed +among their creditors. He was the secular confessor of his day, always +able to give absolution. A unique position!</p> + +<p>The street was as quiet as a village street. At an open window over the +way, a handsome lady, wrapped in a muslin <i>peignoir</i>, sat sipping her +cup of chocolate. It was La Signora Gambogi, and Mr. Aeneas made her +many elaborate bows. This morning, however, her thoughts seemed far +away, and she did not notice the little man's polite efforts. Nettled at +her negligence, Mr. Aeneas was on the point of retiring into his shop, +when he saw Lord George Hell hastening up the street, with a posy of +wild flowers in his hand.</p> + +<p>"His Lordship is up betimes!" he said to himself. "An early visit to La +Signora, I suppose."</p> + +<p>Not so, however. His Lordship came straight towards the mask-shop. Once +he glanced up at Signora's window and looked deeply annoyed when he saw +her sitting there. He came quickly into the shop.</p> + +<p>"I want the mask of a saint," he said.</p> + +<p>"Mask of a saint, my Lord? Certainly!" said Mr. Aeneas, briskly. "With +or without halo? His Grace the Bishop of St. Aldred's always wears his +with a halo? Your Lordship does not wish for a halo? Certainly! If your +Lordship will allow me to take his measurement——"</p> + +<p>"I must have the mask to-day," Lord George said. "Have you none +ready-made?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see. Required for immediate wear," murmured Mr. Aeneas, +dubiously. "You see, your Lordship takes a rather large size." And he +looked at the floor.</p> + +<p>"Julius!" he cried suddenly to his assistant, who was putting the +finishing touches to a mask of Barbarossa which the young king of +Zürremburg was to wear at his coronation the following week. "Julius! Do +you remember the saint's mask we made for Mr. Ripsby, a couple of years +ago?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said the boy. "It's stored upstairs."</p> + +<p>"I thought so," replied Mr. Aeneas. "Mr. Ripsby only had it on hire. +Step upstairs, Julius, and bring it down. I fancy it is just what your +Lordship would wish. Spiritual, yet handsome."</p> + +<p>"Is it a mask that is even as a mirror of true love?" Lord George asked, +gravely.</p> + +<p>"It was made precisely as such," the mask-maker answered. "In fact it +was made for Mr. Ripsby to wear at his silver wedding, and was very +highly praised by the relatives of Mrs. Ripsby. Will your Lordship step +into my little room?"</p> + +<p>So Mr. Aeneas led the way to his parlour behind the shop. He was elated +by the distinguished acquisition to his <i>clientèle</i>, for hitherto Lord +George had never patronized his business. He bustled round his parlour +and insisted that his Lordship should take a chair and a pinch from his +snuff-box, while the saint's mask was being found.</p> + +<p>Lord George's eye travelled along the rows of framed letters from great +personages, which lined the walls. He did not see them though, for he +was calculating the chances that La Gambogi had not observed him as he +entered the mask-shop. He had come down so early that he had thought she +would still be abed. That sinister old proverb, <i>La jalouse se lève de +bonne heure</i>, rose in his memory. His eye fell unconsciously on a large, +round mask made of dull silver, with the features of a human face traced +over its surface in faint filigree.</p> + +<p>"Your Lordship wonders what mask that is?" chirped Mr. Aeneas, tapping +the thing with one of his little finger nails.</p> + +<p>"What is that mask?" Lord George murmured, absently.</p> + +<p>"I ought not to divulge, my Lord," said the mask-maker. "But I know your +Lordship would respect a professional secret, a secret of which I am +pardonable proud. This," he said, "is a mask for the sun-god, Apollo, +whom heaven bless!"</p> + +<p>"You astound me," said Lord George.</p> + +<p>"Of no less a person, I do assure you. When Jupiter, his father, made +him lord of the day, Apollo craved that he might sometimes see the +doings of mankind in the hours of night time. Jupiter granted so +reasonable a request, and when next Apollo had passed over the sky and +hidden in the sea, and darkness had fallen on all the world, he raised +his head above the waters that he might watch the doings of mankind in +the hours of night time. But," Mr. Aeneas added, with a smile, "his +bright countenance made light all the darkness. Men rose from their +couches or from their revels, wondering that day was so soon come, and +went to their work. And Apollo sank weeping into the sea. 'Surely,' he +cried, 'it is a bitter thing that I alone, of all the gods, may not +watch the world in the hours of night time. For in those hours, as I am +told, men are even as gods are. They spill the wine and are wreathed +with roses. Their daughters dance in the light of torches. They laugh to +the sound of flutes. On their long couches they lie down at last, and +sleep comes to kiss their eyelids. None of these things may I see. +Wherefore the brightness of my beauty is even as a curse to me, and I +would put it from me.' And as he wept, Vulcan said to him, 'I am not the +least cunning of the gods, nor the least pitiful. Do not weep, for I +will give you that which shall end your sorrow. Nor need you put from +you the brightness of your beauty.' And Vulcan made a mask of dull +silver and fastened it across his brother's face. And that night, thus +masked, the sun-god rose from the sea and watched the doings of mankind +in the night time. Nor any longer were men abashed by his bright beauty, +for it was hidden by the mask of silver. Those whom he had so often seen +haggard over their daily tasks, he saw feasting now and wreathed with +red roses. He heard them laugh to the sound of flutes, as their +daughters danced in the red light of torches. And when at length they +lay down upon their soft couches and sleep kissed their eyelids, he sank +back into the sea and hid his mask under a little rock in the bed of the +sea. Nor have men ever known that Apollo watches them often in the night +time, but fancied it to be some pale goddess."</p> + +<p>"I myself have always thought it was Diana," said Lord George Hell.</p> + +<p>"An error, my Lord!" said Mr. Aeneas, with a smile. "<i>Ecce signum!</i>" And +he tapped the mask of dull silver.</p> + +<p>"Strange!" said his Lordship. "And pray how comes it that Apollo has +ordered of <i>you</i> this new mask?"</p> + +<p>"He has always worn twelve new masks every year, inasmuch as no mask can +endure for many nights the near brightness of his face, before which +even a mask of the best and purest silver soon tarnishes and wears away. +Centuries ago, Vulcan tired of making so very many masks. And so Apollo +sent Mercury down to Athens, to the shop of Phoron, a Phœnician +mask-maker of great skill. Phoron made Apollo's masks for many years, +and every month Mercury came to his shop for a new one. When Phoron +died, another artist was chosen, and, when <i>he</i> died, another, and so on +through all the ages of the world. Conceive, my Lord, my pride and +pleasure when Mercury flew into my shop, one night last year, and made +me Apollo's warrant-holder. It is the highest privilege that any +mask-maker can desire. And when I die," said Mr. Aeneas, with some +emotion, "Mercury will confer my post upon another."</p> + +<p>"And do they pay you for your labour?" Lord George asked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Aeneas drew himself up to his full height, such as it was. "In +Olympus, my Lord," he said, "they have no currency. For any mask-maker, +so high a privilege is its own reward. Yet the sun-god is generous. He +shines more brightly into my shop than into any other. Nor does he +suffer his rays to melt any waxen mask made by me, until its wearer doff +it and it be done with."</p> + +<p>At this moment Julius came in with the Ripsby mask. "I must ask your +Lordship's pardon, for having kept you so long," pleaded Mr. Aeneas. +"But I have a large store of old masks and they are imperfectly +catalogued."</p> + +<p>It certainly was a beautiful mask, with its smooth pink cheeks and +devotional brows. It was made of the finest wax. Lord George took it +gingerly in his hands and tried it on his face. It fitted <i>à merveille</i>.</p> + +<p>"Is the expression exactly as your Lordship would wish?" asked Mr. +Aeneas.</p> + +<p>Lord George laid it on the table and studied it intently. "I wish it +were more as a perfect mirror of true love," he said at length. "It is +too calm, too contemplative."</p> + +<p>"Easily remedied!" said Mr. Aeneas. Selecting a fine pencil, he deftly +drew the eyebrows closer to each other. With a brush steeped in some +scarlet pigment, he put a fuller curve upon the lips. And behold! it +was the mask of a saint who loves dearly. Lord George's heart throbbed +with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"And for how long does your Lordship wish to wear it?" asked Mr. Aeneas.</p> + +<p>"I must wear it until I die," replied Lord George.</p> + +<p>"Kindly be seated then, I pray," rejoined the little man. "For I must +apply the mask with great care. Julius, you will assist me!"</p> + +<p>So, while Julius heated the inner side of the waxen mask over a little +lamp, Mr. Aeneas stood over Lord George gently smearing his features +with some sweet-scented pomade. Then he took the mask and powdered its +inner side, quite soft and warm now, with a fluffy puff. "Keep quite +still, for one instant," he said, and clapped the mask firmly on his +Lordship's upturned face. So soon as he was sure of its perfect +adhesion, he took from his assistant's hand a silver file and a little +wooden spatula, with which he proceeded to pare down the edge of the +mask, where it joined the neck and ears. At length, all traces of the +"join" were obliterated. It remained only to arrange the curls of the +lordly wig over the waxen brow.</p> + +<p>The disguise was done. When Lord George looked through the eyelets of +his mask into the mirror that was placed in his hand, he saw a face that +was saintly, itself a mirror of true love. How wonderful it was! He felt +his past was a dream. He felt he was a new man indeed. His voice went +strangely through the mask's parted lips, as he thanked Mr. Aeneas.</p> + +<p>"Proud to have served your Lordship," said that little worthy, pocketing +his fee of fifty guineas, while he bowed his customer out.</p> + +<p>When he reached the street, Lord George nearly uttered a curse through +those sainted lips of his. For there, right in his way, stood La +Gambogi, with a small pink parasol. She laid her hand upon his sleeve +and called him softly by his name. He passed her by without a word. +Again she confronted him.</p> + +<p>"I cannot let go so handsome a lover," she laughed, "even though he +spurn me! Do not spurn me, George. Give me your posy of wild flowers. +Why, you never looked so lovingly at me in all your life!"</p> + +<p>"Madam," said Lord George, sternly, "I have not the honour to know you." +And he passed on.</p> + +<p>The lady gazed after her lost lover with the blackest hatred in her +eyes. Presently she beckoned across the road to a certain spy.</p> + +<p>And the spy followed him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + + +<p>Lord George, greatly agitated, had turned into Piccadilly. It was +horrible to have met this garish embodiment of his past on the very +threshold of his fair future. The mask-maker's elevating talk about the +gods, followed by the initiative ceremony of his saintly mask, had +driven all discordant memories from his love-thoughts of Jenny Mere. And +then to be met by La Gambogi! It might be that, after his stern words, +she would not seek to cross his path again. Surely she would not seek to +mar his sacred love. Yet, he knew her dark Italian nature, her passion +of revenge. What was the line in Virgil? <i>Spretaeque</i>—something. Who +knew but that somehow, sooner or later, she might come between him and +his love?</p> + +<p>He was about to pass Lord Barrymore's mansion. Count Karoloff and Mr. +FitzClarence were lounging in one of the lower windows. Would they know +him behind his mask? Thank God! they did not. They merely laughed as he +went by, and Mr. FitzClarence cried in a mocking voice, "Sing us a hymn, +Mr. Whatever-your-saint's-name is!" The mask, then, at least, was +perfect. Jenny Mere would not know him. He need fear no one but La +Gambogi. But would not she betray his secret? He sighed.</p> + +<p>That night he was going to visit Garble's and to declare his love to the +little actress. He never doubted that she would love him for his saintly +face. Had she not said, "That man whose face is wonderful as are the +faces of the saints, to him I will give my true love"? She could not +say now that his face was as a tarnished mirror of love. She would smile +on him. She would be his bride. But would La Gambogi be at Garble's?</p> + +<p>The operette would not be over before ten that night. The clock in Hyde +Park Gate told him it was not yet ten—ten of the morning. Twelve whole +hours to wait before he could fall at Jenny's feet! "I cannot spend that +time in this place of memories," he thought. So he hailed a yellow +cabriolet and bade the jarvey drive him out to the village of +Kensington.</p> + +<p>When they came to the little wood where he had been but a few hours ago, +Lord George dismissed the jarvey. The sun, that had risen as he stood +there thinking of Jenny, shone down on his altered face, but, though it +shone very fiercely, it did not melt his waxen features. The old +woodman, who had shown him his way, passed by under a load of faggots +and did not know him. He wandered among the trees. It was a lovely wood.</p> + +<p>Presently he came to the bank of that tiny stream, the Ken, which still +flowed there in those days. On the moss of its bank he lay down and let +its water ripple over his hand. Some bright pebble glistened under the +surface, and, as he peered down at it, he saw in the stream the +reflection of his mask. A great shame filled him that he should so cheat +the girl he loved. Behind that fair mask there would still be the evil +face that had repelled her. Could he be so base as to decoy her into +love of that most ingenious deception? He was filled with a great pity +for her, with a hatred of himself. And yet, he argued, was the mask +indeed a mean trick? Surely it was a secret symbol of his true +repentance and of his true love. His face was evil, because his life had +been evil. He had seen a gracious girl, and of a sudden his very soul +had changed. His face alone was the same as it had been. It was not just +that his face should be evil still.</p> + +<p>There was the faint sound of some one sighing, Lord George looked up, +and there, on the further bank, stood Jenny Mere, watching him. As their +eyes met, she blushed and hung her head. She looked like nothing but a +tall child as she stood there, with her straight limp frock of lilac +cotton and her sunburnt straw bonnet. He dared not speak; he could only +gaze at her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there perched astride the bough of a tree, at her side, that +winged and laughing child in whose hand was a bow. Before Lord George +could warn her, an arrow had flashed down and vanished in her heart, and +Cupid had flown away.</p> + +<p>No cry of pain did she utter, but stretched out her arms to her lover, +with a glad smile. He leapt quite lightly over the little stream and +knelt at her feet. It seemed more fitting that he should kneel before +the gracious thing he was unworthy of. But she, knowing only that his +face was as the face of a great saint, bent over him and touched him +with her hand.</p> + +<p>"Surely," she said, "you are that good man for whom I have waited. +Therefore do not kneel to me, but rise and suffer me to kiss your hand. +For my love of you is lowly, and my heart is all yours."</p> + +<p>But he answered, looking up into her fond eyes, "Nay, you are a queen, +and I must needs kneel in your presence."</p> + +<p>But she shook her head wistfully, and she knelt down, also, in her +tremulous ecstasy, before him. And as they knelt, the one to the other, +the tears came into her eyes, and he kissed her. Though the lips that +he pressed to her lips were only waxen, he thrilled with happiness, in +that mimic kiss. He held her close to him in his arms, and they were +silent in the sacredness of their love.</p> + +<p>From his breast he took the posy of wild flowers that he had gathered.</p> + +<p>"They are for you," he whispered. "I gathered them for you hours ago, in +this wood. See! They are not withered."</p> + +<p>But she was perplexed by his words and said to him, blushing, "How was +it for me that you gathered them, though you had never seen me?"</p> + +<p>"I gathered them for you," he answered, "knowing I should soon see you. +How was it that you, who had never seen me, yet waited for me?"</p> + +<p>"I waited, knowing I should see you at last." And she kissed the posy +and put it at her breast.</p> + +<p>And they rose from their knees and went into the wood, walking hand in +hand. As they went, he asked the names of the flowers that grew under +their feet. "These are primroses," she would say. "Did you not know? And +these are ladies'-feet, and these forget-me-nots. And that white flower, +climbing up the trunks of the trees and trailing down so prettily from +the branches, is called Astyanax. These little yellow things are +buttercups. Did you not know?" And she laughed.</p> + +<p>"I know the names of none of the flowers," he said.</p> + +<p>She looked up into his face and said timidly, "Is it worldly and wrong +of me to have loved the flowers? Ought I to have thought more of those +higher things that are unseen?"</p> + +<p>His heart smote him. He could not answer her simplicity.</p> + +<p>"Surely the flowers are good, and did you not gather this posy for me?" +she pleaded. "But if you do not love them, I must not. And I will try to +forget their names. For I must try to be like you in all things."</p> + +<p>"Love the flowers always," he said. "And teach me to love them."</p> + +<p>So she told him all about the flowers, how some grew very slowly and +others bloomed in a night; how clever the convolvulus was at climbing, +and how shy violets were, and why honeycups had folded petals. She told +him of the birds, too, that sang in the wood, how she knew them all by +their voices. "That is a chaffinch singing. Listen!" she said. And she +tried to imitate its note, that her lover might remember. All the birds, +according to her, were good, except the cuckoo, and whenever she heard +him sing she would stop her ears, lest she should forgive him for +robbing the nests. "Every day," she said, "I have come to the wood, +because I was lonely, and it seemed to pity me. But now I have you. And +it is glad!"</p> + +<p>She clung closer to his arm, and he kissed her. She pushed back her +straw bonnet, so that it dangled from her neck by its ribands, and laid +her little head against his shoulder. For a while he forgot his +treachery to her, thinking only of his love and her love. Suddenly she +said to him, "Will you try not to be angry with me, if I tell you +something? It is something that will seem dreadful to you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Pauvrette</i>," he answered, "you cannot have anything very dreadful to +tell."</p> + +<p>"I am very poor," she said, "and every night I dance in a theatre. It is +the only thing I can do to earn my bread. Do you despise me because I +dance?" She looked up shyly at him and saw that his face was full of +love for her and not angry.</p> + +<p>"Do you like dancing?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I hate it," she answered, quickly. "I hate it indeed. Yet—to-night, +alas! I must dance again in the theatre."</p> + +<p>"You need never dance again," said her lover. "I am rich and I will pay +them to release you. You shall dance only for me. Sweetheart, it cannot +be much more than noon. Let us go into the town, while there is time, +and you shall be made my bride, and I your bridegroom, this very day. +Why should you and I be lonely?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know," she said.</p> + +<p>So they walked back through the wood, taking a narrow path which Jenny +said would lead them quickest to the village. And, as they went, they +came to a tiny cottage, with a garden that was full of flowers. The old +woodman was leaning over its paling, and he nodded to them as they +passed.</p> + +<p>"I often used to envy the woodman," said Jenny, "living in that dear +little cottage."</p> + +<p>"Let us live there, then," said Lord George. And he went back and asked +the old man if he were not unhappy, living there alone.</p> + +<p>"'Tis a poor life here for me," the old man answered. "No folk come to +the wood, except little children, now and again, to play, or lovers like +you. But they seldom notice me. And in winter I am alone with Jack +Frost! Old men love merrier company than that. Oh! I shall die in the +snow with my faggots on my back. A poor life here!"</p> + +<p>"I will give you gold for your cottage and whatever is in it, and then +you can go and live happily in the town," Lord George said. And he took +from his coat a note for two hundred guineas, and held it across the +palings.</p> + +<p>"Lovers are poor foolish derry-docks," the old man muttered. "But I +thank you kindly, Sir. This little sum will keep me cosy, as long as I +last. Come into the cottage as soon as can be. It's a lonely place and +does my heart good to depart from it."</p> + +<p>"We are going to be married this afternoon, in the town," said Lord +George. "We will come straight back to our home."</p> + +<p>"May you be happy!" replied the woodman. "You'll find me gone when you +come."</p> + +<p>And the lovers thanked him and went their way.</p> + +<p>"Are you very rich?" Jenny asked. "Ought you to have bought the cottage +for that great price?"</p> + +<p>"Would you love me as much if I were quite poor, little Jenny?" he asked +her after a pause.</p> + +<p>"I did not know you were rich when I saw you across the stream," she +said.</p> + +<p>And in his heart Lord George made a good resolve. He would put away from +him all his worldly possessions. All the money that he had won at the +clubs, fairly or foully, all that hideous accretion of gold guineas, he +would distribute among the comrades he had impoverished. As he walked, +with the sweet and trustful girl at his side, the vague record of his +infamy assailed him, and a look of pain shot behind his smooth mask. He +would atone. He would shun no sacrifice that might cleanse his soul. All +his fortune he would put from him. Follard Chase he would give back to +Sir Follard. He would sell his house in St. James's Square. He would +keep some little part of his patrimony, enough for him in the wood with +Jenny, but no more.</p> + +<p>"I shall be quite poor, Jenny!" he said.</p> + +<p>And they talked of the things that lovers love to talk of, how happy +they would be together and how economical. As they were passing +Herbert's pastry shop, which as my little readers know, still stands in +Kensington, Jenny looked up rather wistfully into her lover's ascetic +face.</p> + +<p>"Should you think me greedy," she asked him, "if I wanted a bun? They +have beautiful buns here!"</p> + +<p>Buns! The simple word started latent memories of his childhood. Jenny +was only a child after all. Buns! He had forgotten what they were like. +And as they looked at the piles of variegated cakes in the window, he +said to her, "Which are buns, Jenny? I should like to have one, too."</p> + +<p>"I am almost afraid of you," she said. "You must despise me so. Are you +so good that you deny yourself all the vanity and pleasure that most +people love? It is wonderful not to know what buns are! The round, +brown, shiny cakes, with little raisins in them, are buns."</p> + +<p>So he bought two beautiful buns, and they sat together in the shop, +eating them. Jenny bit hers rather diffidently, but was reassured when +he said that they must have buns very often in the cottage. Yes! he, the +famous toper and <i>gourmet</i> of St. James's, relished this homely fare, as +it passed through the insensible lips of his mask to the palate. He +seemed to rise, from the consumption of his bun, a better man.</p> + +<p>But there was no time to lose now. It was already past two o'clock. So +he got a chaise from the inn opposite the pastry-shop, and they were +swiftly driven to Doctors' Commons. There he purchased a special +licence. When the clerk asked him to write his name upon it, he +hesitated. What name should he assume? Under a mask he had wooed this +girl, under an unreal name he must make her his bride. He loathed +himself for a trickster. He had vilely stolen from her the love she +would not give him. Even now, should he not confess himself the man +whose face had frightened her, and go his way? And yet, surely, it was +not just that he, whose soul was transfigured, should bear his old name. +Surely George Hell was dead, and his name had died with him. So he +dipped a pen in the ink and wrote "George Heaven," for want of a better +name. And Jenny wrote "Jenny Mere" beneath it.</p> + +<p>An hour later they were married according to the simple rites of a dear +little registry-office in Covent Garden.</p> + +<p>And in the cool evening they went home.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + + +<p>In the cottage that had been the woodman's they had a wonderful +honeymoon. No king and queen in any palace of gold were happier than +they. For them their tiny cottage was a palace, and the flowers that +filled the garden were their courtiers. Long and careless and full of +kisses were the days of their reign.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, indeed, strange dreams troubled Lord George's sleep. Once he +dreamed that he stood knocking and knocking at the great door of a +castle. It was a bitter night. The frost enveloped him. No one came. +Presently he heard a footstep in the hall beyond, and a pair of +frightened eyes peered at him through the grill. Jenny was scanning his +face. She would not open to him. With tears and wild words he besought +her, but she would not open to him. Then, very stealthily he crept round +the castle and found a small casement in the wall. It was open. He +climbed swiftly, quietly, through it. In the darkness of the room some +one ran to him and kissed him gladly. It was Jenny. With a cry of joy +and shame he awoke. By his side lay Jenny, sleeping like a little child.</p> + +<p>After all, what was a dream to him? It could not mar the reality of his +daily happiness. He cherished his true penitence for the evil he had +done in the past. The past! That was indeed the only unreal thing that +lingered in his life. Every day its substance dwindled, grew fainter +yet, as he lived his rustic honeymoon. Had he not utterly put it from +him? Had he not, a few hours after his marriage, written to his lawyer, +declaring solemnly that he, Lord George Hell, had forsworn the world, +that he was where no man would find him, that he desired all his +worldly goods to be distributed, thus and thus, among these and those of +his companions? By this testament he had verily atoned for the wrong he +had done, had made himself dead indeed to the world.</p> + +<p>No address had he written upon this document. Though its injunctions +were final and binding, it could betray no clue of his hiding-place. For +the rest, no one would care to seek him out. He, who had done no good to +human creature, would pass unmourned out of memory. The clubs, +doubtless, would laugh and puzzle over his strange recantations, envious +of whomever he had enriched. They would say 'twas a good riddance of a +rogue, and soon forget him.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But she, whose prime patron he had been, +who had loved him in her vile fashion, La Gambogi, would she forget him +easily, like the rest? As the sweet days went by, her spectre, also, +grew fainter and less formidable. She knew his mask indeed, but how +should she find him in the cottage near Kensington? <i>Devia dulcedo +latebrarum!</i> He was safe-hidden with his bride. As for the Italian, she +might search and search—or had forgotten him, in the arms of another +lover.</p> + +<p>Yes! Few and faint became the blemishes of his honeymoon. At first he +had felt that his waxen mask, though it had been the means of his +happiness, was rather a barrier 'twixt him and his bride. Though it was +sweet to kiss her through it, to look at her through it with loving +eyes, yet there were times when it incommoded him with its mockery. +Could he put it from him! Yet that, of course, could not be. He must +wear it all his life. And so, as days went by, he grew reconciled to his +mask. No longer did he feel it jarring on his face. It seemed to become +a very part of him, and, for all its rigid material, it did forsooth +express the one emotion that filled him, true love. The face for whose +sake Jenny gave him her heart could not but be dear to this George +Heaven, also.</p> + +<p>Every day chastened him with its joy. They lived a very simple life, he +and Jenny. They rose betimes, like the birds, for whose goodness they +both had so sincere a love. Bread and honey and little strawberries were +their morning fare, and in the evening they had seed-cake and dewberry +wine. Jenny herself made the wine, and her husband drank it, in strict +moderation, never more than two glasses. He thought it tasted far better +than the Regent's cherry brandy, or the Tokay at Brooks's. Of these +treasured topes he had indeed, nearly forgotten the taste. The wine made +from wild berries by his little bride was august enough for his palate. +Sometimes, after they had dined thus, he would play the flute to her +upon the moonlit lawn, or tell her of the great daisy-chain he was going +to make for her on the morrow, or sit silently by her side, listening to +the nightingale, till bedtime. So admirably simple were their days.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + + +<p>One morning, as he was helping Jenny to water the flowers, he said to +her suddenly, "Sweetheart, we had forgotten!"</p> + +<p>"What was there we should forget?" asked Jenny, looking up from her +task.</p> + +<p>"'Tis the mensiversary of our wedding," her husband answered gravely. +"We must not let it pass without some celebration."</p> + +<p>"No indeed," she said, "we must not. What shall we do?"</p> + +<p>Between them they decided upon an unusual feast. They would go into the +village and buy a bag of beautiful buns and eat them in the afternoon. +So soon, then, as all the flowers were watered, they set forth to +Herbert's shop, bought the buns and returned home in very high spirits, +George bearing a paper bag that held no less than twelve of the +wholesome delicacies. Under the plane-tree on the lawn Jenny sat her +down, and George stretched himself at her feet. They were loth to enjoy +their feast too soon. They dallied in childish anticipation. On the +little rustic table Jenny built up the buns, one above another, till +they looked like a tall pagoda. When, very gingerly, she had crowned the +structure with the twelfth bun, her husband looking on with admiration, +she clapped her hands and danced about it. She laughed so loudly (for, +though she was only sixteen years old, she had a great sense of humour) +that the table shook, and alas! the pagoda tottered and fell to the +lawn. Swift as a kitten, Jenny chased the buns, as they rolled, hither +and thither, over the grass, catching them deftly with her hand. Then +she came back, flushed and merry under her tumbled hair, with her arm +full of buns. She began to put them back in the paper bag.</p> + +<p>"Dear husband," she said, looking down to him, "Why do not you too smile +at my folly? Your grave face rebukes me. Smile, or I shall think I vex +you. Please smile a little."</p> + +<p>But the mask could not smile, of course. It was made for a mirror of +true love, and it was grave and immobile. "I am very much amused, dear," +he said, "at the fall of the buns, but my lips will not curve to a +smile. Love of you has bound them in spell."</p> + +<p>"But I can laugh, though I love you. I do not understand." And she +wondered. He took her hand in his and stroked it gently, wishing it were +possible to smile. Some day, perhaps, she would tire of this monotonous +gravity, this rigid sweetness. It was not strange that she should long +for a little facial expression. They sat silently.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, what is it?" he whispered suddenly. For Jenny, with wide-open +eyes, was gazing over his head, across the lawn. "Why do you look +frightened?"</p> + +<p>"There is a strange woman smiling at me across the palings," she said. +"I do not know her."</p> + +<p>Her husband's heart sank. Somehow, he dared not turn his head to the +intruder.</p> + +<p>"She is nodding to me," said Jenny. "I think she is foreign, for she has +an evil face."</p> + +<p>"Do not notice her," he whispered. "Does she look evil?"</p> + +<p>"Very evil and very dark. She has a pink parasol. Her teeth are like +ivory."</p> + +<p>"Do not notice her. Think! It is the mensiversary of our wedding, +dear!"</p> + +<p>"I wish she would not smile at me. Her eyes are like bright blots of +ink."</p> + +<p>"Let us eat our beautiful buns!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she is coming in!" George heard the latch of the gate jar. "Forbid +her to come in!" whispered Jenny, "I am afraid!" He heard the jar of +heels on the gravel path. Yet he dared not turn. Only he clasped Jenny's +hand more tightly, as he waited for the voice. It was La Gambogi's.</p> + +<p>"Pray, pray, pardon me! I could not mistake the back of so old a +friend."</p> + +<p>With the courage of despair, George turned and faced the woman.</p> + +<p>"Even," she smiled, "though his face has changed marvellously."</p> + +<p>"Madam," he said, rising to his full height and stepping between her and +his bride, "begone, I command you, from this garden. I do not see what +good is to be served by the renewal of our acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"Acquaintance!" murmured La Gambogi, with an arch of her beetle-brows. +"Surely we were friends, rather, nor is my esteem for you so dead that I +would crave estrangement."</p> + +<p>"Madam," rejoined Lord George, with a tremor in his voice, "you see me +happy, living very peacefully with my bride——"</p> + +<p>"To whom, I beseech you, old friend, present me."</p> + +<p>"I would not," he said hotly, "desecrate her sweet name by speaking it +with so infamous a name as yours."</p> + +<p>"Your choler hurts me, old friend," said La Gambogi, sinking composedly +upon the garden-seat and smoothing the silk of her skirts.</p> + +<p>"Jenny," said George, "then do you retire, pending this lady's +departure, to the cottage." But Jenny clung to his arm. "I were less +frightened at your side," she whispered. "Do not send me away!"</p> + +<p>"Suffer her pretty presence," said La Gambogi. "Indeed I am come this +long way from the heart of the town, that I may see her, no less than +you, George. My wish is only to befriend her. Why should she not set you +a mannerly example, giving me welcome? Come and sit by me, little bride, +for I have things to tell you. Though you reject my friendship, give me, +at least, the slight courtesy of audience. I will not detain you +overlong, will be gone very soon. Are you expecting guests, George? <i>On +dirait une masque champêtre!</i>" She eyed the couple critically. "Your +wife's mask," she said, "is even better than yours."</p> + +<p>"What does she mean?" whispered Jenny. "Oh, send her away!"</p> + +<p>"Serpent," was all George could say, "crawl from our Eden, ere you +poison with your venom its fairest denizen."</p> + +<p>La Gambogi rose. "Even <i>my</i> pride," she cried passionately, "knows +certain bounds. I have been forbearing, but even in <i>my</i> zeal for +friendship I will not be called 'serpent.' I will indeed be gone from +this rude place. Yet, ere I go, there is a boon I will deign to beg. +Show me, oh, show me but once again, the dear face I have so often +caressed, the lips that were dear to me!"</p> + +<p>George started back.</p> + +<p>"What does she mean?" whispered Jenny.</p> + +<p>"In memory of our old friendship," continued La Gambogi, "grant me this +piteous favour. Show me your own face but for one instant, and I vow +that I will never again remind you that I live. Intercede for me, little +bride. Bid him unmask for me. You have more authority over him than I. +Doff his mask with your own uxorious fingers."</p> + +<p>"What does she mean?" was the refrain of poor Jenny.</p> + +<p>"If," said George, gazing sternly at his traitress, "you do not go now, +of your own will, I must drive you, man though I am, violently from the +garden."</p> + +<p>"Doff your mask and I am gone."</p> + +<p>George made a step of menace towards her.</p> + +<p>"False saint!" she shrieked, "then <i>I</i> will unmask you."</p> + +<p>Like a panther she sprang upon him and clawed at his waxen cheeks. Jenny +fell back, mute with terror. Vainly did George try to free himself from +his assailant, who writhed round and round him, clawing, clawing at what +Jenny fancied to be his face. With a wild cry, Jenny fell upon the +furious creature and tried, with all her childish strength, to release +her dear one. The combatives swayed to and fro, a revulsive trinity. +There was a loud pop, as though some great cork had been withdrawn, and +La Gambogi recoiled. She had torn away the mask. It lay before her upon +the lawn, upturned to the sky.</p> + +<p>George stood motionless. La Gambogi stared up into his face, and her +dark flush died swiftly away. For there, staring back at her, was the +man she had unmasked, but lo! his face was even as his mask had been. +Line for line, feature for feature, it was the same. 'Twas a saint's +face.</p> + +<p>"Madam," he said, in the calm voice of despair, "your cheek may well +blanch, when you regard the ruin you have brought upon me. Nevertheless +do I pardon you. The gods have avenged, through you, the imposture I +wrought upon one who was dear to me. For that unpardonable sin I am +punished. As for my poor bride, whose love I stole by the means of that +waxen semblance, of her I cannot ask pardon. Ah, Jenny, Jenny, do not +look at me. Turn your eyes from the foul reality that I dissembled." He +shuddered and hid his face in his hands. "Do not look at me. I will go +from the garden. Nor will I ever curse you with the odious spectacle of +my face. Forget me, forget me."</p> + +<p>But, as he turned to go, Jenny laid her hands upon his wrists and +besought him that he would look at her. "For indeed," she said, "I am +bewildered by your strange words. Why did you woo me under a mask? And +why do you imagine I could love you less dearly, seeing your own face?"</p> + +<p>He looked into her eyes. On their violet surface he saw the tiny +reflection of his own face. He was filled with joy and wonder.</p> + +<p>"Surely," said Jenny, "your face is even dearer to me, even fairer, than +the semblance that hid it and deceived me. I am not angry. 'Twas well +that you veiled from me the full glory of your face, for indeed I was +not worthy to behold it too soon. But I am your wife now. Let me look +always at your own face. Let the time of my probation be over. Kiss me +with your own lips."</p> + +<p>So he took her in his arms, as though she had been a little child, and +kissed her with his own lips. She put her arms round his neck, and he +was happier than he had ever been. They were alone in the garden now. +Nor lay the mask any longer upon the lawn, for the sun had melted it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Lord Coleraine's Correspondence</i>, page 101.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Contemporary Bucks</i>, vol. i, page 73.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> It would seem, however, that, on special occasions, his +Lordship indulged in odd costumes. "I have seen him," says Captain +Tarleton (vol. i, p. 69), "attired as a French clown, as a sailor, or in +the crimson hose of a Sicilian grandee—<i>peu beau spectacle</i>. He never +disguised his face, whatever his costume, however."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> I would refer my little readers once more to the pages of +<i>Contemporary Bucks</i>, where Captain Tarleton speculates upon the sudden +disappearance of Lord George Hell and describes its effect on the town. +"Not even the shrewdest," says he, "even gave a guess that would throw a +ray of revealing light on the <i>disparition</i> of this profligate man. It +was supposed that he carried off with him a little dancer from Garble's, +at which <i>haunt of pleasantry</i> he was certainly on the night he +vanished, and whither the young lady never returned again. Garble +declared he had been compensated for her perfidy, but that he was sure +she had not succumbed to his Lordship, having in fact rejected him +soundly. Did his Lordship, say the cronies, take his life—and hers? <i>Il +n'y a pas d'épreuve.</i> The <i>most astonishing</i> matter is that the runaway +should have written out a complete will, restoring all money he had won +at cards, etc. etc. This certainly corroborates the opinion that he was +seized with a sudden repentance and fled over the seas to a foreign +monastery, where he died at last in <i>religious silence</i>. That's as it +may, but many a spendthrift found his pocket clinking with guineas, a +not unpleasant sound, I declare. The Regent himself was benefited by the +odd will, and old Sir Follard Follard found himself once more in the +ancestral home he had forfeited. As for Lord George's mansion in St. +James's Square, that was sold with all its appurtenances, and the money +fetched by the sale, no bagatelle, was given to various good objects, +according to my Lord's stated wishes. Well, many of us blessed his +name—we had cursed it often enough. Peace to his ashes, in whatever urn +they may be resting, on the billows of whatever ocean they float!"</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h2> + +<h3>A BEAUTIFUL EDITION OF</h3> + +<h3>THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE</h3> + +<h3>Illustrated in Colour by GEORGE SHERINGHAM</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Daily Graphic.</i>—"A superb edition of a modern classic."</p> + +<p><i>Scotsman.</i>—"Gracefully illustrated in colour, 'The Happy +Hypocrite' makes an exquisite gift book.... For old or young +the book is full of a fanciful beauty."</p> + +<p><i>Country Life.</i>—"Mr Sheringham's delightful drawings printed +in colour make this volume as fascinating a 'colour book' as +has been seen for some time."</p> + +<p><i>Times.</i>—"Illustrated by Mr George Sheringham, this edition is +one which any parent who duly respects himself will steal from +the schoolroom shelves and keep upon his own.... The variety of +Mr Sheringham's illustrations is wide.... Delicious ornament, +subtle appreciation of the author's spirit, gracious fantasy, a +fruitful joy in the coxcombry and style of the period—these +help to produce a work which gives in an unusual degree the +impression that the artist liked doing it."</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY BY JOHN LANE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">MORE<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">YET AGAIN<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A CHRISTMAS GARLAND<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">ZULEIKA DOBSON<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">CARICATURES OF TWENTY-FIVE GENTLEMEN<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">THE POET'S CORNER<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A BOOK OF CARICATURES<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">FIFTY CARICATURES<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<blockquote><p><i>Daily Telegraph.</i>—"It is very seldom that a writer can treat +with such wit and humour, blended with the most delicate fancy, +such unpromising subjects as are included in this collection. +In the ordinary events of the moment, in the most prosaic +institutions, he finds something wonderful or something +bizarre: from the dreariest of subjects he draws matter for +quiet laughter."</p> + +<p><i>Pall Mall.</i>—"A pretty wit.... Mr Beerbohm has clear vision, +discrimination, and like the best of paradox makers, always a +fund of good sense."</p> + +<p><i>Illustrated London News.</i>—"He is altogether delightful in his +whimsical moods.... 'More' is a book to buy and to turn to at +odd moments."</p> + +<p><i>Scotsman.</i>—"Readers who have grappled with 'The Works of Max +Beerbohm' will stagger beneath the announcement that 'More' has +come from the same hand.... It is not so much what he is +talking about that matters in the case of this author, as what +he says. He writes oddly, but is always amusing: a pleasant and +readable exposition of the London way of looking at life."</p> + +<p><i>Referee.</i>—"Not long ago 'The Works of Max Beerbohm' were +published in one slim volume. Polite literature has now been +enriched by the same author's 'More.' ... <i>Maximum Superbus</i>."</p> + +<p><i>Daily Telegraph.</i>—"When some three years ago the public were +informed that they could buy 'The Works of Max Beerbohm' for a +small sum, those who had not followed contemporary letters very +closely imagined that the long-forgotten volumes of some bygone +author were offered for sale in the lump, and scented a bargain +with which to fill the gaps in their bookshelves. In the small +book which comprised 'the works' they got their bargain. They +have now a chance of acquiring 'More.'"</p> + +<p><i>Academy.</i>—"Mr Beerbohm can think and observe and write. He +has the uncommon gift of seeing clearly the other side of +things. He can stand aside impartially and watch contemporary +life with the eye of the historian: his fastidiousness, when +disciplined, is exquisite; his appreciation of the best is +sound."</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h2><i>BOOKS BY RICHARD KING</i></h2> + + +<h3>OVER THE FIRESIDE (WITH SILENT FRIENDS)</h3> + +<h4>With an Introduction by Sir <span class="smcap">Arthur Pearson</span>.</h4> + + +<h3>WITH SILENT FRIENDS</h3> + +<h4>Essay in Everyday Philosophy. Seventeenth Edition.</h4> + +<h3>SECOND BOOK OF SILENT FRIENDS</h3> + +<h4>Third Edition.</h4> + +<h3>PASSION AND POT-POURRI</h3> + +<h4>Third Edition.</h4> + +<h3>BELOW THE SURFACE</h3> + +<h4>Footnotes to the Everyday.</h4> + +<h3>SOME CONFESSIONS OF AN AVERAGE MAN</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Times.</i>—"Mr King is one of the Masters of the causerie, +as those who have read his books well know."</p> + +<p><i>Evening Standard.</i>—"You will enjoy many pleasant hours with +one of our most intimate essayists."</p> + +<p><i>Daily Express.</i>—"Mr King's easy, intimate, sympathetic style +has made for him thousands of friends."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">C. K. Shorter</span> in <i>The Sphere</i>.—"Richard King is a man of +genius."</p></blockquote> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Hypocrite, by Max Beerbohm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE *** + +***** This file should be named 36497-h.htm or 36497-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/9/36497/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Happy Hypocrite + A Fairy Tale For Tired Men + +Author: Max Beerbohm + +Release Date: June 22, 2011 [EBook #36497] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE *** + + + + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE + + A FAIRY TALE FOR TIRED MEN + + BY MAX BEERBOHM + + JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD. + + + _Published Sq. 16mo April 1897_ + _Reprinted December 1897_ + _Reprinted February 1904_ + _Reprinted May 1908_ + _Reprinted May 1913_ + _Cr. 4to Illus. Edition October 1918_ + _Cr. 8vo Edition December 1919_ + _Reprinted February 1922_ + _Reprinted August 1924_ + _Reprinted July 1928_ + + _Made and Printed in Great Britain_ + _by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_ + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +The Happy Hypocrite + + + + +I + + +None, it is said, of all who revelled with the Regent, was half so +wicked as Lord George Hell. I will not trouble my little readers with a +long recital of his great naughtiness. But it were well they should know +that he was greedy, destructive, and disobedient. I am afraid there is +no doubt that he often sat up at Carlton House until long after bedtime, +playing at games, and that he generally ate and drank far more than was +good for him. His fondness for fine clothes was such that he used to +dress on week-days quite as gorgeously as good people dress on Sundays. +He was thirty-five years old and a great grief to his parents. + +And the worst of it was that he set such a bad example to others. Never, +never did he try to conceal his wrong-doing; so that, in time, every +one knew how horrid he was. In fact, I think he was proud of being +horrid. Captain Tarleton, in his account of _Contemporary Bucks_, +suggested that his Lordship's great Candour was a virtue and should +incline us to forgive some of his abominable faults. But, painful as it +is to me to dissent from any opinion expressed by one who is now dead, I +hold that Candour is good only when it reveals good actions or good +sentiments, and that when it reveals evil, itself is evil, even also. + +Lord George Hell did, at last, atone for all his faults, in a way that +was never revealed to the world during his life-time. The reason of his +strange and sudden disappearance from that social sphere in which he had +so long moved, and never moved again, I will unfold. My little readers +will then, I think, acknowledge that any angry judgment they may have +passed upon him must be reconsidered and, maybe, withdrawn. I will leave +his Lordship in their hands. But my plea for him will not be based upon +that Candour of his, which some of his friends so much admired. There +were, yes! some so weak and so wayward as to think it a fine thing to +have an historic title and no scruples. "Here comes George Hell," they +would say. "How wicked my Lord is looking!" _Noblesse oblige_, you see, +and so an aristocrat should be very careful of his good name. Anonymous +naughtiness does little harm. + +It is pleasant to record that many persons were inobnoxious to the magic +of his title and disapproved of him so strongly that, whenever he +entered a room where they happened to be, they would make straight for +the door and watch him very severely through the key-hole. Every +morning, when he strolled up Piccadilly, they crossed over to the other +side in a compact body, leaving him to the companionship of his bad +companions on that which is still called the "shady" side. Lord +George--[Greek: schetlios]--was quite indifferent to this demonstration. +Indeed, he seemed wholly hardened, and when ladies gathered up their +skirts as they passed him, he would lightly appraise their ankles. + +I am glad I never saw his Lordship. They say he was rather like +Caligula, with a dash of Sir John Falstaff, and that sometimes on wintry +mornings in St. James's Street young children would hush their prattle +and cling in disconsolate terror to their nurses' skirts, as they saw +him come (that vast and fearful gentleman!) with the east wind ruffling +the rotund surface of his beaver, ruffling the fur about his neck and +wrists, and striking the purple complexion of his cheeks to a still +deeper purple. "King Bogey" they called him in the nurseries. In the +hours when they too were naughty, their nurses would predict his advent +down the chimney or from the linen-press, and then they always +"behaved." So that, you see, even the unrighteous are a power for good, +in the hands of nurses. + +It is true that his Lordship was a non-smoker--a negative virtue, +certainly, and due, even that, I fear, to the fashion of the day--but +there the list of his good qualities comes to an abrupt conclusion. He +loved with an insatiable love the town and the pleasures of the town, +whilst the ennobling influences of our English lakes were quite unknown +to him. He used to boast that he had not seen a buttercup for twenty +years, and once he called the country "a Fool's Paradise." London was +the only place marked on the map of his mind. London gave him all he +wished for. Is it not extraordinary to think that he had never spent a +happy day nor a day of any kind in Follard Chase, that desirable mansion +in Herts, which he had won from Sir Follard Follard, by a chuck of the +dice, at Boodle's, on his seventeenth birthday? Always cynical and +unkind, he had refused to give the broken baronet his "revenge." Always +unkind and insolent, he had offered to instal him in the lodge--an offer +which was, after a little hesitation, accepted. "On my soul, the man's +place is a sinecure," Lord George would say; "he never has to open the +gate to me."[1] So rust has covered the great iron gates of Follard +Chase, and moss had covered its paths. The deer browsed upon its +terraces. There were only wild flowers anywhere. Deep down among the +weeds and water-lilies of the little stone-rimmed pond he had looked +down upon, lay the marble faun, as he had fallen. + +[Footnote 1: _Lord Coleraine's Correspondence_, page 101.] + +Of all the sins of his Lordship's life surely not one was more wanton +than his neglect of Follard Chase. Some whispered (nor did he ever +trouble to deny) that he had won it by foul means, by loaded dice. +Indeed no card-player in St. James's cheated more persistently than he. +As he was rich and had no wife and family to support, and as his luck +was always capital, I can offer no excuse for his conduct. At Carlton +House, in the presence of many bishops and cabinet ministers, he once +dunned the Regent most arrogantly for 5000 guineas out of which he had +cheated him some months before, and went so far as to declare that he +would not leave the house till he got it; whereupon His Royal Highness, +with that unfailing tact for which he was ever famous, invited him to +stay there as a guest; which, in fact, Lord George did, for several +months. After this, we can hardly be surprised when we read that he +"seldom sat down to the fashionable game of Limbo with less than four, +and sometimes with _as many as seven_ aces up his sleeve."[2] We can +only wonder that he was tolerated at all. + +[Footnote 2: _Contemporary Bucks_, vol. i, page 73.] + +At Garble's, that nightly resort of titled rips and roysterers, he +usually spent the early hours of his evenings. Round the illuminated +garden, with La Gambogi, the dancer, on his arm, and a Bacchic retinue +at his heels, he would amble leisurely, clad in Georgian costume, which +was not then, of course, fancy dress, as it is now.[3] Now and again, +in the midst of his noisy talk, he would crack a joke of the period, or +break into a sentimental ballad, dance a little, or pick a quarrel. When +he tired of such fooling, he would proceed to his box in the tiny _al +fresco_ theatre and patronize the jugglers, pugilists, play-actors and +whatever eccentric persons happened to be performing there. + +[Footnote 3: It would seem, however, that, on special occasions, his +Lordship indulged in odd costumes. "I have seen him," says Captain +Tarleton (vol. i, p. 69), "attired as a French clown, as a sailor, or in +the crimson hose of a Sicilian grandee--_peu beau spectacle_. He never +disguised his face, whatever his costume, however."] + + * * * * * + +The stars were splendid and the moon as beautiful as a great camelia, +one night in May, as his Lordship laid his arms upon the cushioned ledge +of his box and watched the antics of the Merry Dwarf, a little, +curly-headed creature, whose _debut_ it was. Certainly Garble had found +a novelty. Lord George led the applause, and the Dwarf finished his +frisking with a pretty song about lovers. Nor was this all. Feats of +archery were to follow. In a moment the Dwarf reappeared with a small, +gilded bow in his hand and a quiverful of arrows slung at his shoulder. +Hither and thither he shot these vibrant arrows, very precisely, several +into the bark of the acacias that grew about the overt stage, several +into the fluted columns of the boxes, two or three to the stars. The +audience was delighted. "_Bravo! Bravo Sagittaro!_" murmured Lord +George, in the language of La Gambogi, who was at his side. Finally, the +waxen figure of a man was carried on by an assistant and propped against +the trunk of a tree. A scarf was tied across the eyes of the Merry +Dwarf, who stood in a remote corner of the stage. _Bravo_ indeed! For +the shaft had pierced the waxen figure through the heart, or just where +the heart would have been if the figure had been human and not waxen. + +Lord George called for port and champagne and beckoned the bowing +homuncule to his box, that he might compliment him on his skill and +pledge him in a bumper of the grape. + +"On my soul, you have a genius for the bow," his Lordship cried with +florid condescension. "Come and sit by me; but first let me present you +to my divine companion the Signora Gambogi--Virgo and Sagittarius, egad! +You may have met on the Zodiac." + +"Indeed, I met the Signora many years ago," the Dwarf replied, with a +low bow. "But not on the Zodiac, and the Signora perhaps forgets me." + +At this speech the Signora flushed angrily, for she was indeed no longer +young, and the Dwarf had a childish face. She thought he mocked her; her +eyes flashed. Lord George's twinkled rather maliciously. + +"Great is the experience of youth," he laughed. "Pray, are you stricken +with more than twenty summers?" + +"With more than I can count," said the Dwarf. "To the health of your +Lordship!" and he drained his long glass of wine. Lord George +replenished it, and asked by what means or miracle he had acquired his +mastery of the bow. + +"By long practice," the little thing rejoined; "long practice on human +creatures." And he nodded his curls mysteriously. + +"On my heart, you are a dangerous box-mate." + +"Your Lordship were certainly a good target." + +Little liking this joke at his bulk, which really rivalled the Regent's, +Lord George turned brusquely in his chair and fixed his eyes upon the +stage. This time it was the Gambogi who laughed. + +A new operette, _The Fair Captive of Samarcand_, was being enacted, and +the frequenters of Garble's were all curious to behold the _debutante_, +Jenny Mere, who was said to be both pretty and talented. These +predictions were surely fulfilled, when the captive peeped from the +window of her wooden turret. She looked so pale under her blue turban. +Her eyes were dark with fear; her parted lips did not seem capable of +speech. "Is it that she is frightened of us?" the audience wondered. "Or +of the flashing scimitar of Aphoschaz, the cruel father who holds her +captive?" So they gave her loud applause, and when at length she jumped +down, to be caught in the arms of her gallant lover, Nissarah, and, +throwing aside her Eastern draperies, did a simple dance in the +convention of Columbine, their delight was quite unbounded. She was very +young and did not dance very well, it is true, but they forgave her +that. And when she turned in the dance and saw her father with his +scimitar, their hearts beat swiftly for her. Nor were all eyes tearless +when she pleaded with him for her life. + +Strangely absorbed, quite callous of his two companions, Lord George +gazed over the footlights. He seemed as one who is in a trance. Of a +sudden, something shot sharp into his heart. In pain he sprang to his +feet and, as he turned, he seemed to see a winged and laughing child, in +whose hand was a bow, fly swiftly away into the darkness. At his side, +was the Dwarf's chair. It was empty. Only La Gambogi was with him, and +her dark face was like the face of a fury. + +Presently he sank back into his chair, holding one hand to his heart, +that still throbbed from the strange transfixion. He breathed very +painfully and seemed scarce conscious of his surroundings. But La +Gambogi knew he would pay no more homage to her now, for that the love +of Jenny Mere had come into his heart. + +When the operette was over, his lovesick Lordship snatched up his cloak +and went away without one word to the lady at his side. Rudely he +brushed aside Count Karoloff and Mr. FitzClarence, with whom he had +arranged to play hazard. Of his comrades, his cynicism, his reckless +scorn--of all the material of his existence--he was oblivious now. He +had no time for penitence or diffident delay. He only knew that he must +kneel at the feet of Jenny Mere and ask her to be his wife. + +"Miss Mere," said Garble, "is in her room, resuming her ordinary attire. +If your Lordship deign to await the conclusion of her humble toilet, it +shall be my privilege to present her to your Lordship. Even now, +indeed, I hear her footfall on the stair." + +Lord George uncovered his head and with one hand nervously smoothed his +rebellious wig. + +"Miss Mere, come hither," said Garble. "This is my Lord George Hell, +that you have pleased whom by your poor efforts this night will ever be +the prime gratification of your passage through the roseate realms of +art." + +Little Miss Mere, who had never seen a lord, except in fancy or in +dreams, curtseyed shyly and hung her head. With a loud crash, Lord +George fell on his knees. The manager was greatly surprised, the girl +greatly embarrassed. Yet neither of them laughed, for sincerity +dignified his posture and sent eloquence from its lips. + +"Miss Mere," he cried, "give ear, I pray you, to my poor words, nor +spurn me in misprision from the pedestal of your Beauty, Genius, and +Virtue. All too conscious, alas! of my presumption in the same, I yet +abase myself before you as a suitor for your adorable Hand. I grope +under the shadow of your raven Locks. I am dazzled in the light of those +translucent Orbs, your Eyes. In the intolerable Whirlwind of your Fame I +faint and am afraid." + +"Sir----" the girl began, simply. + +"Say 'My Lord,'" said Garble, solemnly. + +"My Lord, I thank you for your words. They are beautiful. But indeed, +indeed, I can never be your bride." + +Lord George hid his face in his hands. + +"Child," said Mr. Garble, "let not the sun rise ere you have retracted +those wicked words." + +"My wealth, my rank, my irremeable love for you, I throw them at your +feet," Lord George cried piteously. "I would wait an hour, a week, a +lustre, even a decade, did you but bid me hope!" + +"I can never be your wife," she said, slowly. "I can never be the wife +of any man whose face is not saintly. Your face, my Lord, mirrors, it +may be, true love for me, but it is even as a mirror long tarnished by +the reflexion of this world's vanity. It is even as a tarnished mirror. +Do not kneel to me, for I am poor and humble. I was not made for such +impetuous wooing. Kneel, if you please, to some greater, gayer lady. As +for my love, it is my own, nor can it be ever torn from me, but given, +as true love must needs be given, freely. Ah, rise from your knees. That +man, whose face is wonderful as are the faces of the saints, to him I +will give my true love." + +Miss Mere, though visibly affected, had spoken this speech with a +gesture and elocution so superb, that Mr. Garble could not help +applauding, deeply though he regretted her attitude towards his honoured +patron. As for Lord George, he was immobile as a stricken oak. With a +sweet look of pity, Miss Mere went her way, and Mr. Garble, with some +solicitude, helped his Lordship to rise from his knees. Out into the +night, without a word, his Lordship went. Above him the stars were still +splendid. They seemed to mock the festoons of little lamps, dim now and +guttering, in the garden of Garble's. What should he do? No thoughts +came; only his heart burnt hotly. He stood on the brim of Garble's lake, +shallow and artificial as his past life had been. Two swans slept on its +surface. The moon shone strangely upon their white, twisted necks. +Should he drown himself? There was no one in the garden to prevent him, +and in the morning they would find him floating there, one of the +noblest of love's victims. The garden would be closed in the evening. +There would be no performance in the little theatre. It might be that +Jenny Mere would mourn him. "Life is a prison, without bars," he +murmured, as he walked away. + +All night long he strode, knowing not whither, through the mysterious +streets and squares of London. The watchmen, to whom his figure was +familiar, gripped their staves at his approach, for they had old reason +to fear his wild and riotous habits. He did not heed them. Through that +dim conflict between darkness and day, which is ever waged silently over +our sleep, Lord George strode on in the deep absorption of his love and +of his despair. At dawn he found himself on the outskirts of a little +wood in Kensington. A rabbit rushed past him through the dew. Birds were +fluttering in the branches. The leaves were tremulous with the presage +of day, and the air was full of the sweet scent of hyacinths. + +How cool the country was! It seemed to cool the feverish maladies of his +soul and consecrate his love. In the fair light of the dawn he began to +shape the means of winning Jenny Mere, that he had conceived in the +desperate hours of the night. Soon an old woodman passed by, and, with +rough courtesy, showed him the path that would lead him quickest to the +town. He was loth to leave the wood. With Jenny, he thought, he would +live always in the country. And he picked a posy of wild flowers for +her. + +His _rentree_ into the still silent town strengthened his Arcadian +resolves. He, who had seen the town so often in its hours of sleep, had +never noticed how sinister its whole aspect was. In its narrow streets +the white houses rose on either side of him like cliffs of chalk. He +hurried swiftly along the unswept pavement. How had he loved this city +of evil secrets? + +At last he came to St. James's Square, to the hateful door of his own +house. Shadows lay like memories in every corner of the dim hall. +Through the window of his room, a sunbeam slanted across his smooth +white bed, and fell ghastly on the ashen grate. + + + + +II + + +It was a bright morning in Old Bond Street, and fat little Mr. Aeneas, +the fashionable mask-maker, was sunning himself at the door of his shop. +His window was lined as usual with all kinds of masks--beautiful masks +with pink cheeks, and absurd masks with protuberant chins; curious +Trpocrctiira [Greek: prosopa] copied from old tragic models; masks of +paper for children, of fine silk for ladies, and of leather for working +men; bearded or beardless, gilded or waxen (most of them, indeed, were +waxen), big or little masks. And in the middle of this vain galaxy hung +the presentment of a Cyclops' face, carved cunningly of gold, with a +great sapphire in its brow. + +The sun gleamed brightly on the window and on the bald head and +varnished shoes of fat little Mr. Aeneas. It was too early for any +customers to come, and Mr. Aeneas seemed to be greatly enjoying his +leisure in the fresh air. He smiled complacently as he stood there, and +well he might, for he was a great artist and was patronized by several +crowned heads and not a few of the nobility. Only the evening before, +Mr. Brummell had come into his shop and ordered a light summer mask, +wishing to evade for a time the jealous vigilance of Lady Otterton. It +pleased Mr. Aeneas to think that his art made him the recipient of so +many high secrets. He smiled as he thought of the titled spendthrifts +who, at this moment, _perdus_ behind his masterpieces, passed unscathed +among their creditors. He was the secular confessor of his day, always +able to give absolution. A unique position! + +The street was as quiet as a village street. At an open window over the +way, a handsome lady, wrapped in a muslin _peignoir_, sat sipping her +cup of chocolate. It was La Signora Gambogi, and Mr. Aeneas made her +many elaborate bows. This morning, however, her thoughts seemed far +away, and she did not notice the little man's polite efforts. Nettled at +her negligence, Mr. Aeneas was on the point of retiring into his shop, +when he saw Lord George Hell hastening up the street, with a posy of +wild flowers in his hand. + +"His Lordship is up betimes!" he said to himself. "An early visit to La +Signora, I suppose." + +Not so, however. His Lordship came straight towards the mask-shop. Once +he glanced up at Signora's window and looked deeply annoyed when he saw +her sitting there. He came quickly into the shop. + +"I want the mask of a saint," he said. + +"Mask of a saint, my Lord? Certainly!" said Mr. Aeneas, briskly. "With +or without halo? His Grace the Bishop of St. Aldred's always wears his +with a halo? Your Lordship does not wish for a halo? Certainly! If your +Lordship will allow me to take his measurement----" + +"I must have the mask to-day," Lord George said. "Have you none +ready-made?" + +"Ah, I see. Required for immediate wear," murmured Mr. Aeneas, +dubiously. "You see, your Lordship takes a rather large size." And he +looked at the floor. + +"Julius!" he cried suddenly to his assistant, who was putting the +finishing touches to a mask of Barbarossa which the young king of +Zuerremburg was to wear at his coronation the following week. "Julius! Do +you remember the saint's mask we made for Mr. Ripsby, a couple of years +ago?" + +"Yes, sir," said the boy. "It's stored upstairs." + +"I thought so," replied Mr. Aeneas. "Mr. Ripsby only had it on hire. +Step upstairs, Julius, and bring it down. I fancy it is just what your +Lordship would wish. Spiritual, yet handsome." + +"Is it a mask that is even as a mirror of true love?" Lord George asked, +gravely. + +"It was made precisely as such," the mask-maker answered. "In fact it +was made for Mr. Ripsby to wear at his silver wedding, and was very +highly praised by the relatives of Mrs. Ripsby. Will your Lordship step +into my little room?" + +So Mr. Aeneas led the way to his parlour behind the shop. He was elated +by the distinguished acquisition to his _clientele_, for hitherto Lord +George had never patronized his business. He bustled round his parlour +and insisted that his Lordship should take a chair and a pinch from his +snuff-box, while the saint's mask was being found. + +Lord George's eye travelled along the rows of framed letters from great +personages, which lined the walls. He did not see them though, for he +was calculating the chances that La Gambogi had not observed him as he +entered the mask-shop. He had come down so early that he had thought she +would still be abed. That sinister old proverb, _La jalouse se leve de +bonne heure_, rose in his memory. His eye fell unconsciously on a large, +round mask made of dull silver, with the features of a human face traced +over its surface in faint filigree. + +"Your Lordship wonders what mask that is?" chirped Mr. Aeneas, tapping +the thing with one of his little finger nails. + +"What is that mask?" Lord George murmured, absently. + +"I ought not to divulge, my Lord," said the mask-maker. "But I know your +Lordship would respect a professional secret, a secret of which I am +pardonable proud. This," he said, "is a mask for the sun-god, Apollo, +whom heaven bless!" + +"You astound me," said Lord George. + +"Of no less a person, I do assure you. When Jupiter, his father, made +him lord of the day, Apollo craved that he might sometimes see the +doings of mankind in the hours of night time. Jupiter granted so +reasonable a request, and when next Apollo had passed over the sky and +hidden in the sea, and darkness had fallen on all the world, he raised +his head above the waters that he might watch the doings of mankind in +the hours of night time. But," Mr. Aeneas added, with a smile, "his +bright countenance made light all the darkness. Men rose from their +couches or from their revels, wondering that day was so soon come, and +went to their work. And Apollo sank weeping into the sea. 'Surely,' he +cried, 'it is a bitter thing that I alone, of all the gods, may not +watch the world in the hours of night time. For in those hours, as I am +told, men are even as gods are. They spill the wine and are wreathed +with roses. Their daughters dance in the light of torches. They laugh to +the sound of flutes. On their long couches they lie down at last, and +sleep comes to kiss their eyelids. None of these things may I see. +Wherefore the brightness of my beauty is even as a curse to me, and I +would put it from me.' And as he wept, Vulcan said to him, 'I am not the +least cunning of the gods, nor the least pitiful. Do not weep, for I +will give you that which shall end your sorrow. Nor need you put from +you the brightness of your beauty.' And Vulcan made a mask of dull +silver and fastened it across his brother's face. And that night, thus +masked, the sun-god rose from the sea and watched the doings of mankind +in the night time. Nor any longer were men abashed by his bright beauty, +for it was hidden by the mask of silver. Those whom he had so often seen +haggard over their daily tasks, he saw feasting now and wreathed with +red roses. He heard them laugh to the sound of flutes, as their +daughters danced in the red light of torches. And when at length they +lay down upon their soft couches and sleep kissed their eyelids, he sank +back into the sea and hid his mask under a little rock in the bed of the +sea. Nor have men ever known that Apollo watches them often in the night +time, but fancied it to be some pale goddess." + +"I myself have always thought it was Diana," said Lord George Hell. + +"An error, my Lord!" said Mr. Aeneas, with a smile. "_Ecce signum!_" And +he tapped the mask of dull silver. + +"Strange!" said his Lordship. "And pray how comes it that Apollo has +ordered of _you_ this new mask?" + +"He has always worn twelve new masks every year, inasmuch as no mask can +endure for many nights the near brightness of his face, before which +even a mask of the best and purest silver soon tarnishes and wears away. +Centuries ago, Vulcan tired of making so very many masks. And so Apollo +sent Mercury down to Athens, to the shop of Phoron, a Phoenician +mask-maker of great skill. Phoron made Apollo's masks for many years, +and every month Mercury came to his shop for a new one. When Phoron +died, another artist was chosen, and, when _he_ died, another, and so on +through all the ages of the world. Conceive, my Lord, my pride and +pleasure when Mercury flew into my shop, one night last year, and made +me Apollo's warrant-holder. It is the highest privilege that any +mask-maker can desire. And when I die," said Mr. Aeneas, with some +emotion, "Mercury will confer my post upon another." + +"And do they pay you for your labour?" Lord George asked. + +Mr. Aeneas drew himself up to his full height, such as it was. "In +Olympus, my Lord," he said, "they have no currency. For any mask-maker, +so high a privilege is its own reward. Yet the sun-god is generous. He +shines more brightly into my shop than into any other. Nor does he +suffer his rays to melt any waxen mask made by me, until its wearer doff +it and it be done with." + +At this moment Julius came in with the Ripsby mask. "I must ask your +Lordship's pardon, for having kept you so long," pleaded Mr. Aeneas. +"But I have a large store of old masks and they are imperfectly +catalogued." + +It certainly was a beautiful mask, with its smooth pink cheeks and +devotional brows. It was made of the finest wax. Lord George took it +gingerly in his hands and tried it on his face. It fitted _a merveille_. + +"Is the expression exactly as your Lordship would wish?" asked Mr. +Aeneas. + +Lord George laid it on the table and studied it intently. "I wish it +were more as a perfect mirror of true love," he said at length. "It is +too calm, too contemplative." + +"Easily remedied!" said Mr. Aeneas. Selecting a fine pencil, he deftly +drew the eyebrows closer to each other. With a brush steeped in some +scarlet pigment, he put a fuller curve upon the lips. And behold! it +was the mask of a saint who loves dearly. Lord George's heart throbbed +with pleasure. + +"And for how long does your Lordship wish to wear it?" asked Mr. Aeneas. + +"I must wear it until I die," replied Lord George. + +"Kindly be seated then, I pray," rejoined the little man. "For I must +apply the mask with great care. Julius, you will assist me!" + +So, while Julius heated the inner side of the waxen mask over a little +lamp, Mr. Aeneas stood over Lord George gently smearing his features +with some sweet-scented pomade. Then he took the mask and powdered its +inner side, quite soft and warm now, with a fluffy puff. "Keep quite +still, for one instant," he said, and clapped the mask firmly on his +Lordship's upturned face. So soon as he was sure of its perfect +adhesion, he took from his assistant's hand a silver file and a little +wooden spatula, with which he proceeded to pare down the edge of the +mask, where it joined the neck and ears. At length, all traces of the +"join" were obliterated. It remained only to arrange the curls of the +lordly wig over the waxen brow. + +The disguise was done. When Lord George looked through the eyelets of +his mask into the mirror that was placed in his hand, he saw a face that +was saintly, itself a mirror of true love. How wonderful it was! He felt +his past was a dream. He felt he was a new man indeed. His voice went +strangely through the mask's parted lips, as he thanked Mr. Aeneas. + +"Proud to have served your Lordship," said that little worthy, pocketing +his fee of fifty guineas, while he bowed his customer out. + +When he reached the street, Lord George nearly uttered a curse through +those sainted lips of his. For there, right in his way, stood La +Gambogi, with a small pink parasol. She laid her hand upon his sleeve +and called him softly by his name. He passed her by without a word. +Again she confronted him. + +"I cannot let go so handsome a lover," she laughed, "even though he +spurn me! Do not spurn me, George. Give me your posy of wild flowers. +Why, you never looked so lovingly at me in all your life!" + +"Madam," said Lord George, sternly, "I have not the honour to know you." +And he passed on. + +The lady gazed after her lost lover with the blackest hatred in her +eyes. Presently she beckoned across the road to a certain spy. + +And the spy followed him. + + + + +III + + +Lord George, greatly agitated, had turned into Piccadilly. It was +horrible to have met this garish embodiment of his past on the very +threshold of his fair future. The mask-maker's elevating talk about the +gods, followed by the initiative ceremony of his saintly mask, had +driven all discordant memories from his love-thoughts of Jenny Mere. And +then to be met by La Gambogi! It might be that, after his stern words, +she would not seek to cross his path again. Surely she would not seek to +mar his sacred love. Yet, he knew her dark Italian nature, her passion +of revenge. What was the line in Virgil? _Spretaeque_--something. Who +knew but that somehow, sooner or later, she might come between him and +his love? + +He was about to pass Lord Barrymore's mansion. Count Karoloff and Mr. +FitzClarence were lounging in one of the lower windows. Would they know +him behind his mask? Thank God! they did not. They merely laughed as he +went by, and Mr. FitzClarence cried in a mocking voice, "Sing us a hymn, +Mr. Whatever-your-saint's-name is!" The mask, then, at least, was +perfect. Jenny Mere would not know him. He need fear no one but La +Gambogi. But would not she betray his secret? He sighed. + +That night he was going to visit Garble's and to declare his love to the +little actress. He never doubted that she would love him for his saintly +face. Had she not said, "That man whose face is wonderful as are the +faces of the saints, to him I will give my true love"? She could not +say now that his face was as a tarnished mirror of love. She would smile +on him. She would be his bride. But would La Gambogi be at Garble's? + +The operette would not be over before ten that night. The clock in Hyde +Park Gate told him it was not yet ten--ten of the morning. Twelve whole +hours to wait before he could fall at Jenny's feet! "I cannot spend that +time in this place of memories," he thought. So he hailed a yellow +cabriolet and bade the jarvey drive him out to the village of +Kensington. + +When they came to the little wood where he had been but a few hours ago, +Lord George dismissed the jarvey. The sun, that had risen as he stood +there thinking of Jenny, shone down on his altered face, but, though it +shone very fiercely, it did not melt his waxen features. The old +woodman, who had shown him his way, passed by under a load of faggots +and did not know him. He wandered among the trees. It was a lovely wood. + +Presently he came to the bank of that tiny stream, the Ken, which still +flowed there in those days. On the moss of its bank he lay down and let +its water ripple over his hand. Some bright pebble glistened under the +surface, and, as he peered down at it, he saw in the stream the +reflection of his mask. A great shame filled him that he should so cheat +the girl he loved. Behind that fair mask there would still be the evil +face that had repelled her. Could he be so base as to decoy her into +love of that most ingenious deception? He was filled with a great pity +for her, with a hatred of himself. And yet, he argued, was the mask +indeed a mean trick? Surely it was a secret symbol of his true +repentance and of his true love. His face was evil, because his life had +been evil. He had seen a gracious girl, and of a sudden his very soul +had changed. His face alone was the same as it had been. It was not just +that his face should be evil still. + +There was the faint sound of some one sighing, Lord George looked up, +and there, on the further bank, stood Jenny Mere, watching him. As their +eyes met, she blushed and hung her head. She looked like nothing but a +tall child as she stood there, with her straight limp frock of lilac +cotton and her sunburnt straw bonnet. He dared not speak; he could only +gaze at her. + +Suddenly there perched astride the bough of a tree, at her side, that +winged and laughing child in whose hand was a bow. Before Lord George +could warn her, an arrow had flashed down and vanished in her heart, and +Cupid had flown away. + +No cry of pain did she utter, but stretched out her arms to her lover, +with a glad smile. He leapt quite lightly over the little stream and +knelt at her feet. It seemed more fitting that he should kneel before +the gracious thing he was unworthy of. But she, knowing only that his +face was as the face of a great saint, bent over him and touched him +with her hand. + +"Surely," she said, "you are that good man for whom I have waited. +Therefore do not kneel to me, but rise and suffer me to kiss your hand. +For my love of you is lowly, and my heart is all yours." + +But he answered, looking up into her fond eyes, "Nay, you are a queen, +and I must needs kneel in your presence." + +But she shook her head wistfully, and she knelt down, also, in her +tremulous ecstasy, before him. And as they knelt, the one to the other, +the tears came into her eyes, and he kissed her. Though the lips that +he pressed to her lips were only waxen, he thrilled with happiness, in +that mimic kiss. He held her close to him in his arms, and they were +silent in the sacredness of their love. + +From his breast he took the posy of wild flowers that he had gathered. + +"They are for you," he whispered. "I gathered them for you hours ago, in +this wood. See! They are not withered." + +But she was perplexed by his words and said to him, blushing, "How was +it for me that you gathered them, though you had never seen me?" + +"I gathered them for you," he answered, "knowing I should soon see you. +How was it that you, who had never seen me, yet waited for me?" + +"I waited, knowing I should see you at last." And she kissed the posy +and put it at her breast. + +And they rose from their knees and went into the wood, walking hand in +hand. As they went, he asked the names of the flowers that grew under +their feet. "These are primroses," she would say. "Did you not know? And +these are ladies'-feet, and these forget-me-nots. And that white flower, +climbing up the trunks of the trees and trailing down so prettily from +the branches, is called Astyanax. These little yellow things are +buttercups. Did you not know?" And she laughed. + +"I know the names of none of the flowers," he said. + +She looked up into his face and said timidly, "Is it worldly and wrong +of me to have loved the flowers? Ought I to have thought more of those +higher things that are unseen?" + +His heart smote him. He could not answer her simplicity. + +"Surely the flowers are good, and did you not gather this posy for me?" +she pleaded. "But if you do not love them, I must not. And I will try to +forget their names. For I must try to be like you in all things." + +"Love the flowers always," he said. "And teach me to love them." + +So she told him all about the flowers, how some grew very slowly and +others bloomed in a night; how clever the convolvulus was at climbing, +and how shy violets were, and why honeycups had folded petals. She told +him of the birds, too, that sang in the wood, how she knew them all by +their voices. "That is a chaffinch singing. Listen!" she said. And she +tried to imitate its note, that her lover might remember. All the birds, +according to her, were good, except the cuckoo, and whenever she heard +him sing she would stop her ears, lest she should forgive him for +robbing the nests. "Every day," she said, "I have come to the wood, +because I was lonely, and it seemed to pity me. But now I have you. And +it is glad!" + +She clung closer to his arm, and he kissed her. She pushed back her +straw bonnet, so that it dangled from her neck by its ribands, and laid +her little head against his shoulder. For a while he forgot his +treachery to her, thinking only of his love and her love. Suddenly she +said to him, "Will you try not to be angry with me, if I tell you +something? It is something that will seem dreadful to you." + +"_Pauvrette_," he answered, "you cannot have anything very dreadful to +tell." + +"I am very poor," she said, "and every night I dance in a theatre. It is +the only thing I can do to earn my bread. Do you despise me because I +dance?" She looked up shyly at him and saw that his face was full of +love for her and not angry. + +"Do you like dancing?" he asked. + +"I hate it," she answered, quickly. "I hate it indeed. Yet--to-night, +alas! I must dance again in the theatre." + +"You need never dance again," said her lover. "I am rich and I will pay +them to release you. You shall dance only for me. Sweetheart, it cannot +be much more than noon. Let us go into the town, while there is time, +and you shall be made my bride, and I your bridegroom, this very day. +Why should you and I be lonely?" + +"I do not know," she said. + +So they walked back through the wood, taking a narrow path which Jenny +said would lead them quickest to the village. And, as they went, they +came to a tiny cottage, with a garden that was full of flowers. The old +woodman was leaning over its paling, and he nodded to them as they +passed. + +"I often used to envy the woodman," said Jenny, "living in that dear +little cottage." + +"Let us live there, then," said Lord George. And he went back and asked +the old man if he were not unhappy, living there alone. + +"'Tis a poor life here for me," the old man answered. "No folk come to +the wood, except little children, now and again, to play, or lovers like +you. But they seldom notice me. And in winter I am alone with Jack +Frost! Old men love merrier company than that. Oh! I shall die in the +snow with my faggots on my back. A poor life here!" + +"I will give you gold for your cottage and whatever is in it, and then +you can go and live happily in the town," Lord George said. And he took +from his coat a note for two hundred guineas, and held it across the +palings. + +"Lovers are poor foolish derry-docks," the old man muttered. "But I +thank you kindly, Sir. This little sum will keep me cosy, as long as I +last. Come into the cottage as soon as can be. It's a lonely place and +does my heart good to depart from it." + +"We are going to be married this afternoon, in the town," said Lord +George. "We will come straight back to our home." + +"May you be happy!" replied the woodman. "You'll find me gone when you +come." + +And the lovers thanked him and went their way. + +"Are you very rich?" Jenny asked. "Ought you to have bought the cottage +for that great price?" + +"Would you love me as much if I were quite poor, little Jenny?" he asked +her after a pause. + +"I did not know you were rich when I saw you across the stream," she +said. + +And in his heart Lord George made a good resolve. He would put away from +him all his worldly possessions. All the money that he had won at the +clubs, fairly or foully, all that hideous accretion of gold guineas, he +would distribute among the comrades he had impoverished. As he walked, +with the sweet and trustful girl at his side, the vague record of his +infamy assailed him, and a look of pain shot behind his smooth mask. He +would atone. He would shun no sacrifice that might cleanse his soul. All +his fortune he would put from him. Follard Chase he would give back to +Sir Follard. He would sell his house in St. James's Square. He would +keep some little part of his patrimony, enough for him in the wood with +Jenny, but no more. + +"I shall be quite poor, Jenny!" he said. + +And they talked of the things that lovers love to talk of, how happy +they would be together and how economical. As they were passing +Herbert's pastry shop, which as my little readers know, still stands in +Kensington, Jenny looked up rather wistfully into her lover's ascetic +face. + +"Should you think me greedy," she asked him, "if I wanted a bun? They +have beautiful buns here!" + +Buns! The simple word started latent memories of his childhood. Jenny +was only a child after all. Buns! He had forgotten what they were like. +And as they looked at the piles of variegated cakes in the window, he +said to her, "Which are buns, Jenny? I should like to have one, too." + +"I am almost afraid of you," she said. "You must despise me so. Are you +so good that you deny yourself all the vanity and pleasure that most +people love? It is wonderful not to know what buns are! The round, +brown, shiny cakes, with little raisins in them, are buns." + +So he bought two beautiful buns, and they sat together in the shop, +eating them. Jenny bit hers rather diffidently, but was reassured when +he said that they must have buns very often in the cottage. Yes! he, the +famous toper and _gourmet_ of St. James's, relished this homely fare, as +it passed through the insensible lips of his mask to the palate. He +seemed to rise, from the consumption of his bun, a better man. + +But there was no time to lose now. It was already past two o'clock. So +he got a chaise from the inn opposite the pastry-shop, and they were +swiftly driven to Doctors' Commons. There he purchased a special +licence. When the clerk asked him to write his name upon it, he +hesitated. What name should he assume? Under a mask he had wooed this +girl, under an unreal name he must make her his bride. He loathed +himself for a trickster. He had vilely stolen from her the love she +would not give him. Even now, should he not confess himself the man +whose face had frightened her, and go his way? And yet, surely, it was +not just that he, whose soul was transfigured, should bear his old name. +Surely George Hell was dead, and his name had died with him. So he +dipped a pen in the ink and wrote "George Heaven," for want of a better +name. And Jenny wrote "Jenny Mere" beneath it. + +An hour later they were married according to the simple rites of a dear +little registry-office in Covent Garden. + +And in the cool evening they went home. + + + + +IV + + +In the cottage that had been the woodman's they had a wonderful +honeymoon. No king and queen in any palace of gold were happier than +they. For them their tiny cottage was a palace, and the flowers that +filled the garden were their courtiers. Long and careless and full of +kisses were the days of their reign. + +Sometimes, indeed, strange dreams troubled Lord George's sleep. Once he +dreamed that he stood knocking and knocking at the great door of a +castle. It was a bitter night. The frost enveloped him. No one came. +Presently he heard a footstep in the hall beyond, and a pair of +frightened eyes peered at him through the grill. Jenny was scanning his +face. She would not open to him. With tears and wild words he besought +her, but she would not open to him. Then, very stealthily he crept round +the castle and found a small casement in the wall. It was open. He +climbed swiftly, quietly, through it. In the darkness of the room some +one ran to him and kissed him gladly. It was Jenny. With a cry of joy +and shame he awoke. By his side lay Jenny, sleeping like a little child. + +After all, what was a dream to him? It could not mar the reality of his +daily happiness. He cherished his true penitence for the evil he had +done in the past. The past! That was indeed the only unreal thing that +lingered in his life. Every day its substance dwindled, grew fainter +yet, as he lived his rustic honeymoon. Had he not utterly put it from +him? Had he not, a few hours after his marriage, written to his lawyer, +declaring solemnly that he, Lord George Hell, had forsworn the world, +that he was where no man would find him, that he desired all his +worldly goods to be distributed, thus and thus, among these and those of +his companions? By this testament he had verily atoned for the wrong he +had done, had made himself dead indeed to the world. + +No address had he written upon this document. Though its injunctions +were final and binding, it could betray no clue of his hiding-place. For +the rest, no one would care to seek him out. He, who had done no good to +human creature, would pass unmourned out of memory. The clubs, +doubtless, would laugh and puzzle over his strange recantations, envious +of whomever he had enriched. They would say 'twas a good riddance of a +rogue, and soon forget him.[4] But she, whose prime patron he had been, +who had loved him in her vile fashion, La Gambogi, would she forget him +easily, like the rest? As the sweet days went by, her spectre, also, +grew fainter and less formidable. She knew his mask indeed, but how +should she find him in the cottage near Kensington? _Devia dulcedo +latebrarum!_ He was safe-hidden with his bride. As for the Italian, she +might search and search--or had forgotten him, in the arms of another +lover. + +[Footnote 4: I would refer my little readers once more to the pages of +_Contemporary Bucks_, where Captain Tarleton speculates upon the sudden +disappearance of Lord George Hell and describes its effect on the town. +"Not even the shrewdest," says he, "even gave a guess that would throw a +ray of revealing light on the _disparition_ of this profligate man. It +was supposed that he carried off with him a little dancer from Garble's, +at which _haunt of pleasantry_ he was certainly on the night he +vanished, and whither the young lady never returned again. Garble +declared he had been compensated for her perfidy, but that he was sure +she had not succumbed to his Lordship, having in fact rejected him +soundly. Did his Lordship, say the cronies, take his life--and hers? _Il +n'y a pas d'epreuve._ The _most astonishing_ matter is that the runaway +should have written out a complete will, restoring all money he had won +at cards, etc. etc. This certainly corroborates the opinion that he was +seized with a sudden repentance and fled over the seas to a foreign +monastery, where he died at last in _religious silence_. That's as it +may, but many a spendthrift found his pocket clinking with guineas, a +not unpleasant sound, I declare. The Regent himself was benefited by the +odd will, and old Sir Follard Follard found himself once more in the +ancestral home he had forfeited. As for Lord George's mansion in St. +James's Square, that was sold with all its appurtenances, and the money +fetched by the sale, no bagatelle, was given to various good objects, +according to my Lord's stated wishes. Well, many of us blessed his +name--we had cursed it often enough. Peace to his ashes, in whatever urn +they may be resting, on the billows of whatever ocean they float!"] + +Yes! Few and faint became the blemishes of his honeymoon. At first he +had felt that his waxen mask, though it had been the means of his +happiness, was rather a barrier 'twixt him and his bride. Though it was +sweet to kiss her through it, to look at her through it with loving +eyes, yet there were times when it incommoded him with its mockery. +Could he put it from him! Yet that, of course, could not be. He must +wear it all his life. And so, as days went by, he grew reconciled to his +mask. No longer did he feel it jarring on his face. It seemed to become +a very part of him, and, for all its rigid material, it did forsooth +express the one emotion that filled him, true love. The face for whose +sake Jenny gave him her heart could not but be dear to this George +Heaven, also. + +Every day chastened him with its joy. They lived a very simple life, he +and Jenny. They rose betimes, like the birds, for whose goodness they +both had so sincere a love. Bread and honey and little strawberries were +their morning fare, and in the evening they had seed-cake and dewberry +wine. Jenny herself made the wine, and her husband drank it, in strict +moderation, never more than two glasses. He thought it tasted far better +than the Regent's cherry brandy, or the Tokay at Brooks's. Of these +treasured topes he had indeed, nearly forgotten the taste. The wine made +from wild berries by his little bride was august enough for his palate. +Sometimes, after they had dined thus, he would play the flute to her +upon the moonlit lawn, or tell her of the great daisy-chain he was going +to make for her on the morrow, or sit silently by her side, listening to +the nightingale, till bedtime. So admirably simple were their days. + + + + +V + + +One morning, as he was helping Jenny to water the flowers, he said to +her suddenly, "Sweetheart, we had forgotten!" + +"What was there we should forget?" asked Jenny, looking up from her +task. + +"'Tis the mensiversary of our wedding," her husband answered gravely. +"We must not let it pass without some celebration." + +"No indeed," she said, "we must not. What shall we do?" + +Between them they decided upon an unusual feast. They would go into the +village and buy a bag of beautiful buns and eat them in the afternoon. +So soon, then, as all the flowers were watered, they set forth to +Herbert's shop, bought the buns and returned home in very high spirits, +George bearing a paper bag that held no less than twelve of the +wholesome delicacies. Under the plane-tree on the lawn Jenny sat her +down, and George stretched himself at her feet. They were loth to enjoy +their feast too soon. They dallied in childish anticipation. On the +little rustic table Jenny built up the buns, one above another, till +they looked like a tall pagoda. When, very gingerly, she had crowned the +structure with the twelfth bun, her husband looking on with admiration, +she clapped her hands and danced about it. She laughed so loudly (for, +though she was only sixteen years old, she had a great sense of humour) +that the table shook, and alas! the pagoda tottered and fell to the +lawn. Swift as a kitten, Jenny chased the buns, as they rolled, hither +and thither, over the grass, catching them deftly with her hand. Then +she came back, flushed and merry under her tumbled hair, with her arm +full of buns. She began to put them back in the paper bag. + +"Dear husband," she said, looking down to him, "Why do not you too smile +at my folly? Your grave face rebukes me. Smile, or I shall think I vex +you. Please smile a little." + +But the mask could not smile, of course. It was made for a mirror of +true love, and it was grave and immobile. "I am very much amused, dear," +he said, "at the fall of the buns, but my lips will not curve to a +smile. Love of you has bound them in spell." + +"But I can laugh, though I love you. I do not understand." And she +wondered. He took her hand in his and stroked it gently, wishing it were +possible to smile. Some day, perhaps, she would tire of this monotonous +gravity, this rigid sweetness. It was not strange that she should long +for a little facial expression. They sat silently. + +"Jenny, what is it?" he whispered suddenly. For Jenny, with wide-open +eyes, was gazing over his head, across the lawn. "Why do you look +frightened?" + +"There is a strange woman smiling at me across the palings," she said. +"I do not know her." + +Her husband's heart sank. Somehow, he dared not turn his head to the +intruder. + +"She is nodding to me," said Jenny. "I think she is foreign, for she has +an evil face." + +"Do not notice her," he whispered. "Does she look evil?" + +"Very evil and very dark. She has a pink parasol. Her teeth are like +ivory." + +"Do not notice her. Think! It is the mensiversary of our wedding, +dear!" + +"I wish she would not smile at me. Her eyes are like bright blots of +ink." + +"Let us eat our beautiful buns!" + +"Oh, she is coming in!" George heard the latch of the gate jar. "Forbid +her to come in!" whispered Jenny, "I am afraid!" He heard the jar of +heels on the gravel path. Yet he dared not turn. Only he clasped Jenny's +hand more tightly, as he waited for the voice. It was La Gambogi's. + +"Pray, pray, pardon me! I could not mistake the back of so old a +friend." + +With the courage of despair, George turned and faced the woman. + +"Even," she smiled, "though his face has changed marvellously." + +"Madam," he said, rising to his full height and stepping between her and +his bride, "begone, I command you, from this garden. I do not see what +good is to be served by the renewal of our acquaintance." + +"Acquaintance!" murmured La Gambogi, with an arch of her beetle-brows. +"Surely we were friends, rather, nor is my esteem for you so dead that I +would crave estrangement." + +"Madam," rejoined Lord George, with a tremor in his voice, "you see me +happy, living very peacefully with my bride----" + +"To whom, I beseech you, old friend, present me." + +"I would not," he said hotly, "desecrate her sweet name by speaking it +with so infamous a name as yours." + +"Your choler hurts me, old friend," said La Gambogi, sinking composedly +upon the garden-seat and smoothing the silk of her skirts. + +"Jenny," said George, "then do you retire, pending this lady's +departure, to the cottage." But Jenny clung to his arm. "I were less +frightened at your side," she whispered. "Do not send me away!" + +"Suffer her pretty presence," said La Gambogi. "Indeed I am come this +long way from the heart of the town, that I may see her, no less than +you, George. My wish is only to befriend her. Why should she not set you +a mannerly example, giving me welcome? Come and sit by me, little bride, +for I have things to tell you. Though you reject my friendship, give me, +at least, the slight courtesy of audience. I will not detain you +overlong, will be gone very soon. Are you expecting guests, George? _On +dirait une masque champetre!_" She eyed the couple critically. "Your +wife's mask," she said, "is even better than yours." + +"What does she mean?" whispered Jenny. "Oh, send her away!" + +"Serpent," was all George could say, "crawl from our Eden, ere you +poison with your venom its fairest denizen." + +La Gambogi rose. "Even _my_ pride," she cried passionately, "knows +certain bounds. I have been forbearing, but even in _my_ zeal for +friendship I will not be called 'serpent.' I will indeed be gone from +this rude place. Yet, ere I go, there is a boon I will deign to beg. +Show me, oh, show me but once again, the dear face I have so often +caressed, the lips that were dear to me!" + +George started back. + +"What does she mean?" whispered Jenny. + +"In memory of our old friendship," continued La Gambogi, "grant me this +piteous favour. Show me your own face but for one instant, and I vow +that I will never again remind you that I live. Intercede for me, little +bride. Bid him unmask for me. You have more authority over him than I. +Doff his mask with your own uxorious fingers." + +"What does she mean?" was the refrain of poor Jenny. + +"If," said George, gazing sternly at his traitress, "you do not go now, +of your own will, I must drive you, man though I am, violently from the +garden." + +"Doff your mask and I am gone." + +George made a step of menace towards her. + +"False saint!" she shrieked, "then _I_ will unmask you." + +Like a panther she sprang upon him and clawed at his waxen cheeks. Jenny +fell back, mute with terror. Vainly did George try to free himself from +his assailant, who writhed round and round him, clawing, clawing at what +Jenny fancied to be his face. With a wild cry, Jenny fell upon the +furious creature and tried, with all her childish strength, to release +her dear one. The combatives swayed to and fro, a revulsive trinity. +There was a loud pop, as though some great cork had been withdrawn, and +La Gambogi recoiled. She had torn away the mask. It lay before her upon +the lawn, upturned to the sky. + +George stood motionless. La Gambogi stared up into his face, and her +dark flush died swiftly away. For there, staring back at her, was the +man she had unmasked, but lo! his face was even as his mask had been. +Line for line, feature for feature, it was the same. 'Twas a saint's +face. + +"Madam," he said, in the calm voice of despair, "your cheek may well +blanch, when you regard the ruin you have brought upon me. Nevertheless +do I pardon you. The gods have avenged, through you, the imposture I +wrought upon one who was dear to me. For that unpardonable sin I am +punished. As for my poor bride, whose love I stole by the means of that +waxen semblance, of her I cannot ask pardon. Ah, Jenny, Jenny, do not +look at me. Turn your eyes from the foul reality that I dissembled." He +shuddered and hid his face in his hands. "Do not look at me. I will go +from the garden. Nor will I ever curse you with the odious spectacle of +my face. Forget me, forget me." + +But, as he turned to go, Jenny laid her hands upon his wrists and +besought him that he would look at her. "For indeed," she said, "I am +bewildered by your strange words. Why did you woo me under a mask? And +why do you imagine I could love you less dearly, seeing your own face?" + +He looked into her eyes. On their violet surface he saw the tiny +reflection of his own face. He was filled with joy and wonder. + +"Surely," said Jenny, "your face is even dearer to me, even fairer, than +the semblance that hid it and deceived me. I am not angry. 'Twas well +that you veiled from me the full glory of your face, for indeed I was +not worthy to behold it too soon. But I am your wife now. Let me look +always at your own face. Let the time of my probation be over. Kiss me +with your own lips." + +So he took her in his arms, as though she had been a little child, and +kissed her with his own lips. She put her arms round his neck, and he +was happier than he had ever been. They were alone in the garden now. +Nor lay the mask any longer upon the lawn, for the sun had melted it. + + + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + +A BEAUTIFUL EDITION OF + +THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE + +Illustrated in Colour by GEORGE SHERINGHAM + + _Daily Graphic._--"A superb edition of a modern classic." + + _Scotsman._--"Gracefully illustrated in colour, 'The Happy + Hypocrite' makes an exquisite gift book.... For old or young + the book is full of a fanciful beauty." + + _Country Life._--"Mr Sheringham's delightful drawings printed + in colour make this volume as fascinating a 'colour book' as + has been seen for some time." + + _Times._--"Illustrated by Mr George Sheringham, this edition is + one which any parent who duly respects himself will steal from + the schoolroom shelves and keep upon his own.... The variety of + Mr Sheringham's illustrations is wide.... Delicious ornament, + subtle appreciation of the author's spirit, gracious fantasy, a + fruitful joy in the coxcombry and style of the period--these + help to produce a work which gives in an unusual degree the + impression that the artist liked doing it." + + * * * * * + +THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY BY JOHN LANE + + + MORE + + YET AGAIN + + A CHRISTMAS GARLAND + + ZULEIKA DOBSON + + CARICATURES OF TWENTY-FIVE GENTLEMEN + + THE POET'S CORNER + + A BOOK OF CARICATURES + + FIFTY CARICATURES + + + _Daily Telegraph._--"It is very seldom that a writer can treat + with such wit and humour, blended with the most delicate fancy, + such unpromising subjects as are included in this collection. + In the ordinary events of the moment, in the most prosaic + institutions, he finds something wonderful or something + bizarre: from the dreariest of subjects he draws matter for + quiet laughter." + + _Pall Mall._--"A pretty wit.... Mr Beerbohm has clear vision, + discrimination, and like the best of paradox makers, always a + fund of good sense." + + _Illustrated London News._--"He is altogether delightful in his + whimsical moods.... 'More' is a book to buy and to turn to at + odd moments." + + _Scotsman._--"Readers who have grappled with 'The Works of Max + Beerbohm' will stagger beneath the announcement that 'More' has + come from the same hand.... It is not so much what he is + talking about that matters in the case of this author, as what + he says. He writes oddly, but is always amusing: a pleasant and + readable exposition of the London way of looking at life." + + _Referee._--"Not long ago 'The Works of Max Beerbohm' were + published in one slim volume. Polite literature has now been + enriched by the same author's 'More.' ... _Maximum Superbus_." + + _Daily Telegraph._--"When some three years ago the public were + informed that they could buy 'The Works of Max Beerbohm' for a + small sum, those who had not followed contemporary letters very + closely imagined that the long-forgotten volumes of some bygone + author were offered for sale in the lump, and scented a bargain + with which to fill the gaps in their bookshelves. In the small + book which comprised 'the works' they got their bargain. They + have now a chance of acquiring 'More.'" + + _Academy._--"Mr Beerbohm can think and observe and write. He + has the uncommon gift of seeing clearly the other side of + things. He can stand aside impartially and watch contemporary + life with the eye of the historian: his fastidiousness, when + disciplined, is exquisite; his appreciation of the best is + sound." + + * * * * * + +_BOOKS BY RICHARD KING_ + + +OVER THE FIRESIDE (WITH SILENT FRIENDS) + +With an Introduction by Sir ARTHUR PEARSON. + + +WITH SILENT FRIENDS + +Essay in Everyday Philosophy. Seventeenth Edition. + +SECOND BOOK OF SILENT FRIENDS + +Third Edition. + +PASSION AND POT-POURRI + +Third Edition. + +BELOW THE SURFACE + +Footnotes to the Everyday. + +SOME CONFESSIONS OF AN AVERAGE MAN + + _The Times._--"Mr King is one of the Masters of the causerie, + as those who have read his books well know." + + _Evening Standard._--"You will enjoy many pleasant hours with + one of our most intimate essayists." + + _Daily Express._--"Mr King's easy, intimate, sympathetic style + has made for him thousands of friends." + + C. K. SHORTER in _The Sphere_.--"Richard King is a man of + genius." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Hypocrite, by Max Beerbohm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE *** + +***** This file should be named 36497.txt or 36497.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/9/36497/ + +Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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